Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - 100 Years of Women's Suffrage

Video Subtitles:

hello good afternoon all you
patriot followers uh today
on constitution study group i have for
you
a deep look into the history of the 19th
amendment we're celebrating
100 years of women's suffrage
uh yesterday actually so officially
yesterday was
100 years since the 19th amendment which
gave women
the final group of people in the united
states in this country
are the right to vote pretty big deal
and so i thought i'd use today's
constitute constitution study group
uh to talk about the history to talk
about mostly
mostly what i want to look at is why
weren't women
considered from the very beginning and
so yeah i'm going to kind of
research a little bit of the history
and the status of feminism
during the revolutionary war uh and
leading up
to and around around about the time of
the writing
of the constitution um
and then talk about the history of the
19th amendment also in comparison with
another very important voting amendment
which is the 13th amendment
um and why the 13th amendment was passed
so much sooner than the 19th amendment
why
uh newly freed slaves were given the
right to vote
before women were given the right to
vote now on instagram you might be
wondering why
i have this filter today
this is actually a play on something
that i'll talk about a little bit later
about how during the revolutionary time
women played a rule and were able to be
civically engaged during that time
the most effective way that they were
able to is if they were disguised as men
uh so i'm deciding disguise does like a
silly
silly man on instagram so if you're
watching on instagram it's kind of fun
today
oh dear
all right so let's get started first of
all
19th amendment passed a hundred years
ago gave women the right to vote
uh this was a long time coming uh
it wasn't like a fast-acting thing and
yeah it was the last group of people in
this country to be given the main
right that the constitution does provide
for us
as you know citizens how do we
participate
in the government so essentially women
were the last to be given that right to
participate
so i guess before i go into the history
of the amendment
what i first want to do is talk about
the status of feminism or the status
of just women in general
uh during the time of the revolutionary
war which was an important time
uh when constructing the constitution
um that was when the founding fathers
you know were starting to come together
and bring their ideas together
and and what would eventually become the
constitution and then the federalists
and the anti-federalist papers
uh women were not a part of that process
at all
they were not a part of the writing the
debating
or even the the government processes but
women were
most definitely involved in the
processes of the revolutionary war
so i wanted to go um into a little bit
of history not deep history and i'm like
really
just getting this from a wikipedia
article uh you know i know
the dangers of i felt
i'm disguised as a dude today so that
people will actually
listen to me because i've come to learn
that women
um you know really can only be effective
civically if they're disguised as men so
cheers oh oh there goes my disguise
uh okay so yeah uh revolutionary war
women played a big role in it of course
uh it was you know dominated by men
and uh women's main role during the war
and
they they were very patriotic and women
were
[Music]
women were um encouraged to be patriotic
uh most of their husbands had to go
fight
against the british so women were left
behind at home
one of the main things that happened
during this time that that pretty much
all
uh women in the colonies were
participating in while they're at home
with something called the homespun
movement
so and this is like a very common theme
that happens in a lot of
countries and community communities when
they are fighting for their independence
i know this is definitely something that
was happening
in india prior to their independence
from the british
where the the women
were encouraged to create their own
fabrics create their own products
to get off of the dependency of british
imported products
um and tea was one of those things so we
all know the boston tea party
uh and so like women were encouraged as
part of this culture of patriotism
uh stop drinking tea to stop making tea
drinking tea
hi ting good to see you um so that was
like the main role that women had
during the revolutionary war uh was just
kind of bringing more self-sufficiency
uh or in in uh hindi terms what the
indians did during their revolutionary
time was ahimsa
um so more nationalism and supporting
ourselves
um and uh so then
beyond just this domestic
cultural uh activism that women were
participating in uh you did have women
that would um support the war effort uh
through like housing soldiers so
you know when groups of soldiers were
moving around women were
um oftentimes like demanded
to you know support the soldiers so
you know women were definitely actively
apart in fact there was something else
that were called
um camp followers and so these were
women
that perhaps uh
you know their husbands had left to go
fight
uh and they didn't have enough income
and support
in the household uh to survive so these
women would follow along
uh the different um you know camps of
troops as they were moving around
uh and they would uh follow them uh
provide
uh uh you know hospitality services
food um you know another support health
care support
uh so the women kind of had lot a
livelihood
during this very challenging time if
they weren't you know fortunate enough
to to stay home
um and uh sorry i got a tea leaf
uh additionally they would serve some
prostitution
services as well for these soldiers
although it says
in this article that the military
leadership wasn't too fond of that
because there was a lot of vd going
around
the um anyway uh
but it's kind of interesting that these
camp followers
they would sometimes make up ten percent
of the entire troops
units um so this was a lot of women that
were following around
um and uh it is noted that even martha
washington
uh george washington's wife our first
president's wife
would often times visit these sub-camps
of female campers that were providing
food and
health care and whatever else is needed
by the troops
she would go there as like a symbol of
solidarity with these women
as a symbol of solidarity okay let me
look at the exact words said here
unlike poorer women presidents and
present in the army camps the value of
these well-to-do women to the army was
symbolic or spiritual rather than
practical their presence was a
declaration that
everyone made sacrifices for the war's
cause
okay so definitely
confirmed that women played an important
role
uh in the revolutionary war
uh so why oh and then one last part
women actually fought
and again that explains my disguise
today on instagram
i figure if i'm disguised as a man he'll
listen to me better
but um when uh women did fight
um when they uh tried to fight as women
they oftentimes
were not treated well did not have uh
success
in um you know joining in
and hi marco good to see you so what
these women would do is they found that
they would disguise themselves as men
and um and we get away with it and
there's quite a few stories
of several female soldiers that fought
for
um for a long time during the
revolutionary war before they were
finally
uh revealed as women and immediately
kicked out um so yeah that's why
if maybe if i put on this male disguise
a little bit more often i'll be more
effective
in my patriotism as well it's just
i'm experimenting i'm seeing how it does
today
uh so that's it yeah so women did fight
women were
part of the process women were
supporting their men
uh whether or not women were
ideologically involved
in the politics and in the culture and
in the influence
uh during this time i don't know i
couldn't find anything that explained
that
uh but i did find something very
interesting and i'm gonna read it to you
guys because it's
really cool it's a poem actually uh so i
i won't be reading
any of the constitution or any
federalist papers or anti-federalist
papers because frankly
i couldn't find any reference to women
and anything
they weren't talked about at all but i
found this poem and this poem will
like give you the exact idea why women
were not
directly addressed in any documents uh
during this time any you know political
or ideological
documents at this time but before i
start reading that
i'm going to start 18 i'm going to start
seeing now
i kind of like this though it's really
silly and cartoony i was looking for
something i don't know
i couldn't find any cool filters but
this one's like oh i'll do this
it kind of plays in with the theme
okay so this is a poem and just to intro
okay good my disguise stays on when i
turn my head i was a little afraid that
it went off when i turned my head
this is very important to the process
so um the writer okay so the father of
the american novels
who wrote this preferred to call himself
a storytelling
moralist and among his moral concerns
was the condition of women
and this is charles brockton brown
who wrote this poem um
this tracked on women's rights the the
first half of which was published in
1798 so that's what i'll read
now is the one
you're right mepheldus as always the
contribution of women
uh people of color and gays is just
deleted from history
and by the way uh the queer community
uh was one of the most powerful
influencers of the 19th amendment
um and that mostly had to do with
women wanting to have the right to to
vote
you know for for living the lifestyle
that they wanted that if they wanted to
be
in a relationship with another woman i
was really happy to see several articles
yesterday kind of circulating around
telling that story of the role
of the queer community in this movement
which wasn't a short movement i'll go
into the history of like how long it
actually took and
from when the 19th amendment was first
introduced into congress until when it
was actually ratified
um but first i want to read this poem
just so you understand the context of
how bad
you know the sexual divide was during
um the time of the writing of the
constitution
um okay so uh it's it's set as an
imaginary dialogue with the lady of
wits and temperament so of course you
know i'll like it
a perfect 18th century hostess who
nevertheless entertains opinions that
have not entirely lost their power
to scandalize brown himself plays an
ambiguous role of devil's advocate and
fantasy tourist
in a realm of perfect sexual equality
but is most energetically present
as ventroloquist for the lady who
upstages him continually with such
statements as i cannot celebrate
the equity of that scheme of government
which classes me with dogs and swine
right on and a measured step and with
very welcome amenities of language a
delightful and timely
gehenna press facsimile okay
so this um this
the brief poem is titled
alcuin a dialogue i don't know if i
pronounce that
l-l-q-n i'll soon um
written in 1798 and remember
the the language was very different back
then than it is
now so there may be some words that you
don't know
um i'll try to like define the words
as we go because i already read through
it i just wanted to make sure
you know that um it was relevant
um it is so relevant it's so good i like
a
very witty witty in a very
late 18th century kind of a way
get some tea in my mustache
pray madam are you a federalist
the question to be sure was strange
especially addressed to a lady but i
could not
by all of my study light upon a better
mode of beginning discourse
she did not immediately answer
true said she is it so hard to say what
your creed is on this subject
will you favor me said i with your
opinion
and again the the i the the first person
account is the writer who is the man
speaking to a witty woman
surely she replied you are ingest
what ask a woman shallow and exp
inexperienced as all women are known to
be especially with regard to these
topics
her opinion on any political question
what in the name of decency have we do
have we to do with politics
if the sexes had in reality separate
interests
and it were not absurd to set more value
on qualifications
on account of their belonging to one of
our own sex
it is women who may justly triumph
together with power and property
the men have likewise asserted their
superior claim to vice and folly
if i understand you rightly said the
lady you are
of opinion that the sexes are
essentially equal
it appears to me answered i that human
beings are molded by the circumstances
in which they are placed
in this they are all alike
the difference that flow from the sexual
distinction
are as nothing in the balance and yet
women are often reminded
that none of their sex are to be found
among the formers of states
and the instructors of mankind were not
women true nor were they mountain
savages
nor harlots nor shoemakers we might as
well expect
a laplander to write greek spontaneously
and without instruction
as that anyone should be wise or
skillful without suitable opportunities
women are generally superficial and
ignorant because they are generally
cooks and seamstresses
habit have given permanence to heirs
which ignorance had previously rendered
universal
hence it is that certain employments
have been exclusively
assigned to women and that their sex
is supposed to disqualify them from any
other
women are defective they are seldom or
never
metaphysicians metaphysicians
chemists or law givers why because
they're seamstresses and cooks
this is unavoidable yes
said the lady of all forms of injustice
that is the most egregious which makes
the circumstances of sex a reason for
excluding one half of mankind from
all those paths which lead to usefulness
and honor
man is the strongest this is the reason
why
in the earliest stages society the
females are slaves the tendency of
rational improvement
is to equalize conditions to abolish all
distinctions
but those that are founded in truth and
reason to limit
the reign of brute force and
uncontrollable accidents
women have unquestionably benefited from
the progress that has
hitherto taken place if i look abroad
i may see reason to congratulate myself
on being born in this age and country
perhaps there is no country in the world
where the yolk
is lighter than here but this
persuasion though in one view
it may afford us consolation ought not
to blind us to our true condition
or weaken our efforts to remove
the evils that still oppress us it is
manifest
that we are hardly and unjustly treated
men and women are partakers of the same
nature
they are rational beings and as such
the same principles of truth and equity
must be
applicable to both to this
i replied certainly mem but it is
obvious to inquire to which of the sexes
the distinction is most favorable
in some respects different paths are
allotted to them
but i am apt to suspect that of the
women to be
shrewd with fewest thorns to be beset
with fewest asperities the laws have
exempted you from a thousand tolls and
cares
their tenderness has secluded you from
timulus and noise your persons are
sacred for
profane violences and your eyes from
ghastly spectacles
your ears from a thousand discords by
which ours are
incessantly invaded
this cried the lady is a very partial
description
it can apply only to the opulence and
but too
few of them meanwhile how shall we
estimate the hardships of the lower
class
leave it to ladies to care about those
lowly people
true return i i have only attempted to
justify the male sex from the charge
of cruelty half of the community are
females
let the whole community be divided into
classes and let us inquire
whether the wives and daughters and
single women of each class
be not placed in a more favorable
situation than the husbands sons and
single men of the same class
our answer surely will be in the
affirmative
pray madam permit to repeat my question
are you a federalist and let me
replied she repeat my answer
what have i as a woman to do with
politics even the government of our
country
which is said to be the freshest and the
freest and the freshest
the freest in the world passes over
women as if they were not
we are excluded from all political
rights without the least
ceremony if to permit a scheme of union
and confederacy
to war and decession entitle me to that
name
i may justly be styled a federalist but
if that title
is incompatible with a belief that in
many particulars
this constitution is unjust and absurd
i certainly cannot pretend to it but how
should it be otherwise
well i am conscious of being in
intelligence and moral being while i see
myself denied
in so many cases the exercise of my own
discretion
incapable of separate property subject
at
all periods of my life to the will of
another
on whose bounty i am made to defend for
food
rhymement and shelter when i see
myself in my relation to society
regardless merely as a bees regarded
merely as a beast or an
insect passed over in the distribution
of public duties
as absolutely nothing by those who
disdain to assign the least apology for
their injustice
no i am no federalist
you are at least set i a
a severe and uncommon sensor
all despotism subsists by virtue of the
errors
and supineness of its slaves
if their discernment was clear their
persons would be free
brute strength has no part in the
government of multitudes they are
bound in the fetters of opinion
the maxims of constitution makers sound
well
all power is derived from the people
liberty is
everybody's birthright that everyone
should possess
indirectly and through the medium of his
representation
representative a voice in the public
counsels
and should yield to no one but that of
an actual
or virtual majority
plausible and specious
maxims but phallus
we shall generally find that he intends
only freedom to
himself and subjection to all others
suppose i supply i i place myself where
i can conveniently mark the proceedings
at a general election
a person advance with his ticket pray
says the officer are you 21 years of age
no then i cannot receive your votes you
are no citizen
disconcerted and abashed he retires
a second assumes his place how long says
the officer
have you been an inhabitant of this
state
19 months and a few days
none has right to vote who has not
completed two years residence
a third approaches who is rejected
because his name is not found in the
catalog of taxable
at length room is made for a fourth
person
man cries the magistrate is your skin
black or white
but what a sooty slave dare to usurp the
right of free men
the way being now clear i ventured to
approach
i was born in the state and cannot
therefore be
stigmatized as foreigner i pay taxes for
i have no father or husband to pay them
for me
luckily my complexion is white surely my
votes
will be received but no i am a woman
neither short residence nor poverty nor
age
nor color nor sex exempt from the
jurisdiction of the laws
true says the magistrate but they
deprive you from bearing any part of
their formation
so i perceive but i cannot
so i perceive but i cannot perceive the
justice of your pretensions
of equality in liberty when those
principles are thus
openly and grossly violated
as to any direct part they bear in the
government the women of turkey russia
and america are alike
but surely their actual condition their
dignity and freedom
are different the value of any
government lies in the mode in which it
is exercised then said the lady you
think
that forms of government are no subjects
of contest
it matters not by whom power is
possessed
or how it is transferred
how power shall be exercised depends
wholly on the views and habits of him
that has it avails it nothing whether
the prince be mild or austere
malignant or benevolent if we
must delegate authority are we not
concerned to propose it with him
who will use it to the best rather than
the worst
purposes nothing interests me more
nearly than a wise choice of a master
the wisest member of society
should if possible be selected for the
guidance of the rest
it is true answered i that one form of
government may tend more than another to
generate
selfishness and tyranny in him that
rules
and ignorance and profligacy the
subjects
if women are excluded from political
functions it is sufficient that
in this exercise of these functions
their happiness is amply consulted
say what you will cried the lady i shall
ever consider it a gross abuse that we
are hindered from sharing with you the
power of choosing our rulers
and of making those laws to which we
equally with yourselves are subject
if the law should exclude from all
political functions
everyone who has a mole on his right
cheek
or whose structure did not exceed five
feet six inches
who would not condemn without scruples
so unjust an institution
yet in truth the injustice would be less
than in the case
of women cheers to that
i like that it's cool you find things
like this i had never heard about this
poem but
super powerful of course had to be
written by a man
a woman would never have been able to
write anything like this
at this time again this was published in
1798
so shortly after the constitution was
ratified um
and uh before the 13th amendment
when um you know slaves were freed and
given the right to vote
so back to that history about
the 19th amendment and where um
where uh it was in relation to the other
and enfranchise
and franchise amendments i don't know i
guess that's the right word
right to vote so
19th amendment was ratified on
august 18th 1920 100 years ago
celebrating 100 years it was
originally introduced to the congress
in um
oh i have the year written right here
1878
1878 it was introduced to congress
now just a little bit uh 1878 to 1920
so that's 42 years it took for
um this amendment to be passed
and there was no shortage of protesting
going on no
shortage of activism going on
you know so why it took over 40 years
you know yes we did have a
world war we had a pandemic we had
a great depression between that 40-year
period
and perhaps those were the reasons why
um
but it was introduced in 17 or 1878
and i don't think that all those things
started happening
until like the end of the 1800s so yeah
they had
you know they had over a decade you know
time to figure that out
so just in reference to the the the
civil rights
amendments the the civil war amendments
that abolish slavery
and gave freed you know ex-slaves the
right to vote
that that all got introduced and passed
and ratified
quickly um not 42 years so
uh you know the famous emancipation
proclamation
was um you know president lincoln's
speech about this was given
in 1863 and um
then the uh the 13th amendment was
passed
in the senate in 1864.
so just a year later it got passed to
the senate in the senate
and then about eight months after that
it got
passed by um the house
and uh ratified the next
in the next few days
yeah mafalda what's your what's your
reason why it took so long for that to
get
together that get to get past so yeah
the 19th amendment was
introduced even a little over a decade
after the the civil rights or the civil
war amendments had been
ratified so there was definitely a
president for them to
uh to work upon
yeah yeah obviously women were
considered inferior
but like that's what's crazy is that
like slaves technically
were also considered just in the nature
of that
designation in life of that given
designation in life like women
this is not a given designation like we
were born this way you know
um the the title of slave is given to
you it's man-made
um so you would think that that would
that would hold much more oppression
but yeah we just need to
yeah so the sharing that's a good one i
like that the sharing of power
scares infuriates men i know that it
still exists
today that still exists today we're
still talking about that
um you know especially in the context of
the tea industry
that's why i have to disguise myself as
a man so people will actually listen to
me
um
so you know i i couldn't find too many
articles that talked
directly about you know what was going
on during that time
you know of the position of feminism
but
it's important
it's still an issue to today so i meant
to do a whole lot more research but i
ended up going down another rabbit hole
well i was researching this just trying
to understand the context of history of
what was going on at that time
and that was also the end of world war
one so that could have been
there was just like a leading up to 1920
or 1919 when
when the the senate in the house finally
voted
on the 19th amendment um
there was um a lot going on in the world
so we had world war one
which americans you know
sent off to war and women played an
important role
uh just like in the revolutionary war
women played an important role in being
patriotic and supporting
um the homeland supporting the home
supporting the family
and also you know gaining a voice for
themselves and this like
this wasn't after or you know this is
after
almost a century of various women
of various influences um
fighting for women's suffrage protesting
um
so this wasn't like a new thing it was a
long a long coming
a long-standing you know fight
uh but something else that was really
important
was and really and the reason the only
reason why is because like we're going
through it right now
and we're seeing it and this is
something i never heard i never thought
about
when i learned this time in history like
when i was in
high school or college or whenever you
know i studied these things academically
because we're going through a pandemic
now and we're seeing
how much this pandemic affects us
as communities as people as individuals
as members of the community
i never thought about that with the
spanish flu
which the spanish flu was a two year
long pandemic
uh now uh and so that's what i'm
thinking like we've been through this
for almost five six months now
you know in our own in our own context
here and of course all of our stories
are very unique and very different but
the commonality i'm seeing from all over
the world
is that
dealing with a public health crisis with
an ongoing
public health crisis creates a lot of
contention
and a lot of opportunity for
polarization and for arguments and for
questioning
um and so yeah i went down a rabbit hole
to see
what happened like in that regards uh
during that time so that was 1918 to
1919
so like we're talking about like that
pandemic happened and then this happened
like almost immediately something and
maybe there's some relation because like
we're going through that now like we're
going through a pandemic we're going
through all of this unknown uncertainty
and the same shit was happening back
then that's happening now like the same
questions the same arguments that we're
having
like today about face mask and about
social distancing and about
you know your state and your city's
right to mandate
how we can behave and respond to a
public health crisis
where the exact same fucking arguments
and and debates going on in 1918
in 1919 and so
uh thinking about in the current context
there's a lot
coming up you know in the pandemic may
end up getting blamed for it um maybe
now but you know in the history books 50
years from now 100 years from now
just like whenever i studied those
things when i was a kid
you know they may just like gloss over
the uh covid uh coven 19
and just say oh yeah that happened at
that time and not really saying
there was a lot of stuff going on
politically and philosophically and
value based
that you know may lead us into
a third war war it may lead us into a
civil war
at least here in the united states it
may lead us
to an incredible positive awesome
revolution
in a good way you know that's what i'm
hoping for
by the way i came across a cool new
project
uh i guess i'll give the link um you can
check it out
it's got a cool video it's made by an
anonymous group
it looks like the work of the anonymous
you know group online
uh and it comments on the uh two-party
system
here in the united states our two-party
political system
uh and how disastrous and controlling
and
disabling and it is for the modern world
kind of unrelated to what i'm talking
about today but really at the same time
uh but basically kind of giving a
different perspective that there is hope
that there can be something done that uh
equity and equality and a true democracy
is possible a true interactive democracy
is possible especially with technology
i'm also um still pretty buzzy
from a town hall
with some actually very good education
by my friend brock pierce who is
currently running for president
don't worry he's a billionaire he'll
he'll get through it
uh i think he's actually gotten it
gotten his name on the majority of the
state ballots now which is great news
and it's really cool so he's like a
blockchain enthusiast
he's one of the first blockchain
influencers that's how i know him
is through the bitcoin world and uh so
he takes a lot of that ethos
of transparency distributed power
distributed information
and is bringing that into his
campaigning process so he's doing
a daily like live town halls like maybe
not quite a town hall it's just a live
video
where he gets interviewed and talks
about different topics
and not necessarily a platform he
actually hasn't released an official
platform
he's releasing an ethos and he's
releasing
a call to action for this platform
to be created by individuals like you
and i
which is very cool and so in today's
town hall he was educating on the
election process
and it's funny actually his strategy for
winning the election is to uh
in the popular vote so this is what he
wants to do
he wants to get third place in the
popular vote
and then he wants to win one state
electoral colleges because yeah that's
all he's got to get one states
uh electoral colleges or yeah electoral
college vote
and then um have a tie
between you know so there's there's no
winner of the majority because that's to
win the election you have to win the
majority of the electoral calling votes
so if there's either a tie or a
three-way
or like not one of the
candidates gets that majority number of
the electoral college votes
then there's going to be a vote by the
congress so they'll vote and they vote
among the top
three so that's why if if he gets in the
top three he'll be in that vote
and the only other time in history that
this has happened the congress actually
voted for
the uh the third place person
um just because there was no um
imbalance of power between the two it's
kind of an interesting dynamic so
he that's his strategy for winning this
election and he just
like announced his candidacy uh actually
he announced on july 4th the same day
kanye announced his so um yeah he was
talking about
like there's a lot of question about
whether the voting process
is going to be one effective and too
uncompromised so those are the two main
arguments about this upcoming
election because of the pandemic that
we're dealing with so here's another
reason how a pandemic affects
um our history it affects what's going
on so it's like
i think it's so fascinating that this
like spanish flu
pandemic didn't have a deeper impact on
history
i'm sure it did and it just never was
brought up in our history books and
stuff
but there's another great thing i'll put
it in the links on
the online video of uh
really cool
stories around the pandemic
this thing is called the american
influenza epidemic of 1918 a digital
encyclopedia it's got stories
deep stories too not just superficial
and it has numbers it has dates it has
like references
to like newspaper articles that you can
actually look at you know
from 100 years ago
and so it's really interesting to see uh
how our governments handled
the response to the pandemic and how
different the outbreak
was in different cities um you know
based on that response and actually the
main
the main differentiating factor
i found uh in reading as briefly as i
read i'm going to read more i can't wait
to read all the stories because they're
really
yeah it's it's it's written pretty
academically but
it's easy to read as well um is the
biggest differentiator was
the speed in which they reacted to
closing
not just like movie theaters and
restaurants and gathering places
but the speed they had in closing the
schools
because the schools with the children
ended up being so that's why it's funny
that like
at least here in nevada i believe a lot
of students the private schools
they're definitely sending their their
kids back to school
um but
it's not necessarily like i said it's
the speed in which they closed down the
schools it wasn't that they closed down
the schools or that they closed down the
schools for
the whole pandemic it's like that they
closed
earlier because i guess the spread of a
pandemic is always the most extreme at
the beginning
and then also the severity of um
the virus on our immune system is much
more severe
at the beginning of exposure um over
time so i think that's why
in addition to like our testing our
death rate numbers keep changing
uh for covid here in the states and at
first they said oh it's because we're
testing more we're testing more we're
testing more that's why the number is
going down the percentage the ratio of
people dying versus cases
and but at this point the testing
problem has been fixed for
some months now so i don't know if
that's a valid
reasoning behind why the number is
lowering
what could be the reason is that it's
less mild
so that's another reason why the
beginning of a pandemic
is the most important and
how that's related to the constitution
is that
you know our executive mr president
is like the the first authority to
um to give the authority to the states
and the local governments to make the
decisions about what they're going to do
but that information trickles down from
the top even though the states and the
cities
have the rights to execute the exact
orders that they want to have for
their community they're getting their
information fed to them
by the higher up by the executive and at
that time actually they didn't have the
cdc or the world health organization so
there wasn't guidance coming from
other places they had to rely upon
the executive branch
to provide that information which
you know back in 1918 we didn't even
know
it was a virus we didn't know shit about
it
really all we knew is that like our
soldiers were coming back and it like it
all
it was all happening from the soldiers
coming back from world war one
uh navy ships like whole units of
thousands of soldiers disinfected
and then that started trickling out into
the communities and this started
spreading
and so these people like were making
decisions they didn't know
and like now we're in an age where we
have so much more information and
understanding of things and we also have
this anecdotal evidence of what happened
just a hundred years ago that i feel
like
i'm surprised i haven't heard any of
these stories i think the only thing
i've seen is a couple of memes here and
there of you know people in the 1980
in 1918 wearing a face mask in the photo
and that's it but
no like real juicy storytelling
about what the sentiment of the
communities were during that time
and they were exactly the same that they
are now exactly the same
that even when uh so the the shutdown
orders i think the longest shutdown
order was like two months
i think or two yeah two months i think
georgia georgia
had shut down for two months at that
time but most of the cities had only
shut down for like
three weeks four weeks and then they
opened completely back up
and and overall among all of those
cities no matter how long
they shut down or stayed open it didn't
have a significant impact on the
severity of
the virus in their community what had
the biggest impact was the speed in
which they closed their schools
so we could have read that right we
could have read that
and communicated and had a very smart
uh executive
i.e president eloquently spoken
that could have told us hey this
happened to us a hundred years ago
uh we learned our lesson and uh this is
what we're how we're gonna deal with it
this time
and uh we definitely didn't get that
response so
that was the rabbit hole that i went
down you know kind of outside of this
but kind of related to it you know
because i think
just like how the pandemic is having us
like re-evaluate our values re-evaluate
what's essential what we care about what
we value what's important to us
the people back then were probably going
through the same type of
changes and evolutions and you have this
like women's
suffrage women movement and women
probably played a very important role
during that because the men
just coming back home they're coming
home sick you know a lot of the people
that died during that pandemic were
young men because the military like you
know it hit the military the hardest and
so women were at home taking care of the
families taking care of the community
and people probably realized hey you
know like they're valuable human beings
in our lives
maybe we should give them what they ask
for i don't know i haven't found any
articles that directly make that
connection i'm just like
kind of made it on my own
yeah there were yeah mass did play a
role los angeles was one of those
places where masks were like there was a
big problem it was a it was a divide
between northern california and southern
california northern california was super
pro mask and there was like this whole
movement and there's so many cool
stories in that link i put
check out that link i put um there was
like a big divide
and like the politicians from the bay
area and from sacramento were going down
to los angeles and pleading
with the city officials there to mandate
mask and la was just like
no they were too hollywood at that time
though you know so mask would
um
so yeah says not knowing history is just
asking to repeat the same mistakes over
and over and over again
it's true but then at the same note too
and i was watching
a talk yesterday about uh
lean in that's a sherry sandberg's uh
like
female empowerment whatever organization
they had a pretty good interview
yesterday where the the they were
talking about
generational differences in feminism
and how do we address these differences
and it's really important
to to know that to know that there is
relevance in comparing
the situation between two different
times but
there's also you know don't be too fast
to
basically you know she was addressing
like older women maybe generation x or
baby boomer generation women
that identify as being feminists not to
force on their idea of feminism to
millennial or gen z because their story
is different
and where all our stories are different
so you know i think it's just gonna keep
that balance of like
looking at history and looking at their
condition
and seeing okay where are the things
that we can draw parallels
which you know obviously with these two
pandemics almost a hundred years apart
we could pull a lot of parallels from
those
but obviously um the united states i
think
behaved in a in a good way compared to
the rest of the world because i think
there was
like five and a half million deaths
total in the us
was like 550 of those
so was that like one percent let me do
that math i don't know
550 000 people died in the united states
and there was five and a half million
worldwide so yeah ten percent of the
deaths
of the total deaths were in the united
states for that pandemic
i think that we're at like what 40
percent now
so yeah we're not handling it too well
compared to the rest of the world
the rest of the world is probably all
like reflecting on their notebook
of notes from uh the century prior
when they made their decisions on how to
handle it we're
we're not doing so good on that
and that's why i'm here now you know
the constitution and you know our right
to democracy and our right to freedom
and our identity as the most
free country in the world has created a
lot of these issues
um yep
it's cool yeah i highly recommend you
check out that link there's a lot of
great stories it's just for the united
states you know i
i don't know about the rest of the world
if there's some documentation
but yeah i got really into that
so speaking of voting in the united
states
very important votes is coming up
um first tuesday of november
please vote i'm going to give another
link right now
i just can't say enough about voting
because like ultimately that's the only
right that we have we don't have the
constitution does not give us the right
not to wear a mask
uh it does not give us the right um
you know to hate upon someone else the
only
right that the constitution gives us is
to vote
you know of course we also have this
other right to uh
communicate and to speak on our um
oh my battery died so quickly this time
so you'll get me like this for the rest
of the time
we have the power to communicate with
our
leaders and to
let them know as their constituents
that them as our representative
what they can do to be accountable to us
and that's the first amendment then we
have this other thing where we can have
arms for for militia only you know
so that's a little confusing too but the
voting that's the one thing that makes
sense and now
finally all of us can vote you know
uh finally so we gotta exercise that now
with the pandemic going on
that is challenging uh and so i just
shared a link
across the internet that has it's very
simple link for anybody in the united
states
to easily put in their state of
residence
and be given instruction and all the
appropriate
links for applying for your
absentee ballot something i learned
interesting about the state of nevada
uh a lot of really cool things going on
in the state of nevada
a lot of confusion going on too so i'll
explain that a little bit right now
so nevada has decided to automatically
distribute absentee ballots
um to all registered voters so you don't
even have to apply for one so i don't
have to apply for one it's great
easy i'm gonna get in the mail and then
i can either mail it in to the post
office or i can go drop it off at
napoleon site on day of election which
you know means you don't have to wait in
line
uh and deal with the whole social
distance
whatever um
additionally in the state of nevada
something that's new this year
and not a lot of people know about it is
that we
are among one of the first states in the
country that
is uh re-enfranchising all
previous previously disenfranchised um
uh people so that's like
anybody who is not currently in jail
actually you can be in jail
even if you're currently incarcerated uh
you can request to vote um
but no one talks about this neither side
neither democrat or republican side is
talking about this here in the state
which makes no sense because i think
it's something like 70 700 000 people
700 000 people at like valid votes
that's like that's like the size of a
that's like that that'd be like
the third largest actually maybe the
second largest
city of this state that like
probably won't vote because they don't
know about this new
uh regulation that gives them the right
to vote
so um that's really interesting so i'm
going to do
some advocacy for that especially brock
you know maybe nevada could be his
his state of winning his electoral vote
um purely from
you know activating this re-enfranchised
community of people here
how you do that i don't know how i would
do it
i'd probably like put on like a virtual
music festival
with uh with really popular like local
rappers
and uh other musicians as well but i
just think that like hip-hop
culture would be a great culture
um to you know kind of
be a platform for this message
because it would be engaging
and you know maybe dizzy right i should
activate dizzy wright
dizzy wright is typically engaged dizzy
writes like a vegas-based rapper he's
probably one of my favorite
um yeah he may be into it maybe we can
get him
anyway lots of ideas coming up so yeah
every state is different though so there
i think there are like five states that
have like already a well-established
mail and voting process
nevada this is going to be the first
year that they're going all
in but supposedly the state has been
equipping itself for managing these
votes but the last problem of the whole
thing and this recently made big news
because
our president made some very negative
commentary about the state of nevada
being irresponsible and corrupt
because the state has responsibly made a
commitment
of being able to effectively count all
the votes
uh seven days and the president
is saying that that's not fair that they
need to do it faster and that there's
going to be
corruption and bad things so all right
instagram you're gonna go
but thanks for letting me be a dude for
the day and listening to me
thanks for letting me vote i'm really a
woman and i can vote now thank goodness
happy 19th amendment
so uh yeah the link there i gave you
guys please
check it out uh if you're in a state
that requires you to request your
absentee
mail and ballot you need to do that and
some of them actually have deadlines
you know soon so you want to make sure
to catch that
um so that that link there you just put
in the state of residence or where
you're registered
and it will let you know what you need
to do
because we got a vote people worked
really really hard especially if you're
a woman
people worked really really hard to make
sure that you can vote and have your
voice
and be considered equal you know in this
country
so let's exercise that right and
celebrate
that hard fight that was put in for us
um remember that fight lasted for nearly
a century prior to
us even getting that right so yeah
but yes mythology you're right vote
please vote
all right guys uh i i think that's it
so next week i have something really
exciting
for this segment i have my first
guest and this guest is actually
professional
this guest is actually qualified to be
teaching this content
not me um and so this woman
she is probably probably like one of the
typically most civically engaged person
uh that i've met here uh in the state of
nevada uh she runs a program
uh for here in the state it's a high
school program called we the people
which is a um congressional
education program and competition
and i remember when i was in high school
that was a big deal the we the people
team you know they would go to dc
and compete and they would always you
know do really well there
i did not compete and perhaps had i
competed in that program i wouldn't be
such a fool now
trying to read the constitution
understand what it means to be american
but
i'm doing it anyway and she's going to
come on and she's going to come talk to
me
about that program about several other
programs that she's involved in she's
also a part of the nevada coalition of
women voters so maybe we'll touch on a
little bit more
of what i talked about today but it'll
be good to have an actual
professional uh come on and talk with us
um
and hopefully we'll have much more
beyond that and maybe even this is
actually a goal
i have now that i've met this woman and
i'm hoping that we can create more
together
that we can engage some of this youth
to create content like this instead of
me at my t-table
which is great and i i continue i plan
to continue this
but to activate the voices of youth
you know to teach us older people um
because sometimes looking at these
things from the lens
uh of a child or lens of somebody who
hasn't been corrupted by
you know just the realities of adulting
or whatever you want to call it
uh so yeah it could be really exciting
i'm really glad about where this is
going i appreciate all of your support
and letting me
be vulnerable and silly and have fun
with this it's been a lot of fun
so uh yeah and i'll see you tomorrow for
tea talks