Cindy:  So you're just quietly trying to create some equity in those environments that you influence. Is that-

 

Diana:  I think right now, we're just trying to educate and help people understand to wake up. 

 

Cindy:  Well, what was interesting is I remember when I was working in Atlanta and they were having... The company I worked for had an all-White male board for decades and they were trying really hard to make that diverse and they were having programs for LGBTs and they were targeting blacks to promote. At the time, I felt that was very unfair. This has been 10 or 15 years ago. Now, that company has a board that includes LGBTs and blacks and they have a Hispanic CEO. I no longer have that resentment because I think the company is a much better company even though they laid me off because I was old, but I think they're a better company for having that diversity, but it was really painful when it started because it felt like I was being discriminated against. After reading that book and started to think about some of the advantages that we just had because of who we were, the whole affirmative action started making a lot more sense to me that it wasn't favoritism, it was trying to create a somewhat equal playing field. I had never been in a discriminated class until job searching at 60. So I didn't know what that felt like. It doesn't feel good. My husband went through the same thing when his company closed and he was 59 that I think it was character building for both of us because we suddenly ended up in a group that there was hiring issues with. Yet, they were so subtle. They weren't something you could take to court. It was very subtle discrimination. It didn't feel good to be on that side. So I think it's given me a little bit of empathy. In the end, I appreciated you sending me the book, though at the time, it-

 

Diana:  One of the things that I've only recently really been made aware of is I have friends who have black sons and what they have to teach their sons is so different from what I have to teach my sons. The whole notion of the policeman is your friend and I've told my kids like, "If you get in trouble, go to the police station." My black friends with black sons, they have to talk about, "If you get pulled over by the police, put your hands up. Make sure that you don't say anything wrong. Make sure that you don't reach for anything." It's a whole set of issues that none of us have to... As a White person, you just don't have to think about. 

 

Samia:  This might help Cindy with understanding why so many liberals got so upset after the election and started calling all Republicans, conservatives and Trump voters all kinds of names because we see this as life and death, life and death for a lot of people, for people's children who don't deserve it. The policies that this administration is putting forth seem to be encouraging the further oppression of minority groups. I mean, imagine if you had to teach your kid that the police are just as likely to kill you as to help you, which is the case for every black parent in America, especially black parents with black sons. So if it seemed like liberals were going off the rails and getting really over the top, it was because the stakes are life and death for so many people. 

 

Cindy:  Well, what's interesting about that is I was at the Better Angels conference in June and I met a wonderful black woman from Minnesota. She was describing how she had to teach her sons to put their hands up. It brought me to tears because I had always thought that that was an overreaction because there's still a part of me that says, "People can't be that hateful." Yet, I've had a number of black friends tell me otherwise, so I have to believe them. To me, it's unfathomable. I've heard it too many times. I did. I sat at the table and I was in tears. I couldn't believe that this is a woman with children, who's educated. She's active in her community. This was an amazing lady. She's having to teach her sons to be careful with the police. 

 

Diana:  That is what the whole kneeling versus standing American anthem. It's become such a polarized thing, but that is what the protest is all about. The kneeling at the American anthem is to highlight the violence against young black men. Colin Kaepernick is bringing that to light and saying, "We need to understand that the same men that were making billions and billions and billions of dollars for the NFL, those are the same men that are getting incarcerated at much higher rates than White men and young black men are getting killed at far higher rates by police than young White men." So I think the conservative media portrays it as lack of patriotism, but really, it's just a way to bring light to a very life or death situation. 

 

Cindy:  As a conservative, I view the refusal to stand for the National Anthem is just being deeply... It was a deep criticism of the United States. So I guess where my Republican roots come in is that I still believe that this country is a great thing. I know we have problems, but we have a system that allows us to fix problems. So it was such an act of disrespect from my point of view that I never really listen to the why. 

 

Diana:  Right. 

 

Cindy:  If that makes sense. 

 

Diana:  Yeah. 

 

Cindy:  I think what I'm learning over the last few months is to ask why instead of just jumping to conclusion because I admit I said, "If you're patriotic, you'd stand for the flag. You don't sit down during the Pledge of Allegiance," and that's just years of... because I do believe in this country and I am patriotic, even though I acknowledge we are not a perfect country. I think we need to be Americans first and I know that's easier when you're on the White side of things, maybe, or when you're in the majority, it may be easier to say, "America first." I don't know. 

 

Diana:  In the Catholic church, kneeling is very respectful. They're not sitting down. They're kneeling, which is a sign of a lot of respect. There's a lot of evidence that the country was built on the backs of slave labor and recognizing that the constitution was recognized black people as three-fifths of a person. Yes, the country is great, but it was founded and created for White males and it's time to evolve. We've evolved to some degree, but it's time to continue to evolve.So I was one who said, "We have a black president. We've come so far. This is so great." Then the backlash from Trump and the conservatives, I wasn't looking at politics. I wasn't listening to politics when Obama was president because I was like, "He's got my back. I don't have to worry about it."Then to understand what horrific things were done against Obama and hanging effigies and just all of the negativity around Obama, I personally thought he was a great president and thought everyone loved him like I did. So that was a real wake up call for me that we haven't evolved that far, that yeah, it's great that he was elected, but there's so much more to do in the country. 

 

Cindy:  Part of me says, "Is it any different with some of the really ugly comedy against Trump? Is that any different than the ugly comedy against Obama?" I actually voted for Obama. I thought it was amazing that we had a black president. I agreed with you that I thought it was a huge step forward and it was a message that anyone could be president. Getting back to the constitution, I recognized that the constitution was written by a bunch of White guys. I recognized that when they wrote the Bill of Rights, it didn't apply to women, it didn't apply to blacks. I don't think that invalidates the ideas and I truly believe that this country is a country founded on ideas and that we have evolved in terms of civil rights legislation and including women and that kind of thing that because we're a government founded on ideals rather than arbitrary authoritarian decisions, that I don't want to throw at a structure. So I think for conservatives, a lot of times we feel like liberals are wanting to just throw the constitution out the door. To me, the constitution is so important. Like I said, I think it's because I consider America unique and that it was a group of people who thought about forming a country instead of something that evolved from a monarchy or a theocracy or whatever. It was a group of people that sat down and although they may have been flawed, they still came up with some pretty remarkable ideas once it was applied to everybody. Is that a true perception that liberals want to throw the constitution out?

 

Diana:  No, I don't think so at all. I think that right now, for me, the importance of the checks and balances on the balance of power is super important because I do believe that if Trump had his way, he would be an autocrat. He would stay in power for as long as he wants and have his cronies taking away the rights of a bunch of us, not just black and Brown people, but women and all kinds of people. 

 

Cindy:  So where do you see that he's threatening LGBT rights?

 

Diana:  Well, the transgender-

 

Cindy:  No, no, don't laugh. 

 

Diana:  He tweeted that transgender people will no longer be allowed in the military. Do you remember that? 

 

Cindy:  Yeah. I guess my interpretation was that part of that was based on medical costs. I didn't see that as a statement of... and maybe if I looked at it differently, I might see it differently, but I thought about, "Well, is the government responsible for the medical cost, the ongoing pharmaceuticals that are required?" So it didn't seem like a slam against gay rights overall. Maybe that's a lack of sensitivity on my part. 

 

Diana:  I think there were some research that showed that the military pays for millions of dollars worth of Viagra and tens of thousands of dollars for testosterone. I can see where they don't want to pay for reassignment surgery or something, but the willingness to pay for medical cost versus the allowing them into the military, to me, that was the upfront. Then there have been a number of cases where the rights to discriminate against... Theoretically, you shouldn't be able to fire somebody because they're gay or lesbian or LGBT. Those rights are being... Even the cake, wedding cake, so if I don't like you because you're wearing a blue shirt, am I able to say, "I don't want to serve you," and then where does that go? Does it go all the way to, "Well, you're a Muslim. I don't want to serve you," or "You're a Republican. I don't want to serve you"? 

 

Cindy:  [inaudible 00:44:10]

 

Diana:  Right, right, right. So I would agree that liberals have stooped absolutely as low as conservatives did around Obama. Personally, I think that Trump is a pretty easy target, so it's humorous. I posted something once on my Facebook page that had... It was some SNL skit or something, where it had an Obama actor, someone who look like him, an impersonator, saying the things that Trump says. It was hilarious because Obama is so articulate. Hearing the things that Trump says out of Obama mouth, it was just hilarious. It was actually transcripts of things that Trump has said. 

 

Cindy:  I read Trevor Noah's book. What is it called? Born A Crime. I started watching the Daily Show and that has become my favorite show because I think part of the healing is being able to laugh at his skits and laugh at the way he does the news. What I love about him is he doesn't... It's not a spirit of meanness. It really takes what's hysterical about the day and points out the humor and you're right, Trump is an easy target. So my conservative friends think I'm a poly because I love the Daily Show, but-

 

Samia:  Let's bring this around to stuff that's happening now. We're a year and a half into the Trump presidency and a lot has happened. A lot has happened recently. We've got the Supreme Court. It's looking like it's going to be leaning heavily to the right for our generation, which I don't think reflects what the country wants. We've got the separation of children from their parents at the southern border of the US. People coming in from Central and South America and being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for the first time for illegal border crossing in the history of our country and having their children being taken away. Of course, that's been reversed. 

 

Samia:  We've also got the Russian investigation. We've got Trump siding with Putin at a press conference in Helsinki just days ago and selling out the whole American intelligence community. So there's so much that's going on. Do you guys disagree on some of these current issues? 

 

Cindy:  I think I'd like to get some insight on immigration, especially with the Southern border because I'm not a wall person and I'm not a take people away from their children person, but I do believe that we need secure borders. So my sense is that the opposite of that position is open borders. So I'd love to hear from Diana her take on what we do if she's favor of controlling some of the immigration and how we manage that. 

 

Diana:  My perception of conservatives, they vilify the immigrant, right? Immigrants are going to come in and rape your children and crime is going to go up and neighborhoods are going to go down. I think immigrants, in general, have incarceration rates of a fifth of what native born Americans do. Most of the research, these first generation immigrants. First of all, there are living conditions that are so horrible that they're willing to risk death along the way to get to the US because they believe that the US is going to be better. If they're seeking asylum or coming for jobs, we've got unemployment rates that are really, really low. I have a friend who works in food service and her open job percentage is 25% of the jobs in food service in this big hospital system. They're open. If we could get immigrants to do those jobs, it would help the hospital, it would help the economy, it would help the immigrants. I do think that allowing people in who are persecuted, that's what our country was founded on. We were religiously persecuted and people came here. I just think that we've lost that sense that they're humans. I've been listening to Fox News for the last couple of days. Every time they refer to an immigrant, they call them illegals. In my circles, we call them undocumented people because they're people. They have lives. No one wants to leave their home and suffer through great trials and tribulations to come to a country that doesn't want them, unless it's really bad. I guess, for me, it's much more around the worth and dignity of the human being than the fact they're "illegally" crossing the border. I know that Obama deported more people than any other president before him. Those were mostly deportations related to people that had been convicted of crimes. My group does detention center visits and so they get very intimately involved with people who are in detention centers. Some of these people, they haven't committed crime except perhaps driving without a license or being in the wrong place at the wrong time and they have US-born children, US-born spouses and they're being ripped away from their families and sent back to Guatemala. I just think that it's against our country's values to treat people that way. 

 

Cindy:  If you believe in a path to citizenship for people that are here, is there a point where you ask people to come through legal channels? I think I am certainly not advocating that we turn people away, but I guess I'm asking that we bring people in through legal channels. 

 

Diana:  I'm not sure that they're not trying to get through legal channels, but obviously, I listen to different news than you do. My understanding is that those legal channels have become so narrow and women fleeing domestic violence can't claim asylum anymore. Even the H1B visas have been reduced. It's difficult to get here anymore. 

 

Cindy:  Well, I know that because of a friend that came over some time after the Vietnam war, but not quite that far back. He came over as one of the "boat people". It took years to come through Hong Kong in refugee camps. He got citizenship here. He's the classic example of the success story. He came here, he got USA to start a business and get in through the rough spot. Now, he has four children. They're college educated and he's brought the rest of his family over time and set each of them up in business. So it's hard to tell people who have gone through the system legally that if you just cross the border, then you're okay. 

 

Diana:  It's not just illegal crossings that I and the Trump administration are targeting. 

 

Cindy:  Can you elaborate a little bit on that because I actually ran into that when I was trying to fact check myself? It's my reminder, originally, that we were only separating families when there was an illegal crossing and if you came from a way point and what I'm really viewing is that's not true. The zero tolerance for any crossing has made the number of people that were separating out of control. 

 

Diana:  I read something recently that 50% of all children born in the US are non-White. So the immigration discussion to me feels like it's another way to protect White establishment, White male privilege. It's a protection of the privilege as supposed to a welcoming of people who are fleeing horrific conditions in other countries. 

 

Cindy:  I struggle between that core belief and rule of law versus a heart that says, "We have to help people. We can't turn people away after they've come through terrible circumstances." That's the moral dilemma because my heart and my belief system go one way, which is in favor of taking care of people and then the other side of me says, "But there's laws and laws have to be followed or you don't have an ordered society." That's where I sit on that issue. 

 

Samia:  I feel so strongly that with the immigration issue, especially, there is a middle ground that could be found where the two parties willing to sit down and really work it out together instead of competing to be the winners because everybody agrees that people should have human dignity and we are a country founded on immigrants and there should be easier legal immigration avenues, but it seems that because Republicans have this base that tends to be pretty anti-immigration and they want to keep their votes, instead of advocating for these middle ground solutions, we're just getting a lot of, "No, let's prosecute them and let's make it harder to be legal. America first."

 

Cindy:  Absolutely. I almost thing part of the reason he went down this path is to create such a public outcry that congress would take action. I think he was really poking the hornet's nest with a stick hoping that something would happen. I feel like congress needs to sit down and put aside the differences and come over the reasonable system that includes not a wall, but controlling the border to some extent and then looking at paths to citizenship and looking at permanent residency and becoming a welcoming country. I always think liberals are so unwilling to sit down with Republicans because they're so unhappy with Trump that they're not going to be willing to come up with any solutions. I mean, I know it's a complicated issue, but it just seems like they could make some big differences easily just by sitting down and talking.

 

Diana:  One of the problems is that there's so much money to be made in the detention center, not only private detention centers, but also counties get money from the federal government to house immigrants in their jails. So there's this huge amount of millions and millions, probably billions of dollars that both private companies and locales are making from getting all these people into detention centers. The humane thing might be to put bracelets on their feet and let them live their lives and let them contribute to the economies of the various locales, but because there's this profit mindset, I don't know if people are willing to sit down and talk about it because it's money in their pockets. 

 

Samia:  I was going to say what you're saying, Cindy, about there being a perception amongst Republicans that liberals aren't willing to sit down and talk, liberals have the same perception of conservatives, the same exact perception. That tells me that if everybody were willing to put down those stereotypes and just come to the table, maybe we could make some progress. 

 

Cindy:  Do something, yeah. 

 

Samia:  I wanted to hit a couple of more issues before we wrap this up. Both of you wanted to talk about Islam and immigration from majority Muslim countries and the perception of Islam in the world. 

 

Cindy:  The first thing I want to stress is that I am not anti-Muslim, I am not afraid of Muslims. So where I struggle with Islam is that it is a religion, as well as political ideology. It's hard to research a whole lot unless you're fluent in Arabic and you understand the culture. So it appears that the legal system and the religion are really wound up together if you look at Muslim majority countries like Saudi Arabia, some of them in Africa. In those countries, you have very strict rules that are tied into Islam sharia that relate to the roles of women, the nonacceptance of LGBTs and then some of the issues with freedom of speech versus blasphemy, freedom of thought versus apostate. In some of those countries, the penalty for blasphemy and being an apostate is actually death. I went through some pew studies. I didn't just listen to Fox News. We're a country that values the separation of church and state. That's really critical and it was a fundamental reason. The fundamental reason for that separation was what the columnist went through with England. Then we also have these rights and we have protective classes and we want people to be treated equally. So I feel like considering that there's this piece of Islam, which we don't see in American Muslims, but there's this piece or a part of the belief system that's very much in conflict with our concept of rights. I feel like the left ignores it. When you ask the question if people are coming from a country where the government and religion are intertwined and they come to a country like the US, how is that cultural shift happen? Because our freedom of religion is qualified to freedom to practice religion as long as it doesn't violate our other laws. I feel like the left doesn't address that. If you start asking questions, you're immediately labeled as an Islamophobe. So I just wanted to get your take on that. Like I said, this is not about terrorism. This is not about as a faith. This is really about that legal side of the ideology and how that translates. 

 

Diana:  It's interesting because that was one of our contentions a year and a half ago was the screaming match. The screaming match was around that. Sharia law, it never gets brought up in any of the conversations I've ever had with liberals or at my church. We've had an Imam come and preach several times. I don't have any close friends who are Muslim, but it's not something that ever gets discussed. In the last week or so, I've been asking my friends, "Hey, what do you know about Sharia law? I'm so interested to know where you get your information that in the Northeast, at least." Well, at least in the liberal circles, it's not even a thing. People don't even know what it is. So I don't think it's ignoring it. My perception is perhaps you get it at church or is it Fox News or where is that coming from? 

 

Cindy:  I started reading and when I started reading, originally, there's two camps that seemed to be "authorities" and there's the camp that says, "Islam is peaceful," and then there's the camp that I think includes a lot of fear mongering. If you go out, the Pew Center has done a number of studies and interviews with both American Muslims and in Muslim majority countries. Sharia is very real. It's a body of instructions for worship. I'm not an expert, please. My impression is that Islam uses the Quran and the Hadith and the Sira and the Hadith and the Sira are where some of that Sharia law comes from as far as Mohammad being an example of holy living. So those codes exist. If you go and you look at some of the pew studies and when they've gone to Muslim majority countries and interviewed, it's a very real phenomena. It's part of the legal side. I know my church is very quiet on Islam because they're fighting for inner faith. They want to have relationships with countries and all people, so the church doesn't delve into that. 

 

Diana:  All I can say is that the people who have immigrated here, the ones that I've met have rejected that part of Islam and they live in the laws of the United States. They're more of the camp of the worth and dignity of humanity and letting people live. It's like you said, "Have you read the Quran or maybe Dave did?" I said, "Have you read the Bible?" I don't think any religious text is... If you are to read any religious text, you could find horrific things that people do in the text that people don't do today. So I don't have really information on Sharia law, but I do know that the people I know, anyway, in the communities that I know of don't practice it at all. 

 

Samia:  I can shed a little bit of light. Sharia law is a list of guidelines for how to live a holy life according to Islam. It is just as easily reinterpreted as everything in the bible. So most Muslims take the parts of Sharia law that make sense and the parts that are obviously misogynistic, they reinterpret to make sense in the modern day. I actually had a conversation about this. One of my closest friends is a Palestinian Muslim woman and this came up in my very first conversation for this podcast, season one, episode one. My guest was very concerned about Sharia law and people living here and observing Sharia law, not the laws of the United States, but that's not really how it works. The vast majority of modern day Muslims don't interpret it literally, which is what the countries that you're talking about are doing. Iran has a very harsh Draconian literal interpretation of Sharia law. It doesn't need to be interpreted that way. So last thing I wanted to discuss and I know Cindy, you haven't been following this that much, but Diana you have, so maybe you can fill her in is what's going on with the Russian investigation with the indictments that the Justice Department just put out followed immediately by Trump in Helsinki selling out the intelligence community to say that, "He doesn't know what it would be Russia trying to mess with our election." A lot of liberals are really concerned about this. Diana, you responded with an enthusiastic yes when I asked if you guys had been following it. Cindy, you haven't been following it in the last few days. 

 

Cindy:  Yeah, just the last few days. 

 

Samia:  Diana, fill her in a little bit. I want to hear what you think, Cindy, about all of this. 

 

Diana:  Lately, it seems that there has been so much Republican blowback from the meeting in Helsinki and the fact that Trump went by himself with no other... Really, very little preparation, if any, that I started listening to Fox News because I'm like, "How is Fox News spinning this?" because there seems to be a lot of backlash that Trump went and believed Putin over the intelligence committee. I listened to Fox News on that Monday or Tuesday and I heard Anthony Scaramucci saying, "He's got to walk this back. He's got to say that he didn't really mean to say that because the Republicans are turning on him. This could be a turning point." Not two hours after that, Trump came out and said he didn't say "would", he said "wouldn't", whatever. I just wonder how intelligent he thinks that we all are because it sounded a little bit ridiculous. The core issue is that the intelligence community has stated that there was interference and I think that Trump is nervous and feels insecure about his victory and so he doesn't want anything to color the victory that he won and have him to be considered an illegitimate president. So in doing that, he's putting his own personal ideals above what we need for the country. I think Mueller gave those 12 indictments of Russian citizens at the time he did, so that Trump would have something to talk about with Putin. We've actually gone so far as to find facts and indict these people. We've found that they interfered with our elections. So that was a give me to Trump, something that he could talk in those meetings. Instead, he completely ignored those and then actually said, "Well, I believe him." I mean, he said it before that he believes Putin over his intelligence community. Until his base started rattling the cage, I don't think he would have walked that back. Again, that's where I don't believe he understands why we are fearful of Russia. I think he admires Putin and he likes the oligarchies and the oligarchs and he wants to do a lot of business in Russia. So he doesn't see why there's any problem siding with Putin. What are your impressions of the Russian investigation and Trump's relationship with Putin versus the UK or the NATO meetings in Brussels?

 

Cindy:  I have mixed feelings. I guess I should start off with I feel like first of all, the Russians tampering our elections is very serious. My understanding is that they tampered at a propaganda level rather than actually colluding with Trump. I feel like the last year and a half has been we can't get back to running the country because we have this open investigation and we need to get to the end of it really so our financing go on with governing the country. So I don't think there's any doubt that Russia put a full propaganda campaign together. I don't know how I feel about that in terms of Trump's victory. I think we should be condemning Russia. I don't think we should be going and shaking hands behind closed doors. I don't particularly care for his international style. I don't think you come out of Korea and say, "I've solved the problem." Even as someone who tries to give him a break, that just horrified me. You don't come out and congratulate yourself for a single meeting with this country that I consider to be a pretty serious threat to our security. On the NATO thing, I agree with him in terms of countries should be paying their fair share, but his approach is always appalling. So I said I wake up in the morning and I see Twitter and I think, "Oh, my goodness!" That's just who he is. I just wish he would put Twitter aside and try to develop a little more political decorum. 

 

Samia:  Do you think he has the capability to do that?

 

Cindy:  I don't think so. I think he's a performer. It's an extension of his brand. Sometimes it works and we can get things done and other times, it's someone embarrassing. 

 

Samia:  Would you vote for him again in 2020?

 

Cindy:  It's going to depend on who he's running against. So I will not give you a yes. I don't feel that way at all, but it's going to depend on who he's running against. What I'm hoping is that both parties can come up with a definition of who they are because at this point, to me, it's puzzling what the values are of each party. I don't know what the Democratic party represents at this point. 

 

Samia:  Diana, what does the Democratic party represent to you at this point?

 

Diana:  Well, to me, it values human dignity, certainly, healthcare for all. It's the hearts and flowers. We need to all get along and take care of our people and give opportunities to those who don't have opportunities and spend a little bit more domestically than we are on our defense. I think that's... When I was watching Fox News, I was really struck by the focus on the American flag, veterans, patriotism. It's country over everything. That was my perception, country over everything. In NPR, a story about an illegal alien on Fox News, on NPR, they would be talking about the woman who's married to an immigrant, whose kids have diabetes and the father is going to get deported and the kid will die because it doesn't have access to healthcare or something like that. I mean, the Democratic side from my perspective is always around helping people and spending money domestically where we need it rather than worrying about the other and being fearful of the other. 

 

Cindy:  I do believe that we need to have a military and to be able to defend ourselves because I think there are countries out there that are of concern, but there's nothing that you mentioned that isn't a core value to me. As a Republican, I feel like there's a sense of the other thing I'm really concerned about is the deficit. It always feels like nobody's saying, "Well, if we create these programs with the healthcare and education, I agree we need those programs to be available to people and we need to fund them, but the money has to come from somewhere." So the Republican side says, "Well, the liberals are just going to put more money. They're not worried about that part." If we could come up with a balanced way to reduce deficit and take care of people, that would make a lot of sense to me. 

 

Diana:  I couldn't agree with you more. I love balanced budgets, but twice now in my adult time, Republican has cut taxes. To me, that flies in the face of those deficit needs because if you're cutting taxes and reducing taxes on the higher income earners, then you're just putting less money in the kidney. 

 

Cindy:  I agree. The tax cuts are always of concern. 

 

Samia:  You guys, this has been a really wonderful conversation. I am really impressed with both of your willingness to listen to each other. Do you think you're going to have any screaming matches the near future over politics?

 

Cindy:  I don't think so. I think we're both committed. I shouldn't speak for Diana, but I'm certainly committed to taking a breath and asking why before launching. I've also learned that I think we all have to be very careful of where we get our news because if you're only getting it from one place, then there are facts that the other is operating with that you simply don't know. I think that goes both ways. 

 

Diana:  I had a lot of fun and I agree, Cindy. I listen to MSNBC and then NPR. I mean, really, NPR is my primary news source. Just in flipping that switch to listen to Fox News, it's really interesting that their take on things is so different that I live in a little bubble. I like my bubble, but I do recognize that if we're going to solve issues going forward throughout the generations, we have to all ask why before we assume. 

 

Samia:  Cindy and Diana, thank you so much for being on Make America Relate Again. 

 

Diana:  Thank you, Samia. 

 

Cindy:  Thanks to you. It's been wonderful. 

 

MUSIC

 

Samia:  I hear a lot of frustration from my liberal listeners that conservatives just don't want to come to the table to talk and understand where we're coming from. Conservatives say the same thing about liberals. This conversation between Cindy and Diana gave me a lot of hope that we've been greatly underestimating the capacity of all of us to grow together. The book that Diana sent Cindy, the one that changed her perspective on race in America is called Waking Up White and Finding Myself in the Story of Race by Debbie Irving. You can find the link to purchase, as well as the transcript of this episode at makeamericarelatepodcast.com. 

 

To find out more about Better Angels, check out better-angels.org. If you're getting something helpful out of this show, please take a moment to leave us a five-star review on iTunes or whatever podcast app you use and please, please, please keep sharing on social media. All social media shares that take Make America Relate Again on Facebook or Relate Podcast on Twitter will get a shout out on the show. Wooh! All you got to do is tell your friends why they should tune in and I will personally thank you on the show. 

 

Special thanks to BCB Studios in Arkansas for recording Cindy, Douglass Records in Brooklyn for recording Diana, L-Gate Studio in Seoul for recording my intro and outro segments, Dani Valdezan for creating the theme music, and Christopher Gilroy for mixing and editing this episode.

 

This is Make America Relate Again. See you next week.