12/17/21 12/17/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> we just want accountability because we could never have justice because we could never get george fact. amy: former minneapolis police officer derek chauvin has switched his plea to guilty of violating george floyd's civil rights, marking the first time he has publicly admitted to his role in floyd's debt.

we will speak with civil rights lawyer ben crump about why and get an update on the manslaughter trial of former police officer kimberly potter, charged with killing motorist daunte wright in a minneapolis suburb when she says she mistook her gun for a taser. then the trailblazing black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks died wednesday at 69. >> often when i'm asked to talk about how i became bell hooks, renowned writer and intellectual, how i survived the racist, sexist, class elitism outside my home growing up and the dysfunction which sanctions abuse, betrayal, and abandonment within the patriarchal home, i talked about the significance of critical thinking. amy: we will hear bell hooks in her own words and talk about her work i did what she called the imperialist white supremacist

capitalist patriarchy. we will speak with her close friend beverly guy-sheftall, former president of the national women's studies association and professor of women's studies at spelman college. democratic senator raphael warnock calls frothe senate floor for the conservative members of the democratic party to stop obstructing voting rights legislation and support ending theilibuster. >> when colleagues talk to be about bipartisanship, which i believe in, i just have to ask, at whose expense? who been asked to foot the bill for this bartisanship? amy: all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. president biden warned thursday of an imminent surge of covid-19 cases as the omicron coronavirus

variant continued to spread around the world and across the u.s. at an unprecedented pace. pres. biden: for unvaccinated, we're looking at a winter of severe illne and death for unvaccinated. for themselves, their families, and the hospitals that will be overwhelmed. amy: u.s. covid-19 hospitalizations continue to rise, with nearly 1300 people dying of the disease each day. amid the surge, many prominent universities, including nyu, depaul, and princeton have returned to online classes. cornell university canceled most campus activities after 1100 students tested positive for coronavirus in just one week. the national football league and national basketball association have announced new covid-19 protocols after dozens of players tested positive this week. here in new york, mayor bill de blasio has announced plans to

distribute one million high-quality masks and half a million at-home covid-19 tests. the centers for disease control said thursday people should avoid use of johnson & johnson's covid-19 vaccine and should instead opt for vaccines produced by pfizer and moderna. a vaccine advisory panel cited the risk of extremely rare but life-threatening blood clots linked to j&j shots. meanwhile, the american civil liberties union warns immigration and customs enforcement is denying covid booster shots to some 21,000 prisoners being held in ice jails around the u.s. an aclu attorney said -- "this is yet another example of ice's cavalier approach to the health and safety of people in detention, in violation of their constitutional rights, and underscores the inherent danger of detention in the first place." the food and drug administration has permanently removed the in-person restriction on accessing abortion pills,

allowing patients to receive the medication by mail after a telehealth consultation. previously, pregnant people had to go to an on-site provider to take the prescription drug, though that requirement was lifted during the pandemic. the medication mifepristone was approved by the fda in 2000 and has become an increasingly popular method of abortion. it is used in conjunction with the drug misoprostol. reproductive rights advocates hailed the fda decision at a time when the fate of roe wade -- roe v. wade hangs in the balance with a conservative-majority supreme court. a federal judge has thrown out a roughly $4.5 billion settlement with purdue pharma that shielded the sackler family from future lawsuits. judge colleen mcmahon of the southern district of new york ruled the bankruptcy court does not have the authority to grant the sacklers such legal protection. the sacklers have refused to acknowledge any personal responsibility in the deadly opioid crisis. in chile, the widow of former

u.s.-backed dictator augusto pinochet has died at the age of 99. lucía hiriart married general pinochet in 1943 and stood by him as he toppled the democratically-elected president salvador allende in a bloody 1973 coup supported by the nixon administration. during pinochet's 17-year r eign, more than 3000 chileans were murdered and disappeared. tens of thousands more were tortured. her death was announced just days before sunday's presidential election pitting far-right candidate josé antonio kast against leftist gabriel boric, a former student leader. in santiago, large crowds gathered to celebrate news of hiriart's passing. >> i feel joy but also anger because she died without paying for her crime. there is hope. we can return to having a country we cannot love that was taken from us 30 years ago.

amy: super typhoon rai struck the southeastern philippines thursday with winds topping 160 miles per hour. at least seven deaths have been reported. nearly 100,000 people evuated ahead ofandfall. the typhoon is the third category 5 storm to make landfall in the philippines in the past two years. in kentucky, workers who survived the tornado that flattened a candle factory in the city of mayfield last week have sued their employer, charging mayfield consumer products with flagrant indifference that led to the deaths of eight people. the lawsuit alleges managers had up to 3.5 hours to evacuate the factory amid reports of approachinsevere weather but instead chose to threaten workers with termination if they left their shifts early. a union representing 1400 kellogg's workers has reached a tentative agreement with the cereal giant on a new five-year contract. if approved by workers during a weekend vote, the deal will end a more-than two-month strike at

four kellogg's plants. a previous tentative agreement that would have brought 3% raises was rejected by an overwhelming majority of workers. in massachusetts, workers at two boston-area starbucks stores have announced a unionization effort. their campaign comes after workers at a buffalo starbucks location voted last week to join the workers united union. in los angeles county, workers at a cake factory that produces desserts for chain stores including walmart and baskin robbins are on day 45 of a strike demanding better working conditions. the mostly latinx immigrant workers say they're forced to work up to 14 hours a day, have to produce more than a dozen cakes per minute, and are granted only three sick days a year. the senate parliamentarian has rejected democrats' third bid to include immigration reform in the build back better bill. the proposal included granting work permits and deportation protections to millions of people. the news prompted a swift rebuke from immigrant justice advocates and democratic lawmakers. new york congressmember jamaal

bowman tweeted -- "the parliamentarian is not an elected official. their guidance is advisory not law. the republicans have fired the parliamentarian to pass their tax cuts for the wealthy. democrats must overrule the parliamentarian to pass immigration reform." axios is reporting the biden administration has stopped holding undocumented families in detention centers, relying instead on electronic ankle devices and other tracking methods. the administration has not nounced an official policy ending the harmful practice and facilities are still holding adults in often inhumane conditions. immigrant rights advocates have also condemned the intense surveillance of migrants and likened monitoring devices to shackles. in related news, the justice department has pulled out of talks to compensate migrant families who were separated at the border under trump's zero tolerance policy. over 5000 children, including babies, were ripped from their families, which biden has called

amoral and national shame. but last month, biden rejected reports his administration could offer up to $450,000 per family, saying, "that's not going to happen." haitian officials announced thursday the remaining 12 north american missionaries who were kidnapped in october have been released. five others had previously been freed. the gang 400 mawozo had initially demanded a ransom of $1 million for each of the 17 hostages. it has not been confirmed whether any money was exchanged for the release though one source said a smaller amount was paid to the gang, but not by the u.s. government. jean montrevil, the immigrant activist and former u.s. permanent resident who was abruptly deported to haiti in 2018, has been given three years of deferred action that will allow him to remain in the united states to pursue a path to permanent status. is comess a resu of a ttlementn his fit endment wsuit agnst the s. goverent. he arguefederaimmigrion ficials rget him foris actism, incling his iticisof the tmp admistratio's pocies

tords hait we'll speakith jeanontrevil d his wyer on nday to nd out more. you can see more than a decade of our interviews with jean at democracy now.org in buenos aires, argentina, a representative of burma's rohingya muslim minority testified in federal court thursday as a trial got underway against senior burmese military officials, charging them with crimes against humanity. the case was brought under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows for serious international crimes to prosecuted even if they were committed in another nation. first to testify was activist maung tun khin, one of an estimated 730,000 rohingya muslims who fled burma after a military-led crackdown in 2017. >> i want my brothers and sisters, brutally killed and murdered by burmese military and thousands of our sisters were raped by burmese military. i am a victim. i am a sex survivor. we want to get justice, so we

are seeking justice under universal jurisdiction case. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we begin today's show in minnesota, where former police officer derek chauvin pleaded guilty wednesday to a federal charge of violating george floyd's civil rights. chauvin had previously pleaded not guilty but changed his plea after he was found guilty of floyd's murder in a closely watched trial. this was the first time chauvin publicly admitted to his role in floyd's death. george floyd's family held a news conference following chauvin's hearing. this is one of george floyd's brothers, philonise floyd, speaking outside the federal court in st. paul, minnesota. >> we just want accountability because we could never have justice because we could never get george back. we could never heal, but we can be a big family that we always

have been. we have always been together. the same thing we did with george, we still do it. just like me when i want to feel like i'm closer to george, i always eat a banana, and a sandwich because that is something we did together. watching sports and different things and praying. i think about george all the time. amy: as part of derek chauvin's plea deal, he will also plead guilty to violating the civil rights of a black 14-year-old during a 2017 arrest. chauvin grabbed the teen by the throat, hit him repeatedly in the head with a flashlight, and pressed his knee into the boy's neck while he was prone, handcuffed, and not resisting. the teen, who has not been identified, was present in the courtroom wednesday. according to the pool reporter inside court, philonise floyd turned to the teen after chauvin's hearing and said, "it's a good day for justice." this is george floyd's nephew, brandon williams, speaking at the floyd family press conference wednesday.

>> we were in court with a minor who also played guilty to charges of assaulting him. after hearing the details of it, that guy is a monster. he should have been arrested in 2017. had he been held accountable for what he did in 2017 that minor, george floyd will still be here. he knew what he was doing. he had nine minutes and 29 seconds to understand what he was doing. he chose not to. amy: derek chauvin is currently serving a 22.5-year prison sentence after being convicted on all three counts, including unintentional second-degree murder for murdering george floyd by kneeling on his neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds in may 2020. chauvin was the first white police officer in minnesota to ever be convicted of killing a black man. well, for more, we're joined in orlando, florida, by civil rights attorney ben crump. he's part of george floyd's

family's legal team. welcome back to democracy now! can you start off by talking about the significance of chauvin changing his plea to guilty and what this means for him? >> it is very significant. in fact, everything about the tragic killing of george floyd in the aftermath as we pursue equal justice in america is historic. the fact that you have a white police officer not only being convicted on the state level for killing a black man in america, but now you have that officer being convicted based on his plea of guilty on the feral lel. it is very landmark as we think about the history of police excessive force on blk people in america.

whether they are held accountable at all, but to be held accountable on both levels, on state level and federal level, we believe says a very clear message that the deliberate indifference into the denial of constitutional rights, marginalize people of color won't be tolerated. it is very important that in george floyd's case, this tragedy that was seen by millions upon millions of people all around the world, that the message for our children, for our young people, is that this is unacceptable. amy: can you talk about the 17-year-old and -- can you talk about the 17-year-old and how significant it is that if derek

chauvin have been brought up on charges in 2017, that as his nephew pointed out, george floyd would be alive today? what happened to the teenager? >> well, absolutely. this teenager, this 17-year-old black teenager was realized very similar to george floyd. this whole notion of putting a knee on the back of a person, on the neck of a person who is not resisting, it is something that we believe the minneapolis police department, especially union leaders, had condemned. this idea of killogoy, is the term they used, used to brutalize people. in fact, to take control of a person even if that meant killing them for a justifiable

reason. it was a culture. it was a mentality. had they dealt with this with the 17-year-old unidentified black teenager in 2017, as brandon williams, george floyd's nephew said, this police officer without morals or ethics would have never could have knelt on george floyd's neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds because he already would have been held accountable for doing a similar act to a 17-year-old kid. maybe that is why he was so cool and collected while he sat there with his knee on george floyd's neck with his hand in his pocket because he knew, based on what happened in 2017, nothing was

going to happen. and so he had no care about george floyd's please sing "i can't breathe" 28 times. amy: what about the other three officers? when are they being tried? >> it is scheduled in late january for their trial to commence. we believe the plea of derek chauvin and the detail, the great detail that he admitted to in his plea is going to help make sure there is accountability for those three officers' role and killing george floyd. amy: i want to ask you about the minnesota manslaughter trial of former brooklyn center police officer kimberly potter. local media reports potter is expected to take the stand in

her own defense today, on the eighth day of testimonies. the white woman is charged with first-degree and second-degree manslaughter in the killing of 20-year-old black motorist daunte wright during a minor traffic stop in april. bodycam video showed potter pointing her 9-millimeter pistol at wright, repeatedly shouting "taser!" before firing a single bullet into wright's chest. potter claims she drew the pistol by mistake. she said 26-year-old police veteran who is training other officers when she shot wright. just before daunte was killed, he called his mother to say he was being pulled over -- allegedly because an air freshener was obscuring his rearview mirror. for an expired registration tag. katie bryant testified in kim potter's trial last week. she was the prosecution's first witness. >> he was really nervous.

i reassured him it would be ok. amy: the call ended. katie bryant later made a video call. a woman, likely daunte wright's partner alayna albrecht-payton, who was in the car at the time of his killing, answered the phone. >> she said that they shot him and she based the phone toward the driver's seat and my son was laying there. he was unresponsive and he looked dead. and because it ended up handcuffing daunte wright's partner. the prosecution rested its case thursday. one of its witnesses, sam mcginnis, testified that potter failed to test her taser as rick are -- as required. elated out the difference

between a glock pistol and a taser. >> the taser is yellow, and a firearm is black. the taser as a stocky body compared to the glock handgun. the grip of the taser is shorter. it is why -- whiter than the block. an income he said the use of deadly force was done appropriate. suggest a reasonable officer in her position could not have believed it was proportional to the threat at the time. he also testify for the prosecution at chauvin's trial. ben crump, your response to kim potter straw so far? what do you expect the outcome to be? >> we expect there will be accountability for another unjustified death of young black

man. we think about this excuse that it was an innocent mistake, it was not innocent at all for her and the police officers to get again have a pretextual stop of a minority in minneapolis. we know these stops, whether you say it is an air freshener obscuring the dver, whether you say it is an expired registration during the pandemic where they have been given memos that they should not be stopping motorists for expired license plates because they were closed, which leads to him engaging in the most use of force. she should be found guilty for two reasons. because there were violations of policy irrespective of her plea that he was an innocent mistake.

number one. you should never should have violated your policy and used a taser for a traffic stop, and they tried to offer this justification that she feared for her life in that situation. but when we look at the video, we must remember never was anybody in a life-and-death situation based on what we can see with our es. and everything that daunte wright was accused of was a misdemeanor. so black people should not be killed in america over a misdemeanor pretextual traffic stop. secondly, which you deploy the taser, she and at his chest. that again was a violation of the policies of the police department. she should be convicted on manslaughter because she was reckless, she was flagrant, and

she was reckless in following the policy that she had been trained on for 26 years. she was the training officer teaching rookie cops on how to interact with citizens and there cannot be a different standard when they interact with white citizens versus black citizens. we just had the guilty verdict in the plea in derek chauvin's case, and i expect we should get a guilty verdict in kim potter's case. but i will say this, these are great victories in the interest of justice, but what cost? george floyd and daunte wright should be living today, enjoying

the holidays with their families. these young black fathers have been taken from their children unjustly and unconstitutionally and unnecessarily. amy: i just want to clarify come as you said, kim potter is a 26 year veteran, not 26-year-old police veteran. she was training two other officers on the scene. it so much reminds me of the philando castile case because you have a man -- remember, in this case, when we talk about air freshener hanging, it is this little christmas tree-like air freshener, the kind of thing that we are talking about that so many people have. but philando castile who was shot, his girlfriend films him dying and she ultimately is arrested just as the partner of daunte wright is arrested. they spend more time arresting her than helping him. >> yeah. and that is a tragic

circumstance that ems to be black lives don't matter in the moments when they're trying to justifkilling another black person. and you just see them start to conspire to try to cover up something they know is wrong. we have to continue to shine a light on this because it is happening f too often, even in the aftermath of george floyd we continue to see these unjust killings all over america of unarmed lack people. amy: ben crump, i want to ask about the case of javier ambler. the 40-year-old black man died after being repeatedly tasered by police during a traffic stop. police bodycam footage released last year showed and telling officers, "i have congestive

heart failure" and "i can't breathe," as they continued to tase him. a warning to our audience, the following footage contains graphic police violence. amy: yo, "i am not resisting." the reality tv show "live pd" caught the killing on camera but later destroyed the footage. "live pd," as well as the similar show "cops," went on to get canceled following public outrage over their glorification of police brutality.

details about javier ambler's death only come to light after the austin american-statesman successfully forced the release of the police body cam footage and internal reports about the killing. if you can comment on this case, who has been arrested, who has been charged? >> at this time, the only announcement is that a civil settlement has been reached with the family of javier ambler. the criminal justice system in america as we know continues to move slowly in our demands for justice. the question that the family has, as citizens, is why don't police believe black men when they say "i can't breathe"? why is it always met with further torture? and so we pray that the

settlement in the passage of important legislation in the aftermath of the death of javier ambler will be to preventing future deaths of unarmed people who are needlessly and unjustifiably again, stopped for pretextual traffic stops. amy: the george floyd justice in policing act. one of the federal legislation ask that has not been passed, like the voting rights act, like the build back better act. but the significance of this in the main sticking point is the whole issue of police liability. >> yeah. i think we have to have some action, whether it is an executive order or the senate finally passing the george floyd justice in policing act.

the people who went out to vote for breonna taylor, for ahmaud arbery, for javier ambler, the people who had them on their mind and in their hearts when they wentn a global pandemic, risking their life to deliver the united states senate and the presidency to the democrats, expect there to be action before we deliver another miracle and helping the democrats in the midterm election maintain power. it is very important that we have to see you're doing everything in your power to get this passed, whether that is executive order for the passage of the bill by the senate,

because our children are dying. it is a state of emergency. we must see action. if not, don't expect action from us to come to the polls. it is a life-and-death situation when our children leave the house every day, and we need you to feel our pain. we need you to act. amy: ben crump, thank you for being with us, summer rights attorney, part of george floyd's family's legal team. the daunte wright legal team. the javier ambler legal team. next up, we remember the trailblazing black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks who died this week at the age of 69. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. the trailblazing black feminist scholar and activist bell hooks died wednesday at 69. she was a prolific author who wrote about how a person's race, gender, and social class are interconnected, and often referred to "the imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy." born gloria jean watkins, bell hooks wrote more than 40 books, including the 1981 book "ain't i a woman? black women and feminism," which took its title from a speech by the abolitionist sojourner truth. bell hooks was a longtime educator and most recently a distinguished professor at berea college in her home state of kentucky, which created the bell hooks institute as a center for her writing and teaching. bell hooks died at her home in kentucky surrounded by her family and friends. her family says her cause of death was end-stage renal failure. we'll talk more about her life and legacy with her close friend

of more than 40 years, beverly guy-sheftall, former president of the national women's studies association and professor of women's studies at spelman college. but first, let's hear bell in her own words, speaking in 2006 at the university of oregon when she gave the keynote address at the women of color conference >> committed to the struggle to end domination in all its forms since my teenage years, in midlife i find myself constantly seeking to understand why we have heightened awareness about the suffering caused by exploitation and oppression, both in our nation and the world. yet this awareness has not inspired us all to move toward the collective action needed. to bring peace, love, and healing. in my 20's and early 30's, i was most obsessed with finding words to explain systems of domination

, to critique and find a voice to express militant resistance. my voice was at times shrill and piercing, full of the pain, feelings of powerlessness in gender, coupled with the chokehold dominator culture had on my consciousness. in those days, that voice was often interpreted by the status quo as angry, and more often than not, to angry to be worthy of being listened to or heard. allies in struggle, liberal and progressive's were often eager and still are to portray people of color coming to voice as always and only angry. per radical white folks who had not fully unlearned the racialized sexism, their projected image of an angry black woman letting it all hang out was often superimposed over the reality of voices that were simply boldly speaking truth to

power. alan herrmann who teachers here in history department was the editor of my very first book "ain't i a woman? black women and feminism." i remember the day she called me and said, we really want to publish your book but we feel it is so angry. and i said, well, ellen, i cannot accept that. it was not anger i was feeling when i wrote this book. it was the keenness of insight. it was the clarity of truth telling. it was the power of breaking out of the bondage of oppression and exploitation. we have to think about why the people of color find our voice. wife people so often can only hear that voice as an angry voice. amy: the acclaimed feminist scholar and activist bell hooks speaking in 2006 at the university of oregon when she

gave the keynote address at the women of color conference and read from some of her recent writing. bell hooks died wednesday. she was the author of more than 40 books, ranging from essays and poetry to children's books such "skin again." in 2000, she published the book "all about love: new visions" and wrote -- "it is essential to our struggle for self-determination that we speak of love. for love is the necessary foundation enabling us to survive the wars, the hardships, the sickness, and the dying with our spirits intact. it is love that allows us to survive whole." for more, we are joined by her dear friend beverly guy-sheftall . she is the former president of the national women's studies association and professor of women's studies at spelman college. first of all, professor, our condolences on the loss of your close friend bell hooks. >> thank you very much, amy.

i am really happy to be here and i love that particular speech that you all quoted from. amy: talk about your friend, the icon, the african feminist, african-american feminist trailblazer bell hooks. first, her name. talk about how she kept it in lowercase and why she chose to take that name bell hooks. >> so bell hooks chose the name of her great-grandmother bell hooks because she learned from family and other members of the small rural community in kentucky that her great-grandmother was fierce and always talking back. so rather than attach her name

to her books, she wanted to create some distance between me, the author, and the words. and the choice bell hooks, her great grandmother which you put in lowercase letters, said to us that it is not me, gloria watkins, who is the most important, it is what these words are and the modeof my great-grandmother bell hooks, who stays in my consciousness. the small letters also captured i think bell hooks' always transgressive oppositional self. i'm not even going to use capital letters or my name, i am going to use my transgressive great-grandmother's name. amy: can you talk about bell hooks' life in the message she

felt, which was so important to understand? >> the first thing i would say about bell hooks is she was always the teacher. we know she was a professor in many community places. oberlin college where she spent her last 20 years of teaching as a professor. she had a phd in english where she wrote a dissertation on toni morrison. but fundamentally, she was a teacher. i teacher, i meant she believed that her audience was broader than the academy were broader than higher education. she wanted to reach the largest number of people, regular people, young boys, children, that she could. she wanted to have the broadest impact on the broadest amount of people. so when i think i bell hooks, i think about her primarily as a teacher. she was very much impacted by teachers.

she was very much impacted, for example, by the buddhist person -- i think she found herself in some ways as a person who would sit with young people and community people and students and help them understand this world in which we live which is full of all kind of domination. i see her as a teacher. she was hard-hitting. sometimes she was merciless in her critiques. she was unrelenting. she was courageous. she was in your face. but she was also gentle. i was just listening to that soft voice, gentle spirit, passionate and always, always trying to tell the truth. amy: i got a chance to interview

her and asked her to remember paulo freire. the great educator who wrote the pedagogy of the oppressed, where she alslaid out her philosophy of education. this is bell hooks. >> in our culture, so often people teach believes, values, ideas that have no relationship to how they live their lives. each of the many times i saw paulo, i saw him exemplify again and again unity between theory and praxis. that has inspired me both as an intellectual and as a teacher to want to have that kind of unity, to believe and know it is not a dream or a fantasy but that can teach by being in the world as much as you can buy the books

you right. amy: i want to turn to and from -- excerpt from her 19 on a nice beach at the los angeles public library. here she talks about her conception of love and her book. >> when i go and i talk a little bit about the question of love, people will start saying to me, oh, i hope you're not going to lose that critical edge, that during -- you know, angry voice that we had in all the other writings. and i say to them, that is exactly what i think about the question of love that you talk about love and to talk about the big question of why choose love and why our nation has to choose love again as one of the ethical values driving our daily lives is in fact to be doing that which is courageous and daring and enormously difficult to do,

precisely because of that profound trivialization of our love in our culture. we might do well to not just problemitize gender and race but also talk about what brings us together. what kinds of yearnings do we share across all of those things? it seems to me the desire to live and be loved is one of those yearnings people share irrespective of class, race, sexual preference practice, and it might be interesting for us to theorize in terms of our struggles to end all forms of domination from that place of love. amy: said that is bell hooks talking about her book "yearning: race, gender, and cultural politics." if you can talk about that and also her talking about white capitalist, white supremacist

capitalist patriarchy, professor? >> it might be a good to remind all of us that to have black people love themselves, that is a great act in the u.s. context. it is not just black women. she wanted little black boys to love themselves. she wanted little black girls with so-called nappy hair to love themselves, which is why she wrote the book. we might think about love as innocuous, trivial, in political project, but she knew loving ourselves, all people, but particularly people of color and black people, to let ourselves is a radical, political act. that is one of the famous books

come all about love. i think we understood that. that if you don't love yourself, if you don't engage in self-love, you cannot possibly change the world. that was an extremely important intervention in terms of her writing. her constant naming imperial, white supremacist patriarchy, which can also be framed if we borrow, crenshaw's term intersectionality, bell wanted us to hear imperial weiser from assist patriarchy -- she wanted to know what that was. it is essentially the concept of intersectionality which goes back to the 19th century black women such as mariah stewart and ida b wells.

so she never stopped saying it. imperial weiser from assist hetero picker -- white supremacist patriarchy. she wanted us to hear it over and over again so we could eradicate it. amy: as you talk about children loving themselves, particularly like children, she wrote that acclaimed children's book "skin again," which is beautifully illustrated by chris raschka. the book reads in part -- "the skin i'm in is just a covering. it cannot tell my story. if you want to know who i am, you have got to come inside and open your heart way wide." >> yes. her favorite children's book, she talks about it a lot you talked about the fact that publishers are sort of reluctant . a little black boy protagonist.

she insisted the same as you described earlier, insisting to those publishers of that very first book that she was not angry, she was committed. anshe always insisted, lived the life she wanted to live, lived it on her own terms. and that was her book publishers, her employers, her family, her partners, and her friends. amy: beverly guy-sheftall, thank you so much for remembering bell hooks. it is hard to say remembering. she died just this week at the age of 69. professor beverly guy-sheftall, professor of women's studies association and professor of women's studies at spelman college. next up, we are from democratic senator raphael warnock. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: "black is the color of my true love's hair," one of bell hooks's favorites. this is democracy now! i'm amy goodman. we endith democratic senator raphael warnock's powerful speech from the floor of the senate tuesday as he called on the conservative members of his party to end stop obstructing voting rights legislation. he did not name senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema, who have both come out against doing away with the filibuster in

order to allow democrats to pass the freedom to vote act and the john lewis voting rights advancement act. close conniving message that we are getting in the way of the free exercise of the constitutional right to vote, rallying cry that day in 1957 was "give us the ballot." madam president, in light of the conniving methods of voter suppression we have seen enacted into law since the january 6 attack on the capitol, i come to the floor today to share with the people of georgia and the american people the message that i shared with my colleagues over the weekend and earlier today during our caucus meeting. i said to my democratic collgues ovethe last seval

days, number one, unfortunately, the st majority of our republican friends have made it clear that they have no intention of trying to work with us to address voter suppression or to protect voting rights. they have embodied by their actis the sentents of conservative strategist paul wyrick, who dared say in 1981, "i don't want everybody to vote." that's what he said. elections are not won by a majority of people. they never have been frothe begiinof our coury, and they areot now. as a matter of fact, he went on toay, our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populous goes down.

second thing i said to my democratic colleagues today is that while we caot let our republic friends o the hook for not being equitable governing rtners -- if we are serious about protecting the right to vote that's under assault right now, here's the truth. it will fall to democrats to do it. if democrats alone must raise the debt ceiling, then democrats ale must raise and repair the ceiling of our democracy. hodo win good conscience justify doing one and not the other? some of my democratic colleagues are saying, what about bipartisanship? isn't that important? i say, of course it is. but here's t thing wmust rememb.

slavery was bipartisan. jim cr segregation was bipartisan. the refusal of women suffrage was bipaisan. the nial othe basic gnity of members of the lgbtq community has long been bipartisan. the three-fifths compromise was the creation of a punitive national unity at the expense of black people's basic humanity. so when colleagues in this chamber talk to me about partisansp, which ielieve in, i just have to ask, awhose expense? who is being asked to foot the bill for this bipartisanship? and is liberty itself the cost? i submit that that's a price too high and a bridge too far. and so i struggled this weekend.

i talked to folk i believe in. among them, i spoke with reverend ambassador andrew young. who was with dr. king until the very end, about this vote. i talked to ambassador young, and i asked him, what do you think? and he said, i try not to worry, but i'm worried about our country. and then this 89-year-old battle-worn soldier in the nonviolent army of the lord drew silent on the phone. then he said to me, tell your colleagues that among your constituents are people who literally laid their lives on the line for the basic right to vote. they lost iends. they lost so much. and so this is a real moral

quandary for me, and it makes it difficult for me to cast this vote today. but after many conversations with colleagues, with georgians, with experts who know the ecomy, witvoting rghts advocates and civil rights leaders, i will inde vote today with anguish. i will vote to raise theebt ceiling. i'm voting "s" because i'm thinng about the kids in the housing project where i grew up in savannah, georgia. i'm thinking about the hardworking families pushing to recover from the pressures of this pandemic, those on the margins in those who are least resilient for whom a collapse of the economy would be catastrophic. ironically, many of these are the me people who are also been targeted by the voter suppression efforts i mentied eaier. i'm thinkingf them anthe people of gegia as i cast my

vote today to raise the debt ceiling. but i'm also thinkinabout what we need to do to keep our democracy d our economy strong today and for the next generation. on we handle the debt ceiling, the senate needs to make voting rights theery next issue we take up. we must voting rits and we must deal with this ise now. so let me be clear. i'm so proud of what we did with the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the major economic investments we're putting finishing touches on that will close the medicaid coverage gap andeliver hioric relf to georgia farmers d expand broadband access and so much more. amy: that is democratic georgia senator raphael warnock's

excerpt of powerful speech from the floor of the senate tuesday as he called on conservative numbers of his own party to stop obstructing voting rights legislation. rev. warnock is also pastor of ebenezer baptist church in atlanta, which was the spiritual home of dr. martin 13 and is father. that does it for our show. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. e-mail your comments to outreach@democracynow.org or mail them to democracy now! p.o. box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now!]

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