Chapter 1: What is the significance of the penguin meme in current political discourse?
This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Over the last couple years, didn't we learn that the folding chair was invented by black people because of what happened in Alabama? This Black History Month, the podcast Selective Ignorance with Mandy B unpacks black history and culture with comedy, clarity, and conversations that shake the status quo.
The Crown Act in New York was signed in July of 2019, and that is a bill that was passed to prohibit discrimination based on hairstyles associated with race. To hear this and more, listen to Selective Ignorance with Mandy B from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm Bowen Yang. And I'm Nat Rogers. During this season of the Two Guys, Five Rings podcast, in the lead up to the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games, we've been joined by some of our friends.
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Hey, Elmo.
Hey, Matt. Hey, Bowen.
Hi, Cookie. Hi. Now, the Winter Olympic Games are underway, and we are in Italy to give you experiences from our hearts to your ears. Listen to Two Guys, Five Rings on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
1969, Malcolm and Martin are gone. America is in crisis. At a Morehouse College, the students make their move. These students, including a young Samuel L. Jackson, locked up the members of the Board of Trustees, including Martin Luther King Sr.
It's the true story of protest and rebellion in Black American history that you'll never forget. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba. Listen to The A Building on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Chapter 2: How did the penguin meme become a symbol for right-wing ideology?
The hollowing out of public institutions and social services, the divestment from the milieu of life, leads people to turn towards the suicidal state as the only force of movement. Resting on, as Virilio says, quote, "...the advanced exploitation of our instincts for death, a new totalitarian state defined by the constant ascent of statistics toward planetary death."
Crime and madness will no longer be the defects. The madman and the assassin are the legitimate children engendered and recognized by the suicidal state, unquote. And what phenomenon has risen in the United States the past few years? The conspiracy theorist and the assassin.
The embrace of total war and the campaign of civil fear necessitates a break from sanity and the bizarre strangeness of means that inevitably result in a self-destructive end. Virilio claims there is an insanity at the heart of the fascist project.
The imaginary potential of the fascist state arises, quote, from a finished world where insanity has become the goal of order, the very product of organization, unquote. There's a quote from Goebbels to one of his aides, Prince Frederick Christian. The world in which Hitler moves is a world of absolute fate, a world in which even success makes no sense.
It's not a mistake that the White House has cast itself as a lost penguin marching to its own death. They know the absurdity of their replies. They know the world looks upon them as insane. They know that they'll never reach the Make America Great Again mountain. The self-destruction, ICE, the tariffs, the broken treaties, are not for any greater purpose. The means are the end."
This is total war, the psychological purpose of which is terror, which for the fascist is synonymous with peace. But let's not forget how Hitler and Goebbels finally resolved their contradictions. Welcome to the A Building. I'm Hans Charles. I'm Menelik Lumumba.
It's 1969. Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. have both been assassinated, and Black America is at a breaking point. Writing and protests broke out on an unprecedented scale.
In Atlanta, Georgia, at Martin's alma mater, Morehouse College, the students had their own protest. It featured two prominent figures in Black history, Martin Luther King Sr. and a young student, Samuel L. Jackson.
to be in what we really thought was a revolution. I mean, people were dying. 1968, the murder of Dr. King, which traumatized everyone. The FBI had a role in the murder of a Black Panther leader in Chicago. This story is about protest.
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Chapter 3: What are the implications of ICE's new detention facilities?
But like, just look at the disposal of hazardous waste. And the way that rather than being like, huh, maybe we should stop making waste that will be hazardous for centuries. For the better part of 100 years, we've just been finding somewhere else to put it.
Yeah, just keep dumping it. Even as a child, I was like, what are we supposed to do with all these mountains of garbage? Are we just going to keep on piling it up until we reach the moon?
Yeah, it's like in San Diego, they used to dump it in the bay. There's a whole part of our bay which used to be a landfill site. And I like to free dive. Sometimes I'll just be practicing or diving in the bay or whatever. And you'll dive down and be like... the fuck is a barbecue grill doing on the bottom of the ocean? And people just continue to chuck shit into the bay, right?
Like, even though we have another landfill, what we put it now. No, but you see, James, it's like that barbecue grill was $7 on Timu. You can't pass up that deal, you know? Yeah. And then when it, when it turns out to be absolute crap, it will be on our planet for longer than any of us.
But we've created a system where there's no disincentive to buy a Timu barbecue grill, use it once and then throw it into the bay. And like, we can't see that that's a problem.
Yeah, yeah. Because of how the system is set up, you don't have to think about, wait a second, why is a barbecue grill $7? You know, who is suffering so that this barbecue grill is $7?
Yeah, right. Because we're so detached from that, right? Despite being so connected, we're also so far away from the people who, their misery is a consequence of our consumption or of the system which makes our consumption the way it is. Exactly.
And, you know, instead of thinking about how we can make society resilient, how we can reasonably and ethically and with consideration for seven generations, use the resources that we have and without endless throughput.
All leaders continue to chase growth. They continue to chase progress perpetually, like a cancer.
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Chapter 4: How can local communities effectively oppose ICE detention centers?
And then I'm speaking both from the perspective of what I'm observing in the Trinidadian government and what I'm observing in the American government.
But I see this attitude of arrogance, callousness and corruption. It's like they're not even trying to maintain a veneer of legitimacy or intelligence or anything like that.
Studies go through the motions to provide the things that it claims it's necessary to provide, you know, but they're failing at even that. And they're so cocky about it. Yeah. They're so careless about it too. So they're smiling in your face and lying to you.
Yeah.
You know, people do see what's happening and they respond to it in a couple of different ways.
You know, they, they panic of course, or they fall into conspiracies or they deny that there is an actual problem.
They continue to insist that everything is normal, that everything is fine. If they double down, they hustle harder, they consume more, they carry on as if nothing's wrong. And. There are those who see that something's wrong, but they see everybody else carrying on as if everything is fine. And so they go along as well, you know?
Or there are people, of course, who disengage, who are burnt out, who are numb, who are just drifting or going through the motions. But only a portion... have turned to challenge the concept of normal itself.
Whether it is that they're experimenting with simpler living, developing some program for survival, some strategy, either for themselves, for their household, or for their community, engaging in mutual support. And of course, this is only a portion of the population because many of us like fish and water. You know, we can't really recognize the socioeconomic structure that we are within.
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Chapter 5: What lessons can we learn from childhood experiences with rejection?
Well, I'm gonna wear the right outfit. I'm gonna do this. You go over there, you say something to her. She giggles to all her friends and runs away and says, ew. It's just like, OK, that's the first time you got your little heart broken as a little boy. Right. So fast forward to middle school.
Oh, my God. Will you dance with me? Ew, no. OK, you did it again. By the time these dudes are in the club and it's like, hey, hey, red jeans, red jeans, red jeans. You want to dance? No? Whatever, fuck you. You know what I'm saying?
Chapter 6: How do we effectively communicate with others in social situations?
It's just like, you know, you go through this, but all that to say, hopefully, if you have a healthy sense, you start learning, like, hey, man, you catch more bees with honey, bro. Like, or you know what I'm saying? Like, maybe there's a better way to communicate with people and you just got to understand that, like, I just think you don't know how to talk to people.
Like, you don't know, like, she got the right to be like, no, thank you. And you got to be like, okay, word. You know what I'm saying? You shot your shot. Like, I'm trying to be like, as... bland as possible. Look, you shoot your shot. You don't, you don't make every shot.
Yeah.
Do you know what I'm saying? Like you don't make every shot. You're going to hit one of them. You know what I'm saying? Somebody going to want to dance with you and you're just like, okay, great. You know, it was a good time. You know, Hey, can we, no. Okay, cool. You know what I'm saying? It's just, it is what it is.
To your point, I think either... It's so weird to me to explain because I don't relate to it. I don't relate to somebody who doesn't understand that like, bro, you're a total stranger. I don't care about your opinion, number one.
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Chapter 7: What is the significance of historical parallels in today's political landscape?
And why do you feel like you have... the right to like, what is you doing? Like, it's just, it's embarrassing, bro. Like, like, so anyway, I enjoy it, but I think, I think you brought up something that I would love to hear you talk more about. Like all this to say, like, this is the note I wrote. It's like, I feel like this type of dragging is not only needed, but I think it's holy. Right.
And I think it's a divine sacred work to like truly roast a person. And I think when it comes to you in politics, it's because you know what you're talking about. It makes it even more important. But I guess my question is like, do you think that there is something greater than just this is funny going on there? Oh, yeah, for sure.
I know it seems like it's for the lulls or whatever, or the views of the clicker, your engagement or whatever. But there's very little that I do on my in my content that's not strategic.
Yeah.
And again, it goes back to permission. Like you said, these men don't know me. Yeah, I don't.
care what they think about about me i'm doing great you know um you know you're free to hate me i don't i don't care but i want to again provide a permission structure especially for other women who exist online and who in this moment especially want to start raising their voices yeah to learn how to clap back like you have got to learn if you're going to be out there especially right now in the world yeah as a woman you have got to learn how to tell somebody to fuck off for sure
In a way that they will hear. Because a lot of times men won't hear no. We know that. The president doesn't know what the word no means. But if you can say it artfully and mean it with your whole chest, oftentimes it will work.
So it's almost like providing an example, especially for women who are a little younger than me, because I'm in my 40s now, how to detach themselves from the value assigned to them by random men. Who gives a fuck?
Yeah.
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Chapter 8: How does the current political climate reflect past mistakes in American history?
Even though I do love that that's a part of the thing. like you mentioned before, formerly trained in history, you know, your whiteboard stuff, like you're obviously very well researched.
And I have my cynical answer to this, but like, it's just so bizarre to me how specifically if we're going to use these binaries of like right wing and left wing, like especially like content creation to where I'm just like, okay, we know that that's a grift. We know that's a hustle. We know you're doing that.
But like, but even with that, I'm just like, they just be factually wrong to where I'm just like, I'm not even like, I'm not even worried about your position. I can't even get to your positions yet. I'm just saying, like, you ain't do no homework.
I can't square that circle to me, but like what you do and I know what I do too is because I guess because I guess we care about reality is like, I mean, do a lot of homework. You know what I'm saying? So like, I would love to know a little bit about your process as far as like your homework, your research, maybe what some tools you use before you even put it on.
Like, I mean, there's been times I've had to be like, hey guys, hey, I fucked up. I thought it was, You know what I'm saying? Like I'll come back and fact check myself, but I'll just be like, I don't understand fact check at all. Like, I feel like I don't even, that's why I won't do like Jubilees or any debate. I'll be like, man. Oh, I refuse. No, absolutely not. I'm not doing my homework.
Like, yeah. I'm not doing that.
Yeah.
No, that's my actual nightmare.
Yes, exactly.
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