Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 47 | Should the Black Voting Block Break Up? [PART 2]
Transcript
- Charles Cole: Welcome to Color Commentary, a podcast where the story is shaping our world are told in black and white first, and then we dig into their deeper meaning and full color. Each week I'll be bringing you the news like this. First, we'll start with what I like to call the black and white section, a clear, straight shooting rundown of the facts and the tradition of grace like Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite, and the classic voices of journalism. Then we'll shift into the color commentary section where I add my own personal opinions and insights. Sometimes it'll just be me, sometimes I'll have guests. ⁓ and listen, let me get this out the way. I'm a scholar, I'm a hip-hop junkie, I'm a movie and culture nerd and an avid book reader. So in these shows, you're gonna get glimpses of all that. ⁓ I'm gonna bring my full stuff. I want you to as well, and I appreciate y'all rocking with me. So with no further ado, let's get into it. Okay, let me let me yell this out. Segment two. So if you watched last week's episode, it was supposed to be multiple segments and Due to technical difficulties, you see I'm on my different camera. I have a really nice camera. It's just been overheating and I it overheats it's overheated in the middle of the episode and you know, I'm about to switch out, you know, my adapter and some wires and stuff like that. So we'll see if that makes a change or if I need to go invest in a new ⁓ camera. I don't want to because the Sony Alpha series is nice and it was expensive. ⁓ but we'll work it out. Let me get the big announcement out the way. ⁓ Some of you might be watching me on EdPost. ⁓ you might be watching me on my brother Chris's network and station. And we had talked about this for a while. About what does it mean to bring back the 8BH brand? And A Black Hands, the ABH brand is more than just A Black Hands, which we've done a reunion show and we have another show slated for Philadelphia, two shows slated for Philadelphia. Still deciding what that's gonna. look like and if what that full return can be. But we'd always talked about, you know, finding more ways to work. And I've always found an an audience on his site. And so, you know, I don't know if I'll keep putting ⁓ up on my page as well. I think we'll do it as a collaborative. And then my page will be where, you know, a lot of the shorts live. I think my page does a lot better with shorts, but I can put up the same show on my page and it gets seen X amount of times and then Go over the Ed Post exp is exponentially more. And, you know, a lot of those people over there are are fans from the the A Black Hands days. So ⁓ so welcome to the Ed Post community. Yay. ⁓ I I I'm really, really happy to be here. so that's the big announcement. The second segment, so we covered lanterns, which there was another incredible episode, by the way, since the last taping, and now I'm really Really digging and loving that show. ⁓ it's just an incredible show. It's an incredible show. And thank you all for rocking with me. The second thing that I was gonna talk about in my segment too was should the block break up? And in that, I am talking about ⁓ us as a Democratic voting block and l just some some background, right? Like, I have been a lifelong Democrat. I'm still technically I'm still a Democrat. I've never voted Republican. I've I've I've been vice chair of the young black Dems in California. ⁓ and I helped found, you know, young black Dems in Oakland and the Young Black Dems in San Francisco. I've been very active in it. And you know, I want to frame this as we are now in our black and white segment. I just wanted to set that framing up first because this is something that I think about just from a strategy standpoint. ⁓ and it's less about whether it's Republican or Democrat. I'm I'm not there's no chance that I'm gonna become a Republican. ⁓ but We're gonna expl ⁓ we're gonna we're gonna explore some nuances of things. And let me make the case. And then you all tell you what you think. All right. I I I deal with intelligent people. All of you are intelligent people. So this is the conversation. ⁓ a little late, but here's segment two ⁓ from from the last from the last one. I'm just gonna call this segment two. All right, so listen. For more than six decades, okay, more than sixty years. Black voters have functioned as one of the most unified voting blocks in American politics, ⁓ aligning overwhelmingly with the Democratic Party. And that pattern took shape during the political realignment of the mid-20th century. Okay. Should look that up. It's actually a pretty interesting story. I was a poli sci major though, so I'm a little nerdy about this stuff. So it's okay if it kind of bores you. Did not with me, it was riveting. But that alignment is now the subject of an active debate. where one camp is arguing that black voters should keep the block intact ⁓ because concentrated, disciplined voting, it maximizes electoral power and can act as a kingmaker in close primaries and in swing states. ⁓ and supporters of that position point to what the coalition has secured, right? Which is a party platform that prioritizes, you know, federal civil rights enforcement and voting access, investment in the social safety nets. Such as public education, Medicaid, and SNAP, ⁓ which I benefited from greatly. I grew up on welfare. ⁓ I use federal dollars to go to school. ⁓ you know, I I've been on public assistance, right? Public health assistance. So that part is still kind of current for a lot of people. And it also provides this senior congressional leadership, ⁓ which, you know, they the it gets earned through seniority and loyalty, right? That's what one camp argues. A second camp argues that black voters should diversify their political capital across both parties. ⁓ trading guaranteed block support for transactional leverage that forces both sides to compete for the vote. analysts note that the alignment is neither permanent nor monolithic. It was built through a historical realignment and generational ideological differences within black communities continue to shape the debate. All that simply means is that As black people grow and expand, yeah, we're still 13% of the country, but the country's population has also grown over time, right? Like, so there are more black people, and the realities of those black people are more diverse than what they may have been 80 years ago. Okay? There's always been rich rich black people, right? ⁓ there's always been poor black people, but now it is is distributed differently, and people have different realities. And so The timing of the stuff matters with the 2026 midterms are approaching, and a number of high-profile black candidates are running across key states, which sharpens the questions of where black political power actually does the most work. Okay, so that's the background. That is the premise, right? These two camps. And here's the thing: I don't know if I agree with either camp fully and wholeheartedly in that, right? So that's the news. Now let's talk about it. You are now listening to color commentary. For the new people over on Ed Post, welcome. This is where it goes back from black and white to color. I I like doing that. I feel powerful doing that. Okay? Don't judge me. So There is a generational split where younger voters and this two party system and and and like where the conversation of is diversify like diversifying, is that a strategy or is that a a fantasy that's gonna give away the only leverage that we have? And here's what some of that leverage looks like, right? Like we we covered it in the black and white section, but politics is transactional, people. It's transactional. And there's a difference between being courted and being delivered for. People, these politicians, tend to play in our faces, as a lot of the people like to say now, because they know where the vote's gonna go, especially on a national level. Local level is different where rate where where party kind of matters a little less, right? But nationally. We could get placated a lot. And whereas other groups might get legislation and get talked directly to. And again, people are gonna nitpick and say this, but I this is this is what I feel. We get low-hanging fruit recognition, meaning we'll get a parade, we'll get a party, they'll give me ⁓ a rapper or an RB singer that comes to talk to you know, that that talks to us, right? Or That that that's who will prop up as our political leaders. And again, this is no shade or hate to those people, right? Like again, I said this on my brother Torrin show, the intelligence report, you should check that out. Torrin Walker, you know, like, but they'll put like, you know, Cardi B in your face as the political presence on that. And I love Cardi B. I think she's really dope at what she's d she does. Beautiful, talented, she's smart. I have and I have no issue with her having her beliefs. What I'm saying is I'm I'm capable of building my own beliefs. I'd rather I want there to be more substantive conversations ⁓ to us ⁓ where intelligence can prevail or where when you are dealing in that a d in depth conversation, what we're able to do is ask questions back. What we're able to do is like push for the things that we want. So again, it's no issue with Cardi B. ⁓ But they do ten at times you can feel You you can just feel talked at. You know what I'm saying? Like no no vucking, no vote. ⁓ that's offensive. That's offensive, right? Like, you that's not how you talk to blocks that you take seriously. And you know, I think that that piece is like That's where we gotta kinda move to. And I don't think that the move is for black to go Republican either. And there are a ton of black Republicans now. Like it's growing. I think this is some of the most growth that they've had. And it's not just men, ⁓ it's not just black men, it is both black men and women ⁓ that have been peeled off and moving there. I think b it's been more black men, but it isn't both. They have gotten more black men and more black women over time. When I'm talking about the block, I'm talking about something that's more independent in nature. I'm talking about basically a black political block. And and there might be different factions of these blocks. And what I'm saying is that that block has to be focused on like three things, three, maybe three to four. You know, you gotta start out to that place of like what is it the what are these things that we actually want? You know, and and and making sure that we're getting those things because again, I just don't know If we're we're maximizing This block that we have. With I I can say that about the people that we choose. I can say that about the conversations that we're having. politics have we have to we have to play as adults in this space. And that means that we have to like actually go in and and ask for things and log roll and negotiate ⁓ to to make sure that it it it turns into what we need is a community. And here's the thing, what is it that we need as a community? Everybody doesn't agree on these things anymore. They they just don't. And you might be sitting at home or in your car or working out, however you listen to this, you might be listening and being like, Well, I know what black America needs. Here, here, here is here are some of the things that I do think helps me in this conversation. I what might have felt like a curse as a kid living in all these places because being poor and being homeless, but I do think it's a blessing. I think it's a blessing. being born in Maywood, Illinois, just right outside of Chicago, and understanding and and and and knowing those Chicago ethos and and also the city versus like Chicago land. ⁓ then living with my grandmother in Kentucky, Paducah, Kentucky to be exact, which is ⁓ different. The people are different. It's just a different type of people. You know, it's not very far from here, but it it's different. And then Finally moving into Oakland, where I I I claim and where I grew up, you know, where what kind of made me ⁓ where I I gained most of my sensibilities, you know, in the Panthers backyard, right? Like, but they're they're different. And I think living in all of those places and and and understanding those nuanced differences, like I get and understand this need for factions. The way Californians, black ones too, talk about people from Kentucky is different. Is different. ⁓ And vice versa. And so we have to just start having real questions and conversations about power and about what we want and and what we want to be. And I don't know if just going on this same line is gonna work. And let's just say it, right? The Democratic Party as a whole is going through this sort of identity crisis. You have the more traditional Democrats and you have like these democratic socialists and then there's other factions that's kinda in between. You know, and I probably far a little bit more in between, right? Like I'm not I'm I'm not a socialist. I'm not a democratic socialist. ⁓ I like Mam Dani. I I think what he's doing, I like I said, I wanted to observe and see how that went in New York. I think it's pretty interesting. ⁓ I'm in Dalton, which is just out of Chicago, so I get to see what mayor Brandon Johnson does here and I think I think it's mixed for me, right? I I I am, you know, I think crime has been down across the country and I give my the props and kudos to those black cities with black mayors where crime is dropping. You gotta give them their props on that, man. You gotta do it. Me and Brandon Johnson don't agree on ⁓ education policy. Brandon Johnson is came from the teachers union. ⁓ we just have a different set of beliefs around that. ⁓ not mad at it and it's okay. We can have different beliefs. I am somebody that went to eleven el that went to a bunch of elementary school schools throughout this country. I bel I and I think that proficiency is down for a few different reasons. I think that parents deserve to have choices in the type of schools they have. I don't I I don't I don't care if that school is a traditional public school, a charter school or or a private school or home school. I don't that's not my decision to make and I don't think that a ⁓ the state should be telling black people where they have to go to school because the truth is if and when you got money you choose where you go to school. People do it all the time. So you know but the party as a whole is having its own kind of crisis. Who who's gonna get this? You know, who's gonna be our nominee? Is it gonna be ALC? Is it gonna be Gavin or Kamala again? And it Politics, especially on our side, and again, I talk more about the Democrats because I'm Democrat. That's where I and those are where my ethos lie. Like that's what I came up in. That's what I understand. I have I have my fair share of criticisms for the Republicans. I have my fair, fair share. But I'm always gonna lean and talk more about what I know more about. And so I I think, and what I've seen is I think Democrats have become less personable. I think that a lot of Democrats are riding the social media wave of what they think they need to say, ⁓ what they think they need to do, and what groups they have to play to, as opposed to really, really talking with people, everyday people. We are supposed to be the big tent party. We're supposed to welcome in all these thoughts and ideas and these people. And at the same time, you also have to reconcile that and get down the brass tacks of what is it that we want and what are we fighting for. Are we disconnected from just the people? Like, are we are we disconnected from what people need and what people want? And I think that that's it's been tough. And we've been losing people. And which means when you lose people like that, you lose elections. Say what you want about over there. They won. They won in all the battleground states. Wasn't by a lot, but you didn't need to be a lot. You the way that they won all those battleground states, it it it was a It was a political slaughter in that way. And again, I'm not again I'm not I want to win. I want us to get what we feel like we deserve. So I'm just not about to go down these bad rabbit holes that only dig us deeper into the problem without actually getting to some sort of solutions. And so I just think as somebody in that space, there has to be room for us to have these conversations. There gotta be room. Like there's a lot of things around I'm a what would you call what you call a foundational black American. and what all that means is Like my lineage is is like deeply rooted in this place. But I'm not, I don't hate the diaspora. I I can't hate that which is of me and what's in me and what comes from me. But yet and still that conversation is growing more and more toxic by the day. And I'm not ascribing w ⁓ that toxicity to one side over the other. Cause as much as people might want to get on FBA people and and talking points, I've seen. I've seen personally. ⁓ sometimes how diasporic people, Africans, talk about us as black Americans. I travel the world. What I do know is we better get some get right and some act right together ts quickly. So I don't know, man. I I I just wanted to, you know, I wish that the original episode would have aired in this entirety, because I just I was on fire. I was on fire. I was I was juiced up, I was riled up, man. And I and I when we when we kind of address this, but our country is at a crossroads. It's always at a crossroads, though, right? It's a very young country. It's a really, really young country. ⁓ but there are some some ways that we need to go, or we might go the way of the dodo. Like, I do think there needs to be somewhat of a reset election. And what I mean by that is what are our big tent values? ⁓ and what are the things within that that that as a black person that we can be working towards to get? I just think that that's important. Other groups ask for the things they want. I'm never mad at Ice Cube for saying I'ma talk to the people that talk to me. I'm not mad at that. I'm sorry. I I I don't I don't like this game that's been happening where the internet ca is continuing to turn black men and black women against each other. I'm telling you, in my real life, this is not a thing. In my real life, the black men love their black the black women and the black women love the black men. We actually get along. You go online, it's some of the most divisive shit that you've ever seen. Makes no sense to me. And the fact that we can't see that there are larger powers at play that know that it is beneficial to them and detrimental to us as black people to have our men and women at each other's throat. That don't mean you can't hold each other accountable. That don't mean that we can't disagree, we do, and all that stuff. But again, I think it's just getting ridiculous. I think it's just going down a line in a pathway where it is starting to cross over from being online and being that fodder into the real world. And I think that's sad. I think we all deserve better than that. I don't like it. I don't like it at all, actually. ⁓ anyway. I I mean this one was more of me riffing, right? But I I I do hold these things very near and dear because we got some big decisions to make. We got some huge decisions to make. ⁓ but in other news, in other news, I have have I I was I was on like Featured in like the New York Post and the California Post. And I was quoted in an article that was on the front page. ⁓ and it was about Education. It was about the thing that I do. Let's pull that up. So this California high school ⁓ grad score 4.0 GPAs, but can't do basic math. Now listen, I was I've done work in this space for a while. ⁓ there's me right here in this same little studio. ⁓ and I was asked about a lot of that research, right? And the research that we did and what my experiences were. And let me I do think that there's a bit of a slant in the article, but I can tell you what the spirit of what I was saying was, right? I I think the article did fine represent me. What I realized is listen, I was a pretty smart kid in high school. I was a pretty smart kid throughout school. I was always at the top of the class, you know, always had high three three 383 GPAs, you know, close to. First of those four point oh's, ⁓ I took honors courses and AP courses and I did really well in them. And then I got to college and then I took my placement exams and I was remedial everything. And it pisses me off. And it doesn't piss me off because you look at these comments and you probably shouldn't read the comments, you know, D E I, I'm black, they see doctor. Yeah, we gotta move all this other extra stuff though that's in the way. I'm black and AC doctor, so I'm I I've obviously I'm a DEI. Like I didn't work very hard. I worked very, very hard. Funny thing about this is that I like rigor. I like being the best. I want to actually win. I don't want a placated type of intelligence. And what what does what I've basically seen now in my 20 plus years in this in in education work and doing work with people. and and and across the country is that You have to reconcile is it's one of two things, and sometimes it's both. That the standards are being lowered so we can make these overall numbers look better because we don't want the offices of civil rights on our ass. We don't want to keep being called racist, we don't want to keep calling these things or whatever, and we're not gonna feed into this ⁓ these misnomers or these myths that blacks are just words, because they're not. It's not a we're we are not. Okay? Very, very smart people. That's one. And then two, what I think is more towards the truth is that I think rigor across the board has dropped. And I think that a lot of these schools and classes, classrooms, have people that they themselves have not mastered the content and that there is an imbalance in it. I gave when I gave a talk in Vallejo to start the school year off, I loved I loved giving that talk. But the the school leader there had a term ⁓ that I love and I'm gonna keep using it. Like students shouldn't be at the whim. Of the teacher lottery, meaning, did you get one of those ace teachers that knew their stuff, loved their stuff, and were on top of it? You know what I'm saying? That should it shouldn't matter what classroom you end up in in that school, you should be killing it. And so I've been getting some messages. I've been getting ⁓ you know, people reaching out. I think this thing has over 300 comments already, hasn't been up very long. ⁓ And and these are the numbers. These are the numbers, man. And so you should go check it out. You can go to the New York Post or California Post. ⁓ California High School grad score 4.0 GPAs, but can't do basic maths, professor say. ⁓ I and I and I ⁓ and and then I have my own research that is coming out, you know, fairly soon, right? ⁓ and I'm I'm looking forward to it. ⁓ it is It's in the Freedom Journal out of Boise State. I think I've mentioned this. And once it's there for the public, I'll do a deeper dive so you can go in and look at it. I know people are not weird like me and like to read, you know, ⁓ academic ⁓ texts for fun. ⁓ I I do. ⁓ I do. ⁓ I do enjoy ⁓ reading those things. But ⁓ I wrote it and so when that comes out, I'll do a deeper dive here. ⁓ Because I've also always believed this. When I did start doing research and I decided to become a doctor, ⁓ I'd never wanted to just make work that only talk to other academics. I think that shit is dumb. ⁓ I I think it's intellectual masturbation. I I I don't I don't think if the people can't use what I write, what good am I? If if if if my parents Back when I was in school, can't process what I'm writing or saying or the research that I'm doing, what good is it? You know what I'm saying? Like I don't I don't I don't do that. I don't I don't know. I think the best communicators, I think the smartest people are able to make it plain for everybody so everybody can benefit from it. I I also think that it's a crime that academic journals are often behind the paywall. Or are behind and and the paywall isn't like regular. Like you have to be at like a a university and have access and things like that. If this is the knowledge, if this is knowledge for the world, then the world should be able to have access to it. So shout out to ⁓ that journal out of Boise, which is not behind a paywall. You can just go there and you can read ⁓ and you can get this knowledge. And so I'm I'm I'm really grateful ⁓ to have gotten something peer reviewed and published. It was very difficult. There's a lot of back and forth. There's a lot of editing. ⁓ and and and and and I'm blessed. And I'm blessed. And I and I I'm on I just want to talk directly to the people that watch this show. And ⁓ one, I'm just so grateful for you. I'm grateful for the conversations that we get to have. I'm grateful for the bits of me that you all take interest in and get to see. And I wanna continue to do that. ⁓ And I I work really hard and I know many of you do as well. And I think but I really enjoy it. Like and I say that as right now is I'm really tired. I have to like pack. ⁓ I have some stuff. I haven't even I was gonna change to to do this, but y'all just this is how you're getting me. ⁓ And I'm really tired, but I wanna just I know I did the show on John Henryism. Go look that up if you haven't. ⁓ and I do fall into that a little bit. I really do love working. I I I both love and hate being exhausted. I just feel like you gotta earn that. Like I earned this exhaustion. You know, there was something when my grandmother was sick, who was my favorite person, by the way, it was like my mother. ⁓ I was probably I'm closer, I was closer to my grandmother than I was with my own mother. ⁓ that's not a, you know, nothing against my parents. It's just, you know, when my when my grandmother died, it was like my mother died. But I remember her saying this thing, because I was really sad, you know, and She said this thing to me, like, baby, I'm I'm wanting and ready to go. Like I am, I earned this death. And the reason why she said that and believed that is because my grandmother is not, she believes in that Bible. She believes in that word. She made sure I believed in that word. But a large swath of my faith is because of this woman, and largely in part from this line. And What that meant was you ever heard the saying everybody wanna go to heaven but don't nobody wanna die? It just basically was pointing out that are these people as devout and as faithful as they are portraying? Well, damn it, I got to live with and the the embodiment of that faith. And not one of these people who was judgmental. She didn't care what you were doing or who you loved or whatever. She was one of the kindest the form of Christianity that I got was in her kindness, in her in in in her humanity. And her her caring about other people, ⁓ and just one of the sweetest people ever. And when she said, I've earned this death, she knows in her heart that there's a better place that she is going. I I do think that I represent a different generation of what she believes because you want parts of this heaven on earth. I think that's the the mind trick, right? Of like, you know, I'm just gonna endure all this suffering while I'm here and because I'll get I'll get my riches, I'll get my worth in heaven. I think it can be both. I do think that there's sacrifice and I think that there's pain. I've gone through a lot of those things. But I have been able to, even as a black man that has experienced all types of racism, I will still fight racism. I'm on that. I'm not you ain't about to quote me saying racism is dead, whatever. No, no, no. But I am somebody that grew up in this country in shelters and homeless and crack out of parents and poor schools. ⁓ Crooked cops, like I've been pulled over a ton of times. ⁓ I've been roughed up by the police. I've been humiliated by the police. I I did a ⁓ once when I was younger in college, ⁓ went to go visit my then girlfriend, got pulled over. They said I fit the description of somebody that robbed a seven eleven, heard the description come through on the radio. I look nothing like that guy. And they handcuffed me and sat me on a ⁓ on on the curb. While my then girlfriend and all her neighbors, you know, came outside to like and could see this. Sucked. ⁓ fast forward to a few years ago, I'm on my book tour. I'm doing a speaking, ⁓ you know, speaking about my book in Indiana and I drove, and I'm driving back and I get pulled over. I'm in a nice car. I s the guy said, because I smell good, I had on a had on a good cologne, I guess. ⁓ he brought the dogs out and had dogs go around my car. He thought I was selling dope because I was in a nice car. You know, damn the books in the back and me saying, Well, I'm a doctor and this is what I do. It just wasn't it didn't register for him. So we're not gonna do this whole racism is over thing, right? 'Cause it's not. And then all that stuff being true, I was still able to leverage education to get where I needed to get to. I started in college remedial. But by the time I left there, I was well on my way to being a scholar. I fumbled through my master's program, but by the time I got in there and got and was doing it, you know, I earned that master's in public administration and I cared about those things. And, you know, I've only worked in the nonprofit space. I've only worked to give back to communities and to give back to places that help make me. And I've been able to build a a decent life from it. Even to when I did my doctoral degree and I'm fighting a university. I'm pretty much blackballed from teaching at that university, even though I'm probably one of the more successful graduates from that program. And I and the program, the people in that program are great. I I have nothing to say about my colleagues. But even there, I complained about the rigor. Even there I complained about how deep do we want to go. Even there I'm like, hey, shouldn't we be learning how to write and write academically so we can add our research to the field? I chose EDD on purpose. I I'm a practitioner who wanted to be able to take this slant and add something to it as I'm doing that work. What I'm saying is, I take this academic stuff and this great inflation stuff very s very seriously because education is still, still, still one of the strongest ways, unless you are born into money, to go from pauper to paradise or a form of it. I am somebody that still can smell the shelters that he lived in. I remember sleeping in those shelters on the top bunk of my cot ⁓ and holding on to my shit because people was crackheads, including my dad, in this space. I'm somebody, and and again, this isn't about me. Fuck me, right? When I when I I'm just giving you a real life example, and I'm not doing some bootstrap stuff. I am saying, and this is where my you know thing with the teachers union comes down to, because I am somebody who will go so hard for good teachers to get paid, overpaid, and what they deserve. But if you ask me to protect the bad teachers, I don't care too much to do that. If you're gonna put me in a position where I have to choose between college-educated, upperly mobile adults and poor students that look like me who are obligated by the law to be in these buildings. That answer is so easy for me. I don't need time. So, yes, when that man called me and to do this interview about great inflation, and we great inflation is the the the larger nomenclature on on this at the moment. But my fellows, the students I worked with, they came up with great illusion. And let me tell you why I use that now. Great illusion was because. These young people that work in there are working their ass off and doing what these are are is asked to them in these classrooms are getting apes. They're getting over 4.0s. They're taking the class, they're doing what they're being told, and they're under the illusion that they're proficient. They're under the illusion that they're actually at the top of the class. And then they get into a public arena. And then they're humiliated because They're not getting what they deserve. And they're angry about it, like I was angry about it. But here's where all you anti-DEI people, these people that love to be disrespectful and all that stuff, and you know, intellectually, I might run some circles around some of you. Not all. I ain't the smartest cat, but I got I didn't do a little something. And I work hard. I work really, really, really hard. As Will Smith said, I'll die on that treadmill. I'm not gonna quit. This is where y'all get it twisted. That logic, that anti-DI shit that y'all are on, that works if people just didn't want to do anything. I work with young people every day and their parents in these schools every day that want the rigor, that want to be the best, that that have An intelligent hunger. A hunger for intelligence is That is unrivaled. We just aren't providing it for them. This is cultural. So back to when I was giving those talks, you can't be the head teacher in the in in in the literature department and you don't read. You can't run English language arts department if you don't read and write. You can't be the head of the math department if you don't like numbers. I will keep coming back to this job versus vocation argument because it's that important. I don't like this relegation to Democrat and Republican. I don't like this relegation to races not races. I don't like this I don't I don't like it these are they're lazy at this point. We have a great country with flaws in it that is also that is also a racist country. Multiple things can be true. I need the people that watch this show. To be intelligent and to think and to not be pre programmed on anything. I need you to take things at face value while also knowing your history. Like that that's that's where we have to kind of get to, right? So again, this episode was a little different. It was a makeup for part two. It's a reshoot. ⁓ and I wanted to just come straight to camera, especially in my first official joint in partnership with ABH and Ed Post. But I love doing this. And they all won't be as heady as this, right? Like again, I just did a whole episode on Green Lanter time. Like I love, I love it. The Emmys were last night. ⁓ I did not watch it. I don't I didn't do a recap of that. I'm looking forward to to to the new Avengers movie. Like I I'm I'm I'm I'm with it. I'm here. You know. But have fun with this, man. Have fun with this. Throw topics at me. Let me know the things that you want to hear me discuss. ⁓ and and ⁓ and I bring people on. So if you are somebody that that wants to come on the show and wanna have a conversation, I love debating. I love going deep into conversations and topics. I don't and I'm okay with us not agreeing. But I'm black and I tend to talk about black stuff because that's what I'm close to. ⁓ and I am concerned about us, and I'm concerned about our kids, and I'm concerned about what our future looks like. And so this is a fun conversation for me. At any rate, I want to thank you for listening to color commentary, and we love to hear from you. So drop us an email at color commentarypod at gmail.com. That's color. Commentary P-O-D at gmail.com. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show. Leave us a five-star rating. Share it on social media. And join us every Thursday for more color commentary with Dr. Cole. And if you want to go and explore more of Ed Post and the great content that they're doing, I think Chris ⁓ Stewart and his son Josh and his team, I just think that they're doing an incredible job. Go check out Freedom Freedom Friday with Chris and Sharif and You know, I think they got the grannies ⁓ joint, ⁓ which I love supporting. ⁓ I I I just think they got some really great stuff. So their YouTube page is youtube dot com slash at ed post video and you'll find it. Okay? With that being said, man, you guys take care of yourselves. You take care of each other, you know, and I hope I hope I truly do hope that ⁓ That that that you get the things in life that you want and that you know how to fight for them and that you have agency and that you fight for what you believe in. But don't take the easy way out. Read. Uh-uh. Read people. We are come becoming less and less literate. Pick up something and read it. Me included. I'm telling this is not, I'm not targeting people. I'm t I'm this as a country, we are becoming less literate. So You know, join me in that y'all know about my book club and I I'll start actually introducing more stuff into my book club. And if you don't know what you can read or want to read, I do have a book. You can go get it. It is on Amazon. Is I'm very proud of it. It's called Beyond Grit and Resilience. and it's on Amazon. It'll be to you in a a day or two if you go order it. and if you can't afford it, just hit me up and I'll get I'll get you the ch manuscript. I'll I'll I'll send it to you. I don't ⁓ I'm not getting rich off these books. ⁓ But we got to take care of ourselves. We got to take care of our community. So for real this time, peace out. I'm going to see y'all next time. All right.