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INTERVIEW: Tommy Davidson On Reducing Homicide Rate Of Black Boys, Discovering His Race, Comedic Ability + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club yeps, the world's most dangerous morning show, The
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Breakfast Club. Charlamagne to God, Lauren Lero says, guest hosting,
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: because you know, Jess Hilarious is on maternity leave. Envy
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: is on his way back from fifty Cents Humor and
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: Harmony weekend. But we got somebody here who knows the
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: thing or two about humor. Mister Tommy Davidson, how are.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: You, sir? Thank you, Absolutely good to see you.
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: Man, Hey man, haven't been here since the I guess,
• 0:27
  Speaker 3: I guess there was a writer strike on your show.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah years what was the writer's great damn two
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: three years? Two years ago, Lauren, the writer scratch about right, yeah,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: just about yeah, right after the pandemic. Yeah, I'm glad
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to be back. It's like we just went through that and.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: You gotta You're doing a one man comedy show at
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Sony Hall. Oh yeah, Tuesday, August thirteenth. Oh yeah, tomorrow,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: back New York. Back is is the camera?
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Back New York? In New York, they say, Derek Everic,
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Derek and Eric in dc A.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Derek and Eric tonight O thought tomorrow so to night,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: you'll be there. Yeah, tonight, I'm gonna be there. New York,
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: watch out.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I'm back. I'm back. You still get nervous when you
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: got to go on stage and tell jokes? Nah, okay, no,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: it's a mortgage attached now. Yeah. So yeah tuitions. So
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: so does the feel more like a job? Was it
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: still something that you love to do?
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: And it's still man, it's it's it's I'm gonna stand
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: up first official, it's it's the love of my life.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: During the pandemic, I worked, I worked in the clubs,
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: and I worked in the clubs that I worked at
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: for like thirty five years already, and they were saying, hey,
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: come out here and save our club. So I went
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: to all these all these different clubs where everybody was
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: a hanker down and looked like hockey games. They had
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: the plexi glasshop and mask and even some of my
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: friends were outside like you know, you know, I will
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: come in. They had their mask, I will come in,
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: but I just I just wanted to come and see
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: you run back by the way. And it's always been there,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: you know. If I'm doing a movie, if I'm in
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: my movie phase, you know, I could do stand up,
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: getting my cartoon phase. Whatever I do in my career,
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: stand up's always there, you know, always there.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I saw something recently they say they remake your wu
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: not that I know of. Did you see that, Yeah,
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: said they remaking woo. Okay, yeah, well maybe three people
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: to see it by then. Who's the brother you got
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: with you? Ah?
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: This is This is Don on Northcross, a really good
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: friend of mine.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: He has a program called the Okay Program. Now.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: The way I got exposed to it was a friend
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: of mine told me about the program Okay, And years
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: later I was at a comedy club and he walks
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: into the green room and I go, you' the dude
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: with the program, you know.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So he invites me to their yearly national convention.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: And I walk in and there's like thirty grown black
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: men and young black men hugging this man and crying
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: and I sit back and they got degrees and some
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: of them my sheriffs and all these people that I said,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: I gotta know more about this, and I just I
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: got involved because it's a very important thing happening here, you.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Know, talk to us more about the program.
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: Brother, Yeah, hey, thanks for having me on man.
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he ain't never been in New York either, but
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: they said, they said he'd never been to a big city.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm from Arkansas, Okay. I live in Sacramento now though.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: I left Arkansas and went to California, became a sheriff's deputy,
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: and I retired as a sheriff deputy, and it leads
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: me to what I do today, be honest with you. Though,
• 3:51
  Speaker 5: as a sheriff deputy, I got tired of sending black
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: men and boys killing each other and going to jail.
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: I look around for a solution to the problem, and
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: I didn't see one other than building more prisons and
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: hire more police officers. And so I used to come
• 4:01
  Speaker 5: home after my shift every night and I wouldlamit to
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: my wife about what I witnessed on my shift, you know,
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: on my watch. And then I'd always finish up by saying,
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: somebody gotta do something about it. And then one night,
• 4:11
  Speaker 5: in mid sentence, it dawned on me, I was somebody.
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  Speaker 5: I'm the one I've been waiting on. I realized nobody
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: else is gonna start black men and boys I'm killing
• 4:17
  Speaker 5: each other, but black men and boys. And so I
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: started this organization and that's our main goal is to
• 4:22
  Speaker 5: reduce harmice that rate to black men and boys. And
• 4:24
  Speaker 5: so yeah, we do it through what we call a
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: life sports system.
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: We've developed.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: We recruit, training, organize black men to work with black
• 4:31
  Speaker 5: police officers that we interview and carefully select those officers
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: because I realized that if you get their own black
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: officer in the community, he can do more harm than good.
• 4:38
  Speaker 5: So we go through a process of vetting these officers
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: as we interview them, and then we select that officer
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: to run the program full time. We take him out
• 4:44
  Speaker 5: of patrol or wherever he's working, and he worked, we
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: dress him down and playing clothes. He has a Plaine
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: vehicle and he works specifically with the OKA program and
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: that's his full time job. And then we again we
• 4:54
  Speaker 5: go into the community where you're recruit and where you
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: train up these black men. In Oakland, we've trained over
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  Speaker 5: six hundred actually my last training took seven hundred black
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: men in Oakland that we were trained to work.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: With these officers.
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  Speaker 5: And so we call a life sports system because it's
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: a life sports system. We don't hook them up too.
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: You know about the one that once they catch a
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: bulleting in here, we run and hook them up to
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  Speaker 5: a life sports system to try.
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: To save their lives.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: I realize that we need a life sports system that
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: we hook them up with, you know. And that's what
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: we do. We hook these boys up with the life
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  Speaker 5: support system, which is an interconnected network of black men
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  Speaker 5: that bring together our knowledge, our wisdom, experiences, and our
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: resources to provide support in the daily lives of black boys.
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  Speaker 4: That's why we call it a life support system. And so.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: We do this, man, I tell you, we support them
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: in the school that officers on campus every day giving
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  Speaker 5: these boys support, talking to their teachers about how they're doing.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Their teachers fill out consent forms where the parents feel
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: our consent forms so that school to give the officer
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  Speaker 5: permission on the boards how they're doing in school every day.
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: And so we recruit these boys. We go by their houses,
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: We recruit them in the schools.
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  Speaker 5: And so we don't just hang assign on the door
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  Speaker 5: say hey, we own forbidness. We actually go get a
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: We let know we love them, we believe in them,
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: we support them, and when we enterreew that officer, we
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: make sure that he can say that he loves his people,
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: he loved black boys he understands the state of that
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: we're in and he's willing to work with these boys
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: and these men to help change the course of our boys.
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: And so, like I said, we folks specifically on that.
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: So we support them in the school. The teachers communicate
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: with us how the boys are doing. If they're doing great,
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: we like to we like to acknowledge that and encourage
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: that good behavior, but were also on there to correct
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: the negative behavior. The officer supports them after school hours,
• 6:28
  Speaker 5: win their neighborhoods. You know, we go to the ball
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: games with the men. We build that relationship with those boys.
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: We support them on weekends with every Saturday from ten
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  Speaker 5: to two we have the boys and the men. That's
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: when the mentors come together, and we were with those boys.
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  Speaker 5: We have a curriculum about thirty five different topics that
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  Speaker 5: are deal with issues of the Germaine to black community,
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: to particularly black men and black boys. We look at
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: the problem, the contributing factors to the problem, and then
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: what we have to do to change that situation, our
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: own situation. And so we do that with the boys,
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: and we get them in the sixth grade, and we
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: follow the same boys all the way through twelfth grade.
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  Speaker 5: So we can build that long term relationship with those boys.
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  Speaker 5: So we support them like that on weekends. That's every
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: weekend we have those boys and those men, and so
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: the men don't have to come every Saturday. Uh, the
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: same man doesn't. I'm a country boy, so I learned.
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: You know, a lot of hands make quick work. You know.
• 7:07
  Speaker 5: I don't know if you guys ever shell peas before,
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: but if you get a bush, oh yeah, you're from
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  Speaker 5: South Carolina.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've never.
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: Seen Charlomagne shell shell pe You know what I'm talking about,
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: a lot of folks thinks peaces.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: We did that too.
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: But I'm gonna tell you why you shell shelling piece.
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: As an analogy, if you got a bush of basket
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  Speaker 5: of peace and you by yourself.
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  Speaker 4: You got a long day.
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  Speaker 1: That's right.
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  Speaker 5: If you get three or four people sitting around a
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: bushel basket of peace and they all reaching their shelling
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: peas and they laughing and talking, man, it's that that's
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: done before you know it. I see these old women
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  Speaker 5: in my hometown, they be talking and they reaching the
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  Speaker 5: bottom of that barrel for the bucket for some peas,
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: and they said, Lord, you look at everybody's watched pain
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: on their left. They fill the peas A lot of
• 7:53
  Speaker 5: hands make quick work. So I designed the program where
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: you get a lot of men doing a little, you
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: get a lot done. You can't get a few people
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: doing a lot, you burn them out. So you gott
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: get a lot of people doing a little bit. That's
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  Speaker 5: why we say we got over seven hundred men now
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: in Oakland, or we've actually done. We went and we
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: recruited those men. But we only ask them to come
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: up to show three times every year. But they can
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: come as many times as they want to.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: A lot of men come every Saturday. But I know
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: if I ask a brother to come five, six, seven,
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  Speaker 4: eight times, oh God damn, I'm gonna lose them. Charlemagne.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 5: But but if I say, hey, broes up, all we
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: need you to do is show for three times and
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: we train all the men. All the men have to
• 8:24
  Speaker 5: be on the same page. I don't need one hundred
• 8:26
  Speaker 5: brothers out there saying a hundred different things. I just
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: need brothers out on the same page. We have to
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: know how we're gonna present ourselves.
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: That boys.
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: We ain't talking about no sexual stuff. We're not using
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: the end where we're not cursing. We have to show
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: these boys a different kind of man that they used
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: to admit of their community. You know, seventy some percent
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: of our households hit about single mothers. So we make
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: sure that we recruit these black men. And I keep
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: saying black men because we don't make no exceptions. All
• 8:45
  Speaker 5: of our men are black, all by boys are black.
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: We're not trying to solve all the problems in America
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: right now. We're just trying to reduce homiciday to black
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: men and boys. And can't nobody to stop black men
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: and boys and killing each other, but black men and boys.
• 8:53
  Speaker 5: We have to be serious about this.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Man, how can we hope this program? What's the what's
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: the website that they can go to?
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: Okay program dot org. Go to okay program or and
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: check us out. You know, we've been around a long time,
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: been fighting this battle a long time. Man. It's not
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: hard to get me in the grassroots level because black
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: men look for a message like this, not only a message,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: but something that's attached to that message, like a plan.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: That's why we call a life sports system. It's actually
• 9:14
  Speaker 4: a plan.
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: You know we talked about we put these boys in
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: terms of when they get in high school. Now program,
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: remember we get them in sixth grade. By time they're
• 9:20
  Speaker 5: in high school, now we have a.
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: Uh we have pathway advisors.
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: Now we have other black men uh in Oakland there
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: there they're with the Probation Department. They assigned to the
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: program full time. So these men and we select them too.
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: But these men actually now they work with our boys
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: in ninth grade. Start helped them get their driver license.
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: Before we get our high school, they're social Security card
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: exposing them to different career paths when they get out
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: of school, whether it's all of our boys, they get
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: out of school, they know that they've experienced uh this
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: this this career path thing. Now, so we want them
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: to either go to college, uh, trade school, codeing of military.
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: So they we focused on these different areas so that
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: when they get out of high school, they're just not
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: going to stand on the corner. Now that's a life
• 9:58
  Speaker 5: sports system and we get them in that. In that system,
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: we know that that's gonna save their life because they're
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: not gonna be out the streets hustling, and they're less
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: likely to go to jail, they're less likely to kill
• 10:07
  Speaker 5: somebody else. Because our curriculum is dealing with For example,
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: we talk about some of the things we talk about again,
• 10:13
  Speaker 5: we got thirty five sessions, and one of the things
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: we talk about we're heavy on is at homiciderty black
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: men and boys. You know, we only six percent of
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: the nation population and we'll count for fIF percent of
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: homicides each year. How can in black men, black men,
• 10:25
  Speaker 5: we six percent of the nation population. Look at the
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: Center for Disease Control, We six percent of the nation population,
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: but we will count for about fifty percent of homicides
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: this year. Of Charlo Maane, there's no way in we're
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: six percent of the population to all count for as
• 10:36
  Speaker 5: many homicides and ninety four percent of.
• 10:37
  Speaker 4: The population and we okay with that.
• 10:39
  Speaker 5: Nobody is talking about, let's reduce homicide rated black men
• 10:42
  Speaker 5: and boys. Defination number well in conspirations is just as
• 10:47
  Speaker 5: bad almost you know.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: But but but nobody is talking about in particular black men.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: I don't expect their body to talk about it. But
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: it hurts my heart. That's why I've been doing this
• 10:55
  Speaker 4: for thirty some years now.
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: It hurt my heart to see black men don't have
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: a plan to reduce homtary black man.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: We have a cause.
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: We jump on every cause out there.
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: This should be our number one cause because if we
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: can reduce homicide rate to black men and boys, it's
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: gonna reduce valid crimes in our city. In order to
• 11:09
  Speaker 5: reduce homicide rate to black men and boys, you got
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: to love our boy.
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: We love each other. Man's nothing gonna it. All starts
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: with love. And as you begin to love each other,
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: you begin to change the crime rate in our city.
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: More jobs come in, more businesses come in, everything changes.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: If we can reduce a homicide rate of black men
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: and boys, nobody can do it but us.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: The one of the biggest things that you said, uh,
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: you know while you was talking is that you were
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a police officer. Yeah, but you felt like you couldn't
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: change anything being a police officer.
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: Wow, I can't do it man, No, man, I mean,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: policing is not designed to do what I'm talking about doing.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: I'm just being unch with.
• 11:44
  Speaker 5: Policing is not designed to reduce the homicide rate to
• 11:47
  Speaker 5: stop black men and boys from going to jail.
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: It's not the police officers are there to uh, to
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: respond to crime. Basically, they forgot the.
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: Label that we have.
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: Has been a community serviervice or a peace officers protecting,
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: protect and serve been a peace officer. We look at
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: an enforcement officer because enforcement is how you promote. Enforcement
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: is how you get a name in law enforcement. So
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: we value enforcement over serving the community, and.
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: So we have to we You know, I didn't like
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: the police at all when I was growing up because
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: I grew up a small southern town. You know, I'm
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: up one in.
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: The fifties, so you can imagine I'll put a desegregation
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: in the South, which is where a lot of my
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: mentality comes from.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: You know, I lived in the colorful quarters. I lived
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: on the other side of town.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: I just see my first black police officer my hometown
• 12:36
  Speaker 5: till like nineteen seventy eight.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: I believe it was Wow. Yeah, yeah, And I'm sixty
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: five years old. I appreciate that.
• 12:42
  Speaker 6: Man.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I'm trying to keep up with Tommy Davison.
• 12:44
  Speaker 6: So I got my question for y'all and the work
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: that you're doing because you're working with the program to
• 12:48
  Speaker 6: tell me is like, so, in the state that we're
• 12:50
  Speaker 6: in right now, with like the political climate, do you
• 12:53
  Speaker 6: guys think that KAMA is best for the Democrats and like,
• 12:55
  Speaker 6: you know, moving forward the conversation, the mission that you
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: guys are talking about with like just black men and
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: them fighting for causes that are going to make sense
• 13:02
  Speaker 6: for them at the end of the day.
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, I mean for the other choice, she's said, yeah,
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: oh my hands down, no doubt.
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know that you.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Don't want police you don't want immunity for all your
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: fellow officers.
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: Oh no, no, they don't.
• 13:16
  Speaker 5: No, No, that's that's one of the worst things I
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: think that you can do is get some one total
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: immunity from their own responsibility.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: You can't.
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: You can't do that. It creates a problem, you know.
• 13:26
  Speaker 5: There's I was telling Danny, a friend of I just
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: met Danny, but he Danny seemed like I've been doing
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: a long time. But we've stand outside talking first time
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: I ever met him. We've sent outside talking about the
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: business law enforcement, you know. And I was telling him,
• 13:40
  Speaker 5: you know, Dan, I said, look, if someone if you're a.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: Police officer on a police officer, we come.
• 13:45
  Speaker 5: Up on a scene and we have to fight a guy,
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: legitimate fight, you know, and we fight him and then
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: we get him under control and I get the cuffs
• 13:52
  Speaker 5: on him, and there's other people standing on across the
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: street watching just citizens. And once we had the cuffs
• 13:56
  Speaker 5: on him, Danny, you stand up and you give him
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: another kick. You kick him, and I don't say anything, Danny,
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: I said, you know how many bad police officers on
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: the scene.
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: For those people concerned, there's two bad police officers on
• 14:06
  Speaker 4: the scene.
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: But if you kick that guy and I push you back,
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: say dad, and I tell you no, they don't have
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: to hear my word, but they see my action. There's
• 14:14
  Speaker 5: only one bad police officer on the scene. But that's
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: what I'm saying. The good officers stand by and allow
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: the bad officers.
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: Get away with it, over and over again.
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: That's why we have so many bad officers because we
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: allowed to happen. The good officer is allowed to happen,
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: and it costs all of us in the long run.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: What do you think, Tommy about the question, Lauren? Just
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: about the political climate.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: You know, it's always been the same for US African
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: American community.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, we got a choice between the two right,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: And you know, if if personally you know who's for community,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: you know who's.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: For us, you know, and I say who's for us,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: who's for the people? The working people. You know, what's
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: going to be the outcome. Is it going to feed
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the billionaires?
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Is it going to is it going to take the
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: money to them and take it away away from all
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: the services that we need.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: It's been a battle, you know, the whole time.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: But we you know, you know, we do the best
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: we can with our syst with our political systems, you know.
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: But you know, it's just like the tild and Hayes compromise.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: You know, we got a choice between the two of them.
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: But when we're gone, they conspire together. Yeah, you know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: Tildenhaye compromise. I think it was eighteen fifty six, I
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: think right after the Civil War, you know, and they
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: got together with the Tilden and Hayes compromise. The same
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: thing happened in Miami, you know, in Florida, and they
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: were going to have another civil war over that. So
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: they got in together and they made the Tildan and
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Hayes compromise and they said, if you make our party
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: the president, you know, we'll release the federal troops from
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: the South. And then Jim Crow started. We didn't get
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: out of that until nineteen sixty eight.
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: So they're political parties, but you know, we're the group.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: We're the group of African We're the group that came
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: here and built basically the imperial wealth of the country.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: You know, all that cotton and all that tobacco and
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: all that rice and all that work, it was all
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: for free and it was for four hundred years. So
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: the people that are sitting on top of that money
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: right now are are the same people, you know, and
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: that they're a small consortium. My mother, who's a white
• 16:20
  Speaker 3: woman at Wyoming and Colorado and we grew up in DC,
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: said well, the people united will will never be defeated,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: you know. So so we do the best we can
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: with the systems that we're in, but it does come
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: down to us. It comes down to what we do.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And you know, my total look at it is that
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: we're we're doing just fine. You know.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: We got to look at the linear comparison of where
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: we are now, you know. And and they've gone after
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: the head of our families with heroin and cocaine and
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: all this other stuff, you know, But they went after
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: the wrong head because the head is the female, you.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Know what I mean, everybody's grandmother is the one.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: You know, so your mother was white, Oh, yeah, oh yeah,
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: biological mother.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, no, not my biological mom.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Got my mother that found met Yeah. I think she's
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: black now that I think about it, you know, but
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: you know, it's just one of those things where you know,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: I go a day at a time and and try
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: the best I can, you know, and so you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: I hear hip hop. You know they're not like us.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: They are mm hmmm, I'm gonna talk about the okay program.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: You know, they're not like us, and I got they're us,
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: you know, and when it comes down to it, you know,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: we've always been the best thing for.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Us, absolutely, you know. So that's where I'm coming from.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: You know, it's interesting you want to you you you
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: want to have a conversation with doctor Umar.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: No that was supposed to be doing me and you no.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: I was no, no, no, no, no, no no.
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: Because we made a comment that you don't you don't
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: respect any any black man to get married to a
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: white woman.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: And you know, I was just you know, he's a doctor.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: So I was like, hey man, you know, watching that,
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: watching that, it kind of just made me made me
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: want to say something. You want to say something because
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: you know, we we we do that and then we're
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: we're we're doing the same thing that got done to us.
• 18:24
  Speaker 3: You know, isn't it them that said that, you know,
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: you're not to marry a black person. As a matter
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: of fact, they started out saying they can't get married
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: at all, you.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: So so and the way I see it, you know,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: with with my mother and my family raising me and
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: love me so much, the only good are well meaning
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: white people in this country, you know, John Brown, and
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: we can we can go on and on and on
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: and on, you know, so we start that discussion with us,
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: you know, we need to do this and do that
• 18:56
  Speaker 3: and do that, you know what I mean. And because
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: we're African and where this where that where that First
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: of all, Africans aren't outside of humanity.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: We're part of humanity. You know, We're an.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Essential part of it. Because everybody walked out of Africa
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: and changed colors based on geography and where they were,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: you know, so at the root of mankind is Africa.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: So you know, if we trip on color, were tripping
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: on ourselves because it's just really a mirror of us anyway,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: you know. And I grew up in the seventies, right,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: So peace was in style in the seventies when I was.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: A kid, hippie era. Yeah, oh yeah.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Vietnam kids were coming back from Vietnam and women's were
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: getting their rights, and there was bussing and all that stuff.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: We're years and years away from that, and now we're
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: on our march. You know. I just really.
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: I love my job because I dispense happy and I
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: go to every corner of the world, military bases and
• 19:58
  Speaker 3: all kind of stuff and dispense happy.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: I got a great job. You know.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: It's not like I work at the uh at the
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: baggage claim in the airport.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: The first thing is what a my day bage? You
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: know what I mean?
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: When I show people, go, man, would you take a
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: picture with my grandmother?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Or you know, uh.
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: Uh this is this is uh, this woman's son just
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: got killed, you know, would you talk to her? You know,
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: and and those kind of things, you know, And I'm
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: just I'm just fortunate.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: I'm on full scholarship right now. My great great great
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: great grandmother and grandfather who took the lash, Yeah, they
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: took the lash and prayed.
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: Us look at it. Full scholarship from my grave year
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: and I like that.
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: You know, That's what I love about Tommy because of
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: understands that how he just explained it about you know,
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: we have to be able to you know, to respect
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: everybody and understand. But he also understands that as black people,
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: and particularly black men, we have responsibility to our own community.
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: And that's what that's what fascinated me about him because
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: I know about how he was he came up, and
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: I know about being found by his white mother, you know,
• 20:59
  Speaker 5: and take the men and loving him and raising him
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: with a white.
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: Sister and a white brother.
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: But at the same time, and even through that, he
• 21:06
  Speaker 5: never forgot that he still have a responsibility to his people.
• 21:10
  Speaker 5: And there's some unique challenges that black men facing this
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: country and black people in general, but we focus on
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: solving black man problems because if we can solve this problem,
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: then our whole community gonna benefit from that. And so Tommy,
• 21:21
  Speaker 5: this is one of the free brothers I know that
• 21:22
  Speaker 5: has a spotlight that that totally embrace what we do
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: because he understand that, you know that we're not Temmy
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: understands I think that, and you can correct me from wrong,
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: but I think he understands that just because you love
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: yourself don't mean you got to not like nobody else,
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: and so we and he never shot away.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: I've been trying to get brothers a long time.
• 21:41
  Speaker 5: I've been trying to contact athletes and entertain as black
• 21:44
  Speaker 5: men who have some influence and have some resources that
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: we can expand this program across the country.
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: It's this life sports system around the country. It's hard
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: to get to those brothers, you.
• 21:54
  Speaker 5: Know, and it's hard for them to sit down and listen.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: That's why I appreciate Charlottage for giving me a chance
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: to come on and talk about this because Quarter and
• 22:01
  Speaker 5: a brother like Tommy who have never backed away from
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: it in spite of him.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: He said finish.
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I have a question for you, Tommy, just backing
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: up with what you said. So, I know at one
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: point you had said, like, at one point in time,
• 22:13
  Speaker 6: you didn't even know that you were black, and that
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: comes from you know, having your adopted white mom. How
• 22:20
  Speaker 6: do you when going into the even working with a
• 22:22
  Speaker 6: program like Okay or like just anything that you're doing, Like,
• 22:25
  Speaker 6: how do you go into rooms and have conversations about
• 22:29
  Speaker 6: just being young in your upbringing and knowing it at
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: one point you didn't know that you were black, But
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: then you realize that, like that upbringing is a lot
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: different than like my brother, who like has always been
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: a black man. I mean you've always been a black
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: man too, But you know what I mean, Like just
• 22:42
  Speaker 6: it seems like you're You're a lot more optimistic from
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: what I'm gathering from you, and I think a lot
• 22:47
  Speaker 6: of people so like when we talk about a doctor Umar,
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: I don't think that he's not optimistic, but I think
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: his background is a lot different than yours. So how
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: do you even engage in those conversations because it's different
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: for somebody else who didn't have a white adopted mom.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you know when it comes to when especially
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: African Americans, you know, our breadth is white, you know.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: I when I when I when I found out that
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: I was black and my family was white, I started saying, well,
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: what what is black?
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: And so to me in my neighborhood, I grew up
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: in TC, so what was what was what was black?
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: To me was hey, man, you sell drugs, you go
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: to jail, you come back and you'd be like this
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: is how it was in there.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean? You you you you fight people.
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: You know, you you take stuff, and I saw that
• 23:35
  Speaker 3: in my neighborhood, and that was identified as like, hey,
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: that's a positive thing.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: I need to be down. That was the only examples
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: of blackness, you know what I mean. No, no, it wasn't.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: But but but in that neighborhood we had to band
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: together to protect ourselves from just what was happening in general.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: So that was that was around when I was.
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: About ten, because a lot of a lot of the
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: the city people moved to in the city, blacks moved
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: to my neighborhood.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: So it changed.
• 24:05
  Speaker 3: You know, I was just a little eight year old,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: little eight year old boy that had friends of all colors,
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: you know. But then when it came down to it,
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: there was a distinction, you know, and there was me
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: and my boys, you know, and I. And then then
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: through lessons that I that I learned just personally, like
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: my mother, she wasn't having it, you know. I say,
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: she looked under my bed and saw money and saw
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: all this other stuff and said.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: You got to get out. You were selling drugs. Yeah,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: you got to get out the house, you know what
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I mean. You remember when I was a very good
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: drug dealer.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: Do you remember when you turned Yeah, I remember the day, well,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: you know, I had been called you know.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Your nigga.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was the first time grown i mean
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: a grown white man chased me home and teenage teenagers.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: I'll be riding my bike they jump out of truck,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: killed the nigga and all of this.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So I went to my mother, was like, ooh, these
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: niggas right to your white mom.
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: Well, she said that's what people are color called people
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: your color.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: And that's when the color thing came up, you know,
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: And I said, well, what about the people that are
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: my color?
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: I mean, she said you're you're black? I said, nowhere brown.
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: So when I started investigating this, that was one of
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: the dimensions that I went into was that if I'm
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: like this, that makes me legit. But it's it's a
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: it's it's a it's a social stage.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: If you take a woman, uh raper, kick her in
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: the face, throw her in the dirt, you know, stomp her,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: and she her family comes and gets her and washes
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: her off and and gets her back to normal. The
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: first thing she's going to want to do is put
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: on the dress, get her hair done, and get back
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: get back her her sanctity. You know what I mean
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: and and that's how societies are, That's how groups in
• 26:00
  Speaker 3: the groups are in the country.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: You know, we're coming here. We've been kicked down. The
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: Irish went.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Through it, you know, they were the dogs of the whole,
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: the bottom of the line, you know, they you can
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: see it through the movies.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 26:12
  Speaker 3: Once upon a time in America, right right, that was
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: about when the Jews were out in.
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: The street as gangsters.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: Uh uh, the Godfather. You know, you see them out
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: in the street. They're they're they're doing their thing, you know,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: in in Pittsburgh gangs, you know, the white gangs, the
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: gangs of New York.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Right. So, so so that's different to survive.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a stage, you know, and and and and
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: you know, our our coming coming out for us was
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: was not after World War World War two.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: It was in the sixties. So there we are now
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and we're in the stage that we're in.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: But at that stage, the government creative programs for the youth.
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: There was Roosevelt's program, the Work Program, and included taking
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: all of the youth and put them into camps.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: There's the y m c A.
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: There's the Boys Clubs of America. You know, there's there's
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: a four H club, and there's all these things that
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: were created to keep them out of the streets, you know,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: and we had never benefit fitting from those programs. That's
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons why I gravitate towards this one,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: because it's organized, it works.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: I see, they're grown men. They're grown men, now, you
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: know what I mean.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: So, you know, if anybody in this country has just
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: been kind of bombarded by problem at the problem, at
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: the problem, at the problem at the problem, you know,
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: it's it's it's our community. But the good, the best
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: thing about it is is that we're forgiven. We're forgiving people.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: We're loving people. You know, we're we're, we're we're.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: And we got the tools to heal ourselves, to help us. Right. Yeah,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: So it.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: Turns into into the conversation turns into something simple for me.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: You know, as long as this country is dealing with
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: the human race, we're gonna be racing. So it's gonna
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: be you know, the whites racing for of resources, in
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: the Mexicans racing, in Puerto Ricans racing.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: But the second that.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: This country becomes mankind, you know, man being kind, then
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: we're gonna get that change. But until then, it's gonna
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: be the human race. And it always it always has been.
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: But the wonderful thing I love about the human race
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: is this early early in our in our in in
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: early in our history, way back, when a band of
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: humans that was one color saw a band of humans that.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Was another color. The guys would say, the girls look
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: good over there.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Of that color, and the girls would say, the guys
• 28:58
  Speaker 3: look good over there that color.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: And that's how we got colored dress.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Always a green on the other side, you know what
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: It looks it looks better because because they're over here
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: going those guys over there that are that color look good,
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: and they're going those girls over there that color look good.
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: That'sle we are all the colors in the in the
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: in the Bible, they call it be gatton, they call
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: it gatten.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, he bet he begat this. He'd be
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: goat that. You know who's got on his shirt? Oh
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: this is cat? But that is cat. Okay, okay, let
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: me stand up, because this is for the algorithm. You know,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: I wanted to bring the numbers up, you know what
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: I mean. Now, But but but that's.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: Been a cool cool Speaking of comedy, let me talk
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: about comedy wife, you ain't talking about Gotty. You got
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: to show the Night at Sony Hall. Yeah, yes, one night,
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: only one night. And being in New York City, people,
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: are you coming back to New York? You're coming back
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: in New York. Yeah, I'm back.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I'm back.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: And I partly grew up here, you know, because my
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: cousins lived here and grew up here, and so New
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: York I've been, you know since forty second Street, the movies,
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: the whole nine yards, you know. But uh, I mean
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: it's things have been going really well in Cat Cat Cat.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: The Cat Tour is like.
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: Family, you know.
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: We we we went around this country, did some big things.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: He went on shanding, blew up, you know, never changed
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: the attitude. Yeah, I was, yeah, yeah, and it was.
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: It was a great tour, one of the best tours
• 30:31
  Speaker 3: I've been on, because everybody's like family there.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: What's the biggest misconception about Cat Williams?
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: You think, hmm, that he's not compassionate, you know, And
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: that's the first thing I know about him, you know
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: what I mean, he teats everybody to say, me and him,
• 30:47
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of similar qualities, you know, treats
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: everybody the same, you know, at face value.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: He he loves when you call him directly. You know.
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: That's one of the problems I've had in Hollywood, you know,
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: calling someone directly, you know, and really talking.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Or talking to them at a club or something. You know, Hey,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: how you doing.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: He I'm fine. I'm over here, you know, and you're
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: over there. He not like us, He not like us,
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: you know. So you know, you know, you know, but
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: but you know, you know, I'm we are where we are,
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: and and and and we're in a really good place.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: I'm one of the people that looks at us.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: At where we are. You know, Hey, the lowly slave
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: spent two terms in the White House, you know what
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: I mean. We wasn't good for nothing, right, okay, and
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: now we're now we're circling back, and we have one of.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Our sisters there too, you know.
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: So black women around the world are going, little black
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: girls are going, I can, I can, I can do this,
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: you know. And it's not as important here. It's important
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: out there in the in the global perception of who
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: we are, because like I said, we're not outside of humanity.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: We're part of it, you know, And that influences people
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: when when when Obama won, I was in all these
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: different countries to go to you know, the cab driver.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: You you and Obama? Are you Obama? I like it
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: that guy, you know what I mean.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: And it's just you know, we're we're influencing this world
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: and in in a million different ways.
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: You watch the.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: Olympics, you know, you you you you see the surgeons
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: and the doctors that are that are doing their thing here.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: You know, whatever we touch, you know, we can we
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: can turn it into gold, We can spin it into gold.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: So this is this is, this is where we are,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: the fifth the fifth dimension.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: Back in the early seventies saying.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: You know, we're in the dawning of the age or
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: wherever the age of where we're in it now the
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: age of enlightenment, you know what I mean. And we're
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: part of that, that that whole enlightenment. And that's the
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: good thing about about us is that we're kind of
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: like a barometer for for mankind. Because if anybody can
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: go from where we are to where we are, then
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: that means anybody who sees that can go from where
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: they are to where they are.
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: I think we're in a place too of like really
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: getting to teach people how to treat us, and that
• 33:26
  Speaker 6: that's important as well too.
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: For sure they're saying, we got a wrap.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: I do want to ask you one thing, comed What
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: were your thoughts when Oprah talked about how.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: She was weight shamed by a skin on a living color.
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: If I were he, I would take it personal, really,
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you need, you're going to laugh, you know.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: Trying to laugh.
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: You know, some might say, you know, you know, somebody,
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: this might be the skin of me, you know, and
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: tell me look like he's starving, and I'm I'm in
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: a little loin cloth and somebody handing me a naw later,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: you know, and I'll be laughing.
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: I'll be laughing my asshof. Yeah, because I love to laugh.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: And and and and that's the core of it, you
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: know what I mean and and and what we do
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: in comedy is we take something and we blow it
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: to its extreme.
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: And that's what makes it funny. Now we're in it.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: We're we're in a we're in a we're in a climate.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: Of a mob of a mob. We're in a mob climate.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: You know, mind me of Frankenstein. You know, Frankenstein wasn't
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: the monster it was a doctor. The doctor dug the
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: body up. He knew ego cut the brain, you know.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: And and so the mob came to get the monster.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: And the only reason why they hated the monster.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Is because he looked different. Mm hmm.
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: One more question.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: So speaking of that Proud Family remake got a lot
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: of pushback for a couple of different reasons. One of
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: the episodes, there was a a male influencer who was
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: promoting like makeup and there was a gay couple on
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: the show. People were upset about that mob culture. People
• 35:16
  Speaker 6: don't like when things changed in general, but especially not
• 35:18
  Speaker 6: when you talk about sexuality and how people identify.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: What are your thoughts on.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: That today, Sugarbama, Hey, listen, who out here is perfect?
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: So if we go an eye for an eye, everybody blind,
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: you know, had had had we not stood up for
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: our rights, we lost lives over that, you know, Had
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: the Irish not stood up for their for their cause,
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: had the Chicanos not done that, the migrant workers that
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: were picking and doing that kind of stuff. You know,
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: I was raised in the kind of household where we
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: had to look at everything equally. And if we even
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: if we said a slur we get punished, you know,
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: like I was saying, you know, the mob went after
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: the monster, right because the monster looked different and was different.
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: But actually actually that that monster was really kind, was
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: really compassionate, was handing the little girl's flowers, and he
• 36:19
  Speaker 3: understood what was happening. I'm a part of this society
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: in every way.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: My brother was a gay male.
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: He was white, you know, the opposite of my neighborhood
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: and what was black, what was black and masculine.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: But he was my best friend.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: He was my best best friend, you know, and and
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: and could you understand how that.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: Could have alienated me?
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: And it did when I was young because I didn't
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: have a brother to help me out there in the
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: streets fight and stuff like that. But as I understood
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: more and understood what love was, you know that that
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: was one of my biggest advocates.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: And this is all about purpose, individual purpose. What are
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: we going to do while we're here? Right? He went
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: down with his with his gay and lesbian friends in.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: In capital city, Seattle, went to the government, made the
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: government pass a law where AIDS was turned into a
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: legal disease so that people who had it can be ensured.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: You see, what I mean, So we are you know
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: what is our purpose?
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: You know, our purpose is like the pandemic, to survive, right,
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: it's only when we're at the precipice, you know.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: A survival that we pulled together. But while wait till then,
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: let me.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: Tell you I respect Tommy Davis's ability to answer the
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: question without answering the question, because you still be dropping,
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: like what did you do?
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: This was the website again for the Okay program. Okay
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: program dot org.
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: All right, yep, Okay program dot org.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: And Tommy Davison will be at Sony Hall to night.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: Is it sold out already or it's sold out?
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: Nah?
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: No, No, it's still tickets. Okay, well, it's still some
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: tickets available in New York. You know they're gonna walk up.
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: You know you can go check out Tommy Davison tonight
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: at Sony Hall. What time the show start, Tommy eight,
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: eight o'clock. Don't make it so stranger, man, it's been
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: too long between conversations, my guy.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: It's the Breakfast Club. Wake that ass up in the morning.
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: The Breakfast Club