Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 31: Who Taught Us That? Men, Boys & Consent ft. Jamyle Cannon

Transcript

EP 31: Who Taught Us That? Men, Boys & Consent ft. Jamyle Cannon · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

0:06
Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Keir Gaines.
0:09
Speaker 2: We talk about purpose.
0:11
Speaker 1: We talk about pressure.
0:12
Speaker 2: We talk about what it actually takes to become a full,
0:15
Speaker 2: comprehensive man.
0:16
Speaker 1: Hey, what's up, y'all?
0:17
Speaker 2: Welcome back to another episode of the Learn the Hard
0:20
Speaker 2: Way podcast.
0:21
Speaker 1: My name is Keir Gaines. I am a husband. I
0:24
Speaker 1: am a father. I am a man who is not
0:26
Speaker 1: only in but of the community.
0:28
Speaker 2: I am a New York Times bestselling author, a And
0:32
Speaker 2: I am a person who has been on the Internet
0:34
Speaker 2: for the last couple of weeks. And I've been noticing
0:38
Speaker 2: this repeated pattern. And tell me, stop me if you've
0:43
Speaker 2: noticed this, too. Or don't stop me and just allow
0:45
Speaker 2: me to keep cooking. There is this pattern of a. Oh,
0:53
Speaker 2: hold on.
0:53
Speaker 1: You know what?
0:54
Speaker 2: Turn out before we even get into today's episode, today's conversation.
0:58
Speaker 2: Let me just say this off the top. Today's conversation
1:01
Speaker 2: is going to include a frank discussion of sexual assault, rape,
1:05
Speaker 2: and grooming of young people, including a very real story
1:09
Speaker 2: or two. We won't get into graphic detail, but it
1:12
Speaker 2: might get heavy at some point in this episode. So
1:15
Speaker 2: if this topic hits close to home, I want you
1:18
Speaker 2: to take care of yourself. I want you to listen
1:20
Speaker 2: when you're ready. I want you to listen with someone
1:22
Speaker 2: you trust, or it's okay if you skip this episode.
1:26
Speaker 1: It's all right.
1:27
Speaker 2: If you need support, you can reach out to the
1:29
Speaker 2: National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673 or RAINN, which is
1:37
Speaker 2: R-A-I-N-N dot org.
1:40
Speaker 1: Anytime, day or night.
1:42
Speaker 2: All right.
1:43
Speaker 1: Now, today's episode is going to be about consent.
1:47
Speaker 2: I've been noticing a pattern of news articles and news
1:52
Speaker 2: reports coming up. where a woman has been the victim
1:56
Speaker 2: of sexual violence. And then the subsequent news story comes
2:01
Speaker 2: up of what to do about the perpetrator of the violence.
2:05
Speaker 2: And while the news is going through all the legality
2:09
Speaker 2: of everything, there's a moral human conversation that I feel,
2:14
Speaker 2: I feel.
2:16
Speaker 1: Like it slips through our fingers sometimes.
2:18
Speaker 2: And I personally don't like the way that men are
2:22
Speaker 2: having the conversation online about consent, what it means, what
2:27
Speaker 2: these stories mean about how, what men do in society,
2:32
Speaker 2: how that affects people, how that affects children, how that
2:36
Speaker 2: affects women, how that affects other men. So today I
2:42
Speaker 2: invited somebody who not too long ago popped up on
2:46
Speaker 2: my Instagram screen telling a very real story about rape
2:51
Speaker 2: and sexual assault. And by the way, I'm not going
2:53
Speaker 2: to say grape in this conversation. I'm not using any
2:57
Speaker 2: of that language. I'm going to say rape. I'm going
2:59
Speaker 2: to call it what it is. And I know it's
3:01
Speaker 2: harsh and it cuts, but I don't want to use
3:04
Speaker 2: a lighter word that takes away from the heaviness of
3:07
Speaker 2: the reality. And I think we as men have to
3:09
Speaker 2: have a real honest conversation about what role we play
3:14
Speaker 2: in this entire thing, even if we are not the
3:17
Speaker 2: person that perpetrates the crime. What are you to do
3:21
Speaker 2: about it? How do you move through your communities? How
3:24
Speaker 2: do you call it out when you see it? How
3:26
Speaker 2: do you listen to women telling their stories and not
3:29
Speaker 2: feel like it's some type of bashing of men as
3:32
Speaker 2: a whole, but allow those stories and those realities to
3:34
Speaker 2: exist without you internalizing it as some type of indictment
3:38
Speaker 2: or penalty on you? So today, today I invited Jamal Cannon.
3:47
Speaker 2: He is a brilliant brother. And before he introduces himself,
3:50
Speaker 2: I want you to listen to this clip that he
3:53
Speaker 2: posted on social media that went absolutely crazy. And it
3:56
Speaker 2: kind of gives you an idea where he's coming from.
3:58
Speaker 2: Check it out.
3:59
Speaker 3: When I was in high school, a janitor was arrested
4:01
Speaker 3: and convicted of sexual assault against a 14-year-old girl in
4:05
Speaker 3: our school. Two things stand out to me about that experience. One,
4:08
Speaker 3: I had a high school football coach whose only mention
4:12
Speaker 3: of that case was to complain that our locker rooms
4:14
Speaker 3: would never be that clean again. And that high school
4:16
Speaker 3: football coach was later arrested and convicted. of raping a
4:19
Speaker 3: 14 year old. That high school football coach was the
4:22
Speaker 3: only adult that ever talked to me about sex outside
4:24
Speaker 3: of a sex ed class. And what he described when
4:27
Speaker 3: he talked about sex to us 14 year old boys
4:30
Speaker 3: at the time was sexual assault. And we didn't recognize
4:34
Speaker 3: it as sexual assault because we were 14. The number
4:36
Speaker 3: of kids that he got to impact over the course
4:40
Speaker 3: of his time there before he was arrested and convicted
4:43
Speaker 3: put us all on track to do an irreparable amount
4:45
Speaker 3: of harm. The second thing I remember about that 14-year-old
4:47
Speaker 3: girl being raped in my high school was how bad
4:51
Speaker 3: it was for her reputation, how the rest of the
4:54
Speaker 3: student body looked down on her as if she had
4:55
Speaker 3: done something wrong, as if she deserved it. But that
4:59
Speaker 3: was the beginning of my indoctrination, and there's a lot
5:01
Speaker 3: of unlearning to do in order to change that. I
5:03
Speaker 3: was no different from any other 14-year-old boy who blamed
5:06
Speaker 3: that victim and also took hook, line, and sinker the
5:09
Speaker 3: words of a sexual predator for how we create relationships
5:12
Speaker 3: with women. What started to change me was when I
5:14
Speaker 3: went to college and I realized that girls are afraid
5:16
Speaker 3: to walk home at night. Then while I was in college,
5:18
Speaker 3: I worked in family court where my job was to
5:20
Speaker 3: observe domestic violence hearings and report back to the friend
5:22
Speaker 3: of the court. And we would make suggestions about how
5:24
Speaker 3: much security should be involved when a man visits their
5:28
Speaker 3: child after they've been convicted of some sort of abuse.
5:31
Speaker 3: I watched a woman tell a story of being taken
5:35
Speaker 3: out to eat by her husband at the time. Him
5:37
Speaker 3: ordering food and refusing to let her order food, cussing
5:40
Speaker 3: at her, kicking her under the table the entire time,
5:43
Speaker 3: getting her out to the car, dragging her into the
5:45
Speaker 3: car and throwing her in and then physically kicking her out,
5:47
Speaker 3: literally kicking her out of the car and making her
5:50
Speaker 3: walk the rest of the way home. She tells this
5:52
Speaker 3: story to the judge and the judge says, is that it?
5:56
Speaker 3: I realized that when a woman has to report abuse,
6:01
Speaker 3: she's going to take it to probably a male police officer.
6:04
Speaker 3: They're going to send it to a probably male district attorney.
6:06
Speaker 3: They're going to put it in front of a probably
6:07
Speaker 3: male judge. And all along the way, nobody has any
6:10
Speaker 3: direct experience with what this woman has experienced. In my
6:13
Speaker 3: comment section of my last video, there's a lot of
6:15
Speaker 3: talk about how women also play a role in this.
6:17
Speaker 2: And that's true.
6:18
Speaker 3: Women play a role in victim blaming. Women play a
6:20
Speaker 3: role in rape culture. Women play a role in all
6:22
Speaker 3: these pieces. But it's to the benefit of men. And
6:26
Speaker 3: that's why I talk to men when I have these conversations.
6:29
Speaker 3: So I haven't always known what I know, but now
6:30
Speaker 3: that I do, I'm trying to get other men on
6:32
Speaker 3: the same page and Sure enough, I'm going to learn
6:34
Speaker 3: something more. I want to get better. And I'm going
6:36
Speaker 3: to share that with you, too. The route to a
6:39
Speaker 3: safer world is through better men.
6:41
Speaker 1: The route to a safer world is through better men.
6:46
Speaker 1: Jamal Cannon, welcome to the Learn the Hard Way podcast.
6:50
Speaker 1: My brother, it's great to have you here, man.
6:52
Speaker 3: It's great to be here. And that's actually, I'm sad
6:54
Speaker 3: to say, that's evergreen content. You know, I made that
6:57
Speaker 3: video a year ago and I hadn't listened to it.
6:59
Speaker 3: I posted it without listening to it again. And I
7:01
Speaker 3: hear my kids playing in the background. And it just
7:05
Speaker 3: grounds me in why I'm talking about these things. You know,
7:08
Speaker 3: I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old, and I want
7:11
Speaker 3: them to understand the impact that they have on the world.
7:13
Speaker 3: And I want them to know when they're being treated fairly,
7:15
Speaker 3: when they're being treated the right way, when they can
7:18
Speaker 3: walk away and that they can walk away from things
7:20
Speaker 3: that are uncomfortable for them.
7:21
Speaker 2: And I want a.
7:21
Speaker 3: World that's ready for that for them as well. And
7:25
Speaker 3: I want them to contribute to that world. You know,
7:28
Speaker 3: I'm in Chicago. I work with young people. I have
7:32
Speaker 3: a youth boxing club that I run. We engage young
7:35
Speaker 3: people who want to fight with the sport of boxing.
7:38
Speaker 3: Then we provide them with resources and opportunities around the sport.
7:41
Speaker 3: And what we find is we have a lot of
7:42
Speaker 3: young boys whose only emotion they've ever been allowed to
7:45
Speaker 3: express is anger. And they have no place to put it.
7:48
Speaker 3: So we have this place for that to land. And
7:49
Speaker 3: then we get to unpack all these other things along
7:51
Speaker 3: the way. What's happening at home, what's happening at school,
7:53
Speaker 3: what's happening inside of you. And because of that, we
7:55
Speaker 3: see incredible growth in young people. I want all people
7:58
Speaker 3: to have that opportunity. And there are some recurring messages
8:01
Speaker 3: that we end up having to preach. One of them
8:04
Speaker 3: is to really understand and honor yourself, but also to
8:08
Speaker 3: take that understanding to honor other people as well. And
8:11
Speaker 3: I think that is at the core of the conversation
8:13
Speaker 3: around consent, what we're doing at The Block Chicago.
8:16
Speaker 2: I couldn't possibly agree with you more, man. And shout
8:20
Speaker 2: out to you for doing that work. I think it's
8:23
Speaker 2: important for young people, specifically young men, specifically young black men,
8:28
Speaker 2: to have an outlet for the emotions that they carry
8:31
Speaker 2: that have the potential to cause great harm to themselves
8:35
Speaker 2: and community, but them having a safe place to put
8:38
Speaker 2: those emotions instead of them being demonized, cash to the side,
8:42
Speaker 2: and that kid just being expected to move through them
8:45
Speaker 2: without any type of help, guidance, or tutelage, man. But you, man,
8:50
Speaker 2: you said so many important things, bro. But The thing
8:55
Speaker 2: that I try to bring home the most, man, and
8:58
Speaker 2: this is a tough situation. This is a tough conversation
9:00
Speaker 2: for me to talk about because I'm realizing I'm filtering
9:03
Speaker 2: through my words as I'm talking. I think there's something
9:06
Speaker 2: awkward about being a man who's having this conversation. I
9:10
Speaker 2: think it's something awkward to be a man who's kind
9:13
Speaker 2: of stopping the record. Like I'm bumping the DJ table,
9:16
Speaker 2: letting it scratch and saying, hey, man, I don't think
9:20
Speaker 2: that's right what you're doing and what you're saying. And
9:22
Speaker 2: the discomfort that comes with that and holding that discomfort,
9:25
Speaker 2: allowing it to be, but also trying not to let
9:28
Speaker 2: it stop me.
9:29
Speaker 1: But you're right.
9:30
Speaker 2: When I talk to men, I don't know how often,
9:33
Speaker 2: men and boys, I don't know how often the conversation
9:36
Speaker 2: of consent comes up as it pertains to their own bodies.
9:41
Speaker 2: And there's like this thing that goes on that happens
9:44
Speaker 2: with men that if you're touched by a woman, You know,
9:48
Speaker 2: it's it's the assumption that you should just be grateful
9:50
Speaker 2: that somebody touched you. You should be grateful that that
9:54
Speaker 2: expression of affection landed on you because a lot of
9:57
Speaker 2: us don't even get that.
9:58
Speaker 1: And it underlines.
10:00
Speaker 2: The fact that what if the idea that i didn't
10:02
Speaker 2: want that touch and that touch didn't feel good to
10:05
Speaker 2: me at all but there's no safe place for that
10:09
Speaker 2: to be put just like the emotions that you're talking
10:11
Speaker 2: about with the anger with the kids in the boxing classes.
10:13
Speaker 3: Absolutely we get taught that all sex is good sex Yeah.
10:17
Speaker 3: And all touch is good touch. And there's no conversation
10:19
Speaker 3: around consent around that. Think about how many boys we
10:21
Speaker 3: grew up with who were talking about contact with older women.
10:26
Speaker 3: And there could be a dissonance in their voices. You know,
10:30
Speaker 3: we're 10, 11, 12 years old. There could be a
10:32
Speaker 3: dissonance in their voices, but they have to express it
10:34
Speaker 3: as if they're excited about it. When in reality, they're confused.
10:38
Speaker 3: When in reality, they're scared. When in reality, they don't
10:40
Speaker 3: know what else that they can do because they have
10:41
Speaker 3: someone with more power than them telling them what they
10:43
Speaker 3: have to do with their bodies. And if we can
10:45
Speaker 3: internalize that, then we can also ignore what other people
10:49
Speaker 3: think about consent, too.
10:50
Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely.
10:51
Speaker 2: I think it encourages you to ignore it because you
10:53
Speaker 2: had to you you have the experience of learning to
10:56
Speaker 2: ignore that experience in your own body. So when anybody
10:59
Speaker 2: else comes to you with it, how dare you try
11:01
Speaker 2: to make space for something that I'm not allowed to feel?
11:05
Speaker 1: You know, I.
11:06
Speaker 2: Can see where young men wouldn't be able to see
11:10
Speaker 2: it at all or see it and not honor it.
11:14
Speaker 3: And that's why the conversation of consent maybe doesn't start
11:16
Speaker 3: with consent. The conversation of consent starts with the full
11:19
Speaker 3: acknowledgement of ourselves as being worthy individuals. The full acknowledgement
11:23
Speaker 3: of ourselves as men being inherently valuable and having our
11:27
Speaker 3: own autonomy and being able to pursue our own hopes
11:30
Speaker 3: and dreams and goals in ways that we hadn't before.
11:33
Speaker 3: In the video, I said that my coach tells me
11:37
Speaker 3: about the beginning of my indoctrination, but that's not true.
11:40
Speaker 3: I remember the first thing I got taught about being
11:42
Speaker 3: a man. I just seen a man beat up a
11:45
Speaker 3: woman and then moved to the side and cry. And
11:48
Speaker 3: I asked my neighbor, he was like a 16 year old.
11:50
Speaker 3: I was five years old at the time. My neighbor's
11:52
Speaker 3: about 16 years old. I asked him why that man
11:53
Speaker 3: was crying. He said, it's because he's not a man.
11:56
Speaker 3: Men don't cry. It wasn't the men don't hit women.
11:59
Speaker 3: It wasn't that men don't men control their emotions. The
12:01
Speaker 3: men don't cry. And I learned right then and there
12:04
Speaker 3: that I shouldn't be crying. And I need to shut
12:07
Speaker 3: off other emotions in order to achieve that. If I
12:09
Speaker 3: can shut off my own emotions, I, And override everything
12:13
Speaker 3: that I'm feeling. What does it mean to me to
12:15
Speaker 3: override what other people are feeling and going through?
12:18
Speaker 2: You know, you make me think about the first time
12:22
Speaker 2: I've ever been talked to about sex and what that
12:26
Speaker 2: conversation was like.
12:28
Speaker 1: And I'll just ask.
12:30
Speaker 2: The men who are listening right now, because let's just
12:33
Speaker 2: clear the air. This isn't a place for you to
12:36
Speaker 2: be blamed for something that you didn't do directly. This
12:39
Speaker 2: is not a place for you to hold the baggage
12:42
Speaker 2: for men you don't know didn't raise and aren't.
12:44
Speaker 1: Socially responsible for.
12:46
Speaker 2: This is a place for us to kind of really
12:48
Speaker 2: be introspective and think about where we stand in this
12:50
Speaker 2: whole thing. And I first got talked to about sex
12:54
Speaker 2: from my mom. And I was raised by a single mom.
12:57
Speaker 2: She ain't holding no punches. She's very honest. but my
13:00
Speaker 2: mom was also a survivor of sexual violence multiple times.
13:05
Speaker 2: And I've known about it my entire life. She never
13:07
Speaker 2: hid it. I think the biggest bugaboo with me is
13:10
Speaker 2: I knew what happened, but they kind of hid the
13:12
Speaker 2: names of the men that always, that always perplexed me. Like, nah, say,
13:16
Speaker 2: say his name. He doesn't.
13:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
13:20
Speaker 2: He don't get protection after doing that, but the name
13:23
Speaker 2: was never said. So there was always this understanding in
13:26
Speaker 2: my house of what sexual violence was. And bro, it
13:28
Speaker 2: got to the point where I remember once I turned 11,
13:31
Speaker 2: my mom sat me down. She said, hey, you can't just,
13:34
Speaker 2: I can't wake up and just see you in my room.
13:38
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying? I can't wake up and
13:40
Speaker 2: see you standing over my bed. And I love you, baby,
13:43
Speaker 2: so much, but that just means something different for me.
13:46
Speaker 2: So I need you to knock and announce yourself and
13:48
Speaker 2: let me know it's you before you come walking here.
13:51
Speaker 2: So when I'm navigating these spaces and I'm having conversations
13:55
Speaker 2: about consent, It's I'm a man, I'm a black man.
13:59
Speaker 2: And I know online when black men have these conversations,
14:02
Speaker 2: it's not always the most sensitive and it doesn't really
14:05
Speaker 2: speak to the issue of the live realities of women
14:09
Speaker 2: and other men and other men who have been sexually violated.
14:13
Speaker 2: But I'm coming from a completely different place to understand it.
14:17
Speaker 2: So I have always carried the idea of consent and
14:20
Speaker 2: what it meant from a really a holistic perspective, but like,
14:26
Speaker 2: what was it for you? The first time you heard
14:28
Speaker 2: about sex, what the messaging was, how it came across,
14:32
Speaker 2: how you learned about consent. Yeah.
14:34
Speaker 3: So the conversation that happened at home happened much later
14:37
Speaker 3: than other conversations that had happened at school.
14:40
Speaker 1: How old were you?
14:41
Speaker 3: Maybe nine, 10.
14:43
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. You know, around that's around the time. That's
14:46
Speaker 2: around the time for me.
14:47
Speaker 3: Older guys in the neighborhood start asking when you're getting some,
14:50
Speaker 3: which I found, I found bizarre. Looking back, why is
14:53
Speaker 3: this adult asking this 9, 10, 11-year-old when he's going
14:56
Speaker 3: to be sexually active? You know, other kids, older kids
15:01
Speaker 3: and relatives that had had experiences. And when I look
15:05
Speaker 3: back on it, it sounds like they had had experiences
15:07
Speaker 3: that were non-consensual. And they're coming back and talking about sex.
15:12
Speaker 3: I think when it comes to peer-to-peer conversations about sex,
15:15
Speaker 3: the person leading that conversation is often someone who's been
15:19
Speaker 3: impacted by sexual violence.
15:21
Speaker 2: For sure.
15:22
Speaker 3: And they're passing down what they know about sex. And
15:24
Speaker 3: then some of the first people to have conversations about
15:26
Speaker 3: sex with young people are people who've been impacted by
15:28
Speaker 3: sexual predators. So the message that we get, the language
15:31
Speaker 3: that we use about sex is often given to us
15:34
Speaker 3: by people who've been victimized and haven't necessarily internalized the
15:39
Speaker 3: impact of that victimization. So there are a lot of
15:42
Speaker 3: automatic patterns that we end up having that aren't our fault,
15:45
Speaker 3: but take some time to unlearn and unpack and readjust things.
15:50
Speaker 3: So that we can be safe.
15:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:54
Speaker 2: And I think it's me and you are two black
15:56
Speaker 2: men who clearly understand it.
15:58
Speaker 1: We get it.
15:59
Speaker 2: We know the language. We know the landscape. But there's
16:02
Speaker 2: something that happens. And Tarana Burke, the founder of the
16:06
Speaker 2: Me Too movement, is one of my good homies, man.
16:08
Speaker 2: And I've been wanting to get her on to talk
16:10
Speaker 2: about this for a while. But she speaks about this brilliantly.
16:13
Speaker 2: There's something that happens when we begin to have this
16:15
Speaker 2: conversation together. And it goes from this is a woman
16:19
Speaker 2: telling her story or I'm just going to say woman
16:23
Speaker 2: in this instance because it's not to ignore that men
16:26
Speaker 2: are victims of sexual violence, but this is just what
16:28
Speaker 2: I see all the time. A woman tells her story automatically,
16:31
Speaker 2: a man feels need to defend himself. Almost like by
16:35
Speaker 2: virtue of her telling the story, he's implicated some way
16:39
Speaker 2: in what happened. Is that something that you notice?
16:41
Speaker 3: There's an automatic defensiveness. I think it goes along with
16:45
Speaker 3: when your mother wouldn't say the name of those men.
16:48
Speaker 3: We are all against sexual violence in the abstract. We're
16:52
Speaker 3: all against sexual violence when people are unnamed and the
16:55
Speaker 3: idea of sexual violence is wrong to us. But as
16:57
Speaker 3: soon as it becomes specific, there's a level, there's something
17:01
Speaker 3: that gets triggered within us. And I think on our part,
17:04
Speaker 3: we find it easier to identify ourselves as the man
17:08
Speaker 3: in the scenario than we do as the victim in
17:12
Speaker 3: the scenario, despite the fact that we're more likely to
17:15
Speaker 3: be victims of rape than be falsely accused of rape.
17:19
Speaker 3: We are more connected to our idea of masculinity than
17:22
Speaker 3: we are justice in too many instances. And a part
17:28
Speaker 3: of that masculinity is the approval of other men. In
17:30
Speaker 3: order to keep the approval of other men, we know
17:34
Speaker 3: what side we have to take in those conversations when
17:36
Speaker 3: they come up.
17:37
Speaker 2: Yeah. And for me, for the longest time, I think
17:41
Speaker 2: one of my biggest blind spots was my worldview and
17:45
Speaker 2: the fact that I surround myself with men who are
17:48
Speaker 2: of similar ilk, men who have great depth and great understanding,
17:54
Speaker 2: who are worldly and who provide rich context and rich understanding.
17:59
Speaker 2: And I think it's a mix of that and me
18:01
Speaker 2: knowing the things that I've done to prevent sexual violence.
18:04
Speaker 2: I've thrown parties when it's two or three women kind
18:08
Speaker 2: of straggling real late and it's a house full of
18:10
Speaker 2: dudes and one of them is really intoxicated. I'm like,
18:13
Speaker 2: we're going to call y'all a cab. I mean, this
18:15
Speaker 2: is before Uber. We're going to call y'all a cab
18:19
Speaker 2: and make sure y'all get home safe or call your
18:21
Speaker 2: friends and have them come pick you up. I don't
18:24
Speaker 2: think it's a good idea for you to be here
18:26
Speaker 2: this late. But the idea that that one action somehow
18:31
Speaker 2: erases the hundreds of Thousands, tens of thousands of instances
18:36
Speaker 2: when the inverse thing happened, I think was a blind
18:40
Speaker 2: spot for me for the longest and not looking at
18:42
Speaker 2: my actions as the exception to the rule. But that's
18:47
Speaker 2: what everybody does because everybody is a good person and
18:49
Speaker 2: everybody is looking out for the best interests of vulnerable people.
18:54
Speaker 2: And I think when you mix that defensiveness with the
18:57
Speaker 2: idea that I'm not the exception, I'm the rule. It
19:02
Speaker 2: puts men in a precarious spot where I don't know
19:05
Speaker 2: if we're hearing the conversation that's actually happening rather than
19:09
Speaker 2: trying to, I don't want to say protect the image.
19:14
Speaker 1: Maybe that is what it is. I don't know why
19:16
Speaker 1: I'm reluctant to say that.
19:17
Speaker 2: But rather than to keep the narrative of I'm not
19:22
Speaker 2: one of those guys.
19:24
Speaker 3: We have to defend our space in the conversation and
19:28
Speaker 3: to be on the wrong side of that conversation is,
19:30
Speaker 3: What seems to suggest that you are a rape apologist,
19:37
Speaker 3: what seems to suggest that you agree with what happens
19:39
Speaker 3: on the other side of that. So if I'm saying
19:42
Speaker 3: that we need to do more to step up to
19:44
Speaker 3: talk to other men and make sure that they're taking
19:46
Speaker 3: this girl home that's too drunk and call it a language,
19:49
Speaker 3: and you're not comfortable doing that because it is a
19:52
Speaker 3: scary thing to do, to be at odds with your peers,
19:56
Speaker 3: it's easier for you to push back on me than
19:59
Speaker 3: it is to change that action. And you can't acknowledge
20:03
Speaker 3: that you should do that, but But don't, because that
20:06
Speaker 3: means that you are you're complicit in a rape culture.
20:09
Speaker 1: It implicates you.
20:09
Speaker 2: Yeah.
20:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. So to to to even acknowledge that conversation, you
20:13
Speaker 3: have to defend your space in it because because the
20:16
Speaker 3: stakes are so high. And how do we move that
20:19
Speaker 3: conversation from one of blame? How do we move that
20:21
Speaker 3: conversation of one of implication to say and like, no,
20:25
Speaker 3: we just need to be a little bit better in this.
20:26
Speaker 3: We need to be a lot better. But to get
20:28
Speaker 3: one person to move it and to be incrementally better
20:31
Speaker 3: over time. As opposed to the shame that isn't moving.
20:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, man. That's a good point.
20:41
Speaker 2: Because there's a part of me that wants to oversimplify
20:43
Speaker 2: it and be like, look, all we got to do is,
20:44
Speaker 2: but no, we're not talking about one man.
20:48
Speaker 1: We're talking about.
20:49
Speaker 2: Millions and millions and millions of people who are trying
20:52
Speaker 2: to get on the same accord. And even with what
20:55
Speaker 2: happened at Cornell University, I spoke out against it.
20:59
Speaker 1: I said something on threads.
21:00
Speaker 2: I'm like, hey, You know, if this is, if you're
21:04
Speaker 2: using this moment to say not all men, this is
21:08
Speaker 2: a stark reminder that it's okay to shut the fuck
21:11
Speaker 2: up sometimes. And dudes got mad at me because it's like, man,
21:15
Speaker 2: I'm getting blamed for something I didn't do. You just
21:18
Speaker 2: saying that anybody can blame me or anything at any moment.
21:20
Speaker 2: It's like, nah, but you pick your spots and this
21:23
Speaker 2: is not the spot to do that.
21:24
Speaker 1: You can't all lives.
21:25
Speaker 2: Matter this right now when the house is on fire, bro.
21:29
Speaker 3: It's similar to when we talk about We talk about
21:31
Speaker 3: slavery and white people feel like we're blaming them for it.
21:35
Speaker 3: When in reality, you don't have to identify with the enslaver.
21:39
Speaker 3: You can identify with the people who are fighting against slavery.
21:42
Speaker 3: You can identify with the abolitionists. In the case of
21:45
Speaker 3: the Cornel 7, you don't have to identify with the
21:47
Speaker 3: seven men. You can identify with the people who are
21:50
Speaker 3: trying to stop this from happening again.
21:53
Speaker 2: And I think.
21:56
Speaker 3: I think that idea of blame goes away when we
21:59
Speaker 3: shift who we identify with in that conversation.
22:01
Speaker 2: I wonder how we get men to shift who you
22:11
Speaker 2: identify with, because I can see a world where, you know,
22:16
Speaker 2: you know, the man in the bed conversation. And I
22:18
Speaker 2: always try to get men to understand like, hey, it's like.
22:22
Speaker 2: black men in the police is every police officer bad
22:25
Speaker 2: no are you a police are you and your friends
22:28
Speaker 2: negative experiences with police profuse and obvious yes but when
22:33
Speaker 2: you don't know where the threat is coming from you
22:35
Speaker 2: have to assume the threat is coming from everywhere that
22:38
Speaker 2: is the conversation and i don't know how to put
22:43
Speaker 2: that conversation in a place where it can be seen
22:46
Speaker 2: from a perspective of Like you said, when you could
22:49
Speaker 2: pick who you identify with instead of the default being, oh,
22:53
Speaker 2: you're blaming me for something I didn't do. Because it'll
22:57
Speaker 2: put the onus on the victim to have to explain
23:02
Speaker 2: to you how to interpret this safely. Yeah. You know,
23:06
Speaker 2: like out of all of this, and I got to
23:09
Speaker 2: explain to you how you should try to adjust it.
23:12
Speaker 2: That's a lot to ask.
23:13
Speaker 3: That's a lot of work.
23:14
Speaker 2: That's a lot of work. That's a lot of work.
23:16
Speaker 2: So I'm not going to pretend to have the answer here,
23:18
Speaker 2: but I don't know how that conversation is had without
23:22
Speaker 2: those feelings now stealing the center stage in the limelight
23:27
Speaker 2: and recentering the conversation around not, you know, avoiding the
23:32
Speaker 2: blame of something that you yourself didn't do.
23:35
Speaker 3: Let me lay out what I think the fuller problem
23:37
Speaker 3: is without necessarily having a solution right now. I think
23:41
Speaker 3: starting at consent. The issue is consent is an urgent
23:47
Speaker 3: and important issue that needs to be tackled right now.
23:50
Speaker 3: And another issue is it goes much deeper than that.
23:52
Speaker 3: And it goes into our very indoctrination to what it
23:55
Speaker 3: means to be a man. And the idea that from
23:58
Speaker 3: a very young age, we are taught to deny ourselves
24:00
Speaker 3: a full emotional range. to not express ourselves in any
24:05
Speaker 3: way that can announce any sort of vulnerability with one another.
24:09
Speaker 3: We learn to shut ourselves down and not empathize with ourselves.
24:14
Speaker 3: We learn that we are means to an end of production.
24:17
Speaker 3: We learn that we don't have inherent.
24:18
Speaker 1: Value in that way.
24:19
Speaker 3: We are valued for what we bring. When you package
24:23
Speaker 3: all these things together and then you say, now go
24:26
Speaker 3: and acknowledge somebody else's full humanity, when you've denied yourself
24:29
Speaker 3: full humanity, That conversation gets a lot harder to have.
24:33
Speaker 3: There are so many deeply destructive symptoms of this indoctrination
24:40
Speaker 3: that we've received. And I think there has to be
24:42
Speaker 3: some counter-programming. We talk a lot about what we should
24:45
Speaker 3: not do, but where is a positive example of who
24:47
Speaker 3: we should be? Because we get it institutionally. We've gotten
24:51
Speaker 3: images of masculinity from the church, from the media, from
24:54
Speaker 3: the schools, from everything that's around us. So where is
24:58
Speaker 3: that alternative programming for young people to be coming up
25:01
Speaker 3: to and see constant examples of something that's different from
25:03
Speaker 3: what we've been, what we've been taught.
25:06
Speaker 1: That's such a good point, man. I, um, I'm, I'm
25:10
Speaker 1: looking at the program that you do. I know you
25:12
Speaker 1: started in a 2016 is afterschool boxing club. I mean,
25:16
Speaker 1: I had school boxing club program, you know, it was
25:19
Speaker 1: 12 kids that reached out. And by the years in
25:22
Speaker 1: the average GPA was 3.1 for the kids.
25:24
Speaker 2: They came to school, they were happier, uh, It grew
25:27
Speaker 2: to 80 kids and you see about 30%, was it 30% girls? Yeah, 30% girls. Yeah.
25:36
Speaker 2: In your program? Yeah.
25:38
Speaker 3: And what's interesting about that, so we're about 400 kids
25:41
Speaker 3: a year right now. Half the people who sign up
25:43
Speaker 3: are girls, but 30% of people who show up are girls.
25:47
Speaker 3: There's a barrier between signing up and showing up. And
25:49
Speaker 3: I think one of those barriers is I don't want
25:51
Speaker 3: to be around all these boys. So we actually had
25:54
Speaker 3: a girl in our program. She had graduated. She now
25:56
Speaker 3: works for us. She's a young lady. She's 21 now.
25:59
Speaker 3: She said, hey, we got to start a girls-only program.
26:01
Speaker 3: I said, I can't start a girls-only program, but you
26:02
Speaker 3: can start a girls-only program. So she launches this program
26:05
Speaker 3: called the Alpha's Corner. She finds trainers. She's taking them
26:09
Speaker 3: on field trips. She's got guest speakers coming in. They're
26:11
Speaker 3: doing boxing training. They're doing journaling. They're coming together. This
26:14
Speaker 3: is one of the best things we got going right
26:15
Speaker 3: now because we're able to get out of the way
26:18
Speaker 3: and listen to Jasmine, who's running this thing. And have
26:22
Speaker 3: her lead it into the future because she saw that, hey,
26:25
Speaker 3: we're not all that comfortable. Like, you know, I think
26:27
Speaker 3: the emotional temperature of the room is right, but we're
26:29
Speaker 3: still still a room full of boys. And we need
26:31
Speaker 3: a different space for that. And there's just a reality
26:34
Speaker 3: behind engaging young girls in co-ed spaces that there's a
26:38
Speaker 3: lot of learning for everybody to do so that we
26:40
Speaker 3: can do it well.
26:42
Speaker 2: I want you to take me back a little bit
26:44
Speaker 2: because I see where you are. And it's easy to
26:48
Speaker 2: see who you are now, but I want folks to
26:50
Speaker 2: get a better idea of how you got here. I
26:54
Speaker 2: think when we tell the story of how we arrived
26:56
Speaker 2: to who we are, it inspires people in a different way.
26:59
Speaker 2: It illuminates the journey and not just the destination. So
27:03
Speaker 2: I want you to take me back to you growing
27:05
Speaker 2: up in Chicago, man. And I want to know, who
27:08
Speaker 2: was showing you what a man is supposed to be?
27:11
Speaker 2: And what were the lessons that stayed with you?
27:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I was born in Lexington, Kentucky.
27:18
Speaker 3: I got to Chicago in about 20, in 2012. And
27:22
Speaker 3: before being in Chicago, living in Lexington, I grew up
27:25
Speaker 3: with a single mother, had two brothers coming up. And
27:29
Speaker 3: I talk about some of those counterexamples that I got
27:30
Speaker 3: of masculinity, but there are a couple that really stand
27:33
Speaker 3: out to me as exactly what I needed when I
27:36
Speaker 3: needed them. You know, my stepfather was addicted to crack
27:40
Speaker 3: growing up. And we had this basketball team I was on,
27:44
Speaker 3: and we needed to go on this tournament. So I
27:46
Speaker 3: was out hustling, making money to go to this tournament.
27:49
Speaker 3: I was mowing people's lawns. I was taking out trash.
27:52
Speaker 3: I was knocking on doors, doing whatever I could. And
27:54
Speaker 3: I would put my money into this Coca-Cola-shaped penny bank.
27:57
Speaker 3: And I woke up the day of the tournament, and
28:00
Speaker 3: my money was gone. And my stepfather had taken it.
28:03
Speaker 3: And he had disappeared. And I was violently mad. I
28:08
Speaker 3: was nine years old. I could have killed a man
28:10
Speaker 3: at that time. And my mother called the coach, said, hey,
28:14
Speaker 3: we can't take the trip. Coach lied and said we
28:16
Speaker 3: had to boost the club to cover it. He paid
28:18
Speaker 3: for it out of his own pocket. Coach Bobby Snyder,
28:20
Speaker 3: he made sure I didn't miss anything. We went to
28:23
Speaker 3: the mall. He would give me money before anybody got
28:29
Speaker 3: there so that I was spending my own money by
28:31
Speaker 3: what it looked like. I just made sure I was
28:33
Speaker 3: good to go. I never mentioned it again. And we
28:36
Speaker 3: kept moving from there. So I had these two examples
28:38
Speaker 3: right then and there of who I could be. As
28:42
Speaker 3: a man, I think about Coach Breathitt, my high school
28:46
Speaker 3: track coach. He would show up on his motorcycle. Black man,
28:51
Speaker 3: former All-American, roll up on his motorcycle with his son
28:53
Speaker 3: on the back. We would have hour and a half practices.
28:57
Speaker 3: 45 minutes was just talking. We just talking about life,
29:00
Speaker 3: what's going on. He's showing us how to iron our pants,
29:03
Speaker 3: not a tie. That's the first black man I'd ever
29:05
Speaker 3: seen cry.
29:06
Speaker 2: Amen.
29:06
Speaker 3: Cried all the time. And to see an image of
29:09
Speaker 3: a man that, um, that did not care what he
29:15
Speaker 3: was supposed to be, but instead was doing what he
29:18
Speaker 3: thought was best with his life, with his masculinity and
29:21
Speaker 3: modeling that to us, I think was one of the
29:23
Speaker 3: most healing things I could have gone to gone through.
29:25
Speaker 3: And it happened at a critical time in my life.
29:27
Speaker 3: I'm 14 years old going into high school. And I
29:31
Speaker 3: think those two things helped me help ground me in
29:36
Speaker 3: a lot of ways. I was, I was fighting a
29:38
Speaker 3: lot when I was a kid. Um, was arrested or
29:41
Speaker 3: taken into custody. I was suspended from school. And it
29:44
Speaker 3: was sports that helped rein me in. But it was
29:45
Speaker 3: boxing that helped show me that I didn't go from
29:48
Speaker 3: zero to 100. I went from zero to 20 to
29:50
Speaker 3: 50 to 70 to 100. And when I'm sparring or boxing,
29:55
Speaker 3: if I go from zero to 100, I'm getting beat
29:56
Speaker 3: up worse because I'm losing control. So I got to
29:59
Speaker 3: catch that up. I got to catch it at 20.
30:01
Speaker 3: Why am I getting mad in the first place? I'm
30:04
Speaker 3: in the boxing ring. I'm getting mad that I'm getting
30:05
Speaker 3: hit in the boxing ring. What am I doing? What's
30:07
Speaker 3: my relationship with failure? I'm having to unpack all these
30:09
Speaker 3: things to get better at boxing. I won the 2009
30:12
Speaker 3: national championship, not because I got better at the sport
30:15
Speaker 3: and the technicality of it. I got better at controlling
30:17
Speaker 3: what was happening inside of my mind and recognizing that
30:20
Speaker 3: anger is a secondary emotion. I don't feel angry first.
30:23
Speaker 3: I feel disappointed first. I feel inadequate first. So, you know,
30:27
Speaker 3: having that experience helped to shape me and bring out
30:32
Speaker 3: who I became in the long run.
30:35
Speaker 2: Man, I think my first, it's hard for me to
30:40
Speaker 2: pinpoint my first healthy example of like that type of
30:45
Speaker 2: tutelage with a man. When I was in the seventh grade,
30:49
Speaker 2: my mom and I were bumping heads real nasty, man.
30:51
Speaker 2: Like seventh, eighth grade. We were just bumping heads. I
30:55
Speaker 2: think I was growing it to my own and she
30:57
Speaker 2: had an idea of how she wanted to pair it.
30:59
Speaker 2: And I think we just we conflicted in that spot.
31:02
Speaker 2: So they had somebody else's father come in and mentor
31:06
Speaker 2: me like three times a week. Wow. And he wanted
31:10
Speaker 2: to connect so badly. I just think I didn't know
31:12
Speaker 2: how to connect with him at the time. He was
31:15
Speaker 2: doing all the things and saying all the things, but
31:20
Speaker 2: it wasn't it wasn't landing on me. In the moment,
31:24
Speaker 2: it wasn't until I became a little bit older. And
31:30
Speaker 2: when I went back to the neighborhood and I engaged
31:32
Speaker 2: with the dudes in the neighborhood, man, they weren't on
31:35
Speaker 2: nothing that felt positive. They weren't on anything that felt progressive.
31:41
Speaker 2: And I remember we got evicted from my apartment wrongfully.
31:48
Speaker 2: And they put all our stuff out on the corner.
31:51
Speaker 2: And when I tell you all them grown-ass men was
31:53
Speaker 2: picking through my stuff, picking through it. Money in my pockets, gone. Boom,
31:57
Speaker 2: Game Boy, gone. Money I saved, gone.
32:00
Speaker 1: Everything, gone.
32:02
Speaker 2: So my first idea of healthy masculinity, even beyond a
32:08
Speaker 2: sexual context, wasn't so much so I want to be
32:11
Speaker 2: like any particular thing. Because the dude they had coming
32:13
Speaker 2: to me at the school, he just wasn't my speed.
32:15
Speaker 2: He's a nice guy, but wasn't my speed, man. But
32:18
Speaker 2: I was more so.
32:22
Speaker 2: I think my idea was more so framed around the
32:24
Speaker 2: type of dude I never wanted to be. And I
32:27
Speaker 2: never forget in my neighborhood, there was this guy who
32:30
Speaker 2: was in a relationship.
32:31
Speaker 1: I had a homie named Baby James.
32:33
Speaker 2: And Baby James' sister was in a relationship with one
32:35
Speaker 2: of the dudes from the neighborhood. And Baby James' sister
32:39
Speaker 2: got into it with the dude from the neighborhood. And
32:42
Speaker 2: he took her down by a school. He killed her.
32:48
Speaker 1: And this was one of the dudes that's always around.
32:51
Speaker 2: And to know that somebody like that was capable of
32:53
Speaker 2: that level of violence, but it wasn't like, man, it's outrage.
32:57
Speaker 2: We didn't march in the streets. It's like nothing ever happened.
33:00
Speaker 2: They just moved it over. It was a bunch of
33:04
Speaker 2: teddy bears and, and, and Alize bottles at a lamppost.
33:08
Speaker 1: And that was it.
33:10
Speaker 2: So I think, you know, deep in me, man, when
33:13
Speaker 2: it comes to things like violence and assault, I don't know.
33:18
Speaker 2: I felt like something has to be said. It's like,
33:21
Speaker 2: it's like a pebble in the shoe, man. It's there
33:25
Speaker 2: and I can't ignore it. And something has to be said.
33:29
Speaker 2: But when it comes to talking about, talking to men
33:32
Speaker 2: about it, the tenor of the conversation is going to
33:35
Speaker 2: dictate how well they absorb whatever's being said. You know,
33:42
Speaker 2: go ahead. Because if it's blaming or accusatory, I feel
33:44
Speaker 2: like you lose the men in the room. But it's
33:46
Speaker 2: hard to have a conversation about collective responsibility without anything
33:52
Speaker 2: being interpreted as blaming or accusatory.
33:56
Speaker 3: In some ways, the stance that we're in, the position
34:00
Speaker 3: that we're in is the same as the man they
34:02
Speaker 3: brought in to talk to you.
34:03
Speaker 1: Oh, give me that.
34:04
Speaker 2: How so?
34:06
Speaker 3: We are coming from the right place. We can say
34:10
Speaker 3: the right things, but we have to figure out how
34:13
Speaker 3: to connect. We got to figure out how to connect
34:15
Speaker 3: with men. And maybe the reason why that man didn't
34:18
Speaker 3: connect with you because he was the type of man
34:19
Speaker 3: they bring in to talk to kids at school.
34:22
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:23
Speaker 3: You know, there has to be an authentic messenger. It
34:26
Speaker 3: has to be a level of connection before I can
34:29
Speaker 3: learn from you. I have to connect with you. That's
34:31
Speaker 3: to be resonance between us. So in a lot of ways,
34:35
Speaker 3: the conversations, even when I'm starting them, I'm not creating resonance.
34:39
Speaker 3: I'm not creating like, oh, we are the same. We
34:41
Speaker 3: have the same values. We are of equal stance right here.
34:45
Speaker 3: Oftentimes when I'm coming into these conversations, I can start
34:48
Speaker 3: here and I realize, oh, I got to, I got to,
34:51
Speaker 3: we got to get on this. I got to be
34:52
Speaker 3: on the same level with this person. I was at
34:55
Speaker 3: a club. I don't go to clubs often. So I
34:58
Speaker 3: was at a club and this man was trying to
35:00
Speaker 3: get me to stare at this woman. And I'm confused
35:05
Speaker 3: by what I'm supposed to get out of staring at
35:07
Speaker 3: this woman because And I feel the same thing everybody
35:09
Speaker 3: else feels in that situation where, like, I should just
35:11
Speaker 3: go along with this. And I just turned to him
35:15
Speaker 3: and said, I don't think that's what you're here for.
35:17
Speaker 3: And it was awkward enough for him to walk away.
35:20
Speaker 3: And maybe the club ain't a place for that conversation.
35:23
Speaker 3: I just need to shut that down. But also, I
35:25
Speaker 3: put myself up here as opposed to, like, being somewhere
35:27
Speaker 3: with him and then getting him to change in a
35:29
Speaker 3: more sustained way as opposed to finding a different.
35:33
Speaker 2: Audience for it.
35:36
Speaker 1: All right. Yeah.
35:37
Speaker 2: It's, it's, it's been several times when like a woman
35:41
Speaker 2: going down the street, she getting catcalled. I'm like, bro,
35:43
Speaker 2: it's simply, fuck is you doing? Yeah.
35:46
Speaker 1: You know, it's, it's never just like, oh yeah, nah,
35:49
Speaker 1: you right.
35:49
Speaker 2: I shouldn't do that. It's always like a bit of,
35:52
Speaker 2: it's this, it's this tug and pull where you would
35:55
Speaker 2: expect it just to be like an understanding and then
35:58
Speaker 2: you move from there, but it's, it's never that simple.
36:01
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things I want to
36:02
Speaker 2: do in this conversation is give men more language and,
36:05
Speaker 2: and more agency so that when those situations pop up,
36:08
Speaker 2: they don't feel like an after school special. They just said,
36:11
Speaker 2: they feel like they're a dude standing on business. And
36:14
Speaker 2: I want to go back to the story we played
36:15
Speaker 2: at the very top of the episode. And when you
36:18
Speaker 2: talk about the assault that happened, because a lot of
36:21
Speaker 2: us hear these stories, I'm starting to realize that perhaps
36:23
Speaker 2: we're not socially and overtly vocal about them as much
36:28
Speaker 2: as we could be. When you talk about the joint
36:32
Speaker 2: that happened to the young, when you talk about the
36:33
Speaker 2: story that happened to the young lady, I want you
36:35
Speaker 2: to walk us through what happened and how the grown
36:38
Speaker 2: folks reacted to it and how it all impacted you
36:43
Speaker 2: in hindsight.
36:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
36:46
Speaker 3: We learned the story about this rape from other kids.
36:50
Speaker 1: So it wasn't even like a news story.
36:52
Speaker 3: No.
36:52
Speaker 1: It was kids telling other kids.
36:54
Speaker 3: It was gossip that bubbled up.
36:56
Speaker 1: Got it.
36:56
Speaker 3: And then it ends up in the news because this
37:00
Speaker 3: is a scandalous thing that's happened. But within the school,
37:04
Speaker 3: I learned about it from other kids. A girl gets
37:07
Speaker 3: raped by a staff member at the school, and adults
37:09
Speaker 3: don't sit us down and say, hey, this thing that
37:12
Speaker 3: happened was wrong. Adults don't sit us down and come
37:14
Speaker 3: together on what appropriate relationships, what safe adults do in
37:20
Speaker 3: appropriate relationships. All we hear is what happened, is what
37:24
Speaker 3: we learned from other kids. And when we have that
37:26
Speaker 3: coach that steps in and says- The main problem that
37:30
Speaker 3: he's feeling is that our locker rooms aren't going to
37:32
Speaker 3: be as clean anymore because the janitor got arrested. You know,
37:34
Speaker 3: we all laughed. You know, that was a funny joke
37:38
Speaker 3: to us because we couldn't fully empathize with this girl.
37:41
Speaker 3: And worse than not empathizing with the girl, we were
37:43
Speaker 3: blaming that girl. We were thinking that she was fast,
37:47
Speaker 3: even though no 14-year-old girl is fast enough to catch
37:50
Speaker 3: an adult who's not attracted to the kids.
37:51
Speaker 2: Talk about it.
37:53
Speaker 3: We took hook, line, and sinker the situation. The line
37:57
Speaker 3: that's always been given about girls and women in that situation.
38:02
Speaker 3: And from there, what act of sexual assault are we
38:07
Speaker 3: going to condemn? When are we going to find it appropriate?
38:12
Speaker 3: Why am I speaking up about catcalling when we just
38:15
Speaker 3: heard about this girl on the streets? This girl in
38:17
Speaker 3: our school got assaulted by an adult, and that's nothing
38:20
Speaker 3: to us. The consensus around this was that the girl
38:24
Speaker 3: was in the wrong. The man was being a man
38:27
Speaker 3: and this is how things are. So why is he
38:29
Speaker 3: going to jail? And that's such a violent precedent to set.
38:34
Speaker 1: It's a crazy thing to normalize.
38:37
Speaker 2: Because where do you go from there in a young
38:39
Speaker 2: man's mind when his unhealthy.
38:44
Speaker 1: Oh man, it's so.
38:47
Speaker 2: Man, talking about this is so... I'm finding myself probably
38:50
Speaker 2: being overly careful about my words, just trying to be honest.
38:54
Speaker 2: Like if you look at a woman, I don't think
38:56
Speaker 2: there's anything wrong with a young man being attracted to
38:59
Speaker 2: a young woman. But I can't ignore the rhetoric that
39:02
Speaker 2: somehow the shape of her body or the way that
39:05
Speaker 2: she is dressed, your distraction by that or your overt
39:10
Speaker 2: attraction to that to the point where you're labeling her
39:12
Speaker 2: is somehow her problem. Like that's her thing to deal with.
39:17
Speaker 2: I could never get behind that message in. I got
39:29
Speaker 2: some ideas, but what do you think is the barrier
39:31
Speaker 2: between hearing a story like that and having a community
39:36
Speaker 2: of boys and men? I will put the heavy responsibility
39:39
Speaker 2: on the men in that community as adults. But what
39:42
Speaker 2: do you think is the barrier between the men in
39:44
Speaker 2: that community, like hearing a story like that and actually
39:47
Speaker 2: speaking up against the violence that actually happened?
39:51
Speaker 3: Speaking up against the violence will require us to connect
39:54
Speaker 3: in a real way with somebody who's not like us.
39:56
Speaker 3: And I keep going back to it, but we're not
39:58
Speaker 3: even on a mass scale. We're not even connected with ourselves.
40:02
Speaker 3: We're not even connected with our own emotions and our
40:05
Speaker 3: own pains. So I think that's the first thing. And
40:07
Speaker 3: the second thing that comes up to me is speaking
40:10
Speaker 3: up will require us to be at odds with other
40:13
Speaker 3: men in the community because the prominent messaging is that
40:17
Speaker 3: she's done something wrong. And it's very... A lot of
40:19
Speaker 3: men mistake their approval of other men for masculinity. A
40:23
Speaker 3: lot of men cannot see themselves as masculine men if
40:26
Speaker 3: the other men don't look at them and say that
40:29
Speaker 3: you're a man's man.
40:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't champion them that way.
40:33
Speaker 2: Right, right.
40:33
Speaker 3: So if you step outside of that box and suddenly,
40:35
Speaker 3: what you capable for the girls for? And that's a problem.
40:39
Speaker 3: That's not masculine. So we take those two things and...
40:46
Speaker 3: Saying something out loud, one, I don't feel that way
40:49
Speaker 3: because I'm not connected, so I don't see them as
40:52
Speaker 3: part of my community. And it's going to put them
40:54
Speaker 3: at odds with the people whose approval I already care about.
40:56
Speaker 3: So there's a fear that comes along with speaking up
41:00
Speaker 3: against what the consensus of other men seems to be.
41:04
Speaker 1: Yeah.
41:04
Speaker 2: And especially when you get down to definitions, I hear
41:09
Speaker 2: men all the time say things like, I remember in
41:12
Speaker 2: high school, she was jumping in the cars with 20
41:15
Speaker 2: year old, 21 year old men.
41:17
Speaker 1: And now she wants to be the victim.
41:19
Speaker 2: It's like, no, she was a child who was groomed
41:22
Speaker 2: by an adult who knew better and still decided to
41:24
Speaker 2: do the wrong thing. Like when it comes to conversations
41:29
Speaker 2: like grooming or coercion or harassment. I find there to
41:35
Speaker 2: be different factions of men. There are men who would
41:37
Speaker 2: hear that and be like, yeah, that shit is wrong.
41:39
Speaker 2: That's not something I would do. And there are other
41:41
Speaker 2: men who are like, define grooming. If you genuinely want
41:48
Speaker 2: to know the definition of grooming, I think that's one thing.
41:50
Speaker 2: But if you're looking for permission for your behavior, when
41:55
Speaker 2: you have a trusted relationship with a person, especially a
41:59
Speaker 2: younger person, especially a younger woman, and you use that
42:02
Speaker 2: as a means to to build some type of sexual
42:06
Speaker 2: relationship with her, that is grooming. When you tell her
42:11
Speaker 2: the things you think she wants to hear to convince
42:14
Speaker 2: her to be romantic with you, that is coercion. You know,
42:19
Speaker 2: and I don't know where those words land on the
42:24
Speaker 2: minds of men, but it's the middle ground. It's always,
42:28
Speaker 2: at least in my experience, it's assumed that either you
42:31
Speaker 2: already know about it and you're doing the right thing,
42:34
Speaker 2: Or you're purposely putting a blinder up so that you
42:37
Speaker 2: got the latitude to still do what you want, even
42:39
Speaker 2: though it's wrong.
42:41
Speaker 3: And I'm going to add to that. Maybe it's not
42:43
Speaker 3: even the latitude to do what they want. Maybe it's
42:46
Speaker 3: a rationalization of what happened to them. There's another part
42:49
Speaker 3: of that, right? They've had these experiences with older people
42:52
Speaker 3: who they were groomed by and they don't recognize it
42:54
Speaker 3: as grooming. So they still get to be exalted in
42:57
Speaker 3: their own story because they don't want to feel like
42:58
Speaker 3: a victim or survivor of that story. I think there's
43:02
Speaker 3: a real pipeline between victimization of men and the apologists
43:08
Speaker 3: who are excusing rape culture in our society.
43:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, excusing and proliferating it, man. I've always fallen under
43:20
Speaker 2: the pretense of your pain matters. What happened to you matters.
43:26
Speaker 2: But once you start hurting other people, It matters a
43:29
Speaker 2: lot less in the grand scheme of things. When I
43:34
Speaker 2: was in grad school, I did an internship and we
43:38
Speaker 2: were doing group therapy. And they asked, is there any
43:40
Speaker 2: group you don't want to do? I'm like, yeah, I
43:42
Speaker 2: don't want to do groups of men that committed sexual violence.
43:45
Speaker 2: I told a story about my mom. I said, I'm
43:47
Speaker 2: not going to be able to get them grace. I'm
43:49
Speaker 2: not going to be able to hear them. That's just
43:50
Speaker 2: a group I don't rock with at all. Guess what
43:52
Speaker 2: group they put me in? It's like, you're going to learn. Yeah, man.
43:59
Speaker 2: And I'm listening to their stories. And the through line
44:03
Speaker 2: was almost all of them were victims of sexual violence
44:07
Speaker 2: as children. Every last one of them. And it put
44:11
Speaker 2: this thing in my mind. It's like, where does the
44:14
Speaker 2: line for their victimization end? And the line for the
44:20
Speaker 2: crimes that they perpetrate again, because that is the reason
44:23
Speaker 2: that you you're doing these things is a big part
44:26
Speaker 2: of the reason. Right. But also it can't be a
44:29
Speaker 2: big part of the justification. It can't be any part
44:33
Speaker 2: of the justification.
44:35
Speaker 3: There's there's a line between understanding and excusing that we
44:38
Speaker 3: have to find. So we do need to understand. We
44:41
Speaker 3: need to understand in order to change. We need to
44:42
Speaker 3: understand in order to to impact the changes we want
44:46
Speaker 3: to make. But that understanding can't cross over into enabling.
44:51
Speaker 3: There's a question for you because I know my answer
44:54
Speaker 3: to this. I'm curious. What did you learn about consent
44:57
Speaker 3: as a kid?
44:59
Speaker 2: A lot. A lot. So I learned that consent has
45:03
Speaker 2: to be overt. It can't be implied. It was so
45:07
Speaker 2: much that I remember being like 20, 21. And like,
45:12
Speaker 2: even if you joke like, no, stop, like, don't do that.
45:15
Speaker 2: I'm shy.
45:16
Speaker 1: I'm done. I'm done.
45:19
Speaker 2: Like it flips a switch in my head and like
45:21
Speaker 2: stop means stop.
45:22
Speaker 1: No means no.
45:23
Speaker 2: Cause the way that I was brought up and it,
45:25
Speaker 2: I can't even get there anymore. Like in this, like it's,
45:29
Speaker 2: it completely changes what this dynamic is because I don't
45:34
Speaker 2: know what that means. And I have to be, I
45:36
Speaker 2: have to operate out of an abundance of caution and
45:39
Speaker 2: stop means stop, you know? And, and, um, I learned
45:43
Speaker 2: that my mom actually taught me, I remember she said this, man.
45:49
Speaker 2: She's like, you are a black man. She says, if
45:53
Speaker 2: someone accuses you of doing something sexual, you can't defend yourself.
46:00
Speaker 2: In the court of public opinion, you'll be guilty automatically.
46:03
Speaker 2: She was like, make sure that when you're having conversations
46:06
Speaker 2: and you're alone with women, make sure that there are
46:09
Speaker 2: other people in the room that can vouch for what
46:11
Speaker 2: you're doing. And I know that that could be a
46:14
Speaker 2: touchy topic, especially when we're talking about women survivors and
46:17
Speaker 2: their stories. I don't want to feel like I'm decentering them.
46:21
Speaker 2: But that was a good way for me to understand
46:25
Speaker 2: how to protect myself and also how to protect other people.
46:29
Speaker 2: I learned that somebody is drunk or intoxicated. If y'all
46:31
Speaker 2: both drunk, good to go. If one of y'all is
46:34
Speaker 2: drunk and the other one's not, it can wait. If
46:36
Speaker 2: you want me today, you're going to want me tomorrow.
46:39
Speaker 2: So those are the biggest lessons that I've learned. And
46:44
Speaker 2: as an adult, you get to learn more. You get
46:46
Speaker 2: to learn that in the middle of sex, if somebody
46:49
Speaker 2: decides they don't want to do it no more, it's done.
46:54
Speaker 2: I do want to talk to you about that because
46:56
Speaker 2: that's the hardest thing for me to get through to
46:58
Speaker 2: young boys, even grown-ass men. Like, yo, at any point,
47:03
Speaker 2: you can revoke consent. Mm-hmm.
47:05
Speaker 1: At any point, you can take that away.
47:09
Speaker 2: But yeah, those are the lessons that I learned throughout time.
47:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, you got some good training. You got some good
47:16
Speaker 3: training in there. And there's an important thing that I
47:21
Speaker 3: want other men to understand, particularly Black men. Because we
47:25
Speaker 3: know that Black men are deeply disenfranchised in the justice system,
47:29
Speaker 3: deeply disenfranchised in society, and an accusation will go a
47:32
Speaker 3: long way. And I think because of that, we had
47:35
Speaker 3: to have a stronger understanding of what consent is and
47:37
Speaker 3: get that explicit consent before moving forward. The idea that
47:42
Speaker 3: no means no, which is what I was taught. I
47:44
Speaker 3: got taught no means no, hear no, stop. But I
47:46
Speaker 3: didn't get taught that only yes means yes and that
47:49
Speaker 3: not every yes can mean yes. If she's afraid, then
47:53
Speaker 3: yes doesn't mean yes. If she thinks that you're going
47:56
Speaker 3: to take away an opportunity from her, then yes doesn't
47:58
Speaker 3: mean yes. If she's too intoxicated, yes doesn't mean yes.
48:00
Speaker 3: If you're asking over and over and over and over
48:02
Speaker 3: and over and over again, yes doesn't mean yes anymore.
48:05
Speaker 3: It's only an enthusiastic, clear-minded, uncoerced yes that you get.
48:10
Speaker 3: It's got to be freely given and it can be
48:11
Speaker 3: taken away. I didn't get that. That's something I had
48:14
Speaker 3: to learn along the way. And we need Black men
48:16
Speaker 3: to know that, particularly given that an accusation is going
48:20
Speaker 3: to go a long way.
48:22
Speaker 2: A long way against us. It will. And I think
48:24
Speaker 2: a misconception is that always men, when other men are
48:29
Speaker 2: accused of rape or sexual violence, that men are just
48:32
Speaker 2: permissive in their circles. That hasn't been my experience. I
48:36
Speaker 2: know with a lot of men that that is true.
48:39
Speaker 2: But in my circles, if you get accused of it, bro,
48:41
Speaker 2: it's like you get cast off an island. talk about
48:44
Speaker 2: you crazy the other men talk about you crazy you
48:47
Speaker 2: don't get invited anywhere anymore like they're literally they will
48:50
Speaker 2: call you like rapey chris you know what i'm saying
48:53
Speaker 2: like there are people who we give oh nah you
48:55
Speaker 2: know that's that's rapey frank right there and it's it's
48:58
Speaker 2: not to make fun of what he does it's that's
49:00
Speaker 2: like your scarlet letter bro like you're not you're not
49:03
Speaker 2: safe around nobody and nobody invites you out before we
49:06
Speaker 2: continue the conversation man i just want to throw some
49:09
Speaker 2: stats real quick um Just to kind of root us
49:14
Speaker 2: in research. So more than one in six U.S. men,
49:18
Speaker 2: which is about 16.5, 16.9%, have experienced contact sexual violence
49:24
Speaker 2: in their lifetime. And I ain't know what contact sexual
49:27
Speaker 2: violence meant. So I had to look it up.
49:29
Speaker 1: Hold on. Let me find the definition.
49:31
Speaker 2: Because have you ever heard of contact sexual violence? No,
49:34
Speaker 2: I haven't.
49:35
Speaker 1: It's so much language. Right.
49:37
Speaker 2: And it's so... Like, even... Listen, we about to get
49:40
Speaker 2: into it, man. So contact sexual violence, even educating myself,
49:46
Speaker 2: I don't know as much. Like you said, I got
49:48
Speaker 2: good training, but clearly not good enough, man, because there's
49:52
Speaker 2: still stuff I don't know. Yeah.
49:54
Speaker 3: If you stop learning, we're in trouble. The world is
49:56
Speaker 3: going to keep moving and we got to.
49:58
Speaker 1: Move with it.
49:59
Speaker 2: And we're going to have more language for things, which
50:01
Speaker 2: means we got to be more educated. So contact sexual
50:03
Speaker 2: violence involves physical touch or physical engagement between the individuals.
50:09
Speaker 2: So that's any physical touch or physical engagement. And according to,
50:16
Speaker 2: and this is from CDC 2023, 2024 survey, one in
50:19
Speaker 2: six men experienced that. And that includes rape, sexual coercion,
50:23
Speaker 2: unwanted sexual touching, and being made to penetrate somebody, which is,
50:29
Speaker 2: back in my day, man, like, it'll be like, man,
50:32
Speaker 2: you better, man, we got, we got to, you know,
50:34
Speaker 2: we got Shardy in the house, man, just go in
50:36
Speaker 2: and become a man.
50:37
Speaker 3: Right, right.
50:38
Speaker 2: And, you know, Dee Watkins talks about that in his book,
50:40
Speaker 2: Black Boy Smile, how he was forced into a sexual
50:44
Speaker 2: act with a woman. He talked about like the way
50:46
Speaker 2: she smelled, like how syrupy sweet her perfume was, the
50:49
Speaker 2: words that she said to him and how it affected him.
50:52
Speaker 2: And there's a stigma of being a cold bitch.
50:55
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
50:56
Speaker 2: You in the room and you ain't mad. You pass
50:57
Speaker 2: the sticks a little, bro. Like that type of language just,
51:01
Speaker 2: I think it changes the way that boys and men
51:03
Speaker 2: look at sexual assault, sexual violence. I got some more figures.
51:06
Speaker 2: More than one in five U.S. women, which is 21 percent,
51:09
Speaker 2: have experienced completed or attempted rape in their lifetime. This
51:14
Speaker 2: is just the women that reported. Right. Like you say
51:18
Speaker 2: you did work at Family Court. I've done so much
51:20
Speaker 2: work in child and family services. I've done work in
51:24
Speaker 2: advocacy for sex trafficking victims. I've run youth programs for
51:28
Speaker 2: juvenile youth offenders. And that number one in five is
51:33
Speaker 2: just the reported, man. I wouldn't be surprised if it's
51:36
Speaker 2: not staggeringly worse. Among male rape survivors, 76.8 reported exclusively
51:42
Speaker 2: male perpetrators. Another 9.6 reported both male and female perpetrators.
51:48
Speaker 2: And that's from the CDC 2016-2017. I got another stat.
51:52
Speaker 2: Over half of male rape survivors, 56.6%, first experienced rape
51:58
Speaker 2: before the age of 18. For female rape survivors, that
52:02
Speaker 2: figure is 49%. These percentages describe survivors and not all children.
52:09
Speaker 1: Wow.
52:10
Speaker 2: And finally, man, because we could talk for two hours, man,
52:14
Speaker 2: but this is the big one for me. Research reviewed
52:18
Speaker 2: by NSVRC, which is the National Sexual Violence Resource Center,
52:22
Speaker 2: and this is from 2012, man, estimates that 2% to 10%
52:28
Speaker 2: sexual assault reports are.
52:30
Speaker 3: False yeah it's it's it's it's not a lot i
52:34
Speaker 3: think they might be taking falses in you know not substantiated.
52:38
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah i think it may be mixed in there.
52:40
Speaker 3: Yeah as opposed to they just made.
52:42
Speaker 2: It up yeah because it even says reporting alone does
52:45
Speaker 2: not establish that a report is false right but a
52:48
Speaker 2: delayed uh insufficient evidence or delayed reporting rather alone does
52:53
Speaker 2: not establish that a report is false.
52:55
Speaker 3: I mean, when we look at the consequences, there are
52:57
Speaker 3: more consequences for reporting rape than there are for rape.
53:00
Speaker 2: Oh, the social consequences are crazy. The social consequences are crazy.
53:05
Speaker 2: Even me, what I said, man, I got DMs from
53:08
Speaker 2: dudes talking, saying all type of crazy.
53:10
Speaker 1: Shit to me, man. And I'm a man that will
53:13
Speaker 1: beat you up in real life.
53:14
Speaker 3: I'll fight for real.
53:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, like, stop playing with me. So imagine how empowered
53:18
Speaker 2: they may be to talk crazy to or threaten a
53:23
Speaker 2: woman who has brought up these claims and wants to
53:29
Speaker 2: see justice. Right. Right.
53:32
Speaker 3: So the idea of a false report being something that
53:34
Speaker 3: women are just clamoring to do, you know, the conviction
53:37
Speaker 3: rate is incredibly low and the consequences for them are
53:40
Speaker 3: incredibly high. Rape is a crime in theory in the
53:44
Speaker 3: United States because in action and in policy, It doesn't
53:48
Speaker 3: bear out to have many consequences. So, you know, the
53:54
Speaker 3: idea that I'm going to be impacted by a false
53:57
Speaker 3: accusation or that I should be more concerned about false
53:59
Speaker 3: accusations than I am rape, that to me doesn't hold weight.
54:02
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think that's the toughest one to get
54:05
Speaker 2: past because the possibility of it feels really real. You
54:10
Speaker 2: can imagine in your mind somebody saying that you did
54:12
Speaker 2: something you didn't. And then you try to defend yourself
54:16
Speaker 2: and only making it worse. And then the case study
54:18
Speaker 2: of men in society is so well documented. I can
54:22
Speaker 2: get how that could, in your mind, feel like it's
54:24
Speaker 2: much more of a threat than it actually is. But
54:28
Speaker 2: what I'm finding is that that becomes kind of like
54:31
Speaker 2: a shield to undermine intimate partner violence, to undermine femicide,
54:39
Speaker 2: to undermine rape and sexual assault of girls and women.
54:43
Speaker 1: And it becomes, it's like we move.
54:47
Speaker 2: The center of that conversation to not be on the
54:50
Speaker 2: actual people that it's happening to.
54:52
Speaker 3: Yeah.
54:54
Speaker 1: And I don't know, man, I'm just keeping a buck
54:56
Speaker 1: on this joint.
54:56
Speaker 2: I feel kind of powerless because the men who I
55:00
Speaker 2: associate myself with, if I were to find out that
55:03
Speaker 2: you do something like that, we would no longer be
55:05
Speaker 2: in community. And the men who I do know that
55:08
Speaker 2: have done shit like that, we are no longer in community.
55:11
Speaker 2: But when you're no longer in community with those men,
55:15
Speaker 2: what happens to them? Like, where do the positive influences
55:18
Speaker 2: come from? Where does the corrective voice come from? Where
55:20
Speaker 2: is the, nah, dog, I don't approve of what you're doing.
55:23
Speaker 2: I don't rock with that. That's wrong. And it's violent
55:26
Speaker 2: and you're hurting people. You need to be better than that.
55:28
Speaker 2: If that voice isn't in his ear, what happens to
55:30
Speaker 2: that man? And what happens to the people around him?
55:35
Speaker 2: There's another part of that.
55:38
Speaker 3: Because there is a question of what happens if they
55:40
Speaker 3: continue to engage in community and what happens if the
55:46
Speaker 3: consequence does turn out.
55:47
Speaker 2: To be ostracization.
55:49
Speaker 1: Right.
55:50
Speaker 2: Can we talk through that? Yeah.
55:52
Speaker 3: Because right now, like I said, we have an incredibly
55:55
Speaker 3: urgent problem that I think has deeper roots. The deeper
55:58
Speaker 3: roots of how we come up as boys and men.
56:00
Speaker 3: And there are generations that we need in order to
56:03
Speaker 3: solve that deeper problem. And on the surface right now,
56:07
Speaker 3: and I say on the surface not as an undermining problem,
56:10
Speaker 3: that's undermining the severity of the issue, but one of
56:12
Speaker 3: the things that comes out is a lack of understanding
56:17
Speaker 3: and respect for consent. Sexual violence is on the other
56:22
Speaker 3: end of that. If the cultural consensus then becomes, and
56:27
Speaker 3: I'm workshopping, if the cultural consensus then becomes these people
56:30
Speaker 3: don't belong in our group, and they do end up
56:33
Speaker 3: on an island because of that, Is there a message
56:36
Speaker 3: that gets sent? Does that help the problem or does
56:38
Speaker 3: it hurt the problem more that they don't have positive
56:41
Speaker 3: influences in that area?
56:42
Speaker 2: That's the question that I'm making my head against. Because
56:46
Speaker 2: also from a personal perspective, I have a wife and
56:49
Speaker 2: two daughters and you're never going to be close enough
56:52
Speaker 2: to be in community with them. You know, outside of
56:55
Speaker 2: me not wanting to associate with you, I know what
56:58
Speaker 2: you're capable of.
57:00
Speaker 1: And I mean, the criminology data is.
57:04
Speaker 2: pretty thick on the fact that a lot of these
57:07
Speaker 2: men are repeat offenders, multiple victims over a span of time.
57:13
Speaker 2: So why would I bring you into my home or
57:16
Speaker 2: bring you around my family or bring you into my
57:20
Speaker 2: circle of trust when, one, I vehemently disagree with what
57:24
Speaker 2: you do or how you move, but, two, I'm not
57:27
Speaker 2: foolish enough to believe that if my head is in
57:29
Speaker 2: turn then my family won't be put in danger. And
57:33
Speaker 2: I don't know if you being around positive influences is
57:36
Speaker 2: enough for me to overcome the way that I feel
57:39
Speaker 2: about what you did and how you are. Absolutely.
57:42
Speaker 3: I think we're thinking about the wrong person. I think
57:44
Speaker 3: that we are considering, in terms of men in this scenario,
57:47
Speaker 3: we're thinking about the outright sexual predator. But I think
57:51
Speaker 3: we need to be thinking about these men who are
57:54
Speaker 3: going to end up in a gray area and not know.
57:55
Speaker 1: How to act.
57:56
Speaker 2: Man, that's why I invited you on the pod, man,
58:00
Speaker 2: because I know you can dovetail this a lot better
58:02
Speaker 2: than I can. Can we take a second to talk
58:12
Speaker 2: about the gray area men? Because I don't know what
58:16
Speaker 2: that looks like.
58:17
Speaker 1: Like, who are these dudes? What do they believe and
58:20
Speaker 1: where do they be?
58:21
Speaker 3: So the more likely than being falsely accused of rape
58:25
Speaker 3: out of nowhere.
58:25
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
58:26
Speaker 3: Is you end up in a situation where you don't
58:29
Speaker 3: have a full understanding or respect for the meaning of consent.
58:32
Speaker 3: You move forward with somebody and she comes out later
58:34
Speaker 3: and says, I did not want that. You didn't know
58:37
Speaker 3: she wanted that. You didn't know that she didn't want that.
58:39
Speaker 3: You didn't know that she did.
58:39
Speaker 2: You didn't get consent.
58:41
Speaker 3: There's a whole world of men who think that that
58:43
Speaker 3: is a consensual encounter because she didn't say no. There's
58:47
Speaker 3: a whole world of men who say the onus would
58:50
Speaker 3: have been on the woman as opposed to the onus
58:52
Speaker 3: should have been on me. There's a world of men
58:54
Speaker 3: who disagree with rape in the abstract, but can end
58:58
Speaker 3: up in situations or end up condoning situations that are
59:02
Speaker 3: harmful to women that are sexual violence. There's this group
59:05
Speaker 3: of men in the middle that we need to be
59:06
Speaker 3: talking to and reaching desperately. I think I, and, and
59:12
Speaker 3: if we can capture them and understand, have them understand that,
59:14
Speaker 3: that taking some taken from this woman's body is, is, is, is,
59:24
Speaker 3: It's much worse than you stealing $ 100. It's much worse
59:27
Speaker 3: than you doing all these other things that you know
59:29
Speaker 3: are wrong already.
59:30
Speaker 1: Like the severity of the crime.
59:32
Speaker 3: And the clarity of it, really. Because if I put
59:35
Speaker 3: $ 100 on the table and I walk away and I
59:36
Speaker 3: come back and it's gone and you took it, I
59:38
Speaker 3: didn't consent to you taking it because I put it there.
59:41
Speaker 3: I would have had to say, yes, you can take this.
59:43
Speaker 3: The same thing is true of a woman in anything,
59:45
Speaker 3: a kiss, a group, anything along those lines. You need
59:51
Speaker 3: to get positive consent. There are men who, some of
59:54
Speaker 3: those gray area men don't fully understand and embrace that idea.
59:57
Speaker 3: And I think those are the men we need to
59:58
Speaker 3: be talking to most desperately because they're going to end
1:00:02
Speaker 3: up in a space where they will accidentally hurt a
1:00:05
Speaker 3: woman and then harden in their stances and their views
1:00:08
Speaker 3: and harden the people around them in their stances and
1:00:10
Speaker 3: their views with their defense of the action that they
1:00:13
Speaker 3: took because they didn't mean harm, but they harmed somebody.
1:00:16
Speaker 2: And even when you say it's I heard you say
1:00:20
Speaker 2: accidentally harm a woman. And I know communities of women
1:00:23
Speaker 2: that are probably feel like a rub against the grain,
1:00:26
Speaker 2: because how can you not know that you're hurting somebody?
1:00:29
Speaker 2: I can imagine the response would be being in community
1:00:32
Speaker 2: with these men, like even some of the terms. I
1:00:35
Speaker 2: see how it happens. Remember, we're not talking about the
1:00:37
Speaker 2: overt sexual predator. We're talking about the dude who. See,
1:00:42
Speaker 2: even saying that, bro, I feel like it positions you
1:00:45
Speaker 2: in a place where it makes you feel like you're
1:00:47
Speaker 2: making excuses for men that have the propensity to do
1:00:50
Speaker 2: terrible things. And I never want to, because you got
1:00:53
Speaker 2: to get the message so right sometimes, but I never
1:00:55
Speaker 2: want to stop my ability for seeing the thing just right.
1:00:59
Speaker 2: I never want that to stop me from having the conversation.
1:01:02
Speaker 2: But even looking at the definitions, I know plenty of
1:01:05
Speaker 2: men who can't tell you the difference between sexual assault,
1:01:08
Speaker 2: sexual misconduct, a sexual act, consent. Sexual violence, sexual abuse,
1:01:13
Speaker 2: sexual harassment, and rape. Those are all different things. But
1:01:18
Speaker 2: I think when we talk about the guys in the gray,
1:01:23
Speaker 2: I think it all gets lumped up into one ball. Like,
1:01:26
Speaker 2: it's just one ball of bad. So, and because... A kiss, like,
1:01:32
Speaker 2: why do I need to ask for permission for a kiss?
1:01:34
Speaker 2: We feeling the moment, right? Like, it's a vibe thing.
1:01:36
Speaker 2: I thought the vibe was there. Right, right. And it's like, ah,
1:01:40
Speaker 2: you can think whatever you want, but that's the point
1:01:42
Speaker 2: of consent. You ask explicitly and you get an idea.
1:01:46
Speaker 2: And when I used to mentor... Youth programs, they always say, man,
1:01:49
Speaker 2: when you ask about sex, it take away the vibe.
1:01:52
Speaker 3: Nah, you got to learn how to ask.
1:01:53
Speaker 2: It's not a matter of, it's not asking to be
1:01:57
Speaker 2: nerdy or to be weird. It's making sure that you
1:02:00
Speaker 2: have permission for what's going to happen next. Right.
1:02:03
Speaker 3: The number of times we misread a vibe.
1:02:05
Speaker 2: Oh, man.
1:02:07
Speaker 3: And you misread a vibe of a room in a
1:02:09
Speaker 3: social setting, you feel bad about it, but you're not
1:02:11
Speaker 3: worried about misreading the vibe one-on-one with this woman. I
1:02:13
Speaker 3: think that we have to reshape our understanding around that.
1:02:17
Speaker 3: We misread vibes.
1:02:18
Speaker 2: All the time. Damn, that's a brilliant point, man. I
1:02:24
Speaker 2: know we're coming toward the end of this episode, which
1:02:26
Speaker 2: I hate because I feel like we only scratched the surface.
1:02:29
Speaker 2: I think that speaks to how deep this topic is.
1:02:32
Speaker 2: But if there is a man listening right now and
1:02:37
Speaker 2: he got his arm crossed and he got his guard
1:02:39
Speaker 2: rail all the way up, what's something that you would
1:02:47
Speaker 2: tell him To not just inform him.
1:02:56
Speaker 1: But to affirm him. You know what I'm saying?
1:02:58
Speaker 2: And any women listening, we're not saying that we're affirming
1:03:01
Speaker 2: people who commit sexual violence against women. That's not what
1:03:04
Speaker 2: I'm saying. But if there's a man in the middle
1:03:06
Speaker 2: who has not committed sexual violence, he could fall into
1:03:09
Speaker 2: this gray area. But he's listening to this podcast like, man,
1:03:13
Speaker 2: these two dudes, man, they simping, they What's the joint
1:03:17
Speaker 2: they accuse me of? Contact sexual violence. No, no, no.
1:03:22
Speaker 2: What's the joint we used to talk about all the
1:03:23
Speaker 2: time when you overly placate the women?
1:03:26
Speaker 3: Oh, caping, simping.
1:03:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, everything in that area, man. They doing
1:03:31
Speaker 2: those things. What would you say to him to both
1:03:33
Speaker 2: affirm him and kind of still put him on the
1:03:38
Speaker 2: right track?
1:03:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm saying it's to keep you safe. What I
1:03:42
Speaker 3: say about consent, what I say about sexual violence is
1:03:45
Speaker 3: to keep men safe as much as it is to
1:03:46
Speaker 3: keep women safe. The only way that we know that
1:03:50
Speaker 3: we're not in that position is if we get freely
1:03:54
Speaker 3: given uncoerced, enthusiastic yes to what is about to come
1:03:58
Speaker 3: up next. And there are ways to do that without
1:04:01
Speaker 3: ruining the vibe. There are ways to do that to
1:04:02
Speaker 3: enhance the vibe of the situation. And there are ways
1:04:04
Speaker 3: to do that in the way that a woman wants
1:04:06
Speaker 3: you to do it. Without doing it, you're not safe.
1:04:09
Speaker 3: So find the way to Find your way to get
1:04:12
Speaker 3: consent in a way that works for you and the
1:04:14
Speaker 3: person that you're with. And that's the only way we
1:04:16
Speaker 3: stay safe in the situation.
1:04:18
Speaker 2: Absolutely, man. And I always encourage men to have healthy
1:04:21
Speaker 2: conversations with women about not just sex, but sexuality. Not
1:04:27
Speaker 2: just the act of sex, but everything around it, what
1:04:30
Speaker 2: it means. And maybe that's too deep of a topic
1:04:34
Speaker 2: for folks who may see sex as just transactional, but
1:04:38
Speaker 2: if the first time you're talking about sex is when
1:04:41
Speaker 2: you're actually having it, I think that puts you in
1:04:43
Speaker 2: a weird spot. And I think that puts you in
1:04:46
Speaker 2: a spot where you don't know what that person's boundaries, limits,
1:04:51
Speaker 2: or what they actually like. You don't know what it
1:04:53
Speaker 2: is and you're guessing and fumbling around in the dark.
1:04:56
Speaker 1: And one of my.
1:04:57
Speaker 2: Favorite phrases that I hear a lot of Gen Z
1:04:59
Speaker 2: people saying now is consent is sexy.
1:05:03
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying? Like there's a whole movement like, nah.
1:05:05
Speaker 2: It's, It's a sexy thing to ask and to be
1:05:08
Speaker 2: interested in what that person's experience is and how you
1:05:12
Speaker 2: contribute to that experience. But then, you know, I got
1:05:14
Speaker 2: my homegirls who I talk about dating and they sitting
1:05:17
Speaker 2: at the table and they do first questions.
1:05:19
Speaker 1: How many bodies you got?
1:05:20
Speaker 2: Oh, no, no, no. That's not how you do that, man.
1:05:28
Speaker 2: I always get a little concerned with this because there's
1:05:31
Speaker 2: a part of this cynical part of me to feel
1:05:32
Speaker 2: like the men that need to hear this the most
1:05:33
Speaker 2: ain't never going to listen.
1:05:36
Speaker 3: But we can talk to the men who are talking
1:05:39
Speaker 3: to us.
1:05:40
Speaker 1: And that's what keeps me going.
1:05:41
Speaker 2: Absolutely. And that's what keeps me going. And you can't
1:05:43
Speaker 2: let that idea stop you from still saying the thing
1:05:46
Speaker 2: that needs to be said. I want to ask you
1:05:48
Speaker 2: one more question before we get out of here, man.
1:05:54
Speaker 2: First of all, man, thank you for joining me on
1:05:56
Speaker 2: this conversation. A lot of dudes will not come up
1:05:58
Speaker 2: here with me. And it's been dope.
1:06:00
Speaker 3: It's a vulnerable conversation and there's a lot about it
1:06:02
Speaker 3: that scares both of us. I think those are the
1:06:04
Speaker 3: types of conversations.
1:06:04
Speaker 2: We need to have.
1:06:05
Speaker 3: There's always room to learn. We're both here for that.
1:06:07
Speaker 3: And it's been, it's been a pleasure.
1:06:09
Speaker 2: There's a part of me that's like, ah, somebody's going
1:06:11
Speaker 2: to have an op ed saying, Keir stuttered on that word.
1:06:14
Speaker 1: He's a rape apologist.
1:06:15
Speaker 2: That's right. You know, just the dope that comes with
1:06:18
Speaker 2: being a man in this space. But again, I'm never
1:06:21
Speaker 2: going to let the fear of being misinterpreted stop me
1:06:23
Speaker 2: from having important conversations.
1:06:25
Speaker 1: It just, I, It is what it is.
1:06:27
Speaker 2: If it can inform one man to move differently and
1:06:30
Speaker 2: better and more safe, it's worth it to me.
1:06:32
Speaker 1: I'll take the bullet. It is what it is.
1:06:35
Speaker 2: But why is it? I want to know what you
1:06:39
Speaker 2: think about this. Like the only way a lot of
1:06:42
Speaker 2: us can feel the gravity of the conversation is if
1:06:48
Speaker 2: you say something like, well, what if it was your sister?
1:06:50
Speaker 2: What if it was your mama? What do you think
1:06:53
Speaker 2: that is? Why can't we just care in general? I
1:06:56
Speaker 2: have my thoughts, but I want to know where you
1:06:57
Speaker 2: at with it.
1:06:58
Speaker 3: I think that the sister, mama, daughter conversation comes because
1:07:03
Speaker 3: we take in those relationships as a part of our ego.
1:07:06
Speaker 3: And in that way, something happening to them is an
1:07:11
Speaker 3: affront to you as a man, as opposed to you
1:07:13
Speaker 3: being more concerned about the general well-being of women, period.
1:07:17
Speaker 3: And I think that comes along with learning to shut
1:07:21
Speaker 3: off our connection with ourselves from a very young age.
1:07:25
Speaker 3: It all goes back to that. I think it's all
1:07:28
Speaker 3: rooted in our upbringing as men in ways that need
1:07:31
Speaker 3: to change. And in cutting off that connection, there's still
1:07:35
Speaker 3: part of that ego that says, you may not be
1:07:37
Speaker 3: in a front to me. And if you do something
1:07:38
Speaker 3: to my sister, that is an affront to me. And
1:07:40
Speaker 3: now I can express anger about that as opposed to
1:07:43
Speaker 3: concern or empathy or sadness about the things that are
1:07:46
Speaker 3: happening around the world. So I think it goes back
1:07:48
Speaker 3: to us being more connected to ourselves as inherently valuable,
1:07:52
Speaker 3: not just valuable for what we produce and able to
1:07:55
Speaker 3: express emotions beyond anger, what's been accepted of us in
1:07:58
Speaker 3: the past.
1:08:00
Speaker 1: That's such a good thought.
1:08:01
Speaker 2: And it kicks back to this idea of what emotions.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: Are okay to express.
1:08:07
Speaker 2: I think my interpretation of it is, yes, that And also,
1:08:13
Speaker 2: it's hard for, in my experience, it's hard for people
1:08:17
Speaker 2: to become deeply empathetic to something that doesn't affect them
1:08:24
Speaker 2: directly until it hits close to home. True. You know,
1:08:27
Speaker 2: every year I go to the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention,
1:08:30
Speaker 2: the AFSP, we do a walk in the dark for suicide.
1:08:33
Speaker 2: I don't see people there who haven't been affected by suicide.
1:08:36
Speaker 2: susan g coleman walk i'm doing a breast cancer walk
1:08:38
Speaker 2: next weekend i don't see many people there who haven't
1:08:41
Speaker 2: been deeply affected by breast cancer you know and when
1:08:45
Speaker 2: when we talk about rape and sexual violence the way
1:08:49
Speaker 2: that it's been contextualized throughout my entire life is a
1:08:54
Speaker 2: women's issue that some men contribute to and i think
1:08:59
Speaker 2: when you frankly you grow up and you frame it
1:09:01
Speaker 2: that way, you can depersonalize it until it's your mama
1:09:04
Speaker 2: and your sister, you know, but it's not just a women's.
1:09:09
Speaker 1: Issue that men are implicated in.
1:09:11
Speaker 2: This is a human issue that is going to take
1:09:15
Speaker 2: a collective effort to solve. And the effort on the
1:09:19
Speaker 2: men's part It's this, like having the scary ass conversations
1:09:23
Speaker 2: off top, man. Having the scary conversations off top, admitting
1:09:27
Speaker 2: what you don't know. Understanding how harassment works and realizing
1:09:33
Speaker 2: that if one woman is saying something, okay, if five
1:09:35
Speaker 2: women are saying something, okay, it's pretty much all of them.
1:09:42
Speaker 2: They're all lying. They're all making it up. They're all exaggerating.
1:09:46
Speaker 2: Every last one of them. What are you... That's nonsensical.
1:09:53
Speaker 2: That doesn't make any sense.
1:09:55
Speaker 1: It's nonsensical.
1:09:55
Speaker 2: And I've gotten into arguments at the barbershop with people
1:09:59
Speaker 2: that I know, with people that know people that I know.
1:10:02
Speaker 2: When we're going back and forth on this thing, like, nah, man,
1:10:04
Speaker 2: they just lying to make black men look bad.
1:10:06
Speaker 3: No.
1:10:08
Speaker 2: No, man. No. And when you say no, it does
1:10:13
Speaker 2: something to the room where... It's like one of them
1:10:16
Speaker 2: Jubilee videos now where I'm sitting in the middle of
1:10:18
Speaker 2: the desk and I got 20 dudes coming at me,
1:10:21
Speaker 2: questioning me 30 ways from Wednesday on something.
1:10:23
Speaker 1: That I feel is obvious.
1:10:25
Speaker 3: Right.
1:10:26
Speaker 2: It's such a deep part of my lived experience and
1:10:29
Speaker 2: my awareness that is obvious to me but not to you.
1:10:32
Speaker 2: And it puts me in a weird space in public
1:10:34
Speaker 2: spaces because if I say something, I might not explain
1:10:36
Speaker 2: deeply what my position is because I don't think in
1:10:39
Speaker 2: my mind that I should have to explain out loud
1:10:43
Speaker 2: that Justin Fairfax killing his wife is wrong. That's a
1:10:48
Speaker 2: given to me, so I don't say it. But then
1:10:49
Speaker 2: when you don't say it, you're not calling it out.
1:10:53
Speaker 2: It's such an odd spot.
1:10:55
Speaker 1: To be in, man.
1:10:57
Speaker 2: But I hope that we get to a place where
1:11:00
Speaker 2: it doesn't have to be your mama or your daughter
1:11:02
Speaker 2: or your sister in order for you to become deeply
1:11:05
Speaker 2: invested in the conversation. That's right.
1:11:08
Speaker 3: And it takes conversations that you're willing to have. It
1:11:11
Speaker 3: takes conversations that I'm willing to have with our friend groups.
1:11:13
Speaker 3: It takes those deeply uncomfortable conversations bull in the ring
1:11:16
Speaker 3: type conversations where they're coming from you from all angles,
1:11:19
Speaker 3: but staying on what you believe because that's what's moving
1:11:22
Speaker 3: us forward, not just as men, but as human beings
1:11:25
Speaker 3: in this world and making the world a safer place
1:11:27
Speaker 3: for us and other people.
1:11:28
Speaker 2: Man, Jamal, man, you are a brilliant brother. I'm so
1:11:34
Speaker 2: happy to see other Black men moving in the space
1:11:36
Speaker 2: the way that you do, who are unafraid and unabashed
1:11:40
Speaker 2: in terms of advocacy, who are holding men close and
1:11:43
Speaker 2: holding men accountable. who aren't afraid to call us out,
1:11:47
Speaker 2: who are unafraid to call us in, man, I think
1:11:49
Speaker 2: that that's really special. And I hope that you continue
1:11:52
Speaker 2: to do what you're doing, bro.
1:11:53
Speaker 3: I want to make sure I say this on the podcast,
1:11:56
Speaker 3: but you've given me so much courage over the years
1:11:59
Speaker 3: since I've been following you, just watching you and your vulnerability,
1:12:02
Speaker 3: your willingness to have these sorts of conversations. There have
1:12:04
Speaker 3: been things in terms of like how you speak, I've
1:12:08
Speaker 3: straight up stolen from you.
1:12:10
Speaker 1: Steal it, bro. Take it.
1:12:12
Speaker 3: I tagged you in one, let you know. But that
1:12:18
Speaker 3: ripple effect that you've created by being loud, being yourself,
1:12:23
Speaker 3: being this black man speaking about mental health has been
1:12:26
Speaker 3: hugely impactful to me. And that's just something that I'm
1:12:30
Speaker 3: grateful for you for. So thank you for being out
1:12:33
Speaker 3: there for us.
1:12:34
Speaker 2: You honor me, bro. I appreciate it, man. I'm trying
1:12:37
Speaker 2: to do a better job. I thought I was really
1:12:40
Speaker 2: vocal about these things. And I thought that everybody knew
1:12:42
Speaker 2: where I stood. And then the more that I talk
1:12:45
Speaker 2: and the more that people who don't know me see
1:12:46
Speaker 2: my content, they kind of think I'm one of those guys.
1:12:49
Speaker 1: I'm like, huh, am I vocal enough? Am I really
1:12:52
Speaker 1: saying a thing?
1:12:53
Speaker 2: But when you, when you have a conversation like this,
1:12:55
Speaker 2: you need a very specific thought partner to bounce ideas
1:12:58
Speaker 2: off of a person who sound. And I mean, you're
1:13:01
Speaker 2: a father, right? You had the lived experience of a
1:13:05
Speaker 2: black man. You're a community leader. And I hope that
1:13:09
Speaker 2: all of these important things that you are and all
1:13:11
Speaker 2: these important things that you say create a really dope
1:13:14
Speaker 2: insertion point for men to see themselves in this conversation differently, man.
1:13:18
Speaker 2: Because it has to happen, bro. It's crisis mode. It's crazy.
1:13:22
Speaker 2: And we got to move past the talking. Some shit
1:13:24
Speaker 2: has to be done. Something has to be done. That's
1:13:27
Speaker 2: the truth, brother. Where can they find you, man?
1:13:30
Speaker 3: So I'm at Jamal Cannon. That's J-A-M-Y-L-E-C-A-N-N-O-N on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook.
1:13:37
Speaker 3: And go look up the block Chicago. That's a B-L-O-C Chicago.
1:13:40
Speaker 3: And follow those pages as well. A lot of good
1:13:42
Speaker 3: work being done in the community on the west side
1:13:44
Speaker 3: of Chicago.
1:13:45
Speaker 1: And listen, man, please go follow Jamal.
1:13:49
Speaker 2: Please continue to open yourself up to conversations about rape
1:13:54
Speaker 2: and sexual assault. And I'm not saying grape. I'm not
1:13:56
Speaker 2: going to take away the bite from the word. I
1:13:58
Speaker 2: think the word needs to have bite. Maybe we'll take
1:14:00
Speaker 2: it a lot more seriously. But if you're looking, if
1:14:04
Speaker 2: you're listening to this episode right now, I want you
1:14:06
Speaker 2: to think about a few things. I want you to
1:14:08
Speaker 2: think about who first taught you what sex consent and
1:14:13
Speaker 2: being a man meant. Think about who that first person was.
1:14:18
Speaker 2: How they moved around, what type of relationships they had.
1:14:22
Speaker 2: I want you to think about what they got wrong.
1:14:26
Speaker 2: What's one thing you want to say differently to the
1:14:30
Speaker 2: boys in your life? What legacy do you want to
1:14:34
Speaker 2: leave behind? And listen, I'm opening you not just thinking
1:14:36
Speaker 2: about it, but sharing it with me. Go ahead, go
1:14:38
Speaker 2: to my podcast, my podcast. Go ahead and go to
1:14:41
Speaker 2: the website, thelearnthehardwaypod.com. That's learnedthehardwaypod.com. And leave me a message.
1:14:48
Speaker 2: What did this conversation bring up in you? What did
1:14:51
Speaker 2: you think about? What did you feel? What aha moment
1:14:54
Speaker 2: did you come across? And listen, if you're a man
1:14:56
Speaker 2: and you disagree with me, man, leave me a message.
1:14:59
Speaker 2: If you're a man and you heard something that changed
1:15:01
Speaker 2: the way that you think, feel, and believe a little bit,
1:15:04
Speaker 2: leave me a message too, man. I'm really interested in
1:15:06
Speaker 2: hearing what you got to say because it's got to
1:15:08
Speaker 2: be a collective lift. The table too heavy, man. It
1:15:11
Speaker 2: can't just be a bunch of individuals. This is a
1:15:13
Speaker 2: group lift, man. Lift with your knees straight in your back.
1:15:16
Speaker 2: Take a deep breath and tighten your abs because this
1:15:19
Speaker 2: is not the last time I want to talk about this. Again, Jamal,
1:15:23
Speaker 2: thank you, man. I appreciate chopping it up with you, bro.
1:15:26
Speaker 1: Real talk.
1:15:27
Speaker 3: Thank you, Kiera. It's been a pleasure.
1:15:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. And if you want to know anything more about Jamal,
1:15:31
Speaker 2: I'm going to go ahead and put all of his
1:15:32
Speaker 2: information in the show notes. This was a really heavy episode.
1:15:37
Speaker 2: We talked about a lot of topics. We can actually
1:15:39
Speaker 2: talk for another three hours because there's so much to
1:15:42
Speaker 2: go over. And again, if you're a man listening to this,
1:15:44
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to accuse you anything and I'm not
1:15:46
Speaker 2: trying to implicate you in anything.
1:15:48
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to have you think a lot differently.
1:15:50
Speaker 2: Because if you look at the world and you look
1:15:53
Speaker 2: at what's happening, it's not good and it keeps getting
1:15:57
Speaker 2: worse and it's not going to get better. Unless there
1:15:59
Speaker 2: is a collective effort followed by some really deep and
1:16:02
Speaker 2: thoughtful legislation, which is another problem.
1:16:04
Speaker 1: Please go vote, y'all. Because it's deep and thoughtful.
1:16:11
Speaker 2: Too many dudes who ain't got good scruples are making
1:16:15
Speaker 2: legislation and it's nasty work out there. But protect yourself,
1:16:21
Speaker 2: protect your community, and protect people who are the most vulnerable.
1:16:26
Speaker 2: That is not just your duty as a man. That
1:16:28
Speaker 2: is your duty as a decent human being. Till the
1:16:31
Speaker 2: next time, y'all be good. Job well done. Learn the
1:16:35
Speaker 2: Hard Way is a production of iHeart Podcast. I'm your host,
1:16:39
Speaker 2: Keir Gaines. We're produced by Courtney Deans and Kacen Alexander.
1:16:43
Speaker 2: Ashley J. Hobbs is our senior producer. Our executive producers
1:16:46
Speaker 2: are Will Packer, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, Alex Baldwin, and Carla Wilmaris.