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Ballots, Blackface and Basketball · TMI

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm Tameka D. Mallory.
• 0:01
  Speaker 2: And it's your boy, Myson the General.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: We are your host of TMI.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Tameka and Myson's information, truth, motivation, and inspiration.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: New name, new energy, but.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: Same old us.
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: What's going on, Myson Lennon?
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: I'm black, blessed, and highly favored. Tameka, how you feeling?
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: I'm doing well. Doing well. Back from Martha's Vineyard, 10
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: days of black....
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: Love, Black excellence, Black beauty, Black art, Black culture, Black folks.
• 0:34
  Speaker 4: And it's just good, good to have that type of time,
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: you know, every year that we are blessed to share
• 0:42
  Speaker 4: with so many friends and business partners and just people from,
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: you know, all the different aspects of our lives, you know,
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: so it was pretty good.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: And now it's time to get back to work.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's definitely a labor of love, just black excellence
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: at its highest levels. You know, they say it's the black,
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: what you call it, the black mecca. You know, it's
• 1:10
  Speaker 3: a happy place for black people. I tell everybody, at
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: least once in your life, you need to do August
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: in Martha's Vineyard.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: And I would say, you know, when you say Black,
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: and I think we should do a longer piece on
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: this next week.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We've got so much to talk about today.
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: But I think that, you know, when we say Black excellence,
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: it may give folks the impression, which it's not cheap.
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: I can't say it's cheap to go to Martha's Vineyard,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: but it gives people the impression that You know, you're
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: talking about a place that is Black elite that does
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: not allow for folks who may not have a lot
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: of money, you know, a lot of resources, but that
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: they could still be there. And, you know, from, I
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: guess it's a couple of things about that. And I'll
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: say that and I'll be done. One, Martha's Vine, it
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: can be whatever you make it.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: And I think the.
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: Beauty of one of the ways that it's accessible for
• 2:09
  Speaker 4: people is the cooperative economics that most folks, Almost all
• 2:15
  Speaker 4: the folks, of course, there's some hotels and the hotels
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: are not cheap. And the houses, the number is high
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: in most cases. But if you work together with friends
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: and family and have a plan throughout the year, it's accessible.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: It's not more than you would spend if you went
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: on a vacation. If you put $ 2, 500 to... $ 3, 000.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Throughout the year away.
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: And there's four of you in a house that put that,
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: you know, all of you share.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: That expense and share the expense of groceries or what
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: have you. It's accessible.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: So yeah, You know, I I don't want people to
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: get the impression that there's no way for folks who
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: just regular working people to, you know, be able to
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: get into Martha's Vineyard because it's not if anything, it's
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: not so much the it's not an elitism issue as
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: much as it is. The convenience of like getting it,
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: it's a hustle to get on the island and, you know,
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: get to where you're supposed to be. Now that part
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: I would say is it has its complications, but nevertheless,
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: it can be for anybody. And yeah, you know, again,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: sharing is caring. That's one of the beauties of the island.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: And then also what is excellence to me is the
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: way in which people treat one another there, that 99.9%
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: of those who attend will not say that somebody was,
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: you know, super disrespectful to them and that people didn't
• 3:48
  Speaker 4: help one another and smile and talk or whatever. And
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: I think that's more what the excellence is. So, you know,
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: next week, I would love to be able to get
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: into a breakdown of some of the things that I've seen,
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: because it obviously has become the topic of discussion on socials.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: No, I definitely agree. It's a culmination of things that
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: makes it black excellence. I think it's just feeling at home,
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: feeling safe, you know, and just feeling accepted. You don't feel,
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: just don't feel out of place. You see people with all,
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: you know, hues of black, Just enjoying life. And, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I think for me, that's that's a beautiful thing.
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: OK, so let's get started with topics today. You know,
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: one of the things about being away and trust and
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: believe I have learned over time, it is not easy
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: for me not to take my entire vacation away. or
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: the entire time that I'm traveling or doing something that
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: I love to lean back and focus every day on
• 4:55
  Speaker 4: the issues that are happening around us, societal issues that's concerning.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: It used to be in my younger days.
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: And this is all pre me going to rehab, which
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: means that, you know, once I got there and once
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: I went through that whole process, there was a lot
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: of questions that my psychiatrist asked me that I had
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: to face and about what causes anxiety.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: We talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
• 5:23
  Speaker 4: You know, what causes my stress levels, the anxiety, the
• 5:26
  Speaker 4: other things that I deal with and lifestyle is a
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: part of it. And so one of the things that
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: I have always done is, you know, especially when I
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: was younger, cancel a vacation because some incident that's very serious,
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: by the way, very serious, something that absolutely needs my attention.
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: It happens in some place and I canceled my vacation or,
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: you know, can't make.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: It to a family function.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: Or, you know, obviously we've talked many times about how
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: it impacted my son and the things that he may
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: have needed and I'll be gone or spending all my
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: time just up 24.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Hours damn near.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: And we really did pull 24 hour days. You can
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: ask Rachel Nordlinger and she will tell you the stories
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: about how we would sleep for an hour or two
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: on the couches in our office.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Because we were so deeply immersed in the work.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: And I have had to learn over time with the
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: things that have happened to me, the stress and everything
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: that I had.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: To deal with physically, that it's not healthy.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, I was seeing all the things
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: and then telling myself every single day, put this phone down,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: Put it in your pocket. Don't even look at it
• 6:48
  Speaker 4: because there are people out here in this world that's
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: more than capable, more than capable of, you know, getting
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: out there, you know, and really bringing awareness to some
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: of these situations. But as the 10 days pass, continued,
• 7:05
  Speaker 4: I was saying to myself, we have some very, very,
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: very severe things going on in this country. You know, obviously,
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: while we were on the island, most people know or
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: should know that we held a vigil for Nolan Wells.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: Still to date, after the 10 days of being there,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: we held the vigil somewhere in the middle of our
• 7:28
  Speaker 4: time on the island, which was his 19th birthday. We
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: still don't have the answers that his family needs to
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: address what happened to Nolan Wells. And so that has
• 7:42
  Speaker 4: been something that's very heavy. The vigil was beautiful, very emotional.
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: And it just was a really spiritual experience in Martha's
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: Vineyard to hold something for Nolan Wells. And then the
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: day before, of course, it was the Carmelo Anthony, the
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: judge being recused from the case. So that was great.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: But we couldn't even get off the island without finding
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: out that the first attempt from his new legal team to,
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: to get a new trial had been denied.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So you have that going on. Then I saw a
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: two year old baby was electrocuted or I guess it's shot.
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Is that electric? No, it's not electrocution. If you get
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: hit by lightning, right. Or is it, I don't know.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: But, It is electrocution.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: It is an electric shock. It is electrocuted. Yeah.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: I think so. So, yeah.
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: So this baby was hit by lightning. and was literally
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: killed at two years old, which is something that, you know,
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: by all the stories that I read, it says, you know,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: that almost never happens. You know, then you have all
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: the food recalls going up there. We were talking about
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: the salad and, you know, and it kind of puts
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: you in a difficult position when you're trying to eat
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: because you don't even know, like, can you eat salad?
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: Can you eat this? Then it was blueberries. And so, yeah,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I'm sure there.
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: Have been recalls forever, but nobody can tell me that
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  Speaker 4: we're not seeing a more intense level of food being
• 9:21
  Speaker 4: recalled and then not really receiving like from the White House.
• 9:27
  Speaker 4: You know, when the when the press secretary speaks, I
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: don't know, maybe I'm not watching the news enough, but
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: I'm used to. administrations, you know, presidential administrations speaking to
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  Speaker 4: what's going on with the food and having press conferences
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: telling you if there are not so much just food,
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  Speaker 4: but national crises.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And I think it's a national crisis when.
• 9:51
  Speaker 4: You got blueberries, salad, what's all the things, jalapeno, peppers, eggs,
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: all of this stuff at the highest levels.
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  Speaker 1: Level of recalls.
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  Speaker 4: It's just to me, you know, it feels like it's
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: a lot of things that's going on that they would
• 10:07
  Speaker 4: come out and speak on it. And maybe I'm just
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: missing it, but that's to me, that's kind of crazy.
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: Then you have the power outages in, in, in, in Memphis,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: Tennessee and Gary, Indiana, you know, and I was just
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: like not trying to post much. They didn't really want
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: to talk too much about these issues, you know, trying
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: not to get on my phone and start getting in
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: the comment section, going back and forth with people. And
• 10:33
  Speaker 4: then I kept seeing these people speaking about Gary, Indiana
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: and them not having power. And I just decided this
• 10:41
  Speaker 4: day I'm going to sit here and take the time
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: to post it. You know, when I didn't see anything on,
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: you know, any of a lot of different pages, the
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: different sites, the blogs, it was just nothing there.
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: And I put it up and, you.
• 10:53
  Speaker 4: Know, hopefully between myself and others, we encouraged folks to
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: to go ahead and start talking about that issue. Now Memphis,
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: you know, first it was Gary, Indiana. Now it's Memphis
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: with people, a hundred thousand people without power. So I,
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: you know, I can go on and on and on
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: and on because, you know, people are talking about extreme
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: heat that's happening.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: You know, folks are like, it's hotter than ever.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: In different places around the country, you got tornadoes, you
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: got all kinds of stuff.
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: And then, you know, you have this last.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Thing that I would say is that I know shootings
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: have been going on forever, but to watch a young boy,
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: 15 years old, walking out of the door of a
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: liquor store with no clear, like, explanation for why he
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: would turn around and just start shooting two women, you know,
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: older women.
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  Speaker 1: Killing one and injuring the next one.
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: I don't know about anybody else, but I feel that
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: there's like literally too much stuff happening at one time
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: around this country. And I'm a firm believer when my
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: grandmother said little things, you know, she used to make
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: little statements.
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: I am a.
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  Speaker 4: Firm believer that her words, mindset was not just some
• 12:19
  Speaker 4: old stuff that we can't depend on. I believe that
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: my grandmother had a serious sense, like a spiritual sense
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: and attachment to the land, to the ancestors and just,
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: you know, and.
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  Speaker 1: Just a real feel for where we are in the world.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: And I know that if she, if we were talking
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: about this right now, she would be saying we in
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: some serious trouble that God is really not pleased with
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: all of what's happening. And so I just feel like, damn,
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: you know, this is a real serious time.
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  Speaker 3: No, you're a hundred percent right. When I looked at
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  Speaker 3: that young boy, And, you know, I didn't even see
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: the whole thing because most of the places that I
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: seen it on, they would just stop it after they
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: walked into the store because it was so graphic. And
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: just imagining it, you know what I'm saying? I said
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: to myself, like, we really, as men, I think it's
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: time for us to do real deep dives and start
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: really connecting with our youth right now and try to
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: understand because, you know, I heard the boy's mother had
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: just passed. There's levels of trauma. that we're dealing with
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: that nobody understands. You know, and as a Black man,
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: being a young Black man, losing a father young, you know,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: not having a father at a very young age, a
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: lot of things you become susceptible to. You know, we're
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: in this internet era where they celebrate cowardly acts like that.
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: And I think it's time as men, I say it
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: a lot, that we just got to start coming and
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: checking in in our communities.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: You know, it's a lot of things that's accessible to us.
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  Speaker 3: We, we, we see violence on a regular on the
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: internet and these kids are just, they're engaging in it.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: You know, they're taking it in at levels that's way
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: higher than I was at their age. You know, I
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: was only had the access to what I saw, you know,
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: probably on the news from time to time, or, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the violence that happened directly in my community. But when
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: you see violence happening at the high rates that you
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: see it on the And it being celebrated and amplified
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: and marketed, you know, is a different thing. You know,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and I think, you know, we have to start checking
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: in with our young men. And that's one thing I
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: want to be a lot more hands on with doing.
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: You know, I want to go from in our communities
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: and start engaging. So that's one thing I've been saying
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: to myself lately, especially after seeing that, I say, you know,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: that's a lot of people streaming. I see a lot
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: of streams and, you know, they, they stream it about
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: nonsense or, you know, there's some couple of people like
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: show speed, who's going from country to country, showing different,
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: you know, cultures and traveling to Africa, showing the beauty.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: And I like things like that is good, but I
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: don't see anybody streaming with our young boys and how
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: we galvanize it. You know how we, let's take these
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: young boys. Let's take them out of these streets, take
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: them out of communities. Let's, bring them into our folds
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: and start giving them, you know, inspiration and motivation. Let's
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: start molding these young boys into men, you know? So
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: that's what I want to be intentional about doing, you know,
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: just seeing that because I know it's needed.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to try different things.
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I was having a conversation with
• 15:39
  Speaker 4: some of our friends in the violence prevention world and
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: they work really, really hard. You know, this is their
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: lives every day. You know, while we was talking, one
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: of the guys said to me, well, you know, I'm
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: at the, I'm at the, what did he say? I'm the,
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: I'm the, I'm at the lowest on the totem pole.
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: Like I'm at the bottom. And I was like, oh no,
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: because I've told you before that Reverend Jesse Jackson told
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: me after listening to a speech one day, he said,
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: that was a good speech, but you got to stop
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: saying that black people are at the bottom. He said,
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I understand exactly what you're saying. And you're not wrong
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: at all because we are experiencing the most disproportionate treatment
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: in every single level, but we're not at the bottom.
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: We actually are at the foundation. And that kind of
• 16:28
  Speaker 4: shifts the way you think about it because we, What
• 16:31
  Speaker 4: you're saying is that the foundation is broken. And if
• 16:36
  Speaker 4: you fix the foundation, then everything gets fixed. So the
• 16:39
  Speaker 4: immediate thing that I said back to the person was, oh, no, no, no,
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: you're not at the bottom. And I started trying to
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: give the Reverend Jesse Jackson speech. And what he explained
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: to me is that what he was saying wasn't that
• 16:54
  Speaker 4: these people are like the lowest of humankind. He was
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: pretty much saying that while everybody is having all of
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: these very high level conversations, he's organizing and working with
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: people who are struggling at the worst levels in our society.
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: And these are folks that they're trying to take guns
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: out their hands. They're trying to give them hope. So
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: if you wanna know how a nation is doing, you
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: gotta look at the people that's most vulnerable.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: And when you see that the most vulnerable people are.
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: Getting even worse, their circumstances are getting even worse, that's
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: where you know that we're not actually succeeding no matter
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: how many of us have reached a level of status
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: and success because our foundation is broken.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: So with that being said, The.
• 17:50
  Speaker 4: Creativity of how you organize those people. And like you said,
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: bring them into the work that we do. We can't
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: go try to lean on what used to be. We
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: actually have to find ways to expand our thinking. We
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: have to find ways to bring new models. Like you're saying,
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: streaming and things of that nature. to get access to
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: a community that does not exist in the ways in
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: which we know from the past when we did all
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: these great things.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: We need some new strategies.
• 18:30
  Speaker 4: And, you know, so I agree with you wholeheartedly that
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: you've got to try new things and really collaborate with
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: these young people on a different level.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: That's right. You know, we've got to be very much
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: innovative in our strategies. You know, we can't have... an
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: old model for a new problem?
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: Well, I don't know if the problem is new, but
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: I know the young people that's involved.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, I'm not saying the problem is new, but I'm
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: saying that the way that the problem is actually occurring
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: and the different ways that it's coming from, these kids
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: are not, the way that we had the combat violence,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: you know, we had, we can have skids straight, you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: we had somebody come to the school, a couple of
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: guys come to the community, your uncle come, pat you
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: on the head, like take you here and there, but
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: you can't escape it just by this change in the venue.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Now you gotta, you gotta turn the computers off or
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: you gotta have something on the computers and on these
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: streaming sites and on these blog sites that, that combat
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: what it is that they dealing with.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, I'm sure you all will be
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: thinking of ways to do that. All right.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: Let's talk about my thought of the day. Everywhere I go,
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: people say, what are we going to do? What are
• 19:56
  Speaker 4: we supposed to do? And they're saying this because people
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: feel all around them the pressure of what's happening with
• 20:04
  Speaker 4: the political climate crisis. They feel it in their pocketbooks.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: They feel it in the stress of what they're seeing
• 20:13
  Speaker 4: on the news. They feel it, you know, what they
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: see on the streets. I don't care what you say.
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: The majority of people, even some of them who don't
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: have a piece of of empathy in their hearts for
• 20:28
  Speaker 4: the immigrant community and all of that, they still don't
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: want to see the images. I ain't even saying that
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: they don't want it to happen. They might be like, yeah,
• 20:37
  Speaker 4: do your thing behind the scenes, but they do not
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: want to see images of ICE kicking people, choking people,
• 20:48
  Speaker 4: ripping people out of hospitals, families, separating families and babies.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They don't want to see it.
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: And if nothing else, if you don't have a good
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: moral hair in your head You know, it's not good
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: from a marketing perspective for your nation, you know, for
• 21:08
  Speaker 4: your party. You just know it's just not good. So
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: the people that talk to me are people who care.
• 21:14
  Speaker 4: They care deeply and they're feeling all of these feelings
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: about everything that they see and particularly me. while they're
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: financially struggling at the same time. I truly believe that
• 21:30
  Speaker 4: maybe 30% of those who come up to me in
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: the street, because I'm talking about this is all day,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: every day, because regardless of being in the vineyard, calling ourselves,
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: you know, having vacation and doing whatever we were doing,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: people still come up to you and say, what are
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: we going to do? You're in the middle of a
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: party and folks is like, yo, What is up? Like,
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: this stuff is crazy. Folks are really feeling stressed out.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: And I truly believe that 30% of those individuals.
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: If they were making the type of money that they're
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: used to or feeling like, you know, they were just
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: living a blissful.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: Life, they really wouldn't even care. Honestly, they wouldn't care.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: It wouldn't be good.
• 22:12
  Speaker 4: They wouldn't want to look at it. But as long
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: as their pockets are straight, they would be like, well,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: you know, we could kind of turn the other cheek.
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: It's terrible, but we could turn the other cheek. But
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: because people are also financially struggling, it is making them
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: keenly aware of what's going on. And I saw Senator
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Raphael Warnock wrote something the other day. He said, every
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: single promise that Donald Trump made has not worked.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: He is a failed president.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: Because he promised people that the prices was coming down.
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: Not only are the prices up, the food is not
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: even healthy. So like, it's just all crazy. And people
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: are like, uh, we're rejecting this. So folks say, what
• 22:57
  Speaker 4: can I do? And I have something that is very,
• 23:02
  Speaker 4: very specific today that I think people really need to
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: pay attention to. So from my thought of the day,
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court ruled just a couple of days ago
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: that they would sort of kind of uphold Donald Trump's
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: mail-in ballot nonsense that he is trying to implement. Now,
• 23:28
  Speaker 4: when you say sort of, kind of, it has not
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: taken full effect because they're kind of waiting, which is
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: crazy that there was a statement that They haven't seen
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: significant harm yet in order for them to make a
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: determination on whether some of the stuff that he's trying
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: to do has to be completely stopped or overturned. which
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: is crazy because that means that you're going to wait
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: to see how the next election or how his policies,
• 23:59
  Speaker 4: the things that he can actually implement right now, how
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: it plays out.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: And then they will decide, like, what are we talking about?
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: And maybe I'm totally interpreting this wrong and I hope not,
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: but I read this is what the What I read,
• 24:14
  Speaker 4: let me just say now I might be wrong. It
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: says the Supreme Court did not yet rule that Trump's
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: mail ballot restrictions are constitutional or legal. Instead, the majority
• 24:29
  Speaker 4: said the state's lawsuit was premature because the states had
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: not yet suffered sufficiently concrete harm. Now, my son, does
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: that sound like to you they're waiting to see the
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: harm first?
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: That sounds crazy to me. It just sounds to me
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: like you know something is going to happen.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: But yet and still you won't rule on it.
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: You're going to, like you said, you're going to wait
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: till somebody actually is harmed by something that you know
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: is actually going to happen. So what are we supposed
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: to prevent harm from our people? Aren't we supposed to
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: make laws that say, okay, we're going to make sure
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: that our people are safe. Like, so we're going to
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: wait till the inevitable happens for you to actually rule
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: against it.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly.
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: And at every single term, at every single turn, these
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: folks have been attempting to suppress the votes of women,
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: the votes of vulnerable populations, Black people, and just anybody
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: particularly who's against the types of things that this administration
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: has been doing. That has been their real, like, Focus,
• 25:54
  Speaker 4: if you notice, everything that they have tried to do,
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: even with the Save Act, This is and we were
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: talking about this earlier in the year, trying to get
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: proof of United States citizenship in order for people to
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: register to vote. Photo identification that has to match. So
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: we know that that that will severely impact women who
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: are married, whose birth certificate and their identification doesn't have
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: the same last name.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: All the things that needing.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: A passport, like these are all barriers that they are
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: trying to put in place in order to stop people
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: from being able to go to the polls and exercise
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: their right to vote or mailing in their ballots so
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: that they can participate in the process. Everything is election fraud.
• 26:45
  Speaker 4: They are doing everything that they can to diminish our
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: right to be able to choose who leads this country.
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: And as you are trying, I mean, to me, it
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: seems like common sense that as you are in one breath,
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: attempting to take away people's rights and doing all types
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: of crazy, corrupt stuff, that on the other side, you
• 27:11
  Speaker 4: will look at ways that you know you can get
• 27:14
  Speaker 4: it done. And one of them is to stop people
• 27:17
  Speaker 4: from voting because you know that that is a protection.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: that folks literally died for because they knew that if
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: we can control the representation, it may not solve all
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: of our problems, but it can absolutely put up safeguards
• 27:33
  Speaker 4: that will protect us from the inevitable, which is In
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: this case, some of the worst things that we've seen happen,
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: as you say, all the time in our generation are
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: playing out right before our eyes. And as these elections
• 27:47
  Speaker 4: come up, whether it be the elections that have been
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: happening already, where across the country there has.
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: Been a sweeping, sweeping shock.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: Of progressives winning in various places, whether it be from
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: that to now the midterm elections are coming up where
• 28:07
  Speaker 4: folks will have an opportunity to really shut down some
• 28:11
  Speaker 4: of Trump's policies and the ridiculousness that's taken place. And
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: I don't even, ridiculous, that word is actually so insufficient
• 28:21
  Speaker 4: to describe the dangerous level that we're at at this time.
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: You know, as they work to do these things, they
• 28:30
  Speaker 4: know that our voting rights and our dollars, which is
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: a whole different conversation, have always been the things, the
• 28:38
  Speaker 4: tools that we have used to back these people up.
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: And so I want to say very clearly to folks
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: who are like, what are we supposed to be doing?
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: The thought of the day today is that this thing
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: that when we travel across the country knocking on doors
• 28:57
  Speaker 4: and telling people that they have to go out and
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: vote early. And we hear people say, well, I don't
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: know that that counts. And I just like, you know,
• 29:06
  Speaker 4: I like election day. I like to go down there
• 29:09
  Speaker 4: on election day.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: Get rid of that. Throw it out. Disregard it. It
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: is an old way of thinking. We are in a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: new time.
• 29:19
  Speaker 4: On election day, these people are going to have folks,
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: whether it be ICE, whether it be the white supremacists,
• 29:27
  Speaker 4: these election workers, they are right now recruiting the election observers,
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: which will be their types of people that's going to
• 29:37
  Speaker 4: be there to intimidate us. You cannot trust law enforcement.
• 29:41
  Speaker 4: Trust and believe the best things that we can do
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: is one. Get our people to the polls early. Get
• 29:50
  Speaker 4: our people to the polls early. Get our people to
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: the polls early. That's number one. When you have more
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: of an opportunity, you know, to maybe take off a
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: day or come in late, the boss doesn't have to
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: know because when you do that on election day, they
• 30:07
  Speaker 4: know exactly what you're doing when you.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: Come in late. But guess what?
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: On an early voting day, you decide that you're going
• 30:14
  Speaker 4: to be, you know, come in a little later that
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: day so you can pick up some elders, make sure
• 30:19
  Speaker 4: that they go down to vote, make sure that they
• 30:22
  Speaker 4: get in there and do what they need to do
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: as we're looking at this mail-in ballot situation.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: And we know with all the craziness.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Going on that they are specifically targeting our elders specifically.
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: Those are the types of things that people need to
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: be planning to do right now. Take a day off
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: and just spend the whole day doing early voting with
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: the people in your community that you know need help
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: getting out to vote.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: Vote early.
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: Throw away the idea that we all need to be
• 30:54
  Speaker 4: standing online on the same day. And if you have
• 30:57
  Speaker 4: the time on election day, join an organization and make
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: sure that you get trained to go out and be
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: an election observer as well. Because we need to have
• 31:09
  Speaker 4: our people there making sure that the intimidation that I
• 31:13
  Speaker 4: know they are going to absolutely deploy across the country
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: on election day, we want to make sure that that
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: our people are there not to intimidate, but to know
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: that there are other people on the other side that
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: are watching too, that we've got people that are on
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: the wall for justice. And so I'm telling you, if
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: your mama, your cousins, or even you are people who say,
• 31:39
  Speaker 4: I just like, I like election day. But some people
• 31:42
  Speaker 4: who are listening, they're like, oh, please, like, you know,
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: why would you say that? No, I'm telling you, we
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: hear it all the time. throw it out, get rid
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: of that thinking, disregard, discard, and say to yourself, I
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: will be there to vote early so that I can
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: support people who need to vote and make sure that
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: I get to cast my ballot. And then also on
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: actual election day, if I.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Can volunteer, I will.
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: But if not, I know that I have already taken
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: care of my business.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: That's 100 percent correct. You know, it's just it is
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: so mind boggling to me that we really live in
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: a time with the level of corruption in the administration
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: that we have. Like I was just listening to Charlemagne
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: wrote on his page. If in the next five years,
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: most of the people from this administration aren't in jail,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: then the whole government and justice as we know it
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: is over. And then you hear them get on stage
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: and say, listen, we have to win the election because
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: if not, we're going to jail. To know that you
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: are that corrupt, to know that everything that you're doing
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: violates the laws in so many different ways and constantly
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: move this way. To understand that we have a government
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: that can be this dishonest, that wants to take away
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: the rights and just human abilities of people.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: It's just... You know, sometimes like.
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: Even when you're in a good moment, you really reflect
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: at the times that we're in and be like, it's crazy.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: And that's why they say ignorance is bliss. The people
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: who don't even know and they just go along and they.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: Misinformed and they get this misinformation and they think, oh,
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: they're doing this. It's got to be like some blissful
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: moment for them. But for me, it's like every day,
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: even in the best moments, I see myself reflecting and saying, damn,
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: We're really living in a times, in times where things
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: like this are really happening, where there's a level of
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: corruption that you only read about in history books or
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: you only look at it in movies and you think
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: that I would never be dealing with that. And we
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: actually are really here. So, you know, the importance of
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: trying to do everything to circumvent the illegalities that this
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: administration is putting forward, you know, how they're trying to
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: make sure that you don't vote, how they're going to
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: try to block your vote, try to intimidate you. You know,
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: like you said, we need to get out early. You know,
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: we want to beat them to the punch. We want
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: to be able to navigate around all of the pitfalls
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: that and stops that they're going to try to put.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: There for us.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: The pitfalls that they try to put around us. Speaking
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: of that, let's talk about Target really quickly. You know,
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: here's the thing. People are tagging me everywhere online. Folks
• 34:43
  Speaker 4: are texting me, sending it because they don't see me
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: posting on my page the Target menstrual image or costume that,
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: you know, a lot of people are rightfully so pissed
• 34:56
  Speaker 4: off about. So, you know, I got friends and stuff
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: that's like, I know you saw this or did you
• 35:02
  Speaker 4: see this?
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Especially people who know I've been on the island, you know,
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: they're like, make.
• 35:08
  Speaker 4: Sure you checking this out. Like, this is crazy. And
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: I'm just like, Bro, we told everybody to stay away
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: from Target. We told everybody to stay away from Target.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: And it puts me in the mindset, like, I am
• 35:26
  Speaker 4: not surprised at all, right? Because remember, there was a
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: big debate that, well, DEI, it doesn't impact Black people. And, well,
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: they didn't have a menstrual costume before, right? Before they
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: ended DEI, they didn't have that before.
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: So how all of a sudden does something like that happen?
• 35:51
  Speaker 4: And their attitude target is to put out an apology.
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: We messed up.
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: But they didn't say that there is an investigation that's
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: going on right now internally of how something like this
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: could happen. And there's going to be some level of accountability.
• 36:09
  Speaker 4: You know, one thing I will tell you is that
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: they did learn from the previous conversations about when they
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: ended DEI and they refused even to date to come
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: out with a clear statement to acknowledge the harm that
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: they caused to their black vendors. to the Black community,
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: they have refused to do that. But you do see
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: in this statement, they come out and they're like, we
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: just got to name it. And I can hear them.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: I can hear the mindset. We just got to name
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: it and make sure we acknowledge that this is specifically
• 36:42
  Speaker 4: distressing to Black people.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: And, you know, we're going to do that. But they
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: miss the mark.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: Every single time because the problem is the problem.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: The problem isn't a good statement.
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: The problem isn't how.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Quick you put the statement out.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: The problem is that the reason why we're in this
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: situation is because you decided to go run over there
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: with Donald Trump and become a part of the bigotry and.
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: The racism thing. Period.
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: And now everything you touch, everything you touch is going
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: to go to hell. I don't care how much their
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: sales are increasing because some people have returned to the stores.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: I don't care, you know, what folks will say, oh, well,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: their stock is back up.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: Well, I see people in Target every day.
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: It doesn't matter.
• 37:36
  Speaker 4: They are going to continue to be moments like this
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: Because when people, when Black folks come together and make
• 37:44
  Speaker 4: the type of commitment that you saw so many people
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: make to cut Target off, when that happens, it becomes spiritual.
• 37:54
  Speaker 4: Anytime that Black people do something together, it becomes spiritual.
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: Now, it puts me in the mind, my son. of
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: other things.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: And a reason why I'm saying this is because when
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: I think about, you know, like people who are tagging
• 38:12
  Speaker 4: me and everybody is saying what they're saying, again, I
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: think people should. I think that Target should be front
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: and center, that it should be reminding folks of why
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: we don't go to Target, ain't going to Target, and
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: why their feet need to still be held to the fire.
• 38:27
  Speaker 4: So I'm glad that it is happening. But for me,
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: I don't feel the need to run and jump and
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: post it and go off about it, especially with all
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: the things that's happening in our society, because we held
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: a boycott for over a year. We were every single
• 38:46
  Speaker 4: day on this issue, you know, posting content, going out
• 38:51
  Speaker 4: and doing physical activities, joining protests around the country, telling
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: people to stay away away from Target. We've done that.
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: And so for those individuals who want to, in this moment,
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: double down and make sure that no stone is left
• 39:11
  Speaker 4: unturned with people who get a chance to see what
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: Target is up to, I support that 100%. But I
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: also think we could just not go back and just
• 39:22
  Speaker 4: cut them off like they don't exist.
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: And I keep saying that. I keep saying that. We
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: could do that.
• 39:28
  Speaker 2: You're 100% correct.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: You know, and it's crazy that they would have the same,
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: I think this is the same, pretty much the same
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: menstrual costume that Gucci had. It looks almost identical. And
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: it's like, how do y'all keep making the same mistake?
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: You know why? Because it's not a mistake.
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: You know, because there's, like you said, The elimination of DEI,
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: you know, those mechanisms that would make sure that there
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: are culturally sensitive individuals inside the office to say, hey,
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: this right here.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Would be disrespectful to black people. This right here will
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: be disrespectful to this community.
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: When you don't have those type of mechanisms and you
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: have culturally biased or culturally ignorant people working inside of
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: your company who don't understand the difference between.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Or don't care. Or don't care.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: Or actually don't care or they want to cause harm.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: That's right.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: When you have those people inside those offices, then you
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: have situations like this. So once again, Target is deaf
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: to what the Black community needs. Target needed the black
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: community to stand up and say, hey, we stand by diversity, equity, inclusion.
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: They still haven't done that. No matter how many contracts
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: they give people and all of those things, they haven't
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: been able to acknowledge that they wronged one of the
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: strongest communities of support that they have. And they still haven't.
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: And these things right here are karma. And they're going
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: to continue to happen. And even when you think you're
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: getting somewhere, these things are going to drive the needle
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: back down. And it's going to show people why we
• 41:01
  Speaker 3: went against Target in the first place. So once again,
• 41:04
  Speaker 3: I'm not going back to Target. So fuck them.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: But I'm glad you talked about the and I think
• 41:10
  Speaker 4: this is the broad, the broader point here, because Target
• 41:14
  Speaker 4: is clearly still very front and center. But when you
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: talked about the Gucci sweater, which was the blackface sweater
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: and we stopped wearing Gucci to this day, I don't
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: wear Gucci at all. I got a belt that every
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: time I try to be like, oh, it's really cute
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: and I want to put it on.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: I feel bad. and I don't ever wear it. And
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: you know, that's it. I don't have anything Gucci.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: I gave it away or put it away and I
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: don't wear Gucci at all still to this day. The
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: Gucci blackface sweater issue happened in 2019. And since then,
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: like I said, we don't wear Gucci at all. And
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: there are other people who feel the same way. People though,
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: some of the same people who are now, you know,
• 42:05
  Speaker 4: in there with Target and trying to work with Target,
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: some of the same people went to go work with Gucci.
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: Like that's just the way that we always run up
• 42:14
  Speaker 4: against the same issue. Instead of Black people saying, The
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: majority of us saying, you know what, we're shutting this
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: brand down. We allow these brands to get away with
• 42:26
  Speaker 4: this stuff because we return to them because we return
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: to them or we work with them or we find
• 42:31
  Speaker 4: ways to make excuses that if they'll give some of
• 42:34
  Speaker 4: us contracts and they'll do some things with a few
• 42:37
  Speaker 4: of us, we can we can go.
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: Back to them.
• 42:39
  Speaker 4: And that makes me think about American Airlines. American Airlines
• 42:43
  Speaker 4: throws you and me, which you had nothing to do
• 42:47
  Speaker 4: with any anything that happened. We weren't even sitting on
• 42:50
  Speaker 4: the same row. You don't even know what's going on
• 42:53
  Speaker 4: on this flight. And they throw me off of a
• 42:55
  Speaker 4: plane for absolutely no reason at all. And that was
• 43:01
  Speaker 4: in in 2017. it resulted in us having to go
• 43:08
  Speaker 4: into American Airlines. There was a new advisory committee put together.
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: You know, we went in and looked at their policies
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: and found that they had not been doing any regular diversity. See,
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: here we go again. They had not been doing any
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: regular diversity training within the company. In fact, there hadn't
• 43:27
  Speaker 4: been any updated like manuals for diversity since like 19.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: I don't know what I don't want to say the
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: wrong date, you know, to have a real integrity around it.
• 43:37
  Speaker 4: But it was like years. It was more than a decade.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: It could have been two decades that we found that
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: they had not been doing any real diversity, significant diversity work.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: And so in this particular incident, they threw me off
• 43:53
  Speaker 4: of a plane. A white pilot completely disrespected me, came
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: and got you, threw you off the plane. You had
• 43:59
  Speaker 4: absolutely nothing to do with the incident, which ended up
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: resulting in a real a national movement against them because
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: it had already been Reverend Barber, who is a renowned preacher,
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: pastor and community leader, Right.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: He was thrown off of a plane.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: And then Reverend John Gray's wife, Aventer Gray, was also
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: thrown off of a plane, off of an American Airlines flight.
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: So once all of that happened, then it resulted in
• 44:30
  Speaker 4: the NAACP saying, OK, we've got three different incidents, three
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: different types of people. You know, the two women, one man.
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: There's a problem.
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: And they issued a warning against American Airlines. And it
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: was a national warning that was in effect for it
• 44:47
  Speaker 4: might have been over a year where where he was
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: saying black people are not safe on this airline because
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: we see too many incidents coming out of there. Since then,
• 44:58
  Speaker 4: there have been incident after incident after incident because people
• 45:03
  Speaker 4: still keep going back, jumping on American Airlines.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: And then folks tag me. Oh, my God.
• 45:10
  Speaker 4: I can't believe what happened to this person, this celebrity, this,
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: you know, this other individual, this business person. We told
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: you to stay off of American Airlines because they do
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: not respect our communities.
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: And the thing about it is that we.
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: Can only take these fights, these struggles, these boycotts, but
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: so far.
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: They only last for.
• 45:34
  Speaker 4: The amount of time that the people are willing to
• 45:37
  Speaker 4: stand with us and to continue the fight. To think
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: that 10 of us or 100 of us or 1
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: million of us, when there's so many other people are
• 45:47
  Speaker 4: going to keep something going for five years that's going
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: to be significant without us all recruiting more people to join.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: No, we're not going to get everybody, but more people
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: to join.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: And that the black business community would sever some of
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: their relationships with these companies if that doesn't happen.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Of course, it fizzles out. Of course, after a while,
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: people go on to do other things in their lives.
• 46:13
  Speaker 4: It is very painful for you to be out there
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: calling for a boycott or doing something that you know
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: is right. And then you watch people walk right past
• 46:23
  Speaker 4: you and treat you like you're wrong. I know people
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: right now who my relationship with them was very different
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: before the Target boycott. We seem to be good friends,
• 46:37
  Speaker 4: you know, even sisters and sister and brother or whatever
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: before the Target boycott. And afterwards, after they decided to
• 46:45
  Speaker 4: move forward with their relationship with Target, you can tell
• 46:49
  Speaker 4: they don't contact you anymore.
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: They barely want to invite you to things that they're doing.
• 46:54
  Speaker 4: They don't treat you like you're their people anymore. That
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: happened with American Airlines. It happened with us with Gucci.
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: The friendships were strained. You become the problem as a
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: person who wants to stand up. Now, I know there's
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: somebody who will listen to what I'm saying and say, well,
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: that is just the price of being a freedom fighter.
• 47:15
  Speaker 4: And true, it doesn't stop me from doing what I
• 47:18
  Speaker 4: need to do. I'm still out here living and working
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: and fighting and doing what I can do, you.
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: Know, in this work. but it doesn't feel good.
• 47:26
  Speaker 4: And so if folks want to say, hey, we need
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: to do a better job at holding the line and
• 47:32
  Speaker 4: standing together, we should really consider the spiritual nature of
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: Black folks coming together and deciding that we are going
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: to boycott something and how that therefore, yes, it absolutely
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: makes the rest of us responsible for standing in agreement
• 47:50
  Speaker 4: and fighting back at the same time.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: We don't have anything. You want to talk about we
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: don't have anything to lose?
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: We have nothing to lose from cutting off a corporation
• 47:59
  Speaker 4: and saying we will not.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Give you our money if you don't respect our community.
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: I think it's time for like a Black Summit, right?
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: I think because there has to be a Black congregation
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: around what is it that we really want to focus on, right? Like,
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: there's so many, I think, different entities and different Black
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: people who are doing so many different things and they
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: have what they think we should be doing or I
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: think we should be getting money or I think we
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: should focus on this or I think we should focus
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: on that. I think there has to be a collective
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: understanding of what is the most important things for Blacks.
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: And certain rules of engagement, certain rules of understanding and
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: respect how we move. Because I think for the most part,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: like I was having this conversation with you earlier, you know,
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: we was talking, I was just like, I don't feel
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: like the strategy for Black people is clear. Like, I
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: know people want justice. I know we want freedom. I
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: know we want to do this, but To me, there's
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: no clear strategy. And we have a lot of people
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: who people deem to be leaders. You know, we have
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: a lot of people who understand the times of the moment,
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: just like we have people who don't. But I think
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: there needs to be a combination of all those things
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: where there's a real understanding of where we are so
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: we can be on the same page because people are
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: walking into the same rooms with different agendas, different visions,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: different understandings.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: You know, if we can't understand.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: that when there's clear disrespect to our culture, the least
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: thing we can do is not spend our money with them.
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: If that's just not a basic understanding, if people still
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: will argue with that, but there's, once again, there's like,
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: like they say, we're not a monolith, even though I
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: believe we should be in certain times, but there are
• 49:57
  Speaker 3: always going to be people who think things differently than
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: you do, you know? So just understand it and, you know,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: coming from that perspective, I think it's, it's imperative that
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: we sit down and say, okay, these are the things
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: we don't agree on. These are the things we do
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: agree on, but we know we're trying to get here.
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: So how do we interchange? How do we find intersectionality
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: to be the best version of us as a culture?
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: Well, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, you know, the Black Summit,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: You know, as you know.
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of underground conversations and folks that are
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: doing a lot of work to try to make sure
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: the elections are protected, to make sure that, you know,
• 50:44
  Speaker 4: we're building our own agricultural, economic.
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: Engines, if you will. There's a lot of that that
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: is happening.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: There's a lot of people who are trying to figure
• 50:57
  Speaker 4: out like, what do we do if this thing really,
• 51:00
  Speaker 4: when things get worse, because it is getting worse. And
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: so sure, a Black Summit where everybody comes together to
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: hear the information and to get information. Yeah, that's something
• 51:14
  Speaker 4: that's necessary, but there is absolutely a need for Those
• 51:19
  Speaker 4: people who folks consider to be leaders to get together,
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: to continue to get together and look at the current
• 51:27
  Speaker 4: status of black America and figure out what we can
• 51:30
  Speaker 4: be doing better to unite. You know, I appreciate that.
• 51:36
  Speaker 4: When we were at the vigil, the Nolan Wells vigil.
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: Reverend Siobhan Arline was praying with the women and she said.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: God, forgive us for being broken.
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: You know, forgive us for being unwilling to work together,
• 51:53
  Speaker 4: to stand together.
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: And we really need that. We really do. We really
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: as a community need.
• 52:02
  Speaker 4: We need to look at one another and apologize to
• 52:05
  Speaker 4: ourselves and to one another for allowing this, the distractions
• 52:11
  Speaker 4: of this world to pull us so far apart that,
• 52:16
  Speaker 4: you know, we've lost in some ways, the ability to
• 52:20
  Speaker 4: really work on behalf of our communities in the ways
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: in which we should. And so we, You know, I
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: think one of the reasons why we're in these hard
• 52:30
  Speaker 4: times is that God is really pushing us and forcing
• 52:33
  Speaker 4: us to have to find in one another justice before
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: we even think that we will find it.
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: In the world.
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: And that's that on that.
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: So that brings me to my I don't get it.
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: You know, it was a lot of things that were
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: going on. and I wanted to touch on a few things,
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: but I've been really paying attention to this WNBA situation
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: with Ennis Cantor and another individual have tried to make
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: themselves eligible for the WNBA. In some type of protest
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: against trans individuals being able to play in WNBA, they're
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: saying that The definition of woman is not clear enough
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: and it doesn't exclude trans women from playing in the WNBA.
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: And I don't know whether that's right or not. You know, first,
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: let me state that as a man, just just be
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: playing sports. I don't personally believe that any person who
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: was born physically a male, you know, who may have
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: transitioned to, you know, to be a female player. should
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: be allowed to play in women's sports. I just think
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: that the physicality is different. You know, I don't know
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: all of the medical things used to change hormones. I
• 54:01
  Speaker 3: don't know all those things. I just know just based
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: on my personal views. I've seen trans women who have transitioned,
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: and they still seem physically stronger than the average woman
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: to me. You know, and I just don't think for me.
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: And most of us agree with that. I don't think
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: there's a lot of people. There are some people who don't.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: You know, there's a debate going on. But at this moment,
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: there are no trans women playing in the NBA, WNBA.
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: There are no trans women who have made themselves eligible
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: for the draft in the WNBA. I don't even see
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: trans women playing in college sports. So I don't understand that.
• 54:44
  Speaker 3: the level of seriousness you have when you say that
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: you're trying to protect women by making these stance. So
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: the other day, Ennis Cantor was at a WNBA game
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: with a t-shirt on saying, you know, the definition of
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: women and all this thing. And you add antagonizing because
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: a lot of the women in the WNBA, you know,
• 55:08
  Speaker 3: they have their own views on the situation.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: And so, first of all, You're there saying that you're on.
• 55:16
  Speaker 3: Behalf of women at the WNBA game creating a situation
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: for the WNBA where you're pretty much trolling them and
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: creating tension. Then you get into a verbal back and
• 55:30
  Speaker 3: forth from one of the WNBA players. Now, what I
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: don't get is this. You are protesting against something that's
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: not even happening. Whether you agree with it or not,
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: it's not happening. But what is happening is that women
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: are losing their jobs. Women are losing health care. Women
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: are losing the right to autonomy over their bodies. And
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: you're not speaking up on that. And the WNBA is
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: at the highest level. This is the highest level of
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: funding that the NBA has ever received.
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: The women are getting paid more. You know, the attendance
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: is higher. Everything is higher in the WNBA.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: The WNBA is at pretty much exceeded everything that has
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: ever done. Yet is still you feel the need to
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: protect the woman.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: But you weren't.
• 56:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think I've seen any one of these individuals
• 56:28
  Speaker 3: protest and say, hey, the women in.
• 56:30
  Speaker 2: The WNBA need to be getting paid more money.
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: When the women weren't getting the notoriety, when people weren't
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: paying attention to the WNBA, I don't think any of
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: these individuals who made themselves eligible for the WNBA draft,
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: these males who made themselves eligible for the WNBA draft,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: were sitting there going to the WNBA games, protesting, saying,
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: pay these women more.
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: So I'm so.
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: Confused at how you're helping women in the ways that
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: they don't want help. Why do you think that it's appropriate?
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: Why do you think causing confusion within a structure that
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: is actually being prospering, that's profiting, the.
• 57:12
  Speaker 2: Women seem like they're moving ahead?
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: And if they had an issue with it, you would
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: see the women in the WNBA coming forward saying, hey,
• 57:21
  Speaker 3: we have an issue with this. But why do you
• 57:24
  Speaker 3: as a man think you need to mansplain to women
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: what's going on in their world?
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: I don't understand it. You know, you have a personal view.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: Cool.
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: You feel that there shouldn't be trans women in the WNBA.
• 57:38
  Speaker 4: Cool.
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: I'm not against your personal feelings. But to think that
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: you get to impose your will on a sport that
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: you're not even involved in. You don't even play in
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: the NBA anymore.
• 57:49
  Speaker 4: Right?
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: So now you want to troll these women because you
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: want to make a point. What is the point being made?
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: I don't understand it. You have a personal view.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: I get it.
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: But I don't understand how you're helping anyone. There are
• 58:02
  Speaker 3: really women who need help. There are women who are
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: losing their jobs. Black women have lost over, damn near,
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: over 500,000 jobs and it's closer to a million at
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: this point. And I don't see you advocating for that.
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: I see a lot of brothers that I respect say,
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: you know, I agree with these dudes. I don't see
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: why would you agree? Why aren't y'all standing up saying
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: that women need more money? Women need to be getting
• 58:26
  Speaker 3: paid more. You know, women need to get jobs. Women
• 58:29
  Speaker 3: need to be having autonomy over their own bodies. These
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: are the things that women care about. The women in
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: this world right now, there are millions of women who
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: are saying that these things are issues to them. But
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: you don't see none of them speaking up on that.
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: But you're speaking up on something that's not even happening.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: That there is no trans woman inside the WNBA. There's
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: no trans woman eligible for the draft. So why is
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: this such an issue? And it's just it's confusing. Once again,
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: there are things that here to distract us. And these
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: are things that cause wedges between men and women, because
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: you're not even thinking from the perspective of the woman.
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: You're protecting a woman from something that they don't want
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: to be protected from, that they don't even think is
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: a need to be protected from. Because it's not even happening.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: But the things that they actually need to be protected from,
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: you're selling on. So it's confusing to me. It's really confusing.
• 59:29
  Speaker 4: So I just want to make sure to say, because
• 59:32
  Speaker 4: you had mentioned that, you know, you don't even think
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: that they are playing in, that trans women are playing
• 59:38
  Speaker 4: in college sports. And there are like fewer than 10.
• 59:42
  Speaker 4: There are some, and I just want to make sure
• 59:44
  Speaker 4: we correct it.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: In basketball? In CAA.
• 59:50
  Speaker 4: So, yeah, that's basketball. Yeah, there's fewer than 10. It's
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: definitely not a significant number. And, you know, it's just not.
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 4: It's very similar to what you said one day when,
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 4: you know, you were... having a conversation with somebody and
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: they was like, yeah. And then, and the trans people
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 4: in the schools and then the school books teaching something,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: you know, something you said, they, they, they need to
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: ban those books. And you ask the person, well, have you,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: has your child ever come home with the books that
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: you're saying that they, you know, it's telling you to
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: change your gender or whatever, encouraging them to, you know,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: to rethink their gender and, Has your child ever read one.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: Of those books? Is the teacher teaching that? Well, no,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: not in my class.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: But, you know, this is what I heard and this
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: is what's happened.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: OK, so what about your friends? Anybody? OK, are there
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: trans children that, you know, are in your childhood? Well, no,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: there's not. So what is it that has you so upset?
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 4: And a lot of these people, which our public advocate,
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: Jumaane Williams, always says, have 100 percent fell in love
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 4: with the Kool-Aid of white supremacy. And that's just it.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 4: That the Kool-Aid of white supremacy says that anybody that
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 4: is other or different, that we should focus on those issues.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: Because this is not about what I agree with or
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 4: don't agree with. It is that they want you to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 4: focus on what they have created as a boogeyman so
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 4: that they can get away with disenfranchising our communities. They
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 4: can get away with stealing billions of dollars while you
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: focus on less than 10 people who are playing in
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: the sports who may be trans. They can focus on
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: you can, you know, they can focus on on pushing out.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Millions of people.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: Because the reason why I say it's millions of people,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 4: because black men are also experiencing significant job loss with
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 4: this anti-DEI and anti-black administration.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: So.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: Millions of people over here, no contracts, can't get funding
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 4: for their organizations, can't, you know, services being cut for
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: addiction prevention, drug, gun violence prevention. All of that's happening
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 4: over here. And they want you to be over here
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 4: focusing on less than 10 people or no, to your point,
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 4: Absolutely no trans women who are playing in the WNBA, which,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: by the way, the women of the WNBA are some
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: of the most organized when it comes to issues they
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 4: care about. They know how to stand up for themselves.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: And if they need support, they will do what they
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 4: have done in many cases. When Brittany Griner was in jail,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: you saw the WNBA community saying, hey, we need help.
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: Lean in, stand with us and other issues to your point.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 4: Income increased, all of that, income disparities that they raised,
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: they were able to get people to rally around them.
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 4: And so, you know, it's really unfortunate that some of us,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 4: a lot of people find it easier to fight and
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: or create confusion for women than they do to stand
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: up to a system that in many ways is being
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 4: controlled by men.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: Because we've not had a woman president in this country.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 4: So we've only dealt with men who have set the policies.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: And that could be anybody, whether you love them or
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: hated them. It's been men.
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 4: And we find ourselves in a situation where it's easier
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: to fight the women than to stand up to these
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 4: bullies that are actually controlling the wealth and and making
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: our communities more vulnerable. So hopefully what you've said today
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 4: will touch somebody's mind and heart. Because I do see
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 4: that sometimes when you speak to people in a real,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: just regular, just, you know, just common way that you
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 4: see them come back and say, you know what?
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't think about it like that. So hopefully this
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: will reach somebody to get people to start rethinking the
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: focus that we need to keep the main thing, the
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: main thing.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: We do.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: And I just think that is, you know, the enemy's
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: biggest tool is distraction.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: When I look at how this administration was able to
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 3: garner attention and garner such energy is because they had
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: us focus on things like the trans community, which is
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: less than one percent of the population. They had us
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: focusing on the immigrant population who were responsible for less
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: than fucking two or three percent of crime. Most immigrants
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: who come here do not commit crimes. Like they had
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: us focused and thinking the boogeyman was the immigrants. The
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: boogeyman is the trans people. The boogeyman is everything outside
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 3: of the administration. And these people who are actively looking
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 3: to disenfranchise black people, who are actively looking to make
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: billionaires richer, who are actively looking to take health care
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: away from us and have us die, like literally just
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: weed us out. These people are actively doing that. And
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: they got us to not focus on that by saying, oh,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: the trans people are coming to get you. And the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: migrants are coming to get you. And the LGBTI, oh,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: and you.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: Got to use pronouns. Look, those things are the most
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: craziest things in the world.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: You didn't stop nobody from being gay because you made
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: a rule saying that you don't use a pronoun. You
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: didn't stop nobody from being trans because you focused on them.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: It's none of these things happen. All you did was
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: you run around here. They're galvanizing black and brown immigrants
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: from countries that a lot of us originate from. A
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: lot of the diaspora black people originate from. But you
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: don't see them galvanize no white immigrants.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: They got you to focus on things that are detrimental
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: to you. They got you to invest in your own demise.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: And they did it, and they did it strategically, and
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: we fell for it. And I'm just hoping that at
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: some point we wake up and we look at— we have
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: a president who is making— Him and his friends, billionaires,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: on the backs of us.
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: They're taking our jobs away. They're taking our health care away.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 2: They're making us pay.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: We have pretty much one of the worst economies that
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: I've ever seen, I've ever been in. I don't know
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: anybody who's saying, yo, money is driving. They'll tell you
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: the stock market is driving. But if you're not a
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 3: person that advances, and now even they told them all,
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: they're predicting the stock market about to crash. So everything
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: that they've told us has been a lie. And I
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: just want us to stop falling for the lies because
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: at some point we got to be able to see
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: through the lies. You got to, you know, I think,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: I think it's so hard for people to just admit
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: they was wrong because a lot of the Trump and
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: all of the stuff. And I heard before I've seen
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: these people go on to something else and they, they
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: focus on everything. I say, look, I told you Trump
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: was going to do this. They don't want to even
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: admit that.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: You know what? I was tricked.
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: The ego tells them to not to admit and say, okay,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: Now we need to pivot and figure out how the
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 3: hell did we get out of the worst shit that
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: we possibly could ever be in. But I'm just going
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: to stand strong and wrong. No, it's okay to admit
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: that you were wrong about something. It's okay to admit
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: that somebody tricked you because we human beings. But it's
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: not okay to keep traveling on the wrong path just
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: because your ego doesn't want to let you admit.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: That you was wrong.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Well, enough said.
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 3: I think I'm at a stage in my life where
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: I'm a lot more critical, you know, and it's not
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: just because, I don't know if it's because of age,
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: but I think it's just being silent and paying attention,
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: you know, and I think I've been through a lot
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: throughout life and I've seen different things. And based off
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: what I've experienced, I don't think I've been in a
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: worse situation than that. I don't think America, I don't
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: think the country that we are in has been in
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: the worst situation. And I don't know if a lot
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: of people are paying attention and I don't think I'm
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: over exaggerating, you know, and I think that we need
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 3: to really be serious about the times that we're in now.
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: So hopefully, you know, something I'm saying makes you sit
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: down and think and just look and not just look
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 3: at what you want to look at on the, Social
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: media or Fox News is telling you or fake news
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: is telling you or these fake social media influencers try
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: to make you think. I want you to do your
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: own critical thinking because we're in real serious times. So
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: I just I hope I'm. saying something that makes you
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: understand that. And with that being said, we've come to
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: the end of another episode of TMR. I want to
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: thank y'all for tuning in, for supporting us. Thank you
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: for letting us know that you love us and that
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: we're the number one show in the world. Yes, we
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: are the number one show in the world. Follow us
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: on Instagram at TMI underscore show. Follow us on YouTube,
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 3: TMI show PC. I'm not going to always be right.
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: Tamika D Mallory is not always be wrong, but we
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: will both always. And I mean, always be authentic. Peace.
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: Salute.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 4: Listen to the TMI podcast on the Black Effect Network,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 4: on iHeartRadio, or anywhere podcasts are available.
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: Or catch the video version on YouTube at TMI Show PC.