Latest / Deeply Well with Devi Brown / Changing the Narrative with Nate Parker

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Changing the Narrative with Nate Parker · Deeply Well with Devi Brown

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Mm from grandmothers who whispered in their baby girl in
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  Speaker 1: two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
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  Speaker 1: to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
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  Speaker 1: were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
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  Speaker 1: of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: backs of diamond eyed school children who growing into hymnals
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  Speaker 1: recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
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  Speaker 1: out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep
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  Speaker 1: the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black,
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  Speaker 1: Opal Brown courts bloodstone and prayer, be every form of
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  Speaker 1: Jim se King told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
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  Speaker 1: wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: And the ancestors told me that you would come to
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  Speaker 1: give wisdom. Thousands. They said you would come, Dropping Dropping Jim.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of the Dropping Gems podcast. Thank
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: you for being here, Thank you for joining me, Thank
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  Speaker 1: you for all the ratings and reviews and d m
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: s and all of the things. I'm your host, Debbie Brown.
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  Speaker 1: This episode I have been looking forward to so much,
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  Speaker 1: and I've been looking forward to specifically having a conversation
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  Speaker 1: like this for so long. Today on the show, in
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  Speaker 1: just a few moments, I will bring on our special guest,
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  Speaker 1: the one and only actor, director humanitarian Nate Parker. And
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  Speaker 1: there's an incredible film that is out and available now
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  Speaker 1: called American Skin. I know a lot of you listening
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  Speaker 1: have already seen this film. It's really taken the Internet
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  Speaker 1: by storm. There are so many expansive conversations happening everywhere
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  Speaker 1: within our own homes, at the barbershops, within our communities
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  Speaker 1: around this film. And I had I first had the chance,
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity, the gift of seeing this film about a
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  Speaker 1: year ago. I screened it in Hollywood, and I just
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  Speaker 1: remember so distinctly leaving that screening and just sitting in
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  Speaker 1: the car and needing to breathe and needing to really
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  Speaker 1: calm myself. It brought up so much, especially as a mother,
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  Speaker 1: especially as a boy mom, and it really for me
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  Speaker 1: further intensified the internal dialogue that I have with myself
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  Speaker 1: about black mail, pain and all of the barriers that
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  Speaker 1: black men in the world, men of color in the world,
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  Speaker 1: um have in front of their own access to themselves
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  Speaker 1: and their own ability to deeply experience their own love
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  Speaker 1: and and something we speak to quite a bit on
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  Speaker 1: this show. You know, we really get in the thick
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  Speaker 1: of trauma, we get in the thick of our ability
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  Speaker 1: to self heal and self love and self accept and
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  Speaker 1: you know, so often I I'm in thought with myself
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  Speaker 1: around the dynamic of our family structures and how to
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  Speaker 1: for me, how to really create generational change and generational
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  Speaker 1: impact through relaying the foundation of the way that we
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  Speaker 1: feel about ourselves and starting that within our homes. And
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  Speaker 1: it's something that I really intentionally do with my son,
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  Speaker 1: and it's something that is probably the driving force of
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  Speaker 1: my life. My utmost priority in my household is that
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  Speaker 1: my son knows his own love. He will feel his
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  Speaker 1: mother's love. Yes, I will engulf that baby all day,
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  Speaker 1: but him feeling his own love and him knowing his
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  Speaker 1: own worth of existence before gets into the world is
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  Speaker 1: so important to me. So when I saw this breathtaking
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  Speaker 1: film that really speaks to the complex layers of a
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  Speaker 1: black man's ability or lack thereof, to a moat to feel,
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  Speaker 1: to grieve, to be treated with reverence and respect, it
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  Speaker 1: floored me. So without further ado, I'm really excited to
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  Speaker 1: bring forward the special guest of Today, So welcoming to
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  Speaker 1: the show, the incomparable Nate Parker. Nate Parker is a director, actor, screenwriter, producer, humanitarian.
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  Speaker 1: He's focused much of his life and career on addressing
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  Speaker 1: social injustice and creating content that addresses disparities from marginalized
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  Speaker 1: communities around the world. He's known for his roles in
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  Speaker 1: the Denzel Washington directed film The Great Debaters, The Spike
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  Speaker 1: Lee Joint, Red Hook, Summer Beyond the Lights, and his
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  Speaker 1: role as slave in Erectionist Leader not Turner in Birth
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  Speaker 1: of a Nation, which he also directed. I had the
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  Speaker 1: great pleasure of being able to become friends with Nate
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  Speaker 1: over the last few years. And I don't even know
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  Speaker 1: if you know this story, Nate, but I will never
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  Speaker 1: forget the first time I saw the movie poster for
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  Speaker 1: Birth of a Nation. It literally stopped me in my tracks,
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  Speaker 1: like I felt it through my soul. And I remember
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  Speaker 1: I was sitting I remember exactly where I was. I
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  Speaker 1: was sitting in my living room. I was watching TV,
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  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden, the movie poster appeared on
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  Speaker 1: screen and there was a commercial and I was like,
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  Speaker 1: what the fun huh? And I was just blown away,
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  Speaker 1: and I was like, I have to see this film.
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  Speaker 1: I have to see this film. And so I feel
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  Speaker 1: like I was calling the film to me um and
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  Speaker 1: it was really funny because I was, you know, we
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  Speaker 1: have some mutual friends in the industry, and I was like,
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  Speaker 1: you saw an advance screening. I need to see this.
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  Speaker 1: I need an advance screening. And I was traveling. I
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  Speaker 1: was at this symposium and I got a call. At
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  Speaker 1: the time the radio station that I was at, I
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  Speaker 1: was in l A, but I was working in Houston.
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  Speaker 1: I got a phone call and they said, hey, we
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  Speaker 1: want to send you to do the press junket to
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  Speaker 1: cover Birth of a Nation and to go to Canada.
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  Speaker 1: But you need to leave tonight. And I was in
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  Speaker 1: the middle of this whole other thing. I was it
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  Speaker 1: was like an eleven hour flight. It was insane, but
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  Speaker 1: I just said, yep, I'm going, Yes, yep. So I
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  Speaker 1: went to cold Toronto with my l A clothes. I
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  Speaker 1: get there, I see the screener at night and I
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  Speaker 1: just started bawling. I just started crying. And I remember
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  Speaker 1: I walked outside and it was raining and I called
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  Speaker 1: our friend Punch, and he and I stayed on the
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  Speaker 1: phone for two hours and I walked in the rain
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  Speaker 1: and we were just talking about the film and talking
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  Speaker 1: about you and talking about the world. And then I
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  Speaker 1: had the amazing opportunity um to connect with you and
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  Speaker 1: meet you and you know, learn from you and see
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  Speaker 1: your genius. So I'm so excited to have you on
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  Speaker 1: this show. Oh my goodness, are you kidding? I wouldn't
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  Speaker 1: miss this for anything. And I didn't know you left
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  Speaker 1: that night before I know. We we met in Toronto
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  Speaker 1: and Punch reached out to me, Who's Who's such a
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  Speaker 1: great brother, uh, and he had such great things to
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  Speaker 1: say about you and just connecting with you that day.
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  Speaker 1: I remember it was like a rooftop um like restaurant
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  Speaker 1: or something, and we talked for a long time. And
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  Speaker 1: and it's crazy because you know, when you mentioned the
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  Speaker 1: poster and you mentioned the film, you know, art that
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  Speaker 1: is incendi area seems to get people's attention a lot
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  Speaker 1: quicker and thin that are safe, So it felt like
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  Speaker 1: the I'm so glad the poster was what it was
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  Speaker 1: because it feels like the nature of it may have
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  Speaker 1: even been responsible and been responsible for our connection. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
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  Speaker 1: And I think you know it would what really struck
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  Speaker 1: me about that film, At least for me and my purview.
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  Speaker 1: It was the first time I had seen something um
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  Speaker 1: not just so bold, but it was like a reclaiming
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  Speaker 1: of power. It was changing the dynamic of how we
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  Speaker 1: viewed ourselves and how we told these stories. You know,
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  Speaker 1: all all the films that were winning Oscars up until then,
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  Speaker 1: they were the slave films. They were the films that
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  Speaker 1: didn't have you know, much to them, or it was
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  Speaker 1: all about liberation coming from an outside source. You know.
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  Speaker 1: It was the first time that it really felt like
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  Speaker 1: there was an unlocking of this inner well, you know.
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  Speaker 1: And I credit this film as being such a catalyst
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  Speaker 1: in in a beautiful subtle way for some of the
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  Speaker 1: conversations and some of the uprisings that happened afterwards. It really,
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  Speaker 1: I feel, with such a powerful reprogramming. Thank you for
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: saying that. You know, when I was doing my research
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  Speaker 1: around Nat Turner, what I found in my research is
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  Speaker 1: that this particular insurrection was responsible in many ways for
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  Speaker 1: the Civil War. You know. There there there was a
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  Speaker 1: lot of conversation around what to do with the slave problem.
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  Speaker 1: You know, there was the issue of taxes, there was
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  Speaker 1: the issue of property. There was the issue of preserving
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  Speaker 1: the union. Um, but there was the issue of insurrection
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  Speaker 1: in that Turner wasn't the only insurrectionists. There were plenty
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  Speaker 1: of people who were volting. There were there were women
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  Speaker 1: who were volting, were revolting by poisoning food. Uh, there
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: were There's so many, so much resistance that was happening
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  Speaker 1: that is undocumented that you have to dig for because
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  Speaker 1: it speaks to the stripping of humanity in ways that
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  Speaker 1: it has never been done in the history of the world.
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  Speaker 1: You know, people like to compare slavery to other forms
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  Speaker 1: and different you know, time periods, of different generations and
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  Speaker 1: different empires, but never has there been slavery like what
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  Speaker 1: is what has taken place in the United States of America.
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  Speaker 1: And I think a lot of that has perpetuated the brokenness,
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  Speaker 1: uh that we that we are struggling through and the
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  Speaker 1: trauma because we won't admit that we won't. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you gotta think think a bit like this. They literally
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  Speaker 1: changed the laws in this country. So if someone was
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  Speaker 1: born from uh, you know, a relationship of of not
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  Speaker 1: we want to call it a relationship. If a slave
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  Speaker 1: owner raped one of his his property, they changed it
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  Speaker 1: so she would that that that child would take on
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  Speaker 1: the lineage of the mother and not the father. It's
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  Speaker 1: never been done in history. Why did they do that
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  Speaker 1: so they can expand their property? Why because they stopped
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  Speaker 1: the mid Atlantic try a slave trade. So these are
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  Speaker 1: things that again without honest confrontation, without truth, they can't
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  Speaker 1: be any healing. You know, we we want to we
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  Speaker 1: talk about, you know, addressing trauma, but we really don't
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  Speaker 1: want to talk about all of the infrastructure, the things
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  Speaker 1: that have brought us to this place. And and so
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  Speaker 1: with the film specifically, and a lot of things that
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  Speaker 1: I do, I try to, you know, lay bare the
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  Speaker 1: truth behind who we are and what we have been
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  Speaker 1: as a nation. Yeah wow, Yeah, we're going to get
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  Speaker 1: into the film in just a moment, but somewhere really
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: like to start. Is obviously very devastating year, But a
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  Speaker 1: few things happened that I find to be the hidden
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: treasure of it all, which is really fully and more
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: deeply shedding light on specifically black mail pain um. And
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  Speaker 1: you know, really the beginning of that for me was
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  Speaker 1: when Kobe passed. Really, um, I think that energy lent
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  Speaker 1: itself to an opening that hadn't happened yet, Right, like
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  Speaker 1: we know the mail connection to sports, we know, um,
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  Speaker 1: some of the ways that that has been such a
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  Speaker 1: community builder for black men and also a space of
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: a mint celebration and and survival yeah yeah, and generational
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  Speaker 1: growth and expansion. And you know, it's just such a
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  Speaker 1: big piece of the male puzzle and the male psyche.
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  Speaker 1: And so for that to happen in a hero to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: be fallen in such a way, like an action figure,
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: really to be fallen in such a way, and it
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  Speaker 1: a child involved in such a blow. So I say,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: let to say, you know, it really felt like that
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  Speaker 1: was um as tragic as it was almost a blessing
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: because I think it ripened in opening for the hearts
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  Speaker 1: of men for what we were about to walk into,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: which is the pandemic that changed everything, and also the
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  Speaker 1: social injustice that changed really the scope of the conversations
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: we were having and the things that we're doing. George
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  Speaker 1: Floyd being killed the way that he was, conversations around
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  Speaker 1: black vulnerability started to happen. And you know, when you
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  Speaker 1: think of yourself as a black man who was able
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  Speaker 1: to rise in such an exquisite way and then able
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  Speaker 1: to come in and be of service to the world,
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  Speaker 1: with your creative genius and your creative fire. How did
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: you begin to cultivate that in yourself? Where did that
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  Speaker 1: healing begin? Where did you come into a place of
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  Speaker 1: being able to stand in your full being and tell
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  Speaker 1: these stories? I think it's it's undoubtedly faith. Um. I
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  Speaker 1: think that there there has to be acknowledgement of the
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  Speaker 1: Creator and anything that we think that we're called to do.
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  Speaker 1: Uh for me specifically anyway, um, because you know, just
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  Speaker 1: as a human being, Um, the brokenness that you're inherit,
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  Speaker 1: you know, the generational trauma that you're inherit. There's so
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: many things, and being a black man, being born in
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  Speaker 1: this country, Uh, just waking up every day you're face,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: You're carrying baggage. Just being born, you're carrying baggage. I
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  Speaker 1: can't think of a time where I didn't know that
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  Speaker 1: I was an underdog, just as a person with brown skin,
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  Speaker 1: you know. And I think that when you're when you're
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: operating under that pretext, if you don't have mind, body
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  Speaker 1: and spirit in order, uh, you may find yourself in
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: a situation of a perpetual depression. You know, because you'll
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: see you know, because you know, faith is believing in
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  Speaker 1: the thing that is not seen right, the idea that yes,
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  Speaker 1: I was born for a reason, I was created for
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  Speaker 1: a reason. Yes that I believe there's a destiny before
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  Speaker 1: in my life. Yes I believe that there were gifts
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: that have been given to me. Yes I believe by
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: stand on the shoulders of giants that have come before me. Now,
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  Speaker 1: how will I pull out of me all the things
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: that can institutionalize that support and and and laser focus
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: it on something that can create a legacy for myself.
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  Speaker 1: So I take that back to to faith is just
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  Speaker 1: knowing that, like the Lord has put me in a
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  Speaker 1: position one to do something that will will change the
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: order for my children, uh and my children's children. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And he's giving me you know, and in some ways
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  Speaker 1: a playbook, you know what I mean. I think that
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: the whole conversation around faith has become this weird and awkward,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: um monetized, politicized thing. But we've often I feel like
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  Speaker 1: we've forgotten the vertical relationship that we're supposed to have
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: with the Creator, you know what I mean? And as
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  Speaker 1: as a Christian man, it's like, Okay, well, if I'm
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  Speaker 1: gonna kind of step into this space, and what does
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: that mean for me, you know, what are my action
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  Speaker 1: is going to be? How am I going to live
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  Speaker 1: for other people? How am I gonna serve? I try
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  Speaker 1: not to look at how I might have, you know,
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: pulled myself up and answer the call. But really, how
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: can I be a servant to those who I know
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: are being monologue marginalized? Why I know are constantly being
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: um uh pushed to the to the outside of society,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: or or being told that their brokenness is their own fault,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: or being told that there's their symptoms are not indicative
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: of a bigger sickness, but it's just indicative of their failures. Um.
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  Speaker 1: So I think the more I lean into faith and service,
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  Speaker 1: the more capable I am to stand up to adversity
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  Speaker 1: and to push through uh anything that may feel like
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: an obstacle to get to what I think might be
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: you know, the destiny that is that has been put
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: before me. Something we really speak to a lot on
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: this show. UM that's a driving force in my life
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: is really declone de colonializing wellness, um, but also being
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: really clear about the colonial station that has taken place
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: within how we feel about ourselves, how we even seek help, right,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: like the colonialization of therapy of mental health. Like as
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: these mental health conversations are being unpacked and we're really
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: trying to empower the bipop community to seek out these services.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: It's so important because the piece of the piece of
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: the puzzle that is not spoken to in these haling
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: spaces is the complex post traumatic stress. So that is
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: everything else that lays as a burden on top of you,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: aside from the spiritual curriculum you entered Earth for as
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: you are in your journey, as you are seeking God,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: as you are seeking self. And you know what what
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: does that look like for you? You know, how do
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: you fill your cup? How do you refuel as a
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: black man in this world, specifically in these times, as
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: a father and as someone that knows they are called
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to show up in service? Well, I think, you know
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: a lot of it has to do with you know, prayer,
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: A lot has to do with UM. So into the
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: things that I think are bigger than me. You know,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: my children have five daughters, you know UM. And you
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: know I have my nephew that I adopted. And every
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: day I'm asking myself, you know, when I'm laying when
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: I'm you know, on my death bed, and I'm surrounded
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: by all the people that I've been connected to, What
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: will what will they think about me in my contribution?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: You know because at that at that moment, all the fear,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: all the anxiety, all the things that or obstacles when
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: when when you were living through the moment won't matter.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: The only thing will matter if you have your receipts.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: You know. I always found it interesting when people, you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: we talked about which was a pivotal year for this country,
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: so many things happened, and talking to people who were
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: during that time and asking them what were you doing
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: in that time? It's funny because there's only one answer, right, Like,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: like I was serving, I was serving the people. I
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: was in the streets, I was making noise and I
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: was raising hell. But the people that were doing nothing,
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: that is something they can't undo. So I think that
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: there's a tremendous responsibility that I think pushes me to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: find and create space for myself to grow, Like you said,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: to fill my cup. You know, it's like what am
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I gonna do today? What am I gonna write today? Um?
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: You know, because I was making money won't be an
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: answer when your kids ask you what you were doing?
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So um, you know, a lot of it has to
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: do with my children, you know, and as they grow up,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: they're inheriting a world that they did not ask for.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: You know something, my two year old, you know, we
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: had a conversation with me one time and she said
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: something along the lines of, you know, this is crazy
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: because I didn't ask to be here, you know, And
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: it wasn't in a way that was negative, but it
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: just stayed with like, man, like we bring people. We
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: bring children to this world, often selfishly because we want
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a kid, or because we we want that in our lives,
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: or we've we've we've kind of mapped out this direction
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: we want to go, not recognizing that we're literally bringing
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: children into the world that and not asking to be
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: to be here, and then we're expecting them to be
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: able to operate in a way that is healthy. Uh
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: that a way is that in a way that's sustainable,
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: in a way that they will be able to hopefully, uh,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: bring positivity and light to their children. But they're all assumptions, right,
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: They're all assumptions. It's like, Oh, they're gonna be are
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna kid, They're gonna grow up, They're gonna do
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: that the I'm gonna raise them, I'm gonna rear them,
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: but the end of the day where they're literally inheriting
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: the world that we're giving them. So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: you know that's so interesting. And I think, UM, the
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: way I look at parenting, especially parenting a black children,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: it you have to be so thoughtful, you have to
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: be so thoughtful in what type of foundation you want
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: to instill in them. Like for me, the leading force
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: of my motherhood is having a son that has access
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: to joy. I want my child to feel joyful and
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: enthusiastic about himself and about the world, you know. And
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: so when I think of like some of the fibers
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of UM really recalibrating how we experience our children are
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: retraining ourselves into how we experience ourselves. You know, no
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: matter what's happening, my son will be greeted with authentic
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: joyfulness from me. And you know, the way our nights
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: and is all in service to prayer and affirmation. And
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you know, even though kids don't know all the words,
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: it's like expanding their emotional language of what their feelings
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: are and how they experience themselves. So like with quests,
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, every night, you are so loved,
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: you are worthy, And then kids hold onto the words,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: you know, and he starts running around the house. I'm worthy,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I'm worthy, you know. But giving them access, you know,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: for me, especially with black children, we teach them how
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: to feel about themselves. So we have to make sure
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: that that initial feeling that they walk out of the
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: door for the first time with entering this really complex, complicated,
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: deeply unfair world is a cultivation of love for themselves,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of seeing God in themselves. Definitely is what you said
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: is very very true. You said the word retraining, and
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I think I think you're absolutely right. Uh So often
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: we forget that they're being programmed. Every time they they
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: they open their eyes, they're seeing something that is that
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: is planting a seed in their spirit. And I think
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: if we're not counter programming um, then then we are
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: positioning them to fail. Because everything that they will learn
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: about themselves from mainstream America, from and we can talk
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: about that, but everything that every image, every reflection they'll
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: see of themselves unfortunately teaches them about their inferiority, you know.
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: So it's like affirmation is critical and and and I
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: cannot stress the importance of what you said, because at
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: that young age, you know, it's interesting because it's like
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I talked to someone and they said, um, sturing an
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: interview and they're all blurned together. But someone asked, you know,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: when do you start talking to your kids about that?
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: You know, um? And it makes me think about, you know,
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: a few of my Jewish brothers and sisters and how
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: they say, you know, as soon as you, you know,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: are old enough to comprehend, they're telling you about your history,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: about your position in the world, your relationship with God.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And I'm very much in line with that. I think
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: that for better and for worst, they need to know.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You know. My my, my a ten year old daughter,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: and we talked about race in a very real way,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you know, because she she will intersect with it very soon.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: A lot of times, like when I first time I
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: was called you know, the N word. I didn't go
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: home and say mom and dad, you know I was
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: called and this is it was really even at the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: young age it happened. I was and I'm from Virginia,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: so it was very young, but it was really like, Okay,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I felt the energy of that what is wrong with me?
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: That I would be called a name that would make
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: me feel so bad that I don't even really know
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: what it means, you know. So then when I got
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: around to tell him my mother, it was okay, let's
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: have that talk. But I wish i'd known earlier, you know,
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: so I could have met it with affirmation. You know,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I couldn't understood. You know, you don't understand ignorance in
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: a in a way way that is intentional when you're
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: you know, seven six, you don't really understand it. So
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: these conversations are critical to our survival. It's life. God, yeah,
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: so powerful, I asked um, a psychologist friend of mine, once,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I'm really fascinated by trauma and mechanisms for healing. Um
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: and I asked her, why is it that we each, inherently,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: as children, interpret anything that happens to us that we
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: don't understand is being unworthy or somehow being less than
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: or somehow being not shame. Well, you know, it's interesting
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the way that a child's developing brain operates is She
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: said this quote to me that shook me. She said,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: a child must blame or it will go insane. Because
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: when you're a child, the only God you can tangibly
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: understand is your parents they are the extent of your
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: whole world and whatever access however their lives look whatever
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: they give you allowance to. And so if you were
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: to believe that something was perhaps wrong or unhealed about
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: your parents or about your immediate structure in the world,
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: you would be in a constant state of fight or flight.
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: As a child, you would die, you would have a
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: heart attack. As a kid, you could not be able
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: to take on the load without emotional language development, all
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of the things that something is wrong with the world.
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: So you start training yourself to believe that something is
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: wrong with you, and then you layer and you layer
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and you layer. Um And I think that's so indicative
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: of the black experience and some of the things that
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: you really so powerfully beautifully explore in your films. It's like,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: what are all the other residues that existing aside from
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: this moment we're seeing on screen or happening with the characters.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: M M. Yeah. There's a there's a great book called
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. If you get a chance, check
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: it out. It's about drum Joey de Gran and she
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: talks about that just how so much of the trauma
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that we passed down to our children. Uh is not
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: It doesn't come from nowhere. It comes from very specific
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: programming for survival, you know. And she speaks about how
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: oftentimes the way our our parents will talk to us
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: about you know, uh, when they're talking to other people,
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: you know, um, how's your how's your son doing, how's
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: your daughter doing? Man? He he just you know, he's
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: gonna figure it out who he's not. You know, Like
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: this's kind of like there's there we don't kind of
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: speak entitlement and privilege in to our kids. It's kind
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of like m we we we oftentimes slide them then
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: don't know it, but it's something. But it's because it's
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: what was what happened to us, you know, you know,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: and and and but we can't bring our parents because
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: that's not the route either. That's still the branch. We
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: go down to the root. Um And this book she
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: talks about how the plantation, you never knew if your
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: child would be taken away for their gifts, you know,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: or you never knew that they would be taken by
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: an overseer for their looks. Um, So there was this
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: constant uh, this this this blanket you're covering your children
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: with that to others, denegrated them so they would lose interest,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and it was done to protect them. And it's like, man,
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you know, like even you know, beating your kids for
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: touching something at a store or getting too far away
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: from you, these are all things that the roots are
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: deeply set in plant the plantation, and so unpacking that
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: allows us to kind of open our open ourselves to
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: a new a of exploring relationships with our children. And
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes for me, it's meant allowing them to mess up,
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: allowing them to fail, allowing them to make messes, allowing
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: them to tear a store up, um, and being okay
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: with the fact that they're just learning the world and
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: the way the white kids do. Yeah, and and and
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: and and and I told this story once about being
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: in a store with my mother, and uh I grew up.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: My mom was like, stay close to me, single parent household.
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: You know, my dad passed away when I was young,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: so she was like, stay very close to me, don't move,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: don't touch anything. Um. And I remember seeing this this
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: mother with her little white son walking down the aisle
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: and he had his hand out on the cereal aisle
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: and he was walking and all he was about ten
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: steps behind. All the cereal was just crashing on the floor,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: all of it. It was just like it was fun
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: and funny and and I remember my heart to start
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: beating so fast because I thought to myself, he's gonna
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: get a beaten, like someone's gonna pick him up and
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: beat him. And within an inch of the like right,
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: my trauma and his mother, whatever she was doing, I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: know she could hear, but she just turned around. I
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: didn't even look at the sea, and Graham was like,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: come on, And I looked up at my mom, like,
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: will you beat that kid? Like so he needs to know.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: But I was projecting, even as a child, my trauma
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: onto that kid and that experience. But now as now
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: as a as a parent, I have learned to you know,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: chew the meats without the bones, you know what I mean,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: and raise all things that I think we're helpful about
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: my upbringing in the way I was raised, and kind
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: of be okay with letting some of the other stuff
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: go and stopping the cycle, not because anyone was trying
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: to hurt me, but because those tapes, those old tapes
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: don't apply to me any more. I'm in control now,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: this is this is my family. You know, this is
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: my this is my uh approach to parenting in a
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: way that is healthy and that inspires a certain level
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: of privilege and entire of it. Yeah, yeah, I want
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: my child to feel privileged. You run this thing, you
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: can have whatever yours. Yeah, that's so yeah, so much.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I think two of our you know, as we approach
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: breaking down the structure, the family structures that slavery gave us,
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: that still feel so prevalent in so many of our households.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Like to me, joy and pleasure are the road? Are
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the road there? You know, like we tell our kids historically,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: no for no reason, right, Like, oh I like this. No.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: It's like almost like we are all taught to rehearse
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: tragedy constantly, always playing these loops of like the worst
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: case scenario. And you know, for me that reprogramming is like, okay,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: but what's the best what's the best thing that could
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: happen in this not what's the worst thing. What is
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: the best way that we can stand in this moment
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: for the highest good of all concerned? Um? Yeah, so powerful, mate.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the movie. Let's talk about the film
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the most recent one. Oh my god, all right, American Skin.
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: American Skin follows a black Iraqi war Vett, who, after
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: being denied a fair trial following the shooting death of
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: his teenage son and only child by a white police officer,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: desperately seeks justice and accountability for his son's death. It's
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: presented by Spike Lee. American Skin is written, directed by,
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and starring Nate Parker. The film also stars at Murray Hardwick,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: bo Nap, Theo Rossi, Shane, Paul McGhee, uh many many more,
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: Vanessa Bell Callaway And It's now playing in sellect theaters
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: and on old digital platforms. I bought it on a
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: few platforms. I bought it on my Amazon, on my Apple.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: It's like, I'm gonna have it everywhere I could watch it.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: It's very very it's very interesting. Um. You know, we
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: don't have a marketing budget, you know, and it's a
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: small film, but man, the word of mouth has been
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: absolutely insane, the audience reaction, you know, it's it's it's
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: very interesting, you know, because we have you know, call
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: it a thirty rotten tomatoes from from you know, several
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: critics call it five of them. I don't know, um,
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: But then we have you know, a nineties six from
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: five thousand audience members, which is the highest score and
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: all of Ratten Tomatoes for any film for an audience
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: score future films. So uh, And it's interesting because you know,
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: I made this obviously for the people. You know, I
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: want our voices to be elevated in a way that
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: was unapologetic, and I wanted to make everyone who is
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: complicit in the way that not only we are killed,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: but in the way that it is kind of pivoted
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: always into something that further traumatizes us. I wanted to
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: hold everyone accountable to that um and add to that
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: conversation away that was real and authentic. Yeah, you know
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: with those critics the way that I feel, it's like,
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: if you don't get it, that says more about you
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: than it does about the film. You know, if you're
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: not able to really because there's so many stories being told,
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: we're always confer it with whiteness, like as any any
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: person of color of any background. It's like every film
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: we ever saw was about whiteness, every democratic even once
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: about black people. You're like, when when is it okay
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: for us to tell our own stories and to be
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: honest without a white man over my back telling me
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that to him it didn't feel true. You know, if
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: I had a dollar for every time I was making
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: a film and someone who didn't look like me would
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: read the script or would watch a scene or even
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: hear a dialogue about a scene and say, that doesn't
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: feel you know, realistic. M You know me, you know me,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: know me like and I have zero tolerance, which is
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: why every project I go into, one of the things
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I fight for so desperately is creative control. You know.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: It's like people need to be able to tell their
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: stories without being inhibited. You know. It's like, if we're
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: telling a story about you know, the wonderful women have
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: been fighting for the right to vote in all differently,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: there shouldn't be some man over their shoulder like, well,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, and I think that we
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: have that's because that's not art. It becomes instantly propaganda,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean, because it's not authentic to
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: the people it's trying to serve um. And so you know,
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: I'm very aware and intentional about making films that speak
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: to us in a way that is real, uh, in
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a way that cannot be spun into into into some
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: type of peace that makes everyone feel good when they leave.
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: It's never my intention hold that thought. We are coming
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: right back. What inspired you to specifically right this film? Um?
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: And is there any significance to the name Lincoln Jefferson. Yeah,
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: well I answered the first questions in the second, but
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: there's tons of significance. Um. I was inspired to write
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: this film for for a reason. For for specific reason
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: is I got custody of my nephew from my sister,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: beautiful young man. He was thirteen at the time I
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: got custody of him. He had come from the school
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: system that I was in, um years in Virginia Portsmoth, Virginia,
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: and he had come and tested you know. I went
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: and picked him up, and I asked him, Hey, you
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: know I'm gonna change your life. Um, but it's not
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: because you're better. You know, I'm putting you in a
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: position that you can better serve the people that you're
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: leaving once you have everything you need. Brought him to
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: be with me, put him in school, and he tested
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: into the fifth grade as an eighth grader, you know. Uh.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: And that was not a slight on his intelligence. Was
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: a slight on the broken education system that we refused
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: to talk about right whenever, and I'm a digress for
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: a second. Whenever we're talking about the broken you know,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: education system. Uh am, I getting myself in trouble. But
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say specifically with liberals, the conversation automatically spends
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: into yeah, this education system and in America is broken.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: No no no, no, no no no no no. I'm talking
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: about for black kids. Let's be specific. Because if you
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: have the ability to put your kids in a in
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: a private school, whatever color you are, guess what, they're
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: gonna get a better education. You know, there's a massive
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: divide in education when it comes to the school that
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: is here in San Marino or whatever, in the school
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: that is in um, you know, off Bell Centro in
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: in South l A. And so I'm bringing him to
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: the school. Immediately I thought, man, like, what did I do?
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: He's already you know, he's gonna have a tough time
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: getting on these there are ninety people that look like him.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: The school was like, give us a shot at him.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: We're gonna, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna make sure
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: he catches up. And uh and he started to catch
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: up very quickly and was very much involved. It was
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: as if he was engaged in a different way. But
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: I realized very quickly two thousand and fourteen August, when
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: Michael Brown was killed and his body was bloated and
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: swelling on the hot pavement, uh, that I'd kind of
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: taken him out of the frying pan into the fire.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Because now, while he wasn't in a situation where he
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: was being miseducated, uh, he was in the situation we
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: had to ride his bike, you know, through white neighborhoods
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: um and he is a dark skinned, tall, beautiful black
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: man young man at the time. And so as we're
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: watching the news, he turns me and says, uncle, Nate,
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: what do I do if I get pulled over on
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: my bike? And you know, me being the the the fearless,
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: you know, actives, I said, you call me and I'll
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: straighten it out. I'll come there. And I was like, whoa,
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: don't call me, don't don't grab your phone. Um, you know,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: just slow your bike down, you know, the second you
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: can look at the officer, look at him, get your
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: feet down, get your hands up, so it doesn't feel
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: like is anything happening that he can't see as he's
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: coming out, keep your eyes on him so you can
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: see your amanity, your bit, your baby face. And of
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: course he's looking at me with bugged out eyes like
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: what are you talking about? You know, like all of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: a sudden, super strong uncle Uncle Nate has become this
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: this this coward you know uh. And it affected me.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: I felt very ashamed that I didn't have an answer
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: for him, a real answer, you know, because what is
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: the answer, Because you can do everything right and still
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: get killed just on the strength. So that began my
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: journey into finding an answer. Now I've been to protests.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: I was there, you know. I went to protests when
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: Eric Garner was killed and watched the ubers and the
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: cabs drive around the protesters. I was in Ferguson as
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: you know. Um, I've gone everywhere but I but I
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: went really demanding but not trying to break down the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: psychology g around where we were falling short as a
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: as a community, you know, I mean, what is the divide?
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: Like why aren't we getting accountability? Why aren't why is?
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Why do we often hear the conversation around police brutality appropriated,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: but we're not hearing it actually turnover into action, that
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: is changing the narrative. Um. And that's where I started
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: to think, Wow, if I could if I could get
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: everyone in a room and kind of force our voices
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: to be heard in an or or else way, UM,
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: then we wouldn't have to be we wouldn't have to
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: be screaming and crying. But the only thing you see
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: on the news is you know, the tanks and the
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: gas and the riots. Um, and that kind of that
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: kind of inspired this kind of Sydney Lament, twelve angry
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: Men Dog Day Afternoon type vibe. You know, how do
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: I hold people hostage, enforce accountability and do it in
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: a way with imagery that people have never seen in
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: the history of cinema or in real life for that matter.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: So so that was kind of how I approached it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: You know, it came it was inspired by my my
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: you know, my nephew son and um, and then kind
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: of grew into something that was you know, became a
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: feature and then we we just we just went and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: shot it, you know. And and it's like anything else.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: When you're raising money, Uh, it's always hard to go
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: to well intentioned white people to get money that will
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: inevitably create the type of equity that will maybe make
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: them feel like they've lost something. Um so, and it's tough,
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: you know, because you got to do it. You know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: I'm would be constantly begging for money from the very
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: people were trying to get to understand what's happening to
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: us and maybe you know, um so it got the
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: money shot the film and uh and then you know
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: that before that, obviously we created this character. I created.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: I created this character Lincoln Jefferson, and I named him
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: that really to point to what it means to be
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: a patriot within the context of not being considered a
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: human you know, um, being someone as a veteran who
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: went and for on foreign soil, for freedom that he
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: couldn't that his child could not enjoy because it was
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: taken from him, and doing it with a name that
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: to to to some people call up heroism Lincoln Jefferson,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: but to people who have historical contexts, um calls up
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: more racist ideology and rhetoric. You know, we know Jefferson
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: had slaves, we know how you treated to slaves, we
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: know how you treated his children. Um. We know about
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Lincoln that yes, he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but not
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: without uh deep prep and intense pressure from Frederick Douglas.
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: We know that he said with his own mouth that
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: he didn't believe that we were equal, and that there
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: was something that that made us inherently inferior, and that
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: we would always be inferior. Ah, these came, these words
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: came out of his mouth. But yet and still we
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: as a as a as a group of people, not
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: to not to You know, I know that that we are,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: um not a monolith. But I speak when I when
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: I say black people in this context, I mean it
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to be. We are like step children, you know, our
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: foster children were. We're so often we're so desperate to
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: be accepted by individuals that refuse, or by a society
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: that refuses to accept his refus refuses. They may give
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: us a job with their diversity initiutes where they don't
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: celebrate our differences. They don't, you know. Um. So, the
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: whole idea of Lincoln Jefferson as a name was to
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: specifically call out the desperation we have of and being
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: accepted in a in a nation that refuses to accept
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: or acknowledge our humanity, and regardless of the sacrifices we make,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: even and even with with us assuming their identity. That
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: makes sense. So, um, you know, anything that I do
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: is going to be specific. Uh. And and that name
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: was was very very specific, and there's more meaning to it.
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: And you know, as we talk more at different times,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: we'll talk more about it. But that was on the surface,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: that's what I That was my entry point to his name,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: LORDA Mercy. You know, when I saw the film, it
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: gutted me. It really really gutted me. It was incredibly done,
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: it was powerful. Um. I wanted to run out the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: house and you know, get any streets and do something. Um.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: It was Yeah. The thing that really I think gutted
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: me was just the witnessing of this beautiful man's grief
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: and the witnessing of so many invalidated feelings, you know,
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: like in such a layered way, one the obvious black
• 43:10
  Speaker 1: in America. But you go off to Iraq, you are
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: literally a warrior, right and you are using your body,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: literally your body and your life in service. You come
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: back and he came back to a feeling of defeatedness.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: He came back to a feeling of not being able
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: to fully provide for his family, a feeling of you know,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: being in a position going from a powerful leadership position
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: to now having to be minimized in so many different ways,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: um or having to you know, speaking code or kind
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: of just like yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And then but
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: also you know the complex layers. He is a loving
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: father and expanse of open heart, wants to have an
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: expanse of open heart, but also has lived through so
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: much and that internal fight between opening and closing, opening
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: to love, closing, opening, closing, you know. Um, and then
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: for this experience to happen to him, um, and then
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: you know everyone will see when they see this movie. Um,
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it just it just for me, really spoke to all
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: the ways that black men deserve to be loved and
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: healed and treated tenderly and treated with reverence. You know
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: that kind of that tenderness is just really missing, that
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: that place of holding space for blackmail pain, you know,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: like even touch right, Like how often are people really
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: deeply hugged? How often are black men having like nourishing,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: uplifting conversations that seep in you know? Yeah, And I
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: think I'm going to take it back to how we
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: opened this conversation. When and when you when you when
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: you said, you know Kobe and what he means what
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: he continues to mean to black men. UM as a
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: black man, he desperately loved his children, desperately loved his family.
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: He desperately loved his team. He led his teammates, he
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: spoke his truth. He had integrity, he had intelligence, he
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: spoke different languages. UM. He had work ethic. AH, he
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: had he had inner strength and outer strength. UM. He
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: led by example, like all the quality qualities you look
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: for in a black man, so many of those we
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: saw in him. And it's and it's not dissimilar to
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: Chadwick Boseman passing. You know, Um, black men, in my opinion,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: are low hanging fruit in this country. You know, where
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: the where the We're the last to be loved, the
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: first to beat d And that happens because, in my opinion,
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: well it's real, I think, and I think it happens
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: because of our fractured relationship with the truth about how
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: this country started, you know, and the Willie Lynch letters
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: we talked about in great debaters. You know, they would
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: oftentimes take the strongest black man, the Kobe Bryant, the
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Chadwick Boseman, uh, and they would tarn feather him and
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: then they would horse and quarter him and set the
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: remain remaining carcass on fire in front of everyone of
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: the other enslaved people to let them know just how
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: quickly their lives could could end, how quickly they could
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: be snuffed out. Uh. And if you look at the
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: prison industrial complex where so many of our strong, intelligent
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: black men are, it is a form of that prepared
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: actuated lunching. That's where we are. We are. Take the
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: father out of the household, take the strength from the community,
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: and you lock them up, and you throw away the key.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Uh and and you and and you destroy their psyche
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: and then let them out and then start whispering mental
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: illness out of context. You know, you you know what
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: I mean. So when when we talk about the black
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: men and how he is how he is treated in
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: this country, we can't forget about how it started, you know.
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, Jeez, On the plantation, a black man couldn't
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: ask for food. If they ran out of corn mill,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: the black woman had to go to the house and
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: ask for it, and had oftentimes do whatever it took
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: to get the food to bring it back to the cabin.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Why because it was impossible for a black man to
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: speak in the president of a white man and not
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: offend him. Why because white men were completely insecure as
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: they should have been with respect to the manhood of
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: black men. It has not it's the same reason. Well,
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: it's like I always am blown away when I see
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: an image of like you know, I come from sports background.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: How I am able to be in front of you
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: right at the beginning of my life when you see
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: twenty strong, huge black man, hollow around five ft two
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: white man telling them what they're going to be doing.
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: Or you'll see the owners in the NFL like that
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: fig Yeah, I figured you appreciate that owner. You'll see
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: the owner back like this during the games making the
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: little calls and take him out, take him to get
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: him out of here. And you see the and you're
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: seeing the bodies doing this, and these brothers are dying
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: at fifty four, all of them, you know what I mean.
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: So when we talk about the destruction and the and
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: the and the and the Kleenex like quality, you know
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: a way that we're thrown away. Of course worse, it's no,
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: it's no wonder. We are. We are guarded, and we
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: are fearful, and we are paranoid, and we are stressed
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: and we are mentally ill because this is our experience
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: every single day. So when you think about right and spiritually,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: when you think about this man, Lincoln Jefferson, who did
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: everything right. He fought for this country. As you said,
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: he gave his body, came back broken, and a lot
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of people missed that that was the reason why their
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: relationship didn't work with his with his wife, that he
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: could not get it together, and it calls the straight
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: and But knowing the importance of raising a son, he said,
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: is it okay? You know that we share him what
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: I instilled, the thing in him, the things that need
• 49:41
  Speaker 1: to be instilled in him. In fact, I'm gonna make
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: sure he goes to the best school in in in
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: the area. In fact, I'm going to scrub the toilets
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: of these very people that I know look down on me,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the children of those who you know, you get what
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: I'm saying, to do whatever I can to make sure
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: he have. He did everything right. Yeah, so many black
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: men are doing everything right and they turn on the
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: TV and all they see is oh the negative. You know,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: whatever the spin needs to be to get the traction,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: to get the This is our every day. So at
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: what where's the breaking point? At what point does the
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: black men say, you know, as as Dr King suggested,
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: you know, no Lincoln and Linkonian e Man's patient proclamation
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: can bring about the strength and liberation that a black
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: man and black woman need, they must reach inside of themselves.
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: At what point do we just reach inside of ourselves
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: and say, all right, bet enough is enough, My life
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: doesn't matter. We're gonna get some justice. Because he was
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: a good It wasn't. He wasn't some dude though smoking
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: We eve before he ran up in there, you know,
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: as white man on my shoulder may have, you know,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: suggest he didn't. But you know what I mean, Like,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: those are the kind of notes you get. What if
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: he's a really a street guy, and what if what
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: makes him redeeming is that it's just a good man
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: that loves his son and and and it's dealing with
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: the brokenness of rejection as a as a as a
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: as a patriot is no more more, no one more
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: patriot than he was. Um. But I wanted to tell
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: that story and do it in a way that anyone
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: could identify. All of us got children, all of us
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: love our children, you know what I mean? Like, but
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: can you identify with this man and the justice he
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: needs in the accountability that needs to take place, Because
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: I think if if you can identify with him, then
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: you have an entry put into the conversation and the discussion.
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: And if you identify with the discussion, then it will
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: stay with you. If it stays that you will spill
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: out into life, and it spills out into life, you'll
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: have conversations with the people in your life that don't
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: understand what Black Lives Matter is all about, what Brian
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: Stevenson is talking about, what color of Change is trying
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: to achieve. You get what I'm saying. So the whole
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: point of the of that whole movie is just abounce
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: pass towards the shot. All it is is a setup
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: for this type of conversation. If it takes me make
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: a movie for you to want to interview, interview me,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: for this to go out to your audience then to
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: think about, like, man, let me see this film, then
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: to engage their white friends, or engage their police friends,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: have them watching have a real discussion about internal accountability
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: as well as external accountability, then so be it right? Yeah, yeah, quick, note,
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: you've actually been on my interview bucket list for four years.
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: So it wasn't just this film you were You've been
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: on my list, Um, but it's really just the way
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: you are in the world, you know, and your creative
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: brilliance and your faith. And UM, I'm glad for this
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: movie because it's been the best vehicle for me to
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: be able to get you in front of a mic. Um.
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: You know, I want to be respectful of your time.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: I want, but I have a couple of things to
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: touch on. Um. So Americans spent American skin really speaks
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: to blackmail, pain, being invalidated by white supremacy, by patriarchy,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: by injustice. And we know that not being seen by
• 52:58
  Speaker 1: the world that we live in is so profoundly harmful
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: to our own self image. So how do you love yourself?
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: Take away the service, I'm very clear, how actively you
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: are showing up for the world, you are showing up
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: for your family. How do you love you? That's a
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: tough one. I mean, I don't know. I don't think
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: about myself as often in that context. I think I
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: don't know what I am outside of service. If I'm
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: keeping it real, you know, Um, you know, from the
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: moment I will wake up to the moment I go
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: to sleep, I'm it's like a Rubik's cube, trying to
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: figure out how I can contribute UM to legacy. How
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: I cantin you know, to my children, to to your children,
• 53:52
  Speaker 1: to quest like, how can I use whatever power that
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: is in me to shift this whole thing? So when
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gone, it will be, it will have I will
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: be I'll be able to say that I was here,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: you know that that I didn't waste you know, you
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: know these functional hands in this functional mind. Um. You know,
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: maybe it seems like I'm being evasive. I'm not trying
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: to be no, but I do think it's important to note,
• 54:17
  Speaker 1: especially for listeners, there is also some trauma response woven
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: into that. You know, Um, we were not naturally taught
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: how to love ourselves just being alive on earth, regardless
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: of you know, demographic background. We're not taught to love
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: ourselves in any way. We're not taught to feel any
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: of our feelings in real time, and we are taught
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: to suppress constantly suppressing our own joy, suppressing pleasure, suppressing lightheartedness.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: Everything feels like for our own protection, it has to
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: be outward projecting UM. And that's one of the reasons
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I love meditation. But that's a whole another conversation. Well,
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: it's true, and we've talked about that before, and I
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: and I and I want to into to meditation and
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: want to do more that. It's funny because um, in
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: the new film that I'm doing, one of the things
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: I found in my research is um when people are
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: in specifically in solider confinement, doing a phone about solidier
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: confinement and the inhumane aspects of that. But in my research,
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: one of the guys was saying, how when you are
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: in a place of of of being to humanized or
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: being marginalized, or there's a grave injustice happening, the only
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: way to survive is to have a mission, you know,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: to to set your sight on something and sprint toward
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: it as fast as you possibly can. He said. It
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: passes the time but allows you to kind of dodge
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: traps of the enemy. Uh. And it really hit me
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: because I feel like it spoke to the prison of
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: being a black man in America, you know what I mean,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: And how you can't go anywhere you want to go,
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: You can't open any door you want to open when
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: you want to open it. Oftentimes you do have to
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: deal with gatekeepers constantly and people who are not for
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: you constantly. I can remember even being, you know, in
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: college and thinking to myself, damn, like, you know, I
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: went to a p W I um, I didn't go
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: to BBC, a predominant white institution, and that feeling of like, dang,
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: Like every every single day I have to be able
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: to coach which and talk to white people, uh, and
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: teachers and professors and whatever. And white kids will never
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: know what it's like. They can go their whole time
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and never have to talk to a Black person their
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: entire and the football team is the reason why this
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: whole place is here. It was like I just all
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: these things. But when that brother said that about the
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: whole idea of finding a mission, I feel like so
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: many of us as black men, once we realized that
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: the game is fixed, we stopped thinking about ourselves. We
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: just think about who the game is hurting and how
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: to break the game. That's that's all I think about
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: all day long, Dead, I promise you all I think
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: about all day long is how to break the game.
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: How do I subvert the game? How do I flip
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: this on his head so I don't have to feel
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: guilty when I die, or shame when I died that
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: I my kids inherited a system, you know, uh, systemically
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: racist and oppressive system that is going to beat them
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: like it beat me. How do I turn their pain
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: into a stick. So I do need to think more
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: about I mean, the things that give me George, just
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: being around my family, you know what I mean. Like
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: people ask I remember when the pandemic and people were like, um,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: you know, how are you How are you sheltering? I
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: was like, I've been sheltering since the nineties, Like this
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: is this is my style. I love being home, like
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: I'm a home body, Like wake up on Saturdays. Every
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: Saturday's home improvement day. I'm painting, I'm fixing stucco um,
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: building stuff, like I built a treehouse in the back.
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: Like I'm all about home. But even that is service
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: to my to my to my wife and children, you
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. Like, I've really got to think
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: more about how to in the same way that breaking
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: my kids out of that way of thinking about how
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: the world is not for them. I think black men,
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: if I can so boldly speak for black men some
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: of us, I think that there should be some work
• 58:14
  Speaker 1: maybe around experiencing joy separate from the the trauma, you know,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: giving yourself because I don't, I have a hard time give.
• 58:25
  Speaker 1: I get guilty when I give myself a break, you know.
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: I try to write films that don't speak to our circumstance,
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: and those the only times I get writers because I'm like, damn,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: like I could be using this time too, And and
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: that guilt is the it's the old programming and loops
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: of the oppressor and of colonialization, you know, like I
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: think about when I think of like my biggest, deepest
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: dream for black men, um, it's that they are just
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: really allowed to experience themselves as tender and soft sometimes,
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: you know, it's the of the life, because well, the
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: enemy is always looking to jump. I mean, like even
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: like I'm getting something done to my house, you know,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: and I live in a decent neighborhood, and just even
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: when you know, one of my neighbors said one of
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: the most racist things to my nephew that you can imagine,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: and then I had to deal with that, you know,
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: or like when people come to my house, like I
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: had someone even asked me, like what do you do?
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: And like how it looking at their house? Looking at
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: my house, looking at that, I was looking at that,
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: or just you know what I mean. It's like you're
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: never ever ever free from the ignorance from the white supremacy.
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: It's so pervasive that you always That's the thing that
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: I think is so important, um, that we start to
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: expand in our communities, is that when you have access
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: to that like internal battery of love, it creates this
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: almost galaxy in your chest inside of you. And so
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: there's this it's almost like a liberation from your cells
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: outward for the inside out. And so by cultivating that
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: and spending a little more time with that space, it
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: does well, it doesn't change the system, but it does
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: change how we're able to show up for ourselves in
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: the system, and how we're able to find other things
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: to think about and prioritize. You know. Um, it's just
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: when I when I look at it, right when I
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: and keep in mind another one of our mutual friends,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I have this conversation with him all the time, Charlemagne um,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: and I got him meditating. But um, you know, to me,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: that is the only way we actually create structural change
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: within our family systems. That is the way we change
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: generational trauma. That is the way we change our ancestral
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: trauma is for us to radically love ourselves and not
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: love ourselves and see our worth through service or through
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: providing or through productivity, but love ourselves because we exist
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: and we're worthy and regardless. H that's a journey. That's
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: a journey, because I would, I would not Devil's advocate.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: But you're right, it's just sometimes I didn't say, but
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: I said. It's just so I'm adding, I'm adding on
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: it's just sometimes dangerous, uh, for me personally to step
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: too far off the road. Um. You know when Jackie
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: Robins had a great quote, we said, a life only
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: matters and the impact that has on others. You probably
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: wouldn't agree with that one, no, But well it depends
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: on the definition of impact, right, Because I feel that
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: I have impact on people through the way I love myself.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: And I think that the way that I love myself
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: and the way that I allow myself to radiate my
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: lessons and my love gives people permission to want the
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 1: same for themselves. Just that planting of a seed, you
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: know that. Yeah, yeah, it may look it makes sense,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: it makes sense, It makes sense. I love that I
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: love that we'll get you the very optimistic, you know,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: and I don't even know if it's optimist. And the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: thing is, I just have an optimism that I will
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: always be enough and I'll always keep going. I don't have.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: My optimism isn't placed in outside sources. But I try
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: to just keep that little like inner oven burning for
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: myself regardless of the significant challenges in my life and
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: in this world. And it's funny for you. It's funny
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: because that I feel like that is you know, that
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: is everything that I teach my my my my children,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: my girls, you know, self love, self care, self love,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: self care. It's just as a black man. And like
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: I said, we are not a monolist. I'm not speaking
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: for everyone, but for me personally, it's sometimes hard living
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: in this country. It feels like to reflect inward too
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: too much is to forget what's happening outside. And I
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: know that's not the case, but that is the journey.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's absolutely. Yeah, we're gonna what we're gonna
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: say aside from yes, no, yeah, no, absolutely, And I
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: think you know, the the amazing part about a healing
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: journey and about whatever journeys we find ourselves on internally,
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: we're on them for our whole life, right, So it's
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: just like a constant practice of like I'm in pursuit
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 1: of self mastery, but every day is me practicing that
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: or attempting that. You know, But what you said is
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: so accurate. But I think for everyone listening, especially the guys, um,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: you know, I would just really play the role of
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: like observer, like just getting curious about ourselves and why
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: we believe what we believe, but specifically why we relate
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: to ourselves in whatever way we relate to ourselves. Just
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 1: starting that dialogue of being curious and be like why
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: do I talk to myself like that? Or when was
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: the first time I started to feel that way about
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: me or what I did or didn't deserve, you know not.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: And I mean, and I'm not saying in a way
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: that's condescenting. I mean, it's like it's true, it's true,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: you know you And my internal monalogue is like this,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: all right, get up, all right, let's go get it alright, cool,
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: all right, let's all right, let's do that. No problem,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: no problem at all, no problem, all right, Nate, Let's
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: go Like it's literally like grit grit, grit, let's go.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: It's it's I've had very few conversations when I'm like, so,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: how do you feel it? You know, you know what?
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: You know what I mean like, you know, yeah, you
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: probably do it like this, since how you'd be like, hey, Nate,
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: how are you feeling? Listen, bro, don't matter, get it,
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: don't matter how you feel, go get it. But yeah,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: that's I think there's a lot of again, a lot
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: of a lot of trauma um just in general. And uh,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: you know, even for your listeners as that you know,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: and and and I think it's it's healthy to be open.
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's why I'm even having this conversation for
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: all the for all the brothers that are that are
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: listening specifically, I do believe that all this work isn't
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: for nothing, you know what I mean that that we
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: do want to see a place where our kids have
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: a healthier environment. Uh, and they don't have to worry
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: about being killed in the streets, or they don't worry
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: about their brains their minds being killed in the schools.
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: But you know, pursuing some some pursuing self love, I think,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: and maybe help us live longer, because black men live
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: you know, our life expectfully is lower than everyone's. You know, um,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: when we talk about with COVID and pre existing conditions
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: and you know, heart disease and diabetes and all the
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: things that you know, just things that are just perpetuated
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: by stress. It's stressful, dude. It is stressful being in
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: this planet and recognizing that, you know, we are the
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: wretched of the earth in the eyes of so many,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: but knowing at the root we are the original and
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: we are strong. Do you get what I'm saying. It's
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: the opposite when it comes to our capacity, But that's
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: the journey. That's the journey. Uh. And it could be
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: so worthy, um to for everyone to just look at
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: you know, it's not sustainable to be at war with
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: the world and at war with yourself, right, Like, that's
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: not sustainable and that doesn't lend itself to really the
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: freedom of the intergenerational trauma, the ancestral trauma that um
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: we have been waiting our whole lineage to get out
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: of fighting. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree with that. Okay,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: So Americans skin it is in all the places now. Um.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: I saw a beautiful video of Ditty crying after he
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: saw this film. I saw Lebron tweeting it out and
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: talking about how impactful. Like the way that this film
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: has been received has been so powerful, so powerful. Um.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: And I feel like this film is just it's really
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: being savored, you know, it is creating so much dialogue
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: within families, within communities. Um. And it's it's just it's
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: it's so powerfully changing the narrative. That's the goal. Even
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: on the bottom of the poster says time to change
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: the narrative. You know, like this is not acceptable anymore.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: You know. Dr King said we must be dissatisfied, like
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: and every we must be dissatisfied. And what does it
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: mean to look and field feel an act dissatisfied? You know,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: there needs to be pressured and needs to be resistance. Um.
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: And the type of resistance that can't be ignored, you know.
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: And I think the fact that we're in every barbershop
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: right now, everyone's talking about in every barbershop, every beauty shop.
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying on your job spot, on
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: the basketball courts, on the football fields, because that's how
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: we address subjugation. You know, we get into our little
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: selves and we say how do we feel about this?
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: Like if this is if we can, if we have
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: to be honest about where we are right now then
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: and what we saw this movie is true, then what
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: is our part? Are we complicit and part of the problem?
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: You know, are we a part of the solution? If
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: we're part of the solution, what does that mean? Like,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: what does it mean to be a journalist who is
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: part of the solution? You know, you do it every day,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: you know, the spiritual solution. You're you're you're you're kicking
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: them out every day. What what does it mean as
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: as an athlete to be a part of the solution.
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: What does it mean as a as a writer, director, producer?
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: What does it mean as a businessman businesswoman? What does
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: it mean as a politician to be part of the solution?
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: As a parent? Boom, It's all we are at an
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: impasse and I don't think you know, technology is a
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: wrecking ball. It's taking things that would take a year
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: to do before the type of mobilizing When you think
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: about the mobilizing out of the bus boycott that took
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: real work like that can be done. You know, if
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: if if Rosa Parks had Facebook, or you know, if
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: if Harriet had you know, what I mean Twitter, we'd
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: be free. I'm gonna be there at three o'clock. Flash
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: mob boom. Everyone gets the information to say time like
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: young people have it right now. They have the ability
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: to move and mobilize quickly. We saw what happened with
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: reading in game. Stuff like technology can literally topple the Republic. Yeah, yeah,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: we so happened January six at the Capitol. We saw
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: that they've been talking about that for how long over
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: social media and in their own groups circles Like where
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: we are right now from the standpoint of resistance for
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: people that look like us, that are marginalized like us,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: and allies of our journey, there are things that can
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: happen very quickly. So I hope that this film it's
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: just it's not I'm not a savior. The film is
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: not the answer, but I hope that it is a
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: part of the conversation that leads us closer to the solution. Yeah.
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 1: As we close out this show, Nate, Um, I like
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: to leave our listeners with what I call soul work,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 1: and so um this will be a journaling prompt, but
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: I'd like to end fight you to answer this prompt
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: as our final moment. What do you wish that you
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: were told or that you knew about yourself as a
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: black child? What do I I wish I was taught
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: or told about history that started before slavery. Mm hmm.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: I came into it so late. And I think that's
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: why I'm so desperate when it comes to our freedom,
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: is because I feel like I wasted, you know, eighteen
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: years of my life, uh, pursuing on a hamster wheel
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: when it came to trying to figure out how to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: be happy and how to be free. So I truly
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: wish I had learned. It would have contextualized my religion.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: It would have contextualized my circumstances where I lived and
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: why I lived that way, to contextualize how it was
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: treated by teachers, how and how my classmate mates were
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: treated by teachers. And I wouldn't have blamed, as you said,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: children blame. I wouldn't have blamed myself and us for
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: things that I knew had that had been done to us.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: You know, like when you speak, you speak as a queen.
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: You don't speak as an enslaved person, you know, like
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: and anyone that's ever sat in front of you, here's
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: that right. And I think that that that is a
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: connection to the ancestors. That is a context, you know.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: And the funny thing about time is that we were
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: only enslaved for that long. That's it evolutionary scale and
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: and and civilization so to speak. Right, that's it and
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: all the rest. We were top self. But no one
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: teaches you that in this country. You know, the second
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: you you know what it is to be to exist,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: You're taught just to survive. Yeah, you know, so I
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: do wish that earlier on in life I was told
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: about the legacy of who we were as the original
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: man um. I think it would have impacted a lot
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: of things. Yeah, that you're feeling of personal power had
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: had nurturance to it, you know that there was that
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: it had been done before that we're not reinventing the wheel.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: That we were not by barbarians, but the people who
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 1: had done that to us were the barbarians, you know
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: what I mean. It's like this is great wild where
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: he says the United States is the only country to
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: go from barbarianism to decadence without civilization between. Ah yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: this all this all the country went from barbarianism to decadence,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: just like that and never had to deal with being civil. Yeah,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: this whole this whole country is built on like sociopathy,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: you know, when the behavior doesn't meet actions. It's like
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: we from its inception, there was this this bizarre, overgrandized
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: claim that we were all equal and no one was
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: except for white males. But it's yes, and now the constitution,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: our Supreme Court is built to uphold the constitution of
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: something real. For those people to sign that paper, those
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: people sign that paper got everything that they wanted, everything, everything,
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: And we didn't sign that paper. Mhm. And I don't
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: want to sign that paper. That's the thing we were
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: about it. But that's the thing, at least figuratively, Yeah,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 1: of course, well mentally and emotionally and like yeah, the
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: way that we hold things within ourselves not going by that. Yeah,
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: I don't want your team to get mad at me. Um,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: we could talk forever, We could the journal imprompt for
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: everyone for this episode. Your soul work is just spend
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: some time today, really, um, just savoring in your own
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: mind of things that you wish you had been given
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: access to as a young person, and how you can
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: show up for yourself with that information more fully. Right now, Nate,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: you are a king, You are an incredible man. Um
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: you are seeing so clearly. I am so grateful for
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: your life. I am so grateful you exist. And how
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 1: lucky are we, How lucky are we to have you
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: and your creative genius and all your offerings to the world.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: Really grateful for your time today, Thank you for creating
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: space for us. You know we we we so often
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: when it comes to this type of thing, we're kind
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: of propped in front of people that don't look like
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: us and kind of given the task of getting them
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: to understand our experience. It always feels good to sit
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: down with someone that that can connect with you on
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: the solar level because they are you, you know, so
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you, appreciate your time always. Hey, find me
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: on social Let's connect at deVie Brown. That's Twitter and Instagram,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: or go to my website Debbie Brown dot com. And
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: if you're listening to the show on Apple podcast, please
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: please please don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe, and
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 1: send this episode to a friend. Dropping Jams is the
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Black Effect Network. It's
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: produced by Triple and Me. Debbie Brown. For more podcasts
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.