Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Erica Ford Talks LIFE Camp, Support From The White House, Cannabis Injunction + More

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INTERVIEW: Erica Ford Talks LIFE Camp, Support From The White House, Cannabis Injunction + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club Morning.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Everybody is Steve j Envy, Charlamagne, the Goud We are
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: In the front of the room, we have Miss Erica Ford.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: Welcome Speeds.
• 0:15
  Speaker 4: How are you feeling that paper Planes had is very fresh?
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, and hopefully you got to get choice the hat.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: Let's give them the right, she says, she sent it
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: up here, but we just haven't received it yet or
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: we checked the mail.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Either the custom Life Camp hats.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: Paper Planes Life Camp. Great.
• 0:33
  Speaker 5: This is a process coming together with pieces of lifestyle,
• 0:37
  Speaker 5: you know, so that we can help elevate and change lives.
• 0:39
  Speaker 6: I love that now.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: If you don't know, Erica Ford is doing something very
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: specialist weekend at not met Life stated at.
• 0:47
  Speaker 6: Yank Shastafield.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Stum.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: I was used to call Shastadium a city field. I've
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: seen you practicing. Because you're throwing out the first pitch,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: you ain't look too good. But I know y'all seen
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: you practice.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: You just got to do better than Steven. You gotta
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: do better than Steven.
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: Yes, I will I will represent, I will represent. I've
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: been practicing. I'm gonna get it to the plate. And
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: Emery from Paper Planes is a catcher, and so I'm
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: the picture. He's a catcher, and we'll bring it together,
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: this movement so that we can help change more young
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: people's lives.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: Dope. So what is party? We can't play.
• 1:23
  Speaker 5: It's coming out tomorrow to the Mets game and not
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: only enjoying the fun and helping to build this move
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: because a lot of times people look at joining movements
• 1:33
  Speaker 5: and peace as corny, and I don't want to do that.
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: That's not for me, that's not them people over there
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: to preachy people, right, and so we want to show
• 1:39
  Speaker 5: them you could have fun, you could be fly, you
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: could be part of of doing something positive and having
• 1:44
  Speaker 5: fun and all of that at the same time. And
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: so we're telling people to come out. We're having DJ Booth,
• 1:49
  Speaker 5: Breezy Lynn and a lot of other folks are coming
• 1:53
  Speaker 5: out and participate in the tailgate party in the parking
• 1:56
  Speaker 5: lot of City Field, and then I'm throwing out the
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: first pitch at six o'clock and then we'll be there
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: for the game. But it's launching a whole movement, you know,
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: bringing together those two slogans visions missions of greatness as
• 2:10
  Speaker 5: a process and pieces of lifestyle.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: How do you connect with rock and em So.
• 2:16
  Speaker 5: We've been working with Shaka. We worked with Shaka years
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: then connected from Shaka this young man named Teddy and
• 2:24
  Speaker 5: the fan fam group that they have, they do our
• 2:26
  Speaker 5: college tours, so they do scholarships for our kids.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: And we've been working together.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: Teddy came and threw the hat on my tables, like
• 2:33
  Speaker 5: you like this, and I was like, get them out.
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: Of here, you know, and the rest is history.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: It just brought it together, and it's it's doing the work,
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: you know, when you're consistently out there doing the work.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: Then I remember I said to Shaka years ago, right
• 2:48
  Speaker 5: when I was just arrogant, right, like why.
• 2:51
  Speaker 7: Can't jay Z support me? Why can't jay Z's brought
• 2:54
  Speaker 7: me right? And she was like, do your work right,
• 2:56
  Speaker 7: and when you do your work then things align with you.
• 2:59
  Speaker 7: But don't beg for some to support you. And I
• 3:02
  Speaker 7: just kept doing my.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Work at Chaco. Go always give it to your screen. Shaka.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: I love Shaka so much, man, I do too.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: Now you've been doing this for such a long time, right,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: somebody posted a picture.
• 3:10
  Speaker 6: Of me and you, I mean back in Queens this
• 3:12
  Speaker 6: was a long time ago.
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: I mean, you were doing the work for the long
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: time and you decided to slow down a little bit.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: And what does slow down mean for you? Because there's
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: no slowdown for you. So what does that mean for
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Erica Ford?
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: So I want to go back to why I had
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: to slow down, right, And a lot of times when
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: we run to the fire, run to the trauma, it
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: depletes us, right, And so I got sick, like I
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: would be in at night choking, trying to breathe, and
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: my whole nervous system was depleted, and so I had
• 3:43
  Speaker 5: to like physically stop And so I physically stopped doing
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: nothing for three months, right. And so now I'm coming
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: back just as the CEO. I will not be running
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: the day to day operation of Life Camp. I won't
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: be out there running and you know, fighting with the
• 4:00
  Speaker 5: police and interrupting shit and taking guns out of people's hands,
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: none of that stuff, no more, but at an elevated
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: place of showing up at events and organizing raising money
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: for Life Camp and doing teaching, teaching, teaching, because I've
• 4:18
  Speaker 5: learned a lot in these thirty years and I want
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: to teach and get back to young people who are
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: stepping into this field.
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: You know, it's scary about that though. They always say
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: older people for counsel, young people for war. But the
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: problem is a lot of people in this generation they're
• 4:31
  Speaker 4: not ready for war. Right, you still built for it,
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: like you've done, fought wars, You've been in wards, You're
• 4:36
  Speaker 4: still ready to fight.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Now, who are you going to pass the torch to.
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: It's just so funny that this young lady who came
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: with me to Sniffany.
• 4:43
  Speaker 5: Lamella is actually the INTRAM executive director and who I'll
• 4:47
  Speaker 5: be passing the torch too if she passes that process.
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: But we have a group of good young people who
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: are ready, and we have a training academy that we
• 4:56
  Speaker 5: launched with the University of Chicago two weeks ago where
• 4:59
  Speaker 5: we're actually training folks from around the United States to
• 5:03
  Speaker 5: do this work. So, as you know, the last time
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: I was here, we talked about Buiden bringing down money,
• 5:08
  Speaker 5: and so some of this money that has been brought
• 5:10
  Speaker 5: down is to do the training to prepare people to
• 5:13
  Speaker 5: do this work effectively and efficiently, and so that's what
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: we've been doing. I'm part of a national group called
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: the Black and Brown Peace Coalition, and from that work.
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: We've opened up this training academy and the first cohort
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: has been launched and it's a six months program and
• 5:28
  Speaker 5: so hopefully from not hopefully from this training, they will
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: learn how to effectively lead and do this work on
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: the front line.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: You was just at the White House, right were you
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: there when Cuavo was something?
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: I wasn't there for when Quavo was there, but I
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: was there when we opened up the off White House
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: Office of Gun Violence Prevention. So last Friday, the White
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: House launched the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention,
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: first ever, and this will allow real support to come
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: to the ground continually for the work that we're doing.
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: My good ment son, I call him my son. Greg
• 6:00
  Speaker 5: Jackson got one of the jobs as a deputy director
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: and another young man, Robert.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Got the other job.
• 6:06
  Speaker 5: And so they did a deputy directors and a lady
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: named Stephanie is the director. Under the leadership of Kamala Harris,
• 6:12
  Speaker 5: Vice President Kamala Harris.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: The White House been keeping promises because I know they
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: pledged some money.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: They did, did they did?
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: They did?
• 6:19
  Speaker 5: They have been keeping their promises. The Republicans have been
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: blocking as much as they can, but That's why President
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: Biden has doing executive orders now to just override a
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: lot of that stuff. And so they have been as
• 6:32
  Speaker 5: much as they can putting down funding, changing where money
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: used to go to other places so that it can
• 6:38
  Speaker 5: hit the ground of CBR workers across the nation. And
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: so they have been in that lane put the most
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: money in this work.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: I was gonna ask with New York, right, you know,
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Charlamagne and myself talk about New York and how much
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: has changed?
• 6:50
  Speaker 6: Right?
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: How much we see and hear more and more violence,
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: whether it's you know, in the subway, or it's shooting
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: or its mental illness. Since the new mayor has come in,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: has it been more, has it been worse? Has he
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: been more helpful? What have we seen because on the
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: outside and even you know, it doesn't look any better
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: at all, and even reading the paper every day and
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: just hearing the stories, it just seems like it's getting worse.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: So it is in the area, and so it's it's
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: a it's a it's a multi prong question. Right in
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: particular areas it's getting better, right the areas in which
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: we're are, you know, our collective New York City Crisis
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: Management system is doing the work. It's getting better as
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: it relates to gun violence. Gun violence is down, but
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: now as we see around the city, there's different kind
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: of crimes. Right there's people going in looting stores and
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: you know, robbing people and stuff like that.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: And so as we continue.
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: To grow the work that we're doing, and it's we
• 7:57
  Speaker 5: have a problem in New York City. There's been an
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: influx folks coming into the New York and it and
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: they're not being able to be placed in proper.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: Homes and have the ability to live. And so what
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: are they going to do?
• 8:13
  Speaker 5: Right, They're going to come into the community and try
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: to live the best way they know how, and so
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: we can't have that, you know. And so I know
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: with our team, we work to make sure that that
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: pieces are lifestyle in the real sense. And so we
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: have peacekeepers, we have our interrupters, we have our special
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: Ops team, we have brothers and sisters that we put
• 8:32
  Speaker 5: throughout our target area and make sure that those things
• 8:35
  Speaker 5: don't happen. And so hopefully it'll continue to grow and
• 8:40
  Speaker 5: hire new people to do this type of work without
• 8:42
  Speaker 5: the spork.
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: I feel like the solutions have always been there right
• 8:47
  Speaker 4: way before the migrants came, but you're not even taking
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: care of the people who are here and implementing those
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: solutions with them, So of course you're not gonna be
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: able to take care of migrants either.
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: That's what he said.
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: That what's the cannabis injunction that's going on?
• 9:05
  Speaker 5: So rich white folks who have these big MSOs, multi
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: state operations basically put a lawsuit in using the veterans.
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: They did many different lawsuits on this last one. They
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: used the veterans, and they blocked the card holders, which
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: is the brothers and sisters who got falsely arrested for
• 9:26
  Speaker 5: selling cannabis back in the day. And so they were
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: allocated license or organizations like ours who work with those individuals,
• 9:34
  Speaker 5: and everybody was given license, and they put an injunction
• 9:38
  Speaker 5: in and it caused to stop the freeze of our
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: ability to do anything, and so we couldn't open up,
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: we couldn't move forward in our process to you know,
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: get the full license, because it's actually in order to
• 9:53
  Speaker 5: get the full license, there's things you gotta do. So
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: we weren't able to finish the process October fourth. It's
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: all not but what they wanted to do when they
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: were successful at doing was slowing the process down so
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: that there's a few amount of people who can come
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: into the game before they come into the game. And
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: so now on October fourth, it's open to everybody. Anybody
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: could apply, right, And so it's really unfair because you
• 10:18
  Speaker 5: already had a head start. That's like we in a marathon.
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: You twenty miles ahead, you gonna come back to trick
• 10:24
  Speaker 5: the person behind you because they catching up, Like what like,
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: are you that greedy?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: Ye know they So that's what's happening in the cannabis
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: and so when we see them open, like we we
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: should not support these stores, you know, we should not
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: support these big MSOs that come into our community and
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: try to act like they've down with us, you know,
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: and have you come into their store to buy their product.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: But they're in the back room stopping people who really
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: need equity in their community from getting access to equity.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: I always had a problem with that because you know,
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: a lot of times what they would do is, like
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: you said, they will find somebody that's wrongfully arrested, right,
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: use them to get the license. Because most of the
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: people that are wrongly accused or arrested nine times out
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: of ten don't have the bank to actually support a dispensary, right,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: because it takes a lot of money architectural and everything.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: So what they usually do is they usually back them
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: and then after two years you can get rid of them, right,
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: And that's what's happening in a lot of these different states.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: And they have to find a way to fix that,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: and they also have to find a way to make
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: it not that expensive because it sounds right, yeah, we're
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: gonna give you the first and this, that and the other.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: But who has that amount of bank to actually be
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: able to do the architecture, to do the research, to
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: get the actual licenses and all that. It's almost it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: almost impossible.
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: So they gave the individual's two point five million dollars
• 11:46
  Speaker 5: or an allocation of two point five million dollars and
• 11:49
  Speaker 5: a space. But like you said, they'd a landlord, right,
• 11:52
  Speaker 5: and so at any point in time they can't take
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: the space, they just change their name put somebody else in. Right,
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: if you can't pay up, right.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: And I think it's after three years or something like that,
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: or they can say, okay, you can do it, but
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: now you can't afford the growing equipment.
• 12:05
  Speaker 6: You can't.
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: You know, and so there needs to be real equity
• 12:11
  Speaker 5: definitely in this and and cannabis as we see because
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: when you talk about there's a bunch of illegal cannabis
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: stores all over New York City, all over and they're
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: not closing those, they're not putting up injunctions to stop those,
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: they're not going out. But the brothers and sisters who
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: you know, went through the process the legal way and
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: you know, spend time in jail, lost money, lost family.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: Interrupted their whole process.
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: You're going to come at them like it's just you know,
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: it's a typical American way.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Now we got to continue to change it.
• 12:47
  Speaker 6: We got to talk about the Spirit Award.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Now you're doing the Spirit Awards before the game, that's right,
• 12:53
  Speaker 4: The Spirit Awards for people who don't know.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: So the Spirit Awards is awards that we're giving out
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: at the Medic Game tomorrow to individuals organized stations that
• 13:01
  Speaker 5: have really, you know, been a critical part in helping
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: people achieve their goals and aspirational just bringing up peace,
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: bringing up the vision and mission of what we stand
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: for for life. Camp supported us for years and so
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: we wanted to give it to the Breakfast Club because
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: of the years that y'all have been supporting us.
• 13:17
  Speaker 6: Thank you very much, thank you so much.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: So and I got to ask, so I'm looking at
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the weather and says rain tomorrow.
• 13:23
  Speaker 6: Is there a rain date?
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: That's that mess?
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: That's all right everything in New York.
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: You know, hopefully it starts raining after later.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Well, we appreciate you for always coming up, and you
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: know you always have an open door policy here. Anytime
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: you want to come by, you know the address to
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: swing on by and whatever you need and as far
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: as us to support you, whatever we can do, we
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: are absolutely positiving.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: Any other thing we need to be looking out for
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: from Life Camp.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: I'm sure we're doing a pop up next week.
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: Come on help it if help we.
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: Got ye yes, yes, yes, yes, we have our So
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: it was our twentieth anniversary gala, but I got six
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: so we had to postpone it. And so now it's
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: our twenty third year anniversary gala we have coming up
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: in April. But we have a lot This academy that
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: we're doing and the office with the White House and
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: helping make that a success is really where we're going
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: to put our energy, as well as making sure that
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: the one hundred and thirteen percent that we work in
• 14:25
  Speaker 5: is the safest precinct in the United States of America.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: And we're going to use our precint to be the
• 14:31
  Speaker 5: example of what we can do because, as you say,
• 14:34
  Speaker 5: you're absolutely right when you invest in what works, When
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: you invest in what works, then it's allowed to grow
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: and enforce. And so the city would already be at
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: a space where we you know, people coming in would
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: fit into our structure, but the structure wasn't built, you know,
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: And so we're going to build destruction in Southeast Queens.
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: There we go.
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: People want to volunteer. What is that? One hundred and thirteen.
• 14:56
  Speaker 4: P thirteenth and life Caem's always taking donations, by the way, always.
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: Take can donate the website Lifecampinc dot com. Always taking donation.
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: Get your paper planes hat, it's live on the website.
• 15:07
  Speaker 5: It's live on paper planes. Support the work, support the movement.
• 15:12
  Speaker 5: Let's do this all.
• 15:13
  Speaker 6: Right, Well, it's the Breakfast Club. Is Erika Ford?
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Wake that answer up?
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: In the morning club? Breakfast Club