Latest / TMI / The Consequences of Political Apathy
Transcript
- 0:07Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D.
- 0:08Speaker 2: Mallory and this shit boy my son in general.
- 0:10Speaker 1: We are your host of TMI.
- 0:12Speaker 2: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, motivation and inspiration.
- 0:16Speaker 1: New energy. What's going on, my son, Lennon, I am.
- 0:23Speaker 3: Blessed in Holly Favor. How you doing today, Tamika D.
- 0:26Speaker 1: Mallory, I'm doing really good. I am feeling a little
- 0:31Speaker 1: reallye I'll tell you I am.
- 0:33Speaker 3: And why are you feeling relieved too?
- 0:35Speaker 1: For the last few days since the rally that took
- 0:39Speaker 1: place in Madison Square Garden on this past Sunday, I
- 0:45Speaker 1: received a lot of messages from people, and I've also
- 0:48Speaker 1: been watching some of the social media profiles or pages
- 0:54Speaker 1: where they have a lot of people, not just black people,
- 1:00Speaker 1: but just people in general with who have expressed their
- 1:04Speaker 1: either support for Trump or just their desire to stay home.
- 1:07Speaker 1: It's probably probably been more people who have expressed that
- 1:11Speaker 1: they're not going to vote at all. And the last
- 1:14Speaker 1: few days I really have been watching that turnaround. I
- 1:18Speaker 1: received a number of text messages. By the time I
- 1:21Speaker 1: woke up on Monday morning, there were at least three
- 1:24Speaker 1: people that text me saying, Hey, you know this is crazy,
- 1:28Speaker 1: Like I was thinking about voting for Trump. Now I'm
- 1:31Speaker 1: not and or I'm definitely going to the polls. And
- 1:34Speaker 1: then I saw on a few people's pages in the comments,
- 1:37Speaker 1: they were like, you know, I wasn't going to vote.
- 1:40Speaker 1: I'm tired of it all. You know, the same things
- 1:43Speaker 1: and by the way, things we agree with, you know,
- 1:45Speaker 1: things that people just feeling like this whole thing is
- 1:49Speaker 1: a clown show. They just don't feel, they don't feel
- 1:53Speaker 1: or see how it will impact their lives, and even
- 1:56Speaker 1: though we know it will, and they weren't planning on voting,
- 1:59Speaker 1: and now they're like, yeah, we can't let these people
- 2:02Speaker 1: take control back of the country. And so I think
- 2:07Speaker 1: I feel good about that. I had said to you
- 2:10Speaker 1: from you know, months and months ago when we were
- 2:14Speaker 1: it was during the Joe Biden time, I think it
- 2:17Speaker 1: was Joe Biden was still the nominee, and I remember
- 2:21Speaker 1: saying to you. You were like, I just don't know
- 2:23Speaker 1: what's going to happen, And I said, one of the
- 2:25Speaker 1: best things that could happen in this election, or that
- 2:29Speaker 1: happens every time, is Trump speaking. When he talks, when
- 2:32Speaker 1: he talks, when his sarrogates talk, when he has people
- 2:35Speaker 1: around him talking because they talk their way out of
- 2:39Speaker 1: people having any sort of you know, feeling of I
- 2:43Speaker 1: don't want to say affinity, but people seeing them as
- 2:45Speaker 1: anything other than what they are, which is raging racist.
- 2:49Speaker 1: And so you know, I as an organizer for thirty
- 2:54Speaker 1: years of my life, I am always incredibly grateful when
- 2:59Speaker 1: the opponent gives me something to work with that I
- 3:03Speaker 1: don't have to try to figure out on my own
- 3:05Speaker 1: or try to clip everything together to show people what
- 3:09Speaker 1: we're talking about. It's just all right there. The media,
- 3:12Speaker 1: everybody every day has been talking about what happened at
- 3:15Speaker 1: that rally.
- 3:16Speaker 3: It's been it's been very interesting. You know.
- 3:19Speaker 2: The Trumpers were trumping this weekend, as I say, and
- 3:24Speaker 2: it was really just mind boggling, you know, it was.
- 3:28Speaker 2: It was so mind boggling. First of all, I had
- 3:30Speaker 2: heard about this rally, like probably the day before it
- 3:34Speaker 2: was happening.
- 3:34Speaker 3: They said it. I didn't even know.
- 3:36Speaker 2: And then to see a lot of people down there,
- 3:38Speaker 2: so and I seen it on a black guy's face.
- 3:40Speaker 2: He was like bragging he was outside. So when you
- 3:42Speaker 2: listen to just the rhetoric that was going on in there,
- 3:46Speaker 2: just in the last couple, like the last couple rallies
- 3:49Speaker 2: that he had. You've seen the doctor phil statement, the
- 3:52Speaker 2: other guy's statement about Americas for America, and then they
- 3:55Speaker 2: compared it to you know, the statement that was made
- 3:58Speaker 2: by Hitler, you know, the Germany is for Germans, so
- 4:02Speaker 2: and then it was comparing it to the actual meeting
- 4:05Speaker 2: and rally that it had in the garden in.
- 4:08Speaker 1: The thirties, in the thirties.
- 4:11Speaker 2: So it's like it was reminiscent, and it really felt
- 4:14Speaker 2: the same kind of energy. You know, I just I
- 4:17Speaker 2: sat there and I said to myself, this is just
- 4:20Speaker 2: really wild. Yeah, you know, it was just so wild
- 4:23Speaker 2: just to hear those sentiments and just hear the even
- 4:27Speaker 2: the crowd like agree with certain things. It's like, damn,
- 4:30Speaker 2: how do we live in America? Excuse me? The current
- 4:34Speaker 2: day of America. There are people that have this mind state,
- 4:37Speaker 2: like how do you how do you still share that
- 4:39Speaker 2: type of mind state as we've grown, like you you
- 4:42Speaker 2: would believe that.
- 4:45Speaker 3: America should have grown, right, you should.
- 4:46Speaker 2: We know there are pockets, right, we know there are
- 4:49Speaker 2: pockets of racism, but racism was so prevalent in that
- 4:53Speaker 2: room and in that space. The energy of it was
- 4:56Speaker 2: just like it's like unhinged, it's un bridged, is unhidden
- 5:03Speaker 2: KKK with no robes. It was just crazy to me
- 5:07Speaker 2: that a person that was running for presidency in a
- 5:10Speaker 2: race that people were saying is so close, that would
- 5:13Speaker 2: utilize that time for rally to cause that level of
- 5:17Speaker 2: dissension and division.
- 5:18Speaker 3: It just didn't make any sense to me.
- 5:20Speaker 1: Well, you know, I would say that one of the
- 5:22Speaker 1: things that was really disturbing for me was that during
- 5:27Speaker 1: these speeches where people are saying the most vile, disrespectful, racist,
- 5:34Speaker 1: ignorant lies by the way stating lies, you didn't see
- 5:40Speaker 1: a mass exodus of people leaving either, by the way,
- 5:44Speaker 1: if you're even in the room, if you're even in
- 5:47Speaker 1: the room, if you even take the time to go
- 5:48Speaker 1: to the rallies understanding who Trump is. You know, that
- 5:53Speaker 1: for me is problematic. But I still keep trying to
- 5:55Speaker 1: give people the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they
- 5:59Speaker 1: just you know, I don't know, maybe they're misinformation disinformation,
- 6:03Speaker 1: Maybe they're confused, you know, maybe they just think it's funny.
- 6:06Speaker 1: I still try to give people some benefit of doubt.
- 6:09Speaker 1: I know I shouldn't, but nonetheless, something has to give
- 6:12Speaker 1: you the ability to coexist in the society where people
- 6:16Speaker 1: standing to your left and right that might be a
- 6:19Speaker 1: supporter of Trump or have been to a rally, and
- 6:22Speaker 1: you still got to like walk around through the world.
- 6:24Speaker 1: So I try to say to myself, they just ignorant
- 6:26Speaker 1: or whatever. But you didn't see a mass exodus of
- 6:30Speaker 1: people walking out the building once those words were being stated,
- 6:35Speaker 1: and what Well, no, but it's not them, because remember,
- 6:39Speaker 1: the media is not just Fox News. Okay, it's all
- 6:43Speaker 1: media in these spaces like right, If there was a
- 6:47Speaker 1: mass exodus of people leaving, it would have been reported
- 6:50Speaker 1: because you have every media outlet in the press pool,
- 6:54Speaker 1: So it's not just a Fox News network. Now. Fox
- 6:57Speaker 1: might have the best spot, they might be able to
- 7:00Speaker 1: get all the interviews afterwards and all of that, but
- 7:03Speaker 1: you have a lot of media outlets that are in
- 7:06Speaker 1: the presspool that are able to report, and there is
- 7:09Speaker 1: there was no mass exodus. There are not people online
- 7:13Speaker 1: today saying we left, we left, we left, we left,
- 7:15Speaker 1: or at least I haven't. I've not witnessed that, right,
- 7:19Speaker 1: But this is what I want to say. I don't
- 7:21Speaker 1: know how many people. I guess Madison Square Garden probably
- 7:23Speaker 1: holds like thirty five thousand people or something like that.
- 7:25Speaker 1: I probably all the way off on the numbers, but
- 7:28Speaker 1: they hold tens of thousands of people. Then they say
- 7:33Speaker 1: that there was another ten thousand people outside waiting to
- 7:37Speaker 1: get in. I just want people to know. These folks
- 7:40Speaker 1: are on the restaurants that cook food, They are teachers,
- 7:44Speaker 1: they are doctors, They are people who you see every
- 7:48Speaker 1: single day. So the folks who were at that rally,
- 7:51Speaker 1: the maybe fifty thousand people that were down there at
- 7:54Speaker 1: Madison Square Garden on last Sunday, those are people who
- 7:58Speaker 1: provide service for you. They're bankers, they are not These
- 8:04Speaker 1: are not people who live in the bottom of a
- 8:07Speaker 1: barrow somewhere. These are folks who are walking around every
- 8:11Speaker 1: single day with you. Again, doctors, lawyers, teachers, people educating
- 8:16Speaker 1: your children, people providing you services, people cooking your food,
- 8:20Speaker 1: people who absolutely hate you. And so I just, you know,
- 8:23Speaker 1: just want to make sure that that's out there for folks,
- 8:25Speaker 1: so that people are not confused what you're looking at.
- 8:28Speaker 1: You are looking at fellow citizens who believe things about us,
- 8:33Speaker 1: things about our communities, things about people of color. That
- 8:36Speaker 1: it's vile and it fuels the hate that allows us
- 8:40Speaker 1: to oh, oh, oh, I left out a major category.
- 8:44Speaker 1: Some of them are police officers. So let's be clear
- 8:48Speaker 1: that when we're saying, oh, we're being killed disproportionately, or
- 8:52Speaker 1: we're being mistreated, or when we get to the hospital
- 8:54Speaker 1: we can't get the type of care that we're supposed
- 8:56Speaker 1: to have, that black infant mortality is an issue, that
- 9:01Speaker 1: there are other health concerns that our communities are people
- 9:04Speaker 1: are not being treated properly. The folks at the store
- 9:07Speaker 1: treat you disrespectfully. All of that is in the hearts
- 9:11Speaker 1: and mind of folks who went to that rally.
- 9:13Speaker 3: So just know that, I mean, I'm very clear of that.
- 9:18Speaker 2: I just don't understand why people haven't been knowing these,
- 9:22Speaker 2: you know, and it's sad that it's taking this time
- 9:24Speaker 2: and some people still, you know, they're gonna drink the
- 9:27Speaker 2: kool aid man. I said it on my Instagram page
- 9:30Speaker 2: yesterday that I really believe that this is an experiment.
- 9:34Speaker 2: You know, me and me and the producer. I'm not
- 9:36Speaker 2: always having this conversation. A few minutes ago that somebody said,
- 9:40Speaker 2: I can prove to you that we can pick the
- 9:43Speaker 2: violenst lowest vibrational individual and put them out here disrespect
- 9:49Speaker 2: do everything and people still following both absolutely and because
- 9:53Speaker 2: there's no there's no other common sense answer for what
- 9:56Speaker 2: we're dealing with right now. There is absolutely, Like I
- 10:00Speaker 2: I'm so perplexed that the things that's happened, and it's
- 10:02Speaker 2: like it has to be this has to be an experiment.
- 10:05Speaker 2: Somebody's gonna have to come out and say punk or something.
- 10:09Speaker 1: Because it does not America.
- 10:11Speaker 2: America is is no way that America is just bad
- 10:15Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four.
- 10:17Speaker 1: It's just can't it is, And to some degree it's
- 10:20Speaker 1: gotten worse. And I think that President Obama's presidency was
- 10:26Speaker 1: like the beginning of a all out war on people
- 10:31Speaker 1: of color. That you know, we are still dealing with
- 10:34Speaker 1: the backlash of President Obama being elected to office and
- 10:38Speaker 1: having that black, strong black woman and those black daughters
- 10:43Speaker 1: and a black mother in law in the White House.
- 10:46Speaker 1: We are still dealing with the backlasher that I saw.
- 10:50Speaker 1: Eric Holder was at a rally for Kamala Harris the
- 10:54Speaker 1: other day, the black Attorney General who started and still
- 10:59Speaker 1: to this day talks about, uh, the issues of police
- 11:03Speaker 1: accountability and police violence in this country, dealing with criminal
- 11:07Speaker 1: justice reform. I mean, these are these are things that
- 11:10Speaker 1: they never wanted to see happen, and they were asleep
- 11:14Speaker 1: at the wheel. They believed that they had unmitigated power
- 11:20Speaker 1: and control, and then all of a sudden they woke up, like, oh, ship,
- 11:24Speaker 1: we let this hope and this we let this hope
- 11:28Speaker 1: and this energy get into our youth. This is why
- 11:32Speaker 1: they're targeting. And this is not just by the way,
- 11:35Speaker 1: Let's be clear, this is not just about Democrats and Republicans.
- 11:40Speaker 1: This is white supremacy which exists in both parties, but
- 11:43Speaker 1: one party has it upfront out and it's it's the
- 11:49Speaker 1: exactly and it does not have space for any balance.
- 11:55Speaker 1: It is just what it is.
- 12:00Speaker 3: Started out, it started out in that form.
- 12:02Speaker 2: Like people always want to talk about the history of
- 12:04Speaker 2: the Republican Party, how it started out, the history, you know,
- 12:08Speaker 2: the party of Abraham Lincoln that was for civil rights,
- 12:11Speaker 2: and we know all of that, but people actually act
- 12:14Speaker 2: like they forget when the parties flipped. They act like
- 12:16Speaker 2: they forgot when they decided that we're no longer going
- 12:19Speaker 2: to focus on civil rights anymore, and they started to
- 12:21Speaker 2: be way more conservative and started to fight against civil
- 12:24Speaker 2: rights and advancement of blacks, and therefore blacks shifted away
- 12:28Speaker 2: from that party. They pretty much pushed us out of
- 12:30Speaker 2: the Republican Party and we've rebuilt ourselves inside the Democratic
- 12:34Speaker 2: Party on our principal started electing our own government officials.
- 12:37Speaker 2: Now we have over two and three hundred elected officials
- 12:40Speaker 2: inside of a party that we've put into Like a
- 12:43Speaker 2: lot of us have literally been on the ground putting
- 12:46Speaker 2: these people into office.
- 12:48Speaker 3: We voted.
- 12:49Speaker 2: We know people that's been on the front line with us,
- 12:51Speaker 2: that have started out as activists, being in the same
- 12:54Speaker 2: trenches with us, that fought against that we've actually been
- 12:56Speaker 2: able to vote into power that we actually can go
- 12:59Speaker 2: to the office say these things are going on our communities.
- 13:01Speaker 3: It ain't know what's going on communities, and it's still.
- 13:04Speaker 1: A lot of work to get what should be happening
- 13:07Speaker 1: from those individuals to become realized. I mean, even our
- 13:11Speaker 1: guest today is someone who uh you know, because of
- 13:16Speaker 1: the pushback on him speaking about issues, Uh, he lost
- 13:20Speaker 1: his election. Also, Corey Bush lost her re election. Bid.
- 13:25Speaker 1: You have the pressure, the the the unfortunate. What's the
- 13:30Speaker 1: word that I'm looking for, the the violence against threats
- 13:36Speaker 1: there you go to threats against people like aoc Rashida.
- 13:40Speaker 1: I mean, the list goes on and on right, and
- 13:43Speaker 1: so we know that there are people. There are good
- 13:46Speaker 1: people and people even before the squad, when you think
- 13:49Speaker 1: about Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Uh, these are people, Evett Clark,
- 13:54Speaker 1: these are people what's our brother's name from Indiana, good brother. Uh,
- 14:00Speaker 1: Congressman Andre Carson, these are good people. And I'm sure
- 14:05Speaker 1: I'm missing a bunch of folks. Jasmine Crockett, these are
- 14:08Speaker 1: people who are They take fighting for black people and
- 14:13Speaker 1: brown people and marginalized communities very serious, but they are
- 14:18Speaker 1: often fighting against the wind because white supremacy has a
- 14:23Speaker 1: hold in all of these political parties, including the Green
- 14:28Speaker 1: Party right. And so as a result of you of
- 14:33Speaker 1: being or having this kind of like trifecta of you know,
- 14:38Speaker 1: it's not just in politics, but it's just like the society,
- 14:42Speaker 1: the politics, every little area, everywhere you go, everywhere you
- 14:47Speaker 1: time great, you're fighting against white supremacy, and that makes
- 14:51Speaker 1: it really difficult to get things done. We have to
- 14:54Speaker 1: figure out what it looks like to respond to this
- 14:57Speaker 1: stuff and really fight and tear down the these walls
- 15:00Speaker 1: that have been built around us that are literally choking
- 15:05Speaker 1: the life out of our communities. And that brings me
- 15:08Speaker 1: to my thought of the day. So, you know, over
- 15:11Speaker 1: these last few days, the big takeaway up from the
- 15:15Speaker 1: rally is that three individuals endorsed Kamala Harris. So it's
- 15:21Speaker 1: Bad Bunny, j Loo and Ricky Martin. Now, Bad Bunny
- 15:25Speaker 1: has forty five million followers, Jalo has two hundred and
- 15:29Speaker 1: fifty million followers, and Ricky Martin has let's see, eighteen
- 15:33Speaker 1: million follows. This is a lot of people that they
- 15:36Speaker 1: have now you know, come forward to try to influence
- 15:40Speaker 1: to vote for Kamala Harris. I have a serious problem
- 15:44Speaker 1: with that. Well, for one, I'm trying. I get that
- 15:50Speaker 1: in the last days that's when you really really win elections,
- 15:55Speaker 1: like right, and that final stretch, those last two to
- 15:58Speaker 1: three weeks and those last days, that's when the pressure
- 16:02Speaker 1: is really on. All the ads are on TV, people
- 16:05Speaker 1: are endorsing, rallies are happening, right, And that's why it's
- 16:08Speaker 1: so good that this MAGA rally took place when it did,
- 16:12Speaker 1: because it's the last few days and as people make
- 16:14Speaker 1: those final decisions or people who were like, oh I
- 16:17Speaker 1: ain't even I ain't even thinking about oh shoot, oh
- 16:20Speaker 1: that's right, I gotta go vote. So it's always good.
- 16:22Speaker 1: But there has been misinformation, disrespect, racism, vileness, and every
- 16:29Speaker 1: hate happening for a long time, and these three individuals
- 16:35Speaker 1: have now decided that they want to come forward. And
- 16:38Speaker 1: my issue is that I don't like the fact that
- 16:41Speaker 1: we can sit back and only make a move when
- 16:45Speaker 1: something happens to our people, when we don't see the
- 16:49Speaker 1: humanity in other people enough to say, well, I don't
- 16:53Speaker 1: like it when they was talking about black women, so
- 16:55Speaker 1: I was going, I'm gonna make an endorsement. Now, I
- 16:58Speaker 1: don't like the fact that they're run around on Kamala
- 17:01Speaker 1: Harris names, saying that she's a whore, that she's a count.
- 17:05Speaker 1: All of this stuff was going on prior prior. Just
- 17:09Speaker 1: so we're clear, this stuff was happening prior to the
- 17:14Speaker 1: moment when Puerto Rico became an issue, which for me
- 17:18Speaker 1: that like, it really hurt me to hear them speak
- 17:21Speaker 1: about the people of Puerto Rico and the island of
- 17:26Speaker 1: Puerto Rico the way that they did. That hurt me.
- 17:29Speaker 1: But just like, I stand up for the Palestinian people
- 17:33Speaker 1: because as we see they're being demonized, there was a
- 17:36Speaker 1: target put on their back in this same rally. As
- 17:39Speaker 1: we see that for us, our humanity tells us that
- 17:42Speaker 1: I'm there for every single community that is being mistreated,
- 17:47Speaker 1: or if people are speaking about these people in a
- 17:50Speaker 1: way that puts a target on them, I feel it's
- 17:53Speaker 1: an issue for me. I may not be a member
- 17:56Speaker 1: of the lgbtqi A community, but guess what, I still
- 17:59Speaker 1: hear and feel and understand when people are targeting them immigrants.
- 18:04Speaker 1: I see that. So I'm just trying to understand what
- 18:07Speaker 1: was happening for the last several months as we saw
- 18:11Speaker 1: these people pick off the Haitians, was eating dogs. I mean,
- 18:15Speaker 1: there's been so many things and I just feel like
- 18:17Speaker 1: we need to be more responsible. Sure, I'm glad that
- 18:20Speaker 1: they endorse. I'm of course i am. I'm so glad.
- 18:23Speaker 1: It was so good to see. Okay, these are powerful
- 18:25Speaker 1: individuals in a community that really needs the information, and
- 18:29Speaker 1: I know that these are people they follow, So I'm
- 18:32Speaker 1: glad that they did. That's not the point. But my
- 18:35Speaker 1: thing is we got to stop waiting until our name
- 18:38Speaker 1: is called specifically and not seeing the humanity of the
- 18:42Speaker 1: other person sitting right next to you who's being demonized.
- 18:45Speaker 1: Because the one thing that we know is that white
- 18:48Speaker 1: supremacy does not have limits and bounds. It is only
- 18:52Speaker 1: for white men for the most part. Right it is
- 18:55Speaker 1: to uphold the power of white men. So guess what,
- 18:59Speaker 1: white women who are losing their rights in terms of
- 19:02Speaker 1: their physical autonomy to make just decisions about their body,
- 19:06Speaker 1: guess what, Ricky Martin and bad Bunny, I need you
- 19:09Speaker 1: to care about that. Now. Perhaps I didn't hear before
- 19:12Speaker 1: that they had already said things for Kamala. Perhaps you
- 19:15Speaker 1: know I missed it, But it seems that after the
- 19:19Speaker 1: statement about the Puerto Rican people and the island of
- 19:23Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, now the whole world is seeing what black
- 19:28Speaker 1: women have been saying. We've been on the top of
- 19:31Speaker 1: buildings going yo, yo, check them out. The racists. They're dangerous.
- 19:36Speaker 1: They coming for all of us. So I just hope
- 19:38Speaker 1: that we can find a way to say when I
- 19:41Speaker 1: see you disrespect my sign, then I'm not gonna let
- 19:47Speaker 1: you get to me. You're not even gonna get to me.
- 19:49Speaker 1: And I just wanna say one thing. It's very similar
- 19:52Speaker 1: to the whole thing that happened with us at American Airlines.
- 19:56Speaker 1: Right then I see all these people being like, oh,
- 20:00Speaker 1: American analyzes is the worst They did this to me?
- 20:03Speaker 1: They did that to me. Well, guess what we told y'all,
- 20:06Speaker 1: what they did to us, We told you, and you
- 20:10Speaker 1: ran on over there act ignoring what we went through
- 20:13Speaker 1: and just going on about your business. We told you
- 20:16Speaker 1: Gucci was out here being racist with that sweater that
- 20:19Speaker 1: they put out there. We done told you that Nike
- 20:23Speaker 1: had they severed their relationship with Kyrie Irvin and for
- 20:27Speaker 1: no reason at all, just disrespected this black man. For
- 20:31Speaker 1: no reason at all, We told you these things, and
- 20:35Speaker 1: guess what people be like. That's not my problem. I
- 20:37Speaker 1: got nothing to do with that. And you keep on
- 20:40Speaker 1: until eventually the pendulum swings in your direction.
- 20:43Speaker 3: And that's that's just a reality that we deal with.
- 20:47Speaker 2: You know, I was having a conversation with some I
- 20:49Speaker 2: don't want to bring up the individual's name, but individual
- 20:51Speaker 2: was talking about how they came forward and said that
- 20:54Speaker 2: they were supporting Kamala Harris, Kamala Kamala Lah and the
- 20:58Speaker 2: individual came forward until how they was taught they was
- 21:01Speaker 2: going to support Kamala Harris and when they said it,
- 21:05Speaker 2: they lost five to six thousand followers instantly. And the
- 21:11Speaker 2: person said, they just got quiet because you know, I
- 21:14Speaker 2: didn't want to deal with that, and then they was like,
- 21:17Speaker 2: I commend you for being able to do that.
- 21:19Speaker 3: And I've lost followers.
- 21:20Speaker 2: I've lost probably about eight nine thousand followers, and that
- 21:23Speaker 2: made me more.
- 21:25Speaker 3: That made me.
- 21:26Speaker 2: I love it because now I just I don't want
- 21:29Speaker 2: you all to follow me anyway. Whoever, everybody who unfollowed
- 21:32Speaker 2: me because I was I was ten toes down for
- 21:35Speaker 2: a black woman. I said, this is who I stand for.
- 21:38Speaker 2: Everybody who un follow me, you wasn't supposed to be
- 21:40Speaker 2: it anyway, because obviously you thought I stood for something
- 21:42Speaker 2: that I didn't stand for anyway, So you was actually
- 21:45Speaker 2: following the wrong person. So that was perfect for me.
- 21:47Speaker 2: But everybody's not willing to do that to me because
- 21:50Speaker 2: you know, when we're talking about they said, Michael Jordan said,
- 21:53Speaker 2: you know, when he was they was asking about things,
- 21:54Speaker 2: he said, well, Republicans buy shoes too, right, So this
- 21:58Speaker 2: is how people feel. And a lot of these people, look,
- 22:00Speaker 2: you said, one hundred million followers, their publicists is telling them,
- 22:05Speaker 2: don't get.
- 22:05Speaker 1: Involved in politics, stay away from politics.
- 22:08Speaker 2: And because at the end of this is a reality
- 22:10Speaker 2: of situation. So what happens is it becomes when it
- 22:14Speaker 2: starts to get personal. For them when they see the
- 22:17Speaker 2: direct attack on them, even if they was on the
- 22:19Speaker 2: edge before, they were sitting there and saying I didn't
- 22:21Speaker 2: want to do it.
- 22:22Speaker 3: Now they personalize it.
- 22:24Speaker 2: Unfortunately, that's the world we live in, you know, And
- 22:27Speaker 2: and we have to I say all the time, don't
- 22:29Speaker 2: wait till somebody do something to your kids to be
- 22:31Speaker 2: out here protested in Marshall and say something that because
- 22:33Speaker 2: you gonna want us, because there's a lot of people
- 22:35Speaker 2: that say, you know, I don't do those politics, this
- 22:38Speaker 2: and that. Unfortunately we talk about we're talking about young thug,
- 22:43Speaker 2: Young Doug is facing the system right now, right and
- 22:45Speaker 2: he's and everybody saying yo, this and that Young Doug. God,
- 22:48Speaker 2: when they were saying, yo, what's going with Black Lives matter?
- 22:50Speaker 2: Young thusts, I don't. I don't want to. I' gottahe
- 22:52Speaker 2: to do with that, you know, So I don't. And
- 22:54Speaker 2: that's how he felt. But I guarantee right now he
- 22:57Speaker 2: wants black people to stand up for him and see
- 22:59Speaker 2: the injustice that's did with them. And unfortunately, that's what
- 23:01Speaker 2: we deal with in society. So because we've dealt with
- 23:05Speaker 2: this and we know exactly what's come with it, we've
- 23:07Speaker 2: made out. We made a decision, and this is the
- 23:09Speaker 2: calling on our life to make sure that we send
- 23:11Speaker 2: up for people. We see things through a different lens,
- 23:14Speaker 2: and unfortunately everybody's not gonna see I just hope that
- 23:17Speaker 2: they see it before it's too late, you know what
- 23:19Speaker 2: I'm saying, Because it's.
- 23:20Speaker 1: Gonna be too late. Yeah, And in this situation, I
- 23:22Speaker 1: hope because a lot of people have voted already. So
- 23:27Speaker 1: when you, as a you know, a j LO, you
- 23:31Speaker 1: come out days into early voting, that's dangerous because people
- 23:36Speaker 1: have already been out there casting their ballots or somebody
- 23:41Speaker 1: who didn't have an opportunity to see all of the details.
- 23:45Speaker 1: Like I really did think it's no way that everybody
- 23:49Speaker 1: doesn't know who these people are. But I'm realizing a
- 23:53Speaker 1: lot of people don't know, Like they don't see it
- 23:56Speaker 1: because their algorithm. A lot of people follow stupidity, right.
- 24:00Speaker 1: The algorithm picks up on the type of stuff that
- 24:03Speaker 1: you stop them. So when you're scrolling, I told you
- 24:06Speaker 1: I used to be scrolling all the time looking at rats,
- 24:10Speaker 1: like trying to understand what's going on with the rats
- 24:12Speaker 1: in New York City and other places. I was really
- 24:15Speaker 1: deeply trying to figure out what do we do to
- 24:18Speaker 1: conquer this issue on rats, and my algorithm started pushing
- 24:23Speaker 1: the craziest videos to me. I had to change it.
- 24:26Speaker 1: By as soon as I see it, I just keep going,
- 24:29Speaker 1: I don't share it. I don't do any of that anymore.
- 24:32Speaker 1: And now it's out of my algorithm. So if you
- 24:34Speaker 1: out there following you know, Kevin Samuels, right, if that's
- 24:40Speaker 1: your main type of person. And I'm not saying I
- 24:43Speaker 1: am not here today to get into a debate about
- 24:45Speaker 1: Kevin Samuels, but I'm just saying, if you are a
- 24:48Speaker 1: person who follows somebody like Kevin Samuels, God rest his soul.
- 24:52Speaker 1: And then you start, you know, getting a lot of
- 24:55Speaker 1: other podcasts and whatnot where they're saying things about women,
- 25:00Speaker 1: and that may not be favorable, it is coming because
- 25:03Speaker 1: the algorithm has decided this is the content you want now.
- 25:07Speaker 1: And now you're at the point of an election, and
- 25:10Speaker 1: maybe you're not that seri into it, but you do
- 25:12Speaker 1: feel like women don't ever admit when they're wrong, and
- 25:16Speaker 1: some of these women think that they so fly and
- 25:19Speaker 1: man nine and you might have some of those thoughts,
- 25:23Speaker 1: and then you watch a little bit, a little bit.
- 25:25Speaker 1: So now you up to the point where Kamala Harris
- 25:28Speaker 1: isn't black. She slept her way to the time, she
- 25:31Speaker 1: this and that like anything, she's stupid. Look at her,
- 25:34Speaker 1: because now your algorithm has decided, it's determined that this
- 25:39Speaker 1: is the type of feedback that you want. So no,
- 25:41Speaker 1: it's not going to push to you that Trump said
- 25:44Speaker 1: something about whoever, or that he was throwing paper towels
- 25:47Speaker 1: at the Puerto Ricans. It's not going to show you that,
- 25:50Speaker 1: you know. So anyway, it is what it is. It's
- 25:52Speaker 1: very very very interesting out here. So let's talk about
- 25:55Speaker 1: CMI today. What was too much? The rally was all
- 25:58Speaker 1: the way too much, right. I didn't even want to
- 26:01Speaker 1: get into comedians because somebody tried to say to me, well,
- 26:04Speaker 1: you all, this is my social media. You all have
- 26:08Speaker 1: black comedians that say things that hurt people, are so
- 26:12Speaker 1: disrespectful whatever, whatever. They don't get to speak at the
- 26:16Speaker 1: rally for Kamala Harris or any other political person, except
- 26:22Speaker 1: they don't get an invitation or allowed to speak in
- 26:26Speaker 1: those types of spaces. Right, this was a rally for
- 26:30Speaker 1: somebody who's supposed to be running for president of everybody,
- 26:35Speaker 1: not just one group. Of people. So you would not
- 26:37Speaker 1: have a comedian like XYZ, black person, brown person, anybody
- 26:42Speaker 1: else on the stage at Kamala Harris's rally because they're
- 26:45Speaker 1: not going to allow you to either go off script
- 26:48Speaker 1: or even for who you are to be associated with
- 26:53Speaker 1: them and their campaign. They wouldn't have me and you
- 26:56Speaker 1: up there speaking. Why because we are extremely prop pro Palestinian, right.
- 27:02Speaker 1: We have challenged the Democratic Party. They know that we have.
- 27:06Speaker 1: We fall out with them all the time, so they're
- 27:09Speaker 1: not gonna put us up there to speak. They're gonna
- 27:11Speaker 1: have certain types of people because they know that they
- 27:14Speaker 1: have to contained the message exactly at their rally. So
- 27:19Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna get into the comedian piece, right,
- 27:21Speaker 1: but I will say that Giuliani, right, the former mayor
- 27:25Speaker 1: of New York, who also has to turn over his
- 27:29Speaker 1: apartment and whatever assets he has because he doesn't have
- 27:32Speaker 1: enough money to pay the black women that he targeted
- 27:36Speaker 1: in Georgia, the two women who were pole workers who
- 27:40Speaker 1: started getting death threats because of this vile nature of
- 27:44Speaker 1: how he spoke about them at rallies and in other places.
- 27:48Speaker 1: They were being harassed. And it was because of Giuliani
- 27:51Speaker 1: that this happened. By the way, Giuliani has done this,
- 27:54Speaker 1: not just to those women, but he's done it as
- 27:57Speaker 1: the mayor of New York City. We know him if
- 28:00Speaker 1: it were not for the fact that nine to eleven
- 28:02Speaker 1: happened while he was mayor, right, that is what basically
- 28:06Speaker 1: saved him, because while he was mayor and nine to
- 28:08Speaker 1: eleven took place, he had no choice, just like Andrew
- 28:12Speaker 1: Cuomo when COVID happened. And everybody's sitting there watching TV
- 28:15Speaker 1: to all, we love Andrew Cromo. He's amazing. No, no,
- 28:18Speaker 1: you don't know his politics prior to this natural disaster,
- 28:22Speaker 1: which has required him to have to step up and
- 28:26Speaker 1: do what he needs to do on behalf of all
- 28:28Speaker 1: New Yorkers. But prior to that, Andrew Cromo was playing
- 28:31Speaker 1: a game with black and brown people, causing division amongst
- 28:35Speaker 1: us in our community. And let's not talk about what
- 28:37Speaker 1: these women are saying took place in the office space, right.
- 28:40Speaker 1: So same thing with Giuliani. He was a race a
- 28:44Speaker 1: raging racist as mayor of New York City. I remember
- 28:48Speaker 1: my parents were out there fighting against Giuliani. So now
- 28:52Speaker 1: you know too much, too much. He could have went
- 28:55Speaker 1: out there and said a whole bunch of racist things.
- 28:57Speaker 1: What would make you especially this is so crazy to me.
- 29:02Speaker 1: This is so crazy to me. You want your candidate
- 29:08Speaker 1: to win, and y'all clearly have worked up a scheme
- 29:11Speaker 1: to get Arab people, some folks in the Arab community
- 29:16Speaker 1: to stand with your guy. Just a couple of days ago,
- 29:21Speaker 1: there were Arab people standing with him. Why would you
- 29:25Speaker 1: come out on stage and say that two year old
- 29:29Speaker 1: Palestinian children are taught to kill Americans And it might
- 29:33Speaker 1: be a few of them, but I'm not taking any
- 29:35Speaker 1: chances they they basically are taught to kill us, and
- 29:38Speaker 1: they're evil. What would make like this?
- 29:41Speaker 3: This?
- 29:42Speaker 1: This was so dumb.
- 29:44Speaker 2: It's not even just dumb, it's it's who you are.
- 29:46Speaker 2: You can't you can't hide who you are at the base,
- 29:49Speaker 2: at the core of who you are. You can do
- 29:51Speaker 2: you know, you can hide it for a little while,
- 29:54Speaker 2: you could try to be quiet, but at the base
- 29:55Speaker 2: in the court, especially when you're in a room and
- 29:58Speaker 2: you feel comfortable, right, that's what happens when you feel
- 30:01Speaker 2: comfortable in the space and you see the energy and
- 30:04Speaker 2: energy is this is what the people feel. When he
- 30:06Speaker 2: said that, you see how the peoples like, yeah, they
- 30:08Speaker 2: cheer because that's how they feel. This is how they feel.
- 30:11Speaker 2: This is a room full of people that feel that
- 30:13Speaker 2: that is the sentiment that they have. And they said,
- 30:17Speaker 2: this is what Trump feels, and that's why they follow
- 30:19Speaker 2: Trump because they know that's what Trump feels. So the
- 30:21Speaker 2: reality is God was just doing God's work. He was
- 30:24Speaker 2: exposing the person before you so you can see. Don't listen.
- 30:28Speaker 2: A snake has a split tongue. So when you listen
- 30:31Speaker 2: to the split tongue snake, they might they might woo
- 30:34Speaker 2: you with a little bit. They gonna show you exactly
- 30:36Speaker 2: who they are. And that's what that was. Julianni was
- 30:38Speaker 2: being exactly who he was, exactly who he's always been.
- 30:42Speaker 2: And I hope that everybody's seen it. But you know,
- 30:45Speaker 2: we got the you know, the kool aid sippers that's
- 30:48Speaker 2: still gonna say, no, he don't, he ain't Trump, That
- 30:51Speaker 2: ain't what Trump think. Yeah, the whole the whole audience
- 30:54Speaker 2: when he said this is what Trump think. He said,
- 30:57Speaker 2: this is how Trump feels.
- 30:58Speaker 1: And everybody screaming, I wasn't even paying yea.
- 31:01Speaker 3: He said that, he said Trump, this is how Trump feels.
- 31:03Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, like the reason why I'm giving
- 31:07Speaker 1: them TMI for today is because as a political strategist,
- 31:12Speaker 1: as a movement.
- 31:13Speaker 3: Strategy, it was just it was just inso much.
- 31:16Speaker 1: But as a political strategist, as a movement strategist, you're
- 31:21Speaker 1: supposed to know. You're supposed to know. We got days left,
- 31:26Speaker 1: no reason to go upset it. Kamala Harris is already
- 31:29Speaker 1: dealing with her own support for Israel and the fact
- 31:34Speaker 1: that you know her, the administration that she's a part
- 31:37Speaker 1: of is continuing to drop bombs on the people of
- 31:41Speaker 1: Palestine now, the people of Lebanon, Like she's already up
- 31:45Speaker 1: dealing with that. She already damn ned didn't get our
- 31:48Speaker 1: support because of it, right, so they didn't need to
- 31:52Speaker 1: do any work. So that was just too much, Like
- 31:54Speaker 1: it was TMI too much for Juliani to set which which,
- 32:01Speaker 1: by the way, it must be stated that what he
- 32:04Speaker 1: said is a damn lie. We know Palestinians. We have
- 32:08Speaker 1: been working with Palestinian woman Linda Sarsour, who has an
- 32:12Speaker 1: incredible family of Palestinians. We've been to family occasions, we've
- 32:19Speaker 1: been to Palestine. Ain't no two year old child learning
- 32:24Speaker 1: to kill Americans. That is a bold face lie. So
- 32:29Speaker 1: that's that. That's why it's t m I first of all.
- 32:32Speaker 1: But beyond that, you should have tucked your racism because
- 32:35Speaker 1: you only have a few more days that you would
- 32:38Speaker 1: have been able to maybe keep some people around that issue.
- 32:42Speaker 2: You help yourself. Man, Racism gonna is gonna bust out
- 32:45Speaker 2: at the scene. White supremacy isn't the is the It
- 32:49Speaker 2: is the ideology that you are so superior to everybody
- 32:53Speaker 2: that you don't have to value them right so that
- 32:55Speaker 2: you can actually say what you want.
- 32:57Speaker 3: That's why it shows up.
- 32:58Speaker 2: You can't really hide weiser from because they made up
- 33:01Speaker 2: in their mind that they can go unchecked right right there.
- 33:05Speaker 3: And when you in a room with otherwise and premise
- 33:08Speaker 3: it just.
- 33:09Speaker 1: Like that's like, yeah, you gave them. They had so
- 33:12Speaker 1: much energy in there and that happened. Yo. That is
- 33:16Speaker 1: a real things. I have been at rally's before when
- 33:20Speaker 1: I had talking points that I know I'm supposed to
- 33:22Speaker 1: stick to, but it's still other stuff in my mind,
- 33:25Speaker 1: like other stuff that I know I'm not supposed to say,
- 33:28Speaker 1: and because the energy is so crazy. In fact, I
- 33:31Speaker 1: talk about one incident that took place when I was
- 33:35Speaker 1: working at National Action Network as a younger activist. It
- 33:38Speaker 1: was during the time of Trayvon Martin. I got so excited,
- 33:42Speaker 1: and you have to read it in the book to
- 33:44Speaker 1: know exactly what I did. A baby. My tongue was
- 33:47Speaker 1: ready to go because people were standing on their feet,
- 33:51Speaker 1: screaming and yelling, and then it was just coming out
- 33:54Speaker 1: because that's how I really felt. But it was inappropriate,
- 33:57Speaker 1: more more than likely. I mean, I still think I
- 33:59Speaker 1: should have been able to say that and more. But
- 34:01Speaker 1: I do know that it was the wrong environment because
- 34:04Speaker 1: it wasn't my rally right, it's not my mic. And
- 34:06Speaker 1: the problem is that my boss at the time, Reverend Sharpton,
- 34:11Speaker 1: had already been involved in another incident where he was
- 34:16Speaker 1: charged with inciting violence, and it became a whole thing.
- 34:19Speaker 1: And so when you speaking on somebody else's microsphone where
- 34:22Speaker 1: they're paying the bills and they're doing you know, they're
- 34:25Speaker 1: in charge, and the heat will come to them, you
- 34:27Speaker 1: gotta be careful. You got to have your own mic
- 34:29Speaker 1: to speak how you want. So you know, I don't
- 34:31Speaker 1: think what I said was wrong, but the time and
- 34:34Speaker 1: the place for where I did it, it definitely caused me.
- 34:37Speaker 3: It was it was politically incorrect.
- 34:40Speaker 1: Yeah, it was a little well, you got to read
- 34:43Speaker 1: the book.
- 34:44Speaker 3: What's the name of the book again, I live to
- 34:46Speaker 3: tell the story.
- 34:47Speaker 2: It should be out, yes, yes, So my real music Spotlight,
- 34:54Speaker 2: it's based on something that you sent me, right, you know.
- 34:57Speaker 2: I you know, I've always liked a lot of Little
- 35:00Speaker 2: Dirk's music. I've watched him evolve as an artist, you know,
- 35:04Speaker 2: I've studied him, I've watched him.
- 35:06Speaker 3: You know.
- 35:07Speaker 2: Unfortunately, in last week, we've seen that he just was
- 35:10Speaker 2: arrested on federal indictment for actually attempting to pay somebody
- 35:17Speaker 2: conspiracy mur murdifa Hi, conspiracy for murder for hind We
- 35:22Speaker 2: just seen that.
- 35:24Speaker 3: You know.
- 35:24Speaker 2: It's it's very unfortunate because I've been watching Dirk evolve.
- 35:29Speaker 2: I watched him go from one of the main drill
- 35:31Speaker 2: rappers who is you know, connected to all types of
- 35:34Speaker 2: negativity to you know, transformed, transformed to.
- 35:42Speaker 3: Okay.
- 35:43Speaker 2: I watched him going from a drill rapper who was
- 35:45Speaker 2: involved in everything, a young boy who was procerated, you know,
- 35:49Speaker 2: who had a track record for a lot of things,
- 35:51Speaker 2: to evolving and actually converting to Islam. You know, his
- 35:56Speaker 2: father had that Big Dirk had did a bunch of
- 35:58Speaker 2: times came home and you had seen him on a
- 36:01Speaker 2: proper trajectory, you know, him speaking properly, say he didn't
- 36:04Speaker 2: want to be associated with anything negative, and to see
- 36:08Speaker 2: you know, this happened to him at this time, which
- 36:11Speaker 2: it usually does, you know, karma catch up.
- 36:13Speaker 3: I don't know, I can't speak what happened.
- 36:16Speaker 2: I don't know specifics, but I just know it's really
- 36:19Speaker 2: unfortunate just to constantly just keep watching these young boys
- 36:22Speaker 2: going to jail and be a young boy. It's supposed
- 36:25Speaker 2: to be in jail for guncharged, and they just had
- 36:28Speaker 2: their thing, and then you know, just all this negativity
- 36:30Speaker 2: around these young artists.
- 36:32Speaker 3: It is just it is deflating. And I've been saying
- 36:35Speaker 3: it a.
- 36:35Speaker 2: Lot that you know, I hate the fact that these
- 36:39Speaker 2: artists only get the spotlight or get people to pay
- 36:42Speaker 2: attention to them because they're talking about beef, you know.
- 36:45Speaker 3: In the drill scene. That's what it takes.
- 36:48Speaker 2: You know, if you're not talking about real beef that
- 36:50Speaker 2: you have, you're not describing a real shooting or killing,
- 36:53Speaker 2: if you're not smoking on the ops, if you're not
- 36:56Speaker 2: doing that negativity, they're not even grabbing you. That's where
- 36:59Speaker 2: the buzz comes from now, And I hate that because
- 37:02Speaker 2: that only ends up one way, and we see it
- 37:04Speaker 2: constantly happen, you know, young Floer k Flock and all
- 37:07Speaker 2: these people just constantly what you know, we talk about
- 37:10Speaker 2: the six nons and we just constantly keep seeing the
- 37:13Speaker 2: same train wreck happen over and over for these young boys.
- 37:16Speaker 2: But you sent me a song, I guess when you
- 37:19Speaker 2: heard about you and you started listening, and I had
- 37:22Speaker 2: heard the song before, but it really resonated now, right,
- 37:28Speaker 2: and it was Federal Nightmas. I think you should everybody
- 37:30Speaker 2: should listen to it. It talks about the reality of
- 37:35Speaker 2: when you in these streets and things have happened and
- 37:37Speaker 2: you have a nightmares that the Feds are gonna come
- 37:40Speaker 2: get you. And it's pretty much like he spoke this
- 37:43Speaker 2: into existence, the reality he was talking about how his
- 37:46Speaker 2: friend couldn't even look at him on his stand, has
- 37:49Speaker 2: he beene told on him? And you know, and allegedly
- 37:53Speaker 2: one of his close friends who he actually gave money
- 37:55Speaker 2: he came home and brought them houses and did things,
- 37:58Speaker 2: who was a friend for him, was being a wire
- 38:01Speaker 2: for about two years, you know. And he's the person
- 38:04Speaker 2: that you know, ultimately got him arrested. You know, I
- 38:07Speaker 2: don't know what he did. You know, you know, at
- 38:10Speaker 2: the end of the day, we have to be held
- 38:12Speaker 2: accountable for our actions and those realities. But it's just
- 38:15Speaker 2: so unfortunate to just constantly watch our youth, our young stars,
- 38:22Speaker 2: up and coming stars. Because Dirk was a star. Like
- 38:24Speaker 2: he was speaking and he was you could hear the evolution.
- 38:27Speaker 2: And that's what I always talk about. They talk about
- 38:29Speaker 2: these young kids, and I'm like, you have to give
- 38:31Speaker 2: us an You got to give us an opportunity evolved.
- 38:34Speaker 2: You know, I came into this game as mice an
- 38:36Speaker 2: left the gun and the right pomp and this evolution.
- 38:39Speaker 2: You know, Malcolm X was Detroit Red. Like, there's a
- 38:41Speaker 2: process of evolution, and it's so unfortunate that as these
- 38:46Speaker 2: kids constantly evolve, they get snatched out of their prime
- 38:49Speaker 2: and they get snatched out of the world.
- 38:51Speaker 3: So, you know, I'm hoping the best. You know, Dirk
- 38:55Speaker 3: keeps his head up.
- 38:56Speaker 2: But I need everybody listen to this Federal nightment, especially
- 38:58Speaker 2: if you're a young kid in these streets involved in
- 39:02Speaker 2: different things and you don't understand the ramifications and the
- 39:06Speaker 2: realities of what's going on in this lifestyle. This is
- 39:10Speaker 2: something I need you to listen to because it's a
- 39:11Speaker 2: real thing, and it actually came to exactly how he
- 39:15Speaker 2: spoke about it.
- 39:16Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I heard that song as I was
- 39:19Speaker 1: laying in the bed. I wanted to learn more about it.
- 39:21Speaker 1: I went down a rabbit hole, and you know, I
- 39:24Speaker 1: don't listen to a lot of drill music. I'm sure
- 39:28Speaker 1: you know, I don't even really know what drill music is.
- 39:31Speaker 1: That's different from some of the other stuff. I guess
- 39:33Speaker 1: I do, but I really don't enough that I can say, oh,
- 39:35Speaker 1: that's drill. But you know, I wanted to just understand
- 39:40Speaker 1: what happened to this young man. That's just something we
- 39:43Speaker 1: have to keep our fingers on, right, Like we're so
- 39:46Speaker 1: caught up in what's going on with the politics in
- 39:48Speaker 1: this nation, but a lot of the politics are local,
- 39:53Speaker 1: and we need to know what's happening with our people.
- 39:55Speaker 1: So I just was doing a little bit of research
- 39:58Speaker 1: and I just happened to come across this song Federal Nightmas,
- 40:03Speaker 1: which literally, as you said, is laying out what I
- 40:06Speaker 1: learned as I read articles I was on Twitter. I mean,
- 40:09Speaker 1: I'm all the way down in the rabbit hole looking
- 40:13Speaker 1: my hairstyl is. One of her other clients was giving
- 40:15Speaker 1: me some information, so I was googling names. I didn't
- 40:19Speaker 1: know who King Vaughn was, and now I see that
- 40:22Speaker 1: he's at the center of a lot of this and
- 40:24Speaker 1: supposedly all of this stuff is to avenge people killing him.
- 40:28Speaker 1: But he killed all these people before he turned nineteen,
- 40:32Speaker 1: and you know, I mean, it was so much. I'm like, dude,
- 40:35Speaker 1: these people think they in a movie, Like this is
- 40:37Speaker 1: not a movie. This is real life. And the sad
- 40:41Speaker 1: part for me is, I don't know if King Vaughan
- 40:43Speaker 1: killed people. I'm just telling you what I saw. But
- 40:45Speaker 1: here we are, this young man, if you did take
- 40:49Speaker 1: these lives, these are people's children, grandchildren, fathers, mothers, Like damn,
- 40:58Speaker 1: like we just we don't have any sensibility around, like humanity,
- 41:03Speaker 1: and you can't just be out here killing people. It
- 41:06Speaker 1: doesn't work like that. And now this situation, and then
- 41:09Speaker 1: I saw a little Dirk has all these children. And
- 41:11Speaker 1: then I know this girl in the Royal that I've
- 41:14Speaker 1: watched her. She's a real, real pretty girl. I just
- 41:16Speaker 1: liked the fact that she's supernatural right her face, she
- 41:20Speaker 1: just looks like she's just like a real pretty like.
- 41:22Speaker 1: She looks like somebody that I grew up with, right,
- 41:25Speaker 1: like somebody who lived in the community with me, the
- 41:28Speaker 1: pretty girl, and I just I knew her already, but
- 41:31Speaker 1: I didn't know the connection with him. So I've listened
- 41:34Speaker 1: to that song and I thought it was deep. But
- 41:35Speaker 1: then I went on ahead and listened to some of
- 41:37Speaker 1: his other music, and I was like, Okay, I really
- 41:39Speaker 1: like some of his music. And what hit me was
- 41:44Speaker 1: seeing that his father was in prison for all of
- 41:47Speaker 1: those years, as you said, and then came home and
- 41:50Speaker 1: his son, the other son, died, and now his other son,
- 41:53Speaker 1: who became a huge success, is under a federal indictment
- 41:57Speaker 1: or probably not indicted yet, but certainly Okay, well now
- 42:01Speaker 1: you know, been picked up by the Feds. And I
- 42:04Speaker 1: was like, this, there has to be a better story
- 42:07Speaker 1: for our young people. It has to be. I pray
- 42:09Speaker 1: for all our kids. I pray for our actual sons
- 42:12Speaker 1: that are in that age group that listen to this music.
- 42:16Speaker 1: I pray for them. I pray for my friends children,
- 42:19Speaker 1: I pray for family members, I pray for them. I
- 42:21Speaker 1: was literally a weeping mother on Sunday morning when I
- 42:26Speaker 1: read and listened to all of this because our children
- 42:30Speaker 1: are if there's like a to me, it feels like
- 42:33Speaker 1: there's a fishing pole that's out there just trying to
- 42:36Speaker 1: catch one and hooking and then wheel them on. And
- 42:39Speaker 1: the sad part about it is that when they will
- 42:42Speaker 1: you in, they're not taking you to a better fishing pond.
- 42:47Speaker 1: They're not taking you to a beautiful fishing bowl where
- 42:51Speaker 1: you're gonna be fed. They're taking you to slice you up,
- 42:54Speaker 1: cut you open, and fry you up so somebody else
- 42:57Speaker 1: can eat you. And I just I just burst into
- 43:01Speaker 1: tears that you know, I don't know what he did.
- 43:04Speaker 1: So then I saw that another rapper that this is
- 43:07Speaker 1: all supposed to be. I think the hit was supposed
- 43:08Speaker 1: to be on him. Kwondo Rondo. You know, he came
- 43:13Speaker 1: out with a statement saying, I like, I forgive everybody.
- 43:16Speaker 1: I don't even want no problems. I don't want any
- 43:18Speaker 1: beef because I'm gonna tell you there's something about traveling
- 43:22Speaker 1: the world, getting to see other experiences, being able to
- 43:27Speaker 1: walk out of the bounds of the hood you grew
- 43:30Speaker 1: up in and going to other places, seeing other successful
- 43:33Speaker 1: black people, seeing how they're living, seeing people making investments
- 43:37Speaker 1: and community development and all of that eating different foods
- 43:41Speaker 1: that gets into you, right, and it starts making you,
- 43:44Speaker 1: like you said, evolve and think to yourself, well, damn,
- 43:47Speaker 1: there's more than what I've known for my entire life.
- 43:50Speaker 1: And this young man is like, don't even worry about it,
- 43:53Speaker 1: like I wish everybody's success. That's just let this stuff go.
- 43:56Speaker 1: And I pray and hope that his attitude, that spirit
- 44:00Speaker 1: that came into him spreads to these other young people
- 44:03Speaker 1: who are out here watching this because all we're doing
- 44:06Speaker 1: is dying and here we are. And then somebody wrote
- 44:09Speaker 1: in the comment section, and I will let it go
- 44:11Speaker 1: at this because our guest is here and we want
- 44:13Speaker 1: to talk to him about this too. Somebody wrote in
- 44:17Speaker 1: the comment section, it's the only news. The real enemy
- 44:21Speaker 1: things right. The real enemy was at Madison Square Garden
- 44:27Speaker 1: with thousands of people who want to see you day. Meanwhile,
- 44:33Speaker 1: they don't even have to do the killing because we're
- 44:35Speaker 1: willing to do it for ourselves. So you know, our
- 44:39Speaker 1: running joke around here is that our friends are doing
- 44:43Speaker 1: so many powerful things that our show is full of friends.
- 44:45Speaker 1: We have so many people who come by to our
- 44:50Speaker 1: new digs. Now, by the way, we have new digs
- 44:54Speaker 1: and you are truly our friends with somebody that we love.
- 44:59Speaker 1: We reach out to you when we're angry, when we're happy. Everything.
- 45:03Speaker 1: You are in that inner circle for my son and
- 45:07Speaker 1: me too. Yeah, you do what we've been with you
- 45:11Speaker 1: in the trenches and you with us and so we
- 45:13Speaker 1: are very very excited to have back today. Uh, this
- 45:17Speaker 1: is probably the third or fourth time that you've actually
- 45:20Speaker 1: done our show, Congressman Jamal Bowman, JB sixteenth Congressional District
- 45:27Speaker 1: in the Bronx Mount Vernon and neuro show right and
- 45:30Speaker 1: Yonkers and also okay, and a former principle, which you know,
- 45:39Speaker 1: I don't think enough people know that you were a principal.
- 45:43Speaker 1: I don't know. Are you going to go back to
- 45:45Speaker 1: being a principal.
- 45:46Speaker 4: No, I don't think so. I may go back to
- 45:48Speaker 4: like coaching rising not just a principal actually open school, wow,
- 45:55Speaker 4: district school charge, the school district schools.
- 45:58Speaker 1: Wow. Wonderful, wonderful.
- 45:59Speaker 3: So I knows that. Yeah, it was in my school
- 46:02Speaker 3: definitely working with the kids. Yeah.
- 46:04Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think that's what makes you so authentic
- 46:08Speaker 1: is that you've been doing this work and being an
- 46:10Speaker 1: activist in your own right for a long time. So
- 46:12Speaker 1: first of all, start out by telling that's how are
- 46:14Speaker 1: you feeling now that, uh, you know, I don't want
- 46:18Speaker 1: to I'm not gonna get you in trouble today, and
- 46:20Speaker 1: I'm not gonna get myself at Joe. I was getting raised,
- 46:22Speaker 1: I call names of people and everything. But now that
- 46:26Speaker 1: you were not re elected to Congress for the next term.
- 46:32Speaker 4: Yeah, so feeling pretty liberated. That was the first feeling
- 46:36Speaker 4: I had after.
- 46:39Speaker 3: Light. It's over. Not because I don't want to be
- 46:42Speaker 3: in Congress anymore.
- 46:43Speaker 4: It's just because I can't be in a place that
- 46:48Speaker 4: just originalizes it humanized. I just can't function, Like literally,
- 46:56Speaker 4: I feel sick going to work in the place that
- 47:00Speaker 4: value certain lives over others. So, you know, ever since
- 47:05Speaker 4: October seventh, it just got to the point where everyone president,
- 47:11Speaker 4: down to our local city council people, you know, only
- 47:15Speaker 4: felt the need to uplift Jewish lives and rarely lives
- 47:20Speaker 4: and they weren't Palestinian lives slaughtered. And so you know,
- 47:24Speaker 4: I couldn't abide by that, and that's why I didn't
- 47:27Speaker 4: change my position during the race. So you know, we
- 47:30Speaker 4: ran a tough race, and I think we exposed to
- 47:34Speaker 4: a lot of people in terms of who a pack
- 47:38Speaker 4: is and what is about and how special interest can
- 47:42Speaker 4: get involved in our politics and come in and just
- 47:45Speaker 4: spend records amount of money to turn communities upside down.
- 47:49Speaker 4: So I think we exposed that, but liberated also in
- 47:53Speaker 4: a sense that now, like you know, kind of the
- 47:56Speaker 4: handcuffs are off a bit and I get to god
- 47:59Speaker 4: willing work in a lot of different sectors with different
- 48:03Speaker 4: people of different industries and and continue to do good work.
- 48:07Speaker 4: You know what I mean, The mission for liberation continues,
- 48:11Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, So that is that is
- 48:13Speaker 4: never going to stop. So I'm feeling feeling pretty good,
- 48:16Speaker 4: pretty liberated, learning a lot, you know in terms of
- 48:20Speaker 4: you know, technology and AI and opportunities there, and you know,
- 48:25Speaker 4: excited for what the next chapter is going to be.
- 48:27Speaker 2: People always say you need to run for office this
- 48:30Speaker 2: and that, And I see you as an activist that
- 48:35Speaker 2: was posing as a politician, right.
- 48:37Speaker 3: Because you you have the same spirit that I have.
- 48:40Speaker 2: Like we were staying on business writing for people, We're
- 48:43Speaker 2: not going to we're not going to.
- 48:46Speaker 3: Beat around the bush. We're not going to half step.
- 48:48Speaker 2: We're going to stand firm and we're going to stand
- 48:50Speaker 2: for our communities, even when it's against the powers that
- 48:54Speaker 2: be and just watching you, like when you became the congressman,
- 48:58Speaker 2: it gave me some hope. Okay, we got one of
- 49:01Speaker 2: us in the building, you know, But then seeing how
- 49:04Speaker 2: it was you fighting against a whole structure that should
- 49:07Speaker 2: have been supporting you, you know, even people that I
- 49:10Speaker 2: believe your own people that didn't really give you support.
- 49:13Speaker 2: It just it just it demoralizes a lot of us
- 49:15Speaker 2: at times, you know what I'm saying. And it's like,
- 49:18Speaker 2: are people like us actually supposed to be in those positions?
- 49:21Speaker 3: Because I think we should be.
- 49:22Speaker 2: I think there should be people who have the same
- 49:25Speaker 2: mind states and who have the same strength and the
- 49:28Speaker 2: same you know, energy that we have in those positions.
- 49:31Speaker 2: But I don't know if you know politics is actually
- 49:35Speaker 2: ready for you know, it's very it's very far between
- 49:38Speaker 2: that you see brothers like yourself, especially brothers strong men
- 49:42Speaker 2: who are affirmed and strong in their conviction, who stand
- 49:45Speaker 2: on what they stand for, speak for their communities unabridged,
- 49:49Speaker 2: you know, unapologetically, So speak to that.
- 49:53Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we have to be in those positions,
- 49:56Speaker 4: and I think we should continue to run for office
- 50:00Speaker 4: and do what we can to get into those positions.
- 50:03Speaker 4: I think the context really matters. So the district in
- 50:07Speaker 4: twenty twenty that I won changed dramatically by twenty twenty
- 50:13Speaker 4: four when we lost. So in twenty twenty the district
- 50:17Speaker 4: had two hundred thousand additional black people in the district.
- 50:21Speaker 4: Then because of redistricting and fighting in the courts and
- 50:26Speaker 4: the special mass exactly. Yeah, So every ten years when
- 50:30Speaker 4: there's a census, the census comes out, people complete the census,
- 50:34Speaker 4: and then based on population, population growth or loss, the
- 50:39Speaker 4: district's changed. So in twenty twenty, we lost. The population
- 50:44Speaker 4: went down because we never did an accurate count, and
- 50:48Speaker 4: we lost the congressional seat. So because we lost the
- 50:52Speaker 4: congressional seat, they had to redraw the lines and withdraw
- 50:55Speaker 4: the district maps. And so the initial map that was
- 50:58Speaker 4: drawn in twenty twenty kept the district majority black. It
- 51:04Speaker 4: went through the legislature, they voted on it, Governor signed
- 51:08Speaker 4: into law dund it. All of a sudden, Republicans challenged
- 51:12Speaker 4: the map, said it was jerry manner, and then that
- 51:16Speaker 4: challenge went to the first level of course, the second
- 51:19Speaker 4: level of courts, the third level of courts. The challenge
- 51:22Speaker 4: was upheld at every level, and the final court, which
- 51:27Speaker 4: I believe is the Pellicourt State, sent it to a
- 51:29Speaker 4: special master who didn't know nothing about New York City,
- 51:33Speaker 4: didn't understand the contexts, drew some maps that took two
- 51:37Speaker 4: hundred thousand black people out of for the first time ever.
- 51:42Speaker 4: So now my district was no longer majority black, still
- 51:44Speaker 4: majority minority, but no longer majority black, and the white
- 51:48Speaker 4: population in the district was more likely to the primary.
- 51:51Speaker 4: I won the first reelection because they threw out two
- 51:53Speaker 4: tomato cans. And then twenty twenty four they brought in
- 51:57Speaker 4: like the best candidate they could find, someone that people
- 52:00Speaker 4: people like. They spent record amounts of money and we
- 52:03Speaker 4: had two hundred thousand less black people, and so so
- 52:06Speaker 4: we weren't able to win that reelection. But let's say
- 52:09Speaker 4: you or someone like us is in a situation anywhere
- 52:13Speaker 4: in the country there's a majority black district that needs
- 52:17Speaker 4: proper representation.
- 52:20Speaker 3: People should absolutely.
- 52:21Speaker 4: Run for office in those districts if they think they
- 52:23Speaker 4: because you know, in Congress is the.
- 52:26Speaker 3: Most high profile I guess of government.
- 52:29Speaker 4: But man, someone like you could get in the state House,
- 52:32Speaker 4: someone like you could get in a county.
- 52:34Speaker 3: Someone like you get.
- 52:35Speaker 4: City council or or village trustee, whatever, there's a lot of.
- 52:39Speaker 3: Power in those positions.
- 52:42Speaker 4: And for our collective liberation, which is our mission, we
- 52:45Speaker 4: need power. We need political power, we need economic power.
- 52:50Speaker 4: And then the last thing I'll say on that is
- 52:53Speaker 4: just going back to the special interest piece. If if
- 52:57Speaker 4: we're not there, people like us are not there, then
- 53:02Speaker 4: the people who are there are going to be manipulated
- 53:07Speaker 4: to maintain the power structures that are influence right now, which.
- 53:11Speaker 3: Are power structures rooted white supremacy HM.
- 53:15Speaker 4: And so because they're not people and they're ready to fight,
- 53:18Speaker 4: they don't have no, they don't have the character, they
- 53:20Speaker 4: don't have they they're they're the bourgeoisie. They're just in
- 53:24Speaker 4: there for the title and the position. And then the
- 53:27Speaker 4: last thing I say is historically, take the Civil rights
- 53:31Speaker 4: movement for example, those leaders you know, Fred Hampton, Quam Toy,
- 53:37Speaker 4: Doctor King, Malcolm X.
- 53:39Speaker 3: They were not elected officials.
- 53:41Speaker 4: So we have a lot of power on the outside
- 53:44Speaker 4: to continue to push elected officials to do.
- 53:47Speaker 3: What got to be done.
- 53:47Speaker 4: And I think that's our calling and that's what we need.
- 53:50Speaker 1: Well, I'm in the Blackish, yes, yeah, yes, I'm absolutely
- 53:58Speaker 1: apart and and I think that's the duality of some
- 54:01Speaker 1: of us that I mean, I'm in organizations like the Links,
- 54:08Speaker 1: like the you know a KA is like absolutely, I
- 54:13Speaker 1: mean we're we're in the black.
- 54:15Speaker 4: I was like black people who are like elected CEOs
- 54:20Speaker 4: whatever that's just there for like the titles or whatever
- 54:23Speaker 4: those to maintain that structure.
- 54:26Speaker 1: I would call them. I would call them like black
- 54:31Speaker 1: faces that are kind of like sellouts, right like I
- 54:35Speaker 1: would say that. I mean, you didn't say that, but
- 54:37Speaker 1: I would. But and I wasn't even about to say
- 54:41Speaker 1: I wasn't even going to try to defend being because
- 54:44Speaker 1: because there are people who are part of the black
- 54:46Speaker 1: boutheuasi that are willing to stand up, they fight. I
- 54:50Speaker 1: mean I think about like just this weekend coming up
- 54:52Speaker 1: right now, Uh you know, I'm traveling with Links a Ka's,
- 54:56Speaker 1: Deltas and others down to Philly. We are looking for
- 55:01Speaker 1: the low propensity, which we believe or high opportunity areas
- 55:05Speaker 1: to go into the buildings where you stepping over the
- 55:09Speaker 1: stuff and you in there, like with the community, where
- 55:11Speaker 1: somebody comes to the door with they joint out like hello,
- 55:15Speaker 1: like what you want, Like that's what we said that's
- 55:18Speaker 1: exactly where we want to go. There's some people who
- 55:21Speaker 1: is a bunch of us that are going. Then there
- 55:23Speaker 1: are some people who can't go for various reasons. They
- 55:26Speaker 1: doing something else, they texting, their calling. But then there
- 55:28Speaker 1: are other people who would never ever, ever, ever go.
- 55:32Speaker 1: So there is a mixture of folks that are in
- 55:35Speaker 1: all these groups. And I'm okay with whatever. I'm okay
- 55:38Speaker 1: with you being. I don't care what you are. You
- 55:40Speaker 1: could be a stripper, you could be in the bourgeoisie,
- 55:45Speaker 1: you could be whatever you want to be. But you
- 55:50Speaker 1: still have to have a social justice lens, right. You
- 55:53Speaker 1: still have to have something about you that says I'm
- 55:57Speaker 1: not just here to give scholarship to kids, which is good,
- 56:01Speaker 1: we want that, but I'm also going to speak out
- 56:04Speaker 1: about the conditions that make these children need scholarships. And
- 56:07Speaker 1: that's a that's a challenge that I have in some
- 56:10Speaker 1: of these places. When I be showing up in my
- 56:13Speaker 1: bourgeois with my Saint John suit on, and I still
- 56:16Speaker 1: want to bring these things up. They like here and
- 56:18Speaker 1: she come with this, but it has to be said.
- 56:21Speaker 1: And that's why we got to be in all of
- 56:23Speaker 1: these spaces. But no running for running for office is
- 56:27Speaker 1: not something that I'm I don't think I'll ever do it,
- 56:31Speaker 1: but I'm certainly not anywhere you're ready for it, And
- 56:34Speaker 1: I know that as you get older, it is probably
- 56:37Speaker 1: not a good idea to go try to run for office,
- 56:39Speaker 1: because one, you don't have the stamina to deal with
- 56:43Speaker 1: all of this craziness, and then you kind of get
- 56:45Speaker 1: set in your ways. You really need younger people who
- 56:49Speaker 1: have their finger on the pulse of the youth, and
- 56:52Speaker 1: also the intelligent intellect to be able to look at
- 56:55Speaker 1: things from you know, various positions and compromise and all
- 56:59Speaker 1: of that. I don't think fifty five, six, seven, eight
- 57:02Speaker 1: nine years old starting out in politics, you don't think so.
- 57:06Speaker 4: That's going to be time. I mean, I'm forty eight
- 57:08Speaker 4: and i'd be tired. I had to get back in
- 57:11Speaker 4: the gym to make sure I was ready for my
- 57:12Speaker 4: own campaign. But you're right about the youth piece and
- 57:15Speaker 4: the older piece. And again, everybody has differents I.
- 57:18Speaker 1: Sent your start out. I'm not saying you should be continue.
- 57:22Speaker 1: I'm saying to get started.
- 57:23Speaker 4: In one hundred percent. Everyone has different lanes. But whatever
- 57:27Speaker 4: your laying, you just got to be about liberation. Man,
- 57:30Speaker 4: and I'm in part of my frustration also to the
- 57:33Speaker 4: point that I was made earlier. There's a lot of
- 57:35Speaker 4: black elected officials who are not about liberation. There's there's
- 57:39Speaker 4: a lot of black caucuses who I don't feel about liberation.
- 57:42Speaker 4: And so for me, we need to be unapologetic about liberation.
- 57:47Speaker 4: That means our education, that means our healthcare, that means
- 57:49Speaker 4: our food security, that means jobs, that means entrepreneurship, that
- 57:54Speaker 4: means all of it. Like you want to call it reparations,
- 57:56Speaker 4: you want to call it something else. We got to
- 57:58Speaker 4: be about liberation.
- 58:00Speaker 3: Whe Are our.
- 58:00Speaker 4: Kids reading, who's teaching our kids, how we engage in parents,
- 58:03Speaker 4: how we engage in community. The fact that certain parts
- 58:07Speaker 4: of my district, usually the black and brown, usually the poverty,
- 58:11Speaker 4: don't have community. Since it's crazy, like you don't have
- 58:16Speaker 4: a community sent So I was very lucky, Like I
- 58:19Speaker 4: lived in East River until I was about eight. My
- 58:21Speaker 4: grandmother passed and I moved to like Upper east Side,
- 58:24Speaker 4: right Yorkville.
- 58:26Speaker 3: Two different worlds.
- 58:27Speaker 4: Man like East River projects right in the project, that's it,
- 58:31Speaker 4: that's all you got. You go to Yorkville ninety second
- 58:34Speaker 4: and second. Now I could walk to Central park. I
- 58:36Speaker 4: could walk to the museums and just be in the
- 58:38Speaker 4: museum looking around like I had. There was asphalt green,
- 58:43Speaker 4: there's a playstreet here, there's a little park, kid, there's
- 58:45Speaker 4: a big park kids mad just space for kids to
- 58:49Speaker 4: beat kids.
- 58:50Speaker 3: And just how we got elected officials who are.
- 58:53Speaker 5: Mayors, senators, you know what I'm saying, Like like Congress
- 58:58Speaker 5: people Assembly, people in our communities that they represent don't
- 59:05Speaker 5: have community centers and parks for kids.
- 59:08Speaker 3: What are we talking And this ain't even a lot
- 59:11Speaker 3: of money, right, it's not even mad money the community.
- 59:15Speaker 1: Let me say something to you. I don't want to
- 59:17Speaker 1: cut you off. But we this past weekend were in
- 59:20Speaker 1: Georgia knocking on doors in South Fulton County and other
- 59:25Speaker 1: places around the city of Atlanta. And we went to
- 59:29Speaker 1: this one community. There was a bunch of us. It
- 59:32Speaker 1: was a bunch of celebrities and others, and a lot
- 59:34Speaker 1: of them, like Killer Mike and others, are people who
- 59:36Speaker 1: do community work all the time. So when like we
- 59:39Speaker 1: showed up, Jadakiss was with us. You know people who
- 59:42Speaker 1: always you can call on them to be involved in
- 59:45Speaker 1: issues and you know they really get or have a
- 59:48Speaker 1: connection to the streets. So we show up there, and
- 59:53Speaker 1: you know, we get out and everybody's getting ready to
- 59:56Speaker 1: go into the buildings. Now we're talking about like something
- 1:00:00Speaker 1: that's actually called a condominium. It's called condominiums, but it
- 1:00:05Speaker 1: is it's sort of set up like the projects. Like
- 1:00:07Speaker 1: we go inside of a building it's three levels or
- 1:00:10Speaker 1: whatever to get in there, and they point us to
- 1:00:14Speaker 1: team one, team two, team to hit all of these doors.
- 1:00:18Speaker 1: And as soon as we start approaching the doors, I'm looking,
- 1:00:21Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know if we're supposed to be
- 1:00:24Speaker 1: going in these buildings. One they look they're falling up,
- 1:00:29Speaker 1: literally falling apart. I don't mean like falling apart, I
- 1:00:33Speaker 1: mean falling apart. No glass in the windows, no glass
- 1:00:39Speaker 1: in the sliding doors. But people are living there. People
- 1:00:42Speaker 1: have sheets up to the windows, people have mattresses up
- 1:00:46Speaker 1: to the windows. Dogs all looking out, pit bulls looking
- 1:00:50Speaker 1: out because that's their only form of protection. One building,
- 1:00:54Speaker 1: they told us not to go in it because the
- 1:00:56Speaker 1: staircase is basically needs to be demolished and you have
- 1:01:00Speaker 1: to know how to walk around certain things in order
- 1:01:03Speaker 1: to walk up the stairs without making it tumble down.
- 1:01:06Speaker 1: Like this is how black people and there are elected
- 1:01:10Speaker 1: officials that are responsible for this area and people live
- 1:01:15Speaker 1: like that, and they're saying this is condiment, and people
- 1:01:17Speaker 1: own some of these places in this neighborhood. And eventually
- 1:01:23Speaker 1: it's funny because when you work closely with people, you
- 1:01:27Speaker 1: can feel them even when you're not looking. So I'm like,
- 1:01:30Speaker 1: I'm not going to these people doors. I dare not
- 1:01:33Speaker 1: ask you to vote for anybody. I did not. I
- 1:01:36Speaker 1: did not, even though even though I know you need to,
- 1:01:40Speaker 1: but I still me personally that just showed up hearing
- 1:01:44Speaker 1: a black suv coming from New York. I dare not
- 1:01:48Speaker 1: knock on your door and say vote.
- 1:01:50Speaker 2: But I did get peoples, right, But.
- 1:01:53Speaker 1: I did get people's phone numbers so that I could
- 1:01:57Speaker 1: follow up with the mothers in the neighborhood to see
- 1:02:00Speaker 1: what we can do and how until freedom can go
- 1:02:02Speaker 1: back and support them. And one of the mothers was
- 1:02:06Speaker 1: like standing out there yelling and screaming, these people need help. Right.
- 1:02:12Speaker 1: So election time is called, and again you got it.
- 1:02:15Speaker 1: You have to participate. But but I was gonna say
- 1:02:19Speaker 1: about the feeling people. I turned around and I'm looking
- 1:02:22Speaker 1: for my team because I want to say to them,
- 1:02:23Speaker 1: I'm not knocking and I see my son Angelo and
- 1:02:28Speaker 1: Linda kind of walking down the side. They're not not
- 1:02:30Speaker 1: going to do us either, because we are we already
- 1:02:33Speaker 1: know we need a different We should have been bringing.
- 1:02:36Speaker 2: Food, yeah, and resources, and you know, the communities needed something.
- 1:02:42Speaker 2: The guy was explaining to me how you know how
- 1:02:45Speaker 2: it's garbage everywhere and if they've been doing the best
- 1:02:48Speaker 2: they can and they try to provide, like he said.
- 1:02:51Speaker 2: The lady came out and she was just talking about
- 1:02:53Speaker 2: how this he has been abandoned and people have been arrested,
- 1:02:56Speaker 2: the person who was running. But it was just and
- 1:02:58Speaker 2: it felt like that we were don't.
- 1:03:00Speaker 1: Cut that off. She said. The people running for or
- 1:03:04Speaker 1: already in office were arrested literally for corruption in the neighborhood.
- 1:03:09Speaker 2: They were taking the resources and things like that. So
- 1:03:11Speaker 2: I just felt like that we were imposing upon these
- 1:03:14Speaker 2: people and we didn't bring nothing, were asking them to do,
- 1:03:16Speaker 2: and they needed more than that.
- 1:03:18Speaker 4: You were the bourgeois in that context, Like you are
- 1:03:21Speaker 4: the bourgeoisie, like you coming here asking for my vote, Like.
- 1:03:25Speaker 3: My building is falling apart, my staircases fall about. We hungry, like.
- 1:03:30Speaker 4: We may not have jobs, and if we do, we
- 1:03:32Speaker 4: don't have good jobs, it's hard for me to pay
- 1:03:35Speaker 4: my bills. Like that was the ultimate lesson for me
- 1:03:39Speaker 4: with my race as well, because we were asking people
- 1:03:43Speaker 4: who struggled through povardy year in and year out for years,
- 1:03:49Speaker 4: maybe even decades, to come out and vote, like, yes,
- 1:03:54Speaker 4: I am the kind of elected official who is going
- 1:03:57Speaker 4: to fight for all of that. Right, I'll turn over
- 1:03:59Speaker 4: build to fight for that. But if they don't see
- 1:04:03Speaker 4: change in their community after an election, they're not gonna
- 1:04:07Speaker 4: come out the next election. And that's what I'm saying, Like,
- 1:04:10Speaker 4: we do a lot leading up to an election, but
- 1:04:14Speaker 4: what's gonna happen on November sixth? Right, So we got
- 1:04:17Speaker 4: the fifth new Congress, new House, new Senate, new president
- 1:04:21Speaker 4: right on the six These people ain't gonna hear from
- 1:04:25Speaker 4: us again until the next election cycle.
- 1:04:28Speaker 3: And that's the problem.
- 1:04:29Speaker 4: And so for me, again, my big takeaway, big learning
- 1:04:33Speaker 4: was why do we only have twenty five percent turnout?
- 1:04:37Speaker 3: Is because we weren't.
- 1:04:38Speaker 4: Engaging the people and literally feeding the people.
- 1:04:44Speaker 3: For the last two years, and now we're asking them
- 1:04:47Speaker 3: to go.
- 1:04:48Speaker 1: And it's not we as just in you, it's not
- 1:04:50Speaker 1: we just we, it's the system.
- 1:04:52Speaker 4: The system is allowing one in five children to go hungry.
- 1:04:56Speaker 4: The system is allowing wealth to be concentraint in the
- 1:05:00Speaker 4: hands up point zero one percent of Americans. The system
- 1:05:03Speaker 4: is allowing massive conserration, system is allowing police brutality, systems
- 1:05:07Speaker 4: allowing food and security. The system and the people within
- 1:05:10Speaker 4: that system are allowing us. One of the first big
- 1:05:13Speaker 4: losses when I got to Congress is the loss where
- 1:05:17Speaker 4: we were trying to raise the federal federal minimum wage
- 1:05:19Speaker 4: for fifteen thousand hours. I learned during that fight is
- 1:05:23Speaker 4: it's still seven to twenty five hour. The federal minimum
- 1:05:25Speaker 4: wage is still seven to twenty five hour twenty twenty four.
- 1:05:29Speaker 4: And so you know, when you see people beside themselves
- 1:05:34Speaker 4: and frustrated and they don't care, there are reasons for that.
- 1:05:38Speaker 3: And so my hope in my prayer is as I
- 1:05:42Speaker 3: work on.
- 1:05:42Speaker 4: The outside, we deal with this issue of poverty in
- 1:05:45Speaker 4: a real direct way, and whoever the president is, we
- 1:05:50Speaker 4: got to hold them in every other elected official accountable
- 1:05:53Speaker 4: to deal with that issue of poverty.
- 1:05:55Speaker 3: And it's not only the president.
- 1:05:57Speaker 4: So all these people talking about like, oh, you know,
- 1:06:00Speaker 4: Kama ain't gonna do this, she ain't gonna do that.
- 1:06:02Speaker 4: It's not just her, yo these same people don't even
- 1:06:06Speaker 4: know who they're member by Congresses. They don't they don't
- 1:06:08Speaker 4: even know how they engage the US Senate. They don't
- 1:06:10Speaker 4: know how to engage local like there's a lot of them.
- 1:06:12Speaker 4: And so that education on that engagement, but also the
- 1:06:17Speaker 4: organized and mobilizing day to day to deal with the
- 1:06:19Speaker 4: issue of poverty, of the poverty of the pocket, of
- 1:06:21Speaker 4: the stomach, and of the mind. That's what we got
- 1:06:24Speaker 4: to deal with, man, And we ain't doing that. We
- 1:06:26Speaker 4: we just we're not even serious about what we mean
- 1:06:29Speaker 4: serious about liberation.
- 1:06:31Speaker 3: And you're one hundred percent right.
- 1:06:32Speaker 2: So based on that, I just want to you know,
- 1:06:35Speaker 2: we we have conversations offline all the time and we talk.
- 1:06:38Speaker 3: About the climate of the election. Black men in this election.
- 1:06:42Speaker 2: You know, I've seen you very vocal, just as I
- 1:06:45Speaker 2: am online about how we need to be moving and
- 1:06:49Speaker 2: you know, we heard Obama talk about black men. We've
- 1:06:52Speaker 2: hed media, you know, we've heard different you know, conversations
- 1:06:56Speaker 2: on black men need to be doing this, and then
- 1:06:58Speaker 2: they are a conversation that you're not going to put
- 1:07:01Speaker 2: this on black men's back, We're not going to make
- 1:07:03Speaker 2: them response with there so many different conversations you know.
- 1:07:06Speaker 3: I heard you have as I did. We watched Lord.
- 1:07:09Speaker 2: Jamal came and was, you know, called Kamala out of
- 1:07:13Speaker 2: her name, and we responded to that, and you know
- 1:07:16Speaker 2: he actually called you say he wants to have a
- 1:07:18Speaker 2: debate or whatever. Just all of these things with black men, Like,
- 1:07:22Speaker 2: what is your take on how this in general black
- 1:07:26Speaker 2: men are dealing with this election in this whole cycle? Yeah, man,
- 1:07:30Speaker 2: I mean, you know, I get that black man a lot,
- 1:07:33Speaker 2: not a monolith. You know, we have different perspectives and
- 1:07:36Speaker 2: different opinions about politics and about people.
- 1:07:41Speaker 3: Know, I get all of that.
- 1:07:46Speaker 4: I'm not here to force black men to do one
- 1:07:48Speaker 4: thing or another thing, right, but there are certain elements
- 1:07:53Speaker 4: to this election in particular that had.
- 1:07:56Speaker 3: Me bugging out very early.
- 1:07:58Speaker 4: On in terms of how black men were attacking you know,
- 1:08:03Speaker 4: Kamala Harris in support of Donald Trump, Like that that dichotomy,
- 1:08:10Speaker 4: that that that.
- 1:08:12Speaker 3: Those that polarization there didn't make sense to me.
- 1:08:17Speaker 4: Like I was just bugging off of that, right, Like,
- 1:08:19Speaker 4: so we got a black woman and someone with a
- 1:08:26Speaker 4: history rooted in white supremacy and racism.
- 1:08:30Speaker 3: Just on that alone, what are we talking about?
- 1:08:32Speaker 4: Like I'm voting for Kamala Harris, Right, Like, just on
- 1:08:35Speaker 4: that alone, you dig one layer deeper. Let's look at
- 1:08:40Speaker 4: you know her, her her history, right, you know, district attorney,
- 1:08:45Speaker 4: attorney general, US senator, vice president, soon to be president,
- 1:08:50Speaker 4: god willing. Uh, someone who was a was a scabbed
- 1:08:56Speaker 4: business owner. Uh, you know, got the donation from the pops,
- 1:09:02Speaker 4: went and let black people rent in his homes.
- 1:09:04Speaker 3: Sexual abuser, right Like, So just the resumes to me
- 1:09:09Speaker 3: left no doubt.
- 1:09:11Speaker 4: And then when you look at the policies, right, opportunity agenda,
- 1:09:15Speaker 4: overall opportunity agenda for black men, help with home ownership, investments,
- 1:09:20Speaker 4: in healthcare, investments, and entrepreneurship for everyone, but particularly black man.
- 1:09:24Speaker 4: He has no agenda like that. And by the way,
- 1:09:26Speaker 4: when he was president before the incited insurrection, h called
- 1:09:31Speaker 4: the election sitting the election was stolen and behaves like
- 1:09:34Speaker 4: a middle school child most of the time. And again
- 1:09:37Speaker 4: an abuser. So just on the who they are resume reputation,
- 1:09:45Speaker 4: black men, what are we talking about. There's no way
- 1:09:47Speaker 4: we're not going to vote for this black woman. But
- 1:09:49Speaker 4: then it's deeper than that, right, it goes into like,
- 1:09:55Speaker 4: it goes into us as a people. And in my position,
- 1:09:59Speaker 4: which is there's no circumstance ever where we should be
- 1:10:04Speaker 4: calling black women bitches in private or in public in
- 1:10:09Speaker 4: front of white people. No, that should never happen, right never.
- 1:10:16Speaker 4: But to go even further, man, this is rooted in history.
- 1:10:23Speaker 4: We haven't been allowed to really stand up for and
- 1:10:26Speaker 4: protect our women historically because of slavery and Jim Crow.
- 1:10:31Speaker 4: Our women were raped, forced to have children from their
- 1:10:35Speaker 4: slave master, weren't allowed to mother, they children, sold away
- 1:10:39Speaker 4: from their husbands, and families, experimented on when it comes
- 1:10:43Speaker 4: to gynecology lynched. This is what happened to our Black
- 1:10:48Speaker 4: women historically and what's happening to them now in terms
- 1:10:51Speaker 4: of you know, equal pay for equal work that's not happening,
- 1:10:55Speaker 4: bodily autonomy being taken away, in terms of you know,
- 1:10:59Speaker 4: reproductive rights, reproductive freedom, not chosen to be CEOs, very
- 1:11:03Speaker 4: few Black women on the hill in Congress as chiefs
- 1:11:06Speaker 4: of staff and leadership positions.
- 1:11:07Speaker 3: This is what our black women go through every day
- 1:11:09Speaker 3: and historically in this country.
- 1:11:11Speaker 1: And that's the reason why they want to say she's
- 1:11:13Speaker 1: not black, because you gotta be able. And it was
- 1:11:17Speaker 1: a very smart it was a very smart It was
- 1:11:20Speaker 1: a strategic move from the opponents, the whatever people want
- 1:11:25Speaker 1: to call it. On the other side, the Republicans, the
- 1:11:27Speaker 1: mag I don't know where it came from, but it
- 1:11:30Speaker 1: was a very smart move to try to remove her
- 1:11:34Speaker 1: ethnicity so that they can isolate that issue and not
- 1:11:40Speaker 1: have people feel a level of commitment to her because
- 1:11:44Speaker 1: she is in.
- 1:11:45Speaker 4: Black men, right, black men, no hesitation. We went to
- 1:11:51Speaker 4: an event early after she was made the nominate. You
- 1:11:54Speaker 4: and I ended up at the same event together, all
- 1:11:57Speaker 4: black men. We disagreed on certain things from a policy perspective,
- 1:12:02Speaker 4: but I don't remember anyone in that room being on
- 1:12:05Speaker 4: some she ain't black anyway, but it was a whole
- 1:12:12Speaker 4: It was real black men in this right again.
- 1:12:15Speaker 1: I remember that.
- 1:12:16Speaker 3: Again, disagreed on.
- 1:12:17Speaker 4: Different policy things or whatever, but in terms of is
- 1:12:20Speaker 4: she black or not and are we standing for our sisters, there.
- 1:12:22Speaker 3: Was no question. So real black man, it's no hesitation.
- 1:12:26Speaker 1: But are being paid?
- 1:12:28Speaker 4: Literally there's people being paid, and it's like, you know, man,
- 1:12:33Speaker 4: I don't know, man, And maybe I'm biased because I
- 1:12:35Speaker 4: know a little bit of the history, but also like
- 1:12:37Speaker 4: I'm raised by a single mom and I got four sisters, right,
- 1:12:41Speaker 4: So when you know a very well regarded, well respected activist.
- 1:12:46Speaker 4: A couple of weeks ago, as a black woman called
- 1:12:48Speaker 4: me and said, she don't feel safe around black Where
- 1:12:56Speaker 4: are we as black men? If that's I think.
- 1:12:58Speaker 2: That's what that's me is that, you know, being around
- 1:13:01Speaker 2: black women and hearing that constantly and always being I'm
- 1:13:05Speaker 2: always giving pushback, Well, we love black women, love and
- 1:13:08Speaker 2: then over the years I constantly see it show up
- 1:13:12Speaker 2: in ways that this didn't make sense. I was on
- 1:13:14Speaker 2: a live conversation years ago during the pandemic while he
- 1:13:18Speaker 2: was fighting for Breonna Taylor, and as God got on,
- 1:13:20Speaker 2: the black man explained to me how that it was
- 1:13:25Speaker 2: false that black men weren't protecting black women, and I said, well,
- 1:13:29Speaker 2: black women are beating He said, if I beat my woman, right,
- 1:13:33Speaker 2: you know this is what he's a swear, you can
- 1:13:35Speaker 2: go along. He said, If I beat my woman and
- 1:13:38Speaker 2: I don't let let somebody else beat him, I'm still
- 1:13:41Speaker 2: protecting I said, so if you don't realize that you're
- 1:13:44Speaker 2: the issue who's protecting her from you? And he was
- 1:13:47Speaker 2: dead sitting there, and there were people, there were other
- 1:13:51Speaker 2: black men that came on there and said he was right,
- 1:13:54Speaker 2: and they were making him feel like what he was
- 1:13:56Speaker 2: saying so then and and and the fast forward to
- 1:13:59Speaker 2: now four years later to see somebody that we respect,
- 1:14:04Speaker 2: like Lord Jamal get up there and just for no reason,
- 1:14:07Speaker 2: somebody that I've been in close proximity with, someone that
- 1:14:10Speaker 2: I would consider to be a friend, to come up
- 1:14:12Speaker 2: there and call her name strictly because you might not
- 1:14:15Speaker 2: agree with a policle or whatever the issue was it is,
- 1:14:17Speaker 2: it just didn't merit that.
- 1:14:19Speaker 3: You know, I'm glad that he, as a man, apologized,
- 1:14:22Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying.
- 1:14:22Speaker 1: I appreciate that.
- 1:14:23Speaker 3: I appreciate you can't take I hear what you're saying.
- 1:14:27Speaker 1: It's hard to take once it's out there because we're
- 1:14:31Speaker 1: going to hear the apology or.
- 1:14:34Speaker 4: That's how a white man calling me a nigga, calling
- 1:14:36Speaker 4: us a nigga and then trying to apologize to me,
- 1:14:39Speaker 4: it's the same thing.
- 1:14:40Speaker 1: But we appreciate the fact that he did apologize because
- 1:14:44Speaker 1: when called.
- 1:14:44Speaker 3: Him out, like if people weren't calling him out, we
- 1:14:47Speaker 3: have apologized.
- 1:14:47Speaker 1: But that's what I was going to say.
- 1:14:49Speaker 3: I'm not saying that we corrected him so he called himself.
- 1:14:52Speaker 1: But that's what I was going to say. Not only
- 1:14:55Speaker 1: did he apologize, the part that I appreciate is when
- 1:14:58Speaker 1: he said all of the criticism that I'm receiving is warranted.
- 1:15:03Speaker 1: So he wasn't out there like he's saying it's warranted.
- 1:15:08Speaker 1: And so I appreciate that because he called himself right,
- 1:15:11Speaker 1: like we all have biases. I remember one time I
- 1:15:14Speaker 1: was out with a friend of mine. We were at
- 1:15:16Speaker 1: Grace Baptist Church actually, and we went an event and
- 1:15:18Speaker 1: she's a Jewish woman, white facing Jewish woman, and she
- 1:15:22Speaker 1: and we were talking about something. Told my raising money
- 1:15:25Speaker 1: for something, and I said, well, my friend so and
- 1:15:30Speaker 1: so is Jewish. No, I didn't say that. I said
- 1:15:32Speaker 1: she knows the money, she could control the money. And
- 1:15:36Speaker 1: later on she said to me, let me break down
- 1:15:39Speaker 1: for you why this is an anti semetic trope, right,
- 1:15:42Speaker 1: And so it wasn't that she was saying I am
- 1:15:44Speaker 1: anti Semitic. She's just saying. We all have heard things,
- 1:15:48Speaker 1: or you pick up on attitudes, you say things that
- 1:15:51Speaker 1: you shouldn't be saying, and sometimes it comes out. Now
- 1:15:54Speaker 1: it's not as harmful as calling this person. But to me,
- 1:15:58Speaker 1: it's not as harmful because I'm a black woman. And
- 1:16:00Speaker 1: so hearing him call Kamala Harris a B word right,
- 1:16:06Speaker 1: but listen, listen to me, it is more harmful. But
- 1:16:11Speaker 1: to her understanding the history of the Jewish people, what
- 1:16:16Speaker 1: they have suffered, and how dangerous that trope is and
- 1:16:20Speaker 1: how it pretty much demonizes them. From her perspective, it's
- 1:16:25Speaker 1: equally harmful because when you have by when you say
- 1:16:29Speaker 1: things and you don't know the history of it, where
- 1:16:31Speaker 1: it came from. That's something I probably picked up from
- 1:16:34Speaker 1: somebody in the community, or a church person, or somebody
- 1:16:38Speaker 1: a long time ago that has been with me. And
- 1:16:40Speaker 1: of course my parents is like, where did you get
- 1:16:42Speaker 1: that from? Because that's not how they speak. So we
- 1:16:44Speaker 1: pick up more from outside of our homes than we
- 1:16:47Speaker 1: do sometimes inside.
- 1:16:49Speaker 4: You're absolutely right, it was just to your point about
- 1:16:52Speaker 4: you know what, Lord Jamar represents you a black man,
- 1:17:00Speaker 4: godbody hip hop that should never come across your limit
- 1:17:05Speaker 4: in my opinion, and to be very transparent, I was
- 1:17:10Speaker 4: young and dumb and stupid at one point in my
- 1:17:12Speaker 4: life as a black man trying to holler at chicks.
- 1:17:16Speaker 4: And I've used that word as a young man trying
- 1:17:20Speaker 4: to because of some shit I heard of n w
- 1:17:22Speaker 4: A or so whatever it was. I don't even know
- 1:17:24Speaker 4: what got it in there. But the point is I
- 1:17:26Speaker 4: was young and a kid trying to holler at chicks
- 1:17:29Speaker 4: and use all kind of words.
- 1:17:30Speaker 1: You know, a girl, we were.
- 1:17:31Speaker 3: A word all day, you know what I'm saying. But
- 1:17:33Speaker 3: like we're older than that.
- 1:17:35Speaker 4: We grow up and we learned and we evolved, and
- 1:17:38Speaker 4: we should not be doing that. As I'm forty eighty, fittes, No,
- 1:17:42Speaker 4: we should, you know, we gotta we gotta grow up.
- 1:17:44Speaker 1: A young girl just told me it was she was young.
- 1:17:46Speaker 1: She's a friend of ours. I can't remember who it is,
- 1:17:48Speaker 1: but it's worth telling the story that she's she got
- 1:17:51Speaker 1: to be forty five something. She's our friend, and she
- 1:17:54Speaker 1: said she was out somewhere the other night she turned
- 1:17:57Speaker 1: down a guy who started out cool, cool, but then
- 1:18:01Speaker 1: after a while he just started calling her dirty beads.
- 1:18:04Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was, and I'm like, what
- 1:18:07Speaker 1: is it in us? But as I told my son
- 1:18:10Speaker 1: the other day, there are a lot of men, not
- 1:18:13Speaker 1: just black men, but men in general. Wool's mama hurt them,
- 1:18:17Speaker 1: The ex girlfriend hurt them. When they were a kid,
- 1:18:20Speaker 1: the teacher talked to them and told them they wasn't
- 1:18:23Speaker 1: gonna never be nothing, And that may have been a
- 1:18:25Speaker 1: black woman or you know, some woman, and a lot
- 1:18:28Speaker 1: of that stuff is coming up because it's not been
- 1:18:30Speaker 1: addressed because black men don't focus enough, and men in
- 1:18:34Speaker 1: general don't focus enough on self help.
- 1:18:37Speaker 4: And patriarchy, misogyny. It's all a part of American culture,
- 1:18:42Speaker 4: right to your point. And so yeah, man, it's it's
- 1:18:46Speaker 4: it's wild. But when this high ranking activist told me
- 1:18:50Speaker 4: she don't feel safe around black men she's a black woman,
- 1:18:53Speaker 4: that hurt me to my core, right because like, now,
- 1:18:57Speaker 4: you know, we could fight back, you know what I'm saying.
- 1:18:59Speaker 4: We could stand up for our sisters, We could be
- 1:19:01Speaker 4: there for them, we could work together, we can make
- 1:19:03Speaker 4: sure they are centered, right and if we're not doing
- 1:19:07Speaker 4: that now in this moment, And again, you don't have
- 1:19:10Speaker 4: to vote for just because she's a black woman. She's
- 1:19:12Speaker 4: a better candidate and she happens to be a black woman,
- 1:19:16Speaker 4: and she has a better vision for the country in
- 1:19:18Speaker 4: my opinion, than this guy, Donald Trump. And just to
- 1:19:22Speaker 4: slide to the political piece after, you know, just moving
- 1:19:26Speaker 4: on to the political piece, and what are we gonna
- 1:19:29Speaker 4: do November sixth or whatever, the day after the election
- 1:19:34Speaker 4: to hold her accountable and ourselves accountable? And that's the thing,
- 1:19:38Speaker 4: ourselves accountable. There's no savior in the White House. It's
- 1:19:45Speaker 4: on us as people participating in this democracy. So we
- 1:19:50Speaker 4: got a lot of whack ass elected officials right down
- 1:19:55Speaker 4: the street from us who sit on our city council,
- 1:19:58Speaker 4: village state. They trash, they're not doing nothing, and they
- 1:20:03Speaker 4: have money and influence that they could be using. We
- 1:20:06Speaker 4: got to put pressure on them next day after the
- 1:20:09Speaker 4: election and keep that going.
- 1:20:11Speaker 2: I agree one hund what I want to say before
- 1:20:15Speaker 2: we close, because I know you got a lot to do.
- 1:20:17Speaker 2: First of all, are you guys going to have this debate?
- 1:20:19Speaker 2: Because I see, well, I don't know.
- 1:20:21Speaker 4: We we told them Friday and and they went dark.
- 1:20:26Speaker 4: They ghosted us. So we love to see this. So
- 1:20:28Speaker 4: we followed up to see if we could do it
- 1:20:31Speaker 4: this week. I said Wednesday. Then I realized Wednesday wasn't good,
- 1:20:34Speaker 4: So we we're gonna try for Thursday. And notice how
- 1:20:38Speaker 4: they framed it, right, because they already know what I'm
- 1:20:41Speaker 4: coming with. Notice how they framed it. It was like
- 1:20:44Speaker 4: not a debate, a conversation. Listen, because those are those
- 1:20:50Speaker 4: are those are imperative. I want to sit in rooms
- 1:20:53Speaker 4: with other black men.
- 1:20:54Speaker 2: We have to do that and have real dialogue, because
- 1:20:57Speaker 2: to do that, I think that's where we are. We
- 1:20:59Speaker 2: are in this space right now where there has to
- 1:21:01Speaker 2: be real conversations. It has to be intentional because when
- 1:21:05Speaker 2: when when I'm online, because I don't actually I just
- 1:21:08Speaker 2: don't believe that the end is a real place. So
- 1:21:10Speaker 2: a lot of these people are boxed. But there are
- 1:21:11Speaker 2: a couple of people that actually know that, people that
- 1:21:13Speaker 2: close to me, and they say things that are very
- 1:21:15Speaker 2: strange and confusing to me, and I don't I don't
- 1:21:18Speaker 2: know when this narrative, You know what I'm saying, it's
- 1:21:23Speaker 2: very strange, But I don't know when this narrative of
- 1:21:26Speaker 2: a man standing up to protect and stand for the
- 1:21:29Speaker 2: honor of a woman became made you lessons This is,
- 1:21:32Speaker 2: this is, this is this is on the internet when
- 1:21:35Speaker 2: they calling you simp, they call you this and that,
- 1:21:38Speaker 2: when I don't even.
- 1:21:39Speaker 3: Know because I've never been that. I've been. I've been.
- 1:21:42Speaker 2: I've been a man my whole life, and I always
- 1:21:45Speaker 2: knew that women should feel comfortable and safe around me.
- 1:21:48Speaker 2: When I walked in my community, the old ladies felt
- 1:21:50Speaker 2: safe when they see me from right. That's that's what
- 1:21:53Speaker 2: that's what quote unquote gangster used to be in our community.
- 1:21:56Speaker 3: Little girls who felt like they can go to school safely.
- 1:21:59Speaker 2: They weren't gonna be this expected when they see me,
- 1:22:01Speaker 2: When mothers seeing me, they feel like my kids are
- 1:22:03Speaker 2: gonna be safe.
- 1:22:04Speaker 3: You know.
- 1:22:04Speaker 2: I got a d M from a young girl that
- 1:22:06Speaker 2: was hanging with us all week and her mother said,
- 1:22:08Speaker 2: I know my daughter is safe with you. That's what
- 1:22:11Speaker 2: men who looks like.
- 1:22:12Speaker 3: But it's not. But I'm trying to tell you.
- 1:22:15Speaker 2: If we live in Colward culture, culture shows something else
- 1:22:19Speaker 2: is how you can impose your will and your energy
- 1:22:21Speaker 2: and you're strong and you can make people feel less.
- 1:22:23Speaker 3: And that's why that's why Donald.
- 1:22:26Speaker 2: Trump even has a leg to stand on me because
- 1:22:29Speaker 2: that culture is what's being embraced now.
- 1:22:31Speaker 3: So I just want to say that. But before we leave,
- 1:22:34Speaker 3: just tell me, tell us what is next for Jamal Bone.
- 1:22:37Speaker 4: Yeah, so I guess we got to do more work
- 1:22:39Speaker 4: around Colward culture because that's crazy kind of what you
- 1:22:42Speaker 4: just shared with me.
- 1:22:43Speaker 3: So again, right now I'm finishing out my term which
- 1:22:46Speaker 3: ends the ends the end of this year.
- 1:22:49Speaker 4: I'm going to be looking at a variety of opportunities
- 1:22:52Speaker 4: public sector, private sector, education, healthcare, technology. I'm not ruling
- 1:22:58Speaker 4: out a run for off again. At some point it
- 1:23:01Speaker 4: probably won't be Congress. There will probably be something in
- 1:23:04Speaker 4: the executive seat.
- 1:23:08Speaker 1: Listen, not only that, right, And so I don't even
- 1:23:11Speaker 1: know why I said it, because I have too many
- 1:23:15Speaker 1: good friends in New York City. So I'm just gonna
- 1:23:18Speaker 1: I'm gonna take it back. I'm gonna take you back
- 1:23:20Speaker 1: because I don't know who's gonna do what. But I
- 1:23:22Speaker 1: know one damn thing, y'all better get on the same
- 1:23:25Speaker 1: page about who's running and who everybody is gonna support,
- 1:23:30Speaker 1: because I do not have the stomach to deal with
- 1:23:33Speaker 1: you running. This one is running, that one's running, and
- 1:23:36Speaker 1: then it turns into a whole thing.
- 1:23:38Speaker 4: Correct, I'm not running for mayor, just to make that
- 1:23:41Speaker 4: real clear. But but the biggest thing I'm really interested
- 1:23:44Speaker 4: in we have incredible people, brilliant right hard in the
- 1:23:50Speaker 4: right place, doing incredible work all over the country. I
- 1:23:56Speaker 4: want to work on and figure out what does unity
- 1:23:59Speaker 4: and collaborateation really look like?
- 1:24:02Speaker 3: Like?
- 1:24:02Speaker 4: What if we figured out how to bring together? You know,
- 1:24:06Speaker 4: we've already done it and I've actually seen it happen,
- 1:24:10Speaker 4: And I want to point to the Woman's not to
- 1:24:13Speaker 4: trigger anything for Tamika, but the Woman's March movement at
- 1:24:18Speaker 4: that particular moment when Trump won.
- 1:24:23Speaker 3: And I think it was a day after it was
- 1:24:24Speaker 3: a mass march and it wasn't. I'm sorry I messed
- 1:24:28Speaker 3: it up.
- 1:24:28Speaker 1: The day after it was a call for a mass
- 1:24:30Speaker 1: mark got it. When did the big march happened?
- 1:24:36Speaker 3: Thank you?
- 1:24:37Speaker 4: But that moment and with Tamika and Linda and Carmen,
- 1:24:44Speaker 4: what was on was on was on breakfast that moment
- 1:24:51Speaker 4: that combined with when George Floyd was Lynch and everybody
- 1:24:56Speaker 4: in the street, that energy, that's that's what they think,
- 1:24:58Speaker 4: That's what I want on the harness, That's what we
- 1:25:02Speaker 4: got to hont That's because that moment, that's when I
- 1:25:06Speaker 4: first was introduced.
- 1:25:07Speaker 3: I knew Linda before the first introduced to Tamika, and
- 1:25:09Speaker 3: it was just like this is the ship we need.
- 1:25:12Speaker 3: Like that was the movement, right.
- 1:25:13Speaker 4: So part of my work in the next chapter is
- 1:25:16Speaker 4: to figure out how to bring that together, in addition
- 1:25:19Speaker 4: to the friends and supporters I've made across the country
- 1:25:23Speaker 4: as it relates to Palestine specifically, because this black Arab
- 1:25:31Speaker 4: South Asian, just Jewish justice and humanity unity that's possible.
- 1:25:38Speaker 4: I think, I think is the thing that's gonna that's
- 1:25:41Speaker 4: gonna defeat white supremacy and.
- 1:25:42Speaker 1: People white people who feel marginalized.
- 1:25:46Speaker 3: Body fighting for justice and humanity.
- 1:25:48Speaker 4: Like that's what we got to be on because I'm
- 1:25:50Speaker 4: really clear, and I think we all are really clear,
- 1:25:53Speaker 4: like white supremacy is real, alive and well we are
- 1:25:58Speaker 4: colonized people, uh, and our brains and in our spirits.
- 1:26:02Speaker 4: And my focus is on decolonization, liberation and collaboration, and
- 1:26:08Speaker 4: if we get that right, we change the world. So
- 1:26:11Speaker 4: I'm gonna just keep trying to change the world.
- 1:26:13Speaker 1: Congressman Jamal Bauman, my forever, forever Congress Yeah, absolutely, and
- 1:26:18Speaker 1: our friend, we love you, We thank you for joining
- 1:26:21Speaker 1: us today. You know, I thought we were getting ready
- 1:26:24Speaker 1: to talk about the rally, the MAGA rally, because you
- 1:26:27Speaker 1: said something earlier that uh, you know, we talked about
- 1:26:31Speaker 1: people who's educating our kids, and I was going to
- 1:26:33Speaker 1: say that at the MAGA rally it was people there
- 1:26:36Speaker 1: that educate your children right this past weekend. But our
- 1:26:40Speaker 1: conversation evolved even from what we thought when you came
- 1:26:44Speaker 1: through the door to be in so much more about
- 1:26:46Speaker 1: vision and I appreciate that.
- 1:26:48Speaker 3: Of course, let's keep it going.
- 1:26:49Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you for joining us.
- 1:26:52Speaker 2: Shout out to our brother Jamal Bowman, Congressman Jamaal Bowman
- 1:26:57Speaker 2: for always coming with vision, with enlightenment. We're just things
- 1:27:01Speaker 2: that we need to talk about and it's coming from
- 1:27:04Speaker 2: the hip, being real and raw. So there's always a
- 1:27:06Speaker 2: dope interview when we have him.
- 1:27:08Speaker 1: He's too too as you always say, like too masculine
- 1:27:14Speaker 1: or they want you to be like go along to
- 1:27:17Speaker 1: get along, I mean, And the public Advocate Jamini William
- 1:27:21Speaker 1: spoke about that a week before last in the interview,
- 1:27:24Speaker 1: about that masculine masculinity factor and how that in a
- 1:27:28Speaker 1: lot of ways is sort of missing from what is celebrated.
- 1:27:32Speaker 1: Not that they are not people within the Democratic Party
- 1:27:36Speaker 1: who are masculine, but what is celebrated, what is Yeah,
- 1:27:42Speaker 1: So I think in some ways that's something that has
- 1:27:46Speaker 1: been a strike against him, but it's always been what.
- 1:27:51Speaker 2: I love about him because when I hear him, it
- 1:27:54Speaker 2: gives me the energy that I want to give forward.
- 1:27:57Speaker 2: And he speaks the same way I would. He's weeks
- 1:28:00Speaker 2: matter of factly, you know, and he doesn't bite his tongue,
- 1:28:03Speaker 2: he doesn't care if you agree with him or disagree,
- 1:28:06Speaker 2: he's made a position and he's an educated individual, and
- 1:28:09Speaker 2: it doesn't come from a place of this emotion or irrationality.
- 1:28:13Speaker 2: It comes from a place of just knowing what you're
- 1:28:15Speaker 2: talking about and just being able to understand right from wrong,
- 1:28:20Speaker 2: being on the right side of history all the time.
- 1:28:22Speaker 2: So once again, to loot to Jamaal Bowman for his service,
- 1:28:28Speaker 2: you know, and his his authenticity.
- 1:28:32Speaker 1: And you know what, you gotta lose, lose for the
- 1:28:34Speaker 1: right reason. So I think that the way that he lost,
- 1:28:39Speaker 1: he was standing on principle. So that's the way you're
- 1:28:41Speaker 1: supposed to.
- 1:28:41Speaker 2: Be standing on principal. That brings me to my I
- 1:28:45Speaker 2: don't get it today. And there was an issue this week.
- 1:28:50Speaker 2: You know, I've seen Chris Cromoll has a new podcast
- 1:28:53Speaker 2: that he's doing, and well, I've never seen it before.
- 1:28:57Speaker 2: I didn't know he was doing the podcast, and he
- 1:28:59Speaker 2: was talking about Kamala Harris, you know, he was he
- 1:29:03Speaker 2: was receiving some flak about him being critical talking about
- 1:29:08Speaker 2: her in a way and a lot of people, you know,
- 1:29:11Speaker 2: were giving him feedback that he didn't really agree with,
- 1:29:14Speaker 2: and he chose to respond.
- 1:29:17Speaker 3: Now, I've never you know really ever had an issue
- 1:29:20Speaker 3: with Chris Cronmore.
- 1:29:21Speaker 2: I thought, usually he has a fair take, but I
- 1:29:23Speaker 2: think just watching his new podcast or the podcast that
- 1:29:26Speaker 2: I just found that he had, I've seen that his
- 1:29:30Speaker 2: take is taken a little bit of a turn.
- 1:29:32Speaker 1: You know.
- 1:29:33Speaker 2: I think he's way more unhinged. And a lot of
- 1:29:36Speaker 2: times when people are unhinged and they're not tied to networks,
- 1:29:38Speaker 2: you just actually get to hear exactly how they feel,
- 1:29:42Speaker 2: you know.
- 1:29:42Speaker 1: And Angela Rai spoke about when she talked about the
- 1:29:46Speaker 1: text message that she had with somebody on from CNN
- 1:29:52Speaker 1: and she felt disrespected.
- 1:29:56Speaker 3: I'm just well, I'm saying, you get I do kind
- 1:29:59Speaker 3: of remember that she did say something about that.
- 1:30:02Speaker 2: And so when I'm when I'm listening to him, you know,
- 1:30:06Speaker 2: there was the original podcast that they say that he
- 1:30:09Speaker 2: was speaking on. I was listening, I was like okay.
- 1:30:11Speaker 2: You know, at first, I was like, okay, I had
- 1:30:13Speaker 2: seen this statement on a lot of different pages about
- 1:30:17Speaker 2: what he said, so I was let me, I said,
- 1:30:19Speaker 2: let me listen, because I don't like to just take soundbites.
- 1:30:22Speaker 2: So I listened to the whole interview and I was like, okay,
- 1:30:25Speaker 2: I hear interview I didn't even hear the part that
- 1:30:27Speaker 2: I was talking that they were talking about. But this
- 1:30:29Speaker 2: was the prior interview that he originally did that people
- 1:30:32Speaker 2: were responding to, and in his response to people critique.
- 1:30:37Speaker 2: In his critique, he decided to make a statement talking
- 1:30:40Speaker 2: about Kamala and he stated that quote unquote, you people
- 1:30:46Speaker 2: didn't even want her, you know, and she's not the
- 1:30:50Speaker 2: black female Jesus, and Obama is not the black Jesus.
- 1:30:56Speaker 2: And I was so confused at this content text, and
- 1:31:00Speaker 2: when I'm listening to it, I'm like, what would make
- 1:31:02Speaker 2: him say that?
- 1:31:03Speaker 3: You know? So I put I responded.
- 1:31:06Speaker 2: I posted on my page like unfortunately, you know, when
- 1:31:09Speaker 2: you give people the opportunity to speak freely, you get
- 1:31:13Speaker 2: to see how they really feel, what they really think,
- 1:31:16Speaker 2: you know. And a lot of people came and WAT said, oh,
- 1:31:18Speaker 2: you need to hear the context, and I had already
- 1:31:20Speaker 2: heard the context.
- 1:31:21Speaker 3: I listened to the full interview.
- 1:31:22Speaker 2: Then I listened to the response, and he was he
- 1:31:25Speaker 2: was basically saying that they weren't above critique right, that
- 1:31:30Speaker 2: these individual But the racist part of it was you
- 1:31:34Speaker 2: saying that you people, first of all, you people is
- 1:31:37Speaker 2: a racist trope. We know what you people mean. It
- 1:31:39Speaker 2: means black people. It means pretty much your lesson, and
- 1:31:42Speaker 2: you're in this category. And then when he said she's
- 1:31:46Speaker 2: not the female black Jesus and Obama is not black Jesus,
- 1:31:51Speaker 2: that's directly to black people. Because if you're saying you people,
- 1:31:56Speaker 2: and then you say she because you don't need to
- 1:31:58Speaker 2: tell white people that she's not black Jesus because they
- 1:32:00Speaker 2: don't believe in black Jesus anyway. So you're not talking
- 1:32:03Speaker 2: to anybody else other than black people. So this was
- 1:32:06Speaker 2: a racist comment, and it showed that it was racist.
- 1:32:10Speaker 2: And there's no way that you can go around this being.
- 1:32:12Speaker 1: Racist, right Tabat Swan Bishop taverts Swan tore him up too. Yeah,
- 1:32:16Speaker 1: so same thing and he told Swan, oh, it's shameful
- 1:32:20Speaker 1: or something like that, and Swan ate him alive.
- 1:32:23Speaker 3: Yeah, and he tried to come into my DM.
- 1:32:26Speaker 2: So I wake up this morning and I see him
- 1:32:29Speaker 2: in my DM saying that he's an ally and I
- 1:32:33Speaker 2: got this wrong and it's shameful, and I said shameful.
- 1:32:37Speaker 2: I said, no, I didn't get this wrong. And if
- 1:32:39Speaker 2: you an allied, right, you would understand that you can't
- 1:32:44Speaker 2: use the term you people and then refer to her
- 1:32:47Speaker 2: as black female Jesus and refer to Obama as black
- 1:32:52Speaker 2: Jesus if you're talking to the Democrats, because this was
- 1:32:55Speaker 2: his position. I was talking to the Democrats. You know
- 1:32:57Speaker 2: you weren't talking to no Democrats, Chris. You know exactly
- 1:33:00Speaker 2: who you were speaking to. You know there's cold language.
- 1:33:03Speaker 2: You know exactly what you were talking about. If you
- 1:33:05Speaker 2: were allied, then you wouldn't know that those terms weren't
- 1:33:09Speaker 2: were off the table. You wouldn't know that you wouldn't
- 1:33:11Speaker 2: have to refer to them as black anything. Because Jesus
- 1:33:14Speaker 2: is Jesus. You didn't have to say to black Jesus.
- 1:33:16Speaker 3: Right.
- 1:33:16Speaker 2: You could have just said they're not Jesus Christ. She's
- 1:33:19Speaker 2: not Jesus, and he's not Jesus either. They're not above
- 1:33:22Speaker 2: somebody critiquing them, and people would have been able to
- 1:33:24Speaker 2: say whatever they wanted to say. But you made it
- 1:33:27Speaker 2: very clear that you were speaking to a black demographic.
- 1:33:30Speaker 2: And when you speak to a black demographic and you
- 1:33:32Speaker 2: call them you people, it's racist. It is a racist trope.
- 1:33:36Speaker 2: It's no way around it. And then when I gave
- 1:33:39Speaker 2: you the opportunity and I said, I took what you
- 1:33:42Speaker 2: said and if you made a mistake, then you could
- 1:33:45Speaker 2: as a man apologize, right, And then he came back
- 1:33:48Speaker 2: and said, no, I'm not going to apologize because I
- 1:33:51Speaker 2: said what I said and I didn't mean those what
- 1:33:54Speaker 2: you taking my world out of context and it's a shame,
- 1:33:57Speaker 2: and he continued to double down.
- 1:33:59Speaker 3: So what I don't understand. What I don't get is
- 1:34:03Speaker 3: how if.
- 1:34:04Speaker 2: You're an ally quote unquote, why would it make you
- 1:34:08Speaker 2: feel any lesson a way to apologize to people that
- 1:34:12Speaker 2: the black people that you insulted. Right, if you're an ally,
- 1:34:16Speaker 2: you would say okay, as a white man, it is
- 1:34:19Speaker 2: not my place to tell black people how they need
- 1:34:21Speaker 2: to feel about being insulted. As as a white man,
- 1:34:25Speaker 2: if I'm an ally of black people, then I should
- 1:34:28Speaker 2: acknowledge that I did something wrong to those black people.
- 1:34:31Speaker 2: I didn't ask you to do anything other than to
- 1:34:33Speaker 2: say that I apologize for a mistake that I made.
- 1:34:36Speaker 2: But that means that you didn't make a mistake, Chris,
- 1:34:38Speaker 2: because you refuse to apologize. So as a white man
- 1:34:42Speaker 2: not being willing to apologize for insulting and disrespecting black people,
- 1:34:46Speaker 2: you are not an ally. You are nowhere near ally,
- 1:34:49Speaker 2: And I need you to understand that because we don't
- 1:34:51Speaker 2: need those kind of allies. You can't be an ally
- 1:34:54Speaker 2: to me when you can't even acknowledge and respect that
- 1:34:58Speaker 2: you disrespected me. We need you to go home and
- 1:35:01Speaker 2: look at what allyship looks like, Chris and understand that
- 1:35:04Speaker 2: what you did is not allyship. It is disrespect and
- 1:35:06Speaker 2: it's just racist. And until you acknowledge that, until you
- 1:35:10Speaker 2: make amends for that, I'm going to double down and
- 1:35:14Speaker 2: make sure that you understand that the terms and the
- 1:35:17Speaker 2: words that you use were racist.
- 1:35:22Speaker 1: About that.
- 1:35:23Speaker 2: And with that said, we've come to the end of
- 1:35:26Speaker 2: another beautiful episode of TMO. Shout out to Jamal Bowman,
- 1:35:31Speaker 2: my forever Congressman. That's my guy, stand firm brother. We
- 1:35:36Speaker 2: always got you. Shout out to our fans for continuing
- 1:35:39Speaker 2: to keep us going, to making us number one in
- 1:35:42Speaker 2: this podcast business because we are definitely number one.
- 1:35:45Speaker 3: People that love us.
- 1:35:45Speaker 2: We truly appreciate you continue to follow us, Send us
- 1:35:49Speaker 2: what you need us to talk about, let us know
- 1:35:52Speaker 2: what guests you want to hear. We cannot wait to
- 1:35:54Speaker 2: get your feedback. We love you forever. I'm not gonna
- 1:35:58Speaker 2: always be right to me. Get the maverages and I
- 1:36:00Speaker 2: could always be wrong. We will both always and I
- 1:36:03Speaker 2: mean always, be authentic. We are your host of t
- 1:36:09Speaker 2: M I Tamika and my Song's information, truth, motivation and inspiration.
- 1:36:14Speaker 1: New name, New Energy SA