Latest / What We Talkin’ Bout This Time?! - A Nerdy Movie Podcast / 250 Years of 'Merica
Transcript
- PropJosh: Happy America Day, everybody. jason: Yeah. 7evenThirty: Ha ha ha PropJosh: I wanted to do this special episode about America. Yep, because there's a special holiday episode of what we talk about this time for the Fourth of July, America's birthday, two hundred and fifty year America's birthday. 7evenThirty: ⁓ low. jason: Wow. Wow. Wow. This is Josh's idea. 7evenThirty: Ha ha ha. jason: ⁓ okay. Two hundred and fifty years. So ⁓ my goodness. PropJosh: And I want to go through each year. 7evenThirty: ⁓ okay. jason: First of all, of course America was around before two hundred fifty years ago, like it was discovered then. Like there wasn't a a bunch of people. Yes. Yeah, they had a I mean, slaver slavery is older than America and lasted about a hundred years after the free. That's think about that. Seventeen seventy six was the emancipation no. PropJosh: Yeah, mean 'cause it was four hundred years of slavery. So mm slavery's way older than America. jason: No, no, no. The Declaration of Independence. Emancipation was eighteen sixty five. So about a hundred years after that. So the people that signed the the Declaration of Independence that were old enough to sign it was not alive when the Emancipation Proclamation was declared. Couldn't have been, right? I mean, it's a hundred years almost a hundred years later. So if they so they signed that declaration 7evenThirty: Mm. Mm-hmm. PropJosh: Right. Yeah. Yeah, exact yep. Yeah. jason: With their slaves holding up holding up the glasses of water and bringing them bringing them tea. 7evenThirty: Right. Exactly. PropJosh: Well that's what I wanna talk about. Why black folks get little All right, so but for real. jason: ⁓ goodness. Right. So Josh, you were saying 'cause you was talking about how we ⁓ we should celebrate America because we're Americans. PropJosh: Yeah, I wanna and this is for everybody because I seen both sides ⁓ get upset. ⁓ it's like you know, black people are Americans, right? Like the black, you know, we live here, we 'cause all right, yeah, they call us African American, but most of us have never been to Africa. So we are American and we have contribute a lot to this country. So we are not second hand citizens. And and I'm talking to black people as well, 'cause black folks always be like, when the fourth of July pop up, why are we celebrating? Well, 'cause we're Americans as well. You know, like I understand I mean, yes, this country has a lot of What's the word I'm looking for? Stains. jason: A lot of what? The blood on that flag is the blood, the blood the red from that blood, the red on the flag of America is the blood of my ancestors. 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. Exactly. ⁓ jason: That's what you were trying to say, Josh. And not the ancestors that were fighting for the freedom of the country. They were just trying to read. PropJosh: Yeah 7evenThirty: I think that yeah. PropJosh: All right. So I was digging. I was digging. I was digging for a bunch of different action figures. I was digging for all my Captain America's, all my American representation action figures, or whatever. For for a good reason. This is who America thinks they are, right? Captain America. That's who they we think we are, or whatever. And a lot of people say this is who we actually are, Homelander. But I think that's just part of it. jason: Yeah. Okay. All right. All right. Wow. PropJosh: I think the other part is this version. jason: Okay, okay, okay. PropJosh: Yeah. Sam Wilson as Captain America. jason: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right. PropJosh: ⁓ 7evenThirty: Yeah, John John John Jennings would probably say that Sam Yeah, John John Jennings would probably say, like, when it comes to comic books and imitation of life and stuff like that, like yeah, it's comics, but the themes represented in the comics I think is what what counts. Like, ⁓ jason: Elaborate. Why is why do you think it's ⁓ why do you think it's like that? PropJosh: Because I'm I'm glad we have a black Captain America. 7evenThirty: It's not just a inclusion of well, blacks can be Captain America too. It's more like no Captain America is black. And it's just like, you know what I'm saying? It's like the birth of a lot of cultures and subcultures that are defined as American cultures and subcultures and genres and and things like that. jason: Mm-hmm. Mm. 7evenThirty: were created by black folks and emulated and interpreted by white folks and made profited by white folks. But a lot of them cultures and stuff and subcultures was created by black folks. But you will call it American culture, but then like it's kinda like to to all right, so to address African American, the idea of African American. Technically genealogically ⁓ My genotype or whatever, you know, would would be like, you know, if if I could if I were to trace it back, I would more than likely trace back to an African ancestor from Africa. So there's where the African comes from. But by culture and by my history, my personal knowledge of everything, I'm American like a motherfucker. jason: Yeah. Mm-hmm. 7evenThirty: You know what I'm saying? Like you know, including the culture that I grasp so hard on. I love hip hop, I love blues, I love funk, I love jazz, all that I love rock and roll, all that shit is black as fuck. You know what I mean? ⁓ so I'm American and I'm black and ⁓ by by benealogically I'm African as well. jason: Mm-hmm. PropJosh: Mm-hmm. jason: Mm-hmm. 7evenThirty: You know what I'm saying? And so there's there's cultural things there's still like ⁓ jason: Yeah. 7evenThirty: spiritual things that I become curious about just in my upbringing that is rooted in Africa. You know what I'm saying? So it's like I can still call myself African American, but know that I'm American too, you know, or that that I'm American, period, not to, but period. You know what I'm saying? ⁓ so it's kinda like I I'm fine with being called black, I'm fine with being called African American, I'm fine with being called American, as long as it's in in jason: Yeah. PropJosh: Yeah. 7evenThirty: In a positive regard or in you know. Or even if it's just realistic, like, yo, you American, I'm watching you like hey brother, I understand. I'd be watching me too if I wasn't American. You know what I mean? I get it. 'Cause of that stain, that stigma. PropJosh: Ha ha ha. jason: Right. ⁓ uh-huh. ⁓ PropJosh: Ha ha ha. I just think that as ⁓ yeah, I just think that black people we should say the term American more often for us. jason: Yeah. I got it. 7evenThirty: Like if I'm if I'm in another country, yeah, I'm American. Like you can see that I'm black. You know what I'm saying? Like but ⁓ you know. PropJosh: And so Just you know, just think about like when the Olympics was on. Was that like last year or year before? That was year before when the Olympics was on. Everybody was rooting for America, you know. We didn't care what races and stuff, you know. We was like, Yeah, everybody was coming together and rooting for America, you know. jason: Yeah. 7evenThirty: Mm. jason: But you also know that most of the players in the Olympics were black. PropJosh: No, that's I'm saying. Suddenly we're all American 'cause we we got the best athletes. Playing a basketball in the Olympics suddenly is like, ⁓ yeah, yeah, black yeah, yeah, we're American. jason: It's like yeah. lot of it. Basketball, track, like most of the main sports. It's like, you know, ⁓ yeah, we blacks ⁓ black American. I I I I don't mind I mean I prefer black as a description. I mean I you know African Americans fine. I did in my DNA and ⁓ thirty three percent Nigerian I think sixteen ⁓ Benin and Togo ⁓ seven percent Ghanaian so PropJosh: Yeah. ⁓ 7evenThirty: Okay, that that explain yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. I can see now, Jim. Yeah, yeah, okay. jason: ⁓ so we got ten percent Cameroon. ⁓ and so I got a little bit of ⁓ 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. But that what's funny is that's what you have. Josh could do his DNA kit and it could come completely different. Because that's how genealogy genes are random. It don't matter that y'all both got the same parents. The way y'all genes came together at a at a random, right, at a random when when your cells come together to make you. jason: Right. That's what I got. It's different. PropJosh: That's weird though. Why would that happen? jason: Yeah. That is interesting. PropJosh: ⁓ okay. jason: Well the percentages could yeah, the percentage could have been different. 7evenThirty: It's a random combination of things. That's why everybody is completely fucking different. You know, that's why like me and Malcolm got the same parents. You can tell we're brothers, but we physically are completely different in a lot of ways. You know what I'm saying? You can tell in the face that we're brothers. But other than that, you maybe in the voice a little bit, but other than that, we have a completely random. jason: Yeah. That's an interesting point. Mm. That's true. That is so true. PropJosh: Yeah. jason: Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm. 7evenThirty: different set of pairings of genes. You know what I mean? So your DNA kit could come out fifty percent Nigerian and something, you know what I'm saying? Like or you know I mean it just depends. PropJosh: Yeah, that's true. jason: Mm-hmm. 7evenThirty: That's the interesting about science. jason: Yep. It is. It is. Marcus is a nerd. But yeah. ⁓ so I mean I don't mind ⁓ talking about America. I think there's a there's a quote from James Ballin that ⁓ I think makes a lot of sense about you can you can to call ourselves American but honor it. But he said ⁓ he was like, I love America. 7evenThirty: Fine. jason: more than any other country in the world. And exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. And so I mean that that's kind of how I feel. It's like I'm American all day, you know? and I'm not like I know I love and I I love learning about other cultures because that's part of that is part of the beauty of the best of America, honestly. 7evenThirty: Mm, mm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. PropJosh: Right. Mm-hmm. It is. jason: It's like the best of America is the beauty of a of of multiple cultures. Like that's part of the cool thing about even looking at the terrain, the terrain of America. 7evenThirty: Right. And respecting the fact that people are different. Like Yeah. PropJosh: Yeah. That's that's what it's supposed to be. jason: Yeah. But you go from like north, south, east, west, the terrain of America is the beauty of diversity. You know, you got green mountains and Rocky Mountains and Snowy Mountains all in the same country. Not a lot of countries have that diversity. You know, you got one state that could have a beach, a mountain, and and a desert. And you know, it's like Oregon and California. Yeah. So like on the West Coast, it's like you got Rocky Mountains, Snowy Mountains, Green Mountains. 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. PropJosh: Yep. We know about California. 7evenThirty: Yeah, okay. jason: And so I think there's something about that that the reflect that the best of America reflects that, hey, we're not the same. We're not ⁓ homogeneous. There's a beauty of the diversity. PropJosh: Well, I was gonna say, like speaking of that, like you can go to like San Francisco and have all the different cultures in the city itself. Like you got Chinatown, yeah, and you have like yeah, you have like a Mexican area, you have it's just a blend you have like a Indian area, all that stuff. Like it's all blended together. 7evenThirty: In one city, right? Mm-hmm. jason: Cultures like that. Yeah. Yeah. New York City is the same. 7evenThirty: But see, that's here's the thing. But New York so here's the thing. You just said. This is another reflection of America. Yeah, we got all these cultures here, but they're still in separate little boxes. You just said in San Francisco, and I can attest in New York. Yes, you have a black area, you have a Jewish area, you have a Hispanic area. jason: Mm-hmm. 7evenThirty: You have you see what I'm going? Like everybody still separated. Even we all just kind of sharing the same city, but everybody still be separated up. PropJosh: separated but it's it's more like a ⁓ it's not like a like you stay on your side. It's more like, hey, this is if you want to come to this area. 7evenThirty: It's not like that, but people yeah, but people genuinely grow group to to people that just by nature humans jason: Well, the best of America, the 7evenThirty: Group together in groups. Like you know what I'm saying? Like people who are like me, okay. ⁓ you know, just naturally, you naturally start to see a Chinatown over here. Or here's the black neighborhood where we pushed all the black people at. Here's the you know, Hispanic neighborhood, here's the Indian neighborhood. You know what I'm saying? They people tend to come together and like jason: Yeah. 7evenThirty: Do their resources? Well now with the we talking about America, the history of black folks group being put in the same area is a is a little bit different in my opinion. But jason: Yeah. Right. No, it's not it wasn't designed Yeah. 7evenThirty: But because of all those people, because of all these people together, you do end up by proxy having a melting pot happening. You know what I'm saying? Fusion foods and and markets and stuff where all these cultures kind of come together in the central meeting areas, you know what I'm saying? Like the downtown area, the uptown, you know, stuff, like you start to see the melting pot of stuff in America. You know what I mean? So jason: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, like Mm-hmm. Which I think I think somebody described ⁓ described ⁓ America more like a gumbo versus a melting pot. Just the idea that there there are so many distinct flavors. Yeah, maybe so. Cause like a ⁓ a melting pot, you kinda blend it in and it's its own it's a little new thing. But the gumbo, there's like so many distinct different things that actually has the characteristics of that thing. So I think that the best of America is when people can be themselves. 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. I think that was me and you talking. Mm-hmm. jason: And not assimilate to whatever someone else expects them. So I actually don't mind the distinct spaces, like you know, ⁓ those places where you can have that type of food, you know. You get the food, you get the you get the culture. And so I think it helps to to honor the culture, but I think that the beauty part is when we're able to do that well. The broken part of America is when you started to make a distinction of what's better and what's worse. 7evenThirty: Mm. I think it's cool though, 'cause you can get the the experience, you can go to this pocket. Yeah. PropJosh: Uh-huh. 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. jason: And then the disparity of economics and, you know, racism. So it's like which is the which is from the foundation of America. But, you know. 7evenThirty: Right. Right. 'Cause 'cause that's why that's why I be saying like that with black folks it works out differently than other people because when we try to have or anytime there's a area where it's like, okay, our black Wall Street or our black, you know, thriving pocket, some people come around fucking with. And you know what I'm saying? It's like, and we can't ha f fucking have nothing. jason: Yeah, yeah. Yep. They wanna blow it up. Bombin bombin' ham. Right, just blow everything up. 7evenThirty: Right, wanna blow it up or something. And and that's happened in several areas around the country. And so, you know, that's why that's what I mean, like right. jason: For decades, hundreds hundreds hundred years after slavery ended, they were c they were doing that stuff, you know? So it's like not even during slavery. Yeah, of course slavery was we stab establishing our own places in our own towns. Cause you got, I mean, of course you got Tulsa, then you got Rosewood, you got I mean, these are I don't think they made a movie about Tulsa yet, but you you got Rosewood, you got ⁓ and many towns we don't know about. So 7evenThirty: Exactly. Exactly. You know, so Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. jason: That they just blew up so much that they didn't get a record. PropJosh: We still still have sundown cities. 7evenThirty: Yeah. And I mean that's that does speak to that James Baldwin, what you just quoted, like per pe perpetually criticizing those who you love. If you truly do love your country that you that you know as home, which is America, then you should criticize it, call out the shit that needs fixing. You know what I'm saying? That's what you do for your loved ones. PropJosh: We still have. jason: Yeah, it's real. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. And I mean absolutely. PropJosh: On this one. This one thing I definitely want to say. All that stuff they that they would take away from us and basically and to this day, they still want to basically tell us that we're not Americans. And that's why I said we should say we are Americans. Don't let that take ⁓ Yeah, I'm talking about racist people. They don't want they they don't want us. They trying to Yeah. So they want to tell us, they want to keep us down and be like, no, we're Americans. It's like 7evenThirty: You know. Yeah, you should double double down, absolutely. jason: Who says that? 7evenThirty: He's just he's just saying like what they're doing, like just through action with the voting and all that shit and zoning. jason: ⁓ PropJosh: They don't wanna hear us say we are Americans too. That's why they do that to us. And I say we should keep saying no, we are Americans too. jason: I see what you're saying. No, that makes sense. Yeah. No, I think that's real. I because it's like you think about the great American fair or the American, whenever you hear people say we're American, you think about this specific type of American image. And it's not I say it just because I want you to push it in your mind. You know what I mean when I say it like that. 7evenThirty: Mm. Yeah. PropJosh: Right. You even had to say it that way. ⁓ Yeah. 7evenThirty: Yeah. jason: You know what I'm saying? You see it. You see it in your head. You see the people you hope. It's like we're American. So it's like, okay, that's that that's interesting. And they are. You know, like you said, Homelander, you know, that's that reflects America just as much as Sam Wilson does, actually, at the same time. PropJosh: Yeah. 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. PropJosh: Yeah, they that's what I'm saying. They both represent America. They actually both. Yeah, they do. jason: At the same time. 7evenThirty: Mm. jason: So yeah, I think that's that's but it's kind of like a homelander would say, No, Sam Wilson's not American, you know? And so you're saying no, like you're saying, say, no, yeah, I'm American and I'm more I'm I've only lived well, I've yeah, I lived in France for three months, but like I've only lived in America, you know? Like I love Mississippi's my like Mississippi's where my roots. I mean, we got hundreds of years of of of so you know, acres of soil. I was born on the land. PropJosh: Mm-hmm. 7evenThirty: Sure. jason: Of my great grandparents, you know what I'm saying? Like I was like I'm literally from Mississippi. I'm as Mississippi as you gonna get. And I think that's something about the culture too that I learned because even being black in America, there was years where I was trying to figure out what it means to be black and thinking that I wasn't black enough, you know, that type. It's like, okay, and thinking about that same idea is like, am I American? Like, yeah, I'm a hundred percent. It's like it's in my roots, you know? ⁓ I'm black. 7evenThirty: Yeah. Mm-hmm. PropJosh: Mm-hmm. jason: Even and all of that is me and I wanna bring all that to the table and be unapologetic. 7evenThirty: Mm-hmm. PropJosh: Exactly. 7evenThirty: My my favorite ⁓ 'cause James Baldwin be killing it with the with the quotables. My favorite one from him, I I had to pull it up. ⁓ to be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. jason: Man, he's good. Uh-huh. I mean, that's so real. Dude's timeless. 7evenThirty: And that's like when I ⁓ John Jennings did a shout out John Jennings. He was just here, but I wasn't able to see him. ⁓ my old ⁓ design ⁓ professor. But ⁓ he works in the comic industry. He he was talking about the Hulk. And when he thinks about the Hulk, in his mind, his mind just connects it to that quote. You know, ⁓ like jason: Mm. ⁓ PropJosh: Hmm. 7evenThirty: Like Banner, he can relate to Banner as a black man, just always just trying to hold it in, just trying to hold in this rage. Every day. Just going out in the world. PropJosh: Mmm. Yeah. That's why he said in Avengers, the secret you must you wanna know my secret cap? I'm always angry. 7evenThirty: I'm always angry. Right. I'm always angry. I just know I just learned how to keep it at bay. You know what I'm saying? And you know, so I think that's yeah. Mm-hmm. jason: Mm. But that's that was that James Bottom quote's accurate. Yeah, that's real. PropJosh: So yeah, that ⁓ that's what I have to say about it. ⁓ Happy Fourth of July ⁓ 7evenThirty: Yeah, man. jason: Okay. All right. 7evenThirty: Stay safe out there. Why thank you, thank you, thank you, nigger, nigger. ⁓ jason: Happy birthday. Happy birthday, America, Merica. That's what it sounds like. PropJosh: Why thank you, nigger. Give me give me a hug, nigger. That's that's America. jason: ⁓ good night.