Speaker 1: Natively and pot is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Nobody knows the troubles I've seen.
Speaker 3: Welcome Home to That was pretty terrible. I had dreams
Speaker 3: coming out to an audience he's a hater, and that
Speaker 3: was not what I expected. I wanted people standing up,
Speaker 3: walk off stage real quick, Andrew, I got a court
Speaker 3: walk off stage.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, this is the compromise.
Speaker 5: We're actually going to bring on a third special host
Speaker 5: tonight and maybe y'all give that person a little more love.
Speaker 5: But let me let me just say before we get
Speaker 5: too far into this one, it is a complete pleasure,
Speaker 5: joy privileged to be in the great state of Georgia.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 5: My mother lives in Georgia, was born in Georgia. Down
Speaker 5: in South Georgia. Valdosta is where she's at. Uh, but
Speaker 5: raised in this area called Clydesville. I actually don't know
Speaker 5: if it's Clyettesville, the Clydesville.
Speaker 6: You know they're not in here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, But the point is is that they are watching Bacari,
Speaker 5: which a rude ass. Anyway, I just wanted to say
Speaker 5: we are down one of our co hosts today, Angela
Speaker 5: Raie and she wanted to be here with everything in
Speaker 5: her But the day before yesterday, her father had to
Speaker 5: go to the emergency room and they discovered some issues
Speaker 5: that required her him going into surgery today. And so
Speaker 5: she's back in Seattle with her family, tending to her parents.
Speaker 4: But right now and touch.
Speaker 5: And agree, we will simply invoke God have your way,
Speaker 5: and we know what will be perfect.
Speaker 6: Man man, amen, amen, amen. I love that. So one
Speaker 6: of the things that.
Speaker 3: We remember about Angela most importantly is that she actually
Speaker 3: thought that Florida and M University.
Speaker 6: Isn't that what it's called.
Speaker 4: No, sir, you wouldn't know.
Speaker 3: And Morehouse College had a rivalry, and what I kept
Speaker 3: telling me, we didn't have a rivalry there.
Speaker 6: Val I do want.
Speaker 3: Anyway, So I want everyone who's in the room who
Speaker 3: actually went to an HBC, you just to clap really
Speaker 3: quickly so people know that you all are in here.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 3: And for everybody else who didn't go to an HBC.
Speaker 3: You will go to the next topic, which is to
Speaker 3: bring on. What we want to do is make sure
Speaker 3: that everybody knows that we have a host who uh
Speaker 3: was She actually was here before I was.
Speaker 4: She sure was a four hundred episodes.
Speaker 3: For a four hundred episodes, and there is a little
Speaker 3: thing on Wikipedia right now this says she left because
Speaker 3: I came. So I'm glad that we are going to
Speaker 3: be able to address that today. But she was phenomenal
Speaker 3: in MSNBC. She's a New York Times best selling author.
Speaker 3: She has another book out right now, none other than
Speaker 3: Tiffany Kraus.
Speaker 4: Welcome Home to the Natives.
Speaker 2: Leaning on the podcast, face everybody.
Speaker 5: Did you can we get a thank you for all
Speaker 5: the priming we did for your standing ovation in the room.
Speaker 6: I know they ain't even clap for us.
Speaker 1: I mean after Bacari kicked me off the podcast, that
Speaker 1: you can do.
Speaker 4: There's that.
Speaker 3: I just told everybody I was Beyonce and that we
Speaker 3: had a pharaoh, and we realized who Pharaoh was as
Speaker 3: soon as she left the group.
Speaker 4: I didn't even know.
Speaker 6: Who Pharaoh was.
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm gonna say this is the d I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just give a little brief lesson on the dangers of
Speaker 1: AI because on my last show I said this being silly,
Speaker 1: I was like, well, when Bakari joined, he said, he's
Speaker 1: Beyonce and there can only be one Beyonce in this group,
Speaker 1: and so he put it in his contract that I
Speaker 1: had to leave when he came. Because AI cannot detect
Speaker 1: sarcasm when you google dwhy did Tiffany leave native Land?
Speaker 1: That was the answer that came up.
Speaker 6: Yes, it came up.
Speaker 1: People wouldn't see me out and they were like, gird,
Speaker 1: can't believe Bakari, And I was like me either, me either.
Speaker 6: So I have haters I didn't even know.
Speaker 5: But know the good news is you had haters before,
Speaker 5: but now they have a reason, Bakari to hate all
Speaker 5: you think. No serious note, I also know that we
Speaker 5: have some maybe less famous people to you to the
Speaker 5: audience here, but very famous to me. My dad's sister,
Speaker 5: my aunt Patricia Gilham Sam's is here with my cousin
Speaker 5: La Laura and Blake and Sage and missus Sam. So
Speaker 5: I just want to thank them because I am because
Speaker 5: you are.
Speaker 1: So can I give a quick shout out? You must
Speaker 1: please A dear, dear, dear friend of mine who is
Speaker 1: now mister popular in Atlanta. But Joelan Martin is a
Speaker 1: representative with Remy Martin and he I've known him my
Speaker 1: entire life. He is my family.
Speaker 4: Oh I mean remy family.
Speaker 1: Oh Remy Martin Gartree roomy for everybody. He is here somewhere,
Speaker 1: I think somewhere in the back table. But he has
Speaker 1: known me my whole life since I was fifteen. So
Speaker 1: when you see him doing promoting events out for Remy Martin,
Speaker 1: show him some love. Thank you, Joelan, wherever you are.
Speaker 6: We are nothing without all of you all.
Speaker 3: Absolutely amazing thing is when when black folks try to
Speaker 3: do things in black spaces, it becomes really really interesting sometimes.
Speaker 3: And so on a It's what night, Tuesday, on a
Speaker 3: Tuesday night for all of you all to be here,
Speaker 3: I just want to say that with ay tickets. My
Speaker 3: mom and dad would always tell me the two most
Speaker 3: important words in the English language are the words thank you,
Speaker 3: and they're not nearly said enough. And so before we
Speaker 3: begin tonight's pod, I just want to simply say thank you,
Speaker 3: thank you for your time, and thank you for your treasure.
Speaker 3: And in the words of the great American poet Dwayne
Speaker 3: Carter also known as Lil Wayne, we ain't shit without y'all,
Speaker 3: and so thank you so much.
Speaker 6: For all like you all being here.
Speaker 3: Y'all have a seat, so we actually one of the
Speaker 3: things we want to talk about first is and one
Speaker 3: of the things since Tiffany is here is the first
Speaker 3: I called it the five and a half year point
Speaker 3: and Andrew and I got into a fight in the
Speaker 3: car on the way over here because it fam they
Speaker 3: don't know how to do math, but you're a joke.
Speaker 6: Five and a half years.
Speaker 3: Of Donald Trump, and I wanted to hear because many
Speaker 3: people don't realize like that, that's been five and a
Speaker 3: half years of consistently, every single day just being beat
Speaker 3: down and put upon by the news that's coming.
Speaker 5: Before you go. I want to defend my math. First
Speaker 5: of all, it hasn't been a five consistent years. Oh
Speaker 5: my god, it was broken up by four years of Biden.
Speaker 5: But really, the thought I had was Donald Trump one
Speaker 5: point zero has turned out to be He's got all
Speaker 5: the awfulness that was there the first time, but now
Speaker 5: he has the mechanisms, the levers of the government. The
Speaker 5: people who are willing to be sick aphantic committed simply
Speaker 5: to him and not to the Constitution, not to their olds,
Speaker 5: not to the country on its two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 4: And so I think two point oh.
Speaker 5: Trump is exceptionally more dangerous because he's he is I
Speaker 5: think there is a mental situation that that needs to
Speaker 5: be worked out. I think there is some issue of
Speaker 5: aging just ohd. But more importantly, now it's not just old,
Speaker 5: it's old and henre and more than that, dangerous when
Speaker 5: you're so hateful and at his court, he's hateful and
Speaker 5: so now that he doesn't have to care about public
Speaker 5: opinion anymore, I think the next two years, Donald Trump
Speaker 5: now a deer in the headlights, with Democrats hopefully winning
Speaker 5: back control. Dictators before they die, do their most extreme work,
Speaker 5: their most dangerous work, their most terrifying work. And so
Speaker 5: I just think we ought to prepare ourselves for what's
Speaker 5: still to come, because if Democrats flipped the House and
Speaker 5: the Senate, y'all, we got another thing coming up with
Speaker 5: this president, he's gonna he's going to take action and
Speaker 5: ask questions later.
Speaker 3: So thank you for showing us how you did math
Speaker 3: and narrator, he did not show up.
Speaker 4: I did do math five.
Speaker 3: But what I would what I wanted to do is
Speaker 3: ask Tiffany, like over the last year and a half,
Speaker 3: I mean, we My dad always says the difference between
Speaker 3: Donald Trump and Richard Nixon is that Richard Nixon had
Speaker 3: shame and Donald Trump has none, all right, And so
Speaker 3: what over the last what are the highlights and low
Speaker 3: lights over the last year and a half, because we
Speaker 3: both of y'all, that's what I want to know. What
Speaker 3: have you seen that has shocked the conscience? What have
Speaker 3: you seen that's been like hmmm? And what do you
Speaker 3: look forward to over the next year and a half
Speaker 3: before we get to the elections or half a year
Speaker 3: before we get into the next election cycle.
Speaker 1: So I think the highlight has been the unmasking. I
Speaker 1: think there's not a lot of surprise to us. We've
Speaker 1: always known and this is not anything new to the country.
Speaker 1: I hate when I hear people say this is not
Speaker 1: who we are, this is not America. It's actually pretty consistent.
Speaker 1: Even a modest student of American history understands how consistent
Speaker 1: it is. The challenge, though I have kind of putting
Speaker 1: this in the highlight, is it has tapped into our
Speaker 1: imagination in a lot of ways because I hear you
Speaker 1: Andrew like, oh, let the Democrats take control again. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'm on that anymore. You know,
Speaker 1: I am not too keen to save something that never
Speaker 1: really served us in the first place.
Speaker 6: And that's not what It's not.
Speaker 1: The Democratic Party, but it is democracy itself because Donald
Speaker 1: Trump was elected through a democratic system. When Roe was overturned,
Speaker 1: that happened through a democratic system. So when you're navigating
Speaker 1: this space with people whose beliefs are rooted in your
Speaker 1: oppression and destruction, I don't know how we coexist with
Speaker 1: those people in a democratic society. Now, obviously this means
Speaker 1: we have to go out and fight on every front. So, yes,
Speaker 1: we have to go out and vote, Yes we have
Speaker 1: to go out in canvas. Yes we got to write
Speaker 1: a check when we can. But I wonder, okay, so
Speaker 1: if Democrats get control, then what we gonna do with it?
Speaker 1: Because you see now never Trumpers, well named never Trumpers,
Speaker 1: posting things like abolish ice. Now, there was a wing
Speaker 1: of the Democratic Party when that was happening. They didn't
Speaker 1: like that. And so now when you see never Trumper's this,
Speaker 1: and certain people in the Democratic Party, it is appalling.
Speaker 1: I am pissed off about it because you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: so it wasn't such a radical idea, It wasn't so
Speaker 1: bad when we were out there screaming this on the streets.
Speaker 1: I think in the Democratic Party, you still see the
Speaker 1: suppression of black women and other black voices when it
Speaker 1: comes to who's getting a contract to help you reach community,
Speaker 1: community validators, when it comes to who's getting backed, when
Speaker 1: it comes to who they think is a viable candidate.
Speaker 1: And as Black women, I have to say, we are
Speaker 1: so tired of that shit. Right now. It feels like
Speaker 1: we are still begging to be heard, begging to lead
Speaker 1: in a space that routinely mutes our voices and dismisses us.
Speaker 1: So looking at all the lows of Donald Trump, it
Speaker 1: has pierced for me something in my spirit. Where I
Speaker 1: look at what's happening, nothing is a surprise because we
Speaker 1: already saw it's really to correct both, y'all, math it's
Speaker 1: been ten years, because he came on the scene in
Speaker 1: sixteen and has been a terror ever since. And so
Speaker 1: when I look at there's no surprise, and I look
Speaker 1: at this isn't I'm not a Kamala Harris Sika fan.
Speaker 1: But she was a well qualified candidate, the most qualified candidate.
Speaker 1: And when I look at you saw this half witted
Speaker 1: idiot and said I would rather vote for him than her,
Speaker 1: it makes me question, y'all really hate us, You really
Speaker 1: hate us, So I'm a little disheartened and heartbroken. So
Speaker 1: I don't really have highlights other than like, I don't
Speaker 1: know y'all in this room, but I know every single
Speaker 1: last one of y'all in this room, and so I'm
Speaker 1: blessed to be part of a community because where I
Speaker 1: see y'all, I feel safe, and I think this environment
Speaker 1: has highlighted that for me more than anything.
Speaker 5: I don't applause to that because I don't know that
Speaker 5: I have a point of disagreement about your analysis on
Speaker 5: where the country has failed. But in two hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty years, a country, to quote angela ride that was
Speaker 5: built by us for free, is not one that we
Speaker 5: should just let folks gallivant around and celebrate and take
Speaker 5: no part in appreciating the role that black folks have
Speaker 5: contributed to bending the arc of justice a little more
Speaker 5: our way. And while it's not perfect, it's absolutely not perfect.
Speaker 5: It'd be hard to wake up doing this work, working
Speaker 5: every day in a system that yes, rejects you, doesn't
Speaker 5: like you, figures out ways to create quicksand for every
Speaker 5: step that we take. But there are wrinkles in this
Speaker 5: thing where we've seen moments where we have been able
Speaker 5: to thrive.
Speaker 4: Where we can think long enough to just take a.
Speaker 5: Deep breath and say, who, I'm so glad that this
Speaker 5: isn't yesterday, but I'm still hopeful that tomorrow will be better.
Speaker 4: I know that I rejoice in.
Speaker 5: The fact that coming from where I came from, with
Speaker 5: the my mother and my father and the way they
Speaker 5: had to work, and the way I in which I
Speaker 5: saw their lifestyles rejected, and then to have a son
Speaker 5: go on and be the first of their kids to
Speaker 5: graduate from high school and then go on to college
Speaker 5: and compete for the highest office in the land in Florida.
Speaker 4: I know that there are steps.
Speaker 5: We didn't get there, but there's steps, and there's cracks,
Speaker 5: and their folks will come by and us and do better.
Speaker 5: What I'm hopeful for about twenty twenty six is that
Speaker 5: I'm not being a cheerleader for the Democrats. But what
Speaker 5: I do want is somebody who's going to put handcuffs
Speaker 5: on the Trump administration based off of the lawlessness that.
Speaker 4: They exhibited over these last four years.
Speaker 5: Every candidate who is running for office, we have to
Speaker 5: ask them, because Democrats are terribly afraid of saying, oh,
Speaker 5: we're gonna impeach and oh, we're going to investigate because
Speaker 5: they're afraid they'll lose Republicans if they say we're going
Speaker 5: to hold them accountable. But you cannot get my vote,
Speaker 5: I will show up at a poland I will vote
Speaker 5: at blank ballot if I can't hear from you that
Speaker 5: you believe one hundredth one thousand percent in account of
Speaker 5: and these next two years must be committed to holding
Speaker 5: these people accountable. If we don't do it, y'all, if
Speaker 5: they don't in Congress, lock some people up, and there
Speaker 5: are a lot of them to be locked up.
Speaker 4: If they don't claw back some.
Speaker 5: Of the money, they'll monuments called clause where the president
Speaker 5: has taken just the grift. His family's getting richer and
Speaker 5: richer by the billions. Well, everything that we have to
Speaker 5: go and pay for in a grocery store costs more money.
Speaker 5: They're over there, his son don't even work for the government,
Speaker 5: is negotiating a peace treaty on the behalf of who
Speaker 5: And we wonder why the peace treaties keep failing. Then
Speaker 5: the president comes out and makes a positive statement and
Speaker 5: the markets go crazy and they get another winfall of money.
Speaker 5: So I'm just saying if folks don't go to jail,
Speaker 5: that's how I could be. I'm not a Democrat and
Speaker 5: two twenty eight, but as if we don't lock some
Speaker 5: people up.
Speaker 3: I hear you, and I think that I'm a little
Speaker 3: bit more firm than both of you guys in my stands,
Speaker 3: not saying that you're wrong, because I would just footnote
Speaker 3: both of the things that you all say.
Speaker 6: But elections are about choices. I don't I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't think people fully grasp but that when you
Speaker 3: go to that ballot box and most elections you have
Speaker 3: an A or a B. Right, And I know that
Speaker 3: the weariness that we have is that black folk in
Speaker 3: this room, regardless of where we come from or our
Speaker 3: plot in life, are usually voting to mitigate harm. Of course,
Speaker 3: that's that is how we vote, That's how we approach voting, right,
Speaker 3: I mean, And that's an unfortunate stance. One of one
Speaker 3: of the things that I've always told people is that
Speaker 3: one of one of my goals in life is to
Speaker 3: make sure that black folks can get out of out of.
Speaker 6: Saying the word survive and begin to say the word thrive.
Speaker 3: Like that's where I want us to be and I
Speaker 3: recognize the difficulty because Tiffany articulated that, like I don't
Speaker 3: have and I call names and because I don't care,
Speaker 3: but I don't have the utmost faith in the King Jefferies, right,
Speaker 3: I just he doesn't for me. It doesn't when I
Speaker 3: take a shower at night and I'm in this singing
Speaker 3: Joe Deasy to show to after party in the hotel,
Speaker 3: like I'm.
Speaker 6: Not thinking about how y'all don't know that album next next.
Speaker 3: Okay, anyway, so I'm not thinking about how King Jefferies
Speaker 3: is going to take me to the Promised Land.
Speaker 6: Like that's not that's not my my goal.
Speaker 5: On line, I don't think we should be by the
Speaker 5: way b I think we make a mistake when we
Speaker 5: keep casting individuals but are safe.
Speaker 6: But see, my goal is different. But my goal is different.
Speaker 3: I don't I don't have a Messiah complex, which is
Speaker 3: what a lot of black folks have. And I'm talking
Speaker 3: to us, like a lot of us have this complex
Speaker 3: where we're waiting on the next great We're waiting on
Speaker 3: Barack Obama like democrats, Black folk, we had this thing
Speaker 3: where we're waiting on Barack Obama, waiting on JFK. Worriiting
Speaker 3: on this person like a codal personality. I'm not waiting
Speaker 3: on that. My goal is very simple because I firmly
Speaker 3: believe that every ounce of change we've ever had in
Speaker 3: this country has been because of black blood that flowed
Speaker 3: through the streets. And when I say that, I'm talking
Speaker 3: about like sixty four to sixty five Voting Rice Act
Speaker 3: is because white people were able to see us get
Speaker 3: beat on the Edmon Pettus Bridge.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: The sixty eight Fair Housing Act is all because LBJ
Speaker 3: had to do something with black folk because they saw
Speaker 3: King get assassinated. In South Carolina, we didn't have a
Speaker 3: conversation about the Confederate flag until nine people, including my
Speaker 3: friend Clym, were killed in a church.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 3: You don't have a conversation about criminal justice reform unless
Speaker 3: you have Danella Fraser, black woman seventeen years old, takes
Speaker 3: her camera out and sees George Floyd with a knee
Speaker 3: in the back of his neck for over nine minutes.
Speaker 3: So I'm very cognizant of the fact that the price
Speaker 3: for change for black people in this country is really,
Speaker 3: really high. And what I'm trying to do with my
Speaker 3: life is dry that cost down and so that's how
Speaker 3: I kind of look at the political spectrum, like what
Speaker 3: is going to make Sadie and Stokely have to not
Speaker 3: pay what Abraham Lincoln call kind of the the the
Speaker 3: ultimate price of our angels in order to have the
Speaker 3: change that they deserve. And so I'm just trying to
Speaker 3: cost drive the cost of change for black folk down.
Speaker 3: And I think that that is why I see it
Speaker 3: more clear eyed in terms of the alternatives we have
Speaker 3: at the ballot box while trying to hold Democrats accountable.
Speaker 3: For me, it's a very easy choice under most circumstances.
Speaker 5: For a lot of people, is not an easy choice
Speaker 5: when they compare that My life was in heale before,
Speaker 5: it's been inhale through Democrats, and I'm not sure what's
Speaker 5: going to change after them.
Speaker 4: And for the.
Speaker 5: First time, I'm prepared to lean a little bit in
Speaker 5: into that reality that a lot of folks lives, they
Speaker 5: don't don't experience tangible at home changes in their lives,
Speaker 5: meaning it didn't get radically better.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, let me just finish this one.
Speaker 5: It didn't get radically better when Democrats were in charge
Speaker 5: of the House, Senate and the presidency. We still were
Speaker 5: mitigating against harm because the political climate didn't create room.
Speaker 3: For we webs because you didn't get a single payer system.
Speaker 3: No still have you still have people who you still
Speaker 3: have for example, you still have rural health care systems
Speaker 3: that are able to thrive. You still have to get it.
Speaker 3: Who are able to be on their healthcare to their
Speaker 3: the age of twenty six, I get it. There are
Speaker 3: women in this room that had C sections and those
Speaker 3: were considered to be pre existing conditions and they were
Speaker 3: excluded from getting health care that now can get health
Speaker 3: care because of what we now call Obamacare, they call
Speaker 3: the Affordable Care Act.
Speaker 5: Right, but the a lot of things that we often
Speaker 5: give them from Washington is not what they are actually
Speaker 5: asking for. So we've got We've seen people who send
Speaker 5: millions or billions from down from the federal government, and
Speaker 5: the folks say.
Speaker 4: I didn't need a check, I needed a job. I
Speaker 4: wanted the opportunity.
Speaker 5: I needed you simply to take your foot off my
Speaker 5: neck and open the door and I can go in
Speaker 5: and do the work. Most black men I was talking
Speaker 5: to during these elections, including mine.
Speaker 4: Was like Gillowians, and you for no handout. We ain't
Speaker 4: never got no handout.
Speaker 5: They were putting their shoulder to the wheel day after day,
Speaker 5: understanding that they had to put sweat, equity, body, ancestral
Speaker 5: equity into getting just a thing out of it. I'm
Speaker 5: prepared this election to simply say, you mentioned you will vote,
Speaker 5: that there's a time and a season for everything, and
Speaker 5: I think this may not, in twenty six be the
Speaker 5: season where we hear Democrats cast incredible visions for what
Speaker 5: they're going to do over the next two years for
Speaker 5: the country.
Speaker 4: Because they can't do it.
Speaker 5: Donald Trump will still be president and he can steal
Speaker 5: veto I don't need that from them for twenty six.
Speaker 5: I want you to reconcile the terra that has been
Speaker 5: wrought on all of us over these last several years
Speaker 5: of this administration, hold people accountable, slow this man down
Speaker 5: and the damage that he is causing. And in twenty
Speaker 5: twenty eight, if you're running for president, vision cast tell
Speaker 5: me what your your hope's highest ambitions and dreams are.
Speaker 6: I just think that's such.
Speaker 1: A I hear you. I appreciate the point. I don't disagree.
Speaker 1: I just think it's for both of you all. It
Speaker 1: feels like such a low bar for all that we
Speaker 1: have done, and.
Speaker 6: Bar is in hell right now.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. Hey, that's what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: I'm just done with that low bar. Like you're saying, like, oh,
Speaker 1: can we have a society where we don't have to
Speaker 1: make a blood sacrifice for change? And you're saying, you know, can.
Speaker 4: All you can do is be breathing?
Speaker 1: And I got you right, But like you're saying, can
Speaker 1: they lock up some of the Trump people? And that
Speaker 1: seems like the most basic shit of all.
Speaker 4: That's what It's going to be the hardest thing they.
Speaker 1: Do, even if it's the hardest thing they do, though,
Speaker 1: Like my politics are not Democrat, my politics are Black,
Speaker 1: and I'm really exhausted with trying to convince a party
Speaker 1: that we disproportionately uphold of our humanity. And you talked
Speaker 1: about Abraham Lincoln. Another thing Abraham Lincoln said is after enslavement,
Speaker 1: he was like, you know what, maybe we can't live
Speaker 1: together like we we y'all ain't never gonna forgive what
Speaker 1: we did to y'all, and y'all not gonna ever forgive
Speaker 1: us for what we did. And I'm starting to let me.
Speaker 1: I'll just give you two seconds. See what I can't
Speaker 1: get into minutes.
Speaker 4: To finish my point.
Speaker 1: The point is he's like, maybe we can't live together.
Speaker 1: And so I have been bearing witness for my entire
Speaker 1: forty seven years. Y'all supposed to gat a good girl.
Speaker 3: I've never I have never say the number I got
Speaker 3: thirty years, last.
Speaker 1: One of these forty seven years, and my entire forty
Speaker 1: seven years. And I know it's people older than me
Speaker 1: who have forgot more than I know, seeing terror, seeing
Speaker 1: our blood spill, and I just have not seeing a
Speaker 1: space where we can coexist peacefully. Like I'm not. I'm
Speaker 1: out of the business of trying to change hearts and minds.
Speaker 1: You know I don't. And you know, Bakari, like when
Speaker 1: I'm the times I'm at CNN, don't make fucking small
Speaker 1: talk with me. Don't turn to me during the commercial break.
Speaker 1: I don't give a damn where you're oldest, think about
Speaker 1: going to college, or where y'all going on summer vacation.
Speaker 1: You here advocating for some bullshit that's rooted in people
Speaker 1: shooting a mom in the face and a nurse in
Speaker 1: the back. Don't say shit to me. That's how I feel,
Speaker 1: And so I'm angry right now. Don't tell me you
Speaker 1: an ally show me. We'll let you know if you
Speaker 1: an ally show me what you're doing. So I'm not
Speaker 1: so aligned to say, oh, let's get out there and
Speaker 1: elect more Democrats, because a lot of times what they
Speaker 1: say is I can win those Trump voters. I can
Speaker 1: reach across the aisle, my good friend. Don't tell me that.
Speaker 1: Tell me how you're gonna dance with the one who
Speaker 1: brung you. Tell me how you gonna keep me inspired
Speaker 1: to get out. And every single time they walk in
Speaker 1: the middle of the road on APAX, they walk in
Speaker 1: the middle of the road, on the genocide, they walk
Speaker 1: in the middle of the road on they are deplorable people.
Speaker 1: They are racist, vile people who uphold this man under
Speaker 1: the guise of Christianity. And I'm just exhausted with it.
Speaker 1: So I'm not saying don't vote. Yeah, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: out and vote and do everything. If mid terms happen,
Speaker 1: we will go out and show up there. But no, no, no,
Speaker 1: because I think this is an important point. You say
Speaker 1: they gonna happen.
Speaker 6: They are everybody.
Speaker 1: Seems to be waiting for some invisible line to be
Speaker 1: crossed with Donald Trump, because it is totally behind us.
Speaker 1: So the idea that we're taking for granted that midterms
Speaker 1: will happen, Maybe some form of midterms will happen. Will
Speaker 1: it be free and fair elections? I don't know, Or
Speaker 1: could it be that there's some sort of thing that happens,
Speaker 1: a terrorist attack. It's too dangerous for us to have
Speaker 1: mid terms. So he's gonna say, Nope, ain't no voting.
Speaker 1: The more that we go along under the naivete of
Speaker 1: this is what we've always known, then that's.
Speaker 6: More dangerous for us.
Speaker 1: We have to be wise that some shit is gonna go.
Speaker 6: We need to be prepared.
Speaker 3: Folk have always been under the guys in the reality
Speaker 3: that some shit is going to go down. I mean,
Speaker 3: we come from a people where our grandparents in this
Speaker 3: room literally had to count the number of jellybeans in
Speaker 3: a jar in order to be able to cast a ballot.
Speaker 3: When I ran for office the first time in two
Speaker 3: thousand and six, this wasn't a long time ago, but
Speaker 3: in two thousand and six, we had white folk to
Speaker 3: get out and they actually cranked a salt off shotgun
Speaker 3: in front of the on three twenty one in Denmark,
Speaker 3: South Carolina and got out the car because I had
Speaker 3: a line of voters outside and they walked around their
Speaker 3: truck the entire day. So I am not Yeah, I
Speaker 3: believe that all the things you're saying are true. However,
Speaker 3: I also believe that there's nothing that we haven't overcome
Speaker 3: and should we have to is a totally different conversation
Speaker 3: because we all agree that the answer is we should not.
Speaker 3: I as like a random acide. I think, I don't
Speaker 3: know how many millennials are in the room, but you're
Speaker 3: not going to cheer to this, But I do think.
Speaker 3: I do think millennials are the first generation. Black Millennials
Speaker 3: are the first generation in American history to actually leave
Speaker 3: the country worse uh than the one that we inherit it.
Speaker 4: They haven't begun to make their mark in complete total.
Speaker 3: I don't know that well, I mean, unless we get
Speaker 3: on our horse right now, I think, I mean, how
Speaker 3: much more.
Speaker 6: First of all, we're forty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm glad.
Speaker 3: You know there there are generations before us. I mean
Speaker 3: every twenty six, but I mean every I mean every
Speaker 3: movement for change was led by young people. And all
Speaker 3: I'm saying is my analysis of where we are right
Speaker 3: now is pretty pretty desperate.
Speaker 6: Let me let's I actually.
Speaker 5: Think a lot of young people have been the ones
Speaker 5: holding Democrats accountable to your.
Speaker 4: Point on the general No, no, no, no, millennials gen.
Speaker 5: Z ors owe us a whole lot and we're and
Speaker 5: I'm part of the very tail end.
Speaker 3: So so let me let me ask you, but let
Speaker 3: me tell let the question so you can respond real quick.
Speaker 3: So what you're what you're I am saying that in
Speaker 3: our time frame of adulthood, like we've gone backwards.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but you're saying that millennials.
Speaker 4: No, I didn't tell you. That wasn't what you said.
Speaker 4: We have absolutely no, that's like fundamentally what I said.
Speaker 5: Yes, but millennials are not responsible for the transgression, is
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. We as a country have absolutely gone back. So,
Speaker 5: first of all, Barack Obama was president of the United
Speaker 5: States when Mitch McConnell.
Speaker 4: Decided to steal two US.
Speaker 5: Supreme Court seats that put a Supreme Court in place that,
Speaker 5: for the first time in American history, took rights away
Speaker 5: from people instead of giving them.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump became President of the United States, where many
Speaker 3: of our same friends were talking about. Donald Trump and
Speaker 3: Hillary Clinton were the lesser of two evils.
Speaker 5: And many forty four to sixty five year old black
Speaker 5: men were voting the wrong way at that time and
Speaker 5: in marginal ways.
Speaker 4: We lost ground in very pivotal stume, not because of it,
Speaker 4: on you were blaming.
Speaker 6: What all I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Is is that we are literally like in heroically like objectively.
Speaker 6: It's literally, it's it's an objective fact. We are the
Speaker 6: first generation. If you look at if.
Speaker 4: We are the first generation where we've lost rights. Correct,
Speaker 4: that's correct. My point is is that.
Speaker 5: This is this is the bigger point, which is this
Speaker 5: is the bigger point I'd like to go to. I
Speaker 5: agree with you on that. Maybe I got confused the
Speaker 5: tequila is showing up.
Speaker 4: I don't know the one drinking the tequila is showing up.
Speaker 4: That's my point.
Speaker 5: But but what what I think I get your point.
Speaker 5: If elections happen, if this happens, if that happens. The
Speaker 5: reason I don't think the analysis was complete, which is
Speaker 5: they stole ballats. They came down here with a Sippia
Speaker 5: and took ballats out of Georgia. They attempted to do
Speaker 5: the same thing in Arizona. The president has already lit
Speaker 5: what we like to call trial balloons. That is, you
Speaker 5: put an idea out there and see how much pushback
Speaker 5: you get to that idea before you come forward and
Speaker 5: say this is the policy I'm gonna pu or it
Speaker 5: is not. He has floated several trial balloons and has
Speaker 5: been swatted back by people taking actions saying you cannot
Speaker 5: go there, mister President. And I got to tell you,
Speaker 5: I hate to acknowledge them, but many of those people
Speaker 5: who have done the swatting back have been Republicans that
Speaker 5: have said, if you go that far, you will not
Speaker 5: have my support. In fact, I'll be on the other
Speaker 5: side of that. They don't get no credit. But the
Speaker 5: fact is still the fact. And right now he ain't
Speaker 5: listening to Democrats. He doesn't care for Democrats, and they
Speaker 5: have the majority of the Senate and the majority of
Speaker 5: the House. And until the Speaker of the House decides
Speaker 5: to put a check on the president, he's going to
Speaker 5: keep running roughshod. So will the elections happen? And am
Speaker 5: I gong ho about them? I'm gung ho about getting
Speaker 5: the man out of office, putting a check on him,
Speaker 5: and trying to rescue us from the bowels of hell
Speaker 5: that he's driven us to.
Speaker 6: I agree with that, and then.
Speaker 5: We can build on dreams and aspirations beyond him.
Speaker 6: And see they don't they just bully me.
Speaker 4: No, you say wrong things.
Speaker 3: See actually I think I had anyway, So uh one
Speaker 3: of the we anticipated to have a fully political discussion
Speaker 3: with you guys for the entire hour of our discussion,
Speaker 3: right and talk about Donald Trump, in which we did.
Speaker 3: But we have a special guest that's joining us as well.
Speaker 3: I want you to bring her out first, and then
Speaker 3: I want a table set for discussion that I think
Speaker 3: that black men and black women need to have in
Speaker 3: a room such as this, because if we can't have
Speaker 3: that discussion in this room, my fear is where can.
Speaker 6: We have it?
Speaker 4: And nobody knows.
Speaker 1: So time to reset the gender balance on this stage.
Speaker 1: I want to bring to this stage doctor key Hallman,
Speaker 1: if she can make her way to this stage. She
Speaker 1: is a fixture here in Atlanta. She has a shop
Speaker 1: just across in the Ponts Market. She's an investor, a businesswoman,
Speaker 1: and she does a lot of civic work in the community.
Speaker 1: But she can tell you more specifically what she does
Speaker 1: as soon as her microphone starts working. She's coming right now,
Speaker 1: come on out.
Speaker 6: We thank you, thank you so uh.
Speaker 3: Andrew and I we were having a discussion, and the
Speaker 3: reason we were is as we were preparing for today.
Speaker 3: I just felt it wasn't just and I think that
Speaker 3: the four of us would agree for us to have
Speaker 3: a conversation without talking about the cultural happenstances of the day,
Speaker 3: and happenstances probably is not the word that describes the
Speaker 3: weight of it. However, on Monday morning, I believe it was.
Speaker 3: I can't recall the exact date I woke up and
Speaker 3: sent a Senate Was it Monday? I can't even recall
Speaker 3: my days or running together. I sent a text to
Speaker 3: our group chat because one of my friends and I
Speaker 3: don't I would. I'm gonna let Andrew describe him as
Speaker 3: he was just Fairfax actually, And the crazy part about
Speaker 3: it was I had been talking to Justin a few
Speaker 3: times over the past year, and I was I would
Speaker 3: expect the message to be that Justin had killed himself,
Speaker 3: and that probably is a troublesome reality for a lot
Speaker 3: of people in the room. However, the text message read
Speaker 3: that Justin had not only killed himself, but he killed
Speaker 3: his wife first.
Speaker 6: And then the.
Speaker 3: Text message got a little bit worse that his son
Speaker 3: was actually the person who called nine one one, as
Speaker 3: both his children were in the home. I mean then,
Speaker 3: we just saw recently in Shreveport where a gentleman who
Speaker 3: had kind of called out for help on social media
Speaker 3: had then gone back and killed eight young people. And
Speaker 3: we've seen his kids like ages. I don't know the ages,
Speaker 3: but I know the youngest one was one one through nine.
Speaker 3: I believe is right, but I'm not sure, and I
Speaker 3: don't want to misquote it because I want to make
Speaker 3: sure that we actually give this portion of the conversation
Speaker 3: the gravity that it deserves. And so I wanted to
Speaker 3: be able to have to This is my level set.
Speaker 3: And y'all can cuss me out and say I'm wrong,
Speaker 3: and I've been wrong before.
Speaker 5: I just want to evoke Mayor made her from a
Speaker 5: graduate of FAM you who was the vice mayor of
Speaker 5: a city down in Florida.
Speaker 4: She worked for my campaign for governor.
Speaker 5: A beautiful spirit, two years married, and was killed by
Speaker 5: her husband, who repeatedly reported to his family that he
Speaker 5: saw after committing the heinous murder, that he just couldn't
Speaker 5: take it anymore. He just couldn't take it anymore. And
Speaker 5: we don't have We don't have the full picture of
Speaker 5: what that is. But something is going on.
Speaker 3: So I wanted a space and this is where I
Speaker 3: can be completely wrong, but I don't care about jumping
Speaker 3: off a ledge with you all. I wanted space, particularly
Speaker 3: with Tiffany here, who hoes me accountable on everything, and
Speaker 3: this is our first converse. I know you've been on
Speaker 3: the show, but our first conversation together. I wanted a
Speaker 3: space where we could have a conversation about ensuring that
Speaker 3: we hold individuals accountable for their actions, assuring ourselves that
Speaker 3: we're lifting up Serena Fairfax, for example, who's been left
Speaker 3: out of a lot of the conversations, and not butt.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say butt because it negates everything
Speaker 3: before it, but and also having a space for black
Speaker 3: men to be able to call out when they have
Speaker 3: issues of mental health or issues that they're going through,
Speaker 3: and making sure that their screams are not in vain,
Speaker 3: because I feel like both of those things are happening
Speaker 3: and we're missing the pulset on both of them. And
Speaker 3: until we actually have a conversation such as this, where
Speaker 3: we're sitting in a room such as this, where we
Speaker 3: can chastise a little, hold accountable, but also breathe. I
Speaker 3: don't think that we can fix this problem unless we
Speaker 3: have real conversations about what's going on in our community.
Speaker 3: And so that's how I open it up.
Speaker 1: Tiffany, thank you so honoring that Justin was your friend,
Speaker 1: and I'm honoring you all for allowing this safe space.
Speaker 1: And we want this to be an interactive conversation, so
Speaker 1: we will open the mic because we want to hear
Speaker 1: from you all too. You know, I'll just focus on
Speaker 1: Justin for now because I think that was the tipping
Speaker 1: point for this conversation. So when this first happened, I
Speaker 1: was absorbing it all. I knew Justin as well. What
Speaker 1: started to transpire after that, This wasn't when people started
Speaker 1: posting pictures and making remarks about him and this is
Speaker 1: my frat brother, and you know, almost like celebratory of him.
Speaker 1: These were not trumpers, These weren't in cells, they hadn't
Speaker 1: been red pilled, you know, like these were dudes we know,
Speaker 1: we rock with, we love and I think it's black women.
Speaker 1: We had to sit back and look at that, like
Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me? Like this man murdered his
Speaker 1: wife and was his children in the house and knew
Speaker 1: that they would find him as a scene, thinking, feeling person.
Speaker 1: I did have empathy. I remember talking to you about
Speaker 1: it in our chat when you you know, kind of
Speaker 1: framed it and I was like, yeah, there was a
Speaker 1: part of me that didn't want white run media to
Speaker 1: get a hold of this narrative and you know, do
Speaker 1: what they do with our stories. But my empathy and
Speaker 1: I had this space to work this out with you
Speaker 1: all privately and now publicly because I was asking, you know,
Speaker 1: my my empathy first went to the wife. She's the
Speaker 1: biggest victim in all of this. And I did wonder,
Speaker 1: how did Justin get to that point? How did that
Speaker 1: darkness usurp him? And I asked our friend Aaron Haynes,
Speaker 1: president of n ABJ, wonderful journalist with the nineteenth You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not wrong for having wondered what happened with Justin?
Speaker 6: You're now you're sitting where we're.
Speaker 1: Sitting like well, I asked, probably what we.
Speaker 6: What do we not do? What do we not see?
Speaker 1: But that was a different question because I was asking,
Speaker 1: am I wrong for thinking in this moment? You know, gosh,
Speaker 1: what happened with justin and Aaron responded in a way
Speaker 1: that I just kind of had to hold and she said,
Speaker 1: your empathy for him ended the moment he shot his
Speaker 1: wife in the head and left his kids to find her.
Speaker 1: I know this is your friend, Bakari. So I say
Speaker 1: this with love and sympathy. But it did feel hurtful
Speaker 1: to see how black men couched this conversation after all,
Speaker 1: like we are just it feels like it's not who's
Speaker 1: suffering more. It feels like we are the face of
Speaker 1: the enemy right now. Shit feels like it's a black.
Speaker 6: Women don't answer, chime in, but I want you to know.
Speaker 1: I want doctor key.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I said in silence as well. So I
Speaker 3: literally made no public statement, no public remark other than
Speaker 3: to lift up the kids, which may actually be the
Speaker 3: public remark that is necessary during this time because.
Speaker 6: I I don't know. I just didn't know. I don't
Speaker 6: I still don't know. I don't know how to grapple
Speaker 6: with it.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is a mental health
Speaker 1: conversation either.
Speaker 4: Well I think so it is.
Speaker 1: It this is Let me just say why, Because there
Speaker 1: are men who I know who struggle with depression. I
Speaker 1: struggle you sitting in between what I want to say,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say, but I know that the
Speaker 1: people on this state struggle with depression, including myself. I
Speaker 1: never thought I'm gonna go home and shoot my loved
Speaker 1: one in the head.
Speaker 5: I agree, I agree to if I so, Aaron asked
Speaker 5: you your empathy and stated pretty firmly, your empathy should
Speaker 5: have been did it when he did what he did?
Speaker 5: And maybe the empathy is one part of it, but
Speaker 5: should your curiosity, your wonder of how we got here?
Speaker 5: And I don't think that should end because I knew
Speaker 5: someone who was upstanding, who broke barriers, who when we talked,
Speaker 5: talked a bunch about his family and his kids. And
Speaker 5: I think it's one of those spaces that more than
Speaker 5: one thing can be true.
Speaker 4: At a time I was abhoard.
Speaker 5: I mean, maccary was the one who told me about
Speaker 5: Justin and then all the messages came in. We campaigned together,
Speaker 5: he came down to Florida and we spent a good
Speaker 5: deal of time together. And in the years since, but
Speaker 5: since sexual alleged sexual misconductor and assault allegations came down,
Speaker 5: you saw a man who went from being Lieutenant governor
Speaker 5: of the state, the second in command, a former Confederate
Speaker 5: headquarters state to someone who couldn't be employed. And I'm
Speaker 5: sure huge breakdowns on the household, the family, and then
Speaker 5: you're like, man, my wife and I haven't been on
Speaker 5: the best at know certain points. I have not had
Speaker 5: suicidal aviation or the thought of killing anybody. But mostly
Speaker 5: it's because I could never. One I wouldn't touch a
Speaker 5: woman like that, but two, I could never orphan my children.
Speaker 5: I could, I just don't. It feels me as most
Speaker 5: selfish thing anybody could consider. And if you were in
Speaker 5: that moment, it's like, nah, that's my kid's mother, if
Speaker 5: nothing else, and you hate her guts because you're going
Speaker 5: through a process. She's got people depending on her, your
Speaker 5: people spawn of you depending on her, and I don't
Speaker 5: know how you scar them for life in that way,
Speaker 5: and a whole bunch of other reasons. But I do
Speaker 5: think if we don't, if we if we can only
Speaker 5: say one of his one is bad and the other
Speaker 5: one's good, and that's how the story goes down, and
Speaker 5: nobody deserve to be killed, right the action should never
Speaker 5: have taken place, But I don't think it should begin
Speaker 5: and end with That's the monster, and here's the victim,
Speaker 5: and stay away from monsters from here too. Fourth, because
Speaker 5: I think we lose a lot in the thread, we
Speaker 5: lose a lot in the nuance.
Speaker 1: Doctor.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I want you to try. Sure.
Speaker 7: So I do think there's time for curiosity. But what
Speaker 7: was saddening to me is that before we could get
Speaker 7: to curiosity, we neglected mourning. We neglected that a black woman,
Speaker 7: a human being, was murdered and there is no point
Speaker 7: in her children lifetime. Could we ever imagine what they
Speaker 7: would carry inside of them? And if we can go deeper,
Speaker 7: I don't know if they've lost people in their lives,
Speaker 7: but these two children saw their bodies of their parents
Speaker 7: handed down by their father. So before we started to
Speaker 7: post about our our brother, our friend, a dignitary, can
Speaker 7: we take a moment and pause for the trauma, the
Speaker 7: neglect to take care of yourself so you don't kill
Speaker 7: and decimate young people's future because they're going to carry that.
Speaker 7: So I'm like Tiff, I think there's a time for
Speaker 7: conversation on mental illness. But we also should question the
Speaker 7: character of those who want to post a picture for
Speaker 7: a proximity and affiliation and privilege before we.
Speaker 5: Take a moment.
Speaker 7: To more in the life of a loss that was
Speaker 7: callously killed because a person did not take care of themselves.
Speaker 6: I agree with you in Tiffany.
Speaker 3: To a point, like I agree on all the stuff
Speaker 3: that happened after this, and like that's some bs, that's
Speaker 3: just not we did we black men, we did some
Speaker 3: of us, because I hate the generalization, did not carry
Speaker 3: ourselves appropriately. But like, and now we get to a
Speaker 3: point where we're gonna have a few moments for questions
Speaker 3: and answers, and I'll tell you about those in a second.
Speaker 3: But when when when you all say, and not to
Speaker 3: pick on you all, because I've heard it a.
Speaker 6: Lot, but.
Speaker 3: Now is the time for morning before curiosity or now
Speaker 3: is the time for grieving? And I think there are
Speaker 3: a lot of black men, and maybe I'm alone in this,
Speaker 3: that say, before this happened, there wasn't space for conversation
Speaker 3: about mental health with us, Like we're not talking about
Speaker 3: the conversation we're having I think after because the black
Speaker 3: men that I know are like Andrew, Gillian and myself,
Speaker 3: we find it to be a born. But what we're
Speaker 3: talking about is before it happens, is there space for
Speaker 3: black men to be to try to be the head
Speaker 3: of their household and also talk to you about their anxiety.
Speaker 1: What would that have looked like because they were already separated.
Speaker 1: So I'm just curious, you know, I don't you mean
Speaker 1: in the home there wasn't space for that kid.
Speaker 3: No, No, And I'm not because I don't know enough about now.
Speaker 3: I took it out to a fifty thousand foot view
Speaker 3: and talking culturally, I'm not talking about sena.
Speaker 1: Culturally, what does it look like for us? I have
Speaker 1: a conversation before somebody shoots their wife.
Speaker 7: And then and that asks a question as well. And see,
Speaker 7: this is why both of us at the same time.
Speaker 3: Please, I'm like out here just trying to say that,
Speaker 3: like niggas got problems and we are like I'm just
Speaker 3: My only point is that like we are out here
Speaker 3: trying to deal with our household and go outside and
Speaker 3: deal with the eels of the world.
Speaker 6: We're trying.
Speaker 7: We are too.
Speaker 6: No, this is and we are too Yeah, this is not.
Speaker 6: This is not the oppressional limp. I'm not saying.
Speaker 3: I am not saying that black women are not that
Speaker 3: is that is with this every time.
Speaker 4: So listen, don't don't go I know where you're going.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 6: But what I'm saying is every time, every time a.
Speaker 5: Man can have an issue without it being approximate to
Speaker 5: what a woman is going.
Speaker 6: Like every time it's on this merit.
Speaker 3: Every time I tell you that I am struggling, it
Speaker 3: does not mean reflexively that you were not.
Speaker 6: That's like, thank you for some help in orders, Jesus,
Speaker 6: do we have commercials I need? I try.
Speaker 5: I try to let you off the balcony by saying
Speaker 5: that the easy way you want to keep going.
Speaker 4: You've got a question.
Speaker 5: But I just want to define in my mind mental health,
Speaker 5: because a lot of people think you must be diagnosed
Speaker 5: and be on some medication for years and be getting
Speaker 5: therapy and counseling and.
Speaker 4: That kind of thing. And that is a form of it.
Speaker 5: But there is also the psychosis, which means in this moment,
Speaker 5: at this state of time, the argument we happen to
Speaker 5: be in right now. This is why the legal system
Speaker 5: separates different types of murder first, second, third degree.
Speaker 4: It matters that the thing you just told me was
Speaker 4: so piercing. I couldn't see a thing.
Speaker 6: I saw red and as a footnel.
Speaker 3: Real quick before you can fill you let me and
Speaker 3: we should have said no one is excusing the act.
Speaker 3: There is literally no one, and I don't want anyone
Speaker 3: to leave this room thinking that we are downplaying or
Speaker 3: excusing the act. All I'm trying to find space for
Speaker 3: is men to not get to that point and have
Speaker 3: space before the act, before the breaking point, before whatever, however,
Speaker 3: the psychoe, whatever the term is. I want there to
Speaker 3: be a space for black men to be able to breathe.
Speaker 3: Not saying that y'all ain't suffocating, Tiffany, but what I'm
Speaker 3: saying is for black men to be able to breathe
Speaker 3: and articulate the issues there.
Speaker 5: And I think what happened here is that y'all many
Speaker 5: people could not breathe. Yeah, many people couldn't breathe after
Speaker 5: learning the news, and we're very upset that before we
Speaker 5: could understand the story of those who were victims and
Speaker 5: people we had already gone on to sounded like excusing.
Speaker 6: What to Lo Loys Tiffany talks. Lol.
Speaker 1: I know that I was just about to say, where's Lolo?
Speaker 1: Can we get mikel and.
Speaker 3: So so like questions have question marks, will answer anything
Speaker 3: you all have. We have about seventeen minutes you go first,
Speaker 3: and Lolo is gonna bring the mic out wherever she
Speaker 3: is and give round of.
Speaker 6: Applause to Loo. We cannot survive with that's.
Speaker 1: Not Lo lost in for Lolo stepping.
Speaker 4: In for Lo Lo.
Speaker 6: Lolo was drinking tequila too, So it's okay, there's wave
Speaker 6: your hand, all right.
Speaker 3: So, yes, we have a question over here, but let
Speaker 3: let us have hers, and then we'll come to you.
Speaker 2: Who cares about truth in the last more than.
Speaker 6: Say it, just tell us your name if you don't mind,
Speaker 6: all right, one.
Speaker 7: Second, go ahead, it's sure. So I think it's important
Speaker 7: to note here that we're not neglecting the mental health
Speaker 7: and the empathy for black men. So to say that
Speaker 7: we should not bypass morning, it's not neglecting another systemic
Speaker 7: issue around mental health. And this is not a conversation
Speaker 7: against black women and black men. I think we have
Speaker 7: to be careful with the narratives that we lead with. Yes,
Speaker 7: this conversation is about how it was handled, and so
Speaker 7: how it was handled, we rushed to proximity to talk
Speaker 7: about status and all those things, and we bypass Serena's name.
Speaker 7: I think we do need to take a moment and
Speaker 7: pause for that. And I also think when you all
Speaker 7: asked the question around when do black men heal, I
Speaker 7: say this, with love, create spaces so you all can
Speaker 7: heal and breathe.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Hear that, and I don't disregard it, and I do
Speaker 3: my best. But the problem is that many of us
Speaker 3: find those spaces in Tequila, you know. We find those
Speaker 3: spaces at Platinum twenty one. I mean, we find those
Speaker 3: spaces because you can't walk outside in this world and
Speaker 3: be a black man and think it's gonna be easy.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that it's easy for anyone.
Speaker 4: Else, but it is.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you're Let me just respond really
Speaker 1: quickly and then we'll go to the question. But it
Speaker 1: feels like you're saying black women heal us, and we
Speaker 1: are also trying to your point there we should translate itself.
Speaker 3: And I'm not saying that at all. No, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no space. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not
Speaker 3: asking for I'm not asking for help, per se.
Speaker 4: Yeah you are.
Speaker 6: I'm just we are. We are, But it's the space too.
Speaker 6: It's however, what does look.
Speaker 5: Like much of much of what we are suffering from
Speaker 5: both you and I First of all, my father, if
Speaker 5: you were living, would have me bent overtaking a whooping
Speaker 5: if I talked about therapy and sitting down with a
Speaker 5: talking about our problems outside of the household.
Speaker 4: And whose business is? What business? We all have?
Speaker 5: Inherited people who didn't know how, couldn't do it better,
Speaker 5: but didn't know how to, and then they created this
Speaker 5: model of what we're then supposed to live up to,
Speaker 5: how we comport ourselves, how we are burdened in this way,
Speaker 5: in that way, and then we're teaching the same, yeah,
Speaker 5: damn broken thing to those who come after. I'm not
Speaker 5: and you're not. But that's because I don't know who
Speaker 5: did it for you. But it was my wife who
Speaker 5: told me, if you don't get shown to somebody and talk,
Speaker 5: don't think about coming back in this house, not with me,
Speaker 5: and not with these kids, and not with this. Is
Speaker 5: that the third And so it took somebody saying it
Speaker 5: was okay. There was there was an invitation to go.
Speaker 3: And I just don't want black women to feel like
Speaker 3: we're asking for more of a load on your plate.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to ask for just space to breathe. Yes, Hello, my.
Speaker 8: Name is Joshua Ricardo mckett says, and I just want
Speaker 8: to say, like, I love you guys. You guys inspired me.
Speaker 8: I watched your show. You guys are amazing, incredible. I mean,
Speaker 8: especially Tiffany Crass. You're like You're one of my biggest inspirations. Like,
Speaker 8: I love you. And I just have to say this,
Speaker 8: is it okay for black men to show their emotions
Speaker 8: all the time? Because I don't want to take this
Speaker 8: the wrong way. I mean it's like with black women,
Speaker 8: I don't know this easier hard, but you guys can
Speaker 8: do that. But when it comes to black men, it's
Speaker 8: like we have to be the strong ones.
Speaker 6: But there are times.
Speaker 8: Where we should be able to cry and show emotions,
Speaker 8: like can there be a space for that in a
Speaker 8: way where we just show.
Speaker 3: So why are people like shaking their heads? Like why
Speaker 3: why are people like not like he yes, the answer
Speaker 3: is yes, yes, Oh I'm with you. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 3: the answer is yes, And you should be able to
Speaker 3: do that. And it doesn't mean that you're weaker, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that you're less than It means that
Speaker 3: you actually go outside every day and touch grass.
Speaker 5: But you have to give yourself the permission. I think
Speaker 5: that's that's what's beneath it is. The society we live
Speaker 5: in doesn't seem to make way for it, and so
Speaker 5: we internalize that that's what everybody's demanding of us. When
Speaker 5: when you stay to need, anybody who loves and cares
Speaker 5: about you will say go get the thing you need.
Speaker 5: They should say get what you need.
Speaker 6: Yeah, just know whoever.
Speaker 9: I don't even know, Hello, Hello, Hello, You all are
Speaker 9: my favorite podcasts in the world, favorite in the whole.
Speaker 4: And she has her own. So that's saying something.
Speaker 9: So I'm going to date myself a little bit. I
Speaker 9: think what we will say culturally is that's not what
Speaker 9: we do right as a people. So I don't know
Speaker 9: if it happened in the past. We didn't have social media,
Speaker 9: so we didn't know, but that would be the first comment.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 9: My comment to you guys, especially Andrew and Bacari, you
Speaker 9: guys have a platform. I think I would like to
Speaker 9: see more mentorship from black men to black men, and
Speaker 9: you two, being the stellar men that you are, to
Speaker 9: say it's okay to be emotional. I've seen you, Andrew,
Speaker 9: and seen the podcast when you were vulnerable. I think
Speaker 9: it's important that our men. You're not my father, your grandfather,
Speaker 9: so it's okay to be emotional and Bacari, you said something.
Speaker 9: I thought the text I would get would be that
Speaker 9: he did something to himself. I think we've all had
Speaker 9: friends or family that something's off. I know something's off.
Speaker 9: We need to create space. It's all incumbent upon all
Speaker 9: of us. But I think mentorship matters, and I think
Speaker 9: when we have a mic, a platform, such as all
Speaker 9: of us do in different spaces, we need to use
Speaker 9: it and we need to help one another because we're
Speaker 9: living in times like maybe not before. And that's coming
Speaker 9: from a mother of two young men that are not
Speaker 9: quite millennials, but they're living in this space in these times.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I think we have a peer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they doing manav Songwhere are you you?
Speaker 10: Men?
Speaker 5: Said trauma early doctor about the trauma that this father
Speaker 5: has done to his children.
Speaker 4: So I have a question here.
Speaker 11: Has trauma become so normalized in our community that we
Speaker 11: no longer recognize when we're passing it to others.
Speaker 6: Huge all own children, of course, but trauma's not the act.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people and I'm not a
Speaker 3: psychologist or a psychiatrist. I've been to enough sessions though
Speaker 3: to be dangerous.
Speaker 6: Shout out.
Speaker 5: My doctor says, don't confuse your google with.
Speaker 3: I hate when people come to my laws and they
Speaker 3: be like chet GPT. But trauma's not the act. A
Speaker 3: lot of people think that trauma's when you get punched
Speaker 3: in the face, and that's not trauma. Trauma's the reaction
Speaker 3: to getting punched in the face, and trauma's how we
Speaker 3: deal with it, right. And so a lot of these conversations,
Speaker 3: for example, we've never had in settings like this because
Speaker 3: of some shame, and I don't know how people are
Speaker 3: going to receive it, but I think that one way
Speaker 3: we can break the cycle, and I love to hear
Speaker 3: my friends up here, is by allowing us to have
Speaker 3: conversations in space like this, even by you showing up
Speaker 3: and being here and going out and saying without fucking judgment,
Speaker 3: like just sitting in it, and allowing people to have
Speaker 3: different opinions and different thoughts about the way that they
Speaker 3: feel and about the way that they process trauma.
Speaker 6: I think it's so important.
Speaker 11: Good evening. My name is Jessica. I first want to
Speaker 11: just hold space for you, Baccari of just watching you
Speaker 11: do what black people do every day of holding in
Speaker 11: the trauma while being at work. I can see the
Speaker 11: tension of what you're trying to manage it. I just
Speaker 11: want you to know I see you. But my question
Speaker 11: is really for black men, because I think for several
Speaker 11: of us as women, whether it's our friends, our partners,
Speaker 11: we have asked, we have sent the therapist, asked, would
Speaker 11: would you come to this? Would you do that? What
Speaker 11: is it that you all need or want that would
Speaker 11: make the invitation so that you go through the door,
Speaker 11: And whether the invitation has to come from us from
Speaker 11: somewhere else, because at this point, it's not even we
Speaker 11: need y'all to be okay, and we know that you're not.
Speaker 11: And the more y'all are not okay, the more we're
Speaker 11: not okay because we can't lean on you to protect us,
Speaker 11: because now we're like, do we need to be protecting
Speaker 11: ourselves from you?
Speaker 4: And that's the and that's the goal.
Speaker 11: Of the system, right to keep us pulled apart. That's
Speaker 11: what happened in slavery. And so while I don't have
Speaker 11: the capacity to hold anyone else, I'm still trying because
Speaker 11: I love my brother, I love my father, I love y'all.
Speaker 11: So what do y'all need and.
Speaker 1: How do you need it?
Speaker 5: That's a that's a beautiful question, and I appreciate your curiosity,
Speaker 5: and it's the story to how do you get to
Speaker 5: is as important as getting to and then going.
Speaker 4: My wife asked me for.
Speaker 5: You twelve years You're married, going, going, going, going, going,
Speaker 5: And I'm a city commissioner and I'm a mayor of
Speaker 5: a city, and who were going to talk to that's
Speaker 5: not going to run out in the street and tell
Speaker 5: everything that we say. I don't trust you know, I
Speaker 5: don't trust my business. And in their in their mouths,
Speaker 5: in their ears, which I assumed then.
Speaker 4: Comes out their mouths to other people.
Speaker 5: I think my parents were part of of it in
Speaker 5: the sense that we were taught. I mean, we were disciplined.
Speaker 5: If you spoke outside, spoke about what happened in this house.
Speaker 5: And so no, So let me tell you the.
Speaker 4: Lead up to it is that there are a lot
Speaker 4: of no's.
Speaker 5: There are a lot of instances where you're going to
Speaker 5: think we are not listening, are summarily dismissing you having
Speaker 5: heard you once, even though it's your thousandth time we've
Speaker 5: heard you.
Speaker 4: A thousand times, and we still feel like.
Speaker 5: We still feel like there's not real permission because when
Speaker 5: something goes wrong in the house and this thing is needed,
Speaker 5: you're still going to look at me. And I don't
Speaker 5: want you to look at me and think I can't
Speaker 5: do it, because I shared with you that it's real
Speaker 5: hard for me right now.
Speaker 4: It's real hard for me to deal with that.
Speaker 5: So I thank God for my Unpat who called me
Speaker 5: every single day. At my lowest point, I hadn't answer
Speaker 5: the phone most any of those days, but she kept
Speaker 5: calling the next day and the next day, and one
Speaker 5: day I picked up and she said, thank you God,
Speaker 5: And I just want to know that you're doing okay.
Speaker 5: I want to hear your voice. And I'm so thankful
Speaker 5: that there were people who weren't judging me and saying
Speaker 5: he's just disrespectf We want to ask the phone, da da,
Speaker 5: Dad dad. They had nothing to do with anybody other
Speaker 5: than myself, And I was thankful that there was enough
Speaker 5: love there by people to keep going, keep asking.
Speaker 4: So what I would say is keep asking.
Speaker 5: I never know when that trickle, when that thing switches
Speaker 5: over and you say I need it and I'm ready,
Speaker 5: but you can't get in a person more ready than
Speaker 5: they can get themselves.
Speaker 4: Your constant reminder is.
Speaker 5: The primer, and I think we have to keep doing
Speaker 5: that until the jump is ready.
Speaker 6: How do we? How do we get there before? Though?
Speaker 3: And I don't want to infer your question, but how
Speaker 3: do we get there before we hit rock bottom? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Like, how do we? Yeah? How do we? That's your prayer? Right,
Speaker 6: how do we?
Speaker 3: I'm sure Serena had the same prayer, right, So how
Speaker 3: do you get there?
Speaker 5: And I think admittedly most people are going to have
Speaker 5: to fall flat face before it's like you realize, Man,
Speaker 5: I'm losing this.
Speaker 4: I've lost this. I've lost this.
Speaker 5: If I lose anything else, my house and home, my
Speaker 5: everything will be gone, my children might be gone.
Speaker 4: And then that's when I.
Speaker 5: Think people, if it gets desperate enough, people will look
Speaker 5: for help.
Speaker 6: Two more We got about four more minutes or two
Speaker 6: more questions, but doctor Keith.
Speaker 1: Went the way in and then we'll come to you
Speaker 1: in the back.
Speaker 7: If i'll share a brief story about an experience that
Speaker 7: I had with my dad, And this is probably eight
Speaker 7: months after my mother passed away. She passed away at
Speaker 7: fifty years old, and my parents were married for thirty years,
Speaker 7: but they had their complications, and when my mother passed,
Speaker 7: they were in a complicated season, and so as the children.
Speaker 7: We were mad at our dad for so many things.
Speaker 7: And in one conversation with my dad again this was
Speaker 7: eight months later, I stopped being mad at him and
Speaker 7: I said, well, Daddy, how do you feel? And he
Speaker 7: took a moment and he exhaled. He said, I think
Speaker 7: I just started to breathe again, and that I have
Speaker 7: been so depressed for the last eight months. I didn't
Speaker 7: even know my father knew the word depression because he's
Speaker 7: a Mississippi man. I've only seen him strong. So for
Speaker 7: all the daughters in the audience who are close to
Speaker 7: their fathers, I was able to take my father's walls
Speaker 7: down and in a moment, and now we talk about
Speaker 7: his emotions and we talk about his feelings about everything.
Speaker 7: And after that conversation and after all our conversations, and
Speaker 7: I was like that I always thought that you were
Speaker 7: a superman, and now you're even more invincible. Because he
Speaker 7: was able to show me the softness in him and
Speaker 7: a human in him, and I think that gave him
Speaker 7: the invitation to be that more vulnerable with me. It's
Speaker 7: not that I was less mad at him, but I
Speaker 7: was more empathetic that we all carry things, and so
Speaker 7: I think black men need the invitation. And if you're
Speaker 7: a daughter, maybe you can take the wall down of
Speaker 7: your father and learn more about the things that black
Speaker 7: men carry.
Speaker 1: Thank you, doctor Keith.
Speaker 6: We got our last question in the back.
Speaker 10: Okay, thank you. My name is Phoenix. First thing I
Speaker 10: want to say is, and it took me a long
Speaker 10: time to say this, I have a mental disability, illness,
Speaker 10: whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 4: I've had it for a long time. My question is simple.
Speaker 10: Now, we had some people while you were talking disagree
Speaker 10: with some of the things that you were saying.
Speaker 4: I believe Wakari.
Speaker 6: I'm used to that, and it's okay, it's okay. My
Speaker 6: question is this and that I'm.
Speaker 10: Gonna be real.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to be real.
Speaker 10: Brief with the story. On my job, I take something
Speaker 10: called modern mobility. Should most of y'all don't know what
Speaker 10: that is, but that's for people who have disabilities. When
Speaker 10: they found out, the people I work with found out,
Speaker 10: I was thinking a big bus, they sit there, pointed
Speaker 10: at the bus, pointed at me.
Speaker 6: The whole crew laughed in my face.
Speaker 10: Now, I know a lot of y'all say, well, you know,
Speaker 10: and I'm not excusing the gentleman that killed his wife
Speaker 10: or that killed his children.
Speaker 4: That's insane.
Speaker 6: But when you have this.
Speaker 10: Type of dishonor that's the best way I can put it.
Speaker 10: Going on with our people, how how do you expect
Speaker 10: people to to behave? How you expect them to give?
Speaker 10: I go to counseling three times a week. I do
Speaker 10: everything I need to do to be a better person.
Speaker 10: But still it's a nightmare and it's so much shame.
Speaker 10: Wait a minute, I'm a I'm a black man, I
Speaker 10: have a job, I make money. But you can't have
Speaker 10: a mental disability because something's wrong with you.
Speaker 4: Old that nigga crazy? Oh this is and all this stuff.
Speaker 10: So I ask everyone in here and the people on stage,
Speaker 10: what did you do with that?
Speaker 6: Thank you?
Speaker 4: Thank you for that, Andrew, I.
Speaker 5: Just I simply gonna say that it those people, it's
Speaker 5: a greater reflection on their herb than it is on
Speaker 5: your psycheoasis, your state of affairs. People have a way
Speaker 5: of really projecting onto others the insecurities that they feel
Speaker 5: with themselves. I told I shared this on the last
Speaker 5: week's show, where you know, after the race, and I
Speaker 5: was at my lowest low.
Speaker 4: People would you know, would say really cruel and very.
Speaker 5: Cutting and biting things, things that you don't think you
Speaker 5: could muster for a person if you didn't know them intimately.
Speaker 5: And I had to come to and I told my
Speaker 5: wife this because she was very upset about a celebrity
Speaker 5: who had said something about her. And I said, Jay
Speaker 5: that Letty don't know you from Tom Adams cat and
Speaker 5: the fact that she wrote to you a long inbox
Speaker 5: email cussing you from left to right about your life
Speaker 5: decisions isn't because she's so concerned with your life decisions.
Speaker 5: It's because something about our situation has triggered likely in
Speaker 5: experience that she's had in her life, and that was
Speaker 5: slight differences here and there, but she couldn't say to
Speaker 5: that person what needed to be said, and so she's
Speaker 5: projecting it and she's saying it to us, and it's
Speaker 5: now our job to say that's none of my business.
Speaker 5: None of that is my business. So if you got
Speaker 5: heat for me, that is what it is. But I'm
Speaker 5: not the cause of the pain that you're experiencing right now.
Speaker 5: So I just I think you ought to know that
Speaker 5: because it helps to It helps in those situations to
Speaker 5: be able to clearly see these haters, the folks who
Speaker 5: are distracting the name called and all that stuff. They
Speaker 5: are screaming for help, screaming for it, terrified with what
Speaker 5: it means if they get it, so they keep abusing
Speaker 5: hurt people, hurt people.
Speaker 4: That saying is real.
Speaker 3: I think that at the end of the day, you know,
Speaker 3: we have this, We have a trauma that has not
Speaker 3: been dealt with for a very long period of time,
Speaker 3: and we keep persevering. Every generation perseveres that much more
Speaker 3: than the next. I want to give this young lady
Speaker 3: to my far left stand up a round of applause,
Speaker 3: players paring up here and sharing. We didn't I don't
Speaker 3: think that she anticipated this conversation with us. I'm glad
Speaker 3: you all beared with us for this conversation. I before
Speaker 3: we uh, before we end, I do want us to
Speaker 3: remember in your gospel music singing or your prayers at night.
Speaker 3: I don't know if y'all still say your now. I
Speaker 3: laim he's down in the big city of Atlanta where
Speaker 3: all eat lamb chops and have ivy walls every Sunday
Speaker 3: for breakfast. I want you to all to remember Papa
Speaker 3: Ray and Angela Ray's father the Devil, that the Gospel
Speaker 3: doesn't teach us that they should not have a weapon.
Speaker 3: He just says that the weapons shall not prosper. So
Speaker 3: let that be our prayer. And then Tiffany. We're gonna
Speaker 3: let Tiffany take us out because she is our blessing.
Speaker 3: And as you see, Tiffany has fans everywhere, so go ahead.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you. I just want to say, really
Speaker 1: quickly to the king in the back who shared his story,
Speaker 1: that the people who are small enough to make fun
Speaker 1: of you would never have the courage to stand up
Speaker 1: in a room like this and share what you shared.
Speaker 1: So I want to honor you, brother, I want to
Speaker 1: honor your vulnerability, and I want to thank you for
Speaker 1: having the trust in us to receive your story with
Speaker 1: care and grace. And the next time that happens, I
Speaker 1: hope you can remember Andrew's words. It is more about
Speaker 1: them than it is about you. And I see you,
Speaker 1: and we see you for the king who you are,
Speaker 1: so thank you for that. I want to thank everybody
Speaker 1: for coming out. I will give a shameless plug if
Speaker 1: you guys don't mind a lot of the conversations that
Speaker 1: we had tonight. I have a new book coming out
Speaker 1: May fifth, thank you. It is Love Me, a Letter
Speaker 1: to Black Women in a toxic country, career and relationship.
Speaker 1: It's available everywhere books are sold today, but you'll get
Speaker 1: it on mayfe I'll be joining Native Land Pod. The
Speaker 1: episode will drop April thirtieth. Yeah, so we'll be back
Speaker 1: together again and truly this space. It's so touching to
Speaker 1: hear everybody say this is your favorite podcast and you
Speaker 1: all listen. I just thank you that y'all still pity
Speaker 1: them and listen. After I left, shit.
Speaker 6: It got better.
Speaker 4: I miss her every day.
Speaker 1: I miss these guys, but I'm blessed to still talk
Speaker 1: to them all the time. But it just means so
Speaker 1: much to us that you all the things that y'all
Speaker 1: could be doing, that you would show up here with
Speaker 1: us tonight and these spaces for this type of conversation.
Speaker 1: I feel safe with you all because us loving each
Speaker 1: other has always been the key to our survival. So
Speaker 1: whatever you took from tonight, I hope you leave here
Speaker 1: tonight with a little more love and care for each
Speaker 1: other's feelings. And emotions and carry each other with delicateness
Speaker 1: because that's what we need right now.
Speaker 4: Welcome home, Welcome home home, y'all, Thank you guys.
Speaker 6: Make sure you tip your waitresses. Good night, Drive home safe.
Speaker 2: Welcome home to the Native landing on the podcast face.
Speaker 4: That's a for greatness.
Speaker 2: Sixty minutes is so hit, not too long for the
Speaker 2: great shit, high level combo politics in a way that
Speaker 2: you could taste it then digest it. Politics touches you even.
Speaker 4: If you don't touch it. So get invested.
Speaker 2: Across the t's and doctor I kill them, got them
Speaker 2: as sellers, staying on business or why you could have.
Speaker 4: Been anywhere but you truse us.
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