Speaker 1: Welcome the Money in Wealth with John Hobriyant, a production
Speaker 1: of The Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Hey, everybody
Speaker 1: is John Hobrian and this is Money and Wealth, and
Speaker 1: this is my weekly ministry of finance. This is my
Speaker 1: pool for economic empowerment and the uplifting of all of us.
Speaker 1: Whether color is not black or white as in race,
Speaker 1: or red or blue as in politics, it's green as
Speaker 1: in at least in the United States of America, US currency.
Speaker 1: Wherever you're listening to this or watching this around the world,
Speaker 1: we've got a message for you too. This is about
Speaker 1: the aspiration generation. This is about all of us coming
Speaker 1: up from nothing. This is about all of us aspiring
Speaker 1: and succeeding. And we have a very special episode today.
Speaker 1: Not only is it with my brother and my friend
Speaker 1: Van Jones, who I think is a I believe is
Speaker 1: beyond and ahead of his time, which is why some
Speaker 1: people give him drama and problems because they don't really
Speaker 1: understand the frequency that he's on, and he does not
Speaker 1: always take the time to break down how he's thinking.
Speaker 1: He's too busy doing and moving than to be overly
Speaker 1: concerned about how something is being interpreted. He rather his
Speaker 1: results speak for him, but I think it's important to
Speaker 1: be able to understand van So they listened to him.
Speaker 1: So they said that more people trust him because he
Speaker 1: I believe is one of the true thought leaders for
Speaker 1: the twenty first century. Now, keep in mind we killed
Speaker 1: doctor King. Keep in mind that Doctor King's friends called
Speaker 1: him Martin Luther King, Martin Luther Kumb Uncle Tom fell Out,
Speaker 1: one of the and these were his friends talking, you
Speaker 1: want to peace rise. Keep in mind it wasn't the Afrikaans,
Speaker 1: it was the a n C that actually undercover threatened
Speaker 1: to take out Nelson Mandela because he was quote negotiating
Speaker 1: with the enemy quote. He had brought the Firmer Well,
Speaker 1: an africaner, on his cabinet as vice president when he
Speaker 1: became president. That was certainly ahead of his time, and
Speaker 1: nobody agreed with what he was doing. But he was
Speaker 1: a moneymaker. He was a guy bringing the cash and
Speaker 1: he was a cachet. So some people kept it quiet,
Speaker 1: but real talk. It was people in his own party
Speaker 1: who really had great animus for him because he was
Speaker 1: just a visionary. And it was Gandhi who wanted to
Speaker 1: bring two countries together into one. And he was killed
Speaker 1: for that. It was Shimone Perez once again killed trying
Speaker 1: to bring something rational peace to the Middle East, a solution,
Speaker 1: I mean, go on and on and on. It was
Speaker 1: you know Malcolm X who came back from Mecca and said, gee,
Speaker 1: all white people are the devil. I just prayed with
Speaker 1: white people in Mecca. He was dead within two weeks.
Speaker 1: He's messing with somebody's business. To the President, Duke Clinton
Speaker 1: once said, it's hard to get some mighty agreed to
Speaker 1: the truth when the lie is paying your paycheck. But
Speaker 1: this to be that diabolical or that cynical, It just
Speaker 1: could be. Look, I'm fighting a short term battle for
Speaker 1: the survival of my people, and I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing with you being the person with a vision.
Speaker 1: Maybe fighting a long term not only a battle, but
Speaker 1: trying to win the war, and those two strategies may
Speaker 1: look different. I'm a partnership guy, the protest guy, maybe
Speaker 1: like Bunk John O'Brien. I think they understand now what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do. But when I first started this work,
Speaker 1: people call me all kinds of names. Man, They rolled
Speaker 1: their eyes, gre capitalism, financial literacy, Ah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Now they get it right. But when I first started this,
Speaker 1: the protest people really thought that I was a waste
Speaker 1: of time. But I needed the protest people to set
Speaker 1: up the situation where the companies and governments and entities
Speaker 1: and communities wanted to partner with a guy like me
Speaker 1: to create an environment where there was no need for
Speaker 1: protests anymore. I say all this to say we have
Speaker 1: a radical movement of common sense, Van and I. But
Speaker 1: Van is even more on the forefront of progressive innovative
Speaker 1: thought than I am in many ways. But he takes
Speaker 1: less time to explain his city Agen. He's always explaining
Speaker 1: somebody else's situation. That's what he does on CNN all
Speaker 1: the time, explaining somebody else's situation. So I want, I believe,
Speaker 1: and Van does not know. Van does not know I'm
Speaker 1: about to say this. This is all live and in
Speaker 1: the moment. We have not talked about this, and other
Speaker 1: than Van saying ask me whatever you like, I believe
Speaker 1: that we are in this moment in history. Van's heard
Speaker 1: this part before. I believe we're sitting in a moment
Speaker 1: in history, but history does not. He'll feel historic when
Speaker 1: you're sitting in it, because like another day, I believe
Speaker 1: this is the third reconstruction. Van has heard me say
Speaker 1: this before. Some of the listeners have heard me say
Speaker 1: this before, from the streets to the suits, from civil
Speaker 1: rights to civil rights. What you have not heard me
Speaker 1: say is I think we need a radical transformational approach
Speaker 1: to the new capitalism, to the new economy, to the future.
Speaker 1: And that part I want that. And I think if
Speaker 1: people can hear you say your vision on that part,
Speaker 1: which we have not discussed, and you did not know
Speaker 1: I was going to say, But if I gave you
Speaker 1: the charge of saying what's bold and audacious? If you
Speaker 1: knew there was a future and you knew you could
Speaker 1: not fail, what would you say? What would you do?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What's your vision for all of us, particularly black folks,
Speaker 1: but all of them on a go forward basis?
Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean is a deep question and let
Speaker 2: me let me go backwards before I go forward. You
Speaker 2: have to ask a deep question about why, if you
Speaker 2: believe in God, if you believe in a just university,
Speaker 2: you believe in any any kind oferiod of love or
Speaker 2: whatever you want to call it, why did black people
Speaker 2: get stolen from Africa, brutalized, mistreated, great assaulted, not for
Speaker 2: a day, not for a weekend, not for a decade,
Speaker 2: not for a century, but for three centuries. Why how
Speaker 2: is that consistent with any high spiritual understanding of anything?
Speaker 2: Why are we here as African Americans. We'll never know
Speaker 2: the answer, but you could choose to say that the
Speaker 2: West Western civilization needed a soul, needed a moral compass,
Speaker 2: needed something within it that could keep its worst impulses
Speaker 2: and check and insist that it reached its highest goals
Speaker 2: and aspirations. And that's really what African Americans, in my mind,
Speaker 2: is what we are. We If you took African Americans
Speaker 2: out of this country, even just on a political policy
Speaker 2: voting basis, this country would lurch so far into authoritarianism
Speaker 2: and despotism that you would have a menace on the planet.
Speaker 2: It's such which you've never seen before. And so we
Speaker 2: have a responsibility.
Speaker 1: Back in the backup. You've already gone deep explained to
Speaker 1: people what you just said, like that was deep in
Speaker 1: and of itself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you got to understand where I'm coming from.
Speaker 2: I'm coming from a position that Black people have a
Speaker 2: special calling on our culture, on our lives, and on
Speaker 2: our people, that we are special people, that we represent
Speaker 2: through pain and suffering. We represent hope, we have soul,
Speaker 2: we have a moral direction. We've produced world class leaders
Speaker 2: that people around the world talk about, from Doctor King
Speaker 2: to melcom X, people seeing we shall overcome in Eastern
Speaker 2: Europe when it's time to struggle something. And the thing
Speaker 2: about that we're only ten percent of a country's only
Speaker 2: five percent of the world. So this is a tiny,
Speaker 2: tiny little group of people. Somehow world culture revolves around us.
Speaker 2: From hip hop, beyoncely just took over country music. I mean,
Speaker 2: the tiny little group of people has produced world class culture,
Speaker 2: has produced world class literature, has produced world class political leadership.
Speaker 2: We have had one black president already, might have a second.
Speaker 2: Hard to know what is going on with this group.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: If you just see us as having, you know, being
Speaker 2: oppressed and mistreated and victimized, then you might be justified
Speaker 2: in being mad all the time. But I see our
Speaker 2: persistence here as a blessing on the world. I think
Speaker 2: that I think that there's something in the DNA of
Speaker 2: our culture that is about justice for all. It's about Hallelujah. Anyhow,
Speaker 2: no matter what you do to us, we still don't
Speaker 2: praise him. No matter what you say about us. We
Speaker 2: still children of about how God you can have the
Speaker 2: klan outside the church right now with the lynch ropes ready,
Speaker 2: we're still going to be singing. You cannot steal our joy.
Speaker 2: That that no pressure, no diamonds. That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That the three hundred years of pressure on the Black
Speaker 2: community has produced diamonds, diamonds of culture, diamonds of philosophy,
Speaker 2: diamonds of insight, diamonds of political resilience. And the world
Speaker 2: needs those diamonds now. So when I look at our community,
Speaker 2: I don't look at us as victims. I look at
Speaker 2: us as a source of necessary assets. The same way
Speaker 2: Africa has necessary They call them rare earth minerals, say,
Speaker 2: any rare earth minerals, they're africa abundant minerals. They're to you,
Speaker 2: they're were to you, but they're abundant in Africa. In
Speaker 2: the same way that Africa has necessary minerals, necessary gems,
Speaker 2: DM cobalt, necessary for the AI revolution to work, necessary
Speaker 2: for the clean energy revolution to work. All you know,
Speaker 2: there's no cloud computing those, there's nothing in the Cloudsy's
Speaker 2: or our our data centers on Earth using materials from Africa.
Speaker 2: So the same way that Africa is materially necessary for
Speaker 2: the next human civilization, Black people are culturally and spiritually
Speaker 2: necessary for the next human civilization. And so when you
Speaker 2: see me move, I don't move like most people that
Speaker 2: you expect, because I'm not coming from victim mindset. I'm
Speaker 2: just I just. I'm happy to go talk to anybody, Republican, Democrat, rich, poor,
Speaker 2: white house, jail house, because I'm standing in a tradition
Speaker 2: of greatness. I'm standing in a tradition of ex assumption,
Speaker 2: standing in a tradition. You know, you mentioned doctor King,
Speaker 2: who was doctor King. First of all, why do we
Speaker 2: call doctor Martin Luther King junior? Junior? Because his daddy
Speaker 2: was already famous. Daddy King was already famous. You had
Speaker 2: to say junior. Because this little kid came along. They
Speaker 2: had to run away from Atlanta, hied up in Montgomery
Speaker 2: to try to get his own feet under him, and
Speaker 2: did such a beautiful job. When the women let that
Speaker 2: the bus boycott that he winds up standing on the
Speaker 2: steps of the Lincoln Memorial at thirty three years old, Yes,
Speaker 2: thirty three years old. I wouldn't let thirt three year
Speaker 2: old borrow my card. He's dead thirty three year old
Speaker 2: black kids standing up there and you know, reading a
Speaker 2: speech of staff wrote that wasn't very impressive. And then,
Speaker 2: but thankfully Mahelia Jackson that heard him give a similar
Speaker 2: speech six weeks earlier in Detroit. And in the Detroit
Speaker 2: speech six weeks earlier, he had a fumbling conclusion about
Speaker 2: having a dream, and Mahalia Jackson standing behind this thirty
Speaker 2: three year old kid who's basically bombing, tell him about
Speaker 2: your dream, Martin, tellbut a dream. And you noticed Doctor
Speaker 2: King stops and looks up in freestyles. He turns to
Speaker 2: jay Z.
Speaker 1: He freestyle.
Speaker 2: Exactly, I mean, I mean, so you have so you
Speaker 2: have a thirty three year old black kid freestyling of
Speaker 2: the steps of the of the Lincoln Memorial. And there's
Speaker 2: a plaque now honoring that thirty three year old kid
Speaker 2: because what he he was a radical afro futurist. Please
Speaker 2: understand that he was a radical afro futurist. The stuff
Speaker 2: he was talking about that could have been Star Trek,
Speaker 2: that could have been Star Wars. He's talking about black
Speaker 2: kids and white kids playing together. That never happened for
Speaker 2: three hundred years. He has talked about a world that
Speaker 2: had never existed, and he spoken into existence as a
Speaker 2: radical afro futurist, freestyle hip hop kid on the steps
Speaker 2: like you know, so when when you when? When that's
Speaker 2: what you come from. Yes, that there's a now a
Speaker 2: statue of him in the city. Basically it's acknowledging him
Speaker 2: as the final founder of a democratic republic. Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 2: wasn't able to found a democratic republic. Thomas Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 2: wasn't able to found a democratic republic, George Washington, none
Speaker 2: of them. It took Doctor King, Eli, Joe Baker, Fan
Speaker 2: lou Hammer, John Lewis, the Civil Rights generation to find
Speaker 2: Andrew Young to finally complete the work of creating a
Speaker 2: democratic republic on these shores worthy of the name. And
Speaker 2: so when you come from that, no pressure, no diamonds,
Speaker 2: you can then walk into a room with Republicans, walk
Speaker 2: into a room with Jared custerm walk into a room
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump, walk into a room with Wall Street
Speaker 2: people as you do, walk into a room with Silicon
Speaker 2: Valley people as we both do, and sit there like
Speaker 2: an equal. Because they may have a financial blessing that
Speaker 2: our community lacks, but we have a cultural blessing, a
Speaker 2: spiritual blessing, a political blessing that is unmashed on planet Earth.
Speaker 2: The son now live talking about the future. What is
Speaker 2: the future? The future for a black people should be?
Speaker 2: How do we make Wakanda real?
Speaker 1: Before we go, before we're there, before we go there,
Speaker 1: let's go back, let's rewind to tape for a minute.
Speaker 1: And by the way, talking about a radical future. As
Speaker 1: a doctor King, I mean doctor King also very much
Speaker 1: like you, by the way, and you're in this thinking
Speaker 1: Doctor King also was smart enough to realize that it
Speaker 1: couldn't be win lose. It had to be And a
Speaker 1: lot of called civilized leaders today want it to be
Speaker 1: win win lose. They want them to win and somebody
Speaker 1: else to lose. That doesn't work well. So Andrew doctor
Speaker 1: King with with march shut down the economy. White folks
Speaker 1: in the town were going crap, were going crazy because
Speaker 1: their walls were on fire after several weeks of no economics,
Speaker 1: economic activity, because most of the folks in the town
Speaker 1: were majority black. Then he would send Andrew Young quietly
Speaker 1: behind closed doors in a business suit. Take the tape down,
Speaker 1: take off your your overalls, Andy puts you go meet
Speaker 1: with these hundred business leaders who have these whites only
Speaker 1: signs up, negotiate with them behind closed doors, get them
Speaker 1: to take those whites only signs down. And what people
Speaker 1: don't realize is that doctor King never wanted Andrew Young arrested. Ever.
Speaker 1: I'm in Atlanta right now, which is the only international
Speaker 1: city in the in the traditional South almost have a
Speaker 1: trade dollar economy built on civil rights, social justice and
Speaker 1: in the philosophy Andrew Young that was mentored by doctor King.
Speaker 1: And doctor King never wanted Andrew Young arrested because he
Speaker 1: was his negotiator with as he called it, the white folks,
Speaker 1: and Andrew Young going cut that deal to get the
Speaker 1: whites only signs down. And and so the applauses around
Speaker 1: doctor King and the visualization of the marching, but really
Speaker 1: it was doctor King's setting it up, and Andrew Young
Speaker 1: paying it, paying it off, and and and so some
Speaker 1: people need to understand that the elegance yea that doctor
Speaker 1: King wasn't saying that he loved talking to he loved everybody.
Speaker 1: He didn't love talking to everybody, he didn't love hanging
Speaker 1: around everybody, and he didn't necessarily leve what was coming
Speaker 1: out of everybody's mouth. But what he wanted was results
Speaker 1: for our people. Now, you and I have only had
Speaker 1: one major disagreement, uh, that I can remember. And I
Speaker 1: called you one day during the former president's why I
Speaker 1: didn't even say his name, the former President's White House,
Speaker 1: and uh, and you were saying things. I love what
Speaker 1: you were doing, but I like what you were saying.
Speaker 1: I didn't like the way you were saying. You were being,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, overly gracious. Uh. And I said, I said, Van,
Speaker 1: you can say uh, And I think actually you confidence.
Speaker 1: I think later on you can say that thank you,
Speaker 1: mister president for doing this thing. That was the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. But please don't praise the guy as
Speaker 1: a person because you don't You don't know him. I
Speaker 1: don't know him. He don't even know himself. But that's
Speaker 1: dangerous because now you're endorsing him versus dors his act.
Speaker 1: Now I think that you're just being effusive. You you
Speaker 1: love everybody, and of course you love the moment. But
Speaker 1: do you did you understand what I was saying then
Speaker 1: it was a correct way to differentiate that you were really.
Speaker 2: Work Look, I understand what you were trying to say.
Speaker 2: I also understood my role in my position, and I
Speaker 2: understood the psychology of the guy I was dealing with, and.
Speaker 1: Now we're getting there, right, So we're getting there.
Speaker 2: So I see myself in that situation as a pawn
Speaker 2: on the chessboard. We had our king pieces and our
Speaker 2: queen pieces that could not play forward. You couldn't have
Speaker 2: an an Al Sharpton, go, he represents too much. You
Speaker 2: couldn't have a Baraka Michelle Obama, go, they represent too much.
Speaker 2: You'd have a little black guy on see an NGO.
Speaker 2: That's not You're not You're not. You're not risking anything.
Speaker 2: Put in playing me forward? And if and then you
Speaker 2: think about it, you're dealing with Donald Trump, who who
Speaker 2: supposedly is a master of what do you call it
Speaker 2: the art of the deal? That's his deal, the art
Speaker 2: of the deal. So the question is what do we
Speaker 2: need to get out of a deal? And what does
Speaker 2: he need to get out of a deal? And is
Speaker 2: there a way to get a deal that, to your point,
Speaker 2: is win win, but that the cause that that that
Speaker 2: the benefit to us is higher than cost. Yes, so
Speaker 2: I know Donald Trump needs affirmation that everybody please listen
Speaker 2: to this.
Speaker 1: This is so very important. Essentially, my man Van Jones
Speaker 1: telling you and we've never had this conversation, but I
Speaker 1: didn't at the end it at this moment, he basically
Speaker 1: sacrificed himself for you. And I know what's coming coming.
Speaker 1: I know what's coming. This guy loves praise, not Van Jones.
Speaker 1: The other guy, the former president, loves praise like you
Speaker 1: and I need food.
Speaker 2: He needs affirmation. And to the point that there's a
Speaker 2: KGB agent forming kg KGB agent sitting in Moscow named
Speaker 2: Vladimir Putin that has figured out that he can manipulate
Speaker 2: all of you as foreign policy simply by showing some
Speaker 2: respect to this one guy. So for me, inside the
Speaker 2: four corners of the things that were a moment of
Speaker 2: importance for the black community, which three things. One the
Speaker 2: first step back, which got thirty five thousand, mostly black
Speaker 2: people out of federal prison. And when I say, I
Speaker 2: did say thirty five. If I got Donald Trump to
Speaker 2: get thirty five people out of prison, I should get
Speaker 2: the Nobel Peace Broud, right. But we but we got
Speaker 2: thirty five thousand out. It wasn't just Van Jones. It
Speaker 2: was a Keem Jeffries, it was Jared Kushmer, was a
Speaker 2: lot of people, but I was I was a face
Speaker 2: I was willing to put my face against that furnace
Speaker 2: because what if we lost, What if we went through
Speaker 2: all that and we didn't get anything, Well, then I
Speaker 2: just like it looked like a fool. But you still
Speaker 2: have the NAACP in position, You still have al Sharps
Speaker 2: in a position, you still have the Obama's imposition. And
Speaker 2: all you had is like one black dude on CNN,
Speaker 2: make full of himself. That's not much of a sacrifice.
Speaker 2: But what if we win and you want.
Speaker 1: Now you got?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: What do you have?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: You have the what?
Speaker 2: This is what nobody has ever done the math on.
Speaker 2: Look at the twenty twenty election. Don't forget, so we
Speaker 2: get the first step back done. In twenty eighteen, thirty
Speaker 2: five thousand people come out of prison, vast majority black white,
Speaker 2: because all those crack cocaine arrests from the eighties and nineties,
Speaker 2: people still sitting there in prison. All those people came.
Speaker 1: Home and all you do is little praise.
Speaker 2: All I had to do was say things that made
Speaker 2: him feel good. Thirty five thousand people. I see them
Speaker 2: as almost like prisons of war, prisons of the drug war.
Speaker 2: All the thirty five thousand people, many of whom were
Speaker 2: still sitting there from the eighties and nineties War on drugs,
Speaker 2: crack cocaine, All those people came home and that is
Speaker 2: all we did. That would be enough, But but nobody's
Speaker 2: really done the math on what does that then create?
Speaker 2: You have a problem with the twenty twenty election potentially.
Speaker 2: And here's the problem. Black lives matter. Black Lives Matter
Speaker 2: has now created a Democratic party that has to be
Speaker 2: for criminal justice reform. Has to be because black lives
Speaker 2: eat you live if you're not. So what happens you
Speaker 2: have Corey Booker comes out and he says, I'm for
Speaker 2: deep criminalizing marijuana at the federal level. And nobody attacks
Speaker 2: Corey Booker for that?
Speaker 1: Why not?
Speaker 2: You have every major candidate coming out saying they're for
Speaker 2: colminal justice reform. Why but they never get attacked For
Speaker 2: the first time, No, Billy Horton asked the first time,
Speaker 2: why because Donald Trump had already signed off on those policies.
Speaker 2: So we took the sniper out of the sniper tower,
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, and got him down the field with the
Speaker 2: rest of us. So what does Donald Trump run on
Speaker 2: Donald Trumpe on this issue? Say, listen, this issue has
Speaker 2: devastated the black community with the federal government putting black
Speaker 2: people in jail for stef White folk's been doing it
Speaker 2: the whole time. So what happens Donald Trump runs not
Speaker 2: as a Willie Horton attacking black people. He runs said, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm a criminal justice guy. We made it safe and
Speaker 2: maybe a criminal look, we'll see, we'll see, but we
Speaker 2: made it. I think what people understand is by working
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump, sacrificing me is just a punt. It
Speaker 2: doesn't matter. You're no worse off if I humiliate myself.
Speaker 2: But not only did we get those people home, Corey
Speaker 2: Booker didn't get attacked, Joe Biden did't get attacked in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty is the only elections is nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 2: The Republicans did not attack Democrats on crime. We made
Speaker 2: it safe for Democrats to be Democrats on crime because
Speaker 2: we got Republicans who also were standing up saying we
Speaker 2: got to do something different. Now look where we are
Speaker 2: now here we are back. Now it's all cats and
Speaker 2: dogs and blah blah blah. The Republicans are back. But
Speaker 2: we created a safety for both parties to be smart
Speaker 2: on crime. And so my soul is arrested. Now, did
Speaker 2: I say stuff that people didn't like in my community? Yes,
Speaker 2: I did, But I said all that stuff over again.
Speaker 2: Some I would, some my would. But what I was trying,
Speaker 2: I was just trying to do something John that hadn't
Speaker 2: been done before room And so sometimes you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: you we all might get in the ditch and get
Speaker 2: some money on yourself trying to get out of it.
Speaker 2: But when we opened up the car door and all
Speaker 2: them people came home, my soul was wrested.
Speaker 1: Well, let me be clear, so I want everybody to
Speaker 1: hear this. Van Jones was thanking him for his actions,
Speaker 1: not endorsing him as a human being. Correct.
Speaker 2: I'm not endorsing dog Trup with a human being because
Speaker 2: he's mean and lies and does all kinds of shit.
Speaker 2: And the thing about it is that I have said
Speaker 2: from the very beginning, don't forget where did the term
Speaker 2: white lash come from? That was Van Jones talking about
Speaker 2: the nature of his movement. You know, what are we
Speaker 2: going to tell our kids?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: But the reason I don't stress it or go on
Speaker 2: and on about it is because I think it's beneath me.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's why I want to cover You're not covering it.
Speaker 1: I brought it up. All I wanted people to hear
Speaker 1: is a clear, straight, uninterrupted explanation from you what you did.
Speaker 1: And I, by the way, even I didn't get the
Speaker 1: part about taking the bullet of his ego, which I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I could have done, but the in fact
Speaker 1: I know I couldn't have done it to say that
Speaker 1: I would have failed at this at this van mandate,
Speaker 1: because you were trying to get a greater thing done.
Speaker 1: And by the way, let me remind everybody the civil
Speaker 1: rights president for the last one hundred years is arguably
Speaker 1: President Johnson, who signed four civil rights bills, three of
Speaker 1: which directly because of doctor King and Andrew Young and
Speaker 1: doctor Dorothy Hyde and all these heroes and she Rose
Speaker 1: and John Lewis, et cetera. And one of the bills
Speaker 1: in light of doctor King's assassination, which is an open
Speaker 1: housing Act. But this guy Johnson is probably has the
Speaker 1: most foul mouth before the former president, the most foul
Speaker 1: mouth of any president before or since, and had interesting
Speaker 1: views on Jews blacks and women are Jews women, And
Speaker 1: had interesting ways to describe black people behind closed doors.
Speaker 1: And if you had heard what he had to say,
Speaker 1: back then, you would have just uh, you would have recoiled.
Speaker 1: You would have said, I'm not talking to you, but
Speaker 1: that we would have got us would have won the
Speaker 1: battle and lost the war. Who created affirmative action? Yes
Speaker 1: it was teed up by Kennedy and Johnson, but it's
Speaker 1: codified by Nixon? Who who? And now there was games
Speaker 1: being played and all that kind of stuff, And it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter. But the point is nothing good comes easy,
Speaker 1: and and and and and who signed is the legislation
Speaker 1: for doctor King's holiday? Who did more for Africa? So
Speaker 1: so so you I remember Andrew Young, bachelor, Andrew Young
Speaker 1: cursed me out, man. Uh. The only time he's cursed
Speaker 1: me out. I was with President with President Bush, the son,
Speaker 1: and I had asked him for financial literacy bill, and
Speaker 1: and uh he had promised that he'd get financial literacy
Speaker 1: policy done it. Eight months had passed by, and I
Speaker 1: got you disdistraught, and Andrew and bast you said, how
Speaker 1: you doing? I don't know? This is some bs is
Speaker 1: not gonna He cursed me out. Blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: John stop it be skeptical. Don't be cynical, because when
Speaker 1: you're cynical, you've lost hope. This is not about you,
Speaker 1: this is about all of us. It's not get yourself
Speaker 1: out of this right. So your job is assume that
Speaker 1: man's a good man with that council. You go in
Speaker 1: there and get that man good counsel and make him
Speaker 1: look good. Make this his idea. Right now. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say that from a president is a good man,
Speaker 1: but I will say that your job to make him
Speaker 1: look good, got him assign that legislation. Because there's only
Speaker 1: one client in Washington. It's the president of the United
Speaker 1: States of America. It's a literal fact in a most
Speaker 1: Washington uh power.
Speaker 2: And let me add one thing before we move on.
Speaker 2: The other thing you have to realize too, is, as
Speaker 2: we're getting all the way deep with it, is there
Speaker 2: are two hundred thousand people in federal prison right now.
Speaker 2: Well now that's than that, but there were two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand and that at that time who can't vote. They're
Speaker 2: not allowed to vote, they have no say, they can't march,
Speaker 2: they can't tweet. They're literally captives. And what my progressive
Speaker 2: and liberal counterparts were wanting me to do was to
Speaker 2: say I'm going to abandon them until I have a
Speaker 2: president that I like. Yes, now, that could have been
Speaker 2: four years, eight years, twelve years, or sixteen years. I
Speaker 2: didn't know how long you were going to be dealing
Speaker 2: with the Trump presidency. It could have been Trump for
Speaker 2: eight years and then Obanka for eight I didn't know
Speaker 2: what we're dealing with. What people were asking me to
Speaker 2: do is to say, I spent twenty years working on
Speaker 2: behalf of those folks. I was in the Obama White House.
Speaker 2: After I left Obama's staff. I was in Obama's White
Speaker 2: House every week, begging for help for those folks, trying
Speaker 2: to build support for those folks.
Speaker 1: And by the way, it was also let go from
Speaker 1: the Obama White House for being too far out to
Speaker 1: liberhood right. And it's never said a bad word about
Speaker 1: President Obama. I never said a bad word about about
Speaker 1: the folks to senior folks. I won't name names. He
Speaker 1: stepped over mess in it, kept it moving and said, look,
Speaker 1: I did let my work stand for itself, of course, and.
Speaker 2: He left the Obama when I was under fire and
Speaker 2: then came back and you know, not on payroll, but
Speaker 2: continue to work with them on criminal justice reform. Yes,
Speaker 2: And so now we have a president that I don't like,
Speaker 2: and president I didn't support, But he's got two hundred
Speaker 2: thousand souls in his hand. He could crush them all
Speaker 2: or pardon them all. I don't know what this man
Speaker 2: is going to do, but you're telling me I have
Speaker 2: to abandon those people for four years, eight years, twelve
Speaker 2: or sixteen until I have a president that I like.
Speaker 2: How do I justify that to those people for whom
Speaker 2: every day is precious and and can never be returned.
Speaker 2: And so I said, listen, somebody has to go. And
Speaker 2: it should not be Obama. It should not be Obama's husband.
Speaker 1: It should not be Okad that was funny. It should
Speaker 1: not be don't I don't know if it's gonna get
Speaker 1: that or.
Speaker 2: Uh. But it should not be Reverend al Sharp. And
Speaker 2: it should not be Reverend Jesse Jackson. It should not
Speaker 2: be any of our actual because there's there's nothing that
Speaker 2: people at that level could get that would be worth
Speaker 2: worth to give. You cannot send in people at that
Speaker 2: level to stand next to him, because what can you
Speaker 2: But you can send me. You can send me.
Speaker 1: I love you. I love your humility, brother, I love
Speaker 1: your humility. And uh, I'm happy we're about to go deeper.
Speaker 1: By the way, anybody listening to this podcast, you've you've
Speaker 1: been riveted so far. Uh. We're about to go into
Speaker 1: a down an even deeper rabbit hole in a second.
Speaker 1: But I want to amend you, brother for standing in
Speaker 1: your true standing on principle. Uh. And you and you
Speaker 1: and I believe the same thing. I rather you respect
Speaker 1: me and learn to like me. That like me and
Speaker 1: never respect me. I believe me. I believe you know
Speaker 1: uh and and bast Young has taught me well, crocodile
Speaker 1: being old. F Listen without being defensive. Always leave even
Speaker 1: your adversary with their dignity, because if you don't, they'll
Speaker 1: spend the rest of their life working to make you miserable.
Speaker 1: You and I believe the same thing. I'm on a
Speaker 1: few people of color, black people who've advised black Democratic
Speaker 1: and Republican US presidents, and people will stay to me, Well,
Speaker 1: was it like to go to dinner with the president?
Speaker 1: Hang out this president? Hanging with that president? I'll say, Well,
Speaker 1: one president I like, and I go to dinner. One
Speaker 1: president I respect, and I go to dinner I respect
Speaker 1: more one more than I like them. I like I
Speaker 1: like one more than I than I respect and like
Speaker 1: the others, but I'm still going to dinner because the
Speaker 1: president of the United States of America. There's not twelve
Speaker 1: at a time, It's just one I brought. I brought
Speaker 1: President Bush in South Central a By the way, he
Speaker 1: is a nice guy. People called him the devil. I
Speaker 1: think it with jay Z or somebody called it not
Speaker 1: jay Z's. I mean, sorry, excuse me, jay Z. I
Speaker 1: love you, man. Kanye called him the devil years ago.
Speaker 1: People would love to get President Bush back now. I mean,
Speaker 1: my god, please, I'm.
Speaker 2: So scirised any of them, Romney, any of them.
Speaker 1: So I brought a Bush to South central LA. And
Speaker 1: people talked all kind of mess about why am I
Speaker 1: bringing him there? I said, because he's the president. Let
Speaker 1: me think about this all right. By the way, he
Speaker 1: and and we should try to get help and support
Speaker 1: out of any place that we can, because you know,
Speaker 1: we're you know again, we're sitting this moment in history.
Speaker 1: Now on that point, let's pivot now to something an
Speaker 1: even deeper topic. You've got a bold, audacious, challenging, amazing,
Speaker 1: out of the box thoughtfulness about the future of all
Speaker 1: of us in the economy as it relates to black
Speaker 1: people in particular. Let's talk about the black Jewish situation.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about AI, artificial intelligence, which is your offwork
Speaker 1: grade from your coding work. Uh, let's talk about what
Speaker 1: you've you've done with this or your plans are for
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars gift from bezos and how and
Speaker 1: by the way, the pain that that has brought you, uh,
Speaker 1: which is no good d show going punished?
Speaker 2: Right, that's true.
Speaker 1: But let's let's get into your vision.
Speaker 2: Well, look, the best way I can get into it
Speaker 2: is to just talk about my my my new kids,
Speaker 2: my new babies for my first marriage. I've got a
Speaker 2: boy in college and boy in high school, both good,
Speaker 2: good young men, good athletes. I'm with ever good athletes.
Speaker 2: They're great athletes and good scholars. But I also have
Speaker 2: these two little ones, a little girl who's two and
Speaker 2: a half, little boy who's nine months. What kind of
Speaker 2: world are they going to grow up?
Speaker 1: Mmm?
Speaker 2: You have to look at it now, with artificial intelligence,
Speaker 2: my daughter's first crush and my son's best friend, and
Speaker 2: a few years might be an AI. Might be an AI.
Speaker 2: That's weird. That's not the civilization I grew up in.
Speaker 2: Thirty years from now, God willing, if my daughter wants
Speaker 2: to give us grandchildren, she might open up a laptop
Speaker 2: or go into a holographic interface and use biotechnology tools
Speaker 2: to design my grandchildren. That's that civilization I grew up in.
Speaker 2: Heaven forbid. Eighty ninety hundred years from now, she might
Speaker 2: be buried on the Moon or Mars, because within one
Speaker 2: hundred years will be a fully space fearing civilization that
Speaker 2: is not the civilization I grew up in. In other words,
Speaker 2: my children are going to grow up in a different
Speaker 2: human civilization than when I was born into. The question
Speaker 2: is will it be human and will it be civilized?
Speaker 2: Will it be human and will it be civilized? And
Speaker 2: that is for us as grown people to determine in
Speaker 2: terms of policy, in terms of philosophy, in terms of technology,
Speaker 2: in terms of the companies that we found. We're not founding.
Speaker 2: You think you're founding a new company or a new
Speaker 2: firm or a new fund. No, you are co founding
Speaker 2: a new human civilization that will happen in which people
Speaker 2: will have almost godlike powers, but will they be godly?
Speaker 1: See?
Speaker 2: So, this is why I say it's so important that
Speaker 2: black folk are here, because we are going to be
Speaker 2: standing in the breach of saying, how you have people
Speaker 2: who are disproportionately from one group, racially from one group,
Speaker 2: economically from one group, gender, from one group. And what
Speaker 2: we know for sure is the last time one group
Speaker 2: got to determine how the whole world function. We have
Speaker 2: four hundred years a hell, colonization, slavery, environmental destruction, and
Speaker 2: world wars. So you don't ever want again to have
Speaker 2: one group determine the future in that way. We need
Speaker 2: each other Number one, number two as we think about Okay,
Speaker 2: you listen to them. The people who are in charge
Speaker 2: of AI, the people are in charge of quantum computing,
Speaker 2: the people who are in charge of biotech, the people
Speaker 2: in charge of space, the people who are in charge
Speaker 2: of the blockchain, they all say the same thing. They
Speaker 2: want to disrupt everything. They want to disrupt everything. They're
Speaker 2: going to disrupt this industry, They're going to disrupt that industry.
Speaker 2: Goes okay, Okay, that doesn't bother me because the status
Speaker 2: quo has failed my people anyway. But what's the plan
Speaker 2: to disrupt poverty? Am you're disrupting everything. What's the plane
Speaker 2: of disrupt pollution? What's the plan to disrupt prisons, what's
Speaker 2: the planet disrupt polarization, You're going to disrupt everything, but
Speaker 2: you seem to have left a few things out, which
Speaker 2: is where it's so important for people, the diamonds that
Speaker 2: all this pressure produced, to step forward in our genius,
Speaker 2: to step forward in our dignity, to step forward in
Speaker 2: our wisdom and say, hey, as we create this new
Speaker 2: human civilization, let's do it in partnership. Partnership, not pity.
Speaker 2: In partnership. You have new technology, but you're gonna need
Speaker 2: government support. Black folks run politics. We have We have
Speaker 2: four black senators right now. We have a black Vice
Speaker 2: president who might become president. Keem Jeffers is likely to
Speaker 2: be the Speaker of the House. He's black. Of the
Speaker 2: top twenty cities, ten have black mayors. The biggest. We
Speaker 2: have a black governor of Maryland right next to DC
Speaker 2: Wes Moore, and the biggest most effective caucus in the
Speaker 2: House of the black caucus. Black folk run politics.
Speaker 1: You have to succeed without black people voting, voting.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, so you're gonna have You're gonna have political needs.
Speaker 2: You have to come to the table and set with us.
Speaker 2: Let's be partners. You have cultural needs. How is AI
Speaker 2: going to be culturally adopted? Are people going to be
Speaker 2: scared of it as terminator? Are they going to be
Speaker 2: open to it? Like C three P L. Black folks
Speaker 2: run culture. If we say something is cool, it's cool
Speaker 2: in South Korea. If we say something is corny, it
Speaker 2: is corny everywhere on Earth. You have to come to
Speaker 2: the table. You have to come to the table and
Speaker 2: talk with us. And lastly, you have ethical issues with AI.
Speaker 2: And it turns out that the Black community, whatever ratchet
Speaker 2: stuff may be going on in the shadow, in the
Speaker 2: Black community, our light is as bright as any light
Speaker 2: on the earth when it comes to the Black civil
Speaker 2: rights tradition, when it comes to the Black church, when
Speaker 2: it comes to Black spirituality. And so the three needs
Speaker 2: of AI political support, cultural adoption, and ethical guidance the
Speaker 2: Black community is a disproportionate triple superpower and ensuring that
Speaker 2: this technology winds up benefiting all and harming. So again
Speaker 2: we say the slogan is we want to make Wakanda real.
Speaker 2: When you look at the Marvel superhero universe, it's the
Speaker 2: Wakandas who are the most advanced in African nation using
Speaker 2: technology for heroic purpose. That is the cheat code in
Speaker 2: the mind of the public. What if you had a
Speaker 2: real what kind of people say, Well, Van, now you're
Speaker 2: talking space fantasy stuff and stuff is ridiculous, Vans shut out.
Speaker 2: Ninety nine percent of black people don't know anything about AI.
Speaker 2: Nine nine percent these black children on anything about AI.
Speaker 2: What are you talking about? Your one hundred percent correct?
Speaker 2: And nine percent of white boat don't either. Nine percent
Speaker 2: of white children don't either. This is called equality. The
Speaker 2: only equality you're ever going to see in foreigner years
Speaker 2: is that we are all equally ignorant of this future
Speaker 2: that's emerging, and we are equally positioned to do something
Speaker 2: about it if we decide to move first. And that's
Speaker 2: why when you came to help us in Atlanta, we
Speaker 2: did that AI Academy all day academy teaching grassroots leaders
Speaker 2: in Atlanta. You came and gave the keynote speech. As
Speaker 2: someone who's very close as you are, just Sam Altman
Speaker 2: and the other great visionaries. It was significant. And the
Speaker 2: last thing I'll say is.
Speaker 1: Why you're on the AI Ethics Council. By the way, myself,
Speaker 1: you and Bassar Andrew Young, the president of Morehouse Spelman
Speaker 1: Clark Atlanta doctor French, Helene Gail Angela Williams, United Way Worldwide.
Speaker 1: And we got some folks we're not announced she have
Speaker 1: on the tech side, but it's going to be hot.
Speaker 2: And so you think about that an AI council, you
Speaker 2: think about a Jedi council to advise this new empire
Speaker 2: of technology, this rising. It's important that we be at
Speaker 2: the table and there are young people, be focusing on
Speaker 2: that as much as folks anything else. And last thing
Speaker 2: I'll say is this, if you want a future where
Speaker 2: black people are successful, we cannot miss the boat on
Speaker 2: technology and we cannot lose the only ally that we've
Speaker 2: had for the past one hundred years. Who are the
Speaker 2: better people in the Jewish community? Now listen, The Black
Speaker 2: Jewish Alliance is important.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold on right, everybody stop listen now this is
Speaker 1: really important. If you left, if you have not passed
Speaker 1: out yet, you about to pass out because my man
Speaker 1: is about to drop some jewels on you. I need
Speaker 1: for you to listen. Stop, pull off the side of
Speaker 1: the road, Tell people stop talking, Tell tell Pooky them
Speaker 1: is chill for a minute. You need to stop and
Speaker 1: listen to what Van Jones is about to say about
Speaker 1: a topic that you think you know something about about
Speaker 1: this Black Jewish I'm gonna call a situation. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: let him name it. Yeah, I'm go in like the
Speaker 1: boy jay Z go ahead and wrath. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so look, I am I take this very very
Speaker 2: seriously because the Black Jewish alliance is important. Let me
Speaker 2: be clear what I'm talking about. There's some people who
Speaker 2: overstate this and they pretend that there was a time
Speaker 2: and you know, in the past where all black people
Speaker 2: love Jews and all Jews love black people. That never happened.
Speaker 2: They ain't never happened. You always had some black people
Speaker 2: didn't like Jews. You always had some Jews didn't like
Speaker 2: black people. That's not the point. The point is that
Speaker 2: the best people in the Jewish community, inspired by their
Speaker 2: cultural DNA of repair of the world. That's the core
Speaker 2: cultural DNA for the Jewish community is the world. That's
Speaker 2: what the Jewish people are called to do. And the
Speaker 2: best people in the Black community who were inspired by
Speaker 2: our cultural DNA, which is justice for all, as black
Speaker 2: people all around the world, you just cannot get us
Speaker 2: away from justice for all, got together and in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh nine it was a Black Jewish alliance that was
Speaker 2: formed called the NAACP. Why was it a Black Jewish alliance?
Speaker 2: First of all, Jews were not considered white at that
Speaker 2: time white it is an elastic concept. At the time
Speaker 2: it excluded Jews. But number two, our backs were against
Speaker 2: the wall both communities. You have to remember in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh nine, Jim Crow segregation of racial terror was so horrific,
Speaker 2: so barbaric, so bloody, so brutal against black people and
Speaker 2: Jewish people. It inspired Hitler. People think Hitler inspired himself. No,
Speaker 2: Hitler was inspired by what was happening in the United States.
Speaker 1: He took a lot of his ideas about jamming up
Speaker 1: Jews from how blacks were being treated by America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a lot of his worldview. And the
Speaker 2: Afrikaaners who implemented apart type were stealing from what we
Speaker 2: were doing to blacks and Jews in the United States.
Speaker 2: And so and there was no pathway out, don't forget,
Speaker 2: No one had ever. The United States wasn't a democratic
Speaker 2: republican in seventeen seventy six, nor was it in nineteen
Speaker 2: oh nine. It was a racial cast system of former
Speaker 2: slaves and now apartheid regime. No one had ever ever,
Speaker 2: ever in the history of the world, transformed a racial
Speaker 2: cast system into a democratic republican and it never happened.
Speaker 2: And so the best people in the Black community, best
Speaker 2: people in Jewish community created the NAACP in nineteen oh nine.
Speaker 2: Then nineteen ten they created the organization we now called
Speaker 2: the Urban League, and then every decade after that, and
Speaker 2: we can go through that whole history, the best Black
Speaker 2: folks and the best Jewish folks basically co authored and
Speaker 2: co created something you now call American democracy. What American
Speaker 2: democracy is was basically co authored and co created by
Speaker 2: Black and Jewish activists, donors, scholars, lawyers, fighting side by side.
Speaker 2: And though if you like American democracy, thank of black
Speaker 2: and think a jew, you're welcome basically where it came from. Now,
Speaker 2: now what's happening is we are getting pulled apart and
Speaker 2: and some of those reasons make sense, some of those
Speaker 2: reasons don't make sense. But it will not be good
Speaker 2: for either community, and it won't be good for the
Speaker 2: world if at least the best Black folk and the
Speaker 2: best Jewish folks can't find a way to support and
Speaker 2: help each other. You have to be very honest. The
Speaker 2: a lot of black colleges, a lot of black scholarships,
Speaker 2: and a lot of black causes. When you look at
Speaker 2: the animal report you turn it over, those are Jewish
Speaker 2: last names. When it says Rosen, when it says gold,
Speaker 2: they chopped the berg off. But those Jewish families and
Speaker 2: h and also whether you're a Republican or a Democrat,
Speaker 2: it's also remarkable in the way that Blacks and Jews
Speaker 2: have tended to vote together as well and support causes together,
Speaker 2: and so you don't want to lose that when you
Speaker 2: don't have to.
Speaker 1: We also that there was no in the world. There's
Speaker 1: all these you know, hundreds of ethnic groups. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: no black. There's no Black Greek Alliance. There's no black there's.
Speaker 2: No black Swedish Alliance. There's no black Italian alliance. There's
Speaker 2: no black Irish alliance. There's no black Inuit alliance. There's
Speaker 2: no black. It's just the Blacks and the Jews.
Speaker 1: That's it. On the other side, same thing, Jewish.
Speaker 2: Jewish Japanese alliance, there's no Jewish Like, what are you
Speaker 2: talking about? So so you basically look, here's what I'll say,
Speaker 2: for all the good and all the bad, black folk
Speaker 2: need more friends. And few enemies. For all the good
Speaker 2: and bad Jewish folk need more friends and furianeities. He'd
Speaker 2: be quite foolish for us to be enemies of each
Speaker 2: other when four hundred years we will always figure out
Speaker 2: some way to work things out.
Speaker 1: And some argue that there are four countries in the
Speaker 1: world who'd love for us to never get back together
Speaker 1: because if we get because if we get back together,
Speaker 1: we are a force to be reckoned with. We've changed
Speaker 1: the world together before we could do it again. Someone argued,
Speaker 1: And by the way, I'm gonna get you credit with this,
Speaker 1: I've been I've been stealing your stuff.
Speaker 2: I steal yours all the time.
Speaker 1: Doctor King, who's the tail pastors around him? Hey, Joe,
Speaker 1: that sounded really good that quote. You know, the first
Speaker 1: three times I use I'm gonna give you credit, the
Speaker 1: fourth time is mine.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: So you said that Iran, uh, North Korea, Russia and
Speaker 1: China with our four authoritarian leaderships that want to run
Speaker 1: the world and are tired of us being out of
Speaker 1: the front, of us being America and there and everybody
Speaker 1: wants to be an American, but Americans, they love for
Speaker 1: us to have a food fight like gat each other
Speaker 1: tear each other up, which been funding so they can
Speaker 1: take because they can't win in a fair fight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I think it's important to
Speaker 2: recognize that we all know in the back of our
Speaker 2: mind that Russia, China and North Korea and Iran are
Speaker 2: messing with us. They're messing with our elections, They're messing
Speaker 2: with our social media. But we still believe that somehow
Speaker 2: my social media is correct. They must with everybody else, well,
Speaker 2: mine is great. So and so we have to be
Speaker 2: very careful and recognize that anytime you look at something
Speaker 2: that when you get finished you feel really mad at
Speaker 2: one group, whether it's Republican, Democrat, Palestinian, Jewish, whatever it is,
Speaker 2: that's propaganda because no one group is all bad or
Speaker 2: all good. Right, All the Palestinians are not bad and
Speaker 2: they're not all good. All the Israeli is not all
Speaker 2: bad and not all good. All Americans are not bad
Speaker 2: and not all good and all that. So anytime you
Speaker 2: see something and over and over again, your algorithm is
Speaker 2: having me. Every time you know you're madder and matter
Speaker 2: at one group and you think that you're justified, that's
Speaker 2: propaganda and so and then why why is it that
Speaker 2: when I open up my phone, Look, I hate what's
Speaker 2: happening in gods, and and I pray for those children
Speaker 2: and people every night. And why this is my twenty
Speaker 2: year old son. Whenever he looks at his phone, he
Speaker 2: sees gossip, gossa, gosp goss, gossip, people dying in Haiti,
Speaker 2: No Haiti, goss God, people dying in Sudan, No Sudan,
Speaker 2: goss After Nigeria, Yeah, Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, women in Afghanistan, Yeah,
Speaker 2: gossa Goza. Now hold on a second, now, now, no, nobody, Look,
Speaker 2: I've been to the Holy Land. I was in Gaza
Speaker 2: before Hamas took over. I've been on in the West Bank. Personally,
Speaker 2: I've seen the IDEF, the Israeli defense forces treat Palestinians terribly.
Speaker 2: Uh So, nobody has to explain I've been there personally,
Speaker 2: I know what's going on. But Gosa, Gods, gods, Gaza,
Speaker 2: Hold on a second, who does that benefit. We're not
Speaker 2: on a pathway for more safety for Palestinians. We're not
Speaker 2: on a paskway pathway for more safety for Israelis. We're
Speaker 2: certainly not on a pathway for more supportive and help
Speaker 2: for black people, but it's still happening. So could it
Speaker 2: be that someone is realized the value of a black mind.
Speaker 2: Could it be that somebody has realized the value.
Speaker 1: Of a black mind the unopened Yeah. No.
Speaker 2: And could it be that the somebody in Iran, that
Speaker 2: there's somebody in Russia who is targeting propaganda at young
Speaker 2: black minds to make sure that they follow an agenda
Speaker 2: that it's more helpful for Iran, more helpful for Russia
Speaker 2: than it is for Palestinians or Israelis or black people.
Speaker 2: I don't like my children being used by someone who
Speaker 2: has an agenda for my children's minds that I didn't
Speaker 2: ask me about. So when you have all these young
Speaker 2: black people hate Israel the almost starting on, they hate Jews,
Speaker 2: and nobody's asked the question. But wait, wait a second.
Speaker 2: You're young black people. You have the ear of the world.
Speaker 2: You could bring both sides together, you could listen to
Speaker 2: each side. You could be the broker, you could be
Speaker 2: the power player. But no, no, you're just going to
Speaker 2: be out here marching on one side of the issue.
Speaker 2: On the in the country. You've never seen if somebody
Speaker 2: came to the hood trying to tell you we're for
Speaker 2: the bloods. You shouldn't be for the crips.
Speaker 1: He said.
Speaker 2: You don't know what you're talking about, but you're somehow
Speaker 2: Now in an Instagram Pece hd haver about a country
Speaker 2: you've never been to and out here marching and then
Speaker 2: driving away allies for your own community. Is this a plan?
Speaker 2: Is this a plot? And shouldn't we have a plan?
Speaker 1: What did Malcolm X say? We've been bamboos, We've been tricked,
Speaker 1: We've been fool exactly.
Speaker 2: But the great thing about it is because the hearts
Speaker 2: of young people, and especially Black people are so open
Speaker 2: and are so passionate and so idealistic that justice for
Speaker 2: all that core DNA and the diamonds in our community.
Speaker 1: I believe that.
Speaker 2: A Black community that knows who it is, can use
Speaker 2: technology to heal the world, can en these divides between
Speaker 2: Muslims and Jews, can use technology to fix problems, can
Speaker 2: actually use our political, cultural and spiritual power to bring
Speaker 2: the best out in everybody. And so when you see
Speaker 2: me doing stuff it seems incomprehensible, it's because I am.
Speaker 2: I believe that deeply in who we are. And so no, no,
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna cuss a bunch of people out and
Speaker 2: I'm not speaking this person. Know everybody should be blessed
Speaker 2: by our presence here because everybody needs it.
Speaker 1: Amen, are you prepared to The answer could be no,
Speaker 1: we haven't had this conversation. But you told me something
Speaker 1: which I thought you claim you learn from me. I
Speaker 1: definitely learned from you. You told me something about Uh. Wait,
Speaker 1: First of all, I me back up. As smart as
Speaker 1: I think I am, and I think I'm relatively smart,
Speaker 1: I'm certain definitely nosy as hell and everything right. I
Speaker 1: didn't know the difference between Hamas and Palestine until I
Speaker 1: went and did some real research. And wait, wait, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, these are not These are not the same
Speaker 1: people as went into Palestine and with Palestinians ass raped
Speaker 1: and pillaged.
Speaker 2: And beat and and tortured and assassinated.
Speaker 1: Assasismated Palastinian leaders enforced them under their rule and wedged
Speaker 1: themselves into a situation between Palestine and UH and Israel,
Speaker 1: and then picked fights after they wedged themselves into there
Speaker 1: UH and UH. And people don't realize they think that
Speaker 1: when they're when they think that when they're hearing Hamas,
Speaker 1: that then that the same thing as Palestine is not.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I got I just say that because you know,
Speaker 1: even I could learn. But you have a vision of
Speaker 1: what we can agree on. Yes, you want to say
Speaker 1: something on that, but you speak at all to what
Speaker 1: the items that you think that we can find some
Speaker 1: agreement on. Uh, even in this tortured environment we find
Speaker 1: ourselves in in the world with regard to blacks, we
Speaker 1: don't want to see any war anywhere blacks getting ever
Speaker 1: and juice, okay, any of that.
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, Well on the Jewish side, there's there's five ages.
Speaker 2: There's one age that we're just going to disagree on,
Speaker 2: and there's four ages we should agree on. When it
Speaker 2: comes to this whole situation, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,
Speaker 2: black people are not going to support. We're not gonna
Speaker 2: support them, and then Jews people should not take that personally.
Speaker 2: We didn't support w going into Iraq, we didn't support Vietnam,
Speaker 2: doctor King, and we have black people. We're not supporting
Speaker 2: no wars, so don't don't don't be mad. We're not
Speaker 2: gonna support that. We'll be will be neutral on Ukraine
Speaker 2: just because use white folk fight, but we're not gonna
Speaker 2: support for fight wars like this, So don't don't ask
Speaker 2: us to stop being black. Black people do not support
Speaker 2: wars like this. But there's four other ages. There's hostages,
Speaker 2: which we came over here as hostages. Just Jackson went
Speaker 2: all around the world free in hostages. So we're trying
Speaker 2: to free hostages right now to us prison so we
Speaker 2: can we can support you when you say you want
Speaker 2: your children home, that's not a problem. There's also the
Speaker 2: hate crimes that are coming down against Jewish children.
Speaker 1: I'm really staying against.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just like just like when there's hate crimes against
Speaker 2: the Muslims after nine to eleven and with the Muslim band,
Speaker 2: just like when the Asians were getting attacked after COVID.
Speaker 2: We don't support that. So we understand your your fear
Speaker 2: around hate crimes. We can support you on that. Then
Speaker 2: there's as we said, Hamas Hamas is not an organization
Speaker 2: that we should be supporting. Mendela supported the Palestinian cause,
Speaker 2: but he supported Fatah, he supported Arafat, he supported the PO.
Speaker 2: He did not support Hamas Hamas was created to fight
Speaker 2: the PLO. We say, oh, well, you know, yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: We say, oh, well, Mendel, it's for the Palestinians. Well
Speaker 2: a second, yeah, but wish Palestinians. Is it's like saying
Speaker 2: you're for the Americans, which Americans.
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: So so yeah, he supported Palestinians, but wish Palestinians. He
Speaker 2: didn't support right wing butchers who one imposed the theocracy.
Speaker 2: He supported secular Democrats who were trying to get to
Speaker 2: one person, one vote. So so Hamas, young black children
Speaker 2: should not be fooled to support. Yes, we support armed struggle,
Speaker 2: but Nelson Mandela support an armed struggle. No women, no children,
Speaker 2: no kidnapped, no rapes, only soldiers in infrastructure. That was
Speaker 2: Nelson Mandela and South Africa that was some more on
Speaker 2: Michelle and Mozambique that was Augustino Nito and Angola. That
Speaker 2: was a milk car Cabral in Guinea Bissau. That was
Speaker 2: a black panther party for self defense. Even Malcolm X
Speaker 2: said by any means necessary, he never he never heard
Speaker 2: a fly. And so we have high effects, high morals.
Speaker 2: Hamas does not. That's so no, no to Hamas. And lastly,
Speaker 2: a secure homeland for Jews and for Palestinians. Know we
Speaker 2: understand that people won't to have a place of their own,
Speaker 2: and so no, will not support this humanitarian crisis in God.
Speaker 2: But we will support you on hostages, we can support
Speaker 2: you on hate crimes, we can support you that Hamas
Speaker 2: is not an example for our children and can't say
Speaker 2: that you just deserve a homeland. So that's four out
Speaker 2: of five. That's prett damn good. And then based on
Speaker 2: that we should be able to get back to work
Speaker 2: together on opportunity agenda for everybody and a dignity agenda
Speaker 2: for everybody, which is in the interest in Black, Jews
Speaker 2: and the world. And so right now you've got people
Speaker 2: being in the Jewish community now being pulled off into
Speaker 2: anti Dei and anti woke and stuff like that, which
Speaker 2: is which is the same way. I don't want young
Speaker 2: black kids being used by Iran for an anti Jewish agenda.
Speaker 2: I don't want Jews being used by the white nationalists
Speaker 2: for an anti black agenda. We need to come back
Speaker 2: to the table and get back to dignity, democracy and
Speaker 2: opportunity for all. That's what we've been about for one
Speaker 2: hundred years and we should be about that for the
Speaker 2: next hundred. And you will never have a more important
Speaker 2: century for the two cultural superpowers of Blacks and Jews
Speaker 2: to get together to fight for democracy, dignity and opportunity
Speaker 2: than this century, because it could we could have a
Speaker 2: new Dark Ages or new Enlightenment. You can be a
Speaker 2: new dark agent and will it will come down to what,
Speaker 2: as usual, what Blacks and Jews do in large part,
Speaker 2: and so that conversation about that alliance, about AI and
Speaker 2: just about us, like we had our moment to be
Speaker 2: mad at everybody. But I don't think that we need
Speaker 2: ten more, twenty more and thirty more years of us
Speaker 2: custom now white folk and tell them that they're racist.
Speaker 2: I think I think the ones that have gonna agree
Speaker 2: have already agreed. I don't think the rest of them
Speaker 2: are coming. I'd rather spend the next ten to twenty
Speaker 2: years creating a new human civilization with our values at
Speaker 2: the center, with our genius at the center, with our
Speaker 2: magic at the center. And if I'm misunderstood along the way,
Speaker 2: that's the price.
Speaker 1: I'm on the pay. Look, some people would call you
Speaker 1: and Uncle Tom without understanding. Uncle Tom was actually a
Speaker 1: very He was a good guy. People again, you've been
Speaker 1: you've been, You've been fool these read read read reading
Speaker 1: is fundamental. The original Uncle Tom was a baller. I mean, dude,
Speaker 1: I mean, this dude went to Canada and free. He
Speaker 1: was headed his own underground railroad. And then some folks
Speaker 1: manipulated that situation. You use social media at that time
Speaker 1: in movies, Uh to turn that on its face and
Speaker 1: anybody members is the black face, all that kind of
Speaker 1: stupid stuff. He had a movie producer. I didn't. He
Speaker 1: argued with me about Uncle Tom, like I've done a
Speaker 1: movie about it. I want telling you that your movie
Speaker 1: was wrong. But look, you are ahead of your time.
Speaker 1: And any leader who is worth their salt, uh would
Speaker 1: prefer to be respected and liked. Yeah, and uh and
Speaker 1: and is even willing to not be respected because they're
Speaker 1: standing on and I thank you.
Speaker 2: And before you do, we gotta cloth. Let me just
Speaker 2: say one thing. I would be a sellout. I would
Speaker 2: be a trader. I would be all those negative things.
Speaker 2: If I was working with Republicans to put more black
Speaker 2: people in prison, if I was working with Republicans to
Speaker 2: put more pollution in my community, if I was working
Speaker 2: with Republicans to take education out of my community, I
Speaker 2: would be a trader. But I'm working with Republicans, I'm
Speaker 2: working with billionaires. I'm working with Wall Street, I'm working
Speaker 2: with Silicon Valley, to take people out of prison, to
Speaker 2: put solar panels in the community, and to get education
Speaker 2: going for us for this new technological age. So yes,
Speaker 2: you should ask questions. Like you said, you should be skeptical.
Speaker 2: But if a brother or a sister is working with
Speaker 2: people who you think is the enemy, but they're getting
Speaker 2: the enemy to help you, that's a different a situation
Speaker 2: than somebody's working with enemy to hurt you. And I
Speaker 2: don't think any Black people that thirty five thousand people
Speaker 2: came out of prison not mad at me. The young
Speaker 2: people that you helped us educate with AI are not
Speaker 2: mad at me. And the people who are trying to
Speaker 2: keep black colleges open and plaid scholarships open are not
Speaker 2: mad at me for trying to keep the Black and
Speaker 2: Jewish community together. And I'm happy when I say I'm happy,
Speaker 2: Bess understood, that's bravado. It hurts my feeling. I actually
Speaker 2: be in therapy about it. I've cried tears about it,
Speaker 2: but my soul is rested. I'm at peace with what
Speaker 2: the path that I am walking. I'm not everybody's cup
Speaker 2: of tea. People may not agree. It has been very,
Speaker 2: very painful, but I finally come to a place John,
Speaker 2: where I believe in what I'm doing enough to be
Speaker 2: misunderstood by my own people.
Speaker 1: When I show up at places of power, Van Jones
Speaker 1: is there. When I show up at places of influence,
Speaker 1: Van Jones is there when I raised conversation with thought
Speaker 1: leaders about opinions that matter. Van Jones is brought up
Speaker 1: when I think about somebody who has gifted one hundred
Speaker 1: million dollars. Now I've got four and a half billion
Speaker 1: dollars of economic activity, but no one gave me a
Speaker 1: thing I had to lend that money. About who gifted
Speaker 1: one hundred million dollars with no strings attached. That's just
Speaker 1: only one person, Van Jones, And at the time gifted
Speaker 1: by the wealthy is the then wealthiest man in the world,
Speaker 1: who's no dummy. When I think about somebody who's standing
Speaker 1: on principal, Van Jones who comes up comes to mind.
Speaker 1: When I think about somebody my wife likes and my
Speaker 1: reads people really well her life, she lights up like
Speaker 1: a Christmas tree. But she Van Jones because she's all
Speaker 1: about love and she knows he is too. When I
Speaker 1: want to see a good father, I met the son
Speaker 1: I met Van jones son. Young people don't play games
Speaker 1: they mean to roll their eyes. They will roll their eyes.
Speaker 1: They disrespect their parents, they will disrespect them in public.
Speaker 1: And this man, when Van Jones is talking and he's
Speaker 1: off to the side looking at his son, looking at
Speaker 1: his dad, is nothing but admiration and love. I mean,
Speaker 1: this guy is just like that's my dad, Like my
Speaker 1: dad is doing it and rightfully so. And when I
Speaker 1: talk to him about his life, it wasn't I didn't
Speaker 1: have to beat him into submission. He just needed. All
Speaker 1: I do was reaffirming what you've already told him. But
Speaker 1: he's but he was respectful and considerate. And that young
Speaker 1: man that we want to see in black america's been
Speaker 1: a father, You've been a friend, You've been a mentor
Speaker 1: or so many you've been a help make you're you're
Speaker 1: a visionary. You're not perfect. You're not You're not saying
Speaker 1: you are. That's not the point. But you're perfectly yourself.
Speaker 1: And I wish more people would stop talking about you.
Speaker 1: By the way, when I brought you Atlanta for a
Speaker 1: meeting of black men, it was packed. Everybody wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: This is recently, so there is no leadership without conflict,
Speaker 1: there is no there is no problems without some with
Speaker 1: some friction. So you can't grow without legitimate suffering and friction.
Speaker 1: So you're going to be in this crossroads where people
Speaker 1: you're you're just ahead of your time. If people may
Speaker 1: not understand you, and that's okay, and you've made peace
Speaker 1: with that. But I want you to know that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people rooting for you, Van Jones, and
Speaker 1: I'm just and I want you to shut it up
Speaker 1: and listen.
Speaker 2: Brother, I appreciate this. This is probite the deepest conversation
Speaker 2: I've ever had in public. So I appreciate you you
Speaker 2: helping me get some of this stuff out. I have
Speaker 2: a lot of jelly in the jar. It doesn't always
Speaker 2: get out to your point, but this has been and
Speaker 2: you know, I have to brag on you. You know,
Speaker 2: you've been my leader and my teacher for a very
Speaker 2: long time and got some of these spots before I
Speaker 2: got there and made sure I didn't mess them up,
Speaker 2: so which I greatly to appreciate. We can tell those
Speaker 2: stories sometimes as well.
Speaker 1: Well. I love you, man, but I love you. But
Speaker 1: it's great with two black men, two straight black men
Speaker 1: can say that.
Speaker 2: Exactly. You say, I love you. None you can do
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 1: I just call him, send him a note. He man,
Speaker 1: I just love you. Thing you can do about it,
Speaker 1: but take it. Yeah, look, everybody, this has been a
Speaker 1: special edition of Money and Wealth with John O'Briant and
Speaker 1: my friend Van Jones. And you say, what does this
Speaker 1: have to do with money and wealth? If you don't
Speaker 1: get that message, then you don't understand what wealth really is.
Speaker 1: Wealth is actually a mindset.
Speaker 2: It's a mindset.
Speaker 1: It's a mindset. And I mean, we just gave you
Speaker 1: a mouthful of mindset. And I'm gonna drop the mic
Speaker 1: with this because because because Van Jones is very good
Speaker 1: friends with somebody I admire named jay Z. Jayson did
Speaker 1: an album called four four four which most people don't understand.
Speaker 1: It's a financial literacy album. It's like the it's like
Speaker 1: The Matrix in music. It's like the movie The Matrix
Speaker 1: in music. And one of the clips was I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you a million dollars worth of game, but nine
Speaker 1: nine this cost of the album. You got a million
Speaker 1: dollars worth of game, you got one hundred millions with
Speaker 1: the game, or the cost of your time. And make
Speaker 1: sure it pays dividends by sharing this audio conversation and
Speaker 1: in video conversation with your friends, with your loved ones,
Speaker 1: with people who may not understand this man who and
Speaker 1: when you're when you're listening, when they're listening, to tell
Speaker 1: him to shut their mouth and open their ears because
Speaker 1: God gave you two ears and one mouth. So you
Speaker 1: listen twice as much as you talk. And if you
Speaker 1: don't and at the end of it, if you don't
Speaker 1: talk for an hour, at the end of it, you
Speaker 1: don't agree with Evans, then shut them down. But let's
Speaker 1: stop saying, don't bother me with the facts. I've already
Speaker 1: made up my mind. That's not a.
Speaker 2: Much love.
Speaker 1: Thank you, brother. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is
Speaker 1: a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: The deput