Speaker 1: What's good. Family, I'm your girl to make a d
Speaker 1: Mallory and your boy my son in general, and we
Speaker 1: are your hosts of street politicians the place where the
Speaker 1: street me. What's going on? My son Lennen. We had
Speaker 1: a good week, relaxed a little bit. The weather ain't
Speaker 1: completely freezing. It could be better, but it ain't freezing.
Speaker 1: It's freezing. I don't know about completely absolutely freezing. Forty
Speaker 1: and fifty is good. I take forty and fifty or
Speaker 1: thirty and twenty is freezing because at night it's thirty.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've been going out at night here
Speaker 1: and there. Okay, I just wanted to be I just
Speaker 1: want the record outside with it. I've been going out.
Speaker 1: I've been looking cute and doing something because sitting in
Speaker 1: the house is not going to accomplish any other thing
Speaker 1: that I need to get done there. You can't make
Speaker 1: no money in the house. People are yeah. But the
Speaker 1: thing is, in order to get the position in the house,
Speaker 1: you got to go outside, find the people, get the
Speaker 1: relationships set up. Then you can bring the work inside
Speaker 1: the house and make it happen. But you're not getting
Speaker 1: ready to sit all day long on the internet and
Speaker 1: never um with network with other individuals and then just
Speaker 1: come up with a million dollar thing. It's not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: Even if you have a new product. You might be
Speaker 1: making it in your basement, but at some point you
Speaker 1: got to go selling it to somebody. Well, you got
Speaker 1: enough resources. At this point, you've got enough resources relationships.
Speaker 1: If you come there, you can sit there because you've
Speaker 1: done it, and get on that computer and say let's
Speaker 1: figure this out. Because I've been your way. I've been
Speaker 1: telling you get outside of you where you've got to
Speaker 1: go outside. I don't need to be outside. My bid
Speaker 1: is perfect. I got my com you I'm working a sudden,
Speaker 1: I still have to go outside. I still have to
Speaker 1: go outside. I still have to be at events. I
Speaker 1: still have to Now we're opening back up. You know,
Speaker 1: students don't want to necessarily be on virtual so I
Speaker 1: have to go to states and meet people. COVID is
Speaker 1: becoming a thing again where all of a sudden, folks
Speaker 1: are starting to get infected with COVID and in large groups. Um,
Speaker 1: I just had Actually, my makeup artist was just telling
Speaker 1: me that a group of her friends were together recently.
Speaker 1: They've been getting together for a while, but just this
Speaker 1: time that they got together, several people within the group
Speaker 1: got COVID. Hopefully all of them will be fine and
Speaker 1: it won't, you know, be life threatening. But that's also
Speaker 1: a thing. So you know, there's a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: happening as always. But I do think that unfortunately we
Speaker 1: have to I don't think we should ever return to
Speaker 1: a time where people have to work every day outside
Speaker 1: of their homes. I do not think that that is
Speaker 1: um productive. I think we are. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's really true. I just I think there has to
Speaker 1: be a balance of anything. That's what I'm saying. I said,
Speaker 1: That's why I said every day, Well, because I love
Speaker 1: that you have. Right. You can't sweep You can't sweep
Speaker 1: the floors from your house, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You can't. You can't manage the story that's down a
Speaker 1: block from your home. But what you can do, though,
Speaker 1: is set it up where people have a work schedule
Speaker 1: that allows coverage of individuals, so that one person is
Speaker 1: not sweeping the floors for you know, forty hours a week,
Speaker 1: but instead they get a certain amount of hours a
Speaker 1: pay increase, so they're still making the same amount of money,
Speaker 1: but they don't really, they don't really. How you getting pad?
Speaker 1: You want somebody getting paid? Let's work. No. No, that means,
Speaker 1: first of all, because first of all, people should to
Speaker 1: be allowed time to be able to take a class,
Speaker 1: learn some other. If we're if America is going to
Speaker 1: at any point ever in life, in my lifetime, in
Speaker 1: your lifetime, accomplish what it says and and rise to
Speaker 1: its greatest place, then we would give people tools that
Speaker 1: they need so that they can make more money and
Speaker 1: be more successful. Right, But if you're a person who's
Speaker 1: working all day, maybe two or three jobs, you might
Speaker 1: not have time to take a class. Also while you're
Speaker 1: trying to take care of your kids so you can
Speaker 1: get that promotion or what have you. The whole problem
Speaker 1: is that people who are sweeping floors are getting paid
Speaker 1: below the wage that it is required for them to
Speaker 1: be able to take care of their families. So if
Speaker 1: you're making eight dollars an hour, that should not be
Speaker 1: a thing anymore in our society, people, the minimum wage
Speaker 1: increase at fifteen dollars should be the norm, and fifteen
Speaker 1: dollars ain't ship. So the thing about this, let's say
Speaker 1: I got a little mom and pop store, right, I'm
Speaker 1: paying five thousand dollars a month for the rent. I'm
Speaker 1: paying each employee fifteen fifteen dollars. I need about five
Speaker 1: or six employees, and I don't make the amount of
Speaker 1: money to pay none of these people. So those those
Speaker 1: things are realistic. So if if you have, if you're
Speaker 1: saying that people have to have a minimum amount of things,
Speaker 1: then there's less employees that I have. So if it's
Speaker 1: less employees that I've had able to pay fifteen dollars,
Speaker 1: and it's less people that's able to work throughout forty
Speaker 1: our day. So if I only got if I gotta
Speaker 1: pay everybody fifteen hours, I've only got two people I
Speaker 1: could pay, right, because I can't afford to pay nobody
Speaker 1: else because I'm not making enough money. That the rent
Speaker 1: is too high, especially when you look at inflation, the
Speaker 1: rent and every the rent is too damn how everything
Speaker 1: is going all the way up. So to be able
Speaker 1: to do what you're talking about, it's very hard. I
Speaker 1: have to say two points on this. The first thing
Speaker 1: is that our government should be given better subsidies to
Speaker 1: small businesses, right, so that these small businesses can access
Speaker 1: capital to keep them afloat where they have two pools
Speaker 1: of money, the money that they're bringing in from their
Speaker 1: products and services and the money that the government is
Speaker 1: supposed to give and does give to some some businesses. Right,
Speaker 1: Because if you are an m WBE in New York
Speaker 1: and I don't know about other cities, I know that
Speaker 1: there are m w b E programs other places, but
Speaker 1: certainly in New York State, which is a minority woman
Speaker 1: owned business, right, and you apply for all of this
Speaker 1: stuff that takes of course, it's like it's like it's
Speaker 1: it's almost like laying yourself on a slab and telling
Speaker 1: somebody to stab you a thousand times in order for
Speaker 1: you to actually get the certification. But if you're able
Speaker 1: to get it one, you get in the pipeline for
Speaker 1: more contracts. And that's everything from food services, cleaning services,
Speaker 1: so that's the little sweeping the floor jobs you're talking about,
Speaker 1: all the way up to you know, big contracts for
Speaker 1: the airport and the build things and what have you.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be in line and sometimes front of
Speaker 1: the line to be able to put r FPS into
Speaker 1: get those programs. But then there are also subsidies that
Speaker 1: come down from the state that should go to these
Speaker 1: small businesses so that you can stay afloat, so that
Speaker 1: you can especially in times of like you've got COVID
Speaker 1: and you have other things that happen that will help
Speaker 1: you to be able to pay your bills. The problem
Speaker 1: is that m w b S black folks try to
Speaker 1: apply for you know how difficult it is for us
Speaker 1: with application processes. But what they say is women owned businesses.
Speaker 1: So guess what happens. White women go get the licenses
Speaker 1: and the certification and then they become the owner of
Speaker 1: the businesses that their white husbands are running. So again,
Speaker 1: every area there is at the system, use the system
Speaker 1: as it currently stands. But then the second thing is
Speaker 1: it's corporate greed, right, because a part of being able
Speaker 1: to level out things in our society is that corporations
Speaker 1: are taking so much. They have employees that are not
Speaker 1: being paid properly. Uh, they are not giving the appropriate benefits,
Speaker 1: and they're not paying their do share of taxes and
Speaker 1: other things to our society. And so therefore we're living
Speaker 1: in an unbalanced network if you will, or reality, and
Speaker 1: that's one of our biggest challenges. So everything that I'm
Speaker 1: talking about, yeah, that's like vision for the future. That's
Speaker 1: hoping one they will find a president. One day, there
Speaker 1: will be a president that will come forward that will
Speaker 1: have Donald Trump's balls. But excuse me, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I'm supposed to say that, Hey, I said it,
Speaker 1: I don't try. Um testicular fortitude, but testicular fortitude, but
Speaker 1: but but but um the moral standing of someone who
Speaker 1: actually wants to do right by society where they will say,
Speaker 1: I don't care if I don't get elected for another
Speaker 1: four years, but this is the ship that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put in place, and I'm going to hold to my
Speaker 1: word regardless of whether people like me or not. I
Speaker 1: don't know when that's ever gonna happen because everybody is
Speaker 1: out here so much for elections, but I would hope that, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's gonna I don't see that really happening. I
Speaker 1: don't see. But just understanding the justice system, in the
Speaker 1: legal system and all of this system and government, now,
Speaker 1: I just understand that it's it's it's all a game.
Speaker 1: So the game. So we just got to figure out
Speaker 1: how we could play the best we can and how
Speaker 1: do we exist within it and build structures, small structures
Speaker 1: that we can build infrastructures within this that eventually take
Speaker 1: over that I guess when you really think about it,
Speaker 1: is certain businesses essential businesses. That definitely And to my point,
Speaker 1: if those people have to go to work for forty
Speaker 1: hours a week, they damn sure should be being paid
Speaker 1: essential wage right um. But at the same time, I
Speaker 1: feel like people who work from home, or or excuse me,
Speaker 1: people who have jobs that are able to be conducted
Speaker 1: from home, they should be able to be on a
Speaker 1: schedule that provides opportunity for them to be with their kids,
Speaker 1: for them to uh, you know, go to a class,
Speaker 1: take care of themselves, and still be able to work.
Speaker 1: But then, yes, I think we all should absolutely be
Speaker 1: outside around other individuals, talking, networking and connecting with people,
Speaker 1: because there is there is is one ent a problem
Speaker 1: with folks sitting at home and really starting to suffer
Speaker 1: from mental health issues, you know, as a result of
Speaker 1: them not being around other people. So I agree with
Speaker 1: you about that. Speaking of people being at home, can
Speaker 1: we talk about what's happening with public safety and schools.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've been getting calls every day from interview
Speaker 1: It's unbelievable. Like you know, first of all, there's always
Speaker 1: somebody getting shot man or repeat to the four kids
Speaker 1: that just got killed in ten people got shot. Another
Speaker 1: vigilante is like, how does how does that continue? That?
Speaker 1: You know, Like, I really just I'm not saying vigilante.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say school shooting, not vigilante because it
Speaker 1: wasn't virginated. But how does it constantly? Are these kids
Speaker 1: able to walk into schools with guns and kill people?
Speaker 1: It's just to me, it just makes no sense. You know.
Speaker 1: But Ray Ray is walking into school with a gun too,
Speaker 1: But I'm not saying he's not. But and I'm saying,
Speaker 1: how is he doing it right? How is it? You
Speaker 1: want more metal detectives, what you want? What I want
Speaker 1: is more not metal detectives. I want more school probing.
Speaker 1: I want more school being attentive to the children. And
Speaker 1: and maybe I don't know if it's metal detectives per se,
Speaker 1: but I think that there has to be something set
Speaker 1: up to what kids aren't able to walk into school
Speaker 1: with guys, you know, like the only thing is that
Speaker 1: means law enforcement. So we have to And I'm glad
Speaker 1: we're having this conversation because we really do need to
Speaker 1: talk through what is the next level? Right We there
Speaker 1: is law enforcement is what people can people immediately go towards. Now,
Speaker 1: we could say, well, we need to put more anti
Speaker 1: violence experts in the school, right, brothers like Shan Duke
Speaker 1: mcvadda and others who A C. Mitchell and and I mean,
Speaker 1: I could get in trouble because the list is so
Speaker 1: long of those people who do that work. And we
Speaker 1: can say let's put them in the school. But then
Speaker 1: if something happens and they are not accredited or have
Speaker 1: some type of specific certificate from the state or the city,
Speaker 1: they put themselves in danger that if something happens is
Speaker 1: blamed or placed at the feet of the anti violence expert.
Speaker 1: But then you have law enforcements in the in the school,
Speaker 1: and clearly with metal detectives and everything else, that's not working.
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I think I think there has
Speaker 1: to be assistance. I just think that at this point,
Speaker 1: I think that definitely needs to be different gun lawers. Um.
Speaker 1: I think there should be some systems set up. I
Speaker 1: don't know if he's medal detectives per se, but I
Speaker 1: think schools should have some type of structure which when
Speaker 1: you're just not allowed in school with guns, Like I
Speaker 1: just think there should be similar And I don't not
Speaker 1: allowed in school with guns now, but they're constantly getting
Speaker 1: in there with and killing people. So there has to
Speaker 1: be something, you know, I don't I'm all against over policing,
Speaker 1: but I do think in these kids, our kids should
Speaker 1: be able to go to school and be safe, like
Speaker 1: kids should not have to you know, like you said
Speaker 1: that the bullying and the way the kids are being
Speaker 1: the lack of real protection in school for kids is detrimental,
Speaker 1: like you you're, we're I've literally watched, you know. I
Speaker 1: even think about when I was in school. They were
Speaker 1: kids able to come to school from different schools and
Speaker 1: just walk in and jump people. And you know, back
Speaker 1: in the days, we had um um gangs called the
Speaker 1: Deceptive Cons who used to literally get on trains and
Speaker 1: come to school, jump people, slashed them, robbed them, like
Speaker 1: do all these things. And that was happening back in
Speaker 1: the nineties, you know, in in the late eighties, So
Speaker 1: that was happening in our high school. They was able
Speaker 1: to get into school and roll people, you know, at
Speaker 1: gun point, at night point. So I think there has
Speaker 1: to be a more robust strategy to protect kids, especially
Speaker 1: when you start getting high school. Like bullying in high
Speaker 1: school and not as much as junior, but high school
Speaker 1: is a big thing. You know, there's a it's a
Speaker 1: real big thing. And I have friends, we both have
Speaker 1: friends who are reaching out saying that they're having issues.
Speaker 1: I remember my son was going to school in in
Speaker 1: um Washington Heights and he's like kids were trying to
Speaker 1: jump them. Like I literally had to go to school.
Speaker 1: It was kids. It was all out bras. I remember
Speaker 1: we used to have bras and people brought guns to school.
Speaker 1: And it's like, there has to be a strategy to which,
Speaker 1: oh you have people, like you said, violence interruptors who
Speaker 1: are in those streets and you know, in those communities,
Speaker 1: in those schools who probably kids who graduated from school
Speaker 1: and still have some notoriety in the schools. They just
Speaker 1: don't want to go to college or whatever, and they
Speaker 1: have a job and they're like monitors kind of like
Speaker 1: we remember we had whole monitors back in the days,
Speaker 1: Like we should have advanced monitor whole monitors who who
Speaker 1: go to the schools, who in the school yards, who
Speaker 1: had lunch rooms, hearing such such because it's always a
Speaker 1: gossip on such such as defense, they're gonna they're gonna
Speaker 1: fight after school and we're gonna jump them, like and
Speaker 1: they are able to get in front of those things
Speaker 1: because it's a serious thing, Like it's not like little
Speaker 1: kids fighting in the school. At that point, it turns
Speaker 1: to with guns and knives and people are losing their
Speaker 1: lives in schools. Yeah no, I mean, listen, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna get a debate out of me. Something has to
Speaker 1: be done. I know, and and and and I think
Speaker 1: it starts with the top because the administration in many
Speaker 1: of these schools is not doing enough, either because they
Speaker 1: don't want to touch it or they don't want their
Speaker 1: school ranked as being violent, um you know on there
Speaker 1: in the stats. Also because privacy and protection becomes a thing,
Speaker 1: especially when you have ignorant parents like the parents of
Speaker 1: the young man who just killed those folks in whatever
Speaker 1: state that was in the white parents that told his
Speaker 1: uh you know that, told him don't get caught next time.
Speaker 1: In the text messages. You either have ignorant parents like
Speaker 1: that like Kyle Rittenhouse's mother who's an evil criminal that
Speaker 1: took her son somewhere with guns that she knew he
Speaker 1: wasn't supposed to have, or you have ignorant parents like
Speaker 1: Titia or you know Lisa in our community, who is
Speaker 1: talking about leave my son alone, don't say shipped to
Speaker 1: my son, you know, or my daughter whatever outcome of thing,
Speaker 1: do x y Z. And that's right, it's on. So
Speaker 1: like you, on all sides, you've got parents that become
Speaker 1: big part of the problem, a big part. And we
Speaker 1: don't like to talk about that. We love to sit
Speaker 1: by and watch a racist white person do something crazy
Speaker 1: and then we talked about them. We love to sit
Speaker 1: by and watch you know, uh, somebody who is you know,
Speaker 1: a serial killer that we can identify all the things
Speaker 1: that happened, and how to parents with no good and
Speaker 1: this and that the third. But we don't like to
Speaker 1: also sit down and talk to regular folks that look
Speaker 1: like me and you in our communities and say this,
Speaker 1: cut it out. We need to be involved too. You do,
Speaker 1: you definitely do so. I don't you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know how you stop a person from bringing
Speaker 1: guns and me, we just saw that a kid in
Speaker 1: New York a couple of weeks ago had a gun.
Speaker 1: He got caught with a gun and thirty thou dollars
Speaker 1: and then once they did more investigation. There were more
Speaker 1: guns in the school. Whether or not they were connected
Speaker 1: to him. I didn't follow the story enough to find out,
Speaker 1: but I know that there were guns in that school.
Speaker 1: So we know that this is a problem that's happening.
Speaker 1: And to your point, it's got to be dealt with
Speaker 1: because people. History has shown when we don't address it
Speaker 1: as an institution, the school, the parents, people die, people
Speaker 1: commit suicide, people drop out of school. You want to
Speaker 1: know why your kid isn't paying attention, Probably because they're depressed.
Speaker 1: They might be being bullied, they may just be tied
Speaker 1: in the bullshit. Can't even focus in class. I know
Speaker 1: when I was in school sometimes I could not focus
Speaker 1: in class for all the outbursts and the yelling and
Speaker 1: screaming that went on. We're all types of kids. So
Speaker 1: you can't say, well, let's go to the white schools
Speaker 1: because you've got kids that's showing up. They have piste
Speaker 1: off about whatever their problems are, out of their parents basement,
Speaker 1: shooting up the building. You can't say, okay, well let's
Speaker 1: go to the school with the Latino kids because guess what,
Speaker 1: they slice your face. You can't say let's go to
Speaker 1: the school with the black kids, because there's game wars everywhere.
Speaker 1: Are people turned everywhere, We turned their problems and discrimination
Speaker 1: and ways that you could try to escape the system,
Speaker 1: and you can't. You cannot can't. System. This system is
Speaker 1: is well, is well designed for failure and when you
Speaker 1: get out. That's why I celebrate anybody that gets out
Speaker 1: of the system. And because it's set up, like I
Speaker 1: tell people all the time, when I look at the
Speaker 1: school system and the structure and being incarcerated, it's pretty
Speaker 1: much the same thing. It pretty much mirrors the average school,
Speaker 1: pretty much mirrors the way that the prison is designed.
Speaker 1: In the coloring, the way it looks all of these
Speaker 1: mess hall looks like the lunch room. The gym looks
Speaker 1: like the same gym. Like. The only thing that's not
Speaker 1: in the classrooms is there. The only thing that the
Speaker 1: classrooms imitate the sales, because the way it's lined up
Speaker 1: door to door. The only thing that the schools don't
Speaker 1: have it sells. So you know, when you think about it, man,
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, we we thing you want more
Speaker 1: metal sectors or some kind of way, I do, because
Speaker 1: that's the way that they protect you into jails, right
Speaker 1: because you gotta walk through metal detectives. So a lot
Speaker 1: of times they catch you when you got a knife.
Speaker 1: That person they're gonna bring a knife to certain places,
Speaker 1: or they figured out how to do it because they
Speaker 1: know that metal tech, they're gonna go off. Right, it's
Speaker 1: a lot more safer, and unfortunately we we I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's metal text is the answer, like I said,
Speaker 1: but I know there has to be something that makes
Speaker 1: it impossible, you know, or highly unlikely or hard as
Speaker 1: hell for you to get in school with a gun
Speaker 1: and kill somebody. Well, I'm sure there are some people
Speaker 1: and at anti violence space that would say no more.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not about police surveillance, not about metal detectives.
Speaker 1: I guess that's what they would say. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, we don't know, but we're gonna find out.
Speaker 1: I was just thinking about this, right and you know,
Speaker 1: I'm on social media on certain platforms um for different reasons.
Speaker 1: Facebook specifically, I go there because my family members and
Speaker 1: friends are there, and when I post to Instagram, which
Speaker 1: is where I am most of the time, it shares
Speaker 1: over the Facebook, and I often forget the days to
Speaker 1: go on there and check out the comments. But my
Speaker 1: cousin's my parents. Shout out to my father who just
Speaker 1: turned seven, me five years old two days ago. Man
Speaker 1: at seventy five years a good man too. It's a
Speaker 1: lot that a lot of brothers can learn from, stand Mallory.
Speaker 1: But anyway, but he would say it took him seventy
Speaker 1: five years to learn it. Also, um but I go there,
Speaker 1: You know, I try to keep up with Facebook, and
Speaker 1: so there is this. It happens on Instagram too, but
Speaker 1: it's very different. But on Facebook, there's a group of
Speaker 1: maybe four people that come to my page every single
Speaker 1: time I post something and say this is not important.
Speaker 1: You should be talking about this. This how you know
Speaker 1: this don't make sense? Um or or you're wrong on
Speaker 1: this issue. You need to be stick with. One of
Speaker 1: their main things is cash reparations, cash reparations. Who says
Speaker 1: I don't support cash reporace? And then you know what
Speaker 1: they do is they take clips of things you said
Speaker 1: and they try to make a narrative like, oh, Tamika
Speaker 1: Mallory doesn't support cash reparations. Actually, what I said was
Speaker 1: that I don't believe that reparations is just cash. I
Speaker 1: didn't say don't give cash I said, it's more than cash.
Speaker 1: It's also land, it's also housing, it's opportunities, it's equity,
Speaker 1: it's being able to go. Not just yes, the cash
Speaker 1: is ultimate in terms of going into the bank, but
Speaker 1: first of all, you've got to be able to get
Speaker 1: approved for a loan right when you go into the bank.
Speaker 1: Right that education that reparations for us needs to be
Speaker 1: a system overhaul. And of course yes, cash is a
Speaker 1: part of it, and no one is taken that away.
Speaker 1: But there was a little clip that you know where
Speaker 1: of course I was saying, I don't believe that reparations
Speaker 1: is just put in cash in our hands. It's also
Speaker 1: all these other things. And now that's the narrative that
Speaker 1: Jamika Mallory doesn't support cash reparations. I don't care not
Speaker 1: going to even argue that point, because I know what
Speaker 1: I do, what I not only what I believe in,
Speaker 1: but also what I have been supporting for years as
Speaker 1: I work alongside people like Reverend Mark Thompson and Ron
Speaker 1: Daniels and others who do work every day on reparations.
Speaker 1: So let's put that um to the side. But they
Speaker 1: come there and they are constantly saying I post a
Speaker 1: picture about Cardi b oh this, there's better things to
Speaker 1: worry about. What I my thought of the day today
Speaker 1: is says who about what somebody should want to talk
Speaker 1: about on there personal page. I have never been to
Speaker 1: anybody's page except yours. But other than you, I'm never
Speaker 1: going to anyone's page and said you shouldn't talk about this.
Speaker 1: They might be in the beauty business. So it's like
Speaker 1: Yandy has Yells skincare, and I love the fact that,
Speaker 1: you know, she does all her videos about Yell. She's
Speaker 1: so much into her, uh you know, the beauty industry,
Speaker 1: learning more about it, promoting her brand. But sometimes she
Speaker 1: might want to talk about I don't know, bubble cootes.
Speaker 1: That's her prerogative and her page, her page prerogative. I'm
Speaker 1: just why why do people think they get to policia
Speaker 1: page to tell you what you should be interested in?
Speaker 1: Like who who? Your people are really crazy? But if
Speaker 1: it's more important things to talk about, you should talk
Speaker 1: about this. That's what I'm talking I'm talking about what
Speaker 1: I want to talk about on my page. You don't
Speaker 1: get the dictate like this is what I think that
Speaker 1: on with people? Right? And I say all the time,
Speaker 1: we are not This is not your grandmother's civil rights right.
Speaker 1: We we we have there's a movement. We have evolved
Speaker 1: into a different space. This is hip hop culture. This
Speaker 1: is you know, our lives. This is what we've learned
Speaker 1: and how we've we've taken on civil rights and activism
Speaker 1: and organizing as us. We didn't just follow a script
Speaker 1: and look like the last freedom fighters. And we didn't.
Speaker 1: We didn't do that right. We said to ourselves we
Speaker 1: love the culture, we love hip hop, we love doing
Speaker 1: all of these things, but we also want to fight
Speaker 1: for our people. We don't believe that people should be done.
Speaker 1: We we believe in equity and equality. We want to
Speaker 1: make sure that we're utilizing our platforms and our voices
Speaker 1: to make sure our people are safe. But we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about some other ships. Sometimes we're gonna. We We're
Speaker 1: gonna because that's who we are. We are not one
Speaker 1: dimensional individuals. We are not who you want us to be.
Speaker 1: And if you if if that's what you're looking for,
Speaker 1: you gotta go find that. You can't come on my
Speaker 1: page and tell me what how activism are You're supposed
Speaker 1: to be my activist. You shouldn't be told about you
Speaker 1: don't get to tell me that. Bro. If I'm an activist,
Speaker 1: right and activity means if you disrespect me, I'm gonna say, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't disrespect me. If I think you're trying to
Speaker 1: harm me, I might beat you up. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: shoot you, ain't gonna stab you, but we might get
Speaker 1: into your fist fight. Because that's my activism. That's how
Speaker 1: activism looks for me. It looks that way Malcolme was
Speaker 1: by the window. What is things saying? Look about any
Speaker 1: means necessary? Activism looks different to different people. So I
Speaker 1: don't want you to hold me to a level of
Speaker 1: activism to where you might have seen Mom Luther King.
Speaker 1: I love Moms the King, I love the speeches. I
Speaker 1: love a lot of things about them. But I'm practicing
Speaker 1: non violence like I'm I'm still struggling for me. I'm
Speaker 1: anti violence means I'm against non violence means you would
Speaker 1: never engage. I'm gonna get violence. But the minute that
Speaker 1: you try to harm me or you do something that's
Speaker 1: detrimental to me and my family, I'm going to protect myself.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna speak up against things that I don't like.
Speaker 1: I don't care. I come from hip hop. So when
Speaker 1: something bothers me a hip hop I'm gonna say something
Speaker 1: about it. Oh, you shouldn't be worried about that, ain't
Speaker 1: you know? Bro? I'm worried about it. Who can wrap
Speaker 1: over here? And I'm also worried about getting off for
Speaker 1: the neck. I can worry about all those things. You
Speaker 1: don't get to tell me that I don't have opinion
Speaker 1: because that's what you think. Activism looks like. That's what
Speaker 1: you think civil rights leaderships looks like. I'm sorry, that's
Speaker 1: not who I am. And I'm throwing a two piece man,
Speaker 1: and I tell people all that while you're a little yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw a two pieces touch. But overall I
Speaker 1: agree with you a thousand percent that folks should find
Speaker 1: the folks that are doing what you want to do,
Speaker 1: or you should do it right. Everybody is not going
Speaker 1: to do things the same way. We all have what
Speaker 1: we are very interested in. So so another person jumped
Speaker 1: in the consisences, well why are you mad at this person, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is a troll, and it's well, the
Speaker 1: person says, I'm not a troll. I am. I'm just
Speaker 1: being consistent. You're a troll. When I go to your
Speaker 1: page and you have either no pictures or a faith profile.
Speaker 1: You are a troll, right, You're a troll when you
Speaker 1: come when you've been coming to my page for several months,
Speaker 1: and I disrespectfully tell you to get the hell off
Speaker 1: my page and that I don't care about anything you
Speaker 1: have to say, whatever the issue is, whatever it is
Speaker 1: that you're trying to tell me, I'm not listening to it. Period.
Speaker 1: If I'm gonna get to this point, if I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get to that point, it's gonna be because somebody else
Speaker 1: who also may not agree with me, but has a
Speaker 1: level of respect, And I can tell where that person
Speaker 1: is coming from that they're not They're trying to make
Speaker 1: me out. First of all, once you share a little
Speaker 1: clip of me that only speaks to part of what
Speaker 1: I said, try to build a narrative around in your
Speaker 1: troll and I don't funk with you. That's it. So
Speaker 1: you you you you off the list. But if you
Speaker 1: come to me, just like I've had people I think
Speaker 1: about my brother Tony Lindsay, who he and I often
Speaker 1: don't agree, or we ultimately agree about black folks safety
Speaker 1: and freedom, but we often don't agree with certain candidates
Speaker 1: or certain things. But when he comes to me, if
Speaker 1: he sees one of those little clips, says, well, you
Speaker 1: know what was this or whatever, he doesn't send their
Speaker 1: message to Amica, Tamka, you know what you meant by this? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's the problem with you, Like, who are you
Speaker 1: talking to I'm not your kid, I'm not your kid.
Speaker 1: You don't you don't you don't support my organization, you
Speaker 1: don't support me, and you come in and talk to me,
Speaker 1: and you could come and say, hey, can you please
Speaker 1: help me understand what this meant in this clip because
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily get it. And here's what we're fighting for,
Speaker 1: says and I'm trying to see whether or not there
Speaker 1: could be some alignment. You speak to me like that
Speaker 1: all day. I have something to say. But when you
Speaker 1: come to my page and you start sharing it and
Speaker 1: putting up things and Tamika is not for this, and
Speaker 1: you ain't this you're trying to create a navirative I
Speaker 1: see what you're trying to do. Just keep it moving.
Speaker 1: I'm not for you. I am not for you. And
Speaker 1: that's okay because they are artists out here that sing
Speaker 1: R and B that I don't like it the way
Speaker 1: they sing it, so they're not for me. There are
Speaker 1: people out here that are elected officials that folks come
Speaker 1: to me and say, she's black, you should support her.
Speaker 1: But I look at things that she does and I
Speaker 1: don't support it, and I'm not gonna work with that individual.
Speaker 1: There are other organizations that I don't like how they move.
Speaker 1: They might be the ones that go out in the
Speaker 1: in the streets and when they protest and they're saying,
Speaker 1: fuck the police, suck the police, I'm gonna shoot you.
Speaker 1: You know, we we killed police. That is not the
Speaker 1: way that I choose to protests. And therefore you probably
Speaker 1: won't see me doing much collaboration with those groups, right
Speaker 1: especially because when the ship goes down, right when it's
Speaker 1: all said and done and the and they just had
Speaker 1: to come down on us, guess who oftentimes gets the
Speaker 1: ship that goes with the fun The police speech me.
Speaker 1: They don't put you on Fox News every night and
Speaker 1: tell white crazy people that ultimately become my harassers, and
Speaker 1: people who are sending me death threats. They don't put
Speaker 1: you on there, they don't care, they don't use your name.
Speaker 1: It's me that they plaster on freaking Fox News at
Speaker 1: Night saying that I'm a terrorist, or that I'm related,
Speaker 1: I have relationships with other terrorists, and that I support terrorism.
Speaker 1: It's me, So I have to be careful about what
Speaker 1: I do and don't do. We're not on the same level.
Speaker 1: We're just not We're just not and and and guess what,
Speaker 1: I am also not on the same level as other
Speaker 1: people who are in this work that I realized have
Speaker 1: higher stakes than me. So there's certain things that I
Speaker 1: can do that other individuals can't because if they do it,
Speaker 1: they will actually be arrested, actually be arrested. So you
Speaker 1: know when I so, another person jumped in the comments
Speaker 1: and said, oh, well, you know, we should be collaborating,
Speaker 1: We should really be working together instead of us being
Speaker 1: against one another. And that person's page looked like a
Speaker 1: troll also, But I took the time to explain that
Speaker 1: everybody is not does not want your opinion. Just because
Speaker 1: somebody is a black leader or whatever does not mean
Speaker 1: that they feel safe in certain environments with certain individuals.
Speaker 1: Right they can feel like working with you is going
Speaker 1: to bring out the worst to me, or I already
Speaker 1: see that I don't like the way you move, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to work with you, that's okay, But you, sir,
Speaker 1: who seems to be defending this other individual, you should
Speaker 1: go work with them and wait for you to do
Speaker 1: it to make because they work for you obviously. The
Speaker 1: way that they work and the way that they move
Speaker 1: into things they say, they coincide with your moral compass
Speaker 1: and where you want to see things go. So you
Speaker 1: should align with them. And I'll continue to align with
Speaker 1: the people that work best for me. It's simple. And
Speaker 1: and then I guess the response to that is, well,
Speaker 1: how can we ever get to where it is we're
Speaker 1: going if we can't sit down where people don't we
Speaker 1: don't agree with. And I'm gonna say it again, there
Speaker 1: are many people I think, I mean people in my family,
Speaker 1: people that I work with. I don't half way agree
Speaker 1: with you eighty percent at the time. You and not
Speaker 1: get into disagreements. I don't agree with Angelo about half,
Speaker 1: you know, some of the things that he says. People
Speaker 1: don't agree with me. There are other individuals that are
Speaker 1: out here that contact me all the time. They don't
Speaker 1: support something I said, They don't like the way that
Speaker 1: we're organizing. They feel like we should be doing better.
Speaker 1: This that different or whatever. But because they approach me
Speaker 1: with a certain level of respect where it's not trolling,
Speaker 1: where it is not harassment, because once I tell you
Speaker 1: too three times, I don't give a ship what you
Speaker 1: have to say. Leave me alone. If you keep talking
Speaker 1: to me and keep coming back to my page, that
Speaker 1: becomes harassment, right, because once it's rooted in disrespect, it
Speaker 1: is all and you can if you're comment on anything
Speaker 1: is rooted in disrespect, it's a non starter for right.
Speaker 1: You could go to until Freedom's page and talk all
Speaker 1: day long, but my page, you don't get to come
Speaker 1: there and keep on trying to tell me that I
Speaker 1: have to speak to issues the way that you say,
Speaker 1: I probably will never do it, so that means that
Speaker 1: I may not be the leader for you. Now there
Speaker 1: are other people who who who come to me and
Speaker 1: they say, you know, I think you should change the
Speaker 1: way you know, you speak to certain issues or whatever.
Speaker 1: And I think about it, and I say, mmmm, that's important.
Speaker 1: Maybe I could do this different. Maybe I can move
Speaker 1: differently in these areas or speak in the different way
Speaker 1: that comes from the way you approach people. And no,
Speaker 1: you can't then turn around and go, oh, you know, oh, well, well,
Speaker 1: let me let's start all over, not after for months
Speaker 1: and months have been disrespecting me. Go into your own page, right,
Speaker 1: and all of these things about me, that's not true,
Speaker 1: that's not so. That's what I have to say in
Speaker 1: my thought of the day. Leave people alone that don't
Speaker 1: want to deal with you, and all you you, you
Speaker 1: work as hard as I have worked to become the
Speaker 1: leader that you want to see in the world. That
Speaker 1: is so simple. Man is everything and for everybody. I
Speaker 1: am a quiet taste. I am not for everyone, and
Speaker 1: I acknowledge that. And I appreciate those people who stay
Speaker 1: in their lane and stay away from me because we
Speaker 1: don't have the same views or even have the same
Speaker 1: more And I'm okay with that. I don't wish you
Speaker 1: no harm. I wish you the best because if you
Speaker 1: ultimately want was best for black people, then we ultimately
Speaker 1: want the same thing. So if you get there first,
Speaker 1: then I'm I'm gonna comploud you, and I'm gonna follow
Speaker 1: you if you if you figure out a strategy that's
Speaker 1: gonna get us there better than the strategy I figured
Speaker 1: out to get us there, then I might follow for that.
Speaker 1: But until then I'm gonna follow the strategy that I
Speaker 1: knew this works best for me and aligns what it
Speaker 1: is that I want to see. That there it is
Speaker 1: enough said what I'm saying. That's how. That's so we're
Speaker 1: being joined by a true powerhouse today. And you know,
Speaker 1: often we have two guests that come on, and you know,
Speaker 1: we talked to one individual who's really an expert and
Speaker 1: another who's a change maker doing incredible work in our community.
Speaker 1: And today we have one individual who embodies both things.
Speaker 1: Jason Flores Williams is an author, a political activist, and
Speaker 1: a civil rights attorney. He's best known for his legal
Speaker 1: work on behalf of death row clients, political protesters, the
Speaker 1: home list population of Denver, and his lawsuit to have
Speaker 1: Colorado the Colorado River recognized as a legal person, which
Speaker 1: is something that we're gonna learn more about today because
Speaker 1: I didn't know that a river could be a legal person.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure Jason is gonna explain it. Um Attorney
Speaker 1: Williams is an acknowledged expert in conspiracy law and First
Speaker 1: Amendment cases whose views are frequently sought out by media
Speaker 1: organizations like The Washington Post, of New York Times, the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles Times, and of course street politicians, and we're
Speaker 1: so happy to have you today, Attorney Williams. But I
Speaker 1: think it's okay for us to call you Jason. You
Speaker 1: got that right. I prefer thank you. It's a privilege
Speaker 1: to be on your show. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on and speaking with us. So you specifically focus
Speaker 1: on something that is really important to us, which is
Speaker 1: um the the sentencing disparities for marijuana convictions. You gotta
Speaker 1: number of clients that you're dealing with, high profile individuals.
Speaker 1: Some Rock Nation, jay Z and others have been involved
Speaker 1: with trying to help get these individuals free. Tell us
Speaker 1: about that work. Oh that Look, what I can tell
Speaker 1: you is is the reason I got into this law,
Speaker 1: and it was kind of born into it in a way.
Speaker 1: It was when I was twelve years old. My thought
Speaker 1: my family was ripped apart by the drug war. My
Speaker 1: father got sentenced to thirty five years in prison, and
Speaker 1: so I spent you know, my youth going to visit
Speaker 1: my old man and the joint. And then now you know,
Speaker 1: I said, look, I can't let what happened to my
Speaker 1: family happened to other people. So it's personal and when
Speaker 1: it comes down to the sentencing disparities. So imagine that
Speaker 1: I represent will not imagine I do represent people from
Speaker 1: across the board racially, socio economically. And what I see
Speaker 1: consistently is that what you are going to be offered
Speaker 1: in court with regard to marijuana prosecutions or drug war
Speaker 1: prosecut ustians in general is going to be dependent upon
Speaker 1: who you are, meaning what race are you, where you come.
Speaker 1: You know, at a certain point, money in the criminal
Speaker 1: justice system overcomes everything, but for the average person. So
Speaker 1: you take the average black man and you take the
Speaker 1: average white I can tell you in general that the
Speaker 1: average black man is going to be offered generally more
Speaker 1: time then the average white man. And I see it
Speaker 1: consistently if their last twenty years, you're gonna and expanding
Speaker 1: out in a way from just the drug war? Is
Speaker 1: that and I think you know that you'll know this.
Speaker 1: The statistics bear this out, is that they're going to
Speaker 1: seek the death penalty, where they still seek the death
Speaker 1: penalty for people of color much more frequently than they
Speaker 1: will for white people. So you know, like they said,
Speaker 1: there there ain't no money on death row, and in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, there's not that much money in
Speaker 1: the joint so yeah, this is what I see. But
Speaker 1: this all goes back to really, what is this thing
Speaker 1: we call the drug war? What is this thing we
Speaker 1: call the criminal justice system? And the criminal justice system,
Speaker 1: of course, is mostly made up of drug crimes. That's
Speaker 1: what people in federal prisons and state prisons are doing.
Speaker 1: That's why they're there, drug crimes. And what this is
Speaker 1: that what the way I see it is they've always
Speaker 1: tried to kill two birds with one stone on the steel.
Speaker 1: The drug wars started off as an assault against Chicanos
Speaker 1: and Latinos. You know, they didn't like the fact that
Speaker 1: Mexicans were coming into Texas and California, and so they
Speaker 1: penned you know, uh, they penned I should say, cannabis
Speaker 1: or molta pot on the Mexicans and try to make
Speaker 1: it into a dirty thing. At the same time, you
Speaker 1: have weed coming up in the jazz culture and what
Speaker 1: happened is there, So you've got kind of two birds there,
Speaker 1: so you can take out people of color by associating
Speaker 1: them with a non white drug. At the time, although
Speaker 1: it's interesting, there's evidence of the Founding Fathers U spot
Speaker 1: if you want to call them the Founding Fathers but
Speaker 1: that's that was one. And then two, when we got
Speaker 1: into the Nixon era, you had the rise of the counterculture,
Speaker 1: and so by being able to criminalize people people of
Speaker 1: color and the counterculture. And really, if you look at
Speaker 1: American history, anytime you get this u uh, even a
Speaker 1: potential width of a union between the lower classes or
Speaker 1: even middle educated classes people of color, the main power
Speaker 1: structure United States always has to do something to break
Speaker 1: that up because that's its worst fear. So so in
Speaker 1: that case of marijuana Nixon, the drug war, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just you know, the thing of beauty. They
Speaker 1: just went around, they destroyed families like mine. They they incarcerated,
Speaker 1: you know, just massive amounts of people of color, indiscriminately
Speaker 1: and disproportionately. And that also at the same time you've
Speaker 1: got people who think differently in the free thinkers regardless
Speaker 1: of race or color, who end up, you know, doing
Speaker 1: twenty years for joint And so, you know, power structure
Speaker 1: did what it needed to do, and in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways still doing it because now if you look
Speaker 1: at who's making the money, and you've got Al Harrington,
Speaker 1: you know who he is, You do know he was
Speaker 1: a basketball player. Now he's out there. He's out there.
Speaker 1: He's a brilliant guy. He's uh, what he's what he's
Speaker 1: investing in is using the emerging green industry, the green
Speaker 1: rush has a way to empower people of color. He says,
Speaker 1: he wants to make a hundred black millionaires in the
Speaker 1: new cannabis injuries industry. But despite that, despite that, right now,
Speaker 1: as it stands, it's the same old assholes making all
Speaker 1: the money. And what really makes me want to, I
Speaker 1: don't know, break something or just keep fighting, is that
Speaker 1: a lot of times with cannabis right now, people making
Speaker 1: the money with people who are putting people away for
Speaker 1: it just ten years ago, which absolutely makes me sick.
Speaker 1: So hey, you know, I got people right now in
Speaker 1: jail super max. Is um looking at life in prison
Speaker 1: for I got people, you know, And this is not
Speaker 1: even to get into and I know I've been talking
Speaker 1: for a while, This is not even to get into
Speaker 1: the kind of constitutional violations that the drug war and
Speaker 1: cannabis have enable law enforcement to and act and violate
Speaker 1: upon poor people, people of color, everyone else. So hey,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's it's kind of the American way
Speaker 1: that we're dealing with here. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's something
Speaker 1: that I've been talking about a lot. I have a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, being formally acconcerated and just coming
Speaker 1: from the hood quote unquote and knowing a lot of
Speaker 1: different individuals who that was their source of just survival,
Speaker 1: you know, selling pot and other things, and a lot
Speaker 1: of them did a lot of time or served a
Speaker 1: lot of time. And now you know that is being
Speaker 1: able to be profited off of is becoming some legalized
Speaker 1: These same individuals who did ten five and six seven
Speaker 1: years you would have the opportunity to be able to
Speaker 1: engage in that field, right because you took their freedom
Speaker 1: away from now all of a sudden, is legal. You've
Speaker 1: criminalized these people for something that's legal now and now
Speaker 1: they don't have any recourse, they don't have any opportunities
Speaker 1: to make money. So you know, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: the same old people, and like, so what is the process?
Speaker 1: What should we be doing? You know, is there any
Speaker 1: I heard that they were supposed to be some type
Speaker 1: of state grants and things of that nature that would
Speaker 1: give for people who were formally incarcerated for marijuana some
Speaker 1: type of opportunities, Like what does what does those things
Speaker 1: look like? Well? I mean, I hope so, But I
Speaker 1: mean when we're talking about state grants, I don't know
Speaker 1: how state grants and that kind of money is going
Speaker 1: to equalize the power differentials when it comes to this
Speaker 1: already having money, right, I mean, well, we know here
Speaker 1: is there's a difference between income and capital wealth. So
Speaker 1: you make incomes, they make it like seventy g or
Speaker 1: you feel like, you know, maybe you're doing all right,
Speaker 1: and you know you busted. You're asked to be able
Speaker 1: to make seventy. You get up to, you know, a hundred,
Speaker 1: but you're still making that income. And income really doesn't
Speaker 1: simply provide you with the kind of opportunities to garner
Speaker 1: a place in an emerging industry. It's wealth. So like,
Speaker 1: for example, right, so I made some money my firm,
Speaker 1: we made some money off some uh you know, saying hey,
Speaker 1: we'll help you. Try to get licenses in pot in
Speaker 1: various states, I can tell you everyone who got a
Speaker 1: license was already rich. It's because they had they could
Speaker 1: show the resources so that the state. First off, with
Speaker 1: resources come connections, they know who you are, they're comfortable
Speaker 1: with you. Then everybody was always rich. They could show
Speaker 1: that they could pull it off and could do everything
Speaker 1: that they say they were doing so that they say
Speaker 1: they were going to do even if they didn't as
Speaker 1: far as their plans and applications for licenses. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have expensary, we're gonna have this that you know, cannabis,
Speaker 1: spa and bail whatever it's gonna be. And so it's
Speaker 1: the ability to be its ability to be able to
Speaker 1: show resources, not just income or the ability to the
Speaker 1: ability to show resources and not just you know, basically
Speaker 1: state grants. I'm not gonna calm alone, but some degree
Speaker 1: of money that enables people access to the game. That's
Speaker 1: what I worry That's what that's what I worry about.
Speaker 1: Right It's like we can say, hey, we're gonna do this,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do that, and we're gonna we're gonna try to,
Speaker 1: you know, slide a few bucks in a in a
Speaker 1: couple of different ways. That's why I go back to
Speaker 1: Harrington because I think he has a good vision for it.
Speaker 1: He's like saying, I'm not trying to get black people
Speaker 1: or people of color, are people who you know who
Speaker 1: have suffered because of the drug war, just licenses. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to get them into that wealth zone with regard
Speaker 1: to this indugry, so we can carve out a place
Speaker 1: in an industry that just a few years ago and
Speaker 1: still is to a large degree absolutely resulted in the
Speaker 1: oppression and incarceration of poor people and people of coloring
Speaker 1: in the United States. So I don't know, man, I'm
Speaker 1: down hey with you. Let's get let's get some state
Speaker 1: grants going and all that kind of stuff. But I
Speaker 1: don't know how that's gonna fix it this ferity, right,
Speaker 1: So exactly how that fixes the disparity, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's like the image that you see I've seen you
Speaker 1: know folks post it where it shows the difference between
Speaker 1: equity and equality and how equality maybe the two of
Speaker 1: us making the same amount of money now, but regardless,
Speaker 1: if you started with more than me, you'll will never
Speaker 1: actually be equal, and equity would mean stopping to some degree. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess in this situation, uh, those people who have
Speaker 1: extreme capital, which would most likely be white men, from
Speaker 1: being able to access all of the licenses and opening
Speaker 1: all of their marijuana locations, we would put that on
Speaker 1: hold while bringing up the amount of people who are
Speaker 1: either you know, come from marginalized communities, people who Um,
Speaker 1: are you know, formally incarcerated as has been said, and
Speaker 1: just people who don't otherwise have the opportunities. But I
Speaker 1: can't imagine, assist a place of time in American history
Speaker 1: where we would ever see, um, you know, white men
Speaker 1: not benefiting from the capital that they have. So I
Speaker 1: do agree with you about that. So I know that
Speaker 1: you can't stay with us forever, although you're so packed
Speaker 1: with information that we could sit here and talk to
Speaker 1: you for a while. But you have a number of cases, um,
Speaker 1: that you're dealing with now that are actually very high
Speaker 1: profile cases, UM, that you're involved with. Do you want
Speaker 1: to talk about some of them? And um, and and
Speaker 1: and also is there a way that we as an
Speaker 1: activist community can help to bring attention to what is
Speaker 1: happening in this moment with some of the individuals that
Speaker 1: you work with. I mean, that's a great question, and
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Yeah, I've got, like like I said earlier,
Speaker 1: I've got guys who are right now see for weed,
Speaker 1: sitting in supermatch jails awaiting trials right now. What you say,
Speaker 1: we um, Jason, what does that mean? Does it mean
Speaker 1: they had truckloads of marijuana where they were making millions
Speaker 1: of dollars or were they was it small level cases
Speaker 1: like when you say, what's the scale of weed that
Speaker 1: we're talking about? Well, usually these days, I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: straight with you, although I just saw a case out
Speaker 1: of Iowa or where a guy was going to prison
Speaker 1: for just possession. More normally these days where we're talking
Speaker 1: about is distribution. All that means really is well, you've
Speaker 1: got white capital, right, You've got the the usual suspects
Speaker 1: in the suits with the m b a's who are
Speaker 1: making millions of the off the exact same activity, except
Speaker 1: so there you know, investments, hedge funds. Cannabis is a market,
Speaker 1: that's all it is. I remember in federal court recently
Speaker 1: I was arguing about cannabis and I made something called
Speaker 1: an equal protection argument, which is the fourteenth Amendment, and
Speaker 1: that says, hey, you gotta treat citizens the same deeper
Speaker 1: protection are Equal protection actually came out of um UH
Speaker 1: immediately after the Civil War, when it was obviously like, hey,
Speaker 1: we had a civil war, black people are free, were
Speaker 1: great and everything, Well, obviously it was all bullshit because
Speaker 1: we had Jim Crow come in. So they had to
Speaker 1: do something called the Fourteenth Amendment to try to protect
Speaker 1: the rights of all people. So the fourteenth Amendment says, hey,
Speaker 1: citizens are treated uniformly allegedly. So I was in court
Speaker 1: making a Fourteenth Amendment argument, saying, hey, you got this
Speaker 1: guy being busted for weed, facing twenty years in prison,
Speaker 1: is in federal port and meanwhile, you have other people
Speaker 1: who are right now, you know, driving and BMWs to
Speaker 1: their dispensaries and selling licensing, and there's inter intellectual property
Speaker 1: rights and investment opportunities and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and the pot is anyway, I said, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: let's just imagine that weed was widgets and these are
Speaker 1: just widgets, like economically, and the prosecutor freaked out, Widge,
Speaker 1: it's widgets. What the hell these aro? You know, I
Speaker 1: just started making this thing that I was just looking
Speaker 1: at marijuana as just another commodity upon which millions and
Speaker 1: billions of dollars being made, which they are so turning
Speaker 1: this back into what we're looking at, and the kind
Speaker 1: of the kind of things that I'm seeing these days.
Speaker 1: All I'm seen is the same old disparities, right, the
Speaker 1: same old thing. The people that I have in jail
Speaker 1: who are high profile or not high profile, and then
Speaker 1: a day, you know, jail sales don't have names on them.
Speaker 1: You know, it don't matter if you're high profile, NATO profile,
Speaker 1: You're gonna be in a jail cell. You're in a
Speaker 1: jail cell. And you know that, my friend, because you
Speaker 1: just talked about being incarcerated. So that's right. So so
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, you're in a supermax,
Speaker 1: you're a super max. You're in a freaking county jail.
Speaker 1: You're in a county jail. But isn't it interesting that
Speaker 1: after the fourteenth Amendment and that and the movement after
Speaker 1: the Civil War is called reconstruction, is after the Orgin Amendment,
Speaker 1: and after everything else, and after the legalization, after proving
Speaker 1: that the drug war is essentially been bs from day one,
Speaker 1: which and racially motivated incentivized, what we see is the
Speaker 1: same old thing happening, the same old thing even better.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's even a better deal because they're still
Speaker 1: using the drug ward to incarceraate people of color, free thinkers,
Speaker 1: killing all those birds with all them or maybe just
Speaker 1: one stone all at the same time, the same people
Speaker 1: are making all that money. And that's what really pisces
Speaker 1: me off. So as far as bringing attention to it.
Speaker 1: What I really want to bring attention to is the
Speaker 1: way that federal prohibition of cannabis, inside the greater context
Speaker 1: of the drug war itself, is still being used to
Speaker 1: enforce the same power differentials in the United States. And
Speaker 1: if we can do something about that, Hey, you know
Speaker 1: that's why what do you think we should start? How
Speaker 1: do we start that? Like understanding the disparities, understand how
Speaker 1: the system is structured, and you know, they utilize us
Speaker 1: and criminalize for these same things and animating billions of dollars.
Speaker 1: What would you say as a lawyer would be the
Speaker 1: first step of us doing something to make sure that
Speaker 1: citizens that will return to citizens who who were who
Speaker 1: you know, victims of being inconcerated it this and just
Speaker 1: average people in the communities have opportunities to be able
Speaker 1: to benefit from Okay, well to there there's there's really
Speaker 1: Let me let me start by saying one thing. You
Speaker 1: know who you know who Hughey Newton was right? Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, of course. So you have Hughank Newton, right,
Speaker 1: you Hurey Newton, uh, you know allegedly killed or you
Speaker 1: know you did kill shot a couple of cops in
Speaker 1: open now you would say a black man, especially Hughey
Speaker 1: Newton back in open and somebody's gonna know that I'm
Speaker 1: off on that day probably or maybe I'm not. Is uh,
Speaker 1: you know you're going down. You can't kill a cop.
Speaker 1: You can't kill white cops and open but the black
Speaker 1: panthers and all the supporting communities and everything else. They
Speaker 1: went to the courthouse where he's being tried every day
Speaker 1: and so and ultimately, due to the fact that he
Speaker 1: had a great lawyer named Charles gary Um, he was
Speaker 1: he was ultimately solely convicted of manslaughter and he walked
Speaker 1: out of court. It's a greatly reduced charge in contrast
Speaker 1: to a screen murder. And why is that? It's something
Speaker 1: change of the court? They said, no, No, there's a
Speaker 1: saying that I have that derives out of that story.
Speaker 1: And that's is this what happens outside the courthouse is
Speaker 1: more important than what happens inside the courthouse. It's the
Speaker 1: system is set up in a way so that everybody
Speaker 1: has plausible deniability. And you know, you you always make
Speaker 1: a mistake, you know, referring to the Nazis. But what
Speaker 1: the hell is that that is that? You know? I mean,
Speaker 1: but if you want to look at it, look at
Speaker 1: look at look at the incarceration and the deprivation of
Speaker 1: liberty and the damage that's been done to communities. You're
Speaker 1: not that far off, all right, You're not that far
Speaker 1: off and making this thing, uh in the in this comparison.
Speaker 1: But the bottom line is they made it in a way.
Speaker 1: They made a mechanical so that there was always plausible deniability, moral, ethical,
Speaker 1: and legal. Say, hey, I'm just a small part of
Speaker 1: this thing. Although I wish I could do something else,
Speaker 1: there's you know, my hands are tied. So you get
Speaker 1: into the justice system so called, and my hands are
Speaker 1: always tied. There's nothing I can do, and and so
Speaker 1: and so you just go through this and it's like
Speaker 1: you're just going through the procedures of it. So, going
Speaker 1: back to the hum p noteing reference, the most important
Speaker 1: saying I know and that I try to that I
Speaker 1: do employ as a litigation strategy is what happens outside
Speaker 1: the courthouse is more important than what happens inside the courthouse,
Speaker 1: especially in criminal cases civil rights cases too, because when
Speaker 1: you shine a light on the courthouse, when you pressurize
Speaker 1: that courthouse, and everybody in there knows that there is
Speaker 1: a light being shown on them, so they don't have
Speaker 1: that plausible deniability anymore. What happens in that courthouse is
Speaker 1: something that they will be personally and moral morally responsible for.
Speaker 1: And I'm talking about prosecutors, I'm talking about federal judges.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about stage is the whole deal. Things change
Speaker 1: of a sudden. People become human beings again. They start
Speaker 1: looking at the bigger picture again, They start thinking about
Speaker 1: things other than just trying to get through the day
Speaker 1: without seeming to be damaging anyone and and trying to
Speaker 1: get through the day under the facade and the illusion
Speaker 1: that they're good people just by being there. You gotta
Speaker 1: strip them of that facade and show that if you
Speaker 1: do this, if you do X, that results and why
Speaker 1: and why is unethical and you're just part of a
Speaker 1: machine that's been destroying people since day one. You have
Speaker 1: got to make them know that at all costs. And
Speaker 1: if you can do that, and you can, if you
Speaker 1: bust your ass and you get ferocious enough about it
Speaker 1: and pack those courthouses, things change. So that's one. That's one,
Speaker 1: and then too and you know, and this is kind
Speaker 1: of like a systemic solution, And so I really don't
Speaker 1: believe in systemic solutions that much. You gotta think outside
Speaker 1: the box, you know, you gotta say, we just gotta
Speaker 1: bring what we can bring to this thing. Is the
Speaker 1: systemic solution? Is that? Okay? Look, for example, you've got
Speaker 1: why people vote for Bidenharrassed white people vote for you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of these, a lot of these uh you
Speaker 1: know democrats. Is that? Well, because one of the things
Speaker 1: they did, and I noticed this, they said they were
Speaker 1: going to decriminalize canvas and then there or or legalize it,
Speaker 1: and they said that they were going to do all
Speaker 1: sorts of things that we're going to end the systemic
Speaker 1: injustice that's you know, as part of the drug war context. Well,
Speaker 1: they don't now that we're here, we're a good year
Speaker 1: in and it doesn't even look like anything's ever going
Speaker 1: to happen with regards to the legal or the end
Speaker 1: of federal prohibition. So they're supposed to be to the
Speaker 1: degree that we have any voice in this system as
Speaker 1: close as we can get to it. So I guess
Speaker 1: you can pressurize them, but then at the end of
Speaker 1: the day that just may be saying, hey, write your
Speaker 1: senator later, you know, And I don't really believe in
Speaker 1: writing senator's letters. I believe that you've got to shine
Speaker 1: a ferocious light on the system. What happens outside the
Speaker 1: courthouse is more important than what happens inside, and you've
Speaker 1: got to hold people responsible, and there are ways to
Speaker 1: do that that actually put some human life into an
Speaker 1: otherwise cold and dead I think it's a combination of
Speaker 1: all the things that you said, while we don't um,
Speaker 1: while we are all very much so um unencouraged. I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that's the right word, by what
Speaker 1: is happening with this administration and with administrations of the past.
Speaker 1: Those people who are sitting at home who say, all
Speaker 1: I know I can do is write a letter. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm working two jobs today, I'm unable to show up
Speaker 1: at the courthouse, but I'm going to write a letter
Speaker 1: and maybe donate five dollars for the sandwiches for people
Speaker 1: who are outside the courthouse. Then you have people who say,
Speaker 1: you know, well, you know, I'm I'm going to make
Speaker 1: sure that in every election I've work for candidates that
Speaker 1: I try to get people voted in or out, because
Speaker 1: oftentimes people think of voting as only one side, bringing
Speaker 1: people into the system, which ultimately will happen, but it
Speaker 1: can also mean fine ring folks who are not doing
Speaker 1: a good job. So you have those people who believe
Speaker 1: that going to the polls is one of the ways
Speaker 1: that we will um somehow accomplished freedom. And then the
Speaker 1: last piece is there people like us that believe in
Speaker 1: putting boots on the ground, and they're gonna be folks
Speaker 1: who disagree or you know, well, protesting doesn't mean anything,
Speaker 1: Voting doesn't mean anything. We have so many what doesn't
Speaker 1: mean anything when we don't necessarily understand that all things
Speaker 1: work together for the greater good. And so I hope
Speaker 1: that one of the things we take from this conversation
Speaker 1: is that in this area, even if you don't smoke
Speaker 1: marijuana or don't smoke weed, even if you don't have
Speaker 1: a family member, a loved one who is locked up
Speaker 1: right now because of marijuana, I think we all need
Speaker 1: to understand the equity conversation and how being able to
Speaker 1: access the cannabis industry could mean generational well for our communities.
Speaker 1: And so it's something that we should all be concerned about.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's my my take on it. I don't
Speaker 1: know if anybody else wants to respond to that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much the same man. I just want to I
Speaker 1: just want to thank you for your your outlook and
Speaker 1: work that you're doing. We need people who understand the
Speaker 1: law and understand both sides to be able to articulate
Speaker 1: it the way that you actually articulate. I try to
Speaker 1: say it all the time, but I don't have the vernacular,
Speaker 1: you know, and I don't know all the words in
Speaker 1: the legal terms to put it this way. I just
Speaker 1: call it bullshit, you know what I'm saying. I'm just
Speaker 1: saying basically, I'll just be like, it's a bunch of
Speaker 1: bullshit that we're dealing with. But the way that you
Speaker 1: broke it down so eloquently is definitely needed. And I
Speaker 1: look forward to doing like political work, UM organization until freedom.
Speaker 1: We want to work on these things. You want to
Speaker 1: give these opportunities and for the people who have been
Speaker 1: wronged in these areas and figure out how do we
Speaker 1: connect our work to the legal work that you do.
Speaker 1: So I just want to say thank you for that
Speaker 1: before you go. Before you go, Attorney Williams, tell us
Speaker 1: what it doesn't mean to fight to a lawsuit to
Speaker 1: make the Colorado River a person we need to know that,
Speaker 1: all right, So look another saying, So you got you
Speaker 1: got one saying, maybe take two sayings out of this
Speaker 1: deal is one, what happens outside the court has more
Speaker 1: important what happens inside the court us. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: it's all the same fight. Okay, it's something I see
Speaker 1: and what that fight is, it's it's a fight against
Speaker 1: power differentials. Right, So one generational wealth versus a little
Speaker 1: bit of income, um, the usual suspects versus people who
Speaker 1: have been marginalized and having to deal with bullshit since
Speaker 1: day one. Um, Now when we get to something, so
Speaker 1: any time that you have massive power differentials where one
Speaker 1: side has all the power and the other side doesn't
Speaker 1: have power, doesn't have rights really at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, doesn't have rights, then you are going to
Speaker 1: have negative outcomes all the our Not much power equals
Speaker 1: bad outcomes a k A injustice. And so if you
Speaker 1: look at the if you look at the environmental situation, right,
Speaker 1: corporations have all the power of the world, but you know,
Speaker 1: literally and figuratively and literally more than figuratively, and so
Speaker 1: they have all the power. And then you look at
Speaker 1: what is it the corporations do now corporations exploit. Now
Speaker 1: they have some good benefits, and I'm not an anti corporate,
Speaker 1: but a lot of them exploit. They take advantage of
Speaker 1: human beings. But what they really do exploit at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, is this world, this planet, which
Speaker 1: is supposed which is supposed to be all of ours
Speaker 1: living in a way in which we respect Earth and
Speaker 1: hopefully in some kind of sustainable way that that integrates
Speaker 1: ourselves with. And when we do that, I tend to
Speaker 1: think that we end up being a more just society
Speaker 1: and better people. So you have a situation like this, right,
Speaker 1: so you have let's say you have a corporation in
Speaker 1: Arizona that wants to it has all it has ten
Speaker 1: billion dollars, and it wants to open up a golf
Speaker 1: course in the desert. We know, we know, you can
Speaker 1: just look at me. You can just we can just
Speaker 1: look at it and say that's bullshit. That doesn't need
Speaker 1: to happen. Colorado rivers dying. There's not enough of all
Speaker 1: all the of all the things and all the places
Speaker 1: where money should be going. Right now, the last damn
Speaker 1: thing we need is another golf course in the desert.
Speaker 1: But if they have the money, then they can buy
Speaker 1: the property rights, obtain the legal interests necessary to do
Speaker 1: whatever the hell they want to do. And that's because
Speaker 1: something as vital as the Colorado River or something or
Speaker 1: as vital as nature itself. In contrast, two corporations has
Speaker 1: no rights whatsoever, and so that person her term. Look,
Speaker 1: the legal system is basically the United States legal system
Speaker 1: is essentially based on twelve thirteen century property rights, something
Speaker 1: called the Magna Carta. And so we're just based in
Speaker 1: property rights conceptions, and that's really and that that's that's
Speaker 1: another conversation. But if you can get the property, the
Speaker 1: you can do what you want to do. And so
Speaker 1: it's a way of saying and so to return to
Speaker 1: that is that our conception of things are our legal
Speaker 1: conception of the earth on which we depend for our
Speaker 1: existence is simply one that is property that if you
Speaker 1: can buy it, you can do whatever you want to
Speaker 1: do it. So that so we're stuck with words like
Speaker 1: personhood because if you're a person, allegedly you have some rights. Okay,
Speaker 1: So if you're a person, you have some rights. So
Speaker 1: and saying that the Colorado River should be deemed a
Speaker 1: legal person is really just a way of saying the
Speaker 1: color you should not be able to do to the
Speaker 1: Colorado River, or the oceans or lakes, or the earth,
Speaker 1: this planet, whatever the hell you want to do, because
Speaker 1: you have all the wealth and you can, and so
Speaker 1: you are, they're being able to exploit it and use
Speaker 1: it in any way you want, even though for those
Speaker 1: for the greater picture, it's causing and continuing on further
Speaker 1: injustice and exploitation. So it would say, it would say
Speaker 1: that if you are doing something as in name and
Speaker 1: useless and contrary to the interests of justice in the society,
Speaker 1: as opening up a golf course in the desert, then
Speaker 1: we should be able to stand up for the Colorado
Speaker 1: River and say, the Colorado have some rights too. It's
Speaker 1: already greatly diminished so that you cannot simply drain and
Speaker 1: kill this natural entity upon which we all depend any further,
Speaker 1: because this too has a degree of rights which we
Speaker 1: simply call personhood. Because our law right now doesn't have
Speaker 1: the actual language for how to treat nature and really
Speaker 1: people with respect. That's I'm gonna refer to the Colorado
Speaker 1: River as my homeboyfro Now, Yeah, I love, I love
Speaker 1: that the Colorado River is my home my homeboy got
Speaker 1: rights to man. Wow. Uh, you are like super duper
Speaker 1: duper duper intellectual and intellig It's great. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel like I need to go get twenty five books
Speaker 1: right now and like read everything because what you know
Speaker 1: and the breadth of the the wealth of knowledge that
Speaker 1: you have is so important for our community. And I
Speaker 1: can only imagine that your clients are grateful to have
Speaker 1: you as an attorney because you're gonna go to court
Speaker 1: and speak up and fight the system for them, where
Speaker 1: we see so many attorneys that don't do that, either
Speaker 1: because they're intimidated and or they just don't care and
Speaker 1: therefore they don't go do the real work and put
Speaker 1: themselves on the line. And I can imagine there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the course that don't like
Speaker 1: to see attorney Jason Williams coming. Yeah, yeah, because you're
Speaker 1: gonna speak up. But I want to thank you again,
Speaker 1: As my son has said, we appreciate you and put
Speaker 1: us to work. Let us know about things that's happening
Speaker 1: where you feel like we can be of assistance, whether
Speaker 1: it be online and or in person. We do believe
Speaker 1: in putting boots on the ground. We believe that what
Speaker 1: happens outside the court makes what's inside the court shake
Speaker 1: and so we want to continue to do that work
Speaker 1: in collaboration with you and on behalf of your clients
Speaker 1: and others that you work with. So thank you, all right,
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. Thank you. That's how we own it.
Speaker 1: That's how we own it. You're a big shout out
Speaker 1: to Jason Williams Man. He is a wealth of knowledgement.
Speaker 1: Just listening to him and just understanding his perspective, it's
Speaker 1: just like I said, it broke down a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that I'd be thinking and I'd just be saying
Speaker 1: it's bullshit, but he broke it down into legal terms
Speaker 1: and different things. Just one of the main things that
Speaker 1: he said was what the most important things is what
Speaker 1: happened outside the court. And that's been been what we've
Speaker 1: been doing, you know, that's the work that we do.
Speaker 1: It until freedom is the stuff that's outside of the court.
Speaker 1: And people say, oh, you don't think marching, you protesting?
Speaker 1: What is that do? It gives people like Jason the
Speaker 1: energy right when he walks into a courtroom and we've
Speaker 1: and we've been advocating for something and we've got the
Speaker 1: world wrapped up on a specific particular subject or against
Speaker 1: a different case, like when you look at among our
Speaker 1: Breary's case, the the noise that the world makes, right,
Speaker 1: the anger and the frustration that the world makes has
Speaker 1: an impact. It has an impact on everything when people
Speaker 1: start realizing that the the status quo is not okay
Speaker 1: with you just killing black people or doing injustice against
Speaker 1: other people that are marginalized and poor people. When you started,
Speaker 1: they start to hear those voices and he's like, he said,
Speaker 1: this is wrong, and you're doing something that's morally wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, people started feeling that pressure to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. So you know that makes sense. Absolutely, ivred
Speaker 1: with you a thousand percent about that. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think about and I think you always talk about
Speaker 1: how much people don't know about what goes into the
Speaker 1: strategy around these things. Right, So you have people who
Speaker 1: will say that marching to your point doesn't mean anything,
Speaker 1: it's not doing anything. Well, if that's the case, if
Speaker 1: you believe that I'm marching and rallying means nothing, then
Speaker 1: tell me why. Um the Mick Michael's, which are the
Speaker 1: two the father and son um responsible for a mod
Speaker 1: Avery's killing. So they were two out of the three.
Speaker 1: One of their attorneys. He kept trying to get the
Speaker 1: case thrown out because of the rallies that were happening
Speaker 1: outside the court, the fact that Reverend Sharkton had been
Speaker 1: inside the court, Reverend Jackson and other leaders right, and
Speaker 1: the Black Panthers were outside the court. Was it the
Speaker 1: Black Panthers? Let me just make sure it was you
Speaker 1: sure the Black Panther Okay? And the New Black Panther
Speaker 1: Party was outside the court. One day. They even had
Speaker 1: a casket out there um that had the names of
Speaker 1: people who have been killed by police officers and white
Speaker 1: supremacists over many, many years. That was really upsetting to
Speaker 1: the defense because they knew that it meant something about
Speaker 1: what was happening in the court. To Jason's point, it
Speaker 1: calls on, or at least tugs on the moral conscious
Speaker 1: of the prosecutor. Right now, the prosecutor knows you've got
Speaker 1: to walk back out here in front of these people
Speaker 1: or past this community and and answer for what you
Speaker 1: did or did not do. Especially election season, Oh, people
Speaker 1: are upset. Whenever there's no noise, whenever people are quiet
Speaker 1: about the issues, you're going to have folks try to
Speaker 1: get away with more injustice, and so I would is
Speaker 1: offered that, you know, listening to what he said it
Speaker 1: it really made me feel like we're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: Not because it is going to get us a guilty
Speaker 1: verdict every time, not because it is going to be
Speaker 1: the end all, be all and it's gonna bring us
Speaker 1: the ultimate justice and freedom. And you're damn right. There
Speaker 1: are other people who are gonna do things differently. As
Speaker 1: I was saying from you know earlier in the show,
Speaker 1: there are people who will choose the way that they
Speaker 1: want to do their part. Everybody is not gonna do
Speaker 1: it the same way. And I think, you know, for
Speaker 1: for those of us who spend so much time criticizing, generally,
Speaker 1: you find out that they do nothing, that they are
Speaker 1: either talking heads that don't hit the ground, that they
Speaker 1: have not built anything, and or that they they literally
Speaker 1: literally are paid provocateurs who are sent to try to
Speaker 1: disrupt what other people are doing. That may not be
Speaker 1: the final answer, but it certainly is a part of
Speaker 1: your legacy in terms of you fighting and you being
Speaker 1: out there in the struggle. Yeah, everybody has something to do,
Speaker 1: I mean, something to say about what somebody else is doing.
Speaker 1: When they ain't doing nothing. So you know, it's a
Speaker 1: lot going on. We have so many, so many different
Speaker 1: entry points in this movement. You know, every day I'm
Speaker 1: enlightened and I find out different things that other people
Speaker 1: are doing and try to collaborate. So a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago we went to our bads or when we
Speaker 1: met with different you know, um professionals who have different
Speaker 1: entry points into the movement and and work that they're
Speaker 1: doing that's either silent or loud that we didn't even
Speaker 1: know about, and we were able to connect and and
Speaker 1: and it's like, stop criticizing what somebody else is doing
Speaker 1: or not doing it. Just find a way to do
Speaker 1: what you think is missing because there's so many different
Speaker 1: needs inside this movement. Black people have so many different
Speaker 1: needs that were sure that you can find a way
Speaker 1: to help instead of trying to tear down with somebody
Speaker 1: else's doing. So, you know, once again, shout out to
Speaker 1: Jason Man for that all all of the knowledge he
Speaker 1: gave us. And then and there are some people who
Speaker 1: will because even I struggle with some of what he said, right,
Speaker 1: like not struggling because I don't think it's right, but
Speaker 1: struggling to understand it right. He is highly intellectual, and
Speaker 1: so you can you can lose some of the things
Speaker 1: that he's saying just because because of the fact that
Speaker 1: we don't practice law and we may not understand it.
Speaker 1: But I when we really dig deeply into the sentence
Speaker 1: and disparities that he spoke to how his clients for weed,
Speaker 1: most of them weren't moving trucks and trucks of it.
Speaker 1: He's like he said, and I get his point when
Speaker 1: he said, you know, if you did that, and good
Speaker 1: for you. It doesn't mean that he believes that it's right.
Speaker 1: What he's saying is that there are other people who
Speaker 1: are moving ships of marijuana and or cocaine or other drugs,
Speaker 1: and their families are literally running American society. Okay, and
Speaker 1: not just American, A bunch of other countries are ruled
Speaker 1: in many ways by the blood of drug money and
Speaker 1: guns and whatever other you know, Uh, illegal activities happened
Speaker 1: in our society, and by the way, is only illegal
Speaker 1: for certain people. Because if you have oxycott and if
Speaker 1: you sell prescription drugs, you can move mountains and and
Speaker 1: be living and go into the White House for events.
Speaker 1: You can be you know, running other businesses owning major
Speaker 1: corporations and whatnot. But us, you know, Johnny who is
Speaker 1: selling some weed on the corner. He's penalized and actually
Speaker 1: pays for the crimes of big drug mob like bosses
Speaker 1: and old You know, I get I understand what he
Speaker 1: was saying, and I just think we have to have
Speaker 1: more conversations that while we may not understand all the details,
Speaker 1: we have to listen to the the lawyers, the legal side,
Speaker 1: the activists, the parents, the victims, Like it's gonna take
Speaker 1: all of us. The sure is man, you just said,
Speaker 1: you said something that I said all the time. Man,
Speaker 1: we will kill somebody in calling the worst drug deal
Speaker 1: in the world because they're selling the same controlled substances
Speaker 1: that these pharmaceuticals and these pharmacies are selling for years
Speaker 1: and and and and being called the best businessmen in
Speaker 1: the world and billionaires, you know, and like you said,
Speaker 1: Johnny is gonna do twenty and thirty years for selling
Speaker 1: the same exact things somewhere. So that's that brings me
Speaker 1: to what I don't get it. There's this this stigma
Speaker 1: about criminality, right and I'm being formally incarcerated, you know,
Speaker 1: I deal with this all the time that people want
Speaker 1: to hold you to being quote unquote criminals. Now, first
Speaker 1: of all, I was forcedly incarcerated and accused of crimes
Speaker 1: I didn't commit, and I served time for those crimes,
Speaker 1: you know. But second of all, it was over twenty
Speaker 1: years of m right, you understand I'm saying it was
Speaker 1: a crime. I was nineteen years or over twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: I served seven years for a crime that I didn't commit.
Speaker 1: And people will constantly I see this in my d
Speaker 1: MS all the time. Oh you're a fake, you was
Speaker 1: a criminal, and this and that, and it's like, at
Speaker 1: what point do a crime that you commit? At what
Speaker 1: point does it say you said, Okay, this individual served
Speaker 1: the time, whether they did it or not. The last
Speaker 1: twenty years of this man's life has been about productivity.
Speaker 1: The twenty years prior to that was about productivity. Like,
Speaker 1: at what point do do you start to realize that
Speaker 1: the the worst mistake a person might have made in
Speaker 1: their lives? Because there are all people who are formally
Speaker 1: in coorse rated who have done their crimes and they've
Speaker 1: come home and made amends, and they've done everything possible
Speaker 1: to make amends and become productive members of society. And
Speaker 1: I just don't get why there is a mind state
Speaker 1: amongst people that because a person commits one crime, served
Speaker 1: their time moves on, that they're just these bad evil
Speaker 1: people who can never be you know, reconstructed, who who
Speaker 1: can never be rehabilitated, and who can never do anything
Speaker 1: positive without without escaping that one crime if they commit
Speaker 1: and it's it's just it's really a mess up situation.
Speaker 1: I'm on an organization. I'm on a board of an
Speaker 1: organization called Time Done. Shout out to my boy Ja
Speaker 1: Jordan and what's We're fighting to get the rights back
Speaker 1: performally in coorse rated people right like, because we deal
Speaker 1: with so many stigmas, Like it's still jobs I can't
Speaker 1: get I still can't get th h a pre check.
Speaker 1: I still you know, it's these things won't they won't
Speaker 1: allow me to have any of these things. I travel
Speaker 1: and the Diamond member, all of these things and I
Speaker 1: can't get to you they pre checked because I got
Speaker 1: a felony on my record. And there are so many
Speaker 1: other things. There's certain jobs in places that I'm I
Speaker 1: won't be able to go to. I can't go to
Speaker 1: Canada because I got a felon anymore don't matter how
Speaker 1: many shows or whatever it is. I will never be
Speaker 1: able to go to these certain places because I got
Speaker 1: a fulding. And and it's like we're working on getting
Speaker 1: these records expunged after you you serve a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time free and you show to be a productive member.
Speaker 1: You haven't gotten into any crimes, you haven't done anything
Speaker 1: that your record be completely expunged, and there's no even
Speaker 1: mentioned of the crime that you did. And I think
Speaker 1: that's something that really needs to happen because there's so
Speaker 1: many beautiful, educated professional people that are just held by
Speaker 1: these consequences of crimes they committed twenty in fifteen and
Speaker 1: some even thirty years ago, and it's just it's just
Speaker 1: not right. Well, we should definitely, in thattly have Jay
Speaker 1: Jordan to come on and talk about the time on campaign,
Speaker 1: because you know, when I found out that, I think
Speaker 1: you were telling me you can't walk dogs, you can't
Speaker 1: be a dog walker. Uh, if you have a felony,
Speaker 1: you can't get a barber's license to open a shop
Speaker 1: in most states. And of course the problem with our
Speaker 1: society is that every state gets to operate in a
Speaker 1: different way. And then I'm contradicting myself because I'm saying
Speaker 1: that's a problem in our society. But then there are
Speaker 1: a states that if the rule of law was based
Speaker 1: upon some of our governors, some of the governors in
Speaker 1: this country, we would be it up Ships Creek because
Speaker 1: when you think about a place like Texas where they're
Speaker 1: taking away a women's right to choose with her body,
Speaker 1: if that was the norm across the country, then that
Speaker 1: would also be a problem. So we just have such
Speaker 1: ship because you could be in one state that will
Speaker 1: allow you, as a person who was formally incarcerated with
Speaker 1: a felony on your record, you can be in that
Speaker 1: state and get to a barber's license, But then you
Speaker 1: go over here to this state and you can't. It's
Speaker 1: it's like people are pushed their backs are slammed up
Speaker 1: against the wall, and we have to figure out, as
Speaker 1: you said, how to sort of right side it. So
Speaker 1: I think we've got to have j Jordan's on um
Speaker 1: and you know, Mice, I think, yes, it is true
Speaker 1: that this system has done so much to try to
Speaker 1: suck the energy out of people like you and Jay
Speaker 1: and others. But I'm just so this is my praise
Speaker 1: and worship moment. How God is so good because to
Speaker 1: see where you and Jay started right, to know where
Speaker 1: you were when I first met you, and to see
Speaker 1: how hard you work every day regardless of all those
Speaker 1: things that are trying to stop you. You can't you
Speaker 1: couldn't do several os in Canada. You couldn't go to
Speaker 1: something big um in Australia. I think it was um.
Speaker 1: Like you said, every time we get to the airport,
Speaker 1: some of us are. And it's not just you. It's
Speaker 1: not just you. You and Linda's are. Soul Away never
Speaker 1: been in trouble for anything in her life, can't get
Speaker 1: pre checked because she is a Muslim woman whose family
Speaker 1: is from Palestine, even though she's an American citizen, and
Speaker 1: she is on a list of restrictions in America where
Speaker 1: she cannot get the same rights that I have. And
Speaker 1: and and yet y'all still pushed past all of that,
Speaker 1: and you keep going. And so I just want to
Speaker 1: say that it is incredible to watch. And I'm assuming
Speaker 1: you will say you are the exception and not the rule, right,
Speaker 1: but it is incredible to watch how despite all that
Speaker 1: this system is doing to try to hold you back,
Speaker 1: to try to stop you from achieving your greatness. You
Speaker 1: continue to plow through and push your way forward. And
Speaker 1: look at all that you have accomplished just in the
Speaker 1: last almost decade that I've known you, and you've been
Speaker 1: working at UH, you know, through so many challenges even
Speaker 1: since you were a young child. So thank you for
Speaker 1: the acknowledgement. You know what it means a lot. Like
Speaker 1: you said, I'm an exception, not the rule, and I
Speaker 1: and I and I and I don't want I don't
Speaker 1: want the success of other people that's in my same
Speaker 1: situations or lack thereof, with what's considered success of them,
Speaker 1: to be judged by me, because you know I have
Speaker 1: I call it it's a combination of Luck's a combination
Speaker 1: to drive, it's a combination of access. It's all of
Speaker 1: those things play apart in what it is my success
Speaker 1: is a lot of people that come from the same
Speaker 1: situations don't have that same access, Right they come home
Speaker 1: with the drive and they have the skill, and they
Speaker 1: don't have the access and they don't have the luck,
Speaker 1: and the two of the things out of whack. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't believe in luck, some level of luck because
Speaker 1: because its blessings, they haven't they haven't run into their
Speaker 1: blessing as of yet, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: there's there's so many different situations. The average individual doesn't
Speaker 1: know that most people that are in successful situations was
Speaker 1: one second away from being incarcerated, especially when you when
Speaker 1: you come from our communities. The most successful people would
Speaker 1: tell you there was a time that they was in
Speaker 1: the car with something they shouldn't have been in. There
Speaker 1: was there was with a friend doing something they should
Speaker 1: have done, or they participated son, and by the grace
Speaker 1: of God, you know, they didn't get caught and they
Speaker 1: were able to make a decision and change their lives,
Speaker 1: and they go on on to be successful and you know,
Speaker 1: productive members of society without felonies. You know, that's a
Speaker 1: lot of people's stories. So just understand. I just want
Speaker 1: people to know that you, or somebody you love or
Speaker 1: somebody you respect, was probably seconds away from being on
Speaker 1: the opposite side of that fence. You know. So when
Speaker 1: you pass judgment and you think that these people are
Speaker 1: no good or and you want to call them criminals
Speaker 1: and think they just they deserve not to have anything,
Speaker 1: or not the right to be able to evolve and grow,
Speaker 1: just understand that, you know, you you're coming from a
Speaker 1: point of privilege a lot of times in the point
Speaker 1: of perspective that you're not. You're not giving the other
Speaker 1: opposite spectrum the opportunity to even understand where they come from. God.
Speaker 1: And with that said, we come to the end of
Speaker 1: another dope show. Shout out to Jason Williams for his knowledge,
Speaker 1: Jason Attorney, Jason Williams for his knowledge. You know that
Speaker 1: broke so many things down that we didn't even know. Listen,
Speaker 1: Colorado River is my homeboy, and now that's the person
Speaker 1: they just do rivers. You know what I'm saying, So
Speaker 1: shout out a person. You know what I'm saying, so
Speaker 1: we want to shout him out. Shout out to all
Speaker 1: our fans. Thank you all for continuing to tune in,
Speaker 1: you know, listening to us debate, you know, argue, go
Speaker 1: back and forth. You know, give have different point of
Speaker 1: views and we appreciate y'all. If you have any ideas
Speaker 1: for topics or people you want us to interview, please
Speaker 1: make sure you hit us up on Instagram. Street Politician
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Speaker 1: number one podcast, number one in the world, and we're growing,
Speaker 1: We're moving fast. Meet up for coming up here dropping
Speaker 1: her jewels. You know she always got the good background
Speaker 1: makeup on fleek head done. You know what I'm saying. Look,
Speaker 1: I can say what you want. We'll be fresh man,
Speaker 1: I skin be clear and all that. I think. We
Speaker 1: ain't out here man until freedom. Let me shamers plug.
Speaker 1: Integrity over income is always integrity over income mat But
Speaker 1: once again, we love y'all. We're not gonna always be
Speaker 1: right to me, It's not gonna always be wrong, but
Speaker 1: we will both always and I mean always be a thing.
Speaker 1: Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on
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Speaker 1: Team