Speaker 1: Okay, listen, it's time to get your bars up. The
Speaker 1: news is already in your face all the time. You
Speaker 1: already know Trump out here talking about nuck if you buck,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, Like, man, you know, pull
Speaker 1: up on me then and bust a move. A matter
Speaker 1: of fact, I'm gonna hire my guy to come and
Speaker 1: look through all the stuff you got, Like, y'all get it.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. He facing a palcthora charges
Speaker 1: everybody know that. You know what I'm saying. You know,
Speaker 1: Afghanistan and a like how it started? How is it
Speaker 1: going over there? With the Taliban situation? Like, oh word,
Speaker 1: like y'all was gonna be the new and improved Taliban,
Speaker 1: Come on, family, like you already knew that wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: You already knew they was gonna be the same Taliban
Speaker 1: they always was. You don't need me to to you know,
Speaker 1: we're about to be in mid terms. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. You know, uh biting out here talking about
Speaker 1: we need to fund the police. We expect them to
Speaker 1: do everything. We expect them to be psychologists and psychiatrists
Speaker 1: and counselors and therapists, which is all the reasons why
Speaker 1: we're saying we need to defood because you're asking them
Speaker 1: to do stuff they died trade and do. So, how
Speaker 1: about you hire to train with professionals and fund them
Speaker 1: to do that. Take the money you're taking it in.
Speaker 1: It's just like you get his whole reason for funding
Speaker 1: the police is the exact reason to defund them. It's
Speaker 1: pretty funny. But you all need me to explain all
Speaker 1: that you already you're already in there. I want to
Speaker 1: take time today to give y'all some reading assignments or listening.
Speaker 1: It's up to you either way. We're gonna get your
Speaker 1: weight up today. You go get your bars up. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you some book recommendations. Good politics, y'all. In
Speaker 1: case you don't know, get your bars up is a
Speaker 1: this is gonna. It's it's always weird to like explain
Speaker 1: stuff that like you never had to like actually give
Speaker 1: an actual definition to because it's like you didn't even
Speaker 1: know where to start. It would be if you were
Speaker 1: to make some sort of reference to like all the
Speaker 1: forces strong with this one, like how many things you
Speaker 1: have to unpack to give context for for that phrase
Speaker 1: to make sense? Right? And then it it's almost not
Speaker 1: as fun anymore. Getting your bars up is a rap phrase, right.
Speaker 1: Bars are measurements of song, of sound, of lyrics like
Speaker 1: you know, one to three one one two three two
Speaker 1: one two three three bars right, and it became a
Speaker 1: ubiquitous colloquialism for rapping, right. If you know, back in
Speaker 1: the nineties he was like, y'all got sixteen bars. What
Speaker 1: you're saying is like I have a verse, right, because
Speaker 1: versus traditionally and during that time versus we're sixteen bars,
Speaker 1: you do twelve, you do do an eight? Right. Pop
Speaker 1: music is a little different. Pop music is usually eight
Speaker 1: bar versus eight bar chorus, right, and then now the
Speaker 1: whole phrase get to the chorus for you boris right? Uh.
Speaker 1: Then the second versus usually four bars into a four
Speaker 1: bar bridge or four bars into a course again four
Speaker 1: bar bridge or eight bar bridge, big finale a bar
Speaker 1: ending pop music. Right. But if we're saying like y'all
Speaker 1: get your bars up, like it would be something to
Speaker 1: tell a person like man, you need to like practice
Speaker 1: your wrapping. You need to get better at what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And one of the untold things about hip hop music,
Speaker 1: especially if you're gonna do it at a particular level
Speaker 1: of excellence? Is it actually require er is a decent
Speaker 1: amount of interdisciplinary like sort of Polly Maath knowledge of culture, right,
Speaker 1: if you're gonna do it well, you'd be surprised at
Speaker 1: how smart a lot of the best rappers are, Like
Speaker 1: y'all know, two Chains went to Tuskegee, like like like
Speaker 1: these a lot of these people are very, very very
Speaker 1: smart people. It's the same with comedy, Like for comedy
Speaker 1: to be really as sophisticated and funny as it can be,
Speaker 1: you kind of gotta know what you're talking about and no, well,
Speaker 1: what you're talking about to be able to point out
Speaker 1: absurdities and and and satires and and and make the
Speaker 1: jokes and make the connections, you have to know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. Of course there's slapstick and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but slapstick comedy also you kind of gotta know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about to know to know how to make
Speaker 1: fun of it. So for you know, foods making like
Speaker 1: double and triple and quad druple and andres like, you
Speaker 1: have to know what you're talking about. You have to
Speaker 1: be able to make references from history, pop culture, science,
Speaker 1: literature to bring it all together for this all it's
Speaker 1: not just like got it out the mug. We're turning
Speaker 1: up in the club, you know what I'm saying. It's
Speaker 1: not just that even if, because you can only do
Speaker 1: that for so many songs. Eventually you're turning up in
Speaker 1: the club has to have some sort of similar to it,
Speaker 1: like a something, and it can't be something you didn't
Speaker 1: say it a million times or is corny right for
Speaker 1: for the type of rapping I'm talking about. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's something for everybody. You know, there's exceptions to this rule.
Speaker 1: Some stuff is all vibe, some stuff is all feel.
Speaker 1: And if we were making a comparison to politics, that
Speaker 1: would be your Trump's of the world. This is all vibe.
Speaker 1: Ain't no content, This is candy and the content he
Speaker 1: given is ridiculous, right they he got no bars. It's
Speaker 1: all styles. It's all cadence, right, Cadences uh in this
Speaker 1: time era if pop, cadence is king. Cadence is like
Speaker 1: the way you say your stuff. So that's why you
Speaker 1: can remember how a song goes, but not the lyrics.
Speaker 1: It's the cadence, you know. Sammonde Damond de Damond, Dan Damond,
Speaker 1: You're dumb bo see something Zabama's Dedamina dud. That's the cadence.
Speaker 1: And then you just drop words into it. Oh, hey,
Speaker 1: who do you know rocking on Mike and I'm killing
Speaker 1: that flow? Hey what do you see stepping the crowd
Speaker 1: and I'm rocking? It's me. It's just cadence. I didn't
Speaker 1: say anything. It's just the cadence. Right, But those are bars.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, when you're all bars and no finesse,
Speaker 1: this is backpack rapper. This is like there's no there's
Speaker 1: nothing to lie latch onto. It's just rapid e raps
Speaker 1: and a lot of the rapidi rap stuff, which is
Speaker 1: what I came from. Right, You're not gonna bang it
Speaker 1: in the car, you know. It's like it's like headphone music.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like, it's not you ain't
Speaker 1: gonna hear it in the club. This the the you know.
Speaker 1: I spit similarlys ripped mikes and mentioned me, mentioned me.
Speaker 1: I spit similarly top of them Brain Rick in Dye,
Speaker 1: Rick and Shorty Border, Rick and Mortar, sort of bipolar
Speaker 1: Ryan Thrower Rancher. You know what I'm saying, It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: cool whatever I mean. I guess you know. But if
Speaker 1: you could put Bars and Cadence together, you get Kendricks,
Speaker 1: you get calls you know what I'm saying, and you
Speaker 1: get certain elements of Drake right, you get greatness out
Speaker 1: of your music when you could put the two together.
Speaker 1: So as far as your knowledge of world history, politics,
Speaker 1: and the world we're getting into and especially moving into
Speaker 1: these mid terms, especially being able to have a decent
Speaker 1: conversation about the air quotes, culture wars we have in
Speaker 1: some people all Cadence, it's all live liberal shot now
Speaker 1: a cave. I'm like, okay, well, what do you what
Speaker 1: do you mean by that we kill the black people?
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter? Okay? What do you mean by nord
Speaker 1: else is killing black people? I'm saying saturated fats, food, deserts.
Speaker 1: Get your bars up. Do you know what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here when we say all cops are bastard? Where
Speaker 1: you know you're the fund the police? Okay? So why
Speaker 1: with the mainstream media? Okay? What's wrong with mainstream un Okay?
Speaker 1: Get your bars up. Well you know it's it's critical
Speaker 1: race theory. Okay, what is it? Yeah, that's what I thought.
Speaker 1: Get your bars up, Get bars and Cadence, know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, and know how to talk about what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, because good lord, if you could put
Speaker 1: those things together, Dang, you're bad Bunny Rihanna and Beyonce
Speaker 1: and Kendrick wrapped in one. Could you imagine that? So, yeah,
Speaker 1: this episode, it's a little different than normal in the
Speaker 1: sense that I kind of want to give y'all some
Speaker 1: like reading material. Some of the feedback we got over
Speaker 1: this show is that you guys tend to enjoy the
Speaker 1: educational aspect of the show. We talked about like how
Speaker 1: something works and histories of things, and and I think
Speaker 1: it might be because you know, we're kind of drowning
Speaker 1: in news, like sometimes you kind of need to break
Speaker 1: you feel me, like, so when we be dropping jokes
Speaker 1: or making comparisons, but ultimately like kind of schooling you
Speaker 1: on some like bigger picture stuff. It the feedback we're
Speaker 1: getting is that's a lot more helpful. And you know,
Speaker 1: we can't please everybody, so that might not be true
Speaker 1: of you listening right now. You might like, you know,
Speaker 1: the hot text about like current events, and I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna stop doing that, but I do think a little
Speaker 1: more content on like the educational side, Uh would do
Speaker 1: a little good. I've been asked all the time, Hey,
Speaker 1: what books are you reading? Hey? Where did you get that?
Speaker 1: Where did you learn? This? Is so cool? You know,
Speaker 1: I think today I'm just gonna lay out a couple
Speaker 1: of things Jacker read in your own time and leisure.
Speaker 1: But I'm also going to give you a couple of
Speaker 1: you know, caveats and disclaimers. All right, so take notes
Speaker 1: if you're up to it. If not, just you know,
Speaker 1: save this here episode and you can come back to
Speaker 1: this list work. All right, let's go. So, as you
Speaker 1: know the premise of this show is the merging of
Speaker 1: street knowledge with book knowledge. Right, you're urban outside experience
Speaker 1: and using that to understand you're in the Ivory Tower experience.
Speaker 1: And if you can merge the two, uh, the possibilities
Speaker 1: are endless. That being said, you ain't got but so
Speaker 1: much brain space, right, So I don't expect you, and
Speaker 1: I'm not calling you to derail your hold trajectory and
Speaker 1: read these super dense books. Yeah, in between trying to
Speaker 1: make rents. That's not what I'm saying. But I do
Speaker 1: want to give you a list of books that you
Speaker 1: could possibly you know what I'm saying, kind of be
Speaker 1: playing in the background, you feel me. Some of these
Speaker 1: are very dense and very sort of edge you speech.
Speaker 1: Others are simpler reads, a little more narrative. And my
Speaker 1: hope is again not to shame you, not to make
Speaker 1: you feel like you don't know what you're talking about,
Speaker 1: but just to give you some gems so that you
Speaker 1: kind of have a baseline for when you're gonna drop
Speaker 1: bars on folks about how you feel about things, that
Speaker 1: you can actually be like, well, actually, here's this study,
Speaker 1: here is this person, here is this thing. Here's what
Speaker 1: I understand about how that works, so that nobody like
Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, kind of sell you the
Speaker 1: wolf tickets. Don't be selling me no wolf tickets, right.
Speaker 1: But the list I can give you is on the
Speaker 1: educational side, the street knowledge, the urban knowledge. I don't
Speaker 1: it ain't in the books. That comes from lived experience,
Speaker 1: and I think but ultimately, even whatever your lived experience is,
Speaker 1: my hope is that you learn how to tap into
Speaker 1: that to help you understand the world around you. I'm
Speaker 1: getting a little deep here, anyway, Okay, here we go.
Speaker 1: Let's start first with uh culture war stuff. First book.
Speaker 1: I want to give you. First person I will introduce
Speaker 1: you to is Dr Kimberly Crenshaw, Harvard Grad Law professor
Speaker 1: at U c L, A certified g absolutely brilliant black woman.
Speaker 1: And the thing about Dr Kimberly Crenshaw is the fact
Speaker 1: that you've been hearing her words and people been putting
Speaker 1: words in her mouth for the past eight years, which
Speaker 1: is crazy because the words that we're putting in her
Speaker 1: mouth she wrote many books about and you can just
Speaker 1: see what she wrote. There needs to be no mystery
Speaker 1: around the things that she came up with, and it
Speaker 1: is the leading expert on Dr Kimberly Crenshaw is the
Speaker 1: leading expert in critical race theory. We hear CRT. People
Speaker 1: have been talking about it and the see this critical
Speaker 1: race theory and uh wokeness has been merged together into
Speaker 1: one thing, which is absurd. Dr Kimberly Crenshaw in critical
Speaker 1: race theory is a law theory. Okay, now I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you some books to read or at least to
Speaker 1: listen to, or maybe even just to skim if you
Speaker 1: if you don't feel like you could get all the
Speaker 1: way into it, you can skim. You know what the
Speaker 1: name of the one of the books you could read
Speaker 1: that she wrote about critical race theory. It's called critical
Speaker 1: Race Theory, the key writings that formed the movement. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she wrote a book, y'all. There needs to be no
Speaker 1: confusion as to what this means. And when you hearing
Speaker 1: your little right wing politicians, your little conservative politicians talk
Speaker 1: about how it's a scourge and we don't want to
Speaker 1: teach our kids that, you could read what it is
Speaker 1: and you could see that I, like almost every other
Speaker 1: black person who grew up in the school system, the
Speaker 1: American public school system, unless you was in an exceptional
Speaker 1: school or had you an exceptional teacher, you ain't know
Speaker 1: nothing about this. The extent of what you knew about
Speaker 1: your race is that slavery happened, and then Dr Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King. That's all we get taught. So for somebody
Speaker 1: to tell you you learned critical race theory CD, I
Speaker 1: nobody learned. I don't know what that was till college,
Speaker 1: and that's because I was at Nick Studies major. It's
Speaker 1: a LOWD theory. She has another book that is called
Speaker 1: Identities and Inequalities, exploring the intersections of race, class, gender,
Speaker 1: and sexuality. Now, this isn't Dr Kimberly Crenshaw. This is
Speaker 1: by David Newman, and it's built on some of her work.
Speaker 1: The point I'm trying to make is there needs to
Speaker 1: be no mystery about what critical race theory is. There's
Speaker 1: literally a book about it and multiple books that came
Speaker 1: from that. It's like it's and y'all like listen, just
Speaker 1: you know, audible, just listen to it. Now for that
Speaker 1: book to make sense, you may have to step back
Speaker 1: a little further and read something like called the sixteen
Speaker 1: nineteen project. Right, um, the year sixteen nineteen. Why that's
Speaker 1: so important is it's the the year that the first
Speaker 1: African slave set foot in America. It was the essentially
Speaker 1: like the beginning of the slave trade, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So there was this whole thing, you know,
Speaker 1: when the New York Times tried to do a sixteen
Speaker 1: nineteen project during two thousand nineteen, and then that's when
Speaker 1: everybody was like, no, sev seventy six project, you know,
Speaker 1: all reactionary. Whatever the case may be, at least know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. Here's another caveat. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to tell you that any of this stuff is factual
Speaker 1: or true. Or the way you need to see the world.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to say, if everybody talking about the
Speaker 1: dangers of critical race, they why don't you learn what
Speaker 1: it is and then see maybe they don't know what
Speaker 1: the hell they're talking about, which is why somebody like
Speaker 1: me most times don't engage when somebody asked me about well,
Speaker 1: that's just critical race theory, like, well, you don't know it,
Speaker 1: you don't know what that is. So it's a it's
Speaker 1: a law theory, a theory about the law. Okay, so
Speaker 1: just go check it out. Dr Kimberly Crenshaw Devour everything
Speaker 1: she writes. Another book I would recommend is The New
Speaker 1: Gym Crow. It's by Michelle Alexander, and it's about, you know,
Speaker 1: slave trade to mass incarceration and why mass incarceration is
Speaker 1: a thing that the things that are sinister about it,
Speaker 1: Like these things are like baselines. This is the background knowledge.
Speaker 1: This is like these things when you when when you
Speaker 1: hear me talk, right, Uh, these are the types of
Speaker 1: things that it's it's almost like if you're watching Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones and you've just accepted that dragons exist in
Speaker 1: this universe. You're saying and you understand Valerian steal and
Speaker 1: you know the Iron Throne, you know, and you just
Speaker 1: already know the map, right, and you know the wild
Speaker 1: wings in the North Wall. Like if you already know
Speaker 1: all that stuff and you're just in the world. But
Speaker 1: if somebody just drops in and you're just like, yo,
Speaker 1: what the hell is a wildling? It's like I already
Speaker 1: know the map, right, you know if I just dropped
Speaker 1: you into like a talking story and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go to Rivendale, like what you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like, you gotta know the map already, So
Speaker 1: these are things. At least just know the map. Again,
Speaker 1: you ain't gotta believe all this stuff. At least know
Speaker 1: the map. But these people got our receipts, so you
Speaker 1: can at least have your bars up all right now,
Speaker 1: this is your These are your law books. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's not complete or exhaustive. These are just some suggestions
Speaker 1: and you ain't gotta take them all, just you can
Speaker 1: pick a few. Next, I want to talk about some
Speaker 1: culture books. Let's take a break. M m m all right,
Speaker 1: culture books, culture and injustice, I think would be a
Speaker 1: good way to put this. One thing you've heard me
Speaker 1: mentioned this book before. I highly recommend it. It's called
Speaker 1: Simply Justice by Michael Sandow. Okay, it is I think
Speaker 1: very I Again, I've talked about this before, but let
Speaker 1: me just rehash it. It really helps um frame conversations
Speaker 1: when we're talking about what is justice, what is equality?
Speaker 1: What is right? Right? And it's it's theoretical, like he
Speaker 1: doesn't really take a stance. He just tries to give
Speaker 1: you sort of buckets to put your understanding of things.
Speaker 1: So he talks about like, if justice means um. I
Speaker 1: think I've said this before, but again you need to
Speaker 1: hear it. If justice means um the greatest amount of
Speaker 1: good for the most amount of people. That's usually like
Speaker 1: sort of the liberal and progressive thing to where it's
Speaker 1: like you have these big programs that can help the
Speaker 1: most people. It's not gonna help everybody because everybody don't
Speaker 1: need help, but what is the greatest amount of goods
Speaker 1: you could do for the most amount of people. That's
Speaker 1: usually a liberal perspective. Then he has that is what's just.
Speaker 1: Then he has the staining of like if justice is
Speaker 1: like freedom to flourish, where it's like leave me alone,
Speaker 1: let me make the right decisions and if I fail,
Speaker 1: I fail, and if I succeed, I succeed. But don't
Speaker 1: like putting nothing in my way. Just let me do
Speaker 1: it right, let me make the right choices. That's more
Speaker 1: of a libertarian approach, right, and then the idea of
Speaker 1: of the more conservative approach is like justice is what
Speaker 1: things ought to be, meaning there is a there is
Speaker 1: a right and a wrong, and it's above us and
Speaker 1: it is up to us to fit our lives into
Speaker 1: whatever that thing is. You know, that's that is what's justice,
Speaker 1: That is what's just You You have this idea of
Speaker 1: there's a fixed idea of what the world should be,
Speaker 1: and we need to submit ourselves to that rather than
Speaker 1: we're creating the world that we're in. Right, So what
Speaker 1: is justice? And he gives a lot of examples about
Speaker 1: that um in this book. So I highly recommend that
Speaker 1: So that because I'm telling you this will help you
Speaker 1: understand at least the person sitting across from you why
Speaker 1: they are outraged about what they're outrage, why they don't
Speaker 1: understand when you say, well, I mean, don't send a
Speaker 1: cop to a domestic violence thing, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: Like you know, or why they're like you know, trans
Speaker 1: people shouldn't be in the military. You know, it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I see why you're saying that. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: uh because of their idea of justice or they're just bigoted,
Speaker 1: I don't know anyway, So that's what Another book is
Speaker 1: called The Sacred Canopy. Now this one is freakishly dense,
Speaker 1: but it's about the shaping and the creation of culture.
Speaker 1: What even is culture? I think I talked about this
Speaker 1: in the Culture Wars uh uh in the Ops episode right,
Speaker 1: like what is it? Well? I mean, it's us and
Speaker 1: how do you make it? It's very dense, but if
Speaker 1: you can even if you can get through like the
Speaker 1: first couple of chapters, like I'm telling you, you'll realize
Speaker 1: like how silly we sound often everybody because we just
Speaker 1: really don't understand our culture is made and where we're
Speaker 1: getting our norms. That makes sense. And the last on
Speaker 1: this tip is a book called A Different Mirror. It's
Speaker 1: very old. I ain't gonna hold you very old, but
Speaker 1: sometimes books that are old or out of dated or
Speaker 1: some of the takes are kind of like just didn't
Speaker 1: age well. It teaches us about culture, period. It teaches
Speaker 1: us about where we were. You feel me? Um, can
Speaker 1: I get crash with y'all because this is her politics.
Speaker 1: And there was a time in hip hop where rappers
Speaker 1: would brag about how they don't go down on girls,
Speaker 1: that they don't they don't eat the couchie. I know
Speaker 1: that's crass. I just need to make a point that
Speaker 1: it was considered not hard, not manly. Boy has times changed? YO,
Speaker 1: saying like Yo, that take a age? Well, Fam, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, uh because uh man listen anyway. Um,
Speaker 1: The point I'm trying to make is it gives you
Speaker 1: a window into what was going on back then. I
Speaker 1: remember the time where rappers will talk about how they
Speaker 1: didn't listen to R and B and they don't do
Speaker 1: R and B. It's like, oh, y'all niggas don't sing,
Speaker 1: y'all don't like girls. Fam, that's what's going on right now. No,
Speaker 1: we're hard. I'm like, okay, all right, I guess you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Enter Drake one of the biggest
Speaker 1: artists in the world. He like R and B. You
Speaker 1: feel me? So. So the point is, even with some
Speaker 1: of these books that I'm giving you again, like I
Speaker 1: keep saying, you ain't gotta take it all. I'm not
Speaker 1: saying all of this is like this ain't gospel, you
Speaker 1: feel me, But it is any any piece of content
Speaker 1: like this is a window into who we are as
Speaker 1: a species at that moment of time. It's a snapshot.
Speaker 1: It's a polaroid of the way we were thinking about things.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. Again, you don't have to
Speaker 1: agree with none of the takes. I'm just saying, get
Speaker 1: your bars up. So A Different Mirror by Ronald Takaki Um.
Speaker 1: It's a book about all of the different sort of
Speaker 1: immigrations of all the other ethnic minorities into the America's
Speaker 1: it's their stories. It's not just the pilgrims, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So it's just a window into all
Speaker 1: these different experiences of people immigrating to America from all
Speaker 1: over the world. It's just a good window, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Um. And again, it's very old, so
Speaker 1: some of the content is dated, but it it's a
Speaker 1: good it's a good anchor snapshot. Another book you could
Speaker 1: check out is um, Guns, Germs, and Steel. It's about colonization.
Speaker 1: It's asking the question like, Okay, why did Europe go
Speaker 1: and conquer all these other places rather than the other
Speaker 1: places coming and conquering your were the Spanish concase the
Speaker 1: doors a more advanced society. Did they really overpower them?
Speaker 1: Was it? It? Was it? Some other stuff? Could it
Speaker 1: have been? Maybe something else? So it's a it's an
Speaker 1: examination of that. Now again this this book has very
Speaker 1: mixed reviews, and it again is also dated. But it's
Speaker 1: a good window again into like asking that because I
Speaker 1: was a question I asked a bunch of times too.
Speaker 1: I was like, man, why why I go this way?
Speaker 1: Why Europe going? What? What? What? What was in y'all
Speaker 1: that made y'all think you should do this? Is there
Speaker 1: such thing as a superior culture? What is what is
Speaker 1: high culture? And why would we even use that term?
Speaker 1: Goes into stuff like that. And lastly, which is the
Speaker 1: probably the most shockingly scary one, is a book called
Speaker 1: The Death of Democracy. Now, if you're a fan of
Speaker 1: the Bastard's Pod, this book has been used before. And
Speaker 1: this book is about the time between uh World War
Speaker 1: One and World War Two. It's Vonemar Germany, and it
Speaker 1: talks about the trajectory of going from this freakishly progressive
Speaker 1: ahead of its time country, but of course it's problems,
Speaker 1: but it was way ahead of its time. Vonemar Germany
Speaker 1: with with kaiserville Helm in there and there you can
Speaker 1: say whatever you want, but do sent into Nazism and
Speaker 1: like like, man, what you know what I'm saying that?
Speaker 1: And it just examines that. And what sucks is it
Speaker 1: looks like, you know, somebody holding a mirror in front
Speaker 1: of us. It's pretty freaky. Um, So it's a little scary,
Speaker 1: but I'd say take a peek. And last is a
Speaker 1: book I just finished listening to. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: fiction piece, but it's called Invisible Things. It's super fun.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's also supposed to be a mirror
Speaker 1: to us. But essentially the premises there's a terrari um
Speaker 1: like a a human colony fish bowl that's the size
Speaker 1: of an American city and its surrounding suburbs living inside
Speaker 1: the dome on the moon of on a moon in
Speaker 1: Jupiter on Europa, and nobody knows how it got there
Speaker 1: and why it's there and how to leave. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty dope because it's and it's like and the the
Speaker 1: city and there is just a regular ass American City.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I highly recommend that's. Again, it's fiction, but
Speaker 1: it's it's supposed to be like a little allegorical for us.
Speaker 1: In the biographies, I suggest Frederick Douglas is Frederick Douglas
Speaker 1: is a slave who was born a slave and basically
Speaker 1: saved America. You think I'm playing. He became super cool
Speaker 1: friends with Abraham Lincoln. And the more you understand about
Speaker 1: Frederick Douglas and his life, the more you might see that, like, yo,
Speaker 1: this man was in Abraham Lincoln's ear who essentially taught
Speaker 1: him that the abolition of slavery is the only cause.
Speaker 1: Joe said like that, that this is a moral issue
Speaker 1: because if you follow Abraham Lincoln's trajectory, he's you know,
Speaker 1: he's a dynamic character too, that he was. He didn't
Speaker 1: jump on. He's trying to say to you and your money.
Speaker 1: He had to be convinced, and he grew and uh
Speaker 1: and a lot of his growth was Frederick Douglas. So
Speaker 1: I'd say, I'd say, peep that out now. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure y'all got a list of books too that would
Speaker 1: really really help. Oh, I forgot this one. I can't
Speaker 1: believe I forgot this one. This one's a biggie. It's
Speaker 1: a biggie because it's probably what you might think would
Speaker 1: be the opposite of where my stances are. Uh, and
Speaker 1: I am with it. Okay. This book is called My
Speaker 1: Grandmother's Hands Okay, and it's a book about the privilege
Speaker 1: and trauma carried in white bodies. You heard me, white bodies.
Speaker 1: This person, this author had been actually giving like trauma
Speaker 1: informed therapy to cops and about what's going on in
Speaker 1: their bodies and in their their hearts and how if
Speaker 1: you are Another therapy book is like if it's called
Speaker 1: The Body, Keep Score, um, which is something as a
Speaker 1: side note i'd also recommend to. But this this book
Speaker 1: is like he's an interviewing cops. Mama told you before
Speaker 1: all cops a cab. Okay, well let's let's get in
Speaker 1: their brains. I'm gonna leave y'all with this one, because Yo,
Speaker 1: you're gonna walk away from that thing, like you know,
Speaker 1: the meme of a black dude with his mind blown
Speaker 1: leaning back like, oh, that's what this one is. I
Speaker 1: was very it. I was shook. Okay. My wife recommended
Speaker 1: this one and then she, uh, we did a little
Speaker 1: talk on our Patreon about it, and like I'm telling you, dude,
Speaker 1: you'd be You'd be surprised how much empathy would grow
Speaker 1: in you after you you really understand, um, really, how
Speaker 1: how trauma is carried in the body, and also how
Speaker 1: the white supremacy project doesn't just hurt non white people,
Speaker 1: how it really hurts white people too, and but that
Speaker 1: I don't want to get into the book. I want
Speaker 1: you all to get into yourself. So here's a bunch
Speaker 1: of things. I'll link them in the show notes and yeah,
Speaker 1: get your bars up. I know it's a different episode.
Speaker 1: But oh, one more book. Read Oliver North's book. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: read his book, all right, y'all Little politics. Yeah, it's here.
Speaker 1: Thing was recorded by me Propaganda and he slow Spoil Heights,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, California. This smug was mixed, edited, mastered, and
Speaker 1: scored by Matt Ososki. I can totally say his name, guys,
Speaker 1: it was it was a stick. He's going by Matt
Speaker 1: now again because he got to legal situations with the
Speaker 1: name headlights. You know, common used to be called common sense.
Speaker 1: You know tip t I was tipped Sometimes it happens.
Speaker 1: Executive produced by the One and Only Sophie Lichtman or
Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, and the theme music by the one
Speaker 1: and only Gold Tips Gold Tips d J Shawn p
Speaker 1: So y'all just remember listening every time you check in.
Speaker 1: If you understand city living, you understand politics. We'll see
Speaker 1: how next week eight