Speaker 1: Posting on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook is not the only
Speaker 1: way to be an activist, which is funny. You almost
Speaker 1: took my SoundBite because of what I'm wondering is how
Speaker 1: active is social activism? Really? It's a good question dead ask. Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm Cadine and we're the ellis Is. You may know
Speaker 1: us from posting funny videos with our boys and reading
Speaker 1: each other publicly as a form of we are making
Speaker 1: me derby most days. Oh and one more important thing
Speaker 1: to mention, we're married, Yes, sir, we are. We created
Speaker 1: this podcast to open dialogue about some of the life's
Speaker 1: most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about through the lens of a millennium married couple. Dead
Speaker 1: ass is the term that we say every day. So
Speaker 1: when we say dead ass, we're actually saying fast the truth,
Speaker 1: the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We're about
Speaker 1: to take pillow talk to are whole new level. Dead
Speaker 1: ad starts right now. All right, you got a good
Speaker 1: story for me today? I got I got a good story.
Speaker 1: That's his mad stories, but I got a good story
Speaker 1: today and it hit close to home because I remember
Speaker 1: you and I waken up one morning to a couple
Speaker 1: of Um, I guess it was d M s and
Speaker 1: comments from people who were upset at you and me
Speaker 1: because they felt like we weren't vocal enough when it
Speaker 1: came to what was going on in the country at
Speaker 1: the time. And this was right after George Floyd was
Speaker 1: murdered and you had went silent on social media for
Speaker 1: about a week and a half. I had posted a
Speaker 1: couple of things, but to be quite honest, UM, that
Speaker 1: wasn't My main focus. Wasn't posting at the time. UM.
Speaker 1: What a lot of people don't know is that I
Speaker 1: still run a nonprofit organization in Brooklyn called Prototyp Sports Performance,
Speaker 1: and during that time, we were dealing with the shutdown
Speaker 1: of the school system. So I had six employees that
Speaker 1: were working in the school system, all young kids who
Speaker 1: just graduated college, and they talked about shutting down the school.
Speaker 1: So I was spending a lot of time trying to
Speaker 1: figure out a way to help them not only get
Speaker 1: jobs if we couldn't go back into schools, but trying
Speaker 1: to redefine the program so that we can get funding
Speaker 1: to make sure that they got paid during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of things going on. Um,
Speaker 1: for me socially that I just didn't want to post
Speaker 1: on social media. And at first I was a little
Speaker 1: taken back because I was like, you know, I do
Speaker 1: a lot that I don't post because I don't think
Speaker 1: it's postworthy. I just I just feel like something it's
Speaker 1: not necessary. This is these are things that these are
Speaker 1: my mission. This is my mission, this is my passion project.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to make sure that my people
Speaker 1: are taking care of on a daily basis, on the
Speaker 1: front lines. Everything doesn't have to be looking at what
Speaker 1: I'm doing. But then I also had to sit back
Speaker 1: and think that UM as a quote unquote celebrity, because
Speaker 1: once you are in the public eye, we do have
Speaker 1: a podcast, I am on TV shows, we do have
Speaker 1: our social media platforms. People do want to hear what
Speaker 1: you have to say when it comes to things of
Speaker 1: this nature that affect all of us. So at first
Speaker 1: I was pissed, right, and I responded to one of
Speaker 1: the comments and I started to list all the things
Speaker 1: that I was doing during this time, because I was
Speaker 1: actually trying to help people. And if people start to
Speaker 1: chime in, you know the value. You don't owe them anything,
Speaker 1: you don't own anything. And then that person reached out
Speaker 1: and hit me a d M on private and apologized
Speaker 1: and you know, and said, I didn't realize that all
Speaker 1: of that's going on. But that made me think, in
Speaker 1: that moment, how much of social media has kind of
Speaker 1: um distorted our views of what real activism is. And
Speaker 1: it was that moment and that when it happened to
Speaker 1: me that I realized, you know, how much are people
Speaker 1: doing that we don't know? So check this out, guys.
Speaker 1: This this song that I'm about to sing for karaoke.
Speaker 1: It means a lot to me because you guys know
Speaker 1: how I feel about this particular artist. But what made
Speaker 1: it so important to me was that Jackson listened to
Speaker 1: the song and it's become all like our song that
Speaker 1: we listened to doing workouts, and um, he says, it's
Speaker 1: amazing how this song, you know it was was made
Speaker 1: in the nineties and it's so relevant today in the
Speaker 1: hundred hundreds, when your TV was black and white and big,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, hey, I see no changes. Wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning and I asked myself, it's like forth
Speaker 1: flipping shu ut blast myself. I'm tired of being broken
Speaker 1: even worth some black my stomach so I'm looking for
Speaker 1: a purse to snatch cops killing them. About the need
Speaker 1: bro pull a trigger, killer nigger, he's a heat wrote
Speaker 1: selling oh, selling crack to the kids who the hell
Speaker 1: kids one less hungry mouth on the welfare. Think about
Speaker 1: those words. Are we literally not going through the same
Speaker 1: things right now? Jackson said to me. We listened to
Speaker 1: it and that's two shout out to two. Cairo's middle
Speaker 1: name in Shakoor. But wake up in the morning and
Speaker 1: I asked myself, is life worth living? Should I blast myself?
Speaker 1: I'm tired of being poor and even worse some black
Speaker 1: My stomach hurts, So I'm looking for a purse to
Speaker 1: snatch cops. Skill a cops, give a damn about the
Speaker 1: negro pull a trigger killing nigga, he's a hero. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: Jackson heard these words, was just like, that's happening right now.
Speaker 1: And you think about the suicide rate amongst blocks right now.
Speaker 1: It's especially during the pandemic, which which brings me back
Speaker 1: to story time. Back to story time because when we
Speaker 1: developed a program prototype Sports Performance Lab, when I was
Speaker 1: tired from the NFL, to give young men an opportunity
Speaker 1: to transition into the world. If their NFL dreams don't.
Speaker 1: And over the years it expanded to young women as well.
Speaker 1: So we currently have two mentors, two mentors that are women,
Speaker 1: they ran track in college, and we have three athletes
Speaker 1: who are football players. Right, so we've pretty much always
Speaker 1: had a pulse in the community. UM, and I love
Speaker 1: you for that because that was a vision that you
Speaker 1: had super early on, as early as when you retired
Speaker 1: from the NFL, UM and you wanted to start your
Speaker 1: speeding performance enhancement training program. And it was more than
Speaker 1: just training children physically or athletically. It was about encompassing
Speaker 1: the entire child and the entire experience and how they
Speaker 1: UM can be a well rounded athlete, you know, maintaining
Speaker 1: a certain grade level in school. There were certain criteria
Speaker 1: they had to above a three point oh Um. To me,
Speaker 1: it was more about caregiving and less about training because
Speaker 1: we mentored these young men and women from seven all
Speaker 1: the way through college. And then the program ended up
Speaker 1: becoming a pay it forward program. Well, we got to
Speaker 1: grant from the United Way. We partnered with after school
Speaker 1: All Stars, and these young men and women that came
Speaker 1: back from college who couldn't find work, we placed them
Speaker 1: as mentors and discipline every deans PS two seventy two
Speaker 1: shout out to our principal Dakota Keys, who worked with
Speaker 1: us uh Mateo like that whole staff Rashim. They worked
Speaker 1: with us to create this program where we took these
Speaker 1: young African American people who would have been lost any
Speaker 1: other way because they thought they would be in pro athletes.
Speaker 1: They come back into the elementary schools and they mentor
Speaker 1: the young kids so that for the first time they're
Speaker 1: getting they have an opportunity to see young people that
Speaker 1: look like them who graduated from college who worked with
Speaker 1: them daily hand to hands. So they're like mentor disciplinary deans.
Speaker 1: And we've been able to decrease the dropout rate when
Speaker 1: I drop a rate or decreased the absentee rate because
Speaker 1: kids wanted to come to school to spend time with
Speaker 1: the mentors. UM. Kids started to graduate on time, behavioral
Speaker 1: issues started to decrease, and that was part of the
Speaker 1: activism that we created because I feel like it was
Speaker 1: necessary for us to UM have an actual hand and
Speaker 1: pulse in the community. And you know, for me, the
Speaker 1: change was about being able to see it and being
Speaker 1: able to just on the front lines be the ones
Speaker 1: to be able to institute that change, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean in seeing it through. So sometimes you can't
Speaker 1: affect the entire mass of people, but if you can
Speaker 1: help you know, a handful directly. But but realistically, it
Speaker 1: wasn't just about that school. It was about the whole community.
Speaker 1: Because shout out to CANARSI. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: This is on the school, the floors, stutt of the
Speaker 1: floor PS two seventy two. I love y'all, y'all know
Speaker 1: y'all more people's But this program was designed to help
Speaker 1: the community so that those young people, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about hundreds of kids that go to PS two seventy
Speaker 1: two who will ultimately graduate and go on to different
Speaker 1: junior high schools, but they're having they feel better about
Speaker 1: themselves because they see versions of themselves that they can emulate.
Speaker 1: You know, college graduates who played sports, who did well,
Speaker 1: who were productive members of society, who chose to come
Speaker 1: back and help them. So, you know, to take it
Speaker 1: back the story time, my focus was there because when
Speaker 1: they decided to close the schools, not only did the
Speaker 1: kids not have the mentors, but the mentors didn't have
Speaker 1: a job. So now we're dealing with an economic crisis,
Speaker 1: and I have five young men and women who don't
Speaker 1: have work, some of them have children. So we were
Speaker 1: trying to focus on a way to revamp the program
Speaker 1: so they could do remote mentoring and we were able
Speaker 1: to figure it out. But in that first two week
Speaker 1: span where I was kind of off social media, this
Speaker 1: is what I was dealing with, and that became my
Speaker 1: focus because at the time I found out that I
Speaker 1: wasn't going back to film yet um all the brand
Speaker 1: partnerships had stopped, so social media for me wasn't a priority.
Speaker 1: It was my family and it was my actual community.
Speaker 1: And I started to get backlash from it because I
Speaker 1: wasn't posting constantly about what was going on, and if
Speaker 1: you did post, then I was getting backlash for not
Speaker 1: posting as well or as frequently. And it was just like,
Speaker 1: can I exist in the process in this moment and
Speaker 1: see what is going on? Or am I just going
Speaker 1: to be a person that's aimlessly, you know, reposting other
Speaker 1: people's post just to say that I'm posting and I'm active,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's where we were with it. To
Speaker 1: take it a step further though, um Bay, with what
Speaker 1: we were doing in the community. The community was not
Speaker 1: only just the parents, the children, the families, it was
Speaker 1: also having an establishment between the relationship between like our
Speaker 1: young men and women in the community and the police
Speaker 1: because which was one of our local precincts and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. It was important for us too for they
Speaker 1: for them to kind of know who we were, um
Speaker 1: to know some of our children who were in the
Speaker 1: mentorship program. So that way it kind of decreased a
Speaker 1: little bit of the tension or the aim was to
Speaker 1: try to decrease some of the tension that existed or
Speaker 1: could have potentially existed between our young folks and the cops. Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: During the time at the peak of prototype, we had
Speaker 1: a partnership with pact Plex and there was a mccalling,
Speaker 1: a young man by the name of Tommy who had
Speaker 1: a really good partnership with the sixty nine Precinct and
Speaker 1: he ran the boxing gym at the time, I think
Speaker 1: it was zab Juda's boxing gym, but um he ran
Speaker 1: the boxing gym. And there were some there were men
Speaker 1: and their older black men who really had a stronghold
Speaker 1: in the community, so we used to partner with them,
Speaker 1: partner with the sixty nine priescint to make sure that
Speaker 1: they were there was at least an understanding sort of
Speaker 1: something happened between one of my kids, I could reach
Speaker 1: out to someone at THET precent and say, hey, that's
Speaker 1: one of my product type kids. Let me get his
Speaker 1: parents on the phone, let me get a lawyer present.
Speaker 1: And then I had an attorney that I could call
Speaker 1: when one of my kids had issues. Y'all heard him,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Montgomery. He comes down here all the time. So
Speaker 1: what we had developed through Prototype was at least a
Speaker 1: system where we could protect our kids, especially the kids
Speaker 1: that we knew were doing the right things, because the
Speaker 1: worst thing is for a kid to get caught up
Speaker 1: in in in the system and have no way or
Speaker 1: no one to turn to, no advice, no legal counsel,
Speaker 1: things like that. So we were creating in a sense,
Speaker 1: our own ecosystem of you know, change and of support
Speaker 1: within our community, which is still super very important to us.
Speaker 1: So shout out to Canarcy again in Brooklyn. I mean,
Speaker 1: we have a special surprise for you guys. I met
Speaker 1: this young man a couple of weeks back when I
Speaker 1: did face to face with Lewis Carr, and I actually
Speaker 1: got introduced to him months before when Jackson started asking
Speaker 1: me about what was going on in the country, and
Speaker 1: I was trying to find a way to introduce him
Speaker 1: learning about black history, and I found this I Know
Speaker 1: Your Rights, I Know My Rights book Bill of Rights,
Speaker 1: and it was written by my son Lennon, who was
Speaker 1: who was our guest today who we're gonna speak to.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna introduce my son and let him tell
Speaker 1: you a little bit about himself. But before we start,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you that my son is an independent
Speaker 1: hip hop artist and criminal justice reformed activists from Bronx,
Speaker 1: New York. He's a co founder of the social justice
Speaker 1: organizations Until Freedom, where he organizes and speaks out against
Speaker 1: biased police and inequity in the criminal justice system. He's
Speaker 1: also an author. Mr Maison, are you with us piece?
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Thank you, thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being here. This is the
Speaker 1: first time you meeting my wife. You and I met
Speaker 1: earlier this this year, but it's the first time. Leisure.
Speaker 1: It's nice to now put an actual phase to the
Speaker 1: cartoon version of you because your book is a heavy
Speaker 1: rotation in our house. Like I told you before, so um,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for that. I mean, it made
Speaker 1: the transition for us to have that talk with our
Speaker 1: sons um that much easier. So I appreciate that. And
Speaker 1: that will tell you also to how you kind of
Speaker 1: inspired us. So keep on keeping on brother, Thank you, queen.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it so so. For the people that really
Speaker 1: don't know you yet, please just tell them a little
Speaker 1: bit about yourself and tell them how you made this
Speaker 1: this decision to becoming activist. Um okay, well going and
Speaker 1: raised in the bronx um Um. First, I was a
Speaker 1: basketball player when I was young, and I guess my
Speaker 1: knee got bad. So I started playing basketball and I
Speaker 1: started hip hop, and you know, I was real. I
Speaker 1: thought I was good. People telling me I was good,
Speaker 1: and I got signed to def jam unviolated records by
Speaker 1: Chris Lady alright, Peter Chris Liy. He was the first
Speaker 1: person that signed me. Roughly right after I got signed,
Speaker 1: I got convicted of robbery charge that I actually never did.
Speaker 1: Ended up spending seven and fourteen years seven years out
Speaker 1: of a seven or fourteen years sentence in prison. Wow.
Speaker 1: So of the peak of my career when I first
Speaker 1: was getting signed was scheduled to be pretty much the
Speaker 1: biggest hip hop artist, the next next best thing, they said.
Speaker 1: And I ended up spending seven years right when that
Speaker 1: sun So did seven years. Came home in two thousand
Speaker 1: and six. Um, and while I was incarcerated, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I learned a lot about the system, about
Speaker 1: the injustices of the system. You know, were so many
Speaker 1: young black and brown youth in there. That was coming
Speaker 1: in sixteen seventeen with thirty years for crimes that didn't
Speaker 1: amount to over a hundred dollars, you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of older guys that I was in
Speaker 1: there was only twentieth years sentence for supposedly robbing somebody
Speaker 1: for a white woman for one dollar. Her pocketbook supposedly
Speaker 1: had one doll One of my closest friends, he actually
Speaker 1: just came home probably about a year ago, and um,
Speaker 1: he was one of my mentors. Brilliant, really brilliant guy.
Speaker 1: And he was explaining to me his case and I
Speaker 1: you know, we were just sitting there one day, he
Speaker 1: was talking to me. We was reading something and he
Speaker 1: started telling me about his case. He's like, you know,
Speaker 1: I got locked up. You know, he said, when I
Speaker 1: was young, you know, we used to do a lot
Speaker 1: of stupids. I used to hustle downtown, you know. He
Speaker 1: used to hustle downtown and selling drugs whatever. And a
Speaker 1: white lady told the police that he robbed Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: He didn't never see any I've never seen this lady before.
Speaker 1: So I got arrested for this robbery. And she said
Speaker 1: that nobody did anything to but they walked up to
Speaker 1: her with a gun and said give me your purse
Speaker 1: and took her purse, and she said she had one
Speaker 1: dollar in the purse, and he went and he was fighting.
Speaker 1: He was fighting the case. She wasn't hurt nothing. They
Speaker 1: gave him in twenty five years, but twenty five years
Speaker 1: for a one dollar crime pretty much. So that really
Speaker 1: stuck in my mind. And it was when, you know,
Speaker 1: when I was in there, there was so many stories
Speaker 1: like this from young kids that was it just was
Speaker 1: in proportionate to a lot of these white kids that
Speaker 1: was going in there, that was going home in two
Speaker 1: or three years, were way worse. Crowns, million dollar beselment
Speaker 1: charges and all types of stuff. I start realized, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was disproportionate to our communities. So when
Speaker 1: I came home being a hip hop artists, having notoriety
Speaker 1: from that, being from the streets, understood that a lot
Speaker 1: of our realities were different. We have been taught the
Speaker 1: wrong things. We had glorified stupid things, and I was
Speaker 1: a victim of that, and a lot of our kids
Speaker 1: are victims of that, and the injustice system utilizes, you know,
Speaker 1: the fact that we have been taught wrong. What can
Speaker 1: you do? Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 1: Because you are a hip hop artist and my wife
Speaker 1: and I constantly have this conversation about how the mainstream
Speaker 1: media and on all of these outlets that utilize our
Speaker 1: culture to sell records and sell TV shows continuously put
Speaker 1: us in a negative light so they can continue to
Speaker 1: push us through the injustice system. Can you talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about how that made you feel as an
Speaker 1: artist in the type of music you want to put out,
Speaker 1: in the type of things you want to push forward. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that and and that that's that was my first step
Speaker 1: into activism, you know, when I realized that I had
Speaker 1: been lied to and have been taught you know something
Speaker 1: that was the reality that we were taught to glorif
Speaker 1: like when we went to prison when we was young,
Speaker 1: it was some type of badge honor because a lot
Speaker 1: of these cruser was coming home from prison. They had
Speaker 1: the jail stories. So my how they had the gators
Speaker 1: on and they was on the visit and you know,
Speaker 1: I had, I had, I was getting packages and all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. And they come home they were doing
Speaker 1: worked out. So you're looking at the whole block is
Speaker 1: glorifying them, and you think that it's something to go
Speaker 1: to prison. You're like, wow, actually, in your mind in
Speaker 1: a in a funny way, you like, I want to
Speaker 1: go to jail. I want people to look at me
Speaker 1: like that. I want to have this disrespect, you know.
Speaker 1: And when I went there, I realized we have been
Speaker 1: to everybody in there, and to come home, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's surrounded by people who you probably would never
Speaker 1: talk to in the street, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So it was a false narrative, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: come home and dispel that narrative. And I understood how
Speaker 1: hip hop had created that and not created it, but
Speaker 1: it had it had glorified and unilized that, yeah, and
Speaker 1: utilized that that false narrative, and it was feeding that
Speaker 1: to these kids. And I realized when I was a rapper,
Speaker 1: That's all I knew. So I grabbed onto that same
Speaker 1: thing I fed in too, glorifying violence and negativity. I
Speaker 1: fed into that, and and I was celebrated for it,
Speaker 1: you know. And I realized that most of the artists
Speaker 1: who who are trying to sell positivity, who are giving us,
Speaker 1: do you know, enlightening things, they're not celebrated. We we
Speaker 1: gotta read. My thing is we have to make that cool.
Speaker 1: It wasn't cool for you to be a conscious rapp.
Speaker 1: It wasn't cool for you to talk about doing things positive,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's what I wanted to do. I
Speaker 1: wanted to come home and not make it corny, but
Speaker 1: still make it cool. I know, I understood what our
Speaker 1: communities gravitated to, so I wanted to tell the stories truthfully. Well,
Speaker 1: not only was it was it not to cut you off.
Speaker 1: Not only was it not cool, but it wasn't lucrative
Speaker 1: because if you look at conscious rappers, they weren't giving
Speaker 1: the big deals, they weren't put wasn't behind them, right,
Speaker 1: That's why I wasn't cool. So and if it's not
Speaker 1: cool and it's not lucrative, then why would I even
Speaker 1: go that route exactly right, you know, So it becomes
Speaker 1: just a moral stance that we have. And that's what
Speaker 1: it was for me. It's like I felt like I
Speaker 1: was cool. So I felt like I can make this cool.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. That's what the reality is.
Speaker 1: We we dictate what cool is. They don't need to tell.
Speaker 1: So that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to
Speaker 1: make being honest and being realistic and being you know,
Speaker 1: and having real integrity, having moral LUs and values something
Speaker 1: that was cool. So when I came home, that's the
Speaker 1: path that I want. I wanted to dispel the jail
Speaker 1: myths and not make y'all think it was cool. Going
Speaker 1: to jail wasn't nothing cool about but an each we
Speaker 1: ain't shooting and killing each other. Let's figure out how
Speaker 1: we're gonna build. Because I know you have another initiative
Speaker 1: called kings. Uh, Kings, don't kill kings. Kings stop king,
Speaker 1: Stop kings. Can you talk a little bit about that, Well,
Speaker 1: it came from my organization, you know, I wanted I
Speaker 1: started called raising in Kings and me dealing with at
Speaker 1: risk youth and and and and retraining their mind state
Speaker 1: and and re giving them a right to passage, retraining
Speaker 1: what they believe real was what manhood was. A lot
Speaker 1: of our kids, the definition of manhood has been tainted
Speaker 1: and something that is not. So I started raising kings
Speaker 1: based on that, and then you know, I wanted when
Speaker 1: based on when Nipsey lost his life, you know, knowing
Speaker 1: that he lost his life to another black man and
Speaker 1: most of the time that's what's happened in our communities.
Speaker 1: But you know, I started the initiative Kings stopped killing Kings,
Speaker 1: in which we did. We already did fourth Marchers. Um,
Speaker 1: we do a lot of different I go to different
Speaker 1: detention centers, different schools, and you know, just trying to
Speaker 1: traine the monster, because what it is is we got
Speaker 1: to identify each other as brothers, as family because when
Speaker 1: you identify someone as a brother, a family member, you
Speaker 1: don't want to hurt them, you don't want to kill him.
Speaker 1: So that's what we don't got to reaffirm. I've realized
Speaker 1: that we've taken the neighborhood out of neighborhood for a reason.
Speaker 1: It's just the hood in the you know, neighborhood, but
Speaker 1: you don't see that as your neighbor. When you start
Speaker 1: seeing that person as a neighbors, somebody that you got
Speaker 1: to protect and that you're supposed to love, you know.
Speaker 1: So I don't use the hood and I say neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I'm from the neighborhood because my neighbors are participants in
Speaker 1: the hood. These are people I want to protect, I
Speaker 1: want to love. I want to make sure that the
Speaker 1: kids are safe. I want to make sure that the
Speaker 1: old woman feel safe. I want to make sure that
Speaker 1: the other brother that if I can do something to
Speaker 1: help him, that he understands that we all in lived together.
Speaker 1: That's putting the neighbor back in neighborhood because you think
Speaker 1: about it, the hood is there's a negative connotation around neighborhood,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean for some people unless you're
Speaker 1: from the hood, and then it's different because that's just
Speaker 1: like home, that's where you're you're used to getting that love.
Speaker 1: So showing the differentiation between putting neighbor back in it
Speaker 1: for our young men, I think that's definitely that's definitely key. Um.
Speaker 1: We were talking about what's cool my son, right, so
Speaker 1: it's cool too. For example, glorify the guy who comes
Speaker 1: home from jail. So you think about now social media
Speaker 1: and what's cool. You know, people are young, young kids
Speaker 1: particularly are glorifying these lives that they see on social media.
Speaker 1: So now that you've taken the stance as an activist
Speaker 1: and use your social media platform to push this, what
Speaker 1: do you think about Don Lemon's call out to celebrities
Speaker 1: who don't post in the height of protesting this year,
Speaker 1: people who may not be using their platforms to um
Speaker 1: you know, continue this uprising in the fight. Well, I agree,
Speaker 1: you know, I say that all the times, like if
Speaker 1: we have a platform, and you have a voice and
Speaker 1: you'll connect, if you really say that you're full the
Speaker 1: upliftment of our culture and of our people, and why
Speaker 1: not utilize it to say something. I just did a
Speaker 1: panel off the Double Excel Freshman and in which we
Speaker 1: interviewed me and the rest of my unto Freedom organization,
Speaker 1: and we interviewed the next up becoming Freshman, and we
Speaker 1: was talking about that and and they identified with the
Speaker 1: fact that they have a responsibility. I think when you
Speaker 1: have a voice, you have a platform, and you've and
Speaker 1: and you've profited or for this complete then you're supposed
Speaker 1: to give back. You're supposed to elevate those things like
Speaker 1: I say all the time, I wanted I want my
Speaker 1: favorite basketball players, football players, artists, everything to have some
Speaker 1: social social responsibility. I want you to feel like you
Speaker 1: owe it to us, because I do. I feel like
Speaker 1: to all exactly you should feel like if you do,
Speaker 1: and you should want you should actually want that responsibility
Speaker 1: because this culture and these people put you in a
Speaker 1: position to have these things. So you have to speak out,
Speaker 1: you have to speak up. Right now, We're we're in
Speaker 1: such a uh life changing time and error that the
Speaker 1: more people speak up, you really can see change. Like
Speaker 1: that's what it is like. The more that everyone is
Speaker 1: is conscious of that and they're speaking up and they're saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't like this, and we're not okay with this,
Speaker 1: and I'm willing to make a stand, and I'm willing
Speaker 1: to do something, and I'm willing to sacrifice something. You
Speaker 1: can actually see that the tide is changing, you know.
Speaker 1: So we need as many people as possible to utilize
Speaker 1: their platforms and voices. This is the way I talked
Speaker 1: to my my wife about this, because she and I
Speaker 1: had a little bit of a not a disagreement, but
Speaker 1: we had different ideologies. Because as a mom, when things
Speaker 1: start to get real heavy. The first thing she wanted
Speaker 1: to do was take care of her family first, and
Speaker 1: I said, I understand that as a woman, and I
Speaker 1: understand that as as a mom and a wife, but
Speaker 1: we also have to understand that when we utilize our
Speaker 1: social media to go back to these people and say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're doing X, y Z, we need your support, so
Speaker 1: we don't have a problem asking them for their support.
Speaker 1: Now they need our support. So because we asked them
Speaker 1: these hundreds of millions of thousands of people for their
Speaker 1: support all the time, we have a responsibility to be
Speaker 1: their support system because they can't necessarily reach out and
Speaker 1: ask us for it. So, um, when we had this conversation,
Speaker 1: was like, you know, I never thought about it like that,
Speaker 1: and I never thought about where she was coming from,
Speaker 1: from the maternal instinct of having to protect home first.
Speaker 1: So we had to come to like a common ground.
Speaker 1: And then they'd be like, you know what, You're gonna
Speaker 1: find a way to say it in your time, but
Speaker 1: you got to say something, definitely, And I didn't realize
Speaker 1: that it would be tone deaf of me to just
Speaker 1: pretended if this was not occurring. Although I was very
Speaker 1: aware within my household like that said, Um, but I
Speaker 1: had to know that there were, you know, about seven
Speaker 1: thousand people who supported me in my journey to where
Speaker 1: I am now. That was owed you know something, you know,
Speaker 1: whether it was me posting about it, me doing content
Speaker 1: around it, it has to be highs and lows because
Speaker 1: we've always taken people through the highs and lows of
Speaker 1: our our journey. So and that leads me to a
Speaker 1: question to you about black women, because you speak up
Speaker 1: on behalf of black women all the time. My son,
Speaker 1: and there was one thing you said that that me
Speaker 1: and my wife were talking about yesterday. We were watching
Speaker 1: what was the documentary Black Boys, and they were talking
Speaker 1: about how so many black men in prison are in
Speaker 1: prison because of the woeful cries of white women, which
Speaker 1: America puts white women on the pedestal. If you attack
Speaker 1: a white woman or you become a villain to white women,
Speaker 1: you will be dealt with accordingly. But for black women,
Speaker 1: and when the black woman cries, it's never heard. And
Speaker 1: you've you've been talking about this for months. Can you
Speaker 1: speak a little bit about going through the Beyanna tailorcase
Speaker 1: and everything that's going on and what you've seen over
Speaker 1: the past couple of months. Well, you know, this Brianna
Speaker 1: Taylor case is its personal for me, and it's also
Speaker 1: something that I realized throughout the cases, how serious and
Speaker 1: how disrespected Black women are the most disrespected people. You know,
Speaker 1: you say it all the time, and I say it
Speaker 1: all the time, but I think that with this case,
Speaker 1: it really made me pay attention because when you know,
Speaker 1: when Sandra Bland happened, I was fighting because I always
Speaker 1: fight for black women. I'm surrounded by Black women and
Speaker 1: women just in general or all the time. It's strong,
Speaker 1: you know, so I'm very aware of the responsibility that
Speaker 1: we have to fight. But when this Brianna Taylor case
Speaker 1: happened and I really started to think about it, I
Speaker 1: had never seen a black woman get justice like I've
Speaker 1: never seen I've never heard the case but black women
Speaker 1: killed by the police and somebody was even charged, I've
Speaker 1: never heard it. I've heard one time in in in
Speaker 1: in the officer got a way. I was fighting for
Speaker 1: elder lady in the Bronx named Debra Dana who was
Speaker 1: shot by the police officers. She was a sixty seven
Speaker 1: year old woman and she was mental health and they
Speaker 1: called the police to the house and she picked up
Speaker 1: a pair of scissors and the police shot at three
Speaker 1: times in the house, said that she was a threat
Speaker 1: to him. She was sixty seven years old, and I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out, why did you need to
Speaker 1: shoot this woman, you know? And they be four and
Speaker 1: I fought and I protested for forty straight days in
Speaker 1: front of the preteen I never forget. Every day rain sleeps.
Speaker 1: And I was out there and they finally charged. They
Speaker 1: charged the officer, but he beat the case. But other
Speaker 1: than that, I'm never and even that there was no justice.
Speaker 1: I've never seen a black woman received any level of
Speaker 1: justice in America, and that really really bothered me. You know.
Speaker 1: So when I was out here and I started getting
Speaker 1: in tune with the family and I started really understanding
Speaker 1: this case and just and now when you see what's
Speaker 1: going on now, the rabbit hole is even deeper. When
Speaker 1: we talk about going on with this case. You have
Speaker 1: this man, Daniel Cameron, who was quote unquote a black man,
Speaker 1: who literally decided that he was going to circumvent due process.
Speaker 1: Like he literally decided, you know what, this case right here,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give it to I'm not gonna let
Speaker 1: him see his day in court. I don't believe he
Speaker 1: did it, and I believe it's right. So, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm not even gonna present this to the case because
Speaker 1: based on my my own personal beliefs, I think it
Speaker 1: made sense. And that's what people realize that with the
Speaker 1: grand jury, that the district attorney has a right to
Speaker 1: present whatever they think was done wrong. So he purposely
Speaker 1: omitted the bullets that went into Brianna Taylor. He purposely
Speaker 1: admitted that. So now the grand jury is coming out
Speaker 1: saying we didn't even we didn't even know that this
Speaker 1: was part of the case. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about that. It's it's just crazy when you sit
Speaker 1: there and you think about that, like, how did they
Speaker 1: just justify How do you just say that we're not
Speaker 1: even going to present that this even happened. Like I
Speaker 1: understanding that there's an outcry by the world saying that
Speaker 1: these officers need to be arrested. The whole world is
Speaker 1: saying it, and you made your own decision that you're
Speaker 1: not even going to let it be presented to a
Speaker 1: jury to for them to even decide whether we think
Speaker 1: it's some they need to be heard. Just have due process,
Speaker 1: you know, what I Many times we've got arrested for
Speaker 1: things that we were innocent for and they had no
Speaker 1: proof and said, well, we just gotta arrested. You go
Speaker 1: to court, you know, fight your case, let them take
Speaker 1: their case. Let don't let them have their day in court.
Speaker 1: They took some woman lost her life over so much
Speaker 1: negligence and cover ups and illegal things, and you decided
Speaker 1: that that wasn't even pertinent to give to a jury
Speaker 1: for them to even decide on it. And that's the problem.
Speaker 1: And I and I when I watched your post, that's
Speaker 1: what you're continuously arguing. You're not even in here saying
Speaker 1: they're definitely guilty. But though you're saying let's let them
Speaker 1: have their day in court, you don't even want to
Speaker 1: let them have their And that's what black people don't understand.
Speaker 1: That is crazy. That is really crazy to me. Like
Speaker 1: I I sent jail for seven years for crime I
Speaker 1: didn't commit. I went to I had to go to
Speaker 1: and they had no evidence. They had one person saying
Speaker 1: he did something. I went to jail for seven years
Speaker 1: and you're telling me we got bullets that went into
Speaker 1: a woman. They didn't even when this grand juryman they
Speaker 1: didn't even search the woman's house. They went they were
Speaker 1: to search for ran to search the house. They ended
Speaker 1: up killing her and never search the house. So you
Speaker 1: what did you go there for? What? What was the
Speaker 1: whole the whole purpose was. We came there and had
Speaker 1: a search for them. We was looking for something. You
Speaker 1: never did anything that you came there for, and you
Speaker 1: killed the woman and there's nobody responsible for nothing. Like
Speaker 1: this system is is rigged and it's and it's not
Speaker 1: broke because it's working the way it was designed. Say
Speaker 1: that again, it's definitely working in this design. I tell
Speaker 1: people all the time, like it wasn't when they had
Speaker 1: this system in place. It was never supposed to benefit
Speaker 1: black people. The constitution, none of this was supposed to
Speaker 1: benefit us. So that's why it doesn't work for us.
Speaker 1: And all the time, we really need something different. It's
Speaker 1: a it's a slogan that I said, but it's really
Speaker 1: we really actually need something different. We have to reconstruct
Speaker 1: what justice looks like. You know, when a when a
Speaker 1: justice system and in the government no longer fits the people,
Speaker 1: then it's not fit to rule. Like we don't the
Speaker 1: government works for us. We don't work for the government.
Speaker 1: So if everybody is saying this ain't right, and y'all
Speaker 1: trying to tell us it is, well, how do we
Speaker 1: continue to listen to laws and rules that don't fit us?
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny to say that. It's funny to
Speaker 1: say that because our producer Trible said something to me
Speaker 1: yesterday that was son in South Africa when they ended
Speaker 1: apart time, they didn't amend the constitutional rights. They got
Speaker 1: rid of the constitution that existed prior to that and
Speaker 1: created a new constitution. And that's what America needs to
Speaker 1: do to represent black people as more than three fifths
Speaker 1: of a human because right now, underneath all of these laws,
Speaker 1: and this is what I think black people need to
Speaker 1: understand because I hear people argue all the time, you
Speaker 1: know what, what do you expect to happen there? This
Speaker 1: is legal, Yes, it's legal underneath constitutional laws that do
Speaker 1: not protect and stand for black people. That's what we're
Speaker 1: fighting for, changes to the constitution, not changes to just
Speaker 1: police officers, because that's the big argument BLM is anti police,
Speaker 1: their fascist Know that it's far deeper than just like
Speaker 1: not liking somebody because of their skin color, which is
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people like a lot of
Speaker 1: white people are like, well, I have black friends. I
Speaker 1: you know, like, not all black people are bad. It's not.
Speaker 1: It has nothing to do with that. It's the system
Speaker 1: in place, the constitution. White supremacy is destruction. It is
Speaker 1: the system. It's not white people in general. And that's
Speaker 1: what people don't get. And and the police structure is
Speaker 1: built around white supremacy. It's deep, though, Bro, what you
Speaker 1: just said was so deep. You just said white supremacy
Speaker 1: is not white people. It's the structure in which we exist.
Speaker 1: People do not want to hear that. That's why they
Speaker 1: keep trying to point to people. But that's so deep, bro,
Speaker 1: that's deep, and it's eloquent. White supremacy is not white people,
Speaker 1: it's the system in which we exist. Damn my sound.
Speaker 1: You need to write another book, brog were I thought
Speaker 1: all these explained. What if anyone follows you on social
Speaker 1: media and it's not trying to just be a troll
Speaker 1: because a lot of people on social media just trying
Speaker 1: to be trolls. If anyone's on social media that just
Speaker 1: listened to the things you say and what you stand for,
Speaker 1: it's not hard to understand why you feel the way
Speaker 1: you do, especially since you were a product of a
Speaker 1: system that was designed to enslave you. You understand what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. You know firsthand, You've been there, you know.
Speaker 1: But my thing is this, I take it because I understand.
Speaker 1: If you look, I was going to write a post.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, they called mon Luther King coon.
Speaker 1: He was one of the most dangerous men in the world.
Speaker 1: Malcolm X couldn't even get buried. You wouldn't buried, right.
Speaker 1: You understand what I'm saying. Jesus got hung Like if
Speaker 1: so when when I when I'm wanted talking the trolls,
Speaker 1: I'm in good company. The first person in the world
Speaker 1: and all of this, I'm like everybody that I idolized,
Speaker 1: it was told the exact same. I have no I
Speaker 1: take the so with a grain AsSalt man, because I
Speaker 1: understand that my mind state, it's going to trigger people.
Speaker 1: It's gonna scare people because it's not something that you're
Speaker 1: used to. I don't just follow. I don't follow like
Speaker 1: the sheep, like I actually critically think things I and
Speaker 1: I know, and I followed my moral compass. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. I don't go along like just like
Speaker 1: he said, it's legal. No, legal and right is two
Speaker 1: different things. I know, right wrong. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and and and based on the Lord. If the Lord
Speaker 1: is built on something that's wrong, then it's wrong. I
Speaker 1: don't care if you're telling me it's right there. Somebody
Speaker 1: was saying one of them the I forgot that. The
Speaker 1: guy's name. He was talking during the interview that Charles
Speaker 1: Barkley and and Shaq was and he said that the
Speaker 1: officers said they did it by the book. He said
Speaker 1: they did it by the book and the book. No,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the white guy. It wasn't Kidny Smith, the
Speaker 1: white he did say that. He said they did it
Speaker 1: by the book. Then we got to fix the book.
Speaker 1: And that's what it is for me. It's like, I
Speaker 1: don't you can't tell me because it says somewhere that
Speaker 1: is right, it's right, like one plus one is gonna
Speaker 1: be too. You're not gonna tell me it's full because
Speaker 1: somebody wrote it in the book. So this is what
Speaker 1: we're dealing with. People are comfortable with somebody telling them
Speaker 1: something that doesn't make sense, and I'm not okay with that.
Speaker 1: So I'll fight. I'll give a troll sometime when I
Speaker 1: got time, if I got t see the best part
Speaker 1: for me is the people who actually have the time
Speaker 1: to troll. So instead of using the time to troll
Speaker 1: my soign tell people how they can actually get involved
Speaker 1: and be actual social activists and not just people talking
Speaker 1: a lot of smack on online. But where will people
Speaker 1: start if they really want to evoke change, whether it's
Speaker 1: on their community level, state level, national level, give us
Speaker 1: some give us some tips. Where can where can they go?
Speaker 1: It's so many ways that you can go. There's so
Speaker 1: many different things. Because everybody is not gonna be a
Speaker 1: frontline activist. Likely they're not gonna take months away from
Speaker 1: their family to move Kentucky to stand on the front line.
Speaker 1: They're not gonna go to jail, they're not gonna risk
Speaker 1: their lives. They're not gonna support fans, they're not gonna
Speaker 1: put make those sacrifices. And it's cool some people are
Speaker 1: gonna be on Instagram and tweet about it. As long
Speaker 1: as you're doing something that's and that is evolving us,
Speaker 1: that's pushing us somewhere higher. Like there's so many different things.
Speaker 1: You just gotta find your entry point. We got people
Speaker 1: that come here and were in Kentucky and they come
Speaker 1: bring us food because they can't be out with us.
Speaker 1: They bring us fool they mail us um all types
Speaker 1: of health things. We've got people that sent us. There's
Speaker 1: so many different entry ways into this movement. You just
Speaker 1: gotta find out what it is that I do that
Speaker 1: I know that I can contribute everybody. Some people speak,
Speaker 1: some people don't. Some people support the people that speak,
Speaker 1: some people financially support organizations and people who are doing
Speaker 1: the work. It's just so many different But I just say,
Speaker 1: we don't have the right to do nothing, Like I
Speaker 1: don't care what you do, but you can't just do nothing,
Speaker 1: you know, like people be on my page like yo,
Speaker 1: you're always doing this, Why you're not doing this? And that.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, okay, cool, maybe you're right, but why
Speaker 1: don't you do what you say? I'm not You got oh,
Speaker 1: you got a lot of arm chair critics, critics without credentials.
Speaker 1: With my sister Linda's do something. I don't mind. I
Speaker 1: might not. I'm not perfect. I can tell you that
Speaker 1: I'm not doing everything right all the time. The thing
Speaker 1: the places I'm missing, why don't you do it? You
Speaker 1: can create that because I created what I did create
Speaker 1: what you feel needs to be done. But you know
Speaker 1: what bothers me thought. Even even in you're saying that
Speaker 1: my song, people will say, why aren't you doing this?
Speaker 1: For stuff that you are doing, but it's not publicized
Speaker 1: because they don't want to push that narrative. For example,
Speaker 1: the biggest argument against bon l M or against any
Speaker 1: any organization like Until Freedom that's pushing forth the changes,
Speaker 1: well what about black on black crime? And they go
Speaker 1: on my song's page all the times, but you don't
Speaker 1: care about black on black crime. And I sit back
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, dude, this dude has a whole
Speaker 1: platform where he's focusing on black on black crime, but
Speaker 1: you won't see it in the news because they don't
Speaker 1: want us to talk about that and that, and it's
Speaker 1: things like that, And then what you just said that
Speaker 1: made me realize in order to be an activist, you
Speaker 1: have to understand that activism is understanding the fact that
Speaker 1: people will not like you for promoting change that will
Speaker 1: evolve us as people. And once you come to that
Speaker 1: that point in your life, you can truly be an
Speaker 1: activist because the trolls don't matter, the headlines don't matter.
Speaker 1: All the bullshit that comes out don't matter because I
Speaker 1: know what I'm doing it for. And that's that's what
Speaker 1: I applaud you for, bro, because you found your pocket,
Speaker 1: you found your niche, You are true to that, and
Speaker 1: you're not gonna change based on people saying I don't
Speaker 1: like my song. You know what I'm saying. And I
Speaker 1: think I think you need to be applauded for that,
Speaker 1: because it's hard being a black man just existing, but
Speaker 1: trying to be a black man that promote change and
Speaker 1: the black man that stands for black women. Forget about it,
Speaker 1: Like now now you get it from all angles, because
Speaker 1: I've even seen black men come at my song for
Speaker 1: promoting black women and be like, oh, you know what
Speaker 1: about black men? He talks about black men all the time.
Speaker 1: Guys like, can we can he just not just focus
Speaker 1: on this for right now? We're focing on this right now,
Speaker 1: right now, we are focusing on black women. Can we
Speaker 1: not do that? It's it's it's it's a very it's
Speaker 1: a very um unique situation for me because, um, I'm
Speaker 1: a person that my reputation is what I care about,
Speaker 1: Like like I care about how I'm perceived based on
Speaker 1: the way that I moved, you know, like I've never
Speaker 1: when I was young, and I wasn't a person that
Speaker 1: had a lot of money or anything, but I had
Speaker 1: a good reputation with people. Anybody that said that, you
Speaker 1: know that I actually came in contact with most of
Speaker 1: the for the most part, they said that that dude
Speaker 1: is a good dude instead of do So Internet was
Speaker 1: kind of tricky for me at first, attacking my character
Speaker 1: because that's all I ever had. So you can't attack
Speaker 1: my character like you can say anything about but my
Speaker 1: character is really what is for me, So that that
Speaker 1: was really hard for me at first, you know, and
Speaker 1: then lately the whole attacks, Like you said, it's about
Speaker 1: what about You don't want to talk about what's going
Speaker 1: on the bronx and they killing people every day. You
Speaker 1: don't say nothing about that. And in the black and
Speaker 1: I say all the time that you know, I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't use the term black on black
Speaker 1: crime because it's a false narrative, not real. There's no
Speaker 1: such thing. Because it's proximity crimes commit crimes in the
Speaker 1: areas where people are closest to them. That's who commit
Speaker 1: crimes those crimes and white communities are committed by white
Speaker 1: people to everybody. So that that term right there is
Speaker 1: is designed to make it look like we are more
Speaker 1: violent and we are more prone to crime than anybody.
Speaker 1: And people don't understand that poverty creates crime. Poverty is violent.
Speaker 1: You don't go to communities where black people are thriving.
Speaker 1: There's no crime in those coolies, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So when you go to the hood where people are hungry,
Speaker 1: there's crime in those communities. You know, there's violence in
Speaker 1: those communities. If you put any people in the in
Speaker 1: the conditions that you put these black people in that
Speaker 1: you say are committing these crimes, they could they do
Speaker 1: the same exact thing. There's no different And if you
Speaker 1: go throughout the world, the same level of crime, violence
Speaker 1: is The overall thing is poverty. And tell people that
Speaker 1: all the time. So I understand, I come from error,
Speaker 1: I come from a time. I come from a place
Speaker 1: where most people would just want to get out. You know,
Speaker 1: most people really just trying to figure and when they
Speaker 1: get out. If you look at most of our athletes
Speaker 1: and when as soon as they get out of that
Speaker 1: that era and they get out of that area, and
Speaker 1: they get out of that community. It's no more crown.
Speaker 1: The crown changes. So we understand what it is when
Speaker 1: we talk about defunding the police. That's what defunding the
Speaker 1: police means. It doesn't mean we're trying to we want
Speaker 1: anarchy and we don't want police ever. Know, we want
Speaker 1: you to take some of the billions that you're giving
Speaker 1: the police and give a couple of those two community activists.
Speaker 1: Give a couple of those two UM community organizations that
Speaker 1: can actually come you know, that actually prevent crime, because
Speaker 1: police don't prevent crime. They don't they locked you up
Speaker 1: after you commit the crime. They don't prevent the crime.
Speaker 1: They only prevent two present the crimes. So the crime
Speaker 1: is is is gonna be able to be stopped by me?
Speaker 1: Because I know everybody in the hood. So when I
Speaker 1: go to the hood and they like a certain suches
Speaker 1: beefing with sudden such, I sit down with both of them,
Speaker 1: like what you're beefing over, and the respect that they
Speaker 1: have for me is gonna bring them to the table.
Speaker 1: So that's a murder that we stop. We got we
Speaker 1: actually got crime, you know, UM crisis management programs in
Speaker 1: Queens and the Bronx in Brooklyn with former people who
Speaker 1: are gang members and and people that came home from
Speaker 1: jail who actually prevent the crimes. So if you get them,
Speaker 1: if you allocate those funds to them, you'll see the
Speaker 1: crime change. You'll see different changes. But no, they don't.
Speaker 1: They don't want to do that because they want if
Speaker 1: fit's a narrative, they want to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: We're not gonna fund those communities. We're gonna make sure
Speaker 1: that the schools is the wordst the the health is
Speaker 1: the words. We're gonna make sure everything is the worst,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna put a pandemic in the hood. And
Speaker 1: then we're gonna say that only a sense you businesses
Speaker 1: is the is the liquor store. So they can't go play,
Speaker 1: no sports, can't go hang out, can't do nothing, but
Speaker 1: you can get liquor stand on the corner and that.
Speaker 1: And you're bringing guns in the community and saying, oh,
Speaker 1: look how look at the savages like this is like
Speaker 1: this is what this is what they do it to us,
Speaker 1: and and and and and most of sometimes we get
Speaker 1: so frustrated with us and we blame us and we
Speaker 1: don't realize and then they say, oh, you just want
Speaker 1: to make an excuse like this is common sense. It's
Speaker 1: been the same play over and over that they play.
Speaker 1: They know if they give us the same opportunities and
Speaker 1: the same resources, that we're gonna prevail. And it's it's
Speaker 1: done purposely. That's what the reason why they don't. I think.
Speaker 1: I think what you just explained was was brilliant because
Speaker 1: people don't understand what defund the police is. They think
Speaker 1: the defund the police meet just just fire all the
Speaker 1: cops and let us do it for ourselves. But what
Speaker 1: you're saying is allocating funds for programs that can help
Speaker 1: promote wealth building and time management for young men and
Speaker 1: women who have nothing but time and resources to allocate energy,
Speaker 1: which obviously makes sense because they funded they defunded education,
Speaker 1: like the time they took all of the acting and
Speaker 1: all the all of the stuff, all the arts out
Speaker 1: of schools and now these kids got nothing to do
Speaker 1: but go to corners and just sit. So what do
Speaker 1: you think it's gonna happen? And their mothers don't have jobs.
Speaker 1: They frustrated, you know, so what do you what do
Speaker 1: you actually think it's happened? It's funny people have people
Speaker 1: have yet to create the correlation that the increase because
Speaker 1: what they're saying right now is the increase in crime
Speaker 1: in the neighborhoods is because we're all screaming for defunding
Speaker 1: the police without thinking that the increase in the crime
Speaker 1: is coming from the fact that people do not have jobs.
Speaker 1: Like people do not have work. There are millions and
Speaker 1: millions of people who do not have work who are
Speaker 1: trying to find ways to feed families. But y'all want
Speaker 1: to say we're in a pandemic, Like for really, you
Speaker 1: don't they realize how traumatic this situation was, being locked
Speaker 1: in your house for months, Like I was going through trauma,
Speaker 1: like I was dealing. I was angry all the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I was frustrated. I had to start creating
Speaker 1: workout programs from my stuff, Like literally, I had to
Speaker 1: do things because my mind I was losing. I found
Speaker 1: myself drinking more like like you know what, let me
Speaker 1: just take a drink at every night, just like, yo,
Speaker 1: I'm looking at the news. They're showing the deaf count.
Speaker 1: You're gonna die, Like so a young kid in the
Speaker 1: house going through that. Nobody who ain't who's not who
Speaker 1: hasn't really even massive this emotion who doesn't even understand
Speaker 1: what you think. He's just still developing and he just
Speaker 1: surrounded by that all day, all day long. Like we
Speaker 1: are in a crisis. We are in a crisis, and
Speaker 1: poverty is the biggest form of crisis. So when you snap,
Speaker 1: when you put all the rest of that on top
Speaker 1: of poverty, what you think you're gonna get? Bro, We're
Speaker 1: gonna have you back on. We have to have you
Speaker 1: back because this conversation is not it's not over, This
Speaker 1: is just the beginning of the versation continuing. So we
Speaker 1: appreciate you. But before you leave, can you please tell
Speaker 1: everybody where to find you everything that they can do
Speaker 1: to find you with everything that you're working on. Okay,
Speaker 1: So my Instagram is my son n y General. You
Speaker 1: can follow me there. On Twitter is at my song
Speaker 1: um follow until Freedom so you can be up, you know,
Speaker 1: updated about what we're doing to fight for Brianna Taylor.
Speaker 1: We're doing a big march October seventeen with Brianna Taylor's
Speaker 1: family in New York, so we want everybody to come
Speaker 1: out there with us, UM and just you just follow
Speaker 1: me on those those platforms. It's not hard to find.
Speaker 1: We're back. Y'all all right, and it's listener letter time. Um,
Speaker 1: we have someone here who's a huge fan of the show.
Speaker 1: They say, thank you, thank you for being being willing
Speaker 1: to be vulnerable and transparent. My question is about your
Speaker 1: stance on activism and what you think is Okay, I
Speaker 1: understand the anger that black people have. I am angry,
Speaker 1: but when it comes to looting and violence, I often
Speaker 1: feel like that behavior sets us back and takes the
Speaker 1: attention off of the mission. But I'm hearing so many
Speaker 1: conflicting views. What do you think to me? This is simple, okay,
Speaker 1: I I do not What what bothers me the most
Speaker 1: is that the same people who have a voice on
Speaker 1: looting often silent when it comes to the murders talk
Speaker 1: about it, which means you mean what you tell us
Speaker 1: is that the property and the businesses and talk people.
Speaker 1: Yeall care about sheet rock, then you do about the
Speaker 1: blood running through our veins and as and as a
Speaker 1: small business owner, as a small business owner for the
Speaker 1: past ten years, I understand that businesses are important. But
Speaker 1: let's be real. Majority of these businesses that are in
Speaker 1: our community are not owned by us. They constantly disrespect us.
Speaker 1: They are owned by people who don't even live in
Speaker 1: the communities in which they act. The people in the
Speaker 1: need to patronize their business, so then when their businesses
Speaker 1: get destroyed by the same people they disrespect. You cannot
Speaker 1: be upset at the people. You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: You cannot ask a marginalized people who have been terrorized, brutalized,
Speaker 1: and criminalized their whole life to now be civil civilized
Speaker 1: but responding to your brutality. So what you're saying to
Speaker 1: me is listen, I know I know I killed you.
Speaker 1: I know I shot you, I know I shot your kids.
Speaker 1: I know I locked your people up. But I'm gonna
Speaker 1: need you to just be calm and don't do what
Speaker 1: we've been doing to you for four hundred years. That
Speaker 1: to me is what when people say to me, you'll
Speaker 1: shouldn't riot and loot. That's what you're saying to me. Man,
Speaker 1: this woman she said it's so eloquently on this clip.
Speaker 1: I wish I could find that. I have to dig
Speaker 1: it up. But there was a woman that was speaking
Speaker 1: about looting and she started off talking about like a
Speaker 1: monopoly game, and it's like, all right, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: give you this money and you know, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you this money, but I'm gonna take this from you,
Speaker 1: wanna take that from you, I'm gonna take that from
Speaker 1: And it's like you keep taking and you're taken with
Speaker 1: all these promises of things that we're going to get
Speaker 1: and it's never it never comes. And I mean, let
Speaker 1: me tell you how many times I should I feel
Speaker 1: like we should pull that clip up at some point
Speaker 1: and you know what I'm talking about. But she literally
Speaker 1: was just like, the hell with your building, the socio
Speaker 1: economic damage that was created to black people, and why
Speaker 1: we respond by damaging your problem? Absolutely absolutely, So it's
Speaker 1: a really it's a really um you have the kind
Speaker 1: of total line between like, you know, promoting there's no
Speaker 1: there's no total line. I don't I don't think that
Speaker 1: we promote looting. No, we're not promoting it, but just
Speaker 1: saying also holding people accountable who don't understand why we're looting.
Speaker 1: Right but but but we can't glaze over that. You
Speaker 1: don't promote looting, right but looting and writing is the
Speaker 1: voice of the voiceless. You've taken away all other options
Speaker 1: for them to get their point across, which is why
Speaker 1: they're looting and writing, protesting, the kneeling like that earlier
Speaker 1: in the show. You took all of that away. You
Speaker 1: said we couldn't peacefully protest, we couldn't nail, we can't march.
Speaker 1: We don't have people in positions of power or politicians
Speaker 1: who can help us get changed. We have to get
Speaker 1: your attention. You want us to stop looting. Pay attention
Speaker 1: when we hashtag, You want us to stop looting, Pay
Speaker 1: attention when we kneel, Stop moving the goal post, stop
Speaker 1: hijacking the narrative, and listen to what we're saying, and
Speaker 1: we'll stop looting. That does that's not promoting looting. But
Speaker 1: you gotta understand. If you're a child, right, if you're
Speaker 1: a child and your whole life your father has been
Speaker 1: whooping your ass, whipping your mom's ass every single day,
Speaker 1: there's gonna come a point when you grow up and
Speaker 1: you become a man and you say, what, I'm tired
Speaker 1: of these ass whoppings and I'm gonna hit this man back.
Speaker 1: When you decide, after take an abuse for four d years,
Speaker 1: that you're gonna hit your abuser back, you cannot then
Speaker 1: play the victim as the abuser and say this is wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, especially especially since this company, then let's come
Speaker 1: this country was gained off of a riot. You celebrate
Speaker 1: the Boston tea Party. You celebrate Christopher Columbus, who pretty
Speaker 1: much looted and rioted the indigenous people to get this land.
Speaker 1: These are the things we celebrate here in America. We
Speaker 1: have a Columbus Day. Very selective. Is that not ironic
Speaker 1: that we celebrate we celebrate looters and rioters when it's
Speaker 1: not black people. So let's be clear. We're not condoning looting,
Speaker 1: We're not promoting it. What I am promoting is that
Speaker 1: if you listen to us, we won't loot and we
Speaker 1: won't riot, But you cannot then point the finger at
Speaker 1: us when we do feel that's just what it is. Well,
Speaker 1: that was a great listening letter because it encompassed something
Speaker 1: that I think that we didn't get to discuss in
Speaker 1: social activism, which was what was happening, the rioting and
Speaker 1: the moving. Um. So thank you for that, that listener.
Speaker 1: But also, this is not the first time looting and rioting,
Speaker 1: like we said before, it has happened in America. This
Speaker 1: has happened in every social change forum. Every time we
Speaker 1: got to that point, there's always been looting and rioting,
Speaker 1: and it's his American as American pie. There you go.
Speaker 1: And if you'd like to be featured as one of
Speaker 1: our listener letters, y'all email us at dead as Advice
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com and you can email us about
Speaker 1: almost Emmy and everything. Yes, you know, give them, give
Speaker 1: the email one more time. That's dead as Advice at
Speaker 1: gmail dot com. D E A D A S S
Speaker 1: A D V I C E at gmail dot com. Alright,
Speaker 1: moment of truth time, Moment of truth time. You want
Speaker 1: to go first? You want to go first? Umman, I
Speaker 1: can go first. Um. I feel like with this whole
Speaker 1: talk of activism, what it looks like, the social activism,
Speaker 1: the social media activism. The biggest thing is taking an
Speaker 1: introspective look at where you fall in this change system,
Speaker 1: picking a point, picking a position. It could be one position,
Speaker 1: it can be two or three, depending on what your
Speaker 1: interest is or where it lies or where your strengths are,
Speaker 1: and then investing time and energy in that as opposed
Speaker 1: to clocking other people on what they're doing. Because the
Speaker 1: time that you're spending clocking this person or that person,
Speaker 1: celebrity or not, is time that can be spent. EVO
Speaker 1: can change where you can see it, where it's tangible
Speaker 1: for you, where you have that strength. Do that? Yes,
Speaker 1: do that? Do that? Do that? I agree, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna piggyback on that. To me, social activism
Speaker 1: is a personal choice. How you choose to be an
Speaker 1: activists should be something you do daily. And I want
Speaker 1: to give this to the people because everything you said,
Speaker 1: I agree with everything you said, but I want people
Speaker 1: to think about this. If the Underground Railroad existed in
Speaker 1: Harriet Tubman would not be on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook,
Speaker 1: but she'd be getting shipped done. She beginning it all
Speaker 1: the way done. So we got to think about that
Speaker 1: before we go out here and start to point out
Speaker 1: who we think I'm not doing enough, take an introspective
Speaker 1: look and realize am I doing enough exactly? Alright? Be
Speaker 1: sure to find us on social media, y'all dead as
Speaker 1: the podcasts and of course I'm Cadine I am, and
Speaker 1: of course I am devouring. If you're listening on Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: be sure to rate, review, and subscribe. D dead Ass
Speaker 1: is a production of I Heart Media podcast network and
Speaker 1: is produced by Dinorapinia and triple follow the podcast on
Speaker 1: social media at dead as the Podcasts, and never miss
Speaker 1: a thing