Speaker 1: What's the family. It's your girl to make a d mallory,
Speaker 1: it's your boy in general. And we're your hosts of
Speaker 1: street politicians, the place where the streets and politics meet.
Speaker 1: So it's Thanksgiving, and you know, obviously we all love
Speaker 1: the family time and the food and all the good things.
Speaker 1: But the food. Yeah, but you know, I've never I
Speaker 1: don't know, since I was a kid, my parents kind
Speaker 1: of messed me up because they like celebrate the stuff,
Speaker 1: but then they talk about the history of why we
Speaker 1: shouldn't be celebrating it. Some things. They don't celebrate everything.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things my parents would never, like
Speaker 1: you we never maybe twice in my life that I
Speaker 1: had a Halloween because they, you know, talked about how
Speaker 1: during that time of year, black folks were being lynched
Speaker 1: and killed and like they you know, made it very
Speaker 1: clear that Halloween night was not a good time for
Speaker 1: a black people, especially in the South. And so you know,
Speaker 1: even thinking about Thanksgiving and you know, this is something
Speaker 1: started I think in like sixteen twenty or sixteen twenty one, uh,
Speaker 1: and it was the first meal of the pilgrims coming
Speaker 1: to America. And it's like there's so many there's so
Speaker 1: much and they called it the New World, right, and
Speaker 1: it's just so much history that is that most people
Speaker 1: don't know, and it's so it tastes Actually, we should
Speaker 1: really have some black historians to come on and talk
Speaker 1: about how holidays that we celebrate now our our our
Speaker 1: our holidays that were started by people who were also colonizings.
Speaker 1: Let's just say that's that's the most simple way that
Speaker 1: I could say it without trying to act like I'm
Speaker 1: in his story, and like these people were colonizers, right,
Speaker 1: So they were stealing land, stealing people, enslaving people, and
Speaker 1: then you know, creating holidays along the way, which have
Speaker 1: now become part of capitalism in our society, spending a
Speaker 1: whole lot of money to celebrate holidays that colonizes started.
Speaker 1: Sometimes some holidays they actually were like Veterans Day that
Speaker 1: actually is a holiday that that black people started. But
Speaker 1: they these colonizers, like with everything else, take over the
Speaker 1: holidays and make them white holidays and then attach capitalism
Speaker 1: to them, and really we lose the essence of like
Speaker 1: how these things really began and where it came from,
Speaker 1: and what was the real history, whether the history is
Speaker 1: good or bad. So I think we would do our
Speaker 1: We wouldn't be doing sir this or a good service
Speaker 1: to our audience not to mention the controversy around the
Speaker 1: idea of Thanksgiving and tell folks that they should do
Speaker 1: the research where they can do, like my family, talk
Speaker 1: about the issues with the colonizers and what happened to
Speaker 1: the Native Americans, if you will, They weren't Native Americans.
Speaker 1: They were just native people to the land before folks
Speaker 1: arrived and started their things given so I means a lot.
Speaker 1: I think for me, I've been indoctrinated into these holidays
Speaker 1: who so long. You know, my kids love Halloween and
Speaker 1: I and I felt like the bad guy because as
Speaker 1: I've become became more knowledgeable and understanding the history, I
Speaker 1: wanted to be like, man, I'm not doing Halloween, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But it's something that they love.
Speaker 1: They loved going to get their candy, and they love
Speaker 1: to go do the doors. So I didn't want to
Speaker 1: personally take that from them. You know, I want to
Speaker 1: educate them as they get older on what the actual
Speaker 1: meaning of Halloween and where comes from. So I always
Speaker 1: want them to be informed and knowledgeable about what's going on.
Speaker 1: Also with Halloween, it's it's something that my family, you know,
Speaker 1: always celebrate. It was like probably my favorite day of
Speaker 1: the year. You know, I've seen all my cousins and
Speaker 1: aunts and uncles that I never hadn't seen all year.
Speaker 1: It was just that one day we will all go
Speaker 1: to one of our family member's house and we would
Speaker 1: eat and we would laughing with Joe, can you see
Speaker 1: your favorite uncle and your favorite cousins? Halloween? I said
Speaker 1: Halloween first, and I said, you said Halloween again because
Speaker 1: I was sitting and life, Listen, what am I to?
Speaker 1: I mean Thanksgiving? Thanks So that was one of the things.
Speaker 1: And as we get the knowledge and understand how the
Speaker 1: natives were slaughtered during this time, it's definitely something that's
Speaker 1: something that we really want to celebrate, but you know,
Speaker 1: we don't want to take away that family cornie at
Speaker 1: the same time, so you know, it's it's like we
Speaker 1: have to teach the history right at the same time.
Speaker 1: And I think that's with every area. We have to
Speaker 1: teach the history because while you know, we're celebrating it,
Speaker 1: and I guess I have some hesitancy because it feels
Speaker 1: and we talk about being walking contradictions every day, because
Speaker 1: you know, it feels so to think of the Native
Speaker 1: people to this land and to know that this time represents,
Speaker 1: for so many of them, as you said, a time
Speaker 1: when their people were slaughtered. It represents a time when
Speaker 1: everything that they once knew was taken from them. And
Speaker 1: then a holiday was created and people celebrated without even
Speaker 1: really discussing the nature of like the remembrance of the
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving holiday in this and this time period. And so
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I think you're right. You have
Speaker 1: to teach the history of these holidays and so much
Speaker 1: history to your children so that when you are really
Speaker 1: kind of just taking a day off from work, getting
Speaker 1: the day off from work and getting family together, that
Speaker 1: it's not lost on us as a people, everything that
Speaker 1: this country has done and how we um, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess how we have to respond to capitalism when
Speaker 1: we're not respected as full citizens still, you know, and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the Native people and now we call
Speaker 1: the Native Americans, but even we as black people in
Speaker 1: this nation have never received our full rights and been
Speaker 1: respected properly. And so you know, they use these holidays
Speaker 1: because they like our one point five trillion dollars, that's right,
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's what actually was the catalyst
Speaker 1: behind my boycotting and boycotting black owned businesses. You know,
Speaker 1: I think we're seeing what happening with Kyrie, and I
Speaker 1: think this listening to the seeo oh, his his verbage
Speaker 1: and just responding and the way he spoke of Kyrie,
Speaker 1: it was like somebody that he didn't even see as
Speaker 1: a human being. He's seen him on his property. You know,
Speaker 1: we we we chose to just just disregard this person.
Speaker 1: You had, you know, a partnership with somebody and because
Speaker 1: of one misstep or mishappened, you know, you chose that.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm willing to lose hundreds of millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: millions of dollars that need be to show that I
Speaker 1: have some level of power. And that that that really
Speaker 1: bothered me, understanding that what if this is the only
Speaker 1: way that Kyrie was able to feed his family? What
Speaker 1: if all of these things negatively affective and nobody cared
Speaker 1: about him as an individual. And I'm like, damn, I
Speaker 1: don't see people do that to their own culture, you
Speaker 1: know what, to our culture. So I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: we have to start empowering our culture. So we're able
Speaker 1: to make those breakages or those you know, we're able
Speaker 1: to separate from organizations and people who don't mean us well.
Speaker 1: So I say, I have to push back on that.
Speaker 1: I feel like maybe it doesn't happen as often, and
Speaker 1: I don't have in this minute, uh several examples, right,
Speaker 1: just because it's not something that I watched. But I
Speaker 1: know that there's been NBA teams that or NBA owners
Speaker 1: that have been forced to sell their teams for saying
Speaker 1: racist things. I know that there have been endorsement deals
Speaker 1: by you know, some athletes who have lost endorsement deals
Speaker 1: because of domestic violence and or again racist comments or whatever.
Speaker 1: So I'm not gonna say that the that they that
Speaker 1: they never hold white folks accountable, because that's that's not
Speaker 1: my conversation. I'm looking at. I'm looking at what he's
Speaker 1: being told, you know, what he's been accused of in
Speaker 1: the level of ament. Right, So when you talk about
Speaker 1: when you talk about the those owners, those owners have
Speaker 1: full text message. When they're calling people niggers, they have
Speaker 1: like like they have whole and the thing is they're
Speaker 1: selling it to their friends. When you gotta sell the company,
Speaker 1: they're still making money off of it at the bottom line.
Speaker 1: So these are older this is a game, you understand
Speaker 1: saying it's it's really just a game that they're running
Speaker 1: that we know. I know the game that they were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta sell this to my friend. I gotta be
Speaker 1: in the cut because they caught me being racists. All
Speaker 1: me and all my friends is racist anyway, because they
Speaker 1: just didn't catch the email that he said to me.
Speaker 1: But I'm the one that got caught. So we all
Speaker 1: gonna play in this game. So I know that game
Speaker 1: you're playing, but it's but it's actually your words and
Speaker 1: it's actually vulgar. It's to the point where it's like them,
Speaker 1: we can't even sit in the same room because we
Speaker 1: know that you're you had ill intention and you felt
Speaker 1: these you felt very negatively. That that's when there's accountability.
Speaker 1: But for somebody, a lot of these these owners our
Speaker 1: friends with racist non racist KKK members, they fund those things,
Speaker 1: they in rooms with them, they're in close proximity two
Speaker 1: things that as anti black all the time, and there's
Speaker 1: no accountability to that, right. So for for Kyrie to
Speaker 1: be held to that stated for posting up a damned
Speaker 1: documentary when ninety percent was about black history, and in
Speaker 1: a couple of the instances in there probably was something
Speaker 1: that he didn't even pay attention to because it wasn't
Speaker 1: something that he was focused on, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And Okay, we we give them the accountability he apologized.
Speaker 1: You give him maybe a game or two or whatever
Speaker 1: it is. But to completely sever ties with that man
Speaker 1: from million dollar businesses and and um um partnerships that
Speaker 1: he had because you said he stepped over the line
Speaker 1: like he's some type of boy or some type of kid,
Speaker 1: it was. It didn't even make sense to me. So
Speaker 1: understanding that that's a possibility that they can do stuff
Speaker 1: like that made me say to myself, I can't I
Speaker 1: can't knowingly allow that to continue to keep happening to me, right,
Speaker 1: I can't be aware that they have people that can
Speaker 1: cut ties with me, cut ties with people that look
Speaker 1: like me, people that are start works in our culture,
Speaker 1: people that we idolize in the culture, and we haven't
Speaker 1: created anything or funded anything that can make sure that
Speaker 1: they can still feed their children. Like, for me, that's
Speaker 1: just not okay. So I say, you know what, First
Speaker 1: of all, I'm not buying anything Nike again, and I
Speaker 1: was one of a major support of Nike. First of all,
Speaker 1: I'm not but I'm personally not buying it again. I
Speaker 1: don't really see when I never even wear anything that
Speaker 1: I bought again. But secondly, I want us as a
Speaker 1: people to to normalize holding people accountable who don't value us? Right?
Speaker 1: Why are we giving our our dollars to people who
Speaker 1: we know do not value us? How do we how?
Speaker 1: Why aren't we able to say I'm not gonna spend
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars with people who are able to lose
Speaker 1: millions of dollars just so that they can make a
Speaker 1: point about how they're not going to deal with certain
Speaker 1: type of AGAs for months? So why can't we say
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna even give my money to somebody, right
Speaker 1: we I'm not gonna continue to make somebody a billionaire.
Speaker 1: I don't know why we don't think that we need
Speaker 1: to show that we have some level of respect for ourselves,
Speaker 1: because if we don't respect ourselves, how can we expect
Speaker 1: anybody to respect us? So I'm I proposed on my
Speaker 1: page that we stopped buy a Nike at least for
Speaker 1: this holiday season. I personally I don't ever see me
Speaker 1: doing it again. But I'm saying those who need to
Speaker 1: see the increments to understand the power that you have.
Speaker 1: Say for this whole holiday season started with UM, started
Speaker 1: from last week when I first said to do it.
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that that Black Friday, it's
Speaker 1: us buying black, it's making sure that we're invested in
Speaker 1: black UM companies and organizations. So I've been posting mad
Speaker 1: crazy different black owned businesses on my pages so that
Speaker 1: you can go to that, you can support that, you
Speaker 1: can spend your black dollar with your black and the
Speaker 1: visual organization and your black people so we can watch
Speaker 1: the black dollar flourish through our community. And then I'm
Speaker 1: continuously doing on that and I'm saying I want you
Speaker 1: to see your power. I want you to understand that
Speaker 1: Black Friday is is generally when we go out and
Speaker 1: spend the most money. So why are we invested in
Speaker 1: our own communities? Why we are we investing We got
Speaker 1: Sneakers that's way better than Nike. But for somehow we've
Speaker 1: trained our minds that if we don't have these Nikes,
Speaker 1: that some level of status we lose or continue to
Speaker 1: make these people billionaires that don't even value us. Is
Speaker 1: it makes sense? So I'm I'm I said to myself,
Speaker 1: I know I'm an avid Nike buyer, and I want
Speaker 1: to discipline myself. I want to prove to myself that
Speaker 1: I'm I'm work. I'm worth more than these sneakers are.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm worth more than this status quote is.
Speaker 1: I feel violated. So I'm willing to sacrifice something. So
Speaker 1: I'm asking everybody continue on Black after Thanksgiving, Black Friday.
Speaker 1: Don't go on and spending. Find a black organization, find
Speaker 1: a black company, find some black sneakers to bid they have.
Speaker 1: Go to my page. You'll see hundreds of people that
Speaker 1: you can go to. And yeah, because I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: by the by the time tomorrow, I'm gonna have a
Speaker 1: hundred people on it because I probably got about forty
Speaker 1: or fifty different organizations that you can go to. You're
Speaker 1: talking about, Yeah, it's about forty different places. And they're
Speaker 1: not organizations. They companies, organization, companies, organizations. Some of them
Speaker 1: as companies. Organizations have a mission or they should have
Speaker 1: a mission to some type of service. Companies are for benefits,
Speaker 1: and that's good. We should have all those dynamics. But dynamics,
Speaker 1: but these people. And that's and the reason why I'm
Speaker 1: making the distinction. We have an organization and we have right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, of course you could buy organizations.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. That that's true. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that's true, flat out that's true. However, the bigger point
Speaker 1: is that there are a lot of companies that we're
Speaker 1: posting that you're posting UM, and we need to make
Speaker 1: sure that those companies understand that money is being pushed
Speaker 1: in their direction and they got to do business right.
Speaker 1: Whole link with about sixty different high end black owned Yeah,
Speaker 1: do business, guys and your business quality business. That's the
Speaker 1: reason why I said that. But you're right, I stand
Speaker 1: correct that there are organizations, not just Until Freedom, but
Speaker 1: many who have their own merch and T shirts and
Speaker 1: things of that nature. So that's important. But I was
Speaker 1: specifically focusing on the companies and making sure that these
Speaker 1: companies are doing good business with the clientele UM and
Speaker 1: making sure that people can reach you, you know, and
Speaker 1: that your your information, your financial collection and stuff is good.
Speaker 1: You know, your e commerce is set up properly, like,
Speaker 1: please make sure that you do all of that. Most
Speaker 1: of the companies are already ordered something. Um. So most
Speaker 1: of the companies are, but there are some who still
Speaker 1: need to get their their things together. And it's okay
Speaker 1: to say, hey, well I'm working on this and I'll
Speaker 1: be ready in two weeks, three weeks or whatever, um,
Speaker 1: But I'm not necessarily ready to start taking orders that
Speaker 1: I can't fulfill because I don't have the shoes, I
Speaker 1: don't have the merchandise. Like, let's be for real, so
Speaker 1: that you know, it's a good experience. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: we have to have patience because we know that our
Speaker 1: people do not benefit from the way that capitalism operates.
Speaker 1: With white folks and big businesses like a Nike or
Speaker 1: any other kind of business, we don't have that. So
Speaker 1: we are trying to get ourselves to that level. And
Speaker 1: sometimes it takes a little bit of patients, but doing
Speaker 1: bad business is never accepted. Will no matter what level
Speaker 1: we were at, definitely have to do good business. So
Speaker 1: you know, we we're gonna show our economic power this
Speaker 1: holiday season. You know we're going to divest and invest
Speaker 1: in us man. So by black man, go to my
Speaker 1: page and you'll see all of the black designers there,
Speaker 1: so many from high end you know, shoes and clothing
Speaker 1: to sports in athletic with whatever you need. We got
Speaker 1: it on my page, Man by Black speaking of of
Speaker 1: you know, buying black caring for ourselves as black people.
Speaker 1: We talk on to show a lot about Black women health.
Speaker 1: We had coach Jesse on. Now we have another guest
Speaker 1: that's coming up, and you know, I think it's so
Speaker 1: important because we're trying to focus on everything our mental,
Speaker 1: our pocketbook, our physical. We're trying to make sure that
Speaker 1: even our brothers get an opportunity to learn about women's
Speaker 1: health because that has been such a disconnect. Just like
Speaker 1: you mentioned and then the last show, you never even
Speaker 1: knew that there was a reason for you to care
Speaker 1: about these things that was women's business take care of.
Speaker 1: But we want to normalize conversations around health disparities and
Speaker 1: around you know, things that, um, you know women, ways
Speaker 1: in which women take care of themselves, need to take
Speaker 1: care of themselves, um, and really just making sure that
Speaker 1: as we talked about our economic power, we're not rich
Speaker 1: and sick, you know, rich and day you know, you know,
Speaker 1: have a thing. Yeah, we have things and don't have life.
Speaker 1: And so this Thanksgiving season or whatever, I think that
Speaker 1: there's another term that folks started calling and no friends giving,
Speaker 1: friends giving, friends giving, family giving during this time. A
Speaker 1: big part of it is making sure you have but
Speaker 1: tomorrow when you walk into your family home and you're
Speaker 1: about to pick up that that whatever with with the
Speaker 1: um Queen of fool Is said, what you eat also
Speaker 1: impacts a woman's reproductive system. When you're putting that good
Speaker 1: macaroni and cheese and all of that good stuff that
Speaker 1: I plan to eat in your mouth, just know that
Speaker 1: it's also impacting your body. Let's go to our guests,
Speaker 1: so at least, you know, we now have started to
Speaker 1: bring new friends onto the show because the last few
Speaker 1: weeks it's been a lot of new friends joining us
Speaker 1: and people who quickly become family because they're doing such incredible, incredible,
Speaker 1: incredible things. Um, you know, Black Folks is just doing it.
Speaker 1: And I love the fact that our show, you know,
Speaker 1: unapologetically focuses on black excellence. And certainly our guest today
Speaker 1: is an excellent black woman. Uh Dr Simone. Most of
Speaker 1: you know her from being on the show, married to medicine,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more to this woman born in Nashville,
Speaker 1: went to Spellman College, and you know, all the Greats
Speaker 1: went to Spellman more House, So all the Greats um
Speaker 1: to Spellman and and O. B. G. Y N, who
Speaker 1: is also an activist in her own right for black women.
Speaker 1: She has a family, a husband that you've seen on
Speaker 1: the show. She's got two children. So much with this woman,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna learn more today about Dr Simone. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining Street Politicians. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me. It is an honor to be here.
Speaker 1: It is definitely honor to have you. How are you
Speaker 1: feeling today? I am doing great and would love to
Speaker 1: just share some of the things that I have learned
Speaker 1: over the years about black women's health and the importance
Speaker 1: of black women taking care of ourselves and putting ourselves
Speaker 1: as number one. We're speaking of taking care of ourselves.
Speaker 1: You tell us about you because we don't know. We
Speaker 1: see you on the show and we see this beautiful,
Speaker 1: dynamic black woman, but we don't know about your background
Speaker 1: and how you got started. I'm originally from Nashville, Tennessee,
Speaker 1: born and raised. I was born and raised by two
Speaker 1: a two parent home with an alcoholic dad. My mom
Speaker 1: divorced him around the time I was fifteen. Sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: but early in my life, probably eight to ten years old,
Speaker 1: he just wasn't as functional as a dad, couldn't keep
Speaker 1: a job, wasn't home a lot. When he was home, uh,
Speaker 1: highly intoxicated. So that was my life. And my mother
Speaker 1: was really smart. She worked really hard, She kept a
Speaker 1: full time job, and she took really good care of
Speaker 1: my sister and I. Education was always what she preached
Speaker 1: and there were no other options other than education in
Speaker 1: the household. I grew up there. When I was twelve
Speaker 1: in junior high school, I was asked by my teacher
Speaker 1: to do a research paper on what I wanted to
Speaker 1: be when I grew up. And at the time, at twelve,
Speaker 1: I knew that I wanted to help handicapped children. Nashville
Speaker 1: had something every year called Special Olympics where they would highlight,
Speaker 1: you know, handicapped children and we would go out volunteer
Speaker 1: and participate, and I knew I wanted to be in
Speaker 1: that arena helping handicapped children. And I went to my
Speaker 1: dad and asked him, Hey, you know, I have to
Speaker 1: write this research paper and I want to help handicapped children.
Speaker 1: And he said, well, I such and such does that.
Speaker 1: She didn't make any money. You're gonna want to be
Speaker 1: a children's doctor so you can make money. And I
Speaker 1: went to the library because at that time we didn't
Speaker 1: have Google. Um this was then early uh late seventies,
Speaker 1: early eighties. So I went to the library, got the
Speaker 1: encyclopedia out and found out a children's doctor is a pediatrician.
Speaker 1: And I patterned the rest of my school into becoming
Speaker 1: a pediatrician, which which meant taking a science, a math,
Speaker 1: a foreign language in English every year because that was
Speaker 1: gonna be required for me to go to college college.
Speaker 1: When I got to high school, I was fortunate enough
Speaker 1: to have a black guidemce counselor, and she said to me,
Speaker 1: I want you to go to an HBCU, she said. Now,
Speaker 1: I sit on the board at Lane, she said, but
Speaker 1: I want you to aspire to go higher than that,
Speaker 1: to look at a school like Spellman. So after I
Speaker 1: did my research on Spellman College, I did a senior
Speaker 1: weekend at Spellman and knew I was home. Now I
Speaker 1: had to come home and sell it to my mother,
Speaker 1: who at this time is for you're a single mother.
Speaker 1: She's thinking she can't to Ford Spellman College. Most of
Speaker 1: the people I graduated from high school. They went to
Speaker 1: Tennessee State, Middle Tennessee State, those schools, and so I
Speaker 1: had to convince my mother that Spellman College was it.
Speaker 1: We would apply for financial aid and we would just
Speaker 1: make it happen. And that's exactly what happened. I um
Speaker 1: applied to Spellman as a early applicant in the senior year,
Speaker 1: got accepted, didn't apply to any other schools, attended Spellman,
Speaker 1: and my first year at Spellman, so being on a
Speaker 1: campus with all all of these beautiful black women. Growing
Speaker 1: up in Tennessee, it was black, it was white. I
Speaker 1: didn't see Indians, I didn't see Mexicans. I saw black,
Speaker 1: I saw white. That was it my limited little scope
Speaker 1: of things. So I get to Spellman. I'm seeing all
Speaker 1: the different beautiful hues of black, but to the point
Speaker 1: where I would see want someone who was very fair
Speaker 1: skin and I would say, oh, okay, so there's a
Speaker 1: white student and they would be like, no, she's black.
Speaker 1: And you know, I had to learn that, Okay, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter what somebody looks like that I'm thinking that
Speaker 1: they look like I gotta let that judgment go. But
Speaker 1: it was an amazing experience. I get there as a freshman,
Speaker 1: and every single week we had convocation where we had
Speaker 1: to go in the chapel and a dynamic black woman
Speaker 1: who was already out in the community in her career
Speaker 1: in various cities would come to the chapel and they
Speaker 1: would speak to us and they would say, I had
Speaker 1: the opportunity to be where you're sitting, and look where
Speaker 1: I am now, or I didn't have the opportunity. I
Speaker 1: went to a white school, but look where I am now,
Speaker 1: and you two can be here. It was an amazing
Speaker 1: experience and just I had that love and the support
Speaker 1: of being told you can do it. I love Spellman.
Speaker 1: In nineteen nine and Um went to East Tennessee State
Speaker 1: hill In College of Medicine. Now I'm my whole life.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking I'm smart. I'm thinking I'm gifted. Who got
Speaker 1: to medical school? Medical school kicks some buts, and so
Speaker 1: you know, it was there that I realized, Okay, I'm average.
Speaker 1: I gotta work hard, but I'm just average. And I
Speaker 1: was the only black female in a class of about
Speaker 1: fifty six and there was one black male in my class.
Speaker 1: But it was here that taught me so much about
Speaker 1: medical school was where I learned the most about racism.
Speaker 1: I had always known that it existed and felt that
Speaker 1: I had experienced some minor issues, but medical school was
Speaker 1: certainly a whole another challenge. I would walk in UM
Speaker 1: to a patient's room and they would say to me,
Speaker 1: I don't have nothing against y'all's kind, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to see you, and you know, I would walk
Speaker 1: back out. I was completely fine with that, because I
Speaker 1: believe that people have the right to see who they
Speaker 1: want to see. But it was an interesting UM thing
Speaker 1: as in medical school. I never shaved my legs. I
Speaker 1: had hairy legs, and I've shaved under my arms for
Speaker 1: purposes of hygiene, but I had never shaved my legs.
Speaker 1: And get to medical school and we're, you know, going
Speaker 1: in doing a history and physical want a patient and
Speaker 1: the white attending It's like, okay, note this patient has
Speaker 1: poor hygiene. So if the patient did not have shade legs,
Speaker 1: amongst some other things, she would be considered in poor hygiene.
Speaker 1: So I started shaving my legs, but you know, because
Speaker 1: I definitely never had poor hygiene. But it was funny
Speaker 1: just learning things from a whole another standpoint and making
Speaker 1: some adjustments in my own life. Uh, that were neither
Speaker 1: you know, good nor bad. But I did make the adjustments.
Speaker 1: I left East Tennessee State. I graduated in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: left there and went to Boston Medical Center, where I
Speaker 1: was in the heart of the city um seeing patients
Speaker 1: and doing my residency training in ob July in And
Speaker 1: let me back up, because when I entered medical school,
Speaker 1: I knew I wanted to be a pediatrician. I got there,
Speaker 1: there was a little boy. Uh during my first rotation
Speaker 1: of my clinical year, which is the third year, there
Speaker 1: was a little boy who came in at ten years old.
Speaker 1: He had a by sickle accident, fell off the bicycle.
Speaker 1: He basically came in unresponsive. The e R team worked
Speaker 1: on him for about an hour and fifteen minutes and
Speaker 1: they were not able to resuscitate him. I never met
Speaker 1: his mother, but I could hear her screaming through the
Speaker 1: ear when she was told that he didn't make it.
Speaker 1: And I made a decision that day. I called my
Speaker 1: mother boo hoo who because I'm I knew that I
Speaker 1: could not be that one to tell a mother that
Speaker 1: her child didn't make it. And from there I was like,
Speaker 1: am I gonna do surgery? Am? I gonna do O
Speaker 1: B G I N. And when I did my O
Speaker 1: B G I N rotation, I knew that was where
Speaker 1: God wanted me to be because I loved everything about it.
Speaker 1: And UM went UH started residency training in Boston and again,
Speaker 1: and I may in experience because the majority of the
Speaker 1: patients were black. We had a lot of women who
Speaker 1: were on heroin and cocaine, and UM. It was definitely
Speaker 1: another eye opener. Growing up in Nashville, I we I
Speaker 1: grew up on the UH lower income side, but I
Speaker 1: never I never met her, saw a drug addic in Nashville,
Speaker 1: And so here I was in the heart of Boston,
Speaker 1: UM seeing crack addicts, seeing heroin addicts, and I would
Speaker 1: see a woman come in throw her baby out, like
Speaker 1: literally just push her baby out and leave back out
Speaker 1: in an hour and leave that baby to the system.
Speaker 1: And so from that I decided that probably going into
Speaker 1: a hospital with lower socio economic probably wasn't gonna work
Speaker 1: for me emotionally. I left Boston went to Memphis, Tennessee
Speaker 1: for private practice for two years. My goal in my
Speaker 1: dream was to come back to Atlanta, but at the
Speaker 1: time I left residency in nineteen seven, Atlanta was a
Speaker 1: very competitive market to get back into, but it was
Speaker 1: the one place that Cecil and I um agreed that
Speaker 1: we could live. I met Cec who as a senior
Speaker 1: as spellman. He was a senior at Morehouse College at
Speaker 1: the time, and we dated that year, broke up because
Speaker 1: we were young. Broke up. I headed on to medical school.
Speaker 1: He hit it back to Los Angeles, where he was
Speaker 1: originally born and raised and took a corporate job. We
Speaker 1: um stayed in touch. I called it a fake friendship
Speaker 1: because I would be like, Hey, I called you last night,
Speaker 1: you weren't home. Did you stay the night out? No? No,
Speaker 1: I was hanging with the fellas. Was a fake friendship,
Speaker 1: and eventually, towards the end of medical school, we made
Speaker 1: an agreement that we would get back together as a couple.
Speaker 1: We would try the long distance thing, and once I
Speaker 1: got to Boston, we made a decision that he would
Speaker 1: relocate to Boston, and he reached out to some more
Speaker 1: House brothers. They got him a job in Boston. He came,
Speaker 1: and a year after he came, we got married. But
Speaker 1: when we listed, each of us listed five cities that
Speaker 1: we would be willing to live in Nashville was on
Speaker 1: my list of places. Um Atlanta was on my list
Speaker 1: of places. But the only city that was on both
Speaker 1: lists was Atlanta. But I did not get a job.
Speaker 1: So are interviewed in Houston, Texas, Austin, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: And I had a sister, my baby sister, the only
Speaker 1: sister I have. She was in college in Memphis at
Speaker 1: the time. We made a decision to move to Memphis,
Speaker 1: and I was in private practice in Memphis for two
Speaker 1: years and then I landed a job here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: And I've been in Atlanta every since nineteen. I love Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Everybody lives in Atlanta. So you did all of that?
Speaker 1: How did how did you end up on TV? From
Speaker 1: having this like professional like I just I see like
Speaker 1: the transformation, like coming from you know, well to do
Speaker 1: kind of like well to do to family home and
Speaker 1: just you know, and then not well to do. Keep
Speaker 1: in mind my dad was an alcoholic and couldn't even
Speaker 1: have keep a job. But my mother attended Tennessee stage
Speaker 1: at a full time job. And I always lived in
Speaker 1: a two bedroom apartment. We never lived in a house
Speaker 1: because he couldn't keep a job, but she made it work.
Speaker 1: She made it work, but it was but it wasn't. Uh.
Speaker 1: You you grew up in a situation where you had support,
Speaker 1: Yeah I did, I did. Yes, Yes, you had support,
Speaker 1: and then you went college you had this beautiful experience,
Speaker 1: and then you went to when you went to medical school,
Speaker 1: that was when when I'm hearing how you just realized
Speaker 1: that racism really existed at that point, And that's that
Speaker 1: must be I don't I don't even know how I
Speaker 1: would feel walking into the room and people like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want your kind to deal me And this
Speaker 1: is a profession that I wanted to get involved with.
Speaker 1: That mustn't really tough, man. So how did you make
Speaker 1: the transition from doing all of those things to TV?
Speaker 1: How did that even come about? Um? When I came
Speaker 1: to Atlanta, I came, like I said, in ninety nine,
Speaker 1: at some point Real Housewife of Atlanta started And at
Speaker 1: the time they started, uh, you know, I was watching
Speaker 1: Cecil and I watched a lot of reality TV show
Speaker 1: even before that, like Survivors, uh, the American Idol, those
Speaker 1: kind of shows. Anyway, one day, out of the blue,
Speaker 1: one of my patients who I had also become friends with,
Speaker 1: she asked me, you know, would you be willing I'm
Speaker 1: trying to develop some concepts, would you be willing to audition?
Speaker 1: So I auditioned two or three years UM. I had
Speaker 1: received an email from a lawyer friend of mine who
Speaker 1: knew that the Doctor's show was starting UM on ABC.
Speaker 1: I auditioned for that, but at the time, never having
Speaker 1: been in television, never auditioned for anything in television. Before
Speaker 1: interviewing for the Doctors and now what it's called Mary
Speaker 1: to Medicine, I didn't. I didn't wear makeup other than lipstick.
Speaker 1: I didn't wear makeup. I didn't where we've and so
Speaker 1: you know, I'm interviewing without makeup with without you know,
Speaker 1: we've And finally on the third audition, the third audition
Speaker 1: for this concept for Mary to Medicine, my girlfriend she
Speaker 1: said to me, she said, I want you to get
Speaker 1: professional makeup. I want you to put on your cutest
Speaker 1: black dress and give it to him. And so again
Speaker 1: it was a concept. I knew I didn't want to
Speaker 1: be on housewives. I enjoyed watching them, but I didn't
Speaker 1: think I had the stamina to be on housewives and UM,
Speaker 1: and so I just was like, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: lose anything by auditioning for this show. I would love
Speaker 1: to be on TV. And then boom, I get a call, Hey,
Speaker 1: you've been chosen for Married to Medicine. Bravo has picked
Speaker 1: us up and we're gonna shoot a show. So I'm like, okay, bet,
Speaker 1: still not knowing exactly what I was getting into. But
Speaker 1: what I would say, having been on my show now
Speaker 1: for nine years, is that I love my show. There
Speaker 1: are some things about it that are amazing and fantastic,
Speaker 1: and I've certainly been in the room with some people
Speaker 1: I would not have been in the room with otherwise.
Speaker 1: And then there's the down part where women you like
Speaker 1: or you think you trust, we fall out and we're
Speaker 1: not speaking anymore. UM. That has probably been the toughest
Speaker 1: part of reality TV for me. How many seasons have
Speaker 1: you been on? Nine? So it was it nine years?
Speaker 1: So okay, I'm one of the o gs. Oh wow
Speaker 1: you from the beginning of nine years. It's the season
Speaker 1: every year is that Oh my gosh, that's a that's
Speaker 1: a lot of filming, UM And we know because we
Speaker 1: film also for things, and we filmed a lot of
Speaker 1: UM of the not this season, but the season prior
Speaker 1: of um loving hip hop because they were with us
Speaker 1: in Kentucky while we were fighting for Brianna Taylor. Remember
Speaker 1: saying that, Yeah, the cast members joined us and so
Speaker 1: we did a lot. And I'll tell you so much
Speaker 1: of it is harrying up to wait. You know, everybody's
Speaker 1: got a Harry, Harry Harry and then you do nothing
Speaker 1: but sit around and wait to actually film the show. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's it's it's a lot of work. But do
Speaker 1: you have regrets because I know that it's taken you
Speaker 1: away from your children at time. Obviously you know, we
Speaker 1: all know that there's been challenges in your marriage that
Speaker 1: played out on TV. Like, do you have regrets that
Speaker 1: your whole life has sort of been on the big
Speaker 1: screen or you at this point just like you know,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: coming from Nashville, you are very very assertive. Um. Just
Speaker 1: you know, watching you here, you would one would think, okay,
Speaker 1: you came from I don't know exactly where in Nashville,
Speaker 1: but a town in Nashville. Maybe you wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: person to decide to become a doctor because you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps you might not want to go in the rooms
Speaker 1: as my son said, But then, okay, you overcome that.
Speaker 1: Now you go and you, after all these other things,
Speaker 1: you get on TV and decided to to put yourself
Speaker 1: out there. It's very, very empowering for someone who's sitting
Speaker 1: in not Nashville or a country town around this country
Speaker 1: that they can become very much like you if they
Speaker 1: take chances. I think that it is important, number one,
Speaker 1: to surround yourself by people of like mind, who are
Speaker 1: who aspire to be successful and to be the best
Speaker 1: that they can be at whatever it is a person chooses,
Speaker 1: it just so happened for me. My love was science,
Speaker 1: and medicine was the next best step for me. But
Speaker 1: what I say is that being on TV has definitely
Speaker 1: had its challenges. But I come as my authentic self.
Speaker 1: I don't try to pretend to be somebody that I'm not.
Speaker 1: I don't try to act out in a way that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't act out in my normal life without the camera. Um,
Speaker 1: it is a very taxing for months out of the
Speaker 1: year when we film, because you're busy, and I tell
Speaker 1: anybody it's like working to full time jobs. At the
Speaker 1: same time, we have had the same production company for
Speaker 1: nine years and they accommodate my schedule as a doctor.
Speaker 1: So everyone understands that I'm in solo practice. I share
Speaker 1: night and weekend call with some other ladies, but not
Speaker 1: the daytime. And so in the daytime, if I'm filming
Speaker 1: and I say to the production crew, hey, my lady
Speaker 1: is ten centimeter she's feeling pressure. I gotta go, everybody
Speaker 1: just understands and they get it. And you know, the
Speaker 1: production crew, they get excited. Uh they have rigged my
Speaker 1: car with camera us so that they can, you know,
Speaker 1: see me drive down to the hospital and fuss at
Speaker 1: the people in traffic to get out of my way
Speaker 1: so I can hurry up and get to my baby.
Speaker 1: But again, that part of it has been amazing. Now
Speaker 1: there are some parts where you know, production says, hey
Speaker 1: show up at seven pm and you get there at
Speaker 1: seven and they're not ready for you. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: be ready until seven seven. That's what this is for.
Speaker 1: So in my car, my laptop is there. Every time
Speaker 1: my head somewhere, my laptop is there. Because you learn
Speaker 1: how to utilize that extra thirty forty five minutes until
Speaker 1: they're ready for you. I'm a people part. You are
Speaker 1: a real medical doctor, like absolutely just a TV doctor,
Speaker 1: real medical profession, that's right. I am boy certified and
Speaker 1: O B, G I N. And I have been in
Speaker 1: private practice since nineteen ninety seven. How may deliver? What
Speaker 1: do you think about you? You know, like I said,
Speaker 1: I've been in private practice since nineteen nine seven and
Speaker 1: I deliver about a hundred and two hundred babies a year.
Speaker 1: Since COVID, how how has COVID like impacted the O
Speaker 1: G Y N professional? How do you see an impact
Speaker 1: especially black women? How do you how do you see
Speaker 1: that plan out? I think COVID truly highlighted the healthcare
Speaker 1: disparities with African Americans. Baby, we are at the top
Speaker 1: of the list for everything that gets ignored. So I
Speaker 1: feel like now my schedule is just overflowing with black
Speaker 1: women who want to see a black woman. And that
Speaker 1: was something I had never felt in my career. Yes,
Speaker 1: sometimes the patient would come in and say, oh, I
Speaker 1: was looking for a like doctor and I found you.
Speaker 1: But the majority of the time of patients come in
Speaker 1: and just say, oh, you were in my zip code
Speaker 1: or my insurance company said you are on my plan.
Speaker 1: And now the majority of the women I see new patients,
Speaker 1: they have sought specifically sought out a black female. UM
Speaker 1: George Floyd's death, and not to discount anybody else's like
Speaker 1: Brianna Taylor or Mark Aubrey, but George Floyd's death and
Speaker 1: COVID how really brought to the forefront and highlighted the
Speaker 1: disparities that we as African Americans have by the disparities
Speaker 1: with the police force, in the health care system. And
Speaker 1: I think that again, it is a wonderful thing to
Speaker 1: see people rise to the occasion. I know that something
Speaker 1: needs to be done. But when I say pe boll,
Speaker 1: I mean everybody, not just blacks, also whites, because this
Speaker 1: was the first time you even see marketing a little
Speaker 1: bit different with some of these major companies now and brands.
Speaker 1: And I think that, um, we have suffered a long time.
Speaker 1: We have suffered a lot, and I do feel like
Speaker 1: some people are trying to make amends. We have a
Speaker 1: long way to go, but we as blacks, we have
Speaker 1: to we have to own accountability and we have to
Speaker 1: put ourselves first. And when I say own accountability, you
Speaker 1: know when you get pregnant, you really need to number one.
Speaker 1: Especially with role versus way being overturned. You need to
Speaker 1: be in a relationship with somebody you want to have
Speaker 1: a baby with. In today's time, you want to be
Speaker 1: in the best health. You want to be on your
Speaker 1: prenatal vitamin. You really want to be at your best way.
Speaker 1: Because when you come into the pres men see and
Speaker 1: you're morbid Leo Bees or you're almost morbid Leo Bees,
Speaker 1: you have a higher risk of everything, higher risk of
Speaker 1: preterm labor, higher risk of pre acclamsy, higher risk of
Speaker 1: gestational diabetes, higher risk of dying in labor and childbirth.
Speaker 1: And so you have to know that you've got to
Speaker 1: take the best care of yourself. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: don't get pregnant if you're overweight, do it, but just
Speaker 1: know and try to be attentive beyond time to those
Speaker 1: pre natal visits and follow those to a t. If
Speaker 1: the doctor asks you to start medication for high blood pressure,
Speaker 1: start the medication despite your mama telling you not to.
Speaker 1: Because those are the some of the challenges that we
Speaker 1: have where patients will come in and they'll say, well,
Speaker 1: my mama said I shouldn't take that medication. But I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're black. I'm black, and I'm asking you to take
Speaker 1: the medication. And what I try to reassure my patients.
Speaker 1: I don't come in with a bunch of medical jargon.
Speaker 1: I talk to you as if you were my best girlfriend,
Speaker 1: if you were my sister, UM, because I want you
Speaker 1: to understand that you and I are the same, we
Speaker 1: are no different, And I take care of you because
Speaker 1: I love my job and for no other reason. So
Speaker 1: you find so you have found that. UM. I guess
Speaker 1: when I'm hearing you say on the accountability piece, and
Speaker 1: it is always very triggering when we hear people talking
Speaker 1: about black folks taking accountability because we feel like we're
Speaker 1: always we always have to be accountable for everything and
Speaker 1: we are forced to. Um you know, I guess we
Speaker 1: we deal with the harshest of society everything. But when
Speaker 1: I hear when I hear it in the context for
Speaker 1: which you were just saying, you gotta take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: You're gonna get pregnant right now. Again, like you said,
Speaker 1: Roe v. Wade has been overturned. Many states are having
Speaker 1: issues with the right to choose. We even have issues
Speaker 1: where um, you know, people are unable to get access
Speaker 1: to birth control. So if you're having sex, you have
Speaker 1: to make the right decisions, make sure that whomever you're
Speaker 1: engaging with is someone that's taking care of themselves so
Speaker 1: that they can take care of you. And your body
Speaker 1: must be taken care of. You know, you just said
Speaker 1: your weight. You talked about your prenative vitamins. I know
Speaker 1: so many young women that don't take prenative vitamins. They
Speaker 1: don't take them at all, you know, And then once
Speaker 1: they have a baby, there are other challenges that exist
Speaker 1: in terms of how they're still either taking care of
Speaker 1: themselves and their baby or not. And so from that perspective,
Speaker 1: accountability sounds right, you know, it sounds right. We have
Speaker 1: to be smarter about the decisions that we make. And
Speaker 1: I wonder, as you're in this field, do you find
Speaker 1: yourself being more like you said, good girlfriend? You know,
Speaker 1: do you find yourself being like a therapist for so
Speaker 1: many women? And and not so much that you're unable
Speaker 1: to do your job, but you spend a lot of
Speaker 1: time being drained by having to wear those that have
Speaker 1: of of counseling and coaching women along. So let me
Speaker 1: say that it is not draining. And and I do
Speaker 1: often get in trouble when I say accountability, but in
Speaker 1: a major metropolitan area, like Atlanta. All of these young people,
Speaker 1: they have cell phones. So if some doctor gives you
Speaker 1: a diagnosis, I need for you to get on Google.
Speaker 1: We're googling everything else. We're googling the lyrics to this phone.
Speaker 1: We're googling the latest trend and outfits. Get on Google,
Speaker 1: right down the name of you know this disorder or
Speaker 1: disease that the doctor has given you. Get on Google.
Speaker 1: Do some research about that disease. Be able to come
Speaker 1: the next time and ask questions and say, hey, you
Speaker 1: said that, How did you come to this conclusion? What
Speaker 1: are my treatment options? Oh? You only gave me one
Speaker 1: treatment options, but I read over here there are two
Speaker 1: other ones. How do you feel about that? And understanding
Speaker 1: that we have choices. You don't get the right answer
Speaker 1: with Dr A. It's time to head on over to
Speaker 1: Dr B. I know that everyone doesn't have access. I
Speaker 1: know that UM and we're not all. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm a teacher. I'm an educator in my job. I
Speaker 1: am a therapist in my job, and what I try
Speaker 1: to do is help women understand. I had a patient
Speaker 1: one time, Boo, when she had gotten pregnant by someone
Speaker 1: she was dating for less than six months. They broke
Speaker 1: up during the pregnancy, hit moved on. He got a
Speaker 1: new girlfriend. Now she has the baby, and he's telling
Speaker 1: her that he wants a DNA test, and she was
Speaker 1: so upset and so angry, and I said to her,
Speaker 1: I said, listen, I said, if I have two sons
Speaker 1: and so a DNA were request, even though you know
Speaker 1: you have been with him, it it is not an
Speaker 1: unreasonable request that he's asking. And also for legal reasons,
Speaker 1: once you have that declared that he is the father,
Speaker 1: you can hold him accountable financially. That's sort of a thing.
Speaker 1: So this is not a negative thing that he's asking you.
Speaker 1: But I try to just have empathy when I'm talking
Speaker 1: to my patients, but I also try to get them
Speaker 1: to take some accountability to for actions and what are
Speaker 1: we gonna do differently moving forward with the next guy
Speaker 1: that we choose to have sex with. For fan, don't
Speaker 1: have sex. I was a young person who had sex.
Speaker 1: But let's let's go into the relationship thinking of me,
Speaker 1: myself and I when we enter that relationship, it must
Speaker 1: be a lot because when I'm listening to you, right,
Speaker 1: I have a feel like I have phobias, and like
Speaker 1: doctors and all types of things like that. So a
Speaker 1: lot of us are scared to ask questions, right, A
Speaker 1: lot of us are scared to go against the doctor.
Speaker 1: The doctor says something, you don't you know you you
Speaker 1: just go with the doctor says you don't You don't
Speaker 1: really question that. A lot of us have that. Do
Speaker 1: you find that a lot of people that you deal
Speaker 1: with have those same issues that you have to give
Speaker 1: them levels of courage to even inquire about the health.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I worked so hard on my
Speaker 1: bedside manner is to break down that barrier. If you
Speaker 1: see me like I'm your friend, like we could kick it,
Speaker 1: because at the end of the day, I'm a human
Speaker 1: being just like you are. If you see me like that,
Speaker 1: I think it helps too to humanize doctors and know that, okay,
Speaker 1: I can ask her questions. And I also think it
Speaker 1: helps the patients to realize in any other setting. So
Speaker 1: that's the relationship I have with my O, B g U,
Speaker 1: I N. I need to look for that relationship with
Speaker 1: the primary care doctor, with the cardiologists, with the end
Speaker 1: of chronologists. And what I always remind patients is that
Speaker 1: different doctors have different personalities. That's okay, but in a
Speaker 1: major metropolitan area like Atlanta, d C, Houston, you got options,
Speaker 1: and don't just settle if somebody is asking you, if
Speaker 1: you're asking a question and somebody is not answering those questions.
Speaker 1: And again Google is a good source of information, but
Speaker 1: if you can't go in to your doctor or and
Speaker 1: discuss what you read on Google, that's a problem. And
Speaker 1: the more and more that we educate young people, you know,
Speaker 1: even when I give the opportunity to give lecture and
Speaker 1: there are older people in the room, again, I keep
Speaker 1: it simple when we talk about cardiovascular disease with strokes
Speaker 1: and heart attacks, I tell them, if you know every
Speaker 1: Sunday you're going by the Popeyes, we got a problem
Speaker 1: because the Popeye's is not the best thing for you.
Speaker 1: And we gotta do more fruits and vegetables, fresh fruits
Speaker 1: and vegetables and just talking two people and educating in
Speaker 1: a way that we get it. It's not that complicated,
Speaker 1: it's not that threatening, but in a way that we
Speaker 1: can reach the masses. Yeah, well, I am. I can
Speaker 1: hear from the way in which you're speaking that you
Speaker 1: have the type of doctor that doesn't run out of
Speaker 1: the room in five minutes because you know, most most
Speaker 1: those offices they back it up ten minutes with the patient,
Speaker 1: which includes actually doing the physical portion and the conversation
Speaker 1: and as also O B G y ms. I've had
Speaker 1: many um that you know that I did not I
Speaker 1: didn't feel I didn't. I just didn't feel protected, respected
Speaker 1: or even um And you know, as I've gotten older.
Speaker 1: In fact, I was on a I did a show
Speaker 1: with Jada Pinkett Smith, a red table talk uh some
Speaker 1: time back, and there was a woman there who broke
Speaker 1: down how dangerous it is for your doctor not to
Speaker 1: pay attention and spend time with you, and how that
Speaker 1: led to some very serious health challenges that she had.
Speaker 1: And I left there and made a decision that I
Speaker 1: would not go back to the doctor that I had
Speaker 1: because she just didn't treat me well, you know, and
Speaker 1: I honestly I didn't even like her. And I always thought,
Speaker 1: like my son growing up, it didn't matter. It was
Speaker 1: like a transaction. You just go to the doctors and
Speaker 1: you don't have to like them. You just go. You
Speaker 1: get done with it. Is they can be rude to you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter, because it's just enough that I've learned
Speaker 1: that a relationship with your doctor. It's super important. So
Speaker 1: you talked about spreading your message to the world, and
Speaker 1: now you have a book that I've heard. I think
Speaker 1: that you're not telling folks the name of the book yet.
Speaker 1: But do we know what the book is about? And
Speaker 1: how do people stay in touch with you other than
Speaker 1: watching your show? What are some other ways that folks
Speaker 1: can stay in touch with you to, you know, learn
Speaker 1: more about the tips of taking care of themselves as
Speaker 1: black women. So Number one, Cecil and I were writing
Speaker 1: a couple's book because we have been married for twenty
Speaker 1: six years and we wanted to be able to share
Speaker 1: some of the anothers that have kept us together. I
Speaker 1: filed for divorce inen we were have being s marital
Speaker 1: problems that I didn't think we were gonna be able
Speaker 1: to overcome. And let me say, if it were not
Speaker 1: for a reality TV and for the couples that are
Speaker 1: on my show that believe in marriage, that believe in
Speaker 1: sticking in through the tough times, Cecil and I would
Speaker 1: not have made it. We are both very, very stubborn
Speaker 1: people were headed down a divorce track. Not angry. He
Speaker 1: wasn't angry, I wasn't angry. Um but just you know,
Speaker 1: we had backed up in our corner like I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna compromise with you anymore. And it it was the
Speaker 1: cast that got in our faces during Reunion, I think
Speaker 1: season five. They got in our faces and helped us
Speaker 1: realize that we should be fighting for our marriage just
Speaker 1: like they were fighting for our marriage, both of us.
Speaker 1: And we hadn't dealt with anything that was significant enough
Speaker 1: that we should have even been going through a divorce
Speaker 1: in the first place. But I am a woman who
Speaker 1: wallows in my pettiness in my buildings, and that was
Speaker 1: part of the struggle. But let me say that I
Speaker 1: am on UM. Most of the social media platforms uh, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter,
Speaker 1: I don't spend a lot of time on social media
Speaker 1: UM and I you know, most of my posts are social,
Speaker 1: they're not medical. When I get the opportunity wherever I'm
Speaker 1: asked to come and give a medical lecture, I do that.
Speaker 1: One year, I came to a room full of midwives
Speaker 1: and doulas. I was asked to come there by the
Speaker 1: one of the women who helped put that event on,
Speaker 1: and I got booed. I got booed when I talked
Speaker 1: about black women taking some accountability and learning to go
Speaker 1: on Google. Um. I got booed when I stated that, yes,
Speaker 1: a doula is welcome in the living room, but she
Speaker 1: has to know her place. There's a place for the
Speaker 1: do Look who has a certificate in training and there's
Speaker 1: my place who has a doctorate in medicine and who
Speaker 1: had a residency training for four years. And we're not
Speaker 1: on the same level. But the goal of the patients
Speaker 1: should be the same and there should not be an
Speaker 1: antagon antagonistic relationship in the delivery room. Um. Again, I
Speaker 1: know the type of care. They didn't go well. It
Speaker 1: didn't go well. They were angry. Yeah, it didn't go well.
Speaker 1: But I but again, I I still by what I
Speaker 1: said because I know the type of doctor I am.
Speaker 1: I'm not spending five minutes with my patients, and I
Speaker 1: try to connect on a level that's personal. Tell me
Speaker 1: what your Thanksgiving plans are, tell me you know? Um
Speaker 1: And like I saw patients, it's more ning who She's
Speaker 1: had three deaths, three family depths in a very short
Speaker 1: period of time. And I said to her, are you
Speaker 1: in grief counseling? Have you thought about it? And I
Speaker 1: said to her, when my dad died in I got
Speaker 1: in grief counseling and so and people. Even before I
Speaker 1: was on TV, people heard about my husband, my children,
Speaker 1: because again, it's a whole human connection that we should
Speaker 1: be having and you shouldn't just think of me as
Speaker 1: some sterile person out there. I don't wear a white
Speaker 1: coat in the office because I don't want the stigma
Speaker 1: that someone might place on me. I don't want you
Speaker 1: to come in and have high blood pressure because you're
Speaker 1: anxious about coming to see me. That's not what I
Speaker 1: want our relationship to be based on. Well, we appreciate you,
Speaker 1: doctor Simone. You're very unique. That is absolutely for sure.
Speaker 1: You're unique as a doctor, unique to be a doctor
Speaker 1: who is also on tv UM and you know you.
Speaker 1: I think there's so much listening to you. It's very
Speaker 1: clear that and you said you're a teacher that at
Speaker 1: some point to me in your future, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: in front of classrooms around the world trying to help
Speaker 1: people learn how to treat patients better UM and how
Speaker 1: to you know, really, like you said, take accountability for
Speaker 1: yourself and your health. I think that message is important
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And like I said, when you
Speaker 1: first said it, I was triggered, like, oh boy, we're
Speaker 1: always being told to take accountability. But after I listened
Speaker 1: to you, I know what you're saying is true. We
Speaker 1: do have to be responsible for our We have to
Speaker 1: do our part is basically, and we can't expect somebody else.
Speaker 1: And I tell my patients when your blood pressure is
Speaker 1: guy high, and I tell you to leave here and
Speaker 1: go straight to the hospital, don't run to the walmart
Speaker 1: because you're gonna piss me off. And I cannot care
Speaker 1: more about you than you care about yourself. And that's
Speaker 1: how I talk to them. And you know, some patients
Speaker 1: are gonna love my personality and some people are gonna
Speaker 1: be like, oh I can't. I don't like her. As
Speaker 1: long as you know that you come from a place
Speaker 1: of love and you're doing it genuinely and you care
Speaker 1: about them, you know, I say the same thing. I'm
Speaker 1: not for everybody, but I know that if for you,
Speaker 1: when you get it, you got it. So we just
Speaker 1: want to say for the work that you do, for
Speaker 1: your energy, you know, for what you came to the show,
Speaker 1: what you want of our friends now, so we're gonna
Speaker 1: definitely have you up here. Then continue to be great queen,
Speaker 1: and you know we love what you represent and you
Speaker 1: all keep doing your thing. Um, it's amazing to watch. UM.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it inspires me and makes me want to be
Speaker 1: more active, UM and at least doing my part. I
Speaker 1: want to say that one year I was so caught up,
Speaker 1: that was the year of uh, George Floor Briana Taylor,
Speaker 1: that I went to the training to be a poll
Speaker 1: worker at at the election stations. But again, you know,
Speaker 1: we fall off the wagon. We don't do We get
Speaker 1: caught up in our own lives and busy little lives.
Speaker 1: But it's you are inspiring people every day. So I
Speaker 1: hope you all just keep doing what you're doing. Well.
Speaker 1: You inspire us and will inspire you. Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: So I know I can tell by um, by the
Speaker 1: way that Dr Simone presents herself how on the show
Speaker 1: everybody is clashing because she's so confident and she wants
Speaker 1: to talk about accountability and she's very she's you know,
Speaker 1: I think we share a little bit of the like
Speaker 1: um count familiar. She sounds like a little like you know,
Speaker 1: you know everything. We know everything about it, all right,
Speaker 1: and but you know, as you said, so long as
Speaker 1: it's coming from a place of love. Um, I think
Speaker 1: it's important and to get the show, because I think
Speaker 1: the show that's cool, and that's her a platform for her.
Speaker 1: But in her medical rooms, you know, and her bedside
Speaker 1: man as she said that to me is what I
Speaker 1: was most interested in. And I hope that what people
Speaker 1: take from this conversation is, Yeah, like I said, she
Speaker 1: came from Nashville. You know, she has worked her way.
Speaker 1: She had the support of her parents helping her with
Speaker 1: her dreams. You know. Willow said something the other day
Speaker 1: that I thought was so powerful. He's like, if your
Speaker 1: kids have these sort of you know, wild grandiose ideas,
Speaker 1: don't shoot them down, right, like, support them because if
Speaker 1: you support their dreams, you never know where might go.
Speaker 1: And because of the fact that you know, her father
Speaker 1: pushed her and said, know, you need to become a
Speaker 1: doctor so you can make money. And then her mom
Speaker 1: invested in her and did whatever it was necess because
Speaker 1: even though you get financial aid, going to Spellman still costs.
Speaker 1: It's still expenses all around. It's a penny. And her
Speaker 1: mom did that despite the fact that her dad left,
Speaker 1: So you know, it's an it's encouraging and inspirational to
Speaker 1: know that no matter what, she kept pushing on, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and pushed her way through, and people supported her,
Speaker 1: got her all the way to a school that supports
Speaker 1: black people important, you know, going to an HVC. You So,
Speaker 1: by the time she made it what it sounds like
Speaker 1: to me, by the time she made it to medical
Speaker 1: school where she did experience racism, she already had embedded
Speaker 1: in her who she is, you know. So Spellman already
Speaker 1: gave her a good foundation and she used the rest
Speaker 1: of it as tools to get to where she is now.
Speaker 1: And where she is now is an important place because
Speaker 1: black women and black men need, uh medical physicians that
Speaker 1: help you not just with your whatever they're focused on,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, your v J J or your head,
Speaker 1: your ears, your eyes, whatever it is the heart, but
Speaker 1: also looking at your life holistically. And so you know,
Speaker 1: the fact that she approaches it from that perspective, I
Speaker 1: think that's like really really important. It's really really important, No,
Speaker 1: it is. It is just you know, like you said,
Speaker 1: the level of confidence that she has the energy is
Speaker 1: what got her through all those things. Just listening to
Speaker 1: the different levels of things that she went through, and
Speaker 1: she doesn't seem she seemed unscaped. She seemed like she
Speaker 1: was prepared. She didn't say when I walked into the
Speaker 1: room and they said we don't want to see your kind,
Speaker 1: that it broke or made like she said, okay, I
Speaker 1: was fine with it, you know, And and she continued
Speaker 1: to move on whatever it gave, whatever life gave a
Speaker 1: little limits, she continued to make lemonade. So I love
Speaker 1: her energy, you know, I love her ability to continue
Speaker 1: on like she will. As like explaining her in the
Speaker 1: room full of dulas, you know, as a doctor, it's
Speaker 1: like taboo kind of because it's kind of like, even
Speaker 1: though they're supposed to work together, just don't believe in
Speaker 1: modern medicine. They don't believe that there's a lot of
Speaker 1: things that they have in common. So her still standing
Speaker 1: on her pivot and that I would love to have
Speaker 1: seen seeking her just like yeah, you know, well, because
Speaker 1: she's firm and her conviction, she believes what she believes work.
Speaker 1: She's educated, So you know, I think she's got a
Speaker 1: lot of time to talk about it. But part of
Speaker 1: the issue with the duelas is not so much her
Speaker 1: as one doctor, but the system that she represents. And
Speaker 1: so you know, so I get it. I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's actually a good follow up, Congo. But do they
Speaker 1: have doctors for male parts? No, there's no doctor, like
Speaker 1: how we have over g ry and they don't have
Speaker 1: like the doctor for the male Um, we have the doctor.
Speaker 1: I don't know exactly what they probably do. I just don't.
Speaker 1: We're called like, you know, we just go see the doctor.
Speaker 1: We gotta go see the doctors to something wrong. Okay, thanks,
Speaker 1: you know. But on another topic, my my, I don't
Speaker 1: get it today. It's about something I've seen and we
Speaker 1: didn't get to talk about on the show yet. And
Speaker 1: it was one savage. He made a statement and he said,
Speaker 1: we're talking about Nos this new album and NAS and
Speaker 1: I believe they were on Clubhouse and you know, no,
Speaker 1: I just dropped a classic album album that I listened
Speaker 1: to is really dope. And over the last couple of years,
Speaker 1: NAS has constantly dropped projects the King Disease one, two,
Speaker 1: and three, which I think our stellar pieces of World,
Speaker 1: along with hit Boy, and you know it's released. So
Speaker 1: it was a conversation on Clubhouse and he made a
Speaker 1: statement that just kind of threw me off. I just
Speaker 1: didn't get it. He said. He said, Nas it's irrelevant.
Speaker 1: He just has a um consistent? Was it? He said consistent?
Speaker 1: He has a he said he's irrelevant, but he as
Speaker 1: a consistent And I didn't understand how do you get
Speaker 1: a consistent fan base if you're irrelevant? Right, I didn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't really understand that, Like what makes what is
Speaker 1: the the criteria for irrelevancy? And I hear that a
Speaker 1: lot of times with a lot of younger artists, and
Speaker 1: I think we've been taught that and and and I
Speaker 1: understood it when I was young, right, Because when I
Speaker 1: was young, seventies eighties, that's when hip hop started, right,
Speaker 1: So hip hop was a young persons sport, I mean
Speaker 1: young person's field. But now hip hop turned fifty this year,
Speaker 1: So that means that people who were listening to hip
Speaker 1: hop at at twenty in the seventies are damned seventies
Speaker 1: some of them or seven need right now you're the
Speaker 1: same saying, so hip hop is way older. So the
Speaker 1: journey has spread out and the definition and you know,
Speaker 1: different um core groups listen to and a lot of
Speaker 1: us are able to relate more than the people before
Speaker 1: us was because hip hop was young then it was
Speaker 1: just one thing. So as we grew older, we started
Speaker 1: to adapt different pieces. We took pieces from blues, we
Speaker 1: took pieces from hip, probably took piece from rock and roll,
Speaker 1: and we're able to incorporate. And I think that's what
Speaker 1: NAS has been able to do. He's been able to
Speaker 1: recreate itself and and even grab younger fans. Like a
Speaker 1: lot of younger people, my son knows Nas is music,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying that twenty so he's able
Speaker 1: to continue to captivate. So I think that this premise
Speaker 1: of being irrelevant as you become an older artist, it
Speaker 1: just to me, it doesn't really I don't really get it.
Speaker 1: I don't understand it. It doesn't really make sense to me.
Speaker 1: I think we need to, um just kill that. Kill that.
Speaker 1: Um mind state that because somebody's older than they irrelevant,
Speaker 1: you know, and they because they don't because they didn't.
Speaker 1: Actually the word was wrong. The word was wrong. And
Speaker 1: also it was something else you said that I wanted
Speaker 1: to respond to. You said that, um oh, hip hop.
Speaker 1: You know, it evolved. I think a part of evolution
Speaker 1: is that it became much more cultural. If it became fashion,
Speaker 1: it became food, it became everything, all the things you
Speaker 1: could think of, But I guess what I could say
Speaker 1: to which, by the way, I thought I saw somewhere
Speaker 1: the twenty one Savage basically, Um, you know, when being
Speaker 1: challenged on his word, he said something else, and I
Speaker 1: have no idea what it is, but I think he
Speaker 1: not so much cleaned it up but tried to correct
Speaker 1: whatever it is that people felt or what he said.
Speaker 1: So check that out. But anyway, UM, I think, like
Speaker 1: if you're even in my own life, like at forty two,
Speaker 1: I am not irrelevant in any way, but there are
Speaker 1: younger people coming up behind me that will probably be
Speaker 1: and they are in many ways they're hot. Like you know,
Speaker 1: I think about Tiffany Loften. This is a young lady
Speaker 1: who if people have to make a decision about like
Speaker 1: who they're going to call to organize certain things, I
Speaker 1: would tell them they should if they could get her,
Speaker 1: they should go with her, because she's got her finger
Speaker 1: more on the pulse in terms of like student debt
Speaker 1: and you know, issues that matter to younger people. But
Speaker 1: Tiffany also calls me every few days so that we
Speaker 1: can talk through what she's working on. So it's a
Speaker 1: yang and yang. I'm not trying to be the older
Speaker 1: person that stays in the mix forever and and does
Speaker 1: not allow an evolution of our younger people activists, and
Speaker 1: you know, we would say the same for artists and
Speaker 1: otherwise to grow and to come into their own But
Speaker 1: it doesn't make me irrelevant. What I do understand, though,
Speaker 1: is this idea that a part of it is your
Speaker 1: fan your your supporters that have been with you, that
Speaker 1: will always be with you, which is a strong support base.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean that you're able necessarily to tap
Speaker 1: into the younger group of people or those who are
Speaker 1: sort of coming in. So do youth make you relevant? No, Well,
Speaker 1: if I don't think it's youth, even though I think
Speaker 1: youth represents time right, And so what they will say
Speaker 1: in churches, I've heard past to say, if there are
Speaker 1: no young people in your congregation, the church is dying
Speaker 1: because the older people are going to be out the door.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have new inn g coming into
Speaker 1: the church, then it begins to lose sort of it's gravitas,
Speaker 1: it loses its place, That's what I'm trying to tell you.
Speaker 1: So that so that means if you if if you gotta,
Speaker 1: if if if a church has a core fan base
Speaker 1: of ten and fifteen thousand people in the in the
Speaker 1: stage there, right, I mean if you got a core fan,
Speaker 1: So how how could you ever be irrelevant with that
Speaker 1: kind of fan? If you look at if you look
Speaker 1: at Reverend Reverend Jakes, right, I don't, I can't. I
Speaker 1: don't see the older he gets. I don't see his
Speaker 1: relevancy diminishing. I don't really see, but I don't. So,
Speaker 1: so this is what I'm saying. I think the word
Speaker 1: relevant is wrong and I am unable to find a
Speaker 1: new word at this time. You know, words is like
Speaker 1: my thing that I'm always working on. What is the
Speaker 1: word that I want to say? Um, So, relevance is
Speaker 1: not the right terminology. But but even TV Jake's recently
Speaker 1: installed his daughter, uh Sarah Jake's over women art Thou,
Speaker 1: which has now changed to I think women evolved, because
Speaker 1: even he understands that as he gets older, Yes, the
Speaker 1: members of his church will probably be with him forever,
Speaker 1: but it will be it will begin to die off
Speaker 1: if he does not bring the daughter's energy. I think
Speaker 1: that's I think that's how you become, that's how you
Speaker 1: stay well, if you if you're not incorporated, if you're
Speaker 1: not incorporated the current energy and the current you know,
Speaker 1: um and things of that nature. If you're not incorporating
Speaker 1: those things, then of course you're going to die. But
Speaker 1: I think if you have the ability to be able
Speaker 1: to incorporate those things and stay current and those things
Speaker 1: and attach yourself two things and bring out the newest
Speaker 1: young artists and see the New York I don't understand
Speaker 1: the level of how the reason why. I'm only just
Speaker 1: trying to have grace for the fact that sometimes when
Speaker 1: we're trying to articulate something we might not have the
Speaker 1: right language or even understand what it is we're saying.
Speaker 1: But when I think about the thought process, right when
Speaker 1: I try to just come just taking out the word irrelevant,
Speaker 1: because that's a bad word, because we can say twenty
Speaker 1: one savage is irrelevant, right, somebody could say that right now,
Speaker 1: it's right, so everybody, so we go. So I don't
Speaker 1: think that that word is the right word. But I
Speaker 1: understand the concept of basically saying your fan base will
Speaker 1: be with you. However, you may not be able to
Speaker 1: tap into the new eighteen seventeen, eighteen nine, twenty year old,
Speaker 1: which is such a major part of that I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true. Because if you if you, if
Speaker 1: you got if you tap into the nineteen twenty year
Speaker 1: old at and you do it for two years and
Speaker 1: you don't hold onto them for two for more than
Speaker 1: two years, what does that really mean? What? But but
Speaker 1: but what we're debating here is that I'm telling you
Speaker 1: irrelevance is a wrong word. I'm just saying that. Looking
Speaker 1: beyond that and having a deeper conversation, we know irrelevance
Speaker 1: is not the right word. But looking beyond that, there
Speaker 1: is certainly something to the idea that a part of
Speaker 1: you said it. A part of staying relevant is knowing
Speaker 1: when your time it to sort of cultivate your base,
Speaker 1: but make space for other people to come through the pipeline.
Speaker 1: That actually is a part of maintaining your relevance. So
Speaker 1: that's all I was gonna say. With that said, nas
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite artists, and I think this
Speaker 1: artists artists, you know, you know, you know how make
Speaker 1: up words. He's one of my artists. And his album
Speaker 1: is Dope, Go Get the King Disease three and I don't,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't see him dying out in relevance
Speaker 1: and As long as we continue to have our feet
Speaker 1: in this soil and pay attention and listen and here,
Speaker 1: we're never gonna be irrelevant. One savage pay attention man.
Speaker 1: If you can do what NAS has done, if you
Speaker 1: can captivate audience for twenty plus years like NAS has done,
Speaker 1: you'll never be a relative. I'm not gonna always be
Speaker 1: right to make a de Mallory is not gonna always
Speaker 1: be wrong, but we will both always and I mean always,
Speaker 1: be authentic. Have a happy gobble gobble Thanksgiving. Listen to
Speaker 1: Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on I Heart
Speaker 1: Radio and catch us every single Wednesday for the video
Speaker 1: version of Street Politicians or I Women dot tv