Speaker 1: What's good Family, it's your girl to make a d
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy, my son in general, and
Speaker 1: we are your hosts of street politicians, the place where
Speaker 1: in the streets and politics meet. What's good, my son Lennon,
Speaker 1: how you doing today? I'm blessing honey favor. How are
Speaker 1: you feeling? You know, I know Mother's Day just happened.
Speaker 1: Happy related Mother's Day. Even though I said it on
Speaker 1: Mother's Day, I'm saying it down during the show, thank
Speaker 1: you very much. Mother's Day was actually really really nice.
Speaker 1: I spent uh a lot of time with my own mama,
Speaker 1: and I guess that's really all you can ask for.
Speaker 1: I thought a lot about your mom, you know, on
Speaker 1: Mother's Day. Um My home girl, Patricia Lennon. So I
Speaker 1: know yesterday was probably a tough day for you and
Speaker 1: your family members. Hopefully you had a chance to be
Speaker 1: with your loved ones and to celebrate your mom. You know,
Speaker 1: it was kind of tough started earlier, but I was
Speaker 1: with the baby the whole day, so you know, that
Speaker 1: kind of helped a lot. And I'm playing soccer and
Speaker 1: I was a soccer dad, so yelling it all gain
Speaker 1: with the rests and getting energetic kind of just took
Speaker 1: my mind off it. But it was a period early
Speaker 1: yesterday morning that that was really tough for me, and
Speaker 1: me and my brother were here and my brother stayed
Speaker 1: with me this weekend, and we were just talking about
Speaker 1: my mother's and I posted one of our videos for dancing,
Speaker 1: which we always I love to dance with her and
Speaker 1: she would always laugh because I always would make her dance,
Speaker 1: So that was like our little things. So you know,
Speaker 1: it was tough, but you know, I just pictured her
Speaker 1: dancing in my mind and it got me through it
Speaker 1: a lot better. Yep, Patricia is a legend that lives
Speaker 1: on so UM. So what happened this weekend was pretty
Speaker 1: cool because all of last week I was a little
Speaker 1: I don't know, I want to use the word high strong,
Speaker 1: but that's not really the word, but just on edge
Speaker 1: because I had a real important speech to make UM
Speaker 1: on Saturday where I was the commencement speaker for Virginia
Speaker 1: Union University UM, and I also received an honorary doctorate
Speaker 1: degree UM from the school, and so I was all like, oh,
Speaker 1: first of all, I have it. You know, I like
Speaker 1: my props, this is my degree, my deploy my degree
Speaker 1: creat that's right. Wait a minute, I'm gonna show you
Speaker 1: guys what that was that just fell. This is it,
Speaker 1: and what fell out of it that I didn't even remember.
Speaker 1: I have is a piece of art that was was
Speaker 1: actually created while I was speaking. So there was a
Speaker 1: gentleman who he drew this while I was speaking. So anyway,
Speaker 1: it was a really powerful day. First of all, Virginia
Speaker 1: Union has produced some of the most UM prominent preachers,
Speaker 1: black preachers UH in America. And UM, so the school
Speaker 1: is a it has a real holy spirit about it. UM.
Speaker 1: And so the singing, the choir, everything was so good.
Speaker 1: And then it was my turn to speak, and I UM,
Speaker 1: of course, since we came back from Africa, I think
Speaker 1: I know everything about Africa, UM. And I talked about,
Speaker 1: you know, this idea that we can't forget who we are.
Speaker 1: We cannot forget and we must learn more about our
Speaker 1: lineage UM and understand that we're connected to one point
Speaker 1: twenty six billion people across the world, on a continent
Speaker 1: with fifty four countries, and you know, we're bigger than
Speaker 1: what they try to make us here in this country.
Speaker 1: And you know, I talked about this idea that we're
Speaker 1: not one another's enemies that that was created. When we
Speaker 1: stood in those dungeons, I saw immediately exactly how the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: the trans Atlantic slave trade created the division that we
Speaker 1: deal with that we fight against every single day within
Speaker 1: our own community. I'm not talking about what the Europeans
Speaker 1: is doing the Caucasions and you know. And so basically
Speaker 1: I spent some time really focusing on this idea that
Speaker 1: we're not one another's eat enemies, you know, And being
Speaker 1: in those dungeons is where I really had an opportunity
Speaker 1: to see, like I could feel it in my heart
Speaker 1: that if I was a woman, an African woman, and
Speaker 1: I saw my man or a man, any African man
Speaker 1: passing by me while I was in while I was
Speaker 1: captured and being abused and whatever, no matter how much
Speaker 1: I understand that you can't do anything, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a level of resentment that that that is inside of me.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure there's a level of shame and frustration
Speaker 1: that built up in the African man. And so that
Speaker 1: is where it started this division. I'm sure They're always
Speaker 1: was tribalism, and there were always some issues between men
Speaker 1: and women and people in general in African culture, and
Speaker 1: in every culture. But in that moment when we were
Speaker 1: in those dungeons, as the Rabbi who took us around
Speaker 1: and Um, Rabbi Cohen, as he showed us you know,
Speaker 1: Cape Coast, he was talking about how all the things
Speaker 1: about us they started they developed that stuff right there,
Speaker 1: that all these things that we have that makes us
Speaker 1: look at one another as our enemy as and and
Speaker 1: all of these differences. And so with that being said, UM,
Speaker 1: I tried to talk about that and and as best
Speaker 1: as possible in my commencement speech. And I also learned
Speaker 1: just a few days before showing up at the school
Speaker 1: that Virginia Union is actually built on top of the
Speaker 1: grounds of a former slave jail. So there was a woman,
Speaker 1: um Mary Lumpkins, who was She was a black woman,
Speaker 1: an African woman, a black woman who was married to
Speaker 1: her slave master, and when he died, she inherited all
Speaker 1: of the land, um, and so she started Virginia Union
Speaker 1: in the basement of the jail. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: my whole point was that everywhere around us there's things
Speaker 1: that would would really beat the life out of us.
Speaker 1: But we have to realize that we've never died. We
Speaker 1: always continue to rise. No matter what our conditions are.
Speaker 1: And so that was the message. And I received honorary doctor,
Speaker 1: which is my second The first was from Wilberforce University,
Speaker 1: which is the third. We wait, that's the third oldest
Speaker 1: HBCU in the nation. So I got a lot to
Speaker 1: say about my list self today going on, congratulations manum,
Speaker 1: you never ceased the amazement. You continue to flourish and
Speaker 1: grow and keep being great. So we appreciate you, you know,
Speaker 1: and just listening to you know you're I just know
Speaker 1: the speech was amazing because I know, I remember how
Speaker 1: we all felt in those slave dungeons and how you
Speaker 1: were very I just wanted to get all the information
Speaker 1: so I know you put that together. Hopefully somebody will
Speaker 1: showed it somewhere and we'll be able to see it.
Speaker 1: But if not, you know, it's it's on the Virginia
Speaker 1: Union YouTube page. But you don't mean I'm never gonna
Speaker 1: you'll never tell us that un your YouTube and watch
Speaker 1: the clip. Somebody's gonna get a clip. We're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to go put a clip up on that.
Speaker 1: Not me, but but go ahead. And I just wanted
Speaker 1: to give a little a little bit of you know
Speaker 1: this weekend on Friday, I celebrated with my friend as
Speaker 1: he released movie Respect the Jokes has urban you know,
Speaker 1: it's urban thriller, and I'm proud, you know, just knowing
Speaker 1: who Anthony is Tone a k. Pretty Tone is, and
Speaker 1: where he's come from and where he's overcome. We have
Speaker 1: a dope interview on my YouTube channel, you know, starting
Speaker 1: my new series called sit Down with the stand Ups,
Speaker 1: which is basically sitting down conversations with stand up individuals
Speaker 1: who overcame so much adversity, prison, near death experience and
Speaker 1: have evolved into businessmen and successful directors and all types
Speaker 1: of other things. So he's the first person that I interviewed,
Speaker 1: and his interview was compelling and new to me, even
Speaker 1: though I've known him for over twenty pleas years. I
Speaker 1: found out so many things about him that I never knew,
Speaker 1: and um, a lot of people in the streets and
Speaker 1: the industry know him. So please tune into that. Go
Speaker 1: to my YouTube page at my song YouTube, at my
Speaker 1: son and why general watch that. Make sure that you
Speaker 1: stream Respect the Jokes is on all streaming platforms right now.
Speaker 1: Let's support, you know, brothers, that's doing something positive. Man.
Speaker 1: We always talk about the negative and who's doing all
Speaker 1: of the stuff. This is somebody who who changed his
Speaker 1: life around for the positive. So I just wanted to
Speaker 1: give him a shout out. And unless you know about that,
Speaker 1: well you he I mean, we we definitely featured some
Speaker 1: of your interview UM last week, and I want to
Speaker 1: go back and listen to the Old Street Politicians episode.
Speaker 1: You can hear UM a little bit of the interview
Speaker 1: with my son and tone, But in addition to that,
Speaker 1: you should go and share, share, share like like like
Speaker 1: on my son YouTube page and listen to the entire interview.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of stuff happening, and I want to
Speaker 1: help us kind of speed through this next portion of
Speaker 1: the show because we have a guest who's actually already
Speaker 1: on and wanting and eager to come on and talk
Speaker 1: about some of the issues that we're covering today. But
Speaker 1: a lot has been happening with my own family, UM,
Speaker 1: with some of my friends. I. We have a very
Speaker 1: close friend you and I whose son UM has been
Speaker 1: dealing with violence in school. He actually was jumped a
Speaker 1: couple of days ago, and eight boys tried to beat
Speaker 1: up on a kid who's really a good kid. He
Speaker 1: you know, We've tried to do everything we can to
Speaker 1: find out because you know, I'm not one of those
Speaker 1: parents that's like, oh, not my child, No, my child too.
Speaker 1: So I'm trying to understand what exactly has he done wrong?
Speaker 1: And literally no one is able to explain it. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's just a lot. And I see
Speaker 1: a lot happening with black men. There's a mental health crisis,
Speaker 1: there is an anger crisis, there is a just so
Speaker 1: many things, finances, everything is just this a lot, and
Speaker 1: I'm really concerned about what we are going to do,
Speaker 1: you know. And so UM, I want to talk about
Speaker 1: another a news story and two things in particular that
Speaker 1: are different, but it's something to be said about both
Speaker 1: of them. The first story is a brother named Deshaun Carter.
Speaker 1: He was an inmate at Riker's Island and he died
Speaker 1: in custody by suicide. UM. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: conversation about this because he's the fourth victim this year,
Speaker 1: and incarcerated individual who was known to have mental health issues.
Speaker 1: He had been hospitalized. UM. And there's so many issues
Speaker 1: and it's like you could talk about Wriker's Island to
Speaker 1: jail in New York city as one issue, and that
Speaker 1: is one thing, but it's the conditions of the people,
Speaker 1: and particularly young black men, that we're really trying to
Speaker 1: talk about today. Um. Suicide rates are up for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, and it's not just suicide, it's also murders, death, everything.
Speaker 1: Every time I scroll on my timeline, somebody is dying.
Speaker 1: The phone calls coming through, people are committing people are
Speaker 1: dying by suicide. I have to remind myself not to
Speaker 1: say committing suicide. There is this a lot happening with
Speaker 1: people losing their life, not just violent incidents or folks
Speaker 1: getting locked up, but I'm talking about people actually dying,
Speaker 1: and I'm counting the numbers in my head of black
Speaker 1: men UM that this has been happening too. So it's
Speaker 1: an interesting phenomenon. Then you have something as controversial as
Speaker 1: the conversation around Kevin Samuels, and I don't think we'll
Speaker 1: get a chance to really talk about that right now
Speaker 1: before we bring our guests to them. Hopefully we can
Speaker 1: talk about it later. But you know, I've watched I've
Speaker 1: been watching the division online where there are some people
Speaker 1: who are celebrating ke Kevin Samuels, and there are other
Speaker 1: people who are helified angry um and have said some
Speaker 1: pretty nasty things about him, which I don't agree with
Speaker 1: that particular thing, um, But some of the things that
Speaker 1: Kevin Samuel Will said and the way in which he
Speaker 1: presented himself in the world, I'm not gonna lie that.
Speaker 1: When I see some of the brothers that I respect
Speaker 1: celebrating him, it hurts me because I know what his
Speaker 1: words did to some of us as women, and how
Speaker 1: demeaning it was to us and how we felt um.
Speaker 1: And so I see why there are women. I had
Speaker 1: a friend send me a clip of Kevin Samuel Will
Speaker 1: saying something that I thought was crazy because I don't
Speaker 1: listen to him, but I saw some do. She sent
Speaker 1: me that. In addition was the like that I could
Speaker 1: see of a person that she and I both love
Speaker 1: and respect. And she said to me, you see, this
Speaker 1: is why I can't This is why I can't funk
Speaker 1: with us, right, which really what she meant was, this
Speaker 1: is why I can't funk with our brothers. And there's
Speaker 1: there's a and and and and I'm thinking the mental
Speaker 1: health crisis, the challenges we're facing. We're losing so many
Speaker 1: of our young black men, and then there are Black
Speaker 1: women who are really really building up a level of
Speaker 1: disdain and anger with our men, and there's such a
Speaker 1: big disconnect that I feel like we're in a place
Speaker 1: where we really got to do something about it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to give a little pushback to that,
Speaker 1: because I definitely understand that there are definitely things that
Speaker 1: Kevin san You said and I was like, that's the
Speaker 1: stupid of ship you could have said, right, But then
Speaker 1: there were definitely things that he said that when he
Speaker 1: were a hundreds sent on point as from perspective as
Speaker 1: a man. Right, So I look at that as there
Speaker 1: are a lot of women that I respect that women
Speaker 1: have that follow women that have said things about men
Speaker 1: that I'd be like, how do you even listen to
Speaker 1: ship like that? How do you think that's okay? And
Speaker 1: women to be like, yeah, that's right, and they're going
Speaker 1: int page and be like that's right, and they'll celebrate
Speaker 1: women that I think so so much male bashing that
Speaker 1: it doesn't even make sense that you would ever say
Speaker 1: anything about them. Right. And then when we think about that,
Speaker 1: we look at farricon, right, we look at how we
Speaker 1: want to be able to say, you know, honorable minister
Speaker 1: Lewis Farrakon. How we can look and say Farrakhan has
Speaker 1: done this for the community, he said these things, he's empowered,
Speaker 1: he's done these things. But these things right here, we
Speaker 1: just don't agree with you. I don't agree with everything
Speaker 1: that anybody says, right, but there are things that people
Speaker 1: say that are correct. So we have to we have
Speaker 1: to be able, right, We have to be able to
Speaker 1: be consistent. Right. We can't be inconsistent and we it's
Speaker 1: okay for us to like some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: somebody says, but we can't like none of the stuff
Speaker 1: that somebody else says because it doesn't fit our narrative. Right.
Speaker 1: I have to be able to respect that women are
Speaker 1: gonna like things that some women say that that I
Speaker 1: think a completely bashed meals that have absolutely hate black men,
Speaker 1: and and and I go on pages and I see
Speaker 1: likes from women that I loved every day on the
Speaker 1: pages of women that I think hate black men. Right,
Speaker 1: and then so I have to respect that. I don't
Speaker 1: disagree with you, but I think that where the challenge
Speaker 1: comes in. I know some black women right that have
Speaker 1: said things that really triggered and upset black men. They
Speaker 1: didn't make their whole career demeaning black men. This makes
Speaker 1: this man's his portfolio. That's the poor photo that you see.
Speaker 1: I can I can give you videos where he attacked
Speaker 1: black men. I'm not I'm not talking about and I'm
Speaker 1: saying that. What I'm saying is whether he was attacking
Speaker 1: black men or black women. I don't think that it
Speaker 1: was helpful to do either, right. I think there is
Speaker 1: a way. I think there is a way that you
Speaker 1: can communicate with someone to help them understand things without
Speaker 1: calling them fat and saying that at thirty five you
Speaker 1: are leftovers. There are certain words and then and I
Speaker 1: could go on, I could pull out a list, and
Speaker 1: I promise you that some of these black women you
Speaker 1: talk about, if you tell me you know who they are,
Speaker 1: I know some of them that have said some things
Speaker 1: that really triggered them, triggered black men. But I will
Speaker 1: tell you that I do not know of them using
Speaker 1: certain language, potent language that is extremely demeaning. Kevin Samuels
Speaker 1: was making a living off of trying to be as
Speaker 1: nasty as possible to to say it in a way
Speaker 1: that really impacts and hurts you. It's okay to say
Speaker 1: since you gotta be in shape. If you're gonna be
Speaker 1: with a certain kind of man, you need to be
Speaker 1: in shape. You gotta get yourself together because you need
Speaker 1: to you know, first of all, be healthy. That you
Speaker 1: can speak like that. But when you start using words
Speaker 1: like fat and unattractive and and nobody wants you. You
Speaker 1: that to me to make a living off of speaking
Speaker 1: to people like that, it's not helpful. It actually breaks
Speaker 1: us down more than we already are. And I don't
Speaker 1: support any black woman that does that. I don't support
Speaker 1: any black man that does that. I think anybody that
Speaker 1: does that is disgusting, quite frankly. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, and I'm not trying and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that he couldn't see he didn't say some things that
Speaker 1: are right, And I don't put him in Minister Aaricon
Speaker 1: in the same position, because while Minister Faricon has said
Speaker 1: some things that I don't agree with, he has spent
Speaker 1: his life building us up, not tearing us down. This
Speaker 1: man was doing the opposite. But I don't I don't
Speaker 1: agree with that because you you have you have women
Speaker 1: right who have taken who followed Kevin Samuels and then
Speaker 1: when you say that the value wasn't shot, So what
Speaker 1: are we talking about? Listen to what I'm saying. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying. I'm not talking about an opinion about something.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about if I'm if a woman can listen
Speaker 1: to Kevin's in and she can find a benefit in
Speaker 1: benefiting herself and saying what he said made me a
Speaker 1: better person, It made me reflect on myself, it made
Speaker 1: me do better. Right, And let's let's table this and
Speaker 1: go back and talk about it because we both have
Speaker 1: so much to say. So let's put our guests through
Speaker 1: on this issue of dealing with black men. So I'm so, so,
Speaker 1: so so excited that today we have with us a gurgle,
Speaker 1: a dude from from Brooklyn. That's our brother. We have
Speaker 1: a joke on this show that it's all of our friends,
Speaker 1: because we have so many friends doing so many impactful things.
Speaker 1: UM and Cavane, We're so happy to have you on
Speaker 1: Street Politicians today. Let me give you your proper acknowledgements.
Speaker 1: You are from Brooklyn, New York. You're a community leader,
Speaker 1: not just an organizer, but a leader. You are CEO
Speaker 1: of Community Capacity Development UM, which is your organization that
Speaker 1: does justice and healing work um for black folks and
Speaker 1: other people of color in our communities who are dealing
Speaker 1: with serious trauma. You also are one of the members
Speaker 1: of the Crisis Management Team and a leading voice in
Speaker 1: helping to be you know, strategic in terms of the
Speaker 1: work that's happening with anti violence groups around New York.
Speaker 1: So thanks for having for allowing us to have you
Speaker 1: today on Street Politicians, The Privilege and Big Mice Without Groske. Listen, Man,
Speaker 1: you know how it is, Man, I do it to me.
Speaker 1: It tells me she's the boss here. You know. She
Speaker 1: woke me up and said, Kabin gonna be on the
Speaker 1: show to this all right, Well, I got one of
Speaker 1: my brothers here so we could both take a little
Speaker 1: bit of this abuse to the Absolutely absolutely listen. It's
Speaker 1: a privilege in our honor. I really respect you know,
Speaker 1: the dialogue and the platform that you have created here
Speaker 1: in other spaces. I know we're gonna talk about male
Speaker 1: fee mail, brothers and sisters and how we communicate or
Speaker 1: don't communicate properly, but I just want to say it's refreshing.
Speaker 1: Something that we said kind of in our intros in
Speaker 1: our great room, was that YouTube you, brother and sister,
Speaker 1: y'all have a dialogue, and it's not always in unison.
Speaker 1: I think that's the most healthy, that's the dopest thing
Speaker 1: that could be happening right now. It's not always about
Speaker 1: a grind. Dialogue is a two step process where there's
Speaker 1: reflection and then there's action. Right So the fact that
Speaker 1: we have challenging discourse that puts us out of our
Speaker 1: comfort zones, that's fundamentally important in these moments. That's so
Speaker 1: important in these moments because we don't need the yes
Speaker 1: men approach. There's a history of trauma, there's a history
Speaker 1: of intergenerational intentional disconnect and so we're we're dealing with
Speaker 1: all of that compiled and exacerbated through pandemics, through gun violence,
Speaker 1: and all the different ways in which we address community issues.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is there has to be some out
Speaker 1: the comfort zone, comme So thank you for having me
Speaker 1: here amongst the dialogue and the leadership. So we were
Speaker 1: just in this debate before you came on Cape Baine,
Speaker 1: which we had the table. We're gonna get back to
Speaker 1: it later when we were talking about um, specifically about
Speaker 1: Kevin Samuel's who just recently died. This is a man
Speaker 1: that I don't know if you know him or not.
Speaker 1: Some people do, some people don't. But he became a
Speaker 1: controversial figure on social media. UM, and you know a
Speaker 1: lot of his commentary which we don't have to get
Speaker 1: into today. UM, there's a split feeling within our community
Speaker 1: about whether it was helpful or harmful. UM. A lot
Speaker 1: of times he used language that I thought was was
Speaker 1: was painful for black women to hear. And there are
Speaker 1: some people who say, well, you know, sometimes it's tough
Speaker 1: love and it might not feel so good, but we
Speaker 1: have to have those conversations. The reason why this is
Speaker 1: important is because what I know is happening, which always
Speaker 1: happens with us, is this riff that starts between women
Speaker 1: and men, black men, blended black men and women, and
Speaker 1: we start arguing and going back and forth. And I
Speaker 1: think it's a dangerous time for us to find ourselves
Speaker 1: with any more division because there's so much of it,
Speaker 1: and there's so much pain within our communities that in
Speaker 1: a lot of ways, I feel like all of it,
Speaker 1: the lack of our unity and togetherness is why we're
Speaker 1: losing so many of our young people, and particularly young
Speaker 1: black men, because we're not even able to settle ourselves
Speaker 1: to get focused on how we have to work together
Speaker 1: UM in order to really try to impact young men.
Speaker 1: We just talked about this young guy or this man,
Speaker 1: Deshaun Carter, who was UM an incarcerated person at Rikers
Speaker 1: Island who died by suicide. He had mental health issues,
Speaker 1: and the list goes on. And in fact, over the weekend,
Speaker 1: I was with the state's attorney and she and I
Speaker 1: were talking and I came. I came back and I'm,
Speaker 1: you know, basically, which is what I do to my son,
Speaker 1: poor my son. I just, you know, I beat up
Speaker 1: on my brother so much, but I just have to
Speaker 1: place my frustration somewhere and he takes it. God, bless you,
Speaker 1: my son, bless you. So I came back and I
Speaker 1: and I had four For three days. He and I
Speaker 1: have been in heated dialogue, most of it agreeing, but
Speaker 1: definitely some contentious places about black men and what we're
Speaker 1: gonna do right, especially for young black men, because I've
Speaker 1: got a twenty three year old and some things that
Speaker 1: he does and says, it's it makes me. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: not always happy, right, And so we were going back
Speaker 1: and forth about it, and when I was talking to her.
Speaker 1: She said this and not let you guys take it
Speaker 1: from here, because I'm much more interested in your conversation,
Speaker 1: she said, you know, uh she She started off by saying,
Speaker 1: the elderly women in the room are very concerned for
Speaker 1: their lives, and she therefore is dealing with more of
Speaker 1: us contacting her older women contacting her about, um, you know,
Speaker 1: locking up kids in their community because they're afraid. And
Speaker 1: I get it when when kids are knocking you over thehead,
Speaker 1: people getting their bones broke, they purses stolen. She said.
Speaker 1: The sweet spot is between fourteen and seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: and they're in the street, terrorizing elderly people. She said,
Speaker 1: But I know I cannot lock them all up, and
Speaker 1: I have programs. But what this is an important piece,
Speaker 1: she said. If I keep them inside, I can. If
Speaker 1: I keep them detained, we can influence them by forcing
Speaker 1: them to go to programs and doing other things. But
Speaker 1: when I turned them back to their parents and give
Speaker 1: them a schedule of where they're supposed to be and
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to do, they're not often showing up.
Speaker 1: And that what she found while she sat and where
Speaker 1: she sits in the courtroom. She said, most of the
Speaker 1: time of the time it is a mother, a grandmother,
Speaker 1: and maybe a home girl. And then in other situations
Speaker 1: it's probably just a mother. That is almost never a
Speaker 1: father or a black male, the teacher or somebody present
Speaker 1: for these boys who have done something life changing where
Speaker 1: they may spend the rest of their lives in prison.
Speaker 1: So I said, no, we gotta we have to talk
Speaker 1: about this more. We know the issue is there, but
Speaker 1: something more has to be done. And when we're fighting
Speaker 1: each other, how do we focus? So you guys, that's
Speaker 1: my frame. Let's take it and kind of chop it
Speaker 1: up and try to see what are some of the
Speaker 1: things we need to be doing. You know, what I
Speaker 1: want to say is that you know, I also had
Speaker 1: a panel conversation this weekend with UM. The d A.
Speaker 1: Dr cl Clark came to this Boys to Me ends
Speaker 1: UM conference that we had in the Bronx orchestrated by
Speaker 1: UM former council member Andy King, who's done a lot
Speaker 1: of work with the young boys in the communities, and
Speaker 1: she was talking. She's pretty much said the same thing,
Speaker 1: but she she she took it from fourteen to thirty
Speaker 1: and said that there are so many black men are
Speaker 1: coming to her court, and and she she doesn't want
Speaker 1: to lock them up, like she doesn't want to just
Speaker 1: be the person lock them up, but she she has
Speaker 1: to be the person to make sure the streets are safe.
Speaker 1: She's not gonna let people out here that are killing people.
Speaker 1: And you know, and what I started to realize is
Speaker 1: that there's so much trauma, right, And there's this thing
Speaker 1: where our culture has gravitated and morphed into something that
Speaker 1: respects and advocates for and actually perpetuates and markets negativity. Right.
Speaker 1: And I was having this conversation and they were talking
Speaker 1: about drill music and talking about all these things, and
Speaker 1: I was like, if we are not celebrating positivity, right,
Speaker 1: if we're not celebrating growth, and we're not celebrating the
Speaker 1: positive things, that we don't have any structures that are
Speaker 1: visibly seeing because what we can't see, we can't be right.
Speaker 1: And if we're not seeing people being celebrated for doing
Speaker 1: positive things, and we're not seeing people being elevated for
Speaker 1: doing the positive things, and the only thing we see
Speaker 1: being celebrated as negativity, how do you expect us as
Speaker 1: young man? Because is there there's an innate nature in
Speaker 1: a man to be powerful. Right. That's why sports, when
Speaker 1: you look mostly male dominated sports is about the competition,
Speaker 1: is about overcoming. It's about being number one. You you're
Speaker 1: going against an adversary. Everybody is screaming, this is the
Speaker 1: innate nature of a man. We want to be able
Speaker 1: to compete. We want to be successful. We want to
Speaker 1: be seen as successful, we want to be celebrated. So
Speaker 1: when the positive things that we're talking about, the anti violence,
Speaker 1: that nonviolence, all these things are seeing are shunned and
Speaker 1: seeing that so off and not seeing as powerful, how
Speaker 1: do we not seeing right and not seeing period? How
Speaker 1: do we expect these young boys to gravitate to those things?
Speaker 1: Where is the incentive to be that type of individual,
Speaker 1: to be the stand up, the person who's doing the
Speaker 1: positive things. Where is the incentive We have to start incentivizer.
Speaker 1: We can't sit back and always criticize said, oh that's
Speaker 1: negative or they're doing the wrong thing. We don't have
Speaker 1: the positive rappers. When I started doing positive rapping hip hop,
Speaker 1: people start making fun of me. Nobody wants to hear
Speaker 1: that you're going to this. You know, there's some holy
Speaker 1: other down and you're preaching. Now, Malcolm X and Mom,
Speaker 1: Luther King, nobody was advocating for that. We're not getting
Speaker 1: the same platforms that the drill rappers. Again, we're not
Speaker 1: getting the same respect that you know, the people that
Speaker 1: are talking about destroying and killing everybody is. So how
Speaker 1: do I, as an individual look at a young boy
Speaker 1: who wants to be successful, who wants to be respected,
Speaker 1: who's looking for this power and his fame tell him
Speaker 1: to do something that the world is telling him is
Speaker 1: not gonna be celebrated. If I could add on, so,
Speaker 1: what you're talking about is identity, that's the umbrella, but
Speaker 1: it really breaks down to understanding the six fundament mental
Speaker 1: or universal human needs. So food, clothing, and shelter. Let's
Speaker 1: put that to the side. We know without that everything
Speaker 1: is off the table. Now let's go through those needs.
Speaker 1: Security safety. When I was fifteen years old in front
Speaker 1: of a judge facing facing fifteen years in prison, it
Speaker 1: was because I didn't carry one. I carry two firearms
Speaker 1: to feel to meet that need to feel safe for security. Second,
Speaker 1: human needs spontaneity. It's like the flip side of that coin.
Speaker 1: So as much as uh we've been in, let's think
Speaker 1: about a stable relationship you had right there's a level
Speaker 1: of stability. You must call it this time, you must
Speaker 1: checking at that time, you must be at this location.
Speaker 1: But also there's a level of risk or spontaneity. You
Speaker 1: gotta switch up to tempo. Any relationship you have for
Speaker 1: duration has a level of stability and the level of spontaneity.
Speaker 1: These are human needs. The third of the six human
Speaker 1: needs is acknowledgement. That's what you're talking about, mice. When
Speaker 1: you say, when I shoot a basketball into a hoop,
Speaker 1: the whole world sees. You can't deny me that. When
Speaker 1: I shot a gun as a young man in downtown Brooklyn,
Speaker 1: I shot out of fear. I was in the controversial situation.
Speaker 1: I let it guard. I turned my head like this,
Speaker 1: and I ran. I ran faster than the bullet. But
Speaker 1: what the hood did. They said, Cabine is crazy, he's
Speaker 1: a killer. He's out here, shoot the mac tent. They said,
Speaker 1: I reloaded and let the police. I didn't do nothing
Speaker 1: that right. I did it and I ran away. But
Speaker 1: the point is people acknowledge that behavior because it meant
Speaker 1: that need for significance. Our next need loving connection. Sometimes
Speaker 1: we joined families or street organizations for that matter. Some
Speaker 1: people call them gangs because we're meeting a need's a
Speaker 1: human need. If you don't need to need, you die.
Speaker 1: Loving connection. The next human needs of growth. Every living
Speaker 1: thing must grow. It doesn't mean that it's progress, but
Speaker 1: it's gonna grow. Last human need is contribution to give
Speaker 1: us to get So these needs will be met or
Speaker 1: we will die. And these are universal human needs. The
Speaker 1: work that we do revolves around the fact that if
Speaker 1: you're in Chicago, south Side, West Side, Downtown, Brooklyn, East
Speaker 1: New York, Brownsville, if you're in Trinidad, these are the
Speaker 1: human needs that are either being met or not met.
Speaker 1: And when you talk about the need for acknowledging, you
Speaker 1: can meet that either in short term destructive ways or
Speaker 1: you can meet that need in long term positive community
Speaker 1: legacy building ways. But that need will be meant, The
Speaker 1: need will be met. I mean, I feel like your
Speaker 1: organization and so many of the others man up. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a list that I could go on with just
Speaker 1: thinking about organizations across the nation. The New Black Panthers
Speaker 1: that are out in Chicago. Um, you got some folks.
Speaker 1: I forget the name of the organization. In fact, they're
Speaker 1: the Vegas chapter in Las Vegas, brother Minister Stretch. There
Speaker 1: are black men across the nation who are working at it,
Speaker 1: But I do think that the level of support, that acknowledgement,
Speaker 1: if you will, has to be increased somehow, And I
Speaker 1: wonder caving. I think in New York we've been able
Speaker 1: to do it to some degree because there is some
Speaker 1: level of a collective body. Do you think that the
Speaker 1: potentially the issue is the disconnect between the states and
Speaker 1: like sort of how tribal we can become in our
Speaker 1: particular areas, or do you just think like the government
Speaker 1: just ain't trying to really fund us, Like what do
Speaker 1: you think is the real problem? I appreciate the question.
Speaker 1: I read somewhere recently. I think it was Dr Rose
Speaker 1: at Brown University said, structure racism is the normalization and
Speaker 1: legitimization of a wide ray of dynamics historical, cultural, institutional,
Speaker 1: and interpersonal that routinely benefit whites while producing cumulative and
Speaker 1: chronic adverse outcomes for people of color. That's what she's said,
Speaker 1: and so let's look at that historical, cultural, institutional, interpersonal
Speaker 1: structural racisms at the base of it. Mike said it best.
Speaker 1: He said, it seems intentional because what gets highlighted. What
Speaker 1: gets brought to the forefront is the bullshit. What gets
Speaker 1: brought to the forefront is the most negative, the most
Speaker 1: buffoonish clown behavior. Again, my introduction to you all was
Speaker 1: a salute and to say, I appreciate you all allowing
Speaker 1: me into your dollargue because I truly respect what you represent.
Speaker 1: It's refreshing to see black men and women leaders like
Speaker 1: yourself having out of the comfort zone, out of the
Speaker 1: box conversations. This is what raises a community, this level
Speaker 1: of high level of conversation and dialogue. So I think
Speaker 1: to your to your question is intentionally done that way
Speaker 1: because of systemic structural racism. It allows for our demands
Speaker 1: were we are definitely under attack, and so that's why
Speaker 1: everything we do at CC do we are unapologetically black, brown,
Speaker 1: Indigenous people of color. And I and I respectfully in
Speaker 1: one of the co architects of the New York City
Speaker 1: Crisis Management System. But it was built on the lens
Speaker 1: that we approached it. When we talk about stopping shootings
Speaker 1: for three hundred and sixty five days, for example, in
Speaker 1: the largest housing development in North America, all could be
Speaker 1: the world Queensbridge Houses. It's because I followed. I followed
Speaker 1: some pillars and some principles called human justice that Eddie
Speaker 1: Ellis taught me. That Dr Divin Pryor and other great
Speaker 1: minds from the Attica Uprising from the green Haven Think Tank,
Speaker 1: those brothers who did the Seven seven Neighborhood studies, who
Speaker 1: did the language of it. They are the reason we
Speaker 1: used terms like formally incarcerating. They are the rehumanizers. So
Speaker 1: I say, we are the human justice lens. So when
Speaker 1: I do this work in Chicago, Hon Duras TRINITYA as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, you pick a continent. We're successful because of
Speaker 1: these needs that we talked about and approaching them with
Speaker 1: the Human Justice Lynch has been a great successful us.
Speaker 1: What's different is we have to get what we've done
Speaker 1: in New York City that has worked to be replicated
Speaker 1: in another space. It we put our political structure in
Speaker 1: the headlin. We hold them account of wealth. You talk Bloomberg,
Speaker 1: the Blasio, now Adams, we advised them, but we regulate.
Speaker 1: We understand that. You know, human justice is an equation
Speaker 1: human rights. That's consciousness plus human development, that's resources equals
Speaker 1: human justice. Don't just give me information and don't just
Speaker 1: give me don't even just give me the resources. I
Speaker 1: read somewhere once that if the tooth percent, that control
Speaker 1: of the wealth on the earth was to be taken
Speaker 1: from them and distributed equally, in a short amount of
Speaker 1: time will be back in their hands. So it's about
Speaker 1: the information, understanding wealth, intergenerational wealth, understanding how we build
Speaker 1: that out. I lead a multimillion dollar nonprofit organization because
Speaker 1: I understand those principles and apply them. We opened the
Speaker 1: thousand bank accounts in black and brown housing developments in
Speaker 1: New York City because we understand that not just to
Speaker 1: open the accounts, but the fiscal aptitude, the financial literacy
Speaker 1: that was connected to those accounts. You understanding of credit,
Speaker 1: you know, what does it mean to have that? When
Speaker 1: we was in the stream, people like myself and brother
Speaker 1: my song, hustling and scrambling and survival mode, we did
Speaker 1: a cost benefit analysis and we saw that we weren't
Speaker 1: getting opportunities to be employed. I tried to get a job,
Speaker 1: but my course benefits analysis said, and I know that,
Speaker 1: it said, you know I can make forty dollars in
Speaker 1: a weekend talking net I'm not talking gross right, without
Speaker 1: any school, without any So these are the things that
Speaker 1: young people. We talk about that demographic, that high risk
Speaker 1: population from fourteen to twenty four, even thirty years of age.
Speaker 1: They're doing this cost benefit analysis, but they're not factoring
Speaker 1: in the risk reward. They're not. Nobody's telling them, like
Speaker 1: my son is, this is what it feels like the
Speaker 1: first day when you step behind those bars. This is
Speaker 1: what happens to all your homies when you're sitting up
Speaker 1: there your first six months and your girl disappeared. You know,
Speaker 1: your the people supposed to ride with you not there.
Speaker 1: There are some people that are that are speaking at
Speaker 1: unpopular truth. And so I think, to your point, we
Speaker 1: gotta turn that up and turned down the bullshit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So can I just ask one more question? And then
Speaker 1: I want you guys to finish it. And maybe I'm
Speaker 1: changing the direction both One of the things that something
Speaker 1: so I is my son is not the only man
Speaker 1: that I drive crazy with all of my thoughts when
Speaker 1: I whenever something hits me, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: black men. So I call another black man and I explained,
Speaker 1: you know what I experienced and what the lady said
Speaker 1: I was at the graduation. There was so many black mothers.
Speaker 1: There wasn't really it was plenty, you know, some black men,
Speaker 1: but not as many as black women. And I was like,
Speaker 1: something is wrong here. And the person said to me
Speaker 1: that the biggest challenge he had with trying to be
Speaker 1: there to support his son was a relationship between him
Speaker 1: and his mother. That it caused him to want to
Speaker 1: you know, he wanted to be between him and the
Speaker 1: child's mother, child's mother, his his his child's mother. He said,
Speaker 1: he wanted to be there, but it was very different,
Speaker 1: a cool and sometimes for me, I'm gonna be honest,
Speaker 1: I know that there, I know it. I know we
Speaker 1: can be difficult. I've seen some of my sisters do
Speaker 1: some real crazy stuff. I've seen it. But I also
Speaker 1: feel like it's a cop out for something, for something,
Speaker 1: not all, but for some. And so I want to
Speaker 1: talk about that because to me, again, the relationship between us,
Speaker 1: whether we are together in a relationship or not. Because
Speaker 1: my argument with my son is that a lot of
Speaker 1: men do not know how to operate as a parent
Speaker 1: unlessed in a relationship with the mother, and and and
Speaker 1: vice versa the mothers too. So I just because I'm
Speaker 1: I'm from the mindset that the breakdown in our family
Speaker 1: has something to do with how our kids are slipping
Speaker 1: through because they we're not on the same page. Well,
Speaker 1: for me, there's there's a lot in what you said, right,
Speaker 1: I want to read this thing first. That Charlemagne post
Speaker 1: is the data. So that's so you know on point
Speaker 1: about what we're dealing right now, he said, Trauma in
Speaker 1: the person decontextualized over time looks like personality. Trauma and
Speaker 1: the family decontextualized over time looks like family traits. Trauma
Speaker 1: and the people decontextualize over time looks like culture. Right.
Speaker 1: So we're dealing with so much trauma that it is
Speaker 1: morphed into what we call our own personality and we
Speaker 1: don't even identify it as something wrong. Right. So and
Speaker 1: that so now to give what you're talking about as
Speaker 1: far as relationships, as as a man, most men look
Speaker 1: for peace and stability, right, we want we don't We
Speaker 1: don't want to deal with drama. We don't want to
Speaker 1: deal with arguments. We don't want, especially with somebody that
Speaker 1: we actually care for or we don't that we feel
Speaker 1: like we have some level of connection with. We do
Speaker 1: not want to be an adversary to that individual. So,
Speaker 1: when you're in a relationship with somebody and you sever
Speaker 1: that relationship ships based on the fact that there's no peace,
Speaker 1: and there's no tranquility, and there's always argument and and
Speaker 1: there's always vile situations. It's very unlikely that a man
Speaker 1: wants to re enter that situation all the time. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if you have a woman that you were in a
Speaker 1: relationship with who is the mother of your children, you
Speaker 1: go through you try, right, because I've seen many men
Speaker 1: try to be as peaceful as possible. Why we can't
Speaker 1: know f being peaceful? You need to do this or
Speaker 1: do that, right, So what happens is most men, when
Speaker 1: you leave that situation and you find a peace of mind,
Speaker 1: and you find a level of stability and comfort and peace,
Speaker 1: you don't want to keep entering into that. And when
Speaker 1: you find somebody who has made a conscious decision that
Speaker 1: don't matter what happens, I'm not going to make this
Speaker 1: comfortable for you. Right. Over times, the average man will
Speaker 1: separate itself from that situation completely. And it's not because
Speaker 1: he doesn't love the child. It's not because he doesn't
Speaker 1: value his child want to be there. Is that he
Speaker 1: realizes that his own mental state is to him more
Speaker 1: important because if he's not mentally stable, if this, if
Speaker 1: his situation is able to put him in a position
Speaker 1: to it jeopardizes his life, his mentality, his freedom because
Speaker 1: of this relationship with the parents, then he separates itself.
Speaker 1: When you realize that when you see that woman, uh
Speaker 1: and in men who have somehow come to terms and
Speaker 1: they're able to co parent peacefully and the peacefully coexists,
Speaker 1: you see a lot less a lot more men in
Speaker 1: those relationships with their children, right. And it it takes
Speaker 1: time and maybe over four or five years, you know
Speaker 1: what happens. Like me and my baby mother used to
Speaker 1: argue all the time. We were at odds. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't because I wanted to be with her. I wasn't
Speaker 1: trying to be with her. It just that she had
Speaker 1: whatever it was. I'm not blaming her and me, but
Speaker 1: for some reason, there was always contention. Every time that
Speaker 1: we spoke, or we are trying to deal with the
Speaker 1: kids or trying to show up, it was always some
Speaker 1: type of contention. When that contention disappeared, we were able
Speaker 1: to co parents so well, we became best friends. Our
Speaker 1: son benefited from it. And I've noticed that over time
Speaker 1: with most people. So I don't know. I've never been
Speaker 1: a woman, so I can't give you the prospective of
Speaker 1: a woman exactly how she said. But I know as men,
Speaker 1: we really just want peace. We do not want to
Speaker 1: be in contention every time that we're dealing with somebody.
Speaker 1: Nobody wants to do that, and we will. And and
Speaker 1: then average man will completely sacrifice any relationship, even with
Speaker 1: his kids. I know men who have had those interactions
Speaker 1: with their kids when when you and the kids start
Speaker 1: fighting and I gotta kick you up, they separate themselves
Speaker 1: from their children until they're able to have some level
Speaker 1: of civility because they do not want to deal with that.
Speaker 1: Women don't do that. Women will argue with the son,
Speaker 1: the daughter, their fight every day. They're being the street.
Speaker 1: You're doing that, man, if we're not wired that way,
Speaker 1: m a passion. You had a question in the brother's perspective,
Speaker 1: he's speaking from where he's lived. I mean, it's hard
Speaker 1: to argue make a very compelling stance. I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: further so in my intro they talk. You talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about me being, you know, in this anti
Speaker 1: gun violence work, but that's just a byproduct human justice
Speaker 1: work is I'm mentioning is about communication. It's about providing
Speaker 1: our youth and our women are sisters, everyone with advanced
Speaker 1: tools to communicate because we didn't have that. We don't
Speaker 1: have that foundation in our homes a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: we dam sure on't got it in the schools. So
Speaker 1: it's about what we do is gift tools for people
Speaker 1: that have had lives lost between them, have had bloodshed
Speaker 1: between them, and truce agreements and peace agreements, abilities to
Speaker 1: communicate right means to communicate. So one of my businesses
Speaker 1: is a law firm, Claudia and Associates. Less than five
Speaker 1: percent of attorneys in this country are of color, less
Speaker 1: than two percent are women of color. I'm a co
Speaker 1: founder owner of a law firm in Queens, New York
Speaker 1: called Claudian Associates. It's a matrimon to your firm. We
Speaker 1: focus and specialized all women of coloring that run this
Speaker 1: firm on parental alienation. What is that? That's because what
Speaker 1: Mike was talking about, this is not only of visceral
Speaker 1: response to being in complete total just contentious behavior back
Speaker 1: and forth. There's also prison at the end of that.
Speaker 1: There's also a jail cell at the end up being
Speaker 1: where summer to day or allegation or a threat. There's
Speaker 1: also a kidnapp in charge if you take your child
Speaker 1: from school without permission, so in and to add on
Speaker 1: to the brow like this, there's another level of consequence
Speaker 1: when these things are not handle certain ways. And I'm
Speaker 1: not making excuse or justification. Look, since mice being personal,
Speaker 1: I would take and this just keep this between us
Speaker 1: and the listeners. I would take any level of disrespectful
Speaker 1: in the queen she could do. She gotta. She gott
Speaker 1: a great as long as my children that's me, that's
Speaker 1: me and my relationship like the golf of then she
Speaker 1: take this in row. But I don't think she's that person.
Speaker 1: But if she did it, so I'm gonna work with
Speaker 1: my children. You know, my youngest is eight, So no
Speaker 1: matter I made that had a mother, I would true
Speaker 1: that your mother western your mother who was like you
Speaker 1: see what I'm doing. You see the sacrifices I'm making.
Speaker 1: Your father's not here right, so that when you have
Speaker 1: a family. She taught me I was six seven, eight
Speaker 1: years old, so that you don't make excuses. You beat
Speaker 1: there for your children. That's superseded, that comes before. So
Speaker 1: that's my personal approach that we gotta work yourself. If
Speaker 1: I got to sleep in this room or you and
Speaker 1: I'm not going what hopes at the house on fire.
Speaker 1: I ain't leaving, that's me. But everybody got to make
Speaker 1: their decisions and work. They work, but until minds are
Speaker 1: old enough to take care. But the bottom line is,
Speaker 1: it's about communication. It's about communication in the court system.
Speaker 1: Men and women right have an entirely different set of
Speaker 1: privileges in the court of law as as it pertains
Speaker 1: to matrimonial on the family law. Absolutely, and I don't disagree,
Speaker 1: and but I still here something and I and I
Speaker 1: understand that point that there are certain people you just
Speaker 1: can't be around them because they're dangerous. And it's just
Speaker 1: my cousin literally just got out of prison because he
Speaker 1: went to his you know, child's mother's home and something
Speaker 1: happened and the next thing, you know, he got locked up.
Speaker 1: In fact, I have another cousin who was just sentenced
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure how long, but he was just
Speaker 1: put in prison. He might not be older than twenty
Speaker 1: three for rape because of something that happened with his
Speaker 1: baby mother. And so this is very serious. I get it.
Speaker 1: It's life threatening but I have to say that I
Speaker 1: know some men and a lot of them where the
Speaker 1: women are like I, Like you said, your mother, the
Speaker 1: doors open. You could come and be here and take
Speaker 1: your child and do what you want. But you need
Speaker 1: to stop trying to sleep with me when you come
Speaker 1: in this house. You need to stop sending me crazy messages,
Speaker 1: and you need to be accountable for things and for
Speaker 1: for your actions. What hurts me is that I have
Speaker 1: any friends that they are raising sons, and they are
Speaker 1: constantly saying things like ask your father, see what your
Speaker 1: father says? Like can your father help? Sometimes? Can your
Speaker 1: father is your father? And the fathers are there when
Speaker 1: they want to be. My girlfriend just told me the
Speaker 1: other day, Oh, Christmas time he shows up big time.
Speaker 1: But in fact we don't really need him. That Christmas
Speaker 1: is much because everybody's giving himself a Christmas. What we
Speaker 1: need is just a regular Tuesday visit and and not
Speaker 1: a holiday visit. And I told my son that I
Speaker 1: get the sense that even this man, who's a good guy,
Speaker 1: and I don't know when his you know, maybe he
Speaker 1: never had Christmas. You know, who knows. But maybe it's
Speaker 1: the lack of older men being in a stable position
Speaker 1: enough to teach younger men what it looks like to
Speaker 1: be a father who's able to navigate through dealing with
Speaker 1: an upset or trauma. Phil Mother like your point about
Speaker 1: a healing network or organization, And you brought up Charlemagne.
Speaker 1: That's important because he's been talking so much about black
Speaker 1: men getting help. I feel like we would do ourselves, um,
Speaker 1: all of us as a community, some some justice. Look
Speaker 1: I'm and I know I'm talking long, but let me
Speaker 1: go and say this. When I go around black women,
Speaker 1: we spend a great deal of time talking about our issues,
Speaker 1: being me being checked by my aunt or some other
Speaker 1: women about my behavior, what happened. When I'm a fly
Speaker 1: on the wall listening to men, I hear a lot
Speaker 1: of conversations about sports, about you know, just cool and breezy.
Speaker 1: But I don't necessarily here men really getting into with
Speaker 1: young men in these settings, conversations about life and so that.
Speaker 1: And maybe I'm listening, but I see with with with
Speaker 1: with women, we have empowerment spaces this day, that conference,
Speaker 1: we do all that we can do to try to
Speaker 1: empower ourselves, and I don't see the same with black men.
Speaker 1: But I could be wrong, not not that it doesn't
Speaker 1: happen at all. I don't see it as much. You
Speaker 1: gotta you gotta hang out at C C D sometime.
Speaker 1: I want to right go for you to come out.
Speaker 1: We gotta office in every ball, but the main one
Speaker 1: is on something for the board and Queens. I wanna
Speaker 1: write you to come out. Even in Queensbridge we do.
Speaker 1: We do the hell of Justice circles. We just have
Speaker 1: one and it's mentorship. It's really like there's people taking
Speaker 1: off their masks, you know that that have black mikes,
Speaker 1: have have lived and been through some things. I know
Speaker 1: my songing probably going on almost like I've been in
Speaker 1: closing him Fat Joe and the front. I've never heard
Speaker 1: this portion of him or a bit like and that's
Speaker 1: my brother, somebody I've known and respected for a long time.
Speaker 1: But we to your point, we don't always find those
Speaker 1: moments to be like, Yo, how long I've been dealing
Speaker 1: with my partner, my be besting partner for twenty eight years.
Speaker 1: She's been in my life since I was fifteen sixty
Speaker 1: years old. But I don't speak about that to my brothers.
Speaker 1: Were talking about a whole lot of other things. So
Speaker 1: I think there's spaces when we when we work with
Speaker 1: the young people, to youth builders as we call them,
Speaker 1: we do have these conversations. We do talk about how
Speaker 1: to communicate. But but a lot of the self kid
Speaker 1: is self love has to happen first. You can't know
Speaker 1: how to speak to somebody else when you alund yourself
Speaker 1: to be dehumanized, when you walk around in the world
Speaker 1: feeling powerless, when you walk around the world being dictated
Speaker 1: to every step of the way, when you can't even
Speaker 1: get decent food in your body, but your mind is
Speaker 1: supposed to be in these elevated positions that you're describing,
Speaker 1: it's not really realistic. A lot of design for us, right.
Speaker 1: So I remember being with my girl, like I said,
Speaker 1: from those teenage years, and at one point, you know,
Speaker 1: it gets rockey, you kind of get caught out there.
Speaker 1: You should ain't adding up this way and that way.
Speaker 1: And she's like, yeah, what's up with you? She said, Kay?
Speaker 1: You the loyalists, dude, Like you don't do nothing without
Speaker 1: your guys, Like you're on the phone everything, your word
Speaker 1: is everything. But with me, and I said, I never
Speaker 1: saw that. I never got that training. I know how
Speaker 1: to be stand up, I know how to stand on
Speaker 1: my word. I died for my word, but I didn't.
Speaker 1: I've never seen and I wasn't copying. I wasn't trying
Speaker 1: to copy people. I was telling her, I like that
Speaker 1: ain't part of the manuscript that I inherited from the
Speaker 1: streets I never saw, not in my house and not
Speaker 1: in people around me. You understand I'm saying. So I'm
Speaker 1: telling her, like, you want me to do things with
Speaker 1: you that I've never seen, experience, witnessed, or been a
Speaker 1: part of. So she was, you know, she's like, yo,
Speaker 1: but with the guys, you know what to do? Is
Speaker 1: this way? Never? I don't know, We're not. It's all
Speaker 1: written in the code, she said. She said, where is
Speaker 1: the code for me? And I think that's the point.
Speaker 1: We gotta establish the code for us as brothers and
Speaker 1: sisters in relationships. Really, I just want to I just
Speaker 1: want to end it by saying, you know, we do.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of these conversations. Like you know,
Speaker 1: I take a lot of my my brothers, my nephew,
Speaker 1: like I I've sat down with them, every every young
Speaker 1: man is in direct contact for me, and any young
Speaker 1: guys that I mentor, I sit down and have real
Speaker 1: conversations just based off, you know, my reality in my
Speaker 1: life and what I've been through. And I tell all
Speaker 1: of them like I'm a cheat sheet through life. And
Speaker 1: if you just take, you know, some of the influence
Speaker 1: and understand in the wisdom that I got, you don't
Speaker 1: have to make the mistakes that I mean, you know.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, there are a lot of young guys that
Speaker 1: I sit down and I have conversation, and I know
Speaker 1: that they're powerful and the note. But unfortunately some of
Speaker 1: them I have to gonna go through a little They
Speaker 1: ain't gonna get their hand burnt off. They're not gonna
Speaker 1: do a bunch of years in jail, but they're gonna
Speaker 1: get arrested one or two times, and then they're gonna
Speaker 1: come back to me and say, I know, I understand
Speaker 1: what you're saying. At twenty years old, it was the
Speaker 1: first time that my son ever admitted to me that
Speaker 1: I was always right. I see you on the Facebook
Speaker 1: post he called me. He didn't say your dad you right,
Speaker 1: he wrote on the It was like, you know what,
Speaker 1: today is the first day I realized that my dad
Speaker 1: never told me anything that was wrong. Everything he ever
Speaker 1: said to me was one that's a beautiful falling, and
Speaker 1: that's where it comes to. And I tell, and I
Speaker 1: tell a lot of women. I tell to me because
Speaker 1: you gotta tell. These boys tell us and I'd be
Speaker 1: like to Meka. Unfortunately, men are whired a little different, right,
Speaker 1: They're gonna have mentors that they listen to and they
Speaker 1: take in their information. They're taking it in. You don't
Speaker 1: know they're taking it in. It's one day that it
Speaker 1: clicks in you. An opportunity for them to navigate and
Speaker 1: see things because unfortunately they don't believe. They don't always
Speaker 1: believe anything that everybody says right, So they gotta go
Speaker 1: through certain things and see certain outcomes for themselves to
Speaker 1: be able to go back and say this, this is
Speaker 1: exactly what my mother, This is exactly what makes you
Speaker 1: say it to me. So all our job is to
Speaker 1: to to be like the right. It's like you know,
Speaker 1: in the bowling alley, we're making sure that it don't
Speaker 1: go into the the put the rails up for the
Speaker 1: for the new beginning, to make sure they don't go
Speaker 1: in the gutter. We're just making sure don't go in
Speaker 1: the gutters. So we just were right there. We we
Speaker 1: can't do all of it. These are gonna be men,
Speaker 1: and they're going to their want to have their old egos,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna deal with certain things. But we're just
Speaker 1: gonna make sure that they don't go too far leftl
Speaker 1: or two far a right that they even listen. You
Speaker 1: said everything right, because you definitely do mentor speak to
Speaker 1: and try to help young men. And I know that
Speaker 1: all the black men around me are really doing all
Speaker 1: that they can. I guess the point that I've been
Speaker 1: trying to get to and what is on my spirit
Speaker 1: is that we've got to expand this, you know, um,
Speaker 1: expanding work, expand these conversations, because there's something wrong when
Speaker 1: a fifteen year old young black kid is able to
Speaker 1: break the bones of a woman who looks like his grandmother,
Speaker 1: and it's happening every single day, So there is a
Speaker 1: missing link. Um. And I know the system is responsible.
Speaker 1: I know it's all these things, but we just like
Speaker 1: we as as I said, black women, I think I
Speaker 1: think black men can learn something from the way in
Speaker 1: which black women organize ourselves. The ways in which we
Speaker 1: work with one another. Doesn't mean we don't go left
Speaker 1: and right. Because my mom and them tried to tell me,
Speaker 1: don't do this that in the third and I did
Speaker 1: all those things, including love the wrong guys. I mean,
Speaker 1: you name it. We all, like you said, Mike, but
Speaker 1: there's something about us right now that has Black women
Speaker 1: are the as the leading entrepreneurs, the most graduated. You know,
Speaker 1: in these different classes. We're seeing black women graduating like crazy.
Speaker 1: We're seeing black women leading households also, um in a
Speaker 1: very powerful way. And and yes, certainly is structural. And
Speaker 1: there's always been a division between us that has been
Speaker 1: manufactured by this nation. We know that. But I think that,
Speaker 1: like the underground railroad, we gotta figure out how to
Speaker 1: institute some of whatever is in the soup that we're
Speaker 1: cooking as black women, and do it you alway the
Speaker 1: way you all have been doing it, but just expanded
Speaker 1: and get y'all's voices out everywhere more often. I want
Speaker 1: to hear Cabin every week or somebody's national podcast talking
Speaker 1: what you're talking and dropping that knowledge. I appreciate more
Speaker 1: than you know, the opportunity to be amongst greatness. It
Speaker 1: means the world that you would include me and your dialogue.
Speaker 1: This is sacred. We call people like you real models.
Speaker 1: We don't call you role models. We call your real
Speaker 1: models because you've been through some things and you're authentic.
Speaker 1: So the youth with Mike said, when you plant that seat,
Speaker 1: it's gonna germinate. It's it's undeniable when you're dealing with
Speaker 1: people who are coming from their hearts like you too.
Speaker 1: So again, privilege and honor. There's a tool I'm gonna
Speaker 1: leave you with this. It's a tool that CCD. It's
Speaker 1: called the Sustainable Growth Plan. The next time y'all have
Speaker 1: me on, the next time you'll passed by the shop
Speaker 1: so we can chopping up in person. I want to
Speaker 1: talk about this tool that is the bridge from survival
Speaker 1: mode mentalities that we come from to ones of creation
Speaker 1: where we're defining and designing our identity and our actions
Speaker 1: for ourselves. Thank you, Kabang, thank you for coming on today.
Speaker 1: We're certainly gonna have you um to be back and
Speaker 1: we're definitely going to come out and visit you and
Speaker 1: maybe we'll do street politicians right from inside or I
Speaker 1: would love it. I would love it. Respect to the
Speaker 1: Guard to Beautiful as always Queer shout out to Kim
Speaker 1: Baby my brother man. He told you we have a
Speaker 1: long standing history brother that I've known for years. And
Speaker 1: just watched him evolved and elevate from these streets in
Speaker 1: which you know we both come from, and just understanding
Speaker 1: that there is elevation. That's what I try to tell
Speaker 1: you all the time. These kids gonna get it to Mika,
Speaker 1: because we got it. We had to go through some things.
Speaker 1: I know, you look, you know when you're looking, you
Speaker 1: like them. They're not on the right path. But as
Speaker 1: long as they ain't in jail, as long as they
Speaker 1: enough in the streets shooting and killing and all that,
Speaker 1: they have an opportunity. So they are. But they are.
Speaker 1: That's the problem. I'm just trying to tell you ours
Speaker 1: are not. I wasn't not I wasn't, but I include
Speaker 1: ours has to include way more. And that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: We're in a danger. Black murder is our campaign, and
Speaker 1: that's why we're gonna grab these young boys up. And
Speaker 1: that's why I'm raising kings And you know, I can't
Speaker 1: kill my brother because I love all of these things
Speaker 1: that we're going to implant in our kids and and
Speaker 1: retrain the culture to what it really looks like for
Speaker 1: success and unity. Man. So that's the next stages of
Speaker 1: what it is, man. So it was supposed to debate
Speaker 1: about Kevin Samuel. So what I'm challenging you to do
Speaker 1: is next week we should I think we have somebody
Speaker 1: booked for next week, so yeah, but we can figure
Speaker 1: it out next week if possible. I think that you
Speaker 1: should bring someone to the show, and I will try
Speaker 1: to bring someone. I don't know, but I'll try. So
Speaker 1: we could have a conversation about our brother. And I
Speaker 1: still call him my brother because I don't you know,
Speaker 1: I don't believe that people should be like, oh, I
Speaker 1: don't care if he died. That's that's too much for me.
Speaker 1: I would never do that. I thought Kevin Samuels at
Speaker 1: there were times when you're right, he did say some
Speaker 1: things that I was like, Okay, I can see that,
Speaker 1: but I just think the brand um that was associated
Speaker 1: with him, it was distorted and what you know, what
Speaker 1: it is what I what I learned. I've been playing
Speaker 1: sports my whole life, right, and you have different coaches, Right.
Speaker 1: You have coaches that pull you off the court and
Speaker 1: said you're playing like ship. You like you're playing like
Speaker 1: ship and you're gonna sit on the rest of the bench.
Speaker 1: You're bummed out of what you're You're too heavy, you're slow.
Speaker 1: I don't even know how you got to this team right.
Speaker 1: And it worked for certain people. There were certain people
Speaker 1: that elevated their game because that Minister of aericon will
Speaker 1: do yeah and it, and he called them every name
Speaker 1: possible in front of everybody, and they came back. And me,
Speaker 1: I was one of those people when you told me
Speaker 1: those negative things about me, it's I'm gonna show you that.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you I'm better than And I came
Speaker 1: back and I competed twenty times harder. And those are
Speaker 1: my favorite coaches. I didn't need the coach that made it.
Speaker 1: You know, hey, can you can do a little better?
Speaker 1: I'm not looking you know what I'm trying to tell
Speaker 1: you is That's what I'm trying to tell you. Kevin
Speaker 1: Samuels has a model that worked for some people. When
Speaker 1: he talked about black dudes, he said, okay, so why
Speaker 1: shouldn't you have a woman? You're fat, you don't make
Speaker 1: no money, you don't really look that good, Like do
Speaker 1: you have a big dick? It's probably small? Like what what? What?
Speaker 1: What can you offer a woman? Let's just be realistic,
Speaker 1: my I. You know, it's fine. We should debate the
Speaker 1: issue next week, because you know, I y'all told me
Speaker 1: that a black woman, a black man needs life spoken
Speaker 1: to him by a woman. You know, she needs to
Speaker 1: be built this woman, yeah, this woman. Yeah. Well, but
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just telling you that there were some
Speaker 1: times it didn't. It didn't, It didn't make me. It's
Speaker 1: for someone to tell me that as thirty. If I'm
Speaker 1: over already five, I'm leftovers that I get something. And
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to say, I could give you so
Speaker 1: many of those types of statements that but I can
Speaker 1: give you so many says that he did. He made
Speaker 1: that word like that, I don't think, so bring that.
Speaker 1: Let's bring that to the show. Let's do it next week.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, so um, what I want
Speaker 1: to do is the way I want to end this
Speaker 1: show is usually an ending with my I don't get it.
Speaker 1: There's so many things I don't get this week, you know,
Speaker 1: after traveling to Ghana and traveling to Africa and just
Speaker 1: really just reflecting, Man, I really don't get how us
Speaker 1: as a people with so much greatness, so much power,
Speaker 1: so much ability, just don't get it right. I just
Speaker 1: don't get it. Like when when I when I'm traveling
Speaker 1: and I'm seeing I look at the power. When you
Speaker 1: look every field, Black people excel. They create everything, they
Speaker 1: come up with the ideas, They the best athletes. We
Speaker 1: all of these things, and we don't utilize that and
Speaker 1: put it together to become the superpowers and the gods
Speaker 1: and that we're supposed to be. I just don't. It's sad,
Speaker 1: but it's not us. It's really it's it is at
Speaker 1: this point because we should know better, but really we have.
Speaker 1: It took four hundred plus years to break us down
Speaker 1: and to create this thing where we can't work together
Speaker 1: or where we don't work as much together as we should.
Speaker 1: I mean, you you know, words are powerful. We can
Speaker 1: work together, and we do work together, but we don't
Speaker 1: do it as much as necessary to change the conditions
Speaker 1: to our people of our people. That's what I'm focusing
Speaker 1: on with these questions that I'm asking because I see
Speaker 1: us and we we we we we know how to
Speaker 1: argue one another. Damn built up because our kids are
Speaker 1: in the center of it. And I and I think
Speaker 1: that we have to recognize that this is being done
Speaker 1: to us on purpose. Our communities have been built and
Speaker 1: structured a certain way, and our relationships in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways have also been tampered with, so hopefully we
Speaker 1: can get that. It's so crazy, Like I watched all
Speaker 1: every like I've been really doing historical studies, and every
Speaker 1: person deemed as a leader who has taken on any
Speaker 1: you know, pressure to say hey, I'm gonna do something
Speaker 1: to change my people has been demonized and crucified by
Speaker 1: its own people. And I don't know how we got
Speaker 1: to that stage. It's it's it is the weirdest thing
Speaker 1: that I've ever seen. But you know, my purpose is different.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna continue to move through the fire and
Speaker 1: take whatever comes with it, you know. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: love my people despite my people or despite what we've
Speaker 1: been through, because we have to recognize the trauma. With
Speaker 1: that being said, I'm not gonna always be right. Jamika
Speaker 1: married is not gonna always be wrong. We both always
Speaker 1: and I mean always, be authemic.