Speaker 1: Welcome to We Talk Back Podcast, the production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and the Black Effect Network.
Speaker 2: We're just two unapologetically black women with an opinion. He
Speaker 2: talks back.
Speaker 1: What's up, y'all?
Speaker 3: Thank you for tuning in for a new episode that
Speaker 3: We Talked Back, the show dedicated to you dreamers and chasers.
Speaker 1: It's your co hosts a J. Holiday. What's up, Tam Bam?
Speaker 2: What's up girl?
Speaker 3: How you doing?
Speaker 1: I love y'all, I love y'all.
Speaker 2: How's your weekend?
Speaker 1: I finished moving.
Speaker 3: I'm sleeping on a blow up mattress, bitch, Ti, My
Speaker 3: mattress comes.
Speaker 2: In not a bouncy house over there.
Speaker 3: Yes, honey, I smash on it yet, but and look
Speaker 3: I got a real plushed out though, Okay, a plush Now.
Speaker 3: I can't talk about niggas who sleep on blood mattresses.
Speaker 1: They don't carry my mattress.
Speaker 2: But they don't count because you moving. Some niggas that
Speaker 2: stay permanent.
Speaker 4: Shit that's they got, bitch is coming through. They got sex,
Speaker 4: They getting sections at the club. But I ain't got
Speaker 4: no bed.
Speaker 1: Where's your head board?
Speaker 2: Where's your priorities?
Speaker 1: Why is your polo so flat? What is happening? Sir?
Speaker 2: Then there's pillows. What did I do this weekend?
Speaker 3: I saw you, bitch, I saw you with the motherfucking
Speaker 3: shorts song man.
Speaker 4: No girl, when I tell you, they was on my
Speaker 4: head and the club this weekend.
Speaker 2: My little boo boo gave me my walking papers. He
Speaker 2: was saying he done with me. I was listening to
Speaker 2: my short. He doesn't cut me lose.
Speaker 4: So like, I was like sad on Saturday night. I
Speaker 4: gave myself one night to be sad. Then Sunday I
Speaker 4: was like, I'm outside, bitch. We outside tonight. That's how
Speaker 4: it was on Sunday, And I threw on some shorts
Speaker 4: and some leather boots and had a marvelous time.
Speaker 2: They was on my head. They was chasing me around
Speaker 2: the club.
Speaker 1: That's all in.
Speaker 2: Take yup.
Speaker 1: So next, you over him, You over the bub I
Speaker 1: missed him.
Speaker 4: But I mean, if you ain't want to be here,
Speaker 4: then please go where you're welcome and where you're happy.
Speaker 2: Okay, period. Next. Next, let's get into the sense of
Speaker 2: the week.
Speaker 1: Ah girl, did you see.
Speaker 3: This video of these fucking kids licking toes in the
Speaker 3: gymnasium in school looking peanut butter?
Speaker 1: Was it adults?
Speaker 2: No? There were other students.
Speaker 4: So it was an Oklahoma high school and Deer Creek
Speaker 4: High School to be exact, and they were having a
Speaker 4: fundraiser to help a local coffee shop that hires people
Speaker 4: with special needs, so they were raising money for them,
Speaker 4: and they had a toe locking toe sucking tournament was
Speaker 4: the event that students paid to attend, and they had
Speaker 4: kids on the ground like literally sucking other people's feet.
Speaker 2: And I just don't understand.
Speaker 4: Who approved this shit, Like who said, Okay, yeah, that's
Speaker 4: a good idea, let's go ahead and let these kids
Speaker 4: lock on each other foot.
Speaker 1: D these kids different, okay, because why.
Speaker 2: Would you even participating that?
Speaker 3: These kids real different from what I remember kids being like, no, now,
Speaker 3: let me let me stop tripping. I feel like sometimes
Speaker 3: we be lying acting like a lot of shit wasn't
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 2: No at my school, dud not.
Speaker 3: At the school. But I definitely got my toes licked
Speaker 3: in high school.
Speaker 2: You didn't know.
Speaker 4: And I wouldn't think about looking nobody toes in high school,
Speaker 4: Like what is that?
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 3: I ain't think about looking nobody toes Now I'm not
Speaker 3: looking nobody's toes. I side eye niggas when they suck
Speaker 3: my toes, but I'm not gonna stop them.
Speaker 4: I don't like, don't put my foot in your mouth.
Speaker 4: I stand all day for work. I just don't feel.
Speaker 2: Like you should do that. That's nasty. Stop It's other.
Speaker 2: It's other special places that you can lick that I
Speaker 2: will actually enjoy.
Speaker 4: My feet are not not one of them.
Speaker 1: I like a little toe, I like it.
Speaker 3: I like to see a little toeing and a nigga
Speaker 3: mout every once in a while.
Speaker 1: And not some kids though, this is that's that's real wild.
Speaker 3: Like, so did the kids organize this thing or was
Speaker 3: it organized by adults? Because I'm seeing a lot of
Speaker 3: shit that adults are doing the children and for schools.
Speaker 4: But it was a school sanction of it, which means
Speaker 4: adults had to approve it. And I'm just trying to
Speaker 4: think of like what adult was like, Yeah, that's a
Speaker 4: good idea.
Speaker 2: Let's let's let the kids lick on each other foot.
Speaker 3: The principal obviously got a foot fetish and he don't
Speaker 3: give a ship he wanted to see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because that's wild.
Speaker 1: Let me not assume that the principal was a man.
Speaker 1: That's that's kind of messed up.
Speaker 4: But whoever whoever is the need and fired, because I
Speaker 4: wish I would have seen the video of my baby
Speaker 4: on that damn gym, navy or floor lick at somebody's feet.
Speaker 4: Everybody hit it, and my baby like, what is wrong
Speaker 4: with you?
Speaker 2: You ain't got enough sister, know not to do no
Speaker 2: shit like that.
Speaker 1: Right shame? So listen, what would you do if you
Speaker 1: are in love? Right?
Speaker 3: This man asked you to marry him, and you're walking
Speaker 3: down the aisle and all of a sudden, what's that
Speaker 3: movie with a girl would out at.
Speaker 1: The damn prom Kirie cam Kirie.
Speaker 3: You walking down the aisle with your beautiful white wedding
Speaker 3: dress on, and all of a sudden somebody.
Speaker 1: Throws red paint on you on your wedding day. What's
Speaker 1: your next move?
Speaker 2: I'm airing that whole motherfucking wedding house. Everybody back up?
Speaker 2: Who threw paint?
Speaker 1: Girl?
Speaker 3: So it's a story on I find this online. So
Speaker 3: bride is splattered with red paint as she's walking down
Speaker 3: the aisle. Amid claims her groom's unhinged mom arranged the
Speaker 3: attack before later a thing to steal her son's passport
Speaker 3: to ruin his honeymoon. So they still got say I
Speaker 3: don't fuck with niggas with mamas noth example of why
Speaker 3: I prefer niggas who don't got no mama, no sister,
Speaker 3: and adult children.
Speaker 1: Adult yeah, adult children.
Speaker 3: If you got a thirty year old daughter who is
Speaker 3: not in a healthy relationship with a man, I can't
Speaker 3: fuck with you.
Speaker 4: I just feel like before I would marry a man,
Speaker 4: I would have to have like some type of healthy
Speaker 4: relationship or healthy boundary with his family. Because she knew
Speaker 4: that lady was full of she knew that lady was
Speaker 4: with all the smoke before they went down the aisle.
Speaker 4: There's no way I would have walked down that aisle
Speaker 4: with someone.
Speaker 2: So we're hinge.
Speaker 3: When I tell you the church would be so clean
Speaker 3: because I would clean all the pulpits.
Speaker 1: What his fucking mama.
Speaker 4: You can't be doing that to nobody, Mama, absolutely, because
Speaker 4: you know, sometimes I feel like men they let their
Speaker 4: mom run amuck over their lives.
Speaker 3: Right, So you you didn't leave it to your significant
Speaker 3: other to try to sort the shit out when really
Speaker 3: that's not my place. You need to check your mama.
Speaker 3: And if you can't check your mama out.
Speaker 2: He clearly couldn't check his mama.
Speaker 4: He probably never could check his mama in life, and
Speaker 4: that's why she thought it was okay to bring have
Speaker 4: somebody to bring paint up.
Speaker 1: In the wind and steal his passport so.
Speaker 2: He can't even go away.
Speaker 1: And they they got married.
Speaker 2: Still clearly, clearly they still got married.
Speaker 4: They needed a passport to go somewhere because they would
Speaker 4: be bail bunny for my motherfucking ass.
Speaker 2: That's all they would need.
Speaker 1: So y'all, uh, Kanye West, uh new wife? Listen, her
Speaker 1: name is Bianca since censory, but that.
Speaker 2: Calling her new wife. They've been together for at least
Speaker 2: two or three years now.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not Kanye has only been married to that lady
Speaker 3: for a year. Oh okay, Yeah, they got married last year,
Speaker 3: so y'all be seeing her. You know, they got pictures
Speaker 3: with her walking around with the ass out with a
Speaker 3: little plastic bag.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I agree with Kanye when he said, like the the
Speaker 3: big designers be sealing his design because I can't remember
Speaker 3: who it was during New York Fashion Week, but they
Speaker 3: literally everybody was dressed like his girl. So obviously, y'all,
Speaker 3: y'all do be paying attention. And he is a trendsetter
Speaker 3: in some type of way, but anyway, so apparently Bianca censory.
Speaker 3: We've named her Bianca uncensored. Her dad wants a word
Speaker 3: with Kanye West over the recent revealing photos of his daughter.
Speaker 3: It says, shortly after Bianca was seen not wearing underwear
Speaker 3: under sheer stockings while having dinner with Ye in Paris.
Speaker 3: In Paris, her father we don't call this Nigga Leo
Speaker 3: Okay Leo reportedly said he wanted a conversation with the
Speaker 3: controversial artist, keeping in mind of the outfit could lead
Speaker 3: to legal trouble for her, as France has strict indecency
Speaker 3: laws and could result in jail time or a hefty fine.
Speaker 3: One source claim Bianca's father, Leo wants to have a
Speaker 3: proper sit down with Kanye and ask him what the
Speaker 3: hell he's thinking when he paraised Bianc around like a
Speaker 3: trashy naked trophy pony.
Speaker 1: How is this? This is a grown woman? Right?
Speaker 3: Is she being held against her will? She's always smiling,
Speaker 3: She always looked happy.
Speaker 4: She look at happy hole to me, well, she looked
Speaker 4: like she might be easily influenced, you know, would she
Speaker 4: be wearing this trash bag?
Speaker 2: And niggad asks if she was not with Kanye.
Speaker 1: I mean, but who is your dad to check me boo?
Speaker 4: He also said, you know, would he wants Chicago North
Speaker 4: to be seen in public when and revealing closed because
Speaker 4: their husbands encouraged them to.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not.
Speaker 3: He's trying to get Kim to take his kids out
Speaker 3: of a particular school because he feels like it's a
Speaker 3: school where children are groomed for Hollywood. Right, So of
Speaker 3: course Kanye would not have would not allow a man
Speaker 3: to have his child walking around looks crazy.
Speaker 2: Well, help pussy out.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this speaks to how sometimes boundaries that men
Speaker 3: have really doesn't pertain to women that they really don't love.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: You know so I personally I don't think Kanye West
Speaker 3: actually loves this woman.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because when he was with Kim, he used to
Speaker 4: get mad about her posting essentially stuff. So why the
Speaker 4: change her? Why is it okay for this woman to
Speaker 4: be so exposed?
Speaker 1: You don't like her?
Speaker 3: That's what it balls down to, because I remember Kim
Speaker 3: crying after the met gala. It's like Kanye knew exactly
Speaker 3: what she was wearing at night, and he waited till
Speaker 3: that day like to fuck with her about how revealing
Speaker 3: the outfit was right.
Speaker 1: But now you got this bit. She don't be having
Speaker 1: on no clothes at all.
Speaker 4: She'd be naked, bro like she should really be outside
Speaker 4: and asked nickd just having them.
Speaker 2: Would let this scallop your scallop is.
Speaker 1: Out, your callup is exposed.
Speaker 3: The middle of the Dad in the middle, in the
Speaker 3: middle of France's second dick on the boat, Kanye Buck
Speaker 3: cracks stay out his ask me out too.
Speaker 1: Kanye hopped in the truck and he was kicked up.
Speaker 4: Kanye, why are you so kick all of a sudden
Speaker 4: say two of the kind of.
Speaker 1: Sh I don't know?
Speaker 3: All right, So, speaking of men respecting the women that
Speaker 3: they say they love, we're talking domestic violence on this
Speaker 3: week's episode. So we have the founder of mad okay,
Speaker 3: that's Men Against Domestic Violence, and we talked back this week.
Speaker 1: Y'all stay tuned, all right, y'all, welcome.
Speaker 3: Back, And y'all know March is Women's History Month, and
Speaker 3: not to start the month off super heavy, but the
Speaker 3: conversation is definitely necessary. Women are almost always at the
Speaker 3: forefront of domestic violence conversations and primarily primarily the main advocates. Also,
Speaker 3: men aren't exempt, you know, from being victims, but they
Speaker 3: really don't speak out being victims or the abusers. It's
Speaker 3: usually a conversation that women are having. So today's guest
Speaker 3: is out here breaking the cycle of abuse through his
Speaker 3: work as a CEO and founder of an organization called MAD.
Speaker 3: That's m a d USA, Inc. And that's Men Against
Speaker 3: Domestic Violence. He's also the assistant Assistant Chief of Personal
Speaker 3: Development in the North Charlston Fire Department.
Speaker 1: He's a girl's dad and he's a good man.
Speaker 3: Anna, okay, y'all. Welcome Chris Raine, we fight, I mean
Speaker 3: we talked back.
Speaker 1: What's up?
Speaker 2: Welcome Christian.
Speaker 1: What how you doing today, Chad?
Speaker 5: I'm doing good, doing great, doing great. Nice to be here.
Speaker 2: Tell us about man, how I got started, tell us
Speaker 2: all the things.
Speaker 5: Really just a god, I think I would say, in
Speaker 5: a very unconventional way. I was in Baton, russ Louisiana
Speaker 5: in two thousand and six. I got a phone call
Speaker 5: from my cousin and that basically changed my life. I
Speaker 5: learned that my mom and my four siblings were murdered
Speaker 5: by my mom's husband, and they had only been married
Speaker 5: for about a year, and my mom was in Mi
Speaker 5: from colon cancer. So when I initially got the call,
Speaker 5: I really didn't know what I was flying home for.
Speaker 5: Nowhere really told me until I got here. And I
Speaker 5: had actually spoken to my mom ironically the day before,
Speaker 5: and our conversation was just around the period of time
Speaker 5: of which we had not talked, which was probably about
Speaker 5: a month or two, which was very unordinary for us,
Speaker 5: and she just basically was saying that she was busy
Speaker 5: basically following up her last chemore appointment and that they
Speaker 5: were headed got the Moja festival. I got a chance
Speaker 5: to talk to three of my siblings and you know,
Speaker 5: they said that they were going to Mojia. I said,
Speaker 5: I love you, love you too, and I told her
Speaker 5: I would talk to her tomorrow. She said, promise. I said,
Speaker 5: you know, we promised that we would talk the next day,
Speaker 5: and that was the last day we spoke. Fast forward
Speaker 5: about seven years of trying to rediscover myself and you know,
Speaker 5: this life and what it really means to go through
Speaker 5: this type of tragedy. I decided, through prayer and isolation
Speaker 5: that I wanted to do something to honor my family
Speaker 5: and their legacy, not in a negative way, but you know,
Speaker 5: bringing life to their lives and I hosted event at
Speaker 5: Walmart in the parking lot in honor of them to
Speaker 5: bring awareness to domestic violence. And I was only expecting
Speaker 5: family members to show up, and we had about five
Speaker 5: six hundred people show up in that event. And I
Speaker 5: knew from that point on that there was something bigger
Speaker 5: that I needed to do, and I wanted to do
Speaker 5: something that wasn't done already. I think that we have
Speaker 5: a lot of people doing reactive work to domestic balance.
Speaker 5: There's shelters, not enough shelters, and our resources for victims,
Speaker 5: but what are we doing on the front end to
Speaker 5: prevent it? And I felt like that where my space was,
Speaker 5: and so that's I began an organization to do proactive
Speaker 5: education for children, teaching team dating, violence, bullying, and domestic violence.
Speaker 5: And eleven years later, you know, made some legislative changes
Speaker 5: in the state of South Carolina, because before twenty sixteen,
Speaker 5: you would actually get more time for beating your dog
Speaker 5: than you would have beaten your wife or your significant other.
Speaker 5: So our morals quote unquote did not match.
Speaker 3: So y'all know, in South Carolina, it's still a law
Speaker 3: that you can beat your wife on the front steps
Speaker 3: of the Courthouse downtown Charleston is still a thing on
Speaker 3: the book, so a lot of legislation, legislation still actually
Speaker 3: hasn't been changed. So why do you think it is
Speaker 3: that men aren't as engaged in the topic.
Speaker 1: About domestic violence as much as women are.
Speaker 5: Guilt and accountability. I would say my very first TED
Speaker 5: talk I did was about men owning your role and
Speaker 5: just looking at the feedback that I got from YouTube,
Speaker 5: just the comments and stuff, and men just saying like, well,
Speaker 5: I never put my hands on a woman, Why do
Speaker 5: I have to take responsibility? But the truth of the
Speaker 5: matter is you didn't directly have to be a slave
Speaker 5: owner to benefit from slavery, and I don't directly have
Speaker 5: to be an abuser to benefit from the privilege of
Speaker 5: being a man, or contributing to the culture in which
Speaker 5: men feel like it's okay to abuse women or treat
Speaker 5: women a way that they do. So to me, I
Speaker 5: think a lack of accountability is the main thing, like
Speaker 5: not wanting to accept our role what we benefit in
Speaker 5: the culture, Like, no, not all of us may put
Speaker 5: our hands on someone, but you know, I think verbally
Speaker 5: we probably said some things sometimes, you know, as we
Speaker 5: grow on relationships. That probably is not the best thing.
Speaker 5: I'm on both sides, and I think just taking accountability
Speaker 5: for the culture in which we allowed to happen. If
Speaker 5: we're watching it happen and allowing it to happen, I mean,
Speaker 5: are we not at fault as well?
Speaker 4: I had I had went on a date one time
Speaker 4: and we just went to like a day it was
Speaker 4: like a brunch day party situation, and we met with
Speaker 4: the guy was seeing his friend and he started telling
Speaker 4: the story about how he had to beat his girlfriend
Speaker 4: the night before, all right, and I got really upset
Speaker 4: and I left. You know, I call me an uber,
Speaker 4: and I left because I just felt like, one it
Speaker 4: was one you just you know, casually talking about beating
Speaker 4: a woman, and two the nigga ain't saying shit right,
Speaker 4: So that gave me a sign that this ain't the
Speaker 4: party for me. This is not my ministry. So the
Speaker 4: guy was dating he said something to his friend about
Speaker 4: why I left. So the next time I saw the guy,
Speaker 4: he was like, I apologize for, you know, having that
Speaker 4: conversation in front of you. But some women don't feel
Speaker 4: like you love them unless you beat them. So my
Speaker 4: question for you is, do you agree with that scenario, like,
Speaker 4: are there women out there that only feel love when
Speaker 4: they're being physically abused by men? And is there counseling
Speaker 4: for that?
Speaker 2: With Matt.
Speaker 5: So to answer your first question, this is going to
Speaker 5: open up a very deep conversation. Second ted talk that
Speaker 5: I did was on love is not Love, which is
Speaker 5: layered oppressed, fooling the emotions, And the premise of that
Speaker 5: talk was how do we learn how to love? Is
Speaker 5: it a universal thing that everyone understands what a healthy
Speaker 5: relationship and with love is or are we taught with
Speaker 5: love is? I would say that we're taught right, So
Speaker 5: when we say that the only way that a woman
Speaker 5: feels love is if she's hit or she's abused, okay,
Speaker 5: we have to kind of backtrack and say, well, how
Speaker 5: was she taught? What was the environment in which she
Speaker 5: grew up in to where this was the norm, to
Speaker 5: where this is what she accepts as being the norm.
Speaker 5: Because if you grow up in the household as I
Speaker 5: did from the age of six, where love and violence coexist,
Speaker 5: how do you learn how to love without violence? Because
Speaker 5: they are hand in hand? And so I think you
Speaker 5: know the root of that is, you know, and I
Speaker 5: was talking to aj about it earlier. Like even the
Speaker 5: kids that I teach sometimes their lack of emotional intelligence.
Speaker 5: Some of it is from them, but some of it
Speaker 5: exactually passed down from their parents. Like there has to
Speaker 5: be like traumatic cycles that are broken. And so I
Speaker 5: can't blame the woman. You know, anybody would look at
Speaker 5: her and be like, oh, you know, it's stupid. Why
Speaker 5: don't why doesn't she just leave? Like it's a deeper
Speaker 5: I hate to say sickness, but it's a deeper traumatic
Speaker 5: event that she's had going on in her life repetitively
Speaker 5: to where she feels like this is the normal, right,
Speaker 5: and this is what she accepts as love because her
Speaker 5: dad might have did it to her mom, or you know,
Speaker 5: her mom may have a boyfriend and something that does
Speaker 5: it to her, and it may be the pattern happening
Speaker 5: over and over again. So what she does is accepts
Speaker 5: the fact that this is what love is. At times
Speaker 5: it may result into this and it's really just on
Speaker 5: like kind of just settling. And sometimes you have men
Speaker 5: who actually, you know, seek women who are heavily submissive.
Speaker 5: And I hate using that word because I think the
Speaker 5: word has kind of gained a very negative feel around
Speaker 5: what submissiveness looks like in a relationship or should be
Speaker 5: in a relationship, and so now it's just seen as negative.
Speaker 5: But you know, and not to preach. But also I
Speaker 5: often reference Ephesians when I talk about like submissiveness and
Speaker 5: the way that I grew up in the church, I
Speaker 5: used to hear male pastors preach for hours about wise
Speaker 5: being submissive to your husbands. And one day I decided
Speaker 5: to go read for myself, and I realized that God
Speaker 5: gave more instructions on how male is supposed to treat
Speaker 5: a female then he did the woman being submissive to
Speaker 5: the man. So my thing is is if men own
Speaker 5: the part of treating your wives that Christ loved the church,
Speaker 5: or no man committing harm to his own flesh, Because
Speaker 5: when you become married, our relationship, however you see it,
Speaker 5: you become one right and no one's going to commit
Speaker 5: or should commit harm to their own flesh. And if
Speaker 5: you're deeming this person as your significant other, are your
Speaker 5: better half? As some people say, why are you harming
Speaker 5: this person? Because that cannot be a reflection of what
Speaker 5: love is heavy.
Speaker 3: I think that a lot of people you just have
Speaker 3: to find somebody who has the same definition of love
Speaker 3: as you do, because I feel like women who get
Speaker 3: abused and men who abused somehow they always meet each
Speaker 3: other because that same man could get with another woman
Speaker 3: and would never put his hands on her because she's
Speaker 3: not allowing that thing, right. But it's like, I know
Speaker 3: some women who have been abused in every single relationship
Speaker 3: they've been in.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was just thinking about that.
Speaker 4: There's a girl that I know from Colombia and she's
Speaker 4: always posting abuser man abusing, Yeah, abusing her like different
Speaker 4: scars on her body and different war wounds from different men.
Speaker 4: And it's just like, how are you continuously attracting physically
Speaker 4: violent men?
Speaker 5: It's a pattern. I mean, there's no different from fishing
Speaker 5: in the same pond where they breed catfish and catch
Speaker 5: a catfish. You can't be surprised that's where you're fishing at.
Speaker 4: But I'm confused on how that worked because basically what
Speaker 4: you said Columbia, South Carolina is a bunch of women
Speaker 4: beating ass nigga.
Speaker 5: Well, I'm gonna just tell you so track breaking in
Speaker 5: South Carolina ain't great. I mean, we notice that's when
Speaker 5: they come to men killer women so cultfully, I mean,
Speaker 5: going back to what AJ said, Like, you think about it,
Speaker 5: even though that law is a blue law, right, which is,
Speaker 5: you know it's on the books, but it's not practice.
Speaker 5: You could obviously get in trouble.
Speaker 2: For it, But like spitting on the sidewalk.
Speaker 5: Right, But you have to go back to the route
Speaker 5: of why is it there in the first place, right,
Speaker 5: because there's it's not by coincidence that over fifty percent
Speaker 5: of the states that make up the top ten or
Speaker 5: southern states. Right, Why do we hold on to laws
Speaker 5: like that? Why were they designed in the first place?
Speaker 5: Because to me, there's no Again I hate bringing up slavery,
Speaker 5: but there's no rule or no law that is saying
Speaker 5: that it's okay to be a slave. But in turn,
Speaker 5: I would say that it doesn't stop the system of
Speaker 5: slavery to continuing to happen. And so when you have
Speaker 5: men who not only feel like it's okay to abuse
Speaker 5: their wives physically, but they got together as lawmakers leaders
Speaker 5: of a state and came together and decided that the
Speaker 5: right thing to do with their time is to protect
Speaker 5: the fact that they can beat their wives on what
Speaker 5: they would consider a holy day and the Bible belt
Speaker 5: in public, who.
Speaker 2: Says that shit crazy.
Speaker 4: That's why listen, I got a pistol for anybody coming
Speaker 4: at me different, I swear, don't come at me crazy.
Speaker 4: So let me ask you this. Are you saying you
Speaker 4: do a lot of like training with children, you want
Speaker 4: to get them young, right, But how do you go
Speaker 4: about teaching a child something so heavy and helping them
Speaker 4: to understand these things? Because it seems like a difficult task.
Speaker 5: You go, you figure out what the pillars of And
Speaker 5: this is what I'm meant to tell ag a minute ago.
Speaker 5: You find out what the pillars of the what I
Speaker 5: deem to be a sickness is, which is power and control. Right.
Speaker 5: If you don't have power and control overybody over someone,
Speaker 5: you're not gonna be able to abuse them. That's off top.
Speaker 5: They're gonna leave, right. No one just magically becomes like,
Speaker 5: I'm not gonna come holler at you and be at
Speaker 5: our first date and be like, you know I hit
Speaker 5: and abused women, right, That's that's nothing that I'm just
Speaker 5: gonna come out and say, right, because you would leave right.
Speaker 5: So over time I have to, like some people, court
Speaker 5: to you, you know, tear you down physically, I'll tear
Speaker 5: you down mentally. Right, and get you to depend on
Speaker 5: me emotionally, depend on me for your happiness, and then
Speaker 5: once we get to a certain point, then they feel
Speaker 5: comfortable enough abusing right. No one's just gonna come out
Speaker 5: and slap you, because nine times out of ten you're
Speaker 5: just gonna leave.
Speaker 3: I usually do it on the first date, but go ahead,
Speaker 3: so you can't like so so a year from now, you.
Speaker 1: Can't say I changed. It happened the very first date.
Speaker 5: If I see aging a dollar paper, i'm'n just.
Speaker 4: Be like, AJ is gonna find a way to make
Speaker 4: domestic violence lighthearted.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you what to do. You gotta hit
Speaker 3: them on top of the head. It's a it's a
Speaker 3: reset button on no shopping niggas head and like, especially
Speaker 3: if they got hair like Kristen, you won't be able
Speaker 3: to see it.
Speaker 1: You just kind of don't.
Speaker 4: This is exactly the opposite of what Christian is trying
Speaker 4: to relate to our listeners.
Speaker 2: She's just joking. Yeah, she don't really be hitting nobody.
Speaker 3: I don't know that SHEI ate any anything violent oftentimes, So.
Speaker 4: You're saying with the kids, you teach them about what
Speaker 4: power control, So power.
Speaker 5: And control, so when you when you say, like, how
Speaker 5: do you get this across? It's teaching the basics. So
Speaker 5: elementary school having a conversation about teen dating violence is
Speaker 5: not age appropriate. They don't understand it, right, But what
Speaker 5: do they understand relationships? Friendships? The root cause of bullying
Speaker 5: is power and control. You can't bully somebody unless you
Speaker 5: have power and control over them, right, So we teach
Speaker 5: about friendships, healthy relationships surrounding bullying in that conversation. And
Speaker 5: once we get to middle school and high school, that's
Speaker 5: when we start talking about teen dating and domestic violence
Speaker 5: and you know, talking about red flags. But what we
Speaker 5: also just started incorporating into our lessons is a lot
Speaker 5: of things dealing with men health. Because we talk about
Speaker 5: like being able to recognize signs, but how do you
Speaker 5: recognize within yourself the issues that you have dealing with
Speaker 5: depression recognized and whether you depress, whether you deal or
Speaker 5: suffer from anxiety or temper or a temper right, or
Speaker 5: any of those things, And how do we solve it
Speaker 5: or how do we recognize it, get help counseling, how
Speaker 5: do we heal from those things? Last week I led
Speaker 5: my first class in meditation and it was dope a
Speaker 5: bunch of high school kids I had in the class
Speaker 5: that I've been teaching for months, and for those kids,
Speaker 5: it was like for them, they said, it was the
Speaker 5: very first time in their life that they can remember
Speaker 5: their mind just being clear and not racing about life.
Speaker 5: And that's mindfulness And that's a lot of power to
Speaker 5: hand over to a teenager that they've had, but they
Speaker 5: deserve to be mentally free, you know. So basically just
Speaker 5: teaching like a holistic thing, like not only pointing out
Speaker 5: the red flags, but you're also just being emotionally intelligent
Speaker 5: enough to be self aware but also manage your emotions,
Speaker 5: but also to be socially aware to understand the people
Speaker 5: that you're dealing with and kind of just gauge how
Speaker 5: they emotionally respond to things, because I think even as adults,
Speaker 5: those are things that we sometimes suff aware in relationships.
Speaker 5: We can be self aware, we can kind of manage
Speaker 5: our emotions, but sometimes we have a hard time reading
Speaker 5: and managing other people's emotions and how we react to it.
Speaker 4: So with MATD, you only focus on the youth, or
Speaker 4: do you deal with like adult men who have already
Speaker 4: been like domestically violent to people and they're trying to
Speaker 4: change or do you not work with them?
Speaker 5: Tan, That's a good question. So I would say that
Speaker 5: I work with everybody because I've taught in college, I've
Speaker 5: taught with the military, I've trained my fighter apartment on it.
Speaker 5: There's not a space that I haven't done domestic violence training.
Speaker 5: But when you talk about the abusers traumatically to me,
Speaker 5: I used to be very closed after that because obviously
Speaker 5: I was biased. I had abuser take everything that I
Speaker 5: love away from me, right, but I had probation partner
Speaker 5: parole reach out to me.
Speaker 4: About Yeah, I was going to ask what happened to
Speaker 4: that motherfucker? Because where he at he's in.
Speaker 5: He's in Colombia at a mental institute. One of the
Speaker 5: high schools that I teach actually is right by it.
Speaker 5: I actually passed by it for the first time in
Speaker 5: December last year. I never knew where it was, never
Speaker 5: went up there. I forgave him within myself, never tried
Speaker 5: to do a face to face. But he's in a
Speaker 5: psychiatric ward in Colombia.
Speaker 4: He was mentally ill already from the jump. Did you
Speaker 4: feel like you knew this about him prior to your family?
Speaker 5: No, I think that he knew what he was doing.
Speaker 5: If I'm being honest with you, I think that he
Speaker 5: was severely beaten when he got to prison. I mean,
Speaker 5: obviously you go to Leeds Avenue. People know people, and
Speaker 5: people knew what he did. They knew my family. You know,
Speaker 5: I grew grew up in the gardens, and you know,
Speaker 5: unfortunately a lot of people that I know might be
Speaker 5: on Leeds Avenue, you know, right, So you know, I think.
Speaker 3: Said, that's what I'm gonna say. What's Leeds Leeds Avenue
Speaker 3: and Charleston South. Leeds Avenue is where the city jail
Speaker 3: is at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's where he went first.
Speaker 5: That's where he went first.
Speaker 3: You were about to say how the parole or whatever
Speaker 3: you were, you were telling us how the parole board
Speaker 3: or whomever reached out to you.
Speaker 1: What was that story?
Speaker 5: And so they reached out to me about basically, let
Speaker 5: me fix my face.
Speaker 2: I got mad, got mad? I did go ahead.
Speaker 5: So, I mean, it reached out to me about training
Speaker 5: for abusers, people on probation for domestic violence, and you know,
Speaker 5: initially I was like, I don't know if I'm ready
Speaker 5: for it, because I don't know if they will ever
Speaker 5: change or if it's just a waste of my time,
Speaker 5: and I didn't want to, I just right, and so
Speaker 5: but I agreed to it because I was like, look,
Speaker 5: it's it's an opportunity. Let me at least feel it out.
Speaker 5: I believe in uh well, rehabilitation to a degree, but
Speaker 5: I believe in the higher power, and I feel like
Speaker 5: things are often put into my path for a reason,
Speaker 5: and some of it is growth. Right, And so I
Speaker 5: went and I taught them, and what I realized by
Speaker 5: teaching them were they were victims themselves, may not have
Speaker 5: been victims of direct abuse, but goes back to back
Speaker 5: to what we talked about before, like how did they
Speaker 5: learn how to love? They watched their dad beat their mom.
Speaker 5: That's all they know. So that's all you know. Guess
Speaker 5: what you're going to do when you get an adult relationship.
Speaker 5: You're going to revert back to your foundation and what
Speaker 5: you and your parents are your first introduction to what
Speaker 5: love is healthy or healthy.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: I feel like violence is like that final measure for
Speaker 3: some men to prove that they are men. Right, they
Speaker 3: may not be able to show up in life like
Speaker 3: they want to, like, they may not be shit at work,
Speaker 3: whoever else amongst their friend group They're not that nigga.
Speaker 3: But in that house with these women and children is where.
Speaker 1: They are the boss. So what are what are? What's
Speaker 1: your perspective on masculinity because I think some people confuse
Speaker 1: masculinity with violence sometimes like you being stronger than whoever
Speaker 1: else is around you? Can you share your perspective on
Speaker 1: masculinity and how it intersects with topics like relationships, family
Speaker 1: and personal well being?
Speaker 5: So aj I know, as a disclaimer, I probably should
Speaker 5: have told you I get add So what's gonna happen?
Speaker 5: You're gonna have to break that question that a little
Speaker 5: bit more part.
Speaker 3: Let's talk about masculinity and what it is to be
Speaker 3: a man, right, because I think that a lot of
Speaker 3: people try to redefine what it is to be a woman.
Speaker 3: We've had a whole episode on what is a woman right,
Speaker 3: and it's not for women to define what a man is.
Speaker 3: So from a male perspective, what is a man? What
Speaker 3: is masculinity and how it means to relationships?
Speaker 5: I think one I think that we're all trapped in
Speaker 5: a box, a man box. If I can be real,
Speaker 5: I think as men, we are trapped in a box
Speaker 5: and we have this idea that we've been fed since
Speaker 5: the beginning of time that this is what makes a man,
Speaker 5: and those things are typically unhealthy things that have to
Speaker 5: do with being violent, being aggressive, competing against each other
Speaker 5: in unhealthy ways. And I think when it comes to women,
Speaker 5: I think we just saw we have a hard time
Speaker 5: cherishing women because we don't get a lot of we
Speaker 5: don't see a lot of examples of it. It kind
Speaker 5: of baffles me the fact that all of us, what
Speaker 5: we do have in common is we come from a woman,
Speaker 5: and we don't cherish a woman as if she is
Speaker 5: the power of population, the power of birth on earth.
Speaker 1: Say it right, your.
Speaker 5: She is God on earth right And and you know,
Speaker 5: I'm not going to quote it right, but you know
Speaker 5: Tupac said in one of his songs, We're going to
Speaker 5: raise a race of babies that's gonna hate the ladies, right,
Speaker 5: And it's still true today. And I think we're toxic
Speaker 5: because we don't have we we view what you deem
Speaker 5: to be like we have conversations about women and how
Speaker 5: women should be. We don't have conversations about men and
Speaker 5: how men should be. But also we don't have a
Speaker 5: conversation about it being okay for men to actually be emotional.
Speaker 5: Right me, personally I am. I am vulnerable. My mom
Speaker 5: raised me, so you know I have what people would
Speaker 5: deem as feminine qualities. I'm just saying, like, I cook,
Speaker 5: I clean, I do my daughter's here. There's nothing that
Speaker 5: I hate to say it, but there's really nothing that
Speaker 5: I would need a woman for. And my mom told
Speaker 5: me pussy pussy that all right, So I'll say, you
Speaker 5: still need I understand what I'm saying, right, This is
Speaker 5: what my mom told me. She said, I want you
Speaker 5: to be with a woman because it's who you want
Speaker 5: to be with, not because you need her for something,
Speaker 5: need her to cook, need her to clean, need her
Speaker 5: to do this because a lot of men are just like,
Speaker 5: oh man, she know to cook, I'm gonna make the
Speaker 5: rest work out, right, And I'm like, I want to
Speaker 5: be self sufficient because then I have more to bring
Speaker 5: to the table because that takes a lot of work
Speaker 5: off the woman. Because if I can cook and clean myself,
Speaker 5: I'm not depending on you to just take on that
Speaker 5: responsibility by yourself. To me, that's what partnership looks like.
Speaker 5: And that's why I tell women when they're like, oh man,
Speaker 5: I want a man that you know work and I
Speaker 5: can just stay home. I'm like, Okay, Well, that's a
Speaker 5: dangerous place to be because one of the forms of
Speaker 5: abuse that we often do not talk about is financial use.
Speaker 5: And if you put yourself in that situation and you're
Speaker 5: in one of these forty six counties in South Carolina
Speaker 5: with only sixteen shelters in it, and you ain't got
Speaker 5: no money where you're going at.
Speaker 2: Right? Only fans that's where you're going?
Speaker 1: What about my mama house? Like god damn.
Speaker 4: Some people don't have that option, right, People don't have anybody.
Speaker 5: That's the thing about it. And I warrant teenagers about it. Like,
Speaker 5: you know, you go to college, you got a man
Speaker 5: that's from another place, and he got a job offer somewhere.
Speaker 5: You end up moving back with him. You stuck, you isolated,
Speaker 5: your family not there, your friends not there. You may
Speaker 5: have mutual friends with him, but I can guarantee you
Speaker 5: if you hiding, they're gonna probably tell them where you at.
Speaker 5: But back to what AJ was saying as far as
Speaker 5: like toxic masculinity, I think we just suffer from a
Speaker 5: lot of trauma. And I think it goes back to
Speaker 5: just like I told you, earlier, Like, it's so many
Speaker 5: different directions you can go. I mean, you can go
Speaker 5: back to like slavery, you can go back to like
Speaker 5: even when we were free, and how the system was
Speaker 5: dividing the households between men and women, and women were
Speaker 5: kind of the were not kind of they were the
Speaker 5: bread winners because men couldn't find jobs because the only
Speaker 5: jobs that they had at the time were being slaves.
Speaker 5: Women had trades and things that they can do, so
Speaker 5: they typically held down the household. But if the man
Speaker 5: separated from the house and you put in you insert
Speaker 5: government assistance. But with government assistance, you can't have a
Speaker 5: man in the house. You break up the dynamic of
Speaker 5: you could say, the black home or homes in general.
Speaker 3: I know that that thing, right, we always talk about it,
Speaker 3: but I don't I think it's an assumption, right that
Speaker 3: that was most black people's household, right. Have y'all seen
Speaker 3: as a video on social media right now, And it
Speaker 3: was like black people in California, like the early sixties,
Speaker 3: and they were saying how they didn't want black people
Speaker 3: migrating from the South coming to them because they were
Speaker 3: affluent black people like in Cali and shit, and I
Speaker 3: feel like the North was affluent, you had a lot
Speaker 3: of affluent black people. Slavery was predominantly in the South
Speaker 3: is where you saw this type of this type of thing.
Speaker 3: So I just I don't I don't think that it
Speaker 3: was a norm. You know, like every black woman is
Speaker 3: not on housing even then or now, right, So I
Speaker 3: think it's a misconception. A lot of the times black
Speaker 3: men were already leaving the household is what I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get to, right, Why the systems were put in place.
Speaker 3: I don't think the systems were put in place because
Speaker 3: black men were already there. I think something was happening
Speaker 3: in the jobs and things like that. Yes, something was happening,
Speaker 3: But I don't think that black men. I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't think that the welfare system was put in place
Speaker 3: because black men just weren't there, or they didn't want
Speaker 3: them to be there. They put something in place to
Speaker 3: make them go away. I think they were already going away.
Speaker 4: Even if they were already going away, why is it
Speaker 4: I can't have him in my home if I'm receiving
Speaker 4: government assistance, why do they Why can't I have a
Speaker 4: new Why can't I have a new new man in here?
Speaker 4: Maybe he ain't the father of my kid. But why
Speaker 4: I can't have a I can't even bring a new
Speaker 4: man home. You know, if you're on section eight, that
Speaker 4: seemed like it was very divisive.
Speaker 5: It was, but also a j I would I would
Speaker 5: say that, and I mean, this is just a theory.
Speaker 5: But you know, when we when we think about like
Speaker 5: systems like, we have to understand and acknowledge the fact
Speaker 5: that systems are they have they passed down trauma. We
Speaker 5: are are the way that we operate as men, like
Speaker 5: it is rooted in something, right. I think the minute
Speaker 5: that we were taken from Africa and brought here and
Speaker 5: incorporated into another system and freed without reparation, we were
Speaker 5: already destined to not succeed. We were set free without anything.
Speaker 5: And so you take that with men that are broken.
Speaker 5: Whether people believe in post slavery traumatic stress or not,
Speaker 5: that still impacts the way that men operate now like
Speaker 5: we still like we have archaic ways in which we operate,
Speaker 5: and it's based off of you can call a tradition,
Speaker 5: you can call it hereditary, you can call it whatever
Speaker 5: it is, but it's to me, it's no different. How
Speaker 5: like slavery still echoes in every aspect that we move
Speaker 5: in in the South, particularly our state. Like we can
Speaker 5: say like it doesn't exist, but that type of behavior
Speaker 5: was passed down from somewhere, But it came from somewhere,
Speaker 5: And I think, like as we as we continue to
Speaker 5: look at it, I just believe like that may not
Speaker 5: have been like the sole reason, because I don't think
Speaker 5: that it is, but I think in general, it had
Speaker 5: a place and had something to do with it. And
Speaker 5: it's not a pass for men because at some point
Speaker 5: in time we have to make a choice to break
Speaker 5: a cycle in to change. Like I mean, I watched
Speaker 5: my mom get her ass what plenty times, and I
Speaker 5: watched her with other people ask but you know I knew,
Speaker 5: I mean straight up, like I mean my mom, I
Speaker 5: tell people my mom was a g I mean, you know,
Speaker 5: I watched her slap somebody across the face with iron.
Speaker 5: I mean my third brother, I mean second brother, I
Speaker 5: guess his dad got shot by my mom. My mom
Speaker 5: really didn't play them type of games. But I realized,
Speaker 5: like with me, I did not want to repeat that cycle.
Speaker 5: So you know, unfortunately I still ended up in two
Speaker 5: abusive relationships myself. But you know, I had to make
Speaker 5: decisions like this. Ain't this for me? Like this, ain't
Speaker 5: I've seen unfortunately, I've seen what this can result into.
Speaker 4: So you had women that were violent with you, or
Speaker 4: you ended up being violid with them or both.
Speaker 5: Damn you shouldn't even have to ask me that question.
Speaker 5: That wouldn't even be on this podcast if it be
Speaker 5: a woman.
Speaker 2: But the answer you might be reformed.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, definitely. I cannot stomach talks as
Speaker 5: you say about men putting the hands on women. I
Speaker 5: could never put my hand on a woman that's not
Speaker 5: in my DNA.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you this because you said seven years
Speaker 4: after you had lost your family members, that is when
Speaker 4: y'all had you started kind of started mad and you
Speaker 4: had the event in the Walmart parking lot. What was
Speaker 4: that seven years like for you? Because I want to know,
Speaker 4: like what healing looks like for you, because a lot
Speaker 4: of people go through something like that and they ain't
Speaker 4: never write again, and they never could create a platform
Speaker 4: like you have. So I commend you for that, But
Speaker 4: what what was that like? You know, how did you
Speaker 4: come out of that?
Speaker 5: Reflecting on it? I mean it was a lot. You know,
Speaker 5: I've gone through moments of like feeling lost in life,
Speaker 5: but probably never as lost as I felt in those moments.
Speaker 5: So those amount of years without any type of direction,
Speaker 5: I mean you talk about like just existing, that's kind
Speaker 5: of what the hell I was doing for seven years,
Speaker 5: like just existing. I felt broken, I felt alone. I
Speaker 5: didn't want to be here anymore. But you know, ironically,
Speaker 5: for me, like I got baptized about a month or
Speaker 5: so before that happened, and I would say religiously, it
Speaker 5: was a kick in the face to me. I didn't
Speaker 5: want to hear what the preacher had to say about anything,
Speaker 5: barely wanted to hear what any type of counselor wanted
Speaker 5: to say. There was nobody that was going to explain
Speaker 5: to me that this shit was okay. And so I
Speaker 5: smoked a lot because at the time I felt like
Speaker 5: that was the only safe space that I had. And
Speaker 5: I typically don't even say that publicly, but I think,
Speaker 5: you know, just kind of being real with people. I
Speaker 5: realized that even with doing that, like I wasn't like
Speaker 5: when my high came down, my issues were still there.
Speaker 5: I had to go to counseling. I went to like
Speaker 5: three different counselors, and it was all about just feeling comfortable,
Speaker 5: and I finally had like the dean of psychology at
Speaker 5: Southern University. She counseled me for like year and a
Speaker 5: half and we got to a point where she said, like,
Speaker 5: I don't know what else to do. She said, you
Speaker 5: I lost my mom, but I've never lost anything of
Speaker 5: this magnitude, and I don't know. And so I've been
Speaker 5: to probably like two other counselors since then. Who have
Speaker 5: you know, give me a lot of tools to help.
Speaker 5: But I mean, it was it was really a dark
Speaker 5: place to put myself out of. But I needed isolation.
Speaker 5: You know, sometimes you have to be in the cave
Speaker 5: and just be with yourself and your thoughts in God
Speaker 5: in order to like figure a way out. Because sometimes
Speaker 5: the world is just so busy, so loud, that you
Speaker 5: don't give you some time self to think and reflect
Speaker 5: on life, and it's easy to get into the pattern
Speaker 5: of being busy. I've mastered that I could busy myself
Speaker 5: out of life. And I just realized being by myself
Speaker 5: with no girlfriend, no friends, like being in Orlando and
Speaker 5: not really having a social life and just really being
Speaker 5: by myself, like life one is worth living if I
Speaker 5: die or if I take my life like he wins right.
Speaker 5: Not only did he kill five, he would have killed
Speaker 5: six at that point in time. And so you know,
Speaker 5: for me, did I want my family to be remembered
Speaker 5: and then me overtake their legacy by me killing myself
Speaker 5: wouldn't have made any sense. And I knew that my
Speaker 5: mom was stronger than that and she would expect more
Speaker 5: from me. So you know, when I got back home
Speaker 5: finally went back to church, first sermon that I heard
Speaker 5: was about asking God the right questions, not asking why,
Speaker 5: which is I think the normal question that most people
Speaker 5: want to know, but praying for guidance, like where do
Speaker 5: we go from here? Where are you leading me from here?
Speaker 5: And so like in my life now, I don't really
Speaker 5: I mean, I still have anxiety, I still stress, but
Speaker 5: I embraced chials interpolations more in life now because I
Speaker 5: know the growth and the blessings that come on the
Speaker 5: other side. And so I mean, it took him in
Speaker 5: and and I would be lying to anybody to say,
Speaker 5: like it doesn't affect me. I mean, my mom's birthday
Speaker 5: affect me. My great grandmother just died three weeks ago.
Speaker 5: We buried her Saturday, and she's buried right. Sorry, it's okay,
Speaker 5: and she's buried right next to my mom. I appreciate it,
Speaker 5: you know, and that's where she wanted to be. But
Speaker 5: going out there is a reminder that you know, your
Speaker 5: immediate family is gone. And I tell people like, if
Speaker 5: you got biblands and you've got parents, you got mom
Speaker 5: like cherits and love them because time is the most
Speaker 5: valuable thing that we possess in life.
Speaker 4: Right, So let me ask you this, where do you
Speaker 4: want to take mad Like, where do you want it
Speaker 4: to go? How do you want to grow it?
Speaker 5: So I want Mad two. I probably need to change
Speaker 5: it from mad US say the Mad World.
Speaker 1: Kendrick Omar probably got that trademark.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna have to.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a mad world out here, right.
Speaker 5: But where I see it growing next? Because I've done
Speaker 5: sessions in India the country, and I've done sessions in
Speaker 5: the United Kingdom, and I love to see it globally.
Speaker 5: But for right now, my acute goals is to open
Speaker 5: a chapter in every state, have a state each state
Speaker 5: run their own organization under the umbrella a mad usay,
Speaker 5: and kind of just get to work on breaking these
Speaker 5: cycles and creating an environment where healthy relationships are the norm.
Speaker 5: Because if we know that the issues are at home
Speaker 5: and the kids are not receiving the same foundation, it's
Speaker 5: our obligation and our job to teach them what healthy
Speaker 5: relationship look like. Like. We know traumatically, I mean not
Speaker 5: even just through trauma of but we just know that
Speaker 5: our traumas are passed down. I mean I see it
Speaker 5: in kids that I teach all the time, how they
Speaker 5: handle their anger, just all of that right, and to me,
Speaker 5: it's a huge responsibility to take on. But I mean,
Speaker 5: somebody has to teach skids. Somebody has to So for me,
Speaker 5: it's mad, you know, being in every state in the
Speaker 5: United States and then just kind of moving on from there.
Speaker 5: But this advocacy has to continue to grow. I mean,
Speaker 5: people have seen the work that we've done. I mean
Speaker 5: I've won national awards for the work that I've just
Speaker 5: done in South Carolina. But I mean it isn't that
Speaker 5: doesn't stop for me. I mean, I love my professions
Speaker 5: as an assistant chief in the fire department, just and
Speaker 5: inspired to be a head chief. But I think where
Speaker 5: God is calling me in life is too pour into
Speaker 5: his children.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this.
Speaker 4: You said that you forgave the person who harmed your
Speaker 4: family in that way? How because I can't forgive people
Speaker 4: for taking my parking space outside. Still, it's a nigga
Speaker 4: that live in this building right now, We got beef
Speaker 4: just because of some shit that happened in the parking lot.
Speaker 4: So I just want to unders then, how you came
Speaker 4: to that, because I just have such a hard time
Speaker 4: with forgiveness.
Speaker 2: So it's something so tumultuous, like how were you able
Speaker 2: to do that?
Speaker 5: So i' might answer your question, but I'm gonna also
Speaker 5: ask you a question. How heavy of a burden do
Speaker 5: you feel about not being able to forgive?
Speaker 2: How heavy? I'll be sleeping?
Speaker 5: But are are there some deeper things in life that
Speaker 5: you have not forgiven that you feel like? Deaf? Is you?
Speaker 4: I know, absolutely absolutely, But I just can't see myself forgiven.
Speaker 4: Some shit is just unforgivable for me, Like it's just like,
Speaker 4: why why would I absolve you of that pain you
Speaker 4: cost me? I don't ever, I don't want to forgive you,
Speaker 4: you know, So I just I don't see how I
Speaker 4: could ever forgive some of the atrocities that had happened
Speaker 4: to me, And what has happened to you is much greater.
Speaker 4: So it's just I want to know, like what it
Speaker 4: took to be there, so maybe I could channel some
Speaker 4: of that energy for my own life.
Speaker 5: And I'm gonna ask you one more question before I
Speaker 5: answer your question. Are you absolving them? Are you absolving yourself?
Speaker 2: Well? I ain't did shit. Why I need to absolve myself?
Speaker 4: You know? Why Am I absolving myself for the things
Speaker 4: that you did to me? I don't understand.
Speaker 3: So, you know, we talk about the five agreements sometimes, right,
Speaker 3: and one of them is not taking things personally. Sometimes
Speaker 3: it's not about you, right. The thing that somebody did
Speaker 3: is not about you, Right, So you have to realize, like, yeah,
Speaker 3: this person that is fucked up ship, it don't really
Speaker 3: have nothing to do with me. It's something to me
Speaker 3: if they did it to me, yes, but it's but
Speaker 3: it's it's something going on with them within them, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmm, it's mm hmm.
Speaker 5: Let me say this. Let me let me say this
Speaker 5: in a different way. Right, forgiveness is not for them,
Speaker 5: is actually for you.
Speaker 4: Because I've heard that before, But I just don't understand
Speaker 4: how it is for me when they did me harm?
Speaker 2: How is me forgiving you? For me?
Speaker 5: Because the fact that you're still like I can see
Speaker 5: it on your face right, So you still harnessing and
Speaker 5: you're still holding on to it. That's negative energy that
Speaker 5: you stored in your body every damn day. It does
Speaker 5: not promote growth within you. So my thing is is
Speaker 5: let that shit go. And for me, in order to
Speaker 5: reach where I wanted to go, I had to let
Speaker 5: that shit go because I had a burden of hate
Speaker 5: in my heart that wasn't allowing me to move forward
Speaker 5: because I was hanging on to it. Is in the past.
Speaker 5: It happened. I can't change shit, me killing him, me
Speaker 5: not forgiving him and bringing diet Your back and bringing
Speaker 5: William back and bringing a Keen back and bringing Melchi
Speaker 5: back and bringing Semina back. None of them coming back.
Speaker 5: So for me, I got to move the hell on
Speaker 5: because he's sitting in Columbia right now, no matter how
Speaker 5: I feel towards him, and it ain't changing his life.
Speaker 5: It's only affected me. So my forgiveness of letting it
Speaker 5: go is me freeing myself. He has to live with that.
Speaker 5: And so when I talk about like, and I think
Speaker 5: where AJ was getting that with that was when you
Speaker 5: forgive somebody even though they do something to you, that's
Speaker 5: something that they have to live with and you just
Speaker 5: kind of move on and free yourself. And it takes work.
Speaker 4: I can see, yes, breath it hard because it's so
Speaker 4: y'all like be mad.
Speaker 2: I yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4: I do carry some hatred for some things that has
Speaker 4: happened to me in my life against people.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, but I don't. I don't know how to
Speaker 2: do that. Baby. That's it's gonna take a long I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 4: It's gonna take some work on my behalf to decide
Speaker 4: that forgiveness is what I need for myself. Because I
Speaker 4: feel like I'm sleeping pretty good and I still we
Speaker 4: still got beef. We got beef for life, and it's
Speaker 4: on site. If I see you, it's on site. That's
Speaker 4: how I feel like.
Speaker 1: I'm know it's terrible, but it's the truth.
Speaker 2: It's some people I got beef with. It ain't even here,
Speaker 2: no more. They gone. But if I can't, if I
Speaker 2: get in the gates, I'd be like, what that bitch yet?
Speaker 3: And God gonna say, straight the hell if there's one okay,
Speaker 3: you're not pass God bitch.
Speaker 4: You know God ain't through with me oh yet. So
Speaker 4: that's a beautiful because you know, I would always feel
Speaker 4: like forgiveness in that realm was something that slave owners
Speaker 4: taught black people to keep them in check. That's not
Speaker 4: what I would feel, like, like, why are we forgiving
Speaker 4: people who've harmed us so greatly?
Speaker 2: Why? Why do why should I forgive them? I should?
Speaker 2: I feel like I should never forgive you for that.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't. That's just something I don't understand
Speaker 2: that level of So I.
Speaker 5: Would say this forgiveness, I think was like being submissive
Speaker 5: at a point, like I felt like people were forgiving
Speaker 5: people a hella fast right, Like.
Speaker 4: When that white girl shot that black man in an
Speaker 4: apartment complex and they was in the courthouse giving her
Speaker 4: bibles and hugging her.
Speaker 1: I was so mad.
Speaker 4: I was so upset, like why are we giving this
Speaker 4: girl this kind of love and compassion after she just
Speaker 4: murdered this black man in his own home. And that
Speaker 4: was another example for me of like forgiveness just being
Speaker 4: something that we just give too freely.
Speaker 5: And I agree, and I will tell you, if I'm
Speaker 5: being honest, forgiveness didn't happen overnight. Forginness didn't happen for
Speaker 5: me until probably like five five years ago. Like I mean,
Speaker 5: they had been over a decade of me harnessing that
Speaker 5: kind of thing. But I will tell you after I forgave,
Speaker 5: and like I said, I just believe in you know,
Speaker 5: divine design, that a lot of other doors started opening
Speaker 5: for me. My nonprofit grow tremendously after I let that
Speaker 5: go because I was a better version of myself because
Speaker 5: I was at harnessing hate or rage against somebody, because
Speaker 5: I had to take control of myself. And that's the
Speaker 5: thing about like forgiveness and like being emotionally driven by
Speaker 5: harnessing that kind of feeling towards somebody is you can
Speaker 5: easily be triggered, which means you don't have control over yourself.
Speaker 5: Somebody else is still possessing of control over you. So
Speaker 5: step one and emotional intelligence, be self aware. Step two
Speaker 5: emotional management. Right, so understand that if somebody is triggering you,
Speaker 5: they have control. I tell kids this all the time.
Speaker 4: Maybe I need to sign up for MAD tonight because
Speaker 4: I need to sign up tonight.
Speaker 3: I don't forgive easily either, Like I definitely hold grudges
Speaker 3: and I'm make it known that I hold grudges against people,
Speaker 3: but it's not I'm not going to allow it to
Speaker 3: affect my day to day, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I just need you to know that, I know that.
Speaker 1: You know I don't fuck with.
Speaker 3: You other than that, Like I'm not litting it and
Speaker 3: I used to. There's a lot of things, you know,
Speaker 3: especially like things that transpire and relationships with men.
Speaker 1: You can let that shit fuck your whole thing up.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't even think for real?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, what's some advice you would give to some
Speaker 3: men struggling with expressing their emotions and or seeking support?
Speaker 3: And it can't be like we talked about this earlier,
Speaker 3: y'all we got men that listen, right, your woman is
Speaker 3: not your therapist. Okay, sometimes you gotta seek it. I
Speaker 3: know I asked him for advice, but just right quick,
Speaker 3: you can't just unpack on your woman to expect her
Speaker 3: to have the tools to deal with whatever traumas you
Speaker 3: may have had your entire life, right, So sometimes you
Speaker 3: gotta seek professional help.
Speaker 5: So I would say one thing, right, two things. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna answer your question. But yeah, but I'll get this
Speaker 5: out of the way. I think that just from a
Speaker 5: man's standpoint, one that is vulnerable and tries very hard
Speaker 5: to be emotionally available. That finding a mate that is
Speaker 5: okay with me expressing myself and being very raw with
Speaker 5: my feelings is very very hard to fine because you
Speaker 5: have to find somebody who is on the same emotional
Speaker 5: intelligence level as you. And I speak a lot on
Speaker 5: men not having deliberty to say things that women can
Speaker 5: say to men mm hmm, because if I walk around
Speaker 5: ignoring women like how they feel like it's okay for
Speaker 5: them to ignore men, Like if we're talking and you
Speaker 5: just decide you ain't going to respond. I can't do
Speaker 5: that because if I do it, it's a totally different
Speaker 5: reaction that I deal with. Or if I emotionally respond
Speaker 5: very quick and I know myself, I am very sharp
Speaker 5: with my words.
Speaker 1: Now you're sassy, I am saying. You know, I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's what women would say if you with the responses.
Speaker 5: Oh, he's sassy, right, And I can be pretty savage
Speaker 5: with my words. But I know that about myself, right.
Speaker 5: So now, like, what I find is people are very
Speaker 5: impatient with me because I am very slow to respond.
Speaker 5: One I have to process what you're saying I want
Speaker 5: to listen to fully process what you're saying, but I
Speaker 5: also want to think before I talk, right, I want
Speaker 5: to make sure what I'm saying is true, is it helpful,
Speaker 5: is it inspiring? Is it necessary? Is a kind?
Speaker 4: Usually when I get to the end, God damn Christ,
Speaker 4: who got time for all of that shits?
Speaker 1: But we want men to be emotionally available though you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, you gotta make time for it.
Speaker 5: You got to like if that's But the thing is
Speaker 5: is like, imagine if you have partners that considered that
Speaker 5: before they said something to you, right, Like arguments or
Speaker 5: disagreements would go totally different. It wouldn't be so emotionally
Speaker 5: charged to where you know, I'm trying to tit for
Speaker 5: tat you like I'm trying to move them like now,
Speaker 5: like are we resolving this issue?
Speaker 2: Like he just hurting each other.
Speaker 3: I think people need to be honest that they like
Speaker 3: this much of toxicity in a relationship because bitch just
Speaker 3: be getting bored. If every man was emotionally intelligent, like
Speaker 3: nobody would be together. Because I feel like people need
Speaker 3: a little bit of toxicity. They won't admit that, but
Speaker 3: it's a six love language.
Speaker 1: For a lot of people.
Speaker 5: Why so, aj, why do you feel that way? Why
Speaker 5: do you feel like there has to be I.
Speaker 3: Don't feel that way. I don't want toxicity. I know
Speaker 3: exactly what that looked like looks like. So when I
Speaker 3: see people online saying shit like I want my man
Speaker 3: to be obsessed with me, I know firsthand what it
Speaker 3: is for a man to be obsessed with for a
Speaker 3: man to be obsessed with me, Because listen, baby, every
Speaker 3: somebody's always in love, okay, always in fucking.
Speaker 1: Love, and it's not. You don't want a man to
Speaker 1: be obsessed with you.
Speaker 3: So y'all out here doing magic tricks and all this
Speaker 3: shit to make a nigga fall in love, You're not
Speaker 3: gonna be able to get rid of him when you
Speaker 3: feel like it, when you want to, You're not gonna
Speaker 3: be a to get him away from you. So I
Speaker 3: never want that type of control over another person. And
Speaker 3: I don't like being control.
Speaker 4: I'll be feeling like just a little see on that
Speaker 4: base sprinkle, a little salt based sprinkle, just a tiny
Speaker 4: little bit of toxic energy, make it a little a
Speaker 4: little spiky, a little bit, just a little sprinkle sprinkle,
Speaker 4: you know, little Ramsell down was nothing too crazy, nothing
Speaker 4: too crazy.
Speaker 2: I don't have no foolishness. But this is a little sprinkle.
Speaker 5: How do you find that buffer because most people just
Speaker 5: ain't a little crazy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're right, You're right. It's a slippery slope. I
Speaker 4: had a nigga chasing me around the club this weekend.
Speaker 4: I had to get security to walk me out.
Speaker 2: He was drunk. He was drunk, and I was in
Speaker 2: there with some short song. He couldn't help.
Speaker 5: In his mind. That was a little bit.
Speaker 4: No, that wasn't no sprinkle, nigga, Stop you did, nigga?
Speaker 4: Get I make a light of it.
Speaker 2: But I'll be thinking like a little sprinkle of like, no.
Speaker 3: Bitch, it's not cool because it's not. It's no middle ground.
Speaker 3: We're crazy crazy it is.
Speaker 4: She'll be saying like little stuff like I be joking,
Speaker 4: but like when I have a man and he be
Speaker 4: going out, I'll be like, leave your dick here, you know,
Speaker 4: just like you know, joking, acting like I'm a little
Speaker 4: obsessed with him, but not like scary up says like
Speaker 4: if he ain't answering my phone, I'm not like obviously
Speaker 4: he wants me to come to his house.
Speaker 2: I'm not one of those.
Speaker 4: All right, never mind, send me the link for mad
Speaker 4: so I can yeah, bet, because you need therapy.
Speaker 5: But TAMN, Like to your point, what I would say
Speaker 5: is like understand like why people are like drawn to drama,
Speaker 5: right and like reality TV. I was asking somebody the
Speaker 5: other day. They was like, you know, I was like, well,
Speaker 5: why do you you know? I like my Reality TV?
Speaker 5: And I was like, well, does that reflect like who
Speaker 5: you are in life? And They're like no, And I'm like, so,
Speaker 5: why why are we so right? Why are we so
Speaker 5: in tune to drama or entertained drama? Because I'm gonna
Speaker 5: tell you at some point in time, I'm gonna tell
Speaker 5: you from an ex sign, go say which one watch
Speaker 5: the whole lot of reality TV? And i'swhere like she
Speaker 5: just enjoyed arguing because that's what the hell she was watching.
Speaker 5: Like if you watch a lot of drama, like, do
Speaker 5: you not like take on a little bit of that
Speaker 5: in yourself because it may be something that you're yearning for,
Speaker 5: are yearning for the wrong amount of entertainment or attention?
Speaker 5: Like to me, like what you subject yourself to sometimes
Speaker 5: points in the direction of what you want to be
Speaker 5: or what you want in your life.
Speaker 1: What's that.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna.
Speaker 4: Watch a lot of war movies and I ain't trying
Speaker 4: to jump out nobody playing.
Speaker 5: Christian, but like a lot of war. But you seem
Speaker 5: like you're ready to go to Warde.
Speaker 3: Tam So, like I always think about that, like in
Speaker 3: American culture, like where like reality like the Snapped and
Speaker 3: these shows with people like real killings and stuff.
Speaker 1: Why is that a part of American culture?
Speaker 3: Like why is that TV shows? Like why is that entertainment?
Speaker 3: Somebody's murder, like what happened to your family could very
Speaker 3: well be on one of these TV shows Snapped? Why
Speaker 3: is that entertaining to Americans? Murder twenty one Savage got
Speaker 3: a song go Red Room, Red Room. That's murder spelled backwards.
Speaker 3: That's just part of our culture for whatever reason. And
Speaker 3: it's disgusting.
Speaker 5: Though kind of found that if I'm being real.
Speaker 4: We're going to be honest. Yeah, it's the American way.
Speaker 2: Apparently we were found.
Speaker 5: We're not completely founded, but I would say that there
Speaker 5: was a lot of rape and murder that.
Speaker 2: Happened when to get this place started, to get this
Speaker 2: place started.
Speaker 5: But to answer your question about men, and I think
Speaker 5: you were asking how do you asking how do we
Speaker 5: become emotional or how do we practice that? Or what
Speaker 5: were you asking?
Speaker 3: Like how did how do how do men you know
Speaker 3: who are struggling to get help struggling with mental health?
Speaker 1: Where did they start?
Speaker 5: You start with self awareness, like understanding that as men
Speaker 5: going to counseling is okay. I haven't had a therapist yet.
Speaker 5: That hasn't become like a good friend. No matter whether
Speaker 5: they like transition to another job or whatever, it is,
Speaker 5: like they still stay in contact because we've just developed
Speaker 5: a relationship. You have to have people that you can
Speaker 5: talk to outside of family and outside of a relationship,
Speaker 5: because if not, we look at it as compatibility or
Speaker 5: connection with somebody because we can have those conversations. But
Speaker 5: are you truly not just trauma bonding with somebody because
Speaker 5: we look at trauma bonding as ooh we compatible, No,
Speaker 5: you're incompatible y'all to share you know the same level
Speaker 5: of trauma, and that's what y'all bond on. So when
Speaker 5: y'all heal from that trauma and there was a guy
Speaker 5: talking about it on social media one time, Like, when
Speaker 5: you heal from that trauma and you have one person
Speaker 5: that's healed and the other person that's not where do
Speaker 5: you go from there? Because and I'm just telling you
Speaker 5: from a person that's been in that type of relationship
Speaker 5: and had to make a very tough decision about the
Speaker 5: type of father that I wanted to be to my girls.
Speaker 5: And I had to get out of the situation because
Speaker 5: at the point I healed and they were still hanging
Speaker 5: on to their trauma. And you can't force somebody to heal.
Speaker 5: I was only control of healing myself. But if you're
Speaker 5: not going to do the work to heal, and that's
Speaker 5: that's for men. Like, if you're not going to do
Speaker 5: to work to heal, like the trauma cycle is going
Speaker 5: to continue. It's never going to change. So you know,
Speaker 5: being self aware that even if you don't view your
Speaker 5: life as being traumatic, it's okay to have a counselor
Speaker 5: that you talk to in life because me personally, I
Speaker 5: deal and suffer with a lot of anxiety. I had
Speaker 5: to learn how to manage that, especially after my mom died.
Speaker 5: Like I was waking up every morning with some of
Speaker 5: the worst like feeling like fight or flight every day morning.
Speaker 5: And I woke up, you know, and I had another
Speaker 5: situation in a relationship where I started feeling the same
Speaker 5: way around my partner and I was like, this, this
Speaker 5: ain't life Like if you bringing that level of anxiety
Speaker 5: to me, it ain't healthy. So, you know, being self
Speaker 5: aware of yourself, but also just doing the things mentally
Speaker 5: and physically to take care of yourself, take care of
Speaker 5: your health, and don't apologize for putting yourself first. I
Speaker 5: think that you know, when we get relationships, we especially
Speaker 5: some men who are mostly available, they sometimes get taken
Speaker 5: advantage of more because they are deemed this sometimes softer.
Speaker 5: So you know, but it's okay to like choose you
Speaker 5: understand your boundaries, set your boundaries, stick to them, but
Speaker 5: also just acknowledge the fact that every woman you meet
Speaker 5: is not going to accept you one hundred percent for
Speaker 5: who you are. You're gonna you're a rare man and
Speaker 5: you're going to have to find a rare woman, but
Speaker 5: you're going to have to do the work. Like especially,
Speaker 5: I think you said at earlier ages, like if you
Speaker 5: got a woman that points out like something about you
Speaker 5: that needs to change or something you know that challenges
Speaker 5: your trauma, that's a damn good woman.
Speaker 2: Needs to be like that's just me, that's just who
Speaker 2: are you?
Speaker 5: But you got them? Why are you the way that
Speaker 5: you are? Because it ain't ain't normal contrary to your belief?
Speaker 5: Is it's not normal? Like I mean I grew up
Speaker 5: in the hood, like I still are. I mean still
Speaker 5: in the hood to a degree. And I mean like
Speaker 5: I talk to people every day that still hold on
Speaker 5: to the same trauma, the same attitude, Like this is me,
Speaker 5: this is who I grew up. Like, yeah, we grew
Speaker 5: up in the same environment, but right now we two
Speaker 5: different people. Why And I I hate saying that I've
Speaker 5: been through more than you because that's subjective, But in
Speaker 5: theory and life, I've been more than been through more.
Speaker 5: I have more excuses to.
Speaker 1: Be uh fucked up?
Speaker 5: Correct then you? What is stopping you?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: And that and that would be my challenge to men,
Speaker 5: like like it's okay to be to be broken or
Speaker 5: bent or a ment like I need some help, I
Speaker 5: need somebody to talk to. I need to like grow
Speaker 5: within myself. Like it's a simple reflection to me, I
Speaker 5: look at my kids. What is the man that I
Speaker 5: want them to marry? How do I want them to
Speaker 5: be treated? Because I'm the type of man that's not
Speaker 5: going to choose their love life form. You asked Daddy
Speaker 5: for advice. I give you advice, but I'm never going
Speaker 5: to tell you not to talk to this person, not
Speaker 5: to talk to that person. But you have to sometimes
Speaker 5: be that reflection of what you want, because there are
Speaker 5: people who expect different for their mom and they expect
Speaker 5: different for their daughters, but not really willing to do
Speaker 5: the work for themselves. Because if you are the foundation
Speaker 5: of which they learn what love is you accountable.
Speaker 2: Absolutely true.
Speaker 3: So we had a great segue in about five minutes
Speaker 3: ago into a SIMPS story before.
Speaker 2: We get into a SIMP story.
Speaker 4: Though based on yall interaction with me, Christian, am I
Speaker 4: running the niggas off from listening to the show.
Speaker 5: No, I will honestly tam like we would have to
Speaker 5: have like more conversation. I mean, I mean, I'm very real,
Speaker 5: y'all are beautiful women, so I would thank you. I
Speaker 5: would not have like a lack of men trying to
Speaker 5: talk to y'all.
Speaker 1: Somebody always in love? Okay.
Speaker 5: My question would be is how a good man, how
Speaker 5: do you how do your first dates typically go?
Speaker 2: I'm telling hello jokes, I could see that.
Speaker 4: It's always fun, It's always a good time, and I'm
Speaker 4: stand up comedian in the whole time pretty much.
Speaker 2: But that's just my personality honestly.
Speaker 5: So where do you Where do you lay your expectation
Speaker 5: in your boundaries out?
Speaker 2: When I did?
Speaker 4: I start laying boundaries and expectations when I decide that
Speaker 4: I like the person, not the initial like the first
Speaker 4: date is too early. It's all first dates a friend
Speaker 4: zone for me, for everybody. But if I like, Okay,
Speaker 4: this guy, this guy seems like he has potential, then
Speaker 4: I start laying down boundaries and expectations.
Speaker 2: But in the beginning, it's just fun. Shouldn't it be
Speaker 2: that way? Though?
Speaker 1: I'm dating with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you need to tell us day one what
Speaker 3: you want date one, what you're looking for.
Speaker 2: Because I don't know. I might not want ship from you.
Speaker 1: And why are you outside?
Speaker 2: Because I have to see if you're something I want.
Speaker 4: You know, I have to see if just I can't
Speaker 4: just go off based off looks, so I have to, like,
Speaker 4: I need to get to know you a little bit
Speaker 4: then I can tell you what I want because you
Speaker 4: may not be it in the first damn place.
Speaker 2: That's how I feel like you are you homeboy material,
Speaker 2: you know? So why I'm laying boundaries with you. I
Speaker 2: ain't ever fucking with you.
Speaker 4: You know, Let's just eat this little steak, watch this
Speaker 4: little game, and then that's it. But if I really got,
Speaker 4: like I start feeling you, then I start laying down
Speaker 4: expectations and boundaries.
Speaker 5: So do you feel do you feel like because you
Speaker 5: say running and off, like, do you feel like theyre
Speaker 5: what do you feel like they run off from? Because
Speaker 5: I mean just re you like you seem like you
Speaker 5: have a very I don't want Well, yeah, I would say,
Speaker 5: like a very addictive personality.
Speaker 2: What do you mean like I DoD drugs?
Speaker 5: Like people will want to get to know you.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, I think, okay, yeah, okay, you're right.
Speaker 4: You're right, Christmas, you're right.
Speaker 3: But what happens once they get to know you?
Speaker 2: What happens was to know.
Speaker 4: I just I just had someone say that they can't
Speaker 4: deal with my emotional sea sauce. I'm a cancer sometimes
Speaker 4: I cry.
Speaker 5: Oh lord, that's so.
Speaker 4: I didn't even seesaw really though. I just saw this
Speaker 4: ship that I like, I addressed it, and then they
Speaker 4: called it an emotional sea sawce And I'm like, what,
Speaker 4: how's that emotional seesaw? If I can't address something I
Speaker 4: don't like because we were getting along fine and then
Speaker 4: I tell you this is something that I don't like.
Speaker 2: Now is an emotional seesaw.
Speaker 5: Out the though it depends on how you delivered it.
Speaker 2: Though I thought I.
Speaker 1: Was I got to talk to these niggas nice.
Speaker 5: I'm so sick, That's what I'm talking about. That's the
Speaker 5: sassify you know what I'm saying, Like my thing is.
Speaker 5: But if you want me like, think about this aj
Speaker 5: in a relationship, like if you want me to value
Speaker 5: your feelings right, how you feel, you want me to
Speaker 5: listen to understand, not the respond is that too much
Speaker 5: to have the same expectation from you? Because I don't
Speaker 5: like this is my tone arguing and it irritates the
Speaker 5: hell out of some people because this is me. I
Speaker 5: cannot allow you to take me to another level because
Speaker 5: guess what at that point in time, then I don't
Speaker 5: have control over myself, which means there is no control
Speaker 5: over our conversation. That we ain't going nowhere right. So
Speaker 5: for me, like if you're not able to and I understand,
Speaker 5: like some conversations warn't more emotions than others. But if
Speaker 5: I see an emotional influx, like you this way during
Speaker 5: the day and then I call you back and you here,
Speaker 5: and I'm like trying to like converse with you, to
Speaker 5: try to figure out like what's going on, and then
Speaker 5: next thing, you know, you got an attitude of me
Speaker 5: and I this shit. I'm like, I mean, how long
Speaker 5: are you riding these waves?
Speaker 1: You know, Christian?
Speaker 2: Why aren't you reading my mind?
Speaker 5: That's the problem we are not. Let me tell you
Speaker 5: something about men. We ween the smartest people think we are.
Speaker 3: Oh, we know that people think that, but but I
Speaker 3: would say, like from a standpoint of.
Speaker 5: And I think that goes into like social management, like
Speaker 5: reading women and their emotions. I am not the best
Speaker 5: at it, right, And I think most men kind of
Speaker 5: suffer from that, right because we are kind of hardened
Speaker 5: to not really embrace like a lot of emotions are.
Speaker 5: And it's not like we get a lot of practice
Speaker 5: with other men because outside of my friend's circle, like
Speaker 5: what I consider my golden circle is the only men
Speaker 5: that I will be vulnerable with, and they are vulnerable
Speaker 5: with me. But not everybody has that. Like if I
Speaker 5: stayed in the hood that I grew up in, I
Speaker 5: would never be emotionally available for nobody. So the only
Speaker 5: practice I get is engaging my women, Like that's going
Speaker 5: to take practice of me reading that because I can't
Speaker 5: say that women are the best communicators of their emotions,
Speaker 5: like most women want their minds to be read. And
Speaker 5: I'm like, you better textclue me, sign outside, telegram everything.
Speaker 5: You better everything to me because I can't. I'm not
Speaker 5: And I will tell you I don't read between the
Speaker 5: lines because if I read between the lines and I
Speaker 5: get it wrong, that's a whole nother argument. Right, So
Speaker 5: why not for me? I ask for clear communication. You
Speaker 5: tell me exactly how it is that you feel. You
Speaker 5: tell me exactly how it is that I'm making you feel,
Speaker 5: and then we can address the issue, because if you
Speaker 5: skip steps with me, you're gonna be highly disappointed. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna just tell you because to y'all, y'all got to
Speaker 5: understand we two different creatures. Y'all understand y'all have this
Speaker 5: telepathic thing going on within y'allself. Like people are just
Speaker 5: feel that.
Speaker 3: Way about men, though I swear to God, you could
Speaker 3: be so articulate, you could say exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: And sometimes men gaslight and women do too, right, and
Speaker 3: what's the next response when when a bitch say some
Speaker 3: shit that.
Speaker 1: Makes too much sense? Were you mean?
Speaker 2: That'll be the response? What you mean?
Speaker 3: You know exactly what I'm saying. You know exactly what
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 5: The way you mean can mean two things. Right, I'm Sam,
Speaker 5: where are you from?
Speaker 2: Columbia? South Carolina?
Speaker 5: Okay? You understand a little bit of gichi. So when
Speaker 5: when they say that, I think either one and I
Speaker 5: hate telling them man, but one, they probably was not
Speaker 5: paying attention to the conversation. What you mean typically is
Speaker 5: I heard the back end, but not the front end, right,
Speaker 5: not listening to understand, and they did not come up
Speaker 5: with a good response on the fly. Or secondly, it
Speaker 5: can be them being stuck and not really knowing how
Speaker 5: to reply. Because sometimes I'm gonna tell you, some women
Speaker 5: hit me with some stuff emotionally, I'm just like h
Speaker 5: And they're like, well, you don't have a response. I'm like, well,
Speaker 5: first of all, you literally just gave me two seconds
Speaker 5: to respond over what I consider that even a text
Speaker 5: message or even on the phone, a huge bubble of
Speaker 5: information that you want me to decipher.
Speaker 3: Ah, I'm just called to cut you off right there,
Speaker 3: I got it. I don't got enough time to think
Speaker 3: about a bullshit ass answer.
Speaker 5: So it's that's my thing, right, would you if you
Speaker 5: just hit me with a long paragraph of information, right,
Speaker 5: just like you were asking me a question of a
Speaker 5: minute ago and I said, aj, I got add Like,
Speaker 5: you gotta break up these questions for me, because once
Speaker 5: I get to answer one, it's gonna be hard for
Speaker 5: me to get back to the second. Like if your
Speaker 5: man is a man that can you can ask him
Speaker 5: fifty questions and he can answer off it or respond
Speaker 5: to all fifty things. You got a great one, But
Speaker 5: for me, you gotta break that thing down. Because if
Speaker 5: you send me a text message in a bubble, right,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna tell you how I'm ana reply, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: stroll back up to the top right, and then I'm
Speaker 5: a reply to that, and then I'm gonna stroll back
Speaker 5: down read some more. Okay, I'm a reply out of that,
Speaker 5: Like that's how I'm gonna reply to you. So you
Speaker 5: take that in a conversation, I can't go back, right,
Speaker 5: And if I'm holding on to the first thing, the
Speaker 5: first and last thing that you said, then I was
Speaker 5: listening to respond to you. I wasn't really listening to
Speaker 5: understand you. And so if I fire off real fast
Speaker 5: nine times I'm attend, I'm gonna say something that's probably
Speaker 5: gonna fuck the rest of the conversation up.
Speaker 2: Man, you're tripping this shit.
Speaker 5: Me personally, I don't, so I don't respond that way.
Speaker 5: And that's the thing about it, Like I don't really
Speaker 5: respond that way. Like I may be quiet for a minute,
Speaker 5: or I might say, you know, I need some time
Speaker 5: to process, but I don't give like the short like
Speaker 5: you tripping, right.
Speaker 2: I got enough stress at working. Shit, be my peace.
Speaker 1: Men don't really.
Speaker 5: Mean that, because men are I actually do mean that
Speaker 5: when I say it, because I work a very very
Speaker 5: stressful job, and so when I come home, I don't
Speaker 5: mind talking about world problems and all that other stuff.
Speaker 5: Maybe for the first thirty minutes hour we can talk
Speaker 5: about work. Are they going, what's going on in the world?
Speaker 5: After that, I just want to connect because I need
Speaker 5: my woman to literally be my peace, because outside of
Speaker 5: this world it's chaos, especially you know, being a black
Speaker 5: woman and for me being a black man, and especially
Speaker 5: the profession professions that I'm in and what I have
Speaker 5: to pour into other people, Like when I come home
Speaker 5: after we talk about our days, like, I just want
Speaker 5: to connect emotionally with you, and that's it. If we
Speaker 5: got kids, we can manage them until it's time for
Speaker 5: them to go to bed or whatever, and then it
Speaker 5: just needs to really be me and you. I don't
Speaker 5: want to talk about world stuff all damn night. I
Speaker 5: don't want to talk about problems all damn night. I
Speaker 5: don't want to hear complaining all damn night. Like if
Speaker 5: you complaining all damn damn, I'm just like, well, goddamn like,
Speaker 5: you want to hear from me, Well, let me tell you.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you what I want to hear from you.
Speaker 4: I want to hear your SIMP story. We gotta take
Speaker 4: a commercial. We'll be right back, but when we come back,
Speaker 4: that's what I want to hear from you. One second's
Speaker 4: real easy way to say that.
Speaker 3: All right, y'all were back, and we are going to
Speaker 3: get a SIMP story, a SIMP series story from Kristen.
Speaker 1: What you got for us, Kristen.
Speaker 5: Well listen for one. I'm gonna tell you, y'all put
Speaker 5: me in a very tough predicament, in a rough spot.
Speaker 5: But what I will say is I was in a
Speaker 5: relationship where uh, I felt like I did it sounds
Speaker 5: the same, sounds more like a damn sadass story, but
Speaker 5: where I feel like I did a lot of adjusting right.
Speaker 5: Whatever she wanted I did. I worked my ass off
Speaker 5: to provide. At one time was working five jobs at
Speaker 5: a time. She said that I was working too much,
Speaker 5: so I stopped and started businesses to support financially and
Speaker 5: on top of the job that I have. And I
Speaker 5: think at a point where no matter what I did,
Speaker 5: she wasn't happy, wasn't satisfied, and didn't really appreciate what
Speaker 5: it is that I provided. And I think when one
Speaker 5: day she called me selfish, that was a trigger for
Speaker 5: me because I was like, I've literally sacrificed every goddamn thing,
Speaker 5: whether you talk about financially, emotionally, whatever it is. Like,
Speaker 5: I knew there were things I needed to work on,
Speaker 5: but I will say at the end of the day,
Speaker 5: it was a relationship that spanned it over ten years,
Speaker 5: and I can't say that I got a whole lot
Speaker 5: from it. Oh, I'm getting a whole lot taken away,
Speaker 5: but I am getting a whole lot from it, a
Speaker 5: whole lot of money taken away, But I ain't getting
Speaker 5: a whole lot from it and for something that I'm
Speaker 5: not getting anything out of. So I don't want to
Speaker 5: like get too far into detail, but I think that,
Speaker 5: you know, it's very hard for men to kind of
Speaker 5: bounce back from situations like that, because I'm gonna be
Speaker 5: honest with you, like being divorced and having two girls.
Speaker 5: In my mind coming out, I felt like I was
Speaker 5: damaged goods. I'm going to be considered damage goods, and
Speaker 5: I had to realize that I have a lot more
Speaker 5: value in me than my past or my current situation.
Speaker 5: But I know they are in the biggest SIMP story
Speaker 5: in the world. But scorpios typically ain't simps, specifically when
Speaker 5: they're born in November blue like that from experience. But
Speaker 5: I tell you, but that's probably the thing for me.
Speaker 5: I would say, like, you know, giving you all to
Speaker 5: somebody and then it not being appreciated and them on
Speaker 5: the back end trying to destroy you or run with
Speaker 5: a narrative. Because one thing about myself, like I'm not
Speaker 5: going to bash anybody. I'm pretty to myself, mind my
Speaker 5: own business and don't like people in my business, especially
Speaker 5: in my personal business. And so you know, for me,
Speaker 5: she can run with the narratives that she wants, and
Speaker 5: I'm gonna keep my silence and just keep life moving.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's why they so vague, vad and a quartering.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you for trying Christian, but that wasn't that.
Speaker 5: I'm trying to.
Speaker 4: We're good, man, Yeah, we're good on that.
Speaker 5: I told listen, I told since earlier, I said a
Speaker 5: simp story. You ain't really.
Speaker 1: Women having that a lot lately.
Speaker 3: See, I guess the only people who be getting played
Speaker 3: out of here, Tom, I guess because I got plenty
Speaker 3: sim right, I'll see dumb bitch stories.
Speaker 2: I just shared one with y'all earlier.
Speaker 5: Listen. I mean that's that's probably the closest one I got.
Speaker 5: That's the closest one I got. I mean, typically, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm anew for my way out of them situations, and
Speaker 5: I would say that women typically.
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sorry that your relationship is all and I'm
Speaker 4: sorry that is fucking up your pockets, my boy.
Speaker 3: I never I don't understand why people You're like, why
Speaker 3: are you celebrating a failure that is not something celebrating?
Speaker 5: So you just to start a whole I'm gonna tell you,
Speaker 5: like that is the trauma behind divorce, like when you
Speaker 5: want to talk about black men after divorce, like the
Speaker 5: pressure Like from my standpoint and where I grew up
Speaker 5: in right, my perception of a perfect family was being married.
Speaker 5: I waited until I was married to have kids, right,
Speaker 5: and it didn't work. Me Walking away from that situation,
Speaker 5: by far was probably the hardest damn decision I ever
Speaker 5: made in my life, because I love my girls like
Speaker 5: no other, but I knew in order for me to
Speaker 5: be a great father for them and be a great
Speaker 5: example for them, like, that situation just wasn't it in
Speaker 5: my battle? Was Am I failing right now? Am I
Speaker 5: feeling my family and my feeling the fantasy of which
Speaker 5: I wanted a family to be? And it's no different
Speaker 5: from attaching yourself or holding on to an unhealthy relationship
Speaker 5: because of perspective of other people's thoughts. That failure is
Speaker 5: other people's thoughts because you're the one in the relationship.
Speaker 5: It's not a failure to you because you chose you
Speaker 5: it was healthy for you and for me. I almost
Speaker 5: stayed in the situation because I was more concerned about
Speaker 5: what other people thought and feeling like I was a
Speaker 5: failure when really I had to choose myself, and I
Speaker 5: mean it was the hardest thing to get past was
Speaker 5: the feeling of feeling like I failed. But the perfect family,
Speaker 5: as by a counselor said, is a fantasy. She said,
Speaker 5: if Jesus did not have a perfect family, how do
Speaker 5: you expect to have one? He had a blended family.
Speaker 4: Ryna, keep that to myself.
Speaker 2: No, I ain't saying that, my mam, wad listen to
Speaker 2: this show.
Speaker 1: I can't say that.
Speaker 5: Earlier. I want to. I want to hear what you got.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say, Mary ain't even get smashed,
Speaker 4: so technically.
Speaker 5: I mean she did? She did? She? You do realize
Speaker 5: that Jesus had brothers, right?
Speaker 2: Who was all right?
Speaker 4: Jesus had brothers, but Jesus ain't have a physical daddy,
Speaker 4: a physical daddy like ain't nobody.
Speaker 2: Skating marry Joseph did after after, but she was.
Speaker 4: A virgin when she had But we know men lie,
Speaker 4: women lie, brother just don't lie.
Speaker 3: I don't know how I got this baby, all right,
Speaker 3: y'all listen, last, last, last, last. If anybody is out
Speaker 3: there and y'all feel like y'all won't have nothing less,
Speaker 3: you always got yourself.
Speaker 1: You always got yourself. You mean, just keep that in mind.
Speaker 4: You mean, do you have any last last advice for
Speaker 4: our listeners, Christian, I.
Speaker 5: Just take it back off of what AJ said and
Speaker 5: just always bet on yourself.
Speaker 1: Plug all your things. Let our listeners know where they
Speaker 1: can find you at.
Speaker 3: I'm telling you now, if you need help with your website,
Speaker 3: I'm here to help because I tried to go to
Speaker 3: it today and that shit is not existing, non existent
Speaker 3: unless you got a new website.
Speaker 5: But let no, I'm working on. So I'm working on
Speaker 5: a new website because what happened was somebody, uh right,
Speaker 5: they took the domain. I'm going to switch it probably
Speaker 5: to mad U s A Inc. Dot org. That's what
Speaker 5: I'm working on right now. I mean.
Speaker 1: Off of business services.
Speaker 5: Off I support my business. I don't care what he
Speaker 5: is as long as it's right. Yeah, So coming very soon, y'all.
Speaker 5: Y'all know when we got a website back up because
Speaker 5: it needed to be reconstructed. Anyway we got. We got
Speaker 5: a lot of programs and stuff that we are working on,
Speaker 5: and so you know, we're in a kind of re
Speaker 5: I don't want to see a rebuilding because we never
Speaker 5: went anywhere, but just revamping some stuff, you know where.
Speaker 2: What about social media? Can they follow you somewhere to.
Speaker 5: Mad Us Inc. On Instagram, mad Us Inc. Mad u
Speaker 5: s A Inc. On Facebook, We're on Twitter, all of
Speaker 5: those you know, good things. You know, we post pretty
Speaker 5: much daily when we got stuff going on, and so
Speaker 5: I mean you can keep us with us that way.
Speaker 5: I get dms all the time from you know, people
Speaker 5: either going through it or want our services or anything
Speaker 5: that we offer. So you know, social media is probably
Speaker 5: the best way to you know, contact us. You know,
Speaker 5: I got a number on there where people can directly
Speaker 5: contact me if they want to, and you know, get
Speaker 5: these services spread out as far as we can.
Speaker 1: Yes, Kristin, y'all.
Speaker 4: If y'all enjoyed this episode, y'all tune in every Thursday
Speaker 4: on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio or wherever the
Speaker 4: fuck you get your podcast. It's your girl, Tam Bam, y'all.
Speaker 4: Let me just say share this. The There is a
Speaker 4: domestic violence National hotline is one eight hundred seven nine
Speaker 4: nine seven two three three. Let me say that again.
Speaker 4: One eight hundred and seven nine nine seven two three three.
Speaker 4: Call if you need help, seriously, call somebody. Y'all go
Speaker 4: ahead kick it, AJ.
Speaker 1: And call me because I will pull up.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, y'all hit me up on Instagram as
Speaker 3: AJ Holiday two point zero.
Speaker 1: All right, and y'all remember.
Speaker 2: To speak now and never hold your peace. And when
Speaker 2: I say that, I mean your gun.
Speaker 1: Always hold your peace you mean. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows