Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so check this out the politics. This is
Speaker 1: my mom Mom. Yes, y'all know what's called me? Hello. Hello.
Speaker 1: I'll call you Jason when I'm close to you in
Speaker 1: case I need to pop you one. But I give
Speaker 1: you your properis to call your propagn hell. Okay, I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, you know. Okay, y'all. So this is a
Speaker 1: special hood politics. Uh, this is in partnership with spit
Speaker 1: and twenty three and me. We're gonna talk about little
Speaker 1: family issues and how it kind of hits the hood
Speaker 1: and he hits us and what we could possibly do
Speaker 1: about it. So little background, um I had At some point,
Speaker 1: I feel like I made this like off hand comment
Speaker 1: off of listening to another podcast about Dolly Parton. Believe
Speaker 1: it or not. She had said in this podcast like,
Speaker 1: and you know you kind of never really know your parents.
Speaker 1: And I thought to myself when she said that, like, dude,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah, I kind of don't. And listeners know,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to raise Los Angeles. My mom
Speaker 1: is not though. My mom Southeast d C. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Northwest Southeast you feel me? She Obama
Speaker 1: right there, you know what I mean? And Uh, came
Speaker 1: over here to l A. You know, actually got married
Speaker 1: as kids, married my dad as kids. Stayed there until
Speaker 1: we were grown and they split up and eventually she
Speaker 1: went back home, but is itching to get back to
Speaker 1: l A because she got grandkids now in my life?
Speaker 1: Come on now, and okay, okay, I appreciate it, But
Speaker 1: there's an entire history you know, with your parents that
Speaker 1: like you just don't know, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and how could you you were in there and just
Speaker 1: the reality that like she was an entirely different person
Speaker 1: before kids, Like you know what I'm saying, Like marriage
Speaker 1: and kids changed you. Yeah, so it was put on
Speaker 1: your heart to write a letter, right, that's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So you can take over from there a little bit
Speaker 1: like what you wanted to talk about in a letter,
Speaker 1: not specifics obviously because that's between us, but just kind
Speaker 1: of what you wanted to inform well in the letter.
Speaker 1: I first of all, it you had come on a
Speaker 1: surprise visit to me, and when you made that comment,
Speaker 1: it was the look on your face and almost like
Speaker 1: a dagger in my heart. For a couple of different reasons.
Speaker 1: That one was because you and I in your growing
Speaker 1: up years were very very close, and we had a
Speaker 1: special bond that you used to share with me some
Speaker 1: things that were actually t m I for me. But
Speaker 1: but if a kid, you were as just as curious
Speaker 1: as you are now, very curious and inquisitive and either not,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say, you demanded an answer. You
Speaker 1: inquired until you got one that whoever you were speaking
Speaker 1: to thought they had given you a sufficient answer. So
Speaker 1: when you said you didn't know me, and I had
Speaker 1: taken you to the airport, and it just haunted me
Speaker 1: and was in my spirit the whole time coming back
Speaker 1: home that I thought, well, you know, he really he
Speaker 1: knows me. He doesn't realize that he knows me, because
Speaker 1: the am the person that I am in my heart
Speaker 1: and in my spirit. I have always been that person
Speaker 1: because that was how God made me. But the fact
Speaker 1: that you really didn't know my background on my childhood
Speaker 1: and specifics because I would only tell you or we
Speaker 1: only would discuss certain things when they came up, as
Speaker 1: to well, you know, your dad was in the house,
Speaker 1: your dad drove a cab, you know, speaking of my dad,
Speaker 1: my dad smoked a cigar. My dad. You know, my
Speaker 1: mom and dad had nine children. We lived in a
Speaker 1: certain place, and some of the things that went on
Speaker 1: is we were children. But I never really really told
Speaker 1: you anything about me as a child. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing about that is that I always had a curiosity
Speaker 1: and still do about how my parents were as children.
Speaker 1: By the time you really know them or actually realize
Speaker 1: anything about them, you're a little person, or you were
Speaker 1: a teenager, or you're an adult. But you fail, or
Speaker 1: I feel, or we felt sometimes I realized that our
Speaker 1: parents were little people at one point too, you know,
Speaker 1: they were they were little people that played on the
Speaker 1: playground and they go to bed when their parents told
Speaker 1: them to go to bed, maybe played top scotch or whatever.
Speaker 1: They played in the areas or the cities where they lived.
Speaker 1: Because my mother was born and raised in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: She's a blood Washingtonian, but my dad was raised in
Speaker 1: the South, in South Carolina. So I always, you know,
Speaker 1: I used to reflect and think a lot about I
Speaker 1: wonder what they were like as little kids. You know,
Speaker 1: what did they think about when did they get hurt themselves,
Speaker 1: or when did somebody pick on them? Or you know,
Speaker 1: what were the things that they did that they didn't
Speaker 1: want their parents. It's just little people's life. And so
Speaker 1: when I was going over all that, and I said, well,
Speaker 1: my son, you know, he doesn't he didn't. My my children,
Speaker 1: they don't know that about me. It was just something
Speaker 1: that came up. Nothing that wasn't that, it wasn't important.
Speaker 1: It just was something that never presented itself. So in
Speaker 1: writing the letter, which you know, I started when you
Speaker 1: left in February, and I was writing the letter and
Speaker 1: writing the letter, then we were hit with COVID or
Speaker 1: COVID came and I stopped. Then I had a little
Speaker 1: issue with one of life. I slipped and fell and
Speaker 1: hurt my finger naturally, so I couldn't type on the
Speaker 1: computer as I wanted to. And then one thing happened
Speaker 1: right after the other, then more COVID, and then I
Speaker 1: got kind of like, okay, I wanted to. Once I
Speaker 1: got into it, everything opened up. And even now the
Speaker 1: letter that you have is only what they say half
Speaker 1: of the story, because there was so much and you know,
Speaker 1: so um, yeah, you came back a lifetime into a letter, yes,
Speaker 1: a letter, and then individuals that touched your lives, what
Speaker 1: they meant to you, the little small little things that
Speaker 1: you go through. So what I did. The letter was
Speaker 1: trying to give to you whatever God brought into my
Speaker 1: heart to give to you that was about me. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't about trying to make the letter all about me,
Speaker 1: but in essence, I wanted you to know all about me,
Speaker 1: the things that you didn't know, Like how was I
Speaker 1: in junior high school? And I told you about that
Speaker 1: where I started off, you know, a brainy act, and
Speaker 1: then what happened, and so those things that you probably
Speaker 1: you never you never knew those things. So I went
Speaker 1: in writing the letter, and it got longer and longer,
Speaker 1: not only chronologically but in the duration of the letter.
Speaker 1: And finally I gave you the letter with something still
Speaker 1: unfinished and probably something that I thought were very important
Speaker 1: left out because I thought you got tired of waiting,
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, how much longer is this going
Speaker 1: to be? Because it was supposed to be a letter,
Speaker 1: it ended up being over forty page. It ended up
Speaker 1: being a novel. And then I went through, Okay, well
Speaker 1: do I the titles? Do I call it everything you
Speaker 1: wanted to know about your mother and you didn't know
Speaker 1: or was going to you? Was getting creative? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was just getting creative. And then you kept hearing the
Speaker 1: phrase in this pop culture is that you know your narrative?
Speaker 1: What's your narrative? Let's somebody right, So I thought, you
Speaker 1: know what, that's what I'm gonna call it. I'm writing
Speaker 1: my own narrative so that my son, my daughter, and
Speaker 1: whomever they choose to share it with. Yeah, family wise
Speaker 1: would would know. And so here we are now you're
Speaker 1: sharing it on a podcast. Yes, not the specifics per se,
Speaker 1: because some of that stuffs, Like I'm still kind of processing,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. There's some things that I
Speaker 1: really loved, like I knew but like didn't know, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, like ideas about like like granddad
Speaker 1: and and you know, the the running the numbers and
Speaker 1: the card games and the gambling and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because which is just herd life, you know what I'm saying, right,
Speaker 1: And you know you get it. How are you living?
Speaker 1: You call it hood life now? But for us, it
Speaker 1: was survival. For them, it was survival. For them, it
Speaker 1: was doing what you know to do the best way
Speaker 1: you could do it and stand away from the pope
Speaker 1: po Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you get it. How you're
Speaker 1: living trying to stay out stay stay under the radar,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying exactly exactly. Yeah. But what
Speaker 1: I what I found interesting specifically for why I wanted
Speaker 1: to tell that story as background for this was, um,
Speaker 1: I took a twenty three and me DNA test, right,
Speaker 1: and it gives you not only like your ancestral heritage
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, but it also talks about the
Speaker 1: part that we're interested in is like is our health
Speaker 1: background right, and like a wellness stuff, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And and one thing that like that stood
Speaker 1: out for me in your story in that story is
Speaker 1: like there's an assumption and it's a true in most
Speaker 1: situations that like you know, the projects, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying, Like in the in the sense that y'all
Speaker 1: actually experienced is a food desert that you're just not
Speaker 1: eating well and making like good choices for your your health,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because you're just trying to survive.
Speaker 1: And what I noticed your story, it seemed like that
Speaker 1: wasn't the case, Like y'all ate all right, it's exactly
Speaker 1: we were at all right now, I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: we weren't exposed to the chiplins and the hog mode
Speaker 1: and all of that because we had it, and I
Speaker 1: ate it and we ate it. But basically, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was because and it probably was because
Speaker 1: of my father's background being in the sun out. My
Speaker 1: mother used to say rabbit food, that he loved rabbit food.
Speaker 1: And out of the nine of us of their children
Speaker 1: or nine of us are still eating well, you know,
Speaker 1: my two brothers are deceased, but the seven of us
Speaker 1: still live off and love rabbit food. Now, the fact
Speaker 1: that nobody is in a vegetarian, I'm a Presbyterian, and um,
Speaker 1: they love meat, they love their ribs. I stay away
Speaker 1: from that because that was my matter of choice after
Speaker 1: a few years after I got grown. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: something I wanted to ask you about. Yeah, okay, okay, no,
Speaker 1: but go on. Yeah, but generally rabbit food is in
Speaker 1: like y'all eat fruits and vegetables. We eat fruits and vegetables.
Speaker 1: I mean I would sit by as a little girl
Speaker 1: on my mother watching her make potato salad and before
Speaker 1: she would People in the black community d and I'm
Speaker 1: sure another another races, uh, ethnic backgrounds, they make potato
Speaker 1: salad differently. But my mother a lot of people peel
Speaker 1: the potatoes and then this is just a side peeled
Speaker 1: potatoes and then chop them up. But my mother would
Speaker 1: boil the potatoes first before she chopped him up. And
Speaker 1: I was always there sitting behind beside her with my
Speaker 1: elbow on the table, waiting for a piece of raw
Speaker 1: potato before it even went in the pot. My dad
Speaker 1: used to come and he would give us ru to Baker's.
Speaker 1: We would eat raw sweet potatoes, anything that was. It
Speaker 1: was like right out of the garden and we all
Speaker 1: loved it. And to this day, my sisters and my brother,
Speaker 1: we and you will know in your and our family,
Speaker 1: when we all lived as a family together, you always
Speaker 1: had a what was always a salad. There was always
Speaker 1: a bull of food salad. There was always a bullet fruit.
Speaker 1: We would come home and always green, something green. You
Speaker 1: had to have something green on your plate. So that's
Speaker 1: the way we were raised, no matter what. And even
Speaker 1: now it's like any any family functioning or gathering, somebody's
Speaker 1: going to make a salad. Yeah, it's kind of crazy because,
Speaker 1: like like I said, like in you know, in a
Speaker 1: macro sense, like living in like inner cities are considered
Speaker 1: like we said, food deserts where you can't really get
Speaker 1: fresh food. It was like just what you said, like
Speaker 1: whatever decisions you made, that wasn't the case in our house.
Speaker 1: There was always fruit. You always had it. We come
Speaker 1: home and it wasn't like there wasn't a bag of chips.
Speaker 1: It was oranges. We sat down and we ate oranges
Speaker 1: we had. That was just a decision you made. And
Speaker 1: some of those decisions were around like when I when
Speaker 1: I go through these results, like I'm really interested in
Speaker 1: I want to hear your reaction because some of the
Speaker 1: stuff you you said you just kind of like made
Speaker 1: these food decisions for us because you was watching what
Speaker 1: seemed like was hereditary, what was just happening in our
Speaker 1: families where we was dying over getting sick over and so.
Speaker 1: And you said it in the in a story too.
Speaker 1: But I remember you telling us all the time, like
Speaker 1: y'all watch out for this because this in your family,
Speaker 1: this in your blood, and it's crazy without you doing
Speaker 1: any tests, this was just the stuff that you was
Speaker 1: just like, well it just keep having it, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, right, So tell the folks what what
Speaker 1: what were some of those things that you just kind
Speaker 1: of picked up and was like, we can't eat this
Speaker 1: because this in our family. Well, I don't, I don't
Speaker 1: know you. You didn't have a lot of things that
Speaker 1: I said you couldn't eat because the entire choice was
Speaker 1: not my own. You know, your father was there and
Speaker 1: he had things that you know that he believed that
Speaker 1: weren't detrimental, but they ended up being detrimentalably being detri mental.
Speaker 1: So um, the thing is that I tried not to
Speaker 1: give you a lot of sugar. Remember I used to
Speaker 1: say you couldn't have right because of the diabetes that you.
Speaker 1: I didn't want you to have a lot of sweet
Speaker 1: sweet cereals, those sugarcoated cereals that you couldn't have, which
Speaker 1: was torture, Which was torture. And as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: when I wanted to give you a treat, you could
Speaker 1: have your Captain crunch that. Yeah, and they And that
Speaker 1: was because that the diabetes was running in the family.
Speaker 1: My my grandfather, my my maternal grandfather, had suffered from
Speaker 1: diabetes that put him in it in a in a
Speaker 1: chair towards the end of his life. My uncle on
Speaker 1: my mother's side was diabetic and it took him put
Speaker 1: him down and aunt that came to live with me
Speaker 1: as my sweetie, lunar causer on nt Helen on Helen.
Speaker 1: When she was here living with me, it was always
Speaker 1: sugar and my mother was a sugar candy fanatic. And
Speaker 1: my sister who later in years late in life, found
Speaker 1: out she was a diabetic, would always we would always
Speaker 1: have sweets. That part of it that came. And so
Speaker 1: you know, I realized that these things just they weren't
Speaker 1: good healthy wise. It had nothing to do with what
Speaker 1: you may hear quote some people talk about generation curses.
Speaker 1: I don't believe in generation curse. I don't believe in that.
Speaker 1: I believe in our blood line and the things that
Speaker 1: we are susceptible due to because of our bloodline. And
Speaker 1: so I feel that it's it's wiser to make the
Speaker 1: choices when you're able to make the choices, then wish
Speaker 1: later on you hadn't made the choices. Like I have
Speaker 1: an aunt that passed away, and when I had spoken
Speaker 1: to her when she had became ill, the one thing
Speaker 1: she said to me was that I'm not afraid to die.
Speaker 1: I'll miss the family, But I wish I had made
Speaker 1: better choices in the way I ate and so these
Speaker 1: were this was almost her dying doxology that she had
Speaker 1: wished she had made a better choice. And the things
Speaker 1: that she ate because she loved to eat. And I
Speaker 1: mean it's fatty, fatty stuff like raw ground beef and
Speaker 1: raw bacon. And so you know, when I used to
Speaker 1: see a member of our family delving into that, it
Speaker 1: would just it would just make me cringe because there's
Speaker 1: no purpose in it. You know, the vegetables will well
Speaker 1: suffice and keeping you can, keeping you healthy. And I
Speaker 1: and you know, I attribute that. I don't brag. I
Speaker 1: thank I'm thankful for the grace of God on my life.
Speaker 1: But you know where I am in life. You know
Speaker 1: how old I am. You know what I have suffered
Speaker 1: physically and what I haven't suffered physically. And I attribute
Speaker 1: all of that because of the choices that I said.
Speaker 1: Not a whole lot of ships since I was a child,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying, not a lot of fats. And
Speaker 1: for the past two years, I haven't had a piece
Speaker 1: of fried chicken. Now you're talking crazy, okay, uh no, Um,
Speaker 1: So what I noticed what our family was like kidney cancer,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And then but some of
Speaker 1: these weird things. So so the aunt that she talked about,
Speaker 1: my Helen, which is my great aunt, that's my grandmother's sister.
Speaker 1: My mom's direct hunt was like, I mean, she was
Speaker 1: a two packet day smoker, and she outlived everyone more
Speaker 1: than that, more than more than two packs to see,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. So like there was these weird
Speaker 1: like things where you just like, I don't know, is
Speaker 1: that just that's just in our blood? Like why how
Speaker 1: come that ain't? And of all the things that actually
Speaker 1: killed it was the sugar, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So we like, how is it that you do say it? So,
Speaker 1: so there's these things that are like our diet and
Speaker 1: then these things that are in our blood. So but
Speaker 1: there's one thing I want to interrupt to say, then
Speaker 1: this could be an inspiration to someone who may have
Speaker 1: been or know someone that had been a three packet
Speaker 1: day smoker, is that she had a stroke. After the stroke,
Speaker 1: she gave up cigarettes at eighty eight years old. So
Speaker 1: she had been smoking from her twenties until in her
Speaker 1: eighties and still not a not a thing, not a
Speaker 1: drop of cancer in her blood. She um was areas y'all,
Speaker 1: like The one thing that is in our DNA that
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure this some twenty three and me thing
Speaker 1: is going to prove is that we have sarcasm in
Speaker 1: our DNA and for some reason, like everybody really good
Speaker 1: at it. You know my right now, y'all, my mom
Speaker 1: is being very well behaved, but she's being real nice.
Speaker 1: But Helen was hilarious. She was remarkably sarcastic and uh
Speaker 1: and would say stuff like that like smokes mean facts.
Speaker 1: I won't you being prejudice against my age exactly say that.
Speaker 1: So I'm gonna read through a few of these things,
Speaker 1: can get your reactions on this some of the stuff
Speaker 1: that you thought maybe like you was like yep, or
Speaker 1: are surprised about. So the first thing I'm gonna look
Speaker 1: at is like, once you get this result, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: look at like the my wellness thing. Right, So how
Speaker 1: am I d NA responds to like diet, exercise, and sleep. Right,
Speaker 1: So your boy's genetic weight meeting, like in my predisposed
Speaker 1: to become overweight or stay pretty pretty thin? What you
Speaker 1: think you're gonna stay thin? Yep, that's predisposed to weigh
Speaker 1: less than average. Just what this monk said so you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And it's funny because you know,
Speaker 1: even as a kid, I'll try my best. Remember we
Speaker 1: bought all the weights. Never worked. Oh yeah, I just
Speaker 1: did not work right. So all the variants in my
Speaker 1: blood are associated to like that, you're just gonna be thin? Right? Well?
Speaker 1: Can I say something there too, though? Yeah? Go for it?
Speaker 1: Is that you know that out of my eight siblings,
Speaker 1: I was considered the runt. Yeah, because I was the
Speaker 1: only one five five. I say five too, but I'm
Speaker 1: five one and a half. I never got any bigger. Then,
Speaker 1: you know, I've always kept my weight down. And then
Speaker 1: your father was tall and slim. It's tall and slim,
Speaker 1: so I can see how that would happen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I look good now, but you know he's much older.
Speaker 1: And also your choices too. Yeah yeah, totally. Uh lactose intolerant.
Speaker 1: It's in my blood and it's true. Here's what's funny.
Speaker 1: Here's a funny one caffeine consumption. I am likely to
Speaker 1: consume less caffeine than anyone else. Really, ain't that weird?
Speaker 1: That's what it says based on my DNA. It says
Speaker 1: that if you consume caffeine, the current Guidelines of Healthy
Speaker 1: Adults says adults should drink no more than three twelve
Speaker 1: ounce cups of coffee or eight ounce cups of tea
Speaker 1: per day, which is crazy because I drink probably for
Speaker 1: a Yeah, I don't be getting jittery, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'm defying my DNA here. Muscle composition. It's my
Speaker 1: muscle composition is common for elite athletes. Okay, I can
Speaker 1: see that. I can see that totally. Yes, let's see.
Speaker 1: Now let's go to like the not so fun stuff
Speaker 1: health highlights. Okay, dementia, Alzheimer's. What do you think Do
Speaker 1: I think that in your DNA you're prone to it? Yeah? Uh? Possibly, yeah,
Speaker 1: so slightly I risk yeah. And and I say that
Speaker 1: because of my paternal side of the family. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's happening now on in my
Speaker 1: on this side of the family, but basically not not
Speaker 1: on my maternal side. Yo. And here's what's crazy is
Speaker 1: according to this, like the variant I have generally comes
Speaker 1: from people of European descent, So thank you again, Transatlantic
Speaker 1: slave trade. You know what I'm saying, We're just reaching
Speaker 1: into our blood causing problems age related macular degeneration, which
Speaker 1: I don't even know what that is that has to
Speaker 1: do with your vision. Oh ye, two variants detected, which
Speaker 1: is crazy because I'm the only one of everybody were
Speaker 1: related to that don't wear glasses on both sides of
Speaker 1: my family. And it has nothing really to do with
Speaker 1: with your vision. It's something that happens to the eye,
Speaker 1: the eye itself. And um, I can see that because
Speaker 1: my mother and one of her sisters, two of her sisters,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, had what's called lacoma. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: we weren't supposed to say names. Look at us. Well,
Speaker 1: I just wasn't saying that. Yeah, um, kidney disease. What
Speaker 1: do you think? No, I got one variant okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot more variants in there. That's my
Speaker 1: DNA that says that you should probably like watch your kidneys, okay.
Speaker 1: And then the last one, which you probably already knew
Speaker 1: this already, is a sickle cell. Yes, of course we do.
Speaker 1: That's that's paternal also. Yeah, and uh, fun thing about
Speaker 1: sickle cell is that comes from Africa and it's part
Speaker 1: of why we can a lot of us. Uh. It
Speaker 1: was a it was a reaction to mosquitoes and malaria.
Speaker 1: It was like with sickle cell, which I think is
Speaker 1: pretty dope. You know what I'm saying. Yeah, now let's see. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see some other stuff in here that's pretty crazy
Speaker 1: so far as my gut health. Things that will set up,
Speaker 1: like uh, colon cancer, Okay, I ain't got it. Okay,
Speaker 1: mccollon is good. Mcguts are good. Let's see here, genetics
Speaker 1: of like cilantro version. According to this, like I have
Speaker 1: a slightly higher loads of disliking cilantro which is not
Speaker 1: true because it's not true, and I love it. Yep, yep.
Speaker 1: Let's see sleep movement. It says I'm about average, that
Speaker 1: I sleep like everybody else. Mosquito bite frequency. You know
Speaker 1: how black people say you got sweet blood. It's really
Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah that's from your grandmother. No, I have
Speaker 1: about the same as everybody else. But like some people
Speaker 1: got sweet blood. Nikki, my sister, she got sweet blood.
Speaker 1: Who news the thing? Ain't that crazy? That's crazy, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: That's actually that. Yeah sweet blood that you actually do
Speaker 1: got sweet blood. But yeah, uh, type two diabetes that
Speaker 1: we talked about before, Yeah, that's prevalent. Huh, I got
Speaker 1: thirty seven chance. Yeah, so it's like, so the choices
Speaker 1: that you're saying is like, of all the things that
Speaker 1: are here, that's the one thing I can do something
Speaker 1: about exactly. And what's crazy is like you being wise
Speaker 1: enough paying attention. Before we knew how to take no DNA,
Speaker 1: nothing that was just looked around. It was like, look,
Speaker 1: let's make these changes now, observation you change in the narrative.
Speaker 1: One thing I wanted to add to when you talked
Speaker 1: about us being raised in the projects, and this is
Speaker 1: not an effrontery on anyone else that was raised in
Speaker 1: the projects, but my mother, well in the projects, anyone
Speaker 1: that whose ancestors or family, grandma and grandpa, anybody lived
Speaker 1: in the projects knew that they used to have uh
Speaker 1: a community center where they would give you government food,
Speaker 1: government cheese, government peanut butter. But government this government that
Speaker 1: my mother never took it. Yeah, we never received anything
Speaker 1: from them because she chose not to. And one of
Speaker 1: the reasons, probably as as I got older, I used
Speaker 1: to tell people that raising nine children first in what
Speaker 1: I realized now, which our normal reminded me of, is
Speaker 1: that when we lived in Southwest Washington, d c. When
Speaker 1: I was very little and born down there, it was
Speaker 1: considered the slums. Right now, it is the war, everything
Speaker 1: is exclusive, but back then, when they had black people
Speaker 1: running around in there, it was the slums. But to
Speaker 1: raise a family like that and not get any government assistance,
Speaker 1: that talks of the struggle of h And I'm sure
Speaker 1: my dad wasn't the only black man that when on
Speaker 1: went out of the house in the morning and returned
Speaker 1: back home in the evening for the betterment of his family.
Speaker 1: And so we just we just were never exposed to
Speaker 1: those things. And so that's how we grew. And that's
Speaker 1: how I wanted. I wanted us as a family to
Speaker 1: eat just good, healthy food, and you know, that's that's
Speaker 1: that's what I did. I remember the time that I
Speaker 1: that I suggested to the three of you, let's go vegetarian.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that conversation? And when I got so
Speaker 1: much opposition that the three of you looked at each
Speaker 1: other as if to say talking about and then and
Speaker 1: then somebody said, you mean, I can't have any more ribs,
Speaker 1: And somebody said no more steak, and you said, oh no, Ma,
Speaker 1: And I said, okay, Well, then you guys just go
Speaker 1: ahead and do. But this is how I'm gonna eat.
Speaker 1: And I didn't go vegetarian, but I just I just
Speaker 1: cut out a lot of stuff and yeah you did,
Speaker 1: you know. And I mean I've made similar choices, like
Speaker 1: I haven't gone full of vegetarian, but um, for the
Speaker 1: most part pescatarian, you know, in as in as best
Speaker 1: as I can be. Uh. But I think one thing
Speaker 1: that we do here is like you know, my wife
Speaker 1: is like super good at like if we are buying
Speaker 1: beef or chicken, it's like the high end stuff, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Like she'll like she'll break bread
Speaker 1: for that. That's like, you know, no nitrates, like you know,
Speaker 1: completely organic. And what's crazy about like the Latino community
Speaker 1: to which like again it's just a different narrative than
Speaker 1: you know, which is posed to us. Is like you know,
Speaker 1: in Acapulco, like they was dirt poor, you know, no
Speaker 1: running water styles, but like you got fresh fruit every day.
Speaker 1: Yeah there was. You got up in the morning and
Speaker 1: you went and bought the food for the day, so
Speaker 1: it was fresh fruit, fresh vegetables. She's always eight like that,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. They when they were kids,
Speaker 1: she talks about this too, like they didn't get fast food,
Speaker 1: like her mom didn't do it. She was just like no,
Speaker 1: they cooked every day. And it was like but you
Speaker 1: go to the market, you buy the beans, you boil
Speaker 1: the beans. You know they bought you go to the
Speaker 1: corner where there was like the fruit lady right exactly
Speaker 1: sitting in the corner like eating what I'm saying. So
Speaker 1: you just they always ate like that, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. So you know, of course they was you
Speaker 1: know when they got to l as you know, you
Speaker 1: had your you had your talkies and hot cheetos like
Speaker 1: they did that, you know what I'm saying. But it
Speaker 1: was like no, we like we chopped vegetables every day,
Speaker 1: made beans every day, you know what I'm saying. You
Speaker 1: know what that that that's a beautiful thing. Though I
Speaker 1: don't mean to interrupted, but that's a beautiful thing because
Speaker 1: when you think of people living in poverty, a lot
Speaker 1: of people that have lived that way and have I
Speaker 1: don't I don't want to say that have been their
Speaker 1: lifestyle has been governed because of pap her tea or
Speaker 1: mid level poverty. They go for the cheapest of things
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Convenient. But when you sign a
Speaker 1: family like hurt like almost background in my background where no,
Speaker 1: that was no go that that was just no, it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't an option, you know. So and um,
Speaker 1: it continues on, it continues on, and the girls eat
Speaker 1: well and you do too, very Yeah, it's true, it
Speaker 1: just continues on. The one thing that did like for her,
Speaker 1: She's like, what kills us is is there's a tortilla
Speaker 1: with every meal. So we're just so it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's like sugar. Yeah, I mean, so we try to
Speaker 1: do the we try to do corn instead of flower,
Speaker 1: you know. But whatever we're doing, we're doing the best
Speaker 1: we can anyway. Mom, thank you for your transparency. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was fun. Yeah, and thank you to twenty three
Speaker 1: and me for letting us do this. And then there's
Speaker 1: like all the other like that you are on my
Speaker 1: maternal side, like the ancestry stuff, like on the maternal side,
Speaker 1: your blood is Bantu, you know that African Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: from the Bantu region, according to it is okay. I
Speaker 1: know that one of my sisters had told me one
Speaker 1: time that my my dad was from Angola. Is that
Speaker 1: part of that? Now? My my dad's dad because of
Speaker 1: like how close that angling is to our to our line,
Speaker 1: Like since he's like your grandfather, he takes up a
Speaker 1: lot of the percentage because that just through through that
Speaker 1: DNA in there. But but we're essentially we're essentially like
Speaker 1: subsaharent East African Okay, you know, which is like not
Speaker 1: average for you know, slave descendants. Most slave descendants are
Speaker 1: mostly West African. But which we're that too, because any
Speaker 1: slave descendant is everything, you know what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: Bantu and Lonnie m hmm. Well, I used to get
Speaker 1: a lot when I was in California where you know,
Speaker 1: especially when I start wearing my hair down, and I
Speaker 1: used to get comments about how was I from the Islands,
Speaker 1: and it was like you just don't look like you're yeah,
Speaker 1: but you're all from that. Yeah. And my comment is
Speaker 1: that none of us are all black anymore. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: there's that, right, Yeah, yeah, all the mistaken for Ethiopian stuff,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know, maybe you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, anyway, Uh, mom,
Speaker 1: you want to give everybody your socials. I'm just kidding,
Speaker 1: just kidding. Get nobody, do not follow my mama on Instagram,
Speaker 1: I slap and playing man. So checking in from MARYL
Speaker 1: and from the d n V. You know what I'm
Speaker 1: saying from you know, PGC, Prince George County. Ladies and gentlemen,
Speaker 1: my dukes, let go, Thank you very much, mama. Alright,
Speaker 1: so my pleasure eat? Well, yes, that's right. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: You got any words of wisdom for these folks? Well,
Speaker 1: my only words of wisdom would be to make wise
Speaker 1: choices when you eat. Because you aren't always gonna be
Speaker 1: thirty five. You're always gonna be forty, god willing. You
Speaker 1: aren't always gonna be sixty one day, you're gonna be
Speaker 1: seventy or eighty on. And you want to still be
Speaker 1: able to walk around the block without having your shortness
Speaker 1: of breath. You want to be able to run a
Speaker 1: half mile without shortness of breath. You want to be
Speaker 1: able like me to do sit ups and push ups
Speaker 1: and leg binds and all of that. It's all in
Speaker 1: our choices, not only what you eat, but your life
Speaker 1: choice is in the things that you expose yourself too.
Speaker 1: I don't know where that came from, but just eat
Speaker 1: your veggies. They're the good Earth. There's from the good Earth.
Speaker 1: Then and stay away from that fried, greasy food you
Speaker 1: broke up. You broke up, Okay, as good as smells good.
Speaker 1: But no, I'm being silly. I just didn't want you
Speaker 1: to drop the gym's I know, But all I'm saying
Speaker 1: is that you'd be surprised at what you can ove
Speaker 1: and fry and enjoy it. So just just stay healthy.
Speaker 1: If you want to stay alive, stay and eat healthy.
Speaker 1: You will be thankful when you get over a