Speaker 1: I'm Tamika d Mallory and it ship Boy my son
Speaker 1: in general. We are your host of T m I, t.
Speaker 2: Mika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration.
Speaker 1: New Name, New Energy. What's up my son?
Speaker 3: How are you doing?
Speaker 2: To Mallory, I like that that's.
Speaker 4: Okay with the.
Speaker 3: Drum Rizzie, what's up?
Speaker 1: What's up? What you got today?
Speaker 2: Shout out to my brother at Mitchell, who we're gonna
Speaker 2: be interviewing a little bit later. But he had this
Speaker 2: dope event this weekend that I went to with my kids.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: It was the Peaceful Summer Fest. Shout out to my
Speaker 2: brother Fresher on Star Little Mama. You know, it was
Speaker 2: just it was a really really dope event. The kids
Speaker 2: were out there, they played, they had games, food, and
Speaker 2: it was just beautiful energy. Man, my kids don't be
Speaker 2: liking me nowhere. And this this is the second year
Speaker 2: in the road that we went to. And so when
Speaker 2: I was taking them, they're like, where we going?
Speaker 4: Dad?
Speaker 3: Why don't you just let us stay home. I'm like, no,
Speaker 3: you're not staying home, and they're like, where are we going?
Speaker 3: I'm like, remember the event we went to last year
Speaker 3: where they had the toys, they had the games and
Speaker 3: it's oh yeah, yeah, I like that, but I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go there.
Speaker 2: So you know, they went out there, they was playing football,
Speaker 2: they had games, came home with medals.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, it was dope.
Speaker 2: You know a lot of these kids got music and
Speaker 2: it was it was it was a turned up show.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Armstar, Armstar, my young little brother man.
Speaker 2: He is one of those people that knows how to
Speaker 2: hype the party up. Like he's one of them young
Speaker 2: brothers and he's positive and he's dope. He dances like
Speaker 2: none other, you know, onstars just like a yeah. So
Speaker 2: watching him and he brought his wiffle group up in
Speaker 2: there all dance and one of these kids did the hat.
Speaker 3: He did something with he he flips the hat with his.
Speaker 2: Knees and his foot and he keeps landing on his
Speaker 2: head and I was like, like, kids are talented.
Speaker 1: Peaceful Summer, the.
Speaker 3: Peaceful summer Fast.
Speaker 2: Shout out to my brother Freshia, who's another artist and
Speaker 2: he's from Brooklyn, but he was the he was the
Speaker 2: MC of the night, you know, the master the ceremony.
Speaker 2: So he did a dope job and you know, just
Speaker 2: introing everybody making people keeping the energy. It was just
Speaker 2: it was a dope event man. You know, I go
Speaker 2: out every now and then too things like that. So
Speaker 2: shout out to at he gave back to Brooklyn. I
Speaker 2: was a part, you know, I did my couple songs
Speaker 2: and we had it was just it was a dope event.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: Well that's good. I mean, you know, I think that.
Speaker 5: Showing these young people talent, like that's what the community
Speaker 5: is missing, that kind of stuff. I think that's kind
Speaker 5: of what we've been talking about, is trying to provide
Speaker 5: our you know, our young people with.
Speaker 1: A way to see something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, positive experience fun.
Speaker 1: Was they doing a lot.
Speaker 2: Of No, it wasn't no it was it was It
Speaker 2: was not no talk and it was it was a
Speaker 2: couple of songs. It was a couple of songs, like
Speaker 2: they did some drill music. They had their little thing this,
Speaker 2: you know, they do this little stuff they go like
Speaker 2: this and all that. But it wasn't no talk music.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: So they was dancing, but it was kid friendly. But
Speaker 2: they even they were doing, they wasn't doingn't I didn't
Speaker 2: hear get it sexy in the part, Actually I didn't,
Speaker 2: But there was it was like a kid friendly event.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: There was a couple of artists that you know, had
Speaker 2: a couple of songs that you're like, okay, you got
Speaker 2: But for the most part it was.
Speaker 1: A kid friendly cool love it, love it at.
Speaker 3: He'll be here with us, Sure, yes, my brother at.
Speaker 1: Let's see my thought of the day today.
Speaker 5: So thinking about and I don't I don't have even
Speaker 5: the slither of energy necessary to sit and go through
Speaker 5: the disgusting, vile behavior of Marjorie tail A Green. This
Speaker 5: is a woman who time at the time is disrespectful
Speaker 5: to people of color. And not only that, and she's
Speaker 5: from Georgia, so she has embedded in her some of
Speaker 5: that you know.
Speaker 1: Deep state stuff. She's just she's.
Speaker 5: Really, in my opinion discussing in my opinion, you know,
Speaker 5: she's actually like a danger to the American public right
Speaker 5: like she she is and to her colleagues because sometimes
Speaker 5: she's so disrespectful. And we know, we saw what happened
Speaker 5: with Jasmine Crockett that she a mess around and get
Speaker 5: you out your your peace and your space and you
Speaker 5: beat them, put your hands on her because she's that disrespectful.
Speaker 5: And you know everything that I know every time I
Speaker 5: see Marjorie tail A Green speaking on issues, it's almost
Speaker 5: like she goes out of her way to be as
Speaker 5: anti progressive as possible. Like she's attempting to, as far
Speaker 5: as I'm concerned, restore beyond conservatism. Like it's more than that,
Speaker 5: it's like just deeply respect racist, sexist practices and policies.
Speaker 5: And so, you know, if people don't know, if they
Speaker 5: if you're like, who is Marjorie Taylor Green, just go
Speaker 5: look her up, read some articles. Look at the way
Speaker 5: that she conducts herself on the hill and the way
Speaker 5: that she has been put out there and has been
Speaker 5: sort of propped up as a bully in the legislature.
Speaker 1: So who's going to counterbalance that?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: So you don't want Jamal Bowman because they say he
Speaker 5: wasn't moderate moderate enough. He you know, leans too much
Speaker 5: towards the left, and his constituents are not people who
Speaker 5: overwhelmingly support that. Now they're going after the same people.
Speaker 5: The APEX and all the GOP funded groups and other
Speaker 5: special interest groups are now going after Congresswoman Corey Bush.
Speaker 5: And you know, here's another individual that is like Jamal,
Speaker 5: willing to speak out, willing to She's just as extreme
Speaker 5: about righteousness and justice as Marjorie Taylor Green is about
Speaker 5: racism and her and her antics. And what I'm trying
Speaker 5: to understand from some of our people is, you know,
Speaker 5: what do we do to balance this beyond maga mentality
Speaker 5: that we're seeing as part of those who are responsible
Speaker 5: literally for making laws that will impact our lives for decades.
Speaker 5: How do we but balance that. Yes, you do have
Speaker 5: AOC of course, Alexandria A.
Speaker 1: Cassio. You also have uh Ihan Omar.
Speaker 5: You have Rashida, you have you have people there, but
Speaker 5: in summerly you have people there who are considered to
Speaker 5: be a part of a very progressive squad. But you
Speaker 5: also need to have people, multiple people who are willing
Speaker 5: to ping pong this nonsense that's happening within the government
Speaker 5: in Washington.
Speaker 1: And I feel like.
Speaker 5: I would like to hear more about how what is
Speaker 5: what is what? What is the strategy of the more
Speaker 5: moderate community around how as they get more people elected
Speaker 5: they are running people for office and various places around
Speaker 5: the nation.
Speaker 1: And I feel like we already have a number of moderates.
Speaker 1: We have more moderates than anything else.
Speaker 5: We've got a lot of people in elected office that
Speaker 5: know how to toe the line and walk the you know,
Speaker 5: and and try to negotiate and be in a community
Speaker 5: with these people. What we have, what we lack are
Speaker 5: more people who if you talk crazy, I can talk
Speaker 5: crazy too. So let's talk crazy because what I'm talking crazy,
Speaker 5: it's the right thing. And I don't want to make
Speaker 5: a false equivalency because of Corey Bush. She might when
Speaker 5: I say she talk crazy, it's nothing crazy about it,
Speaker 5: but she's strong enough to be able to really go
Speaker 5: hint toe to toe, toe to toe with a Marjorie
Speaker 5: Tailer Green type of person. So I just just I
Speaker 5: don't really have a finality, Like there's no point, no
Speaker 5: finishing point to my statement. I'm just trying to understand
Speaker 5: what are we going to do and how are we
Speaker 5: going to balance what we're up against and the fact
Speaker 5: that some of these people will not negotiate and it's
Speaker 5: not unfortunately they are becoming increasingly a majority within the
Speaker 5: Republican Party. So what do we do when there's more
Speaker 5: of those types of voices, or those voices are stronger
Speaker 5: and louder and beginning to muffle the voices of those
Speaker 5: people who are considered to be more Republican moderates, who,
Speaker 5: by the way, the.
Speaker 1: Republican Party, they don't do enough. If i'm if I
Speaker 1: you know, from my perspective, they.
Speaker 5: Don't do enough to quiet some of their own extremists.
Speaker 3: They don't. That's that's never the thing.
Speaker 2: So what they do is hide behind them, right, So
Speaker 2: they speak, Yeah, they speak for them, right, because those
Speaker 2: are things they want to say. They just can't say
Speaker 2: it out loud. So they just sit there and they
Speaker 2: let them do it, and they just vote with him.
Speaker 2: They don't. They don't.
Speaker 3: They're not very vocal.
Speaker 2: They just give their votes and and and show you
Speaker 2: where they stand and take back all of the laws
Speaker 2: in the in the ground that civil rights and all
Speaker 2: the things we got. They just quietly vote and take
Speaker 2: them back. And they do it.
Speaker 1: And it's not all of them, but it's a large
Speaker 1: and it's a lot.
Speaker 2: Of times, you know, we have to be as strategic.
Speaker 2: Although we do need those people that allowed We need
Speaker 2: those people that's gonna vote with us every time and
Speaker 2: never have.
Speaker 3: To say a word.
Speaker 2: We just need those people that's gonna say, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: let him say it, right, but we got to support right,
Speaker 2: that's what.
Speaker 5: They said, Well, we don't want Jamaal Bowman to be
Speaker 5: an activist. We want him to be a legislator. And
Speaker 5: I don't disagree that he needs to be more or
Speaker 5: he Yeah, he should be, and they should be more
Speaker 5: legislated than anything else. But I don't hear the Republican
Speaker 5: Party saying we don't need these loud, extreme voices. We
Speaker 5: need you to be more moderate and conciliatory.
Speaker 2: Because they never had to, right, because they understand that
Speaker 2: for the most part they've been in control of you know,
Speaker 2: how this country has been ran because racism and you know,
Speaker 2: division is as American as apple pie.
Speaker 3: That's that is the basis of America.
Speaker 2: And they're not trying to, you know, take away the
Speaker 2: foundation of what America is.
Speaker 3: So they're going to always quietly just support it. It's
Speaker 3: not gonna let.
Speaker 2: You know they support it. We have to put certain
Speaker 2: voices who can be loud, right, and but the thing
Speaker 2: is we can't fold.
Speaker 3: But we can't fold when they.
Speaker 1: Get loud and support them.
Speaker 2: You got to support them. You got to go all
Speaker 2: up to a lot of people scared to support them.
Speaker 2: And no, he's too loud.
Speaker 5: People will say it's not no support because there's many
Speaker 5: that support, but it's not enough to stand just like
Speaker 5: they do. They line up behind, like you said, may
Speaker 5: not be loudly, but they line up behind the one
Speaker 5: who are considered to be radical, but they are radical
Speaker 5: in a direction that's hard.
Speaker 3: It's like what they did with Kevinaugh.
Speaker 2: Like just look at how they got Kavanaugh and like
Speaker 2: the people, they didn't a lot of people.
Speaker 3: They say, okay, you're gonna have your hair in your people.
Speaker 3: People already know that they were voting that man, and
Speaker 3: they didn't care nothing about that hearing. They said he
Speaker 3: here to do a job, and he said, oh, no, no,
Speaker 3: I wouldn't do anything road Wade.
Speaker 5: No, no, maybe he did say how you know that?
Speaker 1: I don't know that. He said he would not give you.
Speaker 2: He made a statement that implied that he wouldn't. But
Speaker 2: everybody had already known that he was already one of
Speaker 2: those judges who was anti Rob Wade already. But when
Speaker 2: they was questioned him, his statement just moved around there like, no,
Speaker 2: you know, I would uphold this and this and the
Speaker 2: findings of this and that. Look it up, because he
Speaker 2: definitely he wiggled around there. And what happens is he
Speaker 2: got right in there and he did what they put
Speaker 2: him in there to do.
Speaker 5: I think a good example of what you're saying is
Speaker 5: like the Tulsa, Oklahoma exactly hearings, because that's what they did.
Speaker 5: The court, the justices, several of them appeared to be
Speaker 5: in support, and I wonder how they voted, because I
Speaker 5: know that the end result was that they tossed the
Speaker 5: case for those those I don't want to say, yeah,
Speaker 5: elders who are still looking for reparations and justice for
Speaker 5: what happened in the Tulsa bombings. But I don't know
Speaker 5: exactly how all the judges voted. I just know that
Speaker 5: the end result was whoever may have voted against it,
Speaker 5: they didn't win.
Speaker 3: They know how to play the position until they get
Speaker 3: back home.
Speaker 5: The systems that we have with the Supreme Court and
Speaker 5: the higher courts of all the states, and the two
Speaker 5: party system and all of that has to really I mean,
Speaker 5: if we're going to really get serious about making some changes,
Speaker 5: we're going to have to really dig deep and look
Speaker 5: at line items. That's what they do when there's when
Speaker 5: there's problems with the business. They get the budget and
Speaker 5: they go line by.
Speaker 2: My music segment today comes from an artist that I
Speaker 2: actually met at the event that.
Speaker 4: I did.
Speaker 2: At the Peaceful Summer. I've heard the music of his
Speaker 2: song before, but I actually met him. And this song
Speaker 2: is such a dope song and I want you to
Speaker 2: make sure you google it. His name is Mo Dub
Speaker 2: and the name of the song is called Same Heart.
Speaker 2: It is such a powerful song. Mo Dub M O
Speaker 2: dot d U b B. And this song is just
Speaker 2: basically talking about we're all going through something, but we
Speaker 2: all have one heart, like our heartbeats at the same time,
Speaker 2: You're not the only person going through what you're going through.
Speaker 2: It's such it's such a powerful song. We played the
Speaker 2: like three songs in a row. The whole crowd was
Speaker 2: just like it just is one of those songs. And
Speaker 2: it's been like a big song on TikTok. A lot
Speaker 2: of people are doing the song over but seeing him
Speaker 2: performing and just seeing the energy go look up Mo Dub,
Speaker 2: same hard, beautiful song. You know, I was moved, like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we gotta work together because that's the type of music
Speaker 2: that I want to create, and I know we're gonna create.
Speaker 2: So we're gonna be in the studio and in this
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. So shout out to MODEB. Follow him
Speaker 2: is mo dot d u bb on Instagram. And today
Speaker 2: we have another one of our friends, more like my brother.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: He is the founder in chief of executive officer of
Speaker 2: man Of Inc. He is also appointed by Mayor Adams
Speaker 2: as the first New York City Gun Violence Preventions are
Speaker 2: and the co chair of the Gun Violence Prevention Task Force.
Speaker 2: My brother Andre T. Mitchell Man, a k a. A. T.
Speaker 2: Mitchell Man. What's going on?
Speaker 4: Game old, right, but it goes there. It's a reason
Speaker 4: for it. It's good to see you both be here
Speaker 4: with y'all again.
Speaker 1: Yes, when you in the studio the last time.
Speaker 4: Never know, this is my first. I was just visual during.
Speaker 1: COVID pendant on with two people.
Speaker 4: My mom, my dad, my mother, my father, and I
Speaker 4: was actually in this. I was in her belly during
Speaker 4: this when the shot. She was pregnant with me.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, how did you find that?
Speaker 4: My family gave it to me. You know, you got
Speaker 4: uncles and you know family always they got those old
Speaker 4: pictures and they can tell you exactly what was going
Speaker 4: on at that time. And that's when I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: I gotta have that. I never kind of had a
Speaker 4: picture with my mom and my dad together, and it
Speaker 4: looked like they was like in love, you know what
Speaker 4: I mean. So at least I feel good. I was
Speaker 4: conceived with some love, you know, so I had to
Speaker 4: have it.
Speaker 2: So how you been at you know, I've been with you,
Speaker 2: I guess was talking about your event that you had
Speaker 2: this weekend, Safe Summer Peace Peace my fault, the Peaceful
Speaker 2: Summer Fest.
Speaker 4: Yes, I've been good though. Bro. You always got a
Speaker 4: VIP access card, all access card whenever you choose to
Speaker 4: pull up. But yeah, it was it's our way of
Speaker 4: closing out. We closed out Gun Violence Awareness Month on
Speaker 4: the twenty ninth and thank you again nice for always
Speaker 4: pulling up and being a part of the program. And
Speaker 4: it was a great way to conclude this month thirty days.
Speaker 4: As you'll all know, it was an extension of our work,
Speaker 4: you know, Tamika of creating Peace Week at the beginning
Speaker 4: of the year, and then in the middle of the year,
Speaker 4: during the month of June, we deem it gun Violence
Speaker 4: Awareness Month. And that's for all the members of the
Speaker 4: Gun Violence Awareness movement to kind of get down to
Speaker 4: raise awareness around gun violence. So we had that big
Speaker 4: program in Kanassi, Brooklyn, this past weekend, and so it
Speaker 4: was good to have you and so many others join
Speaker 4: us on stage and us just celebrate you know, gun
Speaker 4: violence away Iness month.
Speaker 2: It was a pleasure to be there. Man The work
Speaker 2: that you do is phenomenal. We've talked about it before.
Speaker 2: Some people may not, I don't know unless they're under
Speaker 2: a rock somewhere that don't know what you do. You
Speaker 2: know what Man Up does explain to them what it is,
Speaker 2: how it started, and what you you know contributing Man Up, Inc.
Speaker 4: It's a blessing of organization twenty years now. Young organization
Speaker 4: established twenty years ago, two thousand and four, after the
Speaker 4: unfortunate shooting and killing of an eight year old his
Speaker 4: name is Dashawn day Dee Hill in Brooklyn, New York,
Speaker 4: in tragic afternoon, we heard that these children that got shot,
Speaker 4: that's the word on the street. Myself, I responded with
Speaker 4: my local council member, Charles Barron, to that crime scene,
Speaker 4: rushed to the hospital and that's where I met that
Speaker 4: family in the trauma area in the hospital where he
Speaker 4: was unfortunately passed away from then and I was already
Speaker 4: an activists, but I felt even as one that was
Speaker 4: already doing work on the ground that I wasn't doing enough.
Speaker 4: If we're not going to be able to stop, you know,
Speaker 4: the shootings to the degree where nobody, like the women
Speaker 4: and the children are safe, then I felt there was
Speaker 4: more that could be done, and that's what happened. Man
Speaker 4: I think became a part of that work. Man and
Speaker 4: now twenty years later, multi million dollar nonprofit, close to
Speaker 4: one hundred employees, not including the youth employees. We have
Speaker 4: about fifteen locations now throughout the city, mostly in the
Speaker 4: Borough of Brooklyn. We're in the detention centers with the
Speaker 4: young bros in there, We're in the hospitals, we're in
Speaker 4: the schools, and we are on the streets as you
Speaker 4: know it. So, like you said, unless people have been
Speaker 4: under the rock, I don't know why they wouldn't probably
Speaker 4: know about Man Up, but you know here we are.
Speaker 5: So I asked you about your parents and your family
Speaker 5: because I think that you know, a lot of times
Speaker 5: people know us for what we do, but they have
Speaker 5: no idea of our stories, like where we come from.
Speaker 5: And you've told they were at the time it was
Speaker 5: street politicians. But now tiam I, you've told our followers
Speaker 5: and listeners in the past about your story, But would
Speaker 5: you give us, you know, another briefing on at and
Speaker 5: where you started and then where you are today, how
Speaker 5: you feel about where you are today going from your
Speaker 5: beginning point to now being reguarded by communities and by
Speaker 5: the mayor and by other leaders across the country, as
Speaker 5: you know, one of our most effective organizers around gun
Speaker 5: violence awareness.
Speaker 4: Well, thank you. I mean, I'm my story. I'm sure
Speaker 4: it's like most you know. Was a little boy born
Speaker 4: into a single parent household, my strong mom who had
Speaker 4: eight kids all together. I was the third of eight
Speaker 4: kids that was blessed to be born. So we grew
Speaker 4: up in Brooklyn in this case, mostly in Brownsville in
Speaker 4: East New York, Brooklyn. And so that's a pretty tough
Speaker 4: neighborhood's pretty you know, rough, and so we had to
Speaker 4: you know, fin for ourselves. But you know, just we
Speaker 4: learned a lot of how to really share, We learned
Speaker 4: how to you know, care, how to really you know,
Speaker 4: just really love on each other. You know. I didn't
Speaker 4: have like maybe some people who come from like a
Speaker 4: low like maybe a single like to they the only
Speaker 4: kid childhouse. I had like five six other brothers and sisters.
Speaker 4: So we loved on each other, you know, and uh,
Speaker 4: you know, just growing up in in the communities and
Speaker 4: that part of Brooklyn was pretty hard. But at the
Speaker 4: same time, you know, it taught me, you know a lot.
Speaker 4: I mean, I was the kid, believe it or not,
Speaker 4: I loved to learn. I loved school. So I was
Speaker 4: that young man. I couldn't wait till summer was over
Speaker 4: so I can go back to school to learn. So
Speaker 4: you can, you know, consider me a nerd because I
Speaker 4: did homework, I studied, and I did well. I got
Speaker 4: good grades, so you know, I just wanted to be
Speaker 4: down too. Though at the same time, most of the time,
Speaker 4: the girls that I don't know if they're still less
Speaker 4: way today, they don't. They don't want to talk to
Speaker 4: to the nerds, you know. So I had to figure
Speaker 4: my way out. And that's when i've you know, I
Speaker 4: realized that it was about being partially part of the streets,
Speaker 4: and so I entered into that realm eventually, you know,
Speaker 4: by being in the streets. I've been shot before, you know,
Speaker 4: I've been you know, imprisoned. I was actually put you know,
Speaker 4: in prison for a crime I didn't commit. It was
Speaker 4: charged with murder and a homicide in Brooklyn. I went
Speaker 4: to trial because I thought, you know, that was my
Speaker 4: first and only time that I experienced something like that
Speaker 4: where I assumed that the justice of the scales of
Speaker 4: justice was fair. But I know now that I didn't
Speaker 4: know then that if you don't have no money, you
Speaker 4: come from poverty, you don't have the knowledge of the law,
Speaker 4: then you're gonna be railroaded. And that's what happened to me.
Speaker 4: I got found guilty of a crime I didn't commit,
Speaker 4: and I was sent to prison, and I worked my
Speaker 4: way out from prison. To be very honest with you,
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, I felt my way into a
Speaker 4: maximum security prison, and I had to realize that if
Speaker 4: I'm going to you know, get home in one piece,
Speaker 4: I had to figure that lifestyle out, as you know, mice,
Speaker 4: It's real like that. But I always just you know,
Speaker 4: just really still. I was able to get back to school.
Speaker 4: I was able to go back to school, back to
Speaker 4: college while in prison. And then while in college, I
Speaker 4: was given a chance to come home early because I
Speaker 4: was doing so well. And I came back into my
Speaker 4: community where they glorify a prison, you know, the young
Speaker 4: bros And people was like, oh, yo, it was happy.
Speaker 4: You know, they wanted all those war stories. I wasn't
Speaker 4: giving it up. I was like, you crazy, it was wild,
Speaker 4: it's whack, and I'm not taking nothing, nothing away from
Speaker 4: some good brothers and sisters. That's behind the wall. But
Speaker 4: I think they would even agree that prison is really
Speaker 4: for suckers. It's not really what we want our young
Speaker 4: people to to end up the rest of their lives.
Speaker 4: And just started getting busy every day since then, and
Speaker 4: so my mindset was different, and I just continued to
Speaker 4: beat the ground and change the hopefully the trajectory of
Speaker 4: other people following them out shoes like that. How long
Speaker 4: did you do all together? I served sixteen years. Sixteen years,
Speaker 4: I have six altogether, meaning I had start five years
Speaker 4: in prison and I had to serve eleven years on parole.
Speaker 4: And so people, most people don't count that parole time,
Speaker 4: but mice, you know that once you are on parole,
Speaker 4: they remind you you are still a state property, you
Speaker 4: still state property, and that you can go back to
Speaker 4: jail at any dingy get time. So I had to
Speaker 4: serve the entirety of my duration of time, and it's
Speaker 4: actually hard dr to do it on parole than it
Speaker 4: is to be inside here.
Speaker 3: I heard yah.
Speaker 2: Because they regulate everything inside so you pretty much they
Speaker 2: make sure you go here and there. But when you're outside,
Speaker 2: those probation if you got a probation officer or parole
Speaker 2: over so that don't get along with you. You know,
Speaker 2: they put stipulations on you. They say you violated this.
Speaker 2: They make everything hard for you. They tell you can't
Speaker 2: go to certain jobs, you can't go to certain places,
Speaker 2: you can't be here.
Speaker 3: You have a curfew, and out.
Speaker 4: Here you gotta. You gotta take care of everything yourself.
Speaker 4: In prison, things have provided.
Speaker 3: You and then fit with because in prison you can.
Speaker 4: Tell you conduct your responsibilities. Out here if your dad
Speaker 4: you know you got responsibilities.
Speaker 5: Them is like yeah, alone, I see I saw you
Speaker 5: walk in.
Speaker 4: You better deliver.
Speaker 1: It's a very.
Speaker 5: Powerful way to express it.
Speaker 1: You have to deliver.
Speaker 4: You gotta deliver if you if you really about your
Speaker 4: life and you say you're a man, that you say
Speaker 4: that you are, you gotta and then not only just
Speaker 4: for your kids, but then you go back, like I said,
Speaker 4: in two communities where we come from, you know where
Speaker 4: they have friends, and you gotta be able to look
Speaker 4: out for everybody. Now kids. And so that's that's again,
Speaker 4: that's how I started in this work. And I don't
Speaker 4: regret it. You know, I used to complain I was
Speaker 4: better because I got you know, I went to prison
Speaker 4: for somebody and do but I realized my purpose though
Speaker 4: you know, I understand it now completely. So been a blessing.
Speaker 2: So this work that you've been doing, like you were
Speaker 2: one of the architects along with Tamika and Erica, the
Speaker 2: architects of this this what we call the crisis management
Speaker 2: system in New York City. Yes, you know, and and
Speaker 2: you said where it came from? You said, what this
Speaker 2: what happened with young Dade? And I seen you at
Speaker 2: an event that you were promoting the book, sir, that
Speaker 2: you know that I've seen that the mother Dade's mother
Speaker 2: had wrote and give us some background around.
Speaker 4: The well, like you said, myself, my dear sister Meka,
Speaker 4: Tamika uh and of course our sister Erica. You know,
Speaker 4: we like to pride ourselves. We were, you know, the
Speaker 4: three amigos. You know of that time where we committed,
Speaker 4: well before there was any bread, any money, that we
Speaker 4: would stick together, we would playing together, we would we
Speaker 4: would just do everything together. And we did that. You know,
Speaker 4: we wanted to raise the bar again. It was like
Speaker 4: raising the awareness around gun violence. And so in the
Speaker 4: in the process of our organizations that we were all
Speaker 4: affiliated with, you know, we was able to strategize and
Speaker 4: really get the City of New York at that time
Speaker 4: to pay more attention to the work that we've been
Speaker 4: doing for so many years. And that at that time,
Speaker 4: Speaker Quinn was the Speaker of the City Council. Mayor
Speaker 4: Bloomberg was the Mayor of the city. They was able
Speaker 4: to we created the task for us. You know, it
Speaker 4: was the first task force. This task force our culture
Speaker 4: now was one that I sat on then, you know,
Speaker 4: back in twenty like thirteen. And you know, in that
Speaker 4: task force effort, we was able to really put the
Speaker 4: real meat to the work and really added more resources.
Speaker 4: That's the birth of the crisis Management system. And so yeah,
Speaker 4: we're real proud of that. Today's over eighty nine million
Speaker 4: dollar initiative in the City of New York. It funds
Speaker 4: about forty organizations, so many different agencies are affiliated with it,
Speaker 4: and so many jobs have been created. Now it's more
Speaker 4: like a job for most folks, you know, versus when
Speaker 4: we were doing it. It was a mission driven sort
Speaker 4: of effort. And that's the hard part now because you
Speaker 4: don't know who's in it for the mission and who's
Speaker 4: in it for the money. Most are in it for
Speaker 4: the money, you know. But that being said, man, you know,
Speaker 4: like you said, Dayday's mom, she actually has always been
Speaker 4: and she can attest to the twenty year commitment that
Speaker 4: I made to her when I met her twenty years ago,
Speaker 4: because when she wrote this children's book called Day Day Games,
Speaker 4: It's Wings, which was a centennial it was our little
Speaker 4: twenty year anniversary book, and we published it and now
Speaker 4: it's out, you know, on Amazon and all of the
Speaker 4: places you can about books. Our Department of Education Chancellor David
Speaker 4: Banks has now purchased over ten thousand copies of this
Speaker 4: book to disseminate throughout the city in the different schools.
Speaker 4: But it's a story about your little data eight year
Speaker 4: old little Day They like most kids, just being kids
Speaker 4: and then I'm wanting to go outside and play in
Speaker 4: this case, you know, coming home from school, and that's
Speaker 4: when the try agedy happened, just on his way home
Speaker 4: from school. And it's a beautiful book the way that
Speaker 4: you could tell it through the lens of young people
Speaker 4: without them being so frightened because it talks about the
Speaker 4: pain and then it talks about the purpose, and then
Speaker 4: you know the triumph that came out of it. The
Speaker 4: community rallied around his little boy's life. And today, like
Speaker 4: I said, now we are we would like to consider
Speaker 4: ourselves a stickler or a staple in our neighborhood.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2: So being the gun violence preventions are like, what do
Speaker 2: you what are you seeing inside the city as far
Speaker 2: as gun violence.
Speaker 4: That's interesting, man, because when I got this appointment by
Speaker 4: Mayor Adams, now two years ago this time, if y'all remember,
Speaker 4: we walked over the Brooklyn Bridge together and we took
Speaker 4: over the steps. That's never happened before, especially for an
Speaker 4: appointment by the mayor. He would attest to that he's
Speaker 4: never seen that many people come out to stand in
Speaker 4: support of the appointee in that case. That that was
Speaker 4: two years ago, and you know, going back into government,
Speaker 4: because I was already a council member's chief of staff,
Speaker 4: I was counseled, I was chief of staff the council
Speaker 4: number Charles Barnon. I've been inside the walls in the
Speaker 4: halls of government just never like this. So now interesting,
Speaker 4: like you said, what it's like, because there's actually a
Speaker 4: divide in there. You know, there's the mayoral side is
Speaker 4: the blue side. Then there's the speaker in the city
Speaker 4: council side, which is the red side. Believe it or not.
Speaker 4: Literally they got red rooms and blue rooms, and so
Speaker 4: I used to be on the red room side. Now
Speaker 4: I'm over with the folks on the blue room side.
Speaker 4: And you wonder the wide things all the way they
Speaker 4: are in our neighborhoods.
Speaker 1: Now you just see it clear.
Speaker 4: You can see it there like this bottleneck. So much division,
Speaker 4: you know, so much unnecessary. I mean, just beef and
Speaker 4: we want our kids to stop beefing. You know, we
Speaker 4: gotta work it from the top. So I'm now, interestingly enough,
Speaker 4: I come from the boots on the ground. And so
Speaker 4: that's what was really surprising about my appointment because out
Speaker 4: in grassroots and I'm going back in and I'm talking
Speaker 4: about this issue that nobody really wants to talk about,
Speaker 4: called gun violence. The mayor did something unique. He said,
Speaker 4: I don't want you just to be on the task force.
Speaker 4: I want you to co chair this task force. Like literally,
Speaker 4: you're gonna leave. You're gonna sit at the head of
Speaker 4: the table, and I'm gonna put every commissioner at your table,
Speaker 4: every deputy commissioner at my table from all the city agencies,
Speaker 4: and everybody got to go into their tool kit. Everybody
Speaker 4: got to go and look and see what they could
Speaker 4: do about this issue called gun violence. And so that's
Speaker 4: been like I said, now two years. At first, you know,
Speaker 4: it was it was getting to know you better kind
Speaker 4: of thing. They didn't know why the mayor would pick me.
Speaker 4: And he'll tell you in a minute. I know at
Speaker 4: like I know my son, I know Tamika. I know
Speaker 4: that we are on the ground, and he wanted somebody
Speaker 4: from the ground to be in the mix. Today were
Speaker 4: moving along. Man. We've actually we created a blueprint, a
Speaker 4: community plan that's seven strategies that we focusing on the
Speaker 4: top six precincts in the City of New York where
Speaker 4: most of the gun violence is coming from. It's actually
Speaker 4: thirty precincts all together, it's seventy seven precincts, and out
Speaker 4: of the seventy seven precincts, thirty of them are responsible
Speaker 4: for ninety eight percent of the gun violence. And out
Speaker 4: of the thirty six of them are responsible for over
Speaker 4: thirty percent, So we call those the top six. And
Speaker 4: so what we're doing is really laser focusing in those
Speaker 4: neighborhoods at first, and then we're going to move on
Speaker 4: to the other communities and pouring mad resources. Bro, It's
Speaker 4: really like we got to really have if there's mass shootings,
Speaker 4: we need mass resources.
Speaker 5: Well, I remember you used to be very particular about
Speaker 5: how police were engaged in your work, right, you were
Speaker 5: very particular about that. You was just like, I can't
Speaker 5: overdo it because your model is community safety, not policing absolutely,
Speaker 5: But now that you work with the government, I wonder
Speaker 5: has it shifted or how do you deal with their
Speaker 5: desire to be.
Speaker 1: The only ones?
Speaker 5: And then I think Mayor Adams is a little bit
Speaker 5: different because he does cite sometimes that there are groups
Speaker 5: around the city that are doing great work. But Deblasio
Speaker 5: was he failed to even though he gave money, lots
Speaker 5: of money, poured resources in and showed a lot of
Speaker 5: respect to us off camera, But whenever he would do
Speaker 5: a press conference, he would always talk about the number
Speaker 5: safety and the numbers of violent incidents going down and
Speaker 5: speak about police. Never did he marry the two. So
Speaker 5: I'm just wondering with the ins and outs that you see. What,
Speaker 5: how have you evolved in that area or is it
Speaker 5: pretty much the same?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm still me. I'm just another elevated version of me.
Speaker 4: That's why my last name has been hyphenated. Right, I'm
Speaker 4: going through like.
Speaker 5: A midlife christ.
Speaker 4: Like milikas my moment. You know, most people don't know
Speaker 4: who Malik, you basses, that's Malcolm X, right, and so
Speaker 4: when he went to that next level, that's why I
Speaker 4: believe I am now So like you said, we were
Speaker 4: coming from protests, were coming from activism. So I know
Speaker 4: how to stand tald. I know how to look them
Speaker 4: in the eye. I'm not intimidated when I go into
Speaker 4: those rooms. The difference is today I have access to
Speaker 4: the top chiefs and all of the departments across the city,
Speaker 4: and so with them, they got to learn how to
Speaker 4: deal with me more so than I got to learn
Speaker 4: how to deal with them. And so I speak for
Speaker 4: the community right. When I understand what issues come about,
Speaker 4: I know how to articulate it. I'm now seen another
Speaker 4: side too, which is their side of the equation. You know,
Speaker 4: we are under surveillance New York City. Like literally it's
Speaker 4: about ninety almost ninety nine percent under surveillance, meaning the
Speaker 4: moment you step out your house, they got odds on you.
Speaker 4: Whether it's in the sky through the drones or whether
Speaker 4: it's through the towers.
Speaker 1: They doing something stuff like nobody.
Speaker 4: Knows I'm seeing I'm seeing the movie, right, So you
Speaker 4: heard me, Like our people can tell us anything. But
Speaker 4: then when I see what they like, all on for
Speaker 4: a second before you go off, let me take a
Speaker 4: look at this, And I'm like okay with that all
Speaker 4: the time, So you know, I still know. My mama
Speaker 4: told me, if we're gonna lie, you know, make sure
Speaker 4: we go and lie together. Right, they don't tell me
Speaker 4: the truth. So now I'm looking stupid and I'm out
Speaker 4: there fighting and they ain't telling me all the other
Speaker 4: stuff I already know. So you be knowing what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But I'm still me and I'm gonna always remain You know,
Speaker 4: that's sticking because the police still have a long ways
Speaker 4: to go before we could build a bridge before you know,
Speaker 4: there's a real divide and and that I'm I'm pro community.
Speaker 4: I tell them that all the time, Like you said,
Speaker 4: system into community, safety, not just public safety. I'm more
Speaker 4: into community safety.
Speaker 5: I was just gonna say the commissioner Coban, I actually
Speaker 5: like him, you know, conversations that I've had with him,
Speaker 5: he gives the impression that he really gets it. But
Speaker 5: no matter which commissioner you put in place, the systems
Speaker 5: are archaic, and the desire to remain a terrorizing, occupying
Speaker 5: force is something that is deeply embedded in law enforcement
Speaker 5: across the nation.
Speaker 1: I'm not just saying in New York.
Speaker 5: So you could come in there and be like we're
Speaker 5: gonna do this and that, and do this and that
Speaker 5: and the third and you should make significant shape like
Speaker 5: we are putting you in position or you have been
Speaker 5: put in position to fight against the wind at all times,
Speaker 5: and that's what we want to see. And if you
Speaker 5: don't do that, then there's challenges. But I've also learned
Speaker 5: because obviously under the Raymond Kelly administration, when we work
Speaker 5: very closely with Phil Banks, I used to be in
Speaker 5: law City Hall every day. In fact, I would be
Speaker 5: no in one police plaza. I would be in want
Speaker 5: police plaza, arguing or working on a plan or trying
Speaker 5: to figure out the community. What is it called the
Speaker 5: community safety, what was the Blue Shirts.
Speaker 4: Called the community trying to work.
Speaker 5: With community affairs and doing all my work, and then
Speaker 5: if I had a conference call that had to do
Speaker 5: with something completely different, I find your little office, going
Speaker 5: there and do my work and then go outside the
Speaker 5: building and protest them at five o'clock, six o'clock. And
Speaker 5: I did, and I mean, and I would go inside
Speaker 5: and tell them like, y'all are just wrong, Like you
Speaker 5: just are wrong. We would have debates, conversations, arguments, all
Speaker 5: of that, and I would still take my ass outside
Speaker 5: and say, and I'm going to protest against y'all because
Speaker 5: you know, some of these people are good people, Yes,
Speaker 5: good people. Phil Banks, great guy, but still has, in
Speaker 5: my judgment, his mind set on that system at times.
Speaker 5: And you have to be willing to work with them,
Speaker 5: but you also have to be willing to call their
Speaker 5: assets out.
Speaker 4: When they're wrong. And there's no two ways about it, right,
Speaker 4: And so you're like me, I'm on it, just like that,
Speaker 4: I call a spade a spade. You got to be
Speaker 4: the system. You can't. You can't be the system without
Speaker 4: a system, which is also part of why we created
Speaker 4: the crisis management systems. Right and Erica talks about that
Speaker 4: all the time, so that we could use that as
Speaker 4: a weapon, because really we're talking about systematic oppression on
Speaker 4: our people. The police department is an example of it.
Speaker 4: As my sister mentioned, all of them that may be
Speaker 4: in that department are not all bad people, but just
Speaker 4: like anything, you have your minority of those that just
Speaker 4: need to go like straight up, and they make it
Speaker 4: look bad for every fact, you know, and so that
Speaker 4: few and until they're willing to call their own out,
Speaker 4: and really we want to see that as a community,
Speaker 4: see how they handle their own you know, don't think
Speaker 4: it's going to be a lot of progress made in
Speaker 4: the streets, right, because that's what we as a community
Speaker 4: be looking for, is just and accountability. So, like I
Speaker 4: was saying, under this current administration versus the previous administration
Speaker 4: around and I've been around since Juliani, right and not
Speaker 4: seeing how it's been played out since nine to eleven.
Speaker 4: And I can attest that this administration with the mayor
Speaker 4: at the helm him coming from the community side of
Speaker 4: things when he was also on the job he co
Speaker 4: founded one hundred Blacks and law Enforcement who Cared and
Speaker 4: him knowing what that's like to make sure that police
Speaker 4: violence and misconduct and things like that has to be addressed.
Speaker 4: I can honestly say that they are more like you said,
Speaker 4: they're more understanding, and I think we're a lot more
Speaker 4: closer to respectfully making some policy changes, because that's really
Speaker 4: what you have to change. The majority of the department.
Speaker 4: Those are the middle managements I would think are the problem.
Speaker 4: It's not the heads of shop. It's not the CEOs
Speaker 4: or the chiefs. They the white shirts, they get it.
Speaker 4: It's not community affairs officers, the sky Blues. I tell them,
Speaker 4: they understand. It's the people who are out there in
Speaker 4: charge at the prect level, at the desk, the desk sergeant,
Speaker 4: those that oversee the street patrol right, those that have
Speaker 4: those the authority on the ground is where we need
Speaker 4: to the most impact. Because even the rookies, right they're
Speaker 4: coming out of the academy and undergoing some innovative training,
Speaker 4: but if they're putting to a precinct and they are
Speaker 4: paired up with an officer who've been on the job
Speaker 4: for twenty five to thirty years of doing it the
Speaker 4: way that they've been doing it, a lot of even
Speaker 4: what they which trained to do, they can't do because
Speaker 4: the people who are out there on the ground are
Speaker 4: going to be the ones that trump them. And so
Speaker 4: that's where I think we need to focus our attentions
Speaker 4: on that.
Speaker 1: I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it doesn't mean that we're saying that the
Speaker 5: activists and the organizers should not continue to raise whole hell,
Speaker 5: because you can't change a system unless the lights are
Speaker 5: on and the pressure is being applied. And so certainly
Speaker 5: I'm not you know, I would never I would never
Speaker 5: suggest that because I believe from my conversations with Caban
Speaker 5: the commissioner, that all of a sudden, I would not
Speaker 5: oppose violence because police violence is still happening and it's
Speaker 5: very real in this city and again across the country.
Speaker 5: But I do know that I could have a better
Speaker 5: conversation with him, because in the past we couldn't have
Speaker 5: conversations at all.
Speaker 1: And and by the way, Raymond Kelly, you know, he.
Speaker 5: Was a nice guy, but he was a stickler for
Speaker 5: the system remaining at you know, with the police having
Speaker 5: the power, that's a big part of the problem is
Speaker 5: that they want all they want power that.
Speaker 1: Is unchecked, and that's what Trump is talking about.
Speaker 5: Impunity for police office is and that's and that's a
Speaker 5: mindset that we've had to crack.
Speaker 1: So we still want to be outside as.
Speaker 4: We should, and I think we should always encourage young activists.
Speaker 4: I'm excited when I see that they are, you know,
Speaker 4: taking it to the streets right, you know, and getting
Speaker 4: their boots you know, on the ground, because that's the
Speaker 4: only way, like we know that some people in power
Speaker 4: are going to honorably respect them and really take what
Speaker 4: they're saying serious.
Speaker 2: So I would I just want to know, being doing
Speaker 2: this work and during gun violence away in this month,
Speaker 2: how is gun violence like, what is going on the streets?
Speaker 3: Hot? Is it summertime?
Speaker 4: You know how it is? Like it's hot, it's still hot.
Speaker 4: We are far from where we all want to be,
Speaker 4: but we also are not where we want was either.
Speaker 4: You know, if you look at the numbers in the
Speaker 4: eighties and the nineties and the early two thousands when
Speaker 4: it related to like homicides and shootings in the city
Speaker 4: of New York were like almost two hundred per sent
Speaker 4: less decreased than it was back then. This era, we
Speaker 4: are in the arrange around two hundred to something homicides
Speaker 4: with averaging it, but even though all those are just numbers,
Speaker 4: right and not people. We always got to remember every
Speaker 4: person that we every prody we talk about as a
Speaker 4: human being that represents a family. So we really want
Speaker 4: to continue the efforts that we're doing. We're heading in
Speaker 4: the right directions. You're seeing a lot more stabbings and
Speaker 4: that's you know, something that a lot of people don't understand.
Speaker 4: That says that there's a culture shift happening. When people
Speaker 4: are having disputes where they used to go run and
Speaker 4: get the gun and handle their beef with a gun,
Speaker 4: they're now choosing different weapons. So there is a shift
Speaker 4: that is happening. That's actually not a bad thing. And again,
Speaker 4: I've been stabbed too, so I know a stab woond,
Speaker 4: I've been shot. I know the difference, and be honest
Speaker 4: with your stab wound is to me, is more worse
Speaker 4: than the gunshot wound. However, the people, the behavior changes happening.
Speaker 4: You know, people are changing their mind. People are getting
Speaker 4: sick and tired of going to jail. People are beginning
Speaker 4: to also learn earn that we could talk that these
Speaker 4: things out, these these disputes, these beefs that men were
Speaker 4: talking a minuscule beef they beefing over nothing off of
Speaker 4: something that can be talked out. And that's the work
Speaker 4: that the men and women of the crisis management system
Speaker 4: is doing here in New York City and all across
Speaker 4: the country. You got violence interruptors, you got people that are
Speaker 4: hospital responders and people that are out there working in
Speaker 4: case management positions, and they're just coaching the public on
Speaker 4: how to resolve your conflicts without it happened to result
Speaker 4: with violence. And I think that's a good sign. So
Speaker 4: we are much safer, that's the reality. But the perception
Speaker 4: is that it's still unsafe out there.
Speaker 5: It's people are especially when you're getting people knocking you
Speaker 5: in your face on the train and people.
Speaker 4: Getting pushed on the training tracks. So a lot of
Speaker 4: peoples and rightfully, you hear gunshot. This is the you know,
Speaker 4: fourth of July week in coming up, so we always
Speaker 4: cringe around this time of the year because of the fireworks,
Speaker 4: and that triggers a lot of people, you know, when
Speaker 4: they hear these loud booms. A lot of people are afraid.
Speaker 4: Our families have been so living in trauma for so
Speaker 4: long that the time they hear something like a firecracker,
Speaker 4: they they're jumping into their their tubs. You know how
Speaker 4: they're training their kids to duck, you know, roll and
Speaker 4: all of those because they could be because it could
Speaker 4: be right, and we're not going to stick around and
Speaker 4: see if it wasn't. So, yeah, we are heading in
Speaker 4: the right direction. Things are getting much better, I think
Speaker 4: as a city collectively, everybody is doing their part, but
Speaker 4: we also got some still a way to go.
Speaker 5: There's some areas around the city where you know that
Speaker 5: things have gotten better. The data is clear that violence
Speaker 5: has reduced significantly, and communities are safer. And the other question,
Speaker 5: because if you know, I try to think the way
Speaker 5: that I know some of my super brilliant listeners they
Speaker 5: are and they and sometimes they like to be ornery
Speaker 5: and and and and trolling me, but they're really brilliant,
Speaker 5: you know what I'm saying. And so they ask criticals
Speaker 5: questions that feel like they're trying to be contradictory, but
Speaker 5: they're actually not. They're really just trying to get to
Speaker 5: the bat line. So if I say to you, do
Speaker 5: you know some places where things are better? Their response
Speaker 5: would be, oh, that's because it's gentrified, right, That's what
Speaker 5: they would say, Like, oh, the white people moved in
Speaker 5: and of course it got better. But I don't think
Speaker 5: that that is one hundred percent truth.
Speaker 4: So give us some very much not true. So where
Speaker 4: we are, where the crisis management system organizations, men and women,
Speaker 4: boots are on the ground, we can and this is
Speaker 4: by data. We can show you from all the way
Speaker 4: up from the South BRONX and or Senior, other parts
Speaker 4: of the BX, and throughout Central Harlem, East Harlem. You know,
Speaker 4: you go through Queens in South Jamaica, you go to
Speaker 4: far Rockaway. We could go into Brooklyn where I am
Speaker 4: in East New York, and in Brownsville and East Flatbush
Speaker 4: and other parts and even just like for example, in
Speaker 4: Staten Island this past Sunday, I had the privilege of
Speaker 4: being out there with my brothers and sisters of the
Speaker 4: True to Life team out there headed by my brother
Speaker 4: I and Mike, Perry and Rachel. They just celebrated one
Speaker 4: thousand days of no shooting, like literally no shooting in
Speaker 4: that precinct area. Now, this is the difference inside the precincts.
Speaker 4: We don't cover the whole precinct. But where we are
Speaker 4: the organizations, I'm mentioning the CCDs, the King of Kings,
Speaker 4: the East Saved East Harlem's not another child's ink, the
Speaker 4: Brags and the SOSS and all of us those organizations,
Speaker 4: the elite learners and the bevos and all of us.
Speaker 4: Where we are is statistically safer. And that's data that
Speaker 4: can back that up. Because that's one of the things
Speaker 4: that I receive on a weekly basis is the data
Speaker 4: I get the pin maps. I look at the maps.
Speaker 4: I can sell you where where we are, where we
Speaker 4: are inside the precinct. The precinct might be up, but
Speaker 4: in the areas where the groups are, it's down. And
Speaker 4: that's the evidence that we have at our disposal to
Speaker 4: kind of dispute anybody that would.
Speaker 5: Love to do to spend it takes resources to do
Speaker 5: more work. So if people say, well then why don't
Speaker 5: y'all do it over there, well, why don't you donate?
Speaker 4: Don't you give up?
Speaker 1: And why Monday?
Speaker 4: We're doing this in one shift to day. Literally, this
Speaker 4: is only happening eight hours out of one day normally
Speaker 4: three ships.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we said that. We were saying that the other
Speaker 2: day about what strategies we think. We think violence is
Speaker 2: happening mostly at twelve and beyond beyond early morning time.
Speaker 2: So you know, the city and the states need to
Speaker 2: fund organizations that can.
Speaker 3: Have seven day week because violence.
Speaker 2: Is having twenty four hours, and you know, the people
Speaker 2: in the communities know that there are times where the
Speaker 2: violence is highest. You know, And I was going to
Speaker 2: ask you pretty much the same thing, but what do
Speaker 2: you think of some effective strategies that you've been using
Speaker 2: that in certain areas you see that it works.
Speaker 3: To me, I.
Speaker 4: Think the effective strategy, the most effective strategy that we've
Speaker 4: been using today to minimate the violence is using the
Speaker 4: credible messages by us literally looking at a body of
Speaker 4: people who are residents of our city who have never
Speaker 4: been asked to participate in anything positive for the most
Speaker 4: of them in their lives. We have able to go
Speaker 4: to people who are influent, you, people who have been
Speaker 4: there and done that, and we're able to approach them
Speaker 4: and say, look, we need you. Now. We've tried police, everybody,
Speaker 4: we tried all the type of what we haven't tried
Speaker 4: is how about you getting involved in that fight and
Speaker 4: having that type of individual with that type of credibility,
Speaker 4: having that type of influence that can talk straight to
Speaker 4: the element and be able to say yo, pause when
Speaker 4: when they call for a pause or ceasefire. To me,
Speaker 4: is it's our secret weapon. We've never had this done before.
Speaker 4: And now this is why this is catching wildfire all
Speaker 4: across the nation, the utilization of credible messengers, right, people
Speaker 4: who come from them same neighborhoods, who have that lived
Speaker 4: experience like myself. I've been shot, I've been jailed, I've
Speaker 4: been out there, and I'm the one that can relate
Speaker 4: with the population of people who may be in that
Speaker 4: life today, approach that individual and talking to them not
Speaker 4: in an aggressive fashion, like a threatening fashion, but in
Speaker 4: a realistic like yo, bro, real conversations and reasoning like
Speaker 4: I can understand. Like, we don't go to them with
Speaker 4: no bullshit, like we're not asking them to put down
Speaker 4: a gun if we ain't got nothing to replace it with,
Speaker 4: because that's unrealistic. We know what it's like. We hustled.
Speaker 4: We understand that we got to feed. Like I said,
Speaker 4: I came from a big family. What I wanted to
Speaker 4: do was go back in the crib and help my moms, right,
Speaker 4: and most of the others that are out there, they're
Speaker 4: thinking the same way. So by having these men and
Speaker 4: women that are braived, they don't have vests, they don't
Speaker 4: have guns, they don't have shields or radios or helicopters
Speaker 4: or drones. They just got big hearts and they're not
Speaker 4: and they're not scared of their own element. That has
Speaker 4: been the biggest fact though, And now people that have
Speaker 4: been in that lifestyle have changed their lifestyles around their
Speaker 4: transforming and emerging into all different types of other professions.
Speaker 4: There's spinoffs in colleges, like there's spin offs in business,
Speaker 4: there's spinoffs in community based they're having their own nonprofits.
Speaker 4: To me, that's been the blessing of the work that
Speaker 4: we have been able to found systems shift the real proud.
Speaker 1: Of what we did together.
Speaker 5: And I am you know a lot of times you
Speaker 5: have to keep telling me the story because they say
Speaker 5: that the best way for people to remember and for
Speaker 5: history to stick is to continue to tell the story.
Speaker 5: Until I found myself having to say we created the
Speaker 5: crisis management system in New York almost one hundred million
Speaker 5: dollars and having to come and people are like, what
Speaker 5: that's you know, amazing, But you know, I would say
Speaker 5: that if I had to give another thing that you said,
Speaker 5: what are the strategies? I would say another piece with
Speaker 5: the credible messengers, which is number one, is the consistency.
Speaker 5: And it's the same thing as last week when we
Speaker 5: interviewed the women from l Ees and they have an
Speaker 5: educational program. They go into schools. Then you guys, actually
Speaker 5: you should be partnered with the les folks because what
Speaker 5: they do is going to the schools and receive the
Speaker 5: data of the children who are not showing up.
Speaker 1: And they find the kids. They find them.
Speaker 5: They could be in what they were saying that they
Speaker 5: found kids in Yemen. They found kids, they're in Africa,
Speaker 5: somebody you know, they're pregnant, don't have a babysitter, don't
Speaker 5: have food, don't have whatever. And they find solutions to
Speaker 5: you know, helping to get these kids back in the schools.
Speaker 1: And many of the schools that were on the.
Speaker 5: Watch list have gotten better as a result of the
Speaker 5: work that they are doing working with families and pinpointing
Speaker 5: problems even within the system and then reading the policy
Speaker 5: of the system to find a loopholes to get these
Speaker 5: children the type of help that they need.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is powerful.
Speaker 2: We went to all to do whole way mentoring, hall
Speaker 2: way way monitor mentoring, but they have you know, brothers
Speaker 2: from the community that go into the school and pretty
Speaker 2: much Whollway monitors and they build it with the brothers
Speaker 2: and the sisters, and they build relationships so they make
Speaker 2: sure when they come to school, they walk in them too.
Speaker 2: The class they're able to sense and see what's going on.
Speaker 2: If it's something going on, they get ahead of it.
Speaker 2: So they build a whole community model that is ensuring
Speaker 2: that our kids get the best education and they're safe
Speaker 2: at the same time.
Speaker 5: And I think that what Erica always wanted. Erica Ford
Speaker 5: for those people who are listening, she's our sister and
Speaker 5: she it was the three of us that work tirelessly
Speaker 5: to create this model and Erica. You know, I think
Speaker 5: about Erica now because she just recently did a lot conversation,
Speaker 5: a live video where she's talking about her health and
Speaker 5: how her health has been ailing and she's been through
Speaker 5: a lot to try to get herself better. And we
Speaker 5: know from looking at Erika from being around her, that
Speaker 5: she really is dealing with some serious health challenges. But
Speaker 5: one of the things about I promised that if there
Speaker 5: was some scientific, I don't know person around that they
Speaker 5: could pinpoint.
Speaker 1: Those moments when she was.
Speaker 5: Literally birthing the crisis management system from like her soul
Speaker 5: and doing the work at the same time to how
Speaker 5: it takes you down, like it can take so much
Speaker 5: from you that she was fighting to help people understand
Speaker 5: that a holistic approach. And that's why I brought up
Speaker 5: l e s because all things have to work together.
Speaker 5: And that's what's wrong with government. Sometimes we go in
Speaker 5: to talk to legislators and they don't have no idea
Speaker 5: about other pieces of legislation that's coming out of different
Speaker 5: offices or other things that's happening. It's not all connected.
Speaker 5: And I think that so that's one. So I think
Speaker 5: the connection is one. But the commitment, the consistency of
Speaker 5: being like on the wall, like a young person knows
Speaker 5: I'm gonna see Ray or John or Lisa or so,
Speaker 5: and so even if I don't even really like that person,
Speaker 5: they have to care to keep coming back here all
Speaker 5: the time, you know what I'm saying, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: You can't. Somebody you know didn't give up on us, right,
Speaker 4: this is while we're sitting here, right, And so if
Speaker 4: you're correct that that practice is key in this work with.
Speaker 5: How do you keep your teams consistent because they have
Speaker 5: problems too.
Speaker 1: Life is happening? Are?
Speaker 4: They are our first participant, right to get the body
Speaker 4: of people that we send out into the streets, they
Speaker 4: got to be a minimum working on theyself to go
Speaker 4: into a community that's troubled and say I want.
Speaker 1: To help you.
Speaker 4: You know, you're not helping yourself, so you know, healing people,
Speaker 4: heal people, you know, and so you correct. So what
Speaker 4: I do, and I know others are following and doing
Speaker 4: the same thing, is we constantly pour our resources into them, right,
Speaker 4: We test drive them, We take them around the block first,
Speaker 4: and then if it's working with them, then we know
Speaker 4: it works because they now can go into a community
Speaker 4: that they come from and speak from experience, you know,
Speaker 4: And consistency is the key. We often have to have
Speaker 4: what I care, constant reinforcement training, right because we've been
Speaker 4: out there for so long. A lot of the crime
Speaker 4: genitive attitudes that we possess in our heads are in
Speaker 4: our DNA. So sometimes you could walk into a supermarket
Speaker 4: and you see the grapes and you see the fruit,
Speaker 4: and you start, you know, nibbling away at the fruit
Speaker 4: and the grapes, and you're not paying for it, right,
Speaker 4: you know, or you might see a stick of gum
Speaker 4: it up or a bag of chips in the store,
Speaker 4: and you just naturally, you know, realizing that if you
Speaker 4: got to check out with that, you got to pay
Speaker 4: on your way out, because if not, you're on camera,
Speaker 4: going back to surveillance, and they're going to be able
Speaker 4: to pick you up. And so we got to realize
Speaker 4: that some things that we have been doing since we
Speaker 4: were children, we got to flush that stuff out our system.
Speaker 4: We got to teach our new behaviors in terms of
Speaker 4: how we go. Like when we were raised as by moms,
Speaker 4: she taught us that if someone hit you, you what
Speaker 4: hit them back, right, And now some of our families
Speaker 4: got even deeper that like pick up a bottle, brust
Speaker 4: them upside their head like a lot. We've been taught
Speaker 4: that growing up, and now we got to retrain and
Speaker 4: reteach ourselves that that that may not necessarily be the
Speaker 4: best way to handle that strife. Because if that person
Speaker 4: bleeds and goes to the hospital out that person bleeds
Speaker 4: out and does that's a homicide.
Speaker 1: That has happened to people we know.
Speaker 4: And people only doing what they were taught to do.
Speaker 5: We were forced here through violence absolutely, and then we
Speaker 5: have been through the most violent practices and the most
Speaker 5: violent A study, if you are a study.
Speaker 1: Hasn't can continue to be.
Speaker 5: Done about the violence that we had to suffer. How
Speaker 5: hard is it to get a people to give up
Speaker 5: and be stripped of everything they know and be willing
Speaker 5: to bow down and be forced to tend the land,
Speaker 5: raise the kids, you know, feed the babies, have to
Speaker 5: have sex and be raped, you know, against our will.
Speaker 5: The violence that it took to break us is the
Speaker 5: violent attitude that so many have passed down from generation.
Speaker 5: And so when you think about that, man, we're going,
Speaker 5: you know it's deep.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to leave.
Speaker 5: Without us talking about the business of this. If I'm
Speaker 5: the mayor and I'm sitting here, if I'm the mayor
Speaker 5: from Ville, Alabama was a town where my mother is from.
Speaker 5: And I'm watching this right now because Hey, I like
Speaker 5: my song. I listen to his music. I love to
Speaker 5: listen to the show. Talk about I'm the mayor. What
Speaker 5: does he or she need to do? How can they
Speaker 5: participate in this? What does the business of an operation
Speaker 5: like this look? And I know there's many sides because
Speaker 5: you got local groups, your local organizations which you can
Speaker 5: speak to. But then it gets bigger as you start
Speaker 5: talking about city participating.
Speaker 4: I think New York City is the best example. You
Speaker 4: know this mayor, Mayor Eric Adams did something bold, Like
Speaker 4: I said, he appointed somebody from the streets and made
Speaker 4: that personal part of his administration. Other mayors around the
Speaker 4: country needs to really consider that. Right now, they're being
Speaker 4: advised by people who really don't understand that. Study the
Speaker 4: book and they learned it in school, but they never
Speaker 4: really lived through it and understand it completing. They may
Speaker 4: not have the connections most of these mans needed, and
Speaker 4: that is to the streets, right, And so I think
Speaker 4: that's a good example. We need to use our playbook.
Speaker 4: They need to look at who they may have in
Speaker 4: their city, and then they need to think about how
Speaker 4: do we replicate what we know is working. There are
Speaker 4: a number of models across the country that is working,
Speaker 4: and I think that's something that a lot of mans
Speaker 4: I see as I travel are utilizing. But again, it's
Speaker 4: back to a holistic approach, right, there's no one way
Speaker 4: out out of this situation. We have to look at
Speaker 4: that and also say that those mans like they got
Speaker 4: to be willing to put their money where their mouth
Speaker 4: is because gun violence is very expensive. You know, it's
Speaker 4: that on the average, it's about a million dollars per
Speaker 4: shooting victim that the city will actually expense. You think
Speaker 4: about it, right, a person gets shot, how many responders,
Speaker 4: how many emergency responders respond to, how many police officers,
Speaker 4: how many firefighters got to clean up the blood off
Speaker 4: the street, how many our ambulance in tease folks? How
Speaker 4: many people in the hospitals that are waiting doctors? And
Speaker 4: then somebody on the other side of the gun, right,
Speaker 4: who is the perpetrator, has to Now there's a DA's
Speaker 4: office that's going to investigate right in the police department.
Speaker 4: Then that person may get captured and have to go
Speaker 4: through the courts, right and all those court officers, and
Speaker 4: then that person may have to be detained. That's now
Speaker 4: correctional facility. And so there you see all of the
Speaker 4: plethora of different moneies that we as people that pay taxes,
Speaker 4: are investing in the one person. One person being not
Speaker 4: talking about that person dies at a whole level. If
Speaker 4: they live, they got hospitalization. You know, the cost of
Speaker 4: hospital bills today to treat you know, a person we
Speaker 4: have is expensive. So if we got that kind of
Speaker 4: money to, you know, to dole out and commit. We
Speaker 4: need to also look at how much we commit in
Speaker 4: the alternatives to violence, Right, how do we do the
Speaker 4: alternatives to police and models like what we have here
Speaker 4: in New York City, the community violence and divention model
Speaker 4: that we have in New York City, like the Christ
Speaker 4: Management System. Mayors across the city and across the country
Speaker 4: can do that. They can make a commitment because they
Speaker 4: are in control of their own budget and make that
Speaker 4: wise investment, just like they do in their security cameras. Right.
Speaker 4: They that stuff costs money and they just need to
Speaker 4: look at it from that end. And then it's a
Speaker 4: part of public sit it's a part of public saty.
Speaker 4: It's an investment. It's a real investment. But you got
Speaker 4: to use the people from those communities. You can't have
Speaker 4: people that just represent that community. You have to have
Speaker 4: people who have literally come from those neighborhoods.
Speaker 2: Well, listening, Tee, we can talk for hours like we
Speaker 2: always do. My brother, I'm always in awe at the
Speaker 2: work you do and how you constantly stay boots to
Speaker 2: the ground. You know, you're a mentor, You're a motivator,
Speaker 2: you know, and a true leader. You know, when I
Speaker 2: started doing this work, you're one of the first people
Speaker 2: that I modeled myself after watching how you move and
Speaker 2: how you conduct yourself, how you move honorably, and how
Speaker 2: you're consistent and always authentic, and everybody would say the
Speaker 2: same thing about you. So you know, you you've definitely
Speaker 2: earned everything that you got in this work, and you
Speaker 2: continue to do the work, sir.
Speaker 3: So I just want to say that we appreciate you, man.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure to talk to you, man, and
Speaker 2: we're gonna be on that battlefield with you change.
Speaker 1: When you got the city. And it's not even a job.
Speaker 4: No, it's not even a job because you don't even
Speaker 4: guess not I do not even if this is a
Speaker 4: mission right that I'm on that we're on. I mean,
Speaker 4: they couldn't even pay us enough.
Speaker 5: But I know that how much does it cost to
Speaker 5: run one of your sites at minimum?
Speaker 4: Effectively half a million dollars a year, just at minimum,
Speaker 4: that's gonna get you just maybe about maybe eight to
Speaker 4: maybe ten employees.
Speaker 1: You think about it, Not everybody is outside.
Speaker 4: We have to have a back office and things like that.
Speaker 4: So it's not enough money. And that's only for one shift,
Speaker 4: remember only one eight hour shift. We can only employ
Speaker 4: them up to eight hours, and after that the rest
Speaker 4: of the day, the neighborhoods left on their own right,
Speaker 4: and so we really got to work. We still got
Speaker 4: more work to do. It we need to just working
Speaker 4: alongside y'all, knowing that I got comrades like y'all that
Speaker 4: are you know, back in call and vice versa. Y'all
Speaker 4: know that we pop out boycott black murder. You know
Speaker 4: how we get down and you know, it makes me
Speaker 4: know that when I'm doing I'm not doing a loan,
Speaker 4: you know, because that's that's the part of it, you know,
Speaker 4: being a general who leads from the front, you know,
Speaker 4: just knowing that I got back up, I got my
Speaker 4: peoples whenever I need them, as we've seen demonstrated this
Speaker 4: past Saturday, as you you know, will always do, you know, Tamika,
Speaker 4: when we got to go in front of any crowd,
Speaker 4: I appreciate this opportunity.
Speaker 5: Yeah for sure. I you know that how much I
Speaker 5: love and admire what you do. And you know we're
Speaker 5: talking about Erica and her situation, but you can look
Speaker 5: at each one of us and see where this work
Speaker 5: has taken so much from us, you know, just we've
Speaker 5: given and given and given, and I would do it again,
Speaker 5: you know, I would do it again. But I know
Speaker 5: the points in our lives when we were near death,
Speaker 5: trying to save somebody else, trying to save organizations, save whatever.
Speaker 5: And you know, I don't know. I guess we go
Speaker 5: round and around in circles. But it feels good to
Speaker 5: know that we're getting to the place where at least
Speaker 5: we could try to take care of ourselves while doing
Speaker 5: the work at the same time. So it's good to
Speaker 5: see you take the care of yourself.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 3: You've got to open door policy anytime. Hen thank you.
Speaker 5: For those people who are listening. This is literally how
Speaker 5: we do our work. We hear things, we get inspired,
Speaker 5: and we start putting pieces together and the next thing,
Speaker 5: you know, you all get to see the finished product,
Speaker 5: or at least the development product of you know, of us,
Speaker 5: of strategy. And I think the coalition, like I said,
Speaker 5: it's the gumbo, like everything is in the pot, and
Speaker 5: I think it's going to be fulfilling.
Speaker 2: Yes, shout out to our brother at Man for always
Speaker 2: coming through. You know, he's really like a big brother
Speaker 2: to me. Calls me all the time. I ask advice,
Speaker 2: you know, and he has the lived experience and he does,
Speaker 2: you know, And he's always got he's always just authentic man.
Speaker 2: And you never see a more positive brother. You very
Speaker 2: rarely hear At raised his voice.
Speaker 3: You know, he's very passionate. I've seen it, but I don't.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've seen it too, but I very rarely
Speaker 3: see it. Man.
Speaker 2: He knows he's a people person, you know, you know
Speaker 2: how people know how to communicate. Yea.
Speaker 5: He knows how to get away from people too, when
Speaker 5: he feels like they're taking him to that place. Like
Speaker 5: he said, the first uh, the first client is you.
Speaker 5: You gotta work on you before you could go out
Speaker 5: and do work for other people. And we constantly are
Speaker 5: holding one another accountable for that and until freedom in
Speaker 5: our larger spaces that we have to be mindful of.
Speaker 5: Like you, nobody's perfect and saying AT is perfect, certainly
Speaker 5: we're not. But we do have to be more mindful
Speaker 5: of how we carry ourselves as we claim to be
Speaker 5: leaders of other people. And you know, I've had to
Speaker 5: learn conflict resolution skills within me.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about my own conflict with myself.
Speaker 5: Forget about conflict because you conflict with you, I have then, exactly,
Speaker 5: and then you can't get out of conflict with nobody
Speaker 5: if you don't start the conflict with you. And that's
Speaker 5: exactly how I ended up being addicted, because there's a
Speaker 5: conflict within And if you don't have the skills to
Speaker 5: be able to acknowledge that you're being triggered to the
Speaker 5: point where you're making.
Speaker 1: Bad decisions, you will go.
Speaker 5: I mean, things could get really, really, really bad. You
Speaker 5: have to have the skill of saying to yourself, Okay,
Speaker 5: is it the bottle of alcohol that I need?
Speaker 1: Or is it prayer? Or is it meditation? Or is
Speaker 1: it what? And it's a fight again, it's a fight
Speaker 1: against the wind.
Speaker 2: Listen, you you've mastered that. I mean you you well,
Speaker 2: I won't say the word master, you overcome. But I
Speaker 2: think that you're very aware, you know. And I think
Speaker 2: what they.
Speaker 1: Say behavior, yeah, yes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just think that you're a lot more aware.
Speaker 2: And I think they say in order for someone who's
Speaker 2: an attic, you have to acknowledge you're an addict.
Speaker 3: You have to always be aware of things that trigger you,
Speaker 3: things that set you with that, and you seem very
Speaker 3: aware of those things.
Speaker 2: You know, you always acknowledge this, and I know this
Speaker 2: and that, and I know I'm not doing that and I'm
Speaker 2: gonna stay away. So you know, that's that's part of growth,
Speaker 2: that's part of you know, identifying the conflict within yourself.
Speaker 1: But what happens when the addiction becomes food?
Speaker 3: I mean, that's that's one of the biggest addictions in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 1: For real.
Speaker 2: You have to figure it out. So now I don't
Speaker 2: get it today, It's it's pretty much simple. I just
Speaker 2: don't get why in the hell we only have these
Speaker 2: two seventy and eighty yeo men as our candidates to president.
Speaker 2: I just don't understand that. Like I don't understand how
Speaker 2: we got ourselves in the clusterfuck. This is what we
Speaker 2: call a complete clusterfuck. Like you have to choose between
Speaker 2: Joe and Donald Like you don't have to know. I'm
Speaker 2: saying some one of them is going to be the president.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying, if you choose to go with
Speaker 1: Joe Stein.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about but yeah, and I love doctor Cornell
Speaker 2: West and and you know how.
Speaker 1: Many other people are right in for president.
Speaker 2: Problem Yeah, but I'm trying to tell you doctor Cornell
Speaker 2: West would be I would love that doctor Cornell West.
Speaker 2: But I'm talking about realistically, when we having a conversation
Speaker 2: about who's going to be voted as the President of
Speaker 2: the United States, is Joe or Donald? And none of
Speaker 2: them to me are fit to that just this my
Speaker 2: personal event. They don't fit the criteria what it takes
Speaker 2: to be have leadership. Now, when I look at both camps,
Speaker 2: I say to myself, so maybe maybe I don't think
Speaker 2: Jason Tatum is the best player to me, maybe I
Speaker 2: don't think he's like the best leader. But I can
Speaker 2: look and see how the Bosston Celtics can win the
Speaker 2: championship because I might be like, oh, now Jalen Brown
Speaker 2: is dope and for Zenias, oh and they got Drew Holliday.
Speaker 3: Like there's a team.
Speaker 2: And that's how I look at and this this is
Speaker 2: the that's the only benefit to me. When I look
Speaker 2: at Joe's team, I know that he's surrounded by smart,
Speaker 2: brilliant individuals who have you know, credentials and who actually
Speaker 2: want to do good.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I mean right, I mean we know them.
Speaker 3: Exactly, so that that that's the plus.
Speaker 2: I don't see the only thing Trump does is higher
Speaker 2: people that he thinks he can control, and he thinks
Speaker 2: he's smarter than and if he's smarter than or he's
Speaker 2: it's racist all those things. But I'm saying, but if
Speaker 2: he's smarter than the people that he hiring, then that's
Speaker 2: crazy to me.
Speaker 1: I don't either.
Speaker 5: It's try to break it down because I don't even know.
Speaker 3: I don't even want to break it down.
Speaker 2: I just want because I just don't understand because when
Speaker 2: I'm looking, I'm like, I'm watching these people debate and
Speaker 2: watching them move and watching them talk, and I'm like, this,
Speaker 2: this can't be life. It's like, nah, this can't really
Speaker 2: like be life. But it is, you know, And in
Speaker 2: November people have to make decisions. There's no way that
Speaker 2: I'm not going to vote. But I just don't understand
Speaker 2: how this is what we've come to. And this is
Speaker 2: what I say after this election. If we're not intentional
Speaker 2: about creating something that combats with the system, is the
Speaker 2: quote unquote something different. If we're not intentional about creating
Speaker 2: something different, then we just deserve whatever we get. Because
Speaker 2: I thought that was everybody's strategy after the last election.
Speaker 2: When people say, oh, we don't want this now cool.
Speaker 2: Whoever gets is who is our you know, the person
Speaker 2: that we're gonna fight against. We ain't got none of
Speaker 2: these people as our allies. We're gonna fight against that.
Speaker 2: We're gonna push them, We're gonna create our own structure system.
Speaker 2: We're gonna create something that forces them to do what
Speaker 2: it is that we want them to do. And then
Speaker 2: we're gonna put the people that we want in place
Speaker 2: in place.
Speaker 3: That's that should be distracted.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's that's really good. But it takes more
Speaker 1: than four years, and I don't know if it tasts.
Speaker 5: It does because when you start talking about putting a
Speaker 5: structure and a system in place, and and you have
Speaker 5: a portion of First of all, we have to identify,
Speaker 5: just as you know, as an organizer for all of
Speaker 5: these years, the first thing that we have to do
Speaker 5: is identify who's really really with us, which whittles down
Speaker 5: and then we also have to be willing to look
Speaker 5: at those people who who look like us, who are
Speaker 5: an imminent threat to what we're attempting to do. Then
Speaker 5: you have to figure out how to separate the two
Speaker 5: because a lot of times, and you mentioned this before,
Speaker 5: you look at that you know, you look at well,
Speaker 5: we just said it.
Speaker 1: You you think people.
Speaker 5: Are with you and you're traveling with them down the road,
Speaker 5: and then you find out that their interest and the
Speaker 5: way in which they line up.
Speaker 1: Is so is it?
Speaker 5: It's actually it pulls us backwards. So first of all,
Speaker 5: you've got to identify who who are, who is the day?
Speaker 5: Who is the we that even wants something different, because
Speaker 5: some people just want comfort, they don't want different, and
Speaker 5: difference means pain.
Speaker 1: It's going to be painful, that's true, I think.
Speaker 3: But I think there's a lot of people that want
Speaker 3: something different.
Speaker 2: I think I think there's so many people that feel
Speaker 2: underrepresented and unseen within this current structuring system that if
Speaker 2: people were very intentional about creating and building and really
Speaker 2: doing the work necessary to create something different, it would
Speaker 2: be possible.
Speaker 1: So what do you think happened to all the people
Speaker 1: who really did try.
Speaker 3: What usually happens with movements and structures. There's too many chiefs.
Speaker 1: So you don't think that that's the same that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I just think the way that you go about it,
Speaker 2: right is really create sitting down with like minds.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It's like anything you create a team, you keep on Okay,
Speaker 2: you say you want to be in the team. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: you're not. Really you don't want because you want to
Speaker 2: do what you want to do. But this is what
Speaker 2: we need you to do for this team. And a
Speaker 2: lot of people don't understand. And America got this way
Speaker 2: because they created something and everybody probably wasn't on the
Speaker 2: same page, right, So we have to have the same
Speaker 2: steadfastness energy, like what it's going to take to to
Speaker 2: break the system. It's going to take this saying energy
Speaker 2: that they put in to make the system. So if
Speaker 2: we just complacent, you know, and we just sit around
Speaker 2: and we just saying, Okay, you know what, I'm tired.
Speaker 2: He don't want to listen. They don't want to listen.
Speaker 2: I'm just tired. It's not gonna work like that. And
Speaker 2: with that said, we've come to the end of another episode.
Speaker 2: Shout out to brother at Andre T. Mitchell Man. Hit
Speaker 2: us up at TMI Underscore Show and let us know
Speaker 2: what you like, let us know what you don't like,
Speaker 2: tell us who you want to see, give us some
Speaker 2: topics we want to hear from you. We appreciate y'all
Speaker 2: for following us, keeping us number one. We love all
Speaker 2: the love that y'all give us and we try to
Speaker 2: give it back. I'm not gonna always be right to Mek,
Speaker 2: it's not gonna always be wrong, but we will both
Speaker 2: always and I mean always, be authentic.
Speaker 4: How Yoda.
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