Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D. Mallory and the Ship Boy my Son
Speaker 1: in General.
Speaker 2: We are your host of TMI.
Speaker 3: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation.
Speaker 2: And Inspiration Name New Energy.
Speaker 4: It's your boy Might song in general. Tamika D. Mallory
Speaker 4: couldn't be with us today. She is working on her
Speaker 4: book and she has a deadline, so I'm gonna hold
Speaker 4: us down. But this book is amazing. You know, she
Speaker 4: doesn't let me hear a couple of things. It's amazing.
Speaker 3: So as soon as it goes on, make sure you
Speaker 3: pre order and get this book.
Speaker 4: The book is I'm not gonna tell you the name
Speaker 4: of her book before she tells you, I would tell you,
Speaker 4: but it's a dope name.
Speaker 3: Book is.
Speaker 4: Book is fire. But I'm gonna hold us down today. Man,
Speaker 4: I'm gonna have some guests on. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 4: what's going on with this election, because you know this
Speaker 4: election is it's crazy. There's so much things going on
Speaker 4: online and I'm not gonna talk about today.
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna wait till we have guests.
Speaker 4: You know, we're talking with black men today and how
Speaker 4: they about this election and all of the things that
Speaker 4: come with that. With that being said, I had a
Speaker 4: dope week this week. Have you been watching the Olympics.
Speaker 4: Olympics has been It has been exhilarating. And you know,
Speaker 4: sometimes you don't have a lot of energy and sometimes
Speaker 4: you just feel like down because I go through those periods.
Speaker 4: Sometimes sometimes I'm real energetic and I've got a lot
Speaker 4: of motivation to do stuff, and then sometimes I just don't.
Speaker 4: So this week was one of those weeks that I
Speaker 4: didn't have a lot of energy to do stuff. But
Speaker 4: watching the Olympics, I have to tell you, the last
Speaker 4: two basketball games of the Olympics, Like I watched the
Speaker 4: Rais Chikari. We're just in It's amazing, you know, just
Speaker 4: watching her. She always has this this level of energy
Speaker 4: that is contagious. Like you watch her and you see
Speaker 4: her run and everything about the way that she presents
Speaker 4: herself as an athlete. It's just motivation of me, Like
Speaker 4: she comes from. You know, we know all of the
Speaker 4: controversy she's had and just keep seeing her overcome and
Speaker 4: despite this continue to win. That's in itself, it's motivation.
Speaker 4: But I watched the us A play against Serbia first,
Speaker 4: you know, and that was on that was like last
Speaker 4: week and that game, I caught it. In the fourth quarter.
Speaker 4: One of my friends, Rubin calls me, like, Yo, you're
Speaker 4: watching this game. The US is down by sixteen points
Speaker 4: on like sixteen Yeah, they losing to Serbia Is in
Speaker 4: the fourth quarter. Man, They're about to lose. So I'm like, damn,
Speaker 4: they're about to lose.
Speaker 3: Now. If you know, Serbia is Jokis's team, you.
Speaker 4: Know who was actually the MVP of the NBA, So
Speaker 4: it's not far fetched that you would be losing to
Speaker 4: somebody who was voted the best player in the NBA.
Speaker 4: The way they started that fourth quarter was amazing, Like,
Speaker 4: it was nothing short of amazing, just watching like I
Speaker 4: seen Lebron in a different life. Like I always been
Speaker 4: critical of Lebron, especially after he did the trade, you know,
Speaker 4: to Miami, and I always I never liked that move,
Speaker 4: you know, just to me, it was like, Yo, you're
Speaker 4: the best player in the world. Why would you go
Speaker 4: join other great players to play with them instead of
Speaker 4: just beating them, especially after they just want a championship, Like,
Speaker 4: I never liked that move, So I'm not going to
Speaker 4: act like I did. And I've always been critical of
Speaker 4: his killer instinct and his warrior mentality ever since then,
Speaker 4: but as of late, you know, he's grown on me
Speaker 4: with the warrior But I think this that game solidified
Speaker 4: it for me, Like just watching how he put the
Speaker 4: US on his back, like literally he put that team
Speaker 4: on his back by hisself, not by hisself, because everybody
Speaker 4: contributed in the game. Steph hit like not like he
Speaker 4: was just unconscious, but the level of energy he was
Speaker 4: guarding Jokic, he was playing the point guard, he was
Speaker 4: guarding the center, he was getting rebounds, he got blocks.
Speaker 4: His intensity just went somewhere else, and people on the
Speaker 4: USA team had to match that and the other team
Speaker 4: couldn't match it. So he solidified this level of greatness
Speaker 4: of this warrior spirit for me.
Speaker 3: In that game.
Speaker 4: They came back from that deficit to come back and
Speaker 4: win that game, and it was just like.
Speaker 3: It was one for the ages. But then the championship game,
Speaker 3: watching Steph Curry shoot threes.
Speaker 4: That I couldn't even believe he five in a row,
Speaker 4: like it just didn't make no sense. It didn't matter
Speaker 4: what defense they played on him, they tried to denomin
Speaker 4: the board. He did whatever he wanted. The level of
Speaker 4: ease and comfort in which he shoots three pointer is
Speaker 4: just phenomenals. It is phenomenal. The skill level that he
Speaker 4: had in shooting a basketball was just it was like, Okay,
Speaker 4: I don't think we're ever going to have a generational
Speaker 4: talent like that.
Speaker 3: Again, I don't. I don't.
Speaker 4: I can't see it, like somebody would have to then
Speaker 4: it'd be perfect and never miss a shot and to
Speaker 4: be able to shoot better than Steph Kirk, Like, I
Speaker 4: just can't really see somebody being able to shoot better
Speaker 4: than him.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 4: And if that they come, you know, I'm willing to
Speaker 4: say I make a mistake, but I just don't see it.
Speaker 4: I really don't see that happening. So shout out to
Speaker 4: the USA for winning the goal. They had the most
Speaker 4: gold medals and they had the most medals altogether, so
Speaker 4: I think it was one hundred and twenty something go
Speaker 4: I mean medals altogether, and I think they had like
Speaker 4: forty something gold medals. So shout out to them for that.
Speaker 4: And I'm not pretty much sums up what my week
Speaker 4: was like. Man, just relaxed, you know, and just getting
Speaker 4: prepared for summers almost over. I do my annual picnic
Speaker 4: in the Bronx Merriam Day. If you know about it,
Speaker 4: you know it's one of those. You know, we have
Speaker 4: bouncy houses, face paint for the kids. We give away
Speaker 4: book bags, food, basketball.
Speaker 3: You know. Music. It's just a vibe, man.
Speaker 4: So if you're in the Bronx August twenty fifth, Sunday,
Speaker 4: August twenty fifth, pull up to Marriam Day, get you
Speaker 4: some glizzies, get you some hamburgers. Some Hamburgers and glizzies.
Speaker 4: We on deck man, bring the kids. Is a fun day.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have a good time. So my music segment
Speaker 3: which I have, I have a music segment this week.
Speaker 5: Y'all.
Speaker 4: This one guy, his name is Marcus Klay. He's a
Speaker 4: dope young rapper. He's actually really dope. I've discovered him
Speaker 4: a couple of years ago. I was just on Instagram
Speaker 4: with somebody at tagged me and Sunny did so I've
Speaker 4: been watching him and.
Speaker 3: He has this song.
Speaker 4: Dedicated to Sonya Massy called Say Her Name, and it's
Speaker 4: a dope song. It's talking about what happened to us,
Speaker 4: talk about, you know, in general, what we deal with
Speaker 4: with black people deal with in America. So look it up.
Speaker 4: It's called Say Her Name by Marcus k you can
Speaker 4: find Marcus clay You can find him on Instagram. It's
Speaker 4: m A r q U s C l a E
Speaker 4: Marcus clay Man. Naming the song is say Her Name
Speaker 4: for Sonya Massey. It's a really dope song, y'all should
Speaker 4: listen to. So, now what we're gonna do. We're gonna
Speaker 4: bring on our guests. Man, We're gonna have a very
Speaker 4: compelling discussion about the election.
Speaker 3: You know, we're gonna have some people who are pro
Speaker 3: this antie that. We're gonna have some people that support Trump.
Speaker 4: We've got some people that don't support we got some
Speaker 4: people that support Carol, And we want to get to
Speaker 4: what the issues are. What are black men's issues, Why
Speaker 4: they don't like candidates, why they do like candidates, what's
Speaker 4: at stakedness We're gonna have. It's gonna be a compelling discussion.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be some debating, So stay tuned.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 4: Family, So today we're going to have a discussion. These
Speaker 4: are brothers who I've known, friends, family, all of the above,
Speaker 4: and they're black men, as you can see, and you know,
Speaker 4: there is a lot of talk about black men in
Speaker 4: this election and what they want, what they don't want.
Speaker 4: You know, online there's been these feuds between people who
Speaker 4: want Kamala, people who don't want Kamala, people for Trump,
Speaker 4: people who don't want Trump, and I've been seeing it.
Speaker 3: I've been engaged in a lot of these dialogues.
Speaker 4: So I wanted to take time out to bring this
Speaker 4: to TMI and have a discussion with black you know,
Speaker 4: and get the different perspectives, different views. So today we
Speaker 4: have on this panel my brother Angelo Pinto, who is
Speaker 4: one of the co founders of Until Freedom and.
Speaker 3: He is a lawyer.
Speaker 4: We also have this esteem Jeff Johnson, who does everything
Speaker 4: you know what he does. And we have my brother
Speaker 4: James Bond, who is the founder of Dash organization about
Speaker 4: fathers and fore fatherhood. He also does a lot of
Speaker 4: management within the music industry and he's just a down
Speaker 4: to earth brother of mins. And we have also have
Speaker 4: another one of a good friend of minees the brother
Speaker 4: Gotham from Harlem.
Speaker 3: You see he got Halem New York on his shirt.
Speaker 4: And we open up this conversation and you know, like
Speaker 4: I said, it's been a lot of talk online and
Speaker 4: so many different views. You know, I think, for me,
Speaker 4: what what what troubles me? Is not who somewhat votes
Speaker 4: for right or what your preference is, it's why right,
Speaker 4: And then it's the way that you go about saying
Speaker 4: that you don't want to vote for someone. There's this
Speaker 4: this thing that I've seen, you know. I posted my
Speaker 4: brother Rosparrock saying that he said that a man said
Speaker 4: he would rather shoot herself in the head before he
Speaker 4: voted for Kaana Harris, and he said, but he didn't
Speaker 4: have that energy for Trump, but he felt the need
Speaker 4: to express this level of disdain for this woman. And
Speaker 4: that's the thing that confuses me because never had any
Speaker 4: political views prior to this, Like I have never heard
Speaker 4: them saying anything. They've just been quiet. But as soon
Speaker 4: as this woman, you know, was announcing that she was
Speaker 4: joinning for president, there was so much negative backlash talking
Speaker 4: about her this she's not black, she didn't do this,
Speaker 4: she don't deserve this. She's actually to me, and on paper,
Speaker 4: she's probably the most qualified presidential candidate that we've had.
Speaker 4: Like when you look at all her qualifications, I don't
Speaker 4: think there's been a candidate that's more qualified than them.
Speaker 3: So this backlash just disturbed me.
Speaker 4: So I wanted to have this conversation with you brothers
Speaker 4: and just get your perspective on what do you think
Speaker 4: that backlash comes from, and do you think is warranted
Speaker 4: or do you not think it's worth Angela, what do
Speaker 4: you think?
Speaker 3: I mean?
Speaker 6: I think some of what we're seeing right now is
Speaker 6: things that we saw with the Obama presidency.
Speaker 1: I think when you have a.
Speaker 6: Black person who's potentially going to secure the highest office
Speaker 6: in the country, they're going to be met with racism.
Speaker 6: Black folks are met with racism in this country, and
Speaker 6: they're not trying and they're not trying to accomplish a
Speaker 6: feat like that, just.
Speaker 1: Doing everyday activities.
Speaker 6: Black folks are encountering police violence and a number of
Speaker 6: other issues. But I think when you look at what's
Speaker 6: happening with her, it's similar to what happened with President Obama.
Speaker 6: He experienced a tremendous amount of racism because he was
Speaker 6: running for presidents his family experienced a tremendous amount of racism, and.
Speaker 1: I think it's no different for her.
Speaker 6: I think the additional pieces that she's also a woman,
Speaker 6: so I think there's also a gender a gendered kind
Speaker 6: of disrespect that she's experiencing as well.
Speaker 1: For me, if to your point.
Speaker 6: If you disagree with her, if you don't think she's
Speaker 6: the appropriate candidate, I think that's a different conversation. But
Speaker 6: because of the history of racism in America and the
Speaker 6: history of gender depression in America, she's experiencing a kind
Speaker 6: of vitriol and hate that many candidates, white candidates never
Speaker 6: have to experience. Now, I think the other pieces that
Speaker 6: black folks shouldn't contribute to that. We already know that
Speaker 6: white folks and other folks are going to participate in
Speaker 6: that kind of activity, which is not only going to
Speaker 6: have an impact for her, but it's going to have
Speaker 6: ant for the Black community at large, and I think
Speaker 6: black folks shouldn't participate in that. If we want to
Speaker 6: have heated debate and discussion, which we should abut the
Speaker 6: political merit of her and the political merit of other candidates,
Speaker 6: we should engage in that dialogue. But I think there's
Speaker 6: a way to do so without disrespecting her and ultimately
Speaker 6: disrespecting black folks. But not just black folks. I think
Speaker 6: there's a kind of disrespect for black folks who are
Speaker 6: trying to attain political position, which is also tremendously problematic
Speaker 6: because it's not just her, but there's other black folks
Speaker 6: who are aspiring. And people often talk about the presidency
Speaker 6: of the United States, but we don't have many black
Speaker 6: governors either, right, so there's still a lot of political
Speaker 6: positions in the United States of America that black folks
Speaker 6: are trying to break into or enter into, I should say,
Speaker 6: and when we engage or participate in a race based
Speaker 6: discussion about them, I think some of that sets us back,
Speaker 6: and we certainly shouldn't participate and that either race based
Speaker 6: or gender based disrespect towards her.
Speaker 1: Now, I have a different perspective around where.
Speaker 6: She lands politically, but I think before we could even
Speaker 6: get into that, I think we need to be able
Speaker 6: to say we shouldn't participate in the disrespect.
Speaker 3: James, what do you think?
Speaker 7: I mean?
Speaker 8: I agree with Angelo, you know, just to piggyback off
Speaker 8: what he said. I mean, I think a lot of
Speaker 8: it comes from her being a woman.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 8: I've spoken to men and engaged with them, and they
Speaker 8: told me, listen, a woman is not supposedly I spoke
Speaker 8: with guys who a church goers avidly.
Speaker 7: And they say in the Bible says the women is
Speaker 7: not supposed to lead.
Speaker 8: So everybody has their perspective on it from that point
Speaker 8: of view, but you know, just in large, as Angela
Speaker 8: already stated, she's a black woman, we never asked these
Speaker 8: questions about the counterparts.
Speaker 7: You know, where they come from, what, you know, what
Speaker 7: are their nationalities.
Speaker 8: It's just based on the politics and the policies that
Speaker 8: they're trying to put in place.
Speaker 7: So you know, my outlook is that as a black woman.
Speaker 8: Because I see it, I ask that I'm looking forward
Speaker 8: to seeing and hearing her policies more. But thus far,
Speaker 8: I'm standing on that side of the fence, and I
Speaker 8: don't consider myself Republican or Democrat, but I go with
Speaker 8: the pros and the cons of you know, what these
Speaker 8: people bring to the table.
Speaker 7: That's what I look at.
Speaker 3: Okay, God, what do you think.
Speaker 5: First?
Speaker 9: Like, I'm not even into the political thing to say,
Speaker 9: like I've been following the politics of what's been going on.
Speaker 9: My standpoint is just really just on morals and standards
Speaker 9: of how she's moving and this race is like, you know,
Speaker 9: they always say, your first impression is your best impression.
Speaker 9: So since she stepped out, it's just been like she's
Speaker 9: trying to sell something to us, and it's like as
Speaker 9: me being around many different Black people who have different upbringings,
Speaker 9: it seems like she's leaning more towards the nigga shit,
Speaker 9: like to bring us in in it, And to me,
Speaker 9: I always feel like that insult my intelligence when you
Speaker 9: when you move like that, you make me feel like
Speaker 9: this is what you think about your culture, Like we
Speaker 9: can't comprehend with you on a higher level, so you
Speaker 9: dumb yourself down to come down to the lower masses
Speaker 9: of people to be like for instance, people ask about
Speaker 9: like with the Tupac shit, it's like, how does that
Speaker 9: have anything to do with politics?
Speaker 5: It really don't have something to do with character.
Speaker 9: Your character is everything, So me knowing black people that
Speaker 9: never that don't listen to rap at all. That and
Speaker 9: if you genuine about it, if you get asked that question,
Speaker 9: it should be listen, I don't listen to that. I
Speaker 9: don't listen to rap music. I prefer jazz, I prefer
Speaker 9: rock and roll. But it's like everything that they asking her,
Speaker 9: he's leading more on to the nigga shit, the bringing MEGANI,
Speaker 9: Stallion Doug. It's just it's just it's just repetitively, like
Speaker 9: he just keep doing it.
Speaker 5: So it makes you it makes you be like, yo,
Speaker 5: what is you really? Hoiden?
Speaker 9: So even with the even with the racing, we as people,
Speaker 9: it wasn't attack of her to say, oh, she's not black.
Speaker 9: The reason why them statements have pain is because he
Speaker 9: repeatedly from being an Attorney general to being a district attorney.
Speaker 9: When she got sworn in, she's sworn in as the end.
Speaker 9: So now when you fast forward and it comes to
Speaker 9: you being a VP, you swear in as African American.
Speaker 9: So people will say, okay, what's wrong with that? Okay,
Speaker 9: my thing is this me. I'm half Dominican, so all
Speaker 9: my life identify as African American. So now my Dominican
Speaker 9: side stay. If I walk into we all been in prison.
Speaker 9: You walk into prison, and then you see the Dominicans
Speaker 9: is running the show. And then I just decide to say, yo,
Speaker 9: I'm Dominican. The dominic gonna be like, no fight, no fight,
Speaker 9: you can't do that. I understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: That's no when I say I just think for me,
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't ever remember a time when she
Speaker 4: didn't acknowledge being black.
Speaker 5: I I'm not saying I'm not saying that, know.
Speaker 4: What I'm just saying this, but that's that's what you
Speaker 4: would say if I was always Dominican, Right, if I
Speaker 4: was Dominican in black and I hung with Dominicans in
Speaker 4: blacks because I was Dominican in black. When I go
Speaker 4: to the jail and I see my Dominican mans, I'm
Speaker 4: hang with my Dominican mans, i'm'a hang with my black mans.
Speaker 4: So niggain't gonna say you switching up if you've always
Speaker 4: been Dominican and black, I'm just my thing.
Speaker 9: If I if I always identify as African American, that's
Speaker 9: gonna be.
Speaker 5: That's gonna come out as I.
Speaker 9: As I speak to you and you get to know me,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna say, yo, I'm mixed with Dominicans, but I'm
Speaker 9: always gonna stand.
Speaker 5: So it's just like in a in.
Speaker 9: A face when you come in, it's like you you
Speaker 9: you black, if you the Dominicans and all I got
Speaker 9: their own shit going.
Speaker 5: So it's either gonna be you gonna choose.
Speaker 9: This side of your culture and go over there, or
Speaker 9: you're gonna choose the culture that you've been saying you
Speaker 9: African American and staying over here. You can't use it
Speaker 9: when it's beneficial to you to say, yo, I'm okay,
Speaker 9: I'm this now, and then I understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: So I don't really understand what you're saying because I
Speaker 4: know mixed people who are have different ethnicity and to
Speaker 4: come from different culture.
Speaker 3: But some people didn't play both of those those my time.
Speaker 2: I think the bigger issue here is Kamala's always claimed
Speaker 2: to be black, so it's not as if she never
Speaker 2: ignored either side. I mean, I was a national youth
Speaker 2: director at NAACP back in two thousand through two thousand
Speaker 2: and three, and I wrote a check for her when
Speaker 2: she was running for DA in San Francisco, and I
Speaker 2: fucked with her because she was. Everything she said to
Speaker 2: me and everything I saw was she was moving as
Speaker 2: a black woman, she was engaging with black people. She
Speaker 2: embraced her Indian heritage, but she she was raised as
Speaker 2: a black woman. She she didn't choose Howard because she
Speaker 2: was trying to find blackness. She chose Howard because she
Speaker 2: wanted to lean into it. She didn't become an AKA
Speaker 2: because she was trying to find blackness. And we can argue,
Speaker 2: you know, some of the some of the elitism that
Speaker 2: exists within our community as it relates to HBCUs and
Speaker 2: Greek letter organizations. But but we still know that they
Speaker 2: are black. And so I just think we gotta we
Speaker 2: gotta be real careful about some of the talking points
Speaker 2: from the other side that we listened to or don't
Speaker 2: dive into, because she never she never disengaged from her blackness.
Speaker 2: She leaned into her blackness way more than she did
Speaker 2: anything else.
Speaker 9: Of course, And of course I don't I don't think.
Speaker 9: I don't think he denied did. She never denied did.
Speaker 9: But it's like if you ask anybody who's mixed, right,
Speaker 9: and they they stand on the African American when you
Speaker 9: when you go fill out anything, job applications and anything,
Speaker 9: you're gonna put what you dominantly is I'm African American.
Speaker 5: Then I'm missed.
Speaker 9: I'm not gonna say on a on a job application,
Speaker 9: I'm Dominican.
Speaker 2: And then what what I'm asking is, where did she
Speaker 2: do that? Where did where did she?
Speaker 9: She got sworn in, She got sworn in as an
Speaker 9: Indian the first Indian bomb UH attorney general in the
Speaker 9: first UH Indian UH.
Speaker 2: She also got attorney of the first black I mean
Speaker 2: there was there was never. When she was elected attorney general,
Speaker 2: she was the first black attorney general, and and those
Speaker 2: were the things that were said about her. And those
Speaker 2: were the you don't have to check a box when
Speaker 2: you become when you get sworn in saying which one
Speaker 2: of these do I choose?
Speaker 5: Okay, So why did it switch up?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 5: Why did it switch from Indian to now African American?
Speaker 2: I'm saying. What I'm saying is it never switched up.
Speaker 2: When she got elected as attorney general, she was named
Speaker 2: the first black female, the first Indian female attorney general.
Speaker 2: It wasn't one or the other. So in some cases
Speaker 2: it was like how did how did certain media outlets
Speaker 2: run with it? And in some cases how did certain
Speaker 2: communities run with it? The Asian community was like, we
Speaker 2: got ours, The Black community was like we got ours.
Speaker 2: But but she never was like nah, I'm only nah
Speaker 2: nah black people, I'm Indian right now, or nah Indian people,
Speaker 2: I'm Black right now. She never did that, and so,
Speaker 2: you know, a lot of times we got to be careful.
Speaker 2: I think one of the biggest challenges about Kamala is
Speaker 2: most people don't follow politics period, right then, most people
Speaker 2: only follow politics that affect where they are. So it
Speaker 2: was a whole lot of people didn't know who the
Speaker 2: hell Kamala was until she became a senator, and then
Speaker 2: a lot of people didn't know who she was until
Speaker 2: she ran for president United States. So the challenge was
Speaker 2: she didn't do that well when she ran for president,
Speaker 2: and then when they said we want her to be
Speaker 2: the vice presidential nominee, they were like, listen, don't say nothing,
Speaker 2: don't say nothing about you, don't tell your story. We
Speaker 2: just need you to show up. Get black women to
Speaker 2: turn out because they're the most reliable demographic in electoral politics. Exactly,
Speaker 2: get we need to beat Trump. So she was never
Speaker 2: really I mean, if you talk to any insiders, the
Speaker 2: folks like Bakari Sellers and others were like, yo, we
Speaker 2: need Commona to be able to tell her story because
Speaker 2: black people and black men in particular was like, all
Speaker 2: she did was lock up a bunch of niggas and
Speaker 2: I don't support her, And folks were trying to get
Speaker 2: her to be able to tell her story, but she
Speaker 2: never really told her story four years ago. So I
Speaker 2: think the biggest challenge now my sign is and I
Speaker 2: think one of my biggest concerns is there are folks
Speaker 2: who are either Democrats or progressives that are trying to
Speaker 2: beat up everybody that's not a black Democrat or progressive
Speaker 2: telling them that they need to fall in live for Kamala,
Speaker 2: anytime you tell somebody to fall in line, there needs
Speaker 2: to be some level of membership. And if you've not
Speaker 2: a Democrat or you not a progressive, then who the
Speaker 2: hell are you to tell me to fall in line
Speaker 2: for anything. My biggest concern, and it's primarily around black men,
Speaker 2: is I'm not talking about the black men that hate
Speaker 2: black women. I'm not talking about the black men that
Speaker 2: don't support black women. I'm talking about the black men
Speaker 2: that got questions. And black men should be able to
Speaker 2: be allowed to have questions about who she is, about
Speaker 2: her record, about how she feels about black men in
Speaker 2: many cases, because she never told that story. I don't
Speaker 2: have nothing wrong with brothers like yo. I got some questions.
Speaker 2: I got some legitimate questions. And I see brothers getting
Speaker 2: they asked beat or getting or getting shamed or getting
Speaker 2: attacked in social not because they like fuck her, not
Speaker 2: because they like I don't like women, or not because
Speaker 2: a woman's not supposed to leave, but because they're like, yo,
Speaker 2: I got some questions and all I want is my
Speaker 2: questions answered, And she's got to be real. We got
Speaker 2: to be real careful about not alienating brothers in particular
Speaker 2: in our community, not who are against women, not who
Speaker 2: don't like women, but those who are just like yo,
Speaker 2: I'm not a democrat. I don't ride with none of
Speaker 2: these people. I don't trust none of these people. And
Speaker 2: you want me to say, yeah, I want to vote
Speaker 2: for her, then I need to ask some questions answered,
Speaker 2: and I need her to earn my vote. And then closing,
Speaker 2: it's like, yo, I think Kamala wants to earn that vote.
Speaker 2: I don't think she's sitting around saying, force these negroes
Speaker 2: to vote for me instead of let me earn their vote.
Speaker 2: Let me introduce them to who I am. Let me
Speaker 2: stand on my record, because most of what most of
Speaker 2: the people that have been talking about her record have
Speaker 2: been lying. And so if we can get to that
Speaker 2: piece and stop demonizing black men who have questions and
Speaker 2: then hold accountable to brothers that are attacking women are
Speaker 2: not standing with women. But the vast majority of brothers
Speaker 2: I know is like yo, I don't trust none of
Speaker 2: them I don't trust no Democrats. I don't trust no Republicans.
Speaker 2: I don't trust I don't trust black politicians. I don't
Speaker 2: trust white politicians. I don't trust no politicians. So if
Speaker 2: you want me to turn out, especially because you got
Speaker 2: me to ride on hope and change with Obama, and
Speaker 2: I ain't feel like I got none, So don't try
Speaker 2: to get me on this making history shit again, talk
Speaker 2: to me like I'm an adult and like as a
Speaker 2: black man, I gotta take care of a family, got
Speaker 2: to I got to earn a living. I gotta try
Speaker 2: to keep as much money as I can. I got
Speaker 2: to be able to stay out of jail. I got
Speaker 2: to try to find a way to thriveta. I gotta
Speaker 2: deal with the fact that we got the lowest life
Speaker 2: expectancy of any demographic in America, and we die in
Speaker 2: of preventive stuff and I can't get health insurance. Like
Speaker 2: those are real things, and so I should have questions
Speaker 2: and we should honor that. And as opposed to beating
Speaker 2: up brothers that are trying to ask questions before they
Speaker 2: make a decision, we should have I think I think
Speaker 2: my soign you might have said, or I think Angelou
Speaker 2: you may have said, like, let's have a meaningful conversation
Speaker 2: about some of this stuff. We don't have to yell
Speaker 2: at each other and shout at each other even if
Speaker 2: we Disagree's speak to each other, especially men. Let's speak
Speaker 2: to each other like men, and we can respectfully disagree.
Speaker 2: But I ain't kicking nobody out the camp because of
Speaker 2: how they feel. If they're showing me they riding with
Speaker 2: who we are in in their daily lives.
Speaker 4: Right, And I expect that and I think for me, right,
Speaker 4: that's why I wanted to do this segment, is because
Speaker 4: you know, I, like I said, I don't have I
Speaker 4: don't have a problem with whoever someone wants to vote for.
Speaker 4: It's just been mind boggling to me to see the
Speaker 4: level of black men. Like you said, people have questions
Speaker 4: and if you ask them questions, but it's black men
Speaker 4: that I've never seen involved in a political standpoint, Like
Speaker 4: Gotham said, like he's never been involved in the political politics.
Speaker 4: But in the last three weeks he's posted about twenty things.
Speaker 4: Nineteen of them wasn't even correct about what they're saying
Speaker 4: about Kama. And we've had conversations either in his comings
Speaker 4: or you know, in our dms, and.
Speaker 3: It's like, where did this, Where did.
Speaker 4: This level of energy come from, especially in black men,
Speaker 4: that they this angry that they just like, oh, you're
Speaker 4: just going with her?
Speaker 3: So what about this and what about this?
Speaker 4: With like what made them get involved in this political
Speaker 4: conversation with this level they ain't shit.
Speaker 2: Black men keep being told they ain't shit if they
Speaker 2: ain't right, and you know it's the truth. Like I'm
Speaker 2: having conversations with women who I respect, who I trust,
Speaker 2: whose leadership I follow, who I'm hearing them tell black
Speaker 2: men ain't shit because they ain't falling in line and
Speaker 2: supporting her. That's not the way we got to roll.
Speaker 2: And so I've been able to have conversations with sisters
Speaker 2: where I'm like, yo, that brother wasn't even saying he
Speaker 2: don't like her. That brother wasn't even saying he hated
Speaker 2: women leadership. I know women this brother follows. But if
Speaker 2: he raising his hand like yo, I need to know
Speaker 2: about the prosecute shit, that's not the time to say
Speaker 2: Nigga was wrong with you. You just need to support
Speaker 2: the black woman. Like I got black women I'm supporting,
Speaker 2: and they mothers of black kids, and I gotta know
Speaker 2: what kind of person is she if I want to
Speaker 2: support her because of the black women I support. And
Speaker 2: so I think so many brothers are mad, my son,
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying all of them, don't don't get
Speaker 2: don't get it twisted. I think it's some we need
Speaker 2: to hold accountable. But the vast majority of brothers I
Speaker 2: know are angry because it's like, you ain't never asked
Speaker 2: me what I want. You never asked me why I vote.
Speaker 2: You never asked me what I care about. You don't
Speaker 2: never ask me what drives me. You telling me who
Speaker 2: I should be because I'm a black man, and that
Speaker 2: is problematic on so many levels.
Speaker 6: And I think that's where we feel politically. That's the
Speaker 6: conversation I've been having with a lot of folks too.
Speaker 2: It's like, of.
Speaker 6: Course, we know black women are a super force when
Speaker 6: it comes to the democratic process, particularly for Democrats.
Speaker 1: Black men aren't that far behind.
Speaker 6: But I think oftentimes in the conversation, black men don't
Speaker 6: have the same kind of seat at the table, and
Speaker 6: as a result, when.
Speaker 1: You talk, you're not allowed to engage in.
Speaker 6: A discourse in the same way. For me, that hurts
Speaker 6: us politically because as a community when we're asking the questions,
Speaker 6: when we're trying to get aligned or more aligned, just
Speaker 6: get educated and formed, those conversations are cut short. Now
Speaker 6: I'll say this, I do think black folks have been
Speaker 6: let down politically. I think even to the point you made, Jeff,
Speaker 6: around the Obama administration, we all were, I think, behind
Speaker 6: making history, and in many ways we didn't get the substantative.
Speaker 1: Results that we wanted to.
Speaker 6: And I think Black candidates now are forced to contend
Speaker 6: with that reality. Right, certainly, we might want to make
Speaker 6: history in some regard, there's a symbolic piece here that's important,
Speaker 6: but substantively, we want to know what you're gonna do
Speaker 6: right and not just your track record, but what do
Speaker 6: you plan to do moving forward that speaks to the
Speaker 6: needs the issues that we have and for me, and
Speaker 6: it's not just her, I feel like every candidate is
Speaker 6: failing in that regard and putting for specifically what they
Speaker 6: plan and intend to do on behalf of black folks.
Speaker 6: But I think the other piece, for black folks who
Speaker 6: are with her the way they are, they should be
Speaker 6: engaging and we should be engaging in the conversation with
Speaker 6: the rest of the community about who she.
Speaker 1: Is and what she plans on doing.
Speaker 6: But to your earlier point, Jeff, I don't think she
Speaker 6: set that out enough. I think there's still much to
Speaker 6: be desired around what she intends to really do politically,
Speaker 6: and I hope to see that from her in the
Speaker 6: coming days, weeks, and months ahead.
Speaker 4: And I agree with you, right, but I don't know
Speaker 4: why what is Trump supposed to be doing? Because I've
Speaker 4: never I don't hear these questions from.
Speaker 3: What is Trump?
Speaker 4: They said is policies, And I'm like, what is Trump's
Speaker 4: policy that he has that that is appealing to y'all?
Speaker 3: Like? What is he saying and doing? What is his
Speaker 3: appeal to black men?
Speaker 5: The black men?
Speaker 3: I want to know?
Speaker 4: Tell me what do you think that his appeal is?
Speaker 4: I don't even let me answer you. I'm gonna let
Speaker 4: you answer, right because to me, right, what I seen
Speaker 4: is man like because I was listening to the news
Speaker 4: and it was like, well, he presents this level of
Speaker 4: manhood and strength. He don't remind me of nothing that
Speaker 4: I seen as a man growing up. Right, My father
Speaker 4: had levels of integrity, he had honored he moved a
Speaker 4: certain way, He had discipline, you know, he had self control,
Speaker 4: He didn't just lash out and yell whenever he was like,
Speaker 4: nothing about him appeals to what I call manhood.
Speaker 3: So I'm trying to figure out what is.
Speaker 4: His appeal to black man? What do y'all think it
Speaker 4: is that they're gravitating to. If they're not just Kamala,
Speaker 4: what is it that they're gravitating to in Trump?
Speaker 5: Me? Me personally? This is my thing. It's not about
Speaker 5: what's gravitating people to Trump.
Speaker 9: My my thing is this For the last eight years
Speaker 9: or okay, twenty twenty, they got him out right, and
Speaker 9: then when he was in for four years, right, all
Speaker 9: you heard about is how much of a fuck up
Speaker 9: Trump is, how much people don't like him, how much
Speaker 9: they don't they.
Speaker 5: Not voting for him.
Speaker 9: So my thing is this, my people, I have a
Speaker 9: ninety two year old grandmother, I got aunts and all
Speaker 9: of that shit that I know.
Speaker 5: They don't know who Kamala is.
Speaker 9: So you are they already expressed the hate or dislike
Speaker 9: for Trump and everybody, damn me on my page they
Speaker 9: voiced the dislike for Trump.
Speaker 5: So I'll be keep questioning them.
Speaker 9: To say, who puts all of the energy into a
Speaker 9: person that they not voting for? Why are y'all not
Speaker 9: putting this energy into this lady to find out who
Speaker 9: this lady is?
Speaker 5: You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: You keep every time somebody voice opinion or asks about Kamela,
Speaker 9: they say Trump, they answer what Trump name?
Speaker 5: It's like, yo, okay, we already know Trump is not.
Speaker 9: You feel he's not gonna do whatever you So it's
Speaker 9: just like going to a dealership with a broken car
Speaker 9: and you not gonna ask the dealership to tell you what's.
Speaker 5: Wrong with the car that you're bringing in.
Speaker 9: You're gonna start asking questions about the new car that
Speaker 9: you're about the purchase. So if you're about to put
Speaker 9: the world in this lady hands, why is nobody have
Speaker 9: no concern? And that's what I asked you. Brother, you've
Speaker 9: been in the situations that we've been in. You was
Speaker 9: wrongfully convicted by a DA So just off the standpoint,
Speaker 9: never understood why. You just never like had a little
Speaker 9: bit rejection to say who is this lady? So now,
Speaker 9: maybe the things that I might have posted about her
Speaker 9: might have been exaggerated, but there was truth and stuff.
Speaker 9: It was truth in these posts that dudes had got
Speaker 9: railroaded under her, and she just you know laughed it
Speaker 9: off or did whatever she did. So me being a
Speaker 9: person that sat across from DA's that I know is
Speaker 9: wicked and that abuse their power, and now shee is
Speaker 9: running around and it's like, Okay, we not gonna we
Speaker 9: not gonna condemn you for being a district attorney because
Speaker 9: if motherfuckers do starting.
Speaker 5: To go to jail, that's what the fuck they belong
Speaker 5: at in jail.
Speaker 9: But we also know that there are people who have
Speaker 9: that seat that abuse it. You understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 9: So when I when I talked to you, it's like, damn, Mike,
Speaker 9: you sat and did time behind that shit. So automatically
Speaker 9: if you hear these stories, yeah they might not be true,
Speaker 9: but it's like, yo, let me see who the fuck
Speaker 9: this lady really is before I start backing her. You
Speaker 9: understand what I'm saying, and it's a lot of other
Speaker 9: shit well her that to be like. So the things
Speaker 9: that I post is I don't have no hatred for
Speaker 9: that lady. I would love to see a black woman
Speaker 9: be president, but I still have Like I said, I
Speaker 9: got a ninety two year grandmother and aunt and all
Speaker 9: that shit, and I ask them, why you why you
Speaker 9: want to vote for us.
Speaker 8: I don't like Trump, right, let me say this though,
Speaker 8: let me chime in real quick.
Speaker 7: The thing is Trump already has shown who he is.
Speaker 8: He already disclosed what he planned to do right, and
Speaker 8: people are looking for somebody to go against them, somebody
Speaker 8: to champion. So when you hear that this lady is
Speaker 8: now running, right, you want to do your own homer
Speaker 8: to find out all these things true. Or I'm hearing
Speaker 8: this about let me do my own research. Then when
Speaker 8: you talk to the masses, you gotta tell them what
Speaker 8: you research because they might not take their time to
Speaker 8: do the research. So you can't you can't magnify what
Speaker 8: you hear on the fake news channels that people who
Speaker 8: are just they saying anything right now. So as someone
Speaker 8: who has a voice in a platform, you gotta, you know,
Speaker 8: you gotta do the right thing by sharing with you
Speaker 8: research because people not gonna do the work. And that's
Speaker 8: that's what that's what I tried to do, bro, And
Speaker 8: it's certain, it's certain.
Speaker 9: It's like when you dealing with as as a cult
Speaker 9: of black people, we are super vulnerable when it comes
Speaker 9: to fit that we've been through in just our culture.
Speaker 9: So we are very sensitive when it comes to that shit.
Speaker 9: You understand what I'm saying. When people see a black
Speaker 9: person automatically it's Waconda forever, It's no, it's not Waconda forever,
Speaker 9: because every black person that you put in a situation
Speaker 9: is not with us. You understand what I'm saying. So
Speaker 9: if I do post on and say, oh, he convicted
Speaker 9: such and such and such of what we and that
Speaker 9: shit be false. But then you dig and see a
Speaker 9: dude who was convicted for fifty years, wrongfully convicted, and
Speaker 9: he came and showed up and laughed at his trial,
Speaker 9: it's some truth to what they're saying. You understand what
Speaker 9: I'm saying. So it's not like YO, just th dirt
Speaker 9: on her. But like you said, my grandmother is not
Speaker 9: gonna do no research. Right, Trump the fuck about it is.
Speaker 7: Right because he's center.
Speaker 1: I think dond Trump.
Speaker 6: Part of what's happening in this moment is that Donald
Speaker 6: Trump has showed his hand, and I think there's ways
Speaker 6: in which if it's a conversation.
Speaker 1: Of character, he ain't got none.
Speaker 6: So I think for most folks when they just put
Speaker 6: that up against what she represents, not even so much
Speaker 6: of her track record, as a DA, but being an
Speaker 6: educated woman going to an HBCU. Just based on how
Speaker 6: she presents, there's a way in which people are saying,
Speaker 6: which I think is a part of the electoral process,
Speaker 6: they would rather have someone like her represent them than
Speaker 6: someone like Donald Trump, And I think even from a
Speaker 6: character perspective, people would make that decision.
Speaker 1: I do believe I'm a type of person. I've done
Speaker 1: a lot of criminal justice reform.
Speaker 6: I'm generally a person who's going to have a challenge
Speaker 6: with a DA that's just me personally because of the
Speaker 6: ways in which I know they are intecral in how
Speaker 6: mass incarceration operates. Right, So for me, a DA is
Speaker 6: someone who I'm generally going to say, hold.
Speaker 1: On, wait, I want to see your track record.
Speaker 6: I want to know what you did and why you
Speaker 6: did it before I make a decision and align myself
Speaker 6: with you. And I would say there are things in
Speaker 6: her track record that I have big questions about and
Speaker 6: that I don't feel good about. Right However, I think
Speaker 6: she has the opportunity in this moment to talk about
Speaker 6: what she'll do different differently as the commander in chief
Speaker 6: of this country.
Speaker 1: Mass Incarceration still is a huge issue in.
Speaker 6: The United States of America, and I think she needs
Speaker 6: to put forth an agenda, particularly around criminal justice reform,
Speaker 6: that shows some very progressive reforms, right because even though
Speaker 6: master incarceration has been a big ticket item, people have
Speaker 6: been talking about it for decades and there's been some
Speaker 6: progress made.
Speaker 1: I think we're still far behind.
Speaker 6: But a person who has an experience as a d
Speaker 6: has seen some of the pitfalls of the system. I
Speaker 6: would like to see a very progressive agenda from her
Speaker 6: speaking to those points.
Speaker 1: And I certainly haven't seen that yet.
Speaker 2: So I'll say, did you let me did you see
Speaker 2: the case?
Speaker 9: Did you just see the case where the kid, the
Speaker 9: autistic kid, he just got sentenced to five years for
Speaker 9: assaulting the teacher. So my thing is like that that
Speaker 9: was a perfect analogy for me, because you have somebody
Speaker 9: that's that's that's that's autistic, right, and he he lastes
Speaker 9: out and I guess.
Speaker 5: He assaulted his teacher. They sent this this kid the
Speaker 5: five years.
Speaker 9: Now they say, oh, it's not the district attorney, it's
Speaker 9: the judge. Listen, brother, I sat in court. The district
Speaker 9: attorney is the one who proposed the time to the judge.
Speaker 5: And then the judge make their decision.
Speaker 2: So the center of ultimately wait wait wait wait wait,
Speaker 2: wait your hold all the ones like because because I
Speaker 2: want to, I don't. I don't want to miss the
Speaker 2: question you asked, because I think there's two There's two
Speaker 2: things here. One is why are certain men black men
Speaker 2: resonating with Trump? And I think one we got to
Speaker 2: recognize that she just became the candidate like five minutes ago.
Speaker 2: So so most of that, most of these casts I
Speaker 2: was choosing Trump, was choosing Trump over Biden, right, not
Speaker 2: necessarily Trump over Kamala and and and that was connected
Speaker 2: to me to a couple of things. One we gotta
Speaker 2: we gotta forget that its nuts, as I believe Trump is.
Speaker 2: Trump did a lot around criminal justice reform, and and
Speaker 2: the Congress probably did more around criminal justice reform under
Speaker 2: this nuts Congress, you know, two terms ago, than they
Speaker 2: did under any previously. So they're there. And we got
Speaker 2: to remember why though, Right, Like, you can't make trillions
Speaker 2: of dollars on marijuana when nigga's still going to jail
Speaker 2: for marijuana, so you got to start doing in order
Speaker 2: to justify the money you about to make. So so
Speaker 2: some of this is not about doing little bills. Some
Speaker 2: of this is about, like, we didn't end slavery because
Speaker 2: there was a moral anundrum about whether their slaves or not.
Speaker 2: We ended slavery because of the Industrial Revolution, and the
Speaker 2: North didn't need slaves anymore. They needed factories and they
Speaker 2: needed people to work in those factories. In the South
Speaker 2: didn't have those. That was what the war was about.
Speaker 2: It wasn't about Abraham Lincoln loving black people and having
Speaker 2: some moral awakening about the humanity of black people. Similarly,
Speaker 2: you're not having legislators around the country saying, I think
Speaker 2: we should decriminalize marijuana because we all of a sudden
Speaker 2: fell in love with humanity and felt bad about the
Speaker 2: war on drugs. Now, there were champions of that, but
Speaker 2: but a lot of these conservative state legislators were like, Yo,
Speaker 2: we got to pass these laws because we're about to
Speaker 2: get we. I got boys that I need to make
Speaker 2: money off of legal cannabis, and he can't do that
Speaker 2: if we keep locking people up for cannabis. So that's
Speaker 2: number one. And and and and Negroes heard that, and
Speaker 2: and and brothers saw Kim Kardashian with President Trump freeing people,
Speaker 2: getting him to pardon people, and and those are powerful
Speaker 2: images for people who don't fully understand the system. The
Speaker 2: second thing is there is an unbelievable narrative that money
Speaker 2: they got during COVID came from Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a fact, and can't.
Speaker 2: Tell them Negroes that he didn't give he like he
Speaker 2: Negroes believed that he got in ice cream trucks and
Speaker 2: went house to house and started giving out ice cream
Speaker 2: and checks. And so they was like this dude gave
Speaker 2: me a check. He good with me. I ain't never
Speaker 2: got no check from Biden. Right, then you have Republican
Speaker 2: myths because any of us who have been around our
Speaker 2: is I remember being on a set of Rap City
Speaker 2: and Negroes telling me they was voting for Bush because
Speaker 2: Republicans get allow them to keep more of their money.
Speaker 2: Trust Republicans trust Democrats, but Republicans let me keep more
Speaker 2: of my money. Now, Now there are there are there
Speaker 2: are several levels of myth to that. Right. But but
Speaker 2: because of Republicans fiscal policy versus Democrats fiscal policy, there
Speaker 2: is a belief that as a as a Republican, Republicans
Speaker 2: will help me, give me lower taxes and keep more
Speaker 2: of my money. Now we can argue the myth, but
Speaker 2: that is what a whole lot of brothers respond to.
Speaker 2: And last, but not least, black people are more conservative,
Speaker 2: right then we lit on. So so like like, I
Speaker 2: know that there is a very loud set of black
Speaker 2: progressives that are in social media, but the vast majority
Speaker 2: of Black people are not socially progressive. They are moderates
Speaker 2: to conservative. There's still a huge connection to the Black church.
Speaker 2: There's still the huge connection to traditional morals and values.
Speaker 2: And while you see a shift in that generationally, black
Speaker 2: men over the age of forty in particular, and especially
Speaker 2: over fifty and sixty are conservative as hell, and they
Speaker 2: have some shifting beliefs, but by and large, I do
Speaker 2: not mean they are right wing idiologue nutbags. I am
Speaker 2: saying that they are primarily socially conservative, and we forget
Speaker 2: that sometimes, and so especially for those of us that
Speaker 2: live on the coasts and are surrounded by progressive view
Speaker 2: I grew up in Cleveland, so when you start talking
Speaker 2: about the Midwest and the South, it ain't a bunch
Speaker 2: of bastions of progressive progressivism amongst black circles of black men.
Speaker 2: Those in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Youngstown, in North Carolina, and
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. So I think when you
Speaker 2: ask why have there been black men that have shifted
Speaker 2: to Trump, it's because they have never trusted either party.
Speaker 2: They don't believe that he's a politician. They believe he's
Speaker 2: a gangster. And there are a lot of black men
Speaker 2: in like gangsters, and they believe in some myths about
Speaker 2: money they got and the fact that he freed people.
Speaker 2: So that there's a huge every brother that is saying
Speaker 2: I'm rhying with Trump. It's not Ryan with Trump for
Speaker 2: the same reason. But when you look at the data,
Speaker 2: these are things that we are hearing black men say.
Speaker 2: And I believe what I hear black men say, not
Speaker 2: what somebody else told me about why black men are
Speaker 2: choosing him.
Speaker 5: Can I ask mycen real quickly, why is it right? Okay?
Speaker 9: They painted this boogeyman picture about Trump right through the
Speaker 9: last campaign, right, y'all got him out.
Speaker 5: Y'all got him out.
Speaker 9: So when I asked, I asked my grandmother, and I'm like,
Speaker 9: y'all win so hall to paint Trump to be the boogeyman.
Speaker 5: Y'all got him out.
Speaker 9: Then what did y'all get out of these four years
Speaker 9: from Biden, and everybody's mute.
Speaker 5: They can't say nothing.
Speaker 9: So now they painting another picture of the Boogeyman to say, Yo,
Speaker 9: this whatever is okay?
Speaker 5: Now, y'all, y'all, y'all.
Speaker 9: Nobody, they say, the primary is okay. She got one percent,
Speaker 9: one point three million, was raised in eight percent of California,
Speaker 9: in her own state. Nobody fucked with her, They say, oh,
Speaker 9: she didn't have a chance, so she joined Biden. With
Speaker 9: her joining Biden, you know, they play on our skin color.
Speaker 9: Soon as Steve jumped on board, ninety five percent of
Speaker 9: the Blacks voted for Biden, which they knew they was
Speaker 9: gonna do.
Speaker 5: Y'all got him in the office, then what so.
Speaker 9: Now y'all trying to sell us the same shit again
Speaker 9: with her in the forefront, like and Steve's telling this pitch, Oh,
Speaker 9: I'm gonna change this my first day in miss you
Speaker 9: a vice president right now. So this formula that you
Speaker 9: saying you got, that's gonna work the first day you
Speaker 9: get in.
Speaker 5: Why haven't you put this invite in here? Why what
Speaker 5: the formula? You saying?
Speaker 2: Yo?
Speaker 5: And then you turn around and say, yo, were not
Speaker 5: going to tax.
Speaker 9: Tips from the workers and all that, and then turn
Speaker 9: around and pass the shit where they taxing them. So
Speaker 9: it's like everything you saying, everything she stated this turned
Speaker 9: out to be false. So that's why a person like
Speaker 9: me who could think pass gold is asking these questions.
Speaker 1: But does that mean you're gonna vote for Trump?
Speaker 3: Though?
Speaker 5: No, I'm not voting Tell no, I'm not voting for Trump.
Speaker 5: But listen to my thing.
Speaker 9: That's why I kept saying, if my thing is this,
Speaker 9: if my people already is saying Trump is out of
Speaker 9: he's not, I'm not voting for him.
Speaker 5: So I keep asking, Okay.
Speaker 9: If you know you not voting for this man, why
Speaker 9: do you keep paying so much attention of this? You
Speaker 9: need to take this attention and start digging into this
Speaker 9: lady life to find.
Speaker 10: Out who you putting in the seat, who's run in
Speaker 10: the world. Let me let me share. Let me share
Speaker 10: a couple of things with you, right because I'll be
Speaker 10: honest with you. Somebody asked when we when we did
Speaker 10: the Black Men's Call, not the last one, but the
Speaker 10: one before.
Speaker 2: I'm not excited about Kamala. I'm committed to Kamla. I
Speaker 2: don't get excited about politicians unless I know them. So
Speaker 2: so so I was the I was the chair of
Speaker 2: Wes Moore's pack as he became the third elected governor
Speaker 2: black governor in America. I was excited about West because
Speaker 2: I know him, because he's my friend, because I because
Speaker 2: I can speak for his character, because I know what
Speaker 2: he does behind the scenes. I don't get excited about politicians.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I know that somebody gonna get elected
Speaker 2: and they're gonna spend money, they gonna pass laws, and
Speaker 2: they gonna point judges. So I ain't got to get
Speaker 2: excited to vote. I just know. I just want to
Speaker 2: vote whoever I think is gonna kill my people less,
Speaker 2: not even who gonna help him.
Speaker 5: More, who gonna kill him less?
Speaker 3: The evil?
Speaker 2: Yes, and but but I also have to knowledge when
Speaker 2: I no, no, no, no no no no no no no,
Speaker 2: that's just it. It's this right. If there's a horse race,
Speaker 2: I can't I can't bet on the horse that ain't running.
Speaker 2: I can only bet on the horse that's running.
Speaker 9: So somebody is going you can say, you can say,
Speaker 9: I'm not betting on this race.
Speaker 2: But here's here's where, and here's why that's a flaw
Speaker 2: for me. Somebody is going to win, and they're gonna
Speaker 2: pass laws, They're gonna spend money, and they gonna point judges,
Speaker 2: And so I need to vote because I can't afford
Speaker 2: for the person that's gonna that's gonnappoint more the wrong judges,
Speaker 2: that's gonna spend money the wrong way, that is gonna
Speaker 2: pass policies, it's gonna hurt my people. So so so
Speaker 2: it's not about me getting boxed into doing something I
Speaker 2: don't wanna do. I vote because they gonna pass laws,
Speaker 2: they gonna spend money, and they gonna point judges, and
Speaker 2: I want to have a say and even the person
Speaker 2: I don't like that's gonna do it versus having no
Speaker 2: set in the person that's gonna be worse for my family.
Speaker 2: But I want to be really clear about something like
Speaker 2: there was real stuff that the Biden administration did, and
Speaker 2: I don't think they did. I can't name a president
Speaker 2: a presidential administration that did enough for black people. But
Speaker 2: the other thing is I look for mayors to do
Speaker 2: more for black people because a mayor is gonna spend
Speaker 2: more money in their term towards a city that black
Speaker 2: people live in than a president is gonna have the
Speaker 2: ability to get policy pass, it's gonna impact the city
Speaker 2: where black people live in. I'm looking at governors. I'm
Speaker 2: looking at who spends money in the cities where my
Speaker 2: people live in more than anybody else, and it's mayors
Speaker 2: and governors. But like, when you think about how many
Speaker 2: of y'all know that you got family members that got
Speaker 2: a negative account because of overdraft fees and charges, I
Speaker 2: do the Biding administration, the Biden administration limited the number
Speaker 2: of junk fees and overdraft charges that banks can charge.
Speaker 2: They they they did they I don't even want to
Speaker 2: deal with the money they gave to HBCUs because I
Speaker 2: think that's a whole other thing that we could talk about.
Speaker 2: And and but but I do recognize that there were
Speaker 2: a ton of black farmers who have had a better
Speaker 2: life because we started shifting how the FDA was able
Speaker 2: to limit crop crop development, how black farmers were able
Speaker 2: to have access to money, and who black farmers could
Speaker 2: suit there was so so they're they're there are things
Speaker 2: that people don't really know because one they're small things
Speaker 2: that that there's not gonna be a huge press release for.
Speaker 2: And two, the Biden administration did a horrible job of
Speaker 2: comms like they just did a horrible job of talking
Speaker 2: about what they did. So I don't think this is
Speaker 2: Kamma look coming out of nowhere, being like, Yo, we
Speaker 2: didn't get nothing done, and now I'm trying to sell
Speaker 2: y'all on some stuff. It was we didn't do a
Speaker 2: great job of talking about the things we did, and
Speaker 2: now we got to talk about them in a way
Speaker 2: that we didn't.
Speaker 6: But I think there's things that black folks are at
Speaker 6: were specifically hoping that the Biden administration did that they
Speaker 6: didn't like. I think the Biden administration, you know, George
Speaker 6: Floyd Justice and policing acts, I think broader criminal justice reform,
Speaker 6: people having conversations about reparations. Even to John lou there's
Speaker 6: a there's a few issues or many.
Speaker 2: Can you break down your opinion though on how much
Speaker 2: of that was the Biden administration didn't champion it versus
Speaker 2: Congress didn't pass it.
Speaker 6: Well, well, I certainly understand that, but I think it's
Speaker 6: a little bit of both. And I think that's always
Speaker 6: my point of contention around the issue when people say,
Speaker 6: you know, Biden doesn't have any control over that, But
Speaker 6: for me, Biden is not a champion and I think
Speaker 6: even VP Harris wasn't a champion.
Speaker 1: And for me, if you fail and are unable to
Speaker 1: deliver on.
Speaker 6: Those issues, but I saw you out front on those issues,
Speaker 6: I could respect that.
Speaker 1: All I could say is job well done. You tried
Speaker 1: your best.
Speaker 6: We have to create another strategy. But if we don't
Speaker 6: get what we want and you're not championing them though
Speaker 6: these issues, that's a problem. So for me, one of
Speaker 6: the things I want to see from her in this
Speaker 6: moment is be clear about what you're going.
Speaker 1: To prioritize for black folks.
Speaker 6: I want to know those things up front so I
Speaker 6: know you we have a fighting chance that some of
Speaker 6: those things will happen.
Speaker 2: And I guess that the job do you think that
Speaker 2: is though, Because if I'm gonna be straight up honest,
Speaker 2: I am cycle after cycle after cycle after cycle where
Speaker 2: it wasn't no, it wasn't no Project twenty twenty five
Speaker 2: for black people. There wasn't there was it wasn't the
Speaker 2: end laz b in the Urban League and the Links
Speaker 2: and the Divine nine all together and develop Black people
Speaker 2: twenty twenty whatever and said, these are the issues that
Speaker 2: we want, and here's the policies that we demand. In
Speaker 2: like like we I really want to do a campaign
Speaker 2: this season, like my vote ain't free and you gotta
Speaker 2: do to get my vote. If you don't say you
Speaker 2: champion this, this and this, then you ain't got enough
Speaker 2: for my vote and that and that.
Speaker 6: You mentioned being committed and not excited, right, which I
Speaker 6: think is an important distinction. And I also get the
Speaker 6: idea that sometimes you can't wait for excitement because you
Speaker 6: got to make serious decisions in the moment.
Speaker 1: I get that.
Speaker 6: But to your point in what you're articulating now, I
Speaker 6: think we lose an opportunity when we commit too soon.
Speaker 6: I think it's just like if you're in a relationship
Speaker 6: with a woman and you get married after date one, brother,
Speaker 6: some things may not work out for you down the line.
Speaker 6: And I think we find ourselves in those moments often
Speaker 6: where we commit a little too soon, not that we
Speaker 6: shouldn't commit, but like you said, she just got this
Speaker 6: five minutes ago, and what we committed four minutes ago?
Speaker 6: And for me, and that's why, Brother Gotham, I really
Speaker 6: understand your perspective on that is, like, how do we
Speaker 6: move differently in this political moment so that we get
Speaker 6: different outcomes? We understand Trump is what he is. But
Speaker 6: we have this particular candidate who people are very enthusiastic about,
Speaker 6: and I would say a lot of black folks are
Speaker 6: excited about her. I think some of us are a
Speaker 6: little bit more sophisticated politically, or you know, we've had
Speaker 6: issues with the political process, so we committed and we're
Speaker 6: not excited.
Speaker 1: But I would love to see the.
Speaker 6: Moment what black folks could be committed and excited at
Speaker 6: the same time.
Speaker 2: And that's what I'm.
Speaker 1: Now. Let me just say this last piece.
Speaker 6: I think that that can happen in this moment. And
Speaker 6: to your point, brother Jeff, if black folks who are
Speaker 6: talking and having these conversations politically say these things that
Speaker 6: we want to prioritize, we know we may get behind
Speaker 6: this candidate, but man, we know we need you to
Speaker 6: get behind these issues as well, and then you're gonna
Speaker 6: get the full support of us committed and excited at
Speaker 6: the same time. I feel like that is the responsibility
Speaker 6: of politically minded black folks, because I.
Speaker 1: Don't know if the Democratic Party is going to do that.
Speaker 2: Was about to say something, though I heard him say it,
Speaker 2: I really want.
Speaker 9: Him today, I said, I was saying more a lot
Speaker 9: of this is this has always been my thing. They
Speaker 9: more committed to the history of having the first black
Speaker 9: woman president for sure that they don't want to hear
Speaker 9: it because they like yo, especially black women, And it's like, yo,
Speaker 9: I literally my grandmother is damn being ready to not
Speaker 9: let me in the house no more behind me saying
Speaker 9: what I say about this lady.
Speaker 5: Like he's like, how did you?
Speaker 9: But I still have to understand her perspective because but
Speaker 9: dislike for Trump, he went dude, slavery and all of that,
Speaker 9: like like that's not actually helped.
Speaker 5: But you know they come from that time. She's ninety
Speaker 5: two years old.
Speaker 9: So her standpoint is, look, fuck him, we need this
Speaker 9: black lady in And I'm like, Grandma, that's not enough
Speaker 9: to put this lady in the office.
Speaker 5: You have to figure this.
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna say, so, bro, say you be a
Speaker 2: favorite though, because I think a lot of sisters would
Speaker 2: hear you more if you didn't keep calling her that lady.
Speaker 9: Oh what's my mouth fault? Because no, I get a
Speaker 9: lot of fact about that too. They like, yo, you
Speaker 9: be disrespected, huck so Kamela my fault.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: So so this is what I would like to say,
Speaker 4: we're gonna go I want to ask a question about
Speaker 4: identity politics. Right, So we got like ten more minutes.
Speaker 4: Can I get ten more minutes of this conversation? So
Speaker 4: I got ten minutes? Listen, all right, I'm with your grandmother.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 4: The reality situation is we we can be politically savvy,
Speaker 4: we can have all of these conversations. I think those
Speaker 4: conversations should have happened. I think when black men and
Speaker 4: black women got on those calls and it was raising money,
Speaker 4: when they was raising money, there should have been an
Speaker 4: agenda that came with raising money. I think that's what
Speaker 4: comes with when you sit down. Okay, we want her
Speaker 4: to be here. We're gonna have on this call. Listen,
Speaker 4: this is what we expect these certain things. You know,
Speaker 4: this is our agenda. We're gonna We're gonna we support you. Look,
Speaker 4: we're showing you were raising these millions of dollars. We
Speaker 4: putting our money where our mouth is. But we do
Speaker 4: have a black agenda, and that this is what we've
Speaker 4: all agreed we should be doing, because that was the
Speaker 4: moment to do it. Right then, right in front of
Speaker 4: the world, we have fifty thousands, all these people on
Speaker 4: the call like there should have been people who had spitheaded.
Speaker 3: And agenda, not just raising money.
Speaker 4: But I also say to myself, we have had forty
Speaker 4: six presidents, forty five of them have been white men.
Speaker 3: I'm voting for a black woman.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you that, I'm unapologetic about it. I'm not
Speaker 4: saying it, and I'm trying to tell you I understand.
Speaker 4: I don't believe there's nothing that she can do that's
Speaker 4: worse than what Donald Trump has already done.
Speaker 3: The Supreme Court justice is.
Speaker 4: He already put back that rollback things that you don't
Speaker 4: even realize they roll back. Most of the average person
Speaker 4: doesn't realize what's happening. It's not she can't do nothing
Speaker 4: worse than most people.
Speaker 9: Respect though, Mike, I respect you saying that, but I
Speaker 9: can't get other people to just keep it the buckets
Speaker 9: to say that around.
Speaker 2: You don't.
Speaker 4: I think what happens is you don't like that right.
Speaker 4: You want them to be more politically savvy. You want
Speaker 4: them to look into her background and say, oh, she
Speaker 4: like these people.
Speaker 9: No, I want them people who go I want the
Speaker 9: people who just like you said that's vote for her
Speaker 9: for that, that say that that.
Speaker 5: I'm voting for her, just don't must keep black.
Speaker 3: And that's what your grandmother is saying, Bro, that's what
Speaker 3: she's saying.
Speaker 5: She no grandmother saying that.
Speaker 9: But when I'm saying online on my page or about age,
Speaker 9: people won't admit that.
Speaker 5: They won't admit it.
Speaker 2: But I'm trying to just keep.
Speaker 5: Saying, Trump, Trump, Trump, say that.
Speaker 4: You we have this conversation with identity politics. America has
Speaker 4: done identity politics since it's been here. White people have
Speaker 4: supported white people and all the time, every time before
Speaker 4: we was even able to run for office, is because
Speaker 4: they thought white people only was smart enough to do.
Speaker 4: When we start getting little pieces in there, they still
Speaker 4: We look at.
Speaker 3: The Republican Party, got like.
Speaker 4: Five black people over there, and they do and they
Speaker 4: don't even they don't even reflect what the average black
Speaker 4: person thinks. So they doing identity politics. Why going for
Speaker 4: us to say, look, I'm voting because she's black.
Speaker 1: It's not wrong.
Speaker 5: When they do it, they do it.
Speaker 6: My thing is not that I'm not going to play.
Speaker 4: Games by rules that don't fit everybody. You want me
Speaker 4: to have this, listen, I'm looking into this. I'm worried
Speaker 4: about the policies right and the white people is like, man,
Speaker 4: the white lady told the Indian man, you're very smart
Speaker 4: and on this, but you Indian, so I could never
Speaker 4: vote for you.
Speaker 3: She said that straight to that.
Speaker 9: Man face this look, but look, you voted, y'all vote,
Speaker 9: y'all voted, y'all voted for you.
Speaker 5: You're thing.
Speaker 9: You'll be making jokes and say you're this old last
Speaker 9: man in office. But I turned around made made Kamala
Speaker 9: the VP. The vote the old last see now man
Speaker 9: in the office. I vote the Kamala Harris. So I'm
Speaker 9: trying to tell you when when, when it's far happened.
Speaker 9: I was never, They'll tell you Angelotta.
Speaker 3: I didn't hate it by it.
Speaker 4: I never was a body fan, none of that. I
Speaker 4: wasn't even gonna. I was about to skip the process
Speaker 4: right when I said we were about to get a
Speaker 4: black woman, and always I say, you know what I'm
Speaker 4: I'm with the black woman.
Speaker 5: It was it was.
Speaker 4: It was a chess movee, and he was never It
Speaker 4: was according to everybody's calculation, he was supposed to be
Speaker 4: a one term president. And then when they were supposed
Speaker 4: to push Kamala to be the president. This was behind
Speaker 4: the scenes when they when they when they demanded that
Speaker 4: he have a black VP. This was what came with
Speaker 4: the demands at some when people told him that the
Speaker 4: poll said that she had no chance because nobody champed.
Speaker 4: Like you said, she sat around for four years and
Speaker 4: didn't say nothing, and everybody was like, why she not
Speaker 4: saying nothing. We know that she has a story. We noticed,
Speaker 4: but they purposely kept in the background. She didn't, now,
Speaker 4: like you said, out of nowhere. To most people who
Speaker 4: are not politically savvy and don't understand the political process
Speaker 4: and haven't been engaged with this whole process for the
Speaker 4: last four years, she's just coming out of nowhere.
Speaker 3: But a lot of us knew that she was there.
Speaker 4: A lot of us are disappointed because we thought she
Speaker 4: was gonna have more of a say. We thought she's
Speaker 4: gonna be more upfront, because that's what was pushed to us.
Speaker 4: Right So, now that we're getting an opportunity to actually
Speaker 4: see us, a lot of us wanted to give her
Speaker 4: the opportunity to do what we voted her in to
Speaker 4: do a vice president, because she never gets the opportunity
Speaker 4: to do it.
Speaker 8: And what's most important is we gotta have these conversations
Speaker 8: year in and year route, just not on the fourth
Speaker 8: year months prior to the election takes place, you know,
Speaker 8: So that's important. And we got to start with the
Speaker 8: local electors too, like we got to really teach our
Speaker 8: people and have these conversations because people don't know, like
Speaker 8: you said, and most people want to vote based on emotions,
Speaker 8: and you got to respect that too, because they want
Speaker 8: proper representation, you know, visually.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying, they're not even doing the math.
Speaker 1: Just what I think.
Speaker 6: The other piece that's deep about it is and I
Speaker 6: think when I look at politics, you and anything, really
Speaker 6: you have to capture.
Speaker 1: The moments when people are excited because.
Speaker 6: Oftentimes when people are not excited, they're not going to engage.
Speaker 6: And in this moment, people are very excited, which means
Speaker 6: we have a lot of political opportunity to reach people,
Speaker 6: to have important conversations, to.
Speaker 1: Educate folks politically. So for me, even though we should
Speaker 1: have been doing this many many.
Speaker 6: Years before, we're in an opportune time to seize a moment.
Speaker 6: My perspective is this, I don't think black folks should
Speaker 6: ever do what we see white folks do, particularly when
Speaker 6: it has no character or it's not to me beneficient,
Speaker 6: So I don't. I'm not with doing it simply because
Speaker 6: we saw white folks do it. I think that could
Speaker 6: be very dangerous and a slippery You don't have.
Speaker 5: That shit in us.
Speaker 9: We're not born with that us, and we should want
Speaker 9: to see no, no.
Speaker 5: Not that, not that.
Speaker 2: In general.
Speaker 9: I'm saying, in general, we're just not born with that
Speaker 9: type of hatred in us.
Speaker 6: Like now, I will say this, and I think Obama
Speaker 6: that this happened true. There's power in the symbol, there's
Speaker 6: power in making history. I think all of that's true.
Speaker 6: But I think as we become more politically sophisticated, we've
Speaker 6: seen this happen before. Now it is a moment because
Speaker 6: there's so much political excitement not only to move her
Speaker 6: into position, but to get more of what we need,
Speaker 6: not just in terms of the bills that we discussed
Speaker 6: in policy. I think even the idea of what's hoping
Speaker 6: happening at local elections.
Speaker 3: I think she can.
Speaker 6: Be in an individual who moves in a wave of
Speaker 6: black elected officials.
Speaker 1: At the governor level.
Speaker 6: We have Ross Baraka running for governor of New Jersey, right,
Speaker 6: I think she can be a wave of progressive black
Speaker 6: folks at the local level. So for me, when I'm
Speaker 6: thinking and seeing the excitement around VP Harris potentially becoming
Speaker 6: President Harris, for me, it potentially means a lot for
Speaker 6: black folks and con sent ripple waves across ripple waves
Speaker 6: across the country, for governors, potential black governors who have
Speaker 6: progressive agendas, potential black mayors who have who have progressive agendas.
Speaker 6: But it's going to require her to take a particular
Speaker 6: kind of position, and I'm not sure she's willing or
Speaker 6: interested in doing that.
Speaker 2: And that's what I would like to do. That if
Speaker 2: we don't do it, and so we keep acting like
Speaker 2: elected officials are like messianic civil rights leaders and they not.
Speaker 2: So the biggest thing that hurt Obama was that black
Speaker 2: people didn't want to attack Obama. And so there were
Speaker 2: folks that were like I've been. I was in meetings
Speaker 2: with members of Congress that was like, I would come
Speaker 2: after this dude if I didn't think it would hurt
Speaker 2: me in my district because he's more popular than me.
Speaker 2: So I think, I think, I think you're right, and
Speaker 2: I think, James, something you said earlier, like we have
Speaker 2: to build mechanisms that are about cultures of civic participation, voting.
Speaker 9: This is powerful and if we're all this is powerful,
Speaker 9: if we're not building.
Speaker 2: Because what you just said, here's what's crazy. Angelo. You
Speaker 2: got you got mayor Bibb and Eve when you got
Speaker 2: you got my mayor in Baltimore. You got York and
Speaker 2: I'm talking about brothers who are under forty when they
Speaker 2: got elected. Yeah, yeah, so you got Randall wood find
Speaker 2: in Birmingham, you got I mean so. And then in
Speaker 2: the five Jackson in the five largest cities in America,
Speaker 2: if we wouldn't have messed up in Houston, they would
Speaker 2: have all been black mayors. So you got New York,
Speaker 2: San Francisco, LA. And it would have been Houston all
Speaker 2: with black mayors and primarily black women, but still black mayors.
Speaker 2: So this move is already happening. The issue is that
Speaker 2: we gotta stop thinking I'll never forget my sign. I
Speaker 2: remember I was. I was having a conversation with the minister,
Speaker 2: Minister fair Cohn, and he's been he's been an amazing
Speaker 2: mentor for a long time to me. And I asked
Speaker 2: him once, I said, if you could do anything different,
Speaker 2: I said, what would you do? He said, who's the
Speaker 2: leader of the Mormons. I said, what he said, who's
Speaker 2: the leader of the Mormons. I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 2: He like exactly, he said, they got one hundred billion
Speaker 2: dollar investment fund, they owned half of the state of Utah.
Speaker 2: They're doing business, they're creating power for their people, and
Speaker 2: don't nobody know who their leader is. And so we
Speaker 2: got to stop thinking that messianic single leadership. A President
Speaker 2: Harris administration is only going to be as strong as
Speaker 2: we push her to be. When you think about when
Speaker 2: you think about the passage of the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 2: the Civil Rights Act Johnson, President Johnson was saying the King,
Speaker 2: I need to do it, yes, And somewhere forgot that. Somewhere,
Speaker 2: we somewhere we thought that now we elect We didn't
Speaker 2: elect the president with Obama, we elected a we met.
Speaker 2: We felt like we elected a combination of a Negro,
Speaker 2: Santa Claus, Jesus and Moses. That was that early.
Speaker 6: The early committing makes that very difficult when we commit early.
Speaker 2: But here's what's different. Here's what's different. Here's what we've
Speaker 2: never had before. We've never had before. When you think
Speaker 2: about we got two minutes, so Joe Takah, we take
Speaker 2: about Joe Taka, we think about Latasha, we talk about
Speaker 2: we think about Tamika. We think all of these sisters
Speaker 2: got access to Kamala Harris, and so we never had
Speaker 2: that before. We never had a space where real black
Speaker 2: folks who really want to make change are not only
Speaker 2: now a part of the cabinet, but in many cases
Speaker 2: are who the president will be picking up the phone
Speaker 2: and saying, hey, give me some intel on this. In ways,
Speaker 2: we've never seen that before, and I don't think we
Speaker 2: can underestimate that. And that's why these sisters are so
Speaker 2: important and why they committed early, because they got relationship
Speaker 2: many of us don't have. And so I think it
Speaker 2: was a lot of conversations that have.
Speaker 4: Me being behind the scenes understanding and there's so many
Speaker 4: things that's already happened that showed that access that a
Speaker 4: lot of people don't know from just from how she
Speaker 4: collected picked her VP and everything. There's there's been black
Speaker 4: people and black women they're like, Yo, this is what
Speaker 4: needs to happen. And she's take that against a lot
Speaker 4: of shit that most people thought she should do.
Speaker 3: So for me, I.
Speaker 4: Understand, access is real. Like when I look at even
Speaker 4: when you look at the buying administration. There's more blacks
Speaker 4: in this administration than there's ever been in any administration.
Speaker 3: Like and this is a fact. This ain't something that
Speaker 3: I'm making up.
Speaker 4: So when people keep saying what happened, we got real
Speaker 4: access and we got real put in positions of power
Speaker 4: to actually make such changes, Like it's you don't when
Speaker 4: you see you see all the blacks at the White
Speaker 4: House and the dances and know, no, you don't understand
Speaker 4: behind those scenes, it was one hundred million dollars deals
Speaker 4: made for anti violence, gun violence inside of the communities
Speaker 4: inside it that I know brothers that are benefiting coming
Speaker 4: home from jail, that's stopping violence in their communities. Like
Speaker 4: these things was championed by black people having access to
Speaker 4: being inside of the White House and being a part
Speaker 4: of that cabinet.
Speaker 2: But it's of public. Angelo's point is just that the
Speaker 2: regular Negro don't know that that.
Speaker 6: Stuff, and some of them don't feel it. So I
Speaker 6: think there's a piece where it actually has to reach
Speaker 6: the people. I think Jeff said it a few times.
Speaker 6: There's a piece around the media and really making folks
Speaker 6: aware of what's happening. But I think there's another piece
Speaker 6: where it has to really translate and touch folks in
Speaker 6: real ways, where they're seeing the change happen and having
Speaker 6: an impact in their life, which I think the point
Speaker 6: around us having access this could happen in this moment.
Speaker 2: I'm leary.
Speaker 1: I'm very leary.
Speaker 6: Because I do think there's a lot of groundwork we
Speaker 6: still have to do to make that a reality.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm hoping we.
Speaker 2: Also need some civics allow them. I wanted to say this.
Speaker 2: I wanted to say my energy need to be with
Speaker 2: my mayor as much as it is with whoever running
Speaker 2: for president.
Speaker 8: I'm sorry to say this with my foundation with what
Speaker 8: I plan to do is have a civics like meet
Speaker 8: and slash group monthly just to inform the brothers about,
Speaker 8: you know, the politics and really do deep dives and
Speaker 8: you know, help them understand what was actually taking place
Speaker 8: from the local elections all the way up to the presidency.
Speaker 7: And of course I'll be ye all of you brothers
Speaker 7: so we can get it back.
Speaker 4: I would love that this we're gonna We're gonna have
Speaker 4: a part two, maybe a part three, because it's some
Speaker 4: other brothers that I wanted to have in this conversation.
Speaker 3: But I just want to thank all of y'all.
Speaker 4: For being here, you know, having me, well, you have
Speaker 4: conversations even when we disagree, but just understand it because
Speaker 4: black men are very important in this political you know,
Speaker 4: stratosfy and then a lot of people don't realize that.
Speaker 4: And a lot of people I heard a man say
Speaker 4: the other day, like we've ignored the needs of the
Speaker 4: black men, like when we get everybody else, everybody's needs
Speaker 4: is this and that, and a lot of us we
Speaker 4: sacrifice our needs for our family. We understand because that's
Speaker 4: what we used to do, and we used to not
Speaker 4: hearing we'll eat last, or we're gonna make sure the
Speaker 4: kids got closed before we got.
Speaker 3: But at some point we can't just be disregarded.
Speaker 4: So all of our emotions, all of our feelings, all
Speaker 4: of the things that we have to say here is important.
Speaker 4: And I'm hoping that people are paying attention that black
Speaker 4: men actually need. At some point, we need a hug too.
Speaker 4: We need something that makes us feel like were value
Speaker 4: with and that you care about what we think.
Speaker 1: Strong together and we definitely together.
Speaker 3: I appreciate you, brother, appreciate you.
Speaker 4: Let's we might we got to do this on a
Speaker 4: broader scale, man, to get these get more brothers into
Speaker 4: these conversations and start, you know, exactly what we need
Speaker 4: to be doing.
Speaker 8: And well tomorrow might I go live. Every Tuesday, we
Speaker 8: have a segment called a Perspective. I'm in, I'm gonna,
Speaker 8: I'm gonna tune in what time?
Speaker 3: Time? Seven seventh?
Speaker 4: Being got you, I'm being my brothers, brothers, be safe
Speaker 4: out there, man, appreciate your.
Speaker 5: Respect.
Speaker 4: Shout out to my brother's Dope Interview. Shout out to
Speaker 4: Jeff Johnson, Shout out to my brother Angelo, Shout out
Speaker 4: to James Bond, Shout out to Gotham. That's the way
Speaker 4: you're supposed to be to communicate, even when you don't
Speaker 4: agree with someone, you're supposed to be able to disagree
Speaker 4: with respect.
Speaker 3: And that's why I don't get it.
Speaker 4: Why do people think they have to disrespect you because
Speaker 4: they disagree with you?
Speaker 3: Right? Like?
Speaker 4: Where did that come from? We don't have to agree
Speaker 4: about everything. Why do people, especially when you're online, the
Speaker 4: people have the weirdest way of communication. You say I
Speaker 4: like this or I don't like this, Oh fuck you
Speaker 4: and your mother this, and they communicate with you in
Speaker 4: a manner that they would never communicate you with you
Speaker 4: in person, right, So why why can't we have disagreements
Speaker 4: without having disrespect? Why can't manage to sit and discuss
Speaker 4: things that they don't agree with it, right, without calling
Speaker 4: people out their names or trying to discredit you or
Speaker 4: calling you a sellout? And you sow your soul like,
Speaker 4: I don't know why where men got comfortable disrespecting people.
Speaker 3: Because they don't agree with them. You know, I think
Speaker 3: we need to we need to.
Speaker 4: Bring back respect, right, and I think we'll have a
Speaker 4: way better world, right because that's once you start disrespecting somebody,
Speaker 4: everything else is on the table. And it's never it's
Speaker 4: never that serious. That's just my two cents man. Let's
Speaker 4: let's try to respect each other more. Let's try to
Speaker 4: hear people out understand that everybody's not gonna think like you.
Speaker 4: Everybody doesn't want the same things that you want, and
Speaker 4: that's what makes us all individuals. But with that said,
Speaker 4: another episode of TMI, shout out to my sister Tamika,
Speaker 4: who's working on her book right now, will be out.
Speaker 4: Make sure that you be on the lookout for it.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be a bestseller, you know, just like this
Speaker 4: is the number one show, she's gonna have the number
Speaker 4: one book. I'm not gonna always be right, she's not
Speaker 4: gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and
Speaker 4: I mean always be authentic.
Speaker 3: So that that s check out the video version of TMO.
Speaker 6: Every single Wednesday on Iwoman dot TV.
Speaker 1: That's how we