Speaker 1: That's what's up.
Speaker 2: Family. It's your girl Tamika D.
Speaker 3: Mallory and it's your boy Mike Son, a general, and
Speaker 3: we are.
Speaker 2: Your hosts of street politicians.
Speaker 3: The place place where the streets and politics meet.
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 3: Happy New Year, my son, Happy New Year, twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two is upon us.
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great.
Speaker 3: I've already spoke this best number one podcast into existence.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have so much money. We're gonna have so
Speaker 3: much wealth. We're gonna have so much success, so much justice.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get justice. We're gonna get everything we're looking
Speaker 3: for in twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4: You know, we ended last year twenty twenty one with significant.
Speaker 2: A criminal justice wins. Right, that's not wins for our community.
Speaker 2: You know, you got to cut the trolls.
Speaker 4: Can't wait what wins wins means they'll stop killing us.
Speaker 2: That's what we're fighting for. We ultimately want not to
Speaker 2: be killed. But when we think about the steps that
Speaker 2: it will take to get us to a place where
Speaker 2: people know, if I shoot harm, violate the civil rights,
Speaker 2: the human rights of a black, brown or any other person,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to face the system. And it's
Speaker 2: possible that a jury and particularly juries with white women,
Speaker 2: we got we gotta talk about it because the last
Speaker 2: few juries have been full of white women that not
Speaker 2: all white women, but many white women have been dominating
Speaker 2: these juries. Have been finding police officers and other vigilantes responsible,
Speaker 2: criminals responsible for the murder and the trauma and the
Speaker 2: violations that they've caused on young black men and black
Speaker 2: men in general.
Speaker 4: And I think that, you know, that's a good sign
Speaker 4: for how we enter twenty twenty two. That we continue
Speaker 4: to fight in the courts, but even outside of the courts,
Speaker 4: there's a cultural fight that's ahead of us, and I
Speaker 4: think we have a responsibility to stay.
Speaker 2: On the ground.
Speaker 4: In every one of the cases that we have one,
Speaker 4: so to speak, there were movements that existed on the ground.
Speaker 4: There were people involved, there were protests, there was awareness,
Speaker 4: there was communities speaking out parents that work very closely
Speaker 4: with some of our stellar civil rights attorneys so that
Speaker 4: they could go and help to inform the district attorneys,
Speaker 4: right because you know, it's always important for us to
Speaker 4: make that separation. The district attorneys have been fighting the cases,
Speaker 4: but they do at times listen to the feedback of
Speaker 4: the family civil attorneys who are giving them strategy. These
Speaker 4: things are happening, and I think that to your point,
Speaker 4: we're gonna work this year to ensure that we continue
Speaker 4: to get justice in those places, while it's a small
Speaker 4: form of justice, but that we also set the precedent,
Speaker 4: set the tone across this country that if you kill,
Speaker 4: you harm, you brutalize, you violate our rights, that you
Speaker 4: will be found guilty of a crime and have to
Speaker 4: face actual jail time for you know, for your actions.
Speaker 1: It's right, you know, that's that's the always the goal.
Speaker 3: Like you said, it's not justice and totality, you know,
Speaker 3: but there is periods and there are pieces of justice
Speaker 3: that we need to add to the puzzle, you know,
Speaker 3: And a lot of people want to.
Speaker 1: Discredit the work that's.
Speaker 3: Being done because they don't understand the full process, or
Speaker 3: because they just want to have something to say.
Speaker 1: But you know, being on the front lines in this movement.
Speaker 3: And actually seeing what it takes to get even those
Speaker 3: small pieces of justice, man, and just understand what it's
Speaker 3: gonna take for us to act actually get the level
Speaker 3: of justice and equity that we deserve and you are
Speaker 3: entitled to in this country. We understand the work, the
Speaker 3: work that we're gonna need to do. We're not even
Speaker 3: going to see it in our lifetime, but we're just
Speaker 3: going to contribute to it and continue to fight.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 3: So I want to say thank you to everybody who's
Speaker 3: been a part of it, those small grassroots organizations, those
Speaker 3: who made phone calls, those who donated to organizations, those
Speaker 3: who set in front of these courthouses, those who family
Speaker 3: members who despite all the trauma and pain they went through,
Speaker 3: they got up every day and they fought on behalf
Speaker 3: of their family members. And they still fight, and they
Speaker 3: still cry, and they still deal with the trauma even
Speaker 3: after the cases are gone, after the cameras have disappeared,
Speaker 3: after everyone has gone off, after the verdict has been delivered.
Speaker 3: Even though there's been guilty verdicts, there have been people
Speaker 3: who've lost loved ones. So we just want to say
Speaker 3: thank you for all of the pain that you've endured
Speaker 3: so that justice can be served, even the smallest, smallest
Speaker 3: minute way.
Speaker 1: And you know that we will continue to do our part.
Speaker 4: And I'm not sure that George Floyd's family, Dante Right,
Speaker 4: Ahmad Aubrey, and even Julius Jones, which was different because
Speaker 4: Julius Jones needs to be at home with his family,
Speaker 4: but he was removed from death row and his life
Speaker 4: was spared with hours left.
Speaker 2: Before his before they would have executed him. And that
Speaker 2: was because of a grass room's movement. And to your point,
Speaker 2: Terrence Crutcher, who was also killed by the police, his
Speaker 2: sister Tiffany Crutcher, was out there while holding her own pain,
Speaker 2: she was out there as one of the leaders fighting
Speaker 2: for Julius Jones' life. And there are so.
Speaker 4: Many people who have gone from advocate who from survivors
Speaker 4: if you will, you know, some of us say victims,
Speaker 4: but they are they're really truly survivors and have turned
Speaker 4: that into becoming warriors within this movement. And I'm not
Speaker 4: sure that they would say it's minute. I think we
Speaker 4: have conditioned ourselves because we understand the larger context of
Speaker 4: the movement, right, and so since we know that justice
Speaker 4: is so much bigger, we condition ourselves to.
Speaker 2: Minimize it so that.
Speaker 4: We don't have to fight with folks who want to say, oh,
Speaker 4: y'all didn't do anything, because he should have got fifty years,
Speaker 4: and now you know you didn't do anything, because all
Speaker 4: of them should be guilty but it's not minute because
Speaker 4: the work that went into standing with Wanda Cooper and
Speaker 4: Lee Merit, and also the work that Sean King did
Speaker 4: you know for Ahmad Rby and the protests that we
Speaker 4: went out for, and the people like you said, Queenya
Speaker 4: Nostah in Atlanta, Gerald Griggs, the local NAACP there in
Speaker 4: that part of Georgia, they worked hard. We supported them,
Speaker 4: but we were actually living in Kentucky fighting for Breonna Taylor,
Speaker 4: and we still took our time to support and stand
Speaker 4: with Wanda Cooper and the family of Amaud Rvey. So
Speaker 4: you had that movement happening that kept attention on them
Speaker 4: every single day. Then you turn around and you look
Speaker 4: at you know, what was done even with Dante Wright.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, you know. And by the way, Dante Wright's
Speaker 2: situation moved fast from the day that he was killed
Speaker 2: until there was a conviction. It was very clear in
Speaker 2: the state of Minnesota that people were not going to
Speaker 2: sit back and allow them to slip back with justice
Speaker 2: because there was all ready a conviction on George Floyd.
Speaker 2: And I think what some folks may not understand, they
Speaker 2: may not be aware of how much work went into
Speaker 2: electing Keith Ellison, who is the attorney general. They're in Minnesota.
Speaker 2: I don't think people understand how much work and what
Speaker 2: the battle was to get him elected so that he
Speaker 2: can fight for real and.
Speaker 4: True justice in that state. There is so much more
Speaker 4: work to be done, but it's not minute. You think
Speaker 4: about Brionna Taylor. Yeah, the trying to get actual convictions
Speaker 4: and to get people arrested in charged. It's an uphill battle.
Speaker 4: We hope that the FEDS will come in and file
Speaker 4: federal charges against the officers, particularly the four officers, but
Speaker 4: even more folks than that were involved in murdering Breonna Taylor.
Speaker 4: But yet those officers have been removed from the force.
Speaker 4: For us, While it is not the end all be all,
Speaker 4: it is significant that they have been disgraced and sent
Speaker 4: home from their jobs. Now we have to fight to
Speaker 4: make sure that we get actual legislation put in place
Speaker 4: that monitors them so that they cannot just go get
Speaker 4: another job in a different city and commit the same crimes.
Speaker 4: So to your point, there is a lot of work
Speaker 4: to be done. There's an incredible amount of work to
Speaker 4: be done. But I refuse not to appreciate all the
Speaker 4: people who have work to do what has happened within
Speaker 4: the year of twenty twenty one that we hope to
Speaker 4: keep into twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: You're right, you know, I apologize, do you know it's
Speaker 3: to apologize?
Speaker 2: It's no when I get it, it's not.
Speaker 3: Because it's not just our work, right, it's other people
Speaker 3: who are out there working, and as I applaud them,
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want to minimize, you know, the
Speaker 3: losses of people who actually were invested in this work,
Speaker 3: because a lot of people lost sleep, they gained trauma,
Speaker 3: they lost money, they lost family, they lost so many
Speaker 3: different things in this fight for justice. So it's beneath
Speaker 3: me to even try to minimize with people lost in this.
Speaker 3: But I do want us to understand that there's so
Speaker 3: much to go.
Speaker 1: We still have a lot to fight for.
Speaker 3: But those victories that we did get, they weren't they're
Speaker 3: not minute, they're definitely major victories, you know, So continue
Speaker 3: to fight with that and knowing that you have gained
Speaker 3: victories when we still got a lot to go.
Speaker 2: And so that brings me to my thought of the day. Now.
Speaker 2: You know, I've been really on vacation.
Speaker 4: I literally have done absolutely nothing and for you and
Speaker 4: other people who called me.
Speaker 2: I've been sitting in a dark room relaxing for the
Speaker 2: entire holiday, with the exception of moving around a little
Speaker 2: bit here and there. Number One, I ain't trying to
Speaker 2: get the COVID. Number two, I just needed a break
Speaker 2: and I really needed to get focused. So, you know,
Speaker 2: TV was a thing, like I was watching shows. First
Speaker 2: of all, we start the holiday with Insecure going off
Speaker 2: the air, so their last show. I haven't even watched
Speaker 2: it because I'm like heartbroken and I know a little
Speaker 2: bit about what happened, because social media is such a spoiler,
Speaker 2: like they just tell you everything, but you know that's gone.
Speaker 2: Then the other day I was watching TV.
Speaker 4: I was really excited about Blackish and I learned that
Speaker 4: it was their last episode as well. I'm just trying
Speaker 4: to figure out, what in the heck is happening. Is
Speaker 4: it the ratings? Are we not watching the shows?
Speaker 2: You know? What is the issue? Is it advertising? What
Speaker 2: are we going to do to keep content on TV
Speaker 2: that helps to show us in not just a positive light,
Speaker 2: but in our true form. I have no issue with.
Speaker 4: Fifty cent and his uh, you know, his portfolio, because
Speaker 4: we all like a little crime and Hustler's TV every
Speaker 4: every if you say entertainment, whatever, right, we all we
Speaker 4: all like that.
Speaker 2: By the way, it's every other.
Speaker 4: Culture has the same, So we're not gonna see him
Speaker 4: act like that. White folks are not killing each other
Speaker 4: and shooting up and everything on TV.
Speaker 2: The Asian community there and everybody has entertainment. To your point,
Speaker 2: that's criminal through a criminal lens. Lets me say it's
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 4: But the fundamentals of their every day for their children
Speaker 4: is not just focusing on power and BMF and things
Speaker 4: like that. They also have Grays and Gnat, they have
Speaker 4: I don't know you name the shows right they I
Speaker 4: don't even know them, but I know that they have
Speaker 4: a bunch of shows that shows sort of a myriad if.
Speaker 2: You will, of images to their young people. You turn
Speaker 2: on the TV for us and we're losing everything. And
Speaker 2: Blackish was such an important show since we had the
Speaker 2: Cosby Show, then you have Blackish. I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: there was something in between, but to lose Blackish and
Speaker 2: I'm gonna literally call both Tracy Ellis and Anthony Anderson
Speaker 2: and ask why is it that they were ready to
Speaker 2: move on with their careers? Like I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: I'm really trying to understand how we keep content that
Speaker 2: is for your children and my niece and other kids
Speaker 2: that are growing up.
Speaker 3: I mean, we got to continue to create it. Man,
Speaker 3: we have lean away. If we have so many different
Speaker 3: black producers and you know that understand the need, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe maybe I think what happens it becomes hard to
Speaker 3: create content right after a certain amount of seasons, or
Speaker 3: maybe the ratings.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I can't really imagine that black Ish not having good ratings,
Speaker 3: but TV in itself, the ratings for TV and itself
Speaker 3: has been going low. But I do believe that Blackish
Speaker 3: was definitely something that was needed in our community. Was
Speaker 3: something that you look to. You know, it showed us
Speaker 3: in a very positive light. It showed us in so
Speaker 3: many different real life situations that happened in black homes
Speaker 3: right in right, whether it's just black homes that come
Speaker 3: from wealth or just poor. It was just those same
Speaker 3: understandings of just black culture that they talked about was
Speaker 3: something that really happened in most homes that people can
Speaker 3: identify with, right and then it gave you something to
Speaker 3: reach for, to have a mother and father that was
Speaker 3: that successful right to be a mother and father that
Speaker 3: was that successful. So it was so it represented so
Speaker 3: many different things for our culture. And I just I
Speaker 3: hope that we have the next production right in the hostel,
Speaker 3: right like in the pipeline.
Speaker 4: And now I think we have grown Ish and which
Speaker 4: i'm Yaa Shahiti is. I think she's one of the
Speaker 4: executive producers and she's also on the show. We have
Speaker 4: to support these folks like we have to. I know,
Speaker 4: we think people are watching, they must have good ratings,
Speaker 4: but actually they don't. They don't have the type of
Speaker 4: ratings that's necessary to generate consistent advertising dollars. And that's
Speaker 4: the problem. You have to actually have millions of people
Speaker 4: watching your show in order to make sure that you
Speaker 4: can get those ad dollars, or you get pushed to
Speaker 4: some cable networks, and then when you're on those networks,
Speaker 4: not everyone can see it because not everyone has cable.
Speaker 4: So it's like a tricky thing of trying to figure
Speaker 4: out how do we keep content out there that's forward
Speaker 4: facing for our young people to be able to your point,
Speaker 4: it's not that not even just young right, even young adults. Right, Listen,
Speaker 4: we got kids and we need shows like Blackish, Grownish
Speaker 4: and other things for them. But I'm just thinking of
Speaker 4: when you talk about Insecure, this is for young adults.
Speaker 4: You have a situation where Issa, when the show originally
Speaker 4: comes on, she has no job. She hustling trying to
Speaker 4: figure it out. It gives you a depiction of what
Speaker 4: it's like when people are like, you know, sleeping with
Speaker 4: this person and you fall in love and then you
Speaker 4: get your heart broke, how you get out of it,
Speaker 4: what your girlfriends can do to support you, how your
Speaker 4: girlfriends can tear you down, The different types of personalities,
Speaker 4: people who are you know they are.
Speaker 2: What do you call it? Plus size?
Speaker 4: Other people like It's so many different things that when
Speaker 4: you're sitting there watching these shows. I remember when I
Speaker 4: used to watch a Different World, the Cosy showing other
Speaker 4: things I saw like, okay, I could do that and
Speaker 4: take a little bit of this.
Speaker 2: I like them, little bit of whit Lee, I like
Speaker 2: a little bit of you know this person that like
Speaker 2: what in the hell we like? You said, there has
Speaker 2: to be a consistent pipeline because while we love Tyler Perry,
Speaker 2: while we love fifty cent and all of these shows,
Speaker 2: that's not exactly what we're talking about those things are entertainment,
Speaker 2: but though just a regular family and or people who
Speaker 2: are existing every day working through life and they're not
Speaker 2: so much stereotypical. We need that. We need that. So
Speaker 2: that's my thought of the day. Bring it back.
Speaker 1: It's definitely a good thought. Man.
Speaker 3: We need y'all producers, Black producers get out there and
Speaker 3: make us these shows that show us in highlight and
Speaker 3: give us that energy, to give us that will to
Speaker 3: you know, to aspire to be more. We're looking forward
Speaker 3: to that, man, make sure y'all do it. So usually
Speaker 3: at this time we would have our resident brand expert,
Speaker 3: LaToya Baun with our small Business of the Week, but
Speaker 3: we're not going to do that this week. But next
Speaker 3: week we're going to look back at all of the
Speaker 3: small business that we've showcased throughout the last year and
Speaker 3: we're going to add a couple more. We definitely need
Speaker 3: you to tune in and make sure that you give
Speaker 3: us your small business. Make sure that you are a
Speaker 3: small business that have a real business. Make sure you're
Speaker 3: a real business, because we want to showcase and we
Speaker 3: want to be able to give you opportunity to promote
Speaker 3: your services or your product on our platform.
Speaker 1: That's how we all need.
Speaker 4: So the term knowing your status has generally been used
Speaker 4: to talk about your status for your health, to talk
Speaker 4: about whether or not you know if you're HIV positive
Speaker 4: or carrying some other type of disease. And of course,
Speaker 4: now that we're in the time of COVID, knowing your
Speaker 4: status has a lot to do with being tested to
Speaker 4: see whether you're positive or not. But knowing your status
Speaker 4: means a lot of things, and it should for us,
Speaker 4: particularly black folks in this world and specifically in America,
Speaker 4: it should mean knowing what's happening with our credit, checking
Speaker 4: our records, and knowing what's happening with our name, our
Speaker 4: social security numbers. And oftentimes we don't like to see
Speaker 4: things that are not right in.
Speaker 2: Front of our faces.
Speaker 4: We don't want to deal with it, we don't want
Speaker 4: the stress, and we certainly don't want to have to
Speaker 4: do the work of repairing the credit that we may
Speaker 4: have ruined from when we were younger. But you know,
Speaker 4: fraud is a thing, and we're actually doing a show here.
Speaker 4: We are the first week coming back from the holidays,
Speaker 4: where so many people have spent money. Maybe you haven't
Speaker 4: checked your bank account. Maybe you haven't checked your credit
Speaker 4: card statements, but fraud was a real thing going into
Speaker 4: the holidays and it still is. And so we're talking
Speaker 4: with some folks today who are real professional experts on
Speaker 4: how to address your credit and also how to be
Speaker 4: to ensure that you are not a victim of fraud.
Speaker 4: First guest is Shiwana King. She is a credit repair expert,
Speaker 4: the author of a book called Swipe, a motivational speaker,
Speaker 4: and she was just featured on the VH one series
Speaker 4: My True Crime Story. She's also a friend to street
Speaker 4: politicians and we're happy to have you with us today. Shwana,
Speaker 4: you got to put us on and tell us what
Speaker 4: we don't know.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited
Speaker 5: to be here. Thank you, my son, thank you everyone.
Speaker 5: I'm excited this episode is. It means a lot to
Speaker 5: me because you know my background, where I came from.
Speaker 5: Financial freedom, like financial literacy, we did not know about,
Speaker 5: you know, growing up, I did not know anything about
Speaker 5: financial literacy at all. You know, I only knew what
Speaker 5: was around me, you know, so growing up, you know,
Speaker 5: me going to prison, me being incosrated was for identity,
Speaker 5: that for a credit card for it, you.
Speaker 2: Know, and that's where it stopped.
Speaker 5: Well, that's all I knew was going into the store
Speaker 5: using somebody else's credit card, but I did not know
Speaker 5: how it.
Speaker 2: Affected that person and the people cards I was using.
Speaker 2: I was just using it. They weren't. They didn't even notice.
Speaker 2: They didn't realize that I was using their card, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So it's like, now that I know better, I'm like, Wow,
Speaker 5: it's a lot of people out here who really don't
Speaker 5: check their credit, who don't even utilize their credit, who
Speaker 5: don't really know anything about credit. And now that I
Speaker 5: do credit card credit credit repair, it's like I speak
Speaker 5: to a lot of people and I try to, you know,
Speaker 5: educate them on how important credit is. You know, what
Speaker 5: you can do with your credit. But if you don't
Speaker 5: know growing up, it's hard.
Speaker 1: So how you doing?
Speaker 3: You want a nice how you doing so, you know,
Speaker 3: just being formally incarcerated, you know, as well as understanding
Speaker 3: what was howl you introduced to credit, like to credit cards,
Speaker 3: Like what was the process?
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of people don't know it, so.
Speaker 3: We got to give them a little education so they
Speaker 3: can understand, like what to look out for, you know,
Speaker 3: how you pay attention to see if these things are.
Speaker 1: Happening to you.
Speaker 5: So okay, so how I was introduced and I'm gonna
Speaker 5: bring it from before into now. So do you know
Speaker 5: right now, like when you get those alerts that say
Speaker 5: your password has been compromised on the dark web or
Speaker 5: change your password immediately because it has been the detected
Speaker 5: in certain websites, that's a real thing.
Speaker 2: Like it's real because before, you.
Speaker 5: Know, prior to my incarseration, I was basically paying a
Speaker 5: hacker to hack into the bank systems or hacking to
Speaker 5: let's just say American Express, and they will basically get
Speaker 5: your account password, email password, and they would try out
Speaker 5: pay for that information. And now like I even get
Speaker 5: it on my email, it's like change your password because
Speaker 5: that means that your email and your passport is out there.
Speaker 2: So now it's compromised.
Speaker 5: So now the hackers can go in and actually take
Speaker 5: that information and sell it on the dark web. And
Speaker 5: that's where I came in. Prior, I was going in
Speaker 5: on a dark web and purchasing that information and then
Speaker 5: now I'm able to go into the store and use
Speaker 5: that person's identity.
Speaker 2: Now, but were you making because I know a guy
Speaker 2: who went to jail for actually making the credit card
Speaker 2: with the numbers on it and the strip, and at
Speaker 2: some point it got to the point that they were
Speaker 2: actually able to make the credit card work. It started
Speaker 2: out where they used the credit card and it wasn't live.
Speaker 2: It just had the numbers on it. It looked real.
Speaker 2: But then they got it.
Speaker 4: To the point where the card was actually working with
Speaker 4: the swipe in the store.
Speaker 5: Is where as Yeah, So basically, yeah, the same exact thing.
Speaker 5: So basically I will contact a hacker. A hacker will
Speaker 5: sell me information. It's called the track. The track has
Speaker 5: your sixteen digit card number, your exploration date, your name,
Speaker 5: all of your information. It's like it's like an it's
Speaker 5: like encoded into like these colds. So what I would
Speaker 5: do is there's a machine that you have, you connect
Speaker 5: it to your computer and you basically transfer that information
Speaker 5: into the credit card.
Speaker 1: You have.
Speaker 5: Any card that has a strip on it could be
Speaker 5: transferre It could be a hotel key, as long does
Speaker 5: it have like a black magnetic strip on the back.
Speaker 2: Of it, it could be transferred.
Speaker 5: That information could be transferred into the card and you
Speaker 5: can basically use it anywhere.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 3: Wow to me is very I used to always ask
Speaker 3: her that she'll go to a hotel and she'll make
Speaker 3: sure that everybody throws.
Speaker 1: The keys away.
Speaker 3: She will not leave a hotel key anywhere because she says,
Speaker 3: people can get your information, and I never will it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, and what they do too.
Speaker 5: What they'll do is, let's just say, if you gonna
Speaker 5: make a purchase, and they will take your car, swipe
Speaker 5: it and you know, the machine at the store, and
Speaker 5: then also swipe it in a little device. It's like
Speaker 5: as small as are like.
Speaker 2: A uh, the little thing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's that small, Like they'll swipe it on that
Speaker 5: and then now they have all your information. So that
Speaker 5: just eliminates them being able to They don't have to
Speaker 5: contact a hacker. They have your information right there, you know,
Speaker 5: and they're doing that to everyone who come and purchase.
Speaker 4: So so tell us. So okay, so you got into
Speaker 4: that first. It couldn't have just started there though, Like
Speaker 4: that's high level.
Speaker 2: So you had to start somewhere a little bit before
Speaker 2: that stage. Was it that you just found out it
Speaker 2: was easy? Did somebody tell you to get involved? So
Speaker 2: it's crazy, but I never said this anywhere else. So
Speaker 2: when I was younger, I was you know my aunt.
Speaker 2: She's She's from Maryland. She had a bunch of salons.
Speaker 2: She was like that aunt that was like flying, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, damn, she got a bunch of salons.
Speaker 2: She got all this money, and I knew that. She
Speaker 2: went to prison for a credit card fraud. Right.
Speaker 5: She wrote a book called Charge It to the Game. Right,
Speaker 5: I've read the book. I never said this anywhere else.
Speaker 5: She don't even know this. I've read the book and
Speaker 5: I was like, wow, this is crazy. Like she was
Speaker 5: given detail, but not too much detail. So I went
Speaker 5: on the dark Web and I started researching. I found
Speaker 5: out all the information I needed, and I found the
Speaker 5: person who basically I could buy the tracks from.
Speaker 2: Wow, wow, how.
Speaker 5: Some tracks costs the tracks are about At that time,
Speaker 5: they were fifty dollars. So now you're talking about something
Speaker 5: that costs fifty dollars that I can get about twenty
Speaker 5: thousand dollars from.
Speaker 3: That's that that that's a no brainer right there. Mm hmmm,
Speaker 3: so u huh no, no, glad, what you said.
Speaker 2: I was saying.
Speaker 5: So I'm purchasing these tracks and all I have to
Speaker 5: do is basically get a bunch of blank credit cards.
Speaker 5: At that time, I was going into like CBS Walgreen
Speaker 5: and taking the gift cards. They're free, just going in
Speaker 5: and take them. You know, they have a black magnetic
Speaker 5: strip on it. So I was using the tracks, putting
Speaker 5: it on the black on the card and just going
Speaker 5: into the store.
Speaker 1: And usually so how did you get caught?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: What, what's the thing?
Speaker 2: So I got caught?
Speaker 5: Now the reason why I got caught was because the
Speaker 5: person who I was purchasing the tracks from, he's he's
Speaker 5: in China.
Speaker 2: He's in China. I never I don't know who he is.
Speaker 2: I never met him. We only spoke online.
Speaker 5: So he was shipping cards to Africa to me and
Speaker 5: Brookes when to all over and he started to get
Speaker 5: hot and they started watching him. So what he did
Speaker 5: was he told me, he's like, listen, I can ship
Speaker 5: you some cards. You don't have to you know, they'll
Speaker 5: be real cards, you know, with your name. You don't
Speaker 5: have to use the cards that's from CBS, so you
Speaker 5: know if this card will be actually with your name
Speaker 5: on it. So it was better for me because sometime
Speaker 5: I would go into the store and they'll be like, oh, well,
Speaker 5: this is a gift card. You can't use over five
Speaker 5: hundred dollars if it's only five hundred dollars on a
Speaker 5: gift card. If it sets five hundred dollars on the card,
Speaker 5: how you swiping it for five thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: So I needed that connect at that time. So for
Speaker 2: about a year, he was just shipping me cards, shipping
Speaker 2: me cards. Everything was cool.
Speaker 5: He started to get hot because someone in Nigeria got
Speaker 5: in trouble. So customs basically stopped the package that was
Speaker 5: coming to me. And when they stopped the package, they
Speaker 5: opened it and they seen what was in it, they
Speaker 5: sealed it back and sent it to me. So when
Speaker 5: they sent it to me, I didn't know it got
Speaker 5: stopped and they just started following me from there. They
Speaker 5: was following me for six months.
Speaker 2: Wow, while you was using the car, So they had
Speaker 2: a full case of course when they finally And I
Speaker 2: think that's the whole point is like it feels good right,
Speaker 2: like while it's happening, you're looking bad and doing your thing.
Speaker 4: But at some point, I don't know anyone, I really
Speaker 4: literally don't know anyone that has been able to accomplish
Speaker 4: like longevity and then never get caught doing these things.
Speaker 2: I just I don't know anyone. Everybody I know at
Speaker 2: some point they brought up with them. No, it's true.
Speaker 5: And then at that time I was so young, like
Speaker 5: I went to federal prison when I was nineteen years old. Wow,
Speaker 5: and I was doing that from seventeen. I went to
Speaker 5: prison at nineteen, came home, didn't know anything else. At
Speaker 5: the same thing, over thought, I got smart and bought
Speaker 5: all the machines, got caught another two years later and
Speaker 5: had to do two and a half years, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. So I didn't really know another way.
Speaker 5: That's all I knew at that time. That's the only
Speaker 5: That's how I knew how to make money, you know.
Speaker 5: And it's it's unfortunate that I had to go through that,
Speaker 5: but I don't regret anything that I've gone through, you know,
Speaker 5: because it made me who I am today.
Speaker 2: And you know it it was it was crazy.
Speaker 5: You know, because you get so addicted to like the
Speaker 5: material stuff, because you walking into the store and you're
Speaker 5: getting these things for free basically, you know, like I'm
Speaker 5: spending one hundred dollars per card and I'm getting ten, fifteen,
Speaker 5: twenty thousand dollars per card, you know, So it becomes
Speaker 5: like addiction, right, you know, to like it's crazy.
Speaker 3: So you did you So, how much time did you
Speaker 3: do in prison? You said you went to jail the
Speaker 3: first time, came home and did it again, and didn't
Speaker 3: have five years all together?
Speaker 1: You did five mins.
Speaker 3: So you went home, You went there for three came home,
Speaker 3: did something, and then went for two more year. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and then so what made you say, Okay, I gotta
Speaker 3: I gotta do something differently? What was it when you
Speaker 3: came home did you immediately say I'm not going back
Speaker 3: to jail? Or when you was in jail, did you say, look,
Speaker 3: I gotta do something different?
Speaker 1: Like what made your mind flip.
Speaker 2: The first time? I didn't think like that the first time.
Speaker 5: I say, you know what, I got caught because not
Speaker 5: something that I did. I got caught because he was
Speaker 5: doing something and I got, you know, wrapped up in it.
Speaker 5: So that's how my mom was, honestly. The first time,
Speaker 5: nineteen years old, spent two years in there, came home,
Speaker 5: I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna do it smarter.
Speaker 5: I bought all the machines. I didn't need a middle man.
Speaker 5: I didn't need him. I didn't need anyone. I was
Speaker 5: able to do everything myself. So the last time I
Speaker 5: went to prison, I was like, and I went to
Speaker 5: prison for the stupidest thing ever. I was like, you
Speaker 5: know what, this is not for me.
Speaker 3: I had to tell us to give us the stupidest
Speaker 3: thing because people need to hear it.
Speaker 2: So so.
Speaker 5: I'm in a restaurant, right, I'm in a restaurant, and
Speaker 5: the people who I was with, these are the people
Speaker 5: that I used to hang out with before, who were
Speaker 5: still in the gate, who were still doing fraud. They
Speaker 5: basically used a credit card to pay for a dinner party.
Speaker 2: The dinner party was like nine thousand dollars.
Speaker 5: They had bottles, they had a bunch of stuff, right,
Speaker 5: nine thousand dollars for this dinner party. And what they
Speaker 5: did now, I booked the I booked the reservation right
Speaker 5: under my name, my phone number. I didn't I thought
Speaker 5: everybody was gonna pay. I didn't think we were gonna
Speaker 5: like use a credit card for that. So I booked everything.
Speaker 5: And basically they in this they had a fight in
Speaker 5: the restaurant, so they like kind of messed up the restaurant.
Speaker 5: The police got involved. They called me, They came to
Speaker 5: my house and arrested me, and now I'm not gonna
Speaker 5: be like it wasn't me that used the card, it
Speaker 5: was him. And then on top of that, I had
Speaker 5: a case of not a case. I had a prior
Speaker 5: you know, arrest for the same exact thing. It was like, okay,
Speaker 5: this was her. So I just basically had to go
Speaker 5: in for a violation. I went in for a violation
Speaker 5: because I was on federal probation for the last case.
Speaker 2: So they basically violated me. They gave me sixteen months
Speaker 2: in the state.
Speaker 5: They ran a concurrent, and I just had to do
Speaker 5: the two and a half years in the facts and
Speaker 5: I was They terminated my probation after So.
Speaker 3: When you came home, you said I ain't doing this though,
Speaker 3: So while I.
Speaker 2: Was inside, I was like, you know what this is.
Speaker 5: I can't live my life like this, Like I don't
Speaker 5: where am I going to be five years from now,
Speaker 5: Like when I go home, what am I going to do?
Speaker 5: Go back into doing credit cards for it and be
Speaker 5: back in jail? Like this is just gonna be like consistent,
Speaker 5: this is gonna be my life. I cannot live like
Speaker 5: this like this is not me, Like I see so
Speaker 5: much more for myself you know, and I had to
Speaker 5: sit there. You know, I prayed about it, I meditated,
Speaker 5: and I just asked, like, just give me away, you know,
Speaker 5: put good people in my life, you know, associated with
Speaker 5: people that can help me. Because I was young and
Speaker 5: I didn't have that guidance. I didn't have a mentor.
Speaker 5: I didn't have somebody that could, you know, help me
Speaker 5: get to the next level or tell me not to
Speaker 5: do this, this is the wrong way, you should do
Speaker 5: it that way.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that.
Speaker 5: So going to prison, I met some really really great women,
Speaker 5: you know, who saw more in me than I even
Speaker 5: seen it myself, you know, just from conversations, just from
Speaker 5: you being with this person every single day.
Speaker 2: You know, like.
Speaker 5: I used to hole, you know, Jamilla T. Davis like
Speaker 5: me being around them. They basically helped me. They like, listen,
Speaker 5: I see so much more on you, Like this is
Speaker 5: not your life.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I wanted to write a book. I used to push me.
Speaker 5: She was like, write it, write it every day.
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I'm gonna write it.
Speaker 5: She was like, listen, just write down some notes, give
Speaker 5: me a bunch of pages, and I'm gonna help you
Speaker 5: write it. So that was like the start of it,
Speaker 5: you know, And I basically wrote out a five year plan.
Speaker 5: I said, I'm not going home until this plan is completed,
Speaker 5: and I'm gonna follow it. And whoever comes in between,
Speaker 5: whoever comes in between that plan, like, they just gotta go,
Speaker 5: They gotta go. I gotta dismiss them from my life.
Speaker 5: And I was stern about that decision. I said, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna just let go everybody who was in my life.
Speaker 5: Fire who's still doing the same thing, no shade. I
Speaker 5: fuck with y'all, but from a distance, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, Because I have to change my life.
Speaker 2: It's no other way.
Speaker 5: And the association with people, that's the first thing that
Speaker 5: would get you wrapped back up, you know. So I
Speaker 5: just had to disconnect myself. So when I came home,
Speaker 5: I basically just was around my prisons this. You know,
Speaker 5: people who've gone through the same thing, People who don't
Speaker 5: want to go through that, go back to pray, who
Speaker 5: haven't experienced prison. They don't have anything to they just
Speaker 5: living at that moment. They haven't gone to prison, so
Speaker 5: they don't know what it's like, you know. So I'm like,
Speaker 5: I have to be with people and surround myself with
Speaker 5: positive people and people who've gone through the same things
Speaker 5: that I went through because they don't want to go
Speaker 5: back down that road, you know, And that's what I did.
Speaker 2: I didn't let nothing come in between that. No mind,
Speaker 2: I don't care if I had to live in a
Speaker 2: shoe box like you, was gonna stay on the right track.
Speaker 2: So how did credit repair?
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously it's natural for you to go from
Speaker 4: because you understand, you know the issues, But how did
Speaker 4: credit repair become the transition?
Speaker 2: And then also have you when you went to court the.
Speaker 4: First time, did you ever have to face any of
Speaker 4: the individuals that you had frauded?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 5: Okay, it was so many, but no, I'm so happy
Speaker 5: I haven't because, you know, after knowing what this this
Speaker 5: is an issue that happened to me when I was
Speaker 5: in prison. I called home to my grandmother and she
Speaker 5: was about seventy at this time.
Speaker 2: Now she's like, baby, I'm you know, I'm so sad.
Speaker 5: Someone used my credit card and I've been fighting with
Speaker 5: the bank for the past six months.
Speaker 2: And right now I have no money. You know, I
Speaker 2: don't have anything.
Speaker 5: You know, they took seventeen thousand dollars from me, and
Speaker 5: you know, I don't have no money. The bank has
Speaker 5: given me a hard time returning the money. I'm like, real, yo,
Speaker 5: So that hit home. I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 5: Like they are real people, real yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are real people.
Speaker 5: Like I don't know what the issue was, what the
Speaker 5: circumstances were in their life. I could have just you know,
Speaker 5: mess something up like and then that was basically when
Speaker 5: she spoke to me and told me. I was like, Wow,
Speaker 5: this came at the right time. This actually came during
Speaker 5: the time. I said I need to do this five
Speaker 5: year plan because this is what I'm a follow and
Speaker 5: I got that. I called home and that's the that
Speaker 5: was the conversation, Like that was confirmation for me.
Speaker 2: You know. I was like, wow, I can't come back here.
Speaker 2: So you've got into credit repaired. Yes.
Speaker 5: So when I came home, the transition wasn't easy, you
Speaker 5: know it was. It was hard, especially coming from having
Speaker 5: so much, you know, at so young, and then you
Speaker 5: coming home and you have to like.
Speaker 2: Rely on people.
Speaker 5: Even though I had my daughter's father, he was there
Speaker 5: for me tremendously. But I'm very independent, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, And I like to do things on my own.
Speaker 2: I like to help I'm the giver, like I like
Speaker 2: to give people, you know, people around me, and you.
Speaker 5: Know, so coming home, I was like, the first thing
Speaker 5: I need to do is fix my credit.
Speaker 2: I learned about credit while.
Speaker 5: I was in prison. I didn't know anything about credit,
Speaker 5: you know. I learned how important credit was. I got
Speaker 5: a bunch of credit for dummy books. But at that time,
Speaker 5: it wasn't for me to fix people credit. It was
Speaker 5: for me to work on my credit. Because I said,
Speaker 5: what I'll do is, you know, work on my credit
Speaker 5: and use that to start my hair company or use
Speaker 5: that to start whatever company it is that I want
Speaker 5: to do. So when I came home, I did that,
Speaker 5: work on my credit, got a bunch of credit cards.
Speaker 5: And how we started doing credit or heare was I
Speaker 5: came home about I want to say, a year before Ayisha.
Speaker 5: And when she came home one day, she was she
Speaker 5: had a bunch of Western Union papers like she to
Speaker 5: send out money. Mind you, she just came home. She
Speaker 5: didn't have no money. So I'm like, Ayisha, what are
Speaker 5: you doing? She's like, I mean, I don't have money,
Speaker 5: but I'm just sending the girls thirty dollars each because
Speaker 5: I promised that to them.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I know, but you don't.
Speaker 5: Have it, Like you got to get yourself together first
Speaker 5: and then you could give you know, because you're taken
Speaker 5: from yourself. And she's like, I know, but I promised them.
Speaker 5: I'm like, so listen, you taught me how to fix
Speaker 5: She taught me how to fix my credit. Actually, when
Speaker 5: I came home, I'm like, you taught me how to
Speaker 5: fix my credit. Why don't we teach fix the girl's
Speaker 5: credit that's coming home. Because these girls are about to
Speaker 5: come home. It was like six of them, they're about
Speaker 5: to come home. I said, why don't we fix their
Speaker 5: credit to give them something for when they come home,
Speaker 5: because it was extremely hard for me to come home
Speaker 5: to you know, dap back into society, not having the
Speaker 5: things that I used to have.
Speaker 2: But my credit is really wouldn't help me.
Speaker 5: Because I got that first credit card for ten thousand,
Speaker 5: I was able to use that and flip it, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Maybe they could do the same thing.
Speaker 5: So this thirty dollars is cool for now, but let's
Speaker 5: give them something that's long jeopardy, you know. So we
Speaker 5: fixed their credit. With six of them, we fixed their credit.
Speaker 5: We sent them their credit report. They was so happy.
Speaker 5: One of the girls actually came home opened up a
Speaker 5: whole spar like she's.
Speaker 2: Doing really well.
Speaker 5: Other ones do lashes and the other one has a
Speaker 5: real estate company. So they thank us even to this
Speaker 5: day because we helped them while they were in prison.
Speaker 5: But I knew how hard it was for me coming home,
Speaker 5: so I wanted to do anything to help somebody because
Speaker 5: I wish I had that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: So the girls told their husbands, told their sisters, brothers, cousins,
Speaker 5: so anybody just started calling us. This is before we
Speaker 5: even had a credit pair company. We didn't even think
Speaker 5: to do creditor pair like. We were just doing it
Speaker 5: to help them and to help ourselves. And people just
Speaker 5: was calling us to fix their credit and we started
Speaker 5: like that and it just became came crazy. Before we
Speaker 5: even posted it on Instagram, we were getting calls and
Speaker 5: we just use that as our money. We was like, okay,
Speaker 5: well this is a full flash company, Like let's do it.
Speaker 3: You know, I just want to say, I want to
Speaker 3: commend y'all man shout out to how you shud shout
Speaker 3: out to Jamila. Just just watching you y'all motivate me.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes I go on Instagram or I see
Speaker 3: y'all shows. I'd be watching y'all and I understand your
Speaker 3: struggle when coming from prison, not having nothing, and to
Speaker 3: see y'all.
Speaker 1: Just come home with this energy, you know, just.
Speaker 3: Seeing y'all together, moving together, consistent, persistent, and just growing
Speaker 3: every day. I just want to say commend you because
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't believe that a lot of
Speaker 3: people because you're incarcerated, you formally incarcerated, that your life
Speaker 3: is over. You're not supposed to do nothing, You're not
Speaker 3: gonna do nothing, and you women defy that every day.
Speaker 1: So just I just want to say.
Speaker 3: Thank you for doing it, because it's motivational to more
Speaker 3: people than you actually even know.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 5: And it's like coming home from prison, you know, you
Speaker 5: look at what other people have, you know, and you're like,
Speaker 5: you're so used to having that, and it's really really
Speaker 5: hard to stay on track.
Speaker 2: You know. You gotta be really strong minded.
Speaker 5: And I think that's what helped me because I was
Speaker 5: determined to do the right thing. I didn't want to
Speaker 5: look over my shoulders anymore. Like that life became like crazy,
Speaker 5: like I'm driving and I'm looking back, like to make
Speaker 5: sure nobody's behind me and nobody's following me. Like I
Speaker 5: don't want to live like that my whole life. You know,
Speaker 5: it gets like when do you really say enough is enough?
Speaker 5: You know, like it's really especially when you keep surrounding
Speaker 5: yourself around the same individuals. Like that was the first
Speaker 5: step for me. I had to let go, Like I
Speaker 5: still speak to people like from a distance, don't hang
Speaker 5: out with them, don't call them, but if I see them, hello,
Speaker 5: But I just had to let go.
Speaker 2: It was no other way. Oh, I would have.
Speaker 5: Been right back up in that same thing because they're
Speaker 5: doing the same exact thing.
Speaker 2: You know, I want to join.
Speaker 4: I want to join my son and saying that it's
Speaker 4: very inspirational.
Speaker 2: Listen to your story.
Speaker 4: You know, all of us, as not all of us,
Speaker 4: but most of us who were black folks that or
Speaker 4: people in general who live in the world know somebody
Speaker 4: who got caught up right, But oftentimes we don't find
Speaker 4: people who were able to turn their lives around and
Speaker 4: be as progressive, as beautiful, you know, as inspirational as
Speaker 4: you are. And so I'm really happy to hear it
Speaker 4: at a story that could have gone in a total
Speaker 4: different direction, win in the right direction, and that you
Speaker 4: are now an inspiration for others. So I just also
Speaker 4: want to give you your flowers and you know, give
Speaker 4: and really just encourage you to stay on the right track.
Speaker 4: Right like we it's a it's a process for each
Speaker 4: one of us every day to talk to ourselves to say,
Speaker 4: you know, don't go out and slap the lady who.
Speaker 2: Got on our nerves. You know, don't go out and
Speaker 2: you know and do something that could ruin our lives.
Speaker 4: And so just make that encouragement for you before you go.
Speaker 4: Tell us what people need to be looking for. We
Speaker 4: just came out the holiday season, and I know, even
Speaker 4: with me, I have to force myself. You know, there
Speaker 4: was a point in my life where I didn't really
Speaker 4: have anything.
Speaker 2: So I knew if two dollars was missing off the bat,
Speaker 2: because you know, it was nothing in there you had
Speaker 2: for dollars. All of a sudden, I'm trying to spend
Speaker 2: thirteen and it says that it's declined. I'm like, Yo,
Speaker 2: what happened? I know this is what we have. But
Speaker 2: now that you know I.
Speaker 4: Have more resources, I have to always check every line
Speaker 4: of my statement to see where my money is going
Speaker 4: and coming. And another thing that I found, I'm gonna
Speaker 4: send things back person, so I order it because I
Speaker 4: really like to shop in the store, but clearly they've
Speaker 4: taken all the good stuff out the stores and everything online.
Speaker 4: So when you send things back, you have to monitor
Speaker 4: whether or not that money came back into your account from.
Speaker 2: The rest because it doesn't just show up. You have
Speaker 2: to actually know your money in order to be true out.
Speaker 2: So these are things that.
Speaker 4: As I'm getting older, I'm trying to actually pay attention to.
Speaker 4: So tell us what are things we need to be
Speaker 4: you know, looking for.
Speaker 2: So you definitely have to have.
Speaker 5: There's something you can put on each credit card basically,
Speaker 5: you know, when you call up your credit card company,
Speaker 5: you can tell them that you want to.
Speaker 2: Put alerts on and what those alerts.
Speaker 5: What it does is like it basically it knows how
Speaker 5: you use that card, and if it's something out of
Speaker 5: the ordinary, it will alert you or send you a
Speaker 5: text and say, hey, is this you using your card?
Speaker 5: Yes or no? Like that's extremely important to have. Two
Speaker 5: when you receive those emails, that says that your email address,
Speaker 5: your password has been compromised. To change it immediately, because
Speaker 5: a lot of times what the hack is what they
Speaker 5: do is.
Speaker 2: They'll take your information and they won't use it right
Speaker 2: then and there. They'll hold on to it. You know,
Speaker 2: they'll wait a couple of months.
Speaker 5: Down the line where you're not thinking about it, and
Speaker 5: then they'll that's when they'll go in and use it.
Speaker 5: You know, check your credit report. You can get one
Speaker 5: free credit report a year.
Speaker 2: Check it. It's important. Credit comment is free. You know,
Speaker 2: look at these would you also pay? Like, would you
Speaker 2: suggest because you know, we love free, but sometimes free
Speaker 2: is not going to be like the end door be
Speaker 2: all and we should actually be paying at nineteen ninety
Speaker 2: nine or whatever a month to get the credit report,
Speaker 2: like fourteen ninety nine for your Netflix and all those
Speaker 2: other things.
Speaker 5: Right, I was, yep, I was definitely gonna say that.
Speaker 5: Identity IQ is a really good one. You know, it's
Speaker 5: twenty seven or twenty five ninety nine, But it's important
Speaker 5: because not only do they send you alerts, they monitor
Speaker 5: everything and they'll send you twenty five emails a day
Speaker 5: telling you about your credit like you know, this is
Speaker 5: out of the ordinary. Your email was compromised, Like it
Speaker 5: gives you all of the alerts and that you have
Speaker 5: to pay attention to because it's so easy right now
Speaker 5: for people to access your information. You think your passport,
Speaker 5: and especially if you're someone who used one password for everything,
Speaker 5: switch it up.
Speaker 2: Don't do that.
Speaker 5: Don't use the same password for every card or for
Speaker 5: your cell phone, like, because once they have that one
Speaker 5: a hacker, they're gonna check and see if you know
Speaker 5: the rest of your information is with that same password.
Speaker 5: And I know I'm guilty of that. You know, I'm
Speaker 5: guilty of using one password. But now that I know
Speaker 5: how they do it, I switch it up. You know,
Speaker 5: even if you add a money sign or corenescy, anything,
Speaker 5: just anything, just switch it up.
Speaker 2: That's important.
Speaker 3: So you have a credit company and you do credit repair.
Speaker 3: What is your company's name? How can we find you?
Speaker 3: We need everybody to reach out to you so we
Speaker 3: can get you some customers so we can be credit literate.
Speaker 1: You have our credit fixed?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 5: So my name on Instagram is Wanna god Class at
Speaker 5: Wanna Got Class. The name of my company is called
Speaker 5: the Real Credit Pro. That's on Instagram. You can also
Speaker 5: go to the real credit Pro dot com. You can
Speaker 5: also find me on Shwana King dot com.
Speaker 2: You know, you can hit me up anything that you
Speaker 2: need credit related. I got you. We are extremely affordable
Speaker 2: five people, you know, and four ninety nine.
Speaker 5: Basically, we'll remove all of the derogatory accounts off your credit.
Speaker 5: Anything that's negati for your credit, we'll get it off.
Speaker 1: Okay, listen, you know it's all about.
Speaker 2: The second chance. Your credit.
Speaker 5: You can fix it, you know, and you have a
Speaker 5: second chance, like I just I'm a strong believer in
Speaker 5: second chances.
Speaker 2: Definitely, we need you know.
Speaker 3: That was one of the things when I came home.
Speaker 3: I didn't even understand credit. I didn't know none of that,
Speaker 3: and I got somebody that got me in tune with
Speaker 3: it and realized how you can't even live without credit
Speaker 3: right now. You know, it's pretty much you can't do nothing.
Speaker 3: So this is definitely a service that's needed, especially for
Speaker 3: returning citizens. You know, they're coming back trying to be
Speaker 3: productive and evolve. Man, So thank you for your work.
Speaker 3: Thank you for your evolution. Continue to be great, looking great.
Speaker 2: Thank you go out you.
Speaker 1: Should all of y'all. Man, just keep being dope.
Speaker 2: Man so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we'll have you back again. Thank you so much. Guys,
Speaker 2: thank you to me, the thank you my son happy
Speaker 2: thank you YouTube.
Speaker 4: I mean, really really important information and to hear it
Speaker 4: wrapped in a real story like she's trying, you know,
Speaker 4: because sometimes we as black folks, we'd be like, oh,
Speaker 4: nobody got time for that. I don't have no money.
Speaker 4: But she's trying to tell you that you can actually
Speaker 4: the credit you don't think you can get. She could
Speaker 4: have been able to increase the limit, get more money
Speaker 4: on your card, use it in a way that you
Speaker 4: don't even know how.
Speaker 2: Because these people are actual professionals.
Speaker 4: There's somebody sitting in another country working on increasing your
Speaker 4: limit right now, making sure like somebody try to call
Speaker 4: me the other day, they were actually trying to get
Speaker 4: into my Verizon account and having Verizon send me the
Speaker 4: alert that if I would have clicked it, it would
Speaker 4: have allowed them to get in. They probably would have
Speaker 4: ordered cell phones, worked out.
Speaker 2: A deal, all kinds of things that they know how
Speaker 2: to do, and so we have to actually pay attention
Speaker 2: I right now. The thing that that I just don't
Speaker 2: understand is why if somebody sends you a DM on
Speaker 2: cash app and tells you to send me five hundred
Speaker 2: dollars one thousand dollars and you know the person has
Speaker 2: your telephone number. Why do people do that?
Speaker 1: Because sometimes you just be comfortable.
Speaker 3: Somebody got me for like fifty dollars one time because
Speaker 3: it was somebody that I don't normally talk to that
Speaker 3: I might just see you on Instagram a lot. That's
Speaker 3: cool with me, and was like, hey, I need a favor?
Speaker 3: Can you leave me fifty dollars?
Speaker 1: Now? Fifty dollars? You're not even thinking about it.
Speaker 3: You're like, okay, if they seeing you a DM fifty,
Speaker 3: But if you ask me for five hundred dollars and
Speaker 3: you got my phone number and you DM and me,
Speaker 3: then that's a real issue for me. So I think
Speaker 3: for me, fifty dollars was like all right, cool, and
Speaker 3: I wasn't even thinking about it.
Speaker 1: And then by the time I figured out I thought
Speaker 1: about it, I'm like, yo, did you just send me this?
Speaker 3: And it's like no, My thing was halfed, So you
Speaker 3: know it's it's it's a quick scheme.
Speaker 2: They got not even fifty dollars? Am I sending you?
Speaker 2: Not even fifty? Not even five dollars? Will I send
Speaker 2: to somebody that sends me a DM? You have to
Speaker 2: ask me for my phone number and then we will
Speaker 2: speak on the telephone and you could tell me what
Speaker 2: your problems. I'm just I'm just not going.
Speaker 3: To go I mean, listen, I learned the hallway. I
Speaker 3: agree with you. For now, we'll not even find out
Speaker 3: you got.
Speaker 4: Everything that Shawuana was talking about is so important because
Speaker 4: it was really technical in terms of what to look for,
Speaker 4: in terms of how people get in track right and
Speaker 4: how they get caught up in the system. You know,
Speaker 4: she's done prison time for this, so she's really truly
Speaker 4: an expert that people need to be listening to. But
Speaker 4: the fact that she took that experience and turned it
Speaker 4: into something that's positive for our communities is really important
Speaker 4: because she's got a lot of give back that she
Speaker 4: needs to do to repair and just to heal herself
Speaker 4: from the trauma that has been cause to others in
Speaker 4: the prison time.
Speaker 2: But now we're.
Speaker 4: Talking to someone who is sort of on the other
Speaker 4: side of the conversation.
Speaker 2: A financial expert. She is an author of two books,
Speaker 2: Financial Counication and The Four Financial Languages. They call her
Speaker 2: a mad of Money. Thank you so much for being
Speaker 2: with us, Tara Jackson.
Speaker 3: Lot of money that's now that's the name queen. I
Speaker 3: appreciate that name. Man, thank you for being here with
Speaker 3: us today.
Speaker 2: My pleasure, my pleasure.
Speaker 3: So give us give us some insight on what exactly
Speaker 3: you do. How did you start on this road to
Speaker 3: being mat of money? You know, how long you been
Speaker 3: doing this? For twenty plus years? Like, how did this start?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been in the financial services game for over
Speaker 2: twenty years, which completely lies about my age. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: only sixteen for the right eleventh time whatever or twenty
Speaker 2: eleventh time. I started off in the credit card industry.
Speaker 2: I was a telemarketer, uh and I sold credit cards
Speaker 2: very well with eighteen percent and forty dollars annual annual fees,
Speaker 2: and I was the queen of selling credit cards over
Speaker 2: the phone. But I decided to stay in the game
Speaker 2: because being a telemarketer helped me to get the extra
Speaker 2: money while I was in college. And then I started
Speaker 2: learning the business, started learning credit and then I started,
Speaker 2: you know, got job as a loan officer, and I
Speaker 2: just matriculated in the financial services industry. I really it
Speaker 2: wasn't my you know, lifelong dream to be in the
Speaker 2: financial services industry. I just ended there because I wanted
Speaker 2: the money, and it was a legal way for me
Speaker 2: to do it and to learn the game, because what
Speaker 2: I realized with the financial services industry is that banks
Speaker 2: are playing chess, the consumers are playing checkers. That's why
Speaker 2: a lot of consumers getting played because they just don't
Speaker 2: understand the game of it. So I wanted to learn
Speaker 2: the game, and I've circulated up to I was a
Speaker 2: VP of lending of a credit union in Delaware, ended
Speaker 2: up being the vice president of a credit union and
Speaker 2: then the interim president and CEO of a credit union
Speaker 2: in Atlanta, Georgia. And while I was there, I just
Speaker 2: realized that I wanted to start giving back to the
Speaker 2: community and I and teach them the game. So I
Speaker 2: wrote the book Financial Forunication. And the reason why I
Speaker 2: called it financial Funication is because people were okay about
Speaker 2: talking about sex, who they slept with, who they wanted
Speaker 2: to sleep with, and all of that stuff, but nobody
Speaker 2: wanted to talk about their crappy credit and the fact
Speaker 2: that they didn't have me savings or they weren't investing.
Speaker 2: So I figured, if sex can sell a cheeseberg with Harty's,
Speaker 2: sex can sell financial literacy with Madam Money. And so
Speaker 2: that's how that became in financial forunication derived and so
Speaker 2: I quit my job as a financial professional and I
Speaker 2: turned into a financial advocate and promoting in financial education.
Speaker 2: And so that's where Matt Money gave That's why I
Speaker 2: gave birth to amount of money.
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: So you come from the mind frame that fraud and
Speaker 2: credit issues it doesn't just impact the one person. I
Speaker 2: think I read somewhere that you said it feels victimless
Speaker 2: when people are out, like, you know, swiping cards and
Speaker 2: harming others. But you're saying that you feel like it
Speaker 2: or you know that it impacts the entire community, that
Speaker 2: it hurts all of us when our credit is not
Speaker 2: up to speed. Can you talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: I know that people.
Speaker 4: Are concerned about wealth. They're starting to understand and they're
Speaker 4: starting to be an awareness around wealth and the wealth gap.
Speaker 4: You see people talking about it, but I'm not sure
Speaker 4: that folks have connected how credit is directly impacting our
Speaker 4: wealth issues or the wealth gap. And then also for me,
Speaker 4: it's like, if my credit is messed up, what does
Speaker 4: that have to do with you know, another neighbor of mine?
Speaker 2: Okay, well, you know it's back to I teach a
Speaker 2: class called Young Money to college and high school students,
Speaker 2: and the first class is cream Credit rules everything around me,
Speaker 2: and it teaches them about credit, what credit is, and
Speaker 2: how it affects you. So it not only affects you
Speaker 2: getting stuff and you know, buying things, but it can
Speaker 2: affect how you know, if you can get a job.
Speaker 2: It affects how much you're going to pay for everything.
Speaker 2: It affects utilities, you know, if you're going to get
Speaker 2: a cell phone, or how much you're going to pay
Speaker 2: for it. So the lower your credit score, the more
Speaker 2: you're going to pay. So it affects you and your
Speaker 2: macro economics as far as you and your family space,
Speaker 2: but the micro in the areas. You know, it's going
Speaker 2: to affect what kind of house you can live in,
Speaker 2: where you can live and all of that. So it
Speaker 2: affects your community space and where you are. And So
Speaker 2: although I don't think credit is everything, and credit is
Speaker 2: a very significant part of us when it comes to
Speaker 2: wealth building, because credit is supposed to be a tool, right,
Speaker 2: It's supposed to be leveraged. It's not supposed to be
Speaker 2: something that pools you back or hinders you or keeping
Speaker 2: you you're supposed to be able to use credit, to
Speaker 2: be able to leverage to purchase homes, or to get
Speaker 2: investment properties, or to do whatever. If you do it
Speaker 2: the right way. If you do it the wrong way
Speaker 2: and you do it in a matter of fraud, eventually
Speaker 2: everything's going to be tracked to you. Because one thing
Speaker 2: that is tracked is credit, how you use it, where
Speaker 2: you use it, and all that. As we saw in
Speaker 2: the episode the Young Lady was in, is that it
Speaker 2: tracks everything. It also doesn't affect just you, but it
Speaker 2: affects everyone dealing in the financial institution. That it affects
Speaker 2: because the more fraud the financial institution has to deal with,
Speaker 2: that means we're probably going to have to increase the
Speaker 2: fees to compensate for all the fraud or the losses
Speaker 2: that we have. So then that's going to affect you.
Speaker 2: It's how much you're paying for financial services if you
Speaker 2: can get the financial services.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a lot.
Speaker 3: Just listening to you, you can tell that you've really done
Speaker 3: a lot of homework. What do you think is one
Speaker 3: of the biggest misconceptions that we, you know, have about
Speaker 3: credit or money that black people reason why we spend it?
Speaker 3: So fast, so we don't A lot of us don't
Speaker 3: really accumulated the way we should. What do you think
Speaker 3: is one of the biggest problems that contribute to that.
Speaker 2: Well, I've wrote a book called the Four Financial Languages, Right,
Speaker 2: So if you're familiar with love languages, I talk about
Speaker 2: the financial languages. And a lot of people don't really
Speaker 2: understand their dominant financial language. And because they don't understand
Speaker 2: the dominant financial language, it either controls them subconsciously or
Speaker 2: they don't learn what they need to know or understand
Speaker 2: to be able to build that wealth. Right. So, my
Speaker 2: dominant financial language is spending. I'm a spender. My pleasure
Speaker 2: principle is in the transaction. There is something organic, orgasmic
Speaker 2: about swiping or doing a transaction.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But because I understand that, I know how I need
Speaker 2: to be communicated, about how I communicate and what I
Speaker 2: need to be able to advance myself financially. So for
Speaker 2: a spender, if you tell a spender to budget, when
Speaker 2: we hear budget, we hear diet die deprivation. I can't
Speaker 2: and we ain't got time for that negativity in our life, right,
Speaker 2: And so what we do is we rebel, and so
Speaker 2: we know we need to save, we know we need
Speaker 2: to invest, but because it feels like people are trying
Speaker 2: to force us into doing that, we're going to rebel
Speaker 2: and we're going to spend. So if don't tell me
Speaker 2: not to spend my money, because I'll spend my money,
Speaker 2: your money, and everybody else's money. What you need to
Speaker 2: teach me how to do is how to spend it
Speaker 2: on savings, how to spend it on investing, how to
Speaker 2: spend it on giving and then savers. You know, if
Speaker 2: you want to save as a spender, we save to
Speaker 2: spend later. Okay, So when we can learn how to
Speaker 2: communicate about money, understand what my languages. So I'm not
Speaker 2: going to go hang out at them all because especially
Speaker 2: like a best buyer or something like that, because I'm
Speaker 2: a gadget queen. I'm not hanging out there because I
Speaker 2: know I'm going to buy things I don't need. So
Speaker 2: when you understand who you are, you can understand your limitations.
Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the biggest things is
Speaker 2: that we don't really understand and respect our financial language
Speaker 2: so that we can communicate better about money. Because when
Speaker 2: we have our communication, communication is not just talking, it's
Speaker 2: about thinking. It's about reacting and how we do that.
Speaker 2: When we respect it and understand it, then we can
Speaker 2: start making better decisions about money and wealth building and
Speaker 2: how to do that for ourselves.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a lot, do you So?
Speaker 2: Where do people? Where does one start? Right?
Speaker 4: Like, you know, Okay, I'm twenty five years old, I'm
Speaker 4: out of college, and now you know, I've got my
Speaker 4: first job.
Speaker 2: Of course, I've got my.
Speaker 4: Student loans that need to be canceled, but you know,
Speaker 4: we'll put that in a different show, right, that's a
Speaker 4: whole other show. Yeah, different show. But you know, I've
Speaker 4: got my student loans. But other than that, you know,
Speaker 4: I don't really have any real responsibilities yet. What do
Speaker 4: I do first? And how do we make it as
Speaker 4: painless as possible for people to one understand and also
Speaker 4: for them to get started? Because to your point, if
Speaker 4: I've been waiting all my life for this job that
Speaker 4: I now have, I'm I'm paralegal or you know whatever,
Speaker 4: I'm you know, a nurse's assistant, and now I have
Speaker 4: this nice check coming in, still living with my parents
Speaker 4: or you know, making it happen, and then you tell
Speaker 4: me all my money needs to be going towards investments
Speaker 4: and saving, Well, what happens to the fun things that
Speaker 4: I want to do or the things that I was.
Speaker 2: Never able to afford exactly. And so I never tell
Speaker 2: anybody you need to take all your check and spend
Speaker 2: and invest it all and everything like that, because then
Speaker 2: you're going to feel deprived. And deprivation is the beginning
Speaker 2: of destruction. Right when we feel deprived of eating because
Speaker 2: of diets, that is our that's the beginning of our
Speaker 2: demise and destruction is now we're going to overeat because
Speaker 2: I'm feeling deprived. I can't have my big MACI tell
Speaker 2: me I can't have my big Mac anymore, and then
Speaker 2: I ended up eating everything else that's not healthy. And
Speaker 2: so what I tell people to do all the time
Speaker 2: is you have to plan your spending. Name your dollars. Okay,
Speaker 2: so if you want to get out of your mama's
Speaker 2: and your daddy's house, well you know you're going to
Speaker 2: need a down payment or you're going to need something,
Speaker 2: So you're going to put money aside so you can
Speaker 2: spend it on that later to help you get there. Now,
Speaker 2: you know, start saving something sooner, definitely before you start
Speaker 2: getting heavy debt. So we start getting heavy debt in
Speaker 2: our thirties, right because we're getting the homes and the
Speaker 2: nice cars and everything like that. In our twenties, we
Speaker 2: have minimal debt. We have student loans, but you know,
Speaker 2: they might as well cancel them. Like you said, I'm
Speaker 2: very bitter about my student loans. But you know, start
Speaker 2: putting aside money as much as you can because you're
Speaker 2: going to need that cas later, whether you need it
Speaker 2: for a down payment, whether you want to buy a
Speaker 2: car or whatever. So most of the people were talking
Speaker 2: to they are spenders, and a lot of people become
Speaker 2: narcissistic spenders because they have never experienced this amount of money.
Speaker 2: So I've been broke or my parents told me I
Speaker 2: can't do it, and then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 2: get this nice job and so now I'm making the money.
Speaker 2: So you can't tell me not to spend my money.
Speaker 2: I work hard for this. This is mine. So if
Speaker 2: they don't have a plan or name their dollars, what's
Speaker 2: going to happen is their dollars are going to dictate
Speaker 2: what they can and can't do. So if they give
Speaker 2: all their money out to the world, then the world's
Speaker 2: not going to leave them anything back. Now, how do
Speaker 2: you get started? Well, you get started, you can google.
Speaker 2: Google's a girl. She knows everything. If you want to
Speaker 2: learn about how do I invest, how do I do this,
Speaker 2: or whatever, it's going to lead you to different apps.
Speaker 2: It's going to lead you to money professionals like myself
Speaker 2: or financial advisors or whatever. There's a whole black and
Speaker 2: brown community of us that talk about financial literacy, you know,
Speaker 2: depending on what you want to talk about. My girl
Speaker 2: budget lista, my fab five finance. We have a whole
Speaker 2: few of us out there, but a lot of people saying, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know where to go. Hell, you google everything else.
Speaker 2: You can google how to invest, how to build wealth,
Speaker 2: you can do that. So that excuse I don't. I
Speaker 2: don't play with that excuse anymore. So I don't give
Speaker 2: sympathy to stupidity. Because if we want to learn something,
Speaker 2: we will find a way to figure it out. We
Speaker 2: will google it, we will ask the right person. Had
Speaker 2: the young lady, she was brilliant, she had a brilliant mind.
Speaker 2: She just used it in the wrong way. But she
Speaker 2: figured things out. And we want to figure something out,
Speaker 2: we'll figure it out.
Speaker 3: That's a that's an amen moment, Right, we're gonna figure
Speaker 3: it out or we're not gonna figure it out. So
Speaker 3: based on being a financial you know, expert, and you
Speaker 3: talked about how many how many more experts, especially we
Speaker 3: have a lot of black financial experts out there. Do
Speaker 3: you think that as a whole we're getting better with our.
Speaker 1: Finances, that we're doing more.
Speaker 3: Are you seeing, you know, more people moving in the
Speaker 3: right diation with this information? Are you seeing the growth
Speaker 3: of we're moving towards being more than just two percent
Speaker 3: of the wealth in America? Do you think that we're
Speaker 3: going to get past that eventually?
Speaker 2: I do believe that we're going to get past that.
Speaker 2: That's something that we're going to have to start training
Speaker 2: ourselves to do and start teaching our children how to
Speaker 2: do so that we can become better at it. Right,
Speaker 2: so we can't teach what we don't know. The great
Speaker 2: thing is it's now sexy. You know, we're making black
Speaker 2: wealth sexy. Black wealth matters is sexy, so people want
Speaker 2: to learn more about that and building legacy wealth and
Speaker 2: building wealth. So more people are going to that mantra,
Speaker 2: which is a good thing. The scary thing is is
Speaker 2: that it gives people an opportunity to do the wrong thing.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of people building wealth with misinformation,
Speaker 2: you know, even dealing with the irs, you know, with
Speaker 2: with the you know, even some cryptocurrencies. Not all cryptocurrencies
Speaker 2: are bad, but there are some organizations that teach the
Speaker 2: wrong information. And so a lot of us want this
Speaker 2: get rich thing that if you put in five dollars
Speaker 2: you can give them give a million dollars. I can't
Speaker 2: remember what susu type things. So people have to be
Speaker 2: very careful with those type of things because they're working
Speaker 2: off of your ignorance. So how to you got me?
Speaker 2: So you have to be able to discern or to
Speaker 2: do some research, you know what I'm saying. Shop around,
Speaker 2: That's what I tell people all the time. If you
Speaker 2: like shopping, you shop around to find the best deal. Well,
Speaker 2: sometimes you have to shop around to make sure the
Speaker 2: information is correct, make sure there's some legitimacy, because there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people that are on social media that
Speaker 2: sound like they know what the hell are talking about,
Speaker 2: and they don't. But there's people plying into it. So
Speaker 2: the only person that's making money is the person that's
Speaker 2: giving out the misinformation. So you have to be very,
Speaker 2: very careful with those things. But wealth building is becoming sexy,
Speaker 2: and so we are seeing more people that are willing
Speaker 2: to talk about it, that want to learn more about it.
Speaker 2: But right now it's about how do we transfer that
Speaker 2: knowledge into the people that are coming behind us are children,
Speaker 2: because that is where we're going to see the wealth.
Speaker 2: You know that's building, It's that legacy. It's a garden
Speaker 2: that you never get to see, you know, shout out
Speaker 2: to what Hamilton there. So I think that wealth building
Speaker 2: is the time now to get on board and to
Speaker 2: learn so that you can feel the remnants of it
Speaker 2: and you can pass it down to your children and
Speaker 2: children's children.
Speaker 1: I think that should be a course right now. Like
Speaker 1: for kids.
Speaker 3: I think we should have like wealth classes, like you know,
Speaker 3: credit and all these things I think we don't need
Speaker 3: to pass.
Speaker 1: I think it actually should be in curriculum.
Speaker 2: I've been fighting for that for many years. What I
Speaker 2: do love about and I keep shouting out, but Janisa
Speaker 2: tiff me at least you know, she's my sister. She's
Speaker 2: a really good friend of mine. But she fought to
Speaker 2: get financial literacy in New Jersey schools and it's it's
Speaker 2: statewide you know, I'm fighting for it in Delaware because
Speaker 2: that's where I'm fun from. And so it should be
Speaker 2: a requirement because I'm required to learn a second language
Speaker 2: which I don't really have to speak, but I'm not
Speaker 2: required to learn how to balance an account or check
Speaker 2: book or learn credit. And I've found that when I
Speaker 2: do my Young Money series at high schools and universities.
Speaker 2: I went to Cornell University and did Young Money series,
Speaker 2: and it was surprising that they did not understand what
Speaker 2: credit was. These are college students. They didn't understand what
Speaker 2: credit was. They didn't understand their student loans. I have
Speaker 2: a session I call Saveety Sally May where I teach
Speaker 2: them about student loans. They didn't understand how to negotiate
Speaker 2: their first salary. I do that as hire me as
Speaker 2: a class, so I teach them the art of salary negotiations.
Speaker 2: But that's something that has to be taught, and right
Speaker 2: now it's an extracurricular activity or in colleges, it's in
Speaker 2: business classes. But what about those students that are not
Speaker 2: business majors. It needs to be something that is a
Speaker 2: fundamental requirement from if a person. You know, as soon
Speaker 2: as I give a child a dollar and they know
Speaker 2: what to do with it. That's when you need to
Speaker 2: teach them financial literacy.
Speaker 4: That definitely needs to happen in it and I feel
Speaker 4: like it should be a area I guess a portfolio
Speaker 4: of the civil rights movement of something else that we
Speaker 4: all fight for to make sure that when we're talking
Speaker 4: about education, that we're actually fighting not just for financial literacy,
Speaker 4: but also there are other things that our young people
Speaker 4: need to be learning about life that is not included
Speaker 4: in the current curriculum.
Speaker 2: And my son not often to debate that.
Speaker 4: It is probably why so many of our young people
Speaker 4: feel totally disconnected from the education that they're receiving, because
Speaker 4: they don't feel like they're being taught. And by the way, unfortunately,
Speaker 4: there are young people who are living like real lives
Speaker 4: every day, like you know, they know what skills they need.
Speaker 4: They already know that when they go to school and
Speaker 4: they're learning I don't know, you know, geometry is something,
Speaker 4: it's cool, But when I get home, I've got to
Speaker 4: help my parents cook. I need to pick my brother's
Speaker 4: sister up. I know I need a skill that I
Speaker 4: can use so I can work somewhere on the weekend.
Speaker 4: I don't know how to fill out an application like
Speaker 4: these are real things that's happening in my life, and
Speaker 4: you're telling me to draw one line from this side
Speaker 4: to that side of the paper and not saying that
Speaker 4: that's not important, but what is How is that going
Speaker 4: to help me with what's going on back in my
Speaker 4: neighborhood that I'm dealing with every day. So I think
Speaker 4: you're one hundred percent right that it should be required.
Speaker 4: And as you said, shout out to Budgetista and the
Speaker 4: work that's being done in Jersey, but in New York,
Speaker 4: Delaware and all across the country, especially when you have
Speaker 4: mayors and governors who are actually listening, we should start
Speaker 4: a trend the.
Speaker 2: Fighting for that in those communities. Yeah, I mean they
Speaker 2: stopped teaching really, they started really stop really teaching with
Speaker 2: the No Child Left Behind Act when that first came out.
Speaker 2: Then they started teaching to test because they started holding
Speaker 2: teachers accountable for passing tests, for students passing tests. And
Speaker 2: that's where teaching nobody became fun. It became a requirement
Speaker 2: to make sure students pass a test because you know
Speaker 2: they there was home at you know, you at least
Speaker 2: learned how to cook and do certain things, and a
Speaker 2: lot of the schools are saying, yeah, well, now your
Speaker 2: parents have to teach you. Well, the parents working two
Speaker 2: jobs and you know, a latchkey kid, no one's there
Speaker 2: to teach them. If the parents don't know how to
Speaker 2: do it, they're not going to teach the kid. Although
Speaker 2: they thought nobody taught them. Nobody's talk parents, Which brings
Speaker 2: me to my last two questions before you go there.
Speaker 2: Quick questions though.
Speaker 4: One, do wealthy white folks or just white people who
Speaker 4: are doing better than some of us, do they have
Speaker 4: people that like walk them through every step of this stuff,
Speaker 4: Like how do they know so much better than us
Speaker 4: how to deal with credit and to you know, be
Speaker 4: more are financially literate? That's one question, And then the
Speaker 4: second question is NFTs. I have two separate threads of
Speaker 4: text messages and just in my life in general. One side,
Speaker 4: everybody's excited, everybody's for it. The other side they're bashing
Speaker 4: it like crazy, sending articles every day saying it's terrible,
Speaker 4: it's no good. This went on during the Christmas holiday,
Speaker 4: and I thought everyone was on board that NFTs was good,
Speaker 4: and then I started getting these messages from this other
Speaker 4: thread where they're saying that it is a it's a scam.
Speaker 4: So I just wanted to get your perspective on those
Speaker 4: two things. How are wealthy wealthy are and particularly white folks,
Speaker 4: how do they learn what to do from a financial
Speaker 4: financial literacy perspective?
Speaker 2: And then the NFT new phenomenon. Okay, so the first
Speaker 2: question I'm gonna ask you this question rhetorically, who built
Speaker 2: the system? That's right, who built the financial system, who
Speaker 2: built the credit system? And of course if that person,
Speaker 2: if it you know, if they are Caucasian or whatever,
Speaker 2: if they have been a part of the process generations, generations,
Speaker 2: generations ago of doing that. They've seen wealth in the past,
Speaker 2: They've seen how their parents, so they have a model
Speaker 2: that they're doing right. Think about how we came to
Speaker 2: this country, Think about how we're doing wealth and infraction
Speaker 2: of us have built wealth, major, major wealth. But what
Speaker 2: they did was they paid attention, probably to the white
Speaker 2: people that were building wealth, and they model the behavior.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So if we don't have something to model the behavior
Speaker 2: of we can't teach it or we can't model the behavior. Well,
Speaker 2: we are modeling the behavior, but we're probably modeling the
Speaker 2: behavior of poverty. Right. Unbeknownst to ourselves. We think that
Speaker 2: we're teaching about being rich and all that stuff. But
Speaker 2: are we modeling a wealth behavior, a wealth mindset? You know,
Speaker 2: law of attraction? Do we really understand it? Do we
Speaker 2: believe it? You know? Do are we teaching it? So
Speaker 2: there is a model of that. Most of the people
Speaker 2: that are wealthy, they believe in the law of attraction,
Speaker 2: They believe in the understanding of that. What you think,
Speaker 2: your thoughts become things. They go to people, or they
Speaker 2: look at people who are making the money, seeing what
Speaker 2: they're doing, and they model the behavior, or they ask
Speaker 2: for mentorship, or they do certain things. A lot of
Speaker 2: us we just think that because we were slaves, because
Speaker 2: we did this, y'all supposed to help us out. And
Speaker 2: it just doesn't work that way. If we want to
Speaker 2: take over and become a model of wealth to our families,
Speaker 2: we have to take control and said I'm going to
Speaker 2: learn this, I'm going to do this, and not wait
Speaker 2: for someone to give me penance or someone to say, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're going to give you a million dollars because I
Speaker 2: promise you if someone says, you know what, reparations we're
Speaker 2: going to get every black person one hundred thousand dollars,
Speaker 2: I bet you ninety percent of that one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: dollars are going to be spent in white communities or
Speaker 2: in white stores. Right, It's not even gonna stay in
Speaker 2: our community. We're having a hard time trying to convince
Speaker 2: people to buy black. So I think that it's something
Speaker 2: that was modeled because they built the system, and those
Speaker 2: that want to grow up with a wealth mindset and
Speaker 2: give legacy, they are modeling. They're learning, their researching that
Speaker 2: behavior and replicating those services. Now, as far as NFTs,
Speaker 2: I'm not an EDFT expert, nor do I play one
Speaker 2: on TV. I've seen the same thing as you where
Speaker 2: they say the NFTs are the next best thing, and
Speaker 2: then I've seen on there it's a fraud, just like
Speaker 2: crypto currency. So it's reminding me of the cryptocurrency when
Speaker 2: it started coming out, when they say if you get
Speaker 2: in now, you're going to make millions of dollars and
Speaker 2: the other side is it's a hoax, you know, or whatever.
Speaker 2: But as much as people want to say about cryptocurrency,
Speaker 2: cryptocurrency is still here. You know what I'm saying. It
Speaker 2: started out at ten thousand dollars. Now it's at fifty thousand,
Speaker 2: all right. Where it's going to go I don't know.
Speaker 2: But there's countries that are investing in cryptocurrency, there are
Speaker 2: financial institutions that are considering cryptocurrency NFT. I don't know enough.
Speaker 2: I'm still researching it to figure out what it is,
Speaker 2: how it's going to benefit. My whole thing is how
Speaker 2: can I leverage that into spending money? Because they said
Speaker 2: I made a million dollars or NFT, but is it
Speaker 2: really hard cash money? So that's where I say, before
Speaker 2: you jump into a whole bunch of things, you got
Speaker 2: to do your research and make sure you're not buying
Speaker 2: into misinformation. And if NFT is your thing and you've
Speaker 2: done your research, go with God, make the millions of dollars,
Speaker 2: but don't just jump on it because it's the next
Speaker 2: best thing, because that can, you know, make it go
Speaker 2: broke too.
Speaker 3: That's definitely the truth. I want to say, thank you.
Speaker 3: You've giving us so much information today. You know a
Speaker 3: lot of what you said about just schooling, especially what
Speaker 3: you said about who created the system. You know a
Speaker 3: lot of us we didn't have access to that system.
Speaker 3: A lot of you know us don't even know. But
Speaker 3: when we do learn, we're able to capitalize fast. So
Speaker 3: you know, that's what that I model. I try to
Speaker 3: do that. I try to get information and bring it back,
Speaker 3: you know, piece by piece.
Speaker 1: The whole NFT thing is still new. We still researching,
Speaker 1: but it's so many different things.
Speaker 3: I'm just glad to see that black people are taking
Speaker 3: the initiative to figure out. Listen, we've been we haven't
Speaker 3: had any part of this world for so many like
Speaker 3: what do we need to do? You know, I'm glad
Speaker 3: that that is a constant question. Everywhere I look, there
Speaker 3: are different people who are educating themselves about wealth, about
Speaker 3: generational wealth, about you know, education about how do we
Speaker 3: continue to grow and evolve and get a piece of
Speaker 3: this pot. So thank you for what you do. Thank
Speaker 3: you for the information that you today. Continue to be
Speaker 3: great queen. You know, tell everybody where they can follow you,
Speaker 3: how they can get some of this wealth ofme knowledge
Speaker 3: that you have. And you know, we need you to
Speaker 3: continue to just keep educating because I'm a follower. I
Speaker 3: need to get some of this amount of money that
Speaker 3: you've got, you know.
Speaker 1: I needs.
Speaker 2: Awesome. You can definitely go to my website. Mautamoney dot com,
Speaker 2: or you can follow me on social media, missmount of Money,
Speaker 2: M S M A d A M M O and
Speaker 2: e y connect with me, follow me. I'd love to
Speaker 2: give you some virtual love out there, so thanks for
Speaker 2: having me too.
Speaker 4: I'm following you right now, Miss Madam Money. That's MS
Speaker 4: Madam Money and I'm.
Speaker 2: As m A D A M M O N e y.
Speaker 2: Some people like to put an E in there, but
Speaker 2: this M A D A M M O N e
Speaker 2: Y not money. I'm going to follow you right now.
Speaker 2: Thank you again for being with us today. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Wow man shout out to Tara Jackson Dope dope individual information.
Speaker 1: You know we need people like that, man.
Speaker 3: It's good that we have so many people now, especially
Speaker 3: in our black and brown people who are getting so financial. Literally,
Speaker 3: like before when I was you, it wasn't really a thing.
Speaker 3: Were talking aboutw We're gonna get money, we want to
Speaker 3: buy old things. Now you have people like Tarror who's
Speaker 3: telling you how to keep money, how to make money,
Speaker 3: how to invest money, how to you know how to
Speaker 3: build credit, how what credit is?
Speaker 1: You know how to utilize things?
Speaker 3: So you know our kids are going to be better
Speaker 3: than us, man, so shout out to Tarror for that information.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these kids are working like crypto and they're literally
Speaker 4: they know how to do online trading. Like I'm online
Speaker 4: and sometimes I sit up late at night and I
Speaker 4: go into like the dark web, which is not really dark,
Speaker 4: but like this, this whole if you will, of just
Speaker 4: young people who are out here learning how to invest.
Speaker 2: They're making money off of crypto technology and whatnot because
Speaker 2: they're already so much further ahead. And I guess we
Speaker 2: were further ahead than our parents on different things as well,
Speaker 2: you know. So that's a good thing.
Speaker 4: But the more that we instill it, and the more
Speaker 4: that we talk about it, the more that we make
Speaker 4: it a part of our everyday lives in our households
Speaker 4: and our families, then our young people are going to
Speaker 4: become more, as you said, financially literate. They're going to become,
Speaker 4: you know, just better at understanding the dollar. And I
Speaker 4: think a part of the thing for us is that
Speaker 4: we have been so very much so focused on understanding
Speaker 4: our voting rights that most of our young people, even
Speaker 4: if they don't vote, they know there's a time when
Speaker 4: people go to the polls and they cast their vote
Speaker 4: and they understand.
Speaker 2: That system for the most part. Of course, there's many
Speaker 2: details to the political system.
Speaker 4: That we don't know and we have to learn, but
Speaker 4: we understand the fundamental basics. And that's because since the
Speaker 4: beginning of time, not of the beginning of time, of course,
Speaker 4: but since you know, since we've received our voting rights.
Speaker 4: This is something that has been a staple of the
Speaker 4: Black household to talk aboutout voting for president, to talk about,
Speaker 4: you know, going to the polls, using your right to vote.
Speaker 2: People died for us to be able to vote.
Speaker 4: So now I think the same It applies to how
Speaker 4: we have to instill the same type of messaging in
Speaker 4: our young people and get them in the consciousness and
Speaker 4: the awareness of what it looks like to use your dollar,
Speaker 4: and not just your dollar, but your credit for the
Speaker 4: greater good, not only of yourself, but of your entire community.
Speaker 1: She used to make it so many good points.
Speaker 3: She was talking about how kids aren't you know, in
Speaker 3: certain we talk about how kids aren't thriving.
Speaker 1: Our kids aren't thriving in the school system.
Speaker 3: And I thought about my son telling me the exact
Speaker 3: same thing.
Speaker 1: How you know is test based.
Speaker 3: Now it's not about you actually learning and things like that,
Speaker 3: and our kids just need to be challenged. And I
Speaker 3: think this new information and just wealth and all these
Speaker 3: things and things that are challenges that challenges them and
Speaker 3: gives them more opportunities.
Speaker 1: It also brings me to my I don't get it.
Speaker 3: You know, being from the inner cities and coming from
Speaker 3: poverished communities and understand how poverty is violence and just
Speaker 3: looking at where we are, like we're dealing with so
Speaker 3: many different things, especially when it comes to violence in
Speaker 3: our communities.
Speaker 1: Gun violence is at.
Speaker 3: An all time high, like I mean, it's just out
Speaker 3: of control.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, I don't get how.
Speaker 3: Violence, gun violence and all this things has been incentivized
Speaker 3: to our kids. You know, it's such a new trend.
Speaker 3: I remember being twelve and thirteen and the quote unquote
Speaker 3: ogs wanted to keep us away from that lifestyle. You know,
Speaker 3: whatever they was doing, they tried to make sure that
Speaker 3: we went to school.
Speaker 1: You know, they gave us money to keep us out
Speaker 1: to school. I mean out of this.
Speaker 3: They gave us sports that you know, they threw basketball tournaments,
Speaker 3: They did so many different things. Whatever they were trying
Speaker 3: to do or whatever they were engaged in, they definitely.
Speaker 1: Wanted to keep us away, you know.
Speaker 3: And I just don't get now how these quote unquote
Speaker 3: ogs are not trying to give the kids the game,
Speaker 3: but they're trying to run game on the kids. And
Speaker 3: they're giving the kids the guns, and they're giving them
Speaker 3: send them out on these dummy missions and incentivizing them
Speaker 3: to throw their lives away. Like I literally watch on
Speaker 3: the internet every day where it's either bloggers or other
Speaker 3: people doing things to incite violence with kids.
Speaker 1: These are not grown people.
Speaker 3: These are seventeen, sixteen, some thirteen year old kids. And
Speaker 3: I just don't get how as a grown man that
Speaker 3: you have it doesn't bother you, it doesn't hurt you,
Speaker 3: it doesn't make you feel a moral responsibility to protect
Speaker 3: and shield these kids from that lifestyle instead of.
Speaker 1: Leading them to it.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's just on the internet now.
Speaker 4: When I was growing up in the housing projects in
Speaker 4: Harlem called Manhattanville, we used to watch young people working
Speaker 4: for the drug dealers, you know. We used to watch
Speaker 4: kids ten eleven, twelve years old carrying out violence for
Speaker 4: somebody who put them out there to go rob a
Speaker 4: woman or to go be the shooter.
Speaker 2: We saw it.
Speaker 4: I mean there are young people or there are people
Speaker 4: who are grown men in prison today because they listen
Speaker 4: to somebody when they were young tell them to go
Speaker 4: and do something crazy that ended up getting them twenty
Speaker 4: five years, maybe even life.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's really new. I think that the.
Speaker 4: Same applies to everything that we're watching be glorified on TV.
Speaker 4: Because the one thing I can on not on TV,
Speaker 4: but on your cell phone, maybe on TV as well.
Speaker 4: But the one thing I will say is that there
Speaker 4: wasn't a market for it, right, and there is a
Speaker 4: market now, so it's actually profitable.
Speaker 2: But it was always happening.
Speaker 4: It's just that there's a dollar amount and as you said,
Speaker 4: and an incentive that has been placed on the lives
Speaker 4: the murder, the brutality, the trauma of young people, of
Speaker 4: black people, of brown people, of poor people. And I
Speaker 4: think that's where we have to focus our attention on.
Speaker 4: How do we make it where it is it is
Speaker 4: no longer profitable for people to kill and make money
Speaker 4: or to harm a woman and be able to get
Speaker 4: X amount of views online that makes them look like
Speaker 4: they're you know, they're popping, so you know, But but
Speaker 4: I don't, I don't, I don't think that the acts
Speaker 4: are different.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think well, I mean just I think, for me,
Speaker 1: let me cut you off.
Speaker 3: I think being in the street right, being from the
Speaker 3: streets right, I think there was a disdain for that.
Speaker 1: I don't think that it wasn't happening. Let me change
Speaker 1: that words.
Speaker 3: Not that it wasn't happening. Those people weren't celebrated. The
Speaker 3: people who were doing that, that were praying on the children,
Speaker 3: they weren't celebrated. Like you weren't supposedly an og and
Speaker 3: you had eleven year olds and ten year olds working
Speaker 3: for you, and the rest of the ogs just like
Speaker 3: you was cool with them.
Speaker 1: That wasn't something that was happening.
Speaker 3: Like when I was a young dude and we was outside,
Speaker 3: they wasn't getting us at eleven and twelve years old.
Speaker 1: They just wasn't. They wasn't. It was OG's like, yo,
Speaker 1: you know what are you doing? Man?
Speaker 3: Take your ass. They was trying to keep you off
Speaker 3: the streets. I mean, that's just I think it were.
Speaker 2: I think you grew up in a different type of
Speaker 2: community with different issues, even in the same city, because
Speaker 2: where I grew up, it was celebrated. There were older
Speaker 2: folks older men in particular, who preyed on the women
Speaker 2: that they were sleeping with or the women who were
Speaker 2: crackheads living in the building. I don't know if you're
Speaker 2: supposed to call them crackheads.
Speaker 4: It's probably a more politically correct term and more respectable
Speaker 4: current term. But they were addicted to crack. There were
Speaker 4: people like that that folks prayed on, and they used.
Speaker 2: Their children, they used their children, and it and it
Speaker 2: was and it wasn't. There was no outrage in our
Speaker 2: community other than a few parents, of which my parents,
Speaker 2: my parents were a part of. But it wasn't like
Speaker 2: everybody in the community was like, hell, no, this is
Speaker 2: not acceptable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess, like you said, maybe I was
Speaker 3: in a different part, but I know that most of
Speaker 3: the ogs and even the ones that were hustling around us,
Speaker 3: they didn't They didn't allow you to pray on children
Speaker 3: and women.
Speaker 1: They just didn't. It just wasn't something that was okay,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: And you definitely you definitely could not shoot in a
Speaker 2: park or while people was outside sitting on the bench.
Speaker 2: That was like, you know, you were exiled from the
Speaker 2: whole hood if you did that. That's a new thing
Speaker 2: where you're just shooting in four year olds and five
Speaker 2: being hurt. We didn't have that, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean I just for me, I didn't know as
Speaker 3: many thirteen and fourteen year old shooters that I know today.
Speaker 3: Like when I was yelling, we was thirteen. We was
Speaker 3: having fun. We was playing basketball, we was playing football,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying. We was into different things.
Speaker 3: We had something else that we were doing. There was
Speaker 3: a couple one or two that were you know, there
Speaker 3: was like heavily doing shit.
Speaker 1: That we was like, what are you doing that for?
Speaker 3: But for the most part, at thirteen and fourteen, we
Speaker 3: still had some level of a childhood, you know. And
Speaker 3: I'm watching these thirteen and fourteen year olds now they've
Speaker 3: literally stripped them of a childhood and moved them into
Speaker 3: del Wood and then adult facilities facing life, you know.
Speaker 3: So you know, I'm still of the mind state that
Speaker 3: we got to protect our children, man, and I I
Speaker 3: maybe it was happening, and maybe I was shielded. Maybe,
Speaker 3: you know, I was lucky to be around what I
Speaker 3: call real ogs that protected us. But I still don't
Speaker 3: get it, still don't get how it is the new
Speaker 3: thing and how it's just pretty much just advocated for
Speaker 3: and promoted so highly.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 4: On that note, one thing I can say that what
Speaker 4: they say. One thing that's for sure, and two things
Speaker 4: that's for certain is that you're going to work very
Speaker 4: hard on trying to end the culture that is unfortunately
Speaker 4: creeping into our communities. And you know, I'm proud to
Speaker 4: see you really focus and sort of hone in on
Speaker 4: what your contribution will be to society. You know, we're
Speaker 4: all in the fight, but each one of us has
Speaker 4: different areas that really move us. And for you, this culture,
Speaker 4: this violent culture of the culture of turning our young
Speaker 4: people into these freaking I don't know what you call them.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't even want to use the words
Speaker 2: to describe. But the pain and the trauma that's being
Speaker 2: caused is very demonic, and I think the only way
Speaker 2: we can fix it is having individuals like yourself and
Speaker 2: a host of others coming together constantly wrapping our arms
Speaker 2: around our young people.
Speaker 1: That's right, Boycott Black murder Man.
Speaker 3: We're not staying for the detriment of our babies no more.
Speaker 1: You're not praying on our kids.
Speaker 3: We're not calling you ogs, we're not respecting you, We're
Speaker 3: not doing anything.
Speaker 1: If you're detrimental to our community.
Speaker 3: So with that said, we had another dope episode Politicians,
Speaker 3: our first episode back after the new year twenty twenty two.
Speaker 3: We look forward to being the number one.
Speaker 1: Podcast in the world.
Speaker 3: We're speaking into business because words become things, and we
Speaker 3: want to say thank you for supporting us last year.
Speaker 1: We're going to do bigger and greater things this year.
Speaker 3: You got anything you want us to talk about anything,
Speaker 3: make sure that you hit us on Street Politicians, pot
Speaker 3: on Instagram, dm us, send us information if you have
Speaker 3: any products. You know, we definitely got to have a
Speaker 3: real business. Sure you have a real business. We showcase
Speaker 3: small businesses on this platform. So we just want to
Speaker 3: continue to grow. Man, thank you. We hope that this
Speaker 3: year is better than last year. And like we always say,
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna always be right to me. It's not
Speaker 3: gonna always be wrong, but we both always and I
Speaker 3: mean always be on that.
Speaker 1: That's how we all need