Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, I'm to meet a D. Mallory and it's
Speaker 1: your boy, my son in general. And we are the
Speaker 1: host of street politicians, the place the streets and Politics meets.
Speaker 1: You are hilarious sometimes not all the time, but you're
Speaker 1: finally a little bit to that. Listen. I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to have a good time. It's June teeth. You know,
Speaker 1: we're celebrating being black, you know, and loving to be
Speaker 1: being semi free, semi semi semi free. You know, we're
Speaker 1: moving in the process, and you know, we're moving on
Speaker 1: the trajectory of freedom. So I'm just celebrating my blackness
Speaker 1: and my trajectory to freedom. Yeah. You know what's It's like,
Speaker 1: it's a time that I can feel in my bones
Speaker 1: something can happen, something great can happen. How we get
Speaker 1: there is gonna take us to even grow in our
Speaker 1: own leadership. And that's and that's what's in front of
Speaker 1: us that even we the evolutionary that's right, even we
Speaker 1: have to grow. Um. You know, we talked last week
Speaker 1: about this idea that people will say, Well, I don't
Speaker 1: hear y'all talking. I don't hear you saying it's not
Speaker 1: always time to talk. Sometimes you have to sit back
Speaker 1: and really strategize. And I've done this many times where
Speaker 1: you know, you don't see me as much in the
Speaker 1: public sphere, um, where you know, of course you see
Speaker 1: me with a state of emergency, but on other things,
Speaker 1: we're kind of putting pieces of a plan number one,
Speaker 1: the number one, but you know, we're putting pieces of
Speaker 1: a plan together. UM. And I what I what I
Speaker 1: appreciate about this moment that we're in. It's so powerful.
Speaker 1: It's like pregnant with opportunity. You've got all the things,
Speaker 1: you have administration in place that knows they cannot become
Speaker 1: president again without us, so we can really kick them
Speaker 1: into gear, if you will, If we come together right,
Speaker 1: then you have, um, young people that are bold, courageous, intelligent, amazing,
Speaker 1: creative all over the country. They are doing great work.
Speaker 1: You also have change. You have some painful change. And
Speaker 1: I think with those shifts, with some of these difficult
Speaker 1: conversations that we're having in the movement, it's important and
Speaker 1: they had to happen. This is not new, right, so
Speaker 1: we have to have those like a birthing process of
Speaker 1: a new thing. Um. And And even though it's still
Speaker 1: a passing of the baton, but they always are sort
Speaker 1: of innovative moments, and so it's a good place to be.
Speaker 1: But in order to really kick us to the next spot,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to be extremely strategic about and so um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to learn. And it's like we've got
Speaker 1: to and the book is is that a state of
Speaker 1: emergency is that you've got to educate people um on
Speaker 1: where we've been. Then you've got to bring them up
Speaker 1: to speed on a strategic plan and then execute. And
Speaker 1: we've got a little bit of time to be able
Speaker 1: to do all those things. And then of course in
Speaker 1: the city we live in New York City, we've got
Speaker 1: to educate people on ranked choice voting, bring them up
Speaker 1: to speed um in terms of the strategic process, and
Speaker 1: then executed during an election. It's a lot to do,
Speaker 1: a whole lot to do. It's a lot to do, man,
Speaker 1: and and and the guns is going crazy in the streets,
Speaker 1: were being gunnsce a wearness months and they're just out here,
Speaker 1: these young boys just out here shooting each other. Man.
Speaker 1: And I've really been, like you said, been just being
Speaker 1: quiet and solid because I'm tired of saying, let's stop shooting.
Speaker 1: And I really realized that we have to do something
Speaker 1: bigger than that, you know, shoutouts to New Pole. Um.
Speaker 1: She organized a couple of weeks back, organized a peace
Speaker 1: treaty with some of some blood and crypt gang in
Speaker 1: and Um Brooklyn that she asked me to help her facilitate,
Speaker 1: along with my brother A. T. Mitchell. And it was
Speaker 1: and it was really you know, enlightening. I sat in
Speaker 1: the room with these young brothers and just listening to
Speaker 1: their mind states. And then there's some young brilliant brothers,
Speaker 1: you know, they're just they're according to gang culture and
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are are believe in myths,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're seeing people as quote unquote opts
Speaker 1: that are not and and the rules of engagement are
Speaker 1: so off man. So I realized that there has to
Speaker 1: be a restructuring of mind states. There has to be
Speaker 1: a reconstructing of what manhood looks like and what you know,
Speaker 1: realness and this quote unquote vision of quote unquote gangster
Speaker 1: looks like. You know. So I've been That's what I've
Speaker 1: been contemplating lately, just sitting back, being silent, saying, you know,
Speaker 1: I know there's something I need to be doing right
Speaker 1: now and just asking for clarity, just to deform relate
Speaker 1: what that looks like. So you know, we're all on
Speaker 1: our missions. Man. We've got a great show coming up today,
Speaker 1: UM a lot of information that we're gonna pack into
Speaker 1: uh the entire show. In fact, we won't have two
Speaker 1: guests because this one guest is about five guests and
Speaker 1: one person. His name is Leo Alexander. He lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: He is an entrepreneur, a businessman. UM he is some
Speaker 1: people call him a patent master, where he has the
Speaker 1: patent for so many different um innovative, innovative ideas. He
Speaker 1: has the patent for so many different inventions, a lot
Speaker 1: of technology. Also did great work during covid um the
Speaker 1: height of covid to get masked out, making masks and
Speaker 1: getting them distributed to communities. A black man again in Tulsa, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: who believes that Tulsa should be everywhere, that Black Wall
Speaker 1: Street should be everywhere, and so he's gonna be coming
Speaker 1: on now. Before we do that, we're gonna go to
Speaker 1: our resident red expert, LaToya Bond. Thank you, Jamica and
Speaker 1: my son, and welcome to the brand market I'm LaToya Bond,
Speaker 1: your resident brand whisperer. Today we have a special brand
Speaker 1: and as you know, Tamika de Mallory is also the
Speaker 1: one of the co founders of Until Freedom. And one
Speaker 1: of the ways that you guys can support the work
Speaker 1: that they do is by purchasing merchandise. And I have
Speaker 1: to say the merchandise is pretty fly, it's great quality,
Speaker 1: and it's unisex. It works your men and women. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna toss back to Tamica and my son so they
Speaker 1: can tell you all about Until Freedom and how you
Speaker 1: can support their movement. For us, freedom is when people
Speaker 1: like us, freedom fighters protesters are no longer needed on
Speaker 1: the front lines every day. UM, the way that we
Speaker 1: are now, freedom would quit organizations like ours out of business.
Speaker 1: It would mean that men and women and children and
Speaker 1: our siblings wouldn't be being killed, shot down and dealing
Speaker 1: with so many of the ills that are oppressing black,
Speaker 1: brown and disenfranchise folks across this country and across the world.
Speaker 1: I feel like, UM, people think that freedom is not possible,
Speaker 1: it's not attainable, But we believe that there is a
Speaker 1: beloved community and that when we get to that place,
Speaker 1: it would be true freedom to make a speech. Although
Speaker 1: it was amazing, it wasn't the one. No, it's not that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the ones. And I heard the speech the
Speaker 1: next day that to me was even more moving. I've
Speaker 1: heard the speech three years ago that was more moving.
Speaker 1: I'm glad the world, you know, finally heard, recognized. You
Speaker 1: know what we've all known for this time when you
Speaker 1: know what she always tries to fight that. She's pretty
Speaker 1: much our leader. But the reality of situation is, we
Speaker 1: don't move in fere you know, we we understand, we
Speaker 1: understand what comes with this work. You know, like marcol
Speaker 1: Mix said, if you're not willing to die for it,
Speaker 1: and you gotta take the world freedom out of your mouth,
Speaker 1: you know. And each one of us here, which has
Speaker 1: made a commitment to this life, we've made a commitment
Speaker 1: to our people. We have made a commitment to the
Speaker 1: betterment of our communities. I look at my son that
Speaker 1: he did and said, this world just has to be
Speaker 1: better for him. That's when it was for me. So
Speaker 1: of course we are concerned, we pay attention, we're conscious,
Speaker 1: but I don't move in here. And you know, because
Speaker 1: I know where my heart is. I know that God
Speaker 1: got us. I know that we're here for the purpose.
Speaker 1: I know that we're living out our purpose. I know
Speaker 1: that exactly what I said before, I was put here
Speaker 1: for this exact moment. So whatever comes with that, if
Speaker 1: my life is, you know, however long I live, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna live in in authenticity. I'm wanna live in fighting
Speaker 1: for my people. I'm gonna living to justice. Visit until
Speaker 1: freedom dot com for more information. I fight until Freedom.
Speaker 1: Thank you to mek In, my son. I know you
Speaker 1: weren't expecting this, and I know that you didn't create
Speaker 1: this platform to promote your own business. However, you guys
Speaker 1: are on the front line fighting for us every day.
Speaker 1: You sacrifice so much, you give so much so that
Speaker 1: I think it's important that the community know how they
Speaker 1: can support your work and how they can support your movement.
Speaker 1: If you guys are interested in having your products featured
Speaker 1: on the brand market, you can find us at the
Speaker 1: BBM Agency on Instagram and click the link in the
Speaker 1: bio for more info. We're gonna hear right now from
Speaker 1: Leo Alexander of Notivating. His company is has an interesting name,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna tell us more about what it means
Speaker 1: and what he's doing there in Tulsa, Oklahoma. So thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining us later, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1: So tell us about your company name, what is, what
Speaker 1: does it mean? And so we can make sure we're
Speaker 1: saying that no problem if nor devoni it's innovation spelled backwards.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times, uh, we as inventors have
Speaker 1: to look in the mirror. When you put the word
Speaker 1: nor di finding the mirror, it just speaks out in innovation. Now,
Speaker 1: innovation is quite different from invention, and innovation. Invention is typically, uh,
Speaker 1: what inventors do when they have one Eureka moment, one
Speaker 1: Eureka moment that they want to commercialize. And that Eureka
Speaker 1: moment could be something as simple as a hairclip, right,
Speaker 1: and that hairclip, Uh, it's something that you work the
Speaker 1: rest of your life selling. Well, that's an inventor, and
Speaker 1: we understand that there's places in the market for that.
Speaker 1: But innovators are actually those that actually have a certain
Speaker 1: set of skills that are resourced the line directed at problems.
Speaker 1: Innovators bring solutions to problems and that's what our company
Speaker 1: has been doing for the past thirteen years. And that
Speaker 1: what we promoted. It's a totally new name. It's annulgrom
Speaker 1: in uh in the world of technology. Wow. So you
Speaker 1: are such an innovateur that everything I imagine you know,
Speaker 1: but you know you're You're so much of a creative
Speaker 1: person that I imagine everything you do has a purpose
Speaker 1: all you know. Obviously the name of your company has
Speaker 1: a purpace. Um. And now you're in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Is
Speaker 1: that where you're from? How did you end up in
Speaker 1: Tulsa when you when you was your family raised there
Speaker 1: after thirteen years of developing our company the way that
Speaker 1: we did. Uh. As you know, we're an international company.
Speaker 1: I typically lead off with everyone saying that I was
Speaker 1: only born in America, but I was made in China.
Speaker 1: My company, my company started in Houston, Texas, but I'm
Speaker 1: from Louisiana. And as a as a young man, the
Speaker 1: term black Walls Street never meant a GPS location to me.
Speaker 1: The black Wall Street meant that there was a stock
Speaker 1: market or a wall Street out there that fit my
Speaker 1: criteria as a black man. Black Wall Street meant economics.
Speaker 1: It did not mean a GPS location. It wasn't Greenwood.
Speaker 1: In fact, I didn't. I was even I was totally
Speaker 1: unaware of the massacre that occurred, because coming from the
Speaker 1: Deep South, when you heard the term black Wall Street,
Speaker 1: you always thought back to the prosperity, the great things
Speaker 1: that you had heard about in those in those stories
Speaker 1: from uh, from our ancestors, right, the stories of how
Speaker 1: these these entrepreneurial minded individuals built an entire economy for
Speaker 1: themselves and then really motivated generations to come. I'm a
Speaker 1: product of black Wall Street, even though I'm not from here.
Speaker 1: So four years ago, UM I made the conscious decision
Speaker 1: to move my manufacturing company No Devani and e O C.
Speaker 1: To Tulsa as a means of rebuilding what I always
Speaker 1: thought was the Black Wall Street. It was necessarily Greenwood
Speaker 1: or or anything else. It was just that we had
Speaker 1: the capacity and the resources and we wanted to be
Speaker 1: the staple of the rebuild. Well that's that's amazing, And
Speaker 1: it says that you are award winning innovator. And and
Speaker 1: I'll tell us some of the things that you create,
Speaker 1: Like I heard of some things that people would be surprised. Well, Uh,
Speaker 1: one of the things that always shocks people is all
Speaker 1: of us are in the world of streaming right now
Speaker 1: and remote and distance communications, but one of the first technologies,
Speaker 1: the Colonel techn knowlogies that made even streaming possible was
Speaker 1: the ability to share the screen of your phone to
Speaker 1: another device wireless. Right. We call it miracasting or screen sharing, right,
Speaker 1: but the inventor of miracast technology uh the way that
Speaker 1: you shared a smartphone to any other mobile device and
Speaker 1: exactly the messing ground for what we know is uh
Speaker 1: screen sharing and streaming. So a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of my my earlier technologies were around energy UH and
Speaker 1: and really monitoring UM different assets for our US government.
Speaker 1: So where are you guys from. Originally you guys are
Speaker 1: from implement areas where you have blackouts and brown outs
Speaker 1: mm hmm. Sometimes you know we're in New York City,
Speaker 1: blackouts are happening. But you have a lot less of
Speaker 1: them now because after two thousand and seven, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: have known that the until the companies wouldn't have known
Speaker 1: that you had a black unless you call them. And
Speaker 1: now the poll top transformers tell the utility companies their
Speaker 1: health and condition. Well, my technology, the UTMD monitor was
Speaker 1: the was the purpose for them doing that. It initiated
Speaker 1: the term smart grid, so our own smart grid system
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and seven, and it's part of
Speaker 1: our national uh uh, our national power grid. Right now,
Speaker 1: every utiler the company utilizes some bit of that technology.
Speaker 1: Is there is there so like I guess you signed
Speaker 1: in the a's and is there profitentiality for when you
Speaker 1: helped to design? Like in other words, the better question
Speaker 1: is absolutely you design and invented more. I think we know,
Speaker 1: um the things we're probably using every day that you
Speaker 1: would never be able to tell us that you actually
Speaker 1: were involved in. From two thousand and from two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine to now, I've developed two hundred and eighteen
Speaker 1: unique electronic products that plug into a wall. Accompanies that
Speaker 1: I'm still under gag order about speaking right uh. Some
Speaker 1: would say that every five minutes, you're gonna interact with
Speaker 1: something that I've uh, something that either has our kernel
Speaker 1: technology embedded in it or something that I personally designed.
Speaker 1: This is the black history and the black present we
Speaker 1: should be talking about. We're supposed to be celebrating brothers
Speaker 1: like yourself. Well yet we don't even know that this
Speaker 1: is happening, you know, So I just want to applaud
Speaker 1: you and say, you know, give your flowers now and
Speaker 1: said that we truly appreciate you know, your contributions just
Speaker 1: to culture and just to our living. The living that
Speaker 1: we exist in right now is a result of a
Speaker 1: lot of things that you've done. And I just want
Speaker 1: to ask this. You know, you said that you you
Speaker 1: went to Tulsa because you wanted to recreate that you
Speaker 1: wanted to build that you It was anonymous with you know, innovation,
Speaker 1: It was anonymous with you know, black people building and growing.
Speaker 1: What do you think it's gonna take to actually rebuild that?
Speaker 1: Look at before I answer that question, I gotta get
Speaker 1: my I gotta get my guy in here, all right?
Speaker 1: Is that okay? And you know how much we love you?
Speaker 1: How are you doing it? Genius? Yeah, man, he is
Speaker 1: a genius. You know, we didn't know about him, reverend,
Speaker 1: and we're learning, you know now about this this gentleman,
Speaker 1: Mr Alexander, that it should be you know, we should
Speaker 1: all be applauding his work and supporting him, helping him.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure you're there trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: you can help. Right. It was basically linked to civilizations communications,
Speaker 1: So we must know who he is and and tell
Speaker 1: our sorry, because it defies all the reasons like recism.
Speaker 1: So that once you're on the inferior, but the interior
Speaker 1: part of it, the reasonably on scientifics. It's not true. Yeah, listen,
Speaker 1: advice and I'm an explosation. God me ever made some
Speaker 1: of the black childing to garden himself and justifies all
Speaker 1: that footres that's that's powerful. The last time we saw you,
Speaker 1: it was where my son and uh, that's how we've
Speaker 1: seen the reverend was at um when we cried together
Speaker 1: when we got the conviction. Uh chovinks the Chauvin trial
Speaker 1: and me you him shocking and we cried as he
Speaker 1: and he looked at me and said we we He
Speaker 1: actually lived to see a man get charged with killing
Speaker 1: the black man. That's why when you get when you
Speaker 1: when you make election and fellow prime, which is touch out,
Speaker 1: when you make h blacks hate crime. Dude, choose the Asians.
Speaker 1: Now let's touch out. Well. Was a national application problem,
Speaker 1: not just local question. I want to know that. What
Speaker 1: do you like? I was about to ask you, what
Speaker 1: do you think it's gonna take two we build Black
Speaker 1: Wall Street to get to get us back to that
Speaker 1: level of prominence where we build our own cities and
Speaker 1: have our own running organizations and have our own coach
Speaker 1: everything that our own things. What do you think it's
Speaker 1: gonna take? Well? I think, um, first we need to
Speaker 1: kind of change the narrative and change the educational structure
Speaker 1: of what our own Black Wall Street is today. If
Speaker 1: if I tried to promote one Wall Street for one
Speaker 1: black economy, um, I would literally be going against my
Speaker 1: moral compass. Let me, let me, let me explain that understand,
Speaker 1: our our economy is a global one and the color
Speaker 1: of that economy should also be multiple colors. The only
Speaker 1: way that that the Indians and the Asians got their
Speaker 1: China towns and their Indian towns was by building or
Speaker 1: cultivating uh, those talents into products and businesses that the
Speaker 1: world wanted to buy. You use to those uh town
Speaker 1: a block block massage pols and restaurants or something that's
Speaker 1: not that's not the strip beyond that, that's where they're
Speaker 1: going to get the clos stuff that that's the point.
Speaker 1: It's not a physical locale. Uh. When you super teles
Speaker 1: on now and you can push a button and become
Speaker 1: those machine, that's global man, who you are? That that's colorless.
Speaker 1: And I think that we must think in terms of
Speaker 1: we can we can launch to the world we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: I agree with you that everyone needs to support, purchase,
Speaker 1: patronize whatever our products, services and everything that we put
Speaker 1: out right because of course, the way the economy moves
Speaker 1: is that people are engaged. It's not just one community.
Speaker 1: But the ownership piece is important, and that's I think. Okay,
Speaker 1: so you were getting ready to go to go ahead, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: So so understand we haven't had the ability as a
Speaker 1: as a culture to actually walk into odds and say,
Speaker 1: these are our ideas, Wizard of Oz, where can these
Speaker 1: ideas be created? We have taken our talents two other companies.
Speaker 1: Those companies has embodied those those talents into products and
Speaker 1: then it goes out to the market as brands. Understanding
Speaker 1: that what I'm trying to build is all of the capacity,
Speaker 1: all of the enablement tools, the actual factory, the actual
Speaker 1: ability to actually take out of your mind those things
Speaker 1: and turn them into a tangible reality without you thinking
Speaker 1: about what you needed to go ahead and make that happen.
Speaker 1: Just bring your talent because all of the other resources
Speaker 1: are here. That's why, that's why I bootstrapped my entire operation.
Speaker 1: I have never gotten a venture capital loan, jump on
Speaker 1: a pitch stage in front of a group of Anglo
Speaker 1: Saxon saying, please give me two hundred tho dollars because
Speaker 1: I have an idea. The minute you give the minute
Speaker 1: you give your idea to them, for that two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, you have already taken away our chance of
Speaker 1: victory period period. So what I've what I've started to
Speaker 1: do is now build all of that infrastructure. If you're
Speaker 1: if you're a medical professional and you want to build
Speaker 1: medical solutions, well, I built an entire sector of innovation
Speaker 1: and development that will enable you to build that device
Speaker 1: or take that service over the network. We needed to
Speaker 1: own our own infrastructure, right, So in two thousand and twelve,
Speaker 1: I became one of our nation's common carriers that has
Speaker 1: fifty giga hurts and spectrum nationwide. Is not another black
Speaker 1: man that can say that to his credit today. Right,
Speaker 1: But we were always looking at the wrong things. Were
Speaker 1: we're looking at the smaller parts of the prize. Infrastructure
Speaker 1: is is required. You can't you can't take your dreams
Speaker 1: to the yellow brick road. Of the yellow brick road
Speaker 1: hadn't been built, right, So my goal was to come
Speaker 1: and tell us the later groundwork, put the infrastructure down
Speaker 1: and then build the yellow brick road. And if black
Speaker 1: Wall Street needed an oyes, well, I took up the mantel.
Speaker 1: In nation means a lot and here's the access mere
Speaker 1: shift in Paradise. We will will have my black Wall Street.
Speaker 1: We'll have a street to what we can do and
Speaker 1: black Wall State in Black World Country. I think it's anation.
Speaker 1: It's amation. We have an ability to create a nation
Speaker 1: within the nation. It only takes one speration to do it.
Speaker 1: The thing is, we have to change the way we're thinking.
Speaker 1: It's really good to see you, Redam Jackson. I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you're in Tulsa to um, you know, being able
Speaker 1: to uh go back to a place and I know
Speaker 1: you've been many times, but to see so many young people,
Speaker 1: particularly commemorating and learning more about Tulsa. So many people
Speaker 1: had did not know, they didn't know the full extent
Speaker 1: of the massacre. And I know this is something you've
Speaker 1: been teaching for a long time and finally people are
Speaker 1: beginning to listen, um and hopefully uh in your life
Speaker 1: at this point, after your accomplishment so much, you are
Speaker 1: beginning to see the fruits of your labor that they
Speaker 1: are so young folks who are who are beginning to
Speaker 1: get what you've been telling us for a long time.
Speaker 1: Really ride the Master. For example, people did not know
Speaker 1: that the ten album they were different, a better share,
Speaker 1: and that means that it is the shaffs the drop
Speaker 1: um save all the company and usually played to drop bombs.
Speaker 1: So the first bomb was not dropping here Shima, I
Speaker 1: mean Pearl Harbor dropping here on learning a lot about
Speaker 1: what happened, and they sampataple on the hotel people motel
Speaker 1: for the house probably were down the man las day,
Speaker 1: by the way. Uh John Rodgers, you know Don John Rodgers,
Speaker 1: that was great red ball and he ran off the
Speaker 1: Kansas city and his son tried to lawsome to say.
Speaker 1: And Rod's dad was the first black year of struggle.
Speaker 1: His mama like he made here a struggles putleration out
Speaker 1: of wolfing. He down on the other walls on the
Speaker 1: board of Nike, and uh let go and uh um
Speaker 1: and and uh youtory drawing. So you see that some
Speaker 1: of the US water came drowned. If I can't burn,
Speaker 1: keep on coming. M Thank you from hell, love you,
Speaker 1: thank you give us an understanding of what's been happening. Obviously,
Speaker 1: no matter who you are, especially if you're black, there's
Speaker 1: gonna be stunting going on. So we know there's been
Speaker 1: some controversy and some difficulties that you've been dealing with.
Speaker 1: What are they and what needs to be done to
Speaker 1: try to get around UH so In in Oklahoma during
Speaker 1: the entire COVID epidemic, I was one of those individuals
Speaker 1: that stepped up to UM to aid and aid the
Speaker 1: call of PPE manufacturing. UH not only did not only
Speaker 1: did I supplied first line responders, PPE masks and and
Speaker 1: everything else, but I also worked with the state and
Speaker 1: local area to organize bringing my factory here stateside so
Speaker 1: that we wouldn't have to go through all of the
Speaker 1: import uh logistical hurdles that everyone else was having in
Speaker 1: the country. That effort took about one point seven million
Speaker 1: dollars out of my pie right. So we brought the
Speaker 1: factory down, got everything in line, only to be denied
Speaker 1: the state or local contract. There was a level of compromise.
Speaker 1: They're done by h the governor's office, the cities officials,
Speaker 1: and some large contract in the millions was awarded to
Speaker 1: a bar owner that had only filed a license the
Speaker 1: day that he was awarded this very large contract. Well,
Speaker 1: this raised my eyebrows and it was literally, Um, it
Speaker 1: was a slap in the face, is what it really was.
Speaker 1: Because here we had already been on a mission to
Speaker 1: support the community first line responders, the the the emergency responders,
Speaker 1: the police departments, and all of the hospitals. We provided
Speaker 1: those things free of costs to them. Um. But we
Speaker 1: weren't doing it just to get a state contract. You
Speaker 1: gotta understand, there's individuals here that so our ability way
Speaker 1: beyond building manufacturing for the MASS uh, and took aim
Speaker 1: at my company though the MASS was actually being used
Speaker 1: as an instrument to acquire all of my company to
Speaker 1: with you and I just I'm trying to be I'm
Speaker 1: trying to be as tactical tax boy as I can
Speaker 1: because this is a case that's that's ongoing. A local businessman, Uh,
Speaker 1: a lawyer that I thought was my lawyer, UH, that
Speaker 1: was compromising his position a state that UM has now
Speaker 1: convicted the person that they went with because the guy
Speaker 1: never delivered more than ten thousand mats. They gave him
Speaker 1: millions and he gave him ten thousand masks. Uh. I
Speaker 1: still have half a million masks in my warehouse right
Speaker 1: now that we'll go to them, and they still haven't
Speaker 1: picked up today in today and Tulsa is um. I
Speaker 1: didn't want to bring this up during the whole commemoration
Speaker 1: ceremonies because uh, I think that the area has gone
Speaker 1: through enough pain. But under under the underlying things and
Speaker 1: the underlying story that's going on right now is the
Speaker 1: fact that a modern day Linson is being done and
Speaker 1: they're just changing their faces. These guys would not They
Speaker 1: were one embarrassed by the fact that our minority BA
Speaker 1: manufacturing company was able to do things that they as
Speaker 1: a state or a city not new for the people
Speaker 1: of this community. And in order to in order to
Speaker 1: go ahead and uh discipline me or tap my hand,
Speaker 1: the refused giving me any of the contracts and then
Speaker 1: started to use their governance powers to go ahead and
Speaker 1: try to shut down or close down my factory. So
Speaker 1: what were some what are some of the things that
Speaker 1: they left you know against you with some of the allegations.
Speaker 1: So they after Now you gotta understand, this is five
Speaker 1: months into everyone has already received their masks. They sent
Speaker 1: the fire marshal and told me, I need to close
Speaker 1: down because I needed to put new sprinkler systems there,
Speaker 1: M right sample. Now, my adjacent neighbor he owns a
Speaker 1: carpet company, same sprinkler systems. Carpet catches on fire. Our
Speaker 1: masks where life saving h and all new had it
Speaker 1: nothing that could catch on fire there. Uh so uh
Speaker 1: that was their first tactic. The second second tactic was
Speaker 1: UM constantly bringing me up on standards. They had me
Speaker 1: go through rigorous testing of the product that was coming
Speaker 1: off of our production line. It was supposed to be
Speaker 1: deemed that in quality through every test that they came through.
Speaker 1: We tested in ninety over above the standard that they
Speaker 1: were asking for. So at every level of the litmus
Speaker 1: tests that we excelled or exceeded what the standard would be,
Speaker 1: they would they would then make other excuses for why
Speaker 1: they couldn't continue to work with us. I hear the
Speaker 1: attempt to shut down. But when you think that they're
Speaker 1: attempting to take your company, is that something different? And
Speaker 1: what does that look like? So? Uh so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty sophisticated web here if you if you
Speaker 1: ask me the reason why, UM, it's totally Some people
Speaker 1: would have said it was impossible for black Wall Street
Speaker 1: to be rebuilt because of how the power structure is
Speaker 1: here in Tosso, Oklahoma. Um, when you look at Greenwood
Speaker 1: right now, right now, it's controlled by a handful of
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxons that uh project themselves as the philanthropists of
Speaker 1: the community. But they literally just project themselves that way.
Speaker 1: They really blocked them in. Um, there's a parking garage,
Speaker 1: baseball field, a church, and a museum. Okay, and then
Speaker 1: there's one block of what was black Wall Street, one
Speaker 1: block right or two behind the train track. While all
Speaker 1: of the ownership of that is those individuals. Right any
Speaker 1: any book minority or black business that was actually thriving,
Speaker 1: those people were going to be a part of so
Speaker 1: that they can control the matriarch of that business. I'm
Speaker 1: an outsider and I'm a totally different type of entrepreneur.
Speaker 1: I never came here with my hands out. In fact,
Speaker 1: I didn't mingle with anyone in Tulsa for the first
Speaker 1: eighteen months. I just went right to work. They saw
Speaker 1: that as sliding the power structure here. There's a there's
Speaker 1: a group that don't see color in that way that
Speaker 1: want to actually assist the black businessman. And then that
Speaker 1: power group that want to have some of the people
Speaker 1: that they intend to make their political figureheads uh positions,
Speaker 1: so that they can only continue to control the area.
Speaker 1: These are the people that they will support, and these
Speaker 1: people will be totally against you. They're in the law enforcement,
Speaker 1: They're in the fire departments, there, in the school systems. There.
Speaker 1: It's a web. It's really really crazy. So I felt
Speaker 1: a victim to this when I started to open my
Speaker 1: doors and accept what they uh, what they called help.
Speaker 1: When an individual comes up to your door and says, hey,
Speaker 1: I love your operations, I want to be a part
Speaker 1: of it. And I'm like, sorry, no, thank you, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I just want to bring my guys from the local university.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying any name, but it might affect uh
Speaker 1: the lovely. I want to bring some guys uhh that
Speaker 1: will see what you're doing because I think we can
Speaker 1: help you. Right, And that all starts to become pressure.
Speaker 1: Before you know what, you're bomboarded by the opportunity that
Speaker 1: you may be successful. Now, this is what would happen
Speaker 1: to any of to you that would be coming to Tulsa.
Speaker 1: You would time, and you would be welcome, and you
Speaker 1: would be greeted, and it would be it would be
Speaker 1: very kind, very open until your plan is then released.
Speaker 1: And if your plan is malleable or or small enough
Speaker 1: for them to be able to do themselves, then your
Speaker 1: plan is not going to be done by you. Your
Speaker 1: plan is gonna be done by them, and they're gonna
Speaker 1: check you to the curve. As as that that outdoor,
Speaker 1: I was a little differently because I was already rooted
Speaker 1: eighteen months before they even knew I was here. Right,
Speaker 1: So now we're now we're in uh, we're in a
Speaker 1: we're in a fight. One of those individuals became really
Speaker 1: integral to our company. We brought him in as h
Speaker 1: one of our consoles, and that council started to navigate
Speaker 1: the our correspondence on our legal documentations to put himself
Speaker 1: in power mm hmm in my company. You know. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: we are not able to really get deeper into this conversation. Um,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more to learn. First of all,
Speaker 1: we want to know, is there somewhere that folks can
Speaker 1: go to learn about this? Are their articles about it
Speaker 1: or is it something that you're just beginning to talk about.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I want to say is that Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: your story is not new. I'm you're not saying this.
Speaker 1: I am saying that this is to Mega Mallory saying
Speaker 1: it speaking on my own behalf that I know a
Speaker 1: far too many stories where when certain types of white
Speaker 1: people get involved, they try to strip the power um
Speaker 1: of black folks that own their own businesses or to
Speaker 1: have great organizations and ideas. We saw it happen even
Speaker 1: within the Women's March, where we built something incredible and
Speaker 1: certain types of white women got involved and utilize guys
Speaker 1: be a tax from the outside world as a way
Speaker 1: to take to try to take power. We didn't have
Speaker 1: to give it up. We could have said this is
Speaker 1: our organization and we're gonna hold onto it, but we
Speaker 1: would have been holding onto our own demands because at
Speaker 1: times you have to free yourself of those types of
Speaker 1: white folks. And that's just the truth. And so I
Speaker 1: just want to say to you that it's unfortunate that
Speaker 1: the story you're telling is one that I've heard so
Speaker 1: many times of folks who took the help and the
Speaker 1: help ended up being very, very damaging. And so whatever
Speaker 1: we can do to support you, we want to do that.
Speaker 1: Please tell us in there are other ways for us
Speaker 1: to find out more that we just have to keep
Speaker 1: inviting you back to street politicians than make you get
Speaker 1: a platform. Absolutely, we're gonna start featuring it. Um. Of
Speaker 1: course our woman TV is gonna be covering some things
Speaker 1: as well. But I don't know, I don't know if
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys realize that. But I
Speaker 1: own the local newspaper here, so I owned the Hispanic
Speaker 1: and UH and the English publication here, the seminar and Prasanna.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be getting the story out. The thing is,
Speaker 1: I think these people tried it with the wrong one.
Speaker 1: You woan it's a it's a constant story told, but uh,
Speaker 1: it's not a story told when you go up against
Speaker 1: something that as as strong as the as the adversary. Right,
Speaker 1: So there wasn't there wasn't a need for us to
Speaker 1: go public with this, and I wanted to. I wanted
Speaker 1: the commemoration to move uh along the lines that it
Speaker 1: did move. Um. And if if everything goes well, this
Speaker 1: will be one of those situations where these guys take
Speaker 1: their uh deceitful desires elsewhere and allow me to continue
Speaker 1: to progress the work that's at my hand here building
Speaker 1: Black Wall Street because they have to know that. Now
Speaker 1: I have to make a malary on my back, and
Speaker 1: I'm the rest of the coalition, uh that's now fully
Speaker 1: aware of their tactics because there will never be another
Speaker 1: public lenching. I am never going to be a mortar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the work that we're the work that we're done right now,
Speaker 1: it is way too important for my people and the
Speaker 1: rest of America. So every because you know what you
Speaker 1: what you created for, you know, just black generations and
Speaker 1: the way you've evolved the culture and all the things
Speaker 1: that you're doing, you've done and you and you're currently
Speaker 1: still doing. You know, I just want to say I appreciate.
Speaker 1: We always celebrate our brothers who are innovative, you know,
Speaker 1: and wout your shifters when they're gone. So I just
Speaker 1: want to give your flowers now, brother and say we're
Speaker 1: just learning about you know, black black history and black
Speaker 1: president all at the same time. So we just want
Speaker 1: to say thank you for what you're doing, what you're
Speaker 1: doing for the culture and anything that we can do.
Speaker 1: You know, this platform is yours. Whenever you need us,
Speaker 1: we're here, man, your family, and you know you're you're
Speaker 1: just you're something that the Blueprint. I love you for that.
Speaker 1: Thank you, right, Leo the Blueprint Alexander, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being with us today. Thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. That was a dope interview, man, Leo Alexander
Speaker 1: the Blueprint. You know, he that's his new nickname. Man.
Speaker 1: When you see people that great and evolutionary and you
Speaker 1: don't even know, like this man should be in history books. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: do some. We got to do our own research because
Speaker 1: we don't. We don't know of that. Well. I think, um,
Speaker 1: I've heard of some of his work, and I'm trying to,
Speaker 1: like place where it is that I learned about, um,
Speaker 1: some of the work that he's done in the past,
Speaker 1: and just trying to I'm just trying to you don't
Speaker 1: even trying to figure out, like I heard of him somewhere,
Speaker 1: who was it that told me? And why are we
Speaker 1: not fighting for him? I don't know. We gotta do
Speaker 1: some research and figure out a ways the whole Well,
Speaker 1: I'm definitely gonna do some research. But what I've learned,
Speaker 1: you know, a little bit of research I've done so far,
Speaker 1: it's just amazing, man, And that just that brings me
Speaker 1: to my I don't get it when we have brothers
Speaker 1: like that, and we have other dynamic you know, innovators,
Speaker 1: culture shifters, and and finance experts and and all of
Speaker 1: them are saying what we need to be doing. That
Speaker 1: we need economic empowerment, we need to own our own things,
Speaker 1: we need to build it. I just don't get why
Speaker 1: it isn't happening, you know that. It's it's so frustrating
Speaker 1: that we keep having like We've had a meeting, like
Speaker 1: you called a meeting years ago. We said so many
Speaker 1: different influences in a room in Sylvia's and they'll forgetting
Speaker 1: and we sat around it's a round table where everybody
Speaker 1: said we need to be doing these things. And we
Speaker 1: had one of the dopest meetings, you know. And from
Speaker 1: that meeting, it was just words, you know what. And
Speaker 1: I was about to say we did come out of
Speaker 1: it is Jay Morrison created the fund and which he
Speaker 1: created a whole you know, crowdfunding for black people and
Speaker 1: created the Black House and which we are invested in,
Speaker 1: and so something did. But I'm just trying to say,
Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of people in that room what should
Speaker 1: have been accomplished as a collective with everybody, not just
Speaker 1: one Because we always do that, right. What we do
Speaker 1: is we have these meetings with a bunch of people
Speaker 1: and say, okay, let's do this, and then one person
Speaker 1: to go and do it, and anybody else will follow.
Speaker 1: What is it gonna take us to get on on
Speaker 1: code as we will? Like, I just don't get well,
Speaker 1: I think who have to see a lot of different cultures,
Speaker 1: not different ethnicities. They work together, they build together, they
Speaker 1: build infratral to, they build organizations, they build companies, and
Speaker 1: they continue to build and they continue to take over.
Speaker 1: I want to know what is it gonna take for
Speaker 1: us to do it? I just don't get why we
Speaker 1: haven't done that. I think that it is a function
Speaker 1: of white supremacy that we've been dealing with for a
Speaker 1: very long time. Um. I'm just thinking about the meltdown,
Speaker 1: if you will, that we see happening from so many
Speaker 1: people around the Black Lives Matter movement in this moment,
Speaker 1: right And I know why. It's because, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: while they always should be accountability, while they always should
Speaker 1: be checks and balances, all those things, I don't disagree
Speaker 1: with them, but they're also is a direct attempt, a
Speaker 1: direct attempt to destroy and divide leaders and the movement
Speaker 1: and people from supporting the movement, and we fall forward
Speaker 1: every time. Every time we start to believe the narratives
Speaker 1: that we hear, they get a few black faces to
Speaker 1: go out and start critiquing, challenging, um, what's the other word? Uh,
Speaker 1: going after if you will, certain individuals who have voices
Speaker 1: they do. This is not new, it's not new. It's
Speaker 1: the same process over and over and over again. And
Speaker 1: every single time we fall into it. I have friends
Speaker 1: that mother and daughter and family members that are not
Speaker 1: even speaking because they the one person who know some
Speaker 1: of the folks that are in the movement believe stuff
Speaker 1: that they're hearing from people who are not in the
Speaker 1: movement do nothing for our people, nothing for our communities,
Speaker 1: And they're listening to those those individuals and saying, oh, well,
Speaker 1: maybe those people are right. And so therefore it makes
Speaker 1: it very difficult for folks to get together and to
Speaker 1: do anything as a collective because the tactic of the
Speaker 1: Willie Lynch syndrome that may not have been real in
Speaker 1: terms of it being in effect. Um in the past, right,
Speaker 1: they say, Willie Lynch is It's not true. He wasn't
Speaker 1: a real person. But whoever wrote the letter. It's someone
Speaker 1: who wrote it understanding exactly our conditions, our attitudes, the mindset,
Speaker 1: and also the the the intentional, the intentional destruction of
Speaker 1: the black community and how it is designed. And so
Speaker 1: we follow it all the time, every time we follow
Speaker 1: it by becoming agents in our own destruction. Um. And
Speaker 1: so therefore, when you say, well, why are people getting together?
Speaker 1: You have so many folks that they say, well, I
Speaker 1: want to work with other people, but I'm concerned about
Speaker 1: whether or not they're going to hurt me, lying on me,
Speaker 1: cheat me, or I want to try to get it
Speaker 1: done first so that everybody else has to thank me
Speaker 1: as the person who created it. And until we get
Speaker 1: past those mindsets, I'm not sure that we're going to
Speaker 1: accomplish it. One thing I will say is as you
Speaker 1: you know you and I both and and and and
Speaker 1: more recently on a regular basis, I talked to puff, right,
Speaker 1: I talked to him, and I know for sure that
Speaker 1: he has a clearer mind and he's really seriously trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how to move us to another place.
Speaker 1: But even he will start and then see the challenges
Speaker 1: and start and started, you know, he starts being like
Speaker 1: I don't know how we're gonna get them right. So,
Speaker 1: in this moment when he's coming to us and he's saying, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to start shipping the culture, we all need
Speaker 1: to start working together. We need to help him to
Speaker 1: do the work because he has the voice. Look at
Speaker 1: Jay Jay. I'm not saying he's done everything right. You know,
Speaker 1: me and Pouf have gone back and forth about some
Speaker 1: of his moves in terms of how he sees the movement.
Speaker 1: But you know they have an interest, you know what
Speaker 1: they're trying to accomplish. So if we can encourage them,
Speaker 1: if we can work with them, if we can create
Speaker 1: the type of installation that we all need to be
Speaker 1: able to move this thing forward, perhaps we can get somewhere.
Speaker 1: But I think it's gonna take not just the big guys,
Speaker 1: but it's gonna take the big guys, the street activists,
Speaker 1: it's gonna take organizers of all different types. It's gonna
Speaker 1: take a whole bunch of us to be like really
Speaker 1: in on making this thing happen. Well, I definitely agree
Speaker 1: with that. I just want us to do it sooner
Speaker 1: than later, man, because I keep hearing it and I'm
Speaker 1: watching the level of consciousness that our whole culture is
Speaker 1: coming to. Everybody is seeing what's happening and they realizing
Speaker 1: the blueprint. They realizing what we've been through. They're realizing
Speaker 1: the blueprint to move past it. And everybody is saying
Speaker 1: it over here, and he's saying over there, I just
Speaker 1: want us to collectively come together. And I just say
Speaker 1: it and just do it, man. So that's just me.
Speaker 1: And with that said, another amazing episode. Shout out to
Speaker 1: let the blueprint Alexander, you know, for his input and
Speaker 1: what he's contributed to the culture. And shout out to
Speaker 1: you man for just being a good co host. Man.
Speaker 1: You know the number, the number with the number one
Speaker 1: podcast number one. That's how Monster Guards is Life, Life Life.
Speaker 1: Man got any topic she wanted to talk about, send
Speaker 1: us a message, let us know, Um, we're here for you.
Speaker 1: We appreciate the support. It's been over Wolming support. Everybody
Speaker 1: is telling us, you know how much they appreciate our podcast,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate you too. And with that said, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna always be right. Tamika is getting starting to
Speaker 1: be a little more right than she usually is, but
Speaker 1: she ain't gonna always be wrong. But we both gonna
Speaker 1: always be a thing. That's how we owed it. That's
Speaker 1: how we owed it. That's how we ow that's how
Speaker 1: that's how we owned it.