Speaker 1: Malague Buds has all the knowledge you want. My league
Speaker 1: has how the knowledge you need.
Speaker 2: Leg Yet they have all the books that the whole
Speaker 2: wild world.
Speaker 3: Wunner read my League books.
Speaker 4: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshelf, bringing a world together
Speaker 4: with books, culture and community. Hi, my name is Malik,
Speaker 4: your host of Malik's Bookshelf.
Speaker 1: June is hot.
Speaker 4: Then we repeat that again, June is hot and Malik
Speaker 4: Books has.
Speaker 1: Some hot authors all month long.
Speaker 4: Whoo.
Speaker 2: That's why on this episode, I'm gonna let the authors
Speaker 2: who we have lined up all month long talk about
Speaker 2: their books leading into events.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 2: We got Cary Sellers on June eleven at seven pm.
Speaker 2: They're gonna be talking about his new book The Moment.
Speaker 4: Now he's gonna be in conversation with attorney, author and
Speaker 4: CNN commentator Ariva Martin.
Speaker 1: Also on June.
Speaker 2: Fourteenth, at seven pm, Now Cole Hannah Jones in conversation
Speaker 2: with Angela Rye at the Miracle Theater in Inglewood. That's right,
Speaker 2: June fourteen, seven pm is going down that Friday night
Speaker 2: when Nicole is gonna be talking about the sixteen to
Speaker 2: nineteen project. It's a paper back after five years, it's
Speaker 2: one of the most bad books in the country. And
Speaker 2: Nicole Hannah Jones in conversation with Alian Rye. It's gonna
Speaker 2: be electric. I even got a Grammy Award performer named
Speaker 2: Deep is gonna perform at this event on June fourteenth.
Speaker 1: You gotta come on out.
Speaker 2: Rswepm League Books coming up coming up Ay Mileague Boxx,
Speaker 2: Seeing Rogers, the founder of Bay. She's gonna be here Monday,
Speaker 2: June seventeen seven pm. Now for new book, We're gonna
Speaker 2: have a book talk, book sign the outside advantage because
Speaker 2: you don't need to fit in to weak.
Speaker 4: But then we have the June tenth celebration at Malik
Speaker 4: Books on June eighteen seven pm.
Speaker 2: That night we got Victor Lukison wrote the book Built
Speaker 2: from the Fire, and he's coming along and gonna be
Speaker 2: in conversation with descendants from the Dreamland Theater that was
Speaker 2: burnt down in the nineteen twenty one Oklahoma massacre. These
Speaker 2: descendants of the Dreamland Theater are gonna be in conversation
Speaker 2: with Victor Lukerson on June eighteen, seven pm at Malik Books, Westfield,
Speaker 2: coach Claw. Then we have Taragi b Hension celebrating with
Speaker 2: us for June team celebration.
Speaker 1: At the Westfield Covi Cino.
Speaker 4: Now Taraji p Henson on June twenty second, at three pm,
Speaker 4: it's gonna be doing a story time in the center
Speaker 4: court of the field maull In Cuova City.
Speaker 1: She's gonna do story time.
Speaker 2: Bring all your family and friends and bring the kids
Speaker 2: out for an eventful celebration. This headline by Toaji p
Speaker 2: Henson doing storytime for her new book You Can Be
Speaker 2: a Good Friend No Matter what to Roggi p Also
Speaker 2: is gonna be doing a book signing. Now that part
Speaker 2: you got an artist for me because that's excrucilly inside
Speaker 2: malik book. But story time it's downstairs center court, free
Speaker 2: to the public.
Speaker 1: Bring your kids.
Speaker 2: Then June twenty and ninth, we got the comedian Tiffany
Speaker 2: Hattish and her new book I Cursed You with Joy.
Speaker 2: This is gonna be epic at Melite Books June twenty ninth,
Speaker 2: two pm.
Speaker 4: You gotta come on out.
Speaker 2: Support our authors. June is hot at Malik's and we're ending.
Speaker 4: This wonderful month with the explosive comedian Emmy Award, Grammy
Speaker 4: Award Tiffany had So I'm going to feature some of
Speaker 4: their comments about their own book, so I don't have
Speaker 4: to talk about it, but they gonna talk about because
Speaker 4: no one can tell you about that book more than
Speaker 4: the author.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned for this upcoming episode.
Speaker 2: But I also going to feature my three things that
Speaker 2: I'm grateful for. I was interviewed at this location in
Speaker 2: La Mirk Park and they asked me this three questions,
Speaker 2: and so I want to feature those three answers.
Speaker 4: Three things I'm grateful for, So stay tuned on this episode.
Speaker 5: Hi, it's Sierra, author of The Outside Advantage. Because you
Speaker 5: don't need to fit into when it's Future Friday here
Speaker 5: at Penguins. So I wanted to talk a little bit
Speaker 5: about my inspiration behind writing a business book. Why a
Speaker 5: business book because I love them. I love tips on
Speaker 5: how to make money. I love tips on how to
Speaker 5: become successful. Give me a cheat code to life and
Speaker 5: I will take it, Thank you very much. But before
Speaker 5: my business book, I felt like there wasn't really one
Speaker 5: that catered to people like me, outsiders. Maybe you didn't
Speaker 5: have a normal upbringing, maybe you didn't have any money,
Speaker 5: connections resources at all. Maybe you didn't grow up in
Speaker 5: a family where the job was just handed directly to you.
Speaker 5: So I wrote a book for people like us. I
Speaker 5: wrote a book for you to use your disadvantages as
Speaker 5: skills to become successful. Growing up, Goodwill was more than
Speaker 5: just a store for me. It was a destination with
Speaker 5: my mom and my sister. I spent hours thrifting, reading books,
Speaker 5: creating outfits, and defining my style. But I never knew
Speaker 5: about all the other ways Goodwill could help. People don't
Speaker 5: really talk about their struggles, like if they're sleeping in
Speaker 5: their cars at the moment when they got evicted, or
Speaker 5: if they're struggling to pay their bills. We just kind
Speaker 5: of show up where we need to, and if you're
Speaker 5: like me, you just keep on going even when things
Speaker 5: are tough. When I first came to LA with only
Speaker 5: two hundred dollars in my account, things didn't go the.
Speaker 2: Way I thought they would.
Speaker 5: It's hard.
Speaker 4: I had the.
Speaker 5: Resume, yet I didn't have the experience. I looked for
Speaker 5: any job I could get, freelancing on photo shoots, dialing
Speaker 5: where I could, hauling closure across the city. I applied
Speaker 5: everywhere you can think of, from pr agencies to burger shops,
Speaker 5: but I still wasn't getting hired. That's when I started
Speaker 5: my brand. That's when Babes was born. My roommate wanted
Speaker 5: me off her couch, so I had to make something happen.
Speaker 5: I started upcycling in reworking the clothes I found in
Speaker 5: good will. Some of my first customers were my friends,
Speaker 5: and from their Babes just kind of took off. And
Speaker 5: that's when I learned you don't have to fit in
Speaker 5: to win. I was taking in hymns of blazers, cropping
Speaker 5: te's and hoodies, and making space where there wasn't any,
Speaker 5: putting all of my skills to use while learning new
Speaker 5: ones faster than I could use them. My sewing machine
Speaker 5: and my phone became tools that changed my life, and
Speaker 5: with each cell, my business grew into a global brand.
Speaker 5: That's my style, and that's the story it tells.
Speaker 1: Hi friends.
Speaker 6: My new children's book, You Can be a Good Friend
Speaker 6: no matter matter what, shows kids the great things that
Speaker 6: can happen when we approach others and ourselves with empathy, patience,
Speaker 6: and love. In the book, you'll meet quirky, stylish, and
Speaker 6: a bit off the cup little TJ. She is ready
Speaker 6: for her first day of school, but when she gets there,
Speaker 6: TJ finds that everything she does is a little different
Speaker 6: than everyone else, and she is filled with anxiety and doubt.
Speaker 6: You can be a good friend no matter what. Shows
Speaker 6: kids the importance of standing in their own uniqueness and
Speaker 6: promoting friendship over bullying. My debut picture book is the
Speaker 6: perfect read for promoting mental wellness to your kids. All
Speaker 6: the while you'll also be sharing with them new socialization skills,
Speaker 6: how to embrace the importance of standing in their own uniqueness,
Speaker 6: how to lean into their friendships, and how to end bullying.
Speaker 1: This book will help.
Speaker 6: Your kiddos with various struggles, such as managing any back
Speaker 6: to school jitters or even bigger things that are making
Speaker 6: them nerve us in the evening or when getting ready
Speaker 6: in the mornings. Children ages four to eight will love
Speaker 6: the book, and I think you parents will too. I
Speaker 6: hope that people get that I love people. I hope
Speaker 6: that my legacy will be one of a person who
Speaker 6: really cared about humanity and used her celebrity and her
Speaker 6: blessings to bless others. And that's what That's what my
Speaker 6: book is about. That's what my hair care products is about.
Speaker 6: It's about taking care of yourself and investing time into you.
Speaker 6: My foundation was something that I founded because I was
Speaker 6: in dire need of repairing my mental health right and
Speaker 6: my sons. And then I realized that there's an entire
Speaker 6: community of people who, especially in the black and brown community,
Speaker 6: where we don't even talk about mental illness or mental illness,
Speaker 6: and I just felt inclined to do something about that,
Speaker 6: and that's why started Divorced lawnce Hints and Voundation.
Speaker 4: So hopefully my.
Speaker 6: Legacy will be one of someone who cared about humanity
Speaker 6: and wanted to do something about it to help others
Speaker 6: that may be in need.
Speaker 7: Ooh, y'all, I got my new book, Tiffany Haddish, I
Speaker 7: Curse You with Joy New York Times.
Speaker 4: That's I like.
Speaker 7: Y'all speak it. It got that mm hmm. It's brand new.
Speaker 7: This one's brand brand new. I just put the book
Speaker 7: marking here.
Speaker 8: It got that.
Speaker 7: It got that fresh book smell. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 7: That new book smell.
Speaker 6: Mmmm mmm.
Speaker 7: It's got that like papyrus with like fresh linen scent.
Speaker 3: Mmm, with a hint of coconuting.
Speaker 7: Is that grateful? Oh? I'm putting this song.
Speaker 1: Please welcome back to the Late Show Tiffany has.
Speaker 6: The most fabulous Tiffany has.
Speaker 9: Jiffy had it to everybody.
Speaker 5: She is just looking a new collection of essays called.
Speaker 10: I Curse You with Joy.
Speaker 1: New book I Curse You with Joy.
Speaker 11: This book, by the way, is equal parts funny and
Speaker 11: equal parts poignant. Why did you initially say to yourself?
Speaker 11: I want to put this on page I.
Speaker 7: Wish somebody would have made a manual on how to
Speaker 7: be famous. And I can't make that manual on how
Speaker 7: to be famous because I'm still figuring it out. But
Speaker 7: I can make a manual on how to be yourself
Speaker 7: and not be afraid to be who you are, which
Speaker 7: is the most powerful thing you need to do.
Speaker 11: Yeah, selection everyone, hold on.
Speaker 12: Let me split this.
Speaker 13: Her mother told her, which you'll read about in this book,
Speaker 13: that if she kissed a boy at all exchanged any saliva,
Speaker 13: that her face would basically eat her from the inside out.
Speaker 7: Amber was at school and this boy that we both had,
Speaker 7: like a little personal She started kissing him and I
Speaker 7: was like, oh my god. And I was quiet so
Speaker 7: hard because I was like, Amber, you about to die. God, No, wait,
Speaker 7: that boy, you're about to die. You don't have your
Speaker 7: vaccination yet. You're not vaccinated.
Speaker 4: Can you talk about gaining confidence in this book? Tell
Speaker 4: the people how you gained that big tip energy.
Speaker 7: When I had the penis in my panties.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're about to throw first fish underhanded?
Speaker 4: It I underhand?
Speaker 7: About what if I did it? Like how Fred France
Speaker 7: on balls, like.
Speaker 1: On your tiptoes like that.
Speaker 7: He liked and then he throws it something I could
Speaker 7: do a t up to the plate and then goes,
Speaker 7: I Curse you with the Joy is out today.
Speaker 14: The only book you need to think about and focus
Speaker 14: on is right here. Tiffany Hadis, I Curse you with
Speaker 14: Joy and she gonna be here at Melik Books June
Speaker 14: twenty nine, two pm doing a straight meat Greek book
Speaker 14: signing and photop Come through Melik Books, Westfield, Coach City, Mo.
Speaker 12: The new book The Moment, Yes okay? Is your thoughts
Speaker 12: on the race reckoning that wasn't?
Speaker 1: Why is it? We wought a title? Why the title?
Speaker 5: So?
Speaker 9: Back in twenty twenty twenty one, when we were all
Speaker 9: kind of locked in our homes and then we saw
Speaker 9: George Floyd be murdered on camera, I thought about why
Speaker 9: we saw what we saw and we were in a pandemic,
Speaker 9: and so people were locked in their homes. We had
Speaker 9: the audacity of a seventeen year old black woman to
Speaker 9: take her phone out in videotape.
Speaker 1: What happened.
Speaker 9: We had nine minutes of a black man calling out
Speaker 9: for his mom with the knee on the back of
Speaker 9: his neck, and the world could not turn away. And
Speaker 9: then everybody came out in the streets around the world.
Speaker 9: And it took all of that just for us to
Speaker 9: have accountability, not justice, but accountability. Justice is George Floyd
Speaker 9: still being here? And at that point, maybe it's my
Speaker 9: youthful naivete, but at that point I thought that maybe
Speaker 9: the world was changing, maybe we were starting to understand
Speaker 9: the plight and pain of being black in this country,
Speaker 9: and maybe we were actually having that racial reckoning. You know,
Speaker 9: those were the conversations we were having. And then shit
Speaker 9: changed and we went backwards. I mean we have literally
Speaker 9: since that point when I thought we were making that change,
Speaker 9: we have been going back with sober sixteen hundred books
Speaker 9: band you see what's happening with the attacks on diversity, equity,
Speaker 9: and inclusion. You see the abortion bill in Arizona from
Speaker 9: the eighteen hundreds, and so, you know, I wrote this
Speaker 9: book about that moment. I was on TV with Felonious Floyd,
Speaker 9: who spoke before me, and Charlomagne knows us. I'm a
Speaker 9: real emotion I cry all the time, but he was
Speaker 9: on the segment before me, and I was on with
Speaker 9: Dante Stalworth and I was in my home, my beard
Speaker 9: and everything, pajama pants on. That's when we were still
Speaker 9: doing TV from laptops, and I began to think about
Speaker 9: my kids and what was I going to tell my
Speaker 9: black kids listening to Colonius Floyd just speak.
Speaker 12: What made you That's a great point you brought up
Speaker 12: about how everybody thought things were going to change? What
Speaker 12: made you have a more audacity of hope? Did George
Speaker 12: Floyd situation or Barack Obama being elected?
Speaker 9: Barack Obama being elected, I thought was a moment in
Speaker 9: time because we had gone so far. I remember saying,
Speaker 9: and I had these conversations. I remember being on call
Speaker 9: with people like Dick Carl Poutley, and Michelle Obama. When
Speaker 9: it went many of us who supported the President of
Speaker 9: the United States, Anton Gunn in South Carolina, then Senator
Speaker 9: Barack Obama, and there were fears about Barack Obama. One
Speaker 9: We didn't think white vote would vote for him. That's
Speaker 9: why Iowa was so important. When he went to Iowa,
Speaker 9: were like, oh, white people will vote for this black man.
Speaker 9: And number two, my father would bring it up all
Speaker 9: the time. We were afraid that they were going to
Speaker 9: kill him. I mean, older black folk had a legit
Speaker 9: concern that Barack Obama was going to be assassinated. And
Speaker 9: the reason being is because it came from a valid place.
Speaker 9: They had seen all their heroes become martyrs, and so
Speaker 9: that was a legitimate concern. And so Barack Obama gave
Speaker 9: me a lot of hope when he got elected. The
Speaker 9: death of George Floyd was something that we just it
Speaker 9: was a moment that we missed it. It was a
Speaker 9: surreal moment. And being able to meet the family and
Speaker 9: see how the world kind of embraced his daughter. And
Speaker 9: you know, God works some mysterious ways because he always
Speaker 9: uses somebody that you would not imagine to bring people together.
Speaker 9: And nobody would imagine that the person or the vessel
Speaker 9: he would use would be George Floyd.
Speaker 1: And he did.
Speaker 9: I write about that, but I was excited, but I
Speaker 9: was I was more let down, not by George Floyd
Speaker 9: of course, or his family, but by the way people
Speaker 9: reacted to it, or the white lash to still a
Speaker 9: word from Van Jones. I wanted to come here and
Speaker 9: drop a personal invitation to Tuesday night, June eleventh.
Speaker 15: We're going to be at Elik Books in LA. You're
Speaker 15: gonna swipe over and you're gonna see all the details.
Speaker 15: But I want everybody on the West Coast, everybody in LA,
Speaker 15: everybody in the surrounding areas, who's a supporter, who got
Speaker 15: the moment, who wants to pick up the moment, to
Speaker 15: come check it out. I'm looking forward to this long
Speaker 15: flight going out there tomorrow, being in LA on Tuesday night,
Speaker 15: and I can't wait to see all of you guys.
Speaker 15: So I'll see you guys in Elite Books Tuesday night,
Speaker 15: seven pm. See all there.
Speaker 10: Joining me out is the singular Nicole had A Jones,
Speaker 10: creator of the sixteen nineteen Project, reporter for the New
Speaker 10: York Times magazine, and founder of the Center for Journalism
Speaker 10: and Democracy at Howard University. Shoot that was a lot.
Speaker 10: I remember when you first published this, before the book
Speaker 10: came out, you and I talked in this building and
Speaker 10: it was really remarkable and interesting. But I don't think
Speaker 10: any of us were thinking this is how it was
Speaker 10: going to unfold.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 8: No, you know, it's been five years, which seems at
Speaker 8: once a long period of time in a short period
Speaker 8: of time. But when you think of everything that's happened
Speaker 8: since we had our first conversation, it really is remarkable
Speaker 8: the way that government is using state power to try
Speaker 8: to mandate our ignorance, even as we see the effects
Speaker 8: of this history playing out in our society every day.
Speaker 10: And I left a lot of stuff out of that story,
Speaker 10: including stuff that happened to you, But I think it's
Speaker 10: important to point out that you don't play nor do
Speaker 10: you think you're a victim of this whole thing. In fact,
Speaker 10: when we spoke a few months ago, I want to
Speaker 10: just read, I want to play back actually what you
Speaker 10: said to me about this. Let's listen to this.
Speaker 8: No one is more surprised at what both sixteen nineteen
Speaker 8: has become symbolically and what I've become symbolically. This was
Speaker 8: just the work of journalism, too, and I hope people
Speaker 8: would read it, but I certainly didn't think it would
Speaker 8: kind of spawn this backlash that we've seen. You know,
Speaker 8: all of these anti critical race theory laws. They began
Speaker 8: at Anti sixteen nineteen project laws, and it's really become
Speaker 8: this cultural phenomenon. But I guess that speaks to why
Speaker 8: we became journalists, understanding the type of impact and power
Speaker 8: that we can have around the idea of narrative and
Speaker 8: how we see our society.
Speaker 10: And that's the point of the exercise. Right, you did
Speaker 10: actually provoke a discussion. So now what happens? You poked
Speaker 10: the bear, there was some dry tender there and you
Speaker 10: lit it. Now what happens?
Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean, I think it's clear that you don't
Speaker 8: see a project facing this type of backlash if that
Speaker 8: project is not having impact. And every day I speak
Speaker 8: all over the country and I see thousands of Americans,
Speaker 8: white Americans, Latino Americans, Asian Americans, Black Americans who are saying,
Speaker 8: I understand my country better, who are starting to really
Speaker 8: critique so much of the inequality that we accept. But
Speaker 8: now what happens next, though, I think is largely dependent
Speaker 8: upon us. Which version of America are we going to
Speaker 8: allow to move forward. We are in, as you know,
Speaker 8: an extremely polarized time, a time where people who view
Speaker 8: seem antithetical to democracy are really pulling the levers of
Speaker 8: power to make it harder for us to vote, to
Speaker 8: make it harder for us have a shared sense of
Speaker 8: civic obligation to each other. So I don't know what's
Speaker 8: going to happen next, but I fear, as I know
Speaker 8: you do, that we're ahead. We have some very dark
Speaker 8: times ahead unless we have the Americans decide that we
Speaker 8: want a different country.
Speaker 10: I don't wish to draw you into a debate with
Speaker 10: Donald Trump, but what do you say to people who
Speaker 10: say that you're trying to frame all of our history
Speaker 10: and society through race in some way that's damaging. I
Speaker 10: didn't hear that when I first read what you wrote
Speaker 10: and subsequently the book. That's not how I saw it.
Speaker 10: I saw you adding more information to our corpus of
Speaker 10: history and knowledge about ourselves.
Speaker 8: Well to hear that argument from people who themselves are
Speaker 8: obsessed with race, right, These attacks on affirmative action, these
Speaker 8: attacks on DEI, the tax on immigrants, these are all
Speaker 8: race obsessions. But they're pretending that it's in fact, people
Speaker 8: like myself and the work that we produced that is divisive.
Speaker 8: We have to be honest about our history, and parts
Speaker 8: of our history are very ugly, but how can we
Speaker 8: possibly try to become the country of our highest ideals
Speaker 8: if we're not honest about what we were built upon.
Speaker 8: And if you actually read the project, it's actually the
Speaker 8: most patriotic thing I've ever say.
Speaker 1: It's not angry.
Speaker 10: It's simply a here's a piece of the story that
Speaker 10: is left out of our own narrative about ourselves. Why
Speaker 10: don't we have a more complete look at this thing?
Speaker 10: It doesn't come a way as angry, It doesn't come
Speaker 10: away as mad at anyone. It doesn't come away as
Speaker 10: vengeful or divisive.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 8: I mean, what it argues is that we have failed
Speaker 8: to live up to our ideals, but that black Americans
Speaker 8: joined with other Americans to fight to try to make
Speaker 8: those ideals manifest. It actually is empowering. It says we
Speaker 8: don't have to accept the society that we have, and
Speaker 8: that I actually think the highest calling of patriotism is
Speaker 8: not to say we can't ever critique our country, but
Speaker 8: to say that if our country is great, we have
Speaker 8: to work to make it so. That's true patriotism. Most
Speaker 8: of the people, though, who critique this project, who are
Speaker 8: trying to ban this history, it's clear they haven't read
Speaker 8: it or they haven't grappled seriously and sincerely with its
Speaker 8: ideal in argument.
Speaker 10: You were, you know, you were the impetus frustrating the
Speaker 10: van book club. And that's the point. Most of the
Speaker 10: people create most of these things. You haven't read them, absolutely,
Speaker 10: They've just got ideas about what they are. So you
Speaker 10: know what, this is your invitation read the sixteen nineteen project.
Speaker 10: It's published, it's you can read it for yourself and
Speaker 10: then you can be mad about it or you can
Speaker 10: like it or whatever, but at least you can be informed.
Speaker 16: Built from the fire bodictor Lukison, You know, Greenway really
Speaker 16: was like the eating of the West, that's what folks
Speaker 16: would call it. It was really this place where black
Speaker 16: folks who are living in the Deep South, coming from
Speaker 16: places like Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas. It was basically for they
Speaker 16: could travel and building their life for themselves. It's really tragic,
Speaker 16: ultimately that a place that could have been anything became
Speaker 16: the place of the horrific racial violence.
Speaker 17: Understanding the past is absolutely essential. It gives us a language,
Speaker 17: a way of thinking, a way of connecting the dots
Speaker 17: to understand that these are not just isolated incidents, that
Speaker 17: these things have a trajectory in a context that we
Speaker 17: are still grappling with.
Speaker 18: In the tradition of the great reporting of Isabel Lukersun's
Speaker 18: The Want of other Suns, Victor Lucersun describes in great
Speaker 18: detail the events surrounding the Tulsa massacre in a way
Speaker 18: never before seen.
Speaker 11: Take careful the chronicles a town or tragedy and resilience
Speaker 11: of lives destroyed and the miraculous will to rebuild built
Speaker 11: from the fire. Is the story of black hope and
Speaker 11: the belief and the possibilities of a brighter tomorrow.
Speaker 19: By burying deep into the star Ward Goodwin Family survivals
Speaker 19: of the nineteen twenty one Tussle Race semester, it took
Speaker 19: Lucas and that produced a dynamic and propulsive chronicle of
Speaker 19: that episode in American history. Given the ten of our
Speaker 19: present time, this is truly necessary, but and one that
Speaker 19: marketed exciting arrival of a new literary talents.
Speaker 20: Y'all, mo Leak is in the building. Mo League of
Speaker 20: Books is in the building. Here live at soul folks,
Speaker 20: here in Lamert Park. Oh my goodness, do you want
Speaker 20: to say anything to us? Before I ask you these
Speaker 20: wonderful questions?
Speaker 1: Hey, I'm just grateful. Give it up for soul folks.
Speaker 4: You know it's all about community, right, and at this
Speaker 4: location you can find your soul. And that's what we
Speaker 4: have as black people. We have soul. And no matter
Speaker 4: what we've been through came through, one thing is for certain.
Speaker 1: We kept our soul. Hey.
Speaker 4: They write books about how our soul has never been
Speaker 4: conquered and how we been able to find laughter, enjoy,
Speaker 4: and happiness to spite.
Speaker 1: Whatever we've been through. We are resilient people.
Speaker 4: Hey, we are resilient, and we never need to forget that.
Speaker 4: Our secret weapon is our soul and we should never
Speaker 4: lose that because when we lose that, we lose our life.
Speaker 1: So I love the name soul.
Speaker 4: Folk because that's what defines our essence and our core fighters.
Speaker 1: So we are soulful people. Let us never forget that.
Speaker 1: Like that of.
Speaker 20: These questions because you blessed us with a sermon. Okay,
Speaker 20: getting our souls together. So me and actually curious, are
Speaker 20: actually curious and dying because I do read books and
Speaker 20: we understand grammar.
Speaker 1: Because get it together.
Speaker 20: I want you to give us three things that you
Speaker 20: are grateful for.
Speaker 16: And why wo.
Speaker 4: She packed a lot in that question. The first thing
Speaker 4: to come to mind, it's life. I'm very grateful for
Speaker 4: my life. Let me tell you, you know, without life, there's
Speaker 4: no opportunity. Once you're gone, you're gone in this world.
Speaker 4: You got to be alive to make a difference. You
Speaker 4: got to be alive to make a change. You gotta
Speaker 4: be alive to enjoy this wonderful world that we live in.
Speaker 4: Despite whatever thrown at us, whatever obstacles we gotta overcome.
Speaker 1: Your life matters. Let me hear you say, your life matters.
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful.
Speaker 4: Sometimes I forget how blessed I am. Sometimes I forget
Speaker 4: because I got a storm in my life, like all
Speaker 4: of y'all, we got storms.
Speaker 1: But you're alive, and if you are alive, you got
Speaker 1: a chance to change.
Speaker 4: I thank God for me having this opportunity and being alive.
Speaker 1: So that's first and foremost.
Speaker 4: Because life is the greatest gift. Don't you ever forget that.
Speaker 4: There's no nothing more important than life. It's the greatest
Speaker 4: gift given to all of us, you know, So protect it,
Speaker 4: cherish it, and nourish it, all right. So the second,
Speaker 4: the second is family. Family, because it drives me, it
Speaker 4: gives me passion.
Speaker 1: It gives me direction.
Speaker 4: It allows me to think about what I need to
Speaker 4: do every day to provide food, shelter, and clothing. My
Speaker 4: family is my second thing that I'm grateful for. Some
Speaker 4: of us don't have that, but we all search for it.
Speaker 4: No matter where you at in this world. We desire connection, companionship.
Speaker 4: We decie to be loved. My family loved me, and
Speaker 4: I need to be grateful for that.
Speaker 1: Even when sometimes I don't even deserve it.
Speaker 4: I'm thankful for my family because it's my motivation, it's
Speaker 4: my passion, and it's why I get up every day
Speaker 4: to do what I do. And that braced me to
Speaker 4: my third one, which is Malague books. I got all
Speaker 4: the books.
Speaker 1: You need.
Speaker 4: That. It's my third grateful on this heaven, Malik books.
Speaker 4: And I didn't always think that that was what.
Speaker 1: My destiny was.
Speaker 4: I second guess I was like Jonah in the belly
Speaker 4: of a world, didn't want to do the work. But
Speaker 4: God persecuted me for so many years and he said, believe,
Speaker 4: go back to the books. That's what I groomed you for,
Speaker 4: that's what I made you for. And I walked away
Speaker 4: did some other things with the family, only to find
Speaker 4: out that.
Speaker 1: This is my passion, this is my drive.
Speaker 4: I've been doing this shit for thirty years, and since
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety I've been serving the community with books. I'm
Speaker 4: a book activist. I use books to make a difference
Speaker 4: in our community. I use books because it's the gift
Speaker 4: that keeps on giving, and books can change your life
Speaker 4: like it did Nipsey Hustle's life. You don't have to
Speaker 4: graduate from college, you don't even have to have a pump.
Speaker 4: But if you want to change your life, pick a
Speaker 4: book up because it can make a difference. It can
Speaker 4: make a change, it can give you what.
Speaker 1: You don't have.
Speaker 4: That's one thing that we passed on from one generation
Speaker 4: to the next. It's information is knowledge is data, and
Speaker 4: you can find it.
Speaker 1: In a book.
Speaker 4: So I'm grateful for Malague Books. That's the three. Okay,
Speaker 4: you can find League Books and the Bold Hills Crunch
Speaker 4: on Mall.
Speaker 1: That's the O g our Marque.
Speaker 4: Location is Westfield, Cooche City aka Fox Hills Mall.
Speaker 1: That's where you can find our instagram.
Speaker 4: This is Elite Books. We do a lot of events.
Speaker 4: I mean, God, just open up the gateway. They throwing that,
Speaker 4: they throwing that I don't even have to call no more.
Speaker 4: I don't even have to write proposals.
Speaker 1: No more.
Speaker 4: They giving me all e they giving me all that.
Speaker 4: We got to Roger p coming up June twenty second,
Speaker 4: We got Nicole Hannah Jones June fourteenth. All right, we
Speaker 4: got for cards sellers coming up June eleventh. And if
Speaker 4: the list just keeps growing, so hey, I'm gonna have
Speaker 4: some descendants from the Oklahoma massacre green Wood gonna be
Speaker 4: at Elite Books June eighteenth.
Speaker 1: She used to own a prominent theater.
Speaker 4: She's gonna grace us on June eighteenth. We celebrate June
Speaker 4: timp and we got to set somebody from green Wood
Speaker 4: from the massacre gonna be at Malik Books.
Speaker 1: Gonna be that June eighteenth. Come on through seven pm.
Speaker 4: Let's give it up man Belief Books.
Speaker 3: Thanks for listening to Malak's Bookshelf, where topics on the
Speaker 3: shelf are books, culture, and community. Be sure to subscribe
Speaker 3: and leave me a review. Check out my instagram at
Speaker 3: Malak Books. See you next time.