Speaker 1: What's good family, it's your girl to meeke A D.
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy my son in general, and
Speaker 1: we are your hosts of street politicians the place. What's
Speaker 1: going on, my son learning? How you doing today? A
Speaker 1: new city. We've moved on from l A to New
Speaker 1: York to now we're in where we are. No. Yes,
Speaker 1: shout out to Nolah, shout out to the Essence Fest.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, black people, a bunch of black people
Speaker 1: just out here doing what they do. Man. So it's
Speaker 1: always good. Yeah. Today starts the concerts and the convention
Speaker 1: center has opened and for the next few days, people
Speaker 1: will be actively being black, learning about our culture, eating
Speaker 1: food that we like, buying products, supporting black businesses, um,
Speaker 1: you know, listening to health conversations, listening to social justice conversations.
Speaker 1: There's a panel on voting rights, seeing celebrities, um, all that.
Speaker 1: It all happens at the Essence Music Festival. The Essence
Speaker 1: Festival is now what they call it. They drop music
Speaker 1: because it's it's in a whole experience. It's a whole experience.
Speaker 1: There ain't just no music no more. And going to
Speaker 1: the to the concerts at night, which is a highlight
Speaker 1: this year. I think Janet Jackson is coming back. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, I know they're gonna have Mary, because
Speaker 1: that's something. If you don't have marry at Essence Fest,
Speaker 1: like what are you doing? I think the other thing
Speaker 1: that happens is that there is a very um intentional
Speaker 1: celebration of black women at the Essence Fest. Blackness magazines
Speaker 1: pretty much this celebration and exaltation a black woman. Well,
Speaker 1: I I think I was telling you that. A man
Speaker 1: told me. He said, yeah, he was on the plane.
Speaker 1: I said, you're working this weekend. He said, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I know I was working. If I'm not anymore, he said,
Speaker 1: but I'm a worker, right because I'm gonna give me one, two,
Speaker 1: three women down here at the essence Fast. I said, well,
Speaker 1: come on, he gotta he gotta, he gotta go. A
Speaker 1: man with a plan man three not to not want three.
Speaker 1: So I get it, and I bet you there's three
Speaker 1: that that want to be They want to be with
Speaker 1: him to listen, like I said, man, a man with
Speaker 1: a plan's a man that's gonna get what he can whatever.
Speaker 1: So um, yeah, you know, um, my mother passed away
Speaker 1: and in the next week I've been just going over
Speaker 1: getting his tattoo of her face, and I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find like a really good tattoo artists. I want to
Speaker 1: put this tattoo on my arm and underneath his satricious
Speaker 1: son and remembers, but I also want to put my
Speaker 1: grandmother's because I didn't. My grandmother passed away when I
Speaker 1: was locked up, and I always wanted to do it.
Speaker 1: So those are pretty much the two most influential people
Speaker 1: in my life, you know, who nurtured me and gave
Speaker 1: me levels of confidence and things that I don't think
Speaker 1: I would have without them. So I've been thinking about
Speaker 1: that the last couple of weeks. I wanted to do
Speaker 1: it at first, you know, when she first passed, but
Speaker 1: I was I thought he was too emotional, you know,
Speaker 1: it's too most emotional time for me. So that's that's
Speaker 1: what I'm working on. I don't know why, but it's
Speaker 1: something I want to do, like and I don't do.
Speaker 1: I got a couple of tattoos. I'm not like a
Speaker 1: tattooed person, so it's not like a normal thing. But
Speaker 1: these tattoos that I really wanted, you know, just really
Speaker 1: make sure that they're done right. They're not tattoo person,
Speaker 1: but you gotta full the whole thing across the top
Speaker 1: of your chest. In comparison, I got four tattoos, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're big, like I got. I'm not a tattooed person.
Speaker 1: I have one thing, which is my son's name. Right here,
Speaker 1: you add something stretched from one side and your chest
Speaker 1: to the other. Well, Originally I wanted to um. I
Speaker 1: wanted to make my body into a general's uniform. Right.
Speaker 1: So what you're talking about is this is the the
Speaker 1: um color that goes around the general's uniform. If you
Speaker 1: look on the general's uniform, you'll see d S these
Speaker 1: medals on the top of east side and then on
Speaker 1: I have the seal of the general on east soldier,
Speaker 1: I mean on each shoulder. So I was gonna put
Speaker 1: like the badge with all of the purple hearts and
Speaker 1: all those things. I was gonna literally make it into
Speaker 1: a uniform. But I realized I wasn't like really a
Speaker 1: tattooed person at that time, you know, I got That's
Speaker 1: when I realized it, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't really want to just be getting tatto whoos
Speaker 1: and tattoo my whole body up. So I stopped, but
Speaker 1: something stopped you from doing that. Yeah, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. It's I know a lot of people who
Speaker 1: have hundreds of tattoos, Like I got friends they got
Speaker 1: fifty and thirty and forty and hundreds of tattoos. So
Speaker 1: I'm not really a tattooed person, but when it has
Speaker 1: some level of value of significance to me, you know,
Speaker 1: I want, like I wanted, I want to see my
Speaker 1: mother's face when I look down. I want to see
Speaker 1: my grandmother's face on right here on my farm. So
Speaker 1: those are things that I mean, you might you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's gonna be a little bit of pain.
Speaker 1: But you're old man, and the old man it's different
Speaker 1: when you become an old man. When you when you're older,
Speaker 1: you get the heart of your body gets so you
Speaker 1: want custom to pain certain things anymore because more custom
Speaker 1: that I'm listening to you, I'm saying, I've I've dealt
Speaker 1: with levels of pain and things that I thought I
Speaker 1: never could survive, and I survived them, So it ain't
Speaker 1: really that much different. While I was sitting on the
Speaker 1: plane yesterday and out of know where, my knees just
Speaker 1: started herd and I'm like I'm sitting down, I'm not
Speaker 1: even walking, like what is wrong with my knees? This
Speaker 1: is just what happens when you get to be over forty,
Speaker 1: so you you are old man now. I don't know,
Speaker 1: but I think it's beautiful. I think you picked the
Speaker 1: right pictures. Make sure you get you know exactly what
Speaker 1: you're looking for. And to your point, you need a
Speaker 1: good tattoo artist, which is not easy to find because
Speaker 1: everybody thinks stay the best and they're great, and then
Speaker 1: their work looks like stuff just mumbled together, jumbled together.
Speaker 1: So I hope you find the right person. You should
Speaker 1: actually put a call out on the graham Um to
Speaker 1: find a makeup makeup tattoo artists who can recreate what
Speaker 1: you're looking for. I mean, I've seen a couple so
Speaker 1: in a couple of my friends have tattoos that I've
Speaker 1: seen done and I like the quality and the detail
Speaker 1: of it. So you know, I'm gonna reach out to
Speaker 1: them and get some try to get those connections. Is
Speaker 1: it expensive? I mean, it depends it depends on who
Speaker 1: does it. You know, tattoos, you know they're range in prices,
Speaker 1: depends on who does it. Some people sometimes the other
Speaker 1: couple of tattoos I got. I actually never paid for
Speaker 1: a tattoo, right. I tried to artists that were dope
Speaker 1: that wanted, you know, because I had a level of
Speaker 1: a platform and celebrity that they wanted people to to
Speaker 1: see the art that they did on me. So like, YO,
Speaker 1: just let people know I did it. Take a picture,
Speaker 1: you know. So it depends. It all depends. I saw
Speaker 1: one guy. Did you see the guy who tattooed cockroaches
Speaker 1: all over his chest? Stupid? What he must have been
Speaker 1: a he was like, made no sense none whatsoever. So
Speaker 1: let's get into the news stories. We have a pretty
Speaker 1: uh deep interview that we're doing today with Brittney Brian's
Speaker 1: childhood friend who was like her sister. They actually call
Speaker 1: um one another sisters, and she's like one of the
Speaker 1: closest people outside of Sharrell Britten's wife. And so she's
Speaker 1: coming on and we want to give her a lot
Speaker 1: of time because the sister, she's got a lot to say. Um,
Speaker 1: And so I want to get into these news stories quickly.
Speaker 1: There's two things that happened we get We'll get two
Speaker 1: stories from the National News and one from Instagram News. Um.
Speaker 1: The two stories unfortunately, and you know, I we were
Speaker 1: really all of the folks who work with us, precious
Speaker 1: who helps us to kind of think through, um, you
Speaker 1: know what our rundown of the show will be. Uh.
Speaker 1: And certainly I was doing it trying to find like,
Speaker 1: what are some positive things that have made the press
Speaker 1: this week, things that we want to talk about. And
Speaker 1: it's like, yo, you you can't ignore these stories that
Speaker 1: keep coming out about um, black men being killed by
Speaker 1: the police and you know, or being harmed significantly by
Speaker 1: the police. Uh. And it's sad because it's like people,
Speaker 1: it's like you feel like it kind of dies down,
Speaker 1: and then we are always back in the situation. And
Speaker 1: it seems like these situations get worse and worse and
Speaker 1: worse because George Floyd, we all know, was one of
Speaker 1: the worst that we've actually seen with our eyes. Now
Speaker 1: you have Jalen Walker, who's in akron Ohio, where by
Speaker 1: the way, my family lives there. Many members of my
Speaker 1: family are in akron Um And I don't even have
Speaker 1: the capacity to sit and read the details of what
Speaker 1: the police say. I don't know, and I'm sure I
Speaker 1: other that be posted and I'm gonna have to understand
Speaker 1: it at some point. But today, what I do know
Speaker 1: it's sixty shots were fired at Jalen Walker that it
Speaker 1: him in his face and all over his body. That's
Speaker 1: what I know. And the reason why I said I
Speaker 1: don't know the story is because you know, I know
Speaker 1: enough I'm able to pick up in enough places if
Speaker 1: he was shooting at somebody, or if he had robbed
Speaker 1: a bank and had an old lady you know, excuse me,
Speaker 1: an elderly woman hell hostage, or if he had a
Speaker 1: child dangling over a bridge, like I know, I would
Speaker 1: have seen that. I would have seen that. I'm I'm, I'm, I'm,
Speaker 1: I'm like a hundred percent shore And I could be wrong,
Speaker 1: you might know, and somebody else been, but I'm I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure he did not do anything that call for
Speaker 1: sixty shots that hit that boy all over his face,
Speaker 1: his his his face, and his body mutilated him. No,
Speaker 1: did you hear? There's never there's never a justification for that,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, especially when there's no weapon found, right,
Speaker 1: especially when you're running from the police, and and and
Speaker 1: we and yet we always try to find people that
Speaker 1: want to justify and say, well, I need to know
Speaker 1: the other part of the story, and I need to
Speaker 1: know what happened before this happened. That's always, well, what
Speaker 1: happened before this, y'all. You're only showing us this piece
Speaker 1: of the thing. And it's always the same, same sad song,
Speaker 1: you know, And and it ultimately ends in the death
Speaker 1: or you know, the severe injury of one of our people. Man,
Speaker 1: So my my prayers go out to them. Hopefully he
Speaker 1: gets justice. Hopefully those officers are brought to justice. You know,
Speaker 1: I know what, they're on unpaid leave right now or
Speaker 1: paid administratively, administratively probably old same old too. And so
Speaker 1: now the city has canceled some of their festivals and
Speaker 1: other things that you know, are supposed to you know,
Speaker 1: things that they do in the summer and acuring and
Speaker 1: all over the country. They've had to cancel those occasions
Speaker 1: because they are concerned about um uprisings. And I'm just
Speaker 1: so tired of it. Then, you know, we learned uh
Speaker 1: last week while we were interviewing being prompt and now
Speaker 1: I've I've actually talked to him about it. Randy Cox
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. Basically the police did the same thing to
Speaker 1: him that they did to Freddy Gray. They put him
Speaker 1: in the car without strapping him in with his seatbelt,
Speaker 1: with his hands behind his back, and basically he broke
Speaker 1: I think they say he broke his neck, but certainly
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's paralyzed for um from his neck
Speaker 1: down for the rest of his life. Um. They there's
Speaker 1: video footage of the officers asking him, Hey, what's going
Speaker 1: on with you? You know what's happened. He's like, I
Speaker 1: can't feel my body. I can't feel my legs. I
Speaker 1: can't feel And they're like, yeah, you know, okay, we'll
Speaker 1: just kind of like sit up, You'll be okay. But
Speaker 1: they took him on what's that with the way ride?
Speaker 1: On the rough rough ride, and so now this this
Speaker 1: this man, um, you know, it's paralyzed. And again I
Speaker 1: don't know because I just, you know, between us going traveling,
Speaker 1: we've been dealing with Brittney Grinder, we've been engaged in
Speaker 1: another thing that we can't talk about right now. People
Speaker 1: don't I saw somebody on the internet today, Um, oh
Speaker 1: you look cute, because you know, I posted a picture
Speaker 1: of me at the BET Awards and he said, oh,
Speaker 1: you look. But do you even do activism anymore? Or
Speaker 1: are you a socialite. Now you're trying to be a socialite.
Speaker 1: I'm like, if people knew, you know, because you know
Speaker 1: how you know? Last week was a tough week, Like
Speaker 1: I was busting my behind before the b ET Awards
Speaker 1: the next day afterwards, working on stuff, playing in a
Speaker 1: prayer vigil for Brittney Griner, handling proposals for other big things.
Speaker 1: Is that we have that we're working on. Um, it's
Speaker 1: just so much and people just don't know. And I
Speaker 1: think that folks believe that if they don't see you
Speaker 1: sitting there on your computer or look like you're crying
Speaker 1: and beat down, they don't believe that anything is happening.
Speaker 1: But we actually have so much, so with everything with
Speaker 1: me research and Grinder reading up on Russian laws, talking
Speaker 1: to lawyers about what they think and how we should
Speaker 1: approach getting in this fight, the you know, calling Silla
Speaker 1: Jackson Lee, the congresswoman from Texas, doing all of that,
Speaker 1: I didn't feel like reading the space of more black
Speaker 1: men kill, but I looked enough not seeing them scape. Oh,
Speaker 1: Randy Cox drove his car into a senior citizen center
Speaker 1: and therefore they nabbed him and this happened. It's not there.
Speaker 1: I don't believe it's there either. I very rarely see it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes there's justification before the most part, I think that
Speaker 1: police have decided that their emotions and there and how
Speaker 1: they feel about situation superseed justice, and we see it
Speaker 1: often enough. And the fact that they're able to say
Speaker 1: or I felt this was happening, or or I was
Speaker 1: scared or this and that and I didn't know in
Speaker 1: those things or defenses, it means that it's going to
Speaker 1: continue to happen, right, So until we until we have
Speaker 1: something a system set in place that makes you accountable,
Speaker 1: fully accountable for when you do things that are completely wrong,
Speaker 1: when people lose their lives and people are paralyzed, then
Speaker 1: we're gonna keep seeing the same things. Yeah, it's got
Speaker 1: to be a better way. It just it does. And
Speaker 1: we say that all the time. And I don't think
Speaker 1: that we're giving it today the full attention, but you
Speaker 1: know that over the coming days we will, UM well,
Speaker 1: we'll have more to say and of course will follow
Speaker 1: the lead of those people who are on the ground
Speaker 1: in Akron, Ohio and in Connecticut. Leaders. I know Scott
Speaker 1: Esdale is in Connecticut, UM and you know he's president
Speaker 1: of the New haven. I think chapter maybe it's not
Speaker 1: NAVE and I might be wrong of the N double
Speaker 1: A C p UM and you know, and also the
Speaker 1: Regional UM president, I mean regional leader. I forget the
Speaker 1: exact titles, but he has a lot of influence there
Speaker 1: in Connecticut. And we're gonna take everyone's lead, and you know,
Speaker 1: we'll have more to say to break down the details.
Speaker 1: But I'm like trauma wipped. I really am. I'm trauma
Speaker 1: with Like I feel like there's just so many cases,
Speaker 1: so much that's happening that people don't again, you don't
Speaker 1: think about the totality, and that's what everyone's worked. We
Speaker 1: don't always think of the totality of what the government
Speaker 1: is dealing with or what you know, different individuals. They
Speaker 1: have a lot to deal with every day. And you know,
Speaker 1: just sitting thinking about uh, Stanley David just the third
Speaker 1: Stanley Davis, third teen year old boy deserve justice. He
Speaker 1: hit the officer to him, Staling has a job still
Speaker 1: hasn't been fired in Boyton Beach, Florida, kill by a
Speaker 1: rogue officer with a rat sheet, a rap sheet of times,
Speaker 1: including two other times where he performed high speed chases,
Speaker 1: and another child and another individual were killed, right, and
Speaker 1: he still has a job. So that is something that
Speaker 1: requires our work and attention. I got a text message
Speaker 1: today from Tennisia Chappelle's family asking can until Freedom be
Speaker 1: there for the anniversary of their sister being killed basically
Speaker 1: by police, I mean by by jail officials, by the
Speaker 1: CEO is not giving them her medical attention and who
Speaker 1: even knows how she got sick. And that's in in
Speaker 1: in where they live in Kentucky, but it happened in Indiana.
Speaker 1: There's just too much trauma. It just is. And you know,
Speaker 1: I hope people are mentally taking care of themselves, uh
Speaker 1: and doing whatever they can to kind of separate from
Speaker 1: the trauma at times, but not to separate so much
Speaker 1: that we're not fighting because we have obligation to fight.
Speaker 1: And speaking of obligation brings me to I said we
Speaker 1: would do our national news story and then our Instagram
Speaker 1: news story. Uh. Last week a big thing broke out
Speaker 1: that has been going on all week on or yeah
Speaker 1: on uh whether or not the father of one child
Speaker 1: in a house with three other children was wrong for
Speaker 1: bringing McDonald's only to his child and not the other
Speaker 1: kids in the house. They it was a whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, was he wrong and what was really probably disturbing.
Speaker 1: I know it was disturbing to me. And again I
Speaker 1: didn't even watch the video, but I heard enough about
Speaker 1: what was being stated, um that I know that what
Speaker 1: took place was not appropriate. For a mother to go
Speaker 1: online and basically degrade the man, throw the food on
Speaker 1: the ground, put it on video, and send it out
Speaker 1: to the world. That to me is completely inappropriate and
Speaker 1: there's no excuse for it, none. And I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: sit here and say, well, but you know, I get
Speaker 1: that she's frustrated. It doesn't matter. It's wrong, it should
Speaker 1: not happen. We got enough issues with black men even
Speaker 1: showing up to be with their children, and the barriers
Speaker 1: in that sometimes are created um by the world and
Speaker 1: then also sometimes by mothers where they are putting all
Speaker 1: of these different obstacles in the way for fathers to
Speaker 1: be able to see their children. So the fact that
Speaker 1: the father even showed up right is even there is important.
Speaker 1: And I have to say that. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure I say that from the beginning. But I was
Speaker 1: going to weigh in as my thought of the day
Speaker 1: on the specific question of whether or not a man
Speaker 1: uh should bring or if he is obligated to bring
Speaker 1: food to all the children in the house when he
Speaker 1: comes to to feed his own, and I think he should.
Speaker 1: I think my uh if I had to give my vote,
Speaker 1: because it certainly is a split conversation. I happened to
Speaker 1: be on the phone with my sister, my God's sister,
Speaker 1: and they were arguing back and forth about who's right
Speaker 1: and who's wrong. But I do believe that uh if you,
Speaker 1: especially because we later learned that I did see this
Speaker 1: video popped up on my feed where the same mother
Speaker 1: was talking about, um, you know, how this man had
Speaker 1: been there with her children in the past, that these
Speaker 1: three children are his, her first children, that he knew
Speaker 1: when he met her, and he had been involved in
Speaker 1: taking care of those kids and doing things for them
Speaker 1: and feeding them and whatnot in the past. And I
Speaker 1: think that, UM, my perspective is that when when when
Speaker 1: we used the use of the word and I saw
Speaker 1: people saying, oh, he doesn't have an obligation, I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the problems with our society is that
Speaker 1: we don't feel obligated. We don't feel obligated when a
Speaker 1: woman is being beat down on the street by a
Speaker 1: man or you know, being robbed or whatever, and we're
Speaker 1: just standing there watching. We don't feel obligated. When police are,
Speaker 1: you know, arresting somebody, you don't feel obligated to stand
Speaker 1: by and film what's going on. And we certainly and
Speaker 1: those situations are people you don't know, but you certainly
Speaker 1: should feel obligated to do what you can for the
Speaker 1: children who are the siblings of your child. And it
Speaker 1: is not to say buy them all fancy things or
Speaker 1: give them a bunch of stuff. But in the black family,
Speaker 1: in the black community, it has always been very clear
Speaker 1: that when you show up with food, you don't come
Speaker 1: to a house to feed you. You don't come to
Speaker 1: the house with food just for yourself and not make
Speaker 1: sure that everyone else eats. And I think as a man,
Speaker 1: as a father, um, if I personally believe that if
Speaker 1: you come to bring food for your child, you should
Speaker 1: bring it for all, or you should take your child
Speaker 1: out of the house, take them on the little trip
Speaker 1: to McDonald's, do what you're gonna do, and bring your
Speaker 1: child back, but never let your child eat what other
Speaker 1: children are not. And I'm pretty much I don't have
Speaker 1: any real disagreement with what you're saying, because I would
Speaker 1: never do me personally, I would never do it. But
Speaker 1: my only issue with the conversation was the word obligation. Right.
Speaker 1: In the world, obligation is something it's difficult for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, right, because a lot of men be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll do it, but I'm not obligated. It's like you're
Speaker 1: helping somebody's Like, if I have enough money to help
Speaker 1: my friend, right, people, your friend will called you right
Speaker 1: and feel out of yod. You got money, why you
Speaker 1: don't give me to pay my rent? You know you're
Speaker 1: my friend. You've got money, you you you should be
Speaker 1: able to give it to me. You should make sure
Speaker 1: I'm good. You should make sure I'm doing this. It's
Speaker 1: a lettable entitlement, right. The word obligation means that somebody
Speaker 1: else is entitled to something that you have, right. And
Speaker 1: in my in my opinion, if I didn't make these children, right,
Speaker 1: you're not entitled to anything for me. Right. What I
Speaker 1: what I do for those children is at the kindness
Speaker 1: of my heart, because I'm a man of a certain caliber,
Speaker 1: and the reality is every man is not of that caliber.
Speaker 1: And if you decide that you're dealing with men that
Speaker 1: I'm not of that caliber, and you have expectations of
Speaker 1: them that is beyond the caliber of that individual. Whose
Speaker 1: fault is that at that point, right, Whose fault is
Speaker 1: that there's a bunch of friends, like I see a
Speaker 1: bunch of famous people, rich people all the time talk
Speaker 1: about how their family feel like they obligated to pay
Speaker 1: their rent. That because I'm rich, I'm supposed to give
Speaker 1: you money because you know I have Because if I
Speaker 1: if I just call you every week for five dollars,
Speaker 1: because you're my friend and and we're family and I
Speaker 1: want to make sure you're good, I should give it
Speaker 1: to you. Am I obligated to do? That? Is their
Speaker 1: expectation for me to do that? Right, So this is
Speaker 1: what I'm trying to say in this situation, this man
Speaker 1: knowingly made one child. Knowingly he he made this challenge. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is where my obligation is. I'm obligated to make
Speaker 1: sure that this child is could. Right. It's just like
Speaker 1: a mother say, like the argument is woman's suit. A
Speaker 1: man that made the challenge said you should be paying
Speaker 1: on my bills. No, my my obligation is to my child.
Speaker 1: Like when when the relationship. This um dissipates in its
Speaker 1: over right, I might have it dissolves or whatever. I
Speaker 1: might have been doing things within that relationship that I
Speaker 1: felt obligated within that relationship. Right, I might have done
Speaker 1: things for those kids and you because that was my
Speaker 1: obligation to that relationship. There are men who feel when
Speaker 1: they're no longer in that relationship, they're no longer obligated
Speaker 1: to the things that they would do in that relationship.
Speaker 1: The only thing that obligated is to things that are
Speaker 1: completely there. And that man felt like, this is my child. Now,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't do that. If I'm bringing food to a child,
Speaker 1: it's cool. But the word obligation to me is a
Speaker 1: false narrative. It's not a reality. And that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that the only way our communities can ever
Speaker 1: become whole is the use of the word obligation. So
Speaker 1: do you feel like you feel like you obligated to
Speaker 1: listen to me. Do you feel that you you break
Speaker 1: up with a man he has kids. Those kids don't
Speaker 1: have anything they they I mean, okay, well, listen, you
Speaker 1: used to take care of those kids, used to give
Speaker 1: these kids a weekly allowance, When you was in a
Speaker 1: relationship with that man, you gave him a weekly allowance.
Speaker 1: When that relationships ends, are you still obligated to give
Speaker 1: those kids a weekly allowance? I want this to be
Speaker 1: very clear because I think what we do, um all
Speaker 1: of us, is that we are to add a lot
Speaker 1: of elements to conversations that actually are not about the conversation.
Speaker 1: The conversation is very specific. We add a lot of
Speaker 1: things to conversations that is actually not what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: The conversation is not about allowance. We're not talking about Christmas,
Speaker 1: we're not talking about friends, We're not talking about any
Speaker 1: of that. We're talking about food and what food means right.
Speaker 1: Food means love, food means nourishment right, And especially if
Speaker 1: you at one point lived or what what you were
Speaker 1: a constant person in children's lives, you do not feed
Speaker 1: one without feeding the others. That is a fundamental thing.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about whether or not you should have
Speaker 1: to give. No, you can give your child allowance, and
Speaker 1: you may not be able to or even want to
Speaker 1: give the rest of the people allowance. And I noticed
Speaker 1: also when you were speaking, you were like, whose fault
Speaker 1: is that? Because she and she we're not talking about
Speaker 1: she removed her from the situation, her when she's the
Speaker 1: one with the issue already. No, no, But because there's
Speaker 1: some women who don't believe that he's obligator, woman who
Speaker 1: we're not talking about. We're not talking about women. We're
Speaker 1: talking about your opinion in mind, and we're not talking
Speaker 1: about I'm not talking about my opinion of your opinion
Speaker 1: has to be based on the totality of the situation,
Speaker 1: because if we just give our opinion based on us
Speaker 1: as an individual, and we're not giving it from perspectives
Speaker 1: that are are different than ours or understanding other people's perspective.
Speaker 1: So you can bring into space so that the conversation
Speaker 1: can be in full it's not really a conversation. But
Speaker 1: what I'm saying to you is that I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not here to try to analyze right that she did this,
Speaker 1: and she said this, and she said that, I'm here
Speaker 1: to narrow down to one point. Should a man or
Speaker 1: I want men who has been involved in the lives
Speaker 1: of children, which, by the way, you also said I
Speaker 1: had a child, I made a child with you. But
Speaker 1: that's a problem that we get ourselves into as human beings, right,
Speaker 1: is that we go have children and particularly our brothers.
Speaker 1: Our brothers get themselves in situations when this when the
Speaker 1: ship is cool and it's good and it's popping, and
Speaker 1: have babies with people who already have babies. So when
Speaker 1: you meet a woman and she has children that are
Speaker 1: from a previous relationship or previous relationships, you now are
Speaker 1: putting yourself in a situation where you're having a child
Speaker 1: that is a sibling, that is a sibling, not just
Speaker 1: your child that is you know. It's very similar to
Speaker 1: what we want to see uh people do for Brittany Grinder,
Speaker 1: what we want to see people do for Brianna Taylor.
Speaker 1: We're asking people to step out of their comfort zone
Speaker 1: to be engaged with the community. And when your child
Speaker 1: is a sibling in a community other kids is a
Speaker 1: community you do not feed. I'm not talking my buying sneakers.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about uh, you know, taking them on
Speaker 1: every vacation, although I think you should if you was
Speaker 1: doing it before, if you can't afford it. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about bringing food. It's in in every black household, right
Speaker 1: I know, with with um in my family, people got
Speaker 1: children by other folks, but they married to my grandparents.
Speaker 1: They're they married in and they bring other children with them.
Speaker 1: Those ain't my grandparents grandchildren. Those are my mom and
Speaker 1: dad or my aunts and uncles grandchildren. But when those
Speaker 1: children are around, they do for them all. They feed
Speaker 1: them all. You don't feed one without feeding others. That's
Speaker 1: just an or. Or remove your child. You take your child,
Speaker 1: say I pick I'm picking my child up from four
Speaker 1: to six on Thursday, we go into McDonald's. You don't
Speaker 1: gotta say that. You don't even gotta say what you're doing.
Speaker 1: You're gonna tell nobody that's y'all thing, and you teach
Speaker 1: your child while you out. Hey, And by the way,
Speaker 1: guess what me like you said, you and I are different,
Speaker 1: Me and my child going to McDonald's. When we leave,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get you another little twenty piece and take
Speaker 1: it home to your brother's assistance if you can. If
Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to tell you. What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to explain to you is that is that is a
Speaker 1: choice to me, because right, that is a choice that
Speaker 1: we've made based on our upbringing, based on how we
Speaker 1: feel about things. Right, But the word obligation means entitlement. Right,
Speaker 1: somebody else's entitled. If you if I'm obligated to do
Speaker 1: something to you, that means you're entitled for it to happen.
Speaker 1: But about my son, I think that that's the problem
Speaker 1: with the whole conversation, right, because what I'm trying to
Speaker 1: do is elevate the conversation to whether we are obligated
Speaker 1: to our people, and if we are obligated to our children,
Speaker 1: and if we are obligated to the mental capacity, and
Speaker 1: what we as adults when we make decisions we hurt
Speaker 1: or help, We hurt or heal, We cause confusion, and
Speaker 1: all of us have are guilty of it in one
Speaker 1: way or the other by things that we do. That's life.
Speaker 1: We know it. You know what I'm saying. If you
Speaker 1: you you can work too much, Like my child was
Speaker 1: harmed because I was working all the time and I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to give him some of the things that
Speaker 1: he needed as a kid growing up. So we hurt
Speaker 1: and we heal. Right, I'm saying that we do have
Speaker 1: an obligation. The obligation is not about the entitlement piece
Speaker 1: the way you're speaking of it, Because I understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying, Like you you think you're entitled like I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to just do. No, that's not what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: I'm saying the obligation as a man that I want
Speaker 1: my child to be in a healthy environment with other
Speaker 1: children that feel loved. That's because this is a community,
Speaker 1: and that is the obligation. So I'm not and I
Speaker 1: guess what you said. You made the point which I
Speaker 1: agree with, that I'm trying to remove the convo from
Speaker 1: the context of a dialogue that many people are having,
Speaker 1: and you're sitting in the middle of the dialogue understanding
Speaker 1: that there are people like, oh, you know, he's supposed
Speaker 1: to and you're saying he is not supposed to. I'm
Speaker 1: asking us, as men and our men, raise the level
Speaker 1: of standard to that and make it an obligation. Right.
Speaker 1: I saw on Fathers a Live in the Hood um
Speaker 1: their Instagram page they said something that I thought was
Speaker 1: powerful and now I was if you can't bring McDonald's,
Speaker 1: bring groceries, but feed every child, we feed every child.
Speaker 1: So that's my opinion, that's my thought, and I agree.
Speaker 1: I just I just want, you know, just based on
Speaker 1: the whole situation, the context of it, I just want
Speaker 1: it to be a well rounded thought out situation, because
Speaker 1: in certain situations people will use this as some level
Speaker 1: of entitlement and use the word obligation. And I realized
Speaker 1: that I'm only obligated to do what I know is right. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm only obligated to do what I feel is the
Speaker 1: right thing to do, or what what I'm bound to do. Right.
Speaker 1: I'm only if I make children, I'm obligated to take
Speaker 1: care of children. If I decide that it's another kid
Speaker 1: down the block that I want to take care for,
Speaker 1: and I've decided to do it, then those things wrong.
Speaker 1: But I hear what you're saying with the thing, and
Speaker 1: I'm saying it's wrong because you're saying there's another child
Speaker 1: down the block, and I and I know why you're
Speaker 1: doing that, because your instincts are telling you to separate
Speaker 1: that child far enough down the block. But we're not
Speaker 1: talking about a kid down the block. We're talking about
Speaker 1: sitting right there, sleeping right next to and that and
Speaker 1: that and that. You see what I'm saying. That's what
Speaker 1: makes the difference. And a child at one point you
Speaker 1: was around, You fed them, you was there with them.
Speaker 1: We're not told about down the block. You are not
Speaker 1: obligated to down the block, but you're damn sure are
Speaker 1: obligated to make sure your child grows up in an
Speaker 1: environment and has an attitude of certain Nobody knows what
Speaker 1: that man is dealing with. That man might be in
Speaker 1: a new relationship with a woman. They got three kids,
Speaker 1: right that he gotta take. But my sign already told
Speaker 1: you take your child out the door to ncdonald's. That's it.
Speaker 1: This is this is this, two scenarios that can work.
Speaker 1: You don't have to do nothing for those kids, even
Speaker 1: though I feel that's wrong, and I still feel when
Speaker 1: the child comes back from McDonald's, he order have two
Speaker 1: or three little things. In that situation, that man as
Speaker 1: might well bring him out here. But again I'm not gonna.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to because I think again the way
Speaker 1: that she handled it is wrong from sorry to finish.
Speaker 1: So I'm not see what I'm saying. You see how
Speaker 1: I'm offering. I tell you, I think in this situation,
Speaker 1: him just bringing she was triggered by him just bringing
Speaker 1: food to and that's what I'm saying. It was the
Speaker 1: fact that he brought the food, and then it becomes oh,
Speaker 1: bring my child. Ostut no, no no, no, no, no, don't
Speaker 1: even do Thursday from Ford, my child calls me up.
Speaker 1: Is that all daddy? I wants a mint out Thursday
Speaker 1: four to six. I'm gonna pick him up. We're going
Speaker 1: to McDonald's. Now when we have McDonald's. Were having a conversation. Hey,
Speaker 1: you know, you know I'm making sure you get your
Speaker 1: McDonald's today. Your brothers and sisters, you make sure you
Speaker 1: take them these this I'm saying what I would do
Speaker 1: chicken nuggets or whatever, or what you do. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna do that, you don't even gotta do that. If
Speaker 1: bring food over there, if you just bring your food
Speaker 1: for everybody. But you also could say, do not be
Speaker 1: going home, you know, trying to throw it in and
Speaker 1: then it depending on what type of child you have,
Speaker 1: sometimes you gotta talk to him about being humble. Let
Speaker 1: me just put it in that context. You're talking to
Speaker 1: him about humble. You ain't got to discuss everything and
Speaker 1: do not be going there. But but again, as a man,
Speaker 1: you are setting a tone, You're being a leader. You're
Speaker 1: teaching your child how to behaved, how to be in
Speaker 1: community and in family. And so what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: I think in the situation, I think we talked about
Speaker 1: in totality, should men be providing for the whole community.
Speaker 1: I think that is definitely UH a criteria and a
Speaker 1: quality that men should have. I don't think you should
Speaker 1: ever want when kids to go. It's never a time
Speaker 1: that I brought one kid food and I didn't buy
Speaker 1: him all food. I just that's just not how I live.
Speaker 1: But the reality of situation is when I look at
Speaker 1: this situation in a way it was handled, he was
Speaker 1: I don't think he came there with malicious intent. He
Speaker 1: was confused, like what do you will send him out? Like? Like,
Speaker 1: had you handled it a different way, right instead of
Speaker 1: trying to throw that man under the bus and make
Speaker 1: him seem like he was just this bad person, I
Speaker 1: think he would have. I think he would have stepped
Speaker 1: up in a different man. I think you're not gonna
Speaker 1: get out argument of it. I don't. I literally know
Speaker 1: that the way in which the whole situation was handled
Speaker 1: going to the internet and all that, which I think
Speaker 1: is stupid ship anyway people thinking that they go to
Speaker 1: the Internet and somehow that's gonna help fix the issue.
Speaker 1: It's not so I understand that I am saying, though,
Speaker 1: to beat all the kids, because because what to your point,
Speaker 1: the dialogue that has come up is I take care
Speaker 1: of mind, mind mind, mind, mind, mind, And I'm saying
Speaker 1: that that, but I don't think that's what nobody I think.
Speaker 1: I think most people are saying it's a congest and
Speaker 1: he should do it, and I would do it, but
Speaker 1: that man is really not obligated. And that's what everybody
Speaker 1: is saying, is most people saying that they would bring
Speaker 1: food for the kid and this and that, but people saying,
Speaker 1: fun I don't have to do anything for nobody else's kids.
Speaker 1: And what I'm trying to say is that there needs
Speaker 1: to be more leaning towards you. He should affect the kids,
Speaker 1: because what happens is that when we provide that opening
Speaker 1: for mind, mind, mind, mind, and we give life to that,
Speaker 1: it starts to be like a chancer in our community.
Speaker 1: And I'm I'm suggesting that more of our men. I
Speaker 1: appreciate again, Fathers Alive in the Hood for putting that
Speaker 1: statement on their page to say, if you can't maybe
Speaker 1: you can't McDonald's everybody, then you bring a few groceries,
Speaker 1: not even just for her day was being funny, but
Speaker 1: for her and her man. That's that's going too far.
Speaker 1: But I'm just saying. The point is as a man,
Speaker 1: as a man, we need to set the message in
Speaker 1: the community and in the world that if your child
Speaker 1: is part of a community of kids that you already
Speaker 1: knew also that were there before your child, Everybody, well,
Speaker 1: I know my sign. Guess what. Here's the deal. It
Speaker 1: is everybody. But there's a very rare circumc there's very
Speaker 1: rare circumstances where a man has children that he has
Speaker 1: in his house, all his children by his different baby mamas,
Speaker 1: or by his two baby mus or whatever, and the
Speaker 1: mother has to come there to bring something. Usually probably
Speaker 1: of time it's the other way around. She's the vessel
Speaker 1: who brings forth the children. They with her, and so
Speaker 1: it is a man, right that is coming to take
Speaker 1: of his child. That's what I'm saying that I'm just saying.
Speaker 1: It's very rare. Yeah, everybody, this is This is a
Speaker 1: universal conversation. And it's not just about it's not just
Speaker 1: about these children in this house. When you go to school,
Speaker 1: you don't bring your child pizza. You ring all the
Speaker 1: kids pizza. Right, you don't come you don't come with
Speaker 1: one company for your child for the day party, You
Speaker 1: bring all the children cupcakes over the cousin's house and
Speaker 1: they spending the night and you're bringing something for your kids. What?
Speaker 1: What did? What did your mother do? I know when
Speaker 1: I was a kid when I had to go stay
Speaker 1: over my auntie's house while they went to the event,
Speaker 1: So they did whatever, sorry, or or or at the babysitters.
Speaker 1: When I was going to the babysitter, my mother when
Speaker 1: she was like, let me give you some apple slices,
Speaker 1: she's she said, oh and how many kids miss pack out? Danda,
Speaker 1: let me cut up some more apple slices to make
Speaker 1: sure everybody can get something. Yeah, this is true. So
Speaker 1: that's my point. But anyway, we should get into our
Speaker 1: next guest because this is gonna be a long ass show.
Speaker 1: So we're bringing up Um, the sister of Brittney Grinder.
Speaker 1: This week, we held a prayer vigil in Brittney's honor
Speaker 1: that included rabbis, It included nondenominational folks, It included white folks,
Speaker 1: black folks, brown folks, Asian folks, women, men, everybody was
Speaker 1: there uh to support and to pray outside of the
Speaker 1: Russian Consulate for our sister Britney Grinder trial starts today, uh,
Speaker 1: today's July one, but this show will obviously air afterwards, uh,
Speaker 1: and we're praying for her, praying for her mind. We
Speaker 1: know that the court has a ninety nine percent uh
Speaker 1: conviction rate, which means is kangaroo court. You show up
Speaker 1: in court and they've already determined what's gonna happen to you.
Speaker 1: But we hope she makes it in the one percent.
Speaker 1: So we're joined by the close friend, childhood friend, uh
Speaker 1: even they call one another sisters, Janelle Roy, who heard
Speaker 1: from Brittney Griner on the same day that she was
Speaker 1: being detained at a Russian airport. Um, Janelle, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for joining street politicians today. We had an
Speaker 1: even such a beautiful person, and we just are you know,
Speaker 1: are glad that you're able to be with us, but
Speaker 1: sorry that it's under such difficult circumstances. All right, UM,
Speaker 1: I just appreciate y'all. You know, it's it's such amazing
Speaker 1: to stand with such powerful people who have our support,
Speaker 1: who's showing love, you know, because it's hard to bring
Speaker 1: people out right, it's hard to get people to understand
Speaker 1: what's happening and what's going on, especially when it's not
Speaker 1: their loved ones. Some people don't understand that when it's
Speaker 1: not their family and it's not their the aught their nieces,
Speaker 1: their nephews. People don't understand the impact that it has
Speaker 1: on people's who lives and family and their lives room,
Speaker 1: you know, the mental state. You know, like we were
Speaker 1: just talking about it earlier. You sit here and you
Speaker 1: think about how you have to listen and look at
Speaker 1: things in in the media and find out so much
Speaker 1: through the media that nobody ever tells you. Just a
Speaker 1: little while ago, you know, during the war, they just
Speaker 1: got hit with two different missiles that killed approximately, I
Speaker 1: believe about twenty seven people. Um. I don't know, of
Speaker 1: course the whole statistics behind it, but I know that
Speaker 1: people were, people were impacted, people were injured, that people
Speaker 1: were dying because of it, you know, And you don't
Speaker 1: know how far away that is from my sisters, my
Speaker 1: sister's jail. Um is she okay? Is she impacted? But
Speaker 1: she affected? Was any of that thing? You know? It
Speaker 1: was any of that happening, And people don't understand the
Speaker 1: impact of those things because it's not them people. So
Speaker 1: many people are so quick the judge and have the
Speaker 1: opinions about things, you know. So, but y'all to stand
Speaker 1: behind my family and the support it's it's been, it's
Speaker 1: been amazing. I couldn't ask for anything level I've been
Speaker 1: a blessing to us. Well, it's you know, unfortunately we
Speaker 1: have to be a blessing, right, it's unfortunate that we
Speaker 1: have to meet. So it's beautiful people like yourself with
Speaker 1: the level of energy like yourself in situations like this.
Speaker 1: You know, I know today is the first day of
Speaker 1: the trial, you know, and I know that it has
Speaker 1: to be a lot on family and yourself, Like what
Speaker 1: with what emotions are you're having right now based on
Speaker 1: this tram um. It's it's a little bit of a struggle,
Speaker 1: right because you you literally are sitting and you're watching
Speaker 1: the anticipation of you don't know what's gonna happen. You
Speaker 1: don't know what's gonna get said. Um, it's different when
Speaker 1: in the United States and when you're are in Americans.
Speaker 1: Saw you you have the phone calls, right, you have
Speaker 1: the contacts and we have the connections to where you're like, yo,
Speaker 1: is this happening, What's what's going on? What's the next step?
Speaker 1: But the unfortunate lack of communication that we've had. We
Speaker 1: have to sit in front of a TV and you
Speaker 1: have to sit almost feeling numb of I have to
Speaker 1: pray for the best and I hope that you know,
Speaker 1: the worst has already happened. So you're just sitting in
Speaker 1: front of a TV screen pretty much watching like everybody else. UM.
Speaker 1: And unfortunately, sometimes you know, it's like people are like,
Speaker 1: are you are you good? Do you know everything? You know?
Speaker 1: It's sad to say that that's my own system, my
Speaker 1: best friend, and I tell people like, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want I don't know what's gonna happen. I'm gonna watch
Speaker 1: the TV like you do. So it's new to every
Speaker 1: all of us at the same time. So let me
Speaker 1: be clear. No one has had any communication with Brittany
Speaker 1: since she's been lacking no, not pretty much, not verbal.
Speaker 1: But she did write a few letters when they allowed yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I was gonna say yes the letters the letters that
Speaker 1: they have allowed. UM. So we have talked to her
Speaker 1: through the letters, but through the verbal of course, like
Speaker 1: with my sister in law situation. UM. The ball was
Speaker 1: dropped unfortunately, UM with the phone call, so she she
Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to make their phone call. And that's such
Speaker 1: the difference right on American soil. You're allowed to make
Speaker 1: the phone calls, you know, so you can at least
Speaker 1: talk to the person to understand, because I mean, it
Speaker 1: is what it is, right, But you can talk to somebody,
Speaker 1: if you know somebody long enough to say, hey, how
Speaker 1: are you feeling? How are you doing? And you can
Speaker 1: almost you can tell people voice and the emotions of
Speaker 1: how that person is doing. And sometimes that's all it takes,
Speaker 1: is just a phone call to even make the person
Speaker 1: feel some type of you made to say, all right there,
Speaker 1: like os, so can you tell us what happened with
Speaker 1: the phone call? Like? What what happened with the phone calls?
Speaker 1: To um? So? For me, UM, it was my sister's anniversary,
Speaker 1: and pretty much what happened was UM And this is
Speaker 1: obviously it wasn't to me, So I'm responding on behalf
Speaker 1: of my sister in law. But when I spoke to her,
Speaker 1: she kind of, you know, she broke down. She had
Speaker 1: a breakdown moment, which of course as she should respectfully, UM,
Speaker 1: and that's who I wanted to call her to make
Speaker 1: sure that she was good. So pretty much what happened
Speaker 1: was they scheduled the phone call UM weeks at least
Speaker 1: a week in advance, maybe a couple of days approximately,
Speaker 1: And what happened was a phone call was supposed to
Speaker 1: come in UM for their anniversary. They scheduled that. They
Speaker 1: scheduled the phone call on a Saturday, which it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be already scheduled. It should have had it
Speaker 1: should have been somebody there at the U S Induscy.
Speaker 1: So what happened was is the Russians came in and
Speaker 1: they allowed my sister to make a living calls. They
Speaker 1: actually brought her in, which where they have to bring
Speaker 1: her from the jail to where the call is is
Speaker 1: about an hour or two hours approximately, so they have
Speaker 1: to travel with her all the way there to make
Speaker 1: the phone call. UM. She made the phone call that
Speaker 1: morning that several that morning, several that afternoon. The number
Speaker 1: that was given to my sister to make was a
Speaker 1: Monday through Friday phone call pretty much at the United
Speaker 1: States Embassy. They didn't give her a phone call that
Speaker 1: was a twenty four hour line for a weekend line
Speaker 1: for unknown reasons. I don't know why or how the
Speaker 1: call got dropped on that side. UM but they came
Speaker 1: back and the attorney said, hey, listen, they showed my sister,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, my sister in law, so Charelle the call
Speaker 1: logue and they said, hey, BJ was able to make
Speaker 1: the call. So Sharelle sat that Saturday like literally waiting
Speaker 1: on the phone call to happen at ten eleventh class
Speaker 1: and just sat a for her phone the entire time.
Speaker 1: But she's like, hey, I haven't gotten a phone call
Speaker 1: like I thought. We scheduled this days ago. Where's the
Speaker 1: phone call not coming in? And the attorney said, listen,
Speaker 1: she's already called you. She's called you eleven times. And
Speaker 1: she wrote like, how is she called me eleven times?
Speaker 1: I have I've gotten nothing. So the communication started coming
Speaker 1: in and they pretty much said that on the UM
Speaker 1: on our side, there was nobody working. Um, nobody was
Speaker 1: working that Saturday. We don't know why. UM. That really
Speaker 1: hasn't been answered to my sister in law as to
Speaker 1: why the ball got dropped. Why they even allowed her
Speaker 1: to schedule a call on a Saturday and give give
Speaker 1: them a one day through Friday phone number. UM, So
Speaker 1: pretty much nobody answered because there was nobody working. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that was and this is four months later that
Speaker 1: they have not had a verbal conversation. And you know,
Speaker 1: and I agree with you, um, with what you said
Speaker 1: that letters are important, but a phone call helps people
Speaker 1: to really feel like they are, um, you know, able
Speaker 1: to hear a familiar sound, right, soothing. Writing letters only
Speaker 1: feels like solitary confinement. I mean that that is you know,
Speaker 1: that's how it feels. I'm not saying that that's her condition.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying if it feels like stop because in
Speaker 1: solitary confinement, all you can do is basically write some letters.
Speaker 1: And what we know is that, um, there is no
Speaker 1: law because I went to look it up. I went
Speaker 1: to see whether or not Russia has like a rule
Speaker 1: or a law in place that says they have to
Speaker 1: allow a phone I mean of letters to be written,
Speaker 1: they actually don't. So you know, whatever the attorneys are
Speaker 1: doing and the negotiations that's happening, at least to the
Speaker 1: extent that it is, um, you know, to to this extent,
Speaker 1: it's working that they would even allow her to be
Speaker 1: in communication where she can write letters. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: her life. And so I had to say, you know,
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. So now you you let's go
Speaker 1: back to the day that Brittany was arrested, because she
Speaker 1: was in communication with you throughout different times, maybe on
Speaker 1: the flight the west and you know, so she just talked,
Speaker 1: so tell us about those messages and what happened at
Speaker 1: the end. UM. So we were in communication and we
Speaker 1: even faced on each other for a little bit. UM.
Speaker 1: She I want to go see her wife. She had
Speaker 1: came in um because of course my sister plays for
Speaker 1: the Russian the Russian League, um, um out there or whatever.
Speaker 1: So when I remember when she called, she goes sis
Speaker 1: was good. I just wanted to give you a call.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to fly back. I knew she want
Speaker 1: to go see Charrell. UM. So she was coming back
Speaker 1: before she was, you know, flying around and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Left Phoenix, went to New York, and I had FaceTime
Speaker 1: Flury in New York, and I was like, yo, I
Speaker 1: love you have a good flight, because that's typically the
Speaker 1: long flight to me, I don't talk to her for
Speaker 1: like two or thirteen hours UM. And sometimes me being
Speaker 1: a big sister, right, I'm like, yo, you have to
Speaker 1: call me, you have to text you get what if
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, I'll pay for the WiFi for the
Speaker 1: for the plane, like you gotta give WI fire so
Speaker 1: I can text you. Um. I remember waking up that
Speaker 1: morning and it was uh February seventeen. She text me
Speaker 1: um to let me know that she was in a
Speaker 1: little bit of trouble. She goes, hey, UM, I didn't
Speaker 1: get a text you. As soon as I landed, I
Speaker 1: called shrill, but um, I'm probably you know some stuff
Speaker 1: happening at T s A. I can't say much. Um,
Speaker 1: some stuff happening at T s A. I love you.
Speaker 1: So my heart kind of went down, like it's six's happened. Um.
Speaker 1: We did stay in communication. I'm assuming for what they
Speaker 1: allowed her to keep her phone because she was allowed
Speaker 1: to text me a little bit. But I know between me,
Speaker 1: her agent, and her wife, we were all between us three.
Speaker 1: She told me that she was in constant communication with
Speaker 1: all of us. So she just sporadically would text um
Speaker 1: and say hey, I love you, And I'm like, where
Speaker 1: are you at? Have you landed? I'm like, do I
Speaker 1: need to come fly to you? I even asked them
Speaker 1: one of the text messages, I and yo, I'll buy
Speaker 1: a flight right now, okay the price. I will come
Speaker 1: help you, um, or I'll come, you know, talk to
Speaker 1: you or sit with you or whatever, and she goes, no,
Speaker 1: I'm already in Russia and I'm at the police station. Now.
Speaker 1: She was like, I still can't say much. Remind you,
Speaker 1: our conversations were so spread out, so they were like
Speaker 1: maybe i'll run between so my sexy messages. I'm still like, sister,
Speaker 1: you're okay, Sister, you're okay, and I'm just getting no response.
Speaker 1: So when she says me a little response, I'm getting hope.
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, my sister is not in that much
Speaker 1: ruble because she still has her phone. Um. And then
Speaker 1: between was the last text message I got, and that's
Speaker 1: when she pretty much she was like, Sis, I love you,
Speaker 1: and I'm like what happened? And that was what I said.
Speaker 1: I'm like, what happened. Thirty minutes after that, I asked her,
Speaker 1: I'm like are you okay? I'm like, say, it's where
Speaker 1: are you at? And then that's pretty much when I
Speaker 1: got the last thing, and she pretty much told me
Speaker 1: that she loved me. UM, and that broke me right
Speaker 1: because the next phone called that I got was the
Speaker 1: attorneys and she reil calling. Then she goes like, hey,
Speaker 1: they took phone for good, and I'm like, what are
Speaker 1: you I'm talking to Sheila on the phone. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what do you mean they took her phone for good?
Speaker 1: There was like she was detained. Now they've officially arrested her.
Speaker 1: So from that time at you know, eight o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning to about two o'clock to to three o'clock
Speaker 1: our time, the force, um is when the entire situation
Speaker 1: took place. And then after Sherrille called me, it was like,
Speaker 1: she's not gonna text you anymore, you know. And you
Speaker 1: know the crazy part about this for me, right, it's like,
Speaker 1: this is b G is arguably one of the best
Speaker 1: basketball players in the world, um, and both of these
Speaker 1: countries have utilized that skill set, right if utilized, they
Speaker 1: benefited from it. You know, She's played in the USA team,
Speaker 1: she's played in the Russian League, and both of these
Speaker 1: teams have utilized that. And for them not to see
Speaker 1: the necessity in allowing this woman to be free, especially
Speaker 1: at this in this moment, in this situation, you know,
Speaker 1: and and to handle it as if she was somebody
Speaker 1: that has they both benefited from it's really just disheartening
Speaker 1: to me. It's really disheartening that black women have to
Speaker 1: deal with these things. I just feel like even in
Speaker 1: the league, even just the outcry is not loud enough
Speaker 1: for me. You know, if you know, she's one of
Speaker 1: the best players in the w n b A, and
Speaker 1: if one of the best players in the NBA this
Speaker 1: would happen to it would be a far louder cry.
Speaker 1: There would be way more people speaking up on behalf,
Speaker 1: not just sporadically. They would be an organized attempt to
Speaker 1: make something known. And the fact that that's not happening
Speaker 1: it really bothers you know, how do how do you
Speaker 1: feel about that? Um, it's just like you said, I mean,
Speaker 1: you took the words out of my mouth, right, it's
Speaker 1: just heartening. You know, my sister being uh an Olympic
Speaker 1: player playing for the United States and as women, right,
Speaker 1: my sister only goes overseas because of the salary. She
Speaker 1: goes overseas because that is her income, that is her
Speaker 1: means of living, and that's how you know she has
Speaker 1: to maintain. You know, this is not and as a
Speaker 1: as a previous ball player, I can speak on you know,
Speaker 1: she's not going over there because she just enjoys it.
Speaker 1: And that's what she wants to do. She's growing over
Speaker 1: there because that is her livelihood, that is her career,
Speaker 1: and that's how she makes money. Um. And unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: she doesn't make the same money like that airplane in
Speaker 1: the United States. So then what do you have to do.
Speaker 1: But it's also the passion and the love for the game.
Speaker 1: But for her as a as a human being, as
Speaker 1: a woman, you're playing for two countries who put you
Speaker 1: on this pedestal. But yet when something happens, is it reciprocated?
Speaker 1: Do we have your back the way that you've been
Speaker 1: having goers in the way that you represented our country
Speaker 1: Because at the end of the day, as a basketball player,
Speaker 1: she's representing both countries. You know, she's represented when she
Speaker 1: goes over Sieve and when she a hundred percent represents
Speaker 1: while she's here with us on American shoil. Um. So
Speaker 1: you know, dis hardening is the it's the perfect word
Speaker 1: for it, because you say, we were talking about this
Speaker 1: already earlier in the show. Uh talking about I think
Speaker 1: they is it like twenty thousand dollars or something like
Speaker 1: that is the salary? Well for women they have a
Speaker 1: cap it's approximately I think they gave a little bit
Speaker 1: of an increase, but I think for the women right now,
Speaker 1: the cap is like a two hundred Okay, so right,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I said the wrong number. I didn't mean
Speaker 1: to say two hundred thou yes, so its two hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. It's all you can make in the US
Speaker 1: as a yeah, I mean, and the and the NBA
Speaker 1: players some of them are making so much money they
Speaker 1: can't even count. It's just every average basketball players, like
Speaker 1: average basketball players make five and six million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: and oh absolutely, and it's yeah, and there's no disrespect,
Speaker 1: there's no disrespect to anybody, you know, for the league.
Speaker 1: For the league goes um, but as people um for
Speaker 1: the NBA who sit on the bench and you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's thirteenth man. They probably won't play, you know,
Speaker 1: for another three and four seasons, and they getting paid
Speaker 1: millions of dollars, you know. And it's funny because me
Speaker 1: and my sister a couple of months ago, obviously before
Speaker 1: she got arrested, we actually had the conversation we were
Speaker 1: laughing about and I'm like, yo, you still think about
Speaker 1: going to the NBA. I'm like, yo, you should just
Speaker 1: do it, like going to the NBA at least one year, right,
Speaker 1: because a couple of years ago, you know, when she
Speaker 1: first got um in the league, they were talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, should be the first woman in the NBA,
Speaker 1: like we'll pick her up, and I'm like, yo, at
Speaker 1: this point, I'm like, you should have just did it,
Speaker 1: Like you should have just did it the accolade, you know,
Speaker 1: And then now you think about you like if she
Speaker 1: was in the NBA with the's still make a difference,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, the salad. That thing is
Speaker 1: a political issue, right, It's a political I had a
Speaker 1: conversation yesterday with Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee where we were
Speaker 1: talking about you know, she's obviously been very supportive of
Speaker 1: b J as well. She held a demonstration in Texas
Speaker 1: um and also pushing the administration making sure the State
Speaker 1: Department doesn't forget about Brittany, and so she's doing that
Speaker 1: work and she and I were speaking about this whole
Speaker 1: situation yesterday, and a part of it again comes back
Speaker 1: to the fact that Brittany even had to go to
Speaker 1: Russia in the first place. And as you it is
Speaker 1: an it's an economic situation, and therefore we have to
Speaker 1: talk about in the midst of all of this, and
Speaker 1: I can't wait until Brittany is free so she can
Speaker 1: come home and be a part of the discussion about
Speaker 1: how there is the pay gap disparity that we speak
Speaker 1: about all the time in other industries is right before
Speaker 1: our faces right here in sports that you have two
Speaker 1: different um uh leagues, if you will, but both of
Speaker 1: them make major money for for other people. See I
Speaker 1: want to see for white boats, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to get y'all you know you and have Sharrelle upset
Speaker 1: with me, But actually no, for real, because the owners
Speaker 1: of these teams for the most part, for the most part,
Speaker 1: I know there's a few here and there, but you know,
Speaker 1: in the in basketball, the owners of these teams there
Speaker 1: are a bunch of white people and they're making millions
Speaker 1: and millions billions of dollars utilizing black and brown bodies,
Speaker 1: largely knowing that people have to fly back and forth
Speaker 1: to your point, and I want to know where are
Speaker 1: the owners right? Forget about the players. We put so
Speaker 1: much responsibility, which I still feel Carmelo, Lebron and all
Speaker 1: these guys. I'm I thought to myself last night, I
Speaker 1: need to call Kyrie because Kyrie is our he's our friend, right,
Speaker 1: And we call him and asked him and Nick what
Speaker 1: he feels engaged because some people don't know what they
Speaker 1: should do or not to do. They don't know, right,
Speaker 1: But so I'm gonna call him because I know that
Speaker 1: he will support But that's a lot of pressure on
Speaker 1: players who are all right. Issue the people that we
Speaker 1: need to be challenging is where are the owners of
Speaker 1: these different teams? And what is your position on this?
Speaker 1: Because you're the one that has the power to make
Speaker 1: the phone calls. You might have a Russian friend you
Speaker 1: play golf fit at your country club who flies back
Speaker 1: into a business in the US. Perhaps you should call
Speaker 1: that person and see if they have a direct line
Speaker 1: to be able to contact the folks over in Russia.
Speaker 1: People need to go to work on this and this
Speaker 1: and this, and I keep hearing this thing. Someone said
Speaker 1: to me the other day, a very powerful black woman's
Speaker 1: it to me, Well, they are working on it. It's
Speaker 1: just that they can't tell you anything. Okay, maybe that's true.
Speaker 1: But all I know is I now have done some
Speaker 1: research on the Trevor Reid situation, and yes, it looked
Speaker 1: longer time and it was all of that, I get it,
Speaker 1: but there was it was very clear that there was
Speaker 1: work being done to try to negotiate on his behalf.
Speaker 1: There are stories out there where there's more being said
Speaker 1: than just um a priority. No, they're getting into the
Speaker 1: details of how they're working on it. That all of
Speaker 1: this is I don't understand. Why not for for Britney Griner,
Speaker 1: I don't you know, And I agree with you, that's
Speaker 1: the same um thing that me and my system I
Speaker 1: was just talking about that. She discussed it, uh the
Speaker 1: other day when she had an interview with C and them.
Speaker 1: Where's the action being shown? You know, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a complete difference of we can continue to talk about
Speaker 1: something every day, right, but when you show me unthing
Speaker 1: on paper, when you show me something in the end, oh,
Speaker 1: it makes a big difference. It's just like the phone call, right,
Speaker 1: writing and talking, Well you can talk or do those
Speaker 1: are those are the two things? Um. And that's why
Speaker 1: we said, you know, that's that's always the biggest push
Speaker 1: for us, is that's the only thing that we're asking
Speaker 1: if you are you showing me something or you're just
Speaker 1: telling me what do I want to hear? Well, especially
Speaker 1: as women we go through so much every day that
Speaker 1: we have to battle a man's world, right sometimes, so
Speaker 1: if you show me something and say, hey, this is
Speaker 1: what we're doing or this is what we're working on, okay, respect,
Speaker 1: we get it now. Okay, I see where this is going.
Speaker 1: I see that we're moving in a forward direction. But
Speaker 1: it's like, especially as a woman, it's almost like you're
Speaker 1: telling you telling me what I want to hear, so
Speaker 1: I can shut up and sit down. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I've had the opportunity to speak with Charrell
Speaker 1: on the number of occasions and with and this is
Speaker 1: a very poised woman who, um, you know I I'm
Speaker 1: surprised that. Well, no, I'm not, because black women are
Speaker 1: just what we are, black people, and I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: just because black men also have to just deal with
Speaker 1: extreme circumstances all the time and still show up and
Speaker 1: still speak, you know well, and and present well and
Speaker 1: try to keep everybody else calm and all of that. Right,
Speaker 1: Because I called her lit like what and like this
Speaker 1: is and so she's unable to share every little bit
Speaker 1: of what she's pizzd together because this is a very
Speaker 1: sensitive issue. But I can tell and she has said
Speaker 1: to me very clearly, I don't have a lot of faith.
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of faith that people are
Speaker 1: working as hard for my wife as they should be. Um,
Speaker 1: And you know, and I think that I don't think
Speaker 1: if I'm if I'm President Biden and I'm getting my briefing, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm and I'm Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, and
Speaker 1: we're getting a briefing and Brittany Grinder comes up. Knowing
Speaker 1: these two individuals and being around them for many years,
Speaker 1: it's compassion there. I'm sure they're like, this is horrible,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? But I also know that when
Speaker 1: the politics get in the room, when all the other
Speaker 1: individuals come in and they're like, yeah, but we're dealing
Speaker 1: with the war and we got this going on and
Speaker 1: we did that in the third and blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: it can push further their action to match their compassion.
Speaker 1: And that's why we as the citizens of this country,
Speaker 1: have to be vocal so that they will say, oh,
Speaker 1: that's right, I forgot. We can't forget Brittany. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't forget Brittany. Sorry, my son, I'm just running
Speaker 1: my mouth, but about this, you know, no, and I
Speaker 1: was gonna say, you know, you hit the nail on
Speaker 1: the head with that. And that's that's the biggest thing
Speaker 1: for us and my family is I don't want my
Speaker 1: sisters to be forgotten for everything that she has done,
Speaker 1: um for this country, um these teams, for both countries.
Speaker 1: You know, she's won multiple championships also with the Russian team,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's the biggest thing for us, is
Speaker 1: we don't want my sister to be forgotten under no circumstances.
Speaker 1: You're right, And I don't think it's it's even humane
Speaker 1: for her to be for good. I think you know,
Speaker 1: this situation requires all hands on deck, you know. I
Speaker 1: just it really bothers me that we hear that something
Speaker 1: that's going to supposed to be going on, and nobody
Speaker 1: knows what it is, right, nobody knows what a negotiation
Speaker 1: looks like, what anything, and and and for the first time,
Speaker 1: her family, her wife, her friends are only gonna learn
Speaker 1: actually what happened really is going on just watching the trial, right,
Speaker 1: this is the only way that you you we are
Speaker 1: being informed. And I think you know there needs to
Speaker 1: be more steps. I think you know from the beginning,
Speaker 1: the strategy that everybody had for me was just wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, understood to a certain degree, but I think
Speaker 1: that not making it seem like this was a priority
Speaker 1: and didn't allow on it to continuously get to this place.
Speaker 1: Now I've heard now that regardless of whatever that's going on,
Speaker 1: this another six months at least, that she has to
Speaker 1: wait to come home or if that's even gonna happen.
Speaker 1: So I'm just so confused, you know. But they'll say,
Speaker 1: they'll some I'm sorry, Look, we got we took over
Speaker 1: the interview to each other. But but they only that
Speaker 1: we're into process and that negotiations, especially in a high
Speaker 1: tension situation, because obviously we cannot. First of all, we
Speaker 1: do know. We're very brilliant people who have been able
Speaker 1: to organize lots of things. We read, we understand, so
Speaker 1: we do know that when there's a war happening, it
Speaker 1: makes it more politically complicated to be able to negotiate someone. Brittany,
Speaker 1: she's she is in this situation at the wrong time.
Speaker 1: We all we get that. What they will say is
Speaker 1: that the negotiations that's happening, especially in light of the tension,
Speaker 1: is it creates a situation where they can't talk about
Speaker 1: any of it. The our administration, any administration, they have
Speaker 1: a bully pull pick right where they can keep the
Speaker 1: people in the people's um interests, they can speak about
Speaker 1: at least say her name. Have you ever even heard
Speaker 1: President Biden or Vice President Harris at at any situation
Speaker 1: say we also, you know, are thinking of our sister.
Speaker 1: Brittney Grinder hasn't been have you seen I'm asking you
Speaker 1: have you seen anything any any any letters written or anything.
Speaker 1: So I I personally have not. And I know my
Speaker 1: sister in law from what we've discussed and what we
Speaker 1: talked about here and there, UM, I know she's probably
Speaker 1: had one person that reached to her, uh from the
Speaker 1: administration side, but it was more so towards her to say, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna help you, We're gonna try to work with you. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't remember exactly who that was, but I believe
Speaker 1: from what my sister in law told me, that was
Speaker 1: the EMI phone call that she had received from them
Speaker 1: since and that was that was I believe in the
Speaker 1: very beginning when it first got pushed out, UM that
Speaker 1: she was arrested in Russia, because if you remember, for us,
Speaker 1: we had already knew that there was some type of
Speaker 1: situation that was going on before he had actually got
Speaker 1: exposed in the media. Um so we were already trying
Speaker 1: to come together, obviously as a family, to try to
Speaker 1: figure out, Okay, what's the next steps. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of been a phone that one phone call came through.
Speaker 1: But other than that, we I believe I know my
Speaker 1: behalf you know, um on, my sister in law's behalf
Speaker 1: from We talked very frequently. She hasn't told me anything
Speaker 1: of that nature. Everything that we've pretty much been told
Speaker 1: and exposed to has been through the attorneys from both parties,
Speaker 1: from both administrations. And see, that's that's what I That's
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Like that, that's I'm talking about. I'm
Speaker 1: saying that some type of public Uh god, right, I
Speaker 1: get it. They're working their meeting behind the scenes. But
Speaker 1: we know them, we know, we know how college seations operate.
Speaker 1: If you don't if if it's out of sight, it's
Speaker 1: out of mind. That's just it is. And and the
Speaker 1: other thing is a black woman, you can pay me money.
Speaker 1: There's no amount of money. You couldn't give me a
Speaker 1: billion dollars right now. To believe that people are waking
Speaker 1: up every day going hard for Brittany like they would
Speaker 1: for lebron. Hey, now you'd be speaking too much of
Speaker 1: the truth on that, right, um. And that's why I said, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's just the way that our society is right now, right.
Speaker 1: But that's why we just spoke about it a little
Speaker 1: while ago. I said, I don't want she shouldn't be
Speaker 1: forgotten because we're pushed so much in the back burner
Speaker 1: that you know, for society, she's not let's not say, oh,
Speaker 1: she's not that important to deal with. But I guarantee
Speaker 1: you anybody else that meant something to them, or somebody
Speaker 1: that was such this this huge athlete or this huge person, oh,
Speaker 1: it would have never been forgotten. It would have never
Speaker 1: been pushed off the table. We would have been discussing
Speaker 1: this every single day. It would have been a political report.
Speaker 1: But because it's just my sister, and it's just a woman,
Speaker 1: and it's just this, it becomes so minute that people
Speaker 1: don't take it off as important. But yet she's done
Speaker 1: so much for the country. I think for me, like
Speaker 1: what I want to see And you know, it's not
Speaker 1: calling anybody out, it's not you know, to um throw
Speaker 1: anybody under the bus. But I would love I would
Speaker 1: love to see the superstars of the NBA and all
Speaker 1: the superstars of the NBA come together collectively and make
Speaker 1: a statement to talk to the administration and say that
Speaker 1: this that that you know, we we've given our lives
Speaker 1: for this country. We've given blood, sweat and tears for
Speaker 1: this country, throwing medals for this country. We've done everything
Speaker 1: for this country. And we and we want you to
Speaker 1: treat Brittney Grinder like she did. That we want from
Speaker 1: behalf of us that we we were making a united
Speaker 1: front as a voice and standing up and speak to
Speaker 1: the administration and president and everybody to make it known
Speaker 1: that listen, we want Brittany Grinder home. We want you
Speaker 1: to do whatever is necessary to make sure that Britney
Speaker 1: Grinder comes home. She shouldn't be a political poemt she
Speaker 1: shouldn't be caught in between it is. Brittany Grinder should
Speaker 1: be home at whatever course it takes for the come
Speaker 1: And I would just love to see that because that
Speaker 1: would show me because we had conversation yesterday about protecting
Speaker 1: black women and black men and all these things, and
Speaker 1: for me, that's what it looks like. It means having
Speaker 1: an uncomfortable situation, saying things that might not make you
Speaker 1: favorable to the to the higher ups or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: because you know it's the right thing, and I agree
Speaker 1: with you, and you know you make a good point, right, Um.
Speaker 1: Much of love to everything at the NBA has done
Speaker 1: for my sister, because I know during the playoffs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, they did, you know, they put my
Speaker 1: sisters Molitioris and forty two and stuff like that, and
Speaker 1: you know you had a lot of the big NBA
Speaker 1: players you had like CP went out and you know,
Speaker 1: were my sisters show they you know, they have to lectures.
Speaker 1: All that says, you know, we're b G and much
Speaker 1: love to that and the support and you know it's
Speaker 1: it's definitely definitely appreciated. You know. But you know, like
Speaker 1: we were saying before, it almost as like, where do
Speaker 1: you put people in the position that if it was
Speaker 1: your brother, if it was your sister, how much would
Speaker 1: you actually do? How much would you actually do? And
Speaker 1: it is your sister? And that's what that's what I want.
Speaker 1: I want us to realize that this is how a sister.
Speaker 1: It ain't this is not somebody that's this is one
Speaker 1: of us. This is somebody that we celebrate the accolades,
Speaker 1: we look and we we love everything. So you have
Speaker 1: to you have to celebrate it when it's not favorable, right.
Speaker 1: You gotta be able to promote, You gotta do the
Speaker 1: things that it takes an uncomfortable time to fight for people.
Speaker 1: So that's it's definitely our system. And I think and
Speaker 1: I think that's hard for a lot of people. A
Speaker 1: lot of people don't like to be pushed out of
Speaker 1: their comfort zone. Right. A lot of people are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to say, but if it was you,
Speaker 1: if it was your sister, your brother, what would you
Speaker 1: say at that point? Would you sit back and allow
Speaker 1: something like that to happen, especially somebody so close to you?
Speaker 1: It could have been you Because a lot of these
Speaker 1: players gold with seas and they do all these things.
Speaker 1: It's could have been you, and it couldn't be next time,
Speaker 1: any situation, this could be you. So you want you
Speaker 1: want to be pro and not say we say this,
Speaker 1: this work that we do. We see this all the time,
Speaker 1: their mothers, who even who lose their child and police
Speaker 1: violence to just regular violence, and what we say is unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you become a part of this club, and there are
Speaker 1: a lot of active mothers who based on the reality
Speaker 1: that did something happened to their children, they would force
Speaker 1: into being in this life. And what we say all
Speaker 1: the time, don't wait until it's your child, right, don't
Speaker 1: don't wait till it's your child to be on the
Speaker 1: front lines and standing up because that that's not what
Speaker 1: it's gonna take to prevent it. Right. We want to
Speaker 1: be in front of it. We want to make sure
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen to somebody else. So we need you
Speaker 1: to make sure that before something happened to your child,
Speaker 1: to be in the proactive mode. Active. Yeah, I agree
Speaker 1: with you. It's it's always we're always reactive, and you know,
Speaker 1: and then that's when you have to stay in and
Speaker 1: you have families that it's like, Yo, this is happening
Speaker 1: to me now, I can't believe this is me. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what, you could have done something about it. You
Speaker 1: could have done something to prevent them, right, right in
Speaker 1: that you fight in preparation, right and and hopefully as
Speaker 1: a preventive measure. And I think that I think that
Speaker 1: in this situation and I know, um, you know, we
Speaker 1: have to end this interview. We can sit here and
Speaker 1: talk all night. Yeah. But I think in this situation, again,
Speaker 1: while I want to see the same thing you said myself,
Speaker 1: I hadn't even thought about that, that all the players
Speaker 1: coming together physically, physically getting together and making a statement
Speaker 1: for Brittany. I think that would be extremely powerful. I
Speaker 1: think it's something we need to suggest. Um. I think
Speaker 1: it's something that can be orchestrated by individuals who have
Speaker 1: influence and power. And I think they have to take
Speaker 1: it seriously that it can't if it if the playoffs
Speaker 1: was when was that? That was just it was a
Speaker 1: month ago. So they there's there's a refresher needed now, right,
Speaker 1: it's a refresher. Can't let people forget we need the
Speaker 1: influence of these big names. But what I will say
Speaker 1: is again you still need to lean in on those
Speaker 1: people who have power and resources within That's what we
Speaker 1: do it when they see the top players that saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we need this to get done, but we're not coming. Well,
Speaker 1: is there still a Russian NBA player in there? A
Speaker 1: guy who's super tall that's from us? Pretty sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know his last name. But because I think
Speaker 1: as far as athletes, I've just seen the other day.
Speaker 1: The only I've seen Roy Jones actually reached out to
Speaker 1: some people that he knew in Russia. I was like, yeo,
Speaker 1: Roy Jones just came out of the blue, right, That's
Speaker 1: that's amazing, that's how who's so much love and appreciate it. Um.
Speaker 1: But he actually, I know I heard that he reached
Speaker 1: out to some people in Russian that he knew to
Speaker 1: try to help up. Yeah, so that's what we need action. Action,
Speaker 1: We need action, and sometimes it takes us the agitated.
Speaker 1: You know, we get on everybody's nerves because we always
Speaker 1: got something to say, and we always took about who
Speaker 1: needs to do what? You shut up? Like why y'all
Speaker 1: always went But this is our job and it doesn't
Speaker 1: get us like and nobody's gonna invite us to uh
Speaker 1: sit courtside at the games as a result of of
Speaker 1: what we're saying. But we sacrifice that and it's okay.
Speaker 1: It's okay because somebody's gotta push the envelope and that's
Speaker 1: what we're here to do. We've made that commitment to Cherrell,
Speaker 1: to you, um and and you know, without speaking to Brittany,
Speaker 1: we're making that commitment to her that we're not going
Speaker 1: to let a week go by where where she's not
Speaker 1: talked about, where there's not some action where we did
Speaker 1: our prayer visual the other day. There's several media stories
Speaker 1: now about a prayer visual that took place outside of
Speaker 1: the Russian Russian consulate and that was the goal. That
Speaker 1: was the goal. And we didn't go to the Russian
Speaker 1: Consulate with the protests and you know, the yelling and
Speaker 1: the things that we do, the chanting if you will,
Speaker 1: we do that, We definitely do that, and we do
Speaker 1: that well. But instead we went there with an interfaith
Speaker 1: group of clergy. So this is not it was not
Speaker 1: just you know, the black per the black preachers, which
Speaker 1: in its in and of itself is power. It was not.
Speaker 1: There was a rabbi there, there were nondenominational boats there,
Speaker 1: there were white people who prayed, black people, brown people,
Speaker 1: and we all came together to pray not just for Brittany,
Speaker 1: not just even for your your your family, but to
Speaker 1: pray for the minds and hearts of those individuals who
Speaker 1: have the power on the Russian side that we're praying
Speaker 1: for you to move your spirit as well. And as
Speaker 1: uh Bishop Daughtry ninety years old, still showing up, and
Speaker 1: he came out for Brittney Grinder. What he said in
Speaker 1: his prayer was so powerful. He said, do the compassionate thing,
Speaker 1: do the right thing, lead with love, and that's what
Speaker 1: we hope happens for Britney Grinder. But I promise you
Speaker 1: one thing about it, and my son knows it. When
Speaker 1: I decide that I'm going to get involved in something,
Speaker 1: I will not shut up. I'm gonna annoy you at
Speaker 1: least at least if nothing else, I will annoy you,
Speaker 1: and to the point like you gotta do something because
Speaker 1: I'm annoyed. And that's okay. So thank you to listen.
Speaker 1: It's powerful, Thank you. I appreciate your support so so much,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with us being able to talk and
Speaker 1: get in the stand with you all, it's been powerful
Speaker 1: to me. You know. It's it's uplifting when you have
Speaker 1: such powerful people and strong people that you know that
Speaker 1: we're all in it for the same thing. There's no games,
Speaker 1: there's no Giftecks behind it. We're all in it for
Speaker 1: the right things. So I appreciatepciate we're here for you.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you all so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 1: First of all, Janelle and Charrelle, very very um kind,
Speaker 1: beautiful black women. Uh, you could tell these folks their
Speaker 1: whole the whole lot of life, everything, everything about what
Speaker 1: they know has been disrupted. You know. By this situation,
Speaker 1: you have Charrelle who is working on UM passing the bar.
Speaker 1: You have Janelle, who's taking care of her two beds.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's these folks are like going along with
Speaker 1: their regular life with their sister and wife who is
Speaker 1: a superstar traveling the world, and then boom, this happens
Speaker 1: and you find out so much about the system. You
Speaker 1: can't get information, you know, phone calls need to happen
Speaker 1: on certain days. There's so much and and and and
Speaker 1: when you think about it, because of the fact that
Speaker 1: they are power, that um Brittany is a public figure,
Speaker 1: we're getting to see it and it's playing out in
Speaker 1: real time. But imagine how many people just right here
Speaker 1: in the USA are dealing with similar circumstances of being
Speaker 1: locked up, not knowing when they're going to court, not
Speaker 1: understanding how to opera navigate in the system, listening to lawyers,
Speaker 1: trying to talk to your loved ones. It's really incarceration
Speaker 1: is is It's tough. It is very tough, and I know,
Speaker 1: you know, but I just i'm my goes out because
Speaker 1: I can't imagine what it's like to have your loved one, Because,
Speaker 1: like I said, the US is rough, so imagine you
Speaker 1: all the way in Russia. Yeah, it's it's it has
Speaker 1: to be. Um just I've been in prison with people
Speaker 1: who are Russians, right, who actually were locked up in Russia,
Speaker 1: and they say that prison in America's there's a hundred
Speaker 1: times better than being in Russia, right, So, and I
Speaker 1: can tell just by just the energy, just the way
Speaker 1: that they discipline, things are just different, you know. And
Speaker 1: especially when you're not in the life of crime, when
Speaker 1: you're not somebody who's you know, around that. You know,
Speaker 1: you've been a star athlete your whole life and you've
Speaker 1: done things the right way and then unfortunately find yourself
Speaker 1: in the situation that puts you in one of the
Speaker 1: most dramatic and drastic situations ever you can even imagine,
Speaker 1: you know. So the level of trauma that she's dealing with,
Speaker 1: it's just unimaginable. Man. I just I'm just hoping that
Speaker 1: it gets x. You know, my prayers go out to
Speaker 1: her wife and Janelle. I haven't had the pleasure of
Speaker 1: meeting or speaking to Chanelle. But this Jenelle's energy alone
Speaker 1: is it's just beautiful. Man. Just knowing so when knowing
Speaker 1: that she had these types of people around her, just
Speaker 1: that gives you a understanding of who she is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just I love her as a basketball player, love
Speaker 1: her spirit, everything about her. It's just dope. So you know,
Speaker 1: my prayers definitely go out and I'm hoping that she
Speaker 1: get a speedy return. You know, one thing that we
Speaker 1: didn't get to discuss with Janelle, and I wish she
Speaker 1: was still here. She said that, you know, they're concerned
Speaker 1: about who they will get back once is returned, who
Speaker 1: they will get back because mentally we already know. We
Speaker 1: always talk about what incarceration does to the mind. Imagine
Speaker 1: what it does to you in Russia again, unable to
Speaker 1: communicate with your family. We don't know what she'll be
Speaker 1: like when she returns um and that is something that
Speaker 1: I hope that all the parties involved takes into consideration
Speaker 1: that we do not want this thing that has happened
Speaker 1: to to damage this woman for the rest of her life.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking, and I don't
Speaker 1: think we as activists, organizers, leaders can allow our brethren
Speaker 1: who we love and we celebrate, but those individuals who
Speaker 1: play for the NBA, we can't allow them off the
Speaker 1: hook with this. We have to make sure that they
Speaker 1: get uncomfortable and that they are just as annoying as
Speaker 1: I talked about, and we got to stay on them.
Speaker 1: So from my perspective, I've already decided I'm going to
Speaker 1: be them and on a daily basis everything I'm dam texting,
Speaker 1: calling we need help, we need help. And I know
Speaker 1: what happens is that their agents are going to tell them, oh, no,
Speaker 1: we we heard, it's being worked on. It's being worked on.
Speaker 1: But but very similar to what Congresswoman Lee said to
Speaker 1: me on yesterday that Trevor Read's family, they were in
Speaker 1: the streets, they were on the phone, they were making
Speaker 1: it uncomfortable for the administration so that the administration would
Speaker 1: make it on, make themselves uncomfortable and getting work done.
Speaker 1: I don't We've not seen, I asked. I asked Attorney
Speaker 1: Crump about then there said, Hey, what do you really
Speaker 1: think the strategy is on grind? Do you think that
Speaker 1: we should be out here? You know? And and how
Speaker 1: loud do you think we should be out and I
Speaker 1: do ask people. You know, you may not think so,
Speaker 1: but I do. And he said that he's never seen
Speaker 1: a situation where in this country the silent ones got
Speaker 1: anything those who cried, And you know, he reminded me
Speaker 1: of that quote where Frederick Douglas says power conceives nothing
Speaker 1: without a demand, and that that pretty much grinds that up. Man,
Speaker 1: No no pun intended. Yeah, you know, but shouts out
Speaker 1: to um Janelle for coming on on our show and
Speaker 1: just to love the love that she has for her
Speaker 1: and her wife has for her. It's just different that
Speaker 1: brings me to my um. I don't get it right.
Speaker 1: I was I post, actually posted something on my page
Speaker 1: today from Jazz Watch Jazz and and she was just
Speaker 1: talking about her willingness to be quote unquote submissive. And
Speaker 1: I know it's like a negative connotation that's attached to it,
Speaker 1: but it was so profound and the fact way that
Speaker 1: she broke down what submissive was to her and how
Speaker 1: it brought her joy, right, And she was just explaining
Speaker 1: how catering to her man and doing all these things
Speaker 1: for her man made her happy. It brought her levels
Speaker 1: of joy and what I didn't get was why that
Speaker 1: bothered somebody else? Right, Because how I love somebody or
Speaker 1: how somebody loves whatever that goes on with somebody in
Speaker 1: their relationship. I don't understand why that would bother other people, Right,
Speaker 1: Because if I get joy from loving my woman or
Speaker 1: this and that a certain way, or I go to
Speaker 1: the movies, I like to watch the movies every day,
Speaker 1: and this is what I do. This is my happy place.
Speaker 1: Why would it bother somebody else? Why do why people
Speaker 1: triggered by what makes somebody else happy? And people like, oh,
Speaker 1: she shouldn't do Why shouldn't if this is what brings
Speaker 1: her joy? I don't think. I think what people miss
Speaker 1: in it. You know when I when I listened to
Speaker 1: it was the fact that she did it for her, Right,
Speaker 1: It wasn't you know, I'm doing it for him, and
Speaker 1: he's using me and this and that. It's like being
Speaker 1: and I And I used the example about a man
Speaker 1: who might spoil his woman and buy her a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff. Right, if you're buying that woman things because
Speaker 1: you want sex from her, or you want to make
Speaker 1: her feel a way about you that she doesn't already feel,
Speaker 1: or if you're not doing it genuinely because Yo, I like,
Speaker 1: I thought about her and this would be nice for her.
Speaker 1: I want to take it here because I enjoy her
Speaker 1: company and I want to spend time with her. If
Speaker 1: you're doing things because you're you're trying to do it
Speaker 1: for somebody else, then you're doing it for the wrong reasons.
Speaker 1: And I think that the way that she spoke about love,
Speaker 1: it was more pertinent to what made her. She said,
Speaker 1: my superpower is love, and she and she made a
Speaker 1: quote that was so dope to me. She said, I
Speaker 1: can love a man back to health, right, And and
Speaker 1: that for me is so dynamic, right Because in relationships
Speaker 1: people say it's given take. Sometimes it is given take.
Speaker 1: But in relationships sometimes it might be eight twenty. Some
Speaker 1: people might be able to provide eighty to somebody else's twenty.
Speaker 1: That makes a hundred. Some people might provide thirty to
Speaker 1: somebody else's seventy and it makes a hundred. But that's
Speaker 1: the dynamic for those individuals. So what I don't get
Speaker 1: is why people are triggered by what makes somebody else happy.
Speaker 1: So do you think that seventy thirty consistently is okay?
Speaker 1: If it's a dynamic for relationship. What I'm trying to say,
Speaker 1: I'm asking you, do you believe that at some point
Speaker 1: that seventy thirty flips or they do have moments of
Speaker 1: fifty fifty? Do you think that it's okay for a
Speaker 1: person to give seventy all the time and the other
Speaker 1: person only gives thirty or eight twenty. I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: asking you. I'm not asking you if it's if I'm
Speaker 1: gonna answer, do you believe that it's okay? Like if
Speaker 1: you as a man, right and you're giving all the time? Right?
Speaker 1: Because because in my last relationship, I didn't have the
Speaker 1: financial means to do the things that he was able
Speaker 1: to do for me. He could. He put me on
Speaker 1: right jets, he bought me diamonds, things that I could
Speaker 1: not afford to do for him. So that would be
Speaker 1: an eight twenty ship at sometimes at some point it
Speaker 1: might be a ninety ten, right, because I I didn't
Speaker 1: have that money. I couldn't If I wanted to go
Speaker 1: out to eat lobster every night, he could afford that.
Speaker 1: But if it was just me by myself, I couldn't
Speaker 1: afford that, So that would be a ninety ten. That's consistent.
Speaker 1: But what I did do was found out what his
Speaker 1: favorite meal was and made sure that I cooked it.
Speaker 1: What I did do was find out, like, what things
Speaker 1: does he need? How do I change the socks in
Speaker 1: the drawer every six months? Because this is a person
Speaker 1: that works out and I know that he needs that.
Speaker 1: What I did do was figure out what how he
Speaker 1: does he like his Sunday to be right. I made
Speaker 1: sure his newspapers got delivered. I made sure that on
Speaker 1: certain days he had the desserts and things that he liked.
Speaker 1: I kept myself together physically. I did not run around lying,
Speaker 1: cheating and being abusive and doing things to him that
Speaker 1: hurt him. Right. So that was my ninety back. And
Speaker 1: I think what triggers people which they shouldn't be. They
Speaker 1: should not be triggered in any way, shape or formed
Speaker 1: by somebody else's situation, because I'm not driggering right at all.
Speaker 1: But what I will say is the triggering that is
Speaker 1: that's coming up for most people is one day've never
Speaker 1: learned how to love the way that she speaks. They
Speaker 1: never learned that, right, That's just not their situation. But
Speaker 1: the other piece I think that gets sort of left
Speaker 1: out is that a lot of people are triggered because
Speaker 1: they've never had anybody that deserved to be loved in
Speaker 1: that way that the words submits. Not. But that's but
Speaker 1: that's That's what I'm trying to explain to you. And
Speaker 1: I think when you listen to when I listened to it, right,
Speaker 1: it was her decision right to love that person. It
Speaker 1: wasn't listen to what I'm saying, No, But but I
Speaker 1: just need to be able to say this because I
Speaker 1: don't I know, but I just cannot just I'm asking
Speaker 1: for the pretty opportunity today to cut you off even
Speaker 1: though way better better, but I don't know because I
Speaker 1: didn't listen to the full interview if she ever talks
Speaker 1: about her expectations. Right. What I'm saying to you is
Speaker 1: that the way that the man that I was with
Speaker 1: show his love for me right, um was was and
Speaker 1: it's not just buying things. He also was an experienced person.
Speaker 1: Wake up on a Saturday morning, let's do this today, right,
Speaker 1: This is the type of person that he was. If
Speaker 1: I kept a nasty house, cheated and light all the time,
Speaker 1: didn't do anything back to show him that he was special,
Speaker 1: and he still I don't believe that he still would
Speaker 1: have continued to do this just because this is the
Speaker 1: type of person he is. I think that in every
Speaker 1: situation is given take you make somebody. You bring out
Speaker 1: of people a feeling that they want to keep going
Speaker 1: hard for you. You can't beat people down or mistreat
Speaker 1: them and or be nothing and didn't have the same
Speaker 1: expectation of them to keep showing up. I would love
Speaker 1: to hear that part of the discussion from her if
Speaker 1: she was right. And I hear what you're saying, and
Speaker 1: I think we I think I see why you feel
Speaker 1: like women are triggered by the situation. But what I'm
Speaker 1: explaining to you is right when you lead a certain way,
Speaker 1: right Like it's like this, I got a friend. My
Speaker 1: friend never gave me nothing. He can't give me nothing,
Speaker 1: right boom. He I know he's hungry. Y'all, come on,
Speaker 1: come to my house. I feed you, I take care
Speaker 1: of you. I do all the ship for you. Boom.
Speaker 1: I don't expect you to be able to do anything
Speaker 1: for me. Right I'm doing I'm literally doing this because
Speaker 1: I see you as my friend. I don't know how
Speaker 1: you see me. I don't even know if you're able.
Speaker 1: I don't even know if you're able to give me
Speaker 1: back the love that I can get. But but but
Speaker 1: my superpower is that I love a certain way. And
Speaker 1: if I call you, if I made a decision that
Speaker 1: you're my friend, you're gonna get this love. And if
Speaker 1: you do ship that that But listen, but listen to
Speaker 1: what I'm can You can't keep cutting me off because
Speaker 1: that way right. So what I'm trying to say is,
Speaker 1: as my friend, you're gonna get this love. In the
Speaker 1: minute that I feel like you don't deserve it, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not gonna be angry. I'm not none
Speaker 1: of this. I'm able to separate myself from a situation
Speaker 1: and move on because I didn't do anything for you.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't. I didn't be me. I'm not
Speaker 1: being me for you. I'm being me for me. Right,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be the same friend to anybody that I
Speaker 1: call a friend. Now, if you fuck if you fuck
Speaker 1: that up, that's when you don't. It don't reflect me.
Speaker 1: I'm not stupid because I did you that I that
Speaker 1: made me feel comfortable that I do for friends in
Speaker 1: my friendship. So what I'm trying to say is, oh,
Speaker 1: but what is he doing It don't matter whatever he's
Speaker 1: doing for me. If I call on my friend and
Speaker 1: I'm still doing it, it's enough for me. Right. He
Speaker 1: might not be doing it. He might just make a
Speaker 1: phone call every day and check up on me. You're
Speaker 1: good one, I just talk. That's all he might be doing.
Speaker 1: And that might be enough for me to give him
Speaker 1: everything that I want to give, because that's what if
Speaker 1: I've required from him in my relationship. And I don't disagree.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's what I'm saying that because I
Speaker 1: show up in all my friendships and relationships a certain
Speaker 1: way as a very giving person. Right, I'm very I'm
Speaker 1: always trying to help people figure things out. I'm always
Speaker 1: trying to set people up in the best situation possible
Speaker 1: based upon my um my access and whatever. So I
Speaker 1: don't disagree with you, and I don't change, right, I
Speaker 1: remain the same. But I do understand people who are
Speaker 1: triggered and and I understand family members of mind that
Speaker 1: will come to me and be like, you need to
Speaker 1: be careful, Like you give so much, you know who
Speaker 1: gives to you? Are you? Are you sure that you
Speaker 1: are invested in somebody that is invested in you? And
Speaker 1: I do have a criteria for being able to measure
Speaker 1: when I'm doing more than I should and should, whether
Speaker 1: someone somebody else being bothered by you being happy or
Speaker 1: or or looking at the situation that you're happy and
Speaker 1: telling you that you shouldn't be happy in that it
Speaker 1: is the most weirdest ship in the world. To me,
Speaker 1: it really doesn't make sense. It is the wet No,
Speaker 1: it's no, I want to say it this way. It
Speaker 1: is the most weird. It is the most weirdest ship
Speaker 1: in the world. Like what you eat don't make me ship.
Speaker 1: It's it's people in relationship. Just like when you look
Speaker 1: at Will and j the people want to tell those
Speaker 1: people down. Their relationship has outlasted most of the people
Speaker 1: who are talking about their relationship in any relationship they
Speaker 1: had twenty eight years. And if people was mad, oh,
Speaker 1: she's toxic, he's this he should why that man? Don't
Speaker 1: think that about this woman? That man it will he
Speaker 1: love our dirty drawers. And because it don't fit the
Speaker 1: criteria for what you quote relationship you have, you think
Speaker 1: that you should be angry about the fact that he
Speaker 1: loves this woman and they love each other, how they
Speaker 1: love each other, And to me, I think that right
Speaker 1: there is just what what what is detrimental in society
Speaker 1: that people are so worried about other people and how
Speaker 1: they feel and how they feel about what they're doing.
Speaker 1: I don't give a damn about what somebody thinks about
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. It don't matter to me, you know.
Speaker 1: And and it's just like for me, is listening to
Speaker 1: that woman she found she seemed like she was enjoy
Speaker 1: talking about whatever she was talking about. She looked like
Speaker 1: she was lightening up, she was happy, this is my
Speaker 1: super power. And Pete, why would somebody want to criticize
Speaker 1: that or make her feel like she was wrong for
Speaker 1: loving how she loves? And that's just weird to me.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't get it. Maybe somebody else
Speaker 1: will get it, and that's that. But with that said,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika, Mary
Speaker 1: is not gonna always be wrong, and we're gonna debate
Speaker 1: our ass off because we both think we're right, but
Speaker 1: we will both always and I mean always be authentic.
Speaker 1: He's listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network
Speaker 1: on I Heart Radio and catch us every single Wednesday
Speaker 1: for the video version of Street Politicians when I women
Speaker 1: dot TV,