Speaker 1: The media.
Speaker 2: There's been a thing that has like boggled my mind
Speaker 2: for a long time, and I've been trying to figure
Speaker 2: out how to approach this conversation.
Speaker 3: And it's.
Speaker 2: Black people voting for trump hood politics. Y'all, Okay, listen,
Speaker 2: But first, it's like this.
Speaker 3: Bull look.
Speaker 1: It is like this.
Speaker 3: Bull look is like this so look, it's like this.
Speaker 2: Uh, like I wouldn't saw Conclave. It's actually it's clearly
Speaker 2: a great movie. It's not what I thought it was
Speaker 2: gonna be. Like I thought it was gonna be some
Speaker 2: sort of souper defense of the Catholic Church and all
Speaker 2: of it's inglorious glory and no, it was raw and gritty,
Speaker 2: had a great turn at the end. It's pretty dope anyway. Uh,
Speaker 2: starting with the fun stuff is TikTok, because I just
Speaker 2: think this is hilarious. They had all kinds of a
Speaker 2: emails and personal or intered company interactions turned into the courts,
Speaker 2: but it was redacted, right, So a lot of the
Speaker 2: things that are really damning about who they are was
Speaker 2: supposed to be redacted. So your normal run of the
Speaker 2: mill reporter who was just essentially looking at the redacted
Speaker 2: document and then copy and pasting into their notes so
Speaker 2: that they can, you know, do the reporting normal acceptable stuff.
Speaker 3: The problem was.
Speaker 2: The Redaction didn't keep redacting when it got copied over,
Speaker 2: so it was all all the blacked out stuff was
Speaker 2: not blacked out no more, and they could read all
Speaker 2: the stuff that they ain't want nobody to know, and
Speaker 2: which was we're absolutely trying to get y'all kids addicted.
Speaker 2: We are doing things purposefully to get teenagers addicted. And
Speaker 2: these little like time warnings about how long you've been
Speaker 2: on the app is just cosmetic. This stuff don't work.
Speaker 2: We're doing this because we're trying to give y'all kids crack.
Speaker 2: And here's what's crazy. It's not like every other social
Speaker 2: media ain't doing this. They just doing it better. They
Speaker 2: just took it and made it Asian. They're just like,
Speaker 2: we're just gonna do it better than y'all.
Speaker 3: Oh boy.
Speaker 2: They was like, y'all wasn't supposed to see that. They
Speaker 2: was like, well, we wasn't trying to see it.
Speaker 4: It just showed.
Speaker 2: But since we looking at it, you are absolutely guilty
Speaker 2: as charged. It is so funny to me that the
Speaker 2: Redaction didn't keep redacting snitched on themselves.
Speaker 3: Another News.
Speaker 2: Final stretch of this wonderfully well balanced and not absolutely
Speaker 2: psychotic presidential cycle final stretch, And one thing that does
Speaker 2: bother me is Kamala trying to convince them that she
Speaker 2: a safe negro. I'm like, stop trying to be safe.
Speaker 2: But then again, I get it, because how you're gonna
Speaker 2: get the job if you ain't a safe negro. That's
Speaker 2: one of the Cash twenty two is about being black
Speaker 2: in this country. You gotta show these people you safe.
Speaker 2: But you know, we be trying to stay dangerous over here.
Speaker 2: But that's because we're not running for office. If I
Speaker 2: was running for office, I'd have to be sick. So
Speaker 2: and what I mean by that is telling potential Republican
Speaker 2: voters that you can possibly swipe off who just find
Speaker 2: Trump untenable, that hey, look, look no, I'm one of
Speaker 2: the good ones, you know, And I mean.
Speaker 4: Listen, understandable. The calculation is.
Speaker 2: The rest of us can't stand Trump so bad that
Speaker 2: the idea of not voting and the idea of voting
Speaker 2: for him is just impossible, you know. But they forgetting
Speaker 2: about the people that's just gonna sit out. So anyway,
Speaker 2: what do I know, I don't really run a campaign
Speaker 2: never had. The Trump strategy is we gonna kill him.
Speaker 2: There's thirteen thousand murderers living freely in America.
Speaker 3: We gotta get get him out.
Speaker 2: If the election doesn't go the way I think it is,
Speaker 2: I'm sending the National Guard, the military because we have
Speaker 2: enemies within, and we're gonna send the mill.
Speaker 4: He like we gonna kill.
Speaker 2: Him, I'll bring in the militariat if y'all don't do
Speaker 2: what I.
Speaker 4: Think y'all supposed to do. My man is just he
Speaker 4: just y'all, that man is unhinged.
Speaker 2: I just don't I don't see what you see in him,
Speaker 2: which is gonna be a part of the rest of
Speaker 2: us episode. Finally, blood on the streets and brains on
Speaker 2: the sidewalk and body parts are Toddlers are just raining
Speaker 2: from the ground as we speak. In northern Gaza. Yeah,
Speaker 2: another school in a hospital exploded and somehow, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I want to believe it's AI generated. I want to
Speaker 2: believe it's so bad. But you see the hand of
Speaker 2: a man who still has the IVY in his arm
Speaker 2: being engulfed in flames as this hospital gets bombed by
Speaker 2: the Israeli military. And here's what's crazy. Is that program
Speaker 2: is the side quest. Now the main quest is Lebanon. Now,
Speaker 2: Israel had just taken a bomb on one of their
Speaker 2: military bases. Hear me, Lebanon struck one of the military bases,
Speaker 2: and in return, America has sent a hundred troops to
Speaker 2: Israel and has also added more of the sort of
Speaker 2: iron dome thing the anti missile joints that they have
Speaker 2: to help aid in the retaliation for the retaliation. All
Speaker 2: the while, the UN peacekeepers are like, guys, help us,
Speaker 2: help you.
Speaker 3: Like it?
Speaker 4: You? You keep trying to say, this isn't a genocide.
Speaker 4: It'saying an ethnic cleansing, except it kind of is it
Speaker 4: kind of high key is guys?
Speaker 3: You I.
Speaker 4: I don't know how else to say this.
Speaker 3: He's what the.
Speaker 2: UN is saying right now. Anyway, let's listen to Garrison
Speaker 2: like this, all.
Speaker 3: Right, we're back.
Speaker 2: It's not hard to note that, like, obviously black people
Speaker 2: can be conservative, and there's a lot of them, a
Speaker 2: lot of us as church folk, and some would argue that,
Speaker 2: like when you look back at even just the attitude
Speaker 2: of my father's generation and black panthers in them, their
Speaker 2: attitude was like the generation before them civil rights movement people.
Speaker 2: They was like, change the system, make the system equitable,
Speaker 2: and thank God for them my daddy and them was like,
Speaker 2: this system will never be for us.
Speaker 4: It will never ever ever work in our favor.
Speaker 2: And if that's your attitude, then you need to take
Speaker 2: care of yourself. So a lot of the things about
Speaker 2: you know, the black nationalists that I grew up under,
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways dovetails to a lot of
Speaker 2: those conservative views. Thee I don't want none of you.
Speaker 2: I don't want the government's money because the government don't
Speaker 2: love me. Government will never take care of me. They
Speaker 2: will never have my best interest in mind. So we
Speaker 2: need to make our own money. We need to build
Speaker 2: our own schools, we need to build our own communities,
Speaker 2: we need to do.
Speaker 4: All those things.
Speaker 2: So and again, church folk a lot of times be
Speaker 2: hella anti gay, church folk be hella anti abortion to
Speaker 2: a dovetail. So I understand the concept of a black conservative.
Speaker 2: And what we find is a lot of them who
Speaker 2: are conservative have rejected the Republican Party because they're like, well,
Speaker 2: you're anti black, but still feel like they got to
Speaker 2: play ball because that's the only way to get their
Speaker 2: things done. We got the hommie Garrison Hayes, who turns
Speaker 2: out like we kind of moved to a lot of
Speaker 2: the same circles.
Speaker 4: It just got a dope.
Speaker 2: He did this video when he went to the RNC
Speaker 2: and he reported on black Republicans and supporters of Trump,
Speaker 2: and it was a no brainer. We had to bring
Speaker 2: him down to other politics. So here it is me
Speaker 2: and Garrison talking about.
Speaker 4: Caw niggas really love Trump.
Speaker 5: Here we go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so we'll just jump in.
Speaker 2: First of all, Garrison, thank you so much for pulling
Speaker 2: up on us prop.
Speaker 3: It's a real honor, man. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this like we've been, you know, as the show
Speaker 2: has kind of grown, you know, I think about like.
Speaker 4: The like, all right, could we really pull this off?
Speaker 4: Like there's the kid, we really pull this off?
Speaker 2: Like episodes and then how's the like how do I
Speaker 2: handle this topic in the most respectful way possible? Like
Speaker 2: that's what we was kind of thinking about, because like,
Speaker 2: and first I want to commend you on that.
Speaker 4: Like, first of all, everybody, you've probably heard all.
Speaker 2: The intros that we've done already, but I want to
Speaker 2: say first, after watching the piece you did with with
Speaker 2: Mother Jones, I like work in the you know, peacemaking
Speaker 2: kind of world on the humanitarian side. But before that,
Speaker 2: it was like, you know, gang intervention, and like what
Speaker 2: you have to do in those situations is like I can't.
Speaker 2: You can't mock the people you're trying to bring to
Speaker 2: the table, you know what I'm saying, Like, I can't.
Speaker 2: You know, you can't talk down to them, You can't,
Speaker 2: can't eye roll. You can't do that, even when stuff
Speaker 2: that's coming out of their mouth is preposterous, you know.
Speaker 4: Like, but I can't. I have to keep you at
Speaker 4: the table.
Speaker 2: And and while at the same time I suffer no foolishness,
Speaker 2: you know. Like, So I first I want to commend
Speaker 2: you on the way you carried yourself. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that was magical editing or if you just that
Speaker 2: much of a g Either way, I need to commend
Speaker 2: you on how you handle yourself.
Speaker 3: No, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: I'm I. I've been in conversation. So people may not
Speaker 1: know this. I was a pastor for a number of years,
Speaker 1: for about five years, and so between being a pastor
Speaker 1: and a chaplain, and so I've talked to people in
Speaker 1: some really intense moments where maybe I've preached about let's say,
Speaker 1: justice from the pull from the you know, from the
Speaker 1: pull picsion, and afterwards someone comes up to me and
Speaker 1: they are upset because I said something or I didn't
Speaker 1: say something, or whatever the case.
Speaker 3: You. Yeah, and so.
Speaker 1: You kind of learn one thing is I don't really
Speaker 1: have the ability to stop my face from making certain expressions,
Speaker 1: but you try to learn to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more winsome and like give people space to say what
Speaker 1: they want to say and ask clarifying questions where necessary.
Speaker 3: And so some of that is definitely coming out in
Speaker 3: that video.
Speaker 4: From the pastoral side of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yea, and nah, I.
Speaker 2: Respect that because I think too, Like you know, I
Speaker 2: spent spent a good amount of time in like Christian
Speaker 2: spaces and evangelical spaces, and once you start talking, like
Speaker 2: really start talking to talk, you know what I'm saying
Speaker 2: like that, you do have those moments where it's like, I,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get into a particular like I'm
Speaker 2: not gonna get into like a theological.
Speaker 3: Debate with you.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying over some something that is
Speaker 2: quite clearly biblical.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So I'm not gonna you know what I mean, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not like your your your issue is cultural.
Speaker 2: It would take too it would take too long to
Speaker 2: unpack this, you know, or like you said, like sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like I'm I sometimes feel like especially because I
Speaker 2: came from like a music and sort of entertaining side,
Speaker 2: where it would be like you have a you have
Speaker 2: a discipleship problem, you have an this is a this
Speaker 2: is you have a local you have a home church problem.
Speaker 2: Like I can't I can't help you with this, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. So yeah, so that's dope. It definitely,
Speaker 2: it definitely shines through.
Speaker 4: So I appreciate it. I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, So it's it's a different it's a it's
Speaker 2: a real different like intersection for I think.
Speaker 4: For specifically, like.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's my show, I could keep it a buck,
Speaker 2: so specifically for like white evangelicals to understand the cross
Speaker 2: section of like justice and progressivism that most of us
Speaker 2: of color are like, I don't I don't see the problem.
Speaker 2: I don't see what you don't see. I don't see
Speaker 2: the discountcy So.
Speaker 1: Anyway, yeah, I kind of want to talk to that
Speaker 1: for a little bit because I do think that there
Speaker 1: is something really interesting happening that I don't think we're
Speaker 1: appropriately naming. It's this idea that being for racial justice,
Speaker 1: like acknowledging that ever since the beginning of this country,
Speaker 1: certain groups have been put down while certain groups have
Speaker 1: been actively elevated, and and that often goes along the
Speaker 1: lines of gender, sexuality, and race, and so like acknowledging
Speaker 1: that is just kind of a fact of life in America,
Speaker 1: fact of life perhaps in the world. Okay, fine, we
Speaker 1: can kind of get on board with that. Now, the
Speaker 1: second step is to say something must be done about this, right,
Speaker 1: Like we have to kind of like fix some of
Speaker 1: these things to make America the greatest place that it
Speaker 1: can be. Now, yes, this is in many ways considered
Speaker 1: being like progressive, like we want to move things forward.
Speaker 1: But I challenge the assumption that pushing for racial justice
Speaker 1: is like a progressive thing, right, Yeah, like believing that
Speaker 1: black people should have the same kind of opportunities and access,
Speaker 1: you know, like it shouldn't be segregated, it shouldn't be racialized,
Speaker 1: Like communities that are poor should have opportunity to no
Speaker 1: longer be poor, and the people who live there shouldn't
Speaker 1: be blamed for the structures that keep them there, Like,
Speaker 1: these are not actually like progressive ideals, right.
Speaker 4: It's incredibly bare minimum.
Speaker 3: It is quite literally the bare minimum.
Speaker 2: And what I appreciate that man, because I've said often
Speaker 2: in the show, like I'm like, I mean, we're not
Speaker 2: We're not Karl Marx over here by saying I'm saying
Speaker 2: like it's not this isn't like a proletariat revolution. I'm
Speaker 2: just saying, you know, this shouldn't cost that much. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's right, And there is laws that made this possible
Speaker 2: that maybe we shouldn't have him laws.
Speaker 3: Right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: And I think what I'm trying to kind of get
Speaker 1: to is that I am seeing a kind of like
Speaker 1: person rise up, specifically in the black community, who is like, hey,
Speaker 1: I actually hold conservative ideals. I heard hold conservative values,
Speaker 1: perhaps around abortion, or perhaps around game marriage or whatever
Speaker 1: the case may be. Like that is a common thing.
Speaker 1: You black, I'm black. We've grown up in black communities
Speaker 1: where we pretty normal. Yeah, it's like not abnormal for
Speaker 1: black people to be relatively conservative. The problem is that
Speaker 1: American conservatives, the Republican Party specifically, has made racial progress
Speaker 1: an issue upon which they stand against Now. Now, this
Speaker 1: is just like, on a baseline level, if I were
Speaker 1: to give a critique of the Republican Party, it's that
Speaker 1: you are missing out on an incredibly diverse number of
Speaker 1: potential voters. If you're so stupid on race, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: I just have to say the thing, right, Like, can
Speaker 1: I just be you?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 2: No, bro, you spending, you spending homie, Like I can't
Speaker 2: even get to my points of adventures because like you
Speaker 2: already spitting I Like, for example, on the episode coming
Speaker 2: out this week, on the episode coming out this week,
Speaker 2: it was like.
Speaker 3: What we made.
Speaker 2: I made the point to where I feel like I
Speaker 2: have to do the Republicans homework for them in that
Speaker 2: if if you weren't so racist, like like, rather than
Speaker 2: demonizing Springfield, Ohio.
Speaker 4: This could be your city on a hill.
Speaker 2: This could be your shining light city on a hill.
Speaker 2: Like let me It's like again, let me do your
Speaker 2: homework for you. You could say, hey, liberal legislature and democratic
Speaker 2: laws pushed industry.
Speaker 4: Away, right, so the city was dying.
Speaker 2: And then when the Republicans came in office, we brought
Speaker 2: jobs back, so many jobs that there was such a
Speaker 2: surplus and we got to fulfill the American dream by
Speaker 2: bringing in legal immigration who also were willing to work.
Speaker 3: And now this.
Speaker 2: Community is going together. You could even argue your community
Speaker 2: is post racial. You could say that because you have
Speaker 2: all these Haitian people working next to these white people
Speaker 2: would not And there's eight thousand new jobs and families
Speaker 2: are learning French and businesses are opening and rest I'm like, bro,
Speaker 2: but like.
Speaker 4: I don't understand why you could have said that.
Speaker 2: But but instead niggas is eating cats, you know, Like
Speaker 2: you know, I'm like I if you were so, this
Speaker 2: could be your win. You could have said, listen, if
Speaker 2: you just let us cook, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: If that's you could have said, if you just let
Speaker 2: the Republicans cook, we can make all cities like this.
Speaker 2: Eight thousand jobs, families are learning French, you're all learning
Speaker 2: how to there's restaurants.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 4: We brought the city back to life.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: But no, I think that's why I think you're exactly right.
Speaker 1: It's why former R and C chairman Michael Steele doesn't
Speaker 1: feel like he has a home in the Republican Party today. Right,
Speaker 1: this is an American conservative who just sees the leaning
Speaker 1: in the doubling down on a kind of bigotry that
Speaker 1: is actually inexcusable, and it you know, beyond the politics
Speaker 1: of it being inexcusable and that it is a poor
Speaker 1: electoral strategy, it is inexcusable on a moral level as well.
Speaker 3: The lives of.
Speaker 1: The Haitian immigrants, the legal Haitian immigrants who live in Springfield, Ohio,
Speaker 1: their lives are measurably worse because the party, because one
Speaker 1: of the two major parties, has decided to make them
Speaker 1: a target of a very specific kind of narrative, a
Speaker 1: very specific kind of campaign. In many ways, what I'd
Speaker 1: argue is that they don't even really care about the
Speaker 1: Haitians per se, right, Like this.
Speaker 3: Isn't at all.
Speaker 1: They are a tool that they're using that they're so disposable,
Speaker 1: These Haitian legal Haitian immigrants are so disposable, and I'd argue,
Speaker 1: in large part because of the color of their skin
Speaker 1: and the origin of their birth, they are so disposable
Speaker 1: that they're willing to just kind of use them, leverage
Speaker 1: them to distract from the abysmal debate performance that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump had a couple of weeks ago. The kind of
Speaker 1: tanking polling numbers that he's had since Vice President Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris has entered the race, the fact that he has
Speaker 1: concepts of a plan but not a real plan. The
Speaker 1: fact that his economic plans when they went when expressed,
Speaker 1: are incredibly inflationary and would cause a global kind of
Speaker 1: kind of collapse. Like, these facts are very bad or
Speaker 1: for the Republican's presidential candidate. And so they come up
Speaker 1: with the So now we're talking about Haitians on props podcasts,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the point, right, And the thing
Speaker 1: I think I want to tie it to for the
Speaker 1: community specifically is that it's because they see and it's
Speaker 1: because of four hundred plus years of in culturation and
Speaker 1: narrative building, they see these people as as disposable, as
Speaker 1: kind of cast.
Speaker 3: Away, something that they can throw away and use in
Speaker 3: that kind of larger plan.
Speaker 2: I'd even push that point even further and say, and
Speaker 2: they also see the rest of the citizens of Springfield
Speaker 2: as disposable.
Speaker 3: It's such a good point.
Speaker 2: I can lie about your city and they the city
Speaker 2: has become a veteran ram and in the wake of
Speaker 2: that have seen what thirty eight bomb threats, you know,
Speaker 2: and like, and it's almost like bro, like keep your
Speaker 2: name out of my mouth.
Speaker 4: Man out your mouth?
Speaker 2: Man, Like y'all not helping like I was with you, right,
Speaker 2: but you just gonna drag us like this in public,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. Like, and then try to
Speaker 2: say you doing this, You're like, don't you know it?
Speaker 2: Almost don'ts on my back? Tell me it's raining dog
Speaker 2: like you're not my friend, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So that's like the that's the other ugly part about
Speaker 2: that type of supremacy, that type of fascism that they
Speaker 2: waiting in is like, well they don't they don't love you.
Speaker 3: Either, right, you know you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So so yeah, man, we're like we are already there, man,
Speaker 2: I love Yeah, yeah, no.
Speaker 3: That's perfect. No.
Speaker 2: So that that leads me to one of the questions
Speaker 2: I had a little later that like, could you, while present,
Speaker 2: did you notice what you kind of already laid out already,
Speaker 2: like a distinction between a black conservative and a Trump person,
Speaker 2: Like was there a distinction that you could see like
Speaker 2: even with your own eyes.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I actually had plenty of conversations. I've been reporting
Speaker 1: on this for basically a year now and a lot
Speaker 1: of the conversations I've been having with black people who
Speaker 1: identify as conservative, they often reject the Republican Party. This
Speaker 1: is kind of where I've come conclusion, and I think
Speaker 1: we know intuitively, but my reporting has like really kind
Speaker 1: of shown.
Speaker 3: That there there's a great there's a large group of
Speaker 3: people who Black people, black voters, who again hold these
Speaker 3: conservative kind of values, but see the Republican Party as
Speaker 3: kind of an untenable, kind of unacceptable kind of case
Speaker 3: for their particular political lot, and so that distinction is
Speaker 3: often kind of drawn out in many ways. I do
Speaker 3: think that kind of a value of you know, rugged individualism,
Speaker 3: right like this, like I'm going to do it myself.
Speaker 1: I reject white handouts, I reject the quote welfare state.
Speaker 1: I don't want any DEI like like that is a
Speaker 1: value that I actually don't think is particularly foreign Again
Speaker 1: within the black community, this idea that we've all been
Speaker 1: raised with, this kind of saying this black axiom, which
Speaker 1: is that sometimes most times, every time you got to
Speaker 1: work twice as hard to get as much.
Speaker 3: That's the thing that we all grew up with.
Speaker 1: This is a kind of make sure you're doing your
Speaker 1: part to push forward that I would see is in
Speaker 1: large part kind of bas a particular kind of conservative idea.
Speaker 1: I'd say this is small sea conservative, not Republican or
Speaker 1: big you know, Heritage foundation foundation. But it is kind
Speaker 1: of a kind of like individualistic value that we've all
Speaker 1: been more or less raised with where I think it
Speaker 1: goes off the rails if I were to kind of
Speaker 1: do a little op ad here is there within that
Speaker 1: saying there is a recognition that you do have to
Speaker 1: work twice as hard. Now what is that twice as
Speaker 1: heart referring to? It's referring to the structural barriers that
Speaker 1: continue to keep black people and other people of colors
Speaker 1: at the bottom of our American cast system. So there's
Speaker 1: an acknowledgement. And what I found in conversations with many
Speaker 1: of the black MAGA folks is that they just simply
Speaker 1: do not want to acknowledge that there are these structural barriers.
Speaker 3: In the first.
Speaker 2: Logical jump, yeah, yeah, the logical jump is or what
Speaker 2: that clearly the next logical step in the argument you're
Speaker 2: making is what they said, why are you working twice
Speaker 2: as hard? Like why you know what I'm saying, yea,
Speaker 2: which brings me to yeah, man, brings me to two things.
Speaker 2: One to echo your point, my father, My father was
Speaker 2: a black panther.
Speaker 4: So there was in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: The argument that you know, some make the same argument
Speaker 2: that like before you would say like Clarence Thomas's brain
Speaker 2: got completely cooked. It was like this was the attitude
Speaker 2: to where it's like in my dad in a lot
Speaker 2: of ways, even talking to him now, he's definitely not
Speaker 2: as you know, he's much older now, but you know,
Speaker 2: and he's definitely not as radical as he was. But
Speaker 2: the idea was like this system is is designed to
Speaker 2: destroy us. These people will never love us. So we
Speaker 2: are all we got, you know. So even like he
Speaker 2: we were out here in the La chapter the forty
Speaker 2: fourth of Central like that was that was our area,
Speaker 2: you know. And he was after school tutor, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. Like, so he was a part of
Speaker 2: that pro and it was like and he goes, cause
Speaker 2: I can't trust I can't trust the American education system
Speaker 2: to teach my black son the things that he needs
Speaker 2: to know.
Speaker 3: So we are going to do it.
Speaker 2: So and the same thing, it's like even though my grandmother,
Speaker 2: you know, subsisted on assistant living. He was still was
Speaker 2: very much like every dollar they give us is a
Speaker 2: dollar we owe them, Like, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 2: let's not you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I think that like a younger version of that,
Speaker 2: which I definitely wanted to ask you about, is like
Speaker 2: the black capitalists, like the jay Z, the Killer Mike
Speaker 2: version of like, oh well, we just need black banks,
Speaker 2: we just need you know what I'm saying, Well, if
Speaker 2: we owned our land, if we own these businesses, if
Speaker 2: we own these things. I think in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: you know, part of me is like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: you're in the ocean, you might as well swim.
Speaker 4: It's like it's a saltwater ocean.
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: The ocean is capitalism. I don't know what to tell you,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. But then there's the other
Speaker 2: part of us that are like, no, the ocean is toxic,
Speaker 2: and U's just like, is there an element of like
Speaker 2: should we just burn the whole thing down? Or like
Speaker 2: you said, like there's an understandable conclusion to say that,
Speaker 2: like these radical views of the sixties dovetail into the
Speaker 2: type of conservatism that you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Okay, so I do know what you're saying.
Speaker 1: There's so many things that kind of trigger for me
Speaker 1: throughout that whole thing. I'm working on something that's largely
Speaker 1: built off of the book Locking Up Our Own by
Speaker 1: James Forman Jr. It's a phenomenal book that I highly
Speaker 1: recommend folks who are interested in this stuff get into.
Speaker 1: It's really about black on black policing. It's about the
Speaker 1: way that black people kind of govern at least their
Speaker 1: own communities. I argue in this piece that's coming out
Speaker 1: in a few weeks, so you guys are getting a
Speaker 1: little early, I argue that black people love the police,
Speaker 1: that black people are deeply invested in the police and
Speaker 1: policing structures in a way that may feel a bit counterintuitive.
Speaker 1: I give all of this kind of background, and I
Speaker 1: promise I'm going somewhere with this in that, like what
Speaker 1: you're talking about with your dad, my dad was also
Speaker 1: a black panther, or at least in gay Black panther
Speaker 1: party in Atlanta.
Speaker 3: So this was, you know, many years ago.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but one thing that comes out of this
Speaker 1: this black this pro black black panther movement, is this
Speaker 1: idea of being tough on crime so before Reagan gets
Speaker 1: tough on crime, and and and beyond, before these folks
Speaker 1: are mixed in, before they're engaged in tough on crime rhetoric,
Speaker 1: the black community was actually deeply invested in back in
Speaker 1: tough on crime rhetoric because they recognized that a crime
Speaker 1: that the person who was pushing some drugs heroin for instance,
Speaker 1: in their community, even if they know, even if we.
Speaker 3: Know it was like a psyop, and the government.
Speaker 1: Was engaged absolutely absolutely, the person who's actually doing the
Speaker 1: distributing is a brother, right, And so they would put
Speaker 1: up these signs. Black Panthers and other pro black movement people,
Speaker 1: especially in DC, will put up these signs and say
Speaker 1: want it brother for crimes against a brother, right. And
Speaker 1: so there's this kind of like like whenever I hear
Speaker 1: a conservative try to talk about black on black crime,
Speaker 1: I'm like, you are sixty years too late. Like we've
Speaker 1: been talking about black on black crime right for for
Speaker 1: a very long time. I give all of that background
Speaker 1: to say that the problem I find amongst many black
Speaker 1: conservative thinkers, Thomas Soul comes to mind as a person
Speaker 1: who kind of fits this description. They had an idea
Speaker 1: in let's say the late sixties or the seventies about
Speaker 1: how we move forward as a community, and they just
Speaker 1: refused to take in the information and evolve. Let me
Speaker 1: give a little example here, people, black people deeply, like,
Speaker 1: really really deeply supported the nineteen ninety four crime bill.
Speaker 1: We just passed the thirty year anniversary of the nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four crime bill, which accelerated mass and cars at
Speaker 1: a rate that is actually unfathomable, did unfathomable damage to
Speaker 1: the black community. Was architected by Joe Biden and signed
Speaker 1: into law by Bill Clinton. Right, but over one hundred
Speaker 1: black pastors across the country took out a full page
Speaker 1: ad in the New York Times asking for Congress to
Speaker 1: pass this bill. The Congressional Black Caucus supported the tough
Speaker 1: on crime nineteen ninety.
Speaker 3: Four crime bill.
Speaker 1: They pushed for this country to do the thing that's
Speaker 1: hurt us the most. Now, this is a this is
Speaker 1: a tough pill to swallow, right, But but what we
Speaker 1: can do here, What the Black Lives Matter movement, for example,
Speaker 1: does is actually looks back over time and says, wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: they may have intended this to be good. They may
Speaker 1: have intended for this to save Grandma who was putting
Speaker 1: up burglar bars her on her house, or to save
Speaker 1: cousin who was getting engaged with like gang violence and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. Right, Like, they may have intended it
Speaker 1: to be a positive thing in our community, but what
Speaker 1: we've loved learned is that it is a negative thing.
Speaker 1: And what I often find is that the folks who
Speaker 1: have been conservative for a long time or becoming conservative,
Speaker 1: they refuse to look back at the way We've tried
Speaker 1: so many things and those things have failed. So when
Speaker 1: I hear you talking about and I'm finally landing, man,
Speaker 1: finally landing. When I hear you talking, when I hear
Speaker 1: you talking about black capitalism, I can recognize that black
Speaker 1: capitalism has helped Jay Z become a billionaire, It's helped
Speaker 1: many many others make a bunch of money. It has
Speaker 1: not helped our community. It's helped individuals, but it's not
Speaker 1: helped our community. And that is the value of capitalism.
Speaker 1: Capitalism is inherently valued on the individual success, the individual
Speaker 1: kind of you know, like ownership, right, And so I
Speaker 1: don't want to getting you know, I don't have to
Speaker 1: get bogged down. And whether or not we burn down
Speaker 1: the system, I know, that's just kind of a saying.
Speaker 1: I think many people have tried and have failed. What
Speaker 1: I can recognize is that there are policy prescriptions, there
Speaker 1: are ways to move forward that benefit the community. I
Speaker 1: think about Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, which wasn't explicitly
Speaker 1: about black people. It wasn't on the it wasn't the
Speaker 1: Black Care Act, and yet it lowered black uninsured rates
Speaker 1: from I believe twenty five percent to like ten or
Speaker 1: fifteen percent something like that.
Speaker 3: It lowered it, you know, significantly.
Speaker 1: That means more people who are now on health insurance,
Speaker 1: who can now go to the doctor, who can now
Speaker 1: get preventive care. I think about Joe Biden and Kamala
Speaker 1: Harris's Prescription you know plan, where they lowered the cost
Speaker 1: of prescription drugs, particularly around diabetes insulin, to like thirty
Speaker 1: five dollars for seniors. That means that someone's grandmother or
Speaker 1: aunt or uncle can now afford to get life saving medication.
Speaker 3: And while that may go against.
Speaker 1: The values of capitalism, which is like, if there's a
Speaker 1: high demand, run the price up so that you get
Speaker 1: as much as possible off of it, Right, that might
Speaker 1: go against capitalism, I still think that those things are
Speaker 1: valuable without ever having to necessarily destroy the foundations of
Speaker 1: capitalism in this country. So that's how I tell you
Speaker 1: about it, and I hope it's kind of a helpful
Speaker 1: frame for the conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, it's perfect.
Speaker 2: It's perfect because you know, one of my mentors used
Speaker 2: to say about like a couple of things you talked about,
Speaker 2: like the there's like vertical equality and then there's horizontal equality.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, we've had a black president, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you were able to as an individual black person a
Speaker 2: mass millions of dollars. Okay, yeah, vertical, you know, but
Speaker 2: that does not mean horizontally there's this equality. And again
Speaker 2: to your point, like you know, to amass the type
Speaker 2: of wealth that these brothers are talking about requires a working.
Speaker 3: Class, you know.
Speaker 2: So it's like it's it's it's important. You can't get
Speaker 2: there without exploiting the very brothers and sisters that you're
Speaker 2: arguing or you're trying to undergirden support.
Speaker 3: No, I totally agree.
Speaker 5: I love it, man.
Speaker 2: So yeah, which actually leads me to the next thing
Speaker 2: that like there were moments specifically in the video which
Speaker 2: you kind of like in a in a in a
Speaker 2: in a broader way I've already addressed when someone says something.
Speaker 3: That's like.
Speaker 2: It's just this is just not true, you know, where
Speaker 2: like you know it, and there are certain things like okay,
Speaker 2: you know, did was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Speaker 2: the start of World War One?
Speaker 4: Maybe or maybe.
Speaker 2: It was the situations that led you know, Priss to
Speaker 2: feel like he needs to assassinate. Maybe it started twenty
Speaker 2: years before, and then that's a matter of interpretation. Who
Speaker 2: knows a white mob burnt down Tulsa, like that is
Speaker 2: just what happened, you know herself saying like like I
Speaker 2: just don't, I don't.
Speaker 4: There's this is not up for interpretation. This is just
Speaker 4: what happened.
Speaker 2: And I find there's two questions I'm getting to here
Speaker 2: is when discussing things like this that are just.
Speaker 3: False.
Speaker 2: I appreciated the way that you're like, no, we have
Speaker 2: to stop this conversation because whatever point you're about to
Speaker 2: make after this is invalid because it's built on an
Speaker 2: axiom that is just false. You know, like where there
Speaker 2: are certain things like I said that you can interpret.
Speaker 2: You could say, what again, let me do your homework
Speaker 2: for you. You could have said there were laws and
Speaker 2: regulations that might have been removed that allowed for the
Speaker 2: growth of Black Wall Street. You could have argued that,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, but to say the destruction
Speaker 2: of it was this It's not a for interpretation, bro.
Speaker 2: It was burnt down by a racist mob, right, so
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like, I don't know what
Speaker 2: to tell you, hoy, Like that's what happened. So I
Speaker 2: think oftentimes when it comes to like you said, like
Speaker 2: the maga folks that like just refuse to acknowledge the obvious,
Speaker 2: like is there, I oftentimes feel like I'm waiting for
Speaker 2: you to wink at me that like you don't really
Speaker 2: you don't really believe this, like this this is a hustle, right,
Speaker 2: like because again what you just said is categorically false,
Speaker 2: like that's even in the white books, even in the
Speaker 2: white school books.
Speaker 4: This is what happened, you know what I'm saying, So
Speaker 4: like this, where did you get this?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: But then there's like wait, maybe you do really you
Speaker 2: really think this is and then so like what's your
Speaker 2: read on the like? And obviously this is all like
Speaker 2: anecdotal and speculation, but like, what is your read on
Speaker 2: the like?
Speaker 3: The part of your soul you got.
Speaker 2: To turn into a pretzel and to deny reality to
Speaker 2: where it's like you said, to lead up to the
Speaker 2: point to be like like another moment in the thing
Speaker 2: when you was like, wellhommie was like we believe the strong,
Speaker 2: like the almost like a conservative doctor, Umar, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, where it's like, you know, the family,
Speaker 2: the black family unit is the core of our civilization.
Speaker 2: And we were better before the Civil rights movement, cause
Speaker 2: at least we was together, my brother in Christ, like you,
Speaker 2: there's nowhere in the world that you just said that
Speaker 2: right now, you know what I'm saying. So, but about
Speaker 2: the same time, I understand the logic that led to that.
Speaker 2: Like my dad went to a segregated all black high school,
Speaker 2: like and he saw black people at every point of
Speaker 2: the social strata.
Speaker 4: I did not.
Speaker 2: I did not see that, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 2: like I would say, yeah, I never saw a black principle.
Speaker 2: I didn't have I didn't know any black lawyers. I
Speaker 2: didn't know any of that stuff because I just didn't
Speaker 2: live in a segregated area. You feel me, so to
Speaker 2: your point, yes, however, that was us making treasure out
Speaker 2: of trash bro Like, no, that was in spite of
Speaker 2: the laws, you know what I'm saying. So, like, I
Speaker 2: just my question is like two questions. One, were there
Speaker 2: moments during that time to where you were like, all right,
Speaker 2: fam like this a hustle, right, And then so with
Speaker 2: that when it's like no, maybe it's not a hustle,
Speaker 2: what's your take on Like.
Speaker 3: How how you just ignore.
Speaker 4: History?
Speaker 2: I got to use to explain it, like you're just
Speaker 2: just acting like what happened didn't happen.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things I learned going to
Speaker 1: the RNC, I don't think it's a it's a sea
Speaker 1: that I don't identify with the politics of the Republican
Speaker 1: Party of course, but going.
Speaker 3: There I learned a lot.
Speaker 1: Man, I learned a lot and I got a lot
Speaker 1: of empathy in the process. I gained a lot of
Speaker 1: empathy being at the r and C this summer, and
Speaker 1: for for starters, their media ecosystem is just totally different
Speaker 1: from mine, right, Like I curate, So I tell people this,
Speaker 1: I have a YouTube I have a YouTube like account
Speaker 1: that's mine.
Speaker 3: That's just me.
Speaker 1: It's what I'm most interested in, and what I click
Speaker 1: just makes sense for me, and then I have one
Speaker 1: that I've specifically curated for right wing content so that
Speaker 1: I can consume some of them, understand what they're what
Speaker 1: they're thinking on that side. And what I learned being
Speaker 1: there is that man like they they have a totally
Speaker 1: different kind of set of facts instead of kind of
Speaker 1: a different reality than that than the one I'm living in.
Speaker 1: Right like, the news cycle is different, and the way
Speaker 1: they're interpreting the news that might overlap is totally different.
Speaker 1: And I think some of that seeps in in a
Speaker 1: very genuine way into their understanding of history and economics
Speaker 1: and policy and what's best for the community. I think
Speaker 1: some of that stuff is really actually a part of
Speaker 1: the whole thing. I made a video about Prager University.
Speaker 1: Prager You has a series of videos on YouTube, and
Speaker 1: they honestly misrepresent history Black history, specifically in ways that
Speaker 1: I think is dangerous, and I call that out. But
Speaker 1: I also have to recognize that someone's watching that and
Speaker 1: they are getting the kids ready, or they're cooking dinner,
Speaker 1: or they're just getting ready for their day, and they're
Speaker 1: kind of uncritically absorbing this stuff, and it really is
Speaker 1: shaping the way they view when they look back in
Speaker 1: the past at history and so. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: I want to give a bit of grace to say that, like,
Speaker 1: people are busy and they got a lot stuff going
Speaker 1: on in their lives, and so when someone tells you
Speaker 1: that black people were better off before the Civil Rights
Speaker 1: Act of nineteen sixty four, you may uncritically believe it.
Speaker 1: Here to tell you that that's not true, right, Like,
Speaker 1: like I'm here to say that black poverty has been
Speaker 1: falling ever since black people started receiving civil rights protections.
Speaker 1: This is a fact, right, Like, we've closed racial wealth
Speaker 1: gap very very little, but it has been closed a
Speaker 1: little bit post civil rights, and so that's important to
Speaker 1: kind of like get out of the way. On the
Speaker 1: other hand, there's an author. His name is Clay Caine.
Speaker 1: I've been calling his name a lot because he wrote
Speaker 1: a book called The Grift and it's about the downward
Speaker 1: spiral of the Black Republican Party from the Party of
Speaker 1: Party of Abraham Lincoln to the Party of Trump. And
Speaker 1: in the he argues, and I don't fully agree with
Speaker 1: his total argument, but I think the history elements of
Speaker 1: what he's talking about is really strong. But he argues
Speaker 1: that the modern black Republican is a grifter. They know
Speaker 1: that if they say the right thing, they kind of
Speaker 1: miss they represent themselves. They protect the white man as
Speaker 1: best as possible from any criticism.
Speaker 3: Then there's a both.
Speaker 1: A pat on the head, a pat on the back,
Speaker 1: and maybe a check on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's true of your everyday voter. I
Speaker 1: would never cast that kind of like aspersion on your
Speaker 1: everyday voter.
Speaker 3: I don't think they have much to gain. They're just
Speaker 3: saying what they really believe.
Speaker 1: But I do think that some of the media people
Speaker 1: understand that if you say that America is in a
Speaker 1: racist country, or if you you know, if you call out,
Speaker 1: you know, black people, or say that the say that
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris isn't black, or whatever the case, maybe if
Speaker 1: you do that, if you go along with the Haitians
Speaker 1: are eating cats and dogs thing, there is a reward
Speaker 1: for you playing kind of you know, cover or for
Speaker 1: this game.
Speaker 3: And and I and I don't.
Speaker 1: Have a lot of patience for it, but I have
Speaker 1: been watching it very closely because I think it's a
Speaker 1: it's a dangerous element within within our media ecosystem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, perfect that's the like, that's the wink.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean that I feel like, you know,
Speaker 2: like black men and black men. I'm like, I'm like,
Speaker 2: if anything, I'm like, just let me know that's what
Speaker 2: you're doing, you know, because you don't feel me like
Speaker 2: where I'm like, there's anyway you're That's that's a great point.
Speaker 2: You also brought up earlier Thomas Swoll, which I'll be like, man,
Speaker 2: that's day one, you know, that's that's.
Speaker 3: That's day one, you know. And and and.
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's like like you said, like any of us
Speaker 2: could drive a truck through the logic that you know.
Speaker 2: And I try to speak with the level of humility
Speaker 2: in the sense that like this this person comes from
Speaker 2: a different generation than either he's way more he's way
Speaker 2: more educated than I am. Like let me just let
Speaker 2: me just be real. You know what I'm saying, he's
Speaker 2: objectively more educated than I am. I'm just saying, you
Speaker 2: know that, like the world you're painting is not the
Speaker 2: world we existent. It's just it's just not you know.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I think too to your point about
Speaker 2: like I have the same I have my like, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is what I consume and this is what I
Speaker 2: am consuming so that I can understand my neighbor, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, like.
Speaker 3: So, and but.
Speaker 2: Without coming off like which is again one of the
Speaker 2: problems of like the left is like without coming off
Speaker 2: as an elitist, like I'm trying not to be, but
Speaker 2: just like There's been many times in either of these
Speaker 2: spaces where I've been like, wait, hold up, what'd you
Speaker 2: just say, Like I don't know about that chief, Like
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's I don't know if that's what's.
Speaker 4: Happening right here.
Speaker 2: You you feel me like, you know, even to the
Speaker 2: like to your point about policing and my my read
Speaker 2: on on you know, black community capital C is we're
Speaker 2: rather transactional and pragmatic, like you know, like we're like
Speaker 2: you said, we're not We're not a progressive community. You
Speaker 2: feel me like, we're not necessarily centrist as a political infrastructure,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, but just very transactional, like
Speaker 2: who's gonna who's gonna help us?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And and this idea, like you said, of of the
Speaker 2: grift being a part of like in some senses, feel
Speaker 2: I'm be careful when I say this, but like feels
Speaker 2: almost like within the tradition of being black in America
Speaker 2: is like you have to find a hustle because like
Speaker 2: we you and I have both acknowledged we are the
Speaker 2: bottom of the cast system. They're like, you can't you
Speaker 2: can't just play fair here, you know, because this is
Speaker 2: just what it is. Now, do I agree with that
Speaker 2: or not? Is that in the best interest not only
Speaker 2: of yourself, like I would argue also, which is probably
Speaker 2: the same argument you're making, which is like, not only
Speaker 2: is this a detriment to your community, it's a detriment
Speaker 2: to yourself because like you said, these white people don't
Speaker 2: love you, you know what I'm saying, And they're gonna
Speaker 2: keep pushing you further and further and further away, to
Speaker 2: the point to where again you just become one of
Speaker 2: the one of the Haitians eating cats.
Speaker 4: You will always be that until you are no use
Speaker 4: for us, you know.
Speaker 2: So, so like not only not only you might be
Speaker 2: going for that quick check, but like this is not good.
Speaker 2: I'm telling you that right now, you know, so yeah, so,
Speaker 2: like I agree, the average voter.
Speaker 3: Is like the.
Speaker 2: Interview that you said is listening today, pastor like and
Speaker 2: you know, at our churches, you know. Unfortunately, like you know,
Speaker 2: we've been very historically very anti queer, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, We've been very anti abortion, and and so
Speaker 2: that's what I mean, like to your point, like you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's a very smaller group of us
Speaker 2: that have like kind of pushed past these like sort
Speaker 2: of convolution of like our faith stances and have like
Speaker 2: pulled pulled the camera back a little bit and been like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a phyllish slaply project that like you're using
Speaker 2: our views, you know what I'm saying, and speaking about us.
Speaker 2: And I think one of the things that like really
Speaker 2: evolved in my mind was when I realize, like, man,
Speaker 2: y'all talking about this trans community the way you used
Speaker 2: to talk about us, And that made me be like,
Speaker 2: well hold up now, Like I don't again, my antenta
Speaker 2: is like, well, I don't want to sound like y'all
Speaker 2: the way you sound to me when I talk about damn.
Speaker 2: That can't be the way we need to move right,
Speaker 2: Like yeah, So my last thing, yeah, anyway, let me
Speaker 2: let me.
Speaker 3: Get to this last point here was.
Speaker 2: When specifically in this in this in this video, when
Speaker 2: you interviewed, you know, the pastor from Detroit, which I
Speaker 2: think is the example of like the person that's like, bro,
Speaker 2: these are just my values, and I feel like, transactionally speaking,
Speaker 2: this is gonna get our values pushed forward, like I can.
Speaker 4: I could see him truly believing that.
Speaker 2: The thing that gave me pause was when he was like,
Speaker 2: if a friend of mine called and said, I'm a
Speaker 2: man coming in that has thirty six felonies, why would
Speaker 2: I not let him come to my church? My first
Speaker 2: thought was like, you're gonna let him preach, right right?
Speaker 2: Like you know, I'm not asking you, like if you
Speaker 2: let him come, you let him preach, like to me,
Speaker 2: like you can't possibly not understand how that's different, Like
Speaker 2: you no, you didn't just no, no, no, no, no, you
Speaker 2: let him preach.
Speaker 3: To this point. Like I actually asked him that question.
Speaker 1: It didn't make it into the video because we had
Speaker 1: to cut so much out of the video, but I
Speaker 1: asked him that question, and I said exactly that, as
Speaker 1: like you know, I would as a former pastor, I
Speaker 1: of course come through, like come through.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you need to hear this, this life saving word.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, But I wouldn't give him the platform,
Speaker 1: and he made the argument that you know, it wasn't
Speaker 1: on a Sunday and that he didn't stand behind the pulpit,
Speaker 1: but he did stand on stage, and the conversation was
Speaker 1: before his congregation, right, And like, I think there's some
Speaker 1: kind of you know, a little bit of like a
Speaker 1: split in hairs kind of thing happening here that I
Speaker 1: I feel like it's worth, you know, making sure his
Speaker 1: perspective is out there, that he didn't feel like he
Speaker 1: gave them the pulpit or let him stand before, you know.
Speaker 1: But but looking at the video, he is on stage, right,
Speaker 1: and like, so so there, I think it's a legitimate question.
Speaker 1: And I would stand by kind of the framing that
Speaker 1: you have that he kind of like basically let him
Speaker 1: stand up there, you know, but he didn't give a
Speaker 1: sermon per se.
Speaker 3: So I want to make sure we're being fair here.
Speaker 1: That said, I I am right there with you, man,
Speaker 1: Like I think that that pastor has some value system
Speaker 1: that has led him to the place where he's at, right,
Speaker 1: But I do wonder about effectiveness, you know, Like there's
Speaker 1: a there's a real question that I think many pastors
Speaker 1: have to ask and answer, which is, like what is
Speaker 1: my role in this moment, And I'm not totally sure
Speaker 1: if like inviting someone so uniquely divisive and with the
Speaker 1: history that that person has, and and then yeah, and
Speaker 1: then if I can come back to this idea of
Speaker 1: the thirty four convictions, I probably as Again I've said
Speaker 1: this a few times as a former pastor, if the
Speaker 1: person who is coming into my church or has been
Speaker 1: invited to my church has sexual assault or has been
Speaker 1: criminally liable for rate, if that person's being invited, I
Speaker 1: actually have a few more questions before I say yes.
Speaker 1: I actually have a few more questions. We need to
Speaker 1: figure some out, figure out some boundaries. Who's who is
Speaker 1: at risk in this moment? Am I putting someone who's
Speaker 1: maybe sexually assaulted and this is a hypothetical sexually assault
Speaker 1: to a child? Am I putting that person in a
Speaker 1: position to have access to more children? I'd you know, like,
Speaker 1: if is this a person who does not have control
Speaker 1: over themselves and says that they'll grab people by it?
Speaker 3: I don't want to have to go down that road.
Speaker 1: But my point is like, there is a response ability
Speaker 1: beyond the inviting everyone in, and not to make this
Speaker 1: all about that particular pastor I had some questions though
Speaker 1: about about the framing of that issue and whether or
Speaker 1: not even values in mind, if this was the right
Speaker 1: person to to to serve as a vehicle for those values.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm like I have I have cousins. I
Speaker 2: don't bring around my children, you.
Speaker 4: Know, like it or like blood related you know that.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know, gee, like this is not
Speaker 2: it's not wise. I love you, I'll meet with you,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, But like, am I going
Speaker 2: to bring you around my family?
Speaker 3: Probably not? Probably not, probably not. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you got to like this is just one of
Speaker 2: those like realities of you know, living in the broken
Speaker 2: system we live in. I think you you you you
Speaker 2: hit the knit head on the nail to nail on
Speaker 2: the head. That's what I'm saying about kind of actually
Speaker 2: going back to like what do we mean by what
Speaker 2: do you mean by felony?
Speaker 4: Like what do you mean by crime?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: And I think that like this is where having a
Speaker 2: real understanding of what policing and law and criminal justice
Speaker 2: means in America could have because you know, crime is
Speaker 2: crime is also racialized. Crime is also cultural, Like you know.
Speaker 2: Is like if when it's a you know, when it's
Speaker 2: a natural disaster in a white community, you're scavenging. If
Speaker 2: it's in a black community, you're looting. You know, it's
Speaker 2: the same thing. You know what I'm saying, We're doing
Speaker 2: the same thing. I'm just surviving. So you said, I'm
Speaker 2: this is the crime of looting. I'm like, I don't know, bro.
Speaker 2: Like so he got convicted of looting during the Hurricane Katrina.
Speaker 4: Like, I don't know, bro, that was I don't know.
Speaker 3: If that was looting. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So, like, like you said, having those extra questions and
Speaker 2: but again I GA think back to your to your
Speaker 2: original point. It's it is because we have accepted the
Speaker 2: reality that systemic racism exists.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: So since this is the reality when you walk in
Speaker 2: with with the amount of felonies. I have a friend that
Speaker 2: like was in the back of a car like that
Speaker 2: one to high school with. He's sleep in the back
Speaker 2: after basketball practice while his two friends pulled over and
Speaker 2: broke this breaking and enery robbed a house.
Speaker 3: Wow, he's a felon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm saying, but in the back of the car,
Speaker 2: you just see what I'm saying, so I'm like those things,
Speaker 2: those things require a little more interrogation.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: I think I'll end with this one, which specifically speaks
Speaker 2: to the black community and the black community that I
Speaker 2: hope to talk to, I think in a lot of ways,
Speaker 2: and and.
Speaker 4: And Latino community.
Speaker 3: I'm from.
Speaker 2: I'm from the East side of Los Angeles, you know. So,
Speaker 2: like we do a lot of interaction with black and
Speaker 2: brown issues out here, and that's been really a passion
Speaker 2: not only for my life.
Speaker 4: But specifically for this podcast.
Speaker 2: And what I found was the the Trump thing for
Speaker 2: at like the street level, they understand it, you know,
Speaker 2: they understand him. It's like I can never be wrong.
Speaker 2: I'm the boss. He get to the he get to
Speaker 2: the money. You feel me, you know, you know, so
Speaker 2: there's there's an understanding of how he moves, which to
Speaker 2: which most of us should respond.
Speaker 4: Would then maybe he shouldn't be the.
Speaker 2: President if like, if he moved like Pooky in them,
Speaker 2: then like maybe maybe this ain't our guy. You feel me,
Speaker 2: but you have that being said, that sort of understanding
Speaker 2: of like, well, this is something I'm familiar with and
Speaker 2: makes sense to me. Then you fast forward to somebody
Speaker 2: like a sexy Red that was like, well, I like
Speaker 2: Trump because he got me the stemmis.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: And again, I don't want to participate in the same
Speaker 2: anti blackness that was happening with the generation before, with
Speaker 2: the crime bills and such like that, and you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, and just kind of sort of like
Speaker 2: play the respectability politics, you know, and just these young
Speaker 2: niggas is weird, you know what I'm saying, Like I
Speaker 2: don't want to.
Speaker 4: Participate into in that.
Speaker 2: However, that way of thinking is so in a lot
Speaker 2: of times for me, it's like it's a little heartbreaking
Speaker 2: in the sense that I'm like, Okay, so he got
Speaker 2: you fourteen hundred dollars for four years. That's not even
Speaker 2: a that's not even one month's rent, right right, right?
Speaker 2: Four years? Like is this really? That's really? That's really
Speaker 2: all it took was just fourteen I don't even know
Speaker 2: where my question is in this, but just uh, I
Speaker 2: hear the question though, Yeah, Like how how do we engage?
Speaker 2: Like I said at the beginning, it's like I need to,
Speaker 2: I need to I need you at the table, like
Speaker 2: so like I'm not going to speak in a way
Speaker 2: that's like down to you and come up as a leaders.
Speaker 2: That being said, I am we are clearly more informed,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, So like what are your
Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on, like how do we keep
Speaker 2: the young homies at the table, you know, and being
Speaker 2: able to say, like one of the things that we've
Speaker 2: talked about on our show was like real political power
Speaker 2: versus like astroturfing, you know what I'm saying, where it's like,
Speaker 2: I know, you know lo Homie Trey, Little City James,
Speaker 2: Like if he shoots a text out like hey, we're
Speaker 2: gonna meet on you know what I'm saying, We're gonna
Speaker 2: be on on on Crenshawn'slaws, and you know I need
Speaker 2: I need one hundred and fifty people.
Speaker 4: Three hundred people are coming.
Speaker 3: Off a text.
Speaker 4: I'm like, that's that's real political power.
Speaker 3: You can organize, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So because they're actually coming, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: So like the to me, it's like these are the
Speaker 2: people that if I'm gonna if we're gonna onboard them
Speaker 2: into like really imagining a black future, I need somebody
Speaker 2: like this at the table. So my question is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: if you could figure out the question and They're like,
Speaker 2: how do we keep them engaged?
Speaker 3: No, I think that's in a conversation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's the right the right question, and
Speaker 1: this is the right conversation for us to be having
Speaker 1: right now because people are interested. It's more, it's so
Speaker 1: important to have this conversation now because people are tuned in.
Speaker 3: It's even more important to have it in a year.
Speaker 1: It's even more important than two years, right, And so
Speaker 1: I think for me, it starts with understanding that people
Speaker 1: are rightfully cynical about what's happening right now. Right there's
Speaker 1: a new study that came out about the Black vote,
Speaker 1: National Black Voter Values, and it talks about this group
Speaker 1: of people, this significant group of people about twenty percent
Speaker 1: who are black voters potential Black voters, but are cynical.
Speaker 1: And many of the folks in that kind of cohort
Speaker 1: are black men. And I think it's actually really appropriate
Speaker 1: for us to kind of like land here because we
Speaker 1: talked earlier about the nineteen ninety four crime bill that
Speaker 1: disproportionately criminalized black men us black men.
Speaker 3: You come to.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty four, thirty years later, and black men. I've
Speaker 1: talked to dozens, dozens of black men who are voting
Speaker 1: age who are like, I'm not dealing with that, I'm
Speaker 1: not engaged with Yes, I'm trying to get my money
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna take care of my family and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be fine, and they gonna do what they're gonna
Speaker 1: do anyway, Right, that cynical kind of that cynicism is warranted.
Speaker 1: It is fat like it is so like like it
Speaker 1: makes sense. I get it. You say it, I get it.
Speaker 1: As a black man, I get it. You see it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it feels like you see everybody else moving forward,
Speaker 1: rising up, getting it, going to college, getting opportunities, working
Speaker 1: like these culdhy like work from home jobs. It feels
Speaker 1: like everybody's doing that. But the black men in my
Speaker 1: life are stuck working nine to five doing manual lookers
Speaker 1: on the floor, throwing bags under planes, feel like they
Speaker 1: can't get ahead. And so I feel like, to keep
Speaker 1: folks engaged, you got to start there. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like the most basic kind of gospel principle. I
Speaker 1: know this isn't a Christian thing, but like you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Yeah, it really feels that way, right.
Speaker 1: It feels like, Yo, look at the way that folks
Speaker 1: who are are really trying to push forward a positive message.
Speaker 1: You have to meet people where they are, and you
Speaker 1: have to engage with folks on their basic need level
Speaker 1: before you get started talking all this stuff. I really
Speaker 1: have a lot to say here, So please forgive me
Speaker 1: if I go on, no, like, go off, go of,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say this, man. I was in Atlanta a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago reporting for this thing I'm doing for NPR,
Speaker 1: and one of the interesting things that kept coming up
Speaker 1: against is that when I'm in southwest Atlanta, I'm talking
Speaker 1: like Cascade Beach or Hills, Sylvan Hills.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, like the commune and you know, the hood.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, no, no, I know where we're at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like that.
Speaker 1: That's where I'm at, and I grew up not far
Speaker 1: from there. My mom went to Sylvia High School in
Speaker 1: the eighties. And so my point is, like, when I'm
Speaker 1: down there, this is a community that has been the
Speaker 1: hood for as long as I've been living, my mom's
Speaker 1: whole life, and it is that way today, boarded up homes,
Speaker 1: very transient, mostly renters.
Speaker 3: Like, it's that kind of community.
Speaker 1: And when I'm talking to people and their material conditions
Speaker 1: did not change under Clinton. Whenever body was talking about
Speaker 1: we're in economic boom. They did not change under Bush.
Speaker 1: They're in bad shape under Bush, they were in bad
Speaker 1: shape under Obama, they were in bad shape under Trump,
Speaker 1: they were in bad shape under Biden. And now folks
Speaker 1: are knocking on their door to tell you, tell them, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you really gotta vote for Kamala Harris otherwise your life
Speaker 1: is going to be really hard.
Speaker 3: And they're like, my life has been hard. Yeah, help
Speaker 3: helped me understand the difference. What's the difference?
Speaker 1: That's the good. You have to acknowledge that this is
Speaker 1: the reality. Now, where do we go from here? Now
Speaker 1: we've acknowledged that this is the reality for many Americas,
Speaker 1: many black Americans.
Speaker 3: Where do we go from here?
Speaker 1: I like to look at the number of votes in
Speaker 1: each precinct, in each district, and oftentimes, man, it's a
Speaker 1: couple hundred votes. Like oftentimes you're electing whole city council
Speaker 1: members off of three thousand votes. So if you got
Speaker 1: a guy who can mobilize one hundred and fifty three
Speaker 1: hundred people, yeah, next tell you that your your point
Speaker 1: is well to, is well made. That is political power.
Speaker 1: If you can get that person to mobilize three hundred
Speaker 1: people for four or five days straight.
Speaker 3: You own it strong.
Speaker 1: But you basically have chosen that's the person who will
Speaker 1: represent your district.
Speaker 3: You've chosen that person.
Speaker 1: Now you are now the power broker for your district
Speaker 1: because you know you can always mobilize enough folks to
Speaker 1: get a person elected or to get a person removed.
Speaker 1: And that's real power. That's real power that I don't
Speaker 1: think that we've been told that we can actually affect.
Speaker 1: I'll give a quick example. I live on a road
Speaker 1: that's mad fast. I've been lobbying my city council member
Speaker 1: for the last few months to slow this road down.
Speaker 1: We just got a little speed sign thing that just
Speaker 1: flashes how fast you're going. It's a step, right, it's
Speaker 1: a step. And the thing is, when I called her
Speaker 1: and said, hey, my role is kind of fast like it.
Speaker 3: It bothers me.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting at home on a Sunday watching people drive
Speaker 1: way too fast down my road.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: She's like, well, you're the first person to call about this.
Speaker 1: I'm the first person. It's like hundreds of people that
Speaker 1: live on this road.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm the first person to call. Your voice
Speaker 1: is actually so much. When you call your council member,
Speaker 1: when you call your center, when you call your representative,
Speaker 1: when you go to the mayor's office and you show up,
Speaker 1: you are probably one of twenty five people who've shown up,
Speaker 1: and all twenty four of the other people are like
Speaker 1: all white women, all white say because they know how
Speaker 1: to work it. They go get where they will how
Speaker 1: to and so like you can have. What I'm trying
Speaker 1: to say is like the government is not complicated. They
Speaker 1: want you to think it's complicated, because then you kind
Speaker 1: of get a little like brain fog and you feel like.
Speaker 3: It's not really worth it. I'm just go do what
Speaker 3: I gotta do. It's not complicated.
Speaker 1: Show up, pull your homies together to show up, pull
Speaker 1: your community together to show up, talk to people, and.
Speaker 3: It'll work. And so that's that's what I say.
Speaker 1: First of all, acknowledge what's going on, acknowledge the factor
Speaker 1: that folks are rightfully cynical. And then second, let's create
Speaker 1: some pathways. Let's give some actual next step for how
Speaker 1: to engage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, bro, this couldn't have been better. It's like you
Speaker 2: even like I mean, the cornerstone premise of this show
Speaker 2: is what you just said, is that government's not that complicated.
Speaker 2: You understand this more than you think you do. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, and in a lot of ways. Again, one
Speaker 2: of our cornerstone premises is like you've actually been doing
Speaker 2: politics your whole life, like you've already been doing it,
Speaker 2: it's just by a different name. Garson, Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for doing this with us. Man, Can you please
Speaker 2: plug all your plugs of like where they could follow you,
Speaker 2: where they could see your videos?
Speaker 3: All that for sure? For sure.
Speaker 1: First of all, probably is a real honor. I don't
Speaker 1: say that lightly. It's amazing to be here. Long time
Speaker 1: admirer of your work.
Speaker 3: Man, don't tell me that, bro, Thank you man, serious,
Speaker 3: I'm serious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so I'll say you can follow me on
Speaker 1: social media's I'm Garrison Hayes on everything, at Garrison h
Speaker 1: on Instagram, at Garrison hat on TikTok, at Harrison Haes
Speaker 1: on YouTube, and you can find the link to the
Speaker 1: rest of my stuff from any of those places in
Speaker 1: my podiot that's.
Speaker 4: What it is.
Speaker 2: Once again, thank you so much, and please lock in
Speaker 2: with this brilliant brain right here doing amazing stuff down
Speaker 2: there in the A.
Speaker 4: Appreciate you, all right, y'all appreciate you. I get stop
Speaker 4: and we're good. Zoe though.
Speaker 2: All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod.
Speaker 2: You better listen to these credits. I need you to
Speaker 2: finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
Speaker 2: so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
Speaker 2: in East Lost boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
Speaker 2: in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
Speaker 2: you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got Terraform Coldbrew. You
Speaker 2: can go there dot com and use promo code hood
Speaker 2: get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited,
Speaker 2: and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski Killing the Beat Softly.
Speaker 2: Check out his website Mattowsowski dot com.
Speaker 4: I'm a speller for you because I.
Speaker 2: Know M A T T O S O W s
Speaker 2: ki dot com Matthowsowski dot com. He got more music
Speaker 2: and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out
Speaker 2: The heat Politics is a member of Cool Zone Media,
Speaker 2: executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network.
Speaker 2: Your theme music and scoring is also by the one
Speaker 2: and nobly Matt Awsowski. Still killing the Beat Softly, so listen.
Speaker 2: Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living,
Speaker 2: you understand politics. These people is not smarter than you.
Speaker 2: We'll see y'all next week.
Speaker 3: Addition one