Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory and the ship Boy my Son in general.
Speaker 1: We are your host of Tami.
Speaker 2: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, motivation and inspiration, name.
Speaker 1: New Energy, same o us. What's up my song?
Speaker 2: Huh am blessed Black and highly favored. I'm still celebrating Juneteenth.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Actively Black, get shirt and so far,
Speaker 2: Like you gotta read this back of the shirt because
Speaker 2: I need you to see what they say back and
Speaker 2: this shp read reading that a loud.
Speaker 3: It says made from cotton grown by black farmers. Oh,
Speaker 3: made from cotton. This shirt is made from cotton. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: they said they're gonna send me one of those shirts.
Speaker 2: So shout out to Actively Black. They we supporting me.
Speaker 2: Everything I got on right now is black on this
Speaker 2: hat and the Cavil coaches my hat. The sneakers come
Speaker 2: from Enzo. Shout out to Enzo. They got some of
Speaker 2: the most comfortable sneakers. So this was on my you
Speaker 2: know black, I'm black and the black and the black.
Speaker 3: Some people say that the time period of like the
Speaker 3: week of Juneteenth is the Jubilee week or Juneteenth week,
Speaker 3: So you know, black folks, they don't you can't tell
Speaker 3: us that something is on one day. It was already
Speaker 3: being observed by many people, many black folks, before it
Speaker 3: became a federal holiday. And I remember when when Biden
Speaker 3: first announced that that Juneteenth would be a federal holiday.
Speaker 1: At first, I was kind of like, who asked for this?
Speaker 3: Like this is not exactly like what we're looking for
Speaker 3: in terms of, uh, something to address the issues of
Speaker 3: Black America.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then I heard folks like Roland Martin and our
Speaker 3: sister Monique Presley and others who are like from Texas
Speaker 3: and understand the history of the day. And then you
Speaker 3: know miss Lee, who's an older woman, you know, elderly woman.
Speaker 3: You know, it's so many different people, and they gave
Speaker 3: a historic perspective or historical perspective her words together about
Speaker 3: the importance of Juneteenth, and I thought to myself and
Speaker 3: then over time I still wasn't one hundred percent convinced.
Speaker 3: But then I guess after I realized that you wake
Speaker 3: up in the morning on like this recent June teenth,
Speaker 3: you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 1: And things have to actually be closed.
Speaker 3: It is definitely going to force children and others to
Speaker 3: say to their parents, what does today mean? You know,
Speaker 3: it's going to force people to do a little bit
Speaker 3: of Google searching, you know, and also give people the
Speaker 3: opportunity to feel a sense of pride, because I see
Speaker 3: that all over the timeline, even.
Speaker 1: For people who are working.
Speaker 3: They like I work at the hospital, so I have
Speaker 3: to go to work today, but I'm wearing this.
Speaker 1: I have a pen.
Speaker 3: I saw that Delta gave people a bracelet and you know,
Speaker 3: shout out to Delta. And it's exactly what I'm talking
Speaker 3: about as it relates to target.
Speaker 1: When people be.
Speaker 3: Like, oh, well, you know, so many companies are rolling
Speaker 3: back DEI, wife, just focus on target. Well, guess what,
Speaker 3: I also love Delta. I travel Delta. I'm over a
Speaker 3: million mile status, you know. You know already Delta is
Speaker 3: my airline. And guess what they are sticking to their
Speaker 3: DEI strategy and their DEI I don't want to say campaign,
Speaker 3: their DEI efforts, right, and so they gave out a red,
Speaker 3: black and green bracelet to riders.
Speaker 1: That's that's a big deal, you know.
Speaker 3: So I now am thinking that the holiday, while it
Speaker 3: doesn't take the place of the needs of Black America,
Speaker 3: it certainly is something that will require the world to
Speaker 3: stop and especially as they roll back our education, the
Speaker 3: little piece of slither of black history that was being
Speaker 3: taught in schools, you know, and and in other places.
Speaker 3: It makes the world have to stand still and address
Speaker 3: something that has to do with us, at least now.
Speaker 3: And it has a store worry behind it that if
Speaker 3: you go to Google, it's not just a big old
Speaker 3: celebratory day. It's really a struggle that our people went
Speaker 3: through not even knowing that they were free, and how
Speaker 3: they found out and all of that.
Speaker 1: So I guess it's a it's a good thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, we should have time to celebrate some things, right,
Speaker 2: we should. We should be able to like we I think,
Speaker 2: and I find myself being a victim of it, right
Speaker 2: that I want equity, justice, equality so much that I
Speaker 2: don't want the micro anything. Everything is on a macro level.
Speaker 2: So we can't even celebrate June team people like Juete
Speaker 2: that ain't freedom anytime we do so, they said that
Speaker 2: ain't freedom. They ain't give you no freedom, And it's like,
Speaker 2: I know they didn't give me freedom, But it's a
Speaker 2: day that I can reflect that I could study the
Speaker 2: history understand how my people gain some level, gained level
Speaker 2: to freedom, that we you know, and understand that and
Speaker 2: be able to celebrate that. And while I'm celebrating, I'm
Speaker 2: still fighting on the macro fight, right, So why why
Speaker 2: do we get so caught up in this? It's swear.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be. I don't want to be
Speaker 2: the black man that's overly mad all the time about everything.
Speaker 2: And I understand that we could. We have every right
Speaker 2: to be overly mad about everything. We could be so
Speaker 2: militant that we don't enjoy nothing that anything in America gives.
Speaker 2: That's not completely and totally equity and it's not reparations
Speaker 2: and all that. If it's not all the way that
Speaker 2: we could just say fuck everything, we could. We have
Speaker 2: every right. But I'm saying, why shouldn't we Why shouldn't
Speaker 2: we just want to enjoy a little bit of something?
Speaker 3: Sometimes well, some people will say that we as black
Speaker 3: folks do so much enjoying and celebrate and that sometimes
Speaker 3: we lose our sense of focus and purpose for what
Speaker 3: is actually you know, what will give us lifelong joy.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I hear that, I see that,
Speaker 3: I understand that, you know, as like right now in
Speaker 3: this time period where the boots are on the ground
Speaker 3: thing is such a big deal, and everybody's learning to
Speaker 3: and it's all over social media. It's kind of calmed
Speaker 3: down now. If you know what, you know it. If
Speaker 3: you don't, you have to get it in the backyard.
Speaker 3: But at one point it was like, really a big deal.
Speaker 3: And at the same time, people are being kidnapped off
Speaker 3: our streets by men with masks on their face that
Speaker 3: don't even have a warrant. We have wars that are
Speaker 3: developing all around us. You know, our rights are being
Speaker 3: rolled back, our social security, our medicare, medicaid, all of
Speaker 3: that is being impacted. You've got one body of the
Speaker 3: federal government voting for any and every damn thing that
Speaker 3: crazy stuff like deporting American citizens. Like it's so much
Speaker 3: stuff happening, and meanwhile we out here talking about I
Speaker 3: put my boots on the ground, you know, and I
Speaker 3: get it. We need a moment to be able to decompress.
Speaker 3: People don't want to live in depression and shock and
Speaker 3: horror and trauma every second of the day.
Speaker 1: However, there are a lot of.
Speaker 3: People who are among the boots on the ground community
Speaker 3: that don't want to pay attention to it at all.
Speaker 3: And that's where I think things get to be a little.
Speaker 2: But theo is if they don't want to pay attention
Speaker 2: to it at all, they're not gonna right. So you
Speaker 2: trying to impose your ideology or your your understanding about
Speaker 2: where we should be on somebody who doesn't care as
Speaker 2: much as you do. It's not changing.
Speaker 1: They don't care.
Speaker 2: Mostly I don't care.
Speaker 1: Some people just can't handle it in their minds and.
Speaker 2: It's not there. It's not it's not that it's not
Speaker 2: their fight. It's not the way that they fight. Right.
Speaker 2: Everybody like when they say boots on the ground, like
Speaker 2: we literally boots on the ground. So for pretty much
Speaker 2: the last five to six years, all we've been doing
Speaker 2: is fighting. Like sometimes you want to dance to boots
Speaker 2: on the ground, just have it and not think boots
Speaker 2: on the ground means I need to be on the
Speaker 2: front line. Somebody might die and we gotta like sometimes
Speaker 2: you just want to, like you said, decompress. And I
Speaker 2: think we steal that from people when when we talk
Speaker 2: about Juneteenth and holidays a certain thing and first thing
Speaker 2: you said, well, it ain't reparations. They ain't really did
Speaker 2: nothing for you, Like we we we don't even get
Speaker 2: to celebrate any little thing, any black person. Oh, that's
Speaker 2: just a black face in the hot space. It don't
Speaker 2: mean like nothing means nothing to some of these people.
Speaker 2: If we if we haven't had complete control of something,
Speaker 2: if America has to say listen, we're gonna give you
Speaker 2: half of America, then nobody black should be celebrated anything.
Speaker 2: If they put a black person that educated and went
Speaker 2: up through the ranks and did all the shit, that's
Speaker 2: just another blackface in hot space. It don't mean shit
Speaker 2: to us.
Speaker 3: And it's just like I think, I personally think that
Speaker 3: you are also making it like you're you're you're Your
Speaker 3: definition of how people feel is.
Speaker 1: A little, a little extreme.
Speaker 2: It's not to me.
Speaker 1: I don't think people don't.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm asking you this now.
Speaker 3: People on your Instagram cannot those are not even those.
Speaker 2: But I'm saying there are millions of people. There are
Speaker 2: so many people that when you talk about any black
Speaker 2: person who has done something, they'll tell you they ain't ship.
Speaker 3: There's not millions of people, but there are some very
Speaker 3: very there's.
Speaker 2: There's a there's there's a very yeah, there's a very
Speaker 2: strong dynamic and and you know, gender people that will
Speaker 2: say that about every black person. I don't gre for
Speaker 2: what you said, Oh, such sance did Obama. I ain't
Speaker 2: never this ship blood, I ain't never dishift black. I
Speaker 2: don't care who you say. It just it's like we
Speaker 2: just have to.
Speaker 3: About about who historians or historical figures like. I don't
Speaker 3: think a lot of people. I've heard some people say, oh,
Speaker 3: doctor King didn't do this and that, But I think
Speaker 3: there is a consensus around, uh, with the majority of
Speaker 3: black folks, the majority that doctor King actually is an
Speaker 3: important figure I think about. I think about, you know,
Speaker 3: even the Black Panthers, there's a there is a majority,
Speaker 3: a majority that feel he was in for I think
Speaker 3: about Malcolm X.
Speaker 1: The majority people say.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to say, is this her and this
Speaker 2: is what I want.
Speaker 3: You to contribution was significant. But when it comes to women,
Speaker 3: it's like, oh, but she wasn't.
Speaker 2: It's not just it's not it's not just because they're black.
Speaker 2: Right is when you all of these people that you
Speaker 2: talk about, they they were still pretty much in their infantry.
Speaker 2: They were thirty something years old, they hadn't been elevated
Speaker 2: to anything. They were pretty much just most of them
Speaker 2: was still like grassroots they were pretty much grassroots. They
Speaker 2: would they this is what I'm trying to tell you.
Speaker 1: They elevated to anything. What would be the elevation.
Speaker 2: What the elevation is when none of them gained any
Speaker 2: power within the in the system, none of them conquered
Speaker 2: the system. They was just still people on the ground fighting.
Speaker 2: And once you start getting gaining ground and you moved
Speaker 2: past you're just throwing rocks and you start getting and
Speaker 2: they give you a medal for something. Now you no longer,
Speaker 2: You're no longer relevant to our people, no.
Speaker 1: More to our I don't I think you just got.
Speaker 2: To be because I.
Speaker 1: Don't think it's to our people.
Speaker 3: I think more people, just like we say all the time,
Speaker 3: with all the hate that we receive, there are more
Speaker 3: people who are with us, who tell us every time
Speaker 3: they see us, we with you, we with you. I
Speaker 3: don't believe that it is to our people. I think
Speaker 3: it is always good to say to some people to faction.
Speaker 2: But when you listen to Malcolm, when you listen to
Speaker 2: Malcolm X, he didn't feel like that. When you listen
Speaker 2: to marcol Luther King, he didn't feel like he felt
Speaker 2: like they felt like their people hated them.
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like it's not. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: their people.
Speaker 3: I think that what happens with all of us is
Speaker 3: that we become so concerned and consumed with the two
Speaker 3: or three people, and that's all of us. We all
Speaker 3: do it the two or three, and then the hundred
Speaker 3: is like we just kind that in a way, take
Speaker 3: them for granted. And the reason why I say that
Speaker 3: is because I think about something as simple as Instagram comments.
Speaker 3: I post something, two hundred people or let's say twenty
Speaker 3: people can make a comment and it'll be a one
Speaker 3: person who will be like, oh, you think you something
Speaker 3: important because you got a little bit of money and
Speaker 3: now you turned your back on the community. And I
Speaker 3: will say to that person, like you know why you're
Speaker 3: on my page, like just go away or whatever in response,
Speaker 3: And meanwhile, the twenty people, nineteen other people, I haven't
Speaker 3: even said thank you, appreciate you hearts.
Speaker 1: So we just.
Speaker 3: Become consumed at times with the two or three because
Speaker 3: they sound loud, but they're really not as loud as
Speaker 3: the twenty who are really with us. So I think
Speaker 3: that has something to do with it, but it's not,
Speaker 3: And that's not and those two or three people can
Speaker 3: be harmful. So I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't care
Speaker 3: about it at all. But I don't think it's true
Speaker 3: that the majority of our people don't want to see
Speaker 3: us get medals or whatever. But there is a particular
Speaker 3: group that if you do anything, if you do a
Speaker 3: black history slash Women's History Month ad for Cadillac that
Speaker 3: you didn't even get paid for, they mad. You know
Speaker 3: what I mean, That's just the way it is. So anyway, anyway,
Speaker 3: I not choose black joy. You know, nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1: I do as well.
Speaker 2: My son graduated yesterday and I'm going to celebrate that.
Speaker 2: Shout out to King cam you graduated from junior high school.
Speaker 2: Just watch it. Just knowing that he is almost fourteen
Speaker 2: years old. Wow, Like it's crazy to me. Wow, you know,
Speaker 2: just holding him in my arms as a baby and
Speaker 2: just seeing him almost as told as me right now,
Speaker 2: it's just amazing. So shout out to him. I love
Speaker 2: you the life.
Speaker 3: King, Congratulations. So that brings me to my thought of
Speaker 3: the day. And you know what, it's really kind of
Speaker 3: in keeping. I know, y'all hear me talk about rats
Speaker 3: all the time, so it's kind of like, h get
Speaker 3: over it. People probably tired of me bringing up this topic,
Speaker 3: but this is very very important and a little different.
Speaker 2: Well for me, okay, let me judge.
Speaker 3: So you know, my birthday, Lushawan Thompson, my dear sister,
Speaker 3: and I celebrate our birthdays at the same time.
Speaker 1: People are like, why do y'all have so many events?
Speaker 3: Well, because it's two people who have different friends, which
Speaker 3: we're all kind of one big family now, but still
Speaker 3: different friends, different interests, and there's a ten year age difference,
Speaker 3: which really is fine because we kind of like the
Speaker 3: same music, we kind of like to do the same things,
Speaker 3: but there are some differences between the two groups, and
Speaker 3: so we merge to do a lot of different fun
Speaker 3: activities over X amount of days.
Speaker 1: Now. I don't know about y'all listening out there.
Speaker 3: And yes, people think because they see us always going
Speaker 3: somewhere and always doing something that we're always like having
Speaker 3: fun or doing fun things. But I can't tell you
Speaker 3: the last time. The last time we went to karaoke
Speaker 3: all of us was like seven months ago. You know,
Speaker 3: it's not a thing. We don't really get out that often.
Speaker 3: And so I think during this particular time June eighth
Speaker 3: and ninth, my birthday's the eighth her this is the ninth.
Speaker 3: I'm forty five now she's fifty five. And so during
Speaker 3: this particular time, for the last four years, we've been
Speaker 3: coordinating different activities, parties and stuff where our friends and
Speaker 3: family come together and enjoy. And so this year, because
Speaker 3: of that five number, we decided to have five days
Speaker 3: of fun and we planned everything from a little Harlem
Speaker 3: meet and greet, which ended up turning into a whole
Speaker 3: party that was crazy at Sylvia's restaurant. The next day
Speaker 3: was what was it? It was karaoke, Yeah, it was karaoke.
Speaker 3: And then you know, Saturday night I had a party.
Speaker 3: Sunday we had a barbecue at her at a Lushan's
Speaker 3: New Dispensary in Belleville, New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Nevey Verday.
Speaker 3: Nevey Verday, please check that out to make sure we
Speaker 3: get that right. Nevy Verday is not divertedt No, it's Verday, yeah,
Speaker 3: because that means green, right, Okay, So Nevey Verday in Belleville, beautiful,
Speaker 3: beautiful dispensary. She's got all the flavors and there was
Speaker 3: a barbecue there and then we went out to Caviar
Speaker 3: restaurant in Edgewater, New Jersey, and then on Monday we
Speaker 3: had Oh Lushan had her birthday party at row House
Speaker 3: in Harlem, and then we went back to row House
Speaker 3: the next day because SNS is so good and so
Speaker 3: we were just out. So it ended up being six
Speaker 3: nights actually, and so in the process of putting all
Speaker 3: this together, you know, that's the joy of my life.
Speaker 3: Finding a lot of black owned space, or at least
Speaker 3: trying to get things in certain parts of the community
Speaker 3: where we can support the local economy. That's you know,
Speaker 3: that would be the ideal situation. Similar to when we
Speaker 3: did Bahamas last year. We try to make sure we
Speaker 3: pick out the black owned restaurants and experiences, the DJs,
Speaker 3: the whomever.
Speaker 1: So that's you know, a big thing.
Speaker 3: So when we were trying to figure out a place
Speaker 3: for karaoke, the place that we wanted to go was
Speaker 3: like super expensive, you get nothing included, and.
Speaker 1: I was like, you know what, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do that.
Speaker 3: I looked up online and found that in Harlem there
Speaker 3: is a place that has karaoke on Friday nights.
Speaker 1: So I was like, okay, this is perfect.
Speaker 3: So I contact the man and you had to go
Speaker 3: over there, and you went over there, you know whatever happened.
Speaker 3: We get all the details and we say we're going
Speaker 3: to use this small kind of club like lounge setting
Speaker 3: to do our karaoke. I get a whole arrangement with
Speaker 3: the guy Lushawn, and I are like, this is perfect.
Speaker 3: So when arriving at the place, the front door, this
Speaker 3: is when I'm going to pay the deposit.
Speaker 1: So I get there.
Speaker 3: And the front door of this venue is shattered, and
Speaker 3: so I pick up the phone and I call the
Speaker 3: owner from the front door.
Speaker 1: I haven't even walked inside.
Speaker 3: There's a big security guard outside because they're getting ready
Speaker 3: for their evening opening for their affair. And so when
Speaker 3: I walk up and I see the doors shattered, I
Speaker 3: contact the owner immediately to be like, hey, I'm at
Speaker 3: your spot. I'm coming to bring the deposit. But I
Speaker 3: notice that the front door is shattered. Are you planning
Speaker 3: on getting this fixed? And he says no, He's like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm not fixing it. I've had He's like that door
Speaker 3: has been like that for five years since COVID, and
Speaker 3: he's like, there's nothing wrong with it.
Speaker 1: If you touch the door.
Speaker 3: You'll see that it's not like shattered to the touch.
Speaker 3: The shatter is on the inside of the plexiglass. It's
Speaker 3: basically a bulletproof glass. So he's like, no, it's not
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not planning on doing anything. He said,
Speaker 3: I can't afford it. Okay, so cool. So I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: me the type of person that I am, I would
Speaker 3: walk away right now just by the idea that the
Speaker 3: front door is not presentable for me to bring a
Speaker 3: crowd of people here. But it's in Harlem. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know what, we're not going to make this a
Speaker 3: big deal. People will talk about it for two seconds,
Speaker 3: but once they get inside, it's great karaoke, we have
Speaker 3: food and drinks. It's going to be great. That was
Speaker 3: era number one on my part. Right there, I already
Speaker 3: made a mistake, so I and okay. So anyway, I
Speaker 3: go inside and there's a woman in there. She's getting
Speaker 3: the bar set up. I give her the money for
Speaker 3: the deposit, she takes it. She's now and I'm still
Speaker 3: talking to the owner like, oh well, and I tell him,
Speaker 3: I said, this is not a good representation of your business,
Speaker 3: and oh okay, well I'm not fixing it.
Speaker 1: Okay. Cool.
Speaker 3: He wasn't nasty, but just still talking back and forth.
Speaker 3: So I go and I say, okay, I'm putting the
Speaker 3: money and the bars in his hand. She says to me, well,
Speaker 3: how much is the No, she said, she said, what
Speaker 3: is your name? What's the date and time? So she's
Speaker 3: getting her paper to write the details down, which gives
Speaker 3: me time to inspect and look all around. And as
Speaker 3: I turned my face to the side, a rat runs
Speaker 3: this way and then something over here go and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. So I jump up and down a
Speaker 3: little bit. I didn't do too much, but I was like,
Speaker 3: oh my god. And then it occurs to me. The
Speaker 3: owners still on the phone, and it occurs to me,
Speaker 3: get your money back. So I asked the lady. I'm like,
Speaker 3: you know, thank you. So just as quick as the
Speaker 3: money went in her hand, let me have it back.
Speaker 3: And I say to the owner, sir, you have rats
Speaker 3: in here, and he goes, a rat, oh, and she says, oh,
Speaker 3: where is it. No one is upset. No one is
Speaker 3: like oh my god, we're so sorry. No one is
Speaker 3: like that. And then I say, okay, thank you, I'm
Speaker 3: out of here. He goes, Okay, that's it. It's not
Speaker 3: a big deal.
Speaker 1: It's not nobody is stressed about this rat but me
Speaker 1: rat or rats or whatever. So the thing my thought
Speaker 1: of the day here.
Speaker 3: Is that the presentation of how you operate and how
Speaker 3: you maintain your business is more than likely an indication
Speaker 3: of what's going on inside. So how people will look
Speaker 3: at you and say, well, you know, just because that
Speaker 3: person doesn't dress neat and clean or keep their hair
Speaker 3: neat and clean, or you know whatever, it doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that they're dirty or whatever. But generally, how you look
Speaker 3: on the outside, or how a business especially looks on
Speaker 3: the outside, has a lot to do with what's going
Speaker 3: on on the inside. So as soon as I walked
Speaker 3: up and saw that the door.
Speaker 1: Was shattered to this place, it should have been.
Speaker 3: An indication to me that the inside of this venue
Speaker 3: is not being kept up. Because he does not even
Speaker 3: have the respect for his business to say, I don't
Speaker 3: want it to look crazy now. It happens to be
Speaker 3: in Harlem, and the corner that it's on in Harlem,
Speaker 3: it's a little while over there, like a lot of
Speaker 3: things go on in that area, And so he doesn't
Speaker 3: have respect for the community that he would say I
Speaker 3: need to make sure, my business looks up to you know,
Speaker 3: it has a good upkeep or whatever.
Speaker 1: So why would I.
Speaker 3: Ever think that I could go inside it there and
Speaker 3: that his kitchen would be clean, that his glasses and
Speaker 3: you know silverware, the utensils or whatever, the bathrooms or
Speaker 3: whatever are being kept to a particular standard. But now
Speaker 3: here's the real kicker. That part is.
Speaker 1: Or you know, in and of it is one thing,
Speaker 1: but this is the other part of my thought of
Speaker 1: the day. I got a two part thought of the
Speaker 1: day today.
Speaker 3: I don't know whether this man is black or not,
Speaker 3: but I thought twice about and I still have decided.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna say the name of the place, but
Speaker 3: if people know on Friday night's a place in Harlem
Speaker 3: has karaoke, they'll figure it out.
Speaker 1: And it's packed in there, packed okay.
Speaker 3: But what I was thinking was, because he may be black,
Speaker 3: I did not want to put it on my platform
Speaker 3: to where he might lose business. But then I thought
Speaker 3: to myself, if that same business owner had his space
Speaker 3: was on one twenty fifth Street or forty second Street
Speaker 3: or ninety sixth Street or some other place, he could
Speaker 3: not keep that door shattered that way, he would not
Speaker 3: be able to keep his door that way because the
Speaker 3: community would demand something different from him. So rats get
Speaker 3: into any venue. You could go to the best restaurants
Speaker 3: in New York and other city where they have rat issues,
Speaker 3: and especially if things are being kept in the basement,
Speaker 3: you may run into a rat like sometimes they come
Speaker 3: out sometimes, you know, you see it in videos, they
Speaker 3: running around the restaurant. Want of them fell out. The
Speaker 3: events things happen, I'm not saying they don't. But his
Speaker 3: space is ranky, dank, like even when going inside, I'm like, damn,
Speaker 3: I can't believe that I'm having an event in here.
Speaker 1: But I also know that our crowd is not so.
Speaker 3: Bougie that they can't do a good hood night, you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying, Like, we could do a good
Speaker 3: hood night, but we do not have to subject ourselves
Speaker 3: to rats and vermin and and and doors being shattered.
Speaker 3: And I because I have a tendency to try to
Speaker 3: I don't want to say, shrink myself, but I try
Speaker 3: to check myself because all of y'all say, all, Tamika,
Speaker 3: you always, you know, got a problem with everything. You
Speaker 3: always see everything. Why you always gotta know that this
Speaker 3: and that and the third, just enjoy your let.
Speaker 1: Your hair down. And so I started to have.
Speaker 3: A little bit of a complex about how I want
Speaker 3: things to be at a certain level. And as a
Speaker 3: result of that, I allowed myself to walk in a
Speaker 3: place to force myself to do something that I really
Speaker 3: didn't want to.
Speaker 1: Do off the front door. But I still tried.
Speaker 3: And what I ended up learning it was it reaffirmed
Speaker 3: for me what I know is that if it don't
Speaker 3: look right from the beginning, it ain't no sense in
Speaker 3: going down the road because each time you're gonna end
Speaker 3: up finding out that your first instincts about it was
Speaker 3: the right instinct.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I would like to say that
Speaker 2: you definitely are very critical, super critical of things, but
Speaker 2: in this instance, you aren't. You know, when you walked
Speaker 2: in there and the rat was there, the thing was broken.
Speaker 2: Like when you told me somebody what like this, it
Speaker 2: didn't even make sense to me, you know that somebody
Speaker 2: would And the fact that he had no real care,
Speaker 2: like his response was oh, really, okay, all right, don't
Speaker 2: worry about it and just take the money back. Like
Speaker 2: like like you said, if it was in a different
Speaker 2: area within Harlem, he would have cared more because the
Speaker 2: community would have commanded and demanded more from him. And
Speaker 2: I think that's what happens in our community and a
Speaker 2: lot of our establishments, is that the community doesn't require
Speaker 2: that right. You know, the people wherever he's at, it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's just a little spot, we're gonna go in there,
Speaker 2: will you know? They might see it rat, they might
Speaker 2: not know.
Speaker 3: I don't think the rat would be okay to most communities.
Speaker 3: They're not paying attention to that, probably because they don't
Speaker 3: go there at the time.
Speaker 2: There's probably no way that nobody's seen the rat in
Speaker 2: there before it had to and if you come on,
Speaker 2: people have seen resident and it ain't stopping people from
Speaker 2: going there.
Speaker 3: But also I think another part of it is that
Speaker 3: you know, when he says he can't afford to change
Speaker 3: the door, that's a lie because everybody said that. Well,
Speaker 3: it's two or three things that he has. He has
Speaker 3: a karaoke knight that's packed, and that particular venue is
Speaker 3: very lgbt q I a friendly and so at times
Speaker 3: there will be parties in there are other moments when
Speaker 3: it's like an entire lgbtqu I a crowd, And I
Speaker 3: know that for that community to find places where they
Speaker 3: feel safe and protected and they can have a good time.
Speaker 3: It's not that many because different different places people make
Speaker 3: you feel a way. You don't like the way the
Speaker 3: staff talks to you, the owners not really. And so
Speaker 3: when you find a place that's like, Okay, this is
Speaker 3: cool there, you know people will go there. So I'm
Speaker 3: saying that that's at least two audiences.
Speaker 1: Right there that I know for you.
Speaker 3: Right, so you could have gotten the doors, but it's
Speaker 3: not and it's not a priority because we as a
Speaker 3: people and the community that he's in, to your point,
Speaker 3: have not commanded demanded that you can't be here and
Speaker 3: operate your business in our neighborhood unless it is up
Speaker 3: to a certain standard. And I you know, it's it's
Speaker 3: funny because, as you know, our homegirl works for the
Speaker 3: City of New York. As you know, our girlfriend Tiffany
Speaker 3: works for the City of New York. She is actually
Speaker 3: a deputy mayor. And so I call her and I'm like, Tiffany,
Speaker 3: let me tell you what happened.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't really want to report the man because it
Speaker 3: might be a black venue. And then you know, if
Speaker 3: I you know, people always like, oh, we got to
Speaker 3: give black people a chance race, right, some grace, And
Speaker 3: so I tell us, I'm like, what you think.
Speaker 1: She's like, let me be clear with you, because, first
Speaker 1: of all, Tiffany does not do discrimination of accountability. Okay.
Speaker 3: She wants everybody to be accountable, and that she with.
Speaker 1: The law and the rules are the rules. Okay.
Speaker 3: So if you go on a white restaurant, white owned
Speaker 3: restaurant or Asian owned restaurant and there's a rat, she
Speaker 3: wants that reported, and she also want the black people
Speaker 3: report it.
Speaker 1: And she sends me anytime I call Tiffany.
Speaker 3: And tell her that anything happened, Tiffany will send me
Speaker 3: three one one. She's like, call three one one and
Speaker 3: report the details. So I set to her in the
Speaker 3: text message, I'm like, I mean on the conversation, I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't really want I don't know what to do.
Speaker 3: And she said, listen, let me be very clear with you.
Speaker 3: There are restaurants in Harlem, lounges and venues, and she
Speaker 3: knows because they get the inspection report that they don't
Speaker 3: have rats, and even if they get one from the
Speaker 3: front door, they work hard. The inspectors are there the
Speaker 3: extermination people are there. There is a constant effort to
Speaker 3: keep that type of stuff out of their establishments. If
Speaker 3: those people can do it, so can miss the so
Speaker 3: and so on whatever street.
Speaker 1: It is not acceptable.
Speaker 3: And there are people who are maintaining their establishments in
Speaker 3: the same neighborhood. You got pont Bistro. Ponti Bistro is
Speaker 3: right down the street from this place. And guess what
Speaker 3: we know because we know Pebe Brass he has other restaurants.
Speaker 3: The chef from there. He don't play about that. He
Speaker 3: don't play about rats and rodents and all of that.
Speaker 3: So I just felt the way because I realized that,
Speaker 3: you know, on one hand, I'm like, I want to
Speaker 3: be careful and mindful of the struggle of our business
Speaker 3: I still don't even know if the man is black,
Speaker 3: but I want to be careful and mindful of the
Speaker 3: struggle of our businesses. But also, how do we as
Speaker 3: a community ensure that there's a level of accountability. What
Speaker 3: do we do about that at the same standard.
Speaker 2: Of just decency, right, we should we should have we
Speaker 2: should have community based organizations that care enough to provide
Speaker 2: a clean and healthy space for our people.
Speaker 3: And we do have community boards. We do have that,
Speaker 3: and it's like that should be a part of the focus.
Speaker 3: But guess what a lot of times these community boards
Speaker 3: have people on them who are very much so older. Right, well, no, no,
Speaker 3: I'm talk about community boards, like the community.
Speaker 1: Boys that are responsible.
Speaker 3: A lot of them are older people, like so much
Speaker 3: love to my godmother, you're what would you say? She's
Speaker 3: like an auntie to you and to all of us.
Speaker 3: Hazel Duke's she was on every damn community everything you
Speaker 3: could think of. But when she passed away, she was
Speaker 3: ninety two years old. So she's on a community board,
Speaker 3: but she don't go to the local club, so she
Speaker 3: don't have a clue what's going on at the local spot.
Speaker 3: If she didn't know, oh I could you already know,
Speaker 3: Hayes gonna be like this door needs to be changed,
Speaker 3: or were gonna be outside every day and you won't
Speaker 3: even be able to open and operate exactly. But if
Speaker 3: she doesn't know because it's not her area, you know,
Speaker 3: it's not something, it's not someplace that she frequents, then
Speaker 3: how does she and other people because I bet you
Speaker 3: everybody else on the community board is sixty seventy eighty
Speaker 3: ninety years old. We have to take on that responsibility
Speaker 3: at thirty forty, even twenty years old.
Speaker 1: We have to show up for our communities. Sure, so
Speaker 1: you know, because you can't blame the people who are
Speaker 1: on the community board.
Speaker 3: They're gonna make sure the senior centers are good. They're
Speaker 3: gonna make sure the streets are the garbage is being
Speaker 3: picked up. They're gonna make sure that.
Speaker 1: The safety they're concerned.
Speaker 3: Exactly are the safety issues are are are addressed. They're
Speaker 3: gonna make sure that the police deal with the people
Speaker 3: in the community a certain way to the extent they
Speaker 3: can that. You know, they're gonna see to it at
Speaker 3: the grocery store is there, but they don't know to
Speaker 3: go check the front door and the inside cleanliness of
Speaker 3: the local club.
Speaker 2: Well, I hope the local club owned here this and
Speaker 2: realizes that we're talking about you. So we don't have
Speaker 2: to say who you are. Just do better, man, you know,
Speaker 2: we just we wren't. Decency in our community shouldn't be
Speaker 2: rats and shattered windows. We should we should want our
Speaker 2: communities to represent us properly.
Speaker 3: I guess so, I guess that's what we want him
Speaker 3: to do. But I think I think that is true.
Speaker 3: But moreover, I just want to know it's not so
Speaker 3: much for him because I'm sure he won't hear this,
Speaker 3: so you don't sound like that type of person. But
Speaker 3: what so for people who are listening, who I know,
Speaker 3: go to that place and will we demand something different?
Speaker 2: Makes sense?
Speaker 1: There's that all right? Well that was long and drawn out.
Speaker 2: But what I mean but it made sense. You know,
Speaker 2: you had to get the story, had to be told
Speaker 2: that way to get the full synopsis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I could have just said I went
Speaker 3: to a place in Harlem and this is what happened.
Speaker 3: But if you know, the color around everything is what
Speaker 3: makes it like special.
Speaker 1: That's why.
Speaker 3: Because somebody would say, like, well, what the hell would
Speaker 3: you be going to the place in Harlem on the
Speaker 3: corner of X Street for any way to have a party.
Speaker 1: Wow, it's trying to have at night, you know, so
Speaker 1: it makes sense. Good old hood night, a good old
Speaker 1: hood night. AnyWho.
Speaker 3: That brings me to let's see what's next TMI. Well,
Speaker 3: some people say it's a split decision here, okay, six
Speaker 3: thousand comments on one post. I just happened to see
Speaker 3: this in my two am musings. There's a man who
Speaker 3: has been taking care of a young girl, which is
Speaker 3: his wife's daughter, since she was four months old. Came
Speaker 3: into the daughter's life by way of meeting the mother
Speaker 3: when the child was four months and I think they
Speaker 3: got married once the.
Speaker 1: Child was two years old.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now, when it comes graduation time for this young
Speaker 3: lady to go to college or at least to get
Speaker 3: out of high school, she has a graduation and she
Speaker 3: does not prioritize having her stepfather at the graduation. In fact,
Speaker 3: who ended up being there is the actual biological father
Speaker 3: and some other people.
Speaker 1: Now there were folks, you know.
Speaker 3: I I when I heard that the father, the actual
Speaker 3: bio logical father, was there, I was kind of like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: you know, that makes sense to me. And then they
Speaker 3: said there were eight tickets. Eight tickets is not only
Speaker 3: because it said, oh, the.
Speaker 1: Father wrote a whole post about it. The stepfather wrote
Speaker 1: a post about.
Speaker 3: It, and he said and then I learned there were
Speaker 3: only eight tickets. I'm like, eight tickets is a lot
Speaker 3: of tickets, right, That's a lot of tickets.
Speaker 1: And if you've been taking care of a.
Speaker 3: Child since they were four months old, and particularly married
Speaker 3: to the mother, not like we met, and then I
Speaker 3: just kept the relationship with them while I was no
Speaker 3: longer with the mother. But no, they actually are still
Speaker 3: currently married. That is a significant relationship. But when it
Speaker 3: came time to distribute the tickets, they went to the
Speaker 3: mother's sisters, the girl's boyfriend I think, the grandmother, an uncle.
Speaker 1: And the biological father, and of course the mother.
Speaker 3: So the eight tickets were taken and the stepfather was
Speaker 3: not given a ticket, so he was not allowed to go.
Speaker 3: So he was so upset and heard about it that
Speaker 3: he said, well, now she's grown, I'm taking her off
Speaker 3: my car insurance and my health insurance and whatever other
Speaker 3: things that he did for her. And he said, now
Speaker 3: you know, since I wasn't chosen, now, if she needs
Speaker 3: somewhere to go, she should go stay with her father
Speaker 3: and she doesn't have to be on my insurance benefits. So,
Speaker 3: like I said, six thousand, six hundred comments on one
Speaker 3: post about this, and of course when you read the comments,
Speaker 3: it's very split. I actually saw Jamel Hill who said
Speaker 3: that his feelings are valid, but his actions went too far,
Speaker 3: and it was a lot of people like that. But
Speaker 3: then little Moe was in the comments like trolling, being
Speaker 3: funny as she is, but nonetheless basically saying that she
Speaker 3: agreed that he was supposed to take it to that
Speaker 3: extreme because what they did to him was wrong. And
Speaker 3: then a lot of people blamed it on her mother, right.
Speaker 3: They were like, come, mom was supposed to take care
Speaker 3: of that. It's her fault. You have all these different perspectives,
Speaker 3: and I guess the TMI like who's doing too much
Speaker 3: in this situation? The question for everybody is do people
Speaker 3: not understand where he's coming from?
Speaker 1: And I'll give my opinion.
Speaker 3: I would say that I don't know if I would
Speaker 3: have in that moment said I'm taking you off my
Speaker 3: insurance and all of that, because it is certainly a
Speaker 3: way to show like you're trying to retaliate based upon
Speaker 3: your feelings immediately.
Speaker 1: I do think, though.
Speaker 3: That this young lady is still a child, and later
Speaker 3: on in life she will realize that something should have
Speaker 3: been done about the arrangement here to ensure that her
Speaker 3: stepfather was able to be there, including having her boyfriend
Speaker 3: meet her after the graduation instead of having to be
Speaker 3: there and have that ticket. I don't know the situation
Speaker 3: where all her family members, her grandmothers and aunts, maybe
Speaker 3: they are very close family personally, two aunts, I don't
Speaker 3: feel two aunts.
Speaker 1: Need to be there.
Speaker 3: We need to make a choice as a family that
Speaker 3: one aunt is one aunt is gonna go and or
Speaker 3: the boyfriend is not gonna go, but somebody needs to
Speaker 3: fall back to make space. There's no way that eight
Speaker 3: people should have attended that graduation and not allow a
Speaker 3: man who.
Speaker 1: Has been there.
Speaker 3: He said that it's caused turmoil in his house because
Speaker 3: he took her off his insurance, and I kind of
Speaker 3: feel like they're taking advantage of him, But I do
Speaker 3: I would say that we have to be mindful not
Speaker 3: to react to everything in the moment, because it gives
Speaker 3: the impression that you kinda are dangling money and things
Speaker 3: over her head, although insurance is not just money, that
Speaker 3: is me taking care of you a certain way. And
Speaker 3: I and I and I think this is where I
Speaker 3: differ from some people because it seems that people are
Speaker 3: targeting her biological father being the one who's should have
Speaker 3: been replaced. I don't agree with that. I don't know
Speaker 3: the relationship, but the mere fact that he was there,
Speaker 3: I'm just gonna assume that they have a decent relationship.
Speaker 3: That he may not be able to afford insurance and
Speaker 3: things of that nature. But nonetheless he was there, so
Speaker 3: there must be some relationship. I think both dads should
Speaker 3: have been there, but an aunt needed to step back,
Speaker 3: and the boyfriend absolutely could have met me on right
Speaker 3: outside as soon as I come outside of the graduation.
Speaker 2: It should be based on the relationships. You know, if
Speaker 2: her biological father, although he probably wasn't able to take care,
Speaker 2: if he's been in her life and they have a
Speaker 2: very strong relationship.
Speaker 1: Or a decent relation, decent.
Speaker 2: Relationship, right, then he has the right to be her graduation.
Speaker 2: But if I married a woman who has a child
Speaker 2: and his father has n't been present, and then probably
Speaker 2: just recently, you're trying to rekindle a relationship, I'm just
Speaker 2: telling you me.
Speaker 3: I'm saying if I know, but that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I don't want to make a so I want to assume.
Speaker 3: But jadon assume because I want to assume because he
Speaker 3: didn't say that that man hasn't.
Speaker 2: Been But he's saying he'd been taken care.
Speaker 1: Of, right, But that doesn't mean that your other dad
Speaker 1: wasn't there.
Speaker 2: But to say that he's been taking care of a
Speaker 2: child since you know the child, since the infant means
Speaker 2: that for me to be saying I'm taking care of that,
Speaker 2: miss me, somebody else wasn't taking care because if I'm
Speaker 2: taking care of you, and and for me to say that,
Speaker 2: that means I know that this person hasn't been present.
Speaker 2: That's the only way that I would have this level
Speaker 2: of okay. Then if that's how you feel, and cool
Speaker 2: if you because he didn't say you chose your boyfriend
Speaker 2: over me, you chose other people. He believes that he's
Speaker 2: been more of a father to her than her biological father,
Speaker 2: because he said, you chose to allow your biological father
Speaker 2: to come. So cool, So that's what his issue was.
Speaker 2: It wasn't the other people that came, because he probably
Speaker 2: felt like those people are significant. He probably feel like
Speaker 2: this man hasn't been present this whole time. I've been working, hustling,
Speaker 2: doing everything I gotta do to make sure that you survive.
Speaker 2: And then now he come in a picture and it
Speaker 2: supersedes me because he has your biological and it's cool
Speaker 2: and I understand it, but now I feel like you
Speaker 2: don't value me at all.
Speaker 1: Right, I feel like you say you would just jump
Speaker 1: up and take the I don't.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't just jump up and take, but moving forward,
Speaker 2: I would acknowledge that, right, and then when I start
Speaker 2: making decisions, I can't prioritize you in a way that
Speaker 2: you don't prioritize me, right, I want to do the
Speaker 2: best for you and cool, I would let you know
Speaker 2: first of all, hurt my feelings, and then and then
Speaker 2: moving forward, you know, I would have to prior I
Speaker 2: have to treat that the relationship has to be equal
Speaker 2: to me, you know, and you can't hurt somebody's feeling
Speaker 2: if I'm thinking you might pretty much he's thinking this
Speaker 2: is his daughter, you know, since an infant, he's raised
Speaker 2: as a daughter, and to feel like you don't value me,
Speaker 2: and because this man shows up now, because that happens,
Speaker 2: there are situations where it happens and you have thingoledg.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if as a father, a biological father,
Speaker 2: I can't really see a situation where I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: there for my kids. Let's when I was in prison,
Speaker 2: and when I was in prison, this is real shit
Speaker 2: to me. Right when I was locked up, my son's
Speaker 2: mother had a man that she was with, you know,
Speaker 2: she was with him and he pretty much raised my
Speaker 2: son for seven years when I wasn't there, and then
Speaker 2: when I came home and I was still giving myself
Speaker 2: on my feet, he was still taking care of my
Speaker 2: son like he was his mother. He provided things that
Speaker 2: I wasn't and I respected that man and I told
Speaker 2: him and I told her I respect him right, and
Speaker 2: I felt that he had to be like when we
Speaker 2: were graduations things. I made sure that everybody know that
Speaker 2: I'm not uncomfortable with him being there because that man provided,
Speaker 2: he prog That's.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying. Both dads should be present.
Speaker 2: And that's what I'm trying to say. So because you.
Speaker 3: Don't know what the circles, and I want to believe
Speaker 3: the best that maybe the dad, like you said, was
Speaker 3: in prison or maybe not, let's take that off of
Speaker 3: his name. Maybe he just didn't have the resources. And
Speaker 3: if you living in the house, would child automatically. It
Speaker 3: makes you have a certain type of relationship. Get that
Speaker 3: job from now, when your insurance and different things you
Speaker 3: put them on, because that's your wife's child who.
Speaker 2: Lives with you, And that's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 3: So I'm saying that the boyfriend doesn't need to be
Speaker 3: there but like Jamie my best friend said, you know,
Speaker 3: when we was young, we were stupid. We ain't even
Speaker 3: going to the graduation if our boyfriend can come. But
Speaker 3: that's type of stuff we would say, not some about
Speaker 3: we as in young girls.
Speaker 2: Listen to me, it doesn't make sense. And I understand
Speaker 2: the man's frustration, and just based off the fact that
Speaker 2: he pointed out the father, he believes that that father
Speaker 2: hasn't done nearly enough to actually be able to.
Speaker 3: Supersede him for a ticket. Okay, I think two aunties.
Speaker 3: If I was two aunties, I would say, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: stay back and get the dinner together, straighten out the
Speaker 3: restaurant or whatever whatever, get the balloons, but I don't
Speaker 3: need to go.
Speaker 1: But the anties has to be what grade, what she is,
Speaker 1: she graduated high school. That might have said, you've.
Speaker 2: Grown that the mother was supposed to regulate that though everybody.
Speaker 1: Said that, I feel like that's true.
Speaker 2: But I also because it cost so much, turnoi in,
Speaker 2: your aunt.
Speaker 3: Was supposed to stay at the house and get everything together.
Speaker 2: If that's your husband and it's the person that pays
Speaker 2: the bills and the tranquility in your home, you allowed
Speaker 2: this young girl who's who's making the decision that she
Speaker 2: don't even understand the dynamics of that decision to affect
Speaker 2: your home, like your assurance, Like you know how serious
Speaker 2: people died about insurance. People ain't got no insurance, car insurance,
Speaker 2: what mental medical assurance? Like, come on, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Like I feel for the man. I hope that they
Speaker 1: find a way to work.
Speaker 2: Feel for them to.
Speaker 3: Apologize to that man. We sorry, sir. Well, we have
Speaker 3: a friend, our brother, our friend. Elliott Kannie is joining
Speaker 3: us yes for this episode where we're talking about men's
Speaker 3: mental health awareness. I didn't know that June is Men's
Speaker 3: mental health months. We should have done some more stuff,
Speaker 3: like you know you learned these months.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know where the months be coming from, but
Speaker 3: they got dates and months and sibling day and this
Speaker 3: day and that day to try to keep up.
Speaker 1: We need a calendar around.
Speaker 3: But anyway, Elliott Kannie is a psycho therapist. He also,
Speaker 3: as far as I'm concerned, this is a therapist to
Speaker 3: all of us in the movement, because we all everybody
Speaker 3: be calling them on the load and nobody tells anybody,
Speaker 3: but everybody knows you call Elliott Khannie when you're in
Speaker 3: trouble with some mental health issues. But he also is
Speaker 3: our podcast sibling at the back Black Effect podcast Network.
Speaker 3: He has a show called Family Therapy and has been
Speaker 3: a guest on our show before.
Speaker 1: We've been guests on his show.
Speaker 3: And it's good to have our brother Elliott Connie with
Speaker 3: us today.
Speaker 1: We need some kind of thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Brother, No problem is good to be here. I love
Speaker 4: y'all both.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 3: So we were actually just talking about something and I
Speaker 3: just wanted to get your take on it. We generally
Speaker 3: don't well, sometimes we do ask our guests to lean
Speaker 3: into other topics that are on the show for this
Speaker 3: week or that particular week. And this week we were
Speaker 3: talking about on our TMI segment, which is a segment
Speaker 3: where we discuss whether or not people are doing too
Speaker 3: much or some folks are like no, actually what they
Speaker 3: did is just right. The response to this issue was
Speaker 3: a man who was not able to attend the graduation
Speaker 3: of his stepdaughter who is currently married to her mother.
Speaker 3: So he's currently married to her mother. He's known this
Speaker 3: child since she was four years old and four months old.
Speaker 3: Four months old, and he mentions that now that she's grown.
Speaker 3: So when he says, now that she's grown, I know
Speaker 3: that this is not a graduation for elementary school or
Speaker 3: middle school. This is a high school graduate at least
Speaker 3: I hope not college.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's got him.
Speaker 2: Come on, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's got to be high school. And so he was
Speaker 1: not able to go.
Speaker 3: There were eight tickets allotted to the families for the graduation,
Speaker 3: and he was not one of those individuals. But the
Speaker 3: biological father was allowed to go, and so he said that,
Speaker 3: you know, he was so upset about it.
Speaker 1: His films were so hurt.
Speaker 3: When he got home, he took his stepdaughter off of
Speaker 3: his health insurance, his car insurance, and whatever other things
Speaker 3: he was doing for her. He said, she can go
Speaker 3: live with her father if since she's grown now go
Speaker 3: stay with him. And so that gives my son the
Speaker 3: impression that the father had not been showing up in
Speaker 3: a certain type of way for this young lady's life.
Speaker 3: I said, let's try to look at it that the
Speaker 3: father has been around, and perhaps he just didn't have
Speaker 3: the resources to be able to take care of the child.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless, stepdad is really really upset and just wondering
Speaker 3: how what you know when we're talking about men's mental health.
Speaker 3: This man is hurt, very hurt, and I just wanted
Speaker 3: to know if you were counseling him, what would you
Speaker 3: say and would you be in agreeance with him to
Speaker 3: just cut his stepdaughter off of all of the health
Speaker 3: benefits and you know, financial benefit just like that because
Speaker 3: he's upset.
Speaker 4: Absolutely not.
Speaker 5: I don't think it really matters whether or not the
Speaker 5: biological father has been showing up or not. I think
Speaker 5: the bigger issue is we have a tendency to treat
Speaker 5: children as if they are like miniature adults. And I
Speaker 5: have no problem with this stepfather having hurt feelings, but
Speaker 5: he needs to understand that though this child is likely eighteen,
Speaker 5: I agree.
Speaker 4: With you this is probably think. I think it was
Speaker 4: a high school graduation. I saw the story.
Speaker 5: He has every right to have hurt feelings, but he
Speaker 5: has to address it as an adult and explain to
Speaker 5: this step daughter that he has hurt feelings. And we
Speaker 5: have to understand that even though the biological father, let's
Speaker 5: say the biological father wasn't around, children will live their
Speaker 5: lives in pursuit of approval and connection from their biological parent,
Speaker 5: and this might be an attempt for this child to
Speaker 5: get that.
Speaker 4: Now, is she doing the right thing?
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 5: And he has a justified reason, justifiable reason have his
Speaker 5: feelings hurt, but he's now taking it out on the child,
Speaker 5: and he's making the child's life worse and more complicated.
Speaker 5: And when you marry this woman and take on the
Speaker 5: responsibility of raising that child, you are taking on the
Speaker 5: responsibility of being good for her and to her, even
Speaker 5: while you have hurt feelings. Now, stepdaughter or not, like
Speaker 5: the two of you, have children, and sometimes your children
Speaker 5: hurt your feelings. Your children will do and or say
Speaker 5: things that hurt your feelings. But you have a responsibility
Speaker 5: to be there for child, to make the child's life better.
Speaker 5: And he is not doing that right now. He has
Speaker 5: hurt feelings. He's acting from a place of hurt, behaving
Speaker 5: in a very petty way. And this girl, she's gonna
Speaker 5: grow up and realize, oh, I really shouldn't have done that.
Speaker 5: But you've got to allow her the ability to grow
Speaker 5: up and stop treating her as a little mini at
Speaker 5: you're adult, because she's not.
Speaker 4: She doesn't know what she's doing.
Speaker 2: Well, So I'm gonna give a little pushback. If when
Speaker 2: my son got to a certain age when he was
Speaker 2: grown and he started to talk to me or do
Speaker 2: things that were disrespectful to me, to when you start
Speaker 2: hurting me, hurting my feelings, I told him you got
Speaker 2: to get out. I'm not paying no more bills. You
Speaker 2: need to find you somewhere to go. Right, So, as
Speaker 2: much as I understand what you're saying, but if this
Speaker 2: man made a decision that this is a grown woman. Now,
Speaker 2: she made a decision on her own that I wasn't
Speaker 2: valuable enough to go to that graduation, and all the
Speaker 2: other people, the other eight people she allowed to go
Speaker 2: there were more important than me than my resources in
Speaker 2: my home shouldn't be as important to you? Right? You
Speaker 2: like I don't. And then I'm saying, maybe I probably
Speaker 2: wouldn't do that in this situation. But if I felt
Speaker 2: disrespected because I've kicked my son out at eighteen years old,
Speaker 2: you gotta go somewhere else and didn't feel a way,
Speaker 2: And when when you realize who I am, and you're
Speaker 2: gonna treat me like a man in my house, but
Speaker 2: you can't stay in my house and disrespect me and
Speaker 2: disregard me. So I hear what you're saying that at
Speaker 2: that point, once you graduate, then you you you made
Speaker 2: a decision that you're a grown person and you make
Speaker 2: own person decisions and choices.
Speaker 3: So I have to make it you made a decision
Speaker 3: just because you graduated that you're grown.
Speaker 2: No, when you made a decision that I'm going to
Speaker 2: invite the people I want at this graduate.
Speaker 3: But what about if her mother probably helped control the list?
Speaker 3: See that that makes it a little bit different.
Speaker 2: But regardless of what if you and your mother, and
Speaker 2: this is what I'm saying, cool, y'all got it?
Speaker 1: You gotta stop until you finish eating that or you
Speaker 1: want a tissue because you like slurin. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: and I know you're not gonna want that, So you
Speaker 1: want to just finish real quick?
Speaker 2: Yeah, not gonna be real quick. Okaya, it ain't gonna.
Speaker 1: Be real all right. Well, I just still I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know because I feel like, again I told
Speaker 3: you the boyfriend probably because of the makeup, the makeup
Speaker 3: of the guests were it says her two sisters. So
Speaker 3: I think I may be wrong that it's not the
Speaker 3: two aunts, it's the two sisters that are the girls'
Speaker 3: biological sisters, right, an uncle, an aunt, a boyfriend, a grandparent,
Speaker 3: the biological father, and the mother, right, and so of
Speaker 3: all those people, I could now now if it's not
Speaker 3: two aunts, I can kind of see how they looked
Speaker 3: at that whole list and said, who are we gonna
Speaker 3: kick out? Because you know you're not kicking my boyfriend
Speaker 3: off them, because I'm not even going to the whole graduation.
Speaker 1: If my boyfriend can't, well, you're a boy.
Speaker 2: If you need to pay for your car insurance.
Speaker 5: But here I'm gonna here's my response to my son's pushback,
Speaker 5: which I actually.
Speaker 4: Agree, Like, I understand where you're coming from.
Speaker 5: But there are two variables, and just from reading the story,
Speaker 5: I don't actually have the context for these two variables.
Speaker 5: But the first one is in your situation my son, Like,
Speaker 5: my guess is you have talked to your son about
Speaker 5: like in essence, he was breaking rules that you had
Speaker 5: taught him not to break, and then he gets to
Speaker 5: the point where he continuously breaks them, and you say, well,
Speaker 5: if you're gonna keep doing this, I'm now perceiving this
Speaker 5: as disrespect and you need to go live someplace else.
Speaker 5: And I don't know whether or not the stepfather overtly
Speaker 5: told the child, if you do this, I will feel
Speaker 5: disrespected and thus will take an action. And then the
Speaker 5: second thing that my son's children, this particular child doesn't
Speaker 5: have is a stepdad. So my son is the biological
Speaker 5: father and step parents at a level of what do
Speaker 5: I do with that? If I'm eighteen years old and
Speaker 5: I got an eighteen year old brain, what do I
Speaker 5: do with the fact that I love my stepdad and
Speaker 5: I'm so appreciative of the role they played in my life.
Speaker 5: But I love my biological father and even if he
Speaker 5: wasn't there, I want this connection.
Speaker 4: So what do I do with that as an eighteen
Speaker 4: year old?
Speaker 5: And also maybe I'm being influenced by mom being influenced
Speaker 5: by these aunts, Like there's so much context that we
Speaker 5: don't have. But I will say the responsibility is always
Speaker 5: with the adult.
Speaker 4: So the stepdad. A.
Speaker 5: I hope this stepdad had a conversation with this daughter
Speaker 5: leading up to this moment the stepdaughter leading up to
Speaker 5: this moment.
Speaker 4: And B.
Speaker 5: I would like to know that this person is capable
Speaker 5: of being a bigger person and at least having empathy
Speaker 5: for the complicated situation that all step children find themselves
Speaker 5: in I.
Speaker 2: Understand, but I just want us to have empathy and
Speaker 2: understand that if a man raises a child as his
Speaker 2: own pretty much since they're four months old, and you
Speaker 2: make putting somebody on your insurance and your health insurance,
Speaker 2: that's that's that's a different thing. Like you don't just
Speaker 2: putting people on your health with dying every insurance like
Speaker 2: these are these are real things. So you you're paying
Speaker 2: like you're you're you're paying a lifetime bill something that
Speaker 2: affects your life in their life. You connected somebody in
Speaker 2: your life, right, So when you've connected somebody in your
Speaker 2: life in that in that manner, and to know that
Speaker 2: that they didn't see the other four maybe the aunt
Speaker 2: or one of them saying, hey, I know you look,
Speaker 2: we're gonna let you live streaming. But this person right here,
Speaker 2: this person right here been paying these bills and this
Speaker 2: to it and whatever ever for his whole life, and
Speaker 2: I know he would love to see me be here.
Speaker 2: That's that's a conversation that somebody should have had. That
Speaker 2: should have been I'm just saying in my opinion, and
Speaker 2: and he's and and things, and maybe he he shouldn't
Speaker 2: have done what he does. But I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: say that he was not wrong for how he feels,
Speaker 2: and maybe his reaction is completely I mean, it is
Speaker 2: not how I would have done it. But I can't
Speaker 2: say that he's wrong. That's I'm true.
Speaker 5: I one hundred percent believe that he had every right
Speaker 5: to have his feelings hurt. He just shouldn't have taken
Speaker 5: that action. And the reason I keep saying that the
Speaker 5: onus is on the adult. Like children don't immediately understand
Speaker 5: all the sacrifices it takes to raise them. Do we
Speaker 5: understand what paying somebody's car insurance and life insurance is?
Speaker 4: But both of you, I'm sure in.
Speaker 5: Your older years you were like, oh man, now I
Speaker 5: understand what it was like for my mother to do this,
Speaker 5: this or this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: But at eighteen, I didn't. I didn't have that perspective.
Speaker 5: I didn't have that So this this, this stepdaughter one
Speaker 5: hundred percent should have invited the man that raised her.
Speaker 5: And if she was sitting right here, I would say
Speaker 5: to her, you've got to find a way to honor
Speaker 5: your your feelings about both dads. At eighteen, she doesn't
Speaker 5: know how to appreciate car insurance. She doesn't know how
Speaker 5: to appreciate.
Speaker 3: But it's a good segue into a broader conversation around
Speaker 3: you know, when you're dealing as we're talking about men's
Speaker 3: mental health, and man, I mean just on social media alone,
Speaker 3: it's a whole mental health situation. Like they I want
Speaker 3: the whole Internet to just shut down for a few days.
Speaker 3: I'm like, can we have a COVID go through the internet. No,
Speaker 3: don't kill anybody, but just shut the thing down because
Speaker 3: there's so much it's a cesspool of people's emotions and
Speaker 3: feelings and what so many different people are going through.
Speaker 1: And I wonder about this idea of you.
Speaker 3: Know, parent co parenting or parenting stepdads and families. And
Speaker 3: you see so many men, especially when you're coming up
Speaker 3: on Father's Day, saying that they don't feel appreciated or
Speaker 3: they feel like everything is about the mother. And you know,
Speaker 3: I think I saw somewhere that the number of like
Speaker 3: the revenue for Father's Day is so much lower than
Speaker 3: it is for Mother's Day. And you have so many
Speaker 3: men who's like, yeah, get your socks, and and it's
Speaker 3: like a joke, Like my cousin wrote something on his
Speaker 3: page and it made me sad. But he it was
Speaker 3: like he wrote like a joke, like, oh hey, everybody,
Speaker 3: make sure you get your socks dad. You know, mom
Speaker 3: gets a watch, Dad gets socks. And I wonder when
Speaker 3: you're dealing with your clients, especially with men, is this
Speaker 3: a real thing or is it that men just don't
Speaker 3: know how to ask for what they want because Mom's like,
Speaker 3: I want to watch.
Speaker 4: I think it's both.
Speaker 5: Actually I think it is a real thing, But I
Speaker 5: also think that men don't always know how to ask
Speaker 5: for that thing that they want, and they don't know
Speaker 5: what always know how to be vulnerable and say this
Speaker 5: is how I need to experience your love, and this
Speaker 5: is how I need to experience that you care about me.
Speaker 5: So children don't always grow up knowing what to do.
Speaker 5: But one of the things I often talk about with
Speaker 5: my client is funny. I just had a conversation with
Speaker 5: a client yesterday who is a dad and in a
Speaker 5: very difficult situation. But we need to understand we're parenting
Speaker 5: for the life cycle.
Speaker 4: Like you didn't.
Speaker 5: You didn't have that child hoping that you'd get a
Speaker 5: watch for Father's Day. You had that child with a
Speaker 5: much bigger picture and our reward is watching our children
Speaker 5: and particularly young boys, grow up to be the kind
Speaker 5: of men that we can we can respect and value
Speaker 5: and know that the type of children that command respect
Speaker 5: and on some level, like we've got to just parent
Speaker 5: through the life cycle and understand it was never about
Speaker 5: socks in the first place.
Speaker 2: I know it's tough when you don't get a pair
Speaker 2: of socks right, because when you that's why I can
Speaker 2: identify with the man right even as a stepfather, but
Speaker 2: as a father, real father. You we put so much
Speaker 2: emphasis on making sure that the mother is satisfied on
Speaker 2: Mother's Day, cater to infraction. Somehow there's just this level
Speaker 2: of disregard for Father's Day. Like the people they just
Speaker 2: don't see the need to. They might tell you happy
Speaker 2: Father's Day, you know, they don't even see the need
Speaker 2: to write your card, give you just you know, you
Speaker 2: have sons that won't say, hey, I'm gonna take you
Speaker 2: out for this, or I buy your hat. I know,
Speaker 2: you something that you're like, hey, let's go get some
Speaker 2: and eat. Like that's not a thing. It's just not
Speaker 2: And I don't think it's because they don't care. I
Speaker 2: just think that it's it has never been taught to
Speaker 2: them to value it in that man.
Speaker 4: But I think it's deeper than that, my son.
Speaker 5: I think I think men traditionally take on the role
Speaker 5: of provider, and this is a byproduct of being the provider.
Speaker 5: Because if all childhood you are providing for the home
Speaker 5: that includes their mother and you are not the recipient
Speaker 5: of providership.
Speaker 4: You are the provider.
Speaker 5: So when it comes time to take care of you,
Speaker 5: that's just not how the system is conditioned. Now I'm
Speaker 5: not saying that's right or wrong, but I'm saying this
Speaker 5: is a byproduct of being a provider.
Speaker 3: It's a byproduct of being a provider. And do you
Speaker 3: think vulnerability has something to do with it as well?
Speaker 3: That you know, uh are you say you're breaking up?
Speaker 3: You know that maybe, like you said, they haven't been
Speaker 3: taught because a man is not necessarily bringing up that. Hey,
Speaker 3: I would like to have, you know, people celebrate me
Speaker 3: for my birthday for five because it's not just Father's Day,
Speaker 3: even birthdays and other special days. You have a lack,
Speaker 3: if you will, of interest the same way that it
Speaker 3: is for women. And so do you think that vulnerability
Speaker 3: is just an issue across the board for men in
Speaker 3: many different ways. That allows men to fall into a
Speaker 3: place of like feeling, let's see, like having animosity that's
Speaker 3: never addressed, which creates all types of anger issues, so
Speaker 3: on and so forth.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, I think I think men, in particularly Black men,
Speaker 5: perceive vulnerability as a showing of weakness. So a lot
Speaker 5: of black men won't advocate for themselves and won't say, Hey,
Speaker 5: my birthday's coming up in last year, y'all got me socks.
Speaker 5: I would really like it if I got something that
Speaker 5: showed me how much you value my energy, effort and
Speaker 5: time and just Most men don't say that because they'd
Speaker 5: rather be perceived as I don't need anything because I'm
Speaker 5: the provider.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So anyway, we went down a rabbit hole that
Speaker 3: was never our intention, but it just, you know, it came.
Speaker 5: I'll say, I'll say one more thing before we un
Speaker 5: rabbit hole, and I'll use my son as an example.
Speaker 4: I've always I've been a fan of this.
Speaker 5: Dude from his rap days twenty years ago and as
Speaker 5: i've gotten to know him more recently, Like, my son
Speaker 5: is a very strong, principled man.
Speaker 4: Why so is it fair for me to call you that?
Speaker 2: Yes? It is.
Speaker 4: And I saw a video of.
Speaker 5: You one time where you did not like Nike's response
Speaker 5: to Kyrie Irving and you put all of your Nikes
Speaker 5: down an insiderator yep, And I was like, like, this
Speaker 5: dude truly stands on what he believes in a very
Speaker 5: principled way, and I respect that about you, even if
Speaker 5: you stand on certain principles that I may or may
Speaker 5: not agree with, like the fact that you live how
Speaker 5: you talk, and you talk how you live.
Speaker 4: I would be willing to bet if as a father.
Speaker 5: If my son only gets socks every birthday in every
Speaker 5: father's day, but observes his children growing up in an
Speaker 5: equally principled manner because that's the role model that they watched,
Speaker 5: he would feel successful, successful and valued as a dad.
Speaker 5: So that's why I say, I think that we need
Speaker 5: to look at it in a much bigger scope.
Speaker 2: Like our blessings and our gifts come differently.
Speaker 4: Right, exactly, And.
Speaker 5: That's because our responsibilities and our roles are different.
Speaker 4: So thus what we get is different.
Speaker 5: Like we can't really say I want to be treated
Speaker 5: like the other parent when your roles and responsibilities within
Speaker 5: the dynamic are different. But if we raise a child
Speaker 5: in this case, I'll just use a son as an example.
Speaker 5: And you know, twenty years from now, my son is
Speaker 5: in his sixties and you know, growing older, and he
Speaker 5: observes his son holding his morals and principles and values
Speaker 5: in the way that my son role modeled for him,
Speaker 5: that would be far more.
Speaker 4: Valuable than socks.
Speaker 5: This is true, And I think that's the purpose, and
Speaker 5: that's how we get rewarded. And quite frankly, we can't
Speaker 5: expect the same rewards when our responsibilities are not the same,
Speaker 5: is true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's going to be the title of this show.
Speaker 3: More than Socks, that's what we're gonna call it. But
Speaker 3: more than Socks is Mental Health Awareness Month for men,
Speaker 3: And would love to just hear from you. What have
Speaker 3: you been doing this month working with your clients? How
Speaker 3: are you honoring Mental Health Awareness Month for men?
Speaker 4: Mean, you know, people.
Speaker 5: Ask me that every time it's Mental Health Awareness Month
Speaker 5: or Men's mentalth Wedness.
Speaker 4: People ask me that, And for me, it's not really
Speaker 4: any different.
Speaker 2: Like this month.
Speaker 5: I have been in the I've traveled the world and
Speaker 5: in the past like three weeks, I've been in Poland,
Speaker 5: I've been in the UK, I've been in Canada. I've
Speaker 5: been in Durango, Colorado. I'm now in Los Angeles. I've
Speaker 5: been in Gosh. I can't even think I've been in
Speaker 5: all these places because mental health drives everything that I do,
Speaker 5: and that's not changed by any particular month.
Speaker 4: That's not changed by any particular day.
Speaker 5: Every single client has my cell phone, I respond to
Speaker 5: their phone calls and text messages because mental health it's
Speaker 5: part of everything that I do. I decided to make
Speaker 5: this my life, and I live that as if it's
Speaker 5: my life, every single day, regardless of whatever month it is.
Speaker 5: So what do I do the same thing I always do.
Speaker 5: I get on these airplanes and I go to Poland,
Speaker 5: and I go to the England, and I go to Toronto,
Speaker 5: and I go to la and I am constantly doing
Speaker 5: sessions when I'm on Zoom and all these crazy places,
Speaker 5: and I'm taking people's phone calls because I love people,
Speaker 5: and I love our people, and I think our culture
Speaker 5: from mental health perspective, is wildly underserved. So my whole
Speaker 5: purpose is I want to make sure that people know
Speaker 5: that you can make very subtle small changes in your
Speaker 5: life and change your whole lived experience. And for me,
Speaker 5: that's all mental health is about. It's like changing the
Speaker 5: way you live your life to change your entire lived experience.
Speaker 5: And that's the same for me in January as it
Speaker 5: is in December and every month in between.
Speaker 3: There's black people in Poland, and they're black people in
Speaker 3: these places that you've been traveling to.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, yeah, there are black people in those places. But
Speaker 5: also something that's very very important to me, I exist
Speaker 5: in academic spaces where there are not a lot of
Speaker 5: black people, and I think it's very important that black
Speaker 5: students see the black man given a keynote at the
Speaker 5: predominantly white conference, so that they know there are no
Speaker 5: spaces where we can't go, and there's no spaces where
Speaker 5: we can't influence, and there's no spaces where we can't
Speaker 5: go and be our authentic selves. When I go and
Speaker 5: do these keynotes, I'm wearing clothes that represent where I'm from.
Speaker 4: I think it is.
Speaker 5: Incredibly important that young black students see that there is
Speaker 5: no space we cannot go and have influence.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Do you have a therapist?
Speaker 4: No? Not currently?
Speaker 2: Not currently? Okay, Okay, I want to ask a very
Speaker 2: controversial question. Oh shit, okay, because you know how I
Speaker 2: follow you. So I listened to you, and there were
Speaker 2: people coming out talking about Cassie Yes, and you made
Speaker 2: a post and you and people were saying that she
Speaker 2: was complicit and this and that, and you made a
Speaker 2: post and you explained pretty much. I want you to
Speaker 2: tell what you explained, right, and then after you give
Speaker 2: a little bit of a synopsis to that, I want
Speaker 2: to know, do you feel like Diddy has mental health
Speaker 2: that somebody should pay attention to or should have some
Speaker 2: level of accountability to what's happening, Because when I look
Speaker 2: at me, just when I look at both situations, I
Speaker 2: think there are two people who are dealing with mental health, right,
Speaker 2: and I don't. And I think that we look at
Speaker 2: the power dynamics and we and we just ignore the
Speaker 2: fact that this man was on drugs. This man was
Speaker 2: probably definitely dealing with levels of insecurity, all of these things.
Speaker 2: And I don't know what his background is, his child upbringing,
Speaker 2: but I don't I want to know if you feel
Speaker 2: that he has mental health that could kind of be
Speaker 2: able to relate to what has happened in this situation.
Speaker 5: Well, it's funny, bro, if you ask a controversial question,
Speaker 5: I'm going to give you a controversial answer, probably, But
Speaker 5: what I tried to explain to people is I got
Speaker 5: really irritated because I saw a lot of people attacking Cassie.
Speaker 5: And for me, it is irrelevant whether or not Cassie
Speaker 5: got paid. It is an irrelevant whether or not Cassie
Speaker 5: was using Diddy for a music career. None of that
Speaker 5: gives him the right to assault her.
Speaker 4: Number one, which is what is alleged. Number two.
Speaker 5: Is there are a lot of people are who truly
Speaker 5: believe that like a woman deserves certain treatment.
Speaker 4: And I want to say, I am.
Speaker 5: The child of a person who watched an abusive dad
Speaker 5: not treat his children or wife. Well, there's a psychology
Speaker 5: of how the women are controlled in that environment, and
Speaker 5: unless you like understand that psychology, you really should just
Speaker 5: be quiet, because, like I.
Speaker 4: Think you don't get it.
Speaker 5: Like I watched an interview one time with and Jay
Speaker 5: Z referenced in one of his songs where Farrakhn said, like,
Speaker 5: you should be quiet too.
Speaker 4: I think it was Wallace in.
Speaker 1: One of the interviews, Mike Wallace.
Speaker 5: Right, and he was basically saying, like, you don't understand
Speaker 5: the thing that you're saying, so.
Speaker 4: You should just be quiet.
Speaker 5: And how I felt about this dynamic is unless you
Speaker 5: understand the power dynamics between abuser and abused and how
Speaker 5: control is initiated and kept going, then you don't understand
Speaker 5: why Cassie didn't leave.
Speaker 4: So and there's no justification.
Speaker 5: I don't care if Cassie was using him for money
Speaker 5: and opportunity and everything else.
Speaker 4: Some of the things.
Speaker 5: That are alleged do not give him the right to
Speaker 5: treat her that way.
Speaker 4: So that was the point of my video.
Speaker 5: Now to answer my songs question one hundred percent, like
Speaker 5: mentally healthy people don't do the things that Diddy is
Speaker 5: alleged of doing. But here's the controversial thing I'm going
Speaker 5: to say, So, yes, I think did he had mental
Speaker 5: health issues, and he probably had those mental health issues
Speaker 5: long before he became the person that we knew of
Speaker 5: as Diddy. But wealth and fame also produce mental health
Speaker 5: issues because you get used to the world catering to
Speaker 5: what it is that you want, and you eventually lose
Speaker 5: the ability to know that there are boundaries in this
Speaker 5: world that you have to respect. And the more wealth
Speaker 5: and fame you have, the easier it is for you
Speaker 5: to lose that boundary and the longer you are wealthy
Speaker 5: and famous, the harder it is to hold on to
Speaker 5: the reality that not everything in this world is access
Speaker 5: to you. And I think if I take a person
Speaker 5: who's got some troubles, and there's if what is alleged
Speaker 5: is true, Sean Colmes clearly has some troubles, and then
Speaker 5: I give that troubled person unbelievable amounts of wealth and
Speaker 5: unbelievable amount of fame.
Speaker 2: I e.
Speaker 5: Power, It's very easy to see how people lose the
Speaker 5: boundary between what is mine and what is not my Hm.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's interesting.
Speaker 3: I mean definitely, I think some mental health stuff was there,
Speaker 3: and I think that the defense has already attempted to
Speaker 3: make the case that he was, you know, all high often,
Speaker 3: very often, and therefore not necessarily in his right mind.
Speaker 3: And we've argued this many times in different circles. I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, well, and I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 3: but you know, I love Puff very much. I have
Speaker 3: a good relationship with him, and he has always been
Speaker 3: very good to me. You know, I've never ever witnessed
Speaker 3: any of this stuff. And that's generally what we say
Speaker 3: when you know someone and you love them and you've
Speaker 3: not seen it, but it does not make me numb
Speaker 3: to and or confused about what I saw on that
Speaker 3: video and also other things that I just believe to
Speaker 3: be true. So I think that you know, and I
Speaker 3: always tell mice, I think we as humans are walking
Speaker 3: contradictions that you know, we can love Pooky knowing that
Speaker 3: Pooky did some crazy stuff, right, We as black folks
Speaker 3: say free John John all the time, and it's like, bruh,
Speaker 3: John John was over there bugging you know.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying. And I mean, as long as we're
Speaker 1: honest about it.
Speaker 3: I think that because when our young people are watching us,
Speaker 3: when kids are watching us as they grow up, they
Speaker 3: hear what we say and they see how we act
Speaker 3: and how we react. And when someone that we don't
Speaker 3: know does something, we are automatically This is kind of
Speaker 3: like a question you could just jump in, but we
Speaker 3: are automatically like, ill, there's an X on you because
Speaker 3: you are a person that either I don't know or
Speaker 3: I don't like. But when it's someone that we know,
Speaker 3: we have familiarality with, or you know, at some point
Speaker 3: we appreciated there aret, their talent or whatever, and they
Speaker 3: do something, then it's kind of like h well, he
Speaker 3: ain't never do it to me, or should have done this?
Speaker 1: Or why didn't she leave? Well, why didn't this happen?
Speaker 1: Or that happen? And I don't know about all the
Speaker 1: other things. I think we will see what a jury
Speaker 1: says about sex trafficking or what a jury says about
Speaker 1: coheression and extortion and this and that and the third.
Speaker 1: But the abusive side, which is not what.
Speaker 3: He has been indicted of, by the way, it's not
Speaker 3: him abusing Cassie, is not there that part. I don't
Speaker 3: understand how people are debating that. No, I see, I'm
Speaker 3: not talking about you. You know you can't cause you. No,
Speaker 3: I'm talking about I see people online who are like, well,
Speaker 3: she might have done this or that and the third.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that may.
Speaker 3: Be because we have this contradiction of if it was
Speaker 3: happening by someone else that we did not know or
Speaker 3: appreciate for whatever reason, we'd be really pissed about it.
Speaker 3: But when it's somebody we do know a half familiarality with,
Speaker 3: we can make excuses for them.
Speaker 4: Well, we have a tendency.
Speaker 5: There's this thing in the psychological world that's known as
Speaker 5: confirmation bias, which means if I have a positive feeling
Speaker 5: towards you and I learned something negative, I have a
Speaker 5: tendency to disbelieve it. And if I have a positive
Speaker 5: feeling towards you and I and I hear something positive,
Speaker 5: I have a tendency.
Speaker 4: To believe it, or vice versa.
Speaker 5: If I have a negative feeling towards you and I
Speaker 5: hear something negative about you, I tend to believe it.
Speaker 5: And if I hear something positive while I think negative you,
Speaker 5: I tend to not believe it. But the important thing
Speaker 5: is exactly what you said. It is okay to love
Speaker 5: someone and believe that they should be held accountable because
Speaker 5: we live in a society like for example, one of
Speaker 5: the things now, I have never assessed Diddy, so I'm
Speaker 5: not saying this is true, but if I were to
Speaker 5: assess it, and one of the things that would be
Speaker 5: on the list of things I'd be considering is narcissism.
Speaker 5: And narcissists look for targets, and Tamika, You're not a
Speaker 5: great target, and they look for targets. They look for
Speaker 5: people with low self esteem that could be more easily controlled,
Speaker 5: and they look for people that don't understand their self
Speaker 5: worth they look for people need something from them that
Speaker 5: they can use to control them. And you would not
Speaker 5: be perceived by most narcissists as an easy target. So
Speaker 5: I'm not surprised that you would say, well, I always
Speaker 5: got this X, Y, and Z kind of treatment. Yeah,
Speaker 5: because you don't have the kind of personality that would
Speaker 5: have triggered him to do these alleged things.
Speaker 1: And I was not always this person.
Speaker 3: And that's why I know that what you're saying is true,
Speaker 3: because there was a time in my life where I was,
Speaker 3: you know, not living at home with my parents when
Speaker 3: I should have been, and then I had no money,
Speaker 3: you know, so I was kind of like living from
Speaker 3: pillow to posts, as they say, not listening, not being respectful,
Speaker 3: dropped off the school, and so it put me in
Speaker 3: situations where people were able to take advantage of me
Speaker 3: because they knew this girl doesn't have her shit together,
Speaker 3: she's out of whack, she looks crazy, she's not well kept,
Speaker 3: and they knew and they took advantage of that. And
Speaker 3: and I'm just I'm taking Cassie and people like that
Speaker 3: off the table. But to your point, people know who
Speaker 3: they can do certain things, right.
Speaker 5: That is absolutely correct and Narcissists are always looking for targets.
Speaker 5: Narcissists don't have relationships, and again, want to be clear,
Speaker 5: I don't I do not know m to be narcissists,
Speaker 5: but that's one of the things on the short list
Speaker 5: i'd be considering. And they always always look for targets,
Speaker 5: and you're not a great target. So it's not surprising
Speaker 5: that you would say, well, I always got treated pretty
Speaker 5: well because outside of the target, most people would say, oh,
Speaker 5: he was very nice in charming. I know a lot
Speaker 5: of celebrities that were at parties around him, and all
Speaker 5: of them have said to me, I wasn't aware of
Speaker 5: the things that were happening outside of what I saw
Speaker 5: at the White Party.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 5: And because none of them really lined up as targets,
Speaker 5: so they don't get they don't see it.
Speaker 3: And see me and my son and I argue this
Speaker 3: one point that because my son knows a lot of
Speaker 3: guys who work for Puff, they have they were like
Speaker 3: raised not by him, but like, what would you say
Speaker 3: in the environment.
Speaker 2: Since since ninety eight, I used to Mace is a
Speaker 2: close friend of mine that been around I know a
Speaker 2: lot of his security sad personal like people that were
Speaker 2: his personal assistance, assistance. So I've seen different elements from
Speaker 2: ninety eight until now, I know, and a lot.
Speaker 3: Of people and none of them, I mean, with the
Speaker 3: exception of Mace, because he said the man's evil and dis.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I'm not understand from him suicide. Yeah,
Speaker 2: with the exception of Maze, they had their own personal
Speaker 2: situation and it was finance. It was based on finances.
Speaker 2: It wasn't based on you know, a lot of the
Speaker 2: accusations that's dealing with now. But for the most part,
Speaker 2: they haven't seen this level of him, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. And a lot of them have like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, I know he was. They deal, they do
Speaker 2: deal with the narcissism, and they like, I know, he
Speaker 2: definitely was the person that wanted to control and he
Speaker 2: would do this and in all of those situations. But
Speaker 2: they just didn't see And I think and I'm not
Speaker 2: even saying they didn't see this version because what they
Speaker 2: what they're presenting inside this case, a lot of these things,
Speaker 2: you know, is about control or whatever. So you know,
Speaker 2: you have to take it, believe it or you don't.
Speaker 2: But I just think that what the media was projecting
Speaker 2: prior to that's just all these Diddy parties and it
Speaker 2: was just this freak ass where hundreds of people was
Speaker 2: in and he was just taping people and he was
Speaker 2: raping women and all that. Nobody that wasn't even a thing,
Speaker 2: you understand I'm saying. So I think that's what it was.
Speaker 2: And I think most people we were saying to yourself,
Speaker 2: like now when you're saying this Diddy parties, like a
Speaker 2: lot of us had went to parties that Puffet had
Speaker 2: and we never seen any situations like this. So I
Speaker 2: think that was the mindset going into the trial. Now
Speaker 2: when you look at the trial, you realize it's more
Speaker 2: geared around his personal relationships and how he carried on
Speaker 2: his sex life and how they utilized it and the
Speaker 2: people he utilized to control whatever whatever they're legend. So
Speaker 2: it's a different premise than it was before. You know,
Speaker 2: That's what had a lot Those were the conversation I
Speaker 2: was having. I was like, I know too many people
Speaker 2: that wouldn't be in the circumference of all this shit
Speaker 2: that they talk about. It just wouldn't have happened in
Speaker 2: that man. So now when we're looking up and say, okay,
Speaker 2: this is that man personal life. For the most part,
Speaker 2: it's him and the people and his staff that were
Speaker 2: you know, he were utilizing them and within his personal sex.
Speaker 1: So say so, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, that's what the accusations is, but that wasn't what
Speaker 2: they were saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way they project in other words, but my
Speaker 3: I mean, I hear what you're saying, y'all don't have
Speaker 3: to translate it. But for my own whatever is that
Speaker 3: the media made it seem like it was just any
Speaker 3: party you went to because people would actually say that
Speaker 3: to us and to other people, like, oh, you was
Speaker 3: at a ditty party, So it was a freak off
Speaker 3: because in their mind, you walk through the door and
Speaker 3: immediately in order for you to be here, you gotta
Speaker 3: get down. And that's just not the case. To your point,
Speaker 3: most of the environments that we've been in have been fantastic, beautiful,
Speaker 3: you know, everybody enjoined themselves. And then if these things
Speaker 3: are true to your point, it goes on at a
Speaker 3: time when folks don't see it, which is another part
Speaker 3: of how people get away with some of the things
Speaker 3: that they do. And again, not talking about Ditty so much,
Speaker 3: but the broader perspective is that a lot of people
Speaker 3: have another life that folks people know about, you know
Speaker 3: what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So, but anyway, and think about the way power exists, Like.
Speaker 5: If I'm aware of the other life as you put it,
Speaker 5: and he is Sean Colmes and everybody loves him and
Speaker 5: they love his music and they love his work, and
Speaker 5: he donuts to charity and.
Speaker 4: He does this, does that, and I accuse him of something.
Speaker 5: It is very often that the woman is not believed,
Speaker 5: and most women live in a world there's like I'm
Speaker 5: afraid to say anything because that person is very powerful.
Speaker 5: So all I can say is and this goes back
Speaker 5: to what you were saying to Meka, like I wish
Speaker 5: the internet would just take a pause. And part of
Speaker 5: the reason I wish that is people overvalue their opinions
Speaker 5: and think they should be able to share them about
Speaker 5: things they know nothing about. I have no idea what
Speaker 5: Diddy was doing in his personal life, and I think
Speaker 5: a lot of the stuff that Mice was just referring to.
Speaker 5: It's just like the media and people on social media
Speaker 5: like sharing their opinions and thoughts. Just because you like
Speaker 5: that dude music doesn't mean that he didn't do every
Speaker 5: single thing alleged in the indictment, and we need to
Speaker 5: just sit back and let the courts like review the
Speaker 5: evidence and say what happened and what didn't happen, and
Speaker 5: live with what the judgment is.
Speaker 3: Well, how do we say that, because we don't live
Speaker 3: with the judgment of a whole lot of things. We
Speaker 3: get upset. We say that black men are being railroad.
Speaker 3: And now you see that this issue with Tyler Perry
Speaker 3: has come up. And I don't know if you read
Speaker 3: the all the slides, because I read all the text
Speaker 3: messages in the.
Speaker 1: Slot, and I you know, you know it was some
Speaker 1: some funny business.
Speaker 3: I can tell that you know clearly this was a
Speaker 3: relationship that's outside outside of.
Speaker 1: The buying the bay the excuse me.
Speaker 3: This was a relationship that was outside of the boundaries
Speaker 3: of a work employee relationship. And I keep telling everybody
Speaker 3: that I work with, everybody that will listen to me.
Speaker 3: People probably so tired of me saying over and over
Speaker 3: again that you have to be very careful when you're
Speaker 3: the boss and you work with people and the types
Speaker 3: of relationships that you carry on with people, because it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter what that person is saying to you. They
Speaker 3: could be laying on the table butt, naked, everything open
Speaker 3: begging you.
Speaker 1: To take it.
Speaker 3: In the moment you touch it, you are the one
Speaker 3: with the power in that situation.
Speaker 1: And I keep telling people that, but nobody wants to
Speaker 1: listen to me.
Speaker 3: But you do have this element of folks who are like,
Speaker 3: well are Kelly and now Puff and then of course
Speaker 3: Bill Cosby and then now here we go with Tyler Perry.
Speaker 1: So all the.
Speaker 3: Big time, very successful black men seem to be taken
Speaker 3: out around sexual things, harassment, rape, things like that, and
Speaker 3: folks are not willing to accept that.
Speaker 1: They just like this is even if they don't like
Speaker 1: these people.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: Well, I want to be I want to be really careful,
Speaker 5: make sure I express myself accurately.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 5: One of the best things that you can do to
Speaker 5: protect your mental health is mind your own business.
Speaker 2: That's that's a good one, Yes it is, but it's true.
Speaker 4: It's absolutely true.
Speaker 5: If I want to be a mentally healthy person, I
Speaker 5: got to mind my own business, which I think is
Speaker 5: harder to do in today's eight then it's ever been before,
Speaker 5: because I have access to more of stuff that is
Speaker 5: not my business than ever before.
Speaker 4: But I have to I have to recognize it.
Speaker 5: If I want to have a healthy life and take
Speaker 5: care of my own mentality. I've got to learn how
Speaker 5: to mind my own business.
Speaker 1: And drink water and drink.
Speaker 5: Water and you know, exercise whatever. But like, just mind
Speaker 5: my own business. Now connected to that, I don't have
Speaker 5: to like the system, and I can oppose.
Speaker 4: The system, but in an individual basis, I don't know
Speaker 4: what Tyler Perry did or didn't do.
Speaker 5: I don't know what he said or didn't say, so
Speaker 5: I'm gonna just not judge that. But I'm not unaware
Speaker 5: of the pattern that black men seem to be targeted
Speaker 5: once they get a certain level of wealth. And I
Speaker 5: can say I oppose the system that seems to be
Speaker 5: targeting black men, but I don't know that that specific
Speaker 5: black men didn't do exactly what's allegedly I really don't
Speaker 5: know there.
Speaker 3: But how do you reconcile those two things when people
Speaker 3: feel like they're constantly attacked by the system, And now
Speaker 3: here we are in a situation where one after the
Speaker 3: next after the next, it's like they dropped like flies.
Speaker 1: I mean, what was his name, Cuba Gooding?
Speaker 3: I mean, is every time you turn around, it's one
Speaker 3: of us, even even Elliott, even.
Speaker 1: What's his name? The one from the movies that.
Speaker 3: You know, As far as I'm concerned, he was over
Speaker 3: there trying to protect himself from that woman.
Speaker 1: What's his name?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that was just In Creed, Yeah.
Speaker 3: The one who who who is in a relationship with
Speaker 3: Megan Good.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, major.
Speaker 3: Look at what happened to him, like you know, and
Speaker 3: every people will have their own opinion, but it was
Speaker 3: very clear the man told the lady leave him alone,
Speaker 3: He got out the car, he ran from the lady.
Speaker 1: Yes, did she have bruises?
Speaker 3: Yet she did, but nonetheless he they got into whatever
Speaker 3: they got into, and like my son says, top relationships,
Speaker 3: shit happened. And then on top of that, then he
Speaker 3: gets away from her and now somehow he becomes like
Speaker 3: he loses everything right as a result of that. So
Speaker 3: I'm just saying it's kind of hard for people to
Speaker 3: be able to decipher. And again I'm not saying whether
Speaker 3: folks did right or wrong, because if you bring r
Speaker 3: Kelly up around me, like my whole birthday, people kept
Speaker 3: playing r Kelly at all the parties and it was really.
Speaker 1: Making me upset.
Speaker 3: But when I turn around, everybody was having such a
Speaker 3: good time that I said he had go negative Nancy
Speaker 3: want to go over to the DJ, and the DJ
Speaker 3: is into it, like, yeah, they doing I don't smigny
Speaker 3: not and everybody's having a good time, and here I
Speaker 3: go negative Nancy finding my way to the DJ booth
Speaker 3: to say, please, don't play R Kelly. I did it
Speaker 3: the first night at Sylvia's. The DJ looked at me
Speaker 3: a little bit like what, and I'm like, yeah, we
Speaker 3: don't play R Kelly.
Speaker 1: But as every day went on, it's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to always be the one.
Speaker 3: But I don't want R Kelly played at my parties.
Speaker 3: I don't listen to R Kelly. I don't want to
Speaker 3: hear it. So I'm not trying to say that I'm
Speaker 3: defending any of them, but I can understand, especially as
Speaker 3: a black man, watching one after the next after the next,
Speaker 3: and on top of that, cousin Pooky, cousin John John,
Speaker 3: and even maybe me, we're all in the caught up
Speaker 3: in this system that just finds everything wrong with us,
Speaker 3: and it's hard for me to just sit here and
Speaker 3: be like, yeah, these people did all these things and
Speaker 3: they all need to go to jail for the rest
Speaker 3: of their lives.
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I agree with that, and I don't think
Speaker 5: all these people did all these things, and they all
Speaker 5: should go to jail for the rest of their lives,
Speaker 5: and they all deserve advocation winning if there are improprieties.
Speaker 5: But I want to go back like again, So let
Speaker 5: me bring up confirmation bias. One of the ways that
Speaker 5: racism works. Let's say I have a bias against black people,
Speaker 5: and as a consequence of that bias, I don't look
Speaker 5: at my song and see an upstanding, good person.
Speaker 4: And then I see my son in a video with
Speaker 4: a woman running from him.
Speaker 5: It is very easy for me and my negative bias
Speaker 5: to believe a negative thing about him. So when someone
Speaker 5: then says my son was being inappropriate with that woman,
Speaker 5: that's how the system works because there's a negative bias
Speaker 5: against black people in the system. So black people end
Speaker 5: up overcharged. They end up frequently charged when non black
Speaker 5: people wouldn't be. And one of the things that I
Speaker 5: would say, and I have lots of conversations, like, if
Speaker 5: you were a black celebrity, you have probably called me
Speaker 5: within the last couple of years and we have probably met,
Speaker 5: and I have to tell them, like you have to
Speaker 5: know you exist in a society that doesn't look at
Speaker 5: you and give you grace. So that means if you
Speaker 5: find yourself in a toxic situation, you are now risking
Speaker 5: all of what you have built. You have a higher
Speaker 5: responsibility because you have to be aware you live in
Speaker 5: a society that wants to see you fall. That's just
Speaker 5: the reality of what it's like to be a successful
Speaker 5: black man. So if I said, oh, I got a
Speaker 5: secret video of my song some women running from by.
Speaker 2: Soan, people would want to watch that.
Speaker 5: But if I said I got a secret video somebody
Speaker 5: running from mister Rogers, They're probably not as interested because
Speaker 5: they know the bias doesn't exist and people have a
Speaker 5: hard time believing.
Speaker 4: So we have an unfair out.
Speaker 1: Here, that's what you're said. We black out here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we black out here, and we have an unfair responsibility.
Speaker 5: But that responsibility is still there, and that is I
Speaker 5: have to be very careful with how I live my
Speaker 5: personal life.
Speaker 4: I have to be very careful with what I do.
Speaker 5: Like, can an average person send inappropriate text messages.
Speaker 4: To their employees?
Speaker 2: Probably because nobody cares.
Speaker 5: But if I were sitting there talking to Tyler Perry,
Speaker 5: I would say, if you want to say these things,
Speaker 5: go over and say the things to the person. Yes,
Speaker 5: because you text them, you're giving evidence, and that evidence
Speaker 5: will be devoured by the world differently simply because of you,
Speaker 5: who are a black man.
Speaker 1: We're gonna wrap it up.
Speaker 2: But I just want you to just on as we
Speaker 2: leave for Men's Mental Health Month, give just us black men, Well,
Speaker 2: I give us just one piece of advice to deal
Speaker 2: with this, all these things that we have to deal
Speaker 2: with every day, understanding the dynamic understanding that we black
Speaker 2: out here. You know, give what would be just a
Speaker 2: piece of advice that you can give just every black
Speaker 2: man for Mental health mon.
Speaker 4: Fight. That's what I would say.
Speaker 5: I would I would tell every black man to fight
Speaker 5: on the battlefields with which they're capable of fighting. Fighting
Speaker 5: an advocation leads to hope, and fighting an advocation leads
Speaker 5: to change. So I would say, advocate, push, push the boundary.
Speaker 5: It's like my way of fighting is. I am a
Speaker 5: black psychotherapist, and roughly ten percent of all psychotherapists are black.
Speaker 5: It's a wildly unrepresented, underrepresented community. And one of the
Speaker 5: ways that I fight is I exist in these white
Speaker 5: academic worlds and a lot of my books are academic
Speaker 5: and I will go to conferences where I'm the only
Speaker 5: black person on the stage speaking. And one of my
Speaker 5: ways of fighting is making sure I show up and
Speaker 5: I represent my culture in.
Speaker 4: The way that I do that.
Speaker 5: It's in the way that I dress, talk, walk, act,
Speaker 5: It's in everything that I do. One of the ways
Speaker 5: that my son fought is he made sure he was
Speaker 5: aligned with a basketball player and he doesn't wear Nike anymore.
Speaker 5: But whatever your battlefield is, make sure you fight. This
Speaker 5: world is not fair to us. It is a threat
Speaker 5: every single moment of every single day, and we have
Speaker 5: to we have to fight. And in that fight, we
Speaker 5: also have to understand that the best way we can
Speaker 5: fight is economically. We have to understand that dollars win fights.
Speaker 5: And there are two examples that I can get. The
Speaker 5: first one I'll be I'll be current. The first one
Speaker 5: is what's happening with the boycott with Target. The Target
Speaker 5: boycott is one of the most effective financial boycotts of
Speaker 5: the Common era, and it's leading to conversations within Target
Speaker 5: because they are losing massive amounts of money simply because
Speaker 5: black people said, we're not going to spend our dollars there.
Speaker 5: And economic fighting is one of the best. And the
Speaker 5: other thing I'll say about an example of that is
Speaker 5: Rosa Parks. Now we we were told, or I was
Speaker 5: told when I was studying history, that Rosa Parks and
Speaker 5: the boy the bus boycott in Montgomery was because Rosa
Speaker 5: Parks didn't sit down and it led to this huge
Speaker 5: uproar and then eventually the the bus companies allowed black
Speaker 5: people to sit whatever they wanted on the on the bus.
Speaker 5: But that's actually not the full story. The full story
Speaker 5: is well, first of all, there was a woman before
Speaker 5: Rosa Parks that wasn't the ideal candidate to trigger this boycott.
Speaker 4: There you go exactly.
Speaker 5: So they got a more ideal candidate and Rosa Parks
Speaker 5: who intentionally did what she did, and then they use
Speaker 5: that as an opportunity to stage a boycott. Now what
Speaker 5: they don't tell you is that all started because the
Speaker 5: bus companies raised their prices by a penny per ride,
Speaker 5: and they knew the predominant population using the bus were black,
Speaker 5: so now we got to pay more to be treated poorly.
Speaker 5: The black people said, no, this is not going to work,
Speaker 5: so we're not going to ride on your buses.
Speaker 4: The bus boycott lasted.
Speaker 5: Over a year, and in that time, the church community
Speaker 5: created car pooling to make sure black people could get
Speaker 5: to their appointments and to their jobs and those sorts
Speaker 5: of things. There were three bus companies in Montgomery, Alabama
Speaker 5: when the boycott started, and two of them went out
Speaker 5: of business, meaning they would rather go out of business
Speaker 5: than serve black people with dignity and respect. The remaining
Speaker 5: bus company thought to themselves, if we sort this out,
Speaker 5: we will be the last bus company remaining and thus
Speaker 5: will get all the business, and that is why they rely.
Speaker 5: They stopped that increase of up to a penny, and
Speaker 5: they stopped having black people sit in the back of
Speaker 5: the bus.
Speaker 4: So we think of this as like, oh, this.
Speaker 5: Woman got really tired and she didn't sit on the
Speaker 5: bus and the bus company decided to change.
Speaker 4: That's not true.
Speaker 5: We gave economic punishment to the bus companies for the
Speaker 5: way that they treated us, and that's what led to change. So,
Speaker 5: if you're going to tell me what's one thing that
Speaker 5: I would have say that black men in particular need
Speaker 5: to do, it's fight because in the fight is hope
Speaker 5: that the fight will lead towards change, and the most
Speaker 5: powerful thing in any journey of mental health is hope.
Speaker 5: So everyone needs to fight on the battlefields with which
Speaker 5: they have access to. My saw, he has a large audience.
Speaker 5: So one of the things he did to fight was
Speaker 5: I'm gonna throw these nikes away and I'm gonna make
Speaker 5: a video of me doing it. I'm gonna explain why
Speaker 5: that was. That was an advocatory step by him. Now,
Speaker 5: the average person who might be like a gym teacher
Speaker 5: or whatever, you got to find what your battlefield is.
Speaker 5: But we need to fight. We need to fight collectively.
Speaker 5: We need to give economic punishments to people who refuse
Speaker 5: to teach us with dignity and respect, and in those
Speaker 5: actions it leads to hope for change.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: You the man Elliott Elliott Connie Man, I tell you
Speaker 3: you guys, make sure you tap into Family Therapy, his
Speaker 3: podcast on the Black Effect pac podcast Network.
Speaker 1: He is our sibling in this space.
Speaker 3: And you know, we appreciate our brother Charlemagne of God
Speaker 3: and all of the team members there at Black Effect
Speaker 3: Podcast Network for giving us a platform to be able
Speaker 3: to share information and topics that some people might not
Speaker 3: find to be the what is it, you know? The
Speaker 3: trend the trending topics. Listen to what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: It is absolutely trending because it's trending in our lives,
Speaker 3: and mental health awareness is trending, as you said, Elliott,
Speaker 3: every single day. It's not just during a month for
Speaker 3: our men. It's not just during a moment for women,
Speaker 3: for families, for anybody. Every single day we're dealing with
Speaker 3: issues and trying to figure out ways to stay sane
Speaker 3: in a society that is completely out of control, whether
Speaker 3: it be the overstimulation of what we have on our
Speaker 3: phones every day, watching us be killed, watching our rights
Speaker 3: be rolled back, looking at a president who is completely
Speaker 3: our president needs you.
Speaker 1: You should call.
Speaker 3: Up to the White House and say my name is
Speaker 3: Elliott Kannie, and I don't support you, but I feel
Speaker 3: like I can help you. You need my health for real,
Speaker 3: because the brother is in trouble. I mean seriously, And
Speaker 3: you know I was thinking the other day is that
Speaker 3: I think presidents get held hostage right by their own
Speaker 3: team members. And because it's very clear that like when
Speaker 3: he comes out and he says, well, we can't really
Speaker 3: continue to deport the farmers, and you know, we got
Speaker 3: to make sure that the hotels are good. He says
Speaker 3: all these things which would have made since in the beginning,
Speaker 3: and then days later he goes to like, no, you know,
Speaker 3: we're gonna go back and go hard, and Ice needs
Speaker 3: to get out there and do what they need to do.
Speaker 3: It tells me that from the moment that he speaks
Speaker 3: until he goes back in the back room somewhere, he's
Speaker 3: got people who are white nationalists, like a man by
Speaker 3: the name of Stephen Miller and others who are telling
Speaker 3: him we have to stick to the Project twenty twenty
Speaker 3: five plan, even though he knows because he is even
Speaker 3: as a failed business person, he in some people's minds,
Speaker 3: they're like, he's not that fail shit. He made it
Speaker 3: to be president of the United States. And he lives
Speaker 3: in the Trump tap Like it doesn't matter if he
Speaker 3: has cash. People don't care about if you have cash
Speaker 3: in the bank. They care about what kind of car
Speaker 3: you drive, what kind of plane you fly on. They
Speaker 3: don't know that you gotta trade you ask for your head.
Speaker 3: They don't care about that.
Speaker 1: They just want you to have the stuff that looks
Speaker 1: like you have success. And so he looks like a
Speaker 1: very successful man.
Speaker 3: He's got Trump International Hotels, he's.
Speaker 1: Got all of this stuff. These people they think he
Speaker 1: knows what he's doing.
Speaker 3: And guess what, he knows that his businesses will not
Speaker 3: work without the population that they are trying to destroy
Speaker 3: in this nation, and that is the immigrants that make
Speaker 3: up a huge part of the workforce in America. And
Speaker 3: but you know what, he can't just go off and
Speaker 3: do and say whatever he wants because he promised all
Speaker 3: these people that he was going to help them fulfill
Speaker 3: their agenda and now he's stuck having to do it
Speaker 3: or else they'll be like Elon had different issues. So
Speaker 3: Elon said, I'm gonna put the shit in the newspaper.
Speaker 3: The other people they say, we control your security detail.
Speaker 1: But let me be.
Speaker 3: Quiet, all right, Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
Speaker 3: Elliott Connie.
Speaker 5: You know I agree with every word you know, and
Speaker 5: I would love to call it what I wouldn't say,
Speaker 5: I support you, but because I don't.
Speaker 1: You don't I said you don't.
Speaker 5: I don't support you, but no, I don't support you,
Speaker 5: but you do need help. But again, narcissism would be
Speaker 5: on the very short list of things I would be
Speaker 5: thinking about it.
Speaker 4: Why I would assess.
Speaker 1: Him too, that's full circle.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's.
Speaker 5: We live in a really difficult world. And I think
Speaker 5: it's hard being black out here. I think it's hard.
Speaker 5: I think it's hard being anything other than a sis
Speaker 5: gender white male and I and I think we have
Speaker 5: to I think we got to fight. Like I really
Speaker 5: mean that, like we I mean fight is a strong
Speaker 5: word and it evokes emotion, but I really we'd have
Speaker 5: to advocate. We have to stand up, we have to
Speaker 5: do what we think is right, and we have to
Speaker 5: bond together. When we bond together, we're essentially unstoppable. In
Speaker 5: history has bared that out. Yeah, so we're not always
Speaker 5: great at bonding together, but when we do, mountains literally move,
Speaker 5: that's right and history has absolutely.
Speaker 4: Shown that up.
Speaker 5: And on some level, I almost don't care how big
Speaker 5: the barrier or obstacle or oppressive attempt to put around
Speaker 5: my people because we have a historical history, we have
Speaker 5: a pattern of overcoming everything put in front of us.
Speaker 5: So all you're doing by doing the crazy things you're
Speaker 5: doing with Project twenty five is you're giving our future
Speaker 5: selves a story to tell because we're going to overcome
Speaker 5: this too, because that's what we always do.
Speaker 1: Absolutely well.
Speaker 3: I just hope that we don't perish in the midst
Speaker 3: of these people's wars that they're creating. But you know,
Speaker 3: like you said, even that will be okay. It's good
Speaker 3: to see you. Everybody needs an Elliott Connie in their lives.
Speaker 3: So get you an Elliott Connie and you can go
Speaker 3: listen to him at Family Therapy on the Black and
Speaker 3: Pect And you can go listen to Elliott Connie at
Speaker 3: Family Therapy on the Black Effect podcast network.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me. I love y'all so much.
Speaker 5: I support everything that y'all do, and the voices that
Speaker 5: you guys are for black people is incredibly powerful and.
Speaker 4: Impactful, and I hope you guys always know that.
Speaker 5: So when I say fight, I think you guys are
Speaker 5: great examples of people who advocate for what you believe
Speaker 5: in and always do that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. That was good. I mean, listen, here's the thing.
Speaker 3: He is, like what I like about Elliott, and there's
Speaker 3: a lot of there are people who they do one
Speaker 3: thing and that's all they can talk about. It is
Speaker 3: like one thing that you know, whatever, if it's if
Speaker 3: it's therapy, that's all they want to talk about. If
Speaker 3: it's politics, that's all they want to talk about. With him,
Speaker 3: you can go from politics to mental health to hot
Speaker 3: topics of the day, and he's able to sort of
Speaker 3: cover the gamut.
Speaker 1: And so that's why I like talking to him.
Speaker 3: I spend a lot of time listening to the things
Speaker 3: he says and trying to get his take. And like
Speaker 3: he said, we don't always agree, but I agree with
Speaker 3: him more than I don't.
Speaker 1: Agree with all the time.
Speaker 2: He's very sensible and he's very descriptive, right, and he
Speaker 2: breaks things down to where you let me like, he
Speaker 2: doesn't leave room for you to be like, well, what
Speaker 2: it's like he's very good at what he does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he is so, but you know, and he's also mature.
Speaker 3: You can always lived through some life, you know, and
Speaker 3: that's important. I mean, I think even with us, like
Speaker 3: when we're talking about things, sometimes people may not get it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. People don't always get it.
Speaker 3: And it's like you will, you know, but we have
Speaker 3: to learn that because we've been ahead of our time.
Speaker 1: On issues all the time. And then then next thing,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's saying what we already said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very strange. That brings me to my I
Speaker 2: don't get it. I have I have two I don't
Speaker 2: get it. Oh my god, to one of them is
Speaker 2: gonna be really quick. I just don't get anybody that
Speaker 2: still is a Trump supporter, like, I just don't get it.
Speaker 2: It's at this point you deal with mental health. You're
Speaker 2: dealing with some than that you need. Elliot Khanni, you
Speaker 2: definitely need to go see Ellia Connie. If you, if you,
Speaker 2: if you're looking at Trump right now, the where we
Speaker 2: are right now, and man, we said he was going
Speaker 2: to end the wars on day one, who has made
Speaker 2: every other war worse and about to have us on
Speaker 2: into World War three, if you're you're still trying to
Speaker 2: convince yourself or anyone else that Donald Trump is a
Speaker 2: good president, you're dealing with No, No, You're really dealing
Speaker 2: with some ship that we can't help you, Elliot Cohnnie
Speaker 2: might be able to help you, but I can't help you.
Speaker 1: I know, Tom can't we My you should not say.
Speaker 2: No, no, we can't. We can't help anybody that right now.
Speaker 2: If you in your home, you're like Trump Trump, you
Speaker 2: are dealing with Jim Jones Colt like mentality where where
Speaker 2: you might drink poison and jump off the roof because
Speaker 2: you just don't even realize where you are at this point.
Speaker 2: So that's just my first I don't get it. My second,
Speaker 2: I don't get it. It's a little more logical. It's serious.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you are living Harlem, from Harlem,
Speaker 2: if you're from New York City, you know, you know
Speaker 2: that there is an unwritten rule that during Malcolm X's
Speaker 2: birthday that the stores closed down. A lot of people
Speaker 2: didn't know. To me, said she didn't remember. She didn't know.
Speaker 2: So what I know is that on Malcolm X's birthday
Speaker 2: there is a three to four hour window that they
Speaker 2: shut all the stores down. I think it's from like
Speaker 2: one to four. It's three hour. I think it's like
Speaker 2: from one to four all of the stores shut down
Speaker 2: out of respect for Malcolm X, you know, and it's
Speaker 2: been going on for years. I happened to be walking
Speaker 2: on one twenty fifth Street during this and I was
Speaker 2: about to go into storey there. Yo, we got five
Speaker 2: more minutes because we gotta shut down, Like what you
Speaker 2: mean you gotta shut down? And I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: forgot is Malcolm X's birthday. And there was they were
Speaker 2: doing the march. You know, you see them walking down
Speaker 2: the streets and end up going somewhere else, driving off
Speaker 2: and leaving. But later on that day, I've seen that
Speaker 2: Chick fil A, who's only been there probably about a
Speaker 2: year now. I don't even know if Chick fil A
Speaker 2: has been on one twenty fifth Street a year, but
Speaker 2: they didn't honor this ship. Now like every other store,
Speaker 2: every other store I think from I want to say,
Speaker 2: from Lenox down to Saint Nick. All the stores are
Speaker 2: closed on one twenty fifth Street, and Chick fil A
Speaker 2: didn't want to honor it. And I seen people outside
Speaker 2: and they they refuse to let people in, like it
Speaker 2: was a mab like sis, y'all if y'all not.
Speaker 1: Go You saw the protest, yes.
Speaker 2: Literally saw the protests like now yeah, and they were
Speaker 2: standing in front of Chick fil A and they refused
Speaker 2: to let people in. And it's like for me, I
Speaker 2: would think that if you come to a community as
Speaker 2: a corporation, organization, franchise, you will want to respect the
Speaker 2: rules of the community. Because every other store, planning, fitness
Speaker 2: foot locker, Jimmy Jazz, I mean, you name the stores,
Speaker 2: all of them, Kentucky Fried Chicken, you name any store
Speaker 2: they understood they put they had their signs in their windows,
Speaker 2: store will be closed from one to four. An observers
Speaker 2: of Malcolm X's birthday, I don't understand why would chick
Speaker 2: for late and not get the memo, And I know
Speaker 2: somebody gave them because it's a thing everybody knows that
Speaker 2: they what they do is they go down the street.
Speaker 2: I think they go down like a day or two
Speaker 2: before and they notify.
Speaker 1: You A day or two is not enough.
Speaker 2: It is to notify you that the thing is gonna
Speaker 2: be shut down because we're giving you a whole day.
Speaker 3: I just said a day or two is not enough.
Speaker 3: It doesn't I think with you know me, I think
Speaker 3: about process. So I would say that people need a
Speaker 3: lot of time in order to know so that they
Speaker 3: can prepare themselves and just know what they have to do. However,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter if they found out.
Speaker 1: Two days before. Repebody else is doing it.
Speaker 2: Respective community should be.
Speaker 3: But you know a lot of times some of the
Speaker 3: people and I don't know if this is inappropriate to say,
Speaker 3: so I'm apologizing from the gate, and you can correct
Speaker 3: me if I'm wrong, because we used to say this.
Speaker 3: But it's a lot of things we used to say.
Speaker 3: We can't say no more. But a lot of those
Speaker 3: folks are foreigners. They like the owner or the managers,
Speaker 3: the people who run these businesses, they're not really from here.
Speaker 2: Is the manager's supposed to call a corporate office and
Speaker 2: let them, but the.
Speaker 3: Corporate office is automatically getting ready to tell you that
Speaker 3: they don't observe.
Speaker 2: Because that's not true because every other this what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to tell you, have every other franchise that close
Speaker 2: their doors. And I know the people in the store.
Speaker 2: They don't have the authorization to say we're not we're
Speaker 2: gonna close. No, they got the word from them, Okay,
Speaker 2: we're gonna respect the community. Because I already think it's
Speaker 2: disrespect that Malcolm X doesn't have a national Holidays but
Speaker 2: the fact that you won't even observe the little bit
Speaker 2: of the thing that he got from a six block radius,
Speaker 2: that you just shut your store down for three hours
Speaker 2: out of respect, and the community demands that. So when
Speaker 2: I watched the people outside of Chick fil A, and
Speaker 2: they was like, well, listen, if you don't respect Malcolm,
Speaker 2: then you can't We even don't respect you. Yeah, And
Speaker 2: I actually haven't been back.
Speaker 1: To Chick fil A since you shouldn't eat it nowhere.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't my kids like to eat it,
Speaker 2: so once in a while I'll buy. But now when
Speaker 2: they be like Chick fil AaB like nah, they don't
Speaker 2: respect Malcolm X, so we ain't. We ain't going there.
Speaker 1: Well, here's what I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: I agree with you, and I think that they got
Speaker 3: one protest, which is a warning now. And I don't
Speaker 3: know if folks want to wait all the way until
Speaker 3: next year, but they probably will to see if these
Speaker 3: people do right next year. But you can't forget about it.
Speaker 3: You have to make sure that next year it's clear. Okay,
Speaker 3: let's see what you're gonna do, and the next time,
Speaker 3: if they don't do it, it got their warning.
Speaker 1: They don't do it the next time.
Speaker 3: The whole it has to be you can't even eat
Speaker 3: at that particular store.
Speaker 1: It has to be closed. You can't stay there.
Speaker 3: That you take a page out of New Era Detroit's book,
Speaker 3: where they don't they're like your doors in our community.
Speaker 3: I think that's I agree with you. I was just saying,
Speaker 3: like we should make sure they are. They have now
Speaker 3: been informed a year.
Speaker 2: They have demed.
Speaker 3: But but you know, the turnover in these places, the
Speaker 3: ownership or whatever. It's a franchise, so it's not like
Speaker 3: the corporate office has but so much jurisdiction over what
Speaker 3: the local franchises do. Like the franchise, you know, there's
Speaker 3: a rule book. There's a rule book that has you know,
Speaker 3: certain things that they know. You can't have people if
Speaker 3: the whole company shuts down on Sundays and says you
Speaker 3: can't open yours on Sunday. But you don't necessarily have
Speaker 3: to follow every single detail. Your franchise has a little
Speaker 3: bit of room. So you got to find out, you know,
Speaker 3: been some work that has to be done. But I
Speaker 3: think what it has shown is that the people ain't playing.
Speaker 3: So hopefully you just shut shit down for three hours
Speaker 3: and be quaiet A.
Speaker 2: Don't go on the target list.
Speaker 1: Now, oh well there's that shut it down.
Speaker 2: And with that said, we've come to the end of
Speaker 2: another episode. We appreciate shout out to our guest today,
Speaker 2: Elliot Khannie extraordinariy psychologists.
Speaker 1: Will you He is a psychotherapist psycho therapist.
Speaker 2: He is an amazing individual, Like he's so cool and
Speaker 2: every time I see him, he always gives me love
Speaker 2: hugs and you know, it always gives me my flowers
Speaker 2: and I give him his He's a dope dude. Once again,
Speaker 2: continue to follow us. Let us know what you like,
Speaker 2: let us know what you don't like. Give us ideas
Speaker 2: about guests that you want to see. Let us know
Speaker 2: some topics. Tell us you love us, tell us you
Speaker 2: hate us, tell us anything. Make sure you follow us
Speaker 2: at tam Underscore Show on Instagram and on YouTube. It's
Speaker 2: t of my show PC. I'm not gonna always be right.
Speaker 2: Tamika D. Mallories and I could always be wrong, but
Speaker 2: we will both always and I mean always, be authentic.
Speaker 1: That's how