Speaker 1: Hey, fam I'm Jada Pinkett Smith and this is the
Speaker 1: Red Table Pop podcast, all your favorite episodes from the
Speaker 1: Facebook watch show in audio produced by Westbrook Audio and
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Please don't forget to rate and review
Speaker 1: on Apple podcast on this RTT. What you've done here
Speaker 1: is really groundbreaking. There's nothing like this that's been done.
Speaker 1: We should be asking for that and we should be
Speaker 1: doing that. Ice Cube and his demands for Black America.
Speaker 1: Politicians should never think I got you. They should always
Speaker 1: think I gotta do more to get this vote. This
Speaker 1: is an important conversation to have. We just can't say, well,
Speaker 1: nobody's doing anything for us. What is it that we want.
Speaker 1: We've been putting dignity before dollars. Now it's time for
Speaker 1: us to put them dollars up there with the dignity.
Speaker 1: Van Jones. We love to compete on an even playing field.
Speaker 1: There's something wrong with the NFL superstar Brandon Marshall. The
Speaker 1: first time I'm voted, it was like pop Quinns for
Speaker 1: me that I wasn't prepared for. The first time I
Speaker 1: voted was hands down stressful day and a new family
Speaker 1: face joins the table as a black woman. Just want
Speaker 1: to say, it is just so awesome to sit here
Speaker 1: with three black men who are so intelligent. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's bring Tyler out. Y Tyler well beautiful, so much
Speaker 1: brighter than it looks on TV. Tyler is a talented musician, filmmaker, actor,
Speaker 1: and a close family friend. And he's extremely passionate about
Speaker 1: today's our t T So we had to have him
Speaker 1: at the table. What you're going to hear at this
Speaker 1: red table effects all of our lives in a big,
Speaker 1: big way. It's historic and has an impact on every
Speaker 1: single one of us, and we cannot wait to talk
Speaker 1: to the man behind it. So let's welcome the one
Speaker 1: and only Ice to He's an icon, spread out, a trump,
Speaker 1: a movie star, dominant and a successful business on that
Speaker 1: I want to welcome everybody to the launch of Big
Speaker 1: Three Now. Legendary rapper Ice Cube has created a brilliant
Speaker 1: contract with Black America. Shortly after the death of George Floyd,
Speaker 1: Cube assembled a team of experts and wrote a twenty
Speaker 1: two page plan to right the wrongs of the past.
Speaker 1: Fed Up with the lack of progress, Cuba's insisting laws
Speaker 1: must be changed in all areas of inequality. His goal
Speaker 1: everything from better schools, higher paying jobs, and healthcare to
Speaker 1: major police reform, Cuba's demanding politicians signed the contract to
Speaker 1: earn the black vote. How y'all doing good, Cube, I
Speaker 1: know that you decided that you wanted to do this
Speaker 1: contract once George Floyd was murdered. Of course, after I've
Speaker 1: seen that with George Floyd, it kind of shook me
Speaker 1: to my core, you know, seeing a man face down
Speaker 1: on the ground like that, you know, with this white officer,
Speaker 1: you know, looking into the camera, just taking a black
Speaker 1: man's life, having a man screamed for his mama. It
Speaker 1: just reminded me of stories I heard of when a
Speaker 1: slave or somebody would get out of line and they
Speaker 1: would pull everybody around, just show the discipline and made
Speaker 1: everybody watched and lived that horror. So I canceled everything.
Speaker 1: You know. I was supposed to go on Good Morning
Speaker 1: America that day, and I just canceled that. I was
Speaker 1: promoting a movie with Tracy Ellis Ross called High Note,
Speaker 1: which is actually a good movie. But thank you, thank you,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't take it no more. I just was
Speaker 1: so mad and so hurt. But then I was like,
Speaker 1: something needs to change, something needs to be done. And
Speaker 1: we need to get some experts together, and we need
Speaker 1: to put together something that's concrete that we all, no
Speaker 1: matter who you are, can grab ahold of and say, damn,
Speaker 1: it's gonna help my people. Voting is great, but voting
Speaker 1: with a purpose is better. Like we're gonna get something
Speaker 1: from this. You tweeted recently, que I've turned into a
Speaker 1: single issue voter. My single issue is whoever does the
Speaker 1: most for Black Americans will get my vote. If you
Speaker 1: leave us blank, I will leave you blank. I feel like, Yo,
Speaker 1: it's somebody that I'm not digging. I'm not gonna vote
Speaker 1: for you. I love all minorities, but we need to
Speaker 1: specifically deal with what's happening with black Americans because we're
Speaker 1: the ones who have really suffered from slavery all the
Speaker 1: way back in the day. When you start looking around,
Speaker 1: you say, damn, everything needs to be fixed. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, what are we asking for as black people?
Speaker 1: I'm telling you cute. Put in something like this together
Speaker 1: really help me get more educated. You think you know
Speaker 1: and you understand, but it really enlightened me on on
Speaker 1: a lot of things. I was just gonna say in
Speaker 1: this contract is so important because there's so many Black
Speaker 1: Americans in particular that are dissatisfied with both the Republican
Speaker 1: and the Democratic Party and they feel like the parties
Speaker 1: aren't doing anything for them. But we have to have
Speaker 1: an ask. We have to come to the table. We
Speaker 1: just can't come out and say, well, nobody's doing anything
Speaker 1: for us. What is it that we want? And we
Speaker 1: also have to understand that people kind of treat us
Speaker 1: like all black people think alike. That is not true.
Speaker 1: We are individuals just like everybody else, and we have
Speaker 1: different opinions on how things have to run. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people think I don't I say, don't vote,
Speaker 1: but that's not true. My thing is politicians should never
Speaker 1: think I got you or he's gonna vote for me.
Speaker 1: They should always think I gotta do more to get
Speaker 1: this vote, and they will do more. All parties have
Speaker 1: to pay attention to our needs. Parties have to pay
Speaker 1: attention to what we need done. We gotta let them know, hey,
Speaker 1: with y'all, I gotta do more, or we gotta we
Speaker 1: gotta start doing something different because what's happening is one
Speaker 1: party is putting us in their pocket, and one party
Speaker 1: is not paying attention to us at all, and so
Speaker 1: we're not getting anything. So we gotta break loose of that.
Speaker 1: But we gotta say, hey, you want this, you gotta
Speaker 1: work for it. I don't care what part do you
Speaker 1: come from. So that's how we're gonna get more things done.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to shake the trees a little bit.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to turn these politicians over and shake
Speaker 1: their pockets out. I gotta do it right. Hey, let
Speaker 1: them cruise right. I feel you on that. Now we're
Speaker 1: gonna go through the Contract for Black America and bring
Speaker 1: on best selling author attorney and seeing them political contributor
Speaker 1: Mr Van Joe. It is so nice to have some
Speaker 1: black men at the table. Black man, I've been begging
Speaker 1: to come every time. I'm like please, please. First, I
Speaker 1: want to say I'm mad at ice Cube because he
Speaker 1: had come and messed up the whole game politically. Everybody
Speaker 1: was trying to do it the sneaky way you might try. No,
Speaker 1: we want some stuff. We didn't even know you can
Speaker 1: do that. We could actually ask the stuff. That's that's
Speaker 1: so let me tell you that, man. This really gave
Speaker 1: me an opportunity to really break down and go like
Speaker 1: hell yeah, we should be asking for that, and hell yeah,
Speaker 1: we should be doing that for me. It was a
Speaker 1: real education. But let's start with some proposals in the
Speaker 1: contract that jumped out at me. Um que. You want
Speaker 1: to change the way schools are funded, that's so important,
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness. Right now it's based on local taxes,
Speaker 1: you know, property taxes, and that that just can't be
Speaker 1: I think that's crazy because you're gonna have better taxes
Speaker 1: revenue in the in the better neighborhoods, and you're gonna
Speaker 1: have poor tax revenue in the poor neighborhoods. And what
Speaker 1: it should be done is the state should look at
Speaker 1: all the students and divide the money up evenly. And
Speaker 1: that would make our schools better overnight because they would
Speaker 1: be better funded. Yeah that if you look at other countries,
Speaker 1: that's how they do it. You know, they have one
Speaker 1: pot and then it's per student, and that way schools
Speaker 1: that need a boost get it overnight. And some schools
Speaker 1: they'll live with a little less money going to them.
Speaker 1: You know, maybe you're not able to get a new
Speaker 1: gym this year, or you might not able to get
Speaker 1: a new artificial turf, But it's really important to give
Speaker 1: students a chance in poor neighborhoods. This is a major thing.
Speaker 1: You got kids going to school now, thirty three kids
Speaker 1: in the classroom, six books, no talk, and then literally
Speaker 1: you can get in a car in fifteen minutes later
Speaker 1: you can be in the school where everything is electronic,
Speaker 1: everything is a screen. Like I don't mean different neighbors,
Speaker 1: like different centuries. Some of the stuff that the Cube
Speaker 1: is talking about. Uh, it may strike people who don't
Speaker 1: understand the problem as extreme or whatever, but you're dealing
Speaker 1: with extreme inequality. If they want us to be able
Speaker 1: to compete, fine, listen, we love to compete on an
Speaker 1: even playing field. But if you've got to give my
Speaker 1: kids a two strikes in your our policy and your
Speaker 1: kid has a twenty strikes policy, don't point to the scoreboard.
Speaker 1: There's something wrong with the game, and it starts with education.
Speaker 1: When we found out that the HBC, HBC used the
Speaker 1: disparity in the endowments that they're getting, Like there's a
Speaker 1: hundred two HBC use and between all of them, they're
Speaker 1: getting two point one billion dollars between all of between yes,
Speaker 1: two point one billion dollars to spread amongst the hundred
Speaker 1: to HBCUs by the same token Harbor. It gets forty
Speaker 1: billion dollars just for that one school. That's crazy. That's
Speaker 1: what we're dealing with it, you know, we're dealing with
Speaker 1: a situation of total inequality. There was another point in
Speaker 1: the contract that I've just loved. It was the mandatory
Speaker 1: civil rights and anti racism classes. We gotta teach our history.
Speaker 1: It's important for us to not sit back and let
Speaker 1: um Texas or whoever come up with these books, Uh,
Speaker 1: teach our kids history. But we also need help economically.
Speaker 1: You know, we all come from something, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, And we know how we was treated when
Speaker 1: we didn't have money, and we know how we treat
Speaker 1: it now. So if we could get a little more
Speaker 1: money into our communities, I guarantee you the treatment would
Speaker 1: start to get better. So, you know, we've been putting
Speaker 1: dignity before dollars. I think now it's time for us
Speaker 1: to put them dollars up there. Here with the dignity,
Speaker 1: we have to close the wealth gap, you know, with
Speaker 1: thirteen point five percent of the country, So why are
Speaker 1: we only getting three percent of loans? Some of these
Speaker 1: things that I was looking into, I was like, damn
Speaker 1: this isn't already in place, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: This seems like it's common sense that you know, we
Speaker 1: should get more than three percent of loans that's giving
Speaker 1: out in America. And when you really look deep into
Speaker 1: what's going on, there's no way for us to ever
Speaker 1: get on our feet, you know. So we gotta do
Speaker 1: something different because we can't keep playing the same game.
Speaker 1: Speaking of loans, you know, there's a point in the
Speaker 1: contract when you talk about interest rates on black loans
Speaker 1: to be the same average rates as whites. They charge
Speaker 1: us more to get the money, and charges more to
Speaker 1: even get the money. And I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of things the government could do. There's a lot of
Speaker 1: things the private sector can do. Right now, we're focused
Speaker 1: on the government because of an election is about to happen.
Speaker 1: They try to make us think America is a household
Speaker 1: that's broke and we don't have the money to get
Speaker 1: the new Jordan's this year because we broke. That's how
Speaker 1: they make us think we ain't got enough money for
Speaker 1: y'all because we broke. But America creates currency. It's a
Speaker 1: currency creator. That's why I whenever there's a war, they
Speaker 1: go click click click, and then the billions are there.
Speaker 1: Whenever the you know, this pandemic click click, click, three
Speaker 1: trillion is there. They always say inflation is gonna run
Speaker 1: high if you print money, but inflation hasn't moved. So
Speaker 1: the money is there to help the communities. We just
Speaker 1: got to push the politicians to do it. The thing
Speaker 1: about it is, I mean, you just saw it happened.
Speaker 1: They You just saw the government fire three separate trillion
Speaker 1: dollar cannons at the economy and didn't hit a poor
Speaker 1: person the whole time. So you know, I remember when
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars with a lot of money. Now it
Speaker 1: doesn't say like a lot of money. This regime has
Speaker 1: fired three trillion, and they might do another trillion before Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: So what he's talking about is true. It's really it's reality,
Speaker 1: and the FED has leaned in so far to make
Speaker 1: sure the stock market stays up. Look, you see people
Speaker 1: don't have jobs. People walking around here don't know. People
Speaker 1: getting evicted by the gazillions right now while we're talking,
Speaker 1: don't have healthcare. I can't see a doctor. But the
Speaker 1: stock markets through the roof. Why because of the black
Speaker 1: people never talk about the FED cube is causing a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of problems. I'm telling you, if you have
Speaker 1: to start glitching right now, if you start glitching, it's
Speaker 1: not your computer. I always be saying stuff like that
Speaker 1: and people be looking at me like no, and I'm
Speaker 1: like no, this is real, Like they're just and people
Speaker 1: think that, people think that that's not how it works,
Speaker 1: but it does, and it's a real issue. The whole
Speaker 1: thing is, we can't be really looking out for too
Speaker 1: many other people because we are pretty raggedy right now.
Speaker 1: It's time for us to get it together. We gotta
Speaker 1: understand we're living in a capitalistic society that only respects money.
Speaker 1: This society, money is their god. It's not our god,
Speaker 1: but it's their god, and we have to respect it
Speaker 1: as such. They don't care about people as much as
Speaker 1: they care about money. And until we get a hold
Speaker 1: of some of that, we're gonna be treated like we
Speaker 1: have none of it. And that's what's happening. They've made
Speaker 1: us the weakest link in the change. So you gotta
Speaker 1: typen up the weakest link. And you know it's systematic.
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk a little bit about the importance
Speaker 1: of black banks. I'll talked to a leader of a
Speaker 1: black bank, and I said, well, what if we got
Speaker 1: government to pump more money into your bank so you
Speaker 1: can lend more money to black people. He's said, we
Speaker 1: don't really want government money because they're gonna put so
Speaker 1: many regulations on it. Our customers can't jump through all
Speaker 1: these thresholds that they have to meet to get the loans,
Speaker 1: and nobody really meets all these crazy requirements. So the
Speaker 1: key is to go in there and try to break
Speaker 1: down those regulations in a way and say, look, black
Speaker 1: money to a black bank. We gotta do things the
Speaker 1: black way, you know, we gotta be able to tailor
Speaker 1: make something for our customers. So those things are mucking
Speaker 1: up the system where you know, the money can't float
Speaker 1: like it should. Correct if you go to the government
Speaker 1: and how the government do it, they're gonna put in
Speaker 1: so much red taper whatever, you're gonna wish you would
Speaker 1: even not have the conversation half the time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: talked to a guy at JP Morgan who who they
Speaker 1: did an experiment where they lent money to over four
Speaker 1: hundred people who normally couldn't get a loan at a
Speaker 1: regular bank. They kind of ease off the restrictions and
Speaker 1: let these people get along. He said, do you know
Speaker 1: how many people did not pay their loan back? I
Speaker 1: said how many? He said too? Wow. Two. So when
Speaker 1: we get money and we're responsible, we pay it back
Speaker 1: because we know if we don't, they're gonna give it
Speaker 1: to us. So we we are trustworthy if we can
Speaker 1: actually get along. You want police reform in the contract,
Speaker 1: So give us the top line on this qualified immunity.
Speaker 1: That's the key. You know, when people can do stuff
Speaker 1: to you and they know they're gonna get off um,
Speaker 1: then what's stopping them. It gives them the go ahead
Speaker 1: to harmon. So qualified immunity gotta go. I also think
Speaker 1: police should have, you know, liability insurance. If they miss
Speaker 1: use their gun or whatever their power, they lose their license.
Speaker 1: A taxi driver needs a license, said, your taxi cab,
Speaker 1: you take your license away? You can't, you can't dry
Speaker 1: your cab. You mess up as a cop, take your license,
Speaker 1: suspend your license. So do you hate me more than
Speaker 1: indeed your family? Do you want to be racist more
Speaker 1: than you want to be a cop? You know, we
Speaker 1: pay for them to be police, and then we pay
Speaker 1: for them when they whoop us. And we got to
Speaker 1: sue them, taxpayers pay again to settle the lawsuit, identifying
Speaker 1: that what's called the bad apples and getting them off
Speaker 1: the force. Don't let them go to another police force
Speaker 1: down the road. Kick them off. It needs to be
Speaker 1: the nationwide database so we can see who these bad
Speaker 1: cops are and what they've done. I love what que
Speaker 1: was saying about. You know, do you want to kill
Speaker 1: this black man more than you want to feed your family.
Speaker 1: I just think that extra step and make a guy
Speaker 1: think twice before he hurt somebody for nothing, especially right now,
Speaker 1: because you see time and time again that the police
Speaker 1: officers are getting off when they're getting charged, they're not
Speaker 1: getting convicted for the crime that they're committing. So it
Speaker 1: just keeps perpetuating the same thing. Oh we're not going
Speaker 1: to get in trouble for this, so I can I
Speaker 1: can kill. The term is called impunity. Uh, you can
Speaker 1: do something with impunity with where nothing happens to you.
Speaker 1: If you have eight hundred thousand people, which is how
Speaker 1: many police officers were blessed to have. I'm from a
Speaker 1: law enforcement family, so I know a little bit about
Speaker 1: this besides being an attorney. If you have eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand people, and you give them all guns, badges, batons,
Speaker 1: fast cars, tasers, pepper spray, helicopters, dogs, the whole deal,
Speaker 1: and if they go out and keep the peace. But
Speaker 1: we we we respect you so much, We like you
Speaker 1: so much. No matter what you do. You will never
Speaker 1: be disciplined, demoted, fired, sued, or jailed no matter what
Speaker 1: you do. The Police Officers Union to have set up
Speaker 1: when you can't be easily disciplined, demoted, or fired, even
Speaker 1: if everybody knows you're a cowboy. I think the police
Speaker 1: name more services. I think they need more specialists to
Speaker 1: deal with certain things. We don't always need the tough
Speaker 1: guys to be police, you know, we need to need
Speaker 1: the common sense guys sometimes. So the funding the police
Speaker 1: became a bad word that, But we just want better
Speaker 1: police and you wouldn't have to defund anything if they
Speaker 1: just treated us right. Next, we have equal health care
Speaker 1: facilities in all neighborhoods, regardless of demographics. Yes, mean, that
Speaker 1: just sounds like human rights. Like to me, that just
Speaker 1: sounds like that should be basic. If you fix Black America,
Speaker 1: the rest of America is gonna be fine, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? If you get the people who are
Speaker 1: having real problems, but they do it the opposite. They
Speaker 1: take care of the community that don't need the help first,
Speaker 1: then they say they have no money for everybody else.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't make sense. You saw it with this pandemic,
Speaker 1: the humor of the impact of our community not having
Speaker 1: access to healthcare. This pandemic jumped on us because we
Speaker 1: already had an epidemic of diabetes, already had an epidemic
Speaker 1: of high black pressure, already had an epidemic of obesity.
Speaker 1: So we were like a yummy snack for this virus
Speaker 1: that wasn't because of the virus, that was because of
Speaker 1: the racism in the public health care system before the
Speaker 1: virus got here. So some of the stuff that he's
Speaker 1: talking about will help black people, but it also will
Speaker 1: help everybody. A human rights agenda led by black people
Speaker 1: always helped everybody. But I thought it was so interesting
Speaker 1: when you talked about the responsibilities of us as a
Speaker 1: black community. I just don't think we need to give up.
Speaker 1: We're kind of giving in to what's what's out there.
Speaker 1: We're falling into the cess pool that they have for
Speaker 1: us to fall into. So we just gotta fight harder
Speaker 1: to to stand up right clean up our communities in
Speaker 1: any way we can. I just don't want us to
Speaker 1: throw our hands up and just say, man, this is
Speaker 1: just how it is. We gotta be like this because
Speaker 1: our neighborhoods are like that. There's things we could do
Speaker 1: to fight the system. There's things we can do to
Speaker 1: fight the power. That's really what that's all about. Our
Speaker 1: condition is from the hundreds of years of a system
Speaker 1: that really funneled us into this condition. So we really
Speaker 1: have to fight against that every day, and we can't
Speaker 1: let a day go by where we relax and just
Speaker 1: give in and say, man, this is just how it is.
Speaker 1: We have to come up with measurable means to hold
Speaker 1: us accountable. Just like we want to hold white America accountable,
Speaker 1: we have to hold ourselves accountable as well. That's the
Speaker 1: real thing. There's a certain level of importance that we're
Speaker 1: not putting on holding ourselves accountable for what we're putting
Speaker 1: out about ourselves. What are we saying about ourselves. I
Speaker 1: feel like a huge dilemma for us as black people
Speaker 1: is that the media in the industry wants to see
Speaker 1: us in a certain light. In the music industry, you're
Speaker 1: taught that, oh, if you're black and you wrap about
Speaker 1: violence and money, that's gonna make you more money. Labels
Speaker 1: are going don't want to sign you if you're talking
Speaker 1: about violence. More so if you're than if you're a
Speaker 1: conscious partist, Yes exactly. But but how do we break
Speaker 1: the cycle? Well, you know, it's a complicated role because
Speaker 1: when we first did our music in w A, we
Speaker 1: never thought we would be you know, on the radio.
Speaker 1: We thought it was just gonna be straight underground music.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you do something for the art of it, and
Speaker 1: then a company like viacom and say, hey, this is
Speaker 1: pop and they'll take it to the top. The positive
Speaker 1: music sometimes get pushed to the side, and in the
Speaker 1: launchy hardcore stuff gets promoted, published and pushed out there
Speaker 1: and marketed and it puts an indprint and other young
Speaker 1: artists coming up to oh this is the way I
Speaker 1: must need to do it to get on, and artists
Speaker 1: can't be afraid to show something new, you know. Showing
Speaker 1: something new is usually when you break out. I remember,
Speaker 1: everybody is doing hardcore gangster nothing could penetrated, and then bam,
Speaker 1: Kanye come out with college Dropout, you know, which is
Speaker 1: basically the backpack rappers Bible and you know, so it's
Speaker 1: really all about having the courage to break the modes
Speaker 1: and your artists and not letting anybody put you on
Speaker 1: the box, not even your own community. Hollywood has been
Speaker 1: complacent in in our treatment in this country. You know,
Speaker 1: I think kids learned how to treat us when they're
Speaker 1: watching shows. You learned, okay, when I become a cop,
Speaker 1: this is how you do them, and they should look
Speaker 1: to do things to help us reverse that. We have
Speaker 1: to put pressure on these companies that we love. You know,
Speaker 1: we watch their movies, we support them. It's time for
Speaker 1: them to pay back and help us create better images.
Speaker 1: If you produce something great and top shelf, people will come.
Speaker 1: You know, the same amount of black people went to
Speaker 1: go see Black Panther as went to go see Straight
Speaker 1: out of Company. I didn't want to go back as
Speaker 1: far as boys in the hood. I don't want to
Speaker 1: date myself. But we need a place where we can
Speaker 1: get those made so we can give our people at
Speaker 1: least choice. You said that you want a formal apology
Speaker 1: to Black Americans. What would that look like? You know,
Speaker 1: to me, it would come from, you know, the highest
Speaker 1: officer of the land. You know, the President. Um, we can.
Speaker 1: We'll take it from the Senate, We'll take it from
Speaker 1: the House, Supreme Court, whoever. I feel like, uh, they
Speaker 1: want to really start making amends with what was done
Speaker 1: to our ancestors here in this country. That's what we
Speaker 1: want and we do need to economic and social justice.
Speaker 1: You know, we're not asked for that. We demanding that.
Speaker 1: Whether they apologize or not, you know, that's on them.
Speaker 1: But they got to do right by the people. I
Speaker 1: agree with with you, but to choose between an apology
Speaker 1: and the check, give me the check. However, it's very
Speaker 1: hard to make progress and so unthinkable that you would
Speaker 1: do something like that and then not acknowledge it. There's
Speaker 1: a global precedent for it. There's a historic precedent for it.
Speaker 1: The Germans, they mean, they acknowledge what they what they
Speaker 1: did when it came to the Holocaust, and everybody thinks
Speaker 1: that's appropriate because what was done was so horrific. Germany
Speaker 1: could not come back into the Community of Nations if
Speaker 1: they did not do that. I think another another part
Speaker 1: of the problem is that white people think that okay,
Speaker 1: because it wasn't me, it was my ancestors, we don't
Speaker 1: owe you an apology because I had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with that. But the issue is not necessarily that it
Speaker 1: wasn't you. It's the systematic setback that leaves black people
Speaker 1: way behind in the race. Yeah, it wasn't you, but
Speaker 1: it happened in your name, it happened on your land,
Speaker 1: it happened in your territory. Okay, you're not your ancestors.
Speaker 1: But if you're keeping their systems in place, that's keeping
Speaker 1: us in the same position that we was in the
Speaker 1: in the in the sixties or or before. You're don'na
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge that you are perpetuating a system and
Speaker 1: it's the same system that held us back. Not everything
Speaker 1: that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can
Speaker 1: be changed until at least it's faced. And all ways
Speaker 1: things just face it, just face up to it. And
Speaker 1: we can't unbury all these people, we can't unlnch all
Speaker 1: these people, we can't unassault all of these women. But
Speaker 1: we have to be able to face it. And when
Speaker 1: we face it, everybody's shoulders can come down a quarter
Speaker 1: and everybody can breathe a little bit more deeply than
Speaker 1: when some people are living in denial and other of
Speaker 1: us are living in rage. That's now You're never gonna
Speaker 1: quite with the same outcome. You said something interesting, then
Speaker 1: something just clicked from me. As far as the necessity
Speaker 1: for an apology, we as a nation can acknowledge what
Speaker 1: has happened, what has been done to black people in
Speaker 1: this country, I feel like them, it would help us
Speaker 1: move on a bit easier, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: As long as we as a nation stay in a
Speaker 1: state of denial and said it makes the struggle difficult.
Speaker 1: I mean, what I need is atonement. I need action
Speaker 1: at the end of the day. If the powers that
Speaker 1: be that running this country don't feel that it's fit
Speaker 1: to apologize, then the citizens are gonna they're gonna take
Speaker 1: that as a cute. It has to be done in
Speaker 1: a ceremonial manner. And I'm with mama, Hey, hey, a tone,
Speaker 1: Actually do something, you know what I mean? Put your
Speaker 1: we don't hurt enough lips service. You know that's why
Speaker 1: we're here. You know it's time for action. If you're
Speaker 1: in a family and it's Thanksgiving dinner and two of
Speaker 1: the children out of the ten were horrifically abused while
Speaker 1: they were children, and now you all have to sit
Speaker 1: at this table and act like nothing happened and pretend
Speaker 1: that everything has always been cool. But then you why
Speaker 1: is this child acting out? Why is this child unhappy?
Speaker 1: We must be something wrong with them. If you don't
Speaker 1: acknowledge the history of that family and what happened, you
Speaker 1: can't understand what's going on. Now. Everybody has to pile
Speaker 1: lie on top of lie on top of lie, when
Speaker 1: the realities if everybody could just say, you know what
Speaker 1: happened to that child, you know what was done to
Speaker 1: that child. Now what are we gonna do as a
Speaker 1: family about it? Yeah that's the point. Yeah, that's real.
Speaker 1: I actually love that analogy. Yeah, that's that's a good one.
Speaker 1: All right, everyone, we have an election coming up in
Speaker 1: four weeks. An NFL superstar, sports analysts and mental health
Speaker 1: advocate Brandon Marshall was here with important information we all
Speaker 1: need to know doing. Let me tell you something. We
Speaker 1: are blessed today. That's today at this table four smart
Speaker 1: black man. I love this. I love it. The pole
Speaker 1: voting process is just it's intimidating. I thought there was
Speaker 1: a gap that wasn't being filled and let's teach and
Speaker 1: people the mechanics of voting. The inspiration for me was
Speaker 1: hearing professional athletes be vulnerable. I mean, this group chat
Speaker 1: with a lot of Hall of Fame football players and
Speaker 1: a lot of these guys that I never voted before.
Speaker 1: A lot of these guys said, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: even know how to register. I am one of those guys, right,
Speaker 1: Like the first time I voted was in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, and I didn't know when I went to
Speaker 1: the ballot box that I was going to be voting
Speaker 1: on twenty five different races. I had no clue. It
Speaker 1: was like pop quiz for me that I wasn't prepared for.
Speaker 1: I was looking at where's Obama's name? And that's it.
Speaker 1: We gotta be honest with ourselves and we gotta understand
Speaker 1: what we don't know. And there's a lot of us
Speaker 1: that's going to be voting for the very first time.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of us that feel like our vote
Speaker 1: doesn't count. So who is teaching that that group of
Speaker 1: people how to approach the ballot box? How do I
Speaker 1: register to vote? There's thirteen thousand different voting districts. The
Speaker 1: deadline to register in Florida is different than the dead
Speaker 1: line to register in California. Do we know that can
Speaker 1: we register the day of? But I think that the
Speaker 1: first time I voted was the hands down most stressful days.
Speaker 1: I literally almost was in tears because I didn't understand
Speaker 1: that there's so much here. Who are these people, what
Speaker 1: is their main focus? What is their I was lost,
Speaker 1: and I really agree with you that we need thorough
Speaker 1: education on how to vote, who is going to be
Speaker 1: on the ballot, exactly what they stand for, because it's very,
Speaker 1: very confusing. We got people ready to go vote, but
Speaker 1: when they get to the ballot box for the very
Speaker 1: first time there, they don't even know if their idea
Speaker 1: is valid. Thankfully, people like yourself stepping up, brother, I
Speaker 1: want to make sure that we let people know might
Speaker 1: be intimidated just by us talking about it. You don't
Speaker 1: have to fill out everyone and the word. I think
Speaker 1: people get in and they think, oh, I have to
Speaker 1: answer all these questions. You could go in there literally,
Speaker 1: but you don't have to. You can literally just one
Speaker 1: by you guys giving us this opportunity to have this discussion. Now,
Speaker 1: people are going to hear this because I didn't know
Speaker 1: that in two thousand and eight, Van like, we don't
Speaker 1: know this, right, Like we gotta have these conversations. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that either. Like to check everything. Google is
Speaker 1: a powerful tool. Now you can't Google and ask these questions.
Speaker 1: The first term you want to look up is sample ballot. Oh,
Speaker 1: I didn't even know that. But make sure the sample
Speaker 1: ballots comes from somebody that you trust, from somebody, a group,
Speaker 1: or somebody like this brother here who has their interests
Speaker 1: at heart. A group may actually have a sample ballot
Speaker 1: to let you know. You vote whoever you want to
Speaker 1: vote for, but this is who we're backing. I come
Speaker 1: from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where the poorest county in all of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know anything about politics. I had
Speaker 1: to google. I had do you SERI right? And I'm
Speaker 1: still learning right now. It's important to note that it
Speaker 1: should take a couple of weeks for us to sit
Speaker 1: down as a family really break down the election and
Speaker 1: break down the candidates. It should be a part of
Speaker 1: our tradition that we sit down as a family and
Speaker 1: literally go through whether it's different races in our local
Speaker 1: community and at the federal level. Because there's some of
Speaker 1: us that don't know. I know, there's some people in
Speaker 1: my neighborhood. It's like, Yo, that doesn't affect me. You know,
Speaker 1: my vote doesn't count, My vote doesn't matter. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think he made a great point, Brandon. As far as
Speaker 1: getting the family together to have the conversation and making
Speaker 1: that a tradition, I think that is a really, really,
Speaker 1: really great point. I want to just drive that home.
Speaker 1: Don't don't be afraid or ashamed to talk to trusted
Speaker 1: friends and family. Because I've been voting since I was
Speaker 1: of age. It's been quite some time now, But I
Speaker 1: am not somebody who is politically inclined and politically aware
Speaker 1: all the time. And I had no problem talking to
Speaker 1: my parents when they were alive. I would talk to
Speaker 1: my sister, talk to my husband, whichever one I was
Speaker 1: with at the time, you know, to help me, you know,
Speaker 1: decide who I was going to vote for. What I
Speaker 1: would say is simply this, It's so important for you
Speaker 1: to vote with your people, with your friends, with your
Speaker 1: your your spouse, your lovering. In other countries, it's a
Speaker 1: day off, it's a community celebration. Um. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be something you just have to sit off by
Speaker 1: yourself and not know anything and feel bad about. I
Speaker 1: love what Brandon is doing. He saw a void that
Speaker 1: needed to be filled and jumped on end and he
Speaker 1: is doing what it takes. When it comes to vote,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people are having to vote, vote, vote,
Speaker 1: but don't know how to. I love what Van is
Speaker 1: saying about, go with somebody, go with your people, you know,
Speaker 1: and and y'all help each other. You gotta edge take
Speaker 1: yourself on state local stuff. A lot of times in
Speaker 1: our depressed African American communities, we don't understand all of
Speaker 1: these intricacies, but they don't want to understand because they
Speaker 1: don't want us to vote. It's all about voter suppression.
Speaker 1: If we don't understand, if we don't think it's important,
Speaker 1: if we don't think our vote, then we're not going
Speaker 1: to vote. The thing to me about voting is um.
Speaker 1: But we have to be very honest with our people.
Speaker 1: You cannot get everything you want by voting, but you
Speaker 1: can lose. But but you can lose everything you've got
Speaker 1: by not voting. Okay, that's the and so okay, so
Speaker 1: let real with it. Sometimes we're voting defensively and then
Speaker 1: we say, well I voted, I didn't get what I wanted.
Speaker 1: That's like saying I did to sit ups. Now I'm
Speaker 1: not in shape. Well I'm on a second. It takes more.
Speaker 1: You gotta eat, right, you gotta jog a little bits.
Speaker 1: It's a whole lot to make a strong community. Voting
Speaker 1: is a part of it. Yeah, that's that's a real age.
Speaker 1: We've never had this much political consciousness. And what happened
Speaker 1: to Cube happen to so many people. Now you have
Speaker 1: so many people pulling back the curtain. And I think
Speaker 1: because of what Cube is doing a lot more than
Speaker 1: pull back the curtain. That's what I love about this
Speaker 1: contract because even for me, you know, I'm thinking, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm up to speed, just to realize you ain't. My
Speaker 1: phone went out, so I'll miss me and not miss
Speaker 1: me and not but I was going for me. Okay,
Speaker 1: my battery went out, all right, that's all right. Listen,
Speaker 1: before we go, I just as a black woman, just
Speaker 1: want to say how it is just so awesome to
Speaker 1: sit here with three black men who are so intelligent
Speaker 1: and really taking the time to have a conversation with
Speaker 1: the community. You know, each of you are doing so
Speaker 1: much for us, and I just want to thank you,
Speaker 1: especially during this time. Um, having black male leadership is
Speaker 1: so important. It is so important, and I just want
Speaker 1: to thank you three for just representing the way that
Speaker 1: you do for us. You know, thank you, I mean
Speaker 1: thanks for doing this show. You know, it's cool to
Speaker 1: see you know, three generations of black women discussed topics
Speaker 1: for the whole world to get a chance to see
Speaker 1: this interaction um with a family. You know, it's just great.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me on. I'll come back anytime. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to have all three of you right
Speaker 1: here at the table. Thank you, Thank you. Amazing that
Speaker 1: I learned a lot. I just want to tell our
Speaker 1: read table Talk family check out cubes Contract for Black
Speaker 1: America because I really got a lot out of it.
Speaker 1: So just please check it out. Are whenever the acting up,
Speaker 1: you would go you want the Dragon Lane, and I
Speaker 1: would go, remember that. I remember that. A couple of
Speaker 1: times the Dragon Lady came out and I said, never again,
Speaker 1: Yeah you want the Dragon fired. Who you want, Mommy
Speaker 1: or the Dragon Lane? I know because they both here
Speaker 1: to join the Red Table Talk family and become a
Speaker 1: part of the conversation. Follow us at facebook dot com
Speaker 1: slash red table Talk. Thanks for listening to this episode
Speaker 1: of Red Table Talk podcast produced by Facebook Watch Westbrook
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