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Speaker 1: All media mark Christmas Miracle. Listen.

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Speaker 2: One of the greatest things given to us was by

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Speaker 2: Friday Afternext the film, which was the Christmas episode I'll

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Speaker 2: Pump Down when it was supposed to be a Christmas one.

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Speaker 2: I still say every year, Merrik, Christmas Miracle, y'all bet

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Speaker 2: or not? Anyway, Christmas time for us who work in

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Speaker 2: justice spaces sometimes can be very complicated. It is a

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Speaker 2: time to rest, the time to go see your family,

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Speaker 2: to celebrate, to recalibrate. I think some of our sort

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Speaker 2: of American traditions have you know, a lot to do

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Speaker 2: with sort of European practices which are not necessarily colonial,

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Speaker 2: if you will. They're just based on weather. Like it's

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Speaker 2: just it be cold, so y'all ain't nowhere to go,

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Speaker 2: so y'all shut up. You go inside, you tell stories,

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Speaker 2: and you know, you burn fire logs and try to

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Speaker 2: stay warm, and you make you know, all types of

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Speaker 2: soups and shit, and you just in the night be long.

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Speaker 2: You don't because the sun don't come up because you

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Speaker 2: so far into the northern hemisphere. So you know this

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Speaker 2: like going home and bundling up type beat, Yeah.

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Speaker 1: You know, I mean it is what it is.

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Speaker 2: I am an American, so as an American, you know,

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Speaker 2: obviously a black American. You know, we in my home

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Speaker 2: because I married a Latina woman. There's some punkin pie

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Speaker 2: versus sweet potato pie wars. I think I might have

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Speaker 2: won it this time, although they feel a little ambidextrous.

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Speaker 2: This is the first year refer to her by her

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Speaker 2: prefix was willing to make a sweet potato pie for me,

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Speaker 2: but she was gonna make it her way.

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Speaker 1: See, the thing is like.

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Speaker 2: My Auntie and them, My aunt Nini is the one

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Speaker 2: that usually makes the pies for everybody, but she makes

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Speaker 2: it like she protects us.

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Speaker 1: So she makes it very I mean, like buttermilk like sugar.

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Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It is just hella sweet,

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Speaker 2: hello rich, Hella dairy, Hella gluten and it's just like

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Speaker 2: you know, we we knew school. We look it for like,

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Speaker 2: you know, sugar in a raw and you know, gluten

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Speaker 2: free options and are there any coconut milk options? Were

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Speaker 2: trying to make them all gentrified, but like hintified because

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Speaker 2: it's black and we not Kylon Nazis. But anyway, she

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Speaker 2: figured out a way to make a bomb sweet potato pie.

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Speaker 2: And I think I convinced some of my my extended

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Speaker 2: Mexican family that like this should be a part of

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Speaker 2: the ethos. They are married to their pumpkin pie, like

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Speaker 2: the pie to colonizer. Anyway, it's time to talk about

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Speaker 2: stuff like that. You know, argue over stalks in your

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Speaker 2: college greens. But how do you do that while you

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Speaker 2: know it's there's no ceasefires, and you know it's people

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Speaker 2: suffering and you know, families getting raided, all the stuff

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Speaker 2: that we've been fighting all year.

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Speaker 1: It seemed like, man, check your privilege.

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Speaker 2: Ho me, you could just go home and just be like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I'm just gonna shut down and rest for the holidays.

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Speaker 1: Nigga, what kick rocks?

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Speaker 2: So I always feel that level of complications until I

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Speaker 2: started traveling and going to the very places and meeting

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Speaker 2: the people in the locations that I called myself being

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Speaker 2: woke enough to be in solidarity with taping with me.

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Speaker 1: Here's what I learned.

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Speaker 2: I still feel the tension, right, But then you you

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Speaker 2: start traveling, man, you know, thank the Lord God Almighty. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that rap took me across the world and then in turn, coffee,

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Speaker 2: But it took me across the world. Man, Like I

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Speaker 2: have not toured a lot of a lot of Europe,

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Speaker 2: but I've toured a lot of Africa, you know, because

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Speaker 2: of yeah, the music that I've done, and then in

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Speaker 2: my justice work, I've had a chance to go to

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Speaker 2: you know, places in you know, Arab Nations, parts of

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Speaker 2: South America. I've had a chance to see culture, beauty, indigeneity,

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Speaker 2: and in some senses, poverty that a lot of people,

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Speaker 2: you know, in my position have not. And these weren't

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Speaker 2: like mission trips where I was supposed to be the one,

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Speaker 2: you know, payting the school, building, the water.

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Speaker 1: Naw, like I came in.

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Speaker 2: You know, sometimes as an artist, you know what I'm saying,

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Speaker 2: where you realize like, damn this this crew of you

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Speaker 2: know folks put together all the money they had, you know,

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Speaker 2: to get me out here.

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Speaker 1: And then other times you just come.

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Speaker 2: You come, You have the big organization that pays you

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Speaker 2: to come do the show, and then you tap in

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Speaker 2: with the locals and then you just go see the world.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: So I've seen the level I've seen a level of

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Speaker 2: poverty that a lot of people haven't.

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Speaker 1: But I've also seen a level of joy, of beauty.

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Speaker 2: And excitement, a just the vibrant possibility of what it

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Speaker 2: means to be human, even in places that don't have

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Speaker 2: the creature comforts, which is why, like I cannot abide

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Speaker 2: by Christians in America or people in America saying they're being persecuted.

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Speaker 2: I'm like, my nigga, you do not know suffering, you know.

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Speaker 2: So when you see places like that and then you

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Speaker 2: see how they live, do they live in a constant

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Speaker 2: state of down trodden this No, they find joy some

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Speaker 2: of the dopest dances, some of the most incredible music.

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Speaker 1: I remember one time I was in a.

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Speaker 2: Bantto village in the bush what the Europeans called the pigmies.

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Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Like just you know outside

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Speaker 2: of Cameroon, on the border of Cameroon, in the Congo,

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Speaker 2: you know we out there. I mean it's it's the

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Speaker 2: six toes people with the you know, like deform deforms

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Speaker 2: and stuff like that, like like like village village, no

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Speaker 2: running water type beat, jaguars freaking out in the like

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Speaker 2: don't go into the jungle like you might get eaten

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Speaker 2: type styles. I saw this kid find a stick, break

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Speaker 2: a bamboo like or whatever, like a hollowed out branch,

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Speaker 2: break it put it down, sit on the ground with

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Speaker 2: these two sticks and made it just started drumming like

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Speaker 2: the coldest six' Eight i've ever heard in my. Life

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Speaker 2: and then the rest of the kids just started. Dancing

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Speaker 2: it was the DOPEST i was, Like i've never this

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Speaker 2: is the just like natural, rhythm smile. Joy i've never

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Speaker 2: seen anything like that in the middle of a just

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Speaker 2: like in a war torn just people find. Joy i'm

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Speaker 2: gonna give you some more. Examples these are people you

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Speaker 2: could follow right now.

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Speaker 1: Here here's. One here's an.

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Speaker 2: Instagram it's called The Gaza Skate. Team these are dudes

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Speaker 2: that are In gaza In palestine right now right and

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Speaker 2: what they do is they're collecting money for repairs to

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Speaker 2: the skate park in support of children In. Gaza so

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Speaker 2: when you go on Their, instagram they bust In ali's

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Speaker 2: three sixties kickflips off of bomb mortars so they be

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Speaker 2: finded like bombs that didn't blow, up or like just

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Speaker 2: the shells just all over the ground the, rubble and

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Speaker 2: then they bust Like ali's and burials off the. RUBBLE i,

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Speaker 2: mean it's just the, spirit the human spirit finds a.

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Speaker 2: Way there's one called Camp breakers that are also In.

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Speaker 2: Gaza what they do is they go Find they're THE cb.

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Speaker 1: Crew they. Go they started in two thousand and. Four

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Speaker 1: you can follow. Them it's.

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Speaker 2: At camps C A M P S B R E

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Speaker 2: A K e R. Z it's The Camp breakers. Crew

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Speaker 2: they find these. KIDS i mean it be bombed, out

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Speaker 2: hollowed out. Apartments they just teach them up rock and

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Speaker 2: top rocking and wind milling and they just you, you

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Speaker 2: you find a way to find the human. Spirit there's

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Speaker 2: The Ethiopian Girls Skate, club, Right ethiopian underscore girl underscore.

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Speaker 2: Skaters these are women covered up in their. Hoodjobs Also ethiopian.

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Speaker 2: Women My, lord Good God. Almighty let me tell you,

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Speaker 2: so in a parallel, universe your boy would have graduated high,

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Speaker 2: school moved To ethiopia and married one of. Them you

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Speaker 2: know What i'm, Saying i'd be doing the shoulder dance

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Speaker 2: THAT i can't do BECAUSE i don't know how y'all

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Speaker 2: be dislocating y'all shoulders when y'all.

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Speaker 1: Dance but.

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Speaker 2: Whole ass skaters bomb skaters in All ethiopian.

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Speaker 1: Charge there was they were On.

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Speaker 2: Vogue there was A vogue episode or episode article on.

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Speaker 2: Them just the dopest stuff AND i tell you right

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Speaker 2: now In palestine people are planning, advent they coming into

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Speaker 2: their coming into the. HOLIDAYS i tell you right, Now

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Speaker 2: ukraine And, sudan they're planning their their you, know holy.

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Speaker 2: Rituals they're gonna hang. Ornaments you, know they're gonna they're gonna,

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Speaker 2: practice they're gonna sing their, songs they gonna have their candle.

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Speaker 1: Lights so they stopped. Too they find a.

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Speaker 2: Way SO i have found that even in this moment

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Speaker 2: where you, know you feel, like, DANG i can't, REST

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Speaker 2: i can't LIKE i don't, know maybe you don't feel like,

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Speaker 2: that BUT i feel LIKE i need to stay on

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Speaker 2: top of everything and make Sure i'm staying in solidarity

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Speaker 2: and keeping these, things you, know in people's, faces the

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Speaker 2: people That i'm trying to, defend they find a way to,

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Speaker 2: Rest they find a way to find. Joy so MAYBE

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Speaker 2: i found maybe it was a function of my privilege

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Speaker 2: to think THAT i have to stay down trodden when

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Speaker 2: they're like Shed i'm trying to get on this curry

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Speaker 2: gult tap in with. Me The book of the s