Speaker 1: I gotta be honest, babe. Sometimes I struggle with pushing
Speaker 1: black excellence because I don't want to push in a
Speaker 1: way that seems like I'm trying to assimilate to whiteness.
Speaker 2: M you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You might have to elaborate on that with me. When
Speaker 3: I think about black excellence and black power, I just
Speaker 3: feel like we need to keep creating more spaces and
Speaker 3: arenas to celebrate ourselves so we don't have to feel
Speaker 3: like we need to assimilate.
Speaker 1: Dead Ass. It all started with real talk, unfiltered, honest,
Speaker 1: and straight from the heart. Since then, we've gone on
Speaker 1: to become Webby Award winning podcasters in New York Times
Speaker 1: bestselling authors.
Speaker 3: Dead Ass was more than a podcast for us. It
Speaker 3: was about our growth, a place where we could be vulnerable, be.
Speaker 1: Raw, orse, but most apportantly be us.
Speaker 3: But as we know, life keeps evolving and so do we,
Speaker 3: and through it all, one thing has never changed.
Speaker 4: This is.
Speaker 3: Because we got a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: Story time. The funny thing is Tripple was just like, YO,
Speaker 1: tell us a story about the time you realize the
Speaker 1: difference between black power and black excellence, And I knew
Speaker 1: exactly where to go. I was coaching at Aviator at
Speaker 1: the time, and we had a couple of athletes who
Speaker 1: were part of the group. It was about forty guys
Speaker 1: in our college group, and we had two guys who
Speaker 1: were not black. And one time the dude came. I
Speaker 1: don't want to say his name because people go back
Speaker 1: and look. He came to workout, was late, and I'm
Speaker 1: screaming and balking and I'm just like, yo, like you
Speaker 1: got to be on time. He's not saying nothing because
Speaker 1: they know that I don't deal with the excuses. Right
Speaker 1: The next day, the whole group was late, and I
Speaker 1: got pessed at what the fuck is going on? All
Speaker 1: thirty of them kids, the black kids, right well, almost
Speaker 1: forty went to pick the one white kid up from
Speaker 1: the bus stop because he had issues with the bust
Speaker 1: at the bus stop the day before, which is why
Speaker 1: he was late. All of my college kids, all of
Speaker 1: them black kids, went to go pick that white kid up,
Speaker 1: and they pressed whoever was at the bus stop, and
Speaker 1: then they came and they were all late, and they
Speaker 1: all ran together because they knew they was late. So
Speaker 1: and part of the reason why I love them kids too,
Speaker 1: My prototype kids y'all know who y'all are. I love
Speaker 1: y'all to death. Part of the reason why I said
Speaker 1: black power versus Black excellence is because although it was
Speaker 1: excellent that those guys all stayed together to help this
Speaker 1: one white kid, right, what bothered me is that it
Speaker 1: was a group of black kids that was giving the
Speaker 1: white kid a problem to begin And that's what showed
Speaker 1: the power of all of these black men going to
Speaker 1: stand up and say, yo, like, in this moment, he
Speaker 1: one of us. He and this is the funny part.
Speaker 1: This is the funny part. I'll never forget this. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say this one kid name, his name is Rogers.
Speaker 3: Everybody knows, you know, Roger.
Speaker 1: And Roger kept saying, we don't give a fuck if
Speaker 1: he's white. If he late, we all got to run.
Speaker 1: So since we all got a run, we fucking y'all
Speaker 1: up and he late, and I was like, y'all was
Speaker 1: really it was like, yo, we're not running because he late.
Speaker 1: And they all banded together. But the problem, the reason
Speaker 1: why I said it wasn't black excellence because they was
Speaker 1: giving the white boar problem just for being white, and
Speaker 1: that part of Brooklyn to get to where his workout was.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't call that black excellence, because that's the things
Speaker 1: we fought against in this country, not feeling accepted or
Speaker 1: not feeling like we can go anywhere, and here we
Speaker 1: made someone else feel that way. And it took thirty
Speaker 1: to forty young black brothers in college to go there
Speaker 1: and be like, yo, we're not doing this right.
Speaker 3: I think there's an excellence in that they were able
Speaker 3: to band together said listen, we're not doing that and
Speaker 3: collectively either we're all gonna run or we're all not
Speaker 3: gonna run, because I think you did you make him run?
Speaker 3: If they were they coming back with him going to
Speaker 3: defend him.
Speaker 1: I didn't. And now here's the funny part. I didn't
Speaker 1: know why they were all late when they came back.
Speaker 1: So when they all came in late, I said, nobody,
Speaker 1: say nothing to me. Get on the fucking line.
Speaker 3: The lines they were prepared.
Speaker 5: They were prepared them.
Speaker 1: Yes. And the funny thing is I didn't call it
Speaker 1: black excellence, even though it is excellence, because it came
Speaker 1: from a bad spot, from a bunch of young blackies.
Speaker 1: But it also showed the power of numbers and the
Speaker 1: fact that they were able to go back into their
Speaker 1: own community and be like, yo, we're not doing this.
Speaker 1: But there was powering that not just excellence, but also power.
Speaker 1: There's power and telling other people to stand down. So
Speaker 1: that's why I chose black.
Speaker 3: But how to treat you?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, karaoke time, karaoke time. I couldn't pick a song.
Speaker 3: It's several. I feel like that comes to mind when
Speaker 3: you think about black power.
Speaker 1: So I decided to kind of mix too. Okay, one
Speaker 1: of course, shout out to Hove and it's just the beginning.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows it's black excellency, black legacy, legacy, legacy, black excellency.
Speaker 1: But I'm gonna go right into a fight power.
Speaker 3: That's I see you dressed for the occasion to come.
Speaker 3: I missed the today, I missed the look at me
Speaker 3: looking like a I don't know what I look like
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 1: I'm have to say this ain't nothing to do with
Speaker 1: black excellency of black power. But you've been losing weight
Speaker 1: and working out and you're looking great.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: This thing is like like it's just one thing.
Speaker 3: It's one thing, and it's swallowing me up right now.
Speaker 3: It's given me a little bit of comfort as I'm
Speaker 3: still trying to get well from me and sick. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I needed warm and fuzzy. It's giving warm and fuzzy,
Speaker 3: isn't it. Do I look warm and fuzzy?
Speaker 2: It's one thing. And when you walk by me, that
Speaker 2: thing in the back was.
Speaker 3: Still going like this, Well she ain't lost that.
Speaker 2: Let's take a break and we'll be back with the
Speaker 2: whole gang.
Speaker 3: Indeed, all right, y'all were back. One thing I'm gonna
Speaker 3: do is cut up in between breaks. We over here
Speaker 3: paying bills and they're over here making fun of me.
Speaker 3: So josh, what I look like today?
Speaker 1: Goog go?
Speaker 3: As long as they're gluten free, thanks, then, oh my god,
Speaker 3: truth will take me out of my miserbel who we
Speaker 3: got for today? Uh?
Speaker 6: Firstdeen look like she.
Speaker 7: Was like, no, i'mnna leave you alone.
Speaker 3: Listen underneath this, Okay, this this garment, this frock. I'm
Speaker 3: coming for all the BBO allegations this summer, y'all. I've
Speaker 3: been in the gym. I'm coming for the allegations period.
Speaker 3: That's the fact I'm getting it together, y'all.
Speaker 7: Right, I'm right.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I want to sabotage or not,
Speaker 6: because people be asking could.
Speaker 7: Get a b bl Oh my god.
Speaker 6: But this summer, I might be like, I don't know, girl.
Speaker 3: It's been around me the longest and most consistently. I
Speaker 3: say you well other than you, But people will probably
Speaker 3: automatically assume that my husband would like keep my dark secrets. Matt,
Speaker 3: I feel like sees me the most. Have you ever
Speaker 3: seen me in recovery from anything other than the It
Speaker 3: was that one day.
Speaker 6: I've been seeing you working out. When I go to
Speaker 6: the gym, I think Kadeen. When I get tired, I'll
Speaker 6: be like, Kadean.
Speaker 7: Do you really do?
Speaker 6: I love that because every time I look in the mirror,
Speaker 6: I don't see Kadeen.
Speaker 1: That's triple.
Speaker 4: Every day everything she does, what is kadem She.
Speaker 1: Will like, you ain't bodied up over there? You gonna
Speaker 1: do is twenty minutes? If you walk twenty minutes every day,
Speaker 1: be straight, I'm gonna do that.
Speaker 4: You give me three.
Speaker 1: You don't work out every day?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 7: I work out like three times a week.
Speaker 3: I tried to mean, that's not bad.
Speaker 1: Average American does not work out. Ever, Yeah, the average American,
Speaker 1: I believe it does not.
Speaker 3: That's what America looks like the way they look.
Speaker 1: Matter of fact, This has nothing to do with this,
Speaker 1: but I do want to say this, right. A study
Speaker 1: show that the average American child can't do one pull
Speaker 1: up right. The average American child does not sweat enough
Speaker 1: to rid itself of any of the purities in its
Speaker 1: body for it to be a normal child. So think
Speaker 1: about where children will be twenty years from now, living
Speaker 1: the way Americans live. Think about it, Brook eating all
Speaker 1: of the process, Cookie, I'm probably gonna be obese to.
Speaker 6: Then, all right, but I did see something really exciting
Speaker 6: that I can wait to talk to you about. The
Speaker 6: varn Nell Hill spin off series, Let's Go Yo, Man Can.
Speaker 1: Hollywood Swinging is my favorite episode that finally went to Hollywood.
Speaker 3: God Man Can Boy.
Speaker 4: It was a two part episode too, so that made
Speaker 4: a great too. Is he playing it?
Speaker 6: Tommy Davidson is starring in it, And it sounds like
Speaker 6: it's gonna be like thirty Rock, So it's gonna be
Speaker 6: focusing on the behind the scenes of the Varndale Hills
Speaker 6: show and how he's trying to stay relevant after so
Speaker 6: many years on the air.
Speaker 1: It sounds like it's gonna be really good and it's
Speaker 1: kind of documentary, is right.
Speaker 6: It sounds like it might be either documentary or like
Speaker 6: thirty Rock wasn't documentary, but it did have like since
Speaker 6: it was behind the scenes, it kind of gave like
Speaker 6: real life field.
Speaker 1: My opinion, I'm tired of reboots. I'm gonna be honest
Speaker 1: to reboots. I feel like Tommy Davison was such a
Speaker 1: force in the nineties. I wish they would have given
Speaker 1: him his time when he was at like the peak,
Speaker 1: like Tommy Davison during that time and did Booty Call
Speaker 1: with Jamie Fox was great, and that he was on Martin.
Speaker 1: I just wish that they would have gave it his
Speaker 1: time twenty years ago.
Speaker 2: That's all I wish.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm probably gonna tune in because I love,
Speaker 1: you know, Tommy Davison. Yeah, but I just wish it
Speaker 1: twenty five years ago.
Speaker 3: I hear, I got no app today.
Speaker 4: No, I like the Fresh Prince.
Speaker 7: Sorry, y'all.
Speaker 4: Well, I for when I'm looking forward to it. I
Speaker 4: do like that character, Varnel Hill character. I think it
Speaker 4: was great, and I'm looking forward to see who he
Speaker 4: has coming on the show, because if it's if it's
Speaker 4: a spin off of his character, his actual character being
Speaker 4: a TV host or that daytime or night time.
Speaker 1: He's a nighttime TV host.
Speaker 4: He has to have guests, and hopefully they're incorporating that
Speaker 4: into the show. I'm looking forward to the possibilities of it.
Speaker 4: Tommy Davison is always a good time pause.
Speaker 1: Jimmy Davison is a legend. Bro.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, hope you have jobs on the show.
Speaker 1: And Martin comes down this.
Speaker 4: I want Martin to be on the show. That's one
Speaker 4: of the.
Speaker 1: Most classic TV moments, Bro. I feel you though, Gosh,
Speaker 1: that would actually be dope because the nostalgia of the
Speaker 1: guests and stuff will be Yeah, triple what you got
Speaker 1: ready now, I'm ready for it.
Speaker 6: I like that it's an extension of the Martin universe.
Speaker 6: I think it's going to be different, not really a reboot,
Speaker 6: because it's not. He wasn't a regular character. He was
Speaker 6: on two episodes, so this is like an extension that
Speaker 6: really has nothing to do with the show so much.
Speaker 7: And then I want him to do that. The one
Speaker 7: thing I do want.
Speaker 6: Him to do from the Martin Show is say take
Speaker 6: the children.
Speaker 3: Is man, yo, let us wrong with us.
Speaker 1: With Tommy Davis him. Did y'all seeing Martin break character?
Speaker 3: Absolutely was that even on the sides I just want
Speaker 3: to know now, don't know. There was no script. I'm
Speaker 3: sure all was improvsh.
Speaker 1: Is delicious, Martin lost Tom Davis.
Speaker 4: That was the goal, though, I saw in a recent interview.
Speaker 4: The goal was to break the Martin on that show,
Speaker 4: like anybody we had, whether it was the cast or
Speaker 4: they wanted to break him. Yeah, because he was a
Speaker 4: kid at that point. Yeah, so I get it. Specifically
Speaker 4: Martin or not or other they want to break.
Speaker 6: They want to break because he would always break that.
Speaker 6: He was always funny and they had to kind of
Speaker 6: learn how to be funny. You can tell like Tacha Campbell, No,
Speaker 6: she didn't get funny to like season three.
Speaker 4: Yea, yeah, she admits to it.
Speaker 1: She did.
Speaker 4: She was like sort of passive.
Speaker 1: Yeah. She would have let Martin say stuff to her
Speaker 1: until it was like YO, say something back and she
Speaker 1: would come back with us.
Speaker 3: Right, and then I feel like she evolved into kind
Speaker 3: of yeah, definitely, and that's what I kind of was, like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, girl over the top after Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was a little bit too to Martin. Like Martin.
Speaker 1: That's another one of my favorite episodes.
Speaker 3: We got the kids saying it that time. We took
Speaker 3: them to Arizona.
Speaker 7: It was such a thing.
Speaker 4: It's the Martin Reunion episode, right, Well, Martin, it was
Speaker 4: black excellence and he was black power.
Speaker 1: That was a fact. That is a fact.
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, think about all this. It comes back
Speaker 3: in the day. I think they all were exhibiting a
Speaker 3: level of black excellence and power.
Speaker 1: If you go back to those times, watch how so
Speaker 1: many of those artists at the time wore black college.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a different world.
Speaker 1: It was part of the movement.
Speaker 6: Martin always had like negro league jersey, which I thought
Speaker 6: it was really bring in.
Speaker 4: Black college and university sweaters.
Speaker 1: And all that.
Speaker 3: It's the stuff that you realize when you watched this
Speaker 3: stuff years later. You weren't really thinking about that in
Speaker 3: that moment as kids. He was just like, you know,
Speaker 3: but yeah, pretty dope, we'll.
Speaker 1: Be I next, I got an opera? Was that real quick?
Speaker 4: And goes to the topic what's that is Bill Cosby
Speaker 4: black power and black excellence as well?
Speaker 6: I think at a certain time he was black excellence
Speaker 6: and he used his he created black power because of
Speaker 6: his stature. I think it's unfortunate that he's also a perverb.
Speaker 7: But can be true.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and not even talking about that but he also
Speaker 4: there were other people who were coming up during that time,
Speaker 4: artists like rap artists and all that. He was opposed
Speaker 4: to a lot of those vernacular their speech, with how
Speaker 4: they how they spoke.
Speaker 1: So did you see his arguments, Well, they just showed
Speaker 1: an interview with him talking about how purposeful he was
Speaker 1: with NBC. But he used to have a psychologist on set,
Speaker 1: and they would say he told them he never wanted
Speaker 1: black people to be in a negative light on his
Speaker 1: TV show, So when they wrote things and they scripted
Speaker 1: things out, they had a psychologist on set to say
Speaker 1: whether or not this would be perceived by black people
Speaker 1: in a negative light. Really, yes, he was that deliberate.
Speaker 1: Bill Cosby was about making sure that people were seen
Speaker 1: in the way that they had never been seen before.
Speaker 1: And this goes to what Trouble was saying the last time.
Speaker 1: He wanted black people to see themselves as attorneys and doctors,
Speaker 1: but not as black attorneys and doctors. He made it
Speaker 1: very clear that I don't want to be known as
Speaker 1: a black comedian as the black sitcom. He's like, I
Speaker 1: want to be known as the standard for sitcoms that
Speaker 1: happens to be black.
Speaker 3: Which then in turn had people thinking that this was
Speaker 3: like not realistic, right.
Speaker 4: But that's what life and that's the thing that's his life.
Speaker 4: If you're living at a certain level of affluence and
Speaker 4: you are used to having a finer things in life
Speaker 4: as a black man, no matter what environment you're in,
Speaker 4: and then now you have people talk to you about like, well,
Speaker 4: you're just a good black actor. Yeah, he's just good.
Speaker 4: I'm going to want to create something that represents what
Speaker 4: I am and as opposed to what the world says
Speaker 4: I should be. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Well, did you also know that the Cosby Show wasn't
Speaker 1: his first sitcom? He had a sitcom before that called
Speaker 1: Cosby that Fait Miserable.
Speaker 3: Talked about it.
Speaker 4: Too, Cosby, which came after on CBS or something like
Speaker 4: that Cosby Show.
Speaker 1: And then what was when you said the one before
Speaker 1: that was just called Cosby? Okay, that was just called
Speaker 1: Cosby and it was it failed miserably and he said
Speaker 1: it was because he allowed the studios to tell him
Speaker 1: how he was going to be received on TV, and
Speaker 1: when it failed, he was just like, I'm never listening
Speaker 1: to them again. And then he started to promote his
Speaker 1: own I mean, he had little Bill it wasn't just
Speaker 1: a Cosby show. He had a bunch of which is
Speaker 1: I hate saying this because people always equate one with
Speaker 1: the other. But when I look at what I want
Speaker 1: to do as a creator, I often look at Bill Cosby. Right.
Speaker 1: Not only did he have a TV show, he was
Speaker 1: also doing films like Ghost Dad. He also had Little Bill.
Speaker 1: He had so many different mediums and projects that wasn't
Speaker 1: around the Cosby show that showed black people in a
Speaker 1: positive light but also talked about black history. I want
Speaker 1: to do the same thing with us and the yellisis
Speaker 1: a lot of times when you say you want to
Speaker 1: do something like people would be like what you want
Speaker 1: to and I'm like, why does it have to go there? Right?
Speaker 1: When we're talking about content and what he did for
Speaker 1: that aspect.
Speaker 3: I even think about the way they spoke on the show,
Speaker 3: like did you ever notice like the way they were
Speaker 3: pronounced certain words like mature and you know there were
Speaker 3: certain words that they wouldn't just they were very It
Speaker 3: was almost like they studied voice addiction when they were speaking.
Speaker 1: On the show, and he was sence I know you're
Speaker 1: talking about and play.
Speaker 3: And even just and even Felicia rashat like the way
Speaker 3: they spoke was very very so you think we had
Speaker 3: the episode on code switching and like how to speak properly,
Speaker 3: And I feel like I even think I remember hearing
Speaker 3: at one point that he was also very invested in
Speaker 3: the other actors, like the children, so people who played
Speaker 3: Vanessa and Theo.
Speaker 1: And Rudy and her. She was like, yo, I'm not
Speaker 1: trying to beat this version of me right exactly.
Speaker 3: So I can see when he got pushed back, she's
Speaker 3: not doing it right. She wasn't signing up to that.
Speaker 3: But I did see. I can see how in creating
Speaker 3: this stand of excellence that he saw for his show
Speaker 3: and for the people involved in his show, how probably
Speaker 3: those things like a psychologist or maybe somebody even for
Speaker 3: speech was involved in the process.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 6: It was a powerful show to see the Huxtable family
Speaker 6: and the light that they were in. But however, like
Speaker 6: you said, black people are not a monolith, and so
Speaker 6: black people who didn't have that experience because that type
Speaker 6: of family, that type of black family does exist where
Speaker 6: there's generations of successful, college educated black people who speak
Speaker 6: properly and have professional jobs and you know, have money
Speaker 6: and can afford to have five kids. But then there's
Speaker 6: also black people who are poor and they live in
Speaker 6: the hood and they talk a different way, and so
Speaker 6: they growing up, Yeah, they think it's married. Even to
Speaker 6: see a married black couple like I have. My mom
Speaker 6: has nine sisters, two brothers, and one of my mom's sisters,
Speaker 6: my aunt be. She was married to Uncle Phil and
Speaker 6: we used to call them the Huxtables because he did
Speaker 6: wear sweaters, he was a teacher, they had a house,
Speaker 6: and it was not something that was like normal in
Speaker 6: our family, right right, right, And so still even though
Speaker 6: you want, you know this, this certain type of blackness
Speaker 6: to be seen in a certain light for black people
Speaker 6: to aspire to, sometimes it can make black people feel othered.
Speaker 6: And I think that is kind of what the idea
Speaker 6: of black excellence can do.
Speaker 7: Instead of empowering people.
Speaker 3: Makes them feel powerless. Yes, yeah, that's insane. I think
Speaker 3: about how that's a really good point triple. And I
Speaker 3: think about people make the correlation with Divalanna all the
Speaker 3: time and say we're like the new age Huxtables or
Speaker 3: like our families like the cause we show because I
Speaker 3: guess we're what we portray, which is just how real
Speaker 3: life to people is essentially something that a lot of
Speaker 3: people aren't accustomed to, maybe not accustomed to seeing someone
Speaker 3: be together, or two people be together from a young
Speaker 3: age to develop into who we are today, or you know,
Speaker 3: still being madly in love with each other, or having
Speaker 3: parents on both sides who are still married. Like those
Speaker 3: are anominly situations to some people. Were to us, it's
Speaker 3: our norm. But I never thought about that idea of
Speaker 3: excellence making others feel powerless.
Speaker 1: In all honesty, my brother's second baby mother did tell
Speaker 1: my brother like, y'all the fucking Ellis, y'all the fucking huxtables,
Speaker 1: Your brother married, your parents married, her parents married, And
Speaker 1: I was like, just the fact that we were married
Speaker 1: and still married in his second baby's mother's eyes, that
Speaker 1: was like I never seen that, Like that shit ain't real.
Speaker 1: And I had to start taking into account how serious
Speaker 1: that is too. Because I mentored over four hundred, over
Speaker 1: four hundred athletes over ten years, seventy five percent of
Speaker 1: those athletes came from single parent homes. That is a fact.
Speaker 1: That's not something I can like, I'm making up over
Speaker 1: four hundred athletes, over three hundred of them were only moms.
Speaker 4: I just want to say this. Don't ever feel any
Speaker 4: sort of way because it's different. The fact that you
Speaker 4: guys are not the norm doesn't mean that whatever is
Speaker 4: happening outside of your family it should be expected, right
Speaker 4: like because of whatever happened to prison, industrial conpplexy and
Speaker 4: drugs and you know, on education and all that. Because
Speaker 4: people are not haven't been together for so long, or
Speaker 4: our community doesn't have two parent households. And because she
Speaker 4: pointed out to you doesn't necessarily make that abnormal. You
Speaker 4: know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I know what you mean. Because they haven't seen it
Speaker 1: doesn't mean this abnormal.
Speaker 4: It's a weird thing to hear that that you found
Speaker 4: it surprising because it's just the world.
Speaker 1: I think. No, I said, I found it surprising because
Speaker 1: think about it, we come from where we come from.
Speaker 1: I only saw my mom and dad. Then I only
Speaker 1: saw my grandparents. The only broken family I saw was
Speaker 1: my mom's mom, who ended up getting remarried. So in
Speaker 1: my normal, everybody got married. Yeah, the aspiration was and
Speaker 1: that was for me. And then I had to step
Speaker 1: out of that and get in the real world and
Speaker 1: realized that seventy five percent of the kids that I
Speaker 1: trained had a different lifestyle. So then I had to say, oh,
Speaker 1: I in my demographic with these kids, I'm the anomaly.
Speaker 1: So I can't make my lifestyle like, for example, your
Speaker 1: lifestyle can't be considered black excellence. Yeah, if most of
Speaker 1: the people in that same demographic are doing something difference,
Speaker 1: now they feel slighted, like shit, I didn't get Like,
Speaker 1: for example, if you're a woman, no one wanted to
Speaker 1: marry me, am I not excellent. If you're a man,
Speaker 1: if you couldn't find a woman too married him, I'm
Speaker 1: not excellent. If you a child, if my kids, I
Speaker 1: can understand where Tripp's coming from, but I understand it's exposure.
Speaker 4: Bro. I just think it's exposure. Like my parents married
Speaker 4: for forty something years forty three years next month, and
Speaker 4: then their friends have also been married. I don't think
Speaker 4: my parents really have divorced friends, like all of their
Speaker 4: friends are married.
Speaker 6: That's what you're saying, married parents, Your parents are not
Speaker 6: going to have married friends, like I grew up with.
Speaker 6: My dad didn't get married until I was fourteen, so
Speaker 6: my mom had friends who were working mothers who didn't
Speaker 6: have husbands. And so it's not about it being normal
Speaker 6: or abnormal. It's about you having the perspective that other
Speaker 6: things exist. You're putting for something, it doesn't mean that
Speaker 6: somebody is going to receive it in the same way
Speaker 6: that you think that it will be received. Even if
Speaker 6: my mom did have a married couple that she brought around,
Speaker 6: it would still be like that is crazy.
Speaker 7: It wouldn't be like you know what I mean, It
Speaker 7: would be like.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's possible.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it wouldn't be like that's now normal. It's just
Speaker 6: a different perspective.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, And ultimately, all that glitters is not gold,
Speaker 3: right because you have the standard of excellence that we say, oh,
Speaker 3: it's these married couples, and we know several of them
Speaker 3: who are all fucking miserable, who are all miserable and
Speaker 3: within their own marriage that we deem excellent. They're all
Speaker 3: feeling powerless because they can't get out of a situation
Speaker 3: that they're ultimately wanted to be. But then I see
Speaker 3: people who are single moms who are thriving, doing well,
Speaker 3: children successful. That's black excellence in itself too. That's the
Speaker 3: power that these single have given their their their sons.
Speaker 3: You know, for example, a couple couple of mothers who
Speaker 3: we know who are doing really amazing things with their children,
Speaker 3: you know, and single dads too. There's excellence in that
Speaker 3: and power in that.
Speaker 1: So let me ask a question, do y'all do y'all?
Speaker 1: How we define black excellence pretty much is problematic because
Speaker 1: it's not monolithic. We have to change what black excellence
Speaker 1: looks like. What about how we define black power though?
Speaker 7: Like?
Speaker 1: What is what is the difference between black excellence and
Speaker 1: black power? I know what my example of black and
Speaker 1: in my mind when I think about black power, Well,
Speaker 1: let me start with black excellence. Black excellence is a representation, right,
Speaker 1: this is what black excellence is supposed to be. Everybody
Speaker 1: looks at it and says, boom, that's black excellence. Black power
Speaker 1: is more of an action word, like what are we
Speaker 1: doing to move a market? For example? Just an easy example,
Speaker 1: the Montgomery the Montgomery bus boycott. That to me was
Speaker 1: an example of black power. Now, I also feel that
Speaker 1: black power is black excellence. But I also don't feel
Speaker 1: like black excellence is always black power.
Speaker 3: You don't always feel like excellent, Okay, And.
Speaker 1: I'll give you why. Black excellence to me is an image, right.
Speaker 1: For example, example, that image is Barack and Michelle Obama,
Speaker 1: black men, black women, both marry, both attorneys, two beautiful
Speaker 1: daughters president of the United States. But if we go
Speaker 1: back to what Trible said, right, what if you're a
Speaker 1: single mom and you can't relate to that vision of
Speaker 1: black excellence and you feel powerwerless? Right, So that vision
Speaker 1: of black excellence doesn't relate to someone. Black power, regardless,
Speaker 1: relates to everybody. Every black person looks at the Montgomery
Speaker 1: bus boycott and feels powerful. No one looks at that
Speaker 1: and says I feel powerless because I can't relate to that.
Speaker 1: That to me is the difference between black power and
Speaker 1: Black excellence. Black excellence is more like an adjective, It
Speaker 1: describes something. Black power is more like a verb, like
Speaker 1: a movement, a movement. That's how I see.
Speaker 6: I'm glad you brought up the Montgomery boycott specifically because
Speaker 6: that's a really great, great, great example about what is
Speaker 6: problematic about black excellence in terms of black power.
Speaker 7: So I do agree.
Speaker 6: Black excellence is more individual focused and black power is
Speaker 6: about the collective.
Speaker 7: Now, the way that.
Speaker 6: The Montgomery Boycott's bus boycott started is because a fifteen
Speaker 6: year old pregnant girl named claudeke Covin sat down on
Speaker 6: the bus, but because she was fifteen and pregnant and unmarried.
Speaker 1: She couldn't be.
Speaker 6: They made Rosa Parks the face of that situation, which
Speaker 6: Rosa Parks could be seen as black and excellent because
Speaker 6: she's light skinned, she's an adult, she's married, and claudiak
Speaker 6: Covin could not, even though it shouldn't matter because the
Speaker 6: message of the boycott would be the same.
Speaker 7: We are not going to sit in the back of
Speaker 7: the bus.
Speaker 6: Are they saying that because she had she she's unmarried
Speaker 6: and pregnant, she's not excellent and therefore she's not good
Speaker 6: enough to protect it.
Speaker 7: Yeah, she can sen her ass on.
Speaker 1: The back of the bus because she had a baby
Speaker 1: out she.
Speaker 3: Was finding exactly according to whose standards?
Speaker 7: Those were our standards exactly. So I feel like.
Speaker 6: That's that is the problem, because black power is about
Speaker 6: the collective. Like during the Black Lives Matter movement when
Speaker 6: George Floyd was murdered, and we we all now we
Speaker 6: get upset when people bring up the fact that George
Speaker 6: Floyd was a criminal or he was on drugs. He
Speaker 6: didn't deserve to be strangled, And that is black power.
Speaker 6: That is every black person, no matter what your stature
Speaker 6: is in life, saying that no matter what his stature
Speaker 6: is in life, he doesn't deserve to be murdered.
Speaker 1: Let me explain something to you. I want wholeheartedly to
Speaker 1: argue with you right now.
Speaker 3: He came out with.
Speaker 1: For everybody today.
Speaker 4: I said, Wade, the spirit of areas wants to come out.
Speaker 1: Yo. It's so bad. But nah, I feel you like
Speaker 1: that's that is the perfect definition. Black excellence speaks to
Speaker 1: a personal preference. It's very idealistic, and it's very like picturesque. Yes,
Speaker 1: black power don't hold no bars. We don't give a
Speaker 1: fuck who the person is. We gotta defend. We don't
Speaker 1: care how flawed they are. Black power is defending what's right, what's.
Speaker 7: Just so not.
Speaker 3: My question is are there any spaces where black excellence
Speaker 3: and black power can coexist?
Speaker 4: So they need to exist? Can you name?
Speaker 7: Can you name an example?
Speaker 6: Because I can name examples where they can, but they
Speaker 6: have not.
Speaker 4: Because I think.
Speaker 6: That being black excellence is black exceptionalism. And we were
Speaker 6: talking about code switching, and I feel like those people,
Speaker 6: those people who are considering themselves black and excellent, they've
Speaker 6: had to do things to distance themselves from blackness in
Speaker 6: a way that is not excellent.
Speaker 1: I agree.
Speaker 6: So therefore they can't really standing with the collective because
Speaker 6: they're distancing themselves from these other black people. They think
Speaker 6: if these black people would just be excellent, then we
Speaker 6: could all. Instead of saying it doesn't matter where you
Speaker 6: are in life, we can all still. So I haven't
Speaker 6: seen it happen. I think that it could, but I
Speaker 6: don't see.
Speaker 1: The theory it should.
Speaker 4: It should should be a.
Speaker 2: A perfect example, right, we've just seen it.
Speaker 1: There are certain entertainers and actors who only do pr
Speaker 1: and marketing with white outlets. I'm not gonna out them
Speaker 1: or give them any credence, but we know who they are.
Speaker 1: It's certain people.
Speaker 2: You only see them on certain platforms.
Speaker 1: Right. Athletes too, just certain athletes who just do that.
Speaker 1: When we watched Michael b and Ryan Coogler do every
Speaker 1: podcast from the smallest black podcast to the largest USA
Speaker 1: Today to variety, that's an example of black power and
Speaker 1: black excellence. We watched Ryan Coogler stand up there in
Speaker 1: his normal set and speak excellently about the frames of
Speaker 1: the different millimeter cameras. That's black power and that's black excellence.
Speaker 1: Because he never tried to change who he was. I
Speaker 1: am exactly authentically myself, and I'm doing it at a
Speaker 1: high level. That's excellence and power because no one, no
Speaker 1: black person in that moment didn't feel seen, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, which not for nothing. Remember when the
Speaker 1: after show Josh said Deval will admit when he figured something.
Speaker 1: I went upstairs, right, and I was thinking about our debate.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you why I think Tripple was right.
Speaker 1: When you have a black person that stands up there
Speaker 1: in their blackness right and speaks excellently about anything, it
Speaker 1: then changes the perspective of what excellence is. And that's
Speaker 1: what you were saying. Yeah, And the fact that he
Speaker 1: doesn't have to change his vernacular at all, and people
Speaker 1: could just be like, man, that man is smart, even
Speaker 1: though he sounded like he from Oakland, is black excellence
Speaker 1: and black power. And I feel like Ryan stood in
Speaker 1: that because even in hearing him speak, you can tell
Speaker 1: he's not as comfortable speaking in front of people, but
Speaker 1: he chose to still do that the same way him
Speaker 1: and Michael Be chose to do every outlet from.
Speaker 2: Variety to this, Like he's on podcasts of people that have.
Speaker 1: One hundred and fifty follows. That to me is black
Speaker 1: pound black excellence, Like I got to shout them them
Speaker 1: brothers out, and they're not the first to do that
Speaker 1: at all. To be honest, Easter Ray, if I'm being honest,
Speaker 1: is the one who coined that I am going to
Speaker 1: speak to she said it.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's black pound want black excellence. Is the crazy part
Speaker 1: black people killing Easter Ray on the internet right now
Speaker 1: talking about her Black Mirror episode.
Speaker 3: Oh, I didn't see the Black Man? What was about?
Speaker 3: Did you see it?
Speaker 1: You have to watch it. I don't want to ruin
Speaker 1: it for people.
Speaker 7: I love to watch it, and I I actually.
Speaker 6: Predicted that it was going to happen and my gay self, No,
Speaker 6: I just predicted that she was gonna be doing some
Speaker 6: gay ship.
Speaker 4: Gar. I didn't even see.
Speaker 1: That episode she was gay. I thought the episode was brilliant.
Speaker 1: I watched it with Tristan Okay, I can understand why
Speaker 1: people are confused in the episode, she's not she becomes
Speaker 1: someone else and she's not supposed to know anything that's
Speaker 1: going on in the fucking episode, So it seems like
Speaker 1: she's underware and awkward, and all people kept saying online
Speaker 1: was like, she's so awkward and unaware, she has no
Speaker 1: idea what's going on.
Speaker 3: That was the point the people that don't watch Her
Speaker 3: mirror making comments like, you watch Black Mirror, you understand
Speaker 3: those worlds are not the worlds that we currently live in. Yes,
Speaker 3: and she also her YouTube was an awkward black girl,
Speaker 3: wasn't it? Like that's I think. I think I've seen
Speaker 3: her in every film and I think she's awkward.
Speaker 1: A lot of people like to know her exactly where
Speaker 1: they saw her first. She's evolved as a creator, and
Speaker 1: I think sometimes when people don't get the concept of art,
Speaker 1: they try to keep them back to where they was.
Speaker 1: This is Black Mirror. This ain't insecure. She's not being
Speaker 1: Eastern race. She's a whole another character. Like it's a
Speaker 1: different thing, but that.
Speaker 4: Intelligence, Yes, that is right.
Speaker 1: No, seriously, it is because like Josha, there's people who
Speaker 1: don't watch Black Mirror who are commenting, creating whole opinion pieces,
Speaker 1: and it's like, you don't even watch the show to
Speaker 1: know what it is.
Speaker 6: Do you also think that maybe like subconsciously, because Eaterray
Speaker 6: was the only black person in that episode, I feel
Speaker 6: like subconsciously, sometimes black people have a problem with something
Speaker 6: and they don't know what it is or they don't
Speaker 6: know how to express it, so they kind of lash
Speaker 6: out because I'm like, maybe they felt uncomfortable with her
Speaker 6: doing some gay shit, Maybe they felt uncomfortable with the
Speaker 6: character she was playing, or that like there was no
Speaker 6: other black people in there she was kissing a white lady.
Speaker 7: That could make them feel weird. They don't know that.
Speaker 1: I think so, and I do think that sometimes people
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable and they don't know what to do or say,
Speaker 1: so the first thing they do is do what they
Speaker 1: have control over, So they go online and they leave
Speaker 1: opinions hoping for someone else to agree with them.
Speaker 3: That's how we have y'all, because you don't have to
Speaker 3: have an opinion, especially when you haven't watched. Like if
Speaker 3: there's a universe of a show that you don't typically
Speaker 3: watch and then you watch one episode, it was like,
Speaker 3: I didn't get it. You probably weren't supposed to get
Speaker 3: it because you don't even know what the show is about.
Speaker 6: I think too, it is true that niggas just don't
Speaker 6: be knowing what y'all talking about. That too, because they
Speaker 6: were talking about Ray in terms of the movie One
Speaker 6: of Them Days, which I just watched.
Speaker 7: It is so good. I loved it. But they're talking
Speaker 7: about as if she.
Speaker 6: Wrote the movie. She did not write it. She produced it.
Speaker 6: That means she paid for it to get made. Somebody
Speaker 6: else wrote it. But they were saying, like, what is
Speaker 6: isano about struggling and have to having to pay Her
Speaker 6: parents are rich. I don't mean that she had money,
Speaker 6: but she also talks about when she came up as
Speaker 6: a filmmaker having to like having no money to make films.
Speaker 6: It is a very expensive thing to do, and having
Speaker 6: to ask her friends to work for free. If you
Speaker 6: watch the original Awkward Black Girl, you could tell that
Speaker 6: it's low budget.
Speaker 7: They had what they had, so she worked to get
Speaker 7: it done.
Speaker 1: Just because her parents have money, don't mean parents could
Speaker 1: have easily said, yo, you got to figure this out.
Speaker 1: I was about to say that.
Speaker 3: This is a moment we have money, you.
Speaker 1: Know, But I'm glad you brought that up. Trouble, because
Speaker 1: that also is the thing that bothers me as we
Speaker 1: talk about black excellence and black power, right, it's this
Speaker 1: idea that black excellence is only associated with struggle.
Speaker 7: Well, I think it's the opposite.
Speaker 6: I feel like, like I was saying, people that feel
Speaker 6: left out of that black excellence conversation, is black excellence.
Speaker 7: I don't think anybody can argue with that.
Speaker 6: But then people are thinking, well, she's black excellence because
Speaker 6: her parents had money and she had more opportunity. That's
Speaker 6: why she's able to get it, when I shouldn't be
Speaker 6: talking about my experience.
Speaker 1: And that's what I'm saying. I feel like that's unfair
Speaker 1: to say that this person has to go through this
Speaker 1: struggle to have a black tag, to say this is.
Speaker 6: Black, to just be able to understand black people in
Speaker 6: black life. I don't think that you have to necessarily
Speaker 6: go through the same things. And then she didn't write
Speaker 6: the movie.
Speaker 1: That's that's the big The biggest thing is she didn't
Speaker 1: write the movie. The same way people was asking me, like,
Speaker 1: why you make the tickets for a fell a little
Speaker 1: so expensive question?
Speaker 3: Blown argument with somebody that he knows about that, and
Speaker 3: it went completely left and I was like that I
Speaker 3: did not set the ticket prices. We had nothing to
Speaker 3: do with the ticket prices, y'all. We don't set that
Speaker 3: as producer.
Speaker 1: But but but that's the point that you niggas don't
Speaker 1: be knowing, they don't know how to just go online
Speaker 1: and say things. And there's a whole bunch of other
Speaker 1: niggas who don't.
Speaker 3: Know ship will pull a piggyback on it.
Speaker 1: And before I say, niggas to do that, like only
Speaker 1: black people do that. No, if you if you only
Speaker 1: follow the shade room, you only hear black news.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 1: Go to other rooms, go to the Indian shade room
Speaker 1: or the Asian shade room. They be in there getting
Speaker 1: on each other too. Right, this is gonna be funny, right,
Speaker 1: Okay funny?
Speaker 3: Is it really gonna be funny to vout somebody gonna
Speaker 3: be offended?
Speaker 1: No, it's actually gonna be fun things somebody somebody might
Speaker 1: be somebody might be a fan.
Speaker 2: But I don't give a fuck. I'm gonna say what
Speaker 2: I say anyway.
Speaker 1: Right in my group chats, Right, there's a bunch of
Speaker 1: young black dudes who are all like in their late
Speaker 1: twenties or thirties, all my prototype kids, right, and they
Speaker 1: constantly kept saying to me, like black people are the
Speaker 1: only people that do this. Black people are the only
Speaker 1: people that do this, right, And then we had gotten
Speaker 1: to the argument about black women and black men, and
Speaker 1: they were like, black women are the only women on
Speaker 1: the internet talking about black men. So at that point
Speaker 1: I chose to introduce them to different parts of the
Speaker 1: digital space. You only follow neighborhood Talk, you only follow
Speaker 1: the Shade Room, so you only hear black women's opinions.
Speaker 1: So I started sharing with them all these different opinions
Speaker 1: from all these different women from different cultures, and it
Speaker 1: sounded exactly the same. And I said, this is the point, y'all.
Speaker 1: What you read, what you listen to, your algorithm is
Speaker 1: going to keep sending that to you. So your algorithm
Speaker 1: is only sending you stuff like the Shade Room and
Speaker 1: neighborhood Talk, so you feel that only black people are
Speaker 1: speaking about these things, when in reality, the whole world
Speaker 1: is having the same converse. And you're upset at black
Speaker 1: women because those are the women you frequent, same thing
Speaker 1: with black women. You upset a black men because black
Speaker 1: men are the only ones saying this. No no, no, no no.
Speaker 1: Go to them. Go to the Asian Shade Room and
Speaker 1: watch how they talk about Asian man.
Speaker 3: Is the Asian Shade Room is I don't know.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna keep my mouth.
Speaker 1: Shut but but you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: I get what you're saying.
Speaker 1: What you're saying like we we also as black people,
Speaker 1: if we want to talk about what black excellence is
Speaker 1: and what black power is, we have to expand our perspective, right,
Speaker 1: That's what Josh.
Speaker 5: Was saying into saying, Yeah, like you can't own you
Speaker 5: can't only watch the Shade Room and then say to
Speaker 5: me all black women anything.
Speaker 1: I don't know your opinion doesn't matter to me at
Speaker 1: all at this point. Like if you look at someone's
Speaker 1: homepage on the Instagram, that tells you where their mind
Speaker 1: is most of the time.
Speaker 3: So I was as the conversation is going, I even
Speaker 3: thought about the conversation that we had on the Code
Speaker 3: Switching episode where we talked about the oscars, right, and
Speaker 3: we said that they're just out here, you know, voting
Speaker 3: off vibes. And we have always aspired to I think
Speaker 3: in generalist people, if the standard of excellence within film
Speaker 3: is to get an Oscar, we all black people included
Speaker 3: aspire to that as actors. Right, So when talking about
Speaker 3: black excellence and Black power and spaces and arenas that
Speaker 3: we have now curated for ourself to celebrate each other.
Speaker 3: Where are those spaces and what do they look like? So,
Speaker 3: for example, what came to mind for me was essence
Speaker 3: Black Women in Hollywood. That's a space that I've been
Speaker 3: invited to where I go because sometimes you need to
Speaker 3: be in a space where you feel celebrated amongst your peers.
Speaker 3: You can aspire and be inspired, you can kind of
Speaker 3: get a recharge and a reset in a forum that
Speaker 3: you know has been specifically designed to celebrate the excellence
Speaker 3: but also the power behind being in numbers of women
Speaker 3: who are like minded and doing the things that you
Speaker 3: want to do or have done, or aspire to do.
Speaker 3: So we have like the Black and since Black Women
Speaker 3: in Hollywood, I was just at to accelerate her conference
Speaker 3: in Miami. So what are other spaces that you think
Speaker 3: that we are now saying? You know what, we need
Speaker 3: to now create these spaces for ourselves because we can't
Speaker 3: always rely on other folks to celebrate us and how
Speaker 3: that ties into excellence in power We've.
Speaker 4: Been doing go ahead, no, no, good God, I think we've
Speaker 4: been doing it for since since the establishment of us
Speaker 4: in this country.
Speaker 1: I was want to say the same thing.
Speaker 4: We got the Divine nine, we got Black organizations that
Speaker 4: celebrate us Jack and Jill, Jack and jail, Right, So,
Speaker 4: I think I think there's always been us making space
Speaker 4: for ourselves. That's why we got a black college and
Speaker 4: universities like we we've recognized that we need space to
Speaker 4: empower ourselves and become excellent at the same time.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: I think things like these, these organizations, are these these
Speaker 4: exposed or yeah, conferences, conferences that you are just a
Speaker 4: microcosm of that shared Black experience that we you know,
Speaker 4: are subsectors. But I think we've always been doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree with Josh. If you think about reconstruction.
Speaker 1: There are so many black cities in black towns who
Speaker 1: were built off of black excellence and black power. The
Speaker 1: problem is history has shown us that when you build
Speaker 1: something off black excellence and black power, they're gonna take it,
Speaker 1: or they gonna drown it, or they gonna and burn it.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. Like you talk about Tols,
Speaker 1: you think about Seneca Falls, There's so many examples of
Speaker 1: black excellence and black power that has just been disintegrated
Speaker 1: by white superiority. So I feel like in these last
Speaker 1: fifty years, black people have decided to find their excellence
Speaker 1: and their power and keep it quiet and keep it private.
Speaker 1: For example, I work at Tyler Perry Studios. Right, this
Speaker 1: is not a humble brag. I make more money than
Speaker 1: ninety percent of the people working on Hollywood and they're white.
Speaker 1: Because my employer is a black owner. He owns the land,
Speaker 1: he owns the studios, he owns the content, He decides
Speaker 1: who makes what money. I think we're finally reaching a
Speaker 1: point where I no longer have to run to another
Speaker 1: version of what I want to do right to be celebrated, and.
Speaker 3: I think those are spaces where we then celebrate like
Speaker 3: this is a group of black affluent people, this is
Speaker 3: a group of black students. So when you talked about
Speaker 3: in the code switching episode, sometimes you don't want to
Speaker 3: be known as the first black actor to do this,
Speaker 3: or I am a black actor who did that, or
Speaker 3: I'm a black father. It's like, how do we tow
Speaker 3: the line between wanting to celebrate that in the excellence
Speaker 3: and power that stands with it, but then how do
Speaker 3: we also say, you know what, I want to be
Speaker 3: seen as just a great man, just a great woman,
Speaker 3: just a great father, just a great mother.
Speaker 2: So you' just gonna come here today and put your
Speaker 2: journalism degree to work.
Speaker 1: Because that's a good question, because.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like how do we coexist in that space?
Speaker 1: That's a good point. You know, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 1: I struggle with that, like Trible, I told Go told Jackson.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo. He was like, Dad, you're gonna
Speaker 1: win in Oscar. You're gonna do all this other stuff.
Speaker 1: And I was like, man, when I do win in Oscar,
Speaker 1: I don't want them to be like he's the third
Speaker 1: black person to win and that. And then I was like, nah,
Speaker 1: I do want them to do that because other black
Speaker 1: kids need to see that this is excellence. And then
Speaker 1: I was struggling, like do I want them to announce
Speaker 1: it that way to marginalize it, or do I want
Speaker 1: them to say this is the first Oscar for Deval
Speaker 1: he beat out so and so. And then it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm struggling. I don't have the answer.
Speaker 3: Think about what number one on the call sheet? Did
Speaker 3: you guys watch that on Netflix?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it's great and it's two parts. They have a
Speaker 3: couple gentlemen and then they have the women who spoke
Speaker 3: about it. But particularly the episode with the women where
Speaker 3: They were talking about Whoopy Goldberg and her being one
Speaker 3: of the first and only, you know of her time
Speaker 3: to win an oscar and there were only like three
Speaker 3: or four black women in a span of decades.
Speaker 1: The first thing is Whoopy Goldberg was so talented, right,
Speaker 1: she could do stand up, she could sing, she could write,
Speaker 1: and she could act. She was so gifted they didn't
Speaker 1: even know what to do with her. Right. Now, here's
Speaker 1: the crazy part. All of the movies that Whoopy's done,
Speaker 1: critically acclaimed and box office success were all roles written by,
Speaker 1: written for and by white men, but either white women
Speaker 1: on white men, and they didn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: So Whoopy said, I'll do it, and.
Speaker 3: We people didn't want.
Speaker 1: Eddie was.
Speaker 3: Well, she said that Patrick Swayze was the one who
Speaker 3: wanted her. I love Patrick, you know me and Dirty Dancing, y'all.
Speaker 1: So yeah, your favorite, that's a good that's a good
Speaker 1: movie to Eddie. I'm not Eddie Wesley Snie, that's my guy.
Speaker 1: But she she talked about how even being excellent in
Speaker 1: Hollywood during that time, there was no such thing as
Speaker 1: black excellence. She was just excellent, and because there was
Speaker 1: no space for black people, they didn't even know what
Speaker 1: to do with her. And when I watched that, I
Speaker 1: was just like wow. Like, but that's also the challenge
Speaker 1: when you say black excellence, those people don't know what
Speaker 1: to do with black excellent even when you say excellence,
Speaker 1: because Whoopy was never celebrated as a black excellent person.
Speaker 1: She was just excellent and they still didn't though. So
Speaker 1: that's what leaves me kind of confused, Like how do
Speaker 1: you exactly navigate it? Because I don't want them to
Speaker 1: make all of my accomplish Smith's about black, but I
Speaker 1: need all these black boys and black girls to be like, yo,
Speaker 1: yeah he did that. You know what I'm saying. It's hard.
Speaker 4: It sort of talks to a point about when you
Speaker 4: brought up Tyler Perry and your earnings based off of
Speaker 4: him seeing you. I think it talks to black excellence
Speaker 4: having to move hand in hand with black power, right
Speaker 4: like I think I think we shouldn't separate the two.
Speaker 4: I think, all right, being good at your craft and
Speaker 4: being excellent at your craft needs to move with power,
Speaker 4: like you need that power to be able to It
Speaker 4: can't be ideology, yes, it can be ideology, exactly right.
Speaker 4: It has to show its strength yea, and it has
Speaker 4: to be able to move right. We're talking money talks, right,
Speaker 4: Money's power.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: We live in a capitalist country. Right, politics on mean
Speaker 4: nothing here. Fact right, the only thing that meat that
Speaker 4: moves anything or anyone is the money money. Right, And
Speaker 4: you can't be excellent without the money, because once you're excellent,
Speaker 4: you're giving room for people to say, nah, we're gonna
Speaker 4: go with somebody else. Forget that they're good. We can
Speaker 4: get somebody else that's white, that's good. We can get
Speaker 4: somebody else that does this in a in a completely
Speaker 4: different way. Or we don't have to fund it. The
Speaker 4: government doesn't have to fund what we do. But when
Speaker 4: we move with power, we can more or less break barriers,
Speaker 4: or we can we don't have to.
Speaker 1: Get what you're saying. No, no, no, I get what you're saying,
Speaker 1: and you articulated it perfectly. Like black excellence is an ideology.
Speaker 1: Black power is an actual action item, like what are
Speaker 1: we doing to move us forward? Black excellence is this idea? Right,
Speaker 1: the idea is Barack Obama and Michelle.
Speaker 3: Or it comes after attaining some sort of power.
Speaker 1: Move right, No, well, no, well, the excellence, you're right,
Speaker 1: Excellence typically does come after, like.
Speaker 3: What deems excellent, what's deemed something excellent after going through
Speaker 3: something process.
Speaker 4: Just give our listeners like some actual tangible examples.
Speaker 6: I'll say I'll say this about I'll stick with the
Speaker 6: Tyler Perry example, because again, black excellence is based on
Speaker 6: your individual accomplishments.
Speaker 7: Black power is based on the collective. So, okay, Tyler Perry.
Speaker 6: It's not the money that makes him powerful. It's the
Speaker 6: fact that he makes black content for Black people, by
Speaker 6: black people. He continues to do that and he doesn't
Speaker 6: have to answer to anybody else about what he makes.
Speaker 7: Yes, that's the power.
Speaker 3: And then he's deemed excellent because of that.
Speaker 6: Exactly, he's deemed excellent because he makes a bunch of
Speaker 6: money he's able to do. You know, he built his
Speaker 6: empire off making these black plays and black people going
Speaker 6: to see him. That's his excellence. He makes good content
Speaker 6: for the people that he makes it for. And now
Speaker 6: he's empowered other black people, black artists, even black consumers
Speaker 6: that there is space for them in the world of art, TV, movies, theater. Now,
Speaker 6: one thing that I don't the one thing that I
Speaker 6: hate about Beyonce is that she will go to the
Speaker 6: Grammys every year sit in that audience and watch them
Speaker 6: play in her face and not give her Artists of
Speaker 6: the Year. And it's not And we always say, we
Speaker 6: say every year that she has been nominated, they are
Speaker 6: not giving it to her because she's black. Because as
Speaker 6: a musician, regardless of you know, color, her art is
Speaker 6: better than everybody else on the dock, especially the winner.
Speaker 6: But she doesn't show up at the Soul Train Awards
Speaker 6: or the BET Awards. And Beyonce has the power behind
Speaker 6: the collective because she has made the art that we
Speaker 6: enjoy and she has stayed true to her blackness that
Speaker 6: black black Beyonce fans are dedicated to her. She has
Speaker 6: and just fans overall are so dedicated to her that
Speaker 6: she has the power to draw away viewership from the
Speaker 6: Grammys if she were to show up at the Soul
Speaker 6: Train Awards to say this is the that I care about,
Speaker 6: and so that I feel like that she is not
Speaker 6: using the power that she has, or black power or
Speaker 6: empowering black spaces with the powers exactly.
Speaker 1: I agree that I agree with you. I want to
Speaker 1: add something so that you understand a little perspective of
Speaker 1: what artists go through because me and Kadeen go through this, right,
Speaker 1: and I'm not outing any black publications, right, but when
Speaker 1: Kadeen and I have looked at numbers and everything, Kadeen
Speaker 1: and I aren't celebrated amongst black publications at all. We
Speaker 1: aren't celebrated. But let a white publication then celebrate us.
Speaker 1: Then the black want to come back. Can Kadeen and
Speaker 1: de Val come here? And it's like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: all those years when we were doing this just for
Speaker 1: our people, you never cared enough about us. We've been
Speaker 1: doing this podcast for.
Speaker 3: Seventy six years, seven.
Speaker 1: Years, sixteen seasons, won to Webbe Award, never been nominated
Speaker 1: for an NAACP Image Award, right, never been talked about
Speaker 1: by essence And this is It's not a play for
Speaker 1: me to get nominated.
Speaker 2: I'm not asking for that because we don't do this
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is is that numbers wise, we've
Speaker 1: been better than a bunch of podcasts that they've had
Speaker 1: nominated and win. When you look at metrics and the
Speaker 1: things that we've talked about have been better, and we
Speaker 1: haven't been recognized by those black publications. Let emmy come
Speaker 1: and say, hey, we want to honor the Valenkadeen at
Speaker 1: the Emmy Awards, right, and then we go those same
Speaker 1: black people will be like, oh, they're gonna go to
Speaker 1: the Emmys, but they don't go to the Soul Train Awards.
Speaker 2: Well, y'all haven't celebrated us the whole grind.
Speaker 1: Y'all wait intil white people celebrated us, and now you
Speaker 1: want us to come back. So in the beginning it
Speaker 1: was fuck me and my little podcast, but now white
Speaker 1: people said, hey, we like this, and now I feel
Speaker 1: like that I'm not gonna lie and I'm a part
Speaker 1: of the BT family and I'm a part of all
Speaker 1: of this stuff. But fuck them too, because we bet
Speaker 1: we've had the number one show on television for seven years.
Speaker 1: You've never seen any one of them women a show
Speaker 1: led by five black women. None of them women ever
Speaker 1: went up there to get in a war by Soul training,
Speaker 1: none of them ever went to get an n Double
Speaker 1: ACP Image Award. But let one of them women go
Speaker 1: up there to go get a Grammy or go get
Speaker 1: an Emmy. All of them same people are gonna be
Speaker 1: being like, she didn't come down here with us, y'all
Speaker 1: didn't y'all didn't recognize it. So when it comes to
Speaker 1: Beyonce and them, I understand people's thought process, and you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. I just wonder what happened to that point
Speaker 1: and if there was a point like that we felt
Speaker 1: like because.
Speaker 6: I felt like that, I think Beyonce doesn't It's not
Speaker 6: just the Black Awards that she doesn't go to. I
Speaker 6: don't think she goes to like the A m As anymore.
Speaker 6: Like I think the only award she really goes to
Speaker 6: is the Grammys, Right.
Speaker 3: I don't wonder if they're voting off the vibes too,
Speaker 3: or if it's just all of these This was crazy.
Speaker 1: I think the Sole Train Awards and the nuble A
Speaker 1: CP Image Awards vote so vibes too, because there's no
Speaker 1: way you gave other people awards and didn't think about us, Like,
Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me? I'm starting to get pissed.
Speaker 7: I wonder how it was.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 4: Tell what it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just being honest, right, I hear for the
Speaker 1: last six years, there has been nobody who's done anything
Speaker 1: as far as has done as much work when it
Speaker 1: comes to fatherhood and representing a family man in a
Speaker 1: black space on social media as much as I have
Speaker 1: an inclusion started friends and my family.
Speaker 3: You started it.
Speaker 1: Not once have I been nominated for Social Media Person
Speaker 1: of the Year by the NAACP imas you was. Now,
Speaker 1: I plan on continuing to go and do stuff when
Speaker 1: I go get nominated by something else and then soul
Speaker 1: train you want to come back? No, am I wrong
Speaker 1: for saying y'all ignored me for all these years? But
Speaker 1: finally the white publications said I was good, but now
Speaker 1: you're am I wrong for that? At that point was.
Speaker 7: Me and my friends.
Speaker 6: We have this phrase that we use and it phrases
Speaker 6: black Nigga Productions and I love black people. I love
Speaker 6: black businesses.
Speaker 7: B MP, but BEMP black people.
Speaker 6: Sometimes they run businesses in a way that you're like,
Speaker 6: fuck and BT, I feel like dust stuff like that,
Speaker 6: Like they will like nominate the same people every year
Speaker 6: instead of recognizing people who actually coming up in the
Speaker 6: space I feel. So it feels to me like Black
Speaker 6: Nika Productions, like who y'all got started two weeks.
Speaker 7: Ago on this Like you know what I'm saying, It
Speaker 7: feels like.
Speaker 3: That to be sometimes Yeah, you know, it ain't.
Speaker 1: Just uses wasn't celebrated by the NAACP. Image awards and
Speaker 1: by b Et when she had her YouTube series, And
Speaker 1: it wasn't until Insecure became mainstream and white people started
Speaker 1: pointing at east Ray did anyone in the black space
Speaker 1: start to pay attention to east Ray? So I'm not
Speaker 1: saying this as if it's a slight on me. This
Speaker 1: has been happening to us by our own people for years.
Speaker 3: I think, you know what, I think it's ultimately for
Speaker 3: you Bae, for example, winning something like social Media Person
Speaker 3: of the Year or whatever. You're just not a social
Speaker 3: media person. There's just so much more to you. You're
Speaker 3: a legitimate actor. That's what you want to do, that's
Speaker 3: what you want to be. So when those things haven't
Speaker 3: come your way, I was just like, you know what,
Speaker 3: that's just maybe putting you in that box of the
Speaker 3: social media influencer, which is something that you don't necessarily
Speaker 3: want to be. It's what we do as a means
Speaker 3: to an end to get art in our work out there,
Speaker 3: to be hired as actors. But you don't want that
Speaker 3: to be you know, what you're defined as. So maybe
Speaker 3: we can look at it that way.
Speaker 1: That's fair, and that's why I don't think that much
Speaker 1: about it. But let's be honest. In the last six years,
Speaker 1: New York Times bestselling author, over four million followers on
Speaker 1: all platforms, two number one shows, web be award winning podcasts.
Speaker 1: I think what else we've done? And when they do
Speaker 1: social Media Person of the Year, they've gone from Kevin Hart, right,
Speaker 1: all the way down to Kevin Lee, right, Keith Lee,
Speaker 1: Keith Lee, and Keith Lee at the time when they
Speaker 1: nominate him had half as many as I did.
Speaker 2: And then so my thing is.
Speaker 1: What's the criteria?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: What is the criteria? If you went from Kevin Hart
Speaker 1: to Keith Lee, you went from Entertainer of the Year.
Speaker 2: From Kicky Palmer, Kekey Palmer.
Speaker 1: All the way to Tyler Perry entertainer of the year. Right,
Speaker 1: this is the but you've never mentioned other people who
Speaker 1: have only been celebrated in black spaces. Do you play
Speaker 1: the game? People?
Speaker 4: Do you play the game?
Speaker 1: Do I play what game?
Speaker 4: The politics game?
Speaker 1: Do you play the game? Name a time in the
Speaker 1: last six years that I've said no to any publication.
Speaker 3: That's going to be runner.
Speaker 1: That's why I be so tired. I've gone to essence
Speaker 1: and done stuff for free. I've gone to the Soul
Speaker 1: Train Awards, I've been to ABFF and worked as a correspondent.
Speaker 1: My point is, I'm not going to give them any passes.
Speaker 1: The same way I call out white publications, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call them out to a lot of Black publications don't
Speaker 1: big up their black creatives when they're on the rise.
Speaker 1: They only big up the black creatives once white people
Speaker 1: have finally said this is the person. And then when
Speaker 1: that person goes to the enemy's then the black publications
Speaker 1: want to point out that they don't go to them.
Speaker 1: But it was like y'all shot on me for years
Speaker 1: while I was building. And that's just a fact, and
Speaker 1: not for nothing. A lot of it does have to
Speaker 1: do with the fact that black publications don't have the
Speaker 1: same resources. They can't celebrate us the way they want
Speaker 1: to celebrate us. So what they try to do is
Speaker 1: reach out to the A list stars that have already
Speaker 1: got celebrated to come to these events to get more sponsors.
Speaker 1: Like I understand, if you're your bet, it's like, we
Speaker 1: gotta get Kevin Hart, we gotta get we gotta get
Speaker 1: this person. But but this creators right now in this
Speaker 1: space that y'all don't know who are going to be
Speaker 1: those people, y'all ignoring them right now, and when.
Speaker 2: Those people become those people don't go back to them.
Speaker 1: Then one one publication told us we couldn't be on
Speaker 1: the cover because Kate wasn't black enough, Josh, you know,
Speaker 1: because you was out photographer. This is not lies, this
Speaker 1: is facts.
Speaker 4: I know he's black? Is she black?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: You know till it's day when I bring it up
Speaker 4: to them, and they'd be like, we said, we said.
Speaker 1: I remember when you called me. He was like, d man,
Speaker 1: like I pissed him for this, but and I was like,
Speaker 1: are you fucking kidding me? He was like, bro this
Speaker 1: and I was. I was pissed. I was pissed for
Speaker 1: my wife more than anything, because here's another example where
Speaker 1: blackness is only defined by what you say blackness.
Speaker 3: Is amongst our own black folks, right yeah.
Speaker 4: And now now that same publication it posts mixed racial,
Speaker 4: mixed racial couples black and white, like it does what
Speaker 4: I'm saying it.
Speaker 1: And the only reason why they're doing it now is
Speaker 1: because post and mixed race couples probably got them a
Speaker 1: bigger except this absolutely proximity. They use artists for proximity
Speaker 1: the same way people use it for proximity publications do
Speaker 1: to That is a fact.
Speaker 3: Put y'all on Game Today on how it works.
Speaker 6: Huh yeah, I mean this has happened. I mean this
Speaker 6: has happened to me. I did a short film and
Speaker 6: like a brand shoot for a haircare a very very
Speaker 6: popular black haircare line back in the day, like twenty seventeen,
Speaker 6: and they scrap the whole thing because the short film,
Speaker 6: which somebody else wrote, was about two women getting married,
Speaker 6: and they were like, no gay shit over here. Wow
Speaker 6: when yeah, never put it out, never use the pictures.
Speaker 6: I got paid, but I would have liked to see myself.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Relax, I guarantee you this.
Speaker 1: If you did the same project and a white publication
Speaker 1: picked it up, that black publication would have called you
Speaker 1: an asker.
Speaker 2: They can run it as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's and as unfair as it is. I understand
Speaker 1: why they're fighting for This is just an example. But
Speaker 1: Tyler has spoken about this well. Tyler Perry is the
Speaker 1: highest grossing producer in Hollywood. No one ever talks about it,
Speaker 1: like producer, director, actor, No one has gross more money
Speaker 1: than him box office wise. It is a fact. Largest
Speaker 1: studio all the same words number on everything when it
Speaker 1: comes down to get money for projects, Right, Yellowstone gets
Speaker 1: something like twenty four to twenty six million per episode
Speaker 1: to do their episode. You know how much Tyler gets
Speaker 1: per episode? Seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 7: Oh my god, a fraction.
Speaker 1: Now. The reason why this is important is because this
Speaker 1: is why I don't get so upset. I do get
Speaker 1: upset talking about it. But if you're a publication, you're
Speaker 1: fighting for resources that you don't have access to. So
Speaker 1: it's like, what's the best way can I get this?
Speaker 3: How can I get it done quickly?
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to somebody deval or we're gonna nominate
Speaker 1: Kevin Hart. Sorry Kevin. You know, yeah, the same thing
Speaker 1: the NBA. In the nl Man, I didn't get drafted.
Speaker 1: Marcus Colston got drafted right when my senior year. I
Speaker 1: was a number one receiver. Marcus had just came back
Speaker 1: off of injury. I was leading and receiving yards and
Speaker 1: touchdowns up to the last two games. Got hurt when
Speaker 1: it came down to the draft. Pick. Right the draft,
Speaker 1: are you going to draft a five to ten, one
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy pound receiver or you're gonna draft six
Speaker 1: y five, two hundred and forty. I would draft Marcus
Speaker 1: Coaston ten times out of ten. So I'm not upset.
Speaker 1: I just understand what it is. I just want the
Speaker 1: people to understand too. When you see your favorite celebrities
Speaker 1: sometimes say I'm not going back to be ET, it's
Speaker 1: probably because they feel like they got shitted on by
Speaker 1: BT for mad years and being that I'm in here
Speaker 1: in BT right now, I hear it all the time.
Speaker 1: I hear and then I hear from the BT exactly
Speaker 1: like the villa. We're fighting with resources. We can't pay y'all.
Speaker 1: Like I did a project for Netflix and they sent
Speaker 1: me on tour press ye pay for everything because it's Netflix.
Speaker 1: BT hit me like, ll.
Speaker 2: You want to tour, we don't have money for Graham.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, I got it. This is for
Speaker 1: me anyway, So I'll pay to promote to promote my show,
Speaker 1: so I'll pay for myself and I'll write it off
Speaker 1: on taxes. But some celebrities after a while just be like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that for BT no more. And that's
Speaker 1: the fucked up part. I'm gonna do this for BET
Speaker 1: till I die, because I want those kids to see me.
Speaker 1: I think me and Matt talked about this. I want
Speaker 1: to be the celebrity that does a movie like Independence
Speaker 1: Day and they're like, y'all want to go see the
Speaker 1: Vow And the thing is, sit was crazy, But on
Speaker 1: Wednesday he was Zach m Because there's some family somewhere
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn who don't have the money to pay for
Speaker 1: a thirty dollars Imax ticket to go see Daval, but
Speaker 1: on Wednesday they could see Daval. Bzach Like, that's what
Speaker 1: I want to do. So I'm always gonna be there
Speaker 1: for BG. Most of wonna be there for the big ones,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna let them motherfuckers know along the way,
Speaker 1: like this is this shit ain't right, Like y'all gotta
Speaker 1: figure this out, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 7: Figure it out.
Speaker 3: Let's figure out how to pay these bills, because that's
Speaker 3: one thing that's always gonna keep coming, all right. So
Speaker 3: we're gonna do that, and we're gonna move into listening letters.
Speaker 3: Stick around, y'all. All right, we're back and let's dive
Speaker 3: into this Sinstener letter for today. Hello, I am a
Speaker 3: thirty one year old j American woman and if you
Speaker 3: don't know, that's Jamaican American woman. And I'm engaged to
Speaker 3: my fiance, thirty two years old black man. We've been
Speaker 3: dating for about five years, engaged for six months, and
Speaker 3: our wedding is in twenty twenty five. I recently I
Speaker 3: recently was out running errands and I noticed my engagement
Speaker 3: ring slipped off my finger.
Speaker 1: Oh.
Speaker 3: I retraced my steps, looked all over my car, but
Speaker 3: I couldn't find it, and believe it was stolen. I'm devastated.
Speaker 3: I found the police report and plan to continue going
Speaker 3: to local pondshots to see if I can find my ring.
Speaker 3: My fiance, unfortunately did not have the ring in shore
Speaker 3: yet he has been pretty chill about the whole situation.
Speaker 3: The ring cost him thirty five hundred dollars and we
Speaker 3: both don't make much money. We got into a little
Speaker 3: argument because I told him I will buy the same
Speaker 3: ring with the wedding fund. But he made a good
Speaker 3: point that although I'm paying for majority of the wedding,
Speaker 3: I can't afford to spend an extra three grand on
Speaker 3: another ring. Plus, I'm more upset that the sentimental value
Speaker 3: of my engagement ring is gone, and all we have
Speaker 3: now are the memories of the proposal, which was simple
Speaker 3: and intimate, like I had asked. So as of now,
Speaker 3: we both agreed that I will just wear a nice
Speaker 3: fake ring so I have something to wear for our
Speaker 3: engagement photos, my bridal shower, and our wedding, and then
Speaker 3: three years down the road, he'll buy me another ring.
Speaker 3: I admire you both, Kadeinia de Val and y'all's marriage.
Speaker 3: I want to get both of y'all's advice on this
Speaker 3: and what you guys would do if you were in
Speaker 3: our shoes. Thanks so much.
Speaker 1: This is easy for me because the diamond industry is
Speaker 1: in shambles. Do not buy another fucking diamond ring. What
Speaker 1: you do is you go get a lab grown dom.
Speaker 1: He is going to cost you ten percent of the
Speaker 1: price and it's going to look exactly the same, no
Speaker 1: matter why. Because seeking admiration from people outside of your
Speaker 1: relationship is going to do nothing for your relationship. Go
Speaker 1: get that fake ring, put on your finger, take your pictures,
Speaker 1: you and your fiance plan a perfect wedding for y'allself
Speaker 1: that y'all want, and to go on y'all merried way.
Speaker 3: Mike Drop, that's really it and the fact that you
Speaker 3: guys are I mean, and they have a plan to
Speaker 3: put the fake ring on, get married, and then maybe
Speaker 3: three years down the line, you want to get another ring,
Speaker 3: get another ring. We've learned over time that literally these
Speaker 3: like these things are material. I understand the sentimental value.
Speaker 3: But Deval proposed with proposed to me with the ring
Speaker 3: that he had custom made. It was beautiful, roundstone, had
Speaker 3: a K and a dee on it. It was beautiful
Speaker 3: and it was made by our jeweler Aria at the
Speaker 3: time recipes to Ari he died for after Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: And that for me was super sentimental because I'm like
Speaker 3: Ari made the ring, he made my ring, he made
Speaker 3: original wedding band. It was just very sentimental. And then
Speaker 3: as the years go on, you live in the memory
Speaker 3: of it, but the material thing doesn't necessarily have the
Speaker 3: connection that you think it has to that memory because
Speaker 3: I've had my ring, this is the third ring I've
Speaker 3: had now because of out has changed and upgraded just
Speaker 3: with the time and how my style has changed. So yeah,
Speaker 3: I think between the lab grown diamond, that's the that's
Speaker 3: the hack now because we have someone that we know
Speaker 3: who's getting a divorce and tried to sell her ring.
Speaker 3: Ring was valued at seventy five thousand dollars when her
Speaker 3: husband bought it for her. We took it to a
Speaker 3: local Julia to try to see she can turn it in.
Speaker 3: They weren't giving her more than fifteen thousand dollars. He
Speaker 3: paid seventy five thousand dollars for this ring.
Speaker 1: Guys, I said, the market has changed so much because
Speaker 1: lab grown diamonds pretty much take the same This is
Speaker 1: how much science has changed.
Speaker 2: It goes through the same process of coaling.
Speaker 1: The diamond into a diamond that it does underground, so
Speaker 1: when they test it, it passes all the same test does.
Speaker 1: So now you can get the same exact diamond as
Speaker 1: you had before with no flaws, and it's going to
Speaker 1: pass all of the diamond laser tests.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I am not going to spend three thousand dollars when
Speaker 1: I can spend three fifty. That's I'm just not going
Speaker 1: to do it. I'm going to invest that money in
Speaker 1: and creating a greater future. There's some days I walk
Speaker 1: around and Kate don't got her ring on. K lost
Speaker 1: to tennants bracelet that I bought her, and she was
Speaker 1: so devastrated, crying and I said, it's a thing, and
Speaker 1: it's a thing like we have each other, like these
Speaker 1: things are going to come and go. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, good luck to y'all with the wedding planning and
Speaker 3: starting your life together. That's awesome.
Speaker 7: All right, y'all.
Speaker 3: If you want to be featured as one of our
Speaker 3: listener letters, email us at the Ellis's Advice. Well, the
Speaker 3: Ellis Advice at gmail dot com. Spell that out.
Speaker 1: T H E L L wait t H E E
Speaker 1: L L I S A d V I C E
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com.
Speaker 3: All right, let's go in to a moment of truth time.
Speaker 3: We're talking about black excellence and black power, black excellence
Speaker 3: versus black power. What is our final round out with
Speaker 3: this conversation? Take us away, trip.
Speaker 6: I think the four election is a great example about
Speaker 6: how what matters black excellence or black power because other
Speaker 6: people that you might be trying to be like in
Speaker 6: the name of excellence, they don't even want the life
Speaker 6: that you want.
Speaker 7: They don't want none of the shit.
Speaker 6: So do everything that you do excellently and for the collective,
Speaker 6: for your people so we can all make it to
Speaker 6: the other side unscathed.
Speaker 7: Amen.
Speaker 3: Amen, Mommy, I don't think we need no more moments
Speaker 3: of truth. Child. That was a blank it statement for everybody.
Speaker 3: If but go ahead and they let me speak for
Speaker 3: you for.
Speaker 4: Me, simple, let your light shine.
Speaker 1: That's the only way black excellents happen.
Speaker 4: Love that, but you got, Josh, I think black excellence
Speaker 4: cannot exist without black power.
Speaker 3: Love that for you. Just always remember the black power
Speaker 3: portion of it is a verb. It's a movement, and
Speaker 3: by way of movement, we attain something that, like Triple
Speaker 3: told us, with black excellence is something that we as
Speaker 3: individuals can feel. So know that one has to work
Speaker 3: with the other simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Your mine is easy. Black excellences in ideology, black powers
Speaker 1: an action item. Get out there and do stuff. Be powerful.
Speaker 3: That's it, all right, y'all Be powerful and be excellent.
Speaker 3: And join us on Patreon if you have not yet,
Speaker 3: because that's that's the best way to be with the Eliss.
Speaker 3: We have our after show on there for Ellis ever After.
Speaker 3: We also have exclusive family content. You can find us there,
Speaker 3: So if you haven't joined Patreon yet, do so, and
Speaker 3: you can find us on social media at Ellis ever After.
Speaker 3: I'm at Skagene, I am.
Speaker 4: And i am deval A Matt on the score, Ellis,
Speaker 4: excuse me, I said that wrong. I have a terrible
Speaker 4: name and I want to change it. If y'all can
Speaker 4: help me get a new Instagram name, please, But it's
Speaker 4: on the score Matt dot Elis. We confuse these people
Speaker 4: every single every weekday.
Speaker 1: It's a new one every time.
Speaker 4: And you can double click on my face at Joshua Underscore, Dwayne,
Speaker 4: I'm at.
Speaker 7: Trips the Cool t ri ibb Z the Cool on
Speaker 7: Everything That's Right.
Speaker 1: And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate,
Speaker 1: review and subscribe please do.
Speaker 6: Cot Ellis ever After is an iHeartMedia podcast. It's hosted
Speaker 6: by Kadeen and daval Ellis. It's produced by Triple Video,
Speaker 6: Production by Joshua Dwyane and Matthew Ellis, video editing by
Speaker 6: Leshan Roem
Speaker 7: Sadgonagonad Dogona