Speaker 1: Motherfucking mini year soul, motherfuckingnear so Yep, yep, yep, there
Speaker 1: it is. There it is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to
Speaker 1: another phenomenal episode. And my mama told me the podcast
Speaker 1: broke me dive deep, deep into the pockets of black
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories, and we finally worked to prove the theories
Speaker 1: that you the listeners have at home. This is it,
Speaker 1: This is Us Thursdays on ABC. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's the day that they come on. Frankly, I've never
Speaker 1: watched the show. I looked at the premise of three
Speaker 1: very unlike people, one of which were Sterling Brown, a
Speaker 1: black man, having to call these people family, and I said, nope,
Speaker 1: no thanks, this isn't gonna turn out the way I
Speaker 1: wanted to. What I would have loved is Sterling came
Speaker 1: Brown commits a massacre against the white devil that traps
Speaker 1: him in his home, and then they tell that story.
Speaker 1: But no, ABC wanted to tell a family drama about
Speaker 1: a man who was burned in a fire spoiler alert.
Speaker 1: And also, somehow, despite having a healthy upbringing, Sterley Came
Speaker 1: Brown still has a crackhead daddy. I don't know. Seems
Speaker 1: problematic to me. But that's neither here nor there. I
Speaker 1: haven't even introduced myself. I'm your host, Lengths and Kerman
Speaker 1: as always, I'm coming in hot. I'm talking about crackheads
Speaker 1: and house fires. This is the way the podcast was
Speaker 1: always meant to be. And I am excited because today
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be digging into a conspiracy that was sent
Speaker 1: to me by a person named Bree. Breeze sent me
Speaker 1: a conspiracy that that I loved right from the beginning.
Speaker 1: She sent me an email. In the subject line she said,
Speaker 1: rubbing niggas heads for luck to question marks, rubbing niggas
Speaker 1: hads for luck. I had to do it again just
Speaker 1: to make sure I could. I could include that second
Speaker 1: question mark in the way that I pronounced it, rubbin
Speaker 1: nikkas heads for luck. Breeth was confused right from the subject,
Speaker 1: but she says high legs and love the show. You're
Speaker 1: funniest fuck. Well, thank you, Bree, et cetera. I was
Speaker 1: gonna send a voice note, but I'm high right now
Speaker 1: and it would take me entirely too long to figure
Speaker 1: out how to send this email from my phone. Well, Bree,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't be that high. It's uh it's pretty basic.
Speaker 1: You just open the app and you talk into your phone.
Speaker 1: But if you're struggling, I respect your choice. Something my
Speaker 1: mama r I p Queen Pam would tell me and
Speaker 1: my brother when we were younger, while effectively giving us noogies,
Speaker 1: was rubbing nigga's head get good luck. I also remember
Speaker 1: my light skin, asked grandfather, saying that too. Obviously it's racist,
Speaker 1: but where the funk did this come from? Is that
Speaker 1: why white people want to touch my hair all the time.
Speaker 1: Open your third eye and enlighten us. Please, thanks, and
Speaker 1: don't forget to tip your infoil hat at a forty
Speaker 1: five degree angle. Bree, thank you so much for this
Speaker 1: lovely note. Brie, and uh and I appreciate the drugs
Speaker 1: you were doing prompting this very strange conspiracy theory that
Speaker 1: I don't think I had ever heard necessarily, I don't
Speaker 1: think specifically rubbing the nigga's head for good luck. It's
Speaker 1: the thing that I I've heard over and over again.
Speaker 1: I've heard rubb a bald head man said, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, if they bald, you could slap that skin,
Speaker 1: and that's fun. That's what we used to do. My
Speaker 1: friend Carl. He taught me about this thing that they
Speaker 1: did when they were growing up called cheese neck where
Speaker 1: and it's it's not it's not a complicated game. But
Speaker 1: if that neck was exposed, you slap it and you
Speaker 1: say cheese neck. And that was the game. And that
Speaker 1: was pretty fun in college. But yeah, you rub a
Speaker 1: bald head and maybe you kiss it a little bit.
Speaker 1: That's that's a good old time. You o't go kiss
Speaker 1: that bald head. But rubbing for good luck I had
Speaker 1: not heard, and so I decided to do as requested
Speaker 1: by Bree, a little little bit of research, and as
Speaker 1: it turns out, breathe, this isn't some completely made up
Speaker 1: theory from your your mom and your grandfather. In fact,
Speaker 1: rubbing a black person's head for good luck actually traces
Speaker 1: all the way back to slavery. It's weird. It's like
Speaker 1: a lot of our history is traced back to slavery. Hmmm.
Speaker 1: I wonder what that was. I wonder what happened to
Speaker 1: us that made us have to come up with a
Speaker 1: bunch of traditions and weird, uh weird ways of creating
Speaker 1: culture as a means of survival during that period. It's
Speaker 1: almost as if somebody was being real fucked up to
Speaker 1: us anyway, I digress. White slave masters used to rub
Speaker 1: their slaves heads, not just as a method of asserting dominance. Obviously,
Speaker 1: they viewed their slaves as as cattle is, as fucking
Speaker 1: just animals, and so they would do it as a
Speaker 1: way of saying, I'm the master, you are are owned.
Speaker 1: But also they would do it as a way, I guess,
Speaker 1: of making themselves extra lucky at beating and raping later
Speaker 1: that day. You know what I mean, I don't know
Speaker 1: what kind of special luck of slave master needs, Like, oh,
Speaker 1: I hope I could cut his foot off in one
Speaker 1: chap this time, you know what I mean? Like, I
Speaker 1: don't know why you need luck. You beat the game.
Speaker 1: You fucking own people in land in a place where
Speaker 1: both of those things are are pretty much the only
Speaker 1: things to own. So like, what luck did you need
Speaker 1: that day? Jebbediah. But either way, the fact that they
Speaker 1: used to rub these black heads apparently is a very
Speaker 1: real thing. Now. Obviously, slaves at the time didn't have
Speaker 1: the option to reject this unwanted touching, and so it's
Speaker 1: highly likely that these slave masters were in fact able
Speaker 1: to at least continue having a pleasant day. Despite physically
Speaker 1: assaulting a person mere moments before that, you could just
Speaker 1: rub ahead and go about your business. Nobody could do
Speaker 1: anything about it, you know what I mean. That's just
Speaker 1: the way it was back then. Now, the question that
Speaker 1: popped in my head when this all came in because
Speaker 1: it did remind me of those bald heads that we
Speaker 1: used to rub and kiss back in my youth, and
Speaker 1: it got me asking whether or not bald heads were
Speaker 1: somehow serviced or if they service better. Look, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, if you rub a a big
Speaker 1: old fluffy head, yeah that's okay. But if you rub
Speaker 1: a bald head, god damn it, you just hit the
Speaker 1: lot o, you know what I mean. So it's letting
Speaker 1: hit that line of thinking. And maybe I'm high right now, Bree.
Speaker 1: I haven't had any drugs, but a goddamn it, I'm
Speaker 1: high on life and I'm high on skepticism. One of
Speaker 1: the things that it got me asking is why so
Speaker 1: many African people, certainly in their depictions in the media.
Speaker 1: And I haven't spent a lot of time in Africa.
Speaker 1: I went to South Africa one time, and uh, it
Speaker 1: was pretty cool and super problematic. What you see is
Speaker 1: the remnants of apartheid in a way that they do
Speaker 1: not tell you about. They say that apartheid happened, and
Speaker 1: everybody's free now and and now they're equals, and white
Speaker 1: people apologize, But what they don't mention is that in
Speaker 1: Cape Town specifically, about eighty to ninety percent of the
Speaker 1: land is still predominantly owned by white people, and all
Speaker 1: the black people are sort of pushing into these small
Speaker 1: pockets and it's all very unfair. And the land specifically
Speaker 1: is uh. They have these beautiful wine country areas and
Speaker 1: you asked the driver as and he takes you out there,
Speaker 1: how many of these vineyards are owned by black people?
Speaker 1: And he's like, huh what Uh, I don't know what
Speaker 1: you're talking about. And it's just very clear that the
Speaker 1: redistribution of wealth never really happened in this country, despite
Speaker 1: them making these very public apologies. But again, that's not
Speaker 1: what we're focused on here. My question was why do
Speaker 1: so many people in some African countries have bald heads?
Speaker 1: And so the question, or at least some of the
Speaker 1: information that I found is number one, many places on
Speaker 1: the continent, as it turns out, are very very hot.
Speaker 1: So it's just easier for comfort and cleanliness, and also
Speaker 1: resources to shave your head or at least cut it
Speaker 1: down very low, and that would explain why these lucky
Speaker 1: ass bald heads are walking around all the time. The
Speaker 1: other thing that I found in asking that question is that, apparently,
Speaker 1: and this is something that that got written up for me,
Speaker 1: I didn't write this part of it, but I'll make
Speaker 1: sense of the whole thing. The hair, apparently is the
Speaker 1: most elevated part of the body and was therefore, back
Speaker 1: in the day, considered a portal for spirits to pass
Speaker 1: through the soul. Pass through to the soul. Excuse me,
Speaker 1: so like spirits could like, uh, you know how like
Speaker 1: in break dancing, when you pass that electricity from one
Speaker 1: arm to the other, and you gotta pass it because
Speaker 1: if you let that build up inside of you, that's
Speaker 1: how you get diabetes. But you gotta pass that electricity
Speaker 1: from one arm to the other. And so apparently that's
Speaker 1: how like a spirituality sort of works, is that it's
Speaker 1: passing through your hair into your soul. And because of
Speaker 1: the cultural and spiritual importance of hair for Africans, the
Speaker 1: practice of having their heads involuntarily shaved before being sold
Speaker 1: as slaves was in itself a dehumanizing act. So these
Speaker 1: slave masters weren't just shaving their heads because they thought
Speaker 1: it looked cool. They wanted to get, you know, feel lucky.
Speaker 1: It was truly an act of dehumanizing them. It was
Speaker 1: an effort to make them feel less than and lose
Speaker 1: even more of the control in their life. The little
Speaker 1: bit of thing that made them feel like they had
Speaker 1: a connection to their spirituality, or their beauty or their comfort,
Speaker 1: they snatched that away too. They seem like otherwise pretty
Speaker 1: good guys. I think historically we should just keep celebrating
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and all those other fellas.
Speaker 1: They seem like perfectly reasonable people, except for the fact
Speaker 1: that they literally stole everything from generation after generation of
Speaker 1: p pol. That's said, it is very similar. This act
Speaker 1: of of dehumanizing is very similar in my mind to
Speaker 1: how white people will sometimes introduce themselves to dogs before
Speaker 1: they even greet the people who are walking those dogs.
Speaker 1: You have you ever experienced this, you the listener at home.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I'm framing this as a question.
Speaker 1: Have you ever had that thing where like you're walking
Speaker 1: a dog and then somebody walks up and they're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, you're beautiful. You aren't you a cutie part?
Speaker 1: It's like, bitch, I speak English. He can't. He don't
Speaker 1: even speak English. He doesn't even wipe up his own ship.
Speaker 1: Say hello to me, and then I may or may
Speaker 1: not tell you why I named my dog something stupid
Speaker 1: like Buckley or send your marshmallow. You don't get to
Speaker 1: just creet my dog without my consent. You greet me, bitch,
Speaker 1: you greet you look me in the eyes, and you
Speaker 1: say hello, sir. I would like to find out if
Speaker 1: your dog is a girl or a boy, even though
Speaker 1: that information has no applicable meaning. In my world, it's
Speaker 1: probably spade or neutered, So truthfully, it's it's been removed
Speaker 1: of that dignity. Also, should we talk about how owning
Speaker 1: dogs has a a taste of slavery in it? Probably not.
Speaker 1: That's why what this episode is about. Anyway, it does
Speaker 1: appear to your question, Bree about about the touching of
Speaker 1: black hair. It does appear in some ways that touching
Speaker 1: black hair maybe an evolution worn from this weird white
Speaker 1: devil superstition of rubbing heads for good luck. However, I
Speaker 1: actually think the issue of touching black hair is a
Speaker 1: little more basic than that. I don't think it's as
Speaker 1: evolved as as we would like it to be. I think, truthfully,
Speaker 1: if I'm being honest, the act of touching the hair,
Speaker 1: it's more because the hair, just for the whites just
Speaker 1: seems foreign or odd compared to their own, shall we say,
Speaker 1: berrilla spaghetti hair? Do you know what I mean? Just
Speaker 1: a bi Yeah. I used to love those Burrea commercials,
Speaker 1: and but some of it maybe it was just me
Speaker 1: loving white hair. I just see I saw it them like,
Speaker 1: look at that gorgeous white hair. Looks scrumptious. M m.
Speaker 1: The point is our hair seems foreign, and the choice
Speaker 1: to simply reach out and touch it is no different
Speaker 1: than the instinct, the exact instinct they have with animals
Speaker 1: on the street. And they see black people as so
Speaker 1: lacking in their own agency and their own sort of
Speaker 1: like self worth, that they presume any kindness, say show,
Speaker 1: including a pat on the head, would be welcomed. We'd
Speaker 1: like it. Them reaching their hand out must be sweet
Speaker 1: to them because of their history of slavery and abuse.
Speaker 1: They're like, well, I'm not hitting you in the face,
Speaker 1: so you probably are just a fan that I even
Speaker 1: noticed your existence black man or woman, and so I'm
Speaker 1: gonna touch your hair and you'll be great full, much
Speaker 1: in the way that a pug would be if I
Speaker 1: reached out impetted his or her head. It's a gross
Speaker 1: instinct and it it probably does have a historical context
Speaker 1: or of people believing in good luck, but I don't
Speaker 1: think it offers much good luck now, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I've watched enough YouTube videos of black ladies
Speaker 1: flipping out at Walmart because some white lady gets bold
Speaker 1: and touches their hair to know that. Yeah, and ain't
Speaker 1: that ain't the move no more? You know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I don't think it ends uh. I think that's how
Speaker 1: you get fired from your your weird uh financial services job,
Speaker 1: is you get caught touching a black lady's hair and
Speaker 1: then she tweets about it afterwards. So, in a long
Speaker 1: story short, it used to be good luck. I guess
Speaker 1: if you are a slave owner and you you wanted
Speaker 1: to to to effectively shoot a slave in the kneecapsule later,
Speaker 1: But nowadays it seems like it's pretty bad luck. Although
Speaker 1: I don't know that white people have fully realized that yet. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if there's any other physical abuse that you wanted to
Speaker 1: pitch to me, the listener at home, that you think
Speaker 1: might be good or bad, look I talk about it you.
Speaker 1: All you gotta do is send it to me, send me,
Speaker 1: send me a note, send me a voice memo. Don't
Speaker 1: get high like Breee. She's a drug addict. She's Oh
Speaker 1: my god, we gotta get her into a clinic and
Speaker 1: and get some help for her. But you, the listener
Speaker 1: at home, sober effective living your life. You could send
Speaker 1: me a message at my mama Pott at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: And I listened to it, and some of them I
Speaker 1: respond to. Some of them are fucking nuts, and you
Speaker 1: guys should be ashamed of yourselves. You should shoot yourself
Speaker 1: in the foot. But the others that are more reasonable,
Speaker 1: I listened to them, and I'll respond to him here
Speaker 1: on the podcast. And as always, you can follow me
Speaker 1: at length steink Herman, and most importantly, please follow and
Speaker 1: subscribe to the podcast and write beautiful notes and reviews.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. Okay, Well that's all
Speaker 1: I needed to talk to you about. By motherfucking miny years,
Speaker 1: so many years, so motherfucking miny years so, motherfucking mini
Speaker 1: your so many years, so, motherfucking miniyears. So h.