Speaker 1: Welcome back to it could happen here a podcast that
Speaker 1: is being recorded far too early in the morning with
Speaker 1: me to help me stay conscious. Is my friend and
Speaker 1: coffee entrepreneur prop Aksa, Jason Petty Prop. How are you doing,
Speaker 1: buddy man?
Speaker 2: I'm wonderful on this fine day. I almost did an
Speaker 2: AKA song forgetting which show I was. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh wait, that's a zeigeys bit.
Speaker 3: Happens to me all the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so which bit for which show am I supposed
Speaker 2: to do?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 1: Here's what we were talking about before the show, which
Speaker 1: is that we're both exhausted despite sleeping normally this week.
Speaker 1: I feel like this may be something to do with
Speaker 1: these aliens. Everybody's talking about something's going on here.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, aliens or just this like kind of week
Speaker 2: long sort of holiday festival. I've been a part of that.
Speaker 2: Apparently all of Black America has been participating in.
Speaker 3: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 2: We're all experiencing a level of bliss I don't think
Speaker 2: we've had in a long time.
Speaker 1: That is that is our subject of today, which is uh.
Speaker 1: I think the term generally being used for it is
Speaker 1: the Montgomery riverboat brawl that seems to be what we've
Speaker 1: all settled on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the fade in the water. I mean there's
Speaker 2: new there's new spirituals and hymns.
Speaker 3: The Ballad of Black Aquaman. Yes, I love that kid.
Speaker 1: But we should before we get into all this, we
Speaker 1: should talk about what actually happened, because I'm gonna guess, uh,
Speaker 1: there's at least a chunk of people listening who are like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you guys talking about?
Speaker 3: The short of it is.
Speaker 1: A couple of days ago, video dropped two different clips
Speaker 1: I think are mainly what's what people are watching? Of
Speaker 1: a fight at a riverboat dock in Montgomery, Alabama. And
Speaker 1: basically what happens is you had this this river boat
Speaker 1: and it's you know, Montgomery, Alabama's got a lot of tourism.
Speaker 3: It's one of these big boats.
Speaker 1: It holds about two hundred and seventy people, I think,
Speaker 1: takes them up and down the river. You know, you
Speaker 1: go up and down the river, you look at the
Speaker 1: pretty things. I assume there's there's beer or something. You know,
Speaker 1: it's all sorts of cities do this. So this boat
Speaker 1: is heading back into dock and they've got all these
Speaker 1: people who want to get off the boat. Because they've
Speaker 1: been on for a while and.
Speaker 2: They have enough people to get back in a lot
Speaker 2: of people to get the next one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know they have a set
Speaker 1: spot that is their spot, and no one else is
Speaker 1: to park their boat at the dock, as is usual
Speaker 1: for a large business like this, and some dudes with
Speaker 1: a pontoon boat have taken it up.
Speaker 3: They've parked there.
Speaker 1: So the captain gets on the pa for quite a
Speaker 1: while and is like, hey, guys, move your pontoon. Hey guys,
Speaker 1: you got to get that pontoon out of here. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: if you don't get that pontoon out of here, I'm
Speaker 1: going to call the cops. And if you have open containers,
Speaker 1: the cops are going to fuck you. You don't want that,
Speaker 1: so why don't you just move? And these guys get
Speaker 1: like shitty at him and start like yelling at him
Speaker 1: and cursing at him, flipping him the bird, So he
Speaker 1: sends over his co captain and the captain of the
Speaker 1: boat from the videos of scene appears to be a
Speaker 1: white dude. The co captain is a middle aged black man.
Speaker 1: He gets off the boat and he goes over to
Speaker 1: just like move the pontoon boat, right, which is a
Speaker 1: thing that boat people do when situations like this occur.
Speaker 1: It is not like an unheard of situation. And while
Speaker 1: he's doing it all, a whole bunch of the presumably
Speaker 1: the dudes who own this pontoon boat boat who are
Speaker 1: all white, surround him and start attacking him. And at
Speaker 1: one point that looks like five or six people trying
Speaker 1: to and he's for the record, he's holding his own
Speaker 1: He's doing easy as long as you can. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: then a number of nearby people start running to his aid,
Speaker 1: including at least one of the kids on the riverboat.
Speaker 1: Uh hops out or like pops into the water, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: you were talking about the rest of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, there's a hood politics episode we recorded where
Speaker 2: I try to do like initial reactions and try to
Speaker 2: add some some like color to this, which will come
Speaker 2: out a little later. This will come out before that,
Speaker 2: but there's Yeah, So you're watching the video, you can't
Speaker 2: it's all inaudible, so you can't really hear except for
Speaker 2: the people recording. You hear them talking to them talking, right,
Speaker 2: But judging from there's so many context clues to understand
Speaker 2: what's happening, right, so as the co captain, the black
Speaker 2: dude's getting off the boat to come talk to these
Speaker 2: white boys right the way that you can just you
Speaker 2: know when someone's like and unfortunately for white people, y'all
Speaker 2: can't when you're drunk. Just your skin shows it, Yo,
Speaker 2: saying like yea, so you could just see, Okay, this
Speaker 2: dude's like, your skin's very flush with color right now.
Speaker 2: So you're you're clearly drunk, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And it's hot as hell because it's Montgomery, Alabama, right,
Speaker 2: it's also Montgomery, Alabama. So you just from seeing the
Speaker 2: interaction and the body language of both people in this conversation,
Speaker 2: you're like, Okay, this conversation is getting intense. And then
Speaker 2: and then once once the uh the the white gentleman
Speaker 2: decides he's gonna put hands on on his black dude,
Speaker 2: the black dude throws his hat up into the air.
Speaker 3: He shared do es he shares us.
Speaker 2: As a universe. Now, Robert, is that not a universal
Speaker 2: bating signal?
Speaker 1: I would go so far as to say, it's like,
Speaker 1: that's damn near like a mortal combat opener, right, like
Speaker 1: say it is universal?
Speaker 2: Its hair? Yes, it's like all right, we got to
Speaker 2: throw hands right, so good, it's so good. So at
Speaker 2: that point, that's when like clearly, like clearly, either these
Speaker 2: white boys are are very very inebriated or have grossly
Speaker 2: underestimated the feeling of collective identity black people have, because
Speaker 2: when they decided to jump this man, you're in front
Speaker 2: of hundreds of black people, oh yeah, who are all
Speaker 2: waiting in line to get on this boat, right, who
Speaker 2: are already pissed at you because you're not moving right.
Speaker 2: So so when he does that, as you can see,
Speaker 2: there are people running, you know, black men running as
Speaker 2: fast as they can to kind of help you know this, uh, this,
Speaker 2: this co captain who by this point is being stomped
Speaker 2: because he's he's overpowered by five people. And then you
Speaker 2: see this young man swimming to the shore, which is
Speaker 2: like he's a yeah, I mean, that guy's a national treasure.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that guy, but I can tell
Speaker 1: that we can tell a couple of things about him.
Speaker 1: One of them is that he reacts quickly in a crisis, yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And the other is that pretty good swimmer and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he must be a teenager because gonna have the
Speaker 2: energy to swim there and then still start doing work.
Speaker 1: Well and then pull yourself up onto a dock when yeah,
Speaker 1: clothing's all soaked, very impressive feet.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So anyway, so as that happens, people finally catch up.
Speaker 2: The boat finally gets a chance to dock. Now these
Speaker 2: other people who were on the boat and watched all
Speaker 2: this happen are like, now it's our turn. So they
Speaker 2: get off the boat, go to the pontoon. Shirts off again,
Speaker 2: another universal signal. If I've taken my T shirt off,
Speaker 2: we're we're here, We're gonna throw down. So they start
Speaker 2: throwing down. I mean, it's women getting involved. And then
Speaker 2: now now now it becomes this entire brawl, right so,
Speaker 2: and if you've ever been in situations where brawls break out,
Speaker 2: they kind of move and shift as different people decide
Speaker 2: they want a part of it, and other people get tired,
Speaker 2: and somebody's finally you know' his nosebleeding whatever. And while
Speaker 2: this is happening, there's a few clips where you can
Speaker 2: see whether they're secure, the officers or police, they're kind
Speaker 2: of just watching, kind of like, I don't know if
Speaker 2: we need to do anything about this just yet. Now
Speaker 2: finally the brawl gets around the corner and a brave
Speaker 2: old man, old head who sees his opportunity.
Speaker 1: Wow, who is who has brought? Who has brought that?
Speaker 1: He's got the soul of a sniper. This man is
Speaker 1: like watching and waiting to act.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so at this point, uh, there are some
Speaker 2: security officers involved who have finally been like, all right, man,
Speaker 2: maybe we just maybe we should stop this. And it's
Speaker 2: almost like again you can't hear it, but judging by
Speaker 2: their body language, the cops are kind of like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, man, and white boys kind of asked for it,
Speaker 2: like and you don't say so, they just kind of
Speaker 2: watch it like, hey man, you ask for it, man,
Speaker 2: And this is what happens. You should have moved your boat,
Speaker 2: should have been talking ship like like like Kat Williams says,
Speaker 2: shouldn't have been talking shit, you know. So so anyway
Speaker 2: they do this and this this hero of a man
Speaker 2: grabs a white folding chair and just whacks a dude
Speaker 2: over the head with it who was attempting to attack
Speaker 2: some other people. Now, clearly again, if you've been in
Speaker 2: a brawl, maybe adding color that's not on the video,
Speaker 2: but like, if you've been in a brawl, you understand,
Speaker 2: at some point you kind of black out and you
Speaker 2: just you just get punched drunk. So while he's hitting
Speaker 2: a guy with a folding chair, there's this other white
Speaker 2: lady who's attempting to intervene with an interaction that one
Speaker 2: of the security or cop guys is having with turns
Speaker 2: out which with probably one of her compadres.
Speaker 1: And this is, by the way, a mixed gender brawl.
Speaker 1: There's there's like, yeah, this is not not just dudes
Speaker 1: throwing hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, y this yeah, it's it's it's it's girls on girls,
Speaker 2: it's girls on dudes. It's dudes on girls. It's a brawl,
Speaker 2: you know. So the officer, like officers do when you
Speaker 2: try to intervene with them having interactions with with somebody
Speaker 2: pushes the lady away. Now, now the lady's in river
Speaker 2: broke crocs, right, so her feet just fall right through
Speaker 2: the crocs, right. She gets pushed down and just happens
Speaker 2: to be in the eyesight of this of this sixty
Speaker 2: old man with a folded chair. And while she's down,
Speaker 2: he just turns and just whax her over the head
Speaker 2: with this chair.
Speaker 1: Oh he sure does. He gives you the w W
Speaker 1: E special, I mean, just New World Order suck.
Speaker 2: It just smacks her with a folding chair, and at
Speaker 2: that point, you it's almost like and again it's all
Speaker 2: in audible, but you just see the officers go like, shit.
Speaker 3: Man, yep, now we got to do something.
Speaker 2: Now we got like fuck man, now we got to
Speaker 2: arrest you, dude. Right. So yeah, so the cops finally
Speaker 2: go like what the fuck man, They take the chair
Speaker 2: from the guy, and the dude his body language is
Speaker 2: so like like he doesn't even know what's happening, like
Speaker 2: I'm just swinging, you know. So when the officer finally
Speaker 2: takes the chair and they like, they're like, dude, you
Speaker 2: hit the lady. You hit the lady, you hit the lady.
Speaker 2: We got we yeah, we gotta do something. We got
Speaker 2: to arrest you now, right And which, of course, the
Speaker 2: internet watching it, and even the person holding even the
Speaker 2: person shooting the video, we all like, oh yeah.
Speaker 1: Nah, but he's definitely going to jail.
Speaker 2: That guy going to jail. Everybody else yeah might be fine,
Speaker 2: He's going to jail. Yeah, And uh, and that's pretty
Speaker 2: much where where the video stops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it has, uh, it has obviously gone everywhere
Speaker 1: since then, there's a lot of writing about like, yeah,
Speaker 1: why this has like taken off uh so much and
Speaker 1: and uh been seen us so inspirational to people. I
Speaker 1: think it's because it seems we've all seen like too
Speaker 1: many videos that are just kind of the first part
Speaker 1: of this where like, yeah, there's like a bunch of
Speaker 1: racist white pean and by the way, there's at least
Speaker 1: you can't hear it on the video, but people have
Speaker 1: said that like these folks when that co captain came down,
Speaker 1: were like shouting the inward adhaim and stuff. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we've all seen the variants of this that are just like, yeah,
Speaker 1: some black men or black woman getting abused by a
Speaker 1: bunch of racists, and this one starts looking like that
Speaker 1: and then turns into like a beautiful come uppance, Like
Speaker 1: these people picked a fight against a man they thought
Speaker 1: was like alone and kind of heavy set and older
Speaker 1: and that they could like wail on and just wound
Speaker 1: up getting absolutely housed. Based on at least what I'm
Speaker 1: looking at here, looks like three of the white folks
Speaker 1: involved in this have been charged with crime. The police
Speaker 1: are talking to the chair guy. It's unclear yet like
Speaker 1: what exactly charges he's gonna catch.
Speaker 2: He was on a he was on a radio show,
Speaker 2: a morning show in Alabama, whare with just Uh, sort
Speaker 2: of an internet personality that like in the black community,
Speaker 2: we're all very familiar with. And so they asked her.
Speaker 2: They asked him like, the lady asked him like okay, okay,
Speaker 2: you had the chair and the lady was already down,
Speaker 2: like what what what happened? He said, It feels like
Speaker 2: it's like we wrote the script where he goes man
Speaker 2: I blacked out, and he said, I just thought about
Speaker 2: Rosa Parks and that lady that wouldn't give the seat
Speaker 2: to her. I was like, I'll give her a chair.
Speaker 1: But you know, fights are ugly things, but also in
Speaker 1: some ways beautiful things. It's a there's a lot going
Speaker 1: on in this video. I'm not surprised that it's it's
Speaker 1: been taken by so many people. There's some lessons I
Speaker 1: think bystanders can take from this. From one thing, if
Speaker 1: like fifty people are having a giant brawl, might want
Speaker 1: to get out of there.
Speaker 2: Just leave, Yeah, just bounce. You should know to leave.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not a good thing to get in the
Speaker 1: middle of. But second, if you're parked in someone else's
Speaker 1: boat spot, maybe instead of shouting racial slurs, get your
Speaker 1: fucking boat moved.
Speaker 2: It's not. It was like, yeah, I think what it's
Speaker 2: It speaks to so much because this was such an
Speaker 2: avoidable situation, you guess, is completely avoidable, bro, just slide
Speaker 2: over a little bit. I feel like if you've like,
Speaker 2: if you've driven a car on a highway, then you've
Speaker 2: seen a semi truck. And when the semi truck just
Speaker 2: get out his what like, why is you picking this fight? Man?
Speaker 2: Just he can't. It's a big old at wheelerd. Just
Speaker 2: this is courtesy. That's a bigger So I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 2: that's a bigger boat than you. You're more nimble, you
Speaker 2: can move, and clearly it's a line of people waiting
Speaker 2: to get off. I don't understand.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things I think that's involved here
Speaker 1: that's interesting to me is that there's this This is
Speaker 1: not just I mean, like, obviously the fact that these
Speaker 1: guys were biggots is a factor here, but there's also
Speaker 1: just this increasingly common freedom that the most selfish people
Speaker 1: in our society feel to be like aggressive about the
Speaker 1: fact that they don't owe anyone else, like basic like politeness, right,
Speaker 1: like the very basic. Though two hundred and seventy people
Speaker 1: are being inconvenienced because I parked by shit in the
Speaker 1: wrong space.
Speaker 3: I should bounce, you know, I should probably at least say,
Speaker 3: oh sorry, I fucked up.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like no, we're gonna make this a thing
Speaker 1: because like we get to park wherever the fuck we
Speaker 1: want and fuck you like that. That kind of attitude
Speaker 1: is like it's so frustrating, like I can't even get
Speaker 1: myself into the head of someone who would do what
Speaker 1: these guys did and not like feel like they were
Speaker 1: an asshole. Like I had to do the thing every
Speaker 1: now and then I think most of us do where
Speaker 1: like I park my car in like a a like
Speaker 1: a red zone or something because it's like I got
Speaker 1: to be It's like there's no spaces. I'm thirty students, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: And you get out and someone seeing you like in
Speaker 1: the fucking red and they're like, yes, you know, like
Speaker 1: I know will at one point, man, I'm sorry, Like yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry, bro, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: Look I'm gone, I'm gone, my bad, Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: And to have the the fucking HUTSBA to just like
Speaker 1: look at a boat of two hundred and seventy people
Speaker 1: be like, fuck all of you, Like I want to
Speaker 1: keep my stupid ass bart doing here for some reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then the willingness to be like, what the
Speaker 2: fuck you're gonna do about it? Well, we'll jump you
Speaker 2: if you get that mad, and just and whether it's
Speaker 2: whether you're adding to either the lack of like situational
Speaker 2: awareness or just that that overall hutzvah like you said
Speaker 2: of just like whatever, I'll take all of you, like
Speaker 2: really you really really like Yeah, I think that there's
Speaker 2: a there's a lot to color here too, with the
Speaker 2: fact that, first of all, this is take where it's
Speaker 2: taking place. I mean we're still in Montgomery, Alabama here
Speaker 2: and which and on a dock that was obviously and
Speaker 2: verifiably a dock where slaves were dropped off at you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So you have that history, right,
Speaker 2: you have the history of the Montgomery bus boycotts. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying, Like, this is this is the
Speaker 2: city where Rosa Parks did the thing. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Like, this is where it happens. There's so
Speaker 2: much history in the city and on top of that,
Speaker 2: like I mean there's high schools in Alabama named Robert E. Lee,
Speaker 2: like Robert E. Lee High School, Like we're talking about
Speaker 2: we're talking about a place that I mean what it
Speaker 2: was in the news in the odds that, Like I mean,
Speaker 2: there was a high school that just desegregated, like in
Speaker 2: the year twenty something.
Speaker 3: Like they got there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they just desegregated high school. Right. It made
Speaker 2: the news in twenty ten because they finally had a
Speaker 2: desegregated prom. But that was just the prom. And it's
Speaker 2: just that the prom white school invited the black They
Speaker 2: can't go to school together. They could just do a
Speaker 2: dance with this. This is where. This is the state
Speaker 2: that this happened in. So you're like, you're in this
Speaker 2: like and I hate to like otherise them, but I'm
Speaker 2: an otherise them in the sense that this is some
Speaker 2: like multiverse bizarro world where you what desegregation is recent,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. So when you have that
Speaker 2: type of thing, first of all, you have to have
Speaker 2: you have to remember, like both of those things are
Speaker 2: sitting in sort of the collective consciousness of that community,
Speaker 2: whether especially for the black people who are like this,
Speaker 2: this is the world we live in. But we've also
Speaker 2: proven that if you push us far enough, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, like, we're not gonna stand for it.
Speaker 4: You know, we pick up a folded chair, We'll pick
Speaker 4: up a folding chair, which has become something of a
Speaker 4: symbol in the last new open carry Yeah. I saw
Speaker 4: at least one TikTok video that was just it was like,
Speaker 4: there's like a couple of people watching as this young
Speaker 4: black guy in a Walmart like was holding up and
Speaker 4: like testing it like the way that you would like
Speaker 4: a gun at the gun store.
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, man, the memes have been glorious. I've
Speaker 2: seen folding chair earrings, I've seen dot but the one
Speaker 2: is this that I said, uh, I said Robert a
Speaker 2: video of the folding chair getting interviewed. Yeah. Oh, he's
Speaker 2: one of the first of all. That's one of the
Speaker 2: funniest accounts you could ever follow. But he was just
Speaker 2: like you, I was just sitting there and then we
Speaker 2: started doing charity work.
Speaker 3: And which account is that?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, Ace Vance a ce b A n CE.
Speaker 2: He does just the most incredible voiceovers. Yeah, with the
Speaker 2: chair was just like, who's heading out charities. I was
Speaker 2: doing charity work, yes, freely given ass whoopings like have
Speaker 2: a seat, might step up, have a seat anyway, So good.
Speaker 2: But I I I think that that like is important.
Speaker 2: I think another thing that I think is interesting specifically
Speaker 2: for like that it can happen here audience, which I
Speaker 2: one thing I love about the show is like you
Speaker 2: give y'all give so much his oracle context to whatever
Speaker 2: we're looking at. You know what I'm saying, as as
Speaker 2: almost like proof of concept that not only can it
Speaker 2: happen here, it is happening here, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And I think for this one, there was this interesting moment.
Speaker 2: This is another good follow for you guys. Got named consciously.
Speaker 2: His name is the Conscious Lee. He was like like
Speaker 2: world renown like debater, a master debater. I'm just kidding, uh,
Speaker 2: but he was a world renowned debater. He was one
Speaker 2: of the first like like him and his partner was
Speaker 2: like the first black like co champions in like professional
Speaker 2: debate or college level debate anyway. So he's a brilliant,
Speaker 2: brilliant thinker. He's like you know, YouTube, earthy year styles whatever,
Speaker 2: right anyway, content creator anyway, he brought up this this
Speaker 2: point among sort of the the black community that what
Speaker 2: came out of this too was this hashtag of like, yo,
Speaker 2: we are not our ancestors, you know which, as I
Speaker 2: understand the sentiment, it also shows sort of a lack
Speaker 2: of historical knowledge of like really how our ancestors handled slavery.
Speaker 3: Like yeah, like the amount of resistance.
Speaker 2: The amount of resistance we actually had, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. And and even just like I would even
Speaker 2: courage just like a simple Google search of the amount
Speaker 2: of rebellions, you know, you just whether you're talking about
Speaker 2: the famous ones like the Haitian rebellion, which we did
Speaker 2: a bastard's pot about. You know what I'm saying, We're
Speaker 2: like these fool these fools threw off their their oppressors.
Speaker 2: You have Nah Turner, you know what I'm saying, which
Speaker 2: I talk about more on on on the politics. But
Speaker 2: like I my seventh grade like historical figure report was
Speaker 2: on that Turner and I was busted like a suburban
Speaker 2: like middle school for a little bit. So I'm walking
Speaker 2: into the suburban middle school with my NAT Turner paper.
Speaker 2: My poor English teacher she hadn't been thinking, oh what
Speaker 2: she was thinking but anyway, Yeah, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: you have like there was one, there was there were
Speaker 2: one in New York. There was the one during the
Speaker 2: Thirteen Colonies. Like we have such a history of like
Speaker 2: rebellion and resistance, Like don't think not to mention slave
Speaker 2: ships that were overtaken, you know what I'm saying by
Speaker 2: their captors, Like you know what I'm saying, So like
Speaker 2: these things have there is a rich history of us
Speaker 2: of us rebelling, so like it's almost a point a
Speaker 2: point of lesson, a point of learning for the black
Speaker 2: community too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's like a really useful teachable moment.
Speaker 1: While everyone's kind of amped up about this thing to
Speaker 1: talk about it. I've heard it described as like left
Speaker 1: handed power, uh, kind of in some books that would
Speaker 1: talk about not just you know what we've been chatting about,
Speaker 1: what you are these kind of big moments of insurrection
Speaker 1: among enslaved people, but like the everyday acts of resistance
Speaker 1: by people who were enslaved, like while they are you know,
Speaker 1: on the plantation stuff, different ways of like pulling autonomy
Speaker 1: of like you know, teaching their kids how to read
Speaker 1: or you know, taking you know, getting things like money
Speaker 1: or extra resources, you know, out of the out of
Speaker 1: the people who are attempting to uh yeah, to own them,
Speaker 1: like methods of escape and resistance, you know, all these
Speaker 1: methods of like preserving traditional art and religion while you know,
Speaker 1: in chains, like all that kind of stuff is also.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I hope it.
Speaker 1: I hope it like spurs some of that, you know,
Speaker 1: the the folding chair can be added to a rich
Speaker 1: history of resistance.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and uh yeah, I'm also curious around like
Speaker 2: obviously you and I on this on that are currently
Speaker 2: being recorded, plus a lot of the community that that
Speaker 2: both of us represent, Like, yeah, we're not pacifists like
Speaker 2: you at all, you know what I'm saying. And I
Speaker 2: find that discourse to be interesting too, and especially around
Speaker 2: you know, if you're you're and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: neither is the broader racist community like y'are not pacifist either.
Speaker 2: Like you ask for the smoke, you got the smoke. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Like what is more American than this?
Speaker 1: It's I think a more optimistic chapter, especially like as
Speaker 1: we head into twenty twenty four, as we deal with
Speaker 1: like kind of these continuing efforts to disenfranchise particularly black
Speaker 1: voters across large chunks of the South. I'm glad that
Speaker 1: we've got this, uh what will hopefully continue to be
Speaker 1: a powerful image for people to kind of rally behind.
Speaker 1: This is a this is a nice thing to have.
Speaker 1: It's a I don't know, and it's interesting, like people,
Speaker 1: things are said in a video like this that is
Speaker 1: just kind of like chaotic brawling, but it speaks to
Speaker 1: people in a way that you know, a history textbook,
Speaker 1: uh maybe isn't going to reach them, because there's just
Speaker 1: something so kinetic and powerful about like watching watching a
Speaker 1: large group of people realize that an injustice is going
Speaker 1: down and then be like, well, I guess we've got
Speaker 1: to throw throw hands to stop this shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a microcosm of like a century and a
Speaker 1: half or so of or a couple of centuries of history.
Speaker 2: Whether it's yeah, whether it's a absolutely the couple of
Speaker 2: centuries of history. And then you're like at at least
Speaker 2: ten years of witnessing, you know, black bodies being brutalized
Speaker 2: when no one, when no one was there to help,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: Just seeing the video just watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and and then seeing no recourse like okay, well
Speaker 2: there's well there's never. I mean, are we gonna wait
Speaker 2: for the justice system? You know, the best thing we've
Speaker 2: gotten so far is like no no knock warrants. I mean, thanks,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like, you know, at a
Speaker 2: state you know, like so so and a lot of
Speaker 2: promises of police reform, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 2: you just you don't. I mean, like during Trump's presidency,
Speaker 2: there was I mean, there was an uptick in lynching,
Speaker 2: Like you know what I'm saying, Like these fools are
Speaker 2: getting old school, you know. So it is without hearing
Speaker 2: any video, without knowing anything, that those men were actually saying,
Speaker 2: whether they were just running the mill pricks or just
Speaker 2: ra pricks, whatever it was, it is a Again, if
Speaker 2: you're a if you're a black person in Alabama, it
Speaker 2: is completely reasonable to believe that if we wasn't there
Speaker 2: to help, that man would have been on the bottom
Speaker 2: of that river. Yeah, that man would have been strung
Speaker 2: up in a tree in the woods and we'd never
Speaker 2: seen him again.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean just the the the sheer like rapidity with
Speaker 1: which he was surrounded and put on the ground by
Speaker 1: a large number of men did not suggest that they
Speaker 1: were that the uh that the additional dudes who had
Speaker 1: arrived to wail on him were in a mood to
Speaker 1: like de escalate the situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, and that's like I mean, I feel like
Speaker 2: that's like a reality that uh you know, you this
Speaker 2: it's almost like for the rest of the country, it's
Speaker 2: like this if you understand, like this is the reality
Speaker 2: we need you to understand when we say I could die,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Like when you talk about
Speaker 2: racism and not thing, it's just some people are stupid.
Speaker 2: There's fucking bigots everywhere. Like no, when we say it's
Speaker 2: life or death, like you're that's what you're witnessing, Like
Speaker 2: he could have died that moment, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And I think at a at a and whether it's
Speaker 2: front of mine or back of mine, that is something
Speaker 2: that as a person of color, like you just kind
Speaker 2: of know that like this, this would this if it
Speaker 2: would have just been a fight, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Then I think if it was just just been a brawl,
Speaker 2: like most people would have just stayed out of it,
Speaker 2: Like if them to just if.
Speaker 1: They just prescribe the guys swinging on each other smart play.
Speaker 1: If it's just two guys swinging on each other.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, you take your phone on, you watch You're
Speaker 2: just like, all right, man, hey, get your licks in.
Speaker 2: You know, you cheer for your boy. But like, but
Speaker 2: when somebody jumps in, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna help
Speaker 2: the homie. But you jump in helping the homie in Montgomery, Alabama.
Speaker 2: But it's like, all right, yeah this he might die,
Speaker 2: so we don't. It's different.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anything else to get to on this?
Speaker 2: Man? I think I might be I think one more thing,
Speaker 2: I think to add color to this, and I might
Speaker 2: be like aggrandizing, but I think it's also important because
Speaker 2: what I'm what I'm really interested in is just the collective,
Speaker 2: cathartic sort of feeling this has had. Is because there's
Speaker 2: so much built up tension. You have to talk about
Speaker 2: the Florida of it all, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: and being aware of the idea that like you're right
Speaker 2: in front of our face, like you're trying to erase history,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. Like, And and I just
Speaker 2: five minutes ago watched that prager you video for kids
Speaker 2: about about Christopher Columbus and slavery, and it was just like, well,
Speaker 2: you know, and this is approved, approved, approved content for children,
Speaker 2: Like well, you know, at least we didn't kill them, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, And like, well, you know,
Speaker 2: you know in Europe, we don't we draw the line
Speaker 2: at like cannibalism and these people that weird enslaving like
Speaker 2: they practice it, you know. So I guess it's kind
Speaker 2: of you know, maybe slavery's not bad and slavery, I
Speaker 2: mean it's all over the world. They've always had slavery,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, So like they learned useful skills. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, okay, so the skills in Africa,
Speaker 2: Like so you're trying to tell me this this civilation's
Speaker 2: civilization that is the bedrock of civilizations where all the
Speaker 2: humanity come from. You know what I'm saying, We didn't
Speaker 2: know how to do nothing right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, like if you're yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's so frustrating because it's it's what you could. I
Speaker 1: think they're trying to like draw a line between I
Speaker 1: don't know. The way slavery was often practiced in like
Speaker 1: the Mediterranean, where there was a lot of manumission people
Speaker 1: were often freed, and when they were freed, there was
Speaker 1: not like ongoing stigma against having been a former slave.
Speaker 1: With like a racial slavery system in the Americas that
Speaker 1: was completely different, where manumission very rarely happened, and when
Speaker 1: it did, you were still subject to heinous restrictions on
Speaker 1: your personal liberty. Like it's just not a comparison.
Speaker 2: Yeah, trying to use the lack of awareness of just
Speaker 2: even the term slavery and what you mean by that,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, using it to your advantage.
Speaker 2: It's like, well, anyone you know who's read a book
Speaker 2: or two can be like, ah, what you did was different,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying you and you know and
Speaker 2: you know it. You know it's different, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. Yeah, like serfdom, you know, involuntary servitude, debt, slavery.
Speaker 2: Any whenever, if there was ever two tribes and a
Speaker 2: tribe got raided by another one, there was slavery, Like
Speaker 2: I know, like that it exists since the dawn of time.
Speaker 2: Not what you talking about though, you know what I'm
Speaker 2: saying you and you know it. You know, so you're
Speaker 2: playing on that. So I just think, like collectively us
Speaker 2: just like keep hearing this shit and keep having to like,
Speaker 2: you know, keep your cool and try to fight it
Speaker 2: in the ballots and just and just the the just
Speaker 2: the mind fuck of like these folks, y'all, really you're
Speaker 2: gonna you're gonna vote for a dude that's out on bail,
Speaker 2: that's a felon like this Sniggs face in seventy years
Speaker 2: and y'all really finna, y'all really finna you really trying
Speaker 2: to put this man in office again? Like just it's
Speaker 2: such a mind fuck that you're like, man, I just
Speaker 2: need to hit I just need to hit a white
Speaker 2: lady with a chair, Like I don't. I just I'm
Speaker 2: just gonna hit a white lady to the chair.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And we you know something I've I've brought up many
Speaker 2: times on the politics is understanding sort of like the
Speaker 2: collective sort of Black American psyche is we just processed
Speaker 2: trauma through humor, like we when we make a joke
Speaker 2: out of everything, and it's really so we're just not
Speaker 2: like pushing random white people in the moving traffic, you know,
Speaker 2: just because if not, you'd being like what's his name?
Speaker 2: James Baldwin says that he was like, to be black
Speaker 2: in America is to I'm butchering the quote, but to
Speaker 2: be constantly under the surface at a rage level that
Speaker 2: you're constantly trying to push down, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So I feel like the humor, why why we got
Speaker 2: so many about like nah, chare chair homie going to jail,
Speaker 2: like here go your bail money? But that it was
Speaker 2: amazing because like you just good job, you know, I'm saying,
Speaker 2: an aquaman coming out the water, Like why why we
Speaker 2: make jokes about it? Is like well, yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: this is it's funny and if not, we'd be enraged
Speaker 2: all the time.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, well, prop amen, I do feel like this
Speaker 1: is a good lead in for the fact that we
Speaker 1: are we are actively well preparing to do our Robert E.
Speaker 1: Lee episodes, which have taken a lot of reading. But
Speaker 1: I think you're gonna enjoy.
Speaker 2: I can't wait. Yeah, because again I just like I'm
Speaker 2: already locking and loading the jokes like I can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's he's such a baby, I think you Like
Speaker 1: that was the thing that surprised me, Like I expected, like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: this guy's you know, a bad person for obvious reasons
Speaker 1: being the military leader of the Confederacy, But like the
Speaker 1: degree to which this dude is a fucking baby is,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, we're.
Speaker 3: Gonna have a good time with this one.
Speaker 2: I also, I also, as a thought experiment, my question
Speaker 2: would be, Okay, Robert Evans, if you were in Montgomery
Speaker 2: at that moment, I just how would you handle that.
Speaker 1: I mean, if I see a bunch of people wailing
Speaker 1: on a single dude, even outside of a situation where
Speaker 1: it's clearly racist, I'm going to try to stop that
Speaker 1: because I don't want to watch someone get beaten to
Speaker 1: death in the street. Yeah, like, unless they have it coming.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: If it's like a guy with a swastika armband and
Speaker 1: people are kicking him on the ground.
Speaker 3: I might not intervene.
Speaker 1: I don't know, and that I might in that case,
Speaker 1: I might just to try to stop people from catching
Speaker 1: a fucking murder charge. But like, yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: now at the point at which there's like sixty people
Speaker 1: fighting on the dock, I don't know that I'm I'm
Speaker 1: running into that. Like, for one thing, it seems like
Speaker 1: enough people are there. But yeah, you see, you see
Speaker 1: a bunch of people like kicking the shit out of
Speaker 1: a man trying to do his job.
Speaker 3: You should try to in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like those fucking security should have gotten in
Speaker 1: there faster. But like, yes, I would hope that I
Speaker 1: would run in at that point an attempt to stop
Speaker 1: this what was happening. Yeah, absolutely, that's good. And I
Speaker 1: would have had the presence of mind to pick up
Speaker 1: that chair though the.
Speaker 2: Chair is yeah, no, I just I would hope that,
Speaker 2: like it would be I just wonder, like because again,
Speaker 2: once you black out and get punch drunk, it's like
Speaker 2: I would hope that, like they that the black people
Speaker 2: around would have the wherewithal to be like, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: he's with us.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, we'll say, yeah, that dude's with us.
Speaker 2: No no, no, no, he's with us. He's good, he's good,
Speaker 2: he's good.
Speaker 1: I think that's that's part of why you don't roll
Speaker 1: in when there's like sixty people fighting.
Speaker 3: It's also at that point, yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: It's hard to tell how do you how do you help?
Speaker 1: And if you've got like five people beating a man
Speaker 1: on the ground, it's easy to know how to help.
Speaker 1: You try to get that guy up and away from them.
Speaker 1: You try to get them off of him. If you've
Speaker 1: got what are effectively like two or three three dozen
Speaker 1: fights going on on a doc, it's like, well, do
Speaker 1: you just like start throwing hands like yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody wants somebody. Yeah, just like you know,
Speaker 2: you just grab like find children and just kind of
Speaker 2: like let me just move y'all out the way, y'all
Speaker 2: back up?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah you should.
Speaker 1: I think when you're anytime you're in encountering a situation
Speaker 1: like this, like your first is like what.
Speaker 3: Can I do that will help?
Speaker 4: You?
Speaker 1: Know, again, it's easy if you if there's a guy
Speaker 1: getting beaten, or if there's someone seriously injured that needs
Speaker 1: medical care, if it's at a point where it's like,
Speaker 1: well this is just fucking chaos, then maybe you just watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, get y yeah, get it, get it, get
Speaker 2: a higher vantage point. Just make sure you can watch
Speaker 2: the watch where it's going. You don't want to get
Speaker 2: sucked in, you know, because you might get trampled. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, keep your fucking don't don't fall into your
Speaker 1: phone because ship like that spreads.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yeah, so true. Yeah, well that's a
Speaker 2: usable piece of information. Yeah, for this otherwise just jokes
Speaker 2: full podcast. Yep, yeah, well we all had a good
Speaker 2: time today.
Speaker 3: Prop.
Speaker 1: Where can the people find you if they if they
Speaker 1: would like to do that?
Speaker 2: Man, please, I am on the same network you are.
Speaker 2: I'm on the Hood Politics Pod. My socials are all
Speaker 2: the they're all prop hip hop. Like you said, I
Speaker 2: am a coffee business owner. It's terraform cold brew. You
Speaker 2: could use promo code hood and get fifteen percent off
Speaker 2: your cold brew needs. Please help me sell, Please buy
Speaker 2: his coffee. Good Lord, I suck a lot of money
Speaker 2: into this shit. Please buy the coffee. But yeah, man,
Speaker 2: prop hip Hop and Yeah and Yeah and Hood Politics Pod.
Speaker 2: I'm on the network man, and please check out the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah, check out Hood Politics, check out Props Delightful Coffee
Speaker 1: and Yeah. You can find us right here tomorrow unless
Speaker 1: it's a weekend, in which case you can find us
Speaker 1: here when the weekend ends the next weekday.
Speaker 3: We're here every weekday. We never stop. It could happen
Speaker 3: here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more
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