Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what's going on. Yard Ship boy my Son.
Speaker 1: I'm here by myself today. I'm holding up the slack
Speaker 1: for my co host our assisted to Mika Mallory. You
Speaker 1: know that state of emergency book is fire. She's on tour,
Speaker 1: she's doing a lot of things. We just left the
Speaker 1: Freedom Rides Tours. Shout out to Black Voters Matter. We're
Speaker 1: on tour with them, which we did three of the
Speaker 1: seven cities and states that they did. Then we went
Speaker 1: to d C and did action to end the Filipbuster,
Speaker 1: you know which we got arrested. We did so much
Speaker 1: stuff this week. It was a time in week and
Speaker 1: now she's on the road. So let's give her some
Speaker 1: prayers and make sure that you know she has traveling mercies.
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, if boy my Son is here,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'm gonna give you a couple of updates. Yes,
Speaker 1: we did do the Freedom Rides tour and it was amazing.
Speaker 1: Shout out to the Tasha Brown and everybody at Black
Speaker 1: Voters Matter. It was a beautiful experience. You know. We
Speaker 1: did um we did three different states. We did Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we did South Carolina, and we ended off in d C.
Speaker 1: In which we talked about the voting rights and how
Speaker 1: they trying to push back our voting rights and how
Speaker 1: is um imperative that we continue to show up and
Speaker 1: it's imperative that we fight to make sure that our
Speaker 1: rights are given to us. So that was a beautiful tour.
Speaker 1: Then Um, we went to d C prior to that
Speaker 1: to do an action with my Until Freedom Family. Shoutout
Speaker 1: to Um, Linda sars Or and Angelo Pinto on which
Speaker 1: we went to end the Philipbuster, and shout out to
Speaker 1: Stephen Green also, who was one of the organizers of
Speaker 1: this action in which we we demonstrated in this civil
Speaker 1: disobedience in d C in which we were arrested, and
Speaker 1: and it made sense. Man. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: times people like, oh, yeah, marching, what are y'all doing
Speaker 1: all this for? You know, everybody has a role to play,
Speaker 1: you know, and I say that all the time. And
Speaker 1: in order to fight for civil rights, in order for
Speaker 1: us to get the freedom, you know, all of us
Speaker 1: to get everything that we say we want, there has
Speaker 1: to be some level of sacrifice. So when we go
Speaker 1: out there and we make a conscious decision that we're
Speaker 1: gonna do civil disobedience, that we're gonna sacrifice our freedoms
Speaker 1: because we don't know how the police are gonna react.
Speaker 1: There are times when the police are violent with us.
Speaker 1: There are times when the police are respectful to us,
Speaker 1: as times that we sit and selle for for long days.
Speaker 1: Then it's sometimes that we're saying there surely, so we
Speaker 1: never know what to expect, you know, but we know
Speaker 1: that in order to get some level of understanding, to
Speaker 1: bring awareness and attention to these issues that we're fighting,
Speaker 1: it takes that sacrifice. It takes us to be willing
Speaker 1: to give our freedom, our bodies, in our life if
Speaker 1: need be, to the cause. You know. So a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't understand it, and like y'all don't understand
Speaker 1: why are your march? Why do your protests? Because that
Speaker 1: is the first that is the first form of awareness,
Speaker 1: you know, in order for us, there's march, there's protests,
Speaker 1: there's planning. Then then we need policy changes, you know,
Speaker 1: we demand policy changes, and we continue and then there's
Speaker 1: a worldwide call for policy changes. Change and freedom are
Speaker 1: not free. They don't just happen, you know. People just think, oh,
Speaker 1: you you know, it's I don't understand why you're doing this. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe you don't understand. You know that people telling me
Speaker 1: you're you know, I don't understand why you're still voting,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I don't understand why you're not voting.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's bigger than the fact that our
Speaker 1: ancestors just died for us to vote, you know, it's
Speaker 1: our future needs these votes. If you are not involved
Speaker 1: in the process of voting, but you still I say
Speaker 1: this all the time, you're not involved in the process
Speaker 1: of voting, but you still have to live under the regime,
Speaker 1: under the policies, under the laws that are passed, and
Speaker 1: those laws are still governing you, and you still are
Speaker 1: governed by those laws, and you live by those rules,
Speaker 1: and you have to participate in everything that we have
Speaker 1: to participate. But you are not involved in the process
Speaker 1: to elect the people who implement those laws. It is
Speaker 1: insanity unless you have a real organized plan. If you
Speaker 1: are not voting right, then you're not counted in the vote.
Speaker 1: If you're not voting, then you are what they call
Speaker 1: a low perplexity voter. They do not care about you.
Speaker 1: You are somebody who is not even on the table.
Speaker 1: You're not They're not thinking about your issues. They don't
Speaker 1: care what it is that you want because you are
Speaker 1: pretty much a ghost. So what happens is when candidates come,
Speaker 1: they think about the issues of those people who they
Speaker 1: know are voting. They want to appeal, They want to
Speaker 1: figure out how do I attract those people who are
Speaker 1: going to go to these polls. And if you are
Speaker 1: not one of those, if you have never been one
Speaker 1: of those, they are not trying to attract you. They
Speaker 1: are not worried about your issues because they don't even
Speaker 1: know what your issues are. And if you don't, if
Speaker 1: you're not doing this and you're not sitting out with
Speaker 1: a large number of constituents and people who are able
Speaker 1: to vote, if you haven't put together and say, okay,
Speaker 1: we have over five million people and we're not going
Speaker 1: to vote, and all of us are saying we're not
Speaker 1: voting right until these things happened. That makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: But you as an individual just saying I'm not voting
Speaker 1: and you stupid for doing it. But you have no
Speaker 1: collective plan, you have no unity, you have put nothing
Speaker 1: together to combat the structure that is here, but yet
Speaker 1: you still have to live in this structure. It makes
Speaker 1: no sense. So yes, we went out there to advocate
Speaker 1: for our rights to vote, to make sure that the
Speaker 1: way they're rolling back the rights to vote in the
Speaker 1: land and all the way through the South because of
Speaker 1: what happened in this election, because the black vote was
Speaker 1: able to turn the tide and switch this election around.
Speaker 1: So now they want to do everything they can to
Speaker 1: suppress the black vote. So we have to be intentional.
Speaker 1: We have to be intentional. We we we see our power.
Speaker 1: So now it's time for us to say, okay, we
Speaker 1: got four years to get this. We got a little
Speaker 1: less than four years right now, and to get this
Speaker 1: together and say, okay, the next people that we elect
Speaker 1: locally president, everything have to adhere to these causes. This
Speaker 1: is what we need. We need this document, We need
Speaker 1: these things to be on the first agenda. You know.
Speaker 1: That's that's what we That is the process that we
Speaker 1: should be in that we we've seen how we're able
Speaker 1: to mobilize. We've seen that when we've turned out the vote,
Speaker 1: what is able to do. Now it's time for us
Speaker 1: to say, okay, we are collectively coming together as one
Speaker 1: and we are demanding certain things happen in order for
Speaker 1: us to even have a candidate and and actually we
Speaker 1: can create our own candidate when we have those principles,
Speaker 1: when we have what it is that we want, now
Speaker 1: we can sit and say, Okay, this person right here
Speaker 1: is who we want to represent us, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: put all of our energy behind that person because they
Speaker 1: fit the mode of exactly this that we want. But
Speaker 1: just not voting and saying it's you you're doing something
Speaker 1: about not voting makes no sense. It just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1: And anybody who's trying to tell you that just not
Speaker 1: voting without doing something else, So creating something else to
Speaker 1: combat the structure, it's doing something. They're lying to you,
Speaker 1: you know. So that's what we did, man, we did.
Speaker 1: We had a whole weekend, a lot of things coming up,
Speaker 1: you know. So I want you to stay tuned once
Speaker 1: again to meet us on tour. But she will be
Speaker 1: back soon. This episode is one that's really dead to me. Um.
Speaker 1: It's called King Stop Killing Kings. It's a it's an
Speaker 1: initiative that I started right after the death of the
Speaker 1: late Great Nipsey Hustle. You know, he was, as we know,
Speaker 1: he was killed by another black man, and just thinking
Speaker 1: about that spark something in me and I did a
Speaker 1: rally in the Bronx which brought out a lot of people,
Speaker 1: and shortly after that we went to New Jersey and
Speaker 1: did the same thing where to Baltimore did the same thing.
Speaker 1: Then we did another one in in New York again.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's something that I've been intentional about,
Speaker 1: you know, really trying to stop the violence in our communities.
Speaker 1: You know, I understand that poverty is violent, so I
Speaker 1: understand what the root is. You know. They say, were
Speaker 1: with their darkness that will be sin, But the guilty
Speaker 1: one is not the one who commits the sin, but
Speaker 1: it's he who creates the darkness, you know. And that's
Speaker 1: just pretty much saying that the situations that we live in,
Speaker 1: there's nothing else that can happen but violence, you know,
Speaker 1: But we have to figure out a way to combat that,
Speaker 1: to build out communities, to get the resources in our communities,
Speaker 1: to change the mind state of our young kings, you know,
Speaker 1: and put them on the right track. So this episode
Speaker 1: is pretty much dedicated to that. You know. Um my
Speaker 1: brother Prince Map is gonna show up today and he's
Speaker 1: somebody that I really look up to. Man brother from
Speaker 1: Queens who actually was a shooter you know. And he
Speaker 1: wasn't call straeted. He did twenty years for taking a
Speaker 1: life um and since he's been home after the twenty years,
Speaker 1: he's a complete three sixty. He's been invested in preventing
Speaker 1: violence in the communities, mentoring these young kids, you know,
Speaker 1: and he is the head of community and culture at
Speaker 1: Citizens and he's somebody that we really need to hear for.
Speaker 1: I say all the time that those directly impacted have
Speaker 1: to be the ones who create the solutions. So you know,
Speaker 1: he's gonna be on. We also have another one of
Speaker 1: our brothers, shan Duke mcfadah, who is the founder of
Speaker 1: g MAC and his gangsters making astronomical community changes. And
Speaker 1: he's another brother who was in the streets. He's he's
Speaker 1: a gang member, still a game member, but he utilizes
Speaker 1: his influence for positivity and to take the guns out
Speaker 1: of the hands of the shooters and employed the gang
Speaker 1: members and give them positive, you know, structures because originally
Speaker 1: we know is that gangs were originally started to combat
Speaker 1: police violence in our communities. They were about brotherly love
Speaker 1: and protecting our communities. And he's one of those brothers
Speaker 1: who are putting those principles back into it the gangs means.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna hear from him, and you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have an excellent episode, man, So make sure that
Speaker 1: you tune in and we're gonna be right back. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to this episode of Street Politicians. We we labeled
Speaker 1: this episode King Stopped Killing King's Episode UM. We were
Speaker 1: originally supposed to interview Miss Jenkins, who was a woman
Speaker 1: who lost all three of her children to gun violence,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately due to UM some circumstances that she had
Speaker 1: to deal with. Originally, she had got a call from
Speaker 1: an officer who had some leads in one of the
Speaker 1: murders of one of her children, which she became very
Speaker 1: emotional and couldn't do the interview. And then we've been
Speaker 1: trying to connect but she's still work and she's still
Speaker 1: dealing with a lot of things, but she definitely wants
Speaker 1: to do the interview. So we'll definitely take time to
Speaker 1: do that interview in the near future. But you know,
Speaker 1: we still have someone who I feel is very dead
Speaker 1: to this work, someone who I see as a brother
Speaker 1: of someone who is a community UM activists, who is
Speaker 1: who speaks from experience, who speaks from, you know, a
Speaker 1: place of being very genuine. You know, someone who since
Speaker 1: I met him, he's been the same way. His his
Speaker 1: will and his wanting to do this work and to
Speaker 1: do something to change his community is something that's like
Speaker 1: none other. My brother, his name is Prince Matt. He
Speaker 1: is the head of Community and Culture at the citizen At.
Speaker 1: Welcome brother. How are you doing today? But I'm good man.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me, Mice well, thanks for being him man. Um.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I always tell you, Man, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the work you do, you know, understanding the circumstances, understand
Speaker 1: where we come from and how it's difficult it is
Speaker 1: to change, and watching you be a leader in that change,
Speaker 1: watching you, you know, reflect what it really looks like
Speaker 1: to come from the community and protect the community and
Speaker 1: grow and evolved. Man, You're somebody that I respect, you know,
Speaker 1: and I just want to give your flowers or you're here. Man.
Speaker 1: The work that you're doing in the way that you evolved,
Speaker 1: this is nothing short of admirable. I appreciate that. So
Speaker 1: before before we start, if I may, I would like
Speaker 1: to Um send my send an apology to Miss jenkins
Speaker 1: Um from being a victim of gun violence and also
Speaker 1: a perpetrator gun violence. UM, where I spend half my
Speaker 1: life in prison for I want to personally apologize for
Speaker 1: the shooter because she may not never get that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Um, she may not never get
Speaker 1: that that that that genuine apology that's come from a
Speaker 1: shooter for those who killed her three sons, and for
Speaker 1: anyone who has been a big them of gun violence,
Speaker 1: I personally print, I personally apologize for every last one
Speaker 1: of them, for a lot of them do not know
Speaker 1: them the consequences and the hurt and pain and trauma
Speaker 1: that they have cause. So before we even start anything,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take for responsibility because I played a part
Speaker 1: and its violence in America. I played a part in
Speaker 1: gun violence specifically in America, and I want to take
Speaker 1: a first say I apologize for them and many more
Speaker 1: to come. So before we start that, man, I want
Speaker 1: to give my my my utmost condoses to Miss Jennison
Speaker 1: and her family. Well, and that's it's things like that. Brothers.
Speaker 1: Why I admire you and I look up to you,
Speaker 1: and I wanted to have you on this show because
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, you work in the field
Speaker 1: of gun violence. And you actually have been a perpetrator
Speaker 1: of gun violence, and you understand both dualities. You understand
Speaker 1: the reality that the shooter has, you understand the reality
Speaker 1: that someone who is not the shooter has, and you've
Speaker 1: been able to, um to see both sides. You know.
Speaker 1: You you spent, like you said, you spend half for
Speaker 1: your life in prison. Could you give us a little
Speaker 1: you know, tell us about that situation and how that occurred.
Speaker 1: Of course, UM just bottom line as I was a coward,
Speaker 1: you know, UM, I made a coward that you know.
Speaker 1: I UM, I could fight with my hands, but I
Speaker 1: was much more tougher when I walked around every day
Speaker 1: with a gun on my waist, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: It made me feel powerful. It made me feel invisible,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. And I was shot twice
Speaker 1: in South Jamaica Queens on both in robbery attempts. The
Speaker 1: last time or a shot from my chain, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't it wasn't um if I was gonna shoot somebody
Speaker 1: or kill somebody, it was winning, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So when I got shot a second time, you know,
Speaker 1: I started to get a lot of feedback from people
Speaker 1: in the community. But it wasn't really like the same
Speaker 1: prince you need to go retality. It was like I
Speaker 1: was making stories up in my head that they wanted
Speaker 1: me to go retality. They wanted me to do something
Speaker 1: to show that I was tough, and I say I
Speaker 1: was a coward and beginning because it was a coward act.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Because no one, no person,
Speaker 1: no matter what the circumstances, deserves to lose their life
Speaker 1: over anything. You know what I'm saying. Real men talk
Speaker 1: things out. And I took the cow away out. I
Speaker 1: pulled the gun out and I shot somebody five times
Speaker 1: and I took his life, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And I paid. I paid my debt society, you know,
Speaker 1: but I can never repay my debt to the family,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, because I took a life
Speaker 1: I took. I took someone from them that they're never
Speaker 1: gonna see again. You know, I get to see my children,
Speaker 1: I get to see my grandson, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So I end up spending eighteen years in prison. But
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want to justify for my behavior.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't educated, you know, I did lack of resources.
Speaker 1: I didn't have opportunities you know, I'm saying that that
Speaker 1: was presented to me that I have today, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And those things, those elements of my
Speaker 1: life um propelled me to make terrible decisions, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It wasn't an accident on my part.
Speaker 1: Accident is like driving a car and having a class.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't an accident. My act was intentional, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So it was a bad decision
Speaker 1: on my part, mice and I regretted to this day,
Speaker 1: you know, and and spending eighteen years in prison. And
Speaker 1: I want to be clear about something because a lot
Speaker 1: of people come on your show and they say these
Speaker 1: things like they spend time, but you know, and it
Speaker 1: rolls over their tongues so easily. Eighteen years. I don't
Speaker 1: want you to think about eighteen years and years, months
Speaker 1: old days thinking about eighteen years and seconds, that's how
Speaker 1: long it is. There's something about the clocks in prison
Speaker 1: that you hit every tick on the clock, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So think about doing that time in
Speaker 1: seconds and then when it would when did you come
Speaker 1: to a point where you used to be disgusted with
Speaker 1: the life who lived and started to change because my
Speaker 1: chain started in prison. I didn't change when I came
Speaker 1: home because I I didn't want to be the same
Speaker 1: person I was when I left. I left uneducated. I
Speaker 1: left um not take care of responsibilities. I left destroying
Speaker 1: my community. I sold crack to pregnant women. I sold
Speaker 1: crack to family members. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: did the most disgusting things in my life, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. So every day I'm gonna live. I
Speaker 1: wanna be intentional. Every day I want to try to
Speaker 1: get back and this is why I wake up every
Speaker 1: day and I try to stop at least one kid
Speaker 1: from losing his life. Man speaking speaking of such man Um,
Speaker 1: you've been working with you know, it's a video that
Speaker 1: went viral with a young man who was chasing a
Speaker 1: young man down and he felt buy some children and
Speaker 1: the young man still was was shooting him like right
Speaker 1: with the kids there just disregard, you know, and you've
Speaker 1: been working with one of them. I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: what wood family of that situation. How is that? How
Speaker 1: was that been again? That's the coward that I talked about.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, that's the coward that I
Speaker 1: speak up. That was me. You know, we no reglf
Speaker 1: of human life, you know what I'm saying. And when
Speaker 1: you got that gun, you're not even thinking, You're not
Speaker 1: even thinking. I'm actually working with the two children and
Speaker 1: their family, you know what I'm saying. Because the ten
Speaker 1: year old girl, her name is me, she went missing
Speaker 1: like two weeks before that happened, and citizen played a
Speaker 1: part in bringing a home. So the father became close
Speaker 1: with me, you know what I'm saying because he said that,
Speaker 1: you know, we played a part of bringing his daughter home,
Speaker 1: and we was someone that he respected a lot because
Speaker 1: no one else will helping find his daughter. And me
Speaker 1: and a couple of friends of mine, we were looking
Speaker 1: for his daughter, and a friend of mine actually helped
Speaker 1: him find his daughter, the same little girl who covered
Speaker 1: her little brother Christian in that shootout. So what we've
Speaker 1: been trying to do is, you know, um um cover
Speaker 1: them without protection and make sure that they're protected, make
Speaker 1: sure they're not being exploited, you know, because all of
Speaker 1: these news meetings and stuff there trying to exploit them
Speaker 1: and use them for different purposes instead of trying to
Speaker 1: relocate them out of the Bronx where they live. They
Speaker 1: need to be relocated. They need to be they need
Speaker 1: to be given other opportunities because this girl has seen
Speaker 1: so much already. And then she was in the middle
Speaker 1: of a shootout where she took that she had more
Speaker 1: courage than I will ever have while covering her little
Speaker 1: brother and making sure that he wasn't shot, willing to
Speaker 1: sacrifice how long her own life at ten years old.
Speaker 1: So I work closely with them, trying to make sure
Speaker 1: that we can, you know, relocate them. Um, the Yankees
Speaker 1: did something nice for them, put them in the sky box.
Speaker 1: But I said, you know, don't put them in the
Speaker 1: sky box. Put them in a scott scraper. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Don't put them in the sky box
Speaker 1: to a game. And put them in in the same
Speaker 1: building you live in and let them. Let them live
Speaker 1: a great life for the rest of their life. She
Speaker 1: already sacrificed her life, that's right, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So that's that's why I worked with now the the
Speaker 1: young the young brother. He was arrested, you know, and
Speaker 1: I pray for him, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: pray for his family. You know what I'm saying because
Speaker 1: a lot of times that the cities that we make
Speaker 1: are not based on our own thoughts and our own decisions.
Speaker 1: They're based on influences from the outside. And a lot
Speaker 1: of times we think that people wanted to do things
Speaker 1: and they're not even thinking about you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: So he felt that he needed to do that, He
Speaker 1: felt that he needed to kill this young this other
Speaker 1: young man, you know what I'm saying, And and now
Speaker 1: he's gonna spend a lot of time in prison for
Speaker 1: being reckless. Mike, I want you to think about something.
Speaker 1: In every community, in every black and brown and under
Speaker 1: resource community, we can almost tell who we're gonna be
Speaker 1: raising money for for their from room next and every
Speaker 1: single community in your hood. It's unfortunate, Mice, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And I say this from en buying
Speaker 1: my heart. It's unfortunate that you've been riding your hood
Speaker 1: and know who you're gonna be raising money for to
Speaker 1: bury one day, you know what I'm saying. So if
Speaker 1: we know this right, and we know that we're gonna
Speaker 1: this guy is active and we're gonna be raising money
Speaker 1: to bury them because we know you don't got life insurance, right,
Speaker 1: and we know this, Why we can't raise the same
Speaker 1: money to change his life while he's alive, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And the police, the police alone have
Speaker 1: this intel, mice. They know who's active, who's doing this,
Speaker 1: who's doing that, and they know they're gonna be picking
Speaker 1: them up and put him in the body back soon.
Speaker 1: Why they don't use the same intel to change this
Speaker 1: person's life because it's not the goal, Prince, the prince.
Speaker 1: The goal is they need purpose, they need collars, right.
Speaker 1: So they see a third team four toyod kid they
Speaker 1: see is on the road to this and rather than
Speaker 1: give them different opportunities and and change the scenario, give them,
Speaker 1: you know, a different perspective. They watch them and then
Speaker 1: they interact with them to what they make them feel like,
Speaker 1: you know, you're a criminal already. And and they watch
Speaker 1: it and they just and they just playing cat and mouse.
Speaker 1: They're just waiting for them to slip up. They just wait, like,
Speaker 1: we know what you're gonna do this because we see
Speaker 1: the trajectory on. They don't want to invest no moneys
Speaker 1: in the community to make sure that those kids right there,
Speaker 1: you know, are redirected, you know, and the energy that
Speaker 1: they have, which is usually just lying energy that's been
Speaker 1: misdirected and pointed in the wrong direction. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't point it and give it to something else. They
Speaker 1: don't they don't give them something else to give that
Speaker 1: energy too, because it's intentional. They want to lock you up.
Speaker 1: They building jails for our kids. I say that all
Speaker 1: the time. They're not building jails for me and you
Speaker 1: because they know we're not going back to jail. They
Speaker 1: know that they're building jails for our kids, the new
Speaker 1: jails just for our kids. And that's why we're the
Speaker 1: most dangerous to them, you know what I'm saying. That's
Speaker 1: why that's why I fight with people on your post
Speaker 1: all the time. You know what I'm saying, those are
Speaker 1: the ones that are the most dangerous. Like so, for
Speaker 1: first of all, we have to identify who are the
Speaker 1: higher risk. The higher risk are the people who stopping
Speaker 1: people like me and you from eliminating those higher risk
Speaker 1: in the visions. You know what I'm saying, those people,
Speaker 1: that's that's trolling, that's saying these nasty commas. That's allowing
Speaker 1: people to you know, build a momentum. So we can't
Speaker 1: do the work that we want to do. Don't forget.
Speaker 1: I have a whole time job. So everything I do,
Speaker 1: I do it on my own time, you know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. And I do this because I do not
Speaker 1: want to want to bury my nephews. I don't want
Speaker 1: to bury my grandson. You know what I'm saying. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to bury nobody. I don't want to
Speaker 1: bury nobody's there's nobody grandsons. So I go extra hard
Speaker 1: with this, you know what I'm saying. But you've got
Speaker 1: so many people that fight against the truth, and the
Speaker 1: truth is the same money that we raised to bury them,
Speaker 1: we could give these get the same money while they allive.
Speaker 1: We get the same opportunities while they alive, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And they don't want you to do that.
Speaker 1: They don't want you to save lives in lives, that's
Speaker 1: the goal. You know, what what do you think us?
Speaker 1: You know, we understand the powers that be, we understand
Speaker 1: the structure, we understand the system, we understand how everything
Speaker 1: is good towards and either imprisoning us or watching us
Speaker 1: going in engraves, what do you think that we need
Speaker 1: to tell the people like us, the people in the communities,
Speaker 1: the quote unquote O g s, the ones, the gangsters
Speaker 1: and what what what? What message? How how do we
Speaker 1: get through to them that they have a responsibility to
Speaker 1: leave these kids in a different direction, If they have
Speaker 1: a responsibility to give these kids opportunities and chances and
Speaker 1: things that they didn't have so they don't make the
Speaker 1: same mistakes, how do you how do you think we
Speaker 1: relate that message? What do you think we need to do? So?
Speaker 1: I read this book when I was when I was
Speaker 1: teaching at the New School UM. I think it was
Speaker 1: called Teens Who Hurt Right, and they spoke about I
Speaker 1: think it's Tracy lash Wealth and Kennem Haudio or something
Speaker 1: like that, and then talking about UM a thing called
Speaker 1: vc'all not to be show that we know about as validation,
Speaker 1: challenge and requests right, and a lot of the ogs
Speaker 1: in our hood are being validated for the growing things,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying. So we could validate them,
Speaker 1: but when they start to do the right things and
Speaker 1: we start to validate them, we could validate them and
Speaker 1: give them that, you know, that power that they need
Speaker 1: to make what we're talking about trending, just like they
Speaker 1: make tight pains trending. Or we we we we could
Speaker 1: make peace trending. You know what I'm saying, Just like
Speaker 1: they make tight pains trending. The ogs have the ability
Speaker 1: to make peace trending and to make you know, um
Speaker 1: um cleaning our neighborhoods trending. Because they love validation. They
Speaker 1: could be part of a cleanup in the hood. If
Speaker 1: they could be part of a running the corner in
Speaker 1: their name in the hood. We don't have to we
Speaker 1: don't have to be out there. We could give it
Speaker 1: all to them. They could do everything that you're doing.
Speaker 1: They can do. You don't have to do it, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. But we gotta give them that
Speaker 1: that validation. Then we have to challenge them. We have
Speaker 1: to challenge them because you can't live on you can't
Speaker 1: live on both sides of the narrative. Either you want
Speaker 1: to save your community and health the community, or you
Speaker 1: want to continue to destroy. You can't go to the
Speaker 1: doctor to get poison, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 1: that's what we're going to the doctor they get poison.
Speaker 1: And now we gotta make a request. We gotta, we
Speaker 1: gotta challenge these corporations. We gotta challenge these big you know,
Speaker 1: people get killed over with Jordan's, they get killed over nikes,
Speaker 1: they get killed over deaders, they get killed over I phones.
Speaker 1: We gotta challenge these big corporations to to to funnel
Speaker 1: some of that money that we spend not much. How
Speaker 1: how easy they get up to a hundred hours ago
Speaker 1: get the new I phone when it comes out. But
Speaker 1: App we ain't even thinking about coming to the communities. Mhmm.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. A kid will go crazy
Speaker 1: to get that tors he will scam, he will still,
Speaker 1: he would rob, he would kill to get an I phone.
Speaker 1: But Apple will not coming to the community and change
Speaker 1: that change life. So we gotta we gotta, we gotta
Speaker 1: have the ogs in questions. Yeah, and I think that's
Speaker 1: that's what it is for me. You know, I started
Speaker 1: this campaign called boycott and black Murder, and it's based
Speaker 1: on that. It's you know, it's us being set in
Speaker 1: the trend, like you said, like they want validation from us, right,
Speaker 1: so we we we dictate what cool is, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. Somehow we make we made the negative,
Speaker 1: the murder and the violence cool that that's what validated you.
Speaker 1: That was your right to passage if you wasn't somebody
Speaker 1: who was notorious or savage like these is words that
Speaker 1: we use to describe us, all types of derivator, monster,
Speaker 1: and all types of names that are negative connotations to
Speaker 1: describe us. And that's some level of validation. So what
Speaker 1: I say is we have to we have to utilize
Speaker 1: that same you know, the same method and make being unified.
Speaker 1: Make the person the gangster person is the one who
Speaker 1: stopped somebody from shooting. You know, when you when you
Speaker 1: that's what you respected. You respected when you protect your community.
Speaker 1: That's what we're given accolades to. That's the people you
Speaker 1: want to respect. That's the one who's lit. You know,
Speaker 1: when you walk in your community and the old ladies
Speaker 1: respect you and they're happy to see you because they
Speaker 1: don't feel threatened that you're gonna do something to you.
Speaker 1: That you're not a master, that you're a king, and
Speaker 1: that you're general and you're a true soldier, the true soldiers.
Speaker 1: You know, a real warrior never wants to after actually
Speaker 1: have to engage in war. That's the truth, that is
Speaker 1: the true measure of a warrior. That if the one
Speaker 1: who is fully prepared but never has to engage in
Speaker 1: war is probably the best warrior ever. I read that
Speaker 1: is a Chinese proverb. And you know, and and that's
Speaker 1: what we have to We have to retrain because we
Speaker 1: were taught wrong. So we gotta start retraining these kids,
Speaker 1: so they start teaching to each other in his past,
Speaker 1: out of generations, because somewhere along the way, you know,
Speaker 1: we we were glorified and and and love violence and
Speaker 1: negativity so much that it has become embedded in our culture. Yes,
Speaker 1: so so, Mike. So this year, actually, you know, um,
Speaker 1: I studied the Cure violence model, and you know it's
Speaker 1: it's about detecting behavior and and um changing community norms
Speaker 1: and things of that nature. Right, And this year I
Speaker 1: took a different approach to violence. I actually started to
Speaker 1: identify high risk through and through a different limits. First
Speaker 1: of all, in my language, there's no such thing as
Speaker 1: higher risks under resource. That they had resource, they wouldn't
Speaker 1: be high rich, right. But the high risk individuals are
Speaker 1: the ones are are not the ones who are actually
Speaker 1: committing the crown because only a small percentage of people
Speaker 1: in our neighborhoods is doing these crimes. As doing these
Speaker 1: shooters right, the high risks are the ones that's listening.
Speaker 1: We need to start reaching to the ones that's listening,
Speaker 1: the ones that's in school, the ones that's trying to
Speaker 1: get a job, because they're so easily manipulated and and
Speaker 1: can easily be forced into a life that they don't
Speaker 1: want to being. They are the higher risk because they
Speaker 1: got to prove a point. I was just tolking somebody today.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna say no names, but he's a gangster,
Speaker 1: but he's privileged. You know what I'm saying. Mice, he's
Speaker 1: he's a he's a ga, you know him. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. He's a gangster, but he's privileged, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. And he doesn't want to look
Speaker 1: at his privilege. And I told us that. I say, brother,
Speaker 1: you have to identify who you are first. I'm not
Speaker 1: seeing you're not tough, but I understand that your privilege
Speaker 1: and that the people that you're hanging around were being
Speaker 1: tough with, do not have that privilege. They don't have
Speaker 1: someone to buy them a car, they don't have someone
Speaker 1: to put them in the new house, they don't have
Speaker 1: someone to get them stuff. When they when they're home
Speaker 1: with you know what I'm saying, So I need you
Speaker 1: to identify that first, that is the high rist individual
Speaker 1: right there. M the ones that's listening who can be
Speaker 1: easy manipulated and to becoming a shooter. Because unfortunately Mice
Speaker 1: and and and I, it took me a while to
Speaker 1: come to this delusion. The shooters are going to cancel
Speaker 1: themselves out, and we gotta start reaching out to the
Speaker 1: ones that are listening, the ones that are doing well
Speaker 1: in high school, the ones that want to play ball
Speaker 1: in high school, the ones that want to become engineers.
Speaker 1: So we gotta start reaching out to them because they
Speaker 1: are really the high risk. They are the ones that
Speaker 1: can really become very very treacherous in our neighborhoods because
Speaker 1: they're smart. They listen and they calculate their moves. You
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. The unfortunate dummies, the ones that
Speaker 1: that's not listening does that's just out there recklessly shooting
Speaker 1: that kids and stuff like that. They're gonna see how
Speaker 1: you canceled themselves out. That's unfortunate, what that happens. We
Speaker 1: have to reach the ones that's listening right now because
Speaker 1: I just always trying to reach out the ones that
Speaker 1: ain't listening enough of pads, this and that, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: it's like beating a dead horse because they're they're gonna do,
Speaker 1: They're already there. A risk is trying to avoid some
Speaker 1: of them happening. So with HIV, to avoid the risk
Speaker 1: is using condoms, you know what I'm saying. But once
Speaker 1: you've got HIV, you know on the high risk, you
Speaker 1: got it. So once you were a shooting, you a shooter.
Speaker 1: So you gotta reach the ones that can become shooters
Speaker 1: and nasty. That should be the approach, that should be
Speaker 1: the model, that should be the new task. It makes
Speaker 1: sense to me. I say that all the time, And
Speaker 1: I said, you know, we talked about defunding and police
Speaker 1: and police police, community community police, and and that's what
Speaker 1: our job is. Our job is too, you know, to
Speaker 1: be able to detect those people and see those and
Speaker 1: and you know, intercept those situations because a lot like
Speaker 1: you know, I know a kid from my community who
Speaker 1: was young and you know, unfortunately I've seen him sleeping
Speaker 1: on the streets. So he was one of the most
Speaker 1: privileged kids in the community. And his mother father both
Speaker 1: had good jobs and He just wanted to be outside.
Speaker 1: He wanted to be in the mix of everything. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you know, the streets got the best of them, and
Speaker 1: and it looks like somebody probably slipped him some k
Speaker 1: to or something, and he was he was he was.
Speaker 1: He wanted to he wanted to be accepted by the culture.
Speaker 1: And that's what it is that the privileged ones, they
Speaker 1: want to be accepted by the culture. They wanted to
Speaker 1: be seen as this tough guy. They want to be,
Speaker 1: you know, someone who is respected by the coaches so
Speaker 1: much that they become the most detrimental ones. So you're right, man,
Speaker 1: We we gotta we just gotta get back to get
Speaker 1: the resources in our community, getting people like ourselves and
Speaker 1: the younger the younger versions of ourselves in the community,
Speaker 1: who people you know, understand and respect and understand that
Speaker 1: we we pretty much been through what it is that
Speaker 1: they've been through. You know, like I said all the time,
Speaker 1: those directly impact, They've got to be the solution. Man.
Speaker 1: We can't. We can't have people who ain't been through
Speaker 1: that coming to the communities and talking to these kids
Speaker 1: because they don't want to hear it. Because I didn't
Speaker 1: want to hear it. You wasn't gonna come to my
Speaker 1: community or be even in the community, and you wasn't
Speaker 1: in the level of you know what it is that
Speaker 1: I was doing and tell me not to do it.
Speaker 1: You know, you was a square like you can't have
Speaker 1: a conversation with me. And I wish I would have
Speaker 1: been the square back then, and I wish I was
Speaker 1: the square, but understanding that the square just wasn't gonna
Speaker 1: get to me. You know what I'm saying exactly were
Speaker 1: Black squeeze now, But but back then, we the people
Speaker 1: who who had never been involved at any level of
Speaker 1: these streets, wasn't gonna tell me what was going on
Speaker 1: because they couldn't identify, my mam, what it is that
Speaker 1: I was dealing with your mice before before I caught
Speaker 1: my time in prison, right I was. I used to
Speaker 1: hang out in front of the building UM called American
Speaker 1: Towers in Queen's Right, and I never forget it was.
Speaker 1: He was a senator. His name was Malcolm Smith. He
Speaker 1: was like the first achieved, like the majority leader at
Speaker 1: one time when Patterson and them was here and he
Speaker 1: came to the building and he said, hey, guys, how
Speaker 1: are you doing. My name is Malcolm Smith, I'm senator
Speaker 1: and my offices around the corner and let you guys
Speaker 1: know that, Um, I'm gonna have some jobs for you guys,
Speaker 1: you know, saying, get you guys from instruction jobs and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. He said, Um, but I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: let you know that this is no longer going to exist.
Speaker 1: And he was saying this, He was saying, like this
Speaker 1: drug game, this building is gonna be shut down. We're
Speaker 1: gonna like fix this area. I said, if you don't
Speaker 1: get the out of face and don't ever come back
Speaker 1: around here again, you do, You're gonna have a problem.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. And I didn't even know
Speaker 1: who I was talking to at the time until I
Speaker 1: was in Sinxing watching David Patterson do an address and
Speaker 1: I see Michael Smith sitting next to him. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And how power like who he was
Speaker 1: at the time, he could have just came in eradicated me.
Speaker 1: You know what it been took me. I wish you
Speaker 1: would have because I would have never quote my case.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying that. And you know, but
Speaker 1: what we do not respect those who come to the
Speaker 1: hood or come to our neighborhoods that you know don't
Speaker 1: understand what we're going to. You gotta have the right uniform, man,
Speaker 1: you gotta come the people at the people and and
Speaker 1: they own't like they love you, Mike, and but they don't.
Speaker 1: They don't respect the fact that they're taking a non
Speaker 1: traditional way of doing things. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: They'd rather like, you know, and I say all the time,
Speaker 1: like your fifth coming to the hood and tell these dude,
Speaker 1: you'll come by. All the comes from them. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. We got two hundred three hundred million,
Speaker 1: Come by all the guns from them. When I say
Speaker 1: come by, the away comes from them. Come say yo,
Speaker 1: give me your guns right and his opportunity. They do
Speaker 1: these buyback programs and give you two hundreds for a gun.
Speaker 1: I'm not giving you know, I'm not getting my gun
Speaker 1: from two hundred hours when I can get six hundreds
Speaker 1: of the block. Give him a thousand hours in the
Speaker 1: job and a promise that you're gonna give hi an opportunity.
Speaker 1: I bet we have a whole bunch of guns in
Speaker 1: the back of the U haul truck. That's right, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. We gotta take more aggressive approaches
Speaker 1: when it comes to gun violence. That's that's a real conversation.
Speaker 1: That's a that's a that's a whole episode. You know,
Speaker 1: what what should be the responsibility of these hip hop
Speaker 1: artists that that claim to represent and be from my communities?
Speaker 1: What is their responsibility to protect, you know, instead of
Speaker 1: these kids in the right direction. We can we can
Speaker 1: talk about this all day, but I love you, bro.
Speaker 1: I just want you before we leave. I want you
Speaker 1: to um if you if you had one word to
Speaker 1: say to a young boy, young shooter like yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: like you were, you know you evolved into way more
Speaker 1: than that. You know, somebody who was at the stage
Speaker 1: that you on. You had to sit down, You just
Speaker 1: have one one minute to talk to What would you
Speaker 1: what would you say to I would tell him that
Speaker 1: Rickers Aland is a jail that's surrounded by water, right
Speaker 1: mice and you know, to get the Ricker's Aland. Like
Speaker 1: when I when I went from like Elmhurst to go
Speaker 1: of course the bridge, it took me five minutes to
Speaker 1: go across that bridge. Right when we shackle you feel
Speaker 1: the turbunce going across that bridge. It took me five
Speaker 1: minutes to go across that bridge. Almost twenty years to
Speaker 1: get back to the other side. Mm hm. That short
Speaker 1: ride across the bridge, it took me twenty years to
Speaker 1: come back to the other side. So if you can,
Speaker 1: that's the only thing you could do in your life
Speaker 1: is when you wake up. It's be intentioned. Hey man,
Speaker 1: I appreciate you, bro. I love you, man. Oh Man,
Speaker 1: I love you, Mike. It's a it's a pleasure of
Speaker 1: just talking with you. I love you to death, man,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna follow you to the end of the world.
Speaker 1: Are all great. Keep doing what you're doing. Man, love
Speaker 1: you can't create. Appreciate you. Man. Shout out to my
Speaker 1: brother Prince Matt. You see why he's somebody that I
Speaker 1: respect and love. Man. His energy, his intelligence, his growth,
Speaker 1: his evolution. You know that's one of my things, being
Speaker 1: an evolutionary and the way he's evolved into this person,
Speaker 1: this beacon of life, someone who's been there. And when
Speaker 1: you look at him, you can see that he understands
Speaker 1: the coach, he understands what you're dealing with. But you
Speaker 1: also see that he's involved to a place where he's
Speaker 1: able to give the message to those who really needed
Speaker 1: so shout out to my brother Prince matt Man for
Speaker 1: doing the work, for being a beacon of life, for
Speaker 1: being somebody who's changed. Keep doing what you're doing. Now.
Speaker 1: We have prerecorded this because you know, originally we were
Speaker 1: supposed to have Miss Jenkins on what she didn't so
Speaker 1: we wanted to pause it and hopefully she'll get back
Speaker 1: another day, but unfortunately weren't able to do it. So
Speaker 1: me and to me it have prerecorded the Ever, so
Speaker 1: in the next interview is gonna be with our brother
Speaker 1: Shan Duke father and she will be present. And I
Speaker 1: want you to pay attention to this one because this
Speaker 1: is another brother, another brother who was really outside making
Speaker 1: astronomical changes in his career. It's good to have Shan
Speaker 1: Duke mcfadder of g MAC in Brooklyn, New York. I
Speaker 1: would change maker. That's right to come as our change maker. Um.
Speaker 1: And also because Shan Duke deals with shooters every day, right, So,
Speaker 1: Shan Duke, we are happy to have you on Street
Speaker 1: Politicians for the first time, but it won't be your last.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, thank you, Yes, first time, not
Speaker 1: the last. What's going on? How are you feeling today?
Speaker 1: I'm blessed Holly favorite. That's that's how it goes. You
Speaker 1: know that. That was my brother famous favorite line, blessed
Speaker 1: and Holly Favorite. So we always go with that every day,
Speaker 1: blessed and Holly Favorite. Amen. Man, that's I used that
Speaker 1: a lot all the time too. Man. So telling people
Speaker 1: give people some background on what what g MAX stands for.
Speaker 1: With the work that you do, it's a little bit
Speaker 1: of background. Yeah, I got you. So, you know, in
Speaker 1: this work, I realized I have to so often tell
Speaker 1: who I am, what I've been through for people to
Speaker 1: understand how I'm capable of doing the work that I'm
Speaker 1: capable of doing. Pet in raised Brooklyn, Kings County Hospital,
Speaker 1: Raised to a single mother, never see my father. I
Speaker 1: was raised in the projects after my mother got us
Speaker 1: back from force to care. I became a product of
Speaker 1: what was around me in the white Hall of night
Speaker 1: your houses in downtown South Brooklyn. By the age of sixteen,
Speaker 1: I was first and conservated became one of the first
Speaker 1: adolescence to join the United Blood Nation. This was Rica's
Speaker 1: Island ninety four, So when I did it, it it was
Speaker 1: only adults. The adolescens didn't even have a box or
Speaker 1: bing or shoot, we would send to HDM and that's
Speaker 1: where we met the adults who ultimately introduced me to
Speaker 1: what became a product of my life that sent me
Speaker 1: back and forth throughout the prison system. And two thousand
Speaker 1: an eight, I was finishing up my last prison sentence
Speaker 1: from five two five two thousand and eight becluding possess
Speaker 1: of a weapon. And I've seen the father who seen
Speaker 1: who met his son who he had on the conjugal
Speaker 1: visit never seen that Chalit Dan in his life in
Speaker 1: the streets, and that Shilow came into Sing Sing prison
Speaker 1: with thirty five years at seventeen years. And I was
Speaker 1: the only person who witnessed that experience. And I had
Speaker 1: to make changes because I had to win boys who
Speaker 1: were then about six or seven years old. And I
Speaker 1: decided to change my mindset, and I ultimately know that
Speaker 1: I had to be part of the solution and no
Speaker 1: longer part of problem. So I created an organization that
Speaker 1: made sense to me, which is g MAC, which stands
Speaker 1: for Gangsters making Astronomical Community Changes, and that is a
Speaker 1: five of one seeds be nonprofit public charity that focused
Speaker 1: on gun violence from a public health perspective, also dealing
Speaker 1: with social justice issues and all the things under the
Speaker 1: unbrella that's causing the violence and the issues in our community.
Speaker 1: M that's dope, you know. You know, I'm always amazed
Speaker 1: at how you able to be a conduit. You know,
Speaker 1: how you're able to connect the culture, you know, be
Speaker 1: in tune with the culture of hip hop, understand what
Speaker 1: goes on in our community, to speak the language and
Speaker 1: the lingo, and connect with those people who are still
Speaker 1: respected in the streets but still have this positive and
Speaker 1: make those people be the people that stop the violence.
Speaker 1: Like you said, you know, you was once part of
Speaker 1: the problem and you want to be part of the solution.
Speaker 1: And I'm amazed at how you engage these kids that's
Speaker 1: in the streets that don't even understand how they can
Speaker 1: be the solution. How you able to speak the language
Speaker 1: with them and still make them feel Because we were
Speaker 1: having this conversation before about being cool or and being respected, right,
Speaker 1: and the way that you're able to make people understand
Speaker 1: that you can be respected for stopping violence. You don't
Speaker 1: have to be in this this culture of violence and
Speaker 1: negativity that you can get respect and you can still
Speaker 1: look the same way, you still dress the same way
Speaker 1: you still, you know, can represent what it is that
Speaker 1: you represent, but you can do it in a positive form.
Speaker 1: So you know, I'm amazed at the way that you're
Speaker 1: able to do that. Think I appreciate that I created
Speaker 1: g MAC when I was upstate in Upstate box and
Speaker 1: I had to come up with the first that had
Speaker 1: to come up with the name of acting and all that.
Speaker 1: And I knew if I came home and said I
Speaker 1: was a good guy making change, they looked at me
Speaker 1: and laugh, like, man, if you don't get out of
Speaker 1: here with that good guys stuff. So I had to
Speaker 1: come with what I knew, what experience I had, and
Speaker 1: I broke that to the table. And even that people
Speaker 1: look at the fact that the first world is gangsters,
Speaker 1: and I get people, somebody, what what, what's this? What's that?
Speaker 1: Because they don't understand And it's not for everybody to
Speaker 1: understand the work that we do. We know people will
Speaker 1: never understand everything that we do. People will never be
Speaker 1: with everything that nobody does. But we have to use
Speaker 1: our actions to show improve and that's what I do.
Speaker 1: So I have nothing happened to me that made me
Speaker 1: change other than me seeing a father witness his child
Speaker 1: come through the prison system and I didn't want my children,
Speaker 1: nobody else shouldn't to experience that. So that was the
Speaker 1: catalysts changed for me. I ain't telling nobody, ain't nothing,
Speaker 1: nobody putting no hands on me. It was just about
Speaker 1: change the shift of my prefunctal cortex, my brain. And
Speaker 1: when I came out, it was, oh you, Malcolm, the
Speaker 1: same thing used to go through brother. You know what
Speaker 1: I'm saying with marcol We Malcolm, get out and listen.
Speaker 1: This is what it is, right, you know, we got
Speaker 1: to we can't be afraid of our children. We can't
Speaker 1: be afraid of things that we experienced and bring it
Speaker 1: back to the table to get people to understand that
Speaker 1: we have experienced that they don't have. We want to
Speaker 1: deter them from going through the things that we went through,
Speaker 1: but being genuine about it. You know, people afraid to
Speaker 1: be genuine. People want to follow with the trends, right,
Speaker 1: and my goal to set trends to take the popularity
Speaker 1: out of negativity and bring the popularity of positivity, just
Speaker 1: like y'are doing. You know when you talk about my
Speaker 1: son and how some people say, oh you who you
Speaker 1: think you are? Mar and a Malcolm it's like people
Speaker 1: make try to make mockery of what he's doing today. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, based upon his story, his trajectory where he
Speaker 1: came from. Have have you experienced that did when you
Speaker 1: first came home decided to start an organization, did you
Speaker 1: go through something similar? Oh? Yes, I definitely went through that.
Speaker 1: I'm still going through that like the brother. But one
Speaker 1: of the things that I had to do when I
Speaker 1: came home was, first I moved to Atlanta with my
Speaker 1: twin sister. I had to make sure mentally I was
Speaker 1: prepared to go back to the community. And so often
Speaker 1: brothers and sinces go back to the same neighborhood where
Speaker 1: they about names and susson and they for picked them
Speaker 1: to the same actions. So for me, I had to
Speaker 1: mentally make sure I was ready. Second, when I created
Speaker 1: G Matt and came back to Brooklyn, I didn't go
Speaker 1: to the neighborhood that I grew up in, which is
Speaker 1: white or honest, because I knew they would not understand it.
Speaker 1: Didn't make you know, me coming back talking about stop shooting.
Speaker 1: They're like, hold on, what is this brother talking about?
Speaker 1: That's tripe. We're not trying to hear it, you know,
Speaker 1: it was a lot that I had to think about
Speaker 1: before I made those choices. That was one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I went into sixty seven Precinct area these flappers
Speaker 1: with Jamani because it was outside of the neighborhood and
Speaker 1: I was able to focus on the work where there
Speaker 1: was a high level of shootings over there. So I'll
Speaker 1: baby to show you through the work regards of what
Speaker 1: assumptions you may have of me, especially with me still
Speaker 1: just being who I am dressed how for talk speak
Speaker 1: about what I want to speak about. People misinterpreted that
Speaker 1: with your actions around criminality, right, And that's just the problem.
Speaker 1: I have to get people to see that I created
Speaker 1: something for myself that gave me something to do where
Speaker 1: I didn't need to find a criminal aspect to provide
Speaker 1: for myself, which is why we are creating these areas
Speaker 1: for ourselves of crime that put us back and forth
Speaker 1: in the system. So this is what it's about. We
Speaker 1: have to overcome that. Me and Mice and generous like
Speaker 1: myself going to a neighborhood when people expect you to
Speaker 1: come back and bringing that same negative energy. So even
Speaker 1: in the world there's people in other organizations that try
Speaker 1: to find something wrong with me in the work that
Speaker 1: I'm doing, because they don't understand that. You know, we've
Speaker 1: got a bunch of individuals who are forming concentrated. They
Speaker 1: don't glamorize the fact that they've been concentrated for murders
Speaker 1: and such, but recognizing it so that they can identify
Speaker 1: the people the pains that they've been through to be
Speaker 1: able to to make change and shift our communities. So
Speaker 1: we are people are gonna continue to be oxercise right
Speaker 1: if we look at all these dates, I need this
Speaker 1: die up until the point of somebody believing that there
Speaker 1: was something wrong with Malcolm. There was something over Malcolm.
Speaker 1: So we just got to keep working and pushing through.
Speaker 1: And we appreciate that. Man. And I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: just looking at where we are right now, you know
Speaker 1: there's an uptick and violence, especially gun violence in our
Speaker 1: communities right now. And you know, like myself, you are
Speaker 1: aware of a lot of the things that cause the
Speaker 1: violence in the communities. You know, I always say that
Speaker 1: poverty equals violence. You know, that's one of the main
Speaker 1: things that I say. So I just want to know
Speaker 1: from your perspective of doing this work for so many
Speaker 1: years that you've been doing it. What do you think
Speaker 1: it's gonna take to really cut the gun violence? And
Speaker 1: you know, in the inner cities and in the communities
Speaker 1: that we come from, it's gonna take a lot more
Speaker 1: money community based organizations. It's gonna take other leaders that
Speaker 1: got money that they could give to these communities. We're
Speaker 1: spending too much time hoping that the city and the
Speaker 1: lect of officials are gonna bail us out through our fight,
Speaker 1: and we cannot depend on that alone. So we need
Speaker 1: everybody invested because some way, some form, we got a
Speaker 1: part to play. We paid a part when we were young.
Speaker 1: And I'm just speaking in general, but to really answer
Speaker 1: the question, through my work, I've seen violence go down
Speaker 1: through our partners, the life camps, the man ups, the
Speaker 1: organizations that are doing this work. The work we are
Speaker 1: doing is shown in our areas where we focus. People
Speaker 1: don't know where we act, so they understand that we
Speaker 1: focus on a small area and we focus on the
Speaker 1: small percentage of the same individuals that's pushing the button,
Speaker 1: that's driving the bottom. It's not everybody in our community,
Speaker 1: no matter what they're trying to portray. So if you
Speaker 1: focus on all these individuals and throughout the city throughout
Speaker 1: east Borough, and you are you pinpoint who the shooters are,
Speaker 1: you pinpoint the individuals that's pushing that you'll be able
Speaker 1: to bring down the violence. Because our goal is stopping
Speaker 1: the transmission. So every time somebody gets into an argument,
Speaker 1: we need to be able as a as a people
Speaker 1: to be in that conversation to figure out how we
Speaker 1: could de escalate because mighty maybe more upset than the
Speaker 1: other person and walk off and things over and it's
Speaker 1: not over. And we had that incident where our young
Speaker 1: tenure over was shotting far rockaway a parking spot, and
Speaker 1: if someone was able to have had that conversation after
Speaker 1: the argument to bring that brother down, we would have
Speaker 1: saved the child's life. So that's what we gotta do it.
Speaker 1: On top of that, we're gott get these elders to
Speaker 1: step up. MI, I know what we're talking about, these brothers.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm tired of brothers talking about these young
Speaker 1: boys is violing. And these younger man ain't no young
Speaker 1: boy ever gonna tell me how to move. I don't listen.
Speaker 1: These are our children, right, we have much more experience
Speaker 1: than we gotta. We gotta pull a rod from under
Speaker 1: them we gotta we gotta run up in and their
Speaker 1: stage spaces, make sure they ain't got access to the
Speaker 1: things they got access to. We gotta be accountable for them.
Speaker 1: These are our children pulling the trigger to not children,
Speaker 1: So we're not the one stepping up the men. Our
Speaker 1: women shouldn't be ad the front line. All these guys
Speaker 1: is tough. The gangst all these music is talking about.
Speaker 1: The real toughness is in the streets stopping young person
Speaker 1: from killing somebody. And that's what we gotta do. We
Speaker 1: gotta saturate community with leaders who are not afraid to
Speaker 1: get in front of that that gunn and say this.
Speaker 1: If you're not doing that, he is why amen, And
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. You know, I'm gonna I want to
Speaker 1: touch you on something that's a little more, you know,
Speaker 1: touch you for you and personal. Um. You you you
Speaker 1: lost your brother to gun violence, you know, while you
Speaker 1: was doing this work, you know, and and that that's
Speaker 1: something that is just a two pronged situation, just understanding
Speaker 1: what with the work entails. Well, you say, I like
Speaker 1: to reference that different right because I didn't lose him,
Speaker 1: m h. And I tried to have a lot of
Speaker 1: survivors speak differently because you lose something means it fell
Speaker 1: out my pocket and I misplaced it. I misplaced my
Speaker 1: brother s mighty took right. So we gotta have our survived.
Speaker 1: Understand that the louse we it's lost inside of it
Speaker 1: was something I was taking from us. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: I'll definitely start talking with that terminology more so. You know,
Speaker 1: thank you for enlightening me with that. But your brother
Speaker 1: was taken from you while you was doing the work
Speaker 1: to make sure that somebody else's brother is not taken
Speaker 1: from them, you know, and you're being close to me.
Speaker 1: We've had many discussions and different things, and I know
Speaker 1: a little a lot more than the average person does.
Speaker 1: But I just want you to just kind of touch
Speaker 1: you on that experience and how you continue to do
Speaker 1: this work with the same mindst in the same heart,
Speaker 1: and you know, and you move forward. Maybe your mind
Speaker 1: in your heart is not the same or are not
Speaker 1: the same. My mind and my heart definitely ain't the same.
Speaker 1: Can't it can't be the same. Nobody who takes a
Speaker 1: takes has a feminine beer. Taking is ever the same.
Speaker 1: And people need to understand that they learned to deal
Speaker 1: with it to live with it, but they never get
Speaker 1: over it. And I'm mine who comes from a different
Speaker 1: level of life and experience, and I have uh family,
Speaker 1: my mother, my sisters, my brother, my brothers. Actually right
Speaker 1: now in n DC, we gotta go back to the
Speaker 1: NBC that's going on in there right now. But my family,
Speaker 1: we should tell people that m d C is NBC
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Center, the federal jail in Brooklyn. We all us
Speaker 1: until freedom. We went and did the protests and they
Speaker 1: had no heat and lights in there. Remember like almost
Speaker 1: two years ago, I said, winter the coldest time during
Speaker 1: the winter of two thousands. No electricity, no water, no
Speaker 1: no heat. We went both for those brothers in there
Speaker 1: and there we heard there's a lot going on there.
Speaker 1: But we'll talk about that. Just started about it as
Speaker 1: we referenced my brothers. So me coming up through the
Speaker 1: work has been something that helped me when my brother
Speaker 1: got murdered. And if I wasn't his work, there's no
Speaker 1: telling the direction that I would that I would have went. Yall,
Speaker 1: Remember I remember, I remember there was many nights when
Speaker 1: we had to walk you off the ledge because you're like,
Speaker 1: how can I I remember you saying this to me.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to cut you off, but it's so powerful.
Speaker 1: I remember you saying to me one night, tears rolling
Speaker 1: down your face, how can I not go take a
Speaker 1: life for the life that was taken for me being
Speaker 1: the man that everybody knows me to be, Like, this
Speaker 1: is who I am. I'm supposed to get revenge for this.
Speaker 1: And you said, but I know better. I know better,
Speaker 1: and and and and basically what I took from that
Speaker 1: is like, don't judge me because I feel it, because
Speaker 1: I'm being honest about the emotion. But I have I
Speaker 1: have enough wisdom and um and I and I am
Speaker 1: I I've evolved enough. That's a good way of explaining
Speaker 1: it that I can. I need to go through this process,
Speaker 1: but I'm not going to make the wrong dec vision
Speaker 1: at the end. And I was so moved, proud and
Speaker 1: humbled by the fact that you allowed me to live
Speaker 1: in that moment with you. Thank you, thank you and
Speaker 1: sharing that emotional moment. Uh oh yeah, And I think
Speaker 1: you And that's an example example when I'm talking about
Speaker 1: right that I had the right people to call and
Speaker 1: talk to and get the right type of feedback. And
Speaker 1: there's so many people our communities that's not the feedback
Speaker 1: that they get. Let's go, let's get it done. You know,
Speaker 1: right in the high school, the retaliation start, the conversation starts.
Speaker 1: So what I realized for me, I had to turn
Speaker 1: that negative into some type of positivity for me to
Speaker 1: be able to move forward. And you know, it catapulted
Speaker 1: me further into the work. Right. I realized that before
Speaker 1: I was coming because I wanted to make change, because
Speaker 1: I was part of the problem growing up. I was
Speaker 1: putting too or the environment that I was put into.
Speaker 1: But I realized that now I had a different experience.
Speaker 1: I wasn't only speaking from somebody who had picked up
Speaker 1: a gun, but I'm now speaking from a survivor's point,
Speaker 1: and I saw how a mother could possibly feel. I
Speaker 1: could never feel a mother's pain because it's a brother,
Speaker 1: but it's still it's a brother that I raised. We
Speaker 1: had no farther so it's you know, just imagine the relationship.
Speaker 1: So the fact that I had the right people around me,
Speaker 1: it supported me and it kept me going. But I
Speaker 1: still have to find a different way to cope with
Speaker 1: it myself. And that's important for people to understand that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that happened when you're dealing
Speaker 1: with something like that that are traumas Families that still
Speaker 1: live in the same neighborhood and go back and forth
Speaker 1: home and believe that those guys they just passed one
Speaker 1: of them killed their child. But the systems society don't say,
Speaker 1: I want to give you emergency movement, ma'am and move
Speaker 1: your family out of that neighborhood so that you can
Speaker 1: have some way to deal with your trauma. I had
Speaker 1: to realize that through my traumas right there. Maive me
Speaker 1: some of the challenge right to text y'all, like you
Speaker 1: what's still with this? And what's up with that? Because
Speaker 1: I could be drinking what's up with what? Yeah? All right?
Speaker 1: So for example, I may say, uh, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to something that was really traumatic for me,
Speaker 1: right where I told you that there's somebody that was
Speaker 1: speaking on the person who are leged league murdered my brother,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, ye know, what's up? Why is why
Speaker 1: is these people speaking on this? Right? This is not
Speaker 1: the topic that people should be speaking on. I speak
Speaker 1: on it because there's somebody who is still being tried, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, so when you're talking about once again,
Speaker 1: you're talking about street CODs and ethics. Even though I
Speaker 1: live a life that I'm not in the street committing crimes,
Speaker 1: I still found ethics and principles. So give somebody that
Speaker 1: opportunity to maybe do the course system before we talk
Speaker 1: about anything. Right, That's that's what's sup post that happened.
Speaker 1: You don't take a platform and and speaking on somebody
Speaker 1: who was accused of a crime because of your voice.
Speaker 1: What you do is you change people who believe in
Speaker 1: you to believe that somebody is actually a good person
Speaker 1: where it actually isn't right there, not the person that
Speaker 1: you were talking about because of your personal relationship. That's
Speaker 1: one thing. Another thing was for me, I'm driving in
Speaker 1: the car and I'm listening to the radio, and the
Speaker 1: radio says, on this day, we're having a concert that
Speaker 1: urban plaza. Right, How can you have a concert at
Speaker 1: the same place when my brother was killed and they
Speaker 1: have done nothing to reconcile, nothing, nothing to stop, nothing
Speaker 1: to stop it. Right, And so me and I spoke
Speaker 1: about this before. That could have been prevented. I know
Speaker 1: it could have been prevented, right, if the right people
Speaker 1: would have been in the conversation. When homeboy flew in
Speaker 1: who quote son, right, you don't want to do names.
Speaker 1: We could do that another time. But when the brother
Speaker 1: came in, he called the brother to the show because
Speaker 1: he felt the brother had some ground in the streets
Speaker 1: in New York. Right. So that's that's the method that
Speaker 1: happens in hip hop, and that's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: When you come into a city, you should get in
Speaker 1: tune with the real people in the city. And when
Speaker 1: you get people that talk about it, they talked about, well,
Speaker 1: what is this the no flies on or it's not
Speaker 1: about the check it we misinterpreted. That's about understanding the climate,
Speaker 1: the energy of the city that you're going into and
Speaker 1: making sure you don't create a further violent atmosphere, about
Speaker 1: bringing the wrong people into the same space, right, and
Speaker 1: having to correct people in the community who are aware
Speaker 1: of the issues in that neighborhood to be there. So
Speaker 1: let's say one person comes in and somebody who we
Speaker 1: identify as a problem pulls up to that door. We
Speaker 1: gotta have the right communication, not to agitate the situation,
Speaker 1: but the letting point the person know that this is
Speaker 1: an environment that we can let you come in today.
Speaker 1: Preventive measures right and that's that's what I saw that
Speaker 1: didn't happen right in that environment that my brother got murdered.
Speaker 1: It So it's it's it's an ongoing thing for for me,
Speaker 1: as an ongoing thing for my family, but I utilize
Speaker 1: it also to even help people who I know are
Speaker 1: constantly going through that every day. So that goes something
Speaker 1: to my say earlier, I see brothers nowny, but you
Speaker 1: know my brothers got killed. I know what you're talking about. Bro.
Speaker 1: Come in, let me talk to you right, Let me
Speaker 1: tell you what I went through and what I when
Speaker 1: I was going through that. I also got people who
Speaker 1: I never knew of just DM me, messaging me and
Speaker 1: telling me they was watching me and how I dealt
Speaker 1: with that and then helped them quote with it differently
Speaker 1: and not taking life. And there's people in other states
Speaker 1: and countries. So it's an ongoing process. Is trauma. I
Speaker 1: use it to help me help people, but there's people
Speaker 1: who are not as strong as me, and we need
Speaker 1: to be able to find the right resources to be
Speaker 1: able to provide ongoing trauma services to our community. That's
Speaker 1: continue to deal with the dumb violence. Wow, well, well listen,
Speaker 1: we can have this conversation all day, man, But unfortunately
Speaker 1: we gotta move on and do a few other things.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 1: You know, you gotta get you a battery for we
Speaker 1: got for your detect detective carbon monoxide. You know there's yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's this thing on online where they say black
Speaker 1: folks just sit through it like it's a part of
Speaker 1: the sound in the house, like it just becomes background noise.
Speaker 1: You didn't even hear it at first, but you know
Speaker 1: now that thing is in you that you need to
Speaker 1: change the battery because there could be a fire or
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide in the area and you won't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: I hear it now. It's the times we may ignore
Speaker 1: things in life. For someone who cares about his pointed
Speaker 1: out to us and ignore it. It will hurt us.
Speaker 1: But we listened, we will learn and fix things right. Well,
Speaker 1: we have had those conversations painfully and lovingly many times
Speaker 1: over the years, and certainly I think we've grown both
Speaker 1: of us from those conversations. So we love you so
Speaker 1: much and do thanks for joining street politicians. Just wanted
Speaker 1: people to know right that you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: even though I'm tough and all that. You know, you
Speaker 1: called me out for a fair one and all that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she definitely did she call you. We've had to listen
Speaker 1: this one toimes. She used an explicit, she said, yeah,
Speaker 1: she used exponents. She definitely expletive. She used a lot
Speaker 1: of expletives. Yeah, well that's the world. But that's because
Speaker 1: y'all got on my nerves. So don't mess with me.
Speaker 1: And I have no issues with you. La la la Yo.
Speaker 1: I love you, bro. We talked to you later. Peace. Yes.
Speaker 1: Shout out to Duke Man Dope interview, Dope person, another
Speaker 1: one of my brothers. Man. We always say we've got friends,
Speaker 1: and look at this is why we called on my friends.
Speaker 1: Our friends are literally changing the world. Like you know,
Speaker 1: we get so much flak from so many things, man,
Speaker 1: that it is amazing. You know. I get called all
Speaker 1: types of names and all this, and and sometimes I
Speaker 1: get frustrated, But then I look at the people I'm
Speaker 1: surrounded by. I look at history, and I say, everybody
Speaker 1: who's doing what I what I'm trying to do. Everybody
Speaker 1: who has been you know, elevated, who's been talked about
Speaker 1: throughout history had to go through the same things and
Speaker 1: not putting myself on the same level as those brothers,
Speaker 1: was saying to myself, anybody who was really trying to
Speaker 1: make change, who is going left while everybody is going right,
Speaker 1: Who's trying to change a narrative that has been so
Speaker 1: engulfed and embedded in this culture for so long, It's
Speaker 1: gonna receive nothing but fact. You're gonna receive hate. Everybody
Speaker 1: is not gonna love you. I say all the time,
Speaker 1: I'm a quiet taste. I'm honest to a fault and
Speaker 1: sometimes you know it is a gift and a curse.
Speaker 1: But to me, you see what this has said. Shame
Speaker 1: is fluck. Character is currency, man, And you know, my
Speaker 1: character is the way that I've survived my whole life.
Speaker 1: I wasn't somebody with a silver spoon. All I ever
Speaker 1: had was character, you know, and that brings me to
Speaker 1: my I don't get it, well, I really don't get
Speaker 1: is how did we as a culture allow people to
Speaker 1: trick us into believing that violence and negativity was symping
Speaker 1: to glorify, Like when I and I and I was
Speaker 1: guilty of it, like I was, I was all the
Speaker 1: way into it. Like when we look at the what
Speaker 1: we call ourselves monsters and savages and all of these
Speaker 1: names that that mean the most derogatory things, and demons
Speaker 1: and all of these things. We we've taken on this
Speaker 1: narrative and these names to describe us, and it's some
Speaker 1: level of a badge of honor. It's something that we glorified,
Speaker 1: something that we look up to. How did we allow
Speaker 1: people to trick us into believing that we were savages indemons?
Speaker 1: How do we allow them to tell us to gify
Speaker 1: us taking our brother's lives. Somebody who come from the
Speaker 1: same communities we come from, have to overcome the same
Speaker 1: ills that we have to overcome, have to step over
Speaker 1: the same pists and the same elevators, mothers on the
Speaker 1: same drugs as I was getting the same um, public assistance,
Speaker 1: you know, welfare checks, all those things. Somebody who's dealing
Speaker 1: with the same exact things we're dealing with. They tricked
Speaker 1: us into believing that taking his life and not value
Speaker 1: in his life made me some level of real quote
Speaker 1: unquote real. How do we do that? I really don't
Speaker 1: get it now, you know, when you when you start
Speaker 1: to reflect it and I'm not and I'm not talking now,
Speaker 1: because there is a lot of young kids they engulfed
Speaker 1: in the culture and they go on O G. You're
Speaker 1: talking down positive and it's like, whatever, listen either you're
Speaker 1: gonna learn. See. A wise man learns from other people's mistakes.
Speaker 1: A smart marine learns from his own. I was a
Speaker 1: smart man. I wasn't as well I was. I was
Speaker 1: a little bit wise, but for ultimately I was smart.
Speaker 1: I had to learn from my own mistakes. I'm hoping
Speaker 1: that the young people that I'm talking to can be wise,
Speaker 1: be wiser than me. I tell my son all the time,
Speaker 1: I am a cheat sheet through life. If you pay
Speaker 1: attention to me, if you just listen to me, then
Speaker 1: you will never make the same mistakes I make. You
Speaker 1: might make your own. You might have to do some
Speaker 1: things that I never went through, and you might make
Speaker 1: mistakes there, but you will never make the same mistakes
Speaker 1: that I did, or never actually have to go through
Speaker 1: the same things that I have to go through. And
Speaker 1: that's what that's my message to your young kids. Man,
Speaker 1: don't allow anybody to trick you into losing your life
Speaker 1: for your freedom. Don't allow anybody to tell you anything
Speaker 1: that is detrimental to your life or your freedom. Is
Speaker 1: something that is a badge of honor, that is a
Speaker 1: right to passage, that is something to glorify. Anybody who
Speaker 1: is trying to put you in a position to lose
Speaker 1: your life, your freedom, your family, to lose anything that
Speaker 1: is of any value to you. It's not your friend.
Speaker 1: They are not somebody that you should listen to. I
Speaker 1: don't care if it's music, I don't care what it is.
Speaker 1: You know, we have to take back our culture. We
Speaker 1: have to redefine what manhood is. We have to redefine
Speaker 1: with cool, with lit, with real was popping. We have
Speaker 1: to redefine, to redefine what those things are because what
Speaker 1: is defined now is killing us. We're losing. Bodies are
Speaker 1: dropping every day in our communities, and it's only because
Speaker 1: somebody tricked us into believing that that was something to glify.
Speaker 1: So with that said, I'm gonna close out. My sister
Speaker 1: is not here, but she ain't gonna always be wrong
Speaker 1: when she's here, and I'm not gonna always be right,
Speaker 1: but most of the time I am, but especially in
Speaker 1: this month, I'm right about this. Kings stopped killing kings,
Speaker 1: but we will always we will always be what the
Speaker 1: peace Number one show Baby number one you see along
Speaker 1: my things number one