Speaker 1: What's up. Family, it's your girl to meet A D.
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy my son in general, and
Speaker 1: we are your hosts of street politicians, the place in
Speaker 1: politics meet. What's going on? Happy New Year, my son,
Speaker 1: Happy New Year is upon us. I'm feeling great. I've
Speaker 1: already spoke this best number one podcast into existence. We're
Speaker 1: gonna have so much money. We're gonna have so much wealth.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have so much success, so much justice. We're
Speaker 1: gonna get justice. We're gonna get everything we're looking for.
Speaker 1: You know, we ended last year with significant um a
Speaker 1: criminal justice wins right that that's not wins for our community. Know,
Speaker 1: you gotta because the trolls can't wait. What wins. Wins
Speaker 1: means they stop killing us. That's what we're fighting for.
Speaker 1: We ultimately want um not to be killed. But when
Speaker 1: we think about the steps that it will take to
Speaker 1: get us to a place where people know, if I
Speaker 1: shoot harm, violate the civil rights, the human rights of
Speaker 1: a black, brown or any other person, I'm going to
Speaker 1: have to face the system. And it's possible that a
Speaker 1: jury and particularly juries with white women. We gotta, we've
Speaker 1: gotta talk about it because the last few juries have
Speaker 1: been full of white women that not all white women,
Speaker 1: but many white women have been dominating these juries. Have
Speaker 1: been finding police officers and other vigilantes, um responsible criminals,
Speaker 1: responsible for the murder and the trauma and the violations
Speaker 1: that they've caused on young black men and black men
Speaker 1: in general. And I think that, um, you know, that's
Speaker 1: a good sign for how we enter two. That we
Speaker 1: continue to fight in the courts, but even outside of
Speaker 1: the courts, there's a cultural fight that's ahead of us,
Speaker 1: and I think we have a responsibility to stay on
Speaker 1: the ground. In every one of the cases that we
Speaker 1: have one, so to speak, there were movements that existed
Speaker 1: on the ground. There were people involved, there were protests,
Speaker 1: there was awareness, there was communities speaking out parents that
Speaker 1: work very closely with some of our stellar civil rights
Speaker 1: attorneys so that they could go and and help to
Speaker 1: inform um the district attorneys, right, because you know, it's
Speaker 1: always important for us to make that separation. The district
Speaker 1: attorneys have been fighting the cases, but they do at
Speaker 1: times listen to the feedback of the family's civil attorneys
Speaker 1: who are who are giving them strategy. These things are happening,
Speaker 1: and I think that to your point, We're gonna work
Speaker 1: this year to ensure that we continue to get justice
Speaker 1: in those places, while it's a small form of justice,
Speaker 1: but that we also set the precedent, set the tone
Speaker 1: across this country that if you kill, you harm, you brutalize, um,
Speaker 1: you violate our rights, that you will be found guilty
Speaker 1: of a crime and have to face actual jail time
Speaker 1: for for you know, for your actions. You know it's right.
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's the always the goal. Like you said,
Speaker 1: it's not justice and totality, you know, but there is
Speaker 1: periods and there are pieces of justice that we need
Speaker 1: to add to the puzzle, you know, And a a lot
Speaker 1: of people want to discredit the work that's being done
Speaker 1: because they don't understand the full process, or because they
Speaker 1: just want to have something to say. But you know,
Speaker 1: being on the front lines in this movement and actually
Speaker 1: seeing what it takes to get even though small pieces
Speaker 1: of justice, man, and just understanding what it's gonna take
Speaker 1: for us to act actually get the level of justice
Speaker 1: and equity that we deserve and you know, are entitled
Speaker 1: to in this country. We understand the work, the work
Speaker 1: that we're gonna need to do. We're not even gonna
Speaker 1: see it in a lifetime, but we're just gonna contribute
Speaker 1: to it and continue to fight. Man. So I want
Speaker 1: to say thank you to everybody who has been a
Speaker 1: part of it, those small grassroots organizations, those who made
Speaker 1: phone calls, those who donated to organizations, those who sat
Speaker 1: in front of these courthouses, those who family members who
Speaker 1: despite all the trauma and pain they went through, they
Speaker 1: got up every day and they fought on behalf of
Speaker 1: their family members. And they still fight and he's still crying.
Speaker 1: They still deal with the trauma even after the cases
Speaker 1: are gone, after the cameras have disappeared, after everyone is
Speaker 1: going off, after the verdict has been delivered. Even though
Speaker 1: there's been guilty verdicts, there have been people who have
Speaker 1: lost loved ones. So you just want to say thank
Speaker 1: you for all of the pain that you've endured so
Speaker 1: that justice can be served, even the smallest, smallest minute way.
Speaker 1: And you know that we will continue to do out.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure that George Floyd's family, Dante right
Speaker 1: uh Ahmad are very and even Julius Jones, which was
Speaker 1: different because Julius Jones needs to be at home with
Speaker 1: his family, but he was removed from death row and
Speaker 1: his life was spared with hours left before his UM
Speaker 1: for before they would have executed him. And that was
Speaker 1: because of a grass Fools movement. And to your point, UM,
Speaker 1: Terence Crutcher, who was also killed by the police, his
Speaker 1: sister Tiffany Crutcher was out there while holding her own pain,
Speaker 1: she was out there as one of the leaders fighting
Speaker 1: for Julius Jones life. And there are so many people
Speaker 1: who have gone from advocate who have on from UM
Speaker 1: survivors if you will. You know, some of us say victims,
Speaker 1: but they are they're really truly survivors and have turned
Speaker 1: that into becoming warriors within this movement. And I'm not
Speaker 1: sure that they would say it's my new I think
Speaker 1: we have conditioned ourselves because we we understand the larger
Speaker 1: context of the movement, right, and so since we know
Speaker 1: that justice is so much bigger, we condition ourselves to
Speaker 1: UM to minimize it so that we don't have to
Speaker 1: fight with folks who want to say, oh, y'all didn't
Speaker 1: do anything because he should have got fifty years, and
Speaker 1: now you know you didn't do anything, because all of
Speaker 1: them should be guilty. But it's not my new because
Speaker 1: the work that went into standing with Wanda Cooper and
Speaker 1: Lee Merrit and also the work that Shaun King did, um,
Speaker 1: you know for Ahmad r Very and the protests that
Speaker 1: we went out for and the people like you said, uh,
Speaker 1: queen your NaSTA ha in Atlanta, Gerald Griggs, the local
Speaker 1: in Double A CP there um in in uh in
Speaker 1: that part of Georgia. They worked hard. We supported them, um,
Speaker 1: but we were actually living in in Kentucky fighting for
Speaker 1: Brianna Taylor and we still took our time to support
Speaker 1: and stand with Wanda Cooper and the family of Ahmad
Speaker 1: are Very. So you had that movement happened, and that
Speaker 1: kept attention on them every single day. Then you turned
Speaker 1: around and you look at um, you know what was
Speaker 1: done even when Dante right, Yeah, totally you know. And
Speaker 1: by the way, Dante right situation moved fast from the
Speaker 1: day that he was killed until there was a conviction.
Speaker 1: It was very clear in the state of Minnesota that
Speaker 1: people were not going to sit back and allow them
Speaker 1: to slip back with justice because there was all ready
Speaker 1: a conviction on George Floyd. And I think, um, what
Speaker 1: some folks may not understand, they may not be aware
Speaker 1: of how much work went into electing Keith Ellison, who
Speaker 1: is the the the attorney general. They're in Minnesota. I
Speaker 1: don't think people understand how much work and what the
Speaker 1: battle was to get him elected so that he can
Speaker 1: fight for real and true justice in that state. There
Speaker 1: is so much more work to be done, but it's
Speaker 1: not minew when you think about Brianna Taylor. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: trying to get actual convictions and to get people arrested
Speaker 1: in charge, it's an uphill battle. We hope that the
Speaker 1: Feds will come in and file federal charges against the officers,
Speaker 1: particularly the four officers, but even more folks than that
Speaker 1: were involved in murdering Brianna Taylor. But yet those officers
Speaker 1: have been removed from the force, and that for us,
Speaker 1: while it is not the indoor be all, it is
Speaker 1: significant that they have been disgraced and sent home from
Speaker 1: their jobs. Now we have to fight to make sure
Speaker 1: that we get actual legislation put in place that monitors
Speaker 1: them so that they cannot just go get another job
Speaker 1: in a different city, um and and and permit the
Speaker 1: same crimes. So to your point, there is a lot
Speaker 1: of work to be done. There's an incredible amount of
Speaker 1: work to be done. But I refuse not to appreciate
Speaker 1: all the people who have worked to do what has
Speaker 1: happened within the year of one that we hope to
Speaker 1: keep into You're right, you know, I apologize, you know, apologize.
Speaker 1: It's not because it's not just out work, right, it's
Speaker 1: other people who are out there working, and as I
Speaker 1: applaud them, you know, I don't want to minimize, you know,
Speaker 1: the losses of people who actually were invested in this work,
Speaker 1: because a lot of people lost sleep, they gained trauma,
Speaker 1: they lost money, they lost family, they lost so many
Speaker 1: different things in this fight for justice. So it's beneath
Speaker 1: me to even try to minimize what people lost in this.
Speaker 1: But I do want us to understand that there's so
Speaker 1: much to go. We still have a lot to fight for.
Speaker 1: But those victories that we did get, they weren't they're
Speaker 1: not minute, they're definitely major victories, you know, So continue
Speaker 1: to fight with that and knowing that you have gained
Speaker 1: victories and we still got a lot to do. And
Speaker 1: so that brings me to my thought of the day. Now.
Speaker 1: You know, I've been really on vacation. I literally have
Speaker 1: done absolutely nothing, and for you and other people who
Speaker 1: called me. I've been sitting in a dark room relaxing
Speaker 1: for the entire holiday, with the exception of moving around
Speaker 1: a little bit here and there. Number One, I ain't
Speaker 1: trying to get the COVID. Number two, I just needed
Speaker 1: a break and I really needed to get focused. So,
Speaker 1: you know, TV was a thing, like I was watching shows.
Speaker 1: First of all, we start the holiday with Insecure going
Speaker 1: off the air, so they their last show. I haven't
Speaker 1: even watched it because I'm like heartbroken, and I know
Speaker 1: a little bit about what happened, because social media is
Speaker 1: such a spoiler, like they just tell you everything, but
Speaker 1: you know that's gone. Then the other day I was
Speaker 1: watching TV. I was really excited about Blackish, and I
Speaker 1: learned that it was their last episode as well. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to figure out, what in the heck is happening?
Speaker 1: Is it the ratings? Are we not watching the shows?
Speaker 1: You know? What is? What is the issue? Is it advertising?
Speaker 1: What are we going to do to keep content on
Speaker 1: TV that helps to show us in in not just
Speaker 1: a positive light, but in our true form. I have
Speaker 1: no issue with fifty cents and his uh, you know,
Speaker 1: his portfolio, because we all like a little crime and
Speaker 1: hustless TV everything every if you say entertainment whatever, right,
Speaker 1: we all we all like that. By the way, it's
Speaker 1: every other culture has the same, so we're not gonna
Speaker 1: see him act like you. The white folks are not
Speaker 1: killing each other and shooting up and everything on TV.
Speaker 1: The Asian community there and everybody has entertainment. To your point,
Speaker 1: that's um criminal through a criminal Lennits. Lets me say
Speaker 1: it's like that, but the fundamentals of their every day
Speaker 1: for their children is not just focusing on power and
Speaker 1: BMF and things like that. They also have grays and
Speaker 1: that they have I don't know you name the shows
Speaker 1: right they I don't even know them, but I know
Speaker 1: that they have a bunch of shows that shows sort
Speaker 1: of a myriad, if you will, of images to their
Speaker 1: young people. You turn on the TV for us and
Speaker 1: we're losing everything. And Blackish was such an important show
Speaker 1: since we had the Cosby Show, then you have Blackish.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe there was something in between, but
Speaker 1: to lose Blackish, I mean, I'm gonna literally call both
Speaker 1: Tracy Ellis and Anthony Anderson and ask why is it
Speaker 1: that they were ready to move on with their careers
Speaker 1: like I just don't get it. I'm really trying to
Speaker 1: understand how we keep content that is for your children
Speaker 1: and my niece and other kids that are growing up.
Speaker 1: I mean, we got to continue to create it. Man,
Speaker 1: we have lean away. If we have so many different
Speaker 1: black producers and you know that understand the need, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I think what happens it becomes hard to
Speaker 1: create content right after a certain amount of seasons, or
Speaker 1: maybe the ratings. I don't know. I can't really imagine
Speaker 1: that black Is not have a good ratings, but TV
Speaker 1: in itself, the ratings for TV and itself has been
Speaker 1: going low. But I do believe that black Ish was
Speaker 1: definitely something that was needed in our community. Was something
Speaker 1: that you look to. You know, it showed us in
Speaker 1: a very positive light. It showed us in so many
Speaker 1: different real life situations that happened in black homes, whether
Speaker 1: it's just black homes that come from wealth or just poor.
Speaker 1: It was just those same understandings of just black culture
Speaker 1: that they talked about was something that really happened in
Speaker 1: most homes that people can identify with right and it
Speaker 1: then it gave you something to reach for, to have
Speaker 1: a mother and father that was that successful right to
Speaker 1: be a mother and father that was that successful. So
Speaker 1: it was so it represented so many different things for
Speaker 1: our culture. And I just I hope that we have
Speaker 1: the next production right in the host like in the pipeline,
Speaker 1: and now I think we have grown Ish and which
Speaker 1: i'm Yara Shahidi is. I think she's one of the
Speaker 1: executive producers and she's also on the show. We have
Speaker 1: to support these folks like we have to. I know,
Speaker 1: we think people are watching, they must have good ratings,
Speaker 1: but actually they don't. They don't have the type of
Speaker 1: ratings that's necessary to generate consistent advertising dollars. And that's
Speaker 1: the problem. You have to actually have millions of people
Speaker 1: watching your show in order to make sure that you
Speaker 1: can get those ad dollars, or you get pushed to
Speaker 1: some cable networks, and then when you're on those networks,
Speaker 1: not everyone can see it because not everyone has cable.
Speaker 1: So it's like a tricky, tricky thing of trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how do we keep content out there that's
Speaker 1: forward facing for our young people to be able to
Speaker 1: your point, it's not that not even just young right,
Speaker 1: even young adults. Right, Let's just let's we got kids,
Speaker 1: and we need shows like Blackish, Grownish and other things
Speaker 1: for them. But I'm just thinking of when you talk
Speaker 1: about Insecure. This is for a young adult. You have
Speaker 1: a situation where Issa, when the show originally comes on,
Speaker 1: she has no job. She hustling trying to figure it out.
Speaker 1: It gives you a depiction of what it's like when
Speaker 1: people are like, you know, sleeping with this person and
Speaker 1: you fall in love and then you get your heart broke,
Speaker 1: how you get out of it, what your girlfriends can
Speaker 1: do to support you, how your girlfriends can tear you down,
Speaker 1: the different types of personalities, people who are um, you know,
Speaker 1: they are what do you call a plus size? Other
Speaker 1: people like It's so many different things that when you're
Speaker 1: sitting there watching these shows. I remember when I used
Speaker 1: to watch A Different World, the cosby showing other things
Speaker 1: I saw like, okay, I could do that and take
Speaker 1: a little bit of this. I like the little bit
Speaker 1: of wey, I like a little bit of uh, you
Speaker 1: know this person that like what in the hell we
Speaker 1: we like? You said, there has to be a consistent
Speaker 1: pipeline because while we love Tyler Perry, while we love
Speaker 1: fifty cent and and all of these shows, that's not
Speaker 1: exactly what we're talking about. Those things are entertainment, but
Speaker 1: though just a regular family and or people who are
Speaker 1: existing every day working through life, and they're not so
Speaker 1: much stereotypical. We need that. We need that. So that's
Speaker 1: my thought of the day. Bring it back. It's definitely
Speaker 1: a good thought. Man. We need your producers, black producers
Speaker 1: get out there and make us these shows that show
Speaker 1: us in the highlight and give us that energy, to
Speaker 1: give us that will to to you know, to aspire
Speaker 1: to be more. We're looking forward to that, man, make
Speaker 1: sure you'll do it. So usually at this time we
Speaker 1: would have our resident brand expert Latoria bound with our
Speaker 1: small business of the week, but we're not gonna do
Speaker 1: that this week. But next week we're gonna look back
Speaker 1: at all of the small business that we've showcased throughout
Speaker 1: the last year and we're gonna add a couple more.
Speaker 1: We definitely need you to tune in and make sure
Speaker 1: that you give us your small business. Make sure that
Speaker 1: you are a small business, to have a real business.
Speaker 1: Make sure you're a real business, because we want to
Speaker 1: showcase you want to be able to give you an
Speaker 1: opportunity to promote your services or your product on our platform.
Speaker 1: So the term know your status has generally been used
Speaker 1: to talk about your status for your health, to talk
Speaker 1: about whether or not you know if your HIV positive
Speaker 1: or carrying some other type of disease. And of course,
Speaker 1: now that we're in the time of covid um, knowing
Speaker 1: your status has a lot to do with being tested
Speaker 1: to see whether you're positive or not. But knowing your
Speaker 1: status means a lot of things, and it should for us,
Speaker 1: particularly black folks in this world and specifically in America,
Speaker 1: it should mean knowing what's happening with our credit, UM,
Speaker 1: checking our records, and knowing what's happening with our name,
Speaker 1: our social security numbers. And oftentimes we don't like to
Speaker 1: see things that are not right in front of our faces.
Speaker 1: We don't want to deal with it, we don't want
Speaker 1: the stress, and we certainly don't want to have to
Speaker 1: do the work of repairing the credit that we may
Speaker 1: have ruined from when we were younger. Um. But you know,
Speaker 1: fraud is a thing, and we're actually doing a show here.
Speaker 1: We are the first week coming back from the holidays,
Speaker 1: where so many people have spent money. Um, maybe you
Speaker 1: haven't checked your bank account. Maybe you haven't checked your
Speaker 1: credit card statement. But fraud was a real thing going
Speaker 1: into the holidays and it still is. And so we're
Speaker 1: talking with some folks today who are real professional experts
Speaker 1: on how to address your credit and also how to
Speaker 1: be to ensure that you are not a victim of fraud.
Speaker 1: I first guest is Swanna King. She is a credit
Speaker 1: repair expert, the author of a book call Swipe, a
Speaker 1: motivational speaker, and she was just featured on the v
Speaker 1: H one series My True Crime Story. Um, she's also
Speaker 1: a friend to street politicians. And we're happy to have
Speaker 1: you with us today, Chiwana, and you gotta put us
Speaker 1: on and tell us what we don't know. Thank you
Speaker 1: so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you my son, thank you everyone. UM, I'm excited
Speaker 1: this episode is. It means a lot to me because, um,
Speaker 1: you know my background where I came from. Um, financial freedom,
Speaker 1: like financial literacy we did not know about, you know,
Speaker 1: growing up, I did not know anything about financial literacy
Speaker 1: at all. You know, I only knew what was around me,
Speaker 1: you know, so growing up, uh, you know, me going
Speaker 1: to prison, me being inconclrated was for identity that for
Speaker 1: credit card for it, you know, and that's where it stopped. Like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's all I knew was going into the store using
Speaker 1: somebody else's credit card, but I did not know how
Speaker 1: it affected that person and the people cards I was using.
Speaker 1: I was just using it. They weren't. They didn't even notice.
Speaker 1: They didn't realize that I was using their card, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. So it's like, now that I
Speaker 1: know better, I'm like, Wow, it's a lot of people
Speaker 1: out here who really don't check their credit, who don't
Speaker 1: even utilize their credit, who don't really know anything about credit.
Speaker 1: And now that I do credit card, credit credit repair,
Speaker 1: it's like I s been to a lot of people
Speaker 1: and I try to, you know, educate them on how
Speaker 1: important credit is, you know, what you can do with
Speaker 1: your credit. But if you don't know growing up, it's
Speaker 1: hard how you doing so, you know, just being formally incarcerated,
Speaker 1: you know, as well and understanding what was how would
Speaker 1: you introduce to credit, like to credit cards? Like what
Speaker 1: was the process? You know a lot of people don't
Speaker 1: know it, so we gotta give them a little education
Speaker 1: so they can understand, like what's you look out for?
Speaker 1: You know? How you pay attention to see if these
Speaker 1: things are happening to you. So okay, so how I
Speaker 1: was introduced and I'm gonna bring it from before into now.
Speaker 1: So do you know right now, like when you get
Speaker 1: those alerts that say your passport has been compromised on
Speaker 1: the dark web or um change your passport immediately because
Speaker 1: it has been um the detected in certain websites. That's
Speaker 1: a real thing. Like it's real because before you know,
Speaker 1: prior to mind conservation, I was basically paying a hacker
Speaker 1: to happen to the bank systems or happen to uh,
Speaker 1: let's just say American Expressed, and they will basically get
Speaker 1: your account password, email password, and they were trying to
Speaker 1: pay for that information. And now like I even get
Speaker 1: it on my email, it's like change your passport because
Speaker 1: that means that your email and your passport is out there.
Speaker 1: So now it's compromised. So now the hackers can go
Speaker 1: in and actually take that information and sell it on
Speaker 1: the dark web. And that's where I came. And prior
Speaker 1: I was going in on a dark web and purchasing
Speaker 1: that information. And then now I'm able to go into
Speaker 1: the store and use that person's identity. Now, but were
Speaker 1: you making because I I know a guy who went
Speaker 1: to jail for actually making the credit card with the
Speaker 1: numbers on it and the strip, and at some point
Speaker 1: it got to the point that they were actually able
Speaker 1: to make the credit card work. It started out where
Speaker 1: they used the credit card and it wasn't live. It
Speaker 1: just had the numbers on it and looked real. But
Speaker 1: then they got it to the point where the card
Speaker 1: was actually working with the swipe in the store is
Speaker 1: where that's yeah. So basically, yeah, the same exact thing.
Speaker 1: So basically I will contact a hacker. A hacker will
Speaker 1: sell me information. It's called the track. The track has
Speaker 1: your six team digit card number, your exploration day, your name,
Speaker 1: all of your information. It's like it's like an it's
Speaker 1: like encoded into like these codes. So what I would
Speaker 1: do is there's a machine that you have, you connected
Speaker 1: to your computer, and you basically transferred that information to
Speaker 1: the credit card. You have to edit. Any card that
Speaker 1: has a strip on it could be transferred. Could be
Speaker 1: a hotel key, as long as it have like a
Speaker 1: black magnetic strip on the back of it, it could
Speaker 1: be transferred. That information could be transferred to the card
Speaker 1: and you could basically use it anywhere. Wow. Wow to me,
Speaker 1: it's very I used to always askwer that she'll go
Speaker 1: to a hotel and she'll make sure that everybody throws
Speaker 1: the keys away. She will not leave a hotel key
Speaker 1: anywhere because she says, people can get your information, and
Speaker 1: I never will. Yeah, you know, and what they do too. Um,
Speaker 1: what they'll do is, let's just say, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: make a purchase, um, and they will take your car,
Speaker 1: swipe it and you know, the machine at the store,
Speaker 1: and then also swipe it in a little device. It's
Speaker 1: like as small as they're like, uh uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: that's small, Like, um, they'll swipe it on that and
Speaker 1: then now they have all your information. So that just
Speaker 1: eliminates them being able to they don't have to contact
Speaker 1: a hacker. They have your information right there, you know.
Speaker 1: And you're doing that to everyone who come and purchase.
Speaker 1: So so tell us. So okay, so you got into
Speaker 1: that first. It couldn't have just started there though, Like
Speaker 1: that's high level. So you had to start somewhere a
Speaker 1: little bit before that stage. Was it that you just
Speaker 1: found out it was easy? Did somebody tell you to
Speaker 1: get involved? So it's crazy, but I don't. I never
Speaker 1: said this anywhere else. So when I was younger, I
Speaker 1: was you know my aunt, she's um, She's from Maryland.
Speaker 1: She had a bunch of salons. She was like that
Speaker 1: aunt that was like flying, you know. And I'm like, damn,
Speaker 1: she got a bunch of salons. She got all this money,
Speaker 1: and I knew that. She went to prison for a
Speaker 1: credit card fraud. Right. She wrote a book called Charge
Speaker 1: It to the Game. Right, I've read the book. I
Speaker 1: never said this anywhere else. She don't even know this.
Speaker 1: I've read the book and I was like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is crazy. Like she was giving detail, but not too
Speaker 1: much detail. So I went on um the dark web,
Speaker 1: and I started researching. I found out all the information
Speaker 1: I needed, and I found the person who basically I
Speaker 1: could buy the tracks from. Wow, tracks cost the tracks
Speaker 1: are about At that time there were fifty dollars. So
Speaker 1: now you're talking about something that costs fifty dollars that
Speaker 1: I can get about dollars from. That's that that that's
Speaker 1: a no brainer right there? Mm hmm, I purchasing huh no, no,
Speaker 1: go add what you said. I was saying, So I'm
Speaker 1: purchasing these tracks, and all I have to do is
Speaker 1: basically get a bunch of blank credit cards. At that time,
Speaker 1: I was going into like CBS war Green and taking
Speaker 1: the gift cards. They're free, just going in and take them.
Speaker 1: You know, they have a black magnetic strip on it.
Speaker 1: So I was using the tracks, putting it on the
Speaker 1: black on the card and just going into the store usually.
Speaker 1: So how did you get caught? Like? What was the thing?
Speaker 1: So I got court? Now, the reason why I got
Speaker 1: caught was because the person who I was purchasing the
Speaker 1: tracks from, he's he's in China. He's in China, and
Speaker 1: I don't know who he is. I never met him.
Speaker 1: We only spoke online. So um, he was shipping cards
Speaker 1: to Africa to me and Brooke when to all over
Speaker 1: and uh, he started to get hot and they started
Speaker 1: watching him. So what he did was he told me,
Speaker 1: he's like, listen, I can ship you some cards. Uh,
Speaker 1: you don't have to you know, they'll be real cards,
Speaker 1: you know, with your name. You don't have to use
Speaker 1: the cards that from CBS. So you know, this car
Speaker 1: would be actually with your name on it. So it
Speaker 1: was better for me because sometimes I would go into
Speaker 1: the store and they'll be like, oh, well, this is
Speaker 1: a gift card. You can't use over five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: If it's only five hundred dollars on a gift card.
Speaker 1: If it sets five hundred dollars on the card, how
Speaker 1: you swiping it for five thousand dollars. So I needed
Speaker 1: that connect at that time. So for about a year,
Speaker 1: he was just shipping me cards, shipping me cards. Everything
Speaker 1: was cool. He started to get hot because someone in
Speaker 1: Nigeria got in trouble. So customs basically stopped the package
Speaker 1: that was coming to me. And when they stopped the package,
Speaker 1: they opened it and they see what was in it,
Speaker 1: they sealed it back and sent it to me. So
Speaker 1: when they sent it to me, I didn't know it
Speaker 1: got stopped and they just started following me from there.
Speaker 1: They was following me for six months wow, while he
Speaker 1: was using the car, so they had a full case
Speaker 1: of course when they finally And I think that's the
Speaker 1: whole point is like it feels good right, like while
Speaker 1: it's happening, you're looking bad and doing your thing. But
Speaker 1: at some point I don't know anyone. I really literally
Speaker 1: don't know anyone that has been able to accomplish like
Speaker 1: longevity and then never get caught doing these things. I
Speaker 1: just I don't know anyone. Everybody I know and somebody
Speaker 1: with them. No, it's true. And then at that time,
Speaker 1: I was so young, Like I went to federal prison
Speaker 1: when I was nineteen years old, you know, and I
Speaker 1: was doing that from seventeen. I went to prison at nineteen,
Speaker 1: came home, didn't know anything else, did the same thing.
Speaker 1: Over thought, I got smarter, bought all the machines, got
Speaker 1: caught another two years. They didn't have to do two
Speaker 1: and a half years, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 1: I didn't really all another way. That's all I knew
Speaker 1: at that time. That's the only that's how I knew
Speaker 1: how to make money. It's it's unfortunate that I had
Speaker 1: to go through that, but I don't regret anything that
Speaker 1: I've gone through, you know, because it made me who
Speaker 1: I am today. And you know, it's it was. It
Speaker 1: was crazy, you know, because you get so addicted to
Speaker 1: like the material stuff, because you're walking into the store
Speaker 1: and you're getting these things for free basically, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm spending a hundred dollars per card and I'm
Speaker 1: getting ten, fifteen, twenty dollars per card, you know, so
Speaker 1: it becomes like addiction, you know, to like it's crazy.
Speaker 1: So you didn't you So how much time did you
Speaker 1: do in prison? You said you went to jail the
Speaker 1: first time, came home and did it again, and years
Speaker 1: altogether you did five, you went home, You went there
Speaker 1: for three, came home, did something, and didn't went for
Speaker 1: two more. Is yeah? And then so what made you say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta do something different? Like what what?
Speaker 1: What was it when you came home did you immediately
Speaker 1: said I'm not going back to jail. Or when you
Speaker 1: was in jail, did you say, look, I gotta do
Speaker 1: something different, like with what meet your mind flips? The
Speaker 1: first time? I didn't think like that the first time,
Speaker 1: I said, you know what, I got caught because not
Speaker 1: something that I did. I got caught because he was
Speaker 1: doing something and I got, you know, wrapped up in it.
Speaker 1: So that's how my mom was, honestly, the first time
Speaker 1: nineteen years old, spent two years, and then came home.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna do it smarter.
Speaker 1: I bought all the machines. I didn't need a middleman.
Speaker 1: I didn't need him. I didn't need anyone. I was
Speaker 1: able to do everything myself. So, Um, the last time
Speaker 1: I went to prison, I was like, and I went
Speaker 1: to prison for the stupidest thing ever. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, this is not for me. I had
Speaker 1: to tell us to give us the stupidest thing because
Speaker 1: people need to hear it so so we can figure
Speaker 1: out what. So I'm in a restaurant, right, I'm in
Speaker 1: a restaurant, and the people who I was with, these
Speaker 1: are the people that I used to hang out with before,
Speaker 1: who were still in the gate, who were still doing fraud. Um,
Speaker 1: they basically used a credit card two pay for a
Speaker 1: dinner party. The dinner party was like nine thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: They had bottles, they had a bunch of stuff, right,
Speaker 1: nine thousand dollars for this dinner party. And um, what
Speaker 1: they did. Now, I booked the I booked the reservation
Speaker 1: right under my name, my phone number. I didn't I
Speaker 1: thought everybody was gonna pay. I didn't think we were
Speaker 1: gonna like use a credit card for that. So I
Speaker 1: booked everything. And basically they and they had a fight
Speaker 1: in the restaurant, so they like kind of messed up
Speaker 1: the restaurant. The police got involved, they called me, they
Speaker 1: came to my house and arrested me. And now I'm
Speaker 1: not going to be like it wasn't me that used
Speaker 1: the card, it was him. And then on top of that,
Speaker 1: I got a case of not a case. I had
Speaker 1: a prior you know, arrest for the same exact thing.
Speaker 1: It was like, okay, this was her. So I just
Speaker 1: basically had to go in for a violation. I went
Speaker 1: in for a violation because I was on federal probation
Speaker 1: for the last case. So they basically violated me. They
Speaker 1: gave me sixteen months in the arm state. They ran
Speaker 1: a concurrent, and I just had to do the two
Speaker 1: and a half years in the facts and I would
Speaker 1: determinating my probation after So when you came home, you
Speaker 1: said I ain't so while I was inside, I was like,
Speaker 1: you know what this is. I can't live my life
Speaker 1: like this, Like I don't where where am I gonna
Speaker 1: be five years from now? Like when I go home,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do? Go back into doing credit
Speaker 1: cards for it and be back in jail? Like this
Speaker 1: is just gonna be like consistent, this is gonna be
Speaker 1: my life. I cannot live like this, like this is
Speaker 1: not me like I see so much more for myself,
Speaker 1: you know. And I had to sit there, you know,
Speaker 1: I prayed about it. I meditated, and I just asked, like,
Speaker 1: just give me away, you know, put good people in
Speaker 1: my life, you know, associate me with people that can
Speaker 1: help me. Because I was young and I didn't have
Speaker 1: that guidance. I didn't have a mentor. I didn't have
Speaker 1: somebody that could, you know, help me get to the
Speaker 1: next level or tell me not to do this. This
Speaker 1: is the wrong way, you should do it that way.
Speaker 1: I didn't have that. So going to prison, I met
Speaker 1: some really really great women, you know, who saw more
Speaker 1: in me than I even seen it myself, you know,
Speaker 1: just from conversations, just from you being with this person
Speaker 1: every single day, you know, like um i Usha Whole,
Speaker 1: you know, Jamilla T. Davis, like me being around them.
Speaker 1: They basically helped me. They like, listen, I see so
Speaker 1: much more on you, Like this is not your life.
Speaker 1: You know. I wanted to write a book. I should
Speaker 1: push me. She was like, write it, write it every day.
Speaker 1: I'm like, okay, I'm gonna write it. She was like, listen,
Speaker 1: just write down some notes, give me a bunch of pages,
Speaker 1: and I'm help you write it. So that was like
Speaker 1: the start of it, you know, And I basically wrote
Speaker 1: out a five year plan. I said, I'm not going
Speaker 1: home until this plan is completed, and I'm a follow it.
Speaker 1: And whoever comes in between, whoever comes in between that plan, like,
Speaker 1: they just gotta go, they gotta go. I gotta dismiss
Speaker 1: them from my life. And I was stern about that decision.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna just let go everybody who was
Speaker 1: in my life. Fire who's still doing the same thing.
Speaker 1: No shade, I funk with you all, but from a distance,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because I have to change
Speaker 1: my life. It's no other way. And the association with people,
Speaker 1: that's the first thing that would get you wrapped back up,
Speaker 1: you know. So I just have to disconnect myself. So
Speaker 1: when I came home, I basically just was around my
Speaker 1: prisoners system. You know, people who have gone through the
Speaker 1: same thing. People who don't want to go through that
Speaker 1: go back to people have an experienced prison, they don't
Speaker 1: have anything to They just living at that moment. They
Speaker 1: haven't gone to prison, so they don't know what it's like,
Speaker 1: you know. So I'm like, I have to be with
Speaker 1: people and surround myself with positive people and people who
Speaker 1: have gone through the same things that I went through,
Speaker 1: because they don't want to go back down that road,
Speaker 1: you know, And that's what I did. I didn't let
Speaker 1: nothing coming between that. No, but I don't care if
Speaker 1: I had to live in a shoe box like you,
Speaker 1: was gonna stay on the right track. So how did
Speaker 1: credit repair? I mean, obviously it's natural for you to
Speaker 1: go front because you understand, um know the issues, But
Speaker 1: how did credit repair become the transition? And then also
Speaker 1: have you when you went to court the first time,
Speaker 1: did you ever have to face any of the individuals
Speaker 1: that you had frauded? No, Okay, it was so many,
Speaker 1: but no, I'm so happy I have it because, you know,
Speaker 1: after knowing what this is, this is an issue that
Speaker 1: happened to me when I was in prison. I called
Speaker 1: home to my grandmother and she was about seventy at
Speaker 1: this time. Now she's like, baby, I'm you know, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm so sad. Someone used my credit card and I've
Speaker 1: been fighting with the bank for the past six months
Speaker 1: and right now I have no money. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't have anything. You know, they took uh seventeen dollars
Speaker 1: from me and you know, I don't have no money.
Speaker 1: The bank has given me a hard time returning the money.
Speaker 1: I'm like, real, yo, So that hey home, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Like they're real people. Yeah, yeah, these
Speaker 1: are real people. Like I don't know what the issue was,
Speaker 1: but what the circumstances were in their life, I could
Speaker 1: have just you know, mess something up. Like And then
Speaker 1: that was basically when she spoke to me and told
Speaker 1: me at I was like, Wow, this came at the
Speaker 1: right time. This actually came during the time I said
Speaker 1: I need to do this five year plan because this
Speaker 1: is what I'm a following. I got that. I pulled
Speaker 1: home and that's the that was a conversation. Like that
Speaker 1: was confirmation for me. You know, I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: I can't come back here. So you got into credit repair. Yes.
Speaker 1: So when I came home, the transition wasn't easy, you
Speaker 1: know it was. It was hard, um, especially coming from
Speaker 1: having so much, you know, at so young, and then
Speaker 1: you coming home and you have to like rely on people. Um.
Speaker 1: Even though I had my daughter's father, he was dead
Speaker 1: for me, um tremendously. But I'm very independent, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I like to do things on
Speaker 1: my own. I like to help. I'm I'm the giver,
Speaker 1: like I like to give people. You know, people around
Speaker 1: me and you know, so coming home, I was like,
Speaker 1: the first thing I need to do is fix my credit.
Speaker 1: I learned about credit while I was in prison. I
Speaker 1: didn't know anything about credit, you know. I learned how
Speaker 1: important credit was. I got a bunch of credit for
Speaker 1: dummy books. But at that time, it wasn't for me
Speaker 1: to fix people. Credit was for me to work on
Speaker 1: my credit. Because I said, what I'll do is, you know,
Speaker 1: work on my credit and use that to start my
Speaker 1: hair company, or use that to start whatever company it
Speaker 1: is that I want to do. So when I came home,
Speaker 1: I did that, worked on my credit, got a bunch
Speaker 1: of credit cards. And how we started doing credit repair
Speaker 1: was um. I came home about I want to say,
Speaker 1: a year before Aisha, and when she came home one day,
Speaker 1: she was um. She had a bunch of Western Union
Speaker 1: papers like sheets to send out money. Mind and she
Speaker 1: just came home. She didn't have no money. So I'm like, Aisha,
Speaker 1: what are you doing? She's like, I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: have money, but I'm just sending the girls thirty dollars
Speaker 1: each because I promised that to that. I'm like, I know,
Speaker 1: but you don't have it, Like you gotta give yourself
Speaker 1: together first and then you could give you know, because
Speaker 1: you're taken from yourself. And she's like, I know, but
Speaker 1: I promised them. I'm like, so listen, you taught me
Speaker 1: how to fix She taught me how to fix my credit. Actually,
Speaker 1: when I came home, I'm like, you told me how
Speaker 1: to fix my credit. Why don't we teach fix the
Speaker 1: girl's credit that's coming home because these girls are about
Speaker 1: to come home. It was like six of them, they're
Speaker 1: about to come home, and I said, why don't we
Speaker 1: fix their credit to give them something for when they
Speaker 1: come home? Because it was extremely hard for me to
Speaker 1: come home to um, you know, adapt back into society,
Speaker 1: not having the things that I used to have. But
Speaker 1: my credit is really what helped me because I got
Speaker 1: that first credit card for ten thousand, I was able
Speaker 1: to use that and flip it, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Maybe they could do the same thing. So this dirty
Speaker 1: dollars is cool for now, but let's give them something
Speaker 1: that's longevity, you know. So we fixed their credit. With
Speaker 1: six of them, we fixed their credit. We sent them
Speaker 1: their credit report. They were so happy. One of the
Speaker 1: girls actually came home opened up a host fall like
Speaker 1: she's doing really well. Other ones do lashes and the
Speaker 1: other one has a real estate company. So they think
Speaker 1: us even to this day because we helped them while
Speaker 1: they were in prison. But I knew how hard it
Speaker 1: was for me coming home, so I wanted to do
Speaker 1: anything to help somebody because I wish I I've got
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So um, the girls told
Speaker 1: their husbands, told their sisters, brothers, cousin, so anybody just
Speaker 1: started calling us. This is before we even had a
Speaker 1: credit repair company. We didn't even think to do credit repair. Like.
Speaker 1: We were just doing it to help them and to
Speaker 1: help ourselves. And people just was calling us to fix
Speaker 1: their credit and we started like that and it just
Speaker 1: be crame came crazy. Before we even posted it on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We were getting calls and we just use that as
Speaker 1: our money. We was like, okay, well this is a
Speaker 1: full flash company, Like let's do it. You know. I
Speaker 1: just want to say I want to commend y'all man
Speaker 1: shout out to shout out to you just just watching here,
Speaker 1: y'all motivating you know, sometimes I go on Instagram while
Speaker 1: I see y'all shows. I'll be watching y'all and and
Speaker 1: I understand your struggle coming from prison, not having nothing,
Speaker 1: and to see y'all just come home with this energy,
Speaker 1: you know, just seeing y'all together, moving together, consistent, persistent,
Speaker 1: and just growing every day. I just want to say
Speaker 1: I commend you because a lot of people don't believe
Speaker 1: that a lot of people think you're incarcerated, your formedly incarcerated,
Speaker 1: that your life is over, You're not supposed to do nothing,
Speaker 1: you're gonna do nothing, and you women defy that every day.
Speaker 1: So just I just want to say thank you for
Speaker 1: doing because it's motivational to more people than you actually
Speaker 1: even know. Thank you. I appreciate that. And it's like
Speaker 1: coming home from prison, you know, you you look at
Speaker 1: what other people have, you know, and you're like, you're
Speaker 1: so used to having that, and it's really really hard
Speaker 1: to stay on track. You know. You gotta be really
Speaker 1: strong minded. And I think that's what helped me because
Speaker 1: I was determined to do the right thing. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to look over my shoulders anymore. Like that life
Speaker 1: became like crazy, like I'm driving and I'm looking back,
Speaker 1: like to make sure nobody's behind me and nobody's following me. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't want to live like that my whole life.
Speaker 1: You know, it gets like when do you really say
Speaker 1: enough is enough? You know, like it's really hard, especially
Speaker 1: when you keep surrounding yourself around the same individuals. Like
Speaker 1: that was the first step for me. I had to
Speaker 1: let go, Like I still speak to people like from
Speaker 1: a distance, don't hang out with them, don't call them,
Speaker 1: but if I see them, hello, But I just had
Speaker 1: to let go. It was no other way. Oh, I
Speaker 1: would have been wrapped right back up in that same
Speaker 1: thing because they're doing the same exact thing. You know,
Speaker 1: I want to join. I want to join my son
Speaker 1: and saying that it's very inspirational. Listen to your story.
Speaker 1: You know, all of us as um, not all of us,
Speaker 1: but most of us who are black folks that or
Speaker 1: people in general who live in the world know somebody
Speaker 1: who got caught up right, But oftentimes we don't find
Speaker 1: people who were able to turn their lives around and
Speaker 1: be as progressive, as beautiful, you know, as inspirational as
Speaker 1: you are. And so I'm really happy to hear it.
Speaker 1: At a story that could have gone in a total
Speaker 1: different direction. It win in the right direction, and that
Speaker 1: you are now an inspiration for others. So I just
Speaker 1: also want to give your flowers and you know, give
Speaker 1: and and really just encourage you to stay on the
Speaker 1: right track. Right like we it's a it's a office
Speaker 1: for each one of us every day to talk to
Speaker 1: ourselves to say, you know, don't go out and slap
Speaker 1: the lady who got on our nerves. You know, don't
Speaker 1: go out and you know and and do something that
Speaker 1: could ruin our lives. And so just that encouragement for
Speaker 1: you before you go, tell us what people need to
Speaker 1: be looking for. We just came out the holiday season,
Speaker 1: and I know, even with me, I have to force myself.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a point in my life where
Speaker 1: I didn't really have anything. So I knew if two
Speaker 1: dollars was missing off the back, because you know, it
Speaker 1: was nothing in there. You have force collars and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I'm trying to spend thirteen and it
Speaker 1: says that is declined. I'm like, yo, what happened? I
Speaker 1: know this is bad, But now that you know I
Speaker 1: have more resources, I have to always check every line
Speaker 1: of my statement to see where my money is going
Speaker 1: and coming. And another thing that I found, Um, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send things back person, So I ordered because
Speaker 1: I really like to shop in the store, but clearly
Speaker 1: they've taken all this good stuff out the stores and
Speaker 1: everything mine. So when you send things back, you have
Speaker 1: to monitor whether or not that money came back into
Speaker 1: your account from the views, because it doesn't just show up.
Speaker 1: You have to actually know your money in order to
Speaker 1: true now. So these are things that as I'm getting older,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to actually pay attention to. So tell us
Speaker 1: what are things we need to be you know, looking for.
Speaker 1: So you definitely have to have. There's something you can
Speaker 1: put on each credit card basically, you know, when you
Speaker 1: call up your credit card company, you can tell them
Speaker 1: that you want to put alerts on and what those alerts.
Speaker 1: What it does is like it it basically it knows
Speaker 1: how you use that card, and if it's something out
Speaker 1: of the ordinary, it will alert you or send you
Speaker 1: a text and say, hey, is this you using your card?
Speaker 1: Yes and no? Like that's extremely important to have. Um too,
Speaker 1: when you receive those emails that says that your email address,
Speaker 1: your password has been compromised. Change it immediately because a
Speaker 1: lot of times what the hack is what they do
Speaker 1: is they'll take your information and they won't use it
Speaker 1: right then and there. They'll hold onto it. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll wait a couple of months down a line where
Speaker 1: you're not thinking about it, and then they'll that's when
Speaker 1: they're going and use it. You know, UM check your
Speaker 1: credit report. You you can get one free credit report
Speaker 1: a year. Check it. It's important. Credit Comma is free.
Speaker 1: You know, look at the increase. Would you also pay? Like,
Speaker 1: would you suggest? Because you know, we love free, but
Speaker 1: sometimes free is not going to be like the indoor
Speaker 1: be all and we should actually be paying that nine
Speaker 1: or whatever to get the credit report, like you a
Speaker 1: your four nine for your Netflix and all those other things. Right,
Speaker 1: I was, yeah, I was definitely gonna say that. Identity
Speaker 1: i Q is a really good one. You know, it's
Speaker 1: twenty seven or ninety nine. But it's important because not
Speaker 1: only do they send you alert, they monitor everything and
Speaker 1: they'll send you twenty five emails a day telling you
Speaker 1: about your credit Like you know, this is out of
Speaker 1: the ordinary. Your email was compromised, Like it gives you
Speaker 1: all of the allerts and that you have to pay
Speaker 1: attention to because it's so easy right now for people
Speaker 1: to access your information. You think your passport and especially
Speaker 1: if you're someone who use one passport for everything, switch
Speaker 1: it up. Don't do that. Don't use the same passport
Speaker 1: for every card or for your cell phone, like, because
Speaker 1: once they have that one a hacker, they're gonna check
Speaker 1: and see if you know the rest of your information
Speaker 1: is with that same passport. And I know I'm guilty
Speaker 1: of that. You know, I'm guilty of using one password.
Speaker 1: But now that I know how they do it, I
Speaker 1: switch it up. You know, even if you add a
Speaker 1: money sign or uh eurency anything, just anything, just switch
Speaker 1: it up. That's important. So you have um a credit
Speaker 1: company and you do credit repair. What is your company's name?
Speaker 1: How can we find you? We need everybody to reach
Speaker 1: out to you so we can get you some customers
Speaker 1: so we can be credit literate. You have our credit fixed? Yes?
Speaker 1: So my name on Instagram is Wanna Got Class at
Speaker 1: Wanna Got Class. The name of my company is called
Speaker 1: the Real Credit Pro. That's on Instagram. You can also
Speaker 1: go to the real credit pro dot com. You can
Speaker 1: also find me on Shawanna King dot com. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you can hit me up anything that you need credit related.
Speaker 1: I got you. Um. We are extremely affordable by people,
Speaker 1: you know, and for ninety nine, basically we'll remove all
Speaker 1: of the derogatory accouncil of your credit. Anything that's mega
Speaker 1: your credit, we'll get it off. Yeah. Listen, you know
Speaker 1: all about the second chance your credit. You can fix it,
Speaker 1: you know, and you have a second chance like I
Speaker 1: just I'm a strong believer in second chances. Ye, definitely
Speaker 1: we need you know. That was one of the things
Speaker 1: when I came home. I don't even understand credit. I
Speaker 1: didn't know none of that, and I got somebody that
Speaker 1: got me in tune with it and realized how you
Speaker 1: can't even live without credit, right, you know, it's pretty
Speaker 1: much you can't do nothing. So this is definitely a
Speaker 1: service that's needed, especially for returning citizens. You know, they're
Speaker 1: coming back trying to be productive and evolvement. So thank
Speaker 1: you for your work, Thank you for your evolution. Continue
Speaker 1: to be great, looking great. Thank you all of y'all. Man,
Speaker 1: just keep being dope. Man so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. Yeah, we got We'll have you
Speaker 1: back again. Thank you so much. Guys, thank you to
Speaker 1: make that thank you, my son, thank you in you too,
Speaker 1: I mean, really really important information and to hear it
Speaker 1: wrapped in a real story like she's trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: because sometimes we as black folks, we'd be like, oh,
Speaker 1: nobody got time for that. I don't have no money.
Speaker 1: But she's trying to tell you that you can actually
Speaker 1: the credit you don't think you can get. She could
Speaker 1: have been able to increase the limit, get more money
Speaker 1: on your card, use it in a way that you
Speaker 1: don't even know how. Because these people are actual professionals.
Speaker 1: There's somebody sitting in another country working on increasing your
Speaker 1: limit right now, making sure like somebody trying to call
Speaker 1: me the other day, they were actually trying to get
Speaker 1: into my Verizon account and having Verizon send me the
Speaker 1: alert that if I would have clicked it, it would
Speaker 1: have allowed them to get in. They probably would have
Speaker 1: ordered cell phones, worked out a deal, all kinds of
Speaker 1: things that they know how to do, and so we
Speaker 1: have to actually pay attention I right now. The thing
Speaker 1: that drive that I just don't understand is why if
Speaker 1: somebody sends you a d M on cash app and
Speaker 1: tells you to send me five hundred dollars a thousand
Speaker 1: dollars and you know the person has your telephone number.
Speaker 1: Why do people do that? Because sometimes you just be comfortable.
Speaker 1: Somebody got me for like fifty dollars one time because
Speaker 1: it was somebody that I don't normally talk to that
Speaker 1: I might just see on Instagram a lot. That's cool
Speaker 1: with me, and it was like, hey, I need a favor?
Speaker 1: Can you let me fifty dollars? Now? Fifty dollars? You're
Speaker 1: not even thinking about it. You're like, okay, if they're
Speaker 1: seeing your DM. But if you asked me for five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars and you got my phone number and you
Speaker 1: DM and me, then that's a real issue for me.
Speaker 1: So I think for me, fifty dollars was like alright, cool,
Speaker 1: and I wasn't even thinking about it. And then by
Speaker 1: the time I figured out I thought about it, I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, did you send me this? And it's like no,
Speaker 1: my thing was happed, So you know, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a quick scheme. Dollars am I sending you? Not
Speaker 1: even fifty? Not even five dollars? Will I send to
Speaker 1: somebody that sends me a d M? You have to
Speaker 1: ask me for my phone number and then we will
Speaker 1: speak on the telephone and you can tell me what
Speaker 1: your problems. I'm just I'm just not gonna do I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: I learned the hallway. I agree with you that from
Speaker 1: no one not even find out you got. Everything that
Speaker 1: Shawanna was talking about is so important because it was
Speaker 1: really technical in terms of what to look for, in
Speaker 1: terms of how people get in trapped right and how
Speaker 1: they get caught up in the system. You know, she's
Speaker 1: done prison time for this, so she's really truly an
Speaker 1: expert that people need to be listening to. But the
Speaker 1: fact that she took that experience and turned it into
Speaker 1: something that's positive for our communities is really important because
Speaker 1: she's got a lot of give back that she needs
Speaker 1: to do to repair um and and just to to
Speaker 1: to to hear herself from the trauma that has been
Speaker 1: cause to others in the prison time. But now we're
Speaker 1: talking to someone who is sort of on the other
Speaker 1: side of the conversation. Um a financial expert. She is
Speaker 1: an author of two books, Financial Fornication and The Four
Speaker 1: Financial Languages. They call her Madam Money. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for being with us. Tara Jackson not of money.
Speaker 1: That's now, that's the name queen. I appreciate that name. Man.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here with us today. My pleasure,
Speaker 1: my pleasure. So give us give us some insight on
Speaker 1: what exactly you do. How did you start on this
Speaker 1: road to being matter money? You know? You how long
Speaker 1: you've been doing this for twenty plus years? Like, how
Speaker 1: did this start? Yeah, I've been in the financial services
Speaker 1: game for over twenty years, which completely lies about my age. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm only sixteen for the it's eleventh time whatever or
Speaker 1: eleventh time. UM. I started off in the credit card industry.
Speaker 1: I was a telemarketer, uh, and I sold credit cards
Speaker 1: very well with eight and forty dollar annual UM annual
Speaker 1: fees and I was the queen of selling credit cards
Speaker 1: over the phone. Um. But I decided to stay in
Speaker 1: the game because being a telemarketer helped me to get
Speaker 1: the extra money while I was in college. And then
Speaker 1: I started learning the business, started learning credit and then
Speaker 1: I started, you know, got job as a loan officer,
Speaker 1: and I just matriculated in the financial services industry. I
Speaker 1: really it wasn't my you know, lifelong dream to be
Speaker 1: in the financial services industry. I just ended there because
Speaker 1: I wanted the money UM, and it was a legal
Speaker 1: way for me to do it and to learn the game,
Speaker 1: because what I realized with the financial services industry is
Speaker 1: that banks are playing chess, the consumers are playing checkers.
Speaker 1: That's why a lot of consumers getting played because they
Speaker 1: just don't understand the game of it. So I wanted
Speaker 1: to learn the game, and I've been criculated up to
Speaker 1: I was a VP of lending of a credit union
Speaker 1: in Delaware, ended up being the vice president UM of
Speaker 1: a credit union and then the interim president CEO of
Speaker 1: the credit union in Atlanta, Georgia. And while I was there,
Speaker 1: I just realized that UM I wanted to start giving
Speaker 1: back to the community and I and teach them the game.
Speaker 1: So I wrote the book Financial Fornication. And the reason
Speaker 1: why I call that financial fornication is because people were
Speaker 1: okay about talking about sex, who they slept with, who
Speaker 1: they wanted to sleep with, and all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: but nobody wanted to talk about their crappy credit and
Speaker 1: the fact that they didn't have me savings or they
Speaker 1: weren't investing. So I figured, if sex can sell a
Speaker 1: cheeseburg with Hardy's sex, can sell financial literacy with madam money.
Speaker 1: And so that's how that became in financial fornication derived
Speaker 1: and so I quit my job um as a financial
Speaker 1: uh professional, and I turned into a financial advocate and
Speaker 1: promoting in financial education and so um that's where not
Speaker 1: money gave That's why I gave birth to amount of money.
Speaker 1: I guess so you so you come from the mind
Speaker 1: frame that fraud and credit issues it doesn't just impact
Speaker 1: the one person. I think I read somewhere that you
Speaker 1: said it feels victimless when people are out like, you know,
Speaker 1: swiping cards and and and and harming um others. But
Speaker 1: you're saying that you feel like or you know that
Speaker 1: it impacts the entire community, that it hurts all of
Speaker 1: us when our credit is not up to speed. Can
Speaker 1: you talk a little bit about that. I know that
Speaker 1: people are concerned about wealth. They're starting to understand and
Speaker 1: they're starting to be an awareness around wealth and the
Speaker 1: wealth gap. You see people talking about it, but I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that folks have connected how credit is directly
Speaker 1: impacting our wealth issues or the wealth gap. And then
Speaker 1: also for me, it's like if my credit is messed up,
Speaker 1: what does that have to do with you know another
Speaker 1: neighbor of mine. Okay, well, you know it's back to
Speaker 1: I teach a class um called young Money to college
Speaker 1: and high school students, and the first class is cream.
Speaker 1: Credit rules everything around me, and it teaches them about credit,
Speaker 1: what credit is, and how it affects you. So not
Speaker 1: only affects you getting stuff and you know, buying things,
Speaker 1: but it can affect how you know, if you can
Speaker 1: get a job, It affects how much you're gonna pay
Speaker 1: for everything. It affects utilities, you know, if you're gonna
Speaker 1: get a cell phone, or how much you're gonna pay
Speaker 1: for it. So the lower your credit score, the more
Speaker 1: you're gonna pay. So it affects you in your macro
Speaker 1: um economics as far as you and your family space,
Speaker 1: but the micro in the areas you know, it's gonna
Speaker 1: affect what kind of house you can live in, where
Speaker 1: you can live and all of that. So it affects
Speaker 1: your community space and where you are. And So although
Speaker 1: I don't think credit is every and credit is a
Speaker 1: very significant part of us when it comes to wealth building.
Speaker 1: Because credit is supposed to be a tool, right, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be leverage. It's not supposed to be um,
Speaker 1: something that pulls you back or hinders you are keeping you.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to be able to use credit, to be
Speaker 1: able to leverage to purchase homes or to get investment properties,
Speaker 1: or to do whatever if you do it the right way.
Speaker 1: If you do it the wrong way, and you do
Speaker 1: it in in the matter of fraud, eventually everything is
Speaker 1: going to be tracked to you. Because one thing that
Speaker 1: is tracked is credit, how you use it, where you
Speaker 1: use it, and all of that. As we saw um
Speaker 1: in the episode the Young Lady was in, is that
Speaker 1: it tracks everything. It also doesn't affect just you, but
Speaker 1: it affects everyone dealing in the financial institution. That it
Speaker 1: affects because the more fraud the financial institution has to
Speaker 1: deal with, that means we're probably gonna have to increase
Speaker 1: the fees to compensate for all the fraud or the
Speaker 1: losses that we have. So then that's going to affect you.
Speaker 1: It's it's how much you're paying for financial services. If
Speaker 1: you can get the financial services. Wow, that's that's a
Speaker 1: lot um, just isn't it to You can tell that
Speaker 1: you've really done a lot of homework. What do you
Speaker 1: think is one of the biggest misconceptions that we, you know,
Speaker 1: have about credit or money that black people reason why
Speaker 1: we spend it so fast, so we don't A lot
Speaker 1: of us don't really accumulated the way we should. What
Speaker 1: do you think is one of the biggest problems that
Speaker 1: contribute to that. Well. I wrote a book called the
Speaker 1: Four Financial Languages. Right, So if you're familiar with love languages,
Speaker 1: I talk about the financial languages. And a lot of
Speaker 1: people don't really understand their dominant financial language. And because
Speaker 1: they don't understand the dominant financial language, it either controls
Speaker 1: them um subconsciously, or they don't learn what they need
Speaker 1: to know or understand to be able to build that wealth. Right. So,
Speaker 1: my dominant financial language is spending. I'm a spender. My
Speaker 1: pleasure principle is in the transaction. There's something organic an
Speaker 1: orgasmic about spiping or doing a transaction. Right. But because
Speaker 1: I understand that, I know how I need to be
Speaker 1: communicated about how I communicate and what I need to
Speaker 1: be able to advance myself financially. So um for a spender,
Speaker 1: if you tell a spender to budget, when we hear budget,
Speaker 1: we hear diet dye deprivation. I can't and we ain't
Speaker 1: got time for that negativity in our life, right, And
Speaker 1: so what we do is we rebel and so we
Speaker 1: know we need to save, we know we need to invest,
Speaker 1: but because it feels like people are trying to force
Speaker 1: us into doing that, we're going to rebel and we're
Speaker 1: going to spend. So if don't tell me not to
Speaker 1: spend my money, because I'll spend my money, your money,
Speaker 1: and everybody else's money. What you need to teach me
Speaker 1: how to do is how to spend it on savings,
Speaker 1: how to spend it on investing, how to spend it
Speaker 1: on giving, and then savers, you know, if you're if
Speaker 1: you want to save, as a spender, we save to
Speaker 1: spend later. Okay, So when we can learn how to
Speaker 1: communicate about money, understand with my languages. So I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna go hang out at them all because especially like
Speaker 1: a best buyer or something like that, because I'm a
Speaker 1: gadget queen. I'm not hanging out there because I know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna buy things I don't need. So when you
Speaker 1: understand what who you are, you can understand your limitations. Um,
Speaker 1: and I think that's one of the biggest things is
Speaker 1: that we don't really understand of respect our financial language
Speaker 1: so that we can communicate better about money. Because when
Speaker 1: we have our communication, communication is not just talking, it's
Speaker 1: about thinking, it's about reacting and how we do that.
Speaker 1: When we respected and understand it, then we can start
Speaker 1: making better decisions about money and wealth building and how
Speaker 1: to do that for ourselves. Wow, that's a lot, So
Speaker 1: do you So where do people where it is one start? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, Okay, I'm twenty five years old, I'm out
Speaker 1: of college and now you know, I've got my first job.
Speaker 1: Of course, I've got my student loans that need to
Speaker 1: be canceled, but you know, we'll put that in a
Speaker 1: different show. Right, that's a whole another show. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: different show. But you know, I've got my student loans.
Speaker 1: But other than that, you know, I don't really have
Speaker 1: any real responsibilities yet. What do I do first? And
Speaker 1: how do we make it as painless as possible for
Speaker 1: people to one understand and also for them to get started,
Speaker 1: Because to your point, if I've been waiting all my
Speaker 1: life for this job that I now have, I'm paral
Speaker 1: legal or you know whatever, I'm you know, a nurses assistant,
Speaker 1: and now I have this nice check coming in, still
Speaker 1: living with my parents or you know, making it happen.
Speaker 1: And then you tell me all my money needs to
Speaker 1: be going towards investments in saving, Well, what happens to
Speaker 1: the fun things that I want to do, all the
Speaker 1: things that I was never able to afford exactly. And
Speaker 1: so I never tell anybody you need to take all
Speaker 1: your check and spend invested all and everything like that,
Speaker 1: because then you're gonna feel deprived. And deprivation is the
Speaker 1: beginning of destruction. Right, So when we feel deprived of
Speaker 1: eating because of diets, that is our that's the beginning
Speaker 1: of our demise and destruction, because now we're gonna overeat
Speaker 1: because I'm feeling deprived. I can't have my big mathew
Speaker 1: telling me I can't have our big mac anymore. And
Speaker 1: then I ended up eating everything else that's not you know,
Speaker 1: not healthy. And so what I tell people to do
Speaker 1: all the time is you have to plan your spending,
Speaker 1: name your dollars. Okay, so if you want to get
Speaker 1: out of your mama's and your daddy's house, well you
Speaker 1: know you're gonna need a down payment or you're gonna
Speaker 1: need something, So you're gonna put money aside so you
Speaker 1: can spend it on that later to help you get there. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, start saving something sooner, definitely before you start
Speaker 1: getting heavy debt. So we start getting heavy debt in
Speaker 1: our thirties, right because we're getting the homes and the
Speaker 1: nice cars and everything like that. In our twenties, we
Speaker 1: have minimal debt. We have student loans, but you know,
Speaker 1: they might as well cancel them. Like you said, I'm
Speaker 1: very good about my student loans. But you know, start
Speaker 1: sit putting aside money as much as you can because
Speaker 1: you're gonna need that cat later, whether you need it
Speaker 1: for a down payment, whether you want to buy a
Speaker 1: car or whatever. So most of the people were talking
Speaker 1: to they are spenders, and a lot of people become
Speaker 1: narcissistic spenders because they have never experienced this amount of money.
Speaker 1: So I've then broke or my parents tell me I
Speaker 1: can't do it, and then all of a sudden, I
Speaker 1: get this nice job and so now I'm making the money.
Speaker 1: So you can't tell me not to spend my money.
Speaker 1: I work hard for this. This is mine. So if
Speaker 1: they don't have a plan or name their dollars what's
Speaker 1: gonna happen is their dollars are gonna dictate what they
Speaker 1: can and can't do. So if they give all their
Speaker 1: money out to the world, then the world is not
Speaker 1: going to leave them anything back. Now, how do you
Speaker 1: get started? Well, you get started. You can google. Google's
Speaker 1: the girls. She knows everything. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: about how do I invest, how do I do this,
Speaker 1: or whatever, it's gonna lead you to different apps. It's
Speaker 1: gonna lead you to money professionals like myself, or financial
Speaker 1: advisors or whatever. There's a whole black and brown community
Speaker 1: of us that talk about financial literacy. And you know,
Speaker 1: depending on what you want to talk about, my girl
Speaker 1: budget LISTA, my fab five finance. We have a whole
Speaker 1: slew of us out there, but a lot of people saying, well,
Speaker 1: I don't know where to go. Hell you you google
Speaker 1: everything else. You can google how to invest, how to
Speaker 1: build wealth? You can do that. Um, So that that excuse,
Speaker 1: I I don't. I don't play with that excuse anymore.
Speaker 1: So I don't give sympathy to stupidity. Because if we
Speaker 1: want to learn something, we will find a way to
Speaker 1: figure it out. We will google it, we will ask
Speaker 1: the right person um had. The young lady, she was brilliant,
Speaker 1: She had a brilliant mind. She just used it in
Speaker 1: the wrong way. But she figured things out. And we
Speaker 1: want to figure something out, We'll figure it out. That's
Speaker 1: that's a that's an a minimum right there. We're gonna
Speaker 1: figure it out or we're not gonna figure it out.
Speaker 1: So based on being a financial you know, expert, and
Speaker 1: you talked about how many how many more experts especially
Speaker 1: we have a lot of black on financial experts out there.
Speaker 1: Do you think that as a whole we're getting better?
Speaker 1: What's our finances that we're doing more? Are you seeing
Speaker 1: you know, more people moving in the right direction and
Speaker 1: with this information, are you seeing the growth of we're
Speaker 1: moving towards being more than just two percent of the
Speaker 1: wealth in America? Do you think that we're gonna get
Speaker 1: past that eventually? I do believe that we're gonna get
Speaker 1: past that. That's something that we're gonna have to start
Speaker 1: training ourselves to do and start teaching our children how
Speaker 1: to do so that we can become better at it. Right,
Speaker 1: so we can't teach what we don't know. The great
Speaker 1: thing is is now sexy. You know, we're making black
Speaker 1: wealth sexy. Black wealth matters is sexy, So people want
Speaker 1: to learn more about that and building legacy wealth and
Speaker 1: building wealth. So more people are going to that mantra,
Speaker 1: which is a good thing. Um. The scary thing is
Speaker 1: is that it gives people an opportunity to do the
Speaker 1: wrong thing. So there's a lot of people building wealth
Speaker 1: with misinformation, um you know, even dealing with the I
Speaker 1: R s. You know, with UM with you know, even
Speaker 1: some cryptocurrencies. Not all cryptocurrencies are bad, but there are
Speaker 1: some organizations that teach the wrong information, and so a
Speaker 1: lot of us want this get rich thing that if
Speaker 1: you put in five dollars you can give them you
Speaker 1: give a million dollars. I can't remember what susu um
Speaker 1: type things. So people have to be very careful with
Speaker 1: those type of things because they're working off of your ignorance.
Speaker 1: So how to so you have to be able to
Speaker 1: discern or to do some research, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Shop around. That's where I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1: If you like shopping, you shop around to find the
Speaker 1: best deal. Well, sometimes you have to shop around to
Speaker 1: make sure the information is correct, make sure there's some
Speaker 1: legitimacy because there's a lot of people that are on
Speaker 1: social media that sound like they know what the hell
Speaker 1: they're talking about, and they don't. But there's people paying
Speaker 1: into it. So the only person that's making money is
Speaker 1: the person that's giving out the misinformation. So you have
Speaker 1: to be very very careful with with those things. But
Speaker 1: wealth building is becoming sexy and so we are seeing
Speaker 1: more people that are willing to talk about it, that
Speaker 1: want to learn more about it. But right now, it's
Speaker 1: about how do we transfer that knowledge into the people
Speaker 1: that are coming behind us, our children, because that is
Speaker 1: where we're going to see the wealth you know that's building.
Speaker 1: It's that legacy. It's a garden that you never get
Speaker 1: to see, you know, shout out to uh what Hamilton's
Speaker 1: um there. So I think that wealth building is the
Speaker 1: time now to get on board and to learn so
Speaker 1: that you can feel the remnants of it and you
Speaker 1: can pass it down to your children and children's children.
Speaker 1: I think that should be a course right now, Like
Speaker 1: for kids. I think we should have like wealth classes,
Speaker 1: like you know, credit and all these things I think
Speaker 1: we don't need to pass. I think it actually should
Speaker 1: be incurriculous. I've been fighting for that for many years
Speaker 1: what I do love about and I keep shouting out
Speaker 1: Budgetessa Tiffany a leash. You know, she's my sister. She's
Speaker 1: a really good friend of mine. But she she fought
Speaker 1: to get financial literacy in New Jersey schools and it's
Speaker 1: it's stayed wide. You know. I'm fighting for it in
Speaker 1: Delaware because that's where I'm fun from, and so it
Speaker 1: should be a requirement because I'm required to learn a
Speaker 1: second language, which I don't really have to speak, but
Speaker 1: I'm not required to learn how to balance an account
Speaker 1: or checkbook or learn credit. And I found that when
Speaker 1: I do my Young Money series at high schools and universities.
Speaker 1: I went to Cornell University and didn't Young Money series,
Speaker 1: and it was surprising that they did not understand what
Speaker 1: credit was. These are college students. They didn't understand what
Speaker 1: credit was. They didn't understand their student loans. I have
Speaker 1: a session I called Saved Me Sally May, where I
Speaker 1: teach them about student loans. They didn't understand how to
Speaker 1: negotiate um their first salary. I do that as hire
Speaker 1: me as a class so I can teach them teaching
Speaker 1: the art of salary negotiations. But that's something that has
Speaker 1: to be taught, and right now it's an extracurricular activity
Speaker 1: or in colleges it's in business classes. But what about
Speaker 1: those students that are not business UM majors. It needs
Speaker 1: to be something that's a fundamental requirement from if a person.
Speaker 1: You know, as soon as I give a child a
Speaker 1: dollar and they know what to do with it, that's
Speaker 1: when you need to teach them financial literacy. That's UM
Speaker 1: that definitely needs to happen in it and I feel
Speaker 1: like it should be a UM area, guess a portfolio
Speaker 1: of the civil rights movement of something else that we
Speaker 1: all fight for to make sure that when we're talking
Speaker 1: about education, that we're actually fighting not just for financial literacy,
Speaker 1: but also there are other things that our young people
Speaker 1: need to be learning about life that is not included
Speaker 1: in the current curriculum. And my son not often to
Speaker 1: debate that it is probably why so many of our
Speaker 1: young people feel totally disconnected from the education that they're receiving,
Speaker 1: because they don't feel like they're being taught. And by
Speaker 1: the way, unfortunately, there are young people who are living
Speaker 1: like real lives every day, like you know, they know
Speaker 1: what skills they need, they already know that when they
Speaker 1: go to school and they're learning, I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: geometry is something, it's cool. But when I get home,
Speaker 1: I've got to help my parents cook. I need to
Speaker 1: pick my brother and sister up. I know I need
Speaker 1: a skill that I can use so I can work
Speaker 1: somewhere on the weekend. I don't know how to fill
Speaker 1: out an application, like these are real things that's happening
Speaker 1: in my life, and you're telling me to draw one
Speaker 1: line from this side to that side of the paper
Speaker 1: and not saying that that's not important, but but but
Speaker 1: but what is How is that going to help me
Speaker 1: with what's going on back in my neighborhood that I'm
Speaker 1: dealing with every day. So I I think you're a
Speaker 1: hundred percent right that it should be required. And as
Speaker 1: you said, shout out to a budgetista. Uh, and the
Speaker 1: work that's being done in in Jersey, but in New York,
Speaker 1: Delaware and all across the country, especially when you have
Speaker 1: mayors and governors who are actually listening, we should start
Speaker 1: a trend of fighting for that in those communities. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean they stopped teaching and really they started really
Speaker 1: stopped really teaching um with no Child Left Behind Act
Speaker 1: when that first came out. Then they started teaching to
Speaker 1: test because they started holding teachers accountable for passing tests
Speaker 1: for students passing texts. And that's where teaching no where
Speaker 1: became fun. It became a requirement to make sure students
Speaker 1: pass a test because you know they there was home
Speaker 1: at you know, you at least learned how to cook
Speaker 1: and do certain things. And a lot of the schools
Speaker 1: are saying, yeah, well, now your parents have to teach you.
Speaker 1: Where the parents working two jobs and you know, a
Speaker 1: latch key kids, No one's there to teach them. If
Speaker 1: the parents don't know how to do it, they're not
Speaker 1: going to teach the kid. No, nobody talk them exactly.
Speaker 1: Nobody's talking parents. Which brings me to my last two
Speaker 1: questions before you go there. Quick questions though, One, do
Speaker 1: do wealthy white folks or just white people who are
Speaker 1: doing better than some of us? Do they have people
Speaker 1: that like walk them through every step of this stuff?
Speaker 1: Like how do they know so much better than us
Speaker 1: how to deal with credit and and to um, you know,
Speaker 1: be more or financially literate. That's one question, and then
Speaker 1: the second question is n f T S I have
Speaker 1: two separate threads of text messages and just in my
Speaker 1: life in general. One side, everybody's excited, everybody's for it.
Speaker 1: The other side they're bashion it like crazy, sending articles
Speaker 1: every day saying it's terrible, it's no good. This went
Speaker 1: on during the Christmas holiday, and I thought everyone was
Speaker 1: on board, the n f T S was good, and
Speaker 1: then I started getting these messages from this other threat
Speaker 1: where they're saying that it is uh, it's it's a scam.
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to get your perspective on those
Speaker 1: two things. How are wealthy wealthy are and particularly white folks,
Speaker 1: how do they learn what to do from a financial
Speaker 1: financial literacy perspective? And then the n f T um
Speaker 1: new phenomenon. Okay, so the first question I'm gonna ask
Speaker 1: you this question rhetorically, who built the system? M M. David?
Speaker 1: Who built the financial system? Who built the credit system?
Speaker 1: And of course, if that person, if you know, if
Speaker 1: they are Caucasian or whatever, if they have been a
Speaker 1: part of the process, generation of generation, generations ago of
Speaker 1: doing it. They've seen wealth in the past, They've seen
Speaker 1: how their parents, so they have they have a model
Speaker 1: that they're doing right. Think about how we came to
Speaker 1: this country. Think about how we're doing wealth and infraction
Speaker 1: of us have built wealth, major, major wealth. But what
Speaker 1: they did was they paid attention, probably to the white
Speaker 1: people that were building wealth, and they modeled the behavior.
Speaker 1: So if we don't have something to model the behavior
Speaker 1: of we can't teach it or we can't model the behavior. Well,
Speaker 1: we are modeling the behavior, but we're probably modeling the
Speaker 1: behavior of poverty, right unbeknounced to ourselves. We think that
Speaker 1: we're teaching about being rich and all that stuff, but
Speaker 1: are we modeling a wealth behavior, a wealth mindset? You know,
Speaker 1: law of attraction? Do we really understand it? Do we
Speaker 1: believe it? You know? Do do are we teaching it?
Speaker 1: So there is a model of that. Most of the
Speaker 1: people that are wealthy, they believe in the law of attraction.
Speaker 1: They believe in the understanding of uh that what you think,
Speaker 1: your thoughts become things. They go to people, or they
Speaker 1: look at people who are making the money seeing what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and they model the behavior, or they ask
Speaker 1: for mentorship, or they do certain things. A lot of
Speaker 1: us we just think that we because we were slaves,
Speaker 1: because we did this, y'all supposed to help us out,
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't work that way. If we want
Speaker 1: to take over and become a model of wealth to
Speaker 1: our families, we have to take control and said I'm
Speaker 1: going to learn this, I'm going to do this UM
Speaker 1: and not wait for someone to to give me penance
Speaker 1: or someone to say, Okay, we're gonna give you a
Speaker 1: million dollars, because I promise you if someone says, you
Speaker 1: know what reparations we're gonna get every black person a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars, I bet you of that hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars are gonna be spent in white communities or in
Speaker 1: white stores. Right, it's not even gonna stay in our community.
Speaker 1: We're having a hard time trying to convince people to
Speaker 1: buy black so UM. I think that it's something that
Speaker 1: was modeled because they built the system, and those that
Speaker 1: want to grow up with a wealth mindset and give legacy,
Speaker 1: they are modeling their learning, their researching that behavior and
Speaker 1: replicating those services. Now, as far as n f T s,
Speaker 1: I'm not an n f T expert, nor do I
Speaker 1: play one on TV. I've seen the same thing as
Speaker 1: you where they say the next n f T s
Speaker 1: are the next best thing and then I've seen on
Speaker 1: there it's a fraud, just like cryptocurrenesis currency. So it's
Speaker 1: reminding me of the cryptocurrency when it started coming out,
Speaker 1: when they say if you get in now, you're gonna
Speaker 1: make millions of dollars, and the other side is it's
Speaker 1: a hoax, you know, or whatever. But as much as
Speaker 1: people want to say about cryptocurrency, cryptocurrency is still here.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. It started out at ten
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, now it's at fifty thousand right. Um where
Speaker 1: it's gonna go I don't know, but there's countries that
Speaker 1: are investing in cryptocurrency, there are financial institutions that are
Speaker 1: considering cryptocurrency. N f T. I I don't know enough.
Speaker 1: I'm still researching it to figure out what it is,
Speaker 1: how it's gonna benefit. My whole thing is how can
Speaker 1: I leverage that into spending money because they said I
Speaker 1: made a million dollars or n f T, but isn't
Speaker 1: really hard cash money. So that's where I say, before
Speaker 1: you jump into a whole bunch of things, you got
Speaker 1: to do your research and make sure you're not buying
Speaker 1: into misinformation. And if n f T is your thing
Speaker 1: and you you've done your research, go with God, make
Speaker 1: millions of dollars um, but don't just jump on it
Speaker 1: because it's the next best thing, because that can you know,
Speaker 1: make it go broke to That's definitely true. I want
Speaker 1: to say thank you you giving us so much information today.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot a lot of what you said
Speaker 1: about just schooling, especially what you said about who created
Speaker 1: the system. You know a lot of us we didn't
Speaker 1: have access to that system, and a lot of you
Speaker 1: know us don't even know. But when we do learn,
Speaker 1: we're able to capitalize faster. So you know, that's what
Speaker 1: that I model. I try to do that. I try
Speaker 1: to get information and bring it back, you know, piece
Speaker 1: by piece the whole n f T thing we still knew,
Speaker 1: were still researching, but there's so many different things. I'm
Speaker 1: just glad to see that black people are taking the
Speaker 1: initiative to figure out. Listen, we've been we haven't had
Speaker 1: any part of this wealth for so many Like what
Speaker 1: do we need to do? You know? I'm glad that
Speaker 1: that is a constant question. Everywhere I look. There are
Speaker 1: different people who are educating themselves about wealth, about generational wealth,
Speaker 1: about you know, education about how do we continue to
Speaker 1: grow and evolve and get a piece of this pot.
Speaker 1: So thank you for what you do. Thank you for
Speaker 1: the information that you today. Continue to be great queen.
Speaker 1: You know, tell everybody where they can follow you, how
Speaker 1: they can get some of this wealth of knowledge that
Speaker 1: you have. And you know we need you to continue
Speaker 1: to just keep educate cause I'm gonna follow you. I
Speaker 1: need to get some of this matter money that you've got,
Speaker 1: you know, I need awesome. You can definitely go to
Speaker 1: my website not of Money dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: follow me on social media, Miss not of Money. M
Speaker 1: S M A d A M M A y um
Speaker 1: connect with me, follow me. I'd love to give you
Speaker 1: some virtual love um out there. So thanks for having
Speaker 1: me too. I'm following you right now, Miss Madam Money.
Speaker 1: That's M. S. Madam Money and I'm as m A
Speaker 1: D A M M O any y. Some people like
Speaker 1: to put the E in there, but this M A
Speaker 1: D A M M any wise Money. I'm going to
Speaker 1: follow you right now. Thank you again for being with
Speaker 1: us today. Thank you, Queen, Thank you. One man shout
Speaker 1: out to Tarat Jackson Dope Dope individual information. You know,
Speaker 1: we need people like that. Man. It's it's good that
Speaker 1: we have so many people now, especially in our black
Speaker 1: and brown people, who are getting so financial. Literally, like
Speaker 1: before when I was, it wasn't really a thing we
Speaker 1: told on how we're gonna get money, we want to
Speaker 1: buy old things. Now you have people like terror was
Speaker 1: telling you how to keep money, how to make money,
Speaker 1: how to invest money, how to you know, how to
Speaker 1: build credit, how what credit is? You know how to
Speaker 1: utilize things. So you know, our kids are going to
Speaker 1: be better than us, man, So shout out to charl
Speaker 1: for that information. Yeah, these kids are working like crypto
Speaker 1: and they're they're they're literally they know how to do
Speaker 1: online trading. Like I'm online and sometimes I sit up
Speaker 1: late at night and I go into like the dark web,
Speaker 1: which is not really dark, but like this, this whole
Speaker 1: if you will, of just young people who are out
Speaker 1: here learning how to invest, their making money off of
Speaker 1: crypto technology and whatnot, because they're already so much further ahead.
Speaker 1: And I guess we were further ahead than our parents
Speaker 1: on different things as well, you know. So that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. But the more that we instill it and
Speaker 1: the more that we talk about it, the more that
Speaker 1: we make it a part of our everyday lives in
Speaker 1: our households and our families, than our young people are
Speaker 1: gonna become more, as you said, financially literate. They're gonna become,
Speaker 1: you know, just better at um understanding the dollar. And
Speaker 1: I think a part of the thing for us is
Speaker 1: that we have been so very much, so focused on
Speaker 1: understanding our voting rights that most of our young people,
Speaker 1: even if they don't vote, they know there's a time
Speaker 1: when people go to the polls and they cast their vote,
Speaker 1: and they understand that system for the most part. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's many details to the political system that we don't
Speaker 1: know and we have to learn, but we understand the
Speaker 1: fundamental basics. And that's because since the beginning of time
Speaker 1: to come, not of the beginning of time, of course,
Speaker 1: but since um, you know, since we received our voting rights.
Speaker 1: This is something that has been a staple of the
Speaker 1: Black household, to talk about voting for president, to talk about,
Speaker 1: you know, going to the polls, using your right to vote.
Speaker 1: People die for us to be able to vote. So
Speaker 1: now I think the same it applies to how we
Speaker 1: have to instill the same type of messaging in our
Speaker 1: young people and get them in the in the in
Speaker 1: the consciousness and the awareness of what it looks like
Speaker 1: to use your dollar and not just your dollar, but
Speaker 1: your credit for the greater good, not only of yourself,
Speaker 1: but of your entire community. She was to make it
Speaker 1: so many good points. She was talking about how kids
Speaker 1: aren't you know, in certain we talk about how kids
Speaker 1: and aren't thriving. Our kids aren't thriving in the school system.
Speaker 1: And I thought about my son telling me the exact
Speaker 1: same thing. How you know, it's it's is test base.
Speaker 1: Now it's not about you actually learning and things like that.
Speaker 1: And our kids just need to be challenged. And I
Speaker 1: think this new information and just wealth and all these
Speaker 1: things and things that challenges to challenges them and gives
Speaker 1: them more opportunities, but also brings me to my I
Speaker 1: don't get it. You know, being from the inner cities
Speaker 1: and coming from poverished communities, understand how poverty is violence
Speaker 1: and just looking at where we are, like we're dealing
Speaker 1: with so many different things, especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: violence in our communities. Gun violence is at an all
Speaker 1: time high, Like I mean, it's just out of control.
Speaker 1: And I think for me, I don't get how violence,
Speaker 1: gun violence, and all these things has been incentivized to
Speaker 1: our kids. You know, it's it's such a new trend.
Speaker 1: I remember being twelve and thirteen in the quote unquote
Speaker 1: O G S wanted to keep us away from that lifestyle.
Speaker 1: You know, whatever they was doing, they try to make
Speaker 1: sure that we went to school. You know, they gave
Speaker 1: us money to keep us out to school, I mean
Speaker 1: out of this treats. They gave us sports that you know,
Speaker 1: they threw basketball tournaments, They did so many different things.
Speaker 1: Whatever they were trying to do or whatever they were
Speaker 1: engaged in, they definitely wanted to keep us away, you know.
Speaker 1: And I just don't get now how these quote unquote
Speaker 1: O G S or not trying to give the kids
Speaker 1: the game, but they're trying to run game on the kids,
Speaker 1: and they're giving the kids the guns, and they're giving
Speaker 1: them send them out on these dummy missions, and they
Speaker 1: incentivizing them to throw their lives away. Like I literally
Speaker 1: watch on the internet every day whereas either bloggers or
Speaker 1: other people doing things to incite violence with kids, These
Speaker 1: are not growing people. These are seventeen, sixteen, some thirteen
Speaker 1: year old kids. And I just don't get how as
Speaker 1: a grown man that you have. It doesn't bother you,
Speaker 1: it doesn't hurt you, It doesn't make you feel a
Speaker 1: moral responsibility to to protect and shield these kids from
Speaker 1: that lifestyle instead of leading them to it. Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's just on the internet now. I was growing
Speaker 1: up in the housing projects in Harlem Paul Manhattanville. We
Speaker 1: used to watch young people working for the drug dealers.
Speaker 1: Um you know, we used to watch kids ten eleven,
Speaker 1: twelve years old carrying out violence for somebody who put
Speaker 1: them out there to go rob a woman or to
Speaker 1: go be the shooter. We saw it. I mean, there
Speaker 1: are young people, or there are people who are grown
Speaker 1: men in prison today because they listened to somebody when
Speaker 1: they were young tell them to go and do something
Speaker 1: crazy that ended up getting them twenty five years maybe
Speaker 1: even life. I don't think it's really new. I think
Speaker 1: that the same applies to everything that we're watching be
Speaker 1: glorified on TV. Because the one thing I can on
Speaker 1: not on TV, but on your cell phone maybe on
Speaker 1: TV as well. But the one thing I will say
Speaker 1: is that there wasn't a market for it, right, and
Speaker 1: there is a market now, so there it's actually profitable.
Speaker 1: But it was always happening. It's just that there's a
Speaker 1: dollar amount, and as you said, and in an incentive
Speaker 1: that has been placed on the lives, the murder, the brutality,
Speaker 1: the trauma of um young people, of black people, of
Speaker 1: brown people, of poor people. And I think that's where
Speaker 1: we have to focus our attention on. How do we
Speaker 1: make it where it is it is no longer profitable
Speaker 1: for people to kill and make money or to harm
Speaker 1: a woman and be able to get X amount of
Speaker 1: views online that makes them look like they're you know,
Speaker 1: they're popping um. So you know, But but I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think that the acts are different.
Speaker 1: I don't I think well, I mean just I think,
Speaker 1: for me, let me cut you off. I think being
Speaker 1: in the street right, being from the streets right, I
Speaker 1: think there was a disdain for that. I don't think
Speaker 1: that it wasn't happening. Let me change that's not that
Speaker 1: it wasn't happening. Those people weren't celebrated. The people who
Speaker 1: were doing that, that were praying on the children, they
Speaker 1: weren't celebrated like you weren't supposedly an O G. And
Speaker 1: you had eleven year olds, a ten year old was
Speaker 1: working for you in the rest of the ogs just
Speaker 1: like you was cool with. That wasn't something that was happening.
Speaker 1: Like when when when I was a young dude and
Speaker 1: we was outside, they wasn't getting us at eleven and
Speaker 1: twelve years old, they just wasn't. There wasn't it was
Speaker 1: ogs like, yo, you know what are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: Take your ass. They was trying to keep you off
Speaker 1: the streets. I mean, that's just I think they were.
Speaker 1: I think you grew up in a different type of
Speaker 1: community with different issues, even in the same city, because
Speaker 1: where I grew up, it was celebrated. There were older folks,
Speaker 1: older men in particular, who prayed on the women that
Speaker 1: they were sleeping with or the women who were crackheads
Speaker 1: living in the building. I don't know if we're supposed
Speaker 1: to call them crackheads. It's probably a more politically correct
Speaker 1: term and more respectable current term. But they were addicted
Speaker 1: to crack um. There were people like that. The folks
Speaker 1: preyed on and they used their children, They used their children,
Speaker 1: and and and it and it was and it wasn't.
Speaker 1: There was no outrage in our community other than the
Speaker 1: few parents, of which my parents, my parents were a
Speaker 1: part of. But it wasn't like everybody in the community
Speaker 1: was like, hell, no, this is not acceptable. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I guess, like you said, maybe I was in a
Speaker 1: different part, But I know that most of the the
Speaker 1: O G s and even the ones that was hustling
Speaker 1: around us, they didn't They didn't allow you to pray
Speaker 1: on children and women. They just did. It just wasn't
Speaker 1: something that was okay. You know. Now you definitely you
Speaker 1: definitely could not shoot in a park or while people
Speaker 1: were outside sitting on the bench. That was like, you know,
Speaker 1: you were exiled from the whole hood if if you
Speaker 1: did that, that's a new thing where you just shooting
Speaker 1: in four year olds and five year olds are being hurt.
Speaker 1: We didn't have that, Yeah, I mean I just for me,
Speaker 1: I don't I didn't know as many thirteen and fourteen
Speaker 1: year old shooters that I know to that. Like when
Speaker 1: I was younger, we were thirteen, We was having fun.
Speaker 1: We was playing basketball, We was playing football, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. We was into different things. We had
Speaker 1: something else that we were doing. There was a couple
Speaker 1: one or two that you know, there was like heavily
Speaker 1: doing ship that we was like what are you doing
Speaker 1: that for? But for the most part, at thirteen and fourteen,
Speaker 1: we still had some level of a childhood, you know,
Speaker 1: And I'm watching these thirteen and fourteen years now, they've
Speaker 1: literally stripped them of a childhood and moved them into
Speaker 1: Delwood and then adult facilities facing life, you know. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm still of the mind state that we
Speaker 1: gotta protect our children, man, And I just I maybe
Speaker 1: it was happening, maybe I was shielded. Maybe you know,
Speaker 1: I was I was lucky to be around what I
Speaker 1: call real o gs that protected us. But I still
Speaker 1: don't get it. I still don't get how it is
Speaker 1: the new thing, you know, how it's just pretty much
Speaker 1: just advocated for and promoters or how they well, on
Speaker 1: that note, one thing I could say that what they say.
Speaker 1: One thing that's for sure, and two things that's for
Speaker 1: certain is that you're going to work very hard on
Speaker 1: trying to end the culture that is unfortunately creeping into
Speaker 1: our communities. And you know, I'm proud to see you
Speaker 1: really focus and sort of hone in on what your
Speaker 1: contribution will be um to society. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: in the fight, but each one of us has different
Speaker 1: areas that really move us and for you. This this
Speaker 1: culture is violent culture. Uh, the culture of of turning
Speaker 1: our young people into these freaking I don't know what
Speaker 1: you call them. I mean, I don't even want to
Speaker 1: use the words to describe. But the pain and the
Speaker 1: trauma that's being caused is very demonic um and I
Speaker 1: think the only way we can fix it is having
Speaker 1: individuals like yourself and a host of others coming together
Speaker 1: constantly wrapping our arms around our young people. That's right,
Speaker 1: Boycott Black murder Man. We're not We're not standing for
Speaker 1: the detriment of our babies. No more, you're not praying
Speaker 1: on our kids. We're not calling you O g S.
Speaker 1: We're not respecting you. We're not doing anything if you're
Speaker 1: detrimental to our community. So with that said, we had
Speaker 1: another dope episode Politicians, our first episode back after the
Speaker 1: New Year two. We look forward to being a number
Speaker 1: one podcast in the world. We're speaking into business because
Speaker 1: words become things, and we want to say thank you
Speaker 1: for supporting the Slash year. We're gonna do bigger and
Speaker 1: greater things this year. You got anything you want us
Speaker 1: to talk about, anything, make sure that you hit us
Speaker 1: on street. Politicians pot on Instagram, d m us send
Speaker 1: us information if you have any products you know we
Speaker 1: definitely you gotta have a real business, so you have
Speaker 1: a real business. We showcase small businesses on this platform,
Speaker 1: so we just want to continue to grow. Man, thank you.
Speaker 1: We hope that this year is better than last year.
Speaker 1: And like we always say, I'm not gonna always be
Speaker 1: right to me. It's not gonna always be wrong when
Speaker 1: we both always and I mean always be on there