Speaker 1: That's what's good everybody. I'm to mek A D. Mallory
Speaker 1: and it's your boy General and we are your host
Speaker 1: of Street Politicians, the place where the streets and politics me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us for another episode. Let me
Speaker 1: just start off by saying that I appreciate so much.
Speaker 1: We appreciate all those who have been downloading our podcast,
Speaker 1: listening to it on my heart um podcast network, and
Speaker 1: then also downloading the episodes on I Woman dot tv.
Speaker 1: You go there, subscribe and go and watch free episodes.
Speaker 1: You know, someone said to me of the day, why
Speaker 1: we got to subscribe? Why do I have to put
Speaker 1: my email address in? Wow? You don't say that a
Speaker 1: music Do you say that about Netflix and all these
Speaker 1: You don't subscribe like you subscribe to anybody else. Right
Speaker 1: when a black woman owns the network? Kathleen Jones shout
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Speaker 1: Women and TV. And that's our friend and the and
Speaker 1: the director of this show. And um, you know, we
Speaker 1: have to make sure that we take care of our
Speaker 1: own the same way we do everyone else. So we
Speaker 1: asked that you go subscribe. Now you can listen to
Speaker 1: it on our heart, which by the way, you subscribe
Speaker 1: when you do that too, because they're gonna know who
Speaker 1: you are when you go in to sign up for
Speaker 1: a podcast. But for for I Woman dot TV, I
Speaker 1: Woman dot TV. Be clear, okay, I Woman dot TV.
Speaker 1: You go there register and you can actually see this
Speaker 1: podcast because we've been flying to you don't want to
Speaker 1: miss these, okay, Gladden Mia. Shout out to Gladden Mia
Speaker 1: that they are Oh please they If they don't help you,
Speaker 1: help me, you would be don't you need have Gladden mea.
Speaker 1: They are life savings. They are on it every single
Speaker 1: week making sure that we look good and um that
Speaker 1: we're presentable because I wear my sweatsuits every day. So
Speaker 1: that's the pandemic. Bro, I don't know how to get dressed.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie. I do not know how to
Speaker 1: get dressed. And the last and the shoes listen. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I'm not sure we're going back to wearing
Speaker 1: your Lubertan Lubertan look, how do you say it? Cat Lubaton.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if I can go back to
Speaker 1: a red bottom from the car to the I can't
Speaker 1: do it. It's just I literally put my shoes on
Speaker 1: right here on the side of this chair to stand
Speaker 1: right over in the corner and take a picture. I'm
Speaker 1: I have lost my way in terms of getting dressed
Speaker 1: for myself. And if it wasn't for Lad and Mia
Speaker 1: pushing me to get dressed up into and do stuff,
Speaker 1: I just don't know. It's very difficult to go to
Speaker 1: zoom in your living room or your kitchen or wherever
Speaker 1: area in your house, in your most fabulous fashions. Yes,
Speaker 1: a lot. You know, his pandemic has done a lot
Speaker 1: to our minds, and that's why today's episode is like
Speaker 1: primarily built around mental health. You know, it's it's mentally training.
Speaker 1: You know, especially in New York, there's no indoor dyning,
Speaker 1: there's no club, there's no recreation pretty much with the
Speaker 1: exception of the gym, is where I go get a
Speaker 1: lot of my energy. You know, I've been able to
Speaker 1: utilize working out his energy. But a lot of people
Speaker 1: are just locked in the house. They're scared. You know,
Speaker 1: the numbers are spiking, people are dying, people are getting
Speaker 1: infected at higher rates. So it's it's a lot, man,
Speaker 1: We're dealing with so much mental health in these times.
Speaker 1: So your shoes, you know it's understandable. My ones, my
Speaker 1: Jordan ones, my tens, and like a few other kind
Speaker 1: bad boot situations. That's what I wear when I get dressed.
Speaker 1: I love a day when nobody talks to me and
Speaker 1: I don't have to do anything that that's very very
Speaker 1: very rare. But I don't I don't understand why we
Speaker 1: have to be on the zoom camera all day long.
Speaker 1: I don't like you, and I just think you just
Speaker 1: don't want to do nothing, Like you can't go to
Speaker 1: the place. Right before, we had to fly and we
Speaker 1: had to do speaking engagements and we had to go
Speaker 1: to colleges. We had to do this, and we had
Speaker 1: to be on seven hour flights for all. And remember
Speaker 1: how we used to have to go to like North
Speaker 1: Carolina and Ohio on other places in the wintertime and
Speaker 1: we would get snowed in and be driving on ice
Speaker 1: and night and slide and I mean, you gotta have something,
Speaker 1: something gotta happen, Like you just ain't gonna sit home
Speaker 1: and just do nothing. But you wear your slippers to
Speaker 1: your zoom. Yeah, so that's what I'm trying to tell you,
Speaker 1: mad at the zoom when you can slippers. If he
Speaker 1: didn't even heard it, But you gotta stay on the stage,
Speaker 1: right I did, But my red bottoms, Remember, it was
Speaker 1: like my ankle from one of the marches that we did.
Speaker 1: My ankle was messed up, and I stood on the
Speaker 1: stage and said to everyone. I was like, listen, guys,
Speaker 1: my leg is messed up and it hurts a lot.
Speaker 1: But y'all wasn't gonna get me out here without my
Speaker 1: shoes on. So I'm standing here in pain with this
Speaker 1: good good the brand new red bottom which, by the way,
Speaker 1: y'all don't understand this, but you need to know that
Speaker 1: the new ones. Oh listen, listen. It's a difficult process. However,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be cute when they opened back up. Don't worry.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be cute. I'm gonna Jordan's and you ladin
Speaker 1: me and worked well with you, and they also worked
Speaker 1: they hook us up. But the mental health component of
Speaker 1: it is so it's so real what you said, because
Speaker 1: sometimes I do get up and say, damn, like you
Speaker 1: don't even know, Like I don't even know what it
Speaker 1: is to have certain types of gatherings and meet ups
Speaker 1: with people, and thank God in our situation or I
Speaker 1: don't know, not thank God, because the work we do
Speaker 1: is so traumatizing and the and the situations that we
Speaker 1: have to work on, but we at least get to
Speaker 1: move around more than other people. There are people who
Speaker 1: are working from home, their kids are at home all day,
Speaker 1: their uh spouses are there. And you know, I'm a
Speaker 1: firm believer that people need space from each other home
Speaker 1: people in their home. Kids don't need to see their
Speaker 1: parents all the time. You know, people need space, and
Speaker 1: to have everybody locked in it has to be causing
Speaker 1: trauma a serious it's traumatic. It's traumatic as hell that
Speaker 1: you can't see other people and go places. And I
Speaker 1: do miss my girlfriends and us going out and having
Speaker 1: a drink. I miss my favorite restaurants. I missed going
Speaker 1: to Sylvia's and Harlem regularly. That's my liberal that's my kitchen,
Speaker 1: and Sylvia's and Harlem is literally my kitchen and it's where.
Speaker 1: You know, Sylvia's history is so rich because as Sylvia's
Speaker 1: everybody has been through there, every celebrity, every um, every politician,
Speaker 1: and it's almost it's almost like us a therapy session
Speaker 1: when you go in and get to be around family
Speaker 1: and other black people who are striving for greatness and
Speaker 1: to not have that, it's really it's hard. It's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's a lot for men. You know, we usually have
Speaker 1: our meet ups. You know, it's rough for us. You know,
Speaker 1: we usually we go sports bars, you know, watch the games,
Speaker 1: watch the super Bowl. You couldn't even go watch Like
Speaker 1: those are big days that men just congregate all in
Speaker 1: one big place, and you can't even do that right now.
Speaker 1: So you know, I understand. You know, clubs, we used
Speaker 1: to go to the club every now and then just
Speaker 1: have a good time, just unleash. It's just like now
Speaker 1: you're just taking liquor back to your own you're frustrate
Speaker 1: the fact, you know, and you're arguing with your spouse
Speaker 1: or somebody in the house because you they tired, you drunk,
Speaker 1: You frustrated because you can't go out. You're sharing this.
Speaker 1: It's just a lot of trauma. And that's why this
Speaker 1: mental health thing is something that I've come to realize
Speaker 1: that's serious because I didn't even identify with it before.
Speaker 1: Mental health, like somebody like you got issues and I'm
Speaker 1: like you're bugging, like I'm perfect, Like you're crazy my mind,
Speaker 1: I'm one of I'm a genius. Like what do you
Speaker 1: there could be nothing wrong with me mentally, like are
Speaker 1: you crazy? Like you're talking about me? Like me? And
Speaker 1: then I started to pull back laders and just identify
Speaker 1: with certain things and saying one, so damn. Maybe that
Speaker 1: is a little different. Maybe these things do come from
Speaker 1: things that have happened. Maybe I am triggered. Maybe I
Speaker 1: am dealing with trauma from childhood. Maybe I am dealing
Speaker 1: with trauma from prison. Maybe I am dealing with just
Speaker 1: different traumas. You know, because I identify with certain ways
Speaker 1: that I think and things that I do. It's not
Speaker 1: really the norm. The average person doesn't do it, but
Speaker 1: I've normalized it, you know. So you know I'm getting better.
Speaker 1: I don't have a therapist yet, but I'm moving towards it,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm moving towards the rapists. Name is Linda's.
Speaker 1: Our sword is definitely her, and Omar Prankle and your
Speaker 1: best friend and your partner at Until Freedom and other
Speaker 1: co founder. Those are your therapists that you talk to
Speaker 1: because you and I it don't work because we are
Speaker 1: not arguing because we don't agree, but because I just
Speaker 1: don't agree with you about a whole bunch of ways
Speaker 1: that you think. I just think it's worth thinking, and
Speaker 1: Linda will say no, because we both have trauma. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're bringing our trauma to a conversation. Lend this trauma, Tiz,
Speaker 1: and I don't. I think lendas trauma is different, right, Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: if lendas trauma is not very exactly because your trauma
Speaker 1: comes from Black experiences, black men, black women. My trauma
Speaker 1: comes from Black experiences. So when we come from different
Speaker 1: perspective of that experience and we have a conversation, that
Speaker 1: trauma shows up. Oh yeah, because I'm trauma sized when
Speaker 1: I'm trying to reason with your craziness. But I think
Speaker 1: from Lender's perspective it is true because she will say
Speaker 1: to me, like, wow, black people's the way you all think,
Speaker 1: in the way that you live is very different, you know.
Speaker 1: And she knows that. But she also is a very
Speaker 1: good person to talk to. So we do have people around.
Speaker 1: We have sound boards, yeah, we have sounds. We have
Speaker 1: sound boards, and and it makes us think. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always thinking, and I have like sixteen thousand, million,
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy five thoughts of the days today,
Speaker 1: I just want I'm struggling. You can't figure out one
Speaker 1: thing that's one thought out. Then you are dealing with
Speaker 1: mental health. You have to unpack. And I really, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm struggling with picking the one that is most significant
Speaker 1: because I want to talk about relationships, I to talk
Speaker 1: about stuff. I just want to talk about a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff. But I think you know, in a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, my son terik Um time on five we
Speaker 1: did Alive together that I had no idea how many
Speaker 1: people like he's a he's a he's brilliant, he's brilliant,
Speaker 1: he's a master marketer, very you know, similar to you
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways in terms of how he thinks.
Speaker 1: Because he kept saying, Mom, you know, the rest of
Speaker 1: your life is in the world. We might as well
Speaker 1: talk about our stuff, right, And he's like, I'm telling you, mom,
Speaker 1: people my friends, you know, they have the same problems
Speaker 1: with their parents that I have with you. And the
Speaker 1: reason why this came up is because his album was
Speaker 1: being released. He loves music, he does music, he is
Speaker 1: an artist. And I listened to two words of one
Speaker 1: song and said, I can't put this on my social media.
Speaker 1: There's no way I can support this. I can't do
Speaker 1: nothing with this, Like and it's not even bad music.
Speaker 1: It's music that I do listen to on you know,
Speaker 1: on the side, and some of it I can actually
Speaker 1: I can promote when I'm listening to other people, when
Speaker 1: I'm you know, when Cardi and Meg is dropping and
Speaker 1: they're talking about that, why that's not my son, that's
Speaker 1: not my child. So but when it's him again, that's scrutiny.
Speaker 1: You know that people we don't like to talk about,
Speaker 1: but it's real. I'll be I'll be feeling away. And
Speaker 1: so I was trying to figure out, Tarik, what do
Speaker 1: I do to support you with your music, knowing that
Speaker 1: the things you're saying, in the ways in which you
Speaker 1: frame your thoughts, it's just outside of what I think
Speaker 1: people can deal with. They can't even deal with me
Speaker 1: talking about Kim Kardashian on on my page. There it's
Speaker 1: a meltdown on my page that's been going on for
Speaker 1: the last few weeks about me saying one thing about
Speaker 1: Kim Kardashian. They'd be like, I can't believe this. They
Speaker 1: can't deal with me posting myself in a bathing okay,
Speaker 1: a bikini, they can't deal with certain just a lot
Speaker 1: of things that I do so, imagine me posting some
Speaker 1: of his music, which is his real, true or authentic thoughts. Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do, and I guess my
Speaker 1: the thing I'm trying to figure out is how do
Speaker 1: you balance, especially supporting your young black man as a
Speaker 1: mom who has a platform, with the fact that I
Speaker 1: can't control what he does. Well, I think, I think
Speaker 1: for me, right, because I had this conversation with my
Speaker 1: son right because he's into music like all of them
Speaker 1: arest and and he's dope, you know. And I think
Speaker 1: when he first started, right, I explained to him, you know,
Speaker 1: I can't tell you who you are. You know, I've
Speaker 1: given you, you know, direction, I've giving you wisdom, I've
Speaker 1: told you certain things. I'm not here to live your
Speaker 1: life or tell you what to say and what not
Speaker 1: to say. But I also have who I am. Right,
Speaker 1: So when the music or the content of the music
Speaker 1: that you make goes disaccording to what it is that
Speaker 1: I represent, I'm not not going to support you. But
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't knowingly and will willingly promote something
Speaker 1: that goes against what it is that I represent. You know,
Speaker 1: So understand that it's not that I don't want to
Speaker 1: support you. But if I'm out here telling everybody else's kids,
Speaker 1: you'll listen, we gotta work, we gotta work on unity
Speaker 1: and this and that. And you're talking about shooting them
Speaker 1: up and how much dope you're gonna sell. They don't.
Speaker 1: But that's what I'm saying. What I'm saying is if
Speaker 1: that's what you your content is, because I remember when
Speaker 1: I was young. But really, what I'm just trying to say,
Speaker 1: if your content is just that's just you know, an example.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember when I was young. I was
Speaker 1: my song Lefty Gun in the right pom popping niggas
Speaker 1: and they sleep so they dot com. You know, I know,
Speaker 1: I under there. There's an evolution. So while you evolving,
Speaker 1: you have to do that. You have to get to
Speaker 1: that process, you know. And when you get to a process,
Speaker 1: were you able to you know the fact that I
Speaker 1: understand music and I understand what you're going through. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna give you pointers on how you know what everybody's
Speaker 1: saying that. You know, everybody's talking about how much lean
Speaker 1: and how much perks they popping, how much money they got,
Speaker 1: how much are they all talking about that? If you
Speaker 1: want to win, talk about exactly who you are I mean, right,
Speaker 1: because it's it's more authentic than saying, you know what
Speaker 1: this is where everybody is going along with not saying
Speaker 1: that you're just making them stories. What I'm saying that
Speaker 1: you're utilizing aspect of something that you may have experienced,
Speaker 1: what you've seen, Like we saw those things, so we
Speaker 1: lived through that too. Because my son will say to me,
Speaker 1: because sometimes I listen to his music and I just
Speaker 1: be like something we all go. He'll tell me, you
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on and everything and to be
Speaker 1: remembering like word, that did happen, or you were there,
Speaker 1: or you your friend did get killed, and you know
Speaker 1: and and and you did have beef with these people.
Speaker 1: And I was hoping that the situation wouldn't go the
Speaker 1: wrong way so I could kind of see it. But
Speaker 1: it's like really, and he's like, myn you you don't
Speaker 1: really understand my fault, like who I am and the
Speaker 1: fullness and what I say is not your fullness. It's
Speaker 1: not your fullness. But he's on love songs now, so
Speaker 1: he must be. You know, my son is a and
Speaker 1: and not saw this too. Your son is also because
Speaker 1: he loves his girl and you know they've been together
Speaker 1: since I've known y'all, or at least you know some
Speaker 1: a lot of the years since I've known you guys,
Speaker 1: and that's been a while. But my son is a
Speaker 1: lover of one. That's who he is. I never understood that.
Speaker 1: I would be, like, why do you want to be
Speaker 1: in a relationship with one person so early in your life?
Speaker 1: You seventeen? But if you sit there and think about
Speaker 1: yourself or I think about me, you know, That's how
Speaker 1: I was when I was young. I had one relationship
Speaker 1: for six years, the first first girlfriend throughout my whole
Speaker 1: high school. After I got out of high school, for
Speaker 1: like six and a half years, like this was the
Speaker 1: only girls with because that was just how it is
Speaker 1: like when you when men, and I think, what happens
Speaker 1: in those situations, it shapes who you are, Right if
Speaker 1: that situation turns out good and you and that girl
Speaker 1: stay together and it's not nothing that but if that
Speaker 1: girl breaks your heart, it turns you into somebody else, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not Yeah, but it didn't for him. I
Speaker 1: don't know exactly, but every time he does the same
Speaker 1: thing in terms of getting back in the relationship with
Speaker 1: one girl, and I appreciate the fact that he's not
Speaker 1: out here slinging and dinging, like I get it. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, but I do feel like it makes him
Speaker 1: more vulnerable to heartbreak and and and just you know,
Speaker 1: all the challenges and things that he's been throughing relationships.
Speaker 1: But I see he's now on his live or on
Speaker 1: his page with his his bottle that he must have
Speaker 1: been drinking some kind of tequila and he's using that
Speaker 1: as a prop and he's telling the bottle all these
Speaker 1: great things. But because you know, he's he's a comedian,
Speaker 1: he's a comedian. He's far very funny. So he's telling
Speaker 1: the bottle all these things about what he would do
Speaker 1: for her if, you know, they get together. And then
Speaker 1: he wrote some stuff about how he's looking for the
Speaker 1: right woman, and so I guess, you know, it's a
Speaker 1: good thing that he's looking for He you know, he
Speaker 1: lives in a state or in a city in Atlanta
Speaker 1: that is dangerous to just be running wild, like you
Speaker 1: gotta be real careful because unfortunately HIV is a real
Speaker 1: serious problem there. And so I guess I don't mind
Speaker 1: that he's trying to settle down, but sometimes he and
Speaker 1: not just talked too, totally different languages, totally different and
Speaker 1: I want to be supportive of him. It's not that
Speaker 1: if he was. I don't have a daughter, so I
Speaker 1: can't mean I have I have a young woman who
Speaker 1: I raised and she is like a daughter to me,
Speaker 1: and that cheyenne um, but you know, she doesn't live
Speaker 1: in my household all the time, So I don't have
Speaker 1: a daughter that I'm I'm responsible for the way I
Speaker 1: am my son, and I know how hard this world
Speaker 1: is two boys, and so it just makes me want
Speaker 1: to support him, but I already know that I have
Speaker 1: to be careful with how I approached supporting him. Now
Speaker 1: he'll turn around and say, okay, yeah, but whop your
Speaker 1: favorite song on the radio. I'm just trying to understand,
Speaker 1: so he so he'll point out that he sees hypocrisy there,
Speaker 1: But to be clear, I ain't. I might post that
Speaker 1: I don't see what y'all. You know, I may my defense,
Speaker 1: but I don't put the words of that. And it's
Speaker 1: not to take any stabs with these kids. But why
Speaker 1: is who Cardi b is? Right, That's been her full
Speaker 1: steps since she's came to You know, existence you understood
Speaker 1: that Cardi B was a stripper who came from bottom
Speaker 1: in the bronx who this was her normal life. Every
Speaker 1: day she was in the strip clubs, she was having fights,
Speaker 1: she was shaking up. This is what she This is
Speaker 1: who she was, you understand. So people look at that
Speaker 1: and say, yo, this is Cardi B. So when she
Speaker 1: talks about it, you immediately identify with it because there's
Speaker 1: a connection of authenticity I think for us looking at
Speaker 1: our children, right and understanding what we've been through and
Speaker 1: understand that we've actually given them a better path than
Speaker 1: we've had, right, So when they talk as if they're
Speaker 1: talking to us, you know, like they're like they've been
Speaker 1: through what we do, it's like it's hard to identify
Speaker 1: with it. Maybe someone else do what we've been through.
Speaker 1: Well I don't know, but you know what these kids
Speaker 1: be doing stuff we don't know about that. But the
Speaker 1: thing about it, even not know about it, I think
Speaker 1: for me is did you ever have to write? That's
Speaker 1: the thing. They get themselves in stuff that they should
Speaker 1: not be in, and then their experiences become hardships that
Speaker 1: it should not be. And that's my problem. So I
Speaker 1: think now I know my therapy session with you was
Speaker 1: gonna be okay today because that is actually the heart
Speaker 1: of the issue for me. It's like, yeah, I know
Speaker 1: that y'all got shot at in the park, but why
Speaker 1: but why did you go to the park over there
Speaker 1: that I told you don't be over there? And even
Speaker 1: the old heads over there, what y'all called the o
Speaker 1: G said, you don't live over here, don't come over here,
Speaker 1: and you just want to you just want to try
Speaker 1: it up. So now you've been shot at, you put
Speaker 1: yourself in the studio, you mad at people, and now
Speaker 1: you want to you're mad. It's like you're living through
Speaker 1: one side of your experiences. And that brings me to
Speaker 1: what the streets is talking about. The stres talking about,
Speaker 1: and the streets is talking about pretty much the same thing.
Speaker 1: I was. You know, my boy Wild put you know,
Speaker 1: he put a post up the other day and it
Speaker 1: was so real to me. He said, why are these
Speaker 1: rappers right waiting to get rich, waiting to get out
Speaker 1: of the hood, to have beef and do the dumb
Speaker 1: ship shooting at each other? And when we was coming
Speaker 1: up right when I was wrapping, my whole thing was
Speaker 1: I want to get out of the hood, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to make a better way. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't want to be in the streets dealing and dealing
Speaker 1: with all of these things. I wanted to be as
Speaker 1: far away from problems as possible. So these young boys
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen eighteen to actually get opportunities to change their
Speaker 1: family's lives, to change the trajectory of their lineage, you know,
Speaker 1: to create generational wealthy millionaires at teenagers. And they're still
Speaker 1: doing street ship. That's gonna detrimental, be detrimental to your
Speaker 1: life and your survival and your freedom. Like the street
Speaker 1: I just don't understand what is the obsession, what is
Speaker 1: the you know, the connection? Where why are y'all so
Speaker 1: eager to stay in the streets when you don't you've
Speaker 1: escape poverty, Like I really just don't understand the mindset
Speaker 1: that comes with that, because if you're from a place
Speaker 1: like Harlem, you just can't let it go, let what
Speaker 1: is it whatever? And it comes with a lot of things,
Speaker 1: because it's like when you go to the hood, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be there for a short period of time. You
Speaker 1: might hang out, but you could be there for a
Speaker 1: short period time because you already know somebody get drunk,
Speaker 1: something happened there's a fight that breaks out somehow or another,
Speaker 1: you might find yourself trying to break it up the
Speaker 1: wrong person say something and they could just spire out
Speaker 1: of control. Best place to stay in your house, It
Speaker 1: really is because because when you move around in the world,
Speaker 1: things happen all the time. And I think that people
Speaker 1: like to go. They want to flost, They want to
Speaker 1: take back to the hood what they were able to
Speaker 1: accomplish and you know what they've been able to obtain,
Speaker 1: and when they returned with that energy, people don't like it.
Speaker 1: But it's like, why return with the energy because they don't.
Speaker 1: Just because you got money don't mean you got saying,
Speaker 1: like I just keep watching these young boys. Every other
Speaker 1: week one of them is getting killed older. They shot
Speaker 1: at this one, they robbed this one. It's like and
Speaker 1: and now you're facing real time. They're not facing like
Speaker 1: you know, oh it's a misdemeanor. This is you know,
Speaker 1: just a minding fraction. They are really jeopardized in their
Speaker 1: lives after they've already got out the hood, Like what's
Speaker 1: the fascination with leader ship alone? Like you you you're
Speaker 1: able to change your family's life. Man, You're you, You're
Speaker 1: able to make your family proud, to make your mother,
Speaker 1: get your mother out there the community and change for
Speaker 1: the beat, or actually even come back to the community
Speaker 1: and make changes in the community. How are you contributing
Speaker 1: to negativity in the community that you actually was able
Speaker 1: to rise above and and and you know, and succeed
Speaker 1: despite all of the pitfalls, Like you're supposed to come
Speaker 1: back as an example, You're supposed to come back giving
Speaker 1: these young boys opportunities. They're not supposed to see you
Speaker 1: as an opera anything. You're supposed say, y'all, you know
Speaker 1: I'm coming back. We're gonna build community centers, We're gonna
Speaker 1: get jobs. I want to make sure everybody that's from
Speaker 1: here have opportunities. How are y'all still contributing to the
Speaker 1: dumb ship like you're giving people more credit than what
Speaker 1: because they don't. Because just like I said, just because
Speaker 1: you have money does not mean you have sense, and
Speaker 1: it damn shure don't mean that you've actually and that
Speaker 1: damn sure doesn't mean that you have dealt with your
Speaker 1: own internal traumas, your mental health issues. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that right like there people are struggling with their Oh
Speaker 1: it's wants to go out into the world and get
Speaker 1: in trouble for stuff that they tried to run away from.
Speaker 1: Who wants to do that? Only somebody who's dealing with
Speaker 1: a severe mental illness that comes from the trauma of
Speaker 1: growing up in certain communities, and they self sabotage, right,
Speaker 1: That's that's that's the only you know. And and when
Speaker 1: you self sabotage that is that means that you're dealing
Speaker 1: with some mental health issues like people think mental health.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm so glad that the mental health
Speaker 1: community of experts are working so hard to help people
Speaker 1: normalize that these things are real and that a lot
Speaker 1: of people are dealing with. Looking at Charlemagne, I mean,
Speaker 1: Charlemagne spend so much of his time trying to promote
Speaker 1: people getting help. And it's important because in the past,
Speaker 1: it was like you had to be a looning person,
Speaker 1: or at least that was the language that was used.
Speaker 1: You was loony. You know, you you was looking a
Speaker 1: certain way or acting a certain way, and that was
Speaker 1: what was considered to be crazy. So you didn't want
Speaker 1: to necessarily go get help because getting help meant that
Speaker 1: you were crazy. We're now learning that mental health shows
Speaker 1: up in anxiety. It shows up in how you eat,
Speaker 1: It shows up in the amount of sex that you
Speaker 1: have sometimes, or the people you choose to have sex with,
Speaker 1: or the people you stay in relationships with no in
Speaker 1: that they're not doing you right, or the people you
Speaker 1: choose to you know, be around that you know don't
Speaker 1: have your best interests at heart. That's a mental illness,
Speaker 1: and it's something. And so when you try to ask
Speaker 1: questions like, well, why would they because they didn't learn
Speaker 1: anything different and they still haven't addressed whatever is going
Speaker 1: on on the inside, looking for validation in the wrong places.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just very sad man because every day,
Speaker 1: you know, you're rooting for one of these young boys.
Speaker 1: You're like, yes, oh, I've seen I remember when he
Speaker 1: was just starting. And then you next thing, you so
Speaker 1: you've seen him, and they're on billboard shots and they
Speaker 1: seem to be doing well. They flashing money and they
Speaker 1: got all these big chains and and then next thing
Speaker 1: you know, they got a murder charge yeah, or they
Speaker 1: got shot, or they in be for they wanted for questioning,
Speaker 1: or they caught up in some level of indictment, and
Speaker 1: it's just like it's just it hurts you know, And
Speaker 1: I just want to say, man, I know we're dealing
Speaker 1: with mental health, so I have to say that, but
Speaker 1: I also have the same man, you know, we just
Speaker 1: got to make better decisions. Also, just you know, some
Speaker 1: ship is just dumb. Some sh is like you could.
Speaker 1: We've watched the same tapes now we we keep watching
Speaker 1: every the same way. Somebody is dying, they're going back,
Speaker 1: agetting to be for somebody that ain't got nothing, that's
Speaker 1: mad at over there. They're shooting you beef and you're
Speaker 1: going back you wouldn't prove your ego and this and
Speaker 1: that and I'm gonna shoot you and I'm doing this
Speaker 1: and just continuing the same cycle. Like we have to
Speaker 1: break that cycle. We have to break the mentality. We
Speaker 1: have to just do something different. What's the movie with Sharif? Yes, Society? Society? Man,
Speaker 1: we watch Society all the time in the house and
Speaker 1: um in Atlanta, and you know it's the same. I
Speaker 1: mean here, this young man was was what was his name?
Speaker 1: The character the main the main character on Kane. Kane
Speaker 1: could have got out, but he couldn't get out. They
Speaker 1: couldn't get out. And that's how it usually happens. Man.
Speaker 1: We have to change that narrative. Yeah, we have to
Speaker 1: do something different. We just gotta do better. I'm praying
Speaker 1: for these young boys many too. And we have a guest.
Speaker 1: Who's our guest today. We have a friend and actor
Speaker 1: and author, a brother um, a historian in his own right,
Speaker 1: and that is Hill Harper. We're so happy to happen.
Speaker 1: How are y'all doing? It's it's so good to be on.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you. I appreciate the wisdom that both of
Speaker 1: you bring to our community. So thank you. It's great
Speaker 1: to be here with you. And and uh and I'm
Speaker 1: happy and excited to chop it up with you. I
Speaker 1: left out activists. It's been a rough, rough, rough time.
Speaker 1: It's been. It's been a rough forever, but the last
Speaker 1: four years now, you know, we're headed towards the fifth
Speaker 1: year of struggle, and just people feeling really really stressed out.
Speaker 1: And to have the last year be pain full with
Speaker 1: the COVID nineteen virus has a lot of people feeling
Speaker 1: really really stressed. I was having a conversation the other
Speaker 1: day with my father, and my father is caring for
Speaker 1: my mother who had a stroke recently, and she and
Speaker 1: they are home because they have to be because my
Speaker 1: mother is paralyzed. She's getting better, but she's paralyzed on
Speaker 1: her left side, slightly paralyzed. And then UH and then
Speaker 1: also COVID. And as I was talking to him, it
Speaker 1: occurred to me that going outside and being around people
Speaker 1: actually was helping them to stay as young and fly
Speaker 1: as they have been. And to see that we now
Speaker 1: are in a time where people are locked in their homes,
Speaker 1: where Black men are locked in their homes with their
Speaker 1: thoughts and the struggles and what I haven't been able
Speaker 1: to accomplish, and the world is beating me down. This
Speaker 1: is a challenging moment for us and I and I
Speaker 1: wonder what you're what is what do you feel about that?
Speaker 1: But also what do you encourage Gene our brothers to
Speaker 1: do in this moment? Oh? Wow? You know that the
Speaker 1: trauma is real, you know, and it's real for all
Speaker 1: of us, and it hits us in many different ways,
Speaker 1: you know. And I I come to this this subject
Speaker 1: UH in a very personal way because you know, many
Speaker 1: of you out there wouldn't wouldn't know this, but my
Speaker 1: father was a psychiatrist who worked in the UH, in
Speaker 1: the prison system, dealing with UH. Trauma and recently and
Speaker 1: he had a program UM that was all about a
Speaker 1: conditional release program, getting offenders or so called offenders out
Speaker 1: early um and and participate in this program so that
Speaker 1: they could have re entry and dealing with mental health
Speaker 1: and trauma. And you know, he he passed away at
Speaker 1: the beginning of two thousand one, and so he was
Speaker 1: doing so much good work and and he he passed
Speaker 1: way too early. But I think about the mental health
Speaker 1: of black men is something that we never discuss. It's
Speaker 1: something that's stigmatized. It's stigmatized from when you're very young,
Speaker 1: people say, just get up to you tough, you're tough,
Speaker 1: you got this, come on. And it's also stigmatized from
Speaker 1: the standpoint of even the black church system. It's like no, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't go to therapy, you know, come come, just pray
Speaker 1: it out, pray it out and charge right and um
Speaker 1: and and so so many men, black men, so many
Speaker 1: of us are living inside our own heads and feel
Speaker 1: like that we can actually communicate it even to each other,
Speaker 1: because we'll be seeing as soft, we'll be seen as
Speaker 1: as as as as not so called strong black men.
Speaker 1: And it eats you up from the inside and so
Speaker 1: we have to have these discussions. We have to say
Speaker 1: it's okay to cry, It's okay to feel, It's okay
Speaker 1: to open your heart and and and and feel the pain.
Speaker 1: It's okay to feel fear. We never talk about fear. Right,
Speaker 1: It's okay to be afraid as a black man, knowing
Speaker 1: that the world is trying to come at you. I'm
Speaker 1: wearing this Trayvon Martin hoodie. Uh. You know it's Black
Speaker 1: History Month, is birthdays in this month and uh, and
Speaker 1: we can talk about the trajectory of time from Trayvon
Speaker 1: to now and the numbers of black men that have
Speaker 1: been killed, whether by police or by or by so
Speaker 1: called civilians um and proud boys or whatever you want
Speaker 1: to call the moniker. But the idea that these people
Speaker 1: can get away with this makes you feel subconsciously that
Speaker 1: you're not You're not worthy or worth. There's so many
Speaker 1: things that play that you mentioned. And so we have
Speaker 1: to be there for each other. Doctor King said, we're
Speaker 1: all tied together in a single garment of mutual destiny.
Speaker 1: We have to be there to support each other, and
Speaker 1: particularly black men and black women coming together. Oh man,
Speaker 1: that that touches on so much for me, you know,
Speaker 1: I was about to comment on that trade Von sweat
Speaker 1: of and understanding the trauma that Trayvon situation caused me.
Speaker 1: You know, I remember being in Florida when they were reading,
Speaker 1: you know, the what they were the trial for Zmon
Speaker 1: what's happening and they were reading the verdict, and when
Speaker 1: he was founding out guilty, I down and cry and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm person that you know, I've been taught that
Speaker 1: you don't deal with emotions, you don't get up, you know,
Speaker 1: being incarcerated, you don't cry, you don't do all these things.
Speaker 1: And identifying with the fact that black men hold so
Speaker 1: much of our pain inside, like we've been taught to
Speaker 1: hold that pain inside. And I remember crying for Trayvon
Speaker 1: like I probably never cried right throughout my whole life.
Speaker 1: I probably remember crying like that once or twice in
Speaker 1: my life. So that just goes to what I what
Speaker 1: I want to ask, like, what what do you think
Speaker 1: that we should do? This is stigmatized, you know, especially
Speaker 1: men from marginalized communities from the hood. We've been taught
Speaker 1: you can't cry, you can't show emotions, we don't even
Speaker 1: identify with anything being mental health right, we we we've
Speaker 1: normalized abnormalities in our community. What do you how do
Speaker 1: you think we should go about those of us who
Speaker 1: are are able to identify those things? How do you
Speaker 1: think we get to those brothers who don't know how
Speaker 1: to identify who running from it, who utilized violence or
Speaker 1: all these things as a coping mechanism. What should we do?
Speaker 1: That's that you know, that's a great question. And I'll
Speaker 1: answer that question through through through a story. Um. I
Speaker 1: do a lot of work in in prisons. I do
Speaker 1: a lot of work in juvenile detention facilities. And I
Speaker 1: went into one one time and people would ask me
Speaker 1: all the time, Man Hill, you know you know your
Speaker 1: your your your your mom was an antissiologist, your dad
Speaker 1: was a psychiatrist. You ain't from the hood hood, you know,
Speaker 1: how can you can't relate? You can't relate to these bangers.
Speaker 1: You can't relate to this, you know. So what you're
Speaker 1: doing in these prisons talking these banking and what they
Speaker 1: don't get and this is real, real, what they don't
Speaker 1: get is these young cats, they don't care where you
Speaker 1: grew up. They care if you're authentic when you look
Speaker 1: him in the eye, Like for me, I look him
Speaker 1: in the eye and I say, I love you. They
Speaker 1: either feel that that's true or that's not true. They
Speaker 1: don't say, oh, what's your zip code or what was
Speaker 1: your families net worth? You know, it's it's it's it's
Speaker 1: whether you love them or not. And and the story
Speaker 1: I'll tell you is that somebody who who ran the
Speaker 1: this ward said tipped me off about this one brother.
Speaker 1: He said that you're gonna do Usually I do these
Speaker 1: group sessions, and he said, there's one cat in there,
Speaker 1: you know, just just just you know, you know, leave alone,
Speaker 1: you know, trust me, leave him alone. I was like,
Speaker 1: you know whatever. So I'm talking and I see him
Speaker 1: and I knew who he was talking about, and uh,
Speaker 1: I told him. I said, hey, hey, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: before this is over, because he was giving me all
Speaker 1: sorts of you know, you know eyes and all that,
Speaker 1: and I said, I said, before this is over, I'm
Speaker 1: a you. We're gonna hug m something. I'm gonna hug you, nigga,
Speaker 1: ain't fuck you. I said, no, I'm gonna give you
Speaker 1: a hug for real. I'm gonna give you a hug. Nigga.
Speaker 1: If you touched me, I'll kill you. You know what
Speaker 1: sucking touch me? Nobody touches me in here. Fuck you
Speaker 1: what you know, it's it's all of that situation. So
Speaker 1: you know, we're doing the whole session, the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I started talk talking to him and just see the
Speaker 1: layers slowly a little bit start to come down, just
Speaker 1: I mean, just incrementally, just like And so that's the point.
Speaker 1: We as black men have built up these defense mechanisms
Speaker 1: that are layers upon layers upon layers that have been
Speaker 1: necessary armor for us to get through this world, no
Speaker 1: matter who you are, where you're from, to get through
Speaker 1: this situation, we put armor on. But what we have
Speaker 1: to do to answer your question is give each other
Speaker 1: grace and a safe space to put the armor down
Speaker 1: and say, Okay, that armor served you at this situation,
Speaker 1: in this part of your life. But we're in a
Speaker 1: different situation here in this room right now, in a
Speaker 1: different part of your life. So I'm what, how can
Speaker 1: I make space for you? How can I make grace
Speaker 1: for you to put that armor down, even if it's
Speaker 1: for two minutes? And he and I got there, and
Speaker 1: I came over to him right at the end that
Speaker 1: I said, Man, you know, sessions about over I'm about
Speaker 1: to leave, but you know I love you, right, And
Speaker 1: he didn't say anything like no comebacks. And I said,
Speaker 1: and I looked at myself, I love you. And I
Speaker 1: hugged him. And at first he was stiff, and then
Speaker 1: I felt him exhale, like and I get emotional telling
Speaker 1: the story right now. And he told me, dang, I
Speaker 1: the story. I know. I didn't even intend I was
Speaker 1: gonna tell the story. So you can see how stuff
Speaker 1: sneaks up on you. Um. He exhaled, and he said,
Speaker 1: then no adult man had ever told him I love
Speaker 1: you in his life. Wow mm hmm. And and and
Speaker 1: that's it, man, it's you know, it's it's about love,
Speaker 1: and it's about grace. It's about space, and it's about
Speaker 1: granting each other the ability to be vulnerable. That's it.
Speaker 1: We have to give each other safe space to be vulnerable.
Speaker 1: And if that's one on one, if that's in a
Speaker 1: group setting, if that's out in the woods, if that's
Speaker 1: in a room, safe space to be vulnerable. It's so
Speaker 1: interesting that you're saying that because we are one of
Speaker 1: these shows. We were talking about my father. My father
Speaker 1: is the perfect, imperfect person. He's perfect. I mean, he
Speaker 1: really is. Everybody loves him. He's standing man. And the
Speaker 1: reason why I say, he has his own imperfectionists and
Speaker 1: these are things that he calls out right and not
Speaker 1: me because I don't see it. He's perfect to me.
Speaker 1: But he said to me one day, um, I love you,
Speaker 1: and he said, I know, I don't say it often,
Speaker 1: but I do. I really love you. And I started
Speaker 1: to think, my dad, I know my dad loves me
Speaker 1: like I couldn't. I didn't understand. And then I begin
Speaker 1: to reflect on the years that he never was the
Speaker 1: guy who said I love you, I love you, I
Speaker 1: love you all the time. That was more of my
Speaker 1: mother and even even my dad. He grew up in
Speaker 1: the house with a father, his brothers, his mother, whatever.
Speaker 1: Still there is something that is taught, like he didn't
Speaker 1: have the situation where he didn't there was no other
Speaker 1: man in the household or you know, he grew up
Speaker 1: in in in in a in a bad situation and
Speaker 1: still saying I love you was not normal. M M.
Speaker 1: I wasn't normalized. And it's it's it's it's tough because
Speaker 1: then as a black woman, you wonder, how can a man,
Speaker 1: a black man show you the type of love that
Speaker 1: you need if you all are not even able to
Speaker 1: express it amongst yourselves or to yourself. Yeah, when I went,
Speaker 1: I took a trip to Kenya and I was over there,
Speaker 1: went up to Uh with with the Messiah and did
Speaker 1: a whole thing. Rule is this area called Lake Turkana,
Speaker 1: which is like northern Kenya, and as the Massai tribe
Speaker 1: that was gonna be our guides. So we're out there
Speaker 1: getting guided by them, and these brothers at night, these
Speaker 1: tall brothers with the red on, they would hold each
Speaker 1: other's hand. And that's the first time I've ever seen that.
Speaker 1: And I said, what is it? You know, because they
Speaker 1: stand out there, it's almost like they're standing guard straight
Speaker 1: up like an arrow, looking out over the horizon, holding hands.
Speaker 1: And the guy explaining to me said, that's that's that's ritual,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's the ritual that we established where
Speaker 1: before the men, young men go out to unmarried men
Speaker 1: would go out to Uh do their hunting, and that
Speaker 1: before they go out to do that work, they hold hands.
Speaker 1: And that was powerful to me, and I said, damn,
Speaker 1: you know, we need to bring at least metaphorically that
Speaker 1: idea act to us. How can we metaphorically hold each
Speaker 1: other's hands and then not be okay, right, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: that's a man, you know, as just listening to you,
Speaker 1: right and understanding you know, societal norms, just definitely for
Speaker 1: black men being incarcerated, you know, having my father died
Speaker 1: when I was twelve years old from overdose, being a
Speaker 1: man of my household, and just never wanting to exhibit
Speaker 1: any level of emotion, right and and and never thinking
Speaker 1: anything was wrong with that, Like it just it's just
Speaker 1: coming down to me that the fact that I was
Speaker 1: number from emotion, that every time I thought about exhibiting emotion,
Speaker 1: I equated it with weakness, right, It's something that I
Speaker 1: just start identified. Right, Like I find myself having to
Speaker 1: stop from telling my sons not to exhibit any level
Speaker 1: of emotion, right, Like they want to hug each other,
Speaker 1: and I want to be like, I shouldn't be hugging
Speaker 1: each other. Boys just don't hug each other. These are
Speaker 1: two they love each other. This is brother and mentally
Speaker 1: identified with something that it shouldn't be going on. And
Speaker 1: I have to stop myself from saying, no, that it's normal.
Speaker 1: That's he's showing his brother love. He loves his brother
Speaker 1: Why Why have I equated it with some level of weakness?
Speaker 1: Why am I? Why have I been taught something like that?
Speaker 1: How do we get away from that? What is the process?
Speaker 1: How do we break down these norms that have kept
Speaker 1: us from being emotional? Because I I find I have
Speaker 1: problems just in life relationships, friendships, people like I don't
Speaker 1: know what you think, and I don't know if you're emotional.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you is. My wife is like, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't show emotions. We go through these things all
Speaker 1: the time, like what what what advice would you give
Speaker 1: somebody who wants who wants to see that, who wants
Speaker 1: to be, who wants to have that connection, who wants
Speaker 1: to you know, break away from that? I think there's
Speaker 1: a couple a couple of things that you that we
Speaker 1: have to make habit. And the one thing that that
Speaker 1: it's so interesting about all these studies show, Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of books out there about this called the
Speaker 1: power of habit and blah blah blah, is that habit
Speaker 1: is actually more important than intention and so you could
Speaker 1: have all the willpower the intentions like I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: sure that I am vulnerable and I'm gonna be open
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, it's just like it's like working out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make sure I work out every day. And
Speaker 1: it's and it's really not that they say. It's not
Speaker 1: about the intention. It's about actually creating a space for
Speaker 1: the habit to exist. And once you start doing something
Speaker 1: twenty one days in a row and then you get
Speaker 1: to sixty days, you get you know, you actually have
Speaker 1: a habit. So a couple of things. One having someone
Speaker 1: to talk to about how you feel, your feelings and emotions.
Speaker 1: Therapy therapy, therapy, therapy works. It's the best investment in
Speaker 1: yourself you can make UM and and oftentimes many of
Speaker 1: our communities people say, well I can't afford that, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. Heard they're expensive. There's so many social workers out,
Speaker 1: so many therapists, so many occupational therapists, so many programs
Speaker 1: in so many places that have UM therapy for or
Speaker 1: extremely low cost, in many cases free. Uh. It's just
Speaker 1: about doing a little bit of research and maybe you
Speaker 1: have to travel a little bit to get there, but
Speaker 1: it's worth it. Right now, it's actually happening virtually, so
Speaker 1: you don't even have to go anywhere to to to
Speaker 1: do it. That's number one. Number two is figuring out
Speaker 1: what works for you habit wise in terms of your
Speaker 1: own making space for yourself. What do I mean by that?
Speaker 1: Meditation and taking time every day even if it's I'm
Speaker 1: talking three minutes, just set a time or on your
Speaker 1: phone and just sit and try to clear and trying
Speaker 1: to feel your heart. I went to a retreat one time.
Speaker 1: His name was brew Joy and he talked about he's
Speaker 1: passed away and he talked about her heart shock fra.
Speaker 1: And you don't hear brothers talking about chokras much, right,
Speaker 1: but it's like we can learn about that stuff, right.
Speaker 1: And he taught He said, your heart Chokra exists in
Speaker 1: four different areas, Compassion in a harmony, healing presence, and
Speaker 1: unconditional love. And he said, you don't have to be
Speaker 1: a master meditator. Just keep thinking compassion in a harmony,
Speaker 1: healing presence, unconditional love and repeat those over and over.
Speaker 1: And he says, you start, you start building that muscle.
Speaker 1: That heart starts to open, it just starts to happen,
Speaker 1: and just make it habit. It's not like and so,
Speaker 1: and don't beat yourself up if you miss a day
Speaker 1: but the idea is just start doing these habits that
Speaker 1: start to open and you can also pull people in
Speaker 1: your life. This is a really powerful thing that I use.
Speaker 1: And sometimes the answers that come back aren't that great
Speaker 1: because we don't see things that other people often see.
Speaker 1: And we asked someone to write you a letter or
Speaker 1: an email saying, what are the things that you see
Speaker 1: me exhibiting that maybe self sabotage behavior, and the people
Speaker 1: may point some things out and usually they'll do it
Speaker 1: very gently. But the issue with that is when someone
Speaker 1: asked that question and you answer it, most of the
Speaker 1: time that the responses I don't really care what anybody thinks.
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'm doing what I gotta do for me.
Speaker 1: So it's like we also have to break that down
Speaker 1: that we actually believe our own stuff. We believe our
Speaker 1: own kool aid, if you will. And it's so many
Speaker 1: layers to fear that's fear based because it means you
Speaker 1: have to change and do something different people to do that. No,
Speaker 1: we definitely don't. We get wedded to just being who
Speaker 1: and how we are, and you know, but we're all
Speaker 1: works in progress. And that's not when I keep saying
Speaker 1: that we're grace. We just got to give ourselves grace.
Speaker 1: It's okay. It's okay that you actually do that with
Speaker 1: my son. For instance, So my son's five years old
Speaker 1: and you're just talking about being a parent to your
Speaker 1: to your sons. My son, he acts up bad, oh bad,
Speaker 1: And and I keep I don't want to be my father.
Speaker 1: Who who At the end of the day, when you're
Speaker 1: talking about beating boys, you gotta ask what. We gotta
Speaker 1: ask what. We asked what. But that is a slave tactic. Black.
Speaker 1: Let's be very clear. That is a slave holdover. And
Speaker 1: we literally took that slave holdover and incorporated into our life.
Speaker 1: Master said the way you make these and stay in
Speaker 1: line is to beat them, And we somehow got that
Speaker 1: over five d years. Uh indoctrinated in us and said, oh,
Speaker 1: the way you make your boys stay in line is
Speaker 1: to beat them at every turn. And I remember me,
Speaker 1: I used to had I had a technique. I tightened
Speaker 1: up my butt cheeks make sure it didn't hurt his
Speaker 1: band face. I got weapons all the time. And I
Speaker 1: noticed I see myself, like you said, there's a part
Speaker 1: of me that keeps wanting. You know, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: you a spanking. I'm gonna give you no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no stop. That that should even that option should be
Speaker 1: off the table, because if I can't actually figure out
Speaker 1: a different way to parent, then I'm not doing my
Speaker 1: work as a parent. I should be able to find
Speaker 1: discipline techniques that do not involve beating my child. I
Speaker 1: appreciate it, but I'm gonna speak a little as No,
Speaker 1: you don't, that's not true. But I don't even speak
Speaker 1: to me. I don't even speak my kids. I'm just choking.
Speaker 1: But sometimes do you really think they do. I'll grab
Speaker 1: my son's hand and be like, look, you might get
Speaker 1: a little speaking, but I think we do have to
Speaker 1: change to squeeze. I do this. There's a little a
Speaker 1: little squeeze. Yeah, but you know what I I hear
Speaker 1: you slave mentality. I get the whole thing, But I
Speaker 1: appreciate some of them whippers I got because I was
Speaker 1: off at more than a hand. The hand wasn't enough
Speaker 1: for me. I needed the rod dne of what. Just
Speaker 1: because you turned out great doesn't mean it was because
Speaker 1: of the whoppers. Yeah, well, the trauma is still there.
Speaker 1: It definitely is. And then you have to go back
Speaker 1: and try to repair the child, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: hard process. Listen, I wish we could do this and
Speaker 1: talk to you. I never got a chance. I never
Speaker 1: got a chance to ask him how you balance family
Speaker 1: life and you know, being on the road all the time,
Speaker 1: and like what that causes, because it's hard for us,
Speaker 1: you know, with our families, it creates just challenges. And
Speaker 1: so having a young boy at home, I know it's
Speaker 1: difficult for you. Maybe you could quickly answer that as
Speaker 1: we go out. The one thing I leaned back on
Speaker 1: his technology. I you know, I couldn't imagine, you know,
Speaker 1: I've had he's five, so I've only had for five years.
Speaker 1: So so I've had the ability to face time with him.
Speaker 1: I couldn't imagine before that when you couldn't actually see
Speaker 1: your child when you're on the road or say good
Speaker 1: morning to them in their face, you know. So so
Speaker 1: technology has offered a blessing. But but I'll tell you
Speaker 1: this pandemic has been a blessing because I was on
Speaker 1: the road a decent amount and it eliminated all of that.
Speaker 1: And it's made me realize that, uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: probably I'm gonna moving forward say no to a lot
Speaker 1: of things that take me on the road because this
Speaker 1: time is so critical. And you know, and as much
Speaker 1: as being on the road and being with folks and
Speaker 1: being doing the work and the activism work on the ground,
Speaker 1: and you know, I gotta I gotta make sure I'm
Speaker 1: here for him as well. And uh and and in
Speaker 1: our relationship has blossom in a different way now he's
Speaker 1: acting up more so maybe when I'm on the road,
Speaker 1: maybe it's better actually, but but that's the whole different
Speaker 1: thing him. But what was the movie? Because I told
Speaker 1: I think we had this conversation. It was a basketball
Speaker 1: movie that you was in. My friend was like on
Speaker 1: the opposite team, and I was in the extends. I
Speaker 1: think we I forgot what college you went to. It
Speaker 1: was somewhere like Upstate, New York, and you was in
Speaker 1: the movie. I forgot the name of the movie. You're
Speaker 1: not talking about He Got Game, because that's the one
Speaker 1: that's the biggest basketball that's the biggest one. But I
Speaker 1: did a maller basketball movie. It ended up being called
Speaker 1: I think it ended up being called Across the Line.
Speaker 1: Because you know what's funny about this story. That was
Speaker 1: Tad Diggs's first movie. He played my older brother, and
Speaker 1: you know, and I had to teach him how to
Speaker 1: hit the mark and to do all this. He had
Speaker 1: just started doing rent on Broadway and and uh and
Speaker 1: that was his first that was his first film. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it was called Across the Line. Yeah, the producer who
Speaker 1: paid for most of the movie, he decided to hire
Speaker 1: his son as the as the lead. And um, that
Speaker 1: was my friend. Ray had got like an extra roll.
Speaker 1: He was good in basketball. So we all played basketball.
Speaker 1: So he's like, Yo, we're gonna take the bus. We're
Speaker 1: gonna all go up to and see if you can
Speaker 1: get a role. So I remember I was watching y'all
Speaker 1: play the hotel. I was trying to get in the movie,
Speaker 1: but they wouldn't live us. And I just remembered you
Speaker 1: out of everybody that was you know what else is
Speaker 1: in that shout was there too? Exactly? There ye was
Speaker 1: in that movie. And yeah, man, it was Jamal Joseph brother,
Speaker 1: Jamal Joseph directed that film. Shout out to Jamal, appreciate you.
Speaker 1: We gotta do this again man for us. I'll come.
Speaker 1: I'll definitely come back, come back. How about this. I'll
Speaker 1: come back around the centennial of the Black Wall Street massacre.
Speaker 1: So so so late May, we'll come back and talk
Speaker 1: about that love, that love that thank you so much,
Speaker 1: so we'll see you appreciate you. Well, you know another
Speaker 1: person who would have a little bit of history was
Speaker 1: not only was it anything, but no, I'm just saying,
Speaker 1: even though he's our friend, they had when we look
Speaker 1: at the thing, it isn't the movie that I was
Speaker 1: talking about, wasn't even in the credits. This was actually
Speaker 1: his first because when we look at when you when
Speaker 1: you read just listen to him. Yeah, because I don't
Speaker 1: understand calm down. Listen, we have our sheet. Why do
Speaker 1: men always say women have to calm down? I'm not excited.
Speaker 1: I'm just not clear what you're saying. So let me talk.
Speaker 1: If you let me say that's when I say calm
Speaker 1: that means let me say what I'm saying and then
Speaker 1: you can actually get my point. Okay. So the movie
Speaker 1: that I brought up across the lines. When we have
Speaker 1: our fact sheet about Hill Harper, it says his first
Speaker 1: movie was he Got Game's Blackly, which means I know
Speaker 1: a movie that he was entire to that. So I
Speaker 1: know a little something I just brought up. Some these
Speaker 1: are things what you're trying to say is that our
Speaker 1: production team didn't know, but they couldn't have really known
Speaker 1: because it was you heard. It was an underlying fact.
Speaker 1: It was things that didn't happen, but I was there.
Speaker 1: That's the bottom president. So the whole point is that
Speaker 1: my son was there with Hill Harper during at least
Speaker 1: t Dig's first movie. Look, you don't even know. Look
Speaker 1: the history. You see the history. Look I've been around here, man,
Speaker 1: I tell people all the time. Doesn't matter where. We
Speaker 1: have traveled across the entire world doing our work. Everywhere
Speaker 1: we go people are like my son, my son, my son.
Speaker 1: In fact, there's some places outside the country I think,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like whatever we have to do. Whatever
Speaker 1: it was, it was like something for the gathering of
Speaker 1: justice in London, and there were people just crazy about
Speaker 1: my son. I know your music, you know, it's diverse,
Speaker 1: the type of people who know you. It's not just
Speaker 1: black people, it's not just young people, it's not just
Speaker 1: people from your our generation. It's generally just a large
Speaker 1: group of people who are really really inspired by your work.
Speaker 1: So you okay, But still the reason why they didn't
Speaker 1: choose you, I thought I forgot because the reason why
Speaker 1: you didn't get chosen for that movie is because you're
Speaker 1: a basketball scrub. Your son not san plays better than you.
Speaker 1: That's forgetting me. But I was never a scrub. The
Speaker 1: reason why I didn't get an opportunity they didn't have
Speaker 1: any more auditions. See, my friend just said, come on,
Speaker 1: come on, you play ball, and if you just get
Speaker 1: on the court and they can see how good you play,
Speaker 1: they're probably put you in the movie. But it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: He's like, yo, it's no more spots. We're gonna keep
Speaker 1: you in mind for the next movie. All that, it
Speaker 1: never really happened. But I was there, and Hill was
Speaker 1: a dopezing amazing. He's so amazing. He almost a cry
Speaker 1: like I was. I was sitting here. He was my
Speaker 1: third pitch woman. You see that. I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: my own session. Yeah, I had my own session. I like,
Speaker 1: I was like, it's like, it's like as a mother,
Speaker 1: I don't think I know that as a man, you
Speaker 1: have your own feelings and experiences and challenges and things
Speaker 1: that you deal with. But it is really hard being
Speaker 1: the mother of a black son. It's really really hard.
Speaker 1: It's probably I'm sure it is. It's hard to be
Speaker 1: a black son. And I think about your mom, Patricia,
Speaker 1: you know, and having multiple black sons, and I see
Speaker 1: her like, you know, still, like she in there with y'all,
Speaker 1: like ya, that's that's a And my mom she's in
Speaker 1: there with her son. She want to know what's going
Speaker 1: on with her grown son and her grandchildren. And it's
Speaker 1: just it's a it's it takes a certain type of skill,
Speaker 1: and it also takes as Black women, we have to
Speaker 1: deal with our trauma because oftentimes we place on young
Speaker 1: men the stuff that or on men in general, the
Speaker 1: things that we either have been lacking or our fears.
Speaker 1: And that's why I love me some Will Smith. I
Speaker 1: love me some Will Smith because he often says that
Speaker 1: the responsibility to take care of your own mental space
Speaker 1: and to make you happy, it's first. And then the
Speaker 1: rest of the world has a responsibility to do right
Speaker 1: by you. But you are the first person that has
Speaker 1: a responsibility to deal with and take care of you.
Speaker 1: And at the point that people around you don't benefit
Speaker 1: that process, then you have to eliminate them, no matter
Speaker 1: how bad it hurts, no matter how because you can't
Speaker 1: allow you to be abused, and and and hurt by others,
Speaker 1: and then you go and transfer that hurt and pain
Speaker 1: onto your kids, and especially not to say we will
Speaker 1: you know, we're talking about young girls, but our men.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's real. It's real, and I see a
Speaker 1: lot of us. I've done it talking to our sons.
Speaker 1: I heard you say during the interview that you were
Speaker 1: the man of the house as a young as a
Speaker 1: young boy, and maybe you perform certain roles, but you
Speaker 1: weren't a man. But yet that's how you felt. And
Speaker 1: often we put that on our sons because often, unfortunately
Speaker 1: in our communities, the sons are the only males there, right,
Speaker 1: so you look to them for that to start you
Speaker 1: of that male energy. You want them to be that man.
Speaker 1: You know you put you you you love them like
Speaker 1: there man. You you want to raise them into be
Speaker 1: what you believe to be a man. So you you
Speaker 1: you speaking into existence like anything else. You're saying, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna win. You know, they say you have to manifest destiny, right,
Speaker 1: So if you're speaking to a son and calling the man,
Speaker 1: you're hoping that it grows in. But sometimes it has
Speaker 1: an adverse effect to where there's too much you know,
Speaker 1: responsibility and too much energy placed on that child that
Speaker 1: he can't even fulfill. But but, but, but but before
Speaker 1: I just I do say, though, then we gotta figure
Speaker 1: out what is it? Is it that we're loving on
Speaker 1: our sons too much as mothers or are we putting
Speaker 1: too much pressure on them? Are we doing both? Like?
Speaker 1: What exactly is it? And is that causing the toxic
Speaker 1: masculinity issues that we talk about? Well, I mean, because
Speaker 1: we have said that there's toxicity on all sides, like
Speaker 1: we all deal with toxicity. But are we as mothers
Speaker 1: also causing that because in some ways we are loving
Speaker 1: up and being hard on or being I don't know,
Speaker 1: or forcing an adulthood in young men. And the balance
Speaker 1: is not it's not healthy, you know, for a child
Speaker 1: to grow in the right ways. Our communities also don't
Speaker 1: offer opportunity for kids to grow up and just be kids.
Speaker 1: But that's a whole different conversation. So you can introduce
Speaker 1: your guests. If you like my like you about you
Speaker 1: got a lot. There's a lot, you know, I think
Speaker 1: you might need a little therapist, will listen. You don't
Speaker 1: have to tell them, don't think I have one. I
Speaker 1: haven't listen. I'm just trying to say, there's a lot,
Speaker 1: there's a lot to unpack there. What we're going to do.
Speaker 1: I don't have my therapist. I have my wine, but
Speaker 1: that's probably not the right The Lord of Mercy help us,
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ. Before we go to the next segment and
Speaker 1: have our special guests joint, we're going to take a
Speaker 1: quick break for our sponsors. Listen, We're gonna go into
Speaker 1: our change maker section where we have an incredible woman, incredible, incredible,
Speaker 1: her energy just speaking to her for two minutes, you
Speaker 1: see her energy is just enormous. You know, she is
Speaker 1: a beautiful woman, she is driven, and she from New
Speaker 1: York City. Queen she I mean, we you know, she
Speaker 1: from Queens, even though I'm from the Bronx with Queens
Speaker 1: come from Queens, so we gotta respect that. But this
Speaker 1: is Mscolette Smith. She is the first black woman, but
Speaker 1: she is the first black woman to be the coach
Speaker 1: of the New York Jets, to be one of the coaches.
Speaker 1: She's the first black woman to be a coach within
Speaker 1: the NFL period, but the first woman to be a
Speaker 1: coach of the New York Jets. And get it right,
Speaker 1: get it right. Thank you for joining the screen. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like Jamica, Jamaica was dead on all right. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know what, And here we go once again with
Speaker 1: why we got to separate what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker 1: Women get it right. Men just do whatever they do. Look,
Speaker 1: look that boom. When Jamika talked, she was like, let's
Speaker 1: get it right. She's the first black woman to coach
Speaker 1: in history, and she happens to be the first female. Okay,
Speaker 1: well listen as to listen to me as a black man,
Speaker 1: Austin corrected, Jamika was a hundred percent correct, and Queen,
Speaker 1: we do not want to take away your history, your
Speaker 1: history when you are the first black woman to coach
Speaker 1: in the NFL ever in the history of the NFL.
Speaker 1: There are so so you know what as our over
Speaker 1: Madam Vice President Kamala Harris and the Madam Vice President.
Speaker 1: M v P. For me, as a woman of football,
Speaker 1: m v P normally means the most valuable player, but
Speaker 1: now m v P has a different definition to me.
Speaker 1: I'm getting goose bumps. Now. It was not most valuable players.
Speaker 1: It is Madame Vice President, as she would say, the first,
Speaker 1: but not the last. There are others after me and
Speaker 1: I love them, I support them, I expect them, A
Speaker 1: cheer for them. Yes there are. Why don't I don't
Speaker 1: watch football, so I'm about to say something that's like
Speaker 1: a little disingenuous, but I do turn it on a
Speaker 1: flip by it, or you know, my family members watch it.
Speaker 1: Why don't I see more of you all on the
Speaker 1: news and you know, uh speaking about the games and
Speaker 1: running up and you know, I don't. I don't see
Speaker 1: a focus on the women because I didn't even know
Speaker 1: women were really coaches. I knew there were very a
Speaker 1: very few, which the probably still are. But when I
Speaker 1: say very few, I'm thinking maybe one tops, and you're
Speaker 1: saying they're multiple, There are multiple. I can only tell
Speaker 1: you my experience, my experience when I became the first
Speaker 1: NFL's black female coach, by way, by way of being
Speaker 1: the first black the first female coach in New York
Speaker 1: judge franchise history, I was muffled. They didn't want to
Speaker 1: bring any attention to me. They were trying to be
Speaker 1: just doing whatever they do. We're muffled because I don't
Speaker 1: believe I believe a guilty conscience, a guilty conscious. It's
Speaker 1: so raw that they're like you know what, if we
Speaker 1: start parading this, it's gonna it's gonna take away or
Speaker 1: amplify what is really wrong that we're doing. There's so
Speaker 1: much wrong that the NFL does. And mind you, I'm
Speaker 1: a football girl. I love the NFL, I love sports,
Speaker 1: I love football, but there's so much that they're not
Speaker 1: doing right. So I was silenced by the way. I'll
Speaker 1: tell you this. I was told by marketing and PR people, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're not really in anybody here. You're new here. We
Speaker 1: don't we don't uh do marketing campaigns or press conferences
Speaker 1: for new people. You're new. And I was like, okay,
Speaker 1: I'll take that, but it was beyond being new. I
Speaker 1: was the only woman you ever had the coach in
Speaker 1: franchise history. So the other teams, in my opinion, that
Speaker 1: other teams they let the female coaches have more interviews
Speaker 1: and they applauded. They brought that in with me and
Speaker 1: the New York Jets. Now we're talking. Let me get
Speaker 1: you know what, anybody paying my checks with me? So
Speaker 1: I don't owe anybody anything. I'll say this just to
Speaker 1: be real. I got no glory, no nothing with the
Speaker 1: New York Jets. I didn't everything I did was on
Speaker 1: my own, my own assertion relationships. Did they do you
Speaker 1: think you said the other teams gave their women opportunity
Speaker 1: to women that worked for the team's opportunity to speak?
Speaker 1: And do you think it was because you were black?
Speaker 1: You were a black women? Were there white women? Was
Speaker 1: it has to do with race or did it have
Speaker 1: to do with sex? What do you think was the
Speaker 1: main factor that you weren't speaking? Um? I think for
Speaker 1: several reasons. One of them is that I was the
Speaker 1: only black woman. The other girls and look the other
Speaker 1: writer girl, and they were all white. They got those
Speaker 1: interviews with ESPN and it felt films, Uh, they got
Speaker 1: all of it. I didn't get any of those. I
Speaker 1: would have to think as a black woman that sees
Speaker 1: what goes on and what go down with black people
Speaker 1: in America for centuries, that it had to do something
Speaker 1: with me being a black girl. Yeah, that's so my answers. Yes,
Speaker 1: how do you become an NFL play and you didn't play,
Speaker 1: I mean coach and you didn't play. I actually was
Speaker 1: a women's pro football player. But but I will say this,
Speaker 1: there are some NFL coaches that have never played that
Speaker 1: are top tier coaches. There are, there are, there are,
Speaker 1: there are several. So now let's take that and multiplied
Speaker 1: by by racism, by genderism, by classism. And here I heard,
Speaker 1: and I heard a whole lot. Oh she never played,
Speaker 1: and she never And I'm like, so you're gonna tell
Speaker 1: me I never played, so I don't deserve to be
Speaker 1: an NFL coach? Me. Well, there are other men, white
Speaker 1: men that have never played, that are top tier coaches.
Speaker 1: So come on, I've been We have been dealing with
Speaker 1: lynching and black people for years, in all different forms,
Speaker 1: whether it be from a tree, whether it be from
Speaker 1: a newspaper article, whether it be from our not having
Speaker 1: good schools. Please tell somebody telling me something different, because
Speaker 1: I know what Tom it is. You've been through a
Speaker 1: lot of personal things as well. Um, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: love to hear from you your story because you know,
Speaker 1: there's the professional side, but then there's always the other
Speaker 1: side that we don't get to talk about enough. That
Speaker 1: while we're climbing the ladder and we're smiling and looking
Speaker 1: good and walking in the room, because I have seen
Speaker 1: you and you do that, you walk in the room
Speaker 1: looking good, but on the inside, there's other things going
Speaker 1: on UM and and this actually this episode and what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is mental health. And so a couple
Speaker 1: with the idea that you were fighting being muffled, you
Speaker 1: were also dealing with personal challenges. Talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what we have experienced. So, UM, I am, I
Speaker 1: personally am a five time raped survivor. Um, since then,
Speaker 1: I've been a three time suicide survivor. Right, So when
Speaker 1: when when when a woman or a man or a
Speaker 1: boy gets raped? You know, I have family, I'm a
Speaker 1: black girl. My family is from the South, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: and Grandma would tell me, old child, stop, leave it alone.
Speaker 1: So now you don't know what to do because your
Speaker 1: insights tell you respect your elders, but your heart and
Speaker 1: your spirit says something's not right, Like why aren't why
Speaker 1: ain't y'all standing up to support me? So I've never
Speaker 1: had that truth for it. So for me, every step
Speaker 1: I take, every thought I have is to empower black youth,
Speaker 1: black girls and women to know that, yeah, your thoughts
Speaker 1: are credible, your thoughts are worthy. So for me, uh,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a lot that goes on in a
Speaker 1: person's mind where I can I can just simply say
Speaker 1: that God gave me the vehicle was to believe in myself.
Speaker 1: I would you know what, I'm gonna say this to
Speaker 1: me because for years I would pray to God and
Speaker 1: I would saying, God, please one day make me important,
Speaker 1: give me a platform. And I was praying that prayer
Speaker 1: as if I wasn't important. And this is what the
Speaker 1: world brings to black people, as if we're not worthy.
Speaker 1: We have to be like, yes, massa, Okay, that's a.
Speaker 1: And if it's massa, lets us do something. We should
Speaker 1: be grateful. I fought with that as a child, knowing
Speaker 1: that something's not something right. I always felt that way.
Speaker 1: So now you figure years later God gave me football,
Speaker 1: and the moment he gave me football, I was like, wait,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, what women in football? Pro football? I
Speaker 1: wanted to play football in my whole life, but I
Speaker 1: was told because I'm a girl, I'm not allowed to
Speaker 1: play the same way I might think. Because I'm black,
Speaker 1: I can't ride the bus because I'm black, I'm not
Speaker 1: allowed to read a book. Because I'm black, I can't vote.
Speaker 1: So all this was bigger and greater and more than
Speaker 1: than me as a woman playing football. It's bigger than football,
Speaker 1: and God knew. God knows I am a servant, and
Speaker 1: not only in my his servant, I am a servant
Speaker 1: warrior because he knows. Put me out there. Let's go
Speaker 1: game on. I'm a fighting I'm gonna fight for you
Speaker 1: to believe in yourself, for your children to believe that
Speaker 1: they're worthy. And guess what, at the same time, that's
Speaker 1: fighting for me, for all of my hardships, for all
Speaker 1: of my suicide attempts. I'm I can say I'm I'm
Speaker 1: a three time suicide survivor, but there were probably more
Speaker 1: attempts that could have happened. It didn't. So we we
Speaker 1: faced a lot of issues, and I think there are
Speaker 1: issues and you know what, I'm gonna put the blame.
Speaker 1: I'll do that. I'm gonna put the blame on somebody
Speaker 1: else because somebody should have been protecting me. Somebody should
Speaker 1: have been telling me I'm worthy. I didn't have that.
Speaker 1: So it is mine innate duty to know what I
Speaker 1: know and start my own company called Believing You Incorporated
Speaker 1: through my platforms of me being the first black woman
Speaker 1: to coach with NFL history and the first female to
Speaker 1: coach in New York. J franchise history to use those
Speaker 1: platforms to empower kids that are underserved and marginalized community.
Speaker 1: So what let's go. Well, I just want to say
Speaker 1: as a black man that I'm I'm sad that you
Speaker 1: had to go through with you And if I was
Speaker 1: you know, if I could have done anything to help,
Speaker 1: I wish I was dead. You know, just you know
Speaker 1: a lot of times you hear that, you hear these
Speaker 1: things and just hearing your pain and just understand, as
Speaker 1: a black man, is our duty to protect you and
Speaker 1: you know we failed in that aspect so many times,
Speaker 1: and hearing your pain just just it kind of just
Speaker 1: breaks my heart. But just seeing that you were able to,
Speaker 1: you know, to persevere past that and overcome and not
Speaker 1: only overcome, but to thrive somewhat. They have a place
Speaker 1: to come through when they feel like you felt, when
Speaker 1: you felt like you were worthy, Like now you created
Speaker 1: a space in a place for these young black people
Speaker 1: to come to and say, oh, you know what, I
Speaker 1: am worthy. You know, so I just want to see
Speaker 1: you are not just me. You are And you know what,
Speaker 1: I don't feel any hardship for other black men. As
Speaker 1: a single black woman, I deal with a whole lot
Speaker 1: of bullshit. I don't need to from black men. I
Speaker 1: will say this, your pain is not mine. I can
Speaker 1: we can talk through it. But for me, from pain
Speaker 1: to power, it is how I live. Right, So when
Speaker 1: I visit schools and I and I visit schools and
Speaker 1: black neighborhoods, I mean, most most children are sad. Most
Speaker 1: children will only believe that they will Both of our
Speaker 1: black kids will only believe that figure to be the
Speaker 1: same way that mama or their daddy is in the
Speaker 1: same project. And for me, I'm like, no, you can
Speaker 1: do more, you can do more. So when I tell
Speaker 1: them I am you, I am you, and you are
Speaker 1: me and I've done when I've done, I'm the first
Speaker 1: black woman to say it again. If you are me,
Speaker 1: that's right now. You can't do Oh but but it's okay,
Speaker 1: I mean, don't. I don't think we should beat ourselves
Speaker 1: up about mistakes because this space is a space where
Speaker 1: mistakes that get corrected are good. We can do that, right.
Speaker 1: There's so much that black folks have, so much that
Speaker 1: we possess that could heal another. You know, if we
Speaker 1: just had the time to sit and delve into our pains,
Speaker 1: our traumas, the things we've been through. There are people
Speaker 1: who will sit here and say, how can you get
Speaker 1: raped five times? Like what happened for a second and
Speaker 1: third time? Because we're so ignorant. Sometimes there are people
Speaker 1: to say, well, why did you try to kill yourself
Speaker 1: three times? And what's you know? But at the end
Speaker 1: of the day, first of all, some of us are
Speaker 1: drinking ourselves and drugging ourselves. We're trying to commit suicide
Speaker 1: right now and just not acknowledging that that's what it is.
Speaker 1: But beyond that, you have such a powerful story and
Speaker 1: what you can do to transform the lives of young
Speaker 1: black women. When we work, yes and men, just makes
Speaker 1: a man want to step up and just be better.
Speaker 1: So definitely. But you know, the work that we do,
Speaker 1: we go into communities where our people are really really damaged,
Speaker 1: really damage. There's different levels to this thing. You can
Speaker 1: go to some communities and work with people and they
Speaker 1: have a little bit of means and people clean up
Speaker 1: around their community, you know, and they and they have
Speaker 1: a little bit of um, you know, camaraderie if you will.
Speaker 1: But we go into communities and work with people who
Speaker 1: are really broken, who really don't have I mean, they
Speaker 1: live in situations that some of us we couldn't survive
Speaker 1: period in those situations, and those are the types of
Speaker 1: people who need to hear your story. So I'm just
Speaker 1: encouraging you. I know it still hurts you. You You've
Speaker 1: done the healing. I'm Jamaica. I'm cool. I'm cool. So
Speaker 1: for me, I am in those communities that need me
Speaker 1: the most, I am. I have principles that will call
Speaker 1: me and say, we need you here. I need my
Speaker 1: children to hear your pain, your struggles, your tragedies to
Speaker 1: your triumphs. Keep doing that and I will not stop
Speaker 1: you just as to me. And there's so many of
Speaker 1: us who say, Lord, you know if you would give
Speaker 1: me a platform, I will. I will tell your stories.
Speaker 1: I will do your work and um and you're doing it.
Speaker 1: Collect We appreciate you, we love and support you, and
Speaker 1: you know I want to see you. I gotta figure
Speaker 1: out something else we could do together, because we need
Speaker 1: to say, let me know whatever I could do. I
Speaker 1: really just appreciate your transparency and your perseverance man, and
Speaker 1: your passion. So you know I'm inspired. I'm motivated by you.
Speaker 1: Continue to be great and just walk in your purpose
Speaker 1: because you definitely doing that. First woman to coach in
Speaker 1: the NFL history and the first woman to be a
Speaker 1: coach at the New York Jets. Man, we love you,
Speaker 1: collect love you, love you right back. Let's go game on,
Speaker 1: Game on. Thanks g. Let take care you love you,
Speaker 1: love you. That was so great. You just don't even
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes you we we do interviews and good
Speaker 1: interviews and you smile, you laugh, you have a good time.
Speaker 1: But you know that that interview pushed me to somewhere else,
Speaker 1: you know, pushed me to understand that when you're living
Speaker 1: in your purpose, you know, no matter what you're going through,
Speaker 1: you know, let's looking at her and the energy that
Speaker 1: she has, you know, the transparency like she's willing to cry,
Speaker 1: she's willing to fight, she's willing to do all the
Speaker 1: things necessary to win. Man, So I was motivated by
Speaker 1: the interview. Man, I think us for even having the ability,
Speaker 1: thus say, I like to think myself. Yea, Man, I
Speaker 1: think us for having the ability right and doing whatever
Speaker 1: we've done to be able to connect with people like that.
Speaker 1: Right when we talk about That's what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, we sometimes I'm not a person, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not we don't have egos anything, but we actually do.
Speaker 1: I mean, we don't have big egos that overshadow the world, right,
Speaker 1: but we we identify our worth, We identify that we
Speaker 1: actually out here doing work. But when you look and
Speaker 1: see that we're able to connect with and you know,
Speaker 1: share space with so many you know, beautiful people, so
Speaker 1: many just powerful people and we have those are these
Speaker 1: are just friendship, These are just connections that we made.
Speaker 1: So you know, I want to thank us for that.
Speaker 1: We thank us, thank us, I want to thank us.
Speaker 1: But they say a little ego it's necessary in order
Speaker 1: for you to be great. So we are definitely a
Speaker 1: little a little lot. Listen to me. I know, I
Speaker 1: know what I could do. I just know what I
Speaker 1: can do that you're very confident. I don't know. You
Speaker 1: gotta ego, but you're confident. But when I say I
Speaker 1: could do something because I could do it, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know what is there a difference between being having
Speaker 1: ego and being egotistical? I mean we all have an ego,
Speaker 1: it's just sing how big it is, how you use
Speaker 1: it to How about that? About that? One thing we
Speaker 1: don't do is use our anything to hurt other people,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what matters. Some people would say
Speaker 1: they don't agree with that, but you know, so as
Speaker 1: we talk about egos and we talk about the work
Speaker 1: we've done and how you know, we should acknowledge we've
Speaker 1: done some dope ship, we've done some good ship. That's
Speaker 1: my new slogan. That's my new slogan. It is just
Speaker 1: a regular chick who's done some historic ship. Like that's
Speaker 1: because I have to find a way to like get
Speaker 1: people to understand who I am. They're struggling with it. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what it is. I think that brings me
Speaker 1: till I don't get it to you. Don't get it,
Speaker 1: you know, because it's about you. You know, I want
Speaker 1: because it's specifically about you, right, who's done some historic ship,
Speaker 1: who constantly every time it's called on the front line,
Speaker 1: she does things that surpassed the last thing she's done.
Speaker 1: It's so and time being celebrated, you know, like they'll
Speaker 1: call you and say, we want to give you this award.
Speaker 1: To me, I don't want no awards like Tamika, you
Speaker 1: need to do this. I don't. We need to promote this.
Speaker 1: I don't want to promote. Don't put me at this speaking.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do let somebody else do it.
Speaker 1: Like we literally have to force you into receiving accolades
Speaker 1: and taking space that you actually earned. And I just
Speaker 1: don't get what is the issue with You're doing the
Speaker 1: work like and you do it selflessly. It's not and
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you you should um do the
Speaker 1: work or do things to be celebrated, but you do
Speaker 1: the work, and you deserve to be celebrated. You've earned
Speaker 1: these awards, you've earned these accolades, You've earned spaces in
Speaker 1: certain places. So I just don't get why. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I just don't get why you are so anti receiving
Speaker 1: these accolades. You really no, I mean, I hit, but
Speaker 1: I want you to explain it. That's I don't do
Speaker 1: a retake. And no, I really just don't get it.
Speaker 1: I just don't get it. Like you just boomed a
Speaker 1: C A C P. It's nominated you, right, We're like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is dope. You need to and you're like, no, no,
Speaker 1: don't for Image Awards. She's like, no, I don't want
Speaker 1: to post that. Don't putting that. Enough about me? All
Speaker 1: we need to create it. You know, our manager toys
Speaker 1: like we need to create a campaign, we need to
Speaker 1: be doing these things. I don't know. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this. You know, people have to pull teeth
Speaker 1: for you to even want to promote it or say
Speaker 1: anything about it. I said a whole thing. No, you're saying,
Speaker 1: you're asking a question of why. And it was in
Speaker 1: my statement about how grateful I am for the award,
Speaker 1: for the nomination, which is an award in itself, right,
Speaker 1: So when I didn't know, I didn't understand until recently,
Speaker 1: like the Double A CP Image Awards. If you're nominated,
Speaker 1: that's a big thing because that means that somewhere along
Speaker 1: the line, people narrow down the choices of all the
Speaker 1: people in the world that or in the country that
Speaker 1: they could choose, and they narrowed it down to five
Speaker 1: important people. And I'm in a category that is really
Speaker 1: really like hot, like it's it's powerful. I'm in a
Speaker 1: category with Debbie Allen, Like how the hell do I
Speaker 1: get in the category with Debbie Allen? Like, as far
Speaker 1: as I'm Concernedie Allen changed black women and the way
Speaker 1: we see ourselves, Like she's so amazing. I'm in the
Speaker 1: category with Lebron James that's amazing. Um. Of course you know, uh,
Speaker 1: April Ryan, who I love and that Maya so much.
Speaker 1: And then of course Stacy Abrams, which in my judgment,
Speaker 1: Stacy Abrams is gonna win, like she's gonna get the award.
Speaker 1: I probably would vote for her myself if I was
Speaker 1: even with me on the slate, I would still vote
Speaker 1: for Stacy Abrams right now, just understanding everything that she
Speaker 1: has done to get people in Georgia to the polls
Speaker 1: and her contribution not just then, but running for governor,
Speaker 1: stepping out there, not being afraid and not being bitter
Speaker 1: from the fact that they stole the election from her,
Speaker 1: to to go home and say she's done with it,
Speaker 1: but to keep coming back, and not to just come
Speaker 1: back and keep running for different offices, but instead to
Speaker 1: create something that actually makes real change and has a
Speaker 1: real impact, Um, you know on our people, and so
Speaker 1: I I, UM, I appreciate all of them. But the
Speaker 1: first time I did write it, and what I said
Speaker 1: was that, you know, being that I have, I've been
Speaker 1: through a lot of this before. Not the Image Awards,
Speaker 1: even though we were acknowledged that the Image Awards a
Speaker 1: few years back for the work that Justice League was
Speaker 1: doing Carmen, and Jamal was up there, Bryant Reven Jamal
Speaker 1: Bryant Um and others. So we have been especially the
Speaker 1: work that we have been doing in Flint, Michigan. Um
Speaker 1: we were acknowledged for that during the Image Rewards several
Speaker 1: years ago. But being nominated by myself and acknowledged outside
Speaker 1: of it being a threesome with Carmen and Linda or
Speaker 1: the Women's March or something like that, that's that's that's
Speaker 1: feels good and it's important, of course it is. But
Speaker 1: I've been on the cover of Glamor magazine. I've been
Speaker 1: honored by every single organization you could think of, and
Speaker 1: particularly fit particularly major like historic women's organizations, organizations that
Speaker 1: people like Glorias Steinhum are founders of and sit on
Speaker 1: the board. I mean, I've seen all of this, but
Speaker 1: I also have felt the brunt of how you can
Speaker 1: be exalted on one side and then torn down on
Speaker 1: the other. And so sometimes it just feels more comfortable
Speaker 1: to stay under the radar, because once people begin to
Speaker 1: see you receiving your well deserved credit, the haters come
Speaker 1: like they have never ever been on you be for
Speaker 1: and the problem and I and and to be honest,
Speaker 1: since we're talking about mental health today, it is I'm
Speaker 1: still dealing with the trauma of what I experienced when
Speaker 1: I was under a major, major attack. And I think
Speaker 1: the thing that impacted me the most wasn't even the attack,
Speaker 1: because people around me, they told me and showed me
Speaker 1: and reminded me of what I already know. That most
Speaker 1: leaders black leaders have experienced the exact same attack that
Speaker 1: I went exactly the same, not even a little, exactly
Speaker 1: the same, right, And and some of them have been killed.
Speaker 1: So at least I'm still here because Dr King was
Speaker 1: thirty nine, and so I'm you know, I'm I'm I'm
Speaker 1: surpassing him in age, right and I'm not saying anything
Speaker 1: like Dr King because see, they'll come after me for that.
Speaker 1: But who is the We can do a whole episod.
Speaker 1: But but I have I've seen this, right, and I
Speaker 1: know how it feels, and the trauma that I experience,
Speaker 1: what I went through, I don't know if I have
Speaker 1: been able to get over it. And then the worst
Speaker 1: part of it is watching people who you served, people
Speaker 1: you stood for and with, people you worked for and
Speaker 1: with and and and and really um supported and and
Speaker 1: dedicated so much of your life to turn their backs
Speaker 1: on you and to have other people stand up more
Speaker 1: for you, to don't even know you, and to be
Speaker 1: there for you than those who you actually thought loved
Speaker 1: and cared for you despite whatever may have happened. Wherever you,
Speaker 1: guys may have you know, wherever you might fall out
Speaker 1: as we say, to see that happen, it's extremely painful.
Speaker 1: Now as far as I'm concerned, I'm at the point
Speaker 1: of bump those people like I. I'm beyond that, but
Speaker 1: I know what that feels like, and I hate I
Speaker 1: don't even want to put people close to me in
Speaker 1: a position to have to learn that they so full
Speaker 1: of ship like some of the people that I have
Speaker 1: learned that about in my past. So it's just a
Speaker 1: lot of trauma. It's a lot of trauma. Is something
Speaker 1: that me and my therapist, we are deep into it.
Speaker 1: My therapist is specifically trying to address how I, you know,
Speaker 1: how I have to be able to let go. That
Speaker 1: was our last conversation. It was about letting go of
Speaker 1: the past because the past is hindering me from experiencing
Speaker 1: the now, Like I don't even get a chance to
Speaker 1: feel good about a moment because I am living in this,
Speaker 1: you know, feeling of like when are they gonna come?
Speaker 1: And I already know, I already know that somebody somewhere
Speaker 1: is waiting on the opportunity as soon as they can
Speaker 1: grab onto something to try to destroy me. Now what
Speaker 1: I also know, and this is what's sustains mean. This
Speaker 1: is why I do get to the point where I
Speaker 1: post the thing and I say the stuff, and I
Speaker 1: finally be like, I don't care, and let me put
Speaker 1: my cue outfit on and go take a picture and
Speaker 1: post it and I don't care if you like it
Speaker 1: or it's not, and yes, hey this can hate, I
Speaker 1: don't care. But when I get to that point is
Speaker 1: when I sit down and recognize how how good God
Speaker 1: has been to me, and how throughout every situation, even
Speaker 1: in the worst worst of times, it wasn't as bad
Speaker 1: as I thought it was. And how many people, how
Speaker 1: new friends, new supporters, people who were always there but
Speaker 1: you weren't necessarily paying attention to them, How they show
Speaker 1: up and they show out and they stand for you,
Speaker 1: and that no matter what people are saying about you,
Speaker 1: the real ones get it. The real ones get that
Speaker 1: we're not perfect. We make mistakes. We do things that
Speaker 1: people may not understand. The real ones get that. You know,
Speaker 1: it's not gonna always look shiny, but it's still is
Speaker 1: a process that you go through that I feel like
Speaker 1: I don't have to go through it. If you just
Speaker 1: don't give me nothing, I'm good. And I think I
Speaker 1: think for me right and understand that, and I hear it.
Speaker 1: And I think when we talk about what Hill was
Speaker 1: talking about right about this armor that we were, I
Speaker 1: think I've been in those situations right. I've been incarcerated
Speaker 1: for crimes I didn't commit. At a peak time in
Speaker 1: my life, my career, I was just signed a record deal,
Speaker 1: the hottest person in the world, had all these producers,
Speaker 1: all these artists that was calling me, yo, we want
Speaker 1: to do this, and that When you was locked up,
Speaker 1: people want to connect themselves to you because it gave
Speaker 1: them some level of you know, um credibility and oh
Speaker 1: that's my man. And then when you actually come home
Speaker 1: and people don't feel like they benefit you or they
Speaker 1: can benefit from you, and you're not as hot, They've
Speaker 1: turn it back on you. People have blackballed you and
Speaker 1: and done certain things. And I think the fact that
Speaker 1: I was able to go through prison and utilize the
Speaker 1: shell that I had right and say to myself, I
Speaker 1: don't need these people like That's how I persevered, like
Speaker 1: I've been, like I was. I heard my man Gilly
Speaker 1: and Um Wilow talking about how many lives he had.
Speaker 1: He said, I had about four or five lives. They
Speaker 1: thought I was dead four or five times, right in fact.
Speaker 1: And I continue because I believed in me more than anything.
Speaker 1: When you was telling me I was trashed, I was
Speaker 1: the worst person I was. Dad, don't rap again, don't
Speaker 1: do this. I never believe that, right. I always believe
Speaker 1: that I was better than with somebody else. I didn't
Speaker 1: believe I was right. So when I see you going
Speaker 1: through this and something like yo, you have the opportunity
Speaker 1: to not only to um prove that they say is wrong,
Speaker 1: but continue to move in your greatness. And it's because
Speaker 1: you've been authentic, right, So receive your accoladi. No not you,
Speaker 1: but you. You receive them. But the people who know
Speaker 1: you'd be like, oh, they know that it's it's pulling
Speaker 1: teeth for you to be able to do things. I'd
Speaker 1: be like posted you you know, and you worried so
Speaker 1: much about how you received a lot, right, even though
Speaker 1: you moved. Listen to me, But you are mis characterizing
Speaker 1: what it is is. It's not that I'm worried about it.
Speaker 1: It's that, despite what some people would think, I have
Speaker 1: always been a very humble person. Right, And I don't
Speaker 1: know if you can call yourself humble. But I even
Speaker 1: I know that I'm I know I'm fly right. I
Speaker 1: know that it's no doubt in my mind. I'm clear
Speaker 1: that I have all the things that make up a
Speaker 1: great woman. I know that because even my imperfections make
Speaker 1: me who I am. I know that you know what
Speaker 1: I understand, this is the truth. I know. I will
Speaker 1: also whoop somebody's ass. So I realized that I can't
Speaker 1: be getting into too many back and forth with some
Speaker 1: of these people that be bothering me about life to
Speaker 1: tell you, I have to let them, let them, let
Speaker 1: them just talk, and let me be quiet. The problem
Speaker 1: is you don't have to be quiet to let them
Speaker 1: just talk, right, Because I say, you say, Midy, you
Speaker 1: need to sit and say that I'm but I'm definitely
Speaker 1: gonna say that, and you're like, I don't even understand you,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to have I want somebody I
Speaker 1: don't know. The bottom line is, I'm so comfortable who
Speaker 1: I am and what I believe that what you think
Speaker 1: of what I believe has no bearing. Like somebody told me,
Speaker 1: your opinion of me is your business. So that's what
Speaker 1: you got to realize what somebody feels about what you
Speaker 1: you're acting what God has given to you. Ain't nobody
Speaker 1: can take it from you to go out there and
Speaker 1: get it. Hallelujah, hallelujah that the church, the doors of
Speaker 1: the church are open. And on that note, I appreciate
Speaker 1: the world acknowledging the things that we've done. And when
Speaker 1: I received an award or I received some acknowledgment, I
Speaker 1: received it on behalf of so many people who helped
Speaker 1: to make up to me a Mallory story. A man,
Speaker 1: we're about to get them T shirts. What is it again,
Speaker 1: I'm just a regular chick who's done some histories T shirts.
Speaker 1: Until freedom coming soon, listention, But you are until freedom
Speaker 1: business work. We need to talk to our director Cat
Speaker 1: Trigg because that's not how uh business work. Now using
Speaker 1: my life. But but you until freedom is you using
Speaker 1: your life anyway? Listen, Man, I ain't gonna always be right.
Speaker 1: Tamika might be a lot of times wrong more than
Speaker 1: she's right, but she's still a good person. But you
Speaker 1: know one thing, we both are always going to be authentic.
Speaker 1: Always that. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll
Speaker 1: see you next week. Street Street politicians number one, number one,
Speaker 1: we number one, number one, number one in the world.
Speaker 1: Put in the world more. We gotta get up there
Speaker 1: and beat the others. We keep working peace,