Speaker 1: My leg has all the knowledge you want. Le has
Speaker 1: all the knowledge you need.
Speaker 2: Yet they have all the books that the whole wild
Speaker 2: world one up read books. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshow,
Speaker 2: bringing the world together with books, culture and community.
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Malik, your host of Malik's Book Show.
Speaker 2: Well, I put together a podcast studio inside Malik Books
Speaker 2: so that when authors come in there, I'm able to
Speaker 2: do a podcast right on the spot.
Speaker 1: So sometimes some of the noise in the mall in the.
Speaker 2: Background is picked up, so I apologize for that, but
Speaker 2: I wanted to be more spontaneous. I wanted to, you know,
Speaker 2: take advantage of when authors walking to the store or
Speaker 2: when we engage in events in the store, to have
Speaker 2: a nice conversation that I can feature on Malie's bookshelf.
Speaker 2: So I did a couple of podcasts in the store,
Speaker 2: and I want to bring that to you. On this
Speaker 2: particular episode, we hosted Marcelli's Reynolds, who wrote three He
Speaker 2: got a trilogy about three different books about Supreme Model,
Speaker 2: Supreme Siren, and that's his third book. That's the feature
Speaker 2: book that we're hosting that Malie Books today. Unfortunately, I'm
Speaker 2: not there April is hosted. April is going to interview
Speaker 2: marsh Seller's for the podcast Supreme sign It's about iconic
Speaker 2: women in music and the revolutionary inside the music industry.
Speaker 1: She's going to do the podcast with Marcelle Reynald.
Speaker 2: I might track meet with my daughter, so we you know,
Speaker 2: sometimes we gotta go ourselves ways. Family community. Books still
Speaker 2: go down. So if I'm in one place, April is
Speaker 2: at another place. We're putting it down still. So she's
Speaker 2: gonna host Marcella at the store. She's gonna interview him
Speaker 2: for the podcast. So if you hear any noise in
Speaker 2: the background like a baby, and we're sorry, but hey,
Speaker 2: some things out I control.
Speaker 1: We're doing our best.
Speaker 2: But this is an impactful, iconic interview from a person
Speaker 2: who's well accomplished and has taken He's an award winning reporter,
Speaker 2: he is a now our author, and he's known throughout
Speaker 2: the industry. Like I said, he won won awards. He's
Speaker 2: well accomplished, he's iconic. His name is Marcella's Reynolds, and
Speaker 2: we are happy to feature him on our podcast and host.
Speaker 1: Them at Meleak Books for Supreme Books.
Speaker 2: Signing from his Supreme series three books, you know, one
Speaker 2: about women in acting, Supreme Actors, Supreme Models and Supreme Sirens,
Speaker 2: women in the music. Hisstory is his latest book, Revolutionary Women.
Speaker 2: So we're happy to have him grace us with his
Speaker 2: president of Malik Books. That interview took place justice last
Speaker 2: March ninth at Mileae Books when we hosted them, and.
Speaker 1: April is going to do the interview.
Speaker 2: I'm also going to feature two other interviews that I
Speaker 2: was able to take take advantage of in the store.
Speaker 1: We had the.
Speaker 2: Dlay Datch who wrote a book called The Versity Dilemma
Speaker 2: talking about de I.
Speaker 1: You know, that's all in the news about.
Speaker 2: Diversity, equity, inclusion, and you know, some battle people think
Speaker 2: it's reverse racism. People think that there's something that is
Speaker 2: a handout, another ear mark, another you know, uh, subsidy
Speaker 2: that the disenfranchised blacks, Whites, Asians, Hispanics or whatever. You know,
Speaker 2: we live in this country, but it's a lot of insensitivities.
Speaker 2: A lot of people feel that free education, do elementary
Speaker 2: and Obamacare is sufficient to make up for you know,
Speaker 2: all the oppression, all the discrimination there has taken place.
Speaker 1: You know, we started in America under slavery.
Speaker 2: Don't forget, and we pulled ourselves up and many of
Speaker 2: us are well accomplished. And although the focus shouldn't be
Speaker 2: of yesterday and it should be about what's going on now.
Speaker 1: They are disparacies, there's just franchise.
Speaker 2: There are just environments where communities are underserved, and it's
Speaker 2: just a lot of people that feel that in corporate
Speaker 2: America that the playing field is leveled out. No one
Speaker 2: should have entitlements and therefore there's no need for affirm
Speaker 2: the action which President Clinton eradicated, you know.
Speaker 1: And now we're back today, and I've lived to see.
Speaker 2: The multicultural movement which came and gone in the nineties,
Speaker 2: where it's the same concept, you know, earmarking trying to
Speaker 2: create space and leverage to level up the Black community
Speaker 2: in corporate America, abroad, in schools and so forth. Now
Speaker 2: we the di diversity, equity, inclusion corporations now feeling like,
Speaker 2: you know, how can we close that gap income, opportunity
Speaker 2: and all of the things that you know in society
Speaker 2: that can make one successful but yet make it almost
Speaker 2: impossible for other groups.
Speaker 1: Because the power in America is.
Speaker 2: Just not share and the people who make decisions make
Speaker 2: decisions based upon their bias and their upbringing and so forth.
Speaker 1: So the world it is what it is. But it's
Speaker 1: a battle.
Speaker 2: It's a battle in this country on council, culture, book, band,
Speaker 2: DEI verse.
Speaker 1: Equity, clue. It's just you know, no one is happying,
Speaker 1: no one is satisfied.
Speaker 2: Everybody is arguing with each other about the direction in
Speaker 2: the future of this nation and so forth.
Speaker 1: So we just have a battle. And I always say this,
Speaker 1: no one could do for you what you can do
Speaker 1: for yourself.
Speaker 2: So do as much as you can for yourself to
Speaker 2: benefit yourself. And if opportunities like DEI and other things
Speaker 2: can also elevate and help and grants and all that,
Speaker 2: then you know, if you can qualify, you can get it,
Speaker 2: go after it and what have you. But you know,
Speaker 2: the hard work and the real work is if you
Speaker 2: do as much as you can on your own for yourself.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of things that Black America needs
Speaker 2: to do that we need to do on our own,
Speaker 2: regardless of all these subsidies and programs. They're nice and
Speaker 2: they're important because there's disenfranchised and their discrimination, there's racism
Speaker 2: still exists.
Speaker 1: A lot of people just.
Speaker 2: Want to throw it under the table and act like
Speaker 2: it don't. There is diversity dilemma that exists. But I
Speaker 2: think that we also as black people, and I'm black,
Speaker 2: and I'm proud I'm and I'm unapologetically black, and I
Speaker 2: feel like, you know, there are things that we have
Speaker 2: to do on our own. It's important for us to do.
Speaker 2: You know, is more powerful than an atomic bomb. And
Speaker 2: we have to ask ourselves, do we have the ultimate
Speaker 2: unity in order to do the things that we can
Speaker 2: do on our own without the aid of all of
Speaker 2: these programs. I'm not knocking that we don't need these programs.
Speaker 2: What I'm knocking is the fact that why we can't
Speaker 2: do all we can do in order to solve our problem,
Speaker 2: to solve our conditions. It's nothing stopping us from uniting
Speaker 2: our resources. Financially, we get one point five tree in dollars.
Speaker 2: What's stopping us for creating a black fund putting twenty
Speaker 2: dollars in a month, forty million black people raising eight
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars a month, raising twelve billion a year.
Speaker 2: What's stopping us from doing that on our own? They
Speaker 2: can solve a lot of our issues on our own.
Speaker 2: I just think that it all starts at home and abroad.
Speaker 1: But we gotta do better. We gotta do the things
Speaker 1: that we can do.
Speaker 2: Instead of complaining about what's not here, let's leverage what
Speaker 2: we can do. So I got that interview with Delay
Speaker 2: that the diversity dilemma, and I'm gonna feature that on
Speaker 2: this episode. I'm also gonna feature this episode that this
Speaker 2: podcast segment that I took when a young lady came
Speaker 2: in and she wrote a book called Don't touch My
Speaker 2: No No, Don't touch my no No. And it's because
Speaker 2: a lot of kids are touched and they stay in
Speaker 2: silent and it impacts them throughout the life. So she
Speaker 2: wrote a kid's book talking about this don't touch my
Speaker 2: no no private parts that is. And so I was
Speaker 2: able to interview and that that was kind of deep.
Speaker 2: And I can relate.
Speaker 1: Because I wrote a book.
Speaker 2: I wrote a chapter in a book called The Heart
Speaker 2: of a Black Man, the Stories of tryumph RESIENTI, and
Speaker 2: my chapter is called from Devastation, the elevation from of
Speaker 2: a station. The elevation is in how you know things
Speaker 2: that happened to me when I was young and how
Speaker 2: it impacts you later on in life and you just
Speaker 2: don't know that. But we we you know, people keep
Speaker 2: these things in silent and so I made myself vulnerable
Speaker 2: and open up some secrets about my childhood. But here's
Speaker 2: the things that there are a lot of people out
Speaker 2: here that has good intentions and really want to make
Speaker 2: a difference.
Speaker 1: In this book. Don't Touch My No No is an
Speaker 1: example of.
Speaker 2: Someone a young lady named Adrian Alexander wrote this book
Speaker 2: in an effort to talk about a very sensitive subject matter.
Speaker 1: And so I'm featuring that segment on this episode.
Speaker 2: And so that's pretty much three book reviews, three interviews,
Speaker 2: and I just enjoy, you know, trying to take this
Speaker 2: to another level video on these podcasts. Now I'm going
Speaker 2: to be uploading these episodes on YouTube as well, so
Speaker 2: enjoy the episode.
Speaker 3: All right, Hello, today we have mister Morse.
Speaker 4: You want to grow up the Morriscale.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for worsening us with your president
Speaker 3: of Finlik book.
Speaker 5: And today we are doing today this book discussion and
Speaker 5: book signed with this lovely book and it is Supreme Sirens.
Speaker 4: Title. Okay, well you're doing I can't do it better
Speaker 4: than you.
Speaker 6: Supreme Sirens iconic Black women who revolutionize music. And what's
Speaker 6: important about this book and my other two books actually
Speaker 6: is that they're the first, that they're kind they're the
Speaker 6: first ever art books devoted exclusively to celebrating the stories
Speaker 6: of black women.
Speaker 2: So it's how.
Speaker 3: Important with this journey you have a trilogy?
Speaker 4: Here have a trilogy, So how important the trilogy?
Speaker 7: Honey, the first one.
Speaker 3: Just give a little bit about your first.
Speaker 6: So the first one, I always say, like it depends
Speaker 6: on how I talk about each one. The first one
Speaker 6: will always be my favorite because it took so long
Speaker 6: for it to happen. Supreme Models took eight years to sell,
Speaker 6: and then along the way, a bunch of people told
Speaker 6: me a book about black women.
Speaker 4: Would never sell, and as you know, Supreme Models became lies.
Speaker 4: You tell us lies, they tell us.
Speaker 6: Supreme Models became a best selling book and became you know.
Speaker 6: Essence named it the number one book to read on
Speaker 6: Black style. Vogue and Team Vogue named it one of
Speaker 6: the best fashioned books of all time, and then not
Speaker 6: to mention, it just became a perennial bestseller, and then
Speaker 6: it became its own documentary where I co produced it
Speaker 6: with MND, which now has like you know, now has
Speaker 6: like eight point five million.
Speaker 4: Views on Vogue YouTube.
Speaker 6: Channels, so you know, all right, Supreme did what she did,
Speaker 6: what she was supposed to do, and then we have
Speaker 6: Supreme Actresses. So because of the success of Supreme Models,
Speaker 6: Abrams came to me during the pandemic and was like,
Speaker 6: do you want to do? Do you have an idea
Speaker 6: for a second book? And I was like, do I
Speaker 6: have an idea for a second book?
Speaker 4: And I didn't, but I.
Speaker 6: Like, I did have an idea for a second book
Speaker 6: because there's actually a past of Supreme Models that has
Speaker 6: an actress that has models to actresses in it, right,
Speaker 6: and it was its own little section, but I was
Speaker 6: over on pages so Abrams throughout Model to Actresses, and
Speaker 6: so I was already in.
Speaker 4: That mindset of actresses.
Speaker 6: So the Supreme Actresses came out and it became a
Speaker 6: It was just like another big book, especially because it
Speaker 6: came out during the pandemic. It came out in the
Speaker 6: fall of twenty twenty one, and it came out right
Speaker 6: around that time where people were where people.
Speaker 4: Were really eating black books.
Speaker 3: Check it take it from us, you know, and the
Speaker 3: pandemic really elevated you and I this is not.
Speaker 5: Just our fly first ball game. And when I met
Speaker 5: two years back, and we were at the ball and
Speaker 5: whose Mall. But the pandemic really elevated us. Some people,
Speaker 5: the pandemic put a pause on them because of fear.
Speaker 5: For fear is a stop sign. And we opened this
Speaker 5: location the Moly books in the covers the hall in
Speaker 5: the middle of the pandemic. Wow, we've been here for
Speaker 5: four and a half years, so fear get.
Speaker 4: Out the way. Yeah yeah, And then you know, Supreme
Speaker 4: Actresses did what she was supposed to do.
Speaker 6: What I think is most important to for our supremactresses
Speaker 6: speaking about the pandemic was it was very easy to
Speaker 6: interview actresses because they were sitting that hall at work.
Speaker 4: So I interviewed so many people that I interviewed, Like.
Speaker 6: My favorites are Lynn Whitfield, who played justinin Baker. That
Speaker 6: was a break because she's just a legend and she
Speaker 6: was wrapping her last show Greenwood, I think the name
Speaker 6: of the show.
Speaker 4: So that was really interesting to talk about her process
Speaker 4: and what she was going to do next, and she
Speaker 4: was like, I have to do nothing next. I'm good
Speaker 4: like things keep you know, things will come to me
Speaker 4: when they're ready.
Speaker 6: I interviewed Sonna Lathan, who was really funny and dishy.
Speaker 6: I interviewed Ray what I love about Supreme Actresses and
Speaker 6: what I want people to not sleep on is and
Speaker 6: why say it's my favorite.
Speaker 4: I interviewed Ray before Barbie. I interviewed Alexander's Ship before Barbie.
Speaker 6: So there are two barbiees in Supreme Actresses before Barbie
Speaker 6: was even a thing.
Speaker 4: And Alexander Ship's interview is really beautiful. Who else? Oh,
Speaker 4: of course Gabrielle Union. She wrote the form.
Speaker 6: And I found Gabrielle on the day where she seemed
Speaker 6: to be mad, but she was just talking like she
Speaker 6: was telling all the truths.
Speaker 4: She was like, they can't get your makeup right, they
Speaker 4: can't get your hair right, they underpay it us. And
Speaker 4: I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes to all.
Speaker 6: This, because you know some people like try to do
Speaker 6: an interview, they try to be politically. Gabrielle was like,
Speaker 6: not today, not today, not. Plus, I was in my bathrobe.
Speaker 6: We was doing a zoom and I thought it was
Speaker 6: gonna be zoom audio and Gabrielle, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 6: the screen opens and Gabrielle's in her beautiful mansion, hair
Speaker 6: and makeup done, and she was like, are you going
Speaker 6: to show yourself And I was like, no, I'm not
Speaker 6: my bathle throbe, and she's like, well, I'm not talking
Speaker 6: to a black screen.
Speaker 4: So now I'm not only in my in my bathrobe.
Speaker 4: I'm in my bathrobe in the bed in front of
Speaker 4: the computer with like no lights all like like like
Speaker 4: some like her brother. But it was just supposed to
Speaker 4: be a zoom interview.
Speaker 8: So I turned the camera and she was like, you're
Speaker 8: killing your white man about the ground bathroom and I
Speaker 8: was like, so, I mean I love that and all
Speaker 8: of the books.
Speaker 3: Now you know it didn't come from Oh, let me
Speaker 3: get this together.
Speaker 6: So you came in and that's not my Well, I'm
Speaker 6: always like if i'm not, I'm always in my bathroom.
Speaker 4: Oh, I tell her, Okay.
Speaker 6: So Supreme Sirens is the third book, and I say
Speaker 6: it's the final one in this trilogy.
Speaker 4: Another bathroom story. I got the day I was supposed.
Speaker 6: To interview Monica, Monica did the foreward. The day I
Speaker 6: was supposed to interview Monica, I got my days mixed
Speaker 6: and her her manager is her cousin, Melinda, and I
Speaker 6: have been having all these conversations with Melinda, so I
Speaker 6: was really like a little.
Speaker 4: Casual with Melinda. So when Melinda called me, I was like,
Speaker 4: hey girl, what's up. And she was like, are you
Speaker 4: ready for the interview? And I was like, yeah, it's tomorrow,
Speaker 4: and she's like, no, it's today. It's in an hour.
Speaker 6: And I was like, and she was like, please tell
Speaker 6: me that you're ready for this interview because Monica starts
Speaker 6: traveling tomorrow.
Speaker 4: And she's like, it's today or it's not happening. And
Speaker 4: I was like, I'll be ready, like tell her to
Speaker 4: call me, you know which, Tell her to call me
Speaker 4: when she's ready. And because of.
Speaker 6: That, I was now scrambling to do like all this stuff.
Speaker 6: I was like, how am I gonna set it up?
Speaker 6: Blah blah blah. And I ended up and again I
Speaker 6: was in my bathrobe because it was super early. I
Speaker 6: created like a a like a sound booth, which like
Speaker 6: I was literally under my.
Speaker 4: Bed because my bed is like this. So I was
Speaker 4: under my bed trying with the computer in front of me,
Speaker 4: with my things on on my knees, with the crops
Speaker 4: on a pillow like this, trying to create a sound booth.
Speaker 6: And at the end of the interview, Monica was like,
Speaker 6: let Monica kept saying, the Lord is trying to tell
Speaker 6: me something.
Speaker 4: The Lord is talking to me, and I was like okay,
Speaker 4: and she was like, are you on your knees?
Speaker 6: And as it turned out, I was actually on my
Speaker 6: knees because I was under my bed on I was
Speaker 6: like this on my like not on my belly, but
Speaker 6: on the pillow like this with the headphones on. And
Speaker 6: I was like, yeah, I'm on my knees and she
Speaker 6: was like, let's pray. So we prayed, and then after
Speaker 6: what we were praying, she was like, stay the course.
Speaker 6: And I was like, okay, yeah, I'm I got it.
Speaker 6: I'm a stay of course. And she was like stay
Speaker 6: the course and I was like, yes, stay the course.
Speaker 6: And then she was like stay the course and I
Speaker 6: was like, yes, Monica, I'm gonna stay the course. And
Speaker 6: she kept saying stay the course to get me to
Speaker 6: say stay the course, because what God was telling her
Speaker 6: was to tell me to stay the course. Because I
Speaker 6: was saying that the book was so hard that I
Speaker 6: didn't want to do it anymore. And so at the
Speaker 6: end we were chanting stay the course at the same time,
Speaker 6: stay the course, stayed of course, Stay the course.
Speaker 4: So then when we finished saying stay the course. She
Speaker 4: was like, all right, you're.
Speaker 6: Good, and I was like, I'm good, and she was like,
Speaker 6: all right, if you need something, you got Melinda's number.
Speaker 6: You call her and tell and tell her that to
Speaker 6: get to me if you need something. And that's how
Speaker 6: Monica's interview with came to forward because it was that how.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 6: I also think the power of words and I think
Speaker 6: the power of black women Monica was there when that interview.
Speaker 6: It was so important because I literally had had a
Speaker 6: conversation maybe within a week, telling my literary agent that
Speaker 6: I wanted to give back the advance.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to do this book and look at it,
Speaker 4: and look at it. It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you so much for your time,
Speaker 3: and I thank you so much for giving me your tongue.
Speaker 4: I want to thank you for the the never ending support.
Speaker 6: I want to thank you for creating places where black
Speaker 6: artists can thrive and be exalted. I want to thank
Speaker 6: you for still going. I know how hard it is
Speaker 6: to be in a in in in the business, and
Speaker 6: in the be in a black bookstore. So I just
Speaker 6: want to thank you for all the things you're doing
Speaker 6: for our community.
Speaker 3: Thank you actually appreciate it. Tell the people who they
Speaker 3: can find you.
Speaker 4: I'm Ourselvia s Redols.
Speaker 6: You can find me on Instagram a Marquie mark like
Speaker 6: Marquee naming lights and.
Speaker 4: You can find me here.
Speaker 5: We will find autograph copy of all three of his
Speaker 5: book that lead books both look and online. You can
Speaker 5: find us on social media Elik Books and our podcast
Speaker 5: Leak Bookshelf.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much Marcell.
Speaker 2: Malik's bookshelf bringing the world together with books, culture and community. Hi,
Speaker 2: my name is Malik, and I'm standing by this dynamic
Speaker 2: female who wrote a beautiful new book to just hit
Speaker 2: the market just now. It's called The Diversity Dilemma, A
Speaker 2: Survival GUD for Diversity and Inclusion good Doors.
Speaker 9: Her name is.
Speaker 2: Doctor dlay That and she's gonna tell you more about
Speaker 2: this book. Why because she wrote the book. So I'm
Speaker 2: gonna turn the mic over to her right now, because Hey,
Speaker 2: she wrote.
Speaker 4: It, right I wrote the book.
Speaker 7: What an amazing introduction. I just feel so hyped and
Speaker 7: blessed to be here at Malik Books. And I did
Speaker 7: write the book because there is a diversity dilemma. A
Speaker 7: lot of people, women, people from marginalized communities. We want diversity,
Speaker 7: we want equity, we want inclusion, and we want justice.
Speaker 7: So in the work that I do, we call that
Speaker 7: the Jedi principles, like Jedi from Star Wars.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love the Jedi.
Speaker 7: I love science fiction, right, and some of the things
Speaker 7: I talk about and I believe is true change is
Speaker 7: an act of science fiction. And so I really work
Speaker 7: at connecting like things that we are entertained by and
Speaker 7: things that we see in our society to the real
Speaker 7: work that we need to do, which is justice, equity,
Speaker 7: diversity and inclusion. That's the Jedi work. And so in
Speaker 7: the book, I talk about how I fired up to
Speaker 7: do Jedi work. Fired up I was hired by the
Speaker 7: top companies in the world to do this work, and
Speaker 7: then I found myself in places that were not psychologically safe.
Speaker 7: I found myself being armed, being aggress with aggressive people,
Speaker 7: being microaggressed and macro aggressed and treated as a token.
Speaker 7: And all that to say, I wanted to write this book,
Speaker 7: especially for those people who I'm calling good doers, not
Speaker 7: do gooders, but good doers. They're trying to do good.
Speaker 7: They're trying to step up for their communities and make
Speaker 7: a difference, and then they're they're like our forefathers before us,
Speaker 7: that came before us. They're getting pressure. There is not
Speaker 7: like the hoses and the burnings and the bombings that
Speaker 7: we saw in the sixties, but it's these mental hosings, right,
Speaker 7: It's the mental abuse that we receive when we're told, oh,
Speaker 7: that's not important all we're tired of talking about race.
Speaker 7: Oh you're gonna get fired. Oh you need to stay
Speaker 7: in your lane. All these things that we hear every
Speaker 7: day when we try to speak up for ourselves.
Speaker 2: So I'm assuming nothing has changed. It's just the game
Speaker 2: is played different.
Speaker 7: I have to say something has changed. I have to
Speaker 7: give our society credit, and I really think it's our
Speaker 7: new generation coming up. They're a lot more tech savvy.
Speaker 7: They they have access to books, they have access, yes,
Speaker 7: they have access to information throughout the you know, intranet.
Speaker 7: They're seeing things when our generation they have resources. The
Speaker 7: generations before us they didn't have access the way this
Speaker 7: generation has access, and because of that, they are challenging
Speaker 7: the status quo. So I have to say there's been
Speaker 7: more language around, you know, language like anti racism, inclusion,
Speaker 7: knowing what a token is like there's certain words that
Speaker 7: we didn't know what the heck those words were. Like
Speaker 7: if what I was experiencing in the workplace was called
Speaker 7: gas lighting, but at the time, I didn't know what
Speaker 7: gaslighting was. Where I'm telling someone something's wrong and they're like, oh, no,
Speaker 7: you just need to sit down. You just know it's
Speaker 7: not an issue. You're imagining things, And I'm like, oh,
Speaker 7: maybe I am imagining things. Let me go sit down.
Speaker 7: And then now this generation is very determined to make
Speaker 7: sure there's vocabulary and language that we can all use
Speaker 7: to describe what we're feeling, what we're experiencing. And that's
Speaker 7: powerful because, as you know, words and language are power.
Speaker 2: So in your position, you was speaking truth to power.
Speaker 7: Yes, I was attempting to speak truth to power, using
Speaker 7: my truth, using my experiences. And I was often told
Speaker 7: that people just weren't ready to hear it.
Speaker 2: Well, they always say a person ain't ready, But the
Speaker 2: reality is that those are authority and those who have power.
Speaker 2: You're ready, and so why don't you implement it? Why somebody?
Speaker 9: Why you gotta hire somebody to come in and do
Speaker 9: something that you could do yourself.
Speaker 7: You just summed up the whole book that is the dilemma.
Speaker 7: Why are you asking me to help you one person
Speaker 7: who's getting paid a fraction of what some of the
Speaker 7: senior leaders are being paid. And then when that person,
Speaker 7: usually a black woman, when that person is not successful,
Speaker 7: they blame the failure of these programs on that person.
Speaker 1: Yes, they do.
Speaker 9: You know, we've seen it in sports. They brought Jackie
Speaker 9: Robinson there.
Speaker 2: He had to take a lot of spitting and a
Speaker 2: lot of bad words throwing at him, a lot of
Speaker 2: hate throwing at him, but yet he persevered. But what
Speaker 2: he had to do and doing it and the trauma
Speaker 2: and all that he had to do, you know, in
Speaker 2: order to integrate and diversified baseball, it's.
Speaker 7: Almost like you just become the sacrificial lamb.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it's I'm excited that we have those
Speaker 2: like you are in positions that are not afraid and
Speaker 2: to challenge the normals and to make changes within because
Speaker 2: you can't make a check to let you within.
Speaker 9: You know, I always say, you can't play the game
Speaker 9: unless you win the game. So if you're on the
Speaker 9: outside looking at the game, how you gonna make a change?
Speaker 7: Exactly? So, but I want to give you credit because
Speaker 7: you're making a change as an entrepreneur, as an owner,
Speaker 7: you're creating a whole table. So in corporate America we
Speaker 7: talk about bringing a chair, bring a chair to the table. Well,
Speaker 7: by the work that you do, you've created a whole table.
Speaker 7: You've created a whole room without asking permission from you know,
Speaker 7: corporations and other powers that be. He said, you know what,
Speaker 7: We're gonna create our own table. We're gonna create our
Speaker 7: own room. And this is what more of us, what
Speaker 7: we need to do. So I'm so proud and I
Speaker 7: admire the work that you're doing. Are you hiring?
Speaker 9: I really appreciate appreciate that.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, and I'm sure that my audience
Speaker 2: on Police's bookshelf is gonna love. I know this, someone
Speaker 2: I'm gonna relate wholeheartedly. Damn positions of authorities is gonna
Speaker 2: hear this. You know, and some people work in in
Speaker 2: places that they can still make a different even though
Speaker 2: they might not be a manager.
Speaker 9: Or supervisor, executive. But we can all do better whatever position.
Speaker 4: Than we in.
Speaker 2: So I want to thank you for taking the time
Speaker 2: to speak to my honors on Malise bookshelf.
Speaker 9: Thank you, And if you could just tell the audience.
Speaker 9: How they can reach you directly.
Speaker 7: Sure, so my name is spelled T like Thomas h
Speaker 7: E la FLA. Last name is Thatch. T you like
Speaker 7: Thomas h A t h. So just go to Thla
Speaker 7: Thatch dot com. I am the owner of Thla Thatched Consulting.
Speaker 7: I do HR and Equity Consulting. I'm an author and
Speaker 7: I'm a professor at UWLA and Kelset University, Long Beach.
Speaker 7: So you find me just google Thla Thatch And I
Speaker 7: look forward to coming back to my leak books because
Speaker 7: there's so many books in here I need to buy.
Speaker 9: Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 9: Welcome, welcome, walk to Malik's books. She'll bring in a
Speaker 9: world together with books, culture and community.
Speaker 2: Another author just walked into Malik Books and you know
Speaker 2: how listen, no one knows about that book better than them.
Speaker 9: I have Adrian Alexander.
Speaker 2: Yes, she wrote a book called Don't Touch My No No,
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna turn it on over to her.
Speaker 9: She gonna break down this wonderful book. It's wonderful contribution
Speaker 9: to our voice.
Speaker 7: Yes, thank you so much, Malik. I am excited to
Speaker 7: be here. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 4: You know listen, y'all.
Speaker 10: First and foremost, if you ain't got it, if you
Speaker 10: don't stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready. If you
Speaker 10: stay ready, you ain't gotta get ready.
Speaker 7: If you stay ready, you.
Speaker 4: Ain't gotta get ready.
Speaker 7: Hello, I came in here.
Speaker 10: My name is Adrian, and Alexander's Malik said. I did
Speaker 10: write a children's book. It's called Don't Touch My No
Speaker 10: No Parts. And I wrote this book because kids are
Speaker 10: being touched. You know, it's a very important topic. It's
Speaker 10: a situation that we need to talk about that we're
Speaker 10: not talking about enough. We have people out here that
Speaker 10: would like to sweep this under the who act like
Speaker 10: it's not happening. And so when I did this, of
Speaker 10: course it's from experience, because it happened to me. And
Speaker 10: it's so many people walking around here with unhealed trauma,
Speaker 10: walking and you know, not dealing with the fact that
Speaker 10: they were touched as children, not dealing with you know, oh, look, y'all,
Speaker 10: just don't go around Uncle Charles, but really making sure
Speaker 10: that Uncle Charles is getting the help that he need,
Speaker 10: or you know, taking care of the things that need
Speaker 10: to be taken care of, versus blaming it on a child.
Speaker 10: And so when I did don't touch my no No Parts,
Speaker 10: I did a male version and a girl version because
Speaker 10: we know both boys and girls are being touched. And
Speaker 10: so what it does it does talk about you.
Speaker 4: Know your no no parts.
Speaker 10: It shows you what your know no parts are. It's
Speaker 10: a children's book. It's for ages like four to kindergarten elementary.
Speaker 10: It does talk about the no no parts. It talks
Speaker 10: about you know experiences, people offering you candy, people offering
Speaker 10: you things to try to touch you, making you comfortable enough.
Speaker 10: Because statistics show that most children who are physically assaulted
Speaker 10: are touched by someone that they know, someone that they're comfortable,
Speaker 10: someone that they're used.
Speaker 4: To being around.
Speaker 10: And so I needed to have the conversation to say,
Speaker 10: regardless of yeah, regardless of how they try to tell you,
Speaker 10: oh I might hurt you, I might hurt your family.
Speaker 10: You know, if you tell somebody it's going to be wrong.
Speaker 10: You know those things, but don't listen to that, Like
Speaker 10: if they can tell you that, but even if they
Speaker 10: tell you that, you still need to tell. We need
Speaker 10: to empower empower our children with their voice to say
Speaker 10: no and to tell and share their experience.
Speaker 9: Well, this is deep here me personally.
Speaker 2: I can relate to some of the things you said
Speaker 2: because I wrote a chapter in a book called.
Speaker 9: The Heart of a Black Man, the Stories of Triumph
Speaker 9: and Resilience.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 9: And my chapter is called from Devastation to Elevation.
Speaker 2: Yes. And I opened up and made myself vulnerable and
Speaker 2: told my story. But it wasn't I was ten, but
Speaker 2: I was touched by my babysitters. Now she was sixteen,
Speaker 2: but I was ten, right, But nevertheless I was touched.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know the impact that it had made
Speaker 2: on me over my lifetime though, and how I've looked
Speaker 2: at women, how I viewed women, and the and the
Speaker 2: and the effect of being so young and thinking about
Speaker 2: sex and how that affected me in a lot of
Speaker 2: different ways.
Speaker 9: So I made myself a.
Speaker 2: Varna and told the world in my chapter about that,
Speaker 2: and I think, you know, and I shared that, and
Speaker 2: a lot.
Speaker 10: Of other men have come forward, and I think that
Speaker 10: and not even think I know what's important, because men don't,
Speaker 10: because you know, unfortunately we do.
Speaker 1: You coddle our.
Speaker 10: Girls and you know, make our boys like, oh you
Speaker 10: can't cry, you can't you know, you shouldn't be affected.
Speaker 10: You can't you know this stand the third and because
Speaker 10: men don't know how to humanize their experience, because men
Speaker 10: are so conditioned to being hard, to being strong, to
Speaker 10: not being affected. And so as a five, six, seven, ten,
Speaker 10: fifteen year old boy, because you know, even sometimes like
Speaker 10: you're older, you're still being touched by people and it's inappropriate.
Speaker 10: But because you're supposed to excuse it away or because
Speaker 10: it's it should be okay, you don't tell anybody about it,
Speaker 10: and you hold that in, you internalize it, and to
Speaker 10: your point, it affects all of your relationships going forward.
Speaker 10: Do you know how long they say it takes people
Speaker 10: to heal children to heal from sexual trauma.
Speaker 7: I've never heard the stat thirty years.
Speaker 10: Wow, it takes children thirty years to begin to heal
Speaker 10: from sexual trauma because people aren't getting help these children.
Speaker 10: And then they are even children who do tell, but
Speaker 10: people tell them they're lying.
Speaker 4: They don't believe.
Speaker 9: Every time she came over, Hey, I already knew she
Speaker 9: was coming in the room.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 7: Wow.
Speaker 9: Yeah.
Speaker 10: See, And that's the thing, and it's like, you know,
Speaker 10: it continues on and it becomes normal, you know, and
Speaker 10: it's sexualizing things for children that shouldn't even be sexualized.
Speaker 10: You know, it's like just at ten, Yeah, like at
Speaker 10: ten years old, you're supposed to be playing your video
Speaker 10: game or reading a book or outside running.
Speaker 7: The street, you know what I mean.
Speaker 10: Like, that's not something that you're supposed to be dealing with.
Speaker 10: And because children are not mature enough to understand and
Speaker 10: recognize what's happening to them as being bad, that's what
Speaker 10: they do. And I want to take this moment too.
Speaker 10: I would be remiss if I didn't No, No, No,
Speaker 10: because I would be remiss if I didn't mention my
Speaker 10: first children's book, which is called My Parents Have a
Speaker 10: Drug Problem. And so I'm from Baltimore, Wow, And so
Speaker 10: the books that I write, you know, obviously I'm coming
Speaker 10: from a place of I was a child dealing with
Speaker 10: these things and I didn't have anybody to talk to me.
Speaker 10: And so it's like when you see something that's normal
Speaker 10: every day, you don't know what's abnormal. And if your
Speaker 10: house is if you're living with a parent, a guardian
Speaker 10: that's struggling with addiction, if you're living in a house
Speaker 10: with a parent or a guardian that's touching you, that's
Speaker 10: normal and without the sense and the empowerment to say
Speaker 10: I don't like this, this is wrong. Without the education
Speaker 10: and the knowledge to say this shouldn't be happening, it
Speaker 10: happens because it's all you know.
Speaker 2: You know, I always say this that in today's families,
Speaker 2: you have a Christian, you have a Muslim, and I
Speaker 2: say you have a crack right right, I would say
Speaker 2: just about everybody the family has those three reality and
Speaker 2: and you know, I don't say it in the derogatory
Speaker 2: way because but it's addiction is something that's killing our families,
Speaker 2: in our communities. I watch my mom pain in my family,
Speaker 2: dealing with my sibling. I watch other people, families and
Speaker 2: individual I.
Speaker 9: Know, deal with that addiction. This is a devast stating reality.
Speaker 9: And I don't have all the answers, but some of
Speaker 9: the answers you can find in a book, and you
Speaker 9: can find it.
Speaker 1: You can find it.
Speaker 9: That belief author, Wow, I thought you had one, but
Speaker 9: I know you got multiple.
Speaker 4: I do.
Speaker 9: And this has been a wonderful talk, short and sweet,
Speaker 9: but powerful.
Speaker 2: Yes, tune in to Malik's bookshelf, bringing a world together
Speaker 2: with books, culture and community.
Speaker 9: Tell the people how they can reach Yes.
Speaker 10: So don't touch my no no parts dot com.
Speaker 7: There's a website.
Speaker 10: You can go to my agency pagees www dot ipy
Speaker 10: agency dot com and follow me on Instagram at I'm
Speaker 10: promoting you.
Speaker 1: Why you being go?
Speaker 2: Thank you, thanks for listening to Malik's Bookshelf, where topics
Speaker 2: on the shelf are books, culture, and community.
Speaker 1: Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. Check
Speaker 1: out my Instagram at Malik Books. See you next time.