Speaker 1: You know, one of the most chilling parts of this
Speaker 1: report is like the focus on misinformation and censorship, digital censorship, misinformation,
Speaker 1: how they undermine democracy. The more conservative these channels get,
Speaker 1: will they start to suppress progressive voices, progressive accounts.
Speaker 2: You have to have like judgment enough to say, let
Speaker 2: me look up whether this is true or not, and
Speaker 2: a lot of people don't.
Speaker 1: Let's be real.
Speaker 3: And I always I find it funny because like, these
Speaker 3: are the same people growing up who are like, don't
Speaker 3: believe everything you see.
Speaker 4: We'll be on the internet distressed and stuff.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, and they're the same ones now who
Speaker 3: are just yeah, everything's real and it's hey.
Speaker 1: Be a fam Welcome to brown Ambition. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Mandy Money. I am joined in the stew, the virtual stew,
Speaker 1: with my beloveds Chris Browning of Popcorn Finance and jan
Speaker 1: Nelly s Finale aka must be Helpful. Hey, guys, Hey,
Speaker 1: how's your summer's going. It's hot. It's hot.
Speaker 2: It is I feel like I've been traveling NonStop, but
Speaker 2: everywhere I go there's either rainstorms, flooding, or heat wave.
Speaker 1: And you're really getting a toward day, towards a climate
Speaker 1: change is what it feels like. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm scared.
Speaker 4: It's what. I won't talk about the weather over here
Speaker 4: because it's none of those things. So I'm much.
Speaker 1: I was gonna call it earlier today with someone in
Speaker 1: Cali and they were like, it's great today, y'all. Ugh,
Speaker 1: And I was like, I don't need to hear any
Speaker 1: complaints right unless you got like forest fires. No, no complaints.
Speaker 4: Place, no good place because it may or may not
Speaker 4: be sixty one degrees right now over here.
Speaker 1: Oh, you're perfect climate.
Speaker 4: It really is.
Speaker 1: That's the worst of it. I'll take it. I'll take
Speaker 1: it well. I just got a text actually from my
Speaker 1: brother breaking news. Have y'all heard? You know, what's the
Speaker 1: older brother from the Cosby Show? The actor what's his name? Malcolm? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Malcolm Yeah? Passed away?
Speaker 4: What really?
Speaker 5: Goodness of what causes what happened?
Speaker 1: I don't know. My brother just texted that he passed away.
Speaker 1: He played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby's. I don't think
Speaker 1: we've had I remind me if I'm wrong. I don't
Speaker 1: think anyone prominent from the Cosby Show has passed away.
Speaker 5: No, he's fifty four years old.
Speaker 1: Y'all.
Speaker 5: He was, Oh, my goodness, he's so young.
Speaker 1: What's so young?
Speaker 3: I was just talking to a friend about one of
Speaker 3: my favorite shows, like I gess, like late nineties was
Speaker 3: Malcolm and Eddie where it was him and uh, what's
Speaker 3: that Eddie was? It was last name, Eddie griff was good,
Speaker 3: the last name, but the comedian. They had a show together.
Speaker 3: It was like, said kind of the two of them,
Speaker 3: they lived together, and I was like, I love that show,
Speaker 3: but no one really ever watched it.
Speaker 1: Oh no, y'all.
Speaker 5: He died of an apparent accident till drowning.
Speaker 1: No. Oh, that breaks my heart. You know.
Speaker 2: Ever since I was a little girl, I always used
Speaker 2: to be like pushing, push, pushing that people need to
Speaker 2: learn how to swim, swim, swim because I went to
Speaker 2: a middle school called Philippa Skuyler Middle School, which was
Speaker 2: I s thirty three.
Speaker 5: Shoutout to everybody who went to Skyler in Bushwick. It
Speaker 5: wasn't named you know.
Speaker 2: It was named after a woman named Philippa Skuyler who
Speaker 2: Keys Alicia Keys was supposed.
Speaker 1: To play her in a film.
Speaker 2: But the thing about her, she was a child prodigy,
Speaker 2: an exceptional pianist like by the age of three years old,
Speaker 2: she was composing music playing piano, This black woman who
Speaker 2: nobody almost pretty much nobody really knows her name, And
Speaker 2: when you look up her story, the most tragic thing
Speaker 2: she died when she was trying to save children who
Speaker 2: were in the water and she couldn't swim, but she
Speaker 2: was going out trying to save then she ended up drowning.
Speaker 2: And I was probably like eleven years old in middle
Speaker 2: school when they taught us the story of Philippa Skyler,
Speaker 2: and ever since then it stuck with me, like, yo,
Speaker 2: if she just knew how to swim, she would still
Speaker 2: be a liight or not today, but she would probably
Speaker 2: maybe still her legend would.
Speaker 5: Be one of like living to old age.
Speaker 2: And being able to tell the story of being a prodigy.
Speaker 2: Like that is just so heartbreaking. The fact that he
Speaker 2: died of an accidental drowning. I don't know dak details,
Speaker 2: but I just looked it up real quick and it
Speaker 2: says that apparently over the weekend he had a tragic,
Speaker 2: unexpected accident where he drowned, just like.
Speaker 1: No, actually, some people drown who do know how to swim.
Speaker 1: It depends on like the currents. Do you remember the
Speaker 1: oh that beautiful girl from Glee, what was her name,
Speaker 1: you know, and she was like, oh, that's the most
Speaker 1: heartbreaking drowning. I mean, obviously her condolence is the Malcolm story,
Speaker 1: Malcolm's family. Yeah, she was. She was in the middle
Speaker 1: of a lake and you wouldn't think a lake would
Speaker 1: have crazy currents right now, you're rivera, No, that's her name,
Speaker 1: thank you. That was terrible. I remember when that happened,
Speaker 1: and like she could swim and she was able to
Speaker 1: swim and save her son, but the currents were so
Speaker 1: strong from the wind, I guess. Yeah. So, but whatever
Speaker 1: the circumstances, that is absolutely tragic, vacation with his family, terrible, iconic.
Speaker 1: The COSMU show is everything. And I know that Bill
Speaker 1: tried to do what he could to smear the legacy
Speaker 1: of that show and almost, excuse me, succeeded. But we
Speaker 1: still have so many greats that have come from that show,
Speaker 1: and he was one of them. And that's really right.
Speaker 5: And all the kid actors on that show, like, we're phenomenal,
Speaker 5: every single one.
Speaker 1: They were, oh incredible. It gave us Lisa Bonnet, they
Speaker 1: gave us Felicia Rashad, they gave us raven some mound.
Speaker 1: Did y'all grow up watching The Cosby Show? Yes, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course.
Speaker 4: For sure that and uh what was it spen off?
Speaker 4: A different world?
Speaker 1: M h, a different se before. But now the kids
Speaker 1: have we have streaming apps, we have like we had DVR,
Speaker 1: which eventually came to be. But if you were not
Speaker 1: sad for those shows, you would like miss it. And
Speaker 1: so sure, I don't know what my childhood schedule was,
Speaker 1: but A Different World was not. I couldn't watch it
Speaker 1: as much. I would love to watch that now as
Speaker 1: an adult, though, I think you can on Netflix. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's on Netflix myself.
Speaker 3: What's that, oh, Sidia, it has to be streaming somewhere, because
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure I watched it like reruns, like during
Speaker 3: the day, like you know, like in the summer vacation.
Speaker 3: That's when I watched a different word a lot, like
Speaker 3: it was a Cosby Show or a different world, like
Speaker 3: sometimes randomly in the morning that it would come on
Speaker 3: on some channel, you know, you know, back of the day.
Speaker 4: You don't know what y'all know what I was watching.
Speaker 4: I just turned the TV on and something what's happening?
Speaker 2: I was the one who was up late my mom
Speaker 2: and dad would go to sleep, and I would stay
Speaker 2: up late watching Livy Single like I was watching The
Speaker 2: Cosby Show.
Speaker 5: A different world. I watched all the late night.
Speaker 2: Shows, or at least nick at night. They would play them,
Speaker 2: and I would just literally stay up till two in
Speaker 2: the morning. My mom would think I was sleeping because
Speaker 2: she was pray Hullo Rosary and go to sleep, and
Speaker 2: I would get out the bed.
Speaker 1: And go Wader, How did you hide the sound?
Speaker 2: No, because their room was like two or three rooms
Speaker 2: away from the living room, so I would just put
Speaker 2: it on low volume.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't even know.
Speaker 3: That's how you do. That's how I watched all of
Speaker 3: the Jeffersons was naked night late at night. Just you
Speaker 3: just gotta close the door a little bit and hope
Speaker 3: nobody watched my nose.
Speaker 4: You're awake. That's right.
Speaker 1: Well, that's so sad. Condolence sister, his family. I don't
Speaker 1: know if he had kids or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: I'm sure I'm sure that the cast will be issuing statements.
Speaker 1: He was in a show with Tracy Ellis Ross too.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that show. You were thinking of Eddie Griffin.
Speaker 4: There we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right, Malcolm and Eddie. That was ninety six
Speaker 1: to two thousand. Oh man, Well, what else has been
Speaker 1: going on in the world? I wanted? I was like, well,
Speaker 1: that was kind of I mean, that's very sad news.
Speaker 1: Do I have to jump directly into more sad news?
Speaker 1: I mean, let's just keep the let's just keep it going.
Speaker 1: I have to talk about y'all know, the National Urban League,
Speaker 1: iconic organization right has been you know, for decades now
Speaker 1: working to advance equality for us, and they issued this
Speaker 1: report called the State of Black America, which just came
Speaker 1: out this past week. I was on the embargo list
Speaker 1: because I guess they're partnering with NABJ and I don't
Speaker 1: know how so I hadn't I had an advanced copy
Speaker 1: of it. And the first thing I see when I
Speaker 1: have y'all seen have you opened the link that I
Speaker 1: put in the show notes.
Speaker 5: I didn't get to read it thoroughly, but it looks
Speaker 5: like it's very detailed.
Speaker 1: Just just open just open the front, open the door.
Speaker 4: Everything with fire. Everything's on fire.
Speaker 1: That's great, literally a dumpster fire. Literally. They were like, hmm,
Speaker 1: what could be the right image to straight to accurately
Speaker 1: represent How about? And I can just imagine the zoom
Speaker 1: call they were on and someone's like, I have an idea, please,
Speaker 1: A flaming hot pile of garbage. No, but literally a
Speaker 1: garbage can on fire. What have we got in this
Speaker 1: garbage can? We got the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 1: we got freedom of speech, we got the FDA, we
Speaker 1: got the us Aid Organization Title nine, which stops racism
Speaker 1: and discrimination in schools. We got at the USDA, FEMA
Speaker 1: Title X funding snap benefits. I mean, you know, I
Speaker 1: bet they were adding things to this up until the
Speaker 1: last second.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, because you just never know what's gonna pop
Speaker 4: up next, Right.
Speaker 5: There's so much to choose for put it all in there.
Speaker 1: The sad thing is this is not even exaggeration. They
Speaker 1: probably had to leave some stuff out. They can't fut
Speaker 1: anything else in our dumpster fire, you guys, we have to.
Speaker 1: We got to stop it somewhere. But just some of
Speaker 1: the I did want to read some of the main
Speaker 1: points and bea family can put this in those show notes.
Speaker 1: It's hard because when you're living it, it feels like,
Speaker 1: why do we want to belabor these points? And just
Speaker 1: like re traumatize ourselves to what's going on. But the
Speaker 1: first thing I thought about when I saw this wasn't necessarily, oh,
Speaker 1: this is really depressing. I don't want to read this
Speaker 1: as sucks. We already know what's happening. It's more like
Speaker 1: this is a document that can supplement our kids' education
Speaker 1: in the future. Like this is history. This is like
Speaker 1: a history book. It's a snapshot of what's going on
Speaker 1: in Black America right now. And for that, I feel
Speaker 1: like it's really important that we do have some sort
Speaker 1: of like we have a historical documentation of what has
Speaker 1: been happening and the context of everything, the order of things,
Speaker 1: from the far right media to legalizing our justice system
Speaker 1: against pretty much every constitutional right that's meant to protect us,
Speaker 1: the policy rollbacks, the DEI rollbacks. I'm sure there's stuff
Speaker 1: in here about police brutality as well. You know, it's
Speaker 1: an important document.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 1: Is it light bedtime reading? Probably? No.
Speaker 4: I would definitely not read this before from going to bed.
Speaker 4: I was supposed to.
Speaker 1: Speak at the Urban League this summer. Oops, I messed up.
Speaker 4: I was to what happened.
Speaker 1: It was a virtual It was a virtual thing, like
Speaker 1: it was gonna it's a virtual conference. I think it's
Speaker 1: happening this week, which is why they brought out them.
Speaker 1: They issued this report in tandem with that or last week. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so National Urban League. They had invited me to do
Speaker 1: a talk something personal finance related months ago, and I
Speaker 1: was supposed to submit like a video. I was supposed
Speaker 1: to record my session and then submit it and I
Speaker 1: just plum, I just plumb forgot. And then it wasn't
Speaker 1: until Melissa Millennial what it was not Broken Millennial in debt,
Speaker 1: thank you. It wasn't until she had posted on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh damn, I'm not supposed to be there.
Speaker 5: I think I was supposed to do that too, and it.
Speaker 1: Was a paid gig too. But it was fine because
Speaker 1: they also kind of forgot, and I kind of forgot.
Speaker 1: It's the best one that happens. But I'll see them
Speaker 1: next year, I guess.
Speaker 4: I mean they at least said you this too.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe that's why I was on the press list
Speaker 1: for this. So if you want to read that whole
Speaker 1: beautiful thing, beautiful document, it would not be using a
Speaker 1: Trump term. We can't use the word beautiful any Jesus.
Speaker 1: I cannot.
Speaker 3: Well, my question for you then man is like someone
Speaker 3: who like, you know, journalism is your background, and I
Speaker 3: mean it's tough reading anything right now. It's tough being
Speaker 3: present and aware and you know, up to date. How
Speaker 3: how do you handle your own mental health when you
Speaker 3: know stuff feels rough.
Speaker 1: Like this, I garden, I go to the Gaunton Darling,
Speaker 1: I escape. You know what I think the biggest it's
Speaker 1: so it's it's really hard to say this with a
Speaker 1: straight face because obviously it is incredibly difficult and challenging
Speaker 1: and the hardest work you'll ever do in your life.
Speaker 1: But having kids is sort of a cheat code if
Speaker 1: you enjoy it, because if you like, if you enjoy it,
Speaker 1: having kids is honestly the biggest cheat code for like
Speaker 1: as a coping mechanism, as a like a as an exercise,
Speaker 1: and staying present and not giving in to waves of
Speaker 1: anxiety because like the definition of anxiety is being out
Speaker 1: of the present moment. It's about thinking about what's to
Speaker 1: come and the what if send, the you know, preparing,
Speaker 1: And there's healthy levels of anxiety and then there's the
Speaker 1: excruciating levels, which I am prone to, as so many
Speaker 1: women are, especially women of color. But having kids that
Speaker 1: just at the end of the day, they cannot Like
Speaker 1: if I let them go loose in my house while
Speaker 1: I'm doom scrolling, my house will be destroyed. Everyone will
Speaker 1: be screaming at each other. I got to get them
Speaker 1: at the house. I got to go take them to
Speaker 1: the pool. And while I'm at the pool, which is
Speaker 1: what I did yesterday, I can't have my phone on me.
Speaker 1: I can't be looking you have like you literally have
Speaker 1: to be present or else they will find a way
Speaker 1: to kill themselves like it is just a fact or
Speaker 1: mortally injure themselves or someone else. So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: so in a way, that's one way. And also just
Speaker 1: like contextualizing things from the eyes of you know what
Speaker 1: this means for my kids. So like the way I
Speaker 1: did it was thinking about how maybe I can save
Speaker 1: this to supplement their future education. Who the hell knows
Speaker 1: what kind of textbooks are going to be reading when
Speaker 1: they get to be school aged, like you know, middle
Speaker 1: school and high school age, when they start to really
Speaker 1: dive into history. So that that helps. And just knowing that,
Speaker 1: I I think that there is some there. There's a
Speaker 1: lot to argue for just sticking your head under a
Speaker 1: pillow and just sleeping all day and like you know,
Speaker 1: checking out and falling into a depression because there's just
Speaker 1: a lot to be depressed about. Let's just be honest,
Speaker 1: I just don't have that option. Like I can be depressed,
Speaker 1: but I have to be functionally depressed, and to a
Speaker 1: certain extent, forcing myself out the house even if I
Speaker 1: am really depressed, because I do still have periods of depression,
Speaker 1: but getting outside and engaging with society is something I
Speaker 1: have to do as a mother, and it helps. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna lie.
Speaker 3: You know what that that's a good point because it
Speaker 3: is those moments where I step outside and you see
Speaker 3: other people or.
Speaker 4: You're like okay, all right, kind of kind of ground
Speaker 4: you a little bit.
Speaker 3: That you're like, okay, it's uh, it's things aren't going great,
Speaker 3: but at least you know, it's not as bad as
Speaker 3: like your mind could kind of catastrophize it, like it
Speaker 3: feels like everything is just burnt to the ground, and
Speaker 3: sometimes to kind of snap yourself out of it. Stepping
Speaker 3: outside does help, even if it feels so cliche to say,
Speaker 3: oh what, you go outside, but it kind of does
Speaker 3: help a little bit.
Speaker 1: It has to. I mean, like you have to. You
Speaker 1: have to. But that's the hardest part. It's like when
Speaker 1: you're in that state, when you are just so I mean,
Speaker 1: do y'all deal with depression at all or have you
Speaker 1: had depression in your lives?
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna lie. I have not had a ton
Speaker 2: of issues with depression. And I wonder if that's because
Speaker 2: of constantly being surrounded by people like you know how
Speaker 2: you talk about Mandy, how you don't really have a choice.
Speaker 2: You have to be You do have to be functional,
Speaker 2: whether you want to or not. Like I'm one of
Speaker 2: nine siblings, so it was if it wasn't one of
Speaker 2: my siblings, if it wasn't my mom or my dad,
Speaker 2: it was always constantly others around me, meeting me right
Speaker 2: to be present. And I feel like that just that
Speaker 2: is like my mind. In my mind, the vision that
Speaker 2: I have of myself is like the energizer bunny, Like
Speaker 2: I have no choice.
Speaker 5: To just keep going and going and going and going.
Speaker 2: If it's not personal family stuff, it's work. If it's
Speaker 2: not work, it's my own person. It's my business, or
Speaker 2: my relationship or my friends or my nieces will text me.
Speaker 2: And I just constantly feel like I'm in go go
Speaker 2: go mode, and then when I do get a chance
Speaker 2: to pause and reflect and take a break if anything,
Speaker 2: I just I'm like, I need to take a nap,
Speaker 2: Like I just need to rest. So it's just the
Speaker 2: cycle of like like literally dentergizing money.
Speaker 5: Go go, go, go go.
Speaker 1: Oh that's wonderful. Yeah, I mean I maybe there is
Speaker 1: something to that. It sounds right, I mean having good
Speaker 1: healthy family dynamics or at least you know so. And
Speaker 1: I know there's no all perfect family, but still.
Speaker 2: Right absolutely not to say there's no chaos, no drama,
Speaker 2: no toxicity, just in terms of me dealing with it internally,
Speaker 2: not a lot of depression on my part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, blessed.
Speaker 3: I would say I've never, like like not clinically you know,
Speaker 3: diagnosed with depression. But I know I've definitely dealt with
Speaker 3: anxiety for most of my life, and then I've definitely
Speaker 3: appeared in time when I was like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if I'm depressed. This kind of feels like it it
Speaker 3: can be hard to snap yourself out of it.
Speaker 1: I think it's been a year since I was in
Speaker 1: LA and I think at that time, weren't you just
Speaker 1: kind of coming out of a like a, well, no,
Speaker 1: you had like done your fitness journey and stuff by that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it felt.
Speaker 4: Like it was at the start of it kind of
Speaker 4: like breaking out of it.
Speaker 3: Like I got like really down and kind of like
Speaker 3: especially I think it is that that isolation like you
Speaker 3: were talking about, like I was, you know, living by
Speaker 3: myself at that point, and you know you kind of
Speaker 3: like I was started therapy already and I was kind
Speaker 3: of I think that sometimes it's that there's that period
Speaker 3: of time where you're in therapy and you got to
Speaker 3: like really dig it into some stuff you don't want
Speaker 3: to talk about, and then you really had to face
Speaker 3: a lot of parts of yourself. And I think that's
Speaker 3: where I was like really like, oh god, you know,
Speaker 3: how's this going. You know, I don't want to I
Speaker 3: don't really want to go do things. I didn't really
Speaker 3: want to hang out that much. I was just like,
Speaker 3: you know, just you just kinda stay inside way too much.
Speaker 3: And I was in that phase kind of breaking out,
Speaker 3: and then I hang out with you many like that helped.
Speaker 4: Like we went outside. I had to go on a
Speaker 4: hike with you and almost fall off the side of
Speaker 4: a cliff.
Speaker 1: And wow, I made you get up so early? Oh
Speaker 1: my god, did I save you? Was it me? Was
Speaker 1: the idea?
Speaker 4: I'm not giving you that credit. I would not give it.
Speaker 5: Who needs antidepressives and you got Maddy as a friend.
Speaker 1: No. But that was perfect for me too, because I
Speaker 1: was just coming out of postpartum, like I had been
Speaker 1: a year, and that was my first trip by myself
Speaker 1: to have my whole brain to myself. I was so
Speaker 1: excited to just like I was giddy to be out
Speaker 1: there and like be communicating with people and you know,
Speaker 1: working on my book and all that. So oh, I
Speaker 1: love that for us because it was I feel like
Speaker 1: maybe we were on like kind of the same wavelength
Speaker 1: of you know, do we want to go do this hike?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: But then once you're doing it, at least for me,
Speaker 1: I was like, let's do more, let's go further. Then
Speaker 1: I saw how much you sweat, and I was like, no, abort,
Speaker 1: this is disgusting. I don't want to see no mo this.
Speaker 3: Oh No, it was hot. You know, she takes us
Speaker 3: on this hike. It is out, there's any shade, You're
Speaker 3: just in the sun, just getting ruin.
Speaker 1: No my fault, California ain't got no shade.
Speaker 3: It was so hot that day, it had to be
Speaker 3: pushing ninety ish and I don't even know what it was,
Speaker 3: but it was way too but it was, you know,
Speaker 3: even despite it almost have a heat stroke.
Speaker 4: It was it was nice to get out.
Speaker 5: It was worth it. Besides that it was worth it was.
Speaker 1: Why are we talking? Oh, yeah, just depression in general. No,
Speaker 1: but I think I think for me, the cycles of depression.
Speaker 1: What's great about my journey, you know, to understanding myself
Speaker 1: is things do tend to go on a cycle, and
Speaker 1: so I can recognize when we're going down, and then
Speaker 1: it actually makes it easier to cope with because I
Speaker 1: know that what goes down must come up. And then
Speaker 1: I just kind of almost you lean into the downward
Speaker 1: slide a bit. And by leaning into it and just
Speaker 1: be honest about it, then people are you know, ones
Speaker 1: who I've opened up to, like my husband and my neighbors,
Speaker 1: my family, They can one give me space to just
Speaker 1: like be a grumpy monkey. Amazing book. If you're a parent,
Speaker 1: you need to read a book to your kids about
Speaker 1: being depressed and just leaving people to feel their feelings.
Speaker 1: I can just kind of be a grumpy monkey and
Speaker 1: then just know that it will pass and feelings change
Speaker 1: and you know all that, and it's it's helpful in
Speaker 1: that way. You know. One of the most chilling parts
Speaker 1: of this report is like the focus on misinformation and censorship,
Speaker 1: digital censorship, misinformation, how they undermine democracy, the surge and
Speaker 1: right wing extremist language. You know, Trump has his own
Speaker 1: social media platform. Now, who knows what the hell he gets.
Speaker 1: I mean, some people are over there apparently, because I
Speaker 1: saw a headline about how he used an AI generated
Speaker 1: clip of Obama being taken away in handcuffs and just
Speaker 1: posted that on his his his true social account. And
Speaker 1: the more conservative our social media platforms get, y'all saw
Speaker 1: all those tech executives social media saw Zuckerberg, you know, now,
Speaker 1: we got Elan, we got Musk, you know, overseeing Twitter now.
Speaker 1: So the more conservative these channels get, will they start
Speaker 1: to suppress progressive voices progressive accounts? And I mean shit,
Speaker 1: I was on YouTube earlier and it was the most
Speaker 1: convincing AI. I almost believed for a second that Oprah
Speaker 1: Winfrey was sch was like a shilling for Himalayan pink salt.
Speaker 1: She was like, hey, guys, like you heard about the
Speaker 1: Himalayan pink salt diet. I'm like, what is this? I
Speaker 1: was like, wait a second. I had to look so carefully.
Speaker 1: It was honestly, it looks so real that I just
Speaker 1: if I hadn't already intellectually known that this has been
Speaker 1: happening to celebrities, including like Gail King her friend, and
Speaker 1: I was like, this can't be right. But it's so
Speaker 1: hard to trust everything.
Speaker 2: I know. You have to have like judgment enough to say,
Speaker 2: let me look up whether this is true or not.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't. Let's be real.
Speaker 3: Oh there's so many people would just see stuff and
Speaker 3: be like oh okay. And it's like you can if
Speaker 3: you looked at it, you could tell it's fake. But
Speaker 3: like you said, Mandy, it's getting harder and harder. You
Speaker 3: really have to be skeptical. And I always I find
Speaker 3: it funny because like my parent not my parents are
Speaker 3: not too bad because my dad barely knows how to
Speaker 3: use the internet. But my friends, their parents, they'll be
Speaker 3: like believing stuff is sending it to them and they're like,
Speaker 3: what are you talking about?
Speaker 4: This is fake?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, these are the same people growing up
Speaker 3: who are like, don't believe everything you see. Yeah, I'll
Speaker 3: be on the internet distrusted and stuff, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: and they're the same ones now who are just yeah,
Speaker 3: everything's real And it's oh.
Speaker 1: My god, the number of like ridiculous YouTube videos. My
Speaker 1: dad sent me about how Beyonce is like is demonic
Speaker 1: and satanic. I'm here in jay Z this man. Ah,
Speaker 1: He's like, just watch y'all. Don't y'all won't be watching
Speaker 1: what I'd be sending you. I'm like, Dad, if I
Speaker 1: see it's from Facebook, I'm not click. The reason why
Speaker 1: we don't watch it.
Speaker 4: It's probably like forty five minutes too.
Speaker 1: Oh Lord, only talk about the decline obviously. In DEI,
Speaker 1: I was looking, I'm going, I'm gonna be speaking at
Speaker 1: an event this week, and one of the panelists I
Speaker 1: know used to be the head of DEI for a
Speaker 1: big media brand and now her title is just Inclusion Officer. Okay,
Speaker 1: which is interesting. I guess inclusion's fine.
Speaker 5: Including everybody, but that's just that's literally what EI means.
Speaker 5: But okay, exactly, but okay.
Speaker 1: Well, there is some there are some bright spots in this.
Speaker 1: They talk about there's been a five percent increase in
Speaker 1: voter participation in states that have implemented same day voter registration.
Speaker 1: So they're basically laying out like, if we want more,
Speaker 1: we want our voices to be heard, we have to
Speaker 1: we have to focus on yeahs such a good message.
Speaker 1: We have to focus on voter engagement. So how do
Speaker 1: we actually get more people to the polls? I know
Speaker 1: when I had Mickey Kendall on the show a few
Speaker 1: months back, a couple months back now, she's the author
Speaker 1: of Hood Feminism, and she's like a scholar and very
Speaker 1: like exceptionally intelligent woman, and she she was theorizing that
Speaker 1: it wasn't that Black America didn't vote for voted for Trump.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of people voted for Trump. It
Speaker 1: was that a lot of people didn't vote period. And
Speaker 1: being able to increase access to the polls, if we
Speaker 1: could make it as easy to vote in elections as
Speaker 1: we did to vote for Nicolandria, Like you saw what
Speaker 1: Nicolandra and Nation did for Nick and Landriy, y'all saw
Speaker 1: what we did for them, right, Like we need apps,
Speaker 1: we need there's the technology is there? That's the sad part,
Speaker 1: you know, it's you know, our our lawmakers do they
Speaker 1: have an appetite, and do they have the will? Do
Speaker 1: they have the fire?
Speaker 5: The fire tax is so easy, but you can't vote
Speaker 5: as easily.
Speaker 1: Make it makes sense.
Speaker 3: They could be holiday on top of that, Like that's
Speaker 3: that's just never something that they've done.
Speaker 1: There, Work's the simplest damn thing, exactly. Thank you for that.
Speaker 1: Every major voting holiday should be every major voting national election.
Speaker 1: I would even argue, like at your state level, like
Speaker 1: mayor mayor mayoral races and gubernatorial races, because local politics
Speaker 1: is so much more important now.
Speaker 2: Yes, at the very least a half day, a mandatory
Speaker 2: half day, like, come on.
Speaker 4: It would be It would be nothing to make that
Speaker 4: a thing.
Speaker 1: But no. So they also say seventy one percent of
Speaker 1: those who registered online turned out to vote, compared to
Speaker 1: forty eight percent and fifty two percent of those who
Speaker 1: registered by mail or through a state state agency. So
Speaker 1: seventy one percent of those who registered online. So if
Speaker 1: we could just do more online registrations, we can get
Speaker 1: more votes out. Twenty two million registered voters could be
Speaker 1: added to state voter roles in the first year. If
Speaker 1: every state were to today implement automatic voter registration. We
Speaker 1: just need like a million on ellies out there saying,
Speaker 1: like lobbying for these types of changes.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, it's not that difficult when it
Speaker 2: comes to the local level, because generally speaking, lawmakers are
Speaker 2: afraid to not get reelected if their constituents are sending
Speaker 2: them emails and giving them phone calls saying this needs
Speaker 2: to happen. So as long as at the local level,
Speaker 2: you kind of you know, create that like local effect.
Speaker 2: It's much harder to change things nationally. So I really
Speaker 2: do feel like there's so much hope hearing that this
Speaker 2: is at the local level because that is so much
Speaker 2: easier to address and trying to get federal mandates.
Speaker 1: That's right. It all comes down to these local elected
Speaker 1: officials and the decisions they're making for day to day
Speaker 1: survival versus long term democracy. Like and it's it's quite sad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I truly do not understand why. Why
Speaker 2: is same day voter registration not like who who would
Speaker 2: argue against that? And why what is the argument against
Speaker 2: same day voter registration? Please make it make sense. The
Speaker 2: fact that if I can, if I can wake up
Speaker 2: today and go sign up for the army, why can't
Speaker 2: I wake up today and go sign up to vote.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter that the election is today, It doesn't matter,
Speaker 2: Like I truly cannot understand what.
Speaker 5: The argument against it is, because somebody can make it
Speaker 5: make sense. Please please, they're so good at tracking. Also,
Speaker 5: like they're so good at tracking when someone turns eighteen,
Speaker 5: so you can get that, you know, get that, get
Speaker 5: that check from them for their taxes, and or even
Speaker 5: before that, when someone's working, you know, when someone's fifteen sixteen,
Speaker 5: I was having taxes taken out of my you know,
Speaker 5: my paychecks, and I didn't even know I could get
Speaker 5: a refund.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the IRIS is so good about tracking that.
Speaker 1: Why the hell can't you automatically get a voter registration? Like,
Speaker 1: why can't you be automatically registered to vote the minute
Speaker 1: you turn eighteen? It's complete nonsense. It should just be
Speaker 1: like here's your voter registration. You don't even need a card,
Speaker 1: but like here's your card, here's your whatever acknowledgment.
Speaker 2: You're a voter, and they're not taking your choice from
Speaker 2: you because ultimately the choice to go to decide to
Speaker 2: get up and go actually vote at a polling place,
Speaker 2: that's still ultimately your choice. But you're registered, so that you,
Speaker 2: so you can go like I just don't again, make it.
Speaker 4: Make sense exactly.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I turned eighteen, I got one of
Speaker 3: those what the registration cards for the like the draft
Speaker 3: registration cards. When I turned eighteen. I didn't feel out
Speaker 3: a thing, and I think should but they sent to teams.
Speaker 5: They sent it to you.
Speaker 1: There you go. Well, we got to also take a
Speaker 1: moment to just shout out the organization and the representatives
Speaker 1: who actually are fighting back against all these policy changes,
Speaker 1: these laws. So NAACP, if you're looking for organization to donate,
Speaker 1: to become a recurring donor to, I would say NAACP,
Speaker 1: the a c l U American Civil Civil Liberties Union. Yes. So,
Speaker 1: NAACP has a lawsuit working its way through the courts
Speaker 1: right now challenging the defunding and dismantling of the Department
Speaker 1: of Education. The National Urban League National Urban League itself
Speaker 1: has sued the Trump administration to challenge executive orders to
Speaker 1: terminate DEI programs as well as like grants and contracts
Speaker 1: tied to equity related purposes. So there are also the
Speaker 1: US or sorry, state's attorneys general. State attorneys general? Which
Speaker 1: one do you make? Plural attorneys things state attorneys general.
Speaker 1: I went to a really amazing event that had Tiss
Speaker 1: James and four other state attorneys general. Why is that
Speaker 1: so hard from other states? And they were literally on
Speaker 1: tour to talk about the way that they are trying
Speaker 1: to protect people civil rights, you know, at the at
Speaker 1: the state level, and you know they're doing extraordinary work
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all important because a lot of us are
Speaker 2: too quick to talk about what is being done to
Speaker 2: dismantle democracy, but not many of us are aware of
Speaker 2: what's being done to fight back against that. And I
Speaker 2: think that they're equally important to talk about. They should
Speaker 2: be discussed in tandem every time you fix them off
Speaker 2: to say, oh, and they're coming for the Department of Bay,
Speaker 2: but also, here's how we're fighting back against that, because
Speaker 2: otherwise we're spewing the narrative that this is all falling
Speaker 2: apart and that nobody is fighting up back against it,
Speaker 2: and that's just not true.
Speaker 3: Oh I was gonna say, yeah, I A because like,
Speaker 3: I feel like you don't get those pieces of news together.
Speaker 3: And so for me when I'm reading the news, you know,
Speaker 3: you just it caused you, I think, to spiral out because.
Speaker 4: It feels so hopeless that.
Speaker 3: You don't normally get both sides simultaneously. It's like maybe
Speaker 3: a few days later you might hopefully come across something
Speaker 3: that makes you feel more hopeful about the situation.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: That's why journalism is so important, you know, events like NABJ.
Speaker 2: I just went to NAHJ National Associates for Hispanic Journalists
Speaker 2: last two weeks ago in Chicago. It was amazing, it
Speaker 2: was so incredible. I got to attend two of the
Speaker 2: sessions before I had to fly to Puerto Rico, CAA's
Speaker 2: I had a bachelorette and a concert to go to.
Speaker 1: But it was a brand, very on brand.
Speaker 2: But I did sit for a panel just where we
Speaker 2: I was a panelist where we just talked about like
Speaker 2: what every journalist needs to know about their own personal finances.
Speaker 2: And that was Yeah, that was put together by CNBC.
Speaker 2: Sharon Eperson at CNBC. She's incredible, the senior corespondent.
Speaker 1: Oh, I love my Sharon. Amazing, She's coming on the
Speaker 1: show next week. It's amazing.
Speaker 5: Place are I said, Hey, I love her. So I
Speaker 5: saw her in Chicago.
Speaker 2: And what I'll tell you after that session was over,
Speaker 2: it was like the lunch session ended, we did that panel,
Speaker 2: and then I walked into the hallway. There was a
Speaker 2: line of people lining up to talk to us, to
Speaker 2: the panelists, and every single person that I spoke with said,
Speaker 2: this was the best session. I've been coming to these
Speaker 2: events for a decade and I have yet to sit
Speaker 2: through a session that focused on what I can do
Speaker 2: for my personal financial situation given the journalism industry and
Speaker 2: how tough it is because oftentimes you'll say, oh, pick
Speaker 2: up a side hustle, but if you're a journalist, you can't.
Speaker 2: You know, you're literally pouring your sweat, blood and tears
Speaker 2: into these stories where you don't have time to go
Speaker 2: pick up side gigs in side hustles, and so a
Speaker 2: lot of the tracks and.
Speaker 1: You're prevented by your contract typically and a lot of
Speaker 1: times your contract, right, So you have these traditional financial
Speaker 1: tips and tricks that don't work for journalists a lot
Speaker 1: of times.
Speaker 2: And so we kind of addressed that, and we talked
Speaker 2: about that, and I think just in general, the importance
Speaker 2: of like journalistic work that is truly a unbiased and
Speaker 2: be like Chris to your point, really sharing both sides,
Speaker 2: both sides of any like give it, you know, give
Speaker 2: the perspective and then immediately share. And that takes a
Speaker 2: lot of research. It takes digging and really caring intimately
Speaker 2: about what you're reporting on. And I feel like that's
Speaker 2: why journalism is so social critical today, even more than before.
Speaker 2: I feel like we've always elevated journalistic work, of course,
Speaker 2: knowing that it's important, but in the climate that we're
Speaker 2: in now, it's even more important. I would argue, M
Speaker 2: I agree, And.
Speaker 1: Then sister friend, all right, well, let's leave this dumpster
Speaker 1: fire report to the side. Be a fam you could.
Speaker 1: You could find it in the show notes bookmarket, share
Speaker 1: it with your families, just let them know that we're
Speaker 1: I love that we have like a document. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's so much content out there. Sometimes just having an
Speaker 1: on plane English on a piece of paper or a
Speaker 1: PDF is helpful. I just want to my to my
Speaker 1: son's future history teachers, like be prepared to be sick
Speaker 1: of me. I will be fact checking everything you sent home.
Speaker 1: I will be asking about field trips and supplemental readings.
Speaker 1: And I feel like any school where the pe coach
Speaker 1: is the history teacher is like a hard no for me.
Speaker 1: They will not be attending.
Speaker 5: No, thank you just underfunded, baby, but come on, we
Speaker 5: got to do better.
Speaker 1: Yes, all right, Well moving along, I wanted some happy news.
Speaker 1: Is JP Morgan chases out with a new report that shows, finally, Americans,
Speaker 1: we are getting the picture. We're getting the memo about investing,
Speaker 1: and more and more households are starting to shift their
Speaker 1: money out of checking and regular savings accounts into investment accounts.
Speaker 1: Fighting Meanwhile, my dad's like, how much money do I
Speaker 1: have in Vanguard? Can I get some of that? I'm like,
Speaker 1: you better stop listen.
Speaker 2: We a while back during the pandemic, my parents my
Speaker 2: dad had just turned sixty five, No, my dad had
Speaker 2: just turned seventy, my mom had just turned sixty five,
Speaker 2: and we're working with them to just try to like
Speaker 2: shift into like the retirement mindset. And we just had
Speaker 2: to put structures in place, systems in place, because it's
Speaker 2: just so First of all, the system is so difficult.
Speaker 2: Like my parents don't speak English, they didn't have bank accounts.
Speaker 2: They've always been cash only, immigrant lifestyle. And so I
Speaker 2: first had to tell them that you cannot claim your
Speaker 2: Social Security benefits with a paper check in the mail anymore.
Speaker 2: And they thought that they could just fill out some
Speaker 2: application and start getting a check in the mail and
Speaker 2: take it to the check cashing place, and I'm like, no,
Speaker 2: In case you did not know, the Social Security Administration
Speaker 2: does not issue paper checks anymore. That stopped happening like
Speaker 2: back in twenty sixteen. So the only way you can
Speaker 2: claim your benefits is if you have a online bank.
Speaker 2: If you have a bank account that you can link
Speaker 2: it online through your Social Security portal. And then they
Speaker 2: direct deposited every month. So we had to open bank
Speaker 2: accounts for them both, which they had never done. And
Speaker 2: then it was COVID, so we couldn't go in person
Speaker 2: to the banks. So I had to search and find
Speaker 2: online banks that would allow me to open accounts for
Speaker 2: my parents or with my parents, And the language barrier was.
Speaker 5: An issue, and it was truly I'm talking.
Speaker 2: About jumping through hoops and so and now we have
Speaker 2: a whole system that works. But thank goodness, at that time,
Speaker 2: I convinced my family, my siblings to start saving and
Speaker 2: investing so that in five ten years anytime, my parents
Speaker 2: couldn't make, you know, make the difference of their medical
Speaker 2: costs or you know, make the difference for bills that
Speaker 2: we would pull from the savings and investments accounts and
Speaker 2: like you know, make up the difference for them. And
Speaker 2: now you know, we're starting to see that that coming
Speaker 2: to fruition, that like the little bit of like the
Speaker 2: fruit from those seedlings that we planted all those years ago,
Speaker 2: where like my parents will say, oh, we want to
Speaker 2: do this, we want to do that, and I'll be like,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: We have it.
Speaker 2: We have it in savings, we have it in investments.
Speaker 2: So I'm I'm floored, Like this is amazing to hear
Speaker 2: people are starting to shift, even if it's just small percentages,
Speaker 2: because it starts to become part of the national conversation,
Speaker 2: get national attention and headlines and news pieces and TikTok
Speaker 2: you know content where we just start to recognize how
Speaker 2: important it is. That being said, I feel like a
Speaker 2: lot of these traditional institutions JP Morgan, Chase, all these institutions,
Speaker 2: City Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. They love to
Speaker 2: put out these reports, but where are the high savings accounts?
Speaker 2: They don't offer them, right, They only offer traditional savings
Speaker 2: because their banking institutions benefit from giving the super super
Speaker 2: lowest possible interest rates they can on savings and yet
Speaker 2: maximizing by charging super high interest rates when they borrow
Speaker 2: when we borrow money from them to loans. So I yes,
Speaker 2: I love the data. I love the reports. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: need y'all to back it up with some action and
Speaker 2: shift to a model of there's no such thing as
Speaker 2: a traditional savings account anymore.
Speaker 5: It's a thing of the past. It's a relic, it's
Speaker 5: a fossil. And now we literally only have Higo savs
Speaker 5: accounts or investment accounts and checking accounts and that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're getting away with it no matter what they
Speaker 1: can do. Let me open up. I'm trying to find
Speaker 1: an article that's not Dann Paywild. I'm sorry, US News.
Speaker 1: I'm not all these I'm like, if the Associated Press,
Speaker 1: where is it?
Speaker 4: All? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so JP. But the thing about Chase is at
Speaker 1: least they have the data, right, So they have four
Speaker 1: points seven million households, you especially at a time when
Speaker 1: inflation it's under control. But it's just really good. I
Speaker 1: mean under control, but it's really it's good to see
Speaker 1: that at least we are trending in the right direction.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to find out if they have any information
Speaker 1: broken down by race, because y'all know, we believe in
Speaker 1: ourselves behind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a really good one a few years
Speaker 2: ago from Aerial Investments under Melody Hobson's leadership, and they
Speaker 2: talked a lot about how during the pandemic in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and twenty twenty one particularly, there was a huge
Speaker 2: uptaking black investors, and in particular young black investors. So
Speaker 2: gen Z millennial investors who were black were pouring money
Speaker 2: into the markets. And granted, some of it was for
Speaker 2: the wrong reasons because they were chasing some hot stocks
Speaker 2: and mean stocks and all that, but the point is
Speaker 2: just the fact that they were creating investment accounts is
Speaker 2: a huge thing to celebrate.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I'm curious to see that demographic breakdown too.
Speaker 1: Wow, stay stand stand by, because it ain't here they did.
Speaker 1: We'll circle back to that, all right, Moving right along?
Speaker 1: What else is going on?
Speaker 4: Oh this?
Speaker 1: I have so much hate and disdain for organizations that
Speaker 1: try to control what you do in your whole, your
Speaker 1: own damn house. And when I saw this headline, the
Speaker 1: rage that boiled in my veins. Y'all. Poor this poor
Speaker 1: woman me open this up. I think she was in
Speaker 1: Atlanta there was a woman, a black woman, who because
Speaker 1: she got into a spat with her homeowners association over
Speaker 1: a patch of brown grass in her own God damn yard.
Speaker 1: I cannot spent a week in jail, a week in
Speaker 1: jail over that dispute. Yes, her name is Irena Green,
Speaker 1: she said, the dispute between her and the homeowners association. Oh,
Speaker 1: she lives in Tampa. Okay, y'a, elly, watch out. I
Speaker 1: know you don't own a house right in Florida. Do
Speaker 1: y'all have a drought? Or what's going on? A patch
Speaker 1: of brown grass in the summer?
Speaker 3: Girl?
Speaker 1: Just right now, you don't not real grass. I don't understand.
Speaker 4: It is air like water anyways in Florida. How has
Speaker 4: anything bad?
Speaker 1: It just gets so high it drives up quick. I
Speaker 1: don't look look. Yeah, so, Green said, she attributed the
Speaker 1: condition of her grass to a drought, all right, and
Speaker 1: they had also she lived in a place where they
Speaker 1: had mandatory county wide watering restrictions, and that her yard
Speaker 1: was not the only one that had that had brown grass.
Speaker 1: They also cited her for mildew on her mailbox, a
Speaker 1: dent in her garage. So who the hell is out
Speaker 1: there with your magnifying glass, I'm saying, And also, why
Speaker 1: does that bother you?
Speaker 2: Well, because look, she was not the only one with
Speaker 2: brown grass in front her house, but she was the
Speaker 2: only one with brown people inside the house.
Speaker 5: Let's call it what it is.
Speaker 2: Let's call it what it is, right, the fact that
Speaker 2: other people had the same issues as her, but she
Speaker 2: was the one being singled out. You know, I really
Speaker 2: hope she can get a civil rights attorney or somebody
Speaker 2: on her kid, because this is just getting ridicul this
Speaker 2: there was a I mean, this is also like horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2: But there was another story that I saw like early
Speaker 2: two days ago from Florida as well, which was a
Speaker 2: Jacksonville man who was stopped by the police. His name
Speaker 2: is William McNeil. He's twenty two years old. Stopped by
Speaker 2: the police in Jacksonville. Stopped him talk about how he
Speaker 2: was supposed to have his lights on because of inclement weather.
Speaker 2: It wasn't rainy, it wasn't foggy, it was four pm
Speaker 2: in the afternoon.
Speaker 5: What do you mean an officer? So he was asking
Speaker 5: them to show him what law?
Speaker 1: What are you talking about?
Speaker 5: Like, I don't think I have any reason for you
Speaker 5: to stop me.
Speaker 2: So they were like, get out the car and get
Speaker 2: out the car, and he was like, what can you
Speaker 2: call your supervisor?
Speaker 5: They broke his window, punched him in the face, opened
Speaker 5: his door, took off his seat belt, threw him to
Speaker 5: the ground.
Speaker 2: He had to get stitch nine stitches on his face
Speaker 2: because his tooth went threw his upper lip. He had
Speaker 2: and he had he suffered a concussion and short term
Speaker 2: memory lost. This man, it has been put through it
Speaker 2: and it's it's July. It's late July. Okay, it's about
Speaker 2: to be August. Damn near August of twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: And this happened in February of twenty twenty five, Like
Speaker 2: all of these months go by.
Speaker 5: So we hear stories like this and you're.
Speaker 2: Like, come on, can we how can we act like
Speaker 2: it's not the fact that these folks are black and brown?
Speaker 5: Like I'm at the point where, especially in Florida, we
Speaker 5: see so much of these stories and they just they
Speaker 5: get brushed up under the rug, they get hidden.
Speaker 2: And the crazy thing about that story with William McNeil
Speaker 2: was that when you look at the report or the
Speaker 2: details about what the police officer wrote in the report,
Speaker 2: oh a whole bunch of lies, a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: lies talking about the man wasn't wearing his seat belt.
Speaker 2: But when you look at his video, he took off
Speaker 2: his seat belt to get him out the car.
Speaker 5: So, sir, make it make sense.
Speaker 1: How did he not even though you know, good and
Speaker 1: god damn well, you have a body cam on just
Speaker 1: they don't care care.
Speaker 5: Hasn't even been released yet.
Speaker 2: I'm talking about a cell phone video that William posted
Speaker 2: on his social media that Barrau has over two million views,
Speaker 2: that he.
Speaker 1: Was being arrested, but he managed to take video.
Speaker 2: He managed to have his phone on the dash and
Speaker 2: he just pressed record. Then goodness that he did, because
Speaker 2: you can see the interaction and how ridiculously facet escalated
Speaker 2: for no ass reason. And yeah, it was just so ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And I just feel like you keep hearing these stories
Speaker 2: and coming out of Florida in particular. This is probably
Speaker 2: like the third or fourth one that I've heard in
Speaker 2: just the past two weeks where it's black families, young
Speaker 2: black men, and the officers happened to be the complete opposite,
Speaker 2: you know, middle aged white men, and you just like
Speaker 2: it just so heartbreaking and granted, this woman. Thank goodness
Speaker 2: that she didn't have to deal with, you know, police
Speaker 2: brutality in this specific situation. But the fact that I
Speaker 2: read the article is, say she was driving home from
Speaker 2: picking up her daughter from cheerleading practice, and the cops
Speaker 2: stopped her vehicle and said, did you know that there's
Speaker 2: a worn out for your arrest through her in jail?
Speaker 2: No bail, no bound, no opportunity for her to come
Speaker 2: out and go home to her family until they figured
Speaker 2: it out. Nope, she had to sit there in jail
Speaker 2: for seven days. And then the judge who was assigned
Speaker 2: to her case was like, she needs to go home.
Speaker 2: She's been sitting here for seven days in jail over
Speaker 2: some patch of brown grass. And then goodness that the
Speaker 2: judge she got assign the second judge she got assigned
Speaker 2: and pushed for her to go home because they were
Speaker 2: trying to keep her in jail because of this stupid
Speaker 2: patch of brown grass and because of the lack of compliance.
Speaker 2: Mind you, she specifically said multiple other residences in the
Speaker 2: same HOA had similar, if not the exact same issue,
Speaker 2: and they weren't sitting in jail.
Speaker 1: The level of stress that I mean, I think we
Speaker 1: make a lot of I mean, it's funny to like
Speaker 1: to talk about or I guess you have to laugh
Speaker 1: at some things, but it's like we make a joke
Speaker 1: out of how type A, how aggressive, how insane type
Speaker 1: these hoas can be, but the amount of mental strain
Speaker 1: it puts on you to not even feel safe in
Speaker 1: your own goddamn home that you paid for. Like my
Speaker 1: brother has dealt with a really aggressive HOA. One of
Speaker 1: my mandy moneymakers couldn't even like had to tell me
Speaker 1: she couldn't participate in my coaching program because she has
Speaker 1: a neighbor who is aggressively trying to ruin her life,
Speaker 1: who's on and is like and is causing all this
Speaker 1: alma for her within her HOA, and like it is
Speaker 1: it's it's sad. Those people should be put in jail.
Speaker 1: Like I had read yan Ellie that her attorney like,
Speaker 1: that's sorry. The hoa's attorney showed up in court and
Speaker 1: they're like, no, she needs to stay here.
Speaker 5: Yes, okay, that's what we're going to get water, Like
Speaker 5: this is bullshit.
Speaker 2: Thank goodness that she had a fair judge who was like, oh,
Speaker 2: that don't make no damn sense, right, But let it
Speaker 2: have been a judge who was like, yeah, okay, yep,
Speaker 2: this this administration from the HOA says this, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and grant that, like thank goodness for her right.
Speaker 1: And she was like, what if you're having a hard
Speaker 1: time and you can't afford a landscape or you can
Speaker 1: or you're disabled all of a sudden and you can't
Speaker 1: get out there and water like you used to, Like yep,
Speaker 1: so what you're just gonna like these violations are like
Speaker 1: they're inhumane to a certain extent. Whatever happened to like
Speaker 1: rolling up your sleeves and going to help your neighbor. Oh,
Speaker 1: I pay into this.
Speaker 2: H wait, you pay all this money in hi way
Speaker 2: fat parts. They can't come around and take a little
Speaker 2: pot of that when and say, hey, if ever there's
Speaker 2: a hardship for the sake of us all having you know,
Speaker 2: the same beautiful front of our homes, we're gonna come
Speaker 2: and create a little hardship fund.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, We're gonna put you in jail.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: This is why I don't own no damn property. This
Speaker 2: is why I do not own property, especially not in Florida.
Speaker 1: But I can't. I don't have an HLA but I
Speaker 1: do have really nosy neighbors who will report your ass
Speaker 1: if your grass is too high. I can't.
Speaker 2: You know Chris's point earlier about how like when you
Speaker 2: don't go outside for a long time, you don't see
Speaker 2: other people, you don't talk to people, it's really hard.
Speaker 2: That's another reason that has kind of like dissuaded me
Speaker 2: from buying a home or from living in a home,
Speaker 2: because right now I live in an apartment complex where
Speaker 2: like the moment I step outside onto my patio, there's
Speaker 2: a bunch of people, There's kids running to them from
Speaker 2: the pool, there's families, there's people barbecuing, and that like
Speaker 2: environment is just so important for me to just keep
Speaker 2: my energy up, to stay socializing, to just you know,
Speaker 2: meet greet people when.
Speaker 5: I come out.
Speaker 2: Imagine, you know, you're in a house, you're already dealing
Speaker 2: with who knows what, so many things going on personally freshman,
Speaker 2: who knows. I mean, we're in a really bad economy,
Speaker 2: and then you're being villainized in a hacked and jailed
Speaker 2: for these tiny, stupid, insignificant little offenses Like I just
Speaker 2: it just makes me not want to ever buy a house,
Speaker 2: especially not in the state of Florida.
Speaker 1: Definitely avoid in h away. Tell me about it if
Speaker 1: you can. I need. That's something that as I'm looking
Speaker 1: to buy a new house, like, that's something I refuse.
Speaker 1: I don't care how nice they are. I don't care
Speaker 1: how beautiful it is. Right, And there's this heartbreaking quote
Speaker 1: where she's like, it worked hard to put my family
Speaker 1: into a nice neighborhood, and it's just sad to me
Speaker 1: that the nice neighborhoods don't love us back. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's bad, but it's true. But I will say in
Speaker 1: my neighborhood, which is majority black and brown, and it
Speaker 1: has been for decades, but COVID has been changing that.
Speaker 1: And obviously gentrification and like housing prices are insane. But
Speaker 1: this was like one of the last affordable neighborhoods in
Speaker 1: my county. And this family moved in across the street
Speaker 1: from me. I love them there. They lived in Brooklyn. There.
Speaker 1: The woman is California, and she's a white woman. She's
Speaker 1: married to a Japanese American man. We have our That's
Speaker 1: why I do my community garden with They're great, but
Speaker 1: my elders are elder neighbors. From the minute they moved in.
Speaker 1: But they weren't. They weren't having it. They really don't
Speaker 1: like the fact that, you know, young white families are
Speaker 1: moving into these neighborhoods and gentrifying, and you know, there's
Speaker 1: suspicion there, which honestly I understand, like I understand, and
Speaker 1: I think even to a certain extent, my neighbors do,
Speaker 1: like they understand why they are treated with suspicion. But ooh,
Speaker 1: bebe if her grass is a centimeter too high, Ruler,
Speaker 1: she's gonna get a picky on her window saying you
Speaker 1: are in violation of the town code, even if they're
Speaker 1: because they're not. There's no age away, but there's a
Speaker 1: town code, right, So it's just and I feel back
Speaker 1: because you know, those neighbors, but it's like, hurt people,
Speaker 1: hurt people, and like, I know that's how it was
Speaker 1: when probably she first moved into the neighborhood a few
Speaker 1: decades ago with her family, and slowly this neighborhood became
Speaker 1: majority minority, but it wasn't always that way. And I
Speaker 1: just wish we could live and let live, but.
Speaker 2: It's going to take time and healing a lot of
Speaker 2: healing needs to happen because that shit don't.
Speaker 1: Go away overnight.
Speaker 4: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: What's it like for you in s Chris but you're renting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean for me, it's it's different. I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean it's San Francisco. It's a much different scenario.
Speaker 3: And there's not a lot of single family homes that there.
Speaker 3: There's a lot of multi unit homes. So like most
Speaker 3: of these places here, it's going to be like two
Speaker 3: to four six units in the building. And you know,
Speaker 3: it's much more like kind of like city life a
Speaker 3: little bit.
Speaker 1: So I have a lot of high rises are there.
Speaker 4: Are there a lot of.
Speaker 3: High rises and that stuff in the downtown areas sit
Speaker 3: downtown right right over there. But mostly I think because
Speaker 3: most of the city has like an ordinance that prevents
Speaker 3: the height, that limits the height of buildings I think
Speaker 3: three stories and a lot of neighborhoods.
Speaker 4: So it is nice.
Speaker 3: You get like, you get a lot more sunlight, you
Speaker 3: get a lot more openness. But if you do go
Speaker 3: like to like the downtown areas, you get a lot
Speaker 3: more of those like brand new buildings that are popping
Speaker 3: up and it's changing. But it's definitely a lot more
Speaker 3: community like force community, just because the fact that you
Speaker 3: know there's a bunch of people living in tight proximity
Speaker 3: to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, we just need to we need to be kinder.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so glad to shout out to Irene.
Speaker 1: I hope that you're home. I hope that you get
Speaker 1: to you move to a new area, and I hate
Speaker 1: that you have to move, but sometimes you gotta go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously, she deserves an area that people won't treat
Speaker 2: her like that.
Speaker 1: Or if she had the resources, I would say, start
Speaker 1: to go fund me and counter see their asses, because
Speaker 1: that is all types of inhumane. Yes, hey, ba, fam,
Speaker 1: we got to take a quick break, pay some bills,
Speaker 1: and we'll be right back. All right, moving along, let's see. Oh,
Speaker 1: I did want to do a quick shout out the
Speaker 1: WNBAS In the middle of their they go, do y'all
Speaker 1: know about sports stuff? I don't know too much about
Speaker 1: sports stuff, but I do like women to get paid
Speaker 1: a lot of money.
Speaker 5: That part I don't follow this. I don't follow that
Speaker 5: she was sports stuff.
Speaker 2: But my sister is a huge WNBA fan and was
Speaker 2: like telling me about how they're doing collective bargaining again
Speaker 2: and like trying to fight for for what my understanding
Speaker 2: is they're not trying to fight for the same pay
Speaker 2: in terms of dollar amounts as the NBA players, but
Speaker 2: they're trying to fight for the same percentage profit share.
Speaker 2: So my understanding is that the NBA has a fifty
Speaker 2: percent profit share model, whereas the WNBA is anywhere between
Speaker 2: like ten and twenty percent, and they're just trying to say, hey,
Speaker 2: can we get that closer to fifty percent? That's literally
Speaker 2: all they're trying to do, and they're getting pushed back
Speaker 2: on that, which is wild to me because over the
Speaker 2: past two years, I feel like the craze around Kayln Clark,
Speaker 2: Andrew Rees, Asia Williams, all these players is like, how
Speaker 2: can we not recognize that the growth has been so
Speaker 2: insane that this deal should model that type of growth,
Speaker 2: Like it should follow suit, they should be aligned.
Speaker 5: Like I was shocked when I heard this, Like.
Speaker 2: They wouldn't even increase the percentage profit share. They're not
Speaker 2: even asking for the same dollar per dollar pay.
Speaker 4: It's wild because you.
Speaker 3: Even end up with like they started a new team,
Speaker 3: they expands a team here in San Francisco, the Valkyries,
Speaker 3: and I think not even like a couple months into
Speaker 3: the season, they already valued is like the most valuable
Speaker 3: NBA team I think at like five hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: or something like that. So, I mean you're seeing the
Speaker 3: growth and like you said, it's crazy. A'm not asking
Speaker 3: for crazy money to you, ask for a better share
Speaker 3: because I mean, there would be no product without the
Speaker 3: players on the creer.
Speaker 5: I mean, the audience grows, the merch sales, everything has
Speaker 5: boosted like crazy, Viewership is up, attendance to these games
Speaker 5: is up. I mean, how can you not also then
Speaker 5: increase the pay like I just I don't know. I
Speaker 5: feel so bad for these ladies having to fight, fight, fight,
Speaker 5: like hell, and.
Speaker 2: This is ages all tails all the time, because this
Speaker 2: is something that has been happening for ages where we
Speaker 2: constantly see WNBA being tossed little you know, hear low
Speaker 2: peanuts and they're supposed to be happy with that. Some
Speaker 2: basketball players are making millions and millions and millions. These
Speaker 2: girls are sometimes making seventy k a year, Like, come on,
Speaker 2: that is wild to me.
Speaker 1: Wild. They're gonna have to go on strike, right, I
Speaker 1: mean they have to. They're gonna have to, yeah.
Speaker 3: Because I mean, they play so much more than the
Speaker 3: men do as well because their season is short, but
Speaker 3: most of them go overseas and play in other leagues
Speaker 3: and other countries, so you don't even be going for
Speaker 3: parts of their season because they make significantly more playing overseas.
Speaker 3: So it's like, I mean, that's a lot of weird
Speaker 3: hearing your body. There's a lot of time with your family.
Speaker 1: So don't give me a segue into Love Island. I
Speaker 1: could be playing overseas.
Speaker 5: Boy, please, you can't.
Speaker 1: I'm not even going to give y'all context. Ba FAM's
Speaker 1: not worth it, all right. Well, I did see the
Speaker 1: T shirts they were wearing. Pay us what you owe us. Yes,
Speaker 1: we love a coordinated T shirt.
Speaker 5: Get a T shirt? I need one, Hey them, you
Speaker 5: need them.
Speaker 1: I want to see some good old fashioned protesting. I
Speaker 1: want to see picket signs. I want also the fans.
Speaker 1: I think the fans should be a part of the
Speaker 1: protest too.
Speaker 2: You know, all these girls that show up to the game,
Speaker 2: that look up to them and all that, Like, okay,
Speaker 2: let's get them involved in understanding what's just and injust
Speaker 2: like that for sure is a really great.
Speaker 5: Lesson in pay equity and just fair pay. Come on,
Speaker 5: fair pay for fair work.
Speaker 1: Yep. I literally have no reason like that this doesn't
Speaker 1: tie into brown ambition at all. It's not about black people.
Speaker 1: It's not about our economic freedom, it's not about brown people.
Speaker 1: Even some rich white guy. I was at a Coldplay
Speaker 1: concert and he was like camera with his mistress, and
Speaker 1: I love I love it so messy.
Speaker 2: I just feel like we needed that collective experience of
Speaker 2: juicy gossip together to like just bring us together one
Speaker 2: good time. It felt like everybody and their mama was
Speaker 2: talking about it from one second to the next.
Speaker 4: It means amazing.
Speaker 3: Have you seen them doing the Coldplay kissed camp at
Speaker 3: other storting events and people posing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everyone's like, oh, and they're I just kidding, we're married.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's so funny. It's so funny.
Speaker 2: There's one hilarious one that my fitness trainer reposted, which
Speaker 2: is like me getting caught on cam with my ninth
Speaker 2: cheat meal this week and he's like.
Speaker 1: A burger and trick and sold on.
Speaker 2: The camera catches and he's like no, and he ducks
Speaker 2: with his burger in his hand.
Speaker 1: I'm dying. That's like, that's like when my kid catches
Speaker 1: me eating something that I told him he couldn't have.
Speaker 1: He's like mommy. I thought, we can only have that
Speaker 1: with our dinner, not you for the dinner, you baby, you,
Speaker 1: but not mommy.
Speaker 5: Mommy's follows different rules.
Speaker 1: H Well, now, because of the freaking Internet, I can't
Speaker 1: I don't know what's real or not. But I thought
Speaker 1: the wife had posted this like insanely good statement on TikTok.
Speaker 1: I should have known it was on TikTok, but her
Speaker 1: daughter was posting. Their daughter was posting some some content.
Speaker 1: It's just it's like, it's like the plot of a
Speaker 1: White Lotus episode series kind of thing.
Speaker 5: You know, somebody post for real, somebody posted that.
Speaker 2: He that like, they wouldn't be surprised if because no,
Speaker 2: he stepped down obviously he or got fired. That if
Speaker 2: in a couple of weeks he posted something on LinkedIn
Speaker 2: being like I was caught having an affair. I had
Speaker 2: a Coldplay concert. Here's what it taught me about B
Speaker 2: to B sales.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please, like a homeboy who Leonardo DiCaprio played in
Speaker 1: that Wolf of Wall Street movie. He's like a really rich,
Speaker 1: like public speaker, now, motivational speaker. What's his name? Who? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he'll be fine, he'll be fine. They can take the heat.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, yeah, maybe his daughter will be on
Speaker 1: the next season I'm Dancing with the Stars or something
Speaker 1: like that. Maybe his wife.
Speaker 2: It's just like a it's such a good lesson to
Speaker 2: young people to like, when you do something wrong, you
Speaker 2: that shit is in your bones.
Speaker 5: You know you're not supposed to be doing that, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Because if they had just played it cool, nobody would
Speaker 2: ever even know who they were.
Speaker 5: They probably wouldn't, that would never even made it outside.
Speaker 1: Of the stadium.
Speaker 5: But the fact that he ducked.
Speaker 2: Like that and she and she like immediately went to
Speaker 2: cover her face, It's like, just when you do stuff
Speaker 2: you know you're supposed to be doing that, shit like
Speaker 2: this is this is what happens, right. So I think
Speaker 2: it is a lesson in a little bit in like
Speaker 2: you understanding like human behavior. It's very very rare that
Speaker 2: something like that in the spotlight and your instinct would
Speaker 2: be just play it cool, no, because you know you
Speaker 2: wrong and you know what you're doing is wrong and
Speaker 2: it's in your so just don't do it.
Speaker 1: Don't do it. I needed to be caught Karma, karma
Speaker 1: in action. Thank you for the giggles. I guess it
Speaker 1: is brown ambition because you gave us something to laugh at,
Speaker 1: you know, in a world that hates us. So we
Speaker 1: appreciate your service. Very tall white guy, you'll be fine.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna take a quick break. Ba family,
Speaker 1: We'll be right back. We're gonna do our brown boost
Speaker 1: brown break all right, y'all, Brown Boost Brown Break time.
Speaker 1: I don't want to go first, so I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: y'all want to go first. Chris, you have a big
Speaker 1: fat nothing next to your name on this list.
Speaker 3: I didn't know there was a spot putting stuff in it.
Speaker 3: I only want to put stuf in it because you
Speaker 3: just veto everything I put in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I need a chance to veto it. That's why
Speaker 1: exercise our power.
Speaker 2: What's the point of having power if you can't exercise its.
Speaker 1: Editorial judgment, congrab on your baby nephew. We know he's
Speaker 1: here in the world now.
Speaker 3: The world, but you said he cannot be the brown
Speaker 3: boost anymore. So I picked something else, Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: Even though new life.
Speaker 1: You know, when he gets a first investment account, then
Speaker 1: he can be a boost.
Speaker 3: We will be working on that five twenty nine plan shortly.
Speaker 3: But okay, so my brown boost is going to be
Speaker 3: a book because I mean, I think I mentioned before
Speaker 3: I had like a little impromtu book club here would
Speaker 3: be that we've been doing. So the book we've recently
Speaker 3: read I really enjoyed is a Martyr. It's by h
Speaker 3: I hope I pronounce his name correctly. I think it's
Speaker 3: Cava Akbar. He's an Iranian American poet and writer. And
Speaker 3: this really like it's just beautiful book. It's it's fiction,
Speaker 3: but it's about a guy dealing with substance of use
Speaker 3: and his own sexuality and kind of knowing where he
Speaker 3: stands and trying to find purpose and meaning in life.
Speaker 3: And he tries to find it through this concept of
Speaker 3: being a martyr. Even though he doesn't want to necessarily die,
Speaker 3: he feels like his life should mean something because his parents.
Speaker 3: He felt like his parents died with no meaning, like
Speaker 3: their death just happened, living these hard lives. And so
Speaker 3: it's his journey to find like meaning and purpose in
Speaker 3: his life and through all of his struggles. And it's
Speaker 3: written as well as books. It's written in such a
Speaker 3: way that's like it's very like beautiful, like the words
Speaker 3: he uses, the phrasing, and it's just like so visual.
Speaker 3: You can really feel everything he's writing. And he does
Speaker 3: it through these like dreams that the character's having where
Speaker 3: he like takes these two figures over his mind and
Speaker 3: they have these like conversations together and then his journey
Speaker 3: to like, uh, you know, connect and figure out what's
Speaker 3: going on.
Speaker 4: So great book.
Speaker 3: I think he's received a ton of awards at this
Speaker 3: point in recognition. Our friend Berna, Hey, Berna, she has
Speaker 3: the same ligulal agent as as Copa, and so they
Speaker 3: she told me she need to get to meet him
Speaker 3: when they were all doing like their book introductions. So
Speaker 3: it's really really interesting read, really thought provoking, and uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's that's my brown boost.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to read board.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a New York Times bestseller. Look at that.
Speaker 5: So many amazing books and I never even heard of.
Speaker 1: I need to put this one on my list. And
Speaker 1: I love him. I love memoirs so much. Is it
Speaker 1: a memoir? What do you know?
Speaker 4: It's not.
Speaker 3: There are elements because he is a poet and the
Speaker 3: character is a poet, and but this is not about
Speaker 3: his life personally.
Speaker 1: Nice okay, but it.
Speaker 4: Almost feels like a memoir to some degree. But it's not.
Speaker 1: I am stressed. I have to pick a book club
Speaker 1: pick for August and it is July twenty. First, I can't.
Speaker 4: Decide, James, did you read that one?
Speaker 1: I did read, James.
Speaker 4: It was good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I read it. But is it a book club pick?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. You know, I'm really I'm this
Speaker 1: close to picking it. Kennedy Ryan romance novel. I really
Speaker 1: want some kind of sexy and fun because I don't
Speaker 1: want to have a book club that's just like really
Speaker 1: hard to read true literature, you know, Kennedy Ryan's amazing
Speaker 1: they do. And I didn't love like the last book
Speaker 1: I read of hers, But I think this one that
Speaker 1: I'm in the middle of can't get enough that it's
Speaker 1: a little bit and I like it better. I don't know, though,
Speaker 1: Stay tu it is. I think I'm in like a
Speaker 1: fun summer mood. Then tell me why. When I checked
Speaker 1: out books from the library this week, it was like
Speaker 1: I heard this author who wrote a book called Color
Speaker 1: Television dan Zia something. She was on NPR. I heard
Speaker 1: her and it's not a very fun read, but it's
Speaker 1: a good one.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know what that that will that will
Speaker 5: take me to my brown Boost.
Speaker 2: Speaking of summer vibes, I had the incredible experience of
Speaker 2: attending Benito.
Speaker 5: Martinez Porcasio concert. It was amazing. I went to Bad
Speaker 5: Bunny's concert in Puerto Rico.
Speaker 1: So if y'all didn't know he has as his name,
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's a really long, incredibly name. I did
Speaker 1: not know his full name, I know, but.
Speaker 2: He is doing thirty concerts in Puerto Rico, in his hometown,
Speaker 2: right And the whole thing about it is that there's
Speaker 2: really no other thing that kind of compares to this this.
Speaker 2: I mean, I guess like Vegas residencies. I guess you
Speaker 2: could say, like, you know, but like he's going to
Speaker 2: his hometown. It's not in Vegas, you know, and that
Speaker 2: is so special because of that.
Speaker 5: The only way you can.
Speaker 2: Experience about Bunny concert from his world tour in the
Speaker 2: United States is by going to Puerto Rico.
Speaker 5: And I happened to be.
Speaker 2: There with some friends for a girl one of my
Speaker 2: close friends bachelorette party in Puerto Rico. I went straight
Speaker 2: from Chicago from n EHJ to Puerto Rico for the bacherette,
Speaker 2: and then the Saturday night while we were there, we
Speaker 2: went to the concert, and it was amazing. When I
Speaker 2: tell you three hours of NonStop I heard, Oh my goodness,
Speaker 2: when I tell you this man played all the hits,
Speaker 2: all the throwbacks, the current album of course, but then
Speaker 2: he did something amazing where he took some of his
Speaker 2: Regadon songs and had a live, full ass salsa band
Speaker 2: turned them into salsa.
Speaker 5: So then he's singing the words to Regaton song, but
Speaker 5: it Sasa music. It was a amazing I was like,
Speaker 5: oh my goodness, this is so incredible.
Speaker 2: And the energy in there was amazing because after the concert,
Speaker 2: people were singing the entire way down the stairs all
Speaker 2: the way out the concert venue, and they.
Speaker 5: Put so much attention to detail.
Speaker 2: Before the concert even happened, there were these like instagrammable
Speaker 2: little stations, food vendors, Domino's playing, like all this stuff happening.
Speaker 2: That was like a whole vibe before you even get
Speaker 2: into the stadium. And the reason it's a Brown boost,
Speaker 2: I will say, is because a lot of people talked
Speaker 2: about Beyonce level and Taylor Swift level economic boost to
Speaker 2: economies during rough times. Puerto Rico had such a rough
Speaker 2: economy this year. They didn't know if they were going
Speaker 2: to be able to balance the budget, and Bad Bunnies
Speaker 2: single handedly brought two hundred million dollars of an economic
Speaker 2: boost to Puerto Rico, so much so that they will
Speaker 2: not have to end in the red this year on
Speaker 2: their with their with their budgets, so that it's just
Speaker 2: amazing and the energy is amazing.
Speaker 1: There's so much positivity, you know.
Speaker 2: And I'm just you know, I'm Dominican, so I'm putting them,
Speaker 2: I'm putting the Dominican Puerto.
Speaker 5: Rican b I'm squashing that right now. We love bad
Speaker 5: but because.
Speaker 1: Bad Bunny is so dr coded sometimes.
Speaker 5: Like there's so much is he said it in multiple interviews.
Speaker 1: But he loved me, didn't. He do a whole video
Speaker 1: in dr.
Speaker 2: The album The Umber, which was last summer, he did
Speaker 2: a whole thing about how Dominican Republic was the first
Speaker 2: place that he truly felt like a celebrity, that he
Speaker 2: felt famous there because we immediately just accepted him, we
Speaker 2: raised him, we celebrated him, and that the type of
Speaker 2: music that we have in the Dominican Republic is slightly
Speaker 2: different from Puerto Rican and other Latin American music because
Speaker 2: we have something called pedical crepo, which is a specific
Speaker 2: type of medan ga tipico that uses African you know,
Speaker 2: African influence, Africa coaming, and so he talked about how
Speaker 2: that influenced him to write which is a medan ge
Speaker 2: tipical very much.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, like I've heard maderga in his yes,
Speaker 1: in his music. I'm not as expert as you are,
Speaker 1: but that now.
Speaker 2: Obviously, if you listen to Puerto Rican music, they also
Speaker 2: have midaninge, but it's not the same type of medane.
Speaker 2: The undertones of the music is not like as African
Speaker 2: for medenghe as tipico. So he definitely loves Dominican Republic,
Speaker 2: the people, the culture of the place. But I feel like,
Speaker 2: you know, growing up in New York City and especially
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn, there's always been Dominican Puerto Rican beef in
Speaker 2: New York. But I feel like Bad Bunny single handedly
Speaker 2: squashed that beef when he put out on Beranocinthi, and
Speaker 2: so I'm here to say it's officially squashed. We love
Speaker 2: him and his concert was incredible and the tickets were
Speaker 2: probably now maybe two three thousand dollars for seats that
Speaker 2: are close to the floor of her it's.
Speaker 1: Just about to ask what ticket prices were.
Speaker 2: Like, but we got lucky. We got them for seven
Speaker 2: hundred bucks, which is still expensive. Let's not lie, but
Speaker 2: we got him really last minute, three seats together, super
Speaker 2: close to the little casita where he performed separately from
Speaker 2: the stage, so there were kind of two stages, one
Speaker 2: in the front and one in the back or center,
Speaker 2: which was a house at actual physical house in the
Speaker 2: stadium with couches inside, TVs inside, a bar inside, people inside,
Speaker 2: and he was performing on the rooftop.
Speaker 5: So it was just ough.
Speaker 1: I mean, I cannot I'll take at my phone back.
Speaker 1: I need to train the TikTok algorithm and to serve
Speaker 1: me clips correct. I only get clips of Cardig Cowway Carter.
Speaker 5: I get get the Cowboy Carter to I get the
Speaker 5: Cardboard Carter.
Speaker 2: But Benito killed it, and he it's just I mean,
Speaker 2: everybody is so proud of him.
Speaker 5: He's a kid who came from the slums, you guys.
Speaker 2: He came from the slums, and he just literally took
Speaker 2: a chance and posted his music on SoundCloud back in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, thinking nobody would hear it, and
Speaker 2: this one DJ found it and was like, Wow, this
Speaker 2: kid's pretty good and now he's freaking Bad Bunny like, so,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it's it's one of those things
Speaker 2: that inspires you through to your bones.
Speaker 5: And the guy loves his craft. He loves music.
Speaker 2: Every single one of his songs sounds different, sounds unique.
Speaker 2: He blends genres in a way that is just masterful.
Speaker 2: So I loved it, and I'm so proud of him
Speaker 2: for bringing two hundred million to Puerto Rico. It's definitely
Speaker 2: an island that has been struggling and they need it,
Speaker 2: so you gotta give props words due.
Speaker 1: I think it's so beautiful when artists, sorry, go ahead, Chris, No,
Speaker 1: go for it. Ma I think it's so beautiful about
Speaker 1: artists who are That's what I think about Beyonce and
Speaker 1: Bad Bunny have in common, is like the audience they
Speaker 1: make them feel so good, Like Beyonce makes me so
Speaker 1: proud to be a black woman and loved being a
Speaker 1: black woman. And I feel like Bad Bunny, it feels
Speaker 1: like like just hearing y'all talk about him that he
Speaker 1: makes y'all feel so proud to be Latino, to be
Speaker 1: Puerto Rican, and you know, like all that, and and
Speaker 1: but at the same time, I don't feel any less
Speaker 1: isolated from listening and enjoying his music. It's just like
Speaker 1: and I probably no to for Beyonce, and it's just
Speaker 1: that's that's the kind of artistry that we need. It's
Speaker 1: like such a good, such a good example of just
Speaker 1: like lean into who you are and serving your audience.
Speaker 1: And it really can be universal.
Speaker 2: Yes, especially when your music has meaning, right like Beyonce's
Speaker 2: music is constantly uplifting the black struggle and paying homage
Speaker 2: to black history and Bad Bunny's whole entire residency is
Speaker 2: called no Michkeiro Yacki, which means I don't want to
Speaker 2: leave here, which is literally him saying Puerto Rico is
Speaker 2: getting gentrified and they're kicking us out of our own home,
Speaker 2: and we don't want to leave. We want to stay here.
Speaker 2: In his entire album, Showcase In highlights the plight of
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican people trying really hard to stay there while
Speaker 2: gentrification is coming in and regulation and policies are putting
Speaker 2: preference on outsiders coming in, giving them tax benefits that
Speaker 2: locals don't get. He's really highlighting these real issues in
Speaker 2: a way that just you know, got to give them.
Speaker 1: Man props have We talked about that on the show,
Speaker 1: about some financial some financial influencers moving to Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: and for that reason, where.
Speaker 2: We could do a whole episode about that. Because if
Speaker 2: it's not great though, it's real estate. If it's not
Speaker 2: that his investments, listen, it's.
Speaker 1: Yeh, it's messy, mental mark, mental Bookmark. Well, thank y'all
Speaker 1: for joining me at the brown Table. RBA fan, We're
Speaker 1: gonna close out the show. What do I have to say?
Speaker 1: Don't forget to join the Patreon. Also, I have Cebo
Speaker 1: Campbell confirmed he is joining BA fam. He's going to
Speaker 1: be on the show, or sorry, not on the show.
Speaker 1: The author of sky Full of Elephants our June July
Speaker 1: book Club pick. We are doing a Q and A
Speaker 1: with him this coming Friday, so stay tuned to that.
Speaker 1: I'm going to put the link to register in the
Speaker 1: show notes so that you'll all can be there. It's
Speaker 1: gonna be Friday. I'm gonna be in Miami. My yan Ellie.
Speaker 1: By the way, I'll be there for two days. Hit
Speaker 1: me out Thursday Friday, and I will be excited to
Speaker 1: see you. And while I'm there, Cibo will be doing
Speaker 1: a virtually but he and I are both randomly going
Speaker 1: to be in Florida, so check tune in for that
Speaker 1: ba Fam, and I promise I'm gonna have something to
Speaker 1: share with y'all that day about our August September book
Speaker 1: Club pick. I don't know, we'll find out time. It's hard.
Speaker 1: How did piano people pick this every month? I'm doing
Speaker 1: it every other month and it's already stressing me out.
Speaker 1: But we'll get there, all right, ba Fam. Goodbye. We'll
Speaker 1: see y'all on Friday for the ba QA. Thank you
Speaker 1: on Ellie and Chris for joining me as always. Bye,
Speaker 1: okay va fam, thank you so much for listening to
Speaker 1: this week's show. I want to shout out to our
Speaker 1: production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for
Speaker 1: idea to LAUNCHS. I want to shout out my assistant
Speaker 1: Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping me put the
Speaker 1: show together. It is not a one person project, as
Speaker 1: much as I have tried to make it so these
Speaker 1: past ten years, I need help, y'all, and thank goodness
Speaker 1: I've been able to put this team around me to
Speaker 1: support me on this journey. And to y'all bea fam.
Speaker 1: I love you. So so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe,
Speaker 1: Make sure you're signed up to the newsletter to get
Speaker 1: all the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our ten year
Speaker 1: anniversary celebrations to come, and until next time, talk to
Speaker 1: you soon bea buy