Speaker 1: Courst Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic
Speaker 1: episode was produced by the team at Pandora.
Speaker 2: Ladies and Gentlemen.
Speaker 3: This is Quest Love and you're listening at a QLs classic.
Speaker 3: This is from February seventy twenty and eighteen. We talked
Speaker 3: to our friend Rosario Dawson about our acting career and
Speaker 3: her political activism. We did this in Los Angeles at
Speaker 3: Sunset Sound Studios, where a lot of nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 3: and Purple Rain was reported. So, yeah, it would be
Speaker 3: a good time to do it back with our friend
Speaker 3: Zorio Dawson.
Speaker 2: Courst Love Supreme Classic. Here we go, sun Sure all
Speaker 2: Supreme self, bream up self. She's always in my hair. Yeah,
Speaker 2: she's always on my back.
Speaker 4: Yeah, she's uh whatever.
Speaker 2: My name is Fante.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do not beg Yeah, Zarios and kids, I
Speaker 5: have no legs.
Speaker 6: I hate road.
Speaker 7: My name is Sugar.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 7: And I'm unstoppable. Yeah, just like that train.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and unstoppable going off already for the worse in
Speaker 2: l A.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the scenario. Yeah, and it's time Yeah.
Speaker 2: To interview Rosario. Bring my Road, bring my role.
Speaker 6: It's like yeah with the original.
Speaker 8: Yeah, my rights yeah, An, let's good in the shower,
Speaker 8: supre My roll.
Speaker 6: Roll and Sea down Avenue X. That's why I flex
Speaker 6: Brooklyn in the house like Mickey Mouse.
Speaker 9: Supra roll Call, Supra Selpreing roll Call, Supremo Sun Sun
Speaker 9: sup Breing my rod Caremon sure roll.
Speaker 2: I seen you sweet feet shower.
Speaker 6: She's smart and sexy.
Speaker 8: You know.
Speaker 6: I'm like, this took me back to like high school
Speaker 6: because it was like we go out like I used
Speaker 6: to hear that all the time. I didn't have my
Speaker 6: like Laisha. There used to be a couple of songs
Speaker 6: and I.
Speaker 2: Was like that kind of rocks.
Speaker 6: So thanks y'all, Thank you the kids.
Speaker 8: One.
Speaker 6: I'm sorry, I don't know if y'all take urm.
Speaker 2: Clearly I hate you.
Speaker 6: I was going to make like everything.
Speaker 2: Did you know how fa You knew instantly that was
Speaker 2: gonna be your Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You was that quiet. You was too
Speaker 5: quiet in the corner.
Speaker 2: I'm like, what you know?
Speaker 5: As soon as we found we were gonna have her.
Speaker 5: That was my first one. It was either that one.
Speaker 5: It was going to be a twenty five hour reference
Speaker 5: because that's like probably one of my favorite movies of yours.
Speaker 5: I really loved your performance in that crazy how.
Speaker 6: Many written on your arm? I think it's Harmony's birthday
Speaker 6: to day or it was just Yester something like that.
Speaker 6: Actually now yeah, yeah many.
Speaker 5: Actually k okay, I just want to make sure I
Speaker 5: wasn't saying it wrong for the last fifteen whatever.
Speaker 2: You let me let the audience.
Speaker 6: In three years.
Speaker 2: Wait, ladies and.
Speaker 4: Gentlemen, welcome, welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Of course Love here with teams Supreme.
Speaker 4: It's like you Sugar Steve and Boss Bill and Fantigelo
Speaker 4: uh and today we have a good friend.
Speaker 2: Yes, we have what's up? What's up? Roario?
Speaker 4: We have actress, producer and director and singer in philanthropists
Speaker 4: and and political activists and humanitarian and and Newava New Yorker,
Speaker 4: New Way yorka a new way.
Speaker 2: Yeah that.
Speaker 4: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Rosario Dawson. Thank you for
Speaker 4: coming through. This is a very last minute request, but
Speaker 4: you came through. I appreciate it anytime.
Speaker 6: Bo love you.
Speaker 2: Where are you from in California?
Speaker 6: I'm not from in California.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean you're here lot though.
Speaker 6: Yeah I live here now. Yeah, okay, I'm from Brooklyn.
Speaker 6: I'm raised in the Lower East.
Speaker 4: But are you from New York the way that I'm
Speaker 4: from Philadelphia?
Speaker 6: What does that mean? No, I'm from New York. I'm
Speaker 6: in New York. I still got my nine one seven.
Speaker 6: I'm there all the time, the fast the last five
Speaker 6: shows that I did for Marvel, we're all in New York.
Speaker 6: I was flying back and forth. It was insane. Man,
Speaker 6: I'm always there. There's still people who think that I
Speaker 6: live there.
Speaker 4: Okay, but I'm saying, plane out of here, out out
Speaker 4: of out of your New York residence and your California residence.
Speaker 4: Where are where's the majority of your undergarments located?
Speaker 2: That's a very specific specific question.
Speaker 6: What are those.
Speaker 2: Very white? Real quick? Sorry? Yeah, what are those? Anyway?
Speaker 6: No?
Speaker 4: No, for real, Thank you for doing this for absolutely
Speaker 4: so New York. You said Brooklyn because I thought you
Speaker 4: would see. Once again, I'm always wrong. I'm always on.
Speaker 2: Well, no, I start you always Alphabet city.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was raised there.
Speaker 2: So you were born in Cone Yup.
Speaker 6: And conceived on AVENUEIX. So he got gain was like home. Yes,
Speaker 6: I actually I had actually been in Lincoln High School
Speaker 6: as a little fetus in my mom's belly when she
Speaker 6: was attending there. Her brothers went there as well, and
Speaker 6: she got pregnant with me when she was sixteen, and
Speaker 6: because she got justes stational diabetes, she kept passing out
Speaker 6: all the time, so she ended up falling down the
Speaker 6: stairs and having to quit school. And then she got
Speaker 6: her what she calls good enough diploma. Here ged and
Speaker 6: eighteen years later, I'm doing a movie with Spike Lee
Speaker 6: and I'm in Lincoln High School and I got to
Speaker 6: be back all those years later, sort of validating her
Speaker 6: and vindicating her. Yes, you know, and everything and all
Speaker 6: the sacrifices she went through. It was a really powerful moment.
Speaker 2: Actually, how long were you there for? I mean before
Speaker 2: you moved.
Speaker 6: To We moved to Manhattan probably when I was like
Speaker 6: five or five, but I was always there because that's
Speaker 6: where all my family still was, so we went back
Speaker 6: all the time. A lot of my memories are in
Speaker 6: Coney Island.
Speaker 4: Actually, So, okay, can you explain You've talked about living
Speaker 4: in Lower Manhattan before, But yeah, you just because I
Speaker 4: never understood the whole squatting thing. So how how did
Speaker 4: that work in the early nineties or the late eighties.
Speaker 6: Well, we moved there when I was around six and
Speaker 6: lived in this railroad apartment on Avenue A, and it
Speaker 6: was like rat infested and just like there was a
Speaker 6: lot of problems with it. And there were a bunch
Speaker 6: of squats in the neighborhood, a lot of buildings that
Speaker 6: had been abandoned. And my very tenacious young parents were like, well,
Speaker 6: we could do something about this. There's a space that's open,
Speaker 6: there's no other families in there, does no water, heater
Speaker 6: or electricity, but Dad does construction. Mom learned how to
Speaker 6: do plumbing, so they put in a sewage line. The
Speaker 6: squatters who had been living there for two years were
Speaker 6: literally pissing in buckets and taking showers with the fire
Speaker 6: hydrant for two years before we moved in, and we
Speaker 6: transformed that and that was the building that I was
Speaker 6: discovered in.
Speaker 2: So you guys transformed the entire block, and well.
Speaker 6: Bit by bit, a lot of the squatters and people
Speaker 6: who survived that era. You know, it was a really crazy, scary,
Speaker 6: beautiful experience of just people who came from all around
Speaker 6: the world, and artists and struggling artists and just all
Speaker 6: types of other people who were you know, just really
Speaker 6: marginalized or people who were really going through it and
Speaker 6: drugs and all types of things and just you know
Speaker 6: willing to you know, create a culture in the Lower
Speaker 6: East Side because no one else wanted to be there.
Speaker 6: And so even though there was like one working street
Speaker 6: lamp on the block and there was no reason to
Speaker 6: call the cops because they would not come, there was
Speaker 6: you know, great music and art and personalities and things
Speaker 6: that were coming out of it that ended up transforming
Speaker 6: the neighborhood. So it's the reason why it's so gentrified
Speaker 6: now because people, you know, the storytelling of that space
Speaker 6: gave us everything from rent to you know, CBGB's you know,
Speaker 6: like it's just it's the impact of New York at
Speaker 6: that time, and you know, Basquiat and all of those
Speaker 6: different people who in so many different spaces just transformed
Speaker 6: what the idea of that neighborhood was, which is one
Speaker 6: of the reason why I'm so proud to come from it.
Speaker 6: You know, when I grew up, it was the sort
Speaker 6: of idea of like get out. But for me, it's
Speaker 6: you know, I recognize that all of those people, no
Speaker 6: sacrifices and all that art and all those wonderful things
Speaker 6: that were created when it was at it's not necessarily
Speaker 6: its best, but that was the that was the best
Speaker 6: for me because it was you know, block parties, and
Speaker 6: so it was a beautiful and powerful experience and place
Speaker 6: to come from, and I think prepared me for everything
Speaker 6: else that I've encountered in life.
Speaker 2: So how does the so how does.
Speaker 4: Legal wise, how does the city acknowlenge that, like years ago?
Speaker 6: It became a building that came under you have so
Speaker 6: a lot of other buildings became co ops or got
Speaker 6: ownership in different ways. You have took over the building
Speaker 6: many years ago, but did not fully pay its taxes
Speaker 6: and do all these different things. So the building was
Speaker 6: everyone almost was almost evicted fairly recently, about two three
Speaker 6: years ago, and I got a lawyer for everybody in
Speaker 6: the building and now they've all just moved in in
Speaker 6: November as homeowners for the first time after thirty two years.
Speaker 6: Well for some people thirty four years.
Speaker 2: Wow. Yep, man, you took your action.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 2: That's crazy.
Speaker 4: So, uh, your story is that that Larry Clark had
Speaker 4: an harmony together over Yeah.
Speaker 6: Larry harmony. It was the it was the cinematographer, it
Speaker 6: was some of the other crew members. They were scouting
Speaker 6: for locations on the block. They ended up actually shooting
Speaker 6: down the block, which is fairly unrecognizable because when you're
Speaker 6: when they're calling up, Oh my god, I'm a bad one,
Speaker 6: am I forgetting her name? Darcy? They're in the calling
Speaker 6: up for Darcy. When you see the you know, the
Speaker 6: building that she was in that she comes out of
Speaker 6: the window is still there. But when you look across
Speaker 6: at them downstairs calling from a blow, there's this empty
Speaker 6: lot that's behind her, which is now a building. But
Speaker 6: so they shot down that block, and had they not
Speaker 6: shot in the neighborhood, I probably would not have been
Speaker 6: in that movie. So they were sitting in front of
Speaker 6: you right now.
Speaker 2: They were initially they were initially shooting, and.
Speaker 6: They were scouting for locations.
Speaker 2: Oh scouting.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And by that point, did you have any acting experience
Speaker 4: or aspirations to the arts.
Speaker 6: Or not so much? I mean, I had written my
Speaker 6: first song when I was six, and I grew up
Speaker 6: around artists who are either poets or photographers or actors.
Speaker 6: My uncle's comic book artist, you know. So I grew
Speaker 6: up around people were artists, but also most of them
Speaker 6: having to do another job and it just being this
Speaker 6: thing that they did because they loved it, but they
Speaker 6: weren't necessarily financially compensated for it. So when I got
Speaker 6: actually the opportunity because my when I was discovered, I
Speaker 6: was discovered for an audition. I had to audition for
Speaker 6: the role and I loved it and it was amazing,
Speaker 6: but I remember just kind of feeling like this is
Speaker 6: not going to go anywhere because of it. But I
Speaker 6: had to take advantage of the opportunity because I grew
Speaker 6: up with people who I knew would have fought and killed.
Speaker 6: Were not killed, but they would have thought were such
Speaker 6: an opportunity.
Speaker 4: And you know, because because of Larry's unconventional style and
Speaker 4: the way this art is, how does this fly with
Speaker 4: your mom?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 6: I mean my dad came with me on the audition
Speaker 6: and Larry leans out and goes, is that your boyfriend?
Speaker 6: That's dad? And you know, I remember we were doing
Speaker 6: a rehearsal at Harmony's place or no, it was at
Speaker 6: Larry's place and harm and and I can't remember, but
Speaker 6: it was a bunch of photos from from U Tulsa,
Speaker 6: which was this photography book that Larry had done in
Speaker 6: a drug den and sort of just being like interesting people,
Speaker 6: I'm working with and my parents. I was fifteen. I
Speaker 6: had just turned fifteen, and my parents the only thing
Speaker 6: that they balked out was that my character was supposed
Speaker 6: to be smoking. But they didn't ask to change. They
Speaker 6: didn't ask to change any lines. They didn't. They let
Speaker 6: me go to you know, I biked over to White
Speaker 6: Street to like go and to you know, audition, and
Speaker 6: well it's like Tribecca. I remember, it was just Tribeca
Speaker 6: was somewhere like around that area. And I remember my
Speaker 6: bike got stolen. I went on the very first day
Speaker 6: I went to do reversal. I came back out my
Speaker 6: bike was gone. And then I like walked around trying
Speaker 6: to see if I needed to like grab my bike out,
Speaker 6: went to different bike stores see if some junkie had
Speaker 6: sold it or whatever. And I was like Jesus, like
Speaker 6: walking on by myself at fifteen, and my parents were like,
Speaker 6: that sucks. Congratulations you're official.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that.
Speaker 4: The movie came out of nowhere and really kind of
Speaker 4: well one of was it. It was it was a
Speaker 4: starmaker for you, but just what was what was the
Speaker 4: effect the after effect of the movie, because.
Speaker 5: We'd never now it was unlike anything that we had
Speaker 5: ever seen before.
Speaker 2: I mean that was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, Clueless was supposed to be the film that
Speaker 4: was supposed to establish the next generation. But Kids was
Speaker 4: the film that really established Like.
Speaker 5: Kids was Snapchat twenty years ago, like that was what
Speaker 5: social media looked like with Yeah.
Speaker 2: That shit was crazy.
Speaker 6: It's amazing how much that movie doesn't work today because
Speaker 6: I mean, you know, the whole premise of just trying
Speaker 6: to find someone you would just sort of like see
Speaker 6: where they're tagged themselves in their last social media post
Speaker 6: is or But it's a beautiful moment that got sort
Speaker 6: of captured of what New York doesn't look like that anymore. Kids.
Speaker 6: You know, a lot of the same behaviors are going on,
Speaker 6: but it's just a different energy around it that I
Speaker 6: just feel so glad that that got immortalized, actually, because
Speaker 6: that was a lot of what my child had looked like,
Speaker 6: and it's and there was a lot of beauty to
Speaker 6: it. It was a lot of you know, did you know
Speaker 6: those violence and abuse and just dangers and being a
Speaker 6: latchkey kid and all these different kinds of things. But
Speaker 6: the fact that still all these years later, I have
Speaker 6: parents who come up to me and go that opened
Speaker 6: my eyes to the world and what my personal experience was.
Speaker 6: And I did so many things afterwards to protect myself.
Speaker 6: And this is the movie I decided to sit down
Speaker 6: with my teenager now to start this conversation. On my
Speaker 6: daughter's fourteen I can't imagine watching that movie with her.
Speaker 4: It's weird now because I mean, it's just back then
Speaker 4: when you're watching it. It came out what ninety five, like,
Speaker 4: it's so much more dream now that that kids seems
Speaker 4: rather a tame in comparison, And well, yeah, it's I mean,
Speaker 4: it's still real, but I'm just saying that it's even
Speaker 4: crazier now some twenty plus years later.
Speaker 2: That you disagree with me. No, no, no, I'm following you.
Speaker 2: I see we're going oh oh.
Speaker 4: But I'm well, yeah, I'm just saying that, how do
Speaker 4: you how do you feel that it's faired in.
Speaker 7: Time?
Speaker 6: Like as I think the reason why it still resonates
Speaker 6: with people is because it feels so honest and raw,
Speaker 6: and there was just it was a different time. There
Speaker 6: wasn't wasn't like the movie was made to be a
Speaker 6: cult classic or made to make a whole ton of money,
Speaker 6: or like, you know, it was really about sort of
Speaker 6: revealing and capturing a moment. And I think that honesty
Speaker 6: is something that still resonates to you. I look at
Speaker 6: Princess Nokia video and I'm like kids, look at you know,
Speaker 6: like I see how much it's carried on for so long,
Speaker 6: and it and it it, it's made precious and beautiful
Speaker 6: something that was not ordinarily looked at as precious or beautiful.
Speaker 6: That is now I think continued after all of these years,
Speaker 6: just feeling like something really authentic and powerful and just
Speaker 6: as necessary as sort of like the super filtered way
Speaker 6: of looking at things that we have now where everything
Speaker 6: is so like glossy or whatever.
Speaker 5: How much of that is important, how much of it
Speaker 5: was like scripted, and how much of it was kind
Speaker 5: of ad lib because it feels it part I think
Speaker 5: why it resonates so much is because part of it
Speaker 5: feels like a documentary, like some of it.
Speaker 2: Is like.
Speaker 6: Based on like Harmony wrote at that when he was nineteen.
Speaker 6: He locked himself into a room for about two three
Speaker 6: weeks and wrote it out, and it was based on
Speaker 6: all of the experiences he'd had with all of his
Speaker 6: scared of friends and just folks and washed Ustar Park
Speaker 6: and all just the people that they knew, how was
Speaker 6: he and so they just put it all nineteen So
Speaker 6: they put it all together as one story in one day,
Speaker 6: which is that's what makes it so outrageous. But almost
Speaker 6: everything that happened in the movie is actually stuff that
Speaker 6: actually had happened to one or himself or his friends,
Speaker 6: and then he just dramatized it. But that's why I
Speaker 6: think it also resonates because there is truth to it.
Speaker 6: And then on top of that, everyone was a non actor.
Speaker 6: I'd never acted before. Chloe, Chloe had Chloe was his
Speaker 6: best friend. He'd written it for her. They had cast
Speaker 6: someone else who was an actual actress that then they
Speaker 6: fired and then hired Chloe. Like the weekend before we
Speaker 6: started shooting, it was just everyone, you know, just real
Speaker 6: skater kids, Harold, everybody just justin. It was just all
Speaker 6: of us just like chilling and hanging with each other.
Speaker 6: And the language was written by a friend who you know,
Speaker 6: spoke like a teenager, and so we all it just
Speaker 6: felt really like there wasn't anything about it that felt
Speaker 6: really inorganic. I was in high school. This is how
Speaker 6: the kids were talking. It made sense, so it didn't
Speaker 6: feel like acting. It had been in Shakespeare, I think
Speaker 6: everyone would have been sweating.
Speaker 4: She said that Harmony was four years older than you
Speaker 4: at the time at the time, That's what I meant,
Speaker 4: like I needed to reference for how much older than
Speaker 4: he was in the actual cast he was writing for.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he was a teenager himself.
Speaker 8: Do you guys still have a relationship everybody, like, you know,
Speaker 8: at least the team who was together most every day,
Speaker 8: especially like Chloe, and see each other.
Speaker 6: We like some some folks more than others. I mean, unfortunately,
Speaker 6: we've also lost quite a few people justin what Yeah
Speaker 6: he killed himself. Yeah years ago.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, I didn't know.
Speaker 5: Because then he was in the other one, Ken Park
Speaker 5: that I think Larry directed.
Speaker 2: Tiff.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll see Leo, I'll see you know, you see people,
Speaker 6: and it's awesome that, you know, so many of them
Speaker 6: are still working or doing different things and becoming parents
Speaker 6: or you know, it's just it's a pretty wild journey.
Speaker 6: I have to say.
Speaker 10: It's interesting foundation to start relationships with.
Speaker 7: The soundtrack for that movie was really great too.
Speaker 6: Daddy never understood.
Speaker 4: So how uh, how did you jump start your actual
Speaker 4: career in from that film? Like did you instantly just
Speaker 4: get an agent and like, Okay, why this isn't a
Speaker 4: one off for me, I can do this for real.
Speaker 6: Like, well, I'd only worked on the film about four
Speaker 6: days and then I got what yeah, and then I
Speaker 6: got like a thousand dollars I think from working on
Speaker 6: the movie. But of course my parents took it right
Speaker 6: and because I was fifteen. And then we went to
Speaker 6: Texas because my dad's extended family was there and he
Speaker 6: hadn't seen them for years, and my mom would go
Speaker 6: on vacation. It was the summer, so we ended up
Speaker 6: going on vacation and moving to Texas because my mom
Speaker 6: was always trying to get out of New York City
Speaker 6: to Garland, right outside of Dallas. So I ended up
Speaker 6: like two weeks, three weeks after you know, wrapping movie
Speaker 6: to Garland, Texas and then doing all of that and
Speaker 6: you know, glamour shots and you know, winter Ball and
Speaker 6: all of that interesting stuff. And I took a theater
Speaker 6: one on one class because I, you know, it was
Speaker 6: like I did this movie and it was kind of cool.
Speaker 6: I didn't tell anyone I did the movie, but I
Speaker 6: had had this experience that I really liked that I
Speaker 6: thought maybe I should explore some more, and then I
Speaker 6: got this call from Larry and Harmony saying that they
Speaker 6: had a photo shoot with Harper's Bizarre and that they
Speaker 6: wanted all of us to come back to New York
Speaker 6: for the shoot. And I didn't realize they had put
Speaker 6: me as the k and the kids in posts and
Speaker 6: the on the poster, so they really wanted me back,
Speaker 6: and it had taken them a really long time to
Speaker 6: track me down to Texas. They're like, what you're doing
Speaker 6: in Texas? And then they'd had this already done, this
Speaker 6: midnight screening at Sundance that had just made everyone super
Speaker 6: excited about it, put a lot of buzz on it.
Speaker 6: So then they flew me out to New York. I
Speaker 6: was now sixteen, and I did this photo shoot for
Speaker 6: Harper's Bizarre, and then I had decided I did not
Speaker 6: want to go back to Texas, so I convinced my
Speaker 6: parents to let me stay in New York without them,
Speaker 6: and got roommates and finished up high school, and I
Speaker 6: ended up getting an agent from conversation my parents.
Speaker 10: See.
Speaker 6: The reason why they even let me do the movie
Speaker 6: in the first place is I had already been babysitting
Speaker 6: for years. I had been tutoring for years. I ended
Speaker 6: up becoming a pre calculus and calculus tutor. I took
Speaker 6: civil engineering at Columbiuni at a I. Yeah, I took
Speaker 6: civil engineering clumb University. I had taken pre calculus and
Speaker 6: calculus did at the Cooper Union. Yeah, it was a
Speaker 6: Really I was a smarty pants. I didn't. I mean,
Speaker 6: my family knew very well that I was not interested
Speaker 6: in having a boyfriend and having sex and doing any
Speaker 6: of that kind of stuff. Because my mom had got
Speaker 6: pregnant with me at sixteen. I was like new to control. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and I was also kind of not always no no,
Speaker 6: no, no no no. Like my daughter was like, oh cool,
Speaker 6: So grandma was a teenage mom and then she had you.
Speaker 6: That's awesome.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, wow.
Speaker 4: So how much time laps between Was he Got Game?
Speaker 4: Your second film?
Speaker 6: He got Game? No? But he Got Game was my
Speaker 6: senior film. So I did that film when I was eighteen.
Speaker 6: That was the film I did getting out of high school.
Speaker 6: So it's just a couple of years later. I turned eighteen.
Speaker 6: On one of my auditions, like Spike made me audition
Speaker 6: for that movie like fifteen twenty times. Really, I had
Speaker 6: to keep going in because he was having me read
Speaker 6: with a bunch of different people, So I don't I
Speaker 6: don't even know who I was up against. I just
Speaker 6: know I read with like a ton of different basketball players,
Speaker 6: and I remember I was still at the it was
Speaker 6: at the last couple of months of high school, and
Speaker 6: I'd be going, I'm like, I just read with Alan
Speaker 6: Iverson today and they're.
Speaker 10: Like, oh, yes, I would.
Speaker 6: Read read.
Speaker 5: I'll be do we talk about practice.
Speaker 8: Bazario between starting in Kids and then your next situation
Speaker 8: was Spike in retrospec Looking back, how did how did
Speaker 8: that help you in your career? Because it seems like
Speaker 8: those are like some real into trenches experiences, especially for
Speaker 8: the beginning, like how did how did do you look
Speaker 8: back at that and say, Okay, well, now I was
Speaker 8: prepared for this.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean when you start off with Kids and
Speaker 6: the Kids is such an incredible film because it's so raw.
Speaker 6: It's kids, and it's you know, it's honest and it's
Speaker 6: vulnerable and it's stark, and you know it's about HIV
Speaker 6: and AIDS and latchkey kids and what are kids up
Speaker 6: to when their parents aren't looking and society isn't caring
Speaker 6: and I mean it was so powerful and provocative and
Speaker 6: important to and still resonates today. That's how authentic and
Speaker 6: remarkable it is. That like the bar was set really high,
Speaker 6: and that's the reason why I was even visible to
Speaker 6: someone like Spike. And then I remember when I got
Speaker 6: cast and he got came. Spike's like, yo, so you
Speaker 6: got to help realin out and I'm like, dude, like,
Speaker 6: I don't, i don't know what I'm doing, Like I
Speaker 6: just I'm just starting off myself. Have him like you know,
Speaker 6: Denzel around and he's like no, and Spikes whole thing
Speaker 6: is like, if I've cast you, I don't make mistakes,
Speaker 6: so do the job I hired you for. So it
Speaker 6: was interesting. It was sort of like this reverse sort
Speaker 6: of confidence builder of just going well, I trust him
Speaker 6: and I believe in him, and I love Spike's work.
Speaker 6: So if he's saying I can do it, then I'm
Speaker 6: guessing I'm gonna have to manifest how to do this
Speaker 6: and acting and show up, you know. So it was
Speaker 6: really interesting. And he would leave sometimes like he'd literally
Speaker 6: be like, Yo, the game's about to start. Peace, you
Speaker 6: can finish this, he laughed. When we were doing the
Speaker 6: Wonder Wheel scene. Oh he laughed and Spike and and
Speaker 6: Ray was sick because he we'd already done the cyclone.
Speaker 6: We'd have massive headaches and he's guzzling pepto bismol on
Speaker 6: this wonder Wheel. I'm by myself with this like vombity
Speaker 6: guy beautiful, awesome, remarkable, vomity guy trying to do this
Speaker 6: sexy scene and Spikes live piece.
Speaker 2: I got a game.
Speaker 4: Game it was ninety seven. Yeah, yeah, my thoughts where
Speaker 4: he was watching Jordans or something. But was it intimidating
Speaker 4: because I also know that Denzel is a very even
Speaker 4: though you had a few scenes with him one or yeah,
Speaker 4: then that one with the karate chap to the next scene.
Speaker 6: Same thing with Unstoppable one scene. I've got to do
Speaker 6: a movie with Denzel that actually has me have more
Speaker 6: than one scene with him. All of my stuff and
Speaker 6: Unstoppable is on the is over the phone, and it
Speaker 6: was literally this other dude who we called White Denzel,
Speaker 6: who sounds just like Denzel but is not Denzel, but
Speaker 6: he would do his voice and innotations. So all of
Speaker 6: my acting stuff except for the actual day I was
Speaker 6: on set with Denzel white.
Speaker 2: Room talking about you'll see about that.
Speaker 7: We're training day three with you.
Speaker 2: There.
Speaker 6: That's not like, you know when people come up to
Speaker 6: me and go, I really liked you, and Alexander I
Speaker 6: have to say oh, because you only oh and I
Speaker 6: like you? Thank you?
Speaker 4: So uh anyway, anyway, we're back. So yeah, so you're
Speaker 4: saying that, how how awkward or intense was that film?
Speaker 2: Because I felt as though.
Speaker 4: That film and a lot of our eyes we're seeing
Speaker 4: you as la la.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I still got called cast la la people screaming
Speaker 6: down the block. I'm like, why why would you be
Speaker 6: in love with that girl?
Speaker 4: And the first time I met you, I was like, man,
Speaker 4: she's the furthest thing from I know.
Speaker 6: I remember Derek Jeter, I think hit up Spike and
Speaker 6: was like, y'all I want to meet or whatever, and
Speaker 6: Spike was like Juter and I'm like, I'm going to
Speaker 6: show up in sweats and that's exactly what I did.
Speaker 6: And Derek was like and I was like, I am
Speaker 6: not laala, like even remotely, not even a little bit.
Speaker 6: And you know, because how many times did we hang
Speaker 6: out during that time? I never like, did I wash
Speaker 6: my hair?
Speaker 2: Yes? Who is human?
Speaker 6: Nice? What are you gonna doa Can I just meet
Speaker 6: see her?
Speaker 2: I actually thought was cool. I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: she's a nerd.
Speaker 4: Okay, nice to meet you. But actually we met the
Speaker 4: weirdest circumstances was Tarik's party the first time we met.
Speaker 6: I think so actually, and I was just thinking about
Speaker 6: recently this time that we went to mister Chows together. Yo,
Speaker 6: do you remember that?
Speaker 2: You don't know the half of it.
Speaker 6: I remember we went there and I was there and
Speaker 6: everybody's still sarted, launching into these stories about like y'all
Speaker 6: remember that time your mom's attacked you with the knife
Speaker 6: getting and it turned into this crazy conversation about mama,
Speaker 6: bases about mama and like how your family members. So
Speaker 6: were like, I'm gonna make you more scared of me
Speaker 6: than the drug dealers, keep you in check.
Speaker 2: No harsh love, all right. So the thing is this,
Speaker 2: this is one of the Knights where d pool day,
Speaker 2: I can't sing like whatever.
Speaker 4: We was at like Radio City Music for a week,
Speaker 4: so to these nights he canceled sickness or whatever, so
Speaker 4: we had the night off.
Speaker 2: So and most was also on the show.
Speaker 4: So we thought, okay, let's go to mister Chiles and
Speaker 4: you know I was not on mister Childs's budget, So
Speaker 4: I'll explain the second half of.
Speaker 2: This dinner thing.
Speaker 4: Anyway, So we're sitting in this back then, mister Chiles
Speaker 4: was the standard, you know, the illustrio. You know, you
Speaker 4: go to mister Child's. I think like Leonardo was there
Speaker 4: at night. He ignored us and just said he said,
Speaker 4: I to most and maybe Brazario, but everyone else.
Speaker 2: We were like minions.
Speaker 4: So it was like ten of us and me and
Speaker 4: Moses brothers. Like you know, like when when black people
Speaker 4: get together, we share the worst whooping stories ever, that's
Speaker 4: like our favorite thing, like to share.
Speaker 2: Who has the worst tragedy.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we bond, right, But like my my boyfriend at
Speaker 6: the time was there, and he grew up in Hawaii,
Speaker 6: barefoot surfing and like with hippie parents. So he walked
Speaker 6: out of their traumatized, like, oh my god, that's abuse.
Speaker 6: That was his mother did that? Why were they laughing?
Speaker 2: It was like the worst the abuse, the funnier the story.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and everyone wanted to one up each other like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but most of those brothers, oh god.
Speaker 5: Umi, yeah yeah yeah, mom. I never mean his mom.
Speaker 5: She's quick with the switch. Anyway, So the check right,
Speaker 5: and this is the first.
Speaker 4: Time I'm looking at a four figure check because I
Speaker 4: made the mistake of in typical mirror fashion, I was
Speaker 4: you know, I showed up late. So Most was like, oh,
Speaker 4: it's cool, I'm gonna take the liberty and just you know,
Speaker 4: I'll pre order for everyone. So I was like, cool,
Speaker 4: because I'm not thinking that I'm ever going to be
Speaker 4: subject to a meal that's going to cost twelve hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: So Most just ordered one of everything off the menu.
Speaker 4: On top of that shit, he ordered you a birthday
Speaker 4: cake and it wasn't even your birthday.
Speaker 2: I'm like, nigga, you're trying to stump on my dollars.
Speaker 8: Wasn't one of the moment where it's like, let's just
Speaker 8: split this equally, no matter or whatever.
Speaker 2: So something happened.
Speaker 4: Something happened, and I knew something was up when four people.
Speaker 2: Brought check and the check looked like four people.
Speaker 4: It looked like not even war in peace. The shit
Speaker 4: looked like the Koran like it was a check, and.
Speaker 5: It looked like a mile long, and it looked like
Speaker 5: the damn when you go to CVS to print out
Speaker 5: that you get with.
Speaker 8: So wait, I need you to dissect this moment because
Speaker 8: at this moment, all of y'all a still at a
Speaker 8: certain tax bracket.
Speaker 10: So how long do you look at the check?
Speaker 6: Because you know you don't want to look too long.
Speaker 6: I want to want to.
Speaker 2: Cool, But motherfucker, I had diarrhea. I played.
Speaker 4: Because I mean back then in two thousand, you know,
Speaker 4: like I was probably on an allowance that between my
Speaker 4: record habit and my sneaker habit, you know, a twelve
Speaker 4: hundred dollars dinner check could wipe me out.
Speaker 6: You're on top ramen for the next three weeks.
Speaker 2: Yo. I was living off of the d and the
Speaker 2: tour bus and anyway.
Speaker 4: So I went to the bathroom, and you know, Most
Speaker 4: was like all trying to gauge you in another abuse story,
Speaker 4: kind of behind your back. I was like, Yo, the
Speaker 4: bathroom now, so me, Most and his two brothers are
Speaker 4: now in the bathroom.
Speaker 2: Fighting over twelve hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: DM, Like we're counting it in the bathroom, and the
Speaker 4: bill was twelve hundred and I think we collectively scrapped
Speaker 4: together like eight hundred and nineteen dollars and we're like, yo, that.
Speaker 2: I can't do. So I begged.
Speaker 4: I begged, and Tina at the last minute shout out
Speaker 4: to Tina Fairs. I said, Tina, do not tell Shuan
Speaker 4: g don't tell Rich Please swipe the roots card on
Speaker 4: on this thing and get us out of this predicament.
Speaker 4: And I just prayed, and she picked up and came
Speaker 4: to the last minute and saved us.
Speaker 2: Amazing never again.
Speaker 10: Most Oh, y'all dinner, it's like for real, like most.
Speaker 2: Probably that's the last you get in line.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and you were none the wiser I got invited,
Speaker 6: dog was I got a birthday cake.
Speaker 4: I was like, that's when I got married because I
Speaker 4: looked at him like, yo, dog, is not even her birthday,
Speaker 4: but you know what the cake was like one hundred
Speaker 4: and nineteen. But like, yo, dog, I hope it was
Speaker 4: the best cake you have. Eight No, I couldn't eat.
Speaker 2: I lost.
Speaker 4: I was trying to regurgitate the food and give it
Speaker 4: back to them. How bad, you know.
Speaker 6: But I think about that story a lot because I
Speaker 6: think about like it's it took that comes up for
Speaker 6: me over so many years, especially at this moment that
Speaker 6: we're in right now. I mean for so many years,
Speaker 6: like you know, we got this times up thing that's
Speaker 6: happening right now, which is really powerful, and all of
Speaker 6: these people who are coming out about harassment and abuse
Speaker 6: and just you know, we've got sexual predator in chief
Speaker 6: in office, and like just so many different things that
Speaker 6: are kind of coming on. And after years of being
Speaker 6: on the board of v Day and Lori's Side Girls
Speaker 6: Club and so many organizations and traveling around the world
Speaker 6: to places like Congo and talking to people from abuse
Speaker 6: and having been abused myself as a kid, and you know,
Speaker 6: just so many different things and recognizing how often we
Speaker 6: really do marginalize the pain that we've gone through and
Speaker 6: how we excuse the harsh sort of realities that we
Speaker 6: sort of live in. And it's been really beautiful to
Speaker 6: see over the years people get their come upance and
Speaker 6: be able to kind of grow past that and become incredible, wonderful,
Speaker 6: beautiful people who are championing light and love and compassion
Speaker 6: and empathy and just seeing people like knowing fully well
Speaker 6: what they went through to get to this position, Like
Speaker 6: even watching jay z and concert just talking about like, yo,
Speaker 6: I came from ugliness and I did ugly things to
Speaker 6: get here and now I'm here because I kept speaking
Speaker 6: into the future what I wanted to create because I
Speaker 6: didn't how many people when I was a teenager, I
Speaker 6: went to their funerals, And there are a lot of
Speaker 6: people whose funerals that I went to, and there's a
Speaker 6: lot of people who have who are really tortured and
Speaker 6: traumatized from not just the neighborhoods and the circumstances they
Speaker 6: grew up in, but from the harsh love that their
Speaker 6: parents and grandparents felt that they needed to wield in
Speaker 6: order to quote unquote protect them and that stuff really,
Speaker 6: you know, And and it was just interesting because we
Speaker 6: were right in that moment. It was still something that
Speaker 6: was kind of really blind to me how much we
Speaker 6: tolerate because it's our normal and how you know, like
Speaker 6: as a parent, now that's just not something that's acceptable parents.
Speaker 2: How do you guys view you know, corporate punishment.
Speaker 10: Well, not just corporate conversation has changed now.
Speaker 8: It's not as acceptable to see people talking about that loud,
Speaker 8: like it is.
Speaker 4: Like we would laugh at you know, white people saying
Speaker 4: like oh, time out, you know, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But it's like, how do you how do you.
Speaker 4: Minister that now so that you don't traumatize your kids and.
Speaker 5: I think for me, I mean, I got boys, so
Speaker 5: you know, it's I think some with boys, there is
Speaker 5: a little particular raising young black boys, like you have
Speaker 5: to let them know that the world is not gonna
Speaker 5: be fair, and that generally my message to them.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 5: My boys are seventeen and twelve. But I remember telling
Speaker 5: my twelve year old, I'm like, listen, your childhood is
Speaker 5: gonna end in like another year. Like that's pretty much
Speaker 5: when black childhood ends. Once you're no longer cute and
Speaker 5: cut lee and all that stuff, homie, you're a threat.
Speaker 5: You get a little height on you, your voice, get a
Speaker 5: little deeper, your you know, hands, get a little big Like, dude,
Speaker 5: you're not the same. So versus when you're eight and
Speaker 5: nine and it's you and your buddies at the mall
Speaker 5: or at Chuck E Cheese or whatever the fuck. It's
Speaker 5: all these cute little boys. But take thirteen year olds
Speaker 5: and it's for y'all. Now, y'all are game, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, So you just have to be cognitive
Speaker 5: of that. So to me, I in terms of just beaten,
Speaker 5: that's something that I mean, I definitely got a lot
Speaker 5: of beatens as a kid.
Speaker 2: My boys.
Speaker 5: I can probably count on one hand the number of
Speaker 5: times I ever had to spank them, like ever, you
Speaker 5: know what I'm saying throughout their life. For me, it's
Speaker 5: just more so just a thing of just having conversations
Speaker 5: with them and just trying to understand that you know,
Speaker 5: you can talk to me about anything. If you bring
Speaker 5: something to me, you won't get in trouble for it
Speaker 5: if you get out ahead of it. But if I
Speaker 5: find out some ship, that's your ass. So that's what
Speaker 5: I mean. Growing Yeah, I mean, that's that's how it
Speaker 5: is me. And then too, I think we have to
Speaker 5: think of for me, a big thing was like just
Speaker 5: just as black Americans or just all people of color,
Speaker 5: I think you have to think about where our shit
Speaker 5: comes from and all of it.
Speaker 2: That ship comes from slavery, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Like I remember being a kid and like my grandmother
Speaker 5: making us pick switches, you know what i mean.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, like you probably.
Speaker 8: Sure that in the village that we never put our
Speaker 8: hands on you.
Speaker 5: But that picking on like some slave ship, nigga, Like
Speaker 5: that's because that's not that goes beyond discipline, that's human,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, Like that's I'm gonna fuck
Speaker 5: with you and make you pick your own punishment, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, Like that's psychology, that's some psychological
Speaker 5: abuse shit.
Speaker 2: So even think about like, damn.
Speaker 6: Exactly, King Leopold never stepped a foot in the Congo,
Speaker 6: and they that's exactly what they would do, is have
Speaker 6: slaves beat other slaves, you know. And that's this how
Speaker 6: they created apartheid, Like they went and looked at what
Speaker 6: worked in multiple different countries and places around slavery to
Speaker 6: compile something together that would exactly gaslight people and have
Speaker 6: them turning against each other. And I feel like that's
Speaker 6: the moment that we're in right now, where those device,
Speaker 6: those those tools for divisiveness are being exposed, and we're
Speaker 6: recognizing how much we've been siloed from each other and
Speaker 6: and being in competition and creating violence and being marginalized
Speaker 6: so that we actually think we're the minority, but we're not.
Speaker 6: We're not right at all, and the world around and
Speaker 6: you know, and that part of that was exactly those
Speaker 6: things of like you know, my family members who martyred
Speaker 6: themselves and sacrificed, and it was all about, you know,
Speaker 6: forfeiting needs for these other strategies and I was raised
Speaker 6: in that and it was incredibly corrosive to the spirit
Speaker 6: and energy. And it's never mind all the stuff that
Speaker 6: you see in culture that also demoralizes you and puts
Speaker 6: you down and marginalizes you. But you got to recognize that,
Speaker 6: like that hate and that fear and those traumas also
Speaker 6: came from your family and that they didn't know any
Speaker 6: better because that's how they were raised. Like it's just
Speaker 6: like the fact that we're at this point right now
Speaker 6: where we can really break that cycle, and a lot
Speaker 6: of that is like I love the conversation I was
Speaker 6: talking to people like Patrit's Colors, who's like, going, we
Speaker 6: need to have self care and it's not about me,
Speaker 6: just as you know, one of the founding members of
Speaker 6: Black Lives Matter, going, I need to take care of
Speaker 6: myself because you know, look at Erika Garner just dying
Speaker 6: right now from an enlarged heart. You know, like that's
Speaker 6: that's a broken heart and someone who didn't get the
Speaker 6: chance to morn, who's been fighting and fighting and fighting
Speaker 6: and now can't raise her child. It's like, you know,
Speaker 6: we have to take care of ourselves. But also we
Speaker 6: didn't hurt ourselves, and we also need to have a
Speaker 6: conversation that where we're really taking care of ourselves. So
Speaker 6: I go back to that conversation often because in that
Speaker 6: when we made light of all of that abuse and trauma,
Speaker 6: and I feel like the conversation that's happening now is
Speaker 6: going really investigating it and going was that good? Was
Speaker 6: that necessary? I mean, it made sense for that time,
Speaker 6: but it no longer works. It's not and not even
Speaker 6: that it necessarily really made sense for that time either,
Speaker 6: but it's no longer excusable. But we truly know better
Speaker 6: because I hear y'all and it makes sense.
Speaker 8: But then there's something inside of me just having an
Speaker 8: AMA's moment that makes me go, I was a child
Speaker 8: who got beatens right, not just the switch moment, but
Speaker 8: and it used to be a moment where I was
Speaker 8: proud to say, yes, I got beat and I'm a
Speaker 8: proud child that I'm not going to do the same
Speaker 8: to my children. But now it's so weird because those
Speaker 8: words coming out of your mouth are now offensive. It's
Speaker 8: not politically correct to say like, but I remember ten
Speaker 8: years ago talking to peers and being like, I got
Speaker 8: beat them and beat my kads yeah, of course, it's
Speaker 8: just we we thought.
Speaker 6: It was normal and we knew the thing and I
Speaker 6: complated is that there was love behind it, right, And
Speaker 6: that's what I said. It wasn't like I was there.
Speaker 8: And it's a certain pride and me not I don't
Speaker 8: want to say me being fearful of my mother, but
Speaker 8: it's a certain respect level because although she is two
Speaker 8: feet shorter than me and one hundred pounds smaller, I'm
Speaker 8: not fucking with her. But that's not my best friend.
Speaker 8: But I think it some of that was because of
Speaker 8: the beating.
Speaker 6: It's just a weird.
Speaker 2: But there's a way you have to.
Speaker 5: I think there's a way you can establish, you know,
Speaker 5: respect and establish those boundaries that may not necessarily involve
Speaker 5: hitting your kids, you know what I mean. You know,
Speaker 5: for me, I've just never had that issue with my boys,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: They just don't.
Speaker 5: And so I remember when Tamia Rice got killed and
Speaker 5: I sat my son down at the time, who was eleven,
Speaker 5: I think or ten, and I was like, this, this kid,
Speaker 5: you will be twelve in two years, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, And they just shot and killed this kid,
Speaker 5: just so he was aware of the world that he's
Speaker 5: living in and so just having those kinds of conversations
Speaker 5: just help you to understand that. It's like, listen, I'm
Speaker 5: telling you these things because I care.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And if you do something that is out of pocket, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'm a scream on you, but it's because I'm trying
Speaker 5: to save your fucking life, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: Like I'm being hard on you because I'm trying to
Speaker 5: protect you, and I may not that may not necessarily
Speaker 5: mean I gotta, you know, put hands on you. And
Speaker 5: as long as they understand that. With my boys, they
Speaker 5: get it. So I just personally haven't had a lot
Speaker 5: to do that.
Speaker 6: I think that's just the tools just keep getting refined.
Speaker 6: The relationship you have with your mom is because you
Speaker 6: two love each other and you're both good people and
Speaker 6: you want to have that dynamic. Did it have to
Speaker 6: go and be created in the way that it was.
Speaker 6: That's arguable it, you know, because you're I'm seeing now
Speaker 6: I can have a relationship with my kid that doesn't
Speaker 6: involve those things and I can still get that same
Speaker 6: thing and without having to excuse some laps of judgment
Speaker 6: and art, you know, and violence and abuse because that
Speaker 6: wasn't necessary. It was an avenue. We grew up in it. Though,
Speaker 6: Like that's why I keep going back to that conversation,
Speaker 6: because it was like, these are all really good, really talented,
Speaker 6: really smart people, but we're all tolerating this thing because
Speaker 6: it's our normal. Is what it is, what it is,
Speaker 6: it's it's part of culture. And now the culture is
Speaker 6: really transfer formed. And like that's the thing where it's
Speaker 6: interesting where I don't necessarily agree about how outrageous young
Speaker 6: people are, and I think that's always sort of been there,
Speaker 6: But there's this other beautiful and I get it because
Speaker 6: there's a lot of argument against calling with millennials and
Speaker 6: young people about entitled, but there is something really empower
Speaker 6: amazing about how entitled young people feel like they have
Speaker 6: a voice. They have twenty four hour channels dedicated to them.
Speaker 6: We didn't have that. We had a couple of cartoons
Speaker 6: and then that was it. It was an adult world. And
Speaker 6: now kids are catered to. They have access to information
Speaker 6: that doesn't have to come from their teachers or their
Speaker 6: parents or their neighborhood. They can really and so at
Speaker 6: a very younger age, they're expressing themselves and feeling entitled
Speaker 6: to those opinions, and so like, you know, you're getting
Speaker 6: a different pushback than just like a sassy teenager talking
Speaker 6: to you. You're getting this really young person who feels
Speaker 6: like they have to they can express themselves, which was
Speaker 6: not the same thing. But my mother or my grandmother
Speaker 6: went through in it was like yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, that.
Speaker 2: Did not exist. They are they're more informed.
Speaker 6: Are information is power, and so that's.
Speaker 2: More informed than we were at that age.
Speaker 6: I mean for sure, you know, and it took us
Speaker 6: a long time for us to get to like this
Speaker 6: level of you know, non violent communication and all of
Speaker 6: this stuff is happening to us in our twenties and
Speaker 6: thirties and forties, and that's happening in teenagers now and
Speaker 6: younger and that that's pretty and seeing them assert themselves
Speaker 6: and going, don't you like you're gonna you don't talk
Speaker 6: to me that way, you don't hit you don't hit
Speaker 6: me like that. Like it's not just that we're deciding that,
Speaker 6: you know, we've decided we want to change, it's these
Speaker 6: kids going, what do you think put your hand down?
Speaker 5: Well, well, now they ain't never said that to me.
Speaker 5: Now that'll get you fucked up? Yeah, with your hand, nigga,
Speaker 5: what you got on this mortgage? Nigga about that?
Speaker 6: I still have. I take that from the will Smith
Speaker 6: thing where you tell those kids all, he said, used
Speaker 6: to tell us kids all the time, like clean my room.
Speaker 6: That's my room. No, you ain't paying no rent, that's
Speaker 6: my room.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: But I struggle, I mean I struggle with that though
Speaker 5: I do. I struggle with it just in the sense
Speaker 5: of like I'm always thinking about I don't know if
Speaker 5: you will remember. It was like some experiment that some
Speaker 5: scientists did like years this, like in the sixties and seventies.
Speaker 5: But it was basically this experiment where they took these
Speaker 5: fish and they had them in the bowl. They had
Speaker 5: them the fish tank, and so they put the fish
Speaker 5: in the fish tank, and they had one side of
Speaker 5: the fish of the tank closed off, so the fish
Speaker 5: can only go into the bowl into like this little
Speaker 5: border or whatever. So then they remove the border, and
Speaker 5: the fish still stayed on the side, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. And so for me, that's kind of the
Speaker 5: thing with what it was raising like you know, black boys,
Speaker 5: it's like I look at like white kids, like if
Speaker 5: you've be in the airport and you just see white
Speaker 5: kids just be everywhere, just be running all the funk
Speaker 5: around and they mamas don't stop them, They just let
Speaker 5: them go.
Speaker 2: And we're always as a kid, not like that.
Speaker 6: On the plane to Africa, the kids are running around.
Speaker 6: Oh wow, us in our place y place. Again, it's culture, right,
Speaker 6: and what's what's what's accepted and what's and the fear
Speaker 6: that's built into it and you know all of those
Speaker 6: things where we do that, we put up that border
Speaker 6: ourselves and don't step out. But if you see that
Speaker 6: difference in people you know over there, then that's what's
Speaker 6: the difference between them and US America.
Speaker 2: They different.
Speaker 6: I'm just saying, yeah.
Speaker 4: So of course you're legendarily known for your political activism.
Speaker 4: What made you, yeah, I believe it or not. I
Speaker 4: don't know if you know this, what made you want
Speaker 4: to step into that realm? Because nine times out of ten,
Speaker 4: you know, once a person reaches a certain place in
Speaker 4: their their career, their profession, they might get in a
Speaker 4: comfortable place where it's like, well, I don't want to
Speaker 4: rap my boat. And you know, you have this sort
Speaker 4: of Harriet Tubman thing about you where it's like you
Speaker 4: you ride for your people, and every time I turn around,
Speaker 4: you're either you know, doing some girls club thing or
Speaker 4: you're always i'd see you do more social work than
Speaker 4: I do your professional work. But then again, you know,
Speaker 4: you know, if you're getting Marvel money, then I'm getting.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, we're getting money. You know.
Speaker 4: I'm sure that affords you, you know, time to balance. Yeah, like,
Speaker 4: how do you balance your professional career? And you know,
Speaker 4: why do you feel it's such a need to be
Speaker 4: politically and socially involved in the lives of the uh
Speaker 4: I guess disenfranchised or.
Speaker 6: Well, I grew up before you know, Kimblee Crenshaw sort
Speaker 6: of coined intersectionality with her remarkable ted talk and work.
Speaker 6: I grew up understanding the intersectionality of my mom being
Speaker 6: a teenage mom and lack of education and home and
Speaker 6: security and jobs, you know, and like, you know, the
Speaker 6: voice my mom would put on, Hi, I'm Isabelle celest Dosan,
Speaker 6: you know, and to try to get a job, and
Speaker 6: then suddenly she'd show up and the job was no
Speaker 6: longer available and the apartment was no longer available. Because
Speaker 6: she's a six foot tall Puerto Rican from the Bronx
Speaker 6: and she sounded different on the phone, but you know,
Speaker 6: and and growing up in New York with a you know,
Speaker 6: housing crisis and AIDS and HIV and and you know,
Speaker 6: this heroin and crack epidemic and just so many different
Speaker 6: things that it's like, you know, my mom worked in
Speaker 6: organizations and she used to campaign, and so many other
Speaker 6: people that I grew up with, and there were also
Speaker 6: broken people who could also really be you know, abusive
Speaker 6: and terrible and traumatized. And so it was like this
Speaker 6: weird dichotomy of people. But it was always still people
Speaker 6: that I saw who were not perfect, who did not
Speaker 6: have it all together, who were also still going, I'm
Speaker 6: going to help. You know, these are people who didn't
Speaker 6: have anything, and it was poor people helping people. So
Speaker 6: and then the very first movie I do is about
Speaker 6: HIV and AIDS and rape and kids in New York
Speaker 6: City and it's you know, and it shot up and
Speaker 6: it made an impact, and I had so many incredible
Speaker 6: conversations with people who had revelations about their behavior from
Speaker 6: watching the movie. And so for me, it was always intertwined.
Speaker 6: I grew up around activists. I went into film through
Speaker 6: sort of advocacy, and so I recognized really early on
Speaker 6: that the more I kept myself quote unquote relevant doing
Speaker 6: work consistently, the more I could continue to also promote
Speaker 6: the heroes and heroines that I grew up with, who
Speaker 6: were the ones who were pushing back against discriminatory housing
Speaker 6: laws and you know, working to get drug addicts off
Speaker 6: the streets and making better school programs for kids and
Speaker 6: so just it was always something that I did forever.
Speaker 6: But it's it's interesting now being you know, in sort
Speaker 6: of like this times Up group with all these amazing
Speaker 6: actresses and women and you know, over just a couple
Speaker 6: of months and all these different people who've put out
Speaker 6: their stories so bravely, and you know, the whistleblowers who
Speaker 6: have lost work over it, and now it's time to
Speaker 6: celebrate them. The Rose McGowan's and the Annabelasias and the
Speaker 6: you know, Anthony Rafts, Terry Crews, Corey Feldman, you know,
Speaker 6: Ashley Judd, Olivia Munn, Like it's important to say these
Speaker 6: people's names because they lost work, they mire Sorvino like,
Speaker 6: their careers were attacked and I you know, and and
Speaker 6: someone said something really beautiful yesterday of just talking about
Speaker 6: how because of the way she grew up, she self
Speaker 6: soothed and was able to sort of find other avenues
Speaker 6: to express herself and to have success or just to
Speaker 6: be working or you know, keeping herself busy and finding
Speaker 6: you know, vitality in her life when that work did
Speaker 6: dry up. And but when she did that, she was
Speaker 6: also marginalizing her talent and her access because suddenly that
Speaker 6: worked right up. So rather than really address how it
Speaker 6: cost her her career, she just was like, I don't
Speaker 6: really want to do it, or you know, oh it's
Speaker 6: totally cool, or maybe actually I can't do it. And
Speaker 6: the psychological sort of abuse that that was, and I
Speaker 6: look at it as well, because it's like, you know,
Speaker 6: I see certain performances or I see certain people now,
Speaker 6: and I see characters out there that look like me,
Speaker 6: that were roles that I never would have had access
Speaker 6: to over so many years. And I've always worked, but
Speaker 6: I had to do a lot of independent work, and
Speaker 6: you know, and it's and so I very often did
Speaker 6: not get paid. I got paid scale when I was
Speaker 6: on both Spikeley movies, you know, and Denzel getting you
Speaker 6: know whatever how many millions or whatever he was getting.
Speaker 6: You know, it's like and it doesn't mean, I didn't
Speaker 6: do great work, and it doesn't mean you know, how
Speaker 6: many stuff, but I didn't get I don't get nominated
Speaker 6: for stuff. And I don't know if that has to
Speaker 6: do with anything, but I know I'm one of the
Speaker 6: few who's always pushed back and been very radical about
Speaker 6: a lot of different issues. And people have always asked
Speaker 6: me for years, has that cost you work? And since
Speaker 6: I've always worked, I never really thought about it, but
Speaker 6: I haven't had access to the work that I really
Speaker 6: want to do necessarily, And it's interesting to me to
Speaker 6: kind of think, like, has it affected my work? Like
Speaker 6: I don't. I don't know, Like I don't has it
Speaker 6: Has it stopped me from getting on certain lists? I
Speaker 6: know for sure, you know, sort of being a Bernie
Speaker 6: person didn't make a lot of people in Hollywood very
Speaker 6: happy with me, you know, And and so I wonder
Speaker 6: what that effect is, you know, necessarily for speaking up
Speaker 6: on behalf of trans rights and you know, gay rights
Speaker 6: and children's rights and anti abuse and education and housing
Speaker 6: all the different things that I've you know, fought for
Speaker 6: for so many years. You know, I don't, I don't
Speaker 6: know if it's cost me anything, but I do know
Speaker 6: I have constantly redirected my energy and just kind of
Speaker 6: kept moving forward rather than really kind of look at, well,
Speaker 6: why didn't that turn into more work? Actually I got
Speaker 6: a lot of praise for that, Like, I know, I
Speaker 6: did a really great job in that, like seven pounds
Speaker 6: was really powerful or this was really powerful? On how
Speaker 6: come that? Like, and I'm working with people who I
Speaker 6: also know didn't get recognized because Will wouldn't get that attention,
Speaker 6: Spike wouldn't get that attention. I'd see their frustration as well,
Speaker 6: being the huge names that they were and how often
Speaker 6: their work was marginalized. So it's like you see a
Speaker 6: pattern that's definitely there. Whether it's because you're outspoken, or
Speaker 6: because you're of color, or because you're a woman or
Speaker 6: whatever it is, but they're are a lot of voices
Speaker 6: that have been marginalized for years because of discrimination.
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 8: I just I was just curious, what is that role?
Speaker 8: Because when you think back of all the roles you
Speaker 8: have played has been very diverse, But what is that role?
Speaker 8: Did you think that you're missing out on in that way?
Speaker 6: Like, I mean, I I the opportunity, No, I mean
Speaker 6: I can definitely see there's you know, I'm not. I
Speaker 6: don't you know that when I look at what things
Speaker 6: I have, Like I auditioned for seven pounds, I auditioned
Speaker 6: for Sin City, I auditioned, Like these are roles that
Speaker 6: I fought for. These are not like, you know, and
Speaker 6: so there's this impression that like, I get offered all
Speaker 6: this stuff all the time, but actually fight for a
Speaker 6: lot of the stuff. But it's it's you know, so
Speaker 6: it's interesting, like you know, there's sort of this idea
Speaker 6: of what that looks like. And then I meet other
Speaker 6: people in my peers and they're like, oh, yeah, I'm
Speaker 6: turning on this moment. I'm like.
Speaker 4: Saying that even at this this stage in your career
Speaker 4: twenty plus, that you're still.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and I still I guess it's not to say
Speaker 6: I don't like don't get offers or this or that,
Speaker 6: and I'm very grateful for like the position that I'm in,
Speaker 6: but I have to you know, it's it's just it's
Speaker 6: really interesting to recognize how, especially as women, you know,
Speaker 6: to be in this group of women now who are
Speaker 6: talking to each other and to see across the board
Speaker 6: how significant it feels for all of us, because you know,
Speaker 6: there aren't like those men's groups, there's this confidence like, oh,
Speaker 6: you're a Chris too, You're Chris. You're Chris, You're Chris.
Speaker 6: You all get franchises, you know. And it's like all
Speaker 6: of us ladies are like pitted against each other. And
Speaker 6: how many times have I auditioned against Kerrie Washington and
Speaker 6: Lucy Low and whatever? And it was like, oh, this
Speaker 6: is the diversity character. So we're all in competition with Sea. Yeah,
Speaker 6: we're all the we're the like, so there's one of
Speaker 6: us and then all men. And so like it's we're
Speaker 6: always taught where we're given this idea like you're you're welcome,
Speaker 6: even though you're doing just as much work and for
Speaker 6: a fraction of the pay. But like if you say anything,
Speaker 6: you know, know that you're replaceable, which doesn't feel like
Speaker 6: the same thing that we're hear from our male counterparts.
Speaker 6: And so like that's and and so there's like that's
Speaker 6: where there's a lot of anger from a lot of
Speaker 6: especially the women who are coming forward right now and
Speaker 6: have been coming forward for years, because it absolutely cost
Speaker 6: them work. I don't know that I can definitively say
Speaker 6: that for myself, but I know I have been a
Speaker 6: very outspoken person for a lot of years and yeah,
Speaker 6: and that capacity, but at the same time, like I
Speaker 6: don't know what that's cost me or not, Like I
Speaker 6: don't know if I had only specifically dedicated myself to
Speaker 6: acting and performing and doing the parties and doing the
Speaker 6: you know, all of that and playing that game, if
Speaker 6: I had, but instead I took I did a job.
Speaker 6: I was like, great, now I have press and I'm
Speaker 6: going to talk about this issue here. Thank you for that,
Speaker 6: and you know, and you know now it's so beautiful
Speaker 6: now to see these people who are are making really
Speaker 6: good money and aren't having access to social media, which
Speaker 6: I didn't have at that time to be able to
Speaker 6: really speak out to people and still grow their success
Speaker 6: at the same time as talking about these issues. That
Speaker 6: wasn't an option for me.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, wait, let me just get this kind of
Speaker 2: a three part question.
Speaker 4: But how did you because I know that no woman
Speaker 4: in Hollywood is unscathed, Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: How do you deal with.
Speaker 4: Whatever the Weinstein's or the Rattiners of Hollywood, which I'm
Speaker 4: sure there's a lot of them and some that haven't
Speaker 4: been touched yet, But.
Speaker 2: How do you navigate your way through that landmine?
Speaker 8: Well?
Speaker 4: What's the difference between you know, Okay, I get creepy
Speaker 4: vibes from this one and oh this one has such
Speaker 4: a claim and it's such an honor to be in
Speaker 4: this one's movies because of his legacy and his lineage.
Speaker 2: But I don't know, like, how do you.
Speaker 6: I mean again, because I didn't ever really play like
Speaker 6: that game. You know, there are people I avoided in general,
Speaker 6: or I did what I had to do work wise.
Speaker 6: I always treated it like Okay, I got to come
Speaker 6: here and do this party or do whatever, and then
Speaker 6: I'm out. Like I never I didn't do hey, let's
Speaker 6: go to dinner. Yeah, I very much avoided that. And
Speaker 6: if anything, that was one of the things that I
Speaker 6: thought about yesterday is like because I was I was
Speaker 6: raped in lested as a child with you know, with
Speaker 6: one with a family member and one with the babysitter.
Speaker 6: So for me, it was I grew up with this
Speaker 6: sort of understanding that the world isn't safe, and so
Speaker 6: I have going into this industry of course, I mean
Speaker 6: from kids, you know, and like how old are you, Larry?
Speaker 6: Why are you shooting these kids that dress like or
Speaker 6: not dressed like this? You know, I've I've definitely just
Speaker 6: had for a very long time. I just assume all
Speaker 6: everybody has some sort of dark potential story. So I
Speaker 6: walked into most And so did I excuse or did
Speaker 6: I ignore or did I as just navigate around all
Speaker 6: of that? Yeah, because it was it's except quote unquote tolerated.
Speaker 6: It's what's been passed down by family members who go
Speaker 6: that happened to me too, Baby, should be just gonna
Speaker 6: move on. You know, I said to me, see what
Speaker 6: I'm saying.
Speaker 8: My mom said to me, every woman in your life
Speaker 8: has been raped oresectually assaulted at some point.
Speaker 6: Now happening. We're taught like that's just how you got
Speaker 6: to deal with it, you know, like we're you know
Speaker 6: where we were sitting in one of these meetings and
Speaker 6: it was saying, you know a lot of people's first
Speaker 6: jobs is going into the waitressinger industry and that's a
Speaker 6: two dollars I think thirteen cent an hour pay, so
Speaker 6: basically the first job out of the house. Whatever trauma
Speaker 6: or not trauma you experienced there. Now you're going into
Speaker 6: the space where you're being told we're revealing clothes. Deal
Speaker 6: with that scumbag because maybe they'll give you a good tip.
Speaker 6: So now pussy grabber in chief is potentially the good tipper. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and you know so how do you then go to
Speaker 6: hr How do you then when you start building up
Speaker 6: ever go Those power dynamics are always exploited. You saw
Speaker 6: it at home, you saw it in your community, you
Speaker 6: saw it at school, you see it all. It's pervasively
Speaker 6: all around the world. At what point do you have
Speaker 6: the gumption to go no where? Like I know that
Speaker 6: most of the world's enslaved, but underground row would road
Speaker 6: later we're gonna say this isn't okay. It doesn't matter
Speaker 6: if it's the law, it's not okay. And the reason
Speaker 6: why people can be fired like this and all the
Speaker 6: stuff that's going on right now is because people behind
Speaker 6: the scenes for many years have been working to put
Speaker 6: those anti discriminatory you know, laws in place and in
Speaker 6: contracts for so long that they all need to be bettered.
Speaker 6: NDA's got to go, Like all these different things have
Speaker 6: to happen. But like this moment was a long time
Speaker 6: building and coming from a lot of heroes and heroines
Speaker 6: that'll never be recognized. Who did that dirty work when
Speaker 6: no one cared, when it was totally like where the
Speaker 6: story was. You know, we're not going to talk about
Speaker 6: what Bill cos Beer, Woody Allen did because they make
Speaker 6: great projects and this generation is going, uh no, you
Speaker 6: ruined those projects for me because you did bad things.
Speaker 6: That's actually how that story is told, and that's really
Speaker 6: that's a huge transformation from how I grew up. When
Speaker 6: I grew up, it was like, it is what it is.
Speaker 6: It's been secret, and you separated and it's totally fine,
Speaker 6: and to finally be in so my activism really felt separate,
Speaker 6: you know, like it like I do this over here
Speaker 6: and I try to help with the girls, and I
Speaker 6: try to make the inroads that I can, but I
Speaker 6: understand that I have to navigate this really carefully in
Speaker 6: my industry. And now that's starting to change, which is
Speaker 6: really powerful.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 4: Part two, that sort of question is, all right, knowing
Speaker 4: that you are now in this community of actresses that
Speaker 4: are in conversation and you know, you guys are talking
Speaker 4: to each other daily, is there a general awareness because
Speaker 4: I know that well, you know, I know that you
Speaker 4: are in the minority of this, being a woman of
Speaker 4: color and not white. Is there a general understanding that
Speaker 4: there's still a harder level for women of color in
Speaker 4: the acting community to even get fair you know, basic treatment,
Speaker 4: not even fair treatment, but basic treatment.
Speaker 6: A million Oh they do, Yeah, because we are we
Speaker 6: are definitely pushing for that. When we're saying like fifty
Speaker 6: to fifty by twenty twenty, trying to change the boards,
Speaker 6: trying to change all the different power dynamics. It's not
Speaker 6: just going white cisgender women. It's understanding that that needs
Speaker 6: to be inclusive of lgbt t Q, LGBTQ i A people.
Speaker 2: It needs to be down because so many letters been added, I.
Speaker 6: Know, it's so much the intersectionality. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 6: I think it's it. I think it's just you know,
Speaker 6: this idea of like that representing people of all that's
Speaker 6: disabled persons that like, it's it's much bigger than even
Speaker 6: just brown and white and black, you know and Latina
Speaker 6: an Asian, like it's it's a bigger it's a bigger issue.
Speaker 6: But it's also you know, we got this beautiful letter
Speaker 6: from the farm workers who you know, they are picking
Speaker 6: our food and vulnerable to rape daily because they're out
Speaker 6: there in the fields on their own, and they were
Speaker 6: so moved by so many of these stories that they
Speaker 6: wrote a letter in solidarity with us, and we wrote
Speaker 6: a letter back, and one of the things I pushed
Speaker 6: back on it was like, you know, they really made
Speaker 6: it much more inclusive. It's not just women, so Times
Speaker 6: Up is women, but the legal defense fund that we're
Speaker 6: funding that goes for you know, quote unquote low wage
Speaker 6: or some you know, kind of workers across the nation,
Speaker 6: male and female. Beyond the binary of understanding, like the
Speaker 6: fact that women have come together, which I think is
Speaker 6: really important. We do need women to be able to
Speaker 6: feel we've been so cut off from each other. I
Speaker 6: think it's really powerful and really beautiful, and there's so
Speaker 6: much healing that needs to happen among women. But I
Speaker 6: love that women came together to tell these stories and
Speaker 6: are also recognizing the men who've come forward and are
Speaker 6: recognizing that with the money that we're raising to help
Speaker 6: people to push back against their predators and hold them
Speaker 6: accountable legally, that they need those funds. And the fifteen
Speaker 6: million dollars that have already been raised in just the
Speaker 6: past couple of weeks, nine thousand donations goes to disabled
Speaker 6: persons LGBTQI. Hey people, men and women, like I mean,
Speaker 6: it's it's really beautiful that like, women are coming to
Speaker 6: the rescue, but we're inviting them, our male allies to
Speaker 6: help us out, but we're not waiting for them. And
Speaker 6: that's that's to me, one of the most provocative things.
Speaker 8: And to build on what Amir said, though, is there
Speaker 8: a conversation because I feel like, especially now with an understanding,
Speaker 8: that we don't understand each other as much as we think.
Speaker 8: You know what I mean, especially me too, means very
Speaker 8: different things, but especially for people of color. You know,
Speaker 8: as people of color in this country, we've been we
Speaker 8: have to know some basic things about white folks.
Speaker 10: It's in our history.
Speaker 8: For the first eighteen years of our lives, we are
Speaker 8: taught about white folks. White folks have the option of
Speaker 8: learning about black people right So on the hills of
Speaker 8: what Amir said, you know, I always find it interesting
Speaker 8: with white women how it's a woman's movement, it's women.
Speaker 6: Got their right to vote.
Speaker 8: But there is a whole disconnect of talking like I
Speaker 8: hate when I hear women talk about women's suffrage and
Speaker 8: white women seem to forget that women of black women
Speaker 8: could not vote until nineteen sixty five, where you were
Speaker 8: voting eighteen sixty whatever.
Speaker 6: Also the Native American women who were the models for
Speaker 6: the suffragette movement who never who never get recognized. That's right.
Speaker 6: So like it's you know, like the it didn't like
Speaker 6: have a bunch of people leaving from England and showing
Speaker 6: up here and going I'm gonna create three branches of government. No,
Speaker 6: you got that from Natives if you were living and
Speaker 6: have and had an incredible democracy. That was the first democracy.
Speaker 6: These were not just people walking around with you know,
Speaker 6: fingers up in the air like this. This was These
Speaker 6: were whole communities with leadership where the women were recognized,
Speaker 6: men were recognized, trans people were recognized as having two
Speaker 6: spirits and considered valuable to the community.
Speaker 8: Like that is still that's an added on a conversation.
Speaker 8: I'm just saying it's not at the beginning of the conversation.
Speaker 6: So absolutely it's been That's why I'm in that space, right, Okay,
Speaker 6: That's why Gabrielle Union's in that space, and Rashida's in
Speaker 6: that space. In America's in that space, and all of
Speaker 6: us are being really assertive about you know, making sure
Speaker 6: like and we're going just going we have to have
Speaker 6: fifty to fifty by twenty twenty, Well, what does that
Speaker 6: exactly mean? You know, like, how many of those how
Speaker 6: diverse does that fifty to fifty look? You know, and
Speaker 6: really making sure that that's really understood that if we're
Speaker 6: talking about having a world and that that reflect you know,
Speaker 6: having an industry that's reflective of the world, that means
Speaker 6: we got to look at the statistics of what this
Speaker 6: world actually looks like. And right now those numbers don't exist.
Speaker 6: And what's one of the things that's interesting of like
Speaker 6: doing the research on this is like, if there's one
Speaker 6: woman out of ten on a board, three quarters of
Speaker 6: men think that it's diverse enough, and a third of
Speaker 6: women think it's diverse enough. But there's actually, you know,
Speaker 6: or a little bit more I think, actually think that, okay,
Speaker 6: well we've got a diverse board. Now there's one out
Speaker 6: of ten, you know, and never mind that if she'll
Speaker 6: ever be or whatever.
Speaker 8: You know, and that one woman does she underdo what
Speaker 8: do women understand at that point? Though? That diverse doesn't
Speaker 8: just mean one white woman sitting there? Are you happy
Speaker 8: now that you see one white woman sitting there? But
Speaker 8: do you even notice that there's something else missing?
Speaker 6: Absolutely? And so like and that's again goes back to
Speaker 6: the psychological stuff of like what we are conditioned to
Speaker 6: believe we can have and how much we we we
Speaker 6: get so excited about the little bit that we get
Speaker 6: that we celebrate as opposed to cantinuing to push for
Speaker 6: what we actually need, let alone deserve or want.
Speaker 8: But like need and how do you see this translating,
Speaker 8: especially since it's Hollywood, how do you see this translating
Speaker 8: to the everyday person, especially when we're talking about like,
Speaker 8: I mean, do we even does lily lead better even
Speaker 8: matter anymore? Like how you see this translating into fair
Speaker 8: pay for women period?
Speaker 6: You know what I mean?
Speaker 10: It's not basic.
Speaker 6: This is like we're raising you know, we're trying to
Speaker 6: change code of context. We're trying to change laws, like
Speaker 6: we're trying to change the lay up the you know,
Speaker 6: we're talking about changing the people are at the top,
Speaker 6: the studios and the agencies, the ones who do all
Speaker 6: that hiring. You're never like agencies will poach other people
Speaker 6: to meet their quotas. They will poach other women or
Speaker 6: people of color from other agencies, which means you only
Speaker 6: rob them and create more disparaty in those other spaces.
Speaker 6: As opposed to growing them and going I'm gonna make
Speaker 6: sure I'm gonna start with the interns and grow this
Speaker 6: talent and make sure it's diverse from the get you know.
Speaker 6: Like that's the conversation that we're having, and right now
Speaker 6: we're getting people going like, yeah, we'll do it, and
Speaker 6: it's like, I don't think you understand what we're saying
Speaker 6: the people we want to see on this board, because
Speaker 6: if we change that, If we change that, then we
Speaker 6: change the hiring practices, we change the stories that we tell.
Speaker 6: When there are a majority of women on a set,
Speaker 6: suddenly women aren't geting, Like it erases a lot of
Speaker 6: the sexual harassment and abuse that exists right now. Like
Speaker 6: we can do all we want to change the laws
Speaker 6: about like going after perpetrators, but you got to start
Speaker 6: where we gotta, we gotta you know, we're and we're
Speaker 6: doing that and that's why that fund is there. But
Speaker 6: at the same time, if we don't really address what
Speaker 6: creates those environments to begin with, we're just going to
Speaker 6: keep putting a band aid to try to stop this
Speaker 6: bleeding wound. And we have to change that, and that's
Speaker 6: not gonna go very easily. I mean I'm sure, Like
Speaker 6: that's an interesting conversation. I've talked to a lot of people,
Speaker 6: especially at our age, where it's like, you work so
Speaker 6: hard in your different industries to get to the top,
Speaker 6: and then you recognize when you when you're really successful,
Speaker 6: white women included, you're like, I'm surrounded by older white men,
Speaker 6: like that's the top. Like and then people and I
Speaker 6: think like that moment where people get so like disinterested
Speaker 6: or unhappy in their thirties and forties is not like
Speaker 6: just like age, but literally because you realize you sacrificed
Speaker 6: your whole life to get into that room, and you
Speaker 6: realize that room is not someplace that you're is and
Speaker 6: not comforting and not like and it's not something that
Speaker 6: like because that's where the keys have been held, you know,
Speaker 6: like getting an education as a woman or a person
Speaker 6: of color that was illegal. So like, bit by bit,
Speaker 6: over many years, we have gotten ourselves into all of
Speaker 6: those spaces, but there are still some spaces that have
Speaker 6: really siloed from us, and we are trying at this
Speaker 6: point to break into those spaces. And once you get
Speaker 6: up there, that's the world. That's the world that creates
Speaker 6: all the rules and the laws and the stories and
Speaker 6: the culture and whatever, and that's so far the keys
Speaker 6: are still very tightly kept.
Speaker 4: Well that sort of leads to my part three question
Speaker 4: is Okay, so I guess twenty seventeen was the purging
Speaker 4: period build and destroy whatever or destroy and rebuild. So
Speaker 4: the you're saying that twenty twenty is kind of the
Speaker 4: in game goal to set these things in place.
Speaker 6: Or that's where we're you know, it's not an impossibility
Speaker 6: to think about having there's there's It's like, what was
Speaker 6: it Chris who made that joke about Barack being Like,
Speaker 6: it wasn't that suddenly, for the first time in American
Speaker 6: history there was a black man who was capable of
Speaker 6: being president. It was just that this was the first
Speaker 6: time that we allowed a person of color to be president.
Speaker 6: You know. So it's like, I feel like that's the
Speaker 6: space that we're in right now. The conversation's really pushing
Speaker 6: and going. This could have changed a long time ago,
Speaker 6: and now it's time for it to change. And the
Speaker 6: only way to do that is to push for it.
Speaker 6: Like you if you don't reach for it, if you
Speaker 6: don't push for it, if you don't organize and strategize
Speaker 6: and do all these different things. That's the long game,
Speaker 6: you know, it was it was you know, I forget
Speaker 6: her name, which is unfortunate. Is a white woman who
Speaker 6: paid for you know, the Montgomery bus strike to last
Speaker 6: for a year. She had volunteered and said, you, okay,
Speaker 6: I know you guys can't lose work over this, so
Speaker 6: and the strike is really important, so I'll pay for
Speaker 6: it as long as it lasts, not knowing it was
Speaker 6: going to last a year, and she passed her word
Speaker 6: and continued to pay so that they really after a year,
Speaker 6: we're like, damn it, you guys are really not going
Speaker 6: to take these buses. We need to work like So
Speaker 6: that's the Those are the stories that we're not told
Speaker 6: of how long it takes, the kind of allies that
Speaker 6: we need, and this is like so it's great, there,
Speaker 6: everyone's going to wear black at the Golden Globes and
Speaker 6: do all these different symbolic things. But we are really
Speaker 6: truly of the understanding that this is the long game
Speaker 6: and we have to an election.
Speaker 4: Will you guys unionize? And I mean not that I
Speaker 4: want all the information spilled or whatever, but.
Speaker 6: Saga is a union. We have a union, and it
Speaker 6: needs to be better. Women, woman's been president before. So yeah,
Speaker 6: it's not it's not it's it's it's but you know,
Speaker 6: there's just just you know, I think as we were saying,
Speaker 6: you know, it's like it's interesting, you know, having been
Speaker 6: a burne person and then last year and then getting
Speaker 6: like ostracized and like a targeted and attacked for you
Speaker 6: brought us Trump and don't even think about talking about
Speaker 6: DACA because you brought us Trump. And I'm like, I
Speaker 6: don't remember you being there on the streets with us
Speaker 6: when we were fighting under Obama to get DACA pasted.
Speaker 6: You know, Like, so this idea that you know now
Speaker 6: that you're angry, now that you're showing up, that that
Speaker 6: suddenly erases all of the work that other people did
Speaker 6: is crazy. But and so I get a lot of
Speaker 6: the anger from even a lot of the women who
Speaker 6: are like, what's up with this moment that everyone's capitalizing
Speaker 6: on me revealing my story that cost me work and
Speaker 6: now you guys are all going, yeah, and we're gonna
Speaker 6: raise a bunch of money and do like it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, does that without really recognized maybe how that
Speaker 6: makes them feel is going, well, I get that, and
Speaker 6: how can we fix it. How can we make it
Speaker 6: better because people are showing up. I don't know what
Speaker 6: would have happened had the election gone differently, had the
Speaker 6: primaries gone I don't who knows all those different things.
Speaker 6: But what I do know right now is that people
Speaker 6: around the world are pushing back because of Brexit, because
Speaker 6: of all of these different things that are going on
Speaker 6: around the world. We have tens of thousands, tens of millions,
Speaker 6: you know, refugees around the world, and and a female
Speaker 6: robot that just got citizenship in Saudi Arabia and know
Speaker 6: Sophia the robot, and and also as a female, while
Speaker 6: people are fighting to have their gender recognized. Like that's
Speaker 6: a really like even as we're starting to catch up
Speaker 6: on our upsets and our issues of now it's about
Speaker 6: to go down in the next few years in a really,
Speaker 6: really big way, and we're still fighting for minimum wage upens.
Speaker 6: Like there's a lot of work to wrap our heads around,
Speaker 6: and we cannot keep looking past. And I can recognize
Speaker 6: I could have absolutely been more constructive in my communication.
Speaker 6: I was very angry during the election because for me,
Speaker 6: I saw an opportunity to take money out of politics.
Speaker 6: That's what it was that the corruption that exists. The
Speaker 6: only way to change it is to take money out
Speaker 6: of politics. It's the it's the it's everything, and now
Speaker 6: it's that here and now it's here. So like, how
Speaker 6: do we work together? And if you're saying you were
Speaker 6: a united, you know together, stronger together kind of person,
Speaker 6: then that's then we need to do that right now,
Speaker 6: because this is we cannot keep being divided and angry
Speaker 6: and making this blue red whatever, you're deplorable, you're you
Speaker 6: know whatever, like, we cannot keep doing that. We are
Speaker 6: we are hurting ourselves. And the reality is most of
Speaker 6: us really want to see true progress. We want to
Speaker 6: see the environment change. We want to have we want
Speaker 6: our children to have access to things that we didn't
Speaker 6: have access to, and right now they're looking at less.
Speaker 6: It looks like twenty twenty, okay, And twenty twenty is
Speaker 6: gonna be the year of fixing everything that he took
Speaker 6: us five ten years back on.
Speaker 10: And looks like as well, like the progress might.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty, twenty twenty this midterm.
Speaker 6: Time, but the midterm time, yeah too. But when it comes.
Speaker 2: To the to start twenty eighteen, we.
Speaker 6: Got to start right now. That's the whole point. And
Speaker 6: a lot of people have not paid attention to the
Speaker 6: local elections, which are where these people get their power first,
Speaker 6: and they get their relationships, and they get their networks,
Speaker 6: and they get their lobbyists, and they get their revolving
Speaker 6: door and their corporations and all this kind of stuff,
Speaker 6: and it removes them from the process. Because of all
Speaker 6: the developed countries in the world, we do not vote,
Speaker 6: we don't show up. That doesn't that doesn't exist in
Speaker 6: Australia and all these other places around world. It literally
Speaker 6: is baffling to see how many people pay attention and.
Speaker 8: Our credit is, like, we did well this this first
Speaker 8: primary that went on in New York, it went on
Speaker 8: New Jersey. Some things are changed, yes, and they're and
Speaker 8: they're continuing to do so. And that's what makes me
Speaker 8: so excited and and and and just so blown away
Speaker 8: by this moment. And I you know, and I'm and
Speaker 8: I want to keep pushing for more because I know
Speaker 8: we need it, including from myself.
Speaker 6: You know. So I took a non violent communications course
Speaker 6: and I like, well, I don't mind getting locked up
Speaker 6: for a cause. I did that for you know, democracy
Speaker 6: awakening and pushing back to get money out of politics
Speaker 6: and to you know, to overturn the overturning of the
Speaker 6: Voting Rights Act, and like those are I'm always happy
Speaker 6: to be arrested for stuff like that is still act exactly.
Speaker 6: But you know, I think that there's there's just so
Speaker 6: many I mean, like young people and like just people
Speaker 6: in general. There's just access to information that you know,
Speaker 6: that other people just did not have before. We don't
Speaker 6: need This is a leader full moment, specifically because for
Speaker 6: the first time we don't need an individual leader. We
Speaker 6: can go and go to YouTube and watch Martin Luther
Speaker 6: King speak like we don't like, we don't we're not
Speaker 6: not right now. This is the moment where no one's waiting.
Speaker 6: You don't like, there's no excuse for your saying I'm
Speaker 6: waiting for this person to you know, move me and
Speaker 6: and make me feel like I need to get off
Speaker 6: my butt and vote or register or organize or do whatever.
Speaker 6: It's like look it up on YouTube and it's and
Speaker 6: you're watching it like that in the same way there
Speaker 6: you're watching something live, so it feels the same, like
Speaker 6: a better view and it's powerful. Like you know, but
Speaker 6: we've you know, those stories have been told in a way.
Speaker 6: You know, you look at you know, the the march
Speaker 6: on Washington and everyone's black and white, and everyone's so
Speaker 6: beautiful and dressed in suits, and like, you know, and
Speaker 6: and you know, we we have a day that recognizes
Speaker 6: it that we forget what a huge act of civil
Speaker 6: disobedience that was, you know, like we forget just how
Speaker 6: dangerous that actually was, and that that's actually required to
Speaker 6: really move forward. So uh so, Luke Cage, Actually the
Speaker 6: second season is really going to be amazing.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I got finished finished taping.
Speaker 10: Okay, you can't tell us nothing, of course not.
Speaker 6: I'm trying to go.
Speaker 2: Around when is it? When is it premiere? I don't know,
Speaker 2: actually really.
Speaker 6: Really can't tell us nothing. No, I actually really just
Speaker 6: don't know. And you're on your computer, you can look
Speaker 6: it up.
Speaker 2: Okay, powerful you know.
Speaker 6: What I mean? Like I love that show. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 6: are good now.
Speaker 8: I was just gonna say, it's nothing like seeing a
Speaker 8: superhero and Harlem and seeing just those moments between the
Speaker 8: meth demands. It's just dope to have a hero as
Speaker 8: hip hop, yeah, and.
Speaker 6: Walking around being bulletproof and the hoodie's like participate in
Speaker 6: his community and doing it for hire too, Like that's
Speaker 6: like one of the interesting things about going is like
Speaker 6: I could why don't I get paid for this, like
Speaker 6: you know what I mean? And compensation and like people
Speaker 6: who sacrifice and martyr themselves so much for the greater
Speaker 6: good and that's how we're raised to do. We forget
Speaker 6: to take care of ourselves. And it's like that. I
Speaker 6: really love that. Actually, the hero for higher kind of idea,
Speaker 6: Like that's all well and good, you can fly, but
Speaker 6: I'm down here fighting petty crimes. I ain't no Batman
Speaker 6: sitting on a bunch of millions, you know what.
Speaker 2: I mean, like CrossFit, Bill Gates and ship.
Speaker 6: Because I didn't know that. But Black Panthers the richest
Speaker 6: character makes he's a prince because because of the what
Speaker 6: you call it, got more money, the metal that they
Speaker 6: make the I think that's so human.
Speaker 5: No, I forgot the name, the fictional name of it,
Speaker 5: but it's the medal that they have in Wakanda that
Speaker 5: that's how that's where the comes from.
Speaker 10: Not diamonds but metal metal.
Speaker 6: Yet, gotcha?
Speaker 4: So yeah, I feel like by twenty twenty eight or
Speaker 4: twenty thirty two, you're probably going to run.
Speaker 2: For office hmmmm, is that what you want? I mean,
Speaker 2: it's as president? Why not?
Speaker 6: I don't know what if she wants it? But we
Speaker 6: had the governator. I'm really hoping Dwayne the Rock Johnson runs.
Speaker 6: We already have a wrestler as a governor, so why
Speaker 6: not John?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like, you know, in about fifteen years,
Speaker 4: you're going to just be full time. You got to
Speaker 4: jump in the pool to clean out. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 4: really clean out this one.
Speaker 6: Would you be local? How you I would do? I
Speaker 6: want to thank you, my love, senator, like congress woman.
Speaker 6: Probably at some point, I mean down the line. If
Speaker 6: that it's something that shows up, I could see doing
Speaker 6: it right now. I'm more I'm still wanting to be
Speaker 6: in this space of storytelling and hiring and you know,
Speaker 6: working with really remarkable people and stretching myself as an
Speaker 6: artist and like maybe directing and producing and like being
Speaker 6: part of that shift of consciousness of storytelling and and
Speaker 6: who we you know, lift up in those stories.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 6: I think that's really really important because the culture I
Speaker 6: think needs a dramatic shift, and that's that's a really
Speaker 6: important access point. But I could see, like when I
Speaker 6: get a little older running for the office.
Speaker 2: I'm calling it now your victory party.
Speaker 6: I am, well, you know, I gotta be you and
Speaker 6: Babito because I gotta lie right.
Speaker 4: Alternate, Fine, Okay, we're still a pop culture podcast. Yes,
Speaker 4: we're serious and we're political. So just in these final minutes,
Speaker 4: just damn now, I feel.
Speaker 8: Like because has been in like two different well three
Speaker 8: different worlds for real, for real, but even on the
Speaker 8: music industry side of things, because you've had, like you said,
Speaker 8: you've had a friendship with jay Z for over two decades,
Speaker 8: the same thing with a mirror. It's been an interesting
Speaker 8: ride for you in that way as well, Prince Prince
Speaker 8: as well.
Speaker 6: So that's funny. I had a whole question, well, so.
Speaker 8: On the strength of the sexual assault though, that's kind
Speaker 8: of I was going to go back to that and say,
Speaker 8: you know, do you see the differences and how long
Speaker 8: it's going to take on that side of things versus
Speaker 8: the music part of things, like the movie versus music.
Speaker 6: You know, it's kind of like a time for the
Speaker 6: music industry, and do you see R Kelly's already getting
Speaker 6: and has been getting a lot of flak for a
Speaker 6: long time. Enough it never does anything, But I think
Speaker 6: that I mean, we're seeing it in so many different
Speaker 6: capacities because it's political, it's in the film industry, it's
Speaker 6: with farm workers, it's with you know, our TV personalities.
Speaker 6: It's like, you know, I mean, I think there's a
Speaker 6: lot of spaces that are that are now being uh
Speaker 6: you know, looked at and transformed, and so no, I
Speaker 6: don't I don't think that there's any space right now
Speaker 6: that's invulnerable to being kind of held to a different standard.
Speaker 6: So I think that's actually really important. But again, that's
Speaker 6: our media and so many other things, and you know,
Speaker 6: it's people's bread and butter. That's the reason why so
Speaker 6: many of these producers got away with this behavior for
Speaker 6: so long, because even though they make all their money
Speaker 6: from those actors and directors and all those different people,
Speaker 6: Like the producer is the one that's there for thirty years,
Speaker 6: So the agent's like going to deal with that producer
Speaker 6: knowing full well they're giving up this actress to some
Speaker 6: predator because they can replace her. That's do with the money,
Speaker 6: you know, Harry Weinstein paying for the Golden Globes for
Speaker 6: how many years, you know what I mean, and developing
Speaker 6: them specifically so that you know it was a gateway
Speaker 6: into the oscars.
Speaker 8: You know, on the flip side on the music business,
Speaker 8: which is kind of built on the backs. I mean,
Speaker 8: I think I say built on the backs, but in
Speaker 8: the last twenty thirty years, it's kind of been built
Speaker 8: on the backs of women in a way of looking
Speaker 8: at them in a certain way. To change the culture
Speaker 8: in the office when the music and the visuals saying
Speaker 8: something different, it has to kind of bring the music
Speaker 8: industry back on a little further back than the movie business.
Speaker 6: To me, Yeah, but that's why some people a chance
Speaker 6: to rapper are so provocative and interesting right now, and
Speaker 6: Princess Nokia and people who are pushing back against that.
Speaker 6: That's why. You know, there's a history in that with
Speaker 6: music for a long time. How many incredible musicians from
Speaker 6: Motown times and whatever who were not paid even though
Speaker 6: they were the amazing singers. They were the ones that
Speaker 6: got people turning on their radios and paying attention, but
Speaker 6: they didn't write the music, so they ain't get any money.
Speaker 6: And how many of them, you know, La Loupe died
Speaker 6: alone penniless, you know what I'm saying, like pennyless, Like
Speaker 6: that's not okay. And these are some of the heroines
Speaker 6: and heroes of our culture that you know, has provocatively
Speaker 6: transformed all of us, but did not get recognized at
Speaker 6: the time. So there's there's a long history of that
Speaker 6: that has existed, and I think that's a big part
Speaker 6: of it is having not you know, again, not siloing
Speaker 6: ourselves to this generation and going this is just what
Speaker 6: it looks like here, but really seeing the history there
Speaker 6: so that we can really learn from it and go
Speaker 6: no more, you know what I mean. It really it
Speaker 6: really takes that. But if you kind of keep us
Speaker 6: passing it on and accepting it and just kind of
Speaker 6: going that's just the way it is, then it'll continue
Speaker 6: to perpetuate.
Speaker 5: But prior to prior to this, to the met Too movement,
Speaker 5: were there conversations between actresses that, hey, you know, don't
Speaker 5: work with so and so, or if you work with
Speaker 5: so and.
Speaker 2: So aware.
Speaker 6: Years ago, you know what I mean. Like so, yeah,
Speaker 6: there's some of that and not as well, you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, because again we're really of kept from
Speaker 6: each other. We only see each other these awards shows oftentimes.
Speaker 4: You know, it's top of that, Like I mean, Harvey
Speaker 4: was serious with this defense system and like you thought
Speaker 4: your life was on line.
Speaker 6: So still to this day, there are a lot of
Speaker 6: people who are really scared of like you know they
Speaker 6: have you know there are people there are because of
Speaker 6: all of these stories coming out. There were people being
Speaker 6: called by fake reporters, people who have been abused or
Speaker 6: raped or attacked who were being called by fake reporters
Speaker 6: just to see just like not talk, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean, Like that's crazy, people who are being followed.
Speaker 6: H Argenta had to leave Italy. Like the idea that
Speaker 6: like this is still like just because we're in this
Speaker 6: incredible moment, like that these women who are coming forward
Speaker 6: to men who are coming forward or safe is still
Speaker 6: not I mean, we're in the thick of it.
Speaker 8: So have you prepared yourself for the Savannah Guthree moment?
Speaker 8: I like to say, because as we as more people
Speaker 8: are getting exposed, we are saying that they are closer
Speaker 8: and closer to us, or people that we might not
Speaker 8: have suspected, or just just more so eventually, if not
Speaker 8: have already happened to you, somebody clothes may be accused
Speaker 8: or you know, may have a story.
Speaker 6: How do you handle that?
Speaker 8: As Rosario, because you are such a mouthpiece for this movement.
Speaker 6: I have been on the border of Videre, which is
Speaker 6: going to be twenty next well this year, and you know,
Speaker 6: the statistic is one in three women will be rape, killed,
Speaker 6: or beaten in her lifetime. So that means you know people.
Speaker 8: But how do you deal with knowing the person who's
Speaker 8: the rapist perpetrator?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I know a lot of you perpetrators and rapists.
Speaker 6: Like that's just that's theory. I grew up around that,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean, Like, it's what I would
Speaker 6: like to do is be able to get comfortable with
Speaker 6: the idea that they don't exist. But I've always suspected them,
Speaker 6: Like you know, that's the thing about trauma and abuse
Speaker 6: is that like it puts you in a position where
Speaker 6: I just especially because what do they always say when
Speaker 6: it's like the person who's raped their child or you know,
Speaker 6: blocked up some kid in a basement, they are the
Speaker 6: nicest person you never would have suspected. So even if
Speaker 6: they're nice and they're great and they seem to have
Speaker 6: a happy marriage and wonderful children, I'm still suspecting that.
Speaker 6: That's how I just grew. I grew up as an
Speaker 6: abused person. So like I you know, for me, it's
Speaker 6: you know, it's I'm I'm. It doesn't mean like I
Speaker 6: didn't know. I've worked with almost so many of the
Speaker 6: people who've already been named, and I didn't know the
Speaker 6: capacity to which a lot of them regardless of it,
Speaker 6: but I suspected them, even the ones who didn't seem
Speaker 6: skivier were like quote unquote the I just I pretty
Speaker 6: much suspect everybody because that's just most of my time
Speaker 6: is spent when I'm not working in activist circles, so
Speaker 6: I'm with women and children and men who were abused
Speaker 6: by the people who love them the most. No matter
Speaker 6: how much like I would, I would really like for
Speaker 6: me to to get to to exercise that demon for
Speaker 6: myself where I can actually just be with someone and
Speaker 6: not suspect them of something horrible, you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: Like I, you know, to just to to have that likeness,
Speaker 6: you know, to to to not have to bear that
Speaker 6: birden all the time of like having it's it is
Speaker 6: really heavy, and I know I recognize that in so
Speaker 6: many different people. And that's what's like. People want to
Speaker 6: just work. They don't want to be victims, they don't
Speaker 6: want to be so vivers. They want to just work,
Speaker 6: you know, and for some reason, these perpetrators go out
Speaker 6: there and then they kind of like lay low for
Speaker 6: a little bit and then they come right back up
Speaker 6: and make their money. But these women disappear, you know,
Speaker 6: these men disappear, and it's like that's not okay, Like
Speaker 6: that's the the whistleblowers need to be championed now, and
Speaker 6: that the conversation needs to be changed so that we
Speaker 6: can't just do really good work like one Billion Rising,
Speaker 6: which has been going on for a few years now
Speaker 6: with V Day is about celebrating the one billion women
Speaker 6: who are rape killed or beatn in our lifetime and
Speaker 6: going and the very first one was about dancing, like
Speaker 6: let's just have What would the world look like if
Speaker 6: women could go and get fetch water in Africa or
Speaker 6: go and be a you know, a waitress or change
Speaker 6: you know, change the linens in a hotel without fear
Speaker 6: of being raped. What would that look like? What art
Speaker 6: would be created? What harmony and beauty and love and
Speaker 6: celebration would we exist in vibration where we live in
Speaker 6: all the time without this understood accepted idea that we're vulnerable, Like,
Speaker 6: what would that look like, and let's show what that
Speaker 6: looks like rather than just being out there screaming like,
Speaker 6: oh we got to stop does violence. Let's dance and
Speaker 6: like transform from that way. And I think that's what's
Speaker 6: really beautiful, is like there's a lot of people were
Speaker 6: coming together because how many activists die alone, how many
Speaker 6: of them get cancer and do all these different things
Speaker 6: because they're so traumatized and they and it's horrible and
Speaker 6: it's not okay, and that needs to transform. There needs
Speaker 6: to be a lot more health. I know that for myself,
Speaker 6: how much how sick I was getting in the past
Speaker 6: couple of years, put myself in the hospital over it.
Speaker 6: You know, how many relationships and things that became really
Speaker 6: bad because I got more caustic and angry and resentful.
Speaker 6: And you know, I know, and I'm fine literally and
Speaker 6: even just the past couple of months of my learning
Speaker 6: to do that and what that truly means. And it
Speaker 6: doesn't mean that I haven't told that advice to other people,
Speaker 6: but I actually it just wasn't I didn't know how
Speaker 6: to do it. I've talked to this amazing transactivist Bambie
Speaker 6: talk about intersectionality, you know, and she was a sex worker,
Speaker 6: she's Latina, she's trans, she's I mean, so many different things.
Speaker 6: And then she's going, you know, I get a massage
Speaker 6: every two weeks, and I was like, that's that's not
Speaker 6: something to skip over. That's a really big deal. Because
Speaker 6: even with all the success and things that I've had,
Speaker 6: getting a massage, going on a nice vacation, doing anything,
Speaker 6: I had a hard time, even on social media, saying
Speaker 6: I'm doing this awesome thing because I grew up with
Speaker 6: so many people and I still know so many people,
Speaker 6: including family, that are struggling to just put food on
Speaker 6: the table. And it just I grew up with martyrs,
Speaker 6: you sacrifice, you didn't eat, shame, guilt, like you just
Speaker 6: grew up with that, and to like to be able
Speaker 6: to push bast that and just go, well, i'm getting
Speaker 6: sick all the time, I'm in pain all the time,
Speaker 6: and I do need to sleep, and I do need
Speaker 6: to eat well, and I do need to take care
Speaker 6: of myself because I can actually do all that other
Speaker 6: work better if I prioritize myself. And that's not something
Speaker 6: to feel bad about. But I didn't grow up that way.
Speaker 6: My grandmother didn't eat for you. She literally looked like mahogany.
Speaker 6: You actually would actually know that reference. I tell people
Speaker 6: do and they're like, what does that mean. I'm like,
Speaker 6: she looked emaciated for years because she all she did
Speaker 6: was drink bustello and smoke cigarettes because she had five
Speaker 6: kids and she was a single parent and she had
Speaker 6: to make sure they ate. And my mom like took
Speaker 6: years ago to realize that the reason why she likes
Speaker 6: burnt meat and like the burnt rice is because she
Speaker 6: was always fed last. Wow, even though she had four
Speaker 6: brothers and it was a matriarcha household with her mother
Speaker 6: and grandmother, they always sped themselves last because of that
Speaker 6: sort of traditional men first kind of the psychological kind
Speaker 6: of insanity that that was. So it's like that's that
Speaker 6: was passed on to me, that that that idea of behavior.
Speaker 6: And this is the first time because I don't want
Speaker 6: my daughter to sacrifice herself.
Speaker 10: How it is why Uncle Rad, I'll have to wash dishes.
Speaker 10: I don't want to stay.
Speaker 6: He just easy sits. You know, it's not my first job.
Speaker 6: Fifteen here's my money. Take it. I worked for that.
Speaker 6: That's my money. And you're a movement has to Texas
Speaker 6: almost ruin my whole last but like you know what
Speaker 6: I mean, Like it's it's it, but you just so
Speaker 6: that's what you're taught and raised. And I'm really pushing
Speaker 6: for a whole other Like it's beautiful, Like Climbing Poetry
Speaker 6: just got this incredible, huge parcel of land upstate New
Speaker 6: York and they've been working for five years with this
Speaker 6: like curriculum that they're building so people can learn about
Speaker 6: activism and advocacy and all these diferent kinds of things,
Speaker 6: but also built into it as health and wellness and
Speaker 6: care and they have spaces for our aging activists to
Speaker 6: come and live and live out their time because they
Speaker 6: recognize climbing poetry. Is it beautiful? No, I'm just gonna
Speaker 6: look it up, but I think everybody else. Yeah, And
Speaker 6: it's really like there's stuff like that that is coming
Speaker 6: up that where people are really recognizing we can't keep
Speaker 6: sacrificing and martyring ourselves, you know, for Lacausa, like we
Speaker 6: actually have to really take care of usselves. We we
Speaker 6: want to have our elders. So have a trans person
Speaker 6: be older than thirty five is a revelation to have,
Speaker 6: you know, the different activists that we have be in
Speaker 6: their eighties, like the Lord is a revelation because they
Speaker 6: don't normally.
Speaker 2: Exist, right, you know, it's a miracle. Wow, we got
Speaker 2: it earful, like.
Speaker 8: We need Like you dropped a couple of organization names
Speaker 8: and things that I feel like people need.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and also just because literally like coming here and
Speaker 6: made me again think about that dinner and like how
Speaker 6: much I've been reflecting on that lately, about like and
Speaker 6: I love how the story is so different from you,
Speaker 6: but I go back to that story all the time.
Speaker 6: I was just like walking out of there and it
Speaker 6: was the first time like I remember walking on and
Speaker 6: being like that was just abusive, that's terrible, And I
Speaker 6: was like wait what oh wow, like it like the
Speaker 6: fact that that didn't like I didn't even appre like
Speaker 6: I was like, I just accepted it, like that was
Speaker 6: just normal. Members. This was a fun night that we
Speaker 6: all had dinner and laugh like I'm talking about And
Speaker 6: then I was like, yeah, maybe everybody's showing each other's
Speaker 6: scars from being hit with a or a cast I
Speaker 6: heard pot from across the room at Charming.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Boy, okay, so uh for of course you don't don't
Speaker 4: know when season two.
Speaker 2: Is coming over.
Speaker 6: You got your computer?
Speaker 2: What else are already googled the dates? Night out there yet? Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll hit up chair. See.
Speaker 6: Uh it happens here frequently.
Speaker 4: So what do you what do you have coming up
Speaker 4: in the future as far as projects are concerned, God,
Speaker 4: damn it, there's so much we didn't asked. We didn't
Speaker 4: ask about the Prince the nineteen damn it, let's ask.
Speaker 8: My weird question was about some.
Speaker 4: Won't Yeah, wait for us to do it anyway, our
Speaker 4: rapid fire last minute questions.
Speaker 2: Uh, yeah, how did you do that? Nineteen ninety nine? Uh?
Speaker 2: The poetry thing, Well, you've done a lot, you.
Speaker 6: Did because I talked to you about it at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 6: At the time, I was like seen, I was shooting
Speaker 6: a film with Usher and Chicago, which I remember. I
Speaker 6: remember that.
Speaker 2: You probably see it. Yeah, film, I I've seen that
Speaker 2: one in the mix where he was the d J.
Speaker 6: Got that.
Speaker 5: She's all right, he was he was the DJ and
Speaker 5: she's all that. That was fucking funny though Little Kim
Speaker 5: was in that as well. She was the black she
Speaker 5: was the diversity higher Little Kim got that one. But yeah,
Speaker 5: you were Yeah, that's right. You weren't like, because that
Speaker 5: was the one where we were a cop, right or
Speaker 5: you were the girlfriend of Usher.
Speaker 6: I thought like nineteen he was okay.
Speaker 5: Again, that was the one where like his dad was
Speaker 5: a cop or was a firefighter and died.
Speaker 6: Thing of like the Canada school was homeless school. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and then they got there was a you know, the
Speaker 6: it was the like shut down the space of security guard.
Speaker 2: Fort Whittaker was the cop. That's I remember that. All
Speaker 2: all Usher moves.
Speaker 6: Ran Vanessa Williams like the principal william like, I hang
Speaker 6: on her daughter. You know you guys like lyon babe.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, So the nineteen ninety nine they called me.
Speaker 6: He called me out of the blue and said, I wrote,
Speaker 6: I'm doing the nineteen ninety nine remix album and I
Speaker 6: want you said you're the voice of a generation, and
Speaker 6: I want you to read this poem or piece because
Speaker 6: it would sound weird if I said it, so you
Speaker 6: should read it. And I was like, huh, exactly, la la,
Speaker 6: of course that makes sense. And then you know, so
Speaker 6: I got to go.
Speaker 8: To Paisley Park and everything was pretty Did marry him
Speaker 8: a basketball player?
Speaker 6: Did not? She did?
Speaker 2: Yes, Anthony.
Speaker 6: It was a joke. I'm sorry I.
Speaker 2: Was lost in my hand, but for the last reason,
Speaker 2: give me a reason to press this button. Amazing you
Speaker 2: were in Now I'm thinking about lighting up. Now watch
Speaker 2: I might have to watch. Was there soundtrack to it?
Speaker 2: Was a usher movie?
Speaker 10: A good soundtrack?
Speaker 2: Was right? Yeah, I'm gonna tell mynother to the check
Speaker 2: double up? So yeah. Like and also with how did
Speaker 2: you get on she Lives in My Lap?
Speaker 6: That was interesting because Andre three that wasn't ask me
Speaker 6: to be in a music video for that song, and
Speaker 6: I said sure and he was like, cool, So we're
Speaker 6: still doing some stuff on the song. Do you want
Speaker 6: to come by the studio? So then I came by
Speaker 6: the studio and he was like, you know, did you
Speaker 6: jump on the track? So then I jumped on the
Speaker 6: track and then we never did the video. I'm on
Speaker 6: the track.
Speaker 4: Interesting, okay, okay, So yeah, but I was going to say,
Speaker 4: have you did you have any aspirations to.
Speaker 2: Sing and do that? Because you were also you did
Speaker 2: Shakespeare in the Park?
Speaker 6: You did which version of it? Yeah, two gentlemen of Verona.
Speaker 2: I wanted to see that.
Speaker 6: But Rent and yeah, I love singing. Actually, that's the
Speaker 6: thing I always wanted to do was sing And so
Speaker 6: when I did rent and I'm on set and I'm
Speaker 6: singing and dancing and I'm getting paid for it, I
Speaker 6: was like, this is the most remarkable thing in the
Speaker 6: entire world. I can't even believe it. This is incredible.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I still really love that. There's that's that's
Speaker 6: a that's the space where it's like, you know, part
Speaker 6: of that think part of the healing thing is just
Speaker 6: doing things that you actually love for no reason. I
Speaker 6: don't know I want to be like doing big tours
Speaker 6: or like, it's not like a career that I want
Speaker 6: to exploit that, but I just love singing, love dancing.
Speaker 4: You went to music music camp, No no, you told
Speaker 4: me wait when you did Josie and the Pussycats, like
Speaker 4: they were teaching you how to.
Speaker 6: Do play the base a little bit of electric.
Speaker 2: Bash, right, Okay, I thought they put.
Speaker 6: You through like a no, that would have been amazing,
Speaker 6: But that was one of those ones that are more
Speaker 6: like eighties movie where they were like you're cast and
Speaker 6: then here's the band that's actually going to be Now
Speaker 6: you're gonna lip sing too well. Rents was actually us singing,
Speaker 6: which was really amazing.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, no, I not the same thing.
Speaker 4: I liked Josie because it was real and you're thinking,
Speaker 4: you're saying Josy.
Speaker 6: Ahead of its time.
Speaker 8: Did y'all see the new Josey? Y'all see what they
Speaker 8: look like on Riverdale?
Speaker 2: Hell?
Speaker 6: Yeah? Do you watch Netflix? Like, do you have every
Speaker 6: shows on Netflix? Obviously? Yes? I just finished watching Sensate
Speaker 6: that I met right every everything I want my seven
Speaker 6: other person to so mad they missed they switched to
Speaker 6: African do but yes, it's everything. I want that so bad.
Speaker 6: I heard they just made like a big special like
Speaker 6: movie whatever, so they canceled it and then but they
Speaker 6: did shoot something to kind of because it's kind of
Speaker 6: a cliffhanger that just left us song. But that is
Speaker 6: like probably one of the most interesting kind of stories
Speaker 6: that I've seen in a long time. That wasn't like
Speaker 6: a Black Mirror episode or Twilight Zone where I just
Speaker 6: got really Dugley art like it's so amazing, but like
Speaker 6: this was like really different, but like like I want that,
Speaker 6: like is that possible?
Speaker 8: Like mostly evoking like I was moved and that sex
Speaker 8: looked so amazing.
Speaker 6: See that sex where I'm like, yeah, this is just
Speaker 6: totally exploitative because it's the sexiest I mean, it's really
Speaker 6: they have an actual transactress, Like I mean, it's like
Speaker 6: so it's diverse, it takes place over different parts of
Speaker 6: the world. There's accents in different languages and and like
Speaker 6: it's it's beautiful. It's kind of sense. It is like,
Speaker 6: I think my favorite thing that's existing out there in
Speaker 6: that sense I've ever seen I sci fi kind of
Speaker 6: idea like or whatever, Like you know, it's just, you know,
Speaker 6: I think that we could tap into that part of
Speaker 6: ourselves that we could you know, psychically connected and be
Speaker 6: bonded to other people in the world, and then we
Speaker 6: could tap into them. So it's like I don't need
Speaker 6: to know kung fu or this or that, but like
Speaker 6: when I need that capacity and it really I think
Speaker 6: the message so beautifully of that is like really recognizing
Speaker 6: who you are and your value and doing that really
Speaker 6: powerfully and beautifully, and then sharing your space with the
Speaker 6: other interconnected people that you're in so that when like
Speaker 6: it doesn't matter if you can't do that thing, because
Speaker 6: you know someone who can.
Speaker 10: That Korea moment was so amazing. Like her story.
Speaker 2: The spoilers sorry, the.
Speaker 6: Story not just saying her storyline was on that it is.
Speaker 6: It's really powerful, beautiful.
Speaker 2: On the trigger.
Speaker 6: That's what happened. Nobody watched you.
Speaker 2: One question we were talking about sex scenes.
Speaker 5: A question I always had for you was about Trance,
Speaker 5: which I really loved that movie, Like I really I
Speaker 5: really enjoyed that movie.
Speaker 2: The nude scene.
Speaker 6: What is an interesting contract? Yeah, going through that my
Speaker 6: lawyer and then being like, okay, so they cannot show
Speaker 6: the literal hood, like this is a very interesting conversation.
Speaker 6: I haven't even gotten.
Speaker 2: On set yet.
Speaker 6: Yeah. No, it's uh, you know, I'm I'm all for hair.
Speaker 6: So it made me mad that like it came off
Speaker 6: y you know, so like you know that's but that's
Speaker 6: the whole thing in the movie.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and so how many times did you have to
Speaker 5: take that?
Speaker 2: And how is it you in a room full of
Speaker 2: people or what's that like?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean it was as many people as like
Speaker 6: barely needed to be in there, you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: It's always you know that that kind of stuff is
Speaker 6: usually done pretty well. Though it's not to say that
Speaker 6: you know, on many different sets, many different people including myself,
Speaker 6: or not taking advantage of like changes on the day
Speaker 6: that are actually illegal, but some oftentimes we don't know.
Speaker 6: H So you know, that's that's some of the interesting
Speaker 6: things about sitting down with Sag of just going, well,
Speaker 6: we need to have this on the books, and like
Speaker 6: that does exist, and you're like, we don't know that
Speaker 6: the novice actress or actor going on set does not
Speaker 6: know that they have this right or not. You know,
Speaker 6: but yeah, no on that one, I mean, it's it's
Speaker 6: I mean, that was definitely one of the most remarkable
Speaker 6: experiences I'd ever had, you know, when you think about
Speaker 6: Danny and the work that he's done, like going back
Speaker 6: to kids, like that was an amazing moment for Robert
Speaker 6: and Danny, and like there was just a group of
Speaker 6: like that that was the a era of independent film
Speaker 6: and like this complete provocation of storytelling that hadn't existed before,
Speaker 6: and that definitely was built off the backs of people
Speaker 6: like you know, Cassavetti's and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 6: But like it was a huge turning for you know, filmmaking.
Speaker 6: And I got to work with that person. Wow, And
Speaker 6: like you know in the and I've gotten to work
Speaker 6: with a lot of those people, you know, so it's
Speaker 6: like everyone to Kevin Smith. You know, like, so you're
Speaker 6: on set with these folks who have really totally different
Speaker 6: kind of you know, like who came there as like
Speaker 6: nerds and like film lovers and like you know, really
Speaker 6: changed storytelling in a lot of ways. And so you're
Speaker 6: on set with Spiker this you know, like I got
Speaker 6: to be on these sets with people who were you know,
Speaker 6: really created an environment where you're showing up and you're
Speaker 6: rehearsing and you're taking it super seriously, like and they're
Speaker 6: established and they've done something. So it's not the same
Speaker 6: thing as like a lot of you know, first time
Speaker 6: directors or the things that I've worked with, which is
Speaker 6: a whole other experiences was really powerful and you know,
Speaker 6: pushes you to and challenges you in different ways. But
Speaker 6: this one is like, you know, these are people who
Speaker 6: you know, can say we're going to have a couple
Speaker 6: of weeks of rehearsal and we're going to do this
Speaker 6: and this is what we you know, and like get
Speaker 6: like incredibly, you know, I'm on on you know, on
Speaker 6: on twenty fifth hour Man with some of the most
Speaker 6: amazing actors and like people and their process so different
Speaker 6: and like that's you know, that's been my acting school.
Speaker 6: I've learned so much from so many of the people
Speaker 6: that I've had the opportunity to work with.
Speaker 5: So a question about twenty fifth hour. I need to
Speaker 5: know the part where you're on the couch and you're
Speaker 5: eating cheese whiz.
Speaker 2: Was that scripted or.
Speaker 6: Honey cheese with Was it?
Speaker 2: Was it.
Speaker 6: Whizz?
Speaker 2: I think she would know. No, no, no, I'm trying
Speaker 2: to remember.
Speaker 5: Was it was the Maybe it looked like the container
Speaker 5: was cheese whiz. It might have been honey in it,
Speaker 5: but I can specifically remember it was.
Speaker 2: I thought it was cheese whiz.
Speaker 7: An important moment in that movie.
Speaker 2: It's very important.
Speaker 7: I mean, whether it's a cheese wiz or honey.
Speaker 5: Well, no, no, Well, this is why all these years
Speaker 5: I thought the ship was All these.
Speaker 6: Years I thought you had actually you met home where
Speaker 6: recently I saw one of your story, Yes, I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was, he wasn't.
Speaker 5: All these years I thought it was cheese whiz, and
Speaker 5: I thought it was a great detail because I thought.
Speaker 6: I've seen the movie in a long time.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure. But I love the fact that was honey.
Speaker 6: And if it's not, it was. But I'm pretty.
Speaker 2: Random detail of yo. But that's the type of duty is.
Speaker 6: I love it like.
Speaker 5: No, because what it resonated me, like the message that
Speaker 5: I took from it or that the time was that
Speaker 5: you can have like a woman that's like as fine
Speaker 5: as your dawson, but she cheese was out the jaw
Speaker 5: and she can steal something disgusting like that.
Speaker 2: That ship is horrible.
Speaker 6: It is horrible.
Speaker 5: Jesuis is not a food like that ship is a
Speaker 5: that's a let feeling.
Speaker 2: Man, No, I hear you. Yeah, y'all got that. But
Speaker 2: I thought it was I thought it was cheese was
Speaker 2: all these years amazing? But I thought that was just
Speaker 2: a great to go back. I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 2: now i'm watching today.
Speaker 6: Maybe maybe peanut butter, but I can't imagine it was.
Speaker 4: Okay, So yeah, I are you singing fame right now?
Speaker 6: Singing peanut butter, jelly Pi, That's what I thought.
Speaker 2: Singing a song from fame.
Speaker 4: As far as your your your acting career or your
Speaker 4: entertainment career, like, are there anything? Are there anything? Is
Speaker 4: there anything left that you've yet to conquered that you
Speaker 4: wish to do?
Speaker 6: I always film or behaving chest of Corset drama, heaving, heaving, chests. Yo,
Speaker 6: that's so funny because it's a classic piece of every
Speaker 6: I want to do some really dope, like fun comedy
Speaker 6: stuff as well. Like I really love that I got
Speaker 6: to do that with Top five, and I've had some
Speaker 6: opportunities and stuff like that, but like you know, like
Speaker 6: I love I love that world. It's such a different
Speaker 6: timing and energy and kind of pushing myself in that way.
Speaker 8: You do that.
Speaker 6: I love, I love top Did you already have your
Speaker 6: haircut like that?
Speaker 2: Or was it.
Speaker 6: Was like, I'm not one of the things. I was like,
Speaker 6: I am not as New York is gonna be one
Speaker 6: hundred and eight degrees, I am not wearing a wig.
Speaker 6: I will be miserable you and he was like, if
Speaker 6: you do this movie, I will be fine with your
Speaker 6: hair like that. And then it was interesting. I remember
Speaker 6: I had wanted to cut my hair like that for
Speaker 6: a really long time, and then I ended up doing
Speaker 6: it for Sin City two and then thinking this is
Speaker 6: going to cost me a lot of work, and then
Speaker 6: I ended up being able to wear it in Top
Speaker 6: five and in dareduble Oow. It was a whole big
Speaker 6: thing with Marvel for a really really long time about
Speaker 6: what to do with my hair And then they were
Speaker 6: like who cares? And I was really surprised. And then
Speaker 6: I realized how dark they were shooting it and you
Speaker 6: don't even notice it.
Speaker 4: That's something I've never even thought about, Like you do
Speaker 4: you have to warn your agent like I think I
Speaker 4: want to go blind today or oh yeah.
Speaker 6: They were like everyone was freaked out because it's like,
Speaker 6: you know, I you know Sin City two. I think
Speaker 6: I shot like three days on.
Speaker 2: They were like, you're.
Speaker 6: Cutting or shaping your head for three days? Do you
Speaker 6: know how long that's gonna take to How long is it?
Speaker 6: But you can't fake that? Like it's gotta wanted to
Speaker 6: show up and do something fun for the movie?
Speaker 2: How long does it take to grow back to it.
Speaker 6: Actually grew for me. My hair grows really fast, so
Speaker 6: it was like another in like a year, my hair
Speaker 6: was already half.
Speaker 10: As long as a black girl. That's gonna take another
Speaker 10: ten years they come back.
Speaker 2: All right? So you want to do a comedy and
Speaker 2: an a period piece with I want.
Speaker 6: To produce more. I want to tell stories that I'm
Speaker 6: not necessarily acting in.
Speaker 10: What is the story you want to make?
Speaker 6: First? I am telling you, Okay, let somebody else it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just.
Speaker 6: Totally the way that it is. But I have like
Speaker 6: shows that I want to create and and and all
Speaker 6: types of things. I think it's just really important because again,
Speaker 6: like to see the movies and the reflection of the
Speaker 6: type of storytelling and the casting that I want to see,
Speaker 6: and to just wait around for someone else to put
Speaker 6: that together not gonna happen. So like you have to
Speaker 6: make it happen. And that's what I really want to do.
Speaker 2: We're power to you. Thanks from your enough to your ears.
Speaker 6: When I call you for that soundtrack.
Speaker 2: That I just want to, I just want to.
Speaker 6: I know you long since passed the balking out of Ford.
Speaker 2: I just want to j K. T. Raley on Black Streets.
Speaker 5: I just want to tell you again, going back to Trance,
Speaker 5: you set a line in there that like really changed
Speaker 5: my life.
Speaker 2: I'm serious, man, it's real ship to be angry, it
Speaker 2: is to be a victim.
Speaker 5: And like that totally changed my outlook on like the
Speaker 5: way I look at anger, like we never have to
Speaker 5: pull myself getting angry.
Speaker 2: I think myself, like, am I really victim and the ship? No?
Speaker 2: I ain't no victim?
Speaker 6: That well, Marvin said that best you know, destroy yourself,
Speaker 6: you children for rage. Okay, so I'm just I'm taking
Speaker 6: it's a sin to treat your body bad. Yeah, I
Speaker 6: I really I've been listening to that song and I
Speaker 6: said those lines, and I still succumbed to the devil
Speaker 6: of anger really, really fiercely these past couple of years.
Speaker 6: And I think it's just because I did not actually
Speaker 6: really have the access or words to really understand the
Speaker 6: space that I was in and what I needed to
Speaker 6: do to meet my needs so that that wouldn't happen.
Speaker 2: Do you go to therapy?
Speaker 6: I've taken some, and but really I have to say
Speaker 6: the Non Violent Communications book that exists has been really
Speaker 6: powerful to recognize what are faux feelings like disrespect, Like
Speaker 6: you can't feel disrespect, you can feel anger because your
Speaker 6: need for respect is not getting met, and like those
Speaker 6: are different things. So, like, you know, it's not about
Speaker 6: blame or judgment. The only thing that's kind of hokey
Speaker 6: about it is like they have they say it's either
Speaker 6: jackal speak or giraffes speak. So internally your inner critic,
Speaker 6: or how you yell at someone else, or how you
Speaker 6: self empathize, you give other empathy jackals because you know
Speaker 6: the spitting, biting are and then the giraffe because they
Speaker 6: have perspective and they have one of the largest hearts
Speaker 6: in the animal kingdom to reach all of those extremities.
Speaker 6: But otherwise, it's about needs and really recognizing what true
Speaker 6: needs are, like for respect and community. And it goes
Speaker 6: beyond for me what I was taught survival, especially growing
Speaker 6: up in a spot. It's about food, water, sheltering, but
Speaker 6: like love, friendship, shared reality, connection, community, compassion, those are needs.
Speaker 6: Like a child will die if it's not touched, you know,
Speaker 6: it needs. We need each other, and those are the
Speaker 6: things that I've always forfeited for these strategies, and I
Speaker 6: finally learned that I need to warn when something's not
Speaker 6: getting met, not just keep bashing my head at it
Speaker 6: and trying to make it or force it to happen,
Speaker 6: or sacrifice to make it happen. It's about going, Okay,
Speaker 6: the strategy isn't working, and I have to figure out
Speaker 6: another avenue to get my need men. And that's that's
Speaker 6: something I've just picked up in the past couple months,
Speaker 6: which has been really life changing. Thank you for nonviolent
Speaker 6: Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, who died unfortunately, but he would.
Speaker 6: Do you know conflict resolution? I mean like you're talking
Speaker 6: about with like tribes that had been generationally fighting each
Speaker 6: other and you killed my son, so I killed your
Speaker 6: son and being able to sit there and go, Can
Speaker 6: you at least both agree that your need for safety
Speaker 6: is not being met, which is why then you're being
Speaker 6: violent with each other. Can we just agree and then
Speaker 6: just to that so that we could see each other
Speaker 6: as our humanity and we can figure out a way
Speaker 6: to communicate and negotiate for both of our needs to
Speaker 6: be met rather than just beating each other and fighting
Speaker 6: each other indefinitely. And there is an audio book, So
Speaker 6: thank you for You're very welcome. Wow, man, that the
Speaker 6: more you know and knowing us at the battle, Jeffrey
Speaker 6: aid Joe.
Speaker 2: All right, So any more questions about.
Speaker 6: Isaac Joe Jeffrey is Yeah, Joe was Jeffrey Isaac Joe?
Speaker 2: He wasn't.
Speaker 6: Did you know that gullible isn't in the dictionary? Family?
Speaker 4: Now, wait a minute, before we signed off, this one
Speaker 4: question I have to ask, how in God's name did
Speaker 4: you get pre we're going to play nice and friendly
Speaker 4: with each other?
Speaker 2: Guns and roses?
Speaker 4: How did you get them motherfuckers to play your birthday
Speaker 4: party at that club.
Speaker 6: Like Axel Axel, Yeah, and it was incredible, like for
Speaker 6: your thirtieth absolutely no, it was like twenty seventh or
Speaker 6: twenty eighth.
Speaker 2: Birthday because your mom hit me up.
Speaker 4: It was like something the Roses going to play at
Speaker 4: the at the and I was like, wait, the club
Speaker 4: only holds, like I know, it was really several hundred.
Speaker 4: I was like, I think about this something. I think
Speaker 4: a fight happened between Tommy he Will figure and some
Speaker 4: and they.
Speaker 6: Were sat at the same booth and like Tommy's girlfriends
Speaker 6: got like offended because I think Axel sat down and
Speaker 6: moved her drink or whatever, and Tommy like leapt over
Speaker 6: the table. Mom mom was standing there and watching. She
Speaker 6: was like, yo, he tried to eat Axel.
Speaker 10: Rose would have.
Speaker 2: Never thought that for him.
Speaker 6: And then and then the security threw him out because
Speaker 6: it was like, sorry to break it to you, but
Speaker 6: this is Axel's night, like he's gonna perform, and it
Speaker 6: was amazing because I remember we asked and then of
Speaker 6: course he said no because it was it would be
Speaker 6: an acoustic performance and he'd never done an acoustic performance
Speaker 6: and then he came back and was like, you know what, Actually,
Speaker 6: I've never done an acoustic performance. That would be really cool.
Speaker 6: And it was his idea to put the lyrics of
Speaker 6: his music like karaoke styles scrolling in the back because
Speaker 6: he didn't go on until super late, and he knew
Speaker 6: everyone was gonna be really drunk, stupidly horribly inefficiently screaming
Speaker 6: the lyrics into his face and it's so small, they
Speaker 6: would all be like right on top of each other.
Speaker 6: He was like, I am not going to painfully go
Speaker 6: through that. And then it was like he dedicated. He
Speaker 6: sang to me, he's saying happy birthday. He dedicated sweet
Speaker 6: Childmund to me in November.
Speaker 2: I mean, it was like, amazing, I'm gonna ask again.
Speaker 6: My friend Jamison was had they were doing something in town.
Speaker 6: He was like, should I ask? And I was like yeah,
Speaker 6: And then I guess he was just the timing. He
Speaker 6: just thought, and he came out and he was and
Speaker 6: he was corn roll. That was amazing. That was like
Speaker 6: childhood like amazing.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, yeah, I couldn't believe that happened that night.
Speaker 6: I love you, this is fun.
Speaker 2: Well, I need you to throw parties from me nobody
Speaker 2: will come.
Speaker 6: You got a couple months. I'm inviting you. You need
Speaker 6: to come through when we yo. So I have a
Speaker 6: fashion line based in Ghana. We're across we do all
Speaker 6: our teasonal stuff and we've been doing this for a
Speaker 6: few years now and we just did an awesome fashion
Speaker 6: show in September in New York and it was incredible.
Speaker 6: One of my friends invited Paula Aduwel and it was
Speaker 6: like incredible. Jojo Abbott performed I.
Speaker 8: May.
Speaker 6: It's called Studio one eighty nine. And our whole thing
Speaker 6: is fashion Rising, so going and getting people work so
Speaker 6: that then they can put their own kids through school,
Speaker 6: so it's sustainable, you know, activism and advocacy, and it's
Speaker 6: been amazing. We're based in a crowd. We have a
Speaker 6: store in New York and Elizabeth Street and between Houston
Speaker 6: and Bleeker and we do men's and women's and home
Speaker 6: and indigo and bautique and it's really beautiful. And someone
Speaker 6: invited Paula Abdul and our whole like fashion show is
Speaker 6: like a dance party. It was incredible and like everyone
Speaker 6: like Jesse Boykin's at Third was in it. And we've
Speaker 6: had like Delphine Diala's taken photographs for us and like
Speaker 6: Lion Babe is shown. I mean, we've had like incredible
Speaker 6: people who are you know, young Paris and people over
Speaker 6: the years. Princess Nokia just came to our spot in
Speaker 6: in in a larda and I came through. Most has
Speaker 6: come through and like thrown on some of our you know,
Speaker 6: indigo kimonos and stuff and that's really dope. But like
Speaker 6: you know, I want you to come because I think
Speaker 6: you'd really love it. And it was amazing because we
Speaker 6: had this dance party and then Paul Abdul was there
Speaker 6: and she started dancing with me and I was like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, who would have known I needed to
Speaker 6: create an artisanal African clothing brands and got to live
Speaker 6: about my childhood dream of dancing with these clothes.
Speaker 10: Are amazing.
Speaker 6: Thank you, Brima, I will tell her Brima you said
Speaker 6: some Okay.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much of Rosario for coming on Seal.
Speaker 2: We appreciate it.
Speaker 4: We learned a lot, and I still say a lot
Speaker 4: to think about. I still say that you're running for president?
Speaker 6: I would I really the idea of being president is
Speaker 6: so scary to me because the second art work. You've
Speaker 6: got let on your hands the second you start as
Speaker 6: a senator or congress person, though, I could be start
Speaker 6: fighting from day one because war is not peace, so
Speaker 6: I could be fighting against having that. So that's why
Speaker 6: that looks interesting to me.
Speaker 4: Okay, congress Woman Dawson, Senator Dawson, Senator Dawson, and uh
Speaker 4: DJ and that after.
Speaker 6: Party, that's the first one to be DJ wika DJ.
Speaker 2: Senator Dawson.
Speaker 6: I want to be like a hype woman. Yeah, y'all.
Speaker 4: Anyway, after party, anyway on behalf of Fonticolo, Boss Bill Sugar,
Speaker 4: Steve sweet Feet and.
Speaker 2: Thank you Rizario quest Love signing off and we'll see
Speaker 2: you in the next Cora. Thank you.
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