Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory and the ship Boy my Son in general.
Speaker 1: We are your host of t M I.
Speaker 3: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration, New Energy.
Speaker 1: What's up, my Son Lennon?
Speaker 2: Greetings, Tamika D. Mallory. How are you feeling to that.
Speaker 1: I'm doing okay?
Speaker 3: Okay until freedom down today a little until.
Speaker 1: Summertime. I love.
Speaker 2: It's way too hot outside.
Speaker 1: You say that every week every week.
Speaker 3: I went outside and I've seen the devil licking somebody's
Speaker 3: face out of it.
Speaker 1: But it's better than it was last week. A little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the heat is still on hell man.
Speaker 1: I mean that's just a reality. I think. You know,
Speaker 1: when you hear.
Speaker 4: Certain groups of peace people trying to deny that climate
Speaker 4: change is real, I mean, it's actually playing out before
Speaker 4: our eyes like we see it, so I can tell
Speaker 4: me that's not real.
Speaker 1: AnyWho. You know, I'm really about to like change my profession.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you because I would like to focus on
Speaker 4: quality control.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to focus on. That's the thing
Speaker 1: I want to focus on.
Speaker 4: I realized that I that in my third life because
Speaker 4: I have one that is an organizer for social justice.
Speaker 4: I have another one that is an event planner, and
Speaker 4: then I have a third one that should be in
Speaker 4: customer service and quality control. I had an experience during
Speaker 4: my family reunion where you know, I checked into an
Speaker 4: Airbnb and when I got there, beautiful space in a
Speaker 4: town that does not have much my family's town in Moreauville, Alabama.
Speaker 4: You know, it's there's a there's two different sides to
Speaker 4: it with like like with many areas that's heavily populated
Speaker 4: with black boats. You got downtown some kind of like
Speaker 4: some would say uptown, you know, and there's some white money,
Speaker 4: and there of course are black affluent people there as well.
Speaker 4: But it is a very very very country town, small town.
Speaker 4: And so when you think of and there were there
Speaker 4: used to be businesses that were like amazing, right, like
Speaker 4: you know, factories and lots of businesses, and all of
Speaker 4: that was purchased by big business and then they shut
Speaker 4: production down and so for years and year in years,
Speaker 4: those jobs have not returned. So there is the tale
Speaker 4: of two cities.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 4: There are people who are retired, people who you know,
Speaker 4: moved there for various reasons to teach college to you know,
Speaker 4: maybe it's just they found a good town that they
Speaker 4: like to spend the rest.
Speaker 1: Of their lives.
Speaker 4: You have that, and then you have people who are
Speaker 4: absolutely struggling and really suffering with a lot of desperation.
Speaker 4: So when you see beautiful airbnbs popping up because people
Speaker 4: are starting to invest in this area again, it's really cool.
Speaker 4: Shout out to my cousin OLA's Garden, Kim Abney, who
Speaker 4: has opened up a number of rentals and airbnb properties
Speaker 4: and they are phenomenal beautiful.
Speaker 1: You walk in the details is.
Speaker 4: Just like his mama, my auntie Ola May Abney taught
Speaker 4: him this other Airbnb very nice, walked in, loved beautiful.
Speaker 4: But as soon as my and my brother Milton is
Speaker 4: with me, so it's not just me because I know
Speaker 4: y'all gonna say, oh.
Speaker 1: She always got something.
Speaker 4: Soon as we walked into the bedroom, he's helping me
Speaker 4: put my suitcases up. You clearly see a stain on
Speaker 4: the bed. Then he pulls the cover back and there's
Speaker 4: another stain. Now, these two stains are more than likely clean.
Speaker 1: They're more than likely clean.
Speaker 4: Right, And in fact, I'm just gonna make this my
Speaker 4: thought of the day today because it's so it's just
Speaker 4: these two stains are there. More than likely it's clean
Speaker 4: and it's wear and tear. It looks like an old
Speaker 4: oil stain or something. But the bed looks clean. It's
Speaker 4: just it has these two stains on it. So immediately
Speaker 4: I reach out to the management and say there's stains
Speaker 4: in the bed, and their response and by the way,
Speaker 4: I don't hear anything back.
Speaker 1: Is on three hours before.
Speaker 4: I had to send an email going through all of
Speaker 4: this to get the attention of the individual. And eventually
Speaker 4: she calls me back and she's like, yeah, well, but
Speaker 4: it's definitely clean. I understand what you're saying, and I
Speaker 4: believe that it's clean. But I should not have to
Speaker 4: sleep in a bed that has stains on it, regardless
Speaker 4: of whether it is clean or not. Whether it's clean
Speaker 4: or not is not the point here. The point is
Speaker 4: there should not be stains in the bed.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: Let me just say from the onset that it was corrected.
Speaker 4: But it was corrected after having to go back and
Speaker 4: forth with this woman several times, and then eventually she
Speaker 4: said to me, oh, and she said, well, this one
Speaker 4: is busy, which is the lady who is the cleaning person.
Speaker 4: She herself this woman was with her family, and she's
Speaker 4: telling me all of these things and continueing to say
Speaker 4: and then texting me that I know for a fact
Speaker 4: those sheets were washed, that bed was clean, those it's clean.
Speaker 1: Still not did it?
Speaker 2: She didn't get what was going on.
Speaker 4: She did not understand that when you check into a hotel,
Speaker 4: you check into a rental property, you don't want to
Speaker 4: see any type of stain. And by the way, that
Speaker 4: is called wear and tears. So what you do when
Speaker 4: it has a stain on it, it's time to throw
Speaker 4: it out and get new ones. This happens all the
Speaker 4: time when you are running well, no one else has
Speaker 4: ever complained. Meanwhile, my brother, he's like you, he ain't
Speaker 4: trying to have you know, Milton, it is not that serious.
Speaker 4: It's fine. When he looked at it, he was like, nah,
Speaker 4: this is a stain. Like and you know, I'm the
Speaker 4: one and all of the guys around me would be like,
Speaker 4: oh boy, here she go to glass the four, this, that,
Speaker 4: that and the third. But even he was like, no, no,
Speaker 4: that's a stain. It's two stains, and it's one under
Speaker 4: the comforter. In my thought of the day today is that,
Speaker 4: of course, as a black woman.
Speaker 1: You know, I want to I should be.
Speaker 4: Able to say and defend my position as black women,
Speaker 4: and I would imagine black people we are constantly shrinking
Speaker 4: ourselves so that we don't upset, annoy, agitate others, or
Speaker 4: bring further harm to ourselves. So all of the hotels
Speaker 4: in this particular area, it's places that I personally would do.
Speaker 1: I don't like to stay. This is my mother's hometown.
Speaker 4: I love it there, love it there, grew up there,
Speaker 4: can't wait to go back. But I don't like staying
Speaker 4: in the hotels. So the idea that there are Airbnb
Speaker 4: properties that are very nice popping up is really really good.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to put myself in a situation
Speaker 4: where I have a bad rating or you know, where
Speaker 4: these people can write whatever they want. I've already been
Speaker 4: down the road with Airbnb where somebody blatantly lied, the
Speaker 4: management company blatantly lied. Airbnb knew it from reading all
Speaker 4: of the messages back and forth between us, but still
Speaker 4: told me that they cannot delete the comments on the
Speaker 4: review that was left for me because.
Speaker 1: It still is up to the will.
Speaker 4: Of the property manager, even though they read screenshots and
Speaker 4: saw that it was a lie, and it's very basic.
Speaker 4: They tried to say that I had an additional person
Speaker 4: in the house above the people that were supposed to
Speaker 4: be there, but then it was proven that that was
Speaker 4: the driver who dropped off our bags and was only
Speaker 4: in the house for maybe fifteen minutes, and it was
Speaker 4: proven in the messages, but they still left on my
Speaker 4: comment thing, you know, my review and Airbnb that I
Speaker 4: had an additional person in the house and so I
Speaker 4: violated the rooms right and Airbnb could not and would
Speaker 4: not do anything about it. So therefore, here I am
Speaker 4: dealing with this sheet situation. And instead of me doing
Speaker 4: what I know how to do, which is to write
Speaker 4: and be very clear about why this is problematic and
Speaker 4: to make my point and also to demand of this
Speaker 4: woman to stop telling me like I'm a child, over
Speaker 4: and over again that the sheets are clean, I am
Speaker 4: unable to do that because I need to try to
Speaker 4: protect my name, my brand, myself physically. Who knows like
Speaker 4: this is a white woman in a country town somewhere.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell she might do.
Speaker 4: I have no idea I know her husband is, I
Speaker 4: don't know how children are, so I don't want to
Speaker 4: get into a back and forth with this woman. So ultimately,
Speaker 4: if you read my messages, I'm saying I'm my apologies,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm the freaking customer, and I'm apologizing to
Speaker 4: the lady and trying to be as nice as possible
Speaker 4: to try to de escalate or whatever you want to
Speaker 4: call it, diffuse any possibility that this situation was somehow
Speaker 4: backfire on me. And I just feel like that is
Speaker 4: the most uncomfortable for the rest of my trip. It
Speaker 4: was in the back of my mind that this woman
Speaker 4: had been extremely rude to me. I mean, it goes
Speaker 4: on and on, and we don't have the time to
Speaker 4: talk about it today, but it was nothing that I
Speaker 4: could really do because I wanted to be in a
Speaker 4: comfortable place where I could stay for my family reunion
Speaker 4: and also not interrupt other people for feeling like.
Speaker 1: They needed to protect me.
Speaker 4: So, you know, that's a that's a it's a very
Speaker 4: uncomfortable place that we as black people are constantly trying
Speaker 4: to shrink ourselves so that we don't upset other people
Speaker 4: even when they're doing us wrong.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's really a real thing.
Speaker 3: I go through it all the time, you know, I
Speaker 3: try not to be as aggressive when I'm communicating with
Speaker 3: certain people, understanding that I speak with the level of
Speaker 3: passion that I've been told is aggressive and scared people.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of times, in certain situations where
Speaker 3: I don't even think I'm wrong, I apologize because, like
Speaker 3: you said, you fear the backlash of what can come
Speaker 3: out the situation. You know, we constantly have to do that,
Speaker 3: you know, and knowing how picky you are, and it's
Speaker 3: nothing wrong with being picky when you're paying your money
Speaker 3: for something, you know what I'm saying, and that's customer service.
Speaker 3: Like you know, you know, I play with you a
Speaker 3: lot and go, oh gosh, it's gonna go with the
Speaker 3: reality situation is, it's not like you're wrong. You don't
Speaker 3: want dirty civil where you don't want dirty cheeks, you
Speaker 3: don't want dirty things. You don't want to overlook that
Speaker 3: as a state on you, and you don't really have to,
Speaker 3: because when you provide a service, especially when people have
Speaker 3: to lay in their heads and live living borders, it
Speaker 3: should be immaculate.
Speaker 2: Actually, it should be an immaculate space.
Speaker 3: To where the sheets where people have to lay their
Speaker 3: body or they don't know if this is a fucking
Speaker 3: comestain or whatever stain that comes from somebody else, like
Speaker 3: nobody should have to guess what kind of stain is
Speaker 3: on the sheet in.
Speaker 2: The blanket, you know what I'm saying. And you and
Speaker 2: if you.
Speaker 3: Don't see that you're willing to move past it, then
Speaker 3: you you shouldn't have to. And when you bring it
Speaker 3: to someone who is providing the services to you, when
Speaker 3: you bring it to their attention, it shouldn't be any pushback.
Speaker 3: It should just be like, oh my, I apologize, you know,
Speaker 3: even though they're clean, I understand, I apologize. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: make sure I get you guys some fresh sheets, and
Speaker 3: that's it. It really shouldn't be much more than that.
Speaker 3: But that's just not where we are, you know. And
Speaker 3: unfortunately we live in a time where, you know, especially
Speaker 3: as black people, that we, like you said, we have
Speaker 3: to try not to say as much and try to
Speaker 3: cause as less problems because we always gonna be seen.
Speaker 3: And unless unless it's a videotape or something, just like
Speaker 3: you said, you you had the whole screenshots of text
Speaker 3: messages would showed that somebody lying on you and you
Speaker 3: still had to deal with the backladge. So it's just
Speaker 3: like a lot of times you want it, it's even
Speaker 3: worth it. You know, you got to weigh your options.
Speaker 3: Do I even standing up for myself or do I
Speaker 3: be quiet? Because I know standing up for myself can
Speaker 3: give me ostracized and you know, in ridiculed.
Speaker 2: So it's a lot man.
Speaker 4: And meanwhile, this white woman got to walk away from
Speaker 4: the situation. And by the way, the way Airbnb works
Speaker 4: for people who don't know, you make a review first
Speaker 4: and then she makes a review after, so they and
Speaker 4: they don't get to see it until after they make
Speaker 4: their review. But nonetheless, you make a review first and
Speaker 4: then they make a review. So for me, I and
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just, I'm just like systems and customer
Speaker 4: service and quality control needs a new focus.
Speaker 1: It really does, because.
Speaker 4: People are spending their money services that they don't like.
Speaker 4: Products are coming. Listen the way in which people the
Speaker 4: clothes are being made. Everything is just being thrown together
Speaker 4: and people are basically being forced to to I don't
Speaker 4: know what you call that. I got some moose from
Speaker 4: my hair and the top of the moose bottle was
Speaker 4: cracked open, and they were trying to tell me, oh,
Speaker 4: there's no way.
Speaker 1: To exchange it. And this, this, and that.
Speaker 4: I had to go all the way to the corporate
Speaker 4: office to get five dollars. But if you mailed me
Speaker 4: something and it's broken, you're supposed to replace it. Like,
Speaker 4: how dare you even think you can have a policy
Speaker 4: that says that you don't have to.
Speaker 1: So this is something that for me is a real passion.
Speaker 1: I have no idea the process.
Speaker 4: Of getting you know, scooting myself from one world to
Speaker 4: the next, but I really I wish that and when
Speaker 4: I go and come back that I would be in
Speaker 4: quality control and customer service.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, man, I know if you and customer service,
Speaker 3: the customer service is going to be immaculate because what
Speaker 3: you demand from customer service, it's pretty much what we
Speaker 3: all shit.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I joke about it a lot. But
Speaker 3: should we should have Queen Sip? Should have people you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. We should have people who want
Speaker 3: to be actually like their job, like their attitude shouldn't
Speaker 3: be like you bothered them because you're asking them to
Speaker 3: do things to make you comfortable as a customer.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, we shouldn't thank you very much. So
Speaker 1: do we have a music spotlights? Listen?
Speaker 4: I don't want us to just be giving the music
Speaker 4: spotlight to people that don't deserve it.
Speaker 3: So I don't have a music spotlight, but I do
Speaker 3: want to highlight a clothing brand that has beautiful clothing
Speaker 3: and it is my guy Smith is Smith, and it's
Speaker 3: called Actively Black.
Speaker 2: Actively Black. This is a shirt. Look see this.
Speaker 1: Let me say that a more confident Okay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is this is one of the shirts black
Speaker 4: and cocky.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Actively Black man. So they sent me a bunch
Speaker 3: of stuff. Shout out to him. Listen to me. It
Speaker 3: is quality sportswear, quality sports where they sent you a
Speaker 3: whole box of stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to start going through it for my travels.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Landy Smith. Shout out to Actively Black.
Speaker 3: If you do not have some of their clothing, then
Speaker 3: you need to go on actively black dot com right now.
Speaker 3: They partner with Alan Everson. I've seen Obama and some
Speaker 3: of their clothing. You know they're doing. They're doing amazing things.
Speaker 3: It's just one of my premium brands, top brands. He
Speaker 3: sent me a box of stuff that I'm gonna work
Speaker 3: out it and some it's fly stuff.
Speaker 2: It is work. It ain't just worker.
Speaker 3: It's quality sports were Man, it's real quality, high quality
Speaker 3: sports with Wow.
Speaker 2: If you look at what I've had a.
Speaker 3: Shorts from last year that I got that's still in
Speaker 3: tip top shape like this, I work out in them
Speaker 3: all the time.
Speaker 2: My favorite work out you.
Speaker 4: That's what I was gonna say that well, a little
Speaker 4: different from you. They also sent me a box, and
Speaker 4: I'm so proud of Actively Black. First of all, I
Speaker 4: remember when you first started promoting them, a lot of
Speaker 4: people didn't know who they were. And this was like
Speaker 4: at the very beginning of folks saying we need to
Speaker 4: buy black, and you were immediately on Actively Black. So
Speaker 4: shout out to you for that, especially after the Nike
Speaker 4: situation when we decided to not wear like y'all don't
Speaker 4: even miss Nike anymore.
Speaker 1: Like actually I told you.
Speaker 4: I don't even see it anymore as something like I
Speaker 4: don't feel I.
Speaker 1: Don't I just don't feel attached to it. So that's that.
Speaker 4: But but they sent me things and the quality, like
Speaker 4: you said, is so good. It's so it's such a
Speaker 4: good brand. And so for people who are like you know,
Speaker 4: I want to support some black owned business, but I
Speaker 4: want myself to be because sometimes let's be clear, try
Speaker 4: to support our own and the stuff don't be that
Speaker 4: good quality, like I'm just saying, and it's not just
Speaker 4: our own. Sometimes we support other brands and the equality
Speaker 4: is not there, you know what I'm saying. And then anyway,
Speaker 4: it's not their customer service quality I got.
Speaker 1: I could go.
Speaker 2: On, but I won't.
Speaker 4: Customer service Actively Black they definitely have good customer service
Speaker 4: and they have a heart for the community and the people,
Speaker 4: and a lot of folks are starting to get into it.
Speaker 4: You know, people have been supporting them, So keep supporting Actively.
Speaker 2: Black because I am actively Black.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 4: Family, So today, you know, we always have our friends on,
Speaker 4: but today we got our little sister, and I am
Speaker 4: really really excited because this is a young woman who
Speaker 4: is an example of what we tell our young people
Speaker 4: they need to do. She's not waiting for anybody to
Speaker 4: give her position. She's not waiting to be lifted and
Speaker 4: we need to pass the torch and no, no, no,
Speaker 4: she is blazing her own trails and carrying the torch
Speaker 4: all at the same time. And we're just I don't
Speaker 4: know my song, what's the word. It's not just excited,
Speaker 4: it's elated. It's elated crowd to have this young woman
Speaker 4: as our sister, our colleague, and the struggle and just
Speaker 4: so many things, and I can actually cry because it's
Speaker 4: just that deep knowing, you know, watching all of us
Speaker 4: grow over time, but especially watching Bria Baker, our young sister,
Speaker 4: go from on the streets, on the ground to putting
Speaker 4: it in a book and now she has such an
Speaker 4: amazing project. Let me tell you a little bit about
Speaker 4: Bria Bacon. Now, y'all know I don't read bios on
Speaker 4: this show. It's very limited, but in this situation, we
Speaker 4: want to make sure that.
Speaker 1: Our sister is properly introduced to all of you. So,
Speaker 1: Brian Baker is a freedom.
Speaker 4: Fighter and writer and a national and global strategist.
Speaker 1: Come on, now, tell them exactly who you are.
Speaker 4: She has contributed to dozens of electoral and advocacy campaigns,
Speaker 4: including the twenty seventeen Women's March on Washington, the twenty
Speaker 4: eighteen student walkouts against gun violence, and Jamani Williams successful
Speaker 4: bid for New York City Public Advocate. Ria has a
Speaker 4: BA in political science from Yale University, where she served
Speaker 4: as president of Yale's NAACP chapter and co director of
Speaker 4: the AIDS Walk New Haven, Okay. Now Ria has a book.
Speaker 4: It is called Rooted, the American Legacy of Land Theft
Speaker 4: and the Modern Movement for Black land Ownership.
Speaker 1: It delves into one of the.
Speaker 4: Nation's first and stealing and hoarding the land, and follows
Speaker 4: Ria and her family on a personal journey to preserve
Speaker 4: her ancestors land in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Ria, thank you so much for joining us on Tami.
Speaker 6: Sah no is going to make me cry because they
Speaker 6: are being too kind, like little sister.
Speaker 5: But like I was just following.
Speaker 6: Around, happy to learn at y'all's feed and Carmen and
Speaker 6: Linda and just learn so much from the two of
Speaker 6: y'all though, of course through gathering and other spaces. But
Speaker 6: it is just so special to get to talk to
Speaker 6: y'all about a book after having been the little intern
Speaker 6: volunteer assistant who was taking notes all those years ago.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I just want to say, first of all,
Speaker 3: I'm very proud of you, and this book is just
Speaker 3: pretty much a testament of who you are.
Speaker 2: You know, like you always found.
Speaker 3: That needed to be spoken on, Like even when I
Speaker 3: go to your social media, you speak on the things
Speaker 3: that we need to say talk about, but nobody actually
Speaker 3: highlights and you have a knack for that. You know
Speaker 3: in this book right here just pretty much speaks to
Speaker 3: who you are, Like, what made you say that I
Speaker 3: want to write this book and about what you wrote about?
Speaker 5: Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, right before we got on
Speaker 6: this call, you and I Mice were talking about grief
Speaker 6: really quickly, and grief is definitely what pushed me to
Speaker 6: write the book and family and love for what it
Speaker 6: means to be black and happy. And I think I
Speaker 6: had gotten to a place where I was in the
Speaker 6: work because I was angry, and then my grandfather passed
Speaker 6: away in twenty nineteen and it kind of made me stop.
Speaker 6: It was right after Jimani was elected, and so it
Speaker 6: was really just like stilled me and forced me to
Speaker 6: really think about what legacy meant for my family, not
Speaker 6: just for what I was doing for a theoretical community,
Speaker 6: but what am I doing for the black people who
Speaker 6: I'm related to? What's our story? What's the legacy that
Speaker 6: I need to continue on for my grandfather now that
Speaker 6: he's not here. And the last words that he said,
Speaker 6: or some of the last words he said in his
Speaker 6: hospital bed was don't sell the land. So it felt
Speaker 6: so clear, learn more about why he cared so much
Speaker 6: about this land, make sure that the family stays together,
Speaker 6: because grief can be a time when we.
Speaker 5: Are ununited.
Speaker 6: And I just wanted to make sure that we understood
Speaker 6: that we have to be really locked in and laser
Speaker 6: focused on what he saw is important. And the more
Speaker 6: research I did, the more it was like, well, now
Speaker 6: I'm not just doing it for him, I'm doing it
Speaker 6: for me.
Speaker 5: I'm doing it for my little one.
Speaker 6: I just I want more of us to have access
Speaker 6: to land as a vehicle for wealth, but also as
Speaker 6: just a place where we can be ourselves. And it's
Speaker 6: we don't you know, We're not under someone else's thumb
Speaker 6: or being policed.
Speaker 5: We're in our own space.
Speaker 4: So you talked about America's first sin just stealing land,
Speaker 4: which makes it not hard for us to understand why
Speaker 4: they are so supportive of Israel as it steals land,
Speaker 4: the land of the Palestinian people. Why don't you talk
Speaker 4: a little bit about that, like in your research. I mean,
Speaker 4: we know it theoretically. We talk about the native people
Speaker 4: to this land. We talk about how their land was stolen,
Speaker 4: it was encroached upon, how they never have been properly
Speaker 4: acknowledged for the fact that they were already here and
Speaker 4: then we came to this country. We were, I always say,
Speaker 4: trafficked to America and built the nation on our backs.
Speaker 4: And I would love to hear you talk about your
Speaker 4: research because I can imagine, again from one perspective, we
Speaker 4: all know it, but when you started to do that research,
Speaker 4: you probably found some pretty egregious stuff.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, definitely, definitely, because I mean the things that
Speaker 6: we know about are the Tulsa massacres, which are horrible, horrific, right,
Speaker 6: but we think that they were few and far between.
Speaker 6: And the Tulsa massacre happenedineteen twenty one. Two years before
Speaker 6: that was the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen, but even
Speaker 6: that is like a misnomer because it was all year,
Speaker 6: just a massacre every other day across the country. And
Speaker 6: then before then was the nineteen oh six Atlanta massacre,
Speaker 6: and then before then was the Wilmington massacre. So number one,
Speaker 6: seeing the scale of how often black people were being
Speaker 6: forced out of the South. So, as you said, like
Speaker 6: the word traffics, I think it's important that we use
Speaker 6: this deeper language because yeah, we were trafficked here, and
Speaker 6: then we weren't just like moving and migrating north. We
Speaker 6: were running for our lives and being forced out of
Speaker 6: an expulsed out of, very similar to things that are
Speaker 6: happening in Palestine and the Congo and other similar places.
Speaker 6: And it actually made me, it made me feel even
Speaker 6: stronger in my result that there has to be a
Speaker 6: free Palestine, because if I know what happened to my
Speaker 6: family in North Carolina, what happened to a lot of
Speaker 6: black families across Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, et cetera, I
Speaker 6: know intimately what a Palestinian family who is watching their
Speaker 6: village be turned into an Israeli settlement, seeing olive groves
Speaker 6: be transformed into like tourism spots for settlers, Like it's
Speaker 6: you watch your dreams literally get ripped from under you.
Speaker 6: In the case of Palestinians, you're watching bulldozers literally crush
Speaker 6: your homes. In the cases of the black people, they're
Speaker 6: burning all black towns, lynching people, forcing you north, and
Speaker 6: from a distance, you have to watch a new thing
Speaker 6: get built on what was yours, like Lake Lanier, right,
Speaker 6: like that was a black town that they said we're
Speaker 6: going to put a lake over this, and like you
Speaker 6: have to watch now, like you know, generations later, decades later,
Speaker 6: you have to watch white people get on jet skis
Speaker 6: on a lake where there are cemeteries under there. There
Speaker 6: were churches, there were schools, there were homes, And that
Speaker 6: happens in a lot of places. And it's not always
Speaker 6: the overt violence like the massacres. Sometimes it's the violence
Speaker 6: of eminent domain. It could be a lot of different things,
Speaker 6: but a lot of policy and outright violence has been
Speaker 6: you to take people like black people's life, savings, dreams,
Speaker 6: everything we've worked towards. So when people say things like, well,
Speaker 6: we got to work together, like insert community, and it's
Speaker 6: like we have always worked together. It's just right at
Speaker 6: the time that we're succeeding. Jealousy makes white supremacy say
Speaker 6: ooh that needs to be mine. I deserve it more
Speaker 6: than you, and that's what needs to be stopped.
Speaker 2: M that's amazing.
Speaker 3: So give us a little bit of your personal, you
Speaker 3: know situation when you when your your grandfather said, don't
Speaker 3: sell the land. So what was the process like for that,
Speaker 3: and was there people trying to take the land from you?
Speaker 2: Like what was the process that happened with them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Well, thankfully, when my grandfather passed away, my grandmother
Speaker 6: was still living so it was still in her hands.
Speaker 6: And then after that it was put into a trust
Speaker 6: and a land trust for our family to kind of
Speaker 6: hold on to. And that's important for us to know,
Speaker 6: is that you need more than just a standard will
Speaker 6: or more than just well, I want it to be
Speaker 6: this person's like, you've really got to get the paperwork
Speaker 6: to really shore up these assets. Because black people, we
Speaker 6: are resilient, we are innovative, so we can make some money,
Speaker 6: but are we going to be able to pass on
Speaker 6: in inheritance that the next generation can still get? So
Speaker 6: I feel grateful that it is still in our family
Speaker 6: since he's passed away, But the larger story of our
Speaker 6: family absolutely has a lot of theft in it. So
Speaker 6: our family still has about one hundred acres in North Carolina,
Speaker 6: which is huge to me. But when I was doing
Speaker 6: the research, we used to have a six hundred acre
Speaker 6: farm in like the thirties, and it's like, so we
Speaker 6: owned more and had more as a family, Like we
Speaker 6: had more equity as a family almost one hundred years
Speaker 6: ago than we do now. In a post racial America.
Speaker 6: And that's the story of a lot of black families.
Speaker 6: And again, like families that were starting over in Chicago, Detroit,
Speaker 6: New York, Oakland, Newark, they weren't selling their land and
Speaker 6: starting over with the profits they you were running and
Speaker 6: you didn't get to bring it with you. So there's
Speaker 6: a lot of wealth that has been left behind in
Speaker 6: the South or stolen and kept in the South, but
Speaker 6: out of black people's hands. But I'm still grateful that
Speaker 6: we do have a little bit or not. So a
Speaker 6: little bit one hundred acres is something beautiful. We have
Speaker 6: a substantive family plot still, which is really really beautiful.
Speaker 6: But I know that in two generations it went from
Speaker 6: six hundred to one hundred. So I'm trying to make
Speaker 6: sure that it only grows from here and doesn't continue
Speaker 6: to get smaller and smaller and smaller.
Speaker 4: So what would you say is the most important thing
Speaker 4: that you have learned on this journey?
Speaker 6: I mean, I always knew this, but it's important to
Speaker 6: realize how hard it is for black people to hold
Speaker 6: on to our stuff, so that we understand and appreciate
Speaker 6: what it means to keep it. And like, there's a
Speaker 6: lot of critique of oh, well, you know, grandma didn't
Speaker 6: keep the brownstone, and but who was helping her with
Speaker 6: the property taxes, who was being a part of and
Speaker 6: making sure that she knew that you were interested in
Speaker 6: keeping that going. And we can't let our elders were
Speaker 6: hire with assets that feel like burdens to them but
Speaker 6: could be equalizers for us. We have to have deeper
Speaker 6: intergenerational conversations with our elders, know their stories, know what
Speaker 6: they have, because a lot of us are like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: my family used to kind of have some land and
Speaker 6: we don't even know the full story of it, whether
Speaker 6: anyone in the family is still tied to it, and
Speaker 6: so we kind of lose sight of acres that we
Speaker 6: do have or homes that we do have, just because
Speaker 6: it kind of goes to disrepair. So I think the
Speaker 6: biggest thing is just how much how important it is
Speaker 6: to talk about these things, especially as black people, and
Speaker 6: then for white people to do the same, Like there
Speaker 6: are white people who inherit things and they never critique
Speaker 6: where it came from, why they are able to have
Speaker 6: certain leisure and ease that other people don't. And even
Speaker 6: if you don't think of yourself as someone who's super
Speaker 6: super wealthy. If you inherited part of a business, a
Speaker 6: small family, home, stocks, whatever, that's something that a lot
Speaker 6: of black families have not and not because we don't
Speaker 6: deserve it or haven't worked for it, but because it's
Speaker 6: been taken from us.
Speaker 4: Yes, well, you know what, just listening to what you're saying.
Speaker 4: When I think of black people that I know, older
Speaker 4: black people, it was always like a big secret.
Speaker 1: Everything they had was a secret. Don't talk about it.
Speaker 4: You don't tell people how much it cost or how
Speaker 4: it came into ownership of it. It's like, that's nobody
Speaker 4: else's business. Hide the papers, you know, put it in
Speaker 4: the in the floor in the house. But that's not
Speaker 4: helpful to a second generation or a third generation that
Speaker 4: is attempting to learn or that would like to mar
Speaker 4: so that they could keep the legacy going. And I
Speaker 4: think I hear you saying when you say talk about it,
Speaker 4: we're not saying just sit around and be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: buy home, holds up. We're saying, give the details of
Speaker 4: all of what has taken place, and then and then
Speaker 4: also be willing to show the family where things currently.
Speaker 6: Stand exactly that, exactly that, and like you said, it's
Speaker 6: a I'm a response to want to not get too
Speaker 6: wide with it, knowing that if too many people know,
Speaker 6: they want with yours. I mean, that was even a
Speaker 6: conversation I have with my aunt I'm thinking I'm being
Speaker 6: the family activist.
Speaker 5: I'm like, Auntie, I don't like that.
Speaker 6: You have guns, you know, gun violence and all this stuff,
Speaker 6: And she's like, Bria, we live in North Carolina. We
Speaker 6: are a black family with a lot of acres that
Speaker 6: a lot.
Speaker 5: Of people want.
Speaker 6: We have to protect ourselves and what is ours. And
Speaker 6: it gave me a different understanding and nuance that I
Speaker 6: still fight for gun safety and gun regulation and gun
Speaker 6: protection and we can't leave black families defenseless, and we
Speaker 6: can't force black families to.
Speaker 5: Put themselves out in the open.
Speaker 6: But at the same time, there's a difference between telling
Speaker 6: strangers on the internet your business and telling the family.
Speaker 6: And what used to happen when I was young is
Speaker 6: at the family reunion, the elders would tell the story
Speaker 6: of the family. There was a shirt that had a
Speaker 6: family tree on the back and we would just record
Speaker 6: this oral history and people knew what it was. And
Speaker 6: I think that that is a missing recipe that we
Speaker 6: got to get back to because other people don't need
Speaker 6: to know, but we do need to have intra conversations
Speaker 6: so that younger generations value it and don't settle for
Speaker 6: a shoe box apartment that they rent forever when they
Speaker 6: know that there's land that is their birthright, when a
Speaker 6: home is their birth right, when kids running free in
Speaker 6: a backyard is their birthright too.
Speaker 3: So there's been a lot of talk about deed death right.
Speaker 3: We had a black woman on here, actually it was
Speaker 3: Queen of four and she was telling us her parent,
Speaker 3: I think she said it was her grandmother's home or
Speaker 3: something that they literally she was still fighting for a
Speaker 3: home that she grew up in and they just pretty
Speaker 3: much told her that she didn't. So do you know
Speaker 3: anything about that especially? And we were talking also talking
Speaker 3: about the black farmers with what they've been dealing with
Speaker 3: with their lane. So give us a little insight that
Speaker 3: you have on those things.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a really that's a really important part too,
Speaker 6: the food justice side of it, because isn't it interesting
Speaker 6: that we go from black people are the forced laborers,
Speaker 6: We're forced to work this land, so then just a
Speaker 6: generation and a half later, we are in food apartheid,
Speaker 6: in communities where there are only bodegas and delis and
Speaker 6: fast food, and we can't access the food that our
Speaker 6: ancestors were forced to grow. And that's also something that
Speaker 6: I say, is like we were forced to work the land,
Speaker 6: and when they couldn't profit off of our free labor, it.
Speaker 5: Was like, Okay, well now we want y'all to have
Speaker 5: nothing to do with it. And so now we're so
Speaker 5: detached from it.
Speaker 6: Where organic food and clean air and clean water used
Speaker 6: to be a birthright for us and normal for us.
Speaker 6: My grandmother used to say that, like we used to
Speaker 6: grow our own cucumbers, grow our own fruit, have our
Speaker 6: own pigs and chickens, and now we're forced into these
Speaker 6: Flint and Newark sort of communities where having a healthy
Speaker 6: lifestyle is really not even up to you. It's up
Speaker 6: to the infrastructure you and whether the powers that be
Speaker 6: will let you have clean air, clean food, clean water,
Speaker 6: you know. And so to your point of those sorts
Speaker 6: of like attacks and the deed theft and how that
Speaker 6: affects farmers, I mean, deep theft in general is a
Speaker 6: big thing. There's a documentary called Silver Dollar Road that
Speaker 6: kind of digs into this and a black family that
Speaker 6: had grown up on this land their whole life were
Speaker 6: told that they were trespassing on land that they'd lived
Speaker 6: on their whole lives. They were like middle aged at
Speaker 6: this point. We're told they were trespassing in that if
Speaker 6: they didn't leave, they would go to jail. They didn't leave,
Speaker 6: and they actually incarcerated these like I think sixty year
Speaker 6: old black men who had lived on this land their
Speaker 6: whole life.
Speaker 5: That happens all the time.
Speaker 6: Sometimes it's they they're just hoping you can't prove that
Speaker 6: you have the deed, and if a paper gets lost
Speaker 6: or whatever and you can't prove it, then they've shuffled
Speaker 6: some paperwork around and now they can't prove it, and
Speaker 6: now you're just lost in paperwork. And if your lawyer
Speaker 6: can't handle being tied up with their lawyer, then you
Speaker 6: just can't afford the fight. Other Times it's overt like
Speaker 6: in the Wilmington massacre, they literally were burning deeds, so
Speaker 6: after the massacre was over, survivors wouldn't be able to
Speaker 6: prove whether they owned anything in the community. That also
Speaker 6: happened in Tulsa, So there's a lot of shady, shifty
Speaker 6: manipulative stuff, and that's definitely something to be vigilant of.
Speaker 6: This idea that you know it's easy to build a
Speaker 6: black wall street is look, you can build it, but
Speaker 6: to protect it, to maintain it, to keep it going
Speaker 6: is the hard part, because white supremacy will do this
Speaker 6: all the time. I mean, the move bombing in Philly
Speaker 6: was way more recent than some of these massacres I'm
Speaker 6: talking about, and that was like what the seventies, the
Speaker 6: mid seventies. So this government has shown that it will
Speaker 6: turn the other way or be actively participating in dispossessing us.
Speaker 6: And I think that is the challenging part, is how
Speaker 6: to keep people optimistic and motivated to keep fighting for it.
Speaker 6: But I think we just have to because it is ours.
Speaker 6: We deserve it, I mean, our ancest If they didn't fight,
Speaker 6: we wouldn't be here having a conversation like we are.
Speaker 6: And I just feel so lucky to have learned from
Speaker 6: people like you too, from people like mister b from
Speaker 6: people who just have been relentless about speaking up about
Speaker 6: things that feel so like the odds feel so sacked
Speaker 6: against us, but still we keep sounding the alarm. So
Speaker 6: we just got to keep fighting and keep trying new things,
Speaker 6: but self protection is definitely part of it, because they
Speaker 6: will try and convince us we don't own what we own.
Speaker 4: Well, here's the last question that I have for you,
Speaker 4: and I just want to thank you for giving us
Speaker 4: your time and your brilliance, because you know what you this.
Speaker 4: My son made a very good point at the top
Speaker 4: of this interview, and that is that you are always
Speaker 4: on a different vibe, like you're educating people. Your content
Speaker 4: is different from what everybody else is talking about. So
Speaker 4: while folks running around up and down about Trump this
Speaker 4: and Trump that, you'll be on your page talking about
Speaker 4: land ownership, talking about women's rights, young people, you know,
Speaker 4: and young people's power and so on and so forth.
Speaker 4: So I appreciate the fact that you stay. You are
Speaker 4: a person who dances to your own tumb and it's
Speaker 4: not an off beat. It's always I was watching that
Speaker 4: my family reunion, the line dances, as you know, that's
Speaker 4: a big deal. Everybody does a great line dance. They
Speaker 4: got about twenty five. Fama and I have some cousins
Speaker 4: that are so skilled at the line dances that they
Speaker 4: go in the opposite direction in the midst of the crowds.
Speaker 4: Or going one way and they're going in the opposite direction.
Speaker 4: But it's never off key. It's always key and it
Speaker 4: stands out. And I think that's you know, I think
Speaker 4: of you that way. But I want you and I
Speaker 4: want you to speak to this really quickly. There are
Speaker 4: people who are advocates for land ownerships. They are advocates
Speaker 4: for economic development and economic sustainability in our community.
Speaker 1: Is there.
Speaker 4: They are advocates for us being smarter about investments and
Speaker 4: savings and all of that, and some of these saying
Speaker 4: people believe that the political process is not that important,
Speaker 4: that voting is not important.
Speaker 1: All of these.
Speaker 4: Candidates ain't no good and therefore I'm not voting for anybody.
Speaker 4: I'm just gonna focus on getting money. And in a
Speaker 4: time where we see the Tulsa massacre proceedings being thrown
Speaker 4: out of the highest court, at a time when we
Speaker 4: see the Fearless Fund under attack.
Speaker 1: Which is an effort to.
Speaker 4: Help fund black women's businesses by black women, at a
Speaker 4: time when we see an effort, and not just an effort,
Speaker 4: a very successful campaign to dismantle DEI practices within corporate institutions,
Speaker 4: educational institutions, government institutions. What do you say you're a
Speaker 4: younger person too, you have your finger on the pulse
Speaker 4: of what is happening with young people. Do you think
Speaker 4: that at this point voting is past and we should
Speaker 4: just be focusing on getting money or do you see
Speaker 4: value in voting.
Speaker 5: I definitely see value in both.
Speaker 6: I'm not someone who thinks any one strategy can work
Speaker 6: by itself, because again, you can be focused on getting money,
Speaker 6: and if you're not building up protections and safety nets,
Speaker 6: then that can just get snatched from you. And if
Speaker 6: you only focus on voting, which some people do, and
Speaker 6: present that as like the thing that's going to save democracy,
Speaker 6: when it doesn't save democracy, then you disappoint people because
Speaker 6: it's like you just told me this was the most
Speaker 6: consequential thing I could do in my lifetime. I did it,
Speaker 6: and it doesn't feel consequential if things.
Speaker 5: Feel the same.
Speaker 6: So I think it's both, and I think those who
Speaker 6: are pushing people to vote have to stop pretending as
Speaker 6: though it's going to be this like one hundred and
Speaker 6: eighty degrees change. A lot of things will be the same,
Speaker 6: but there's also a lot we can change. Voting is
Speaker 6: not just for the president. There's so many down ballot
Speaker 6: positions that we vote for commissioners of agriculture, right, jobs
Speaker 6: that we're like we don't even even really think about,
Speaker 6: but have so much say over things like what you
Speaker 6: can do with your land. Like, for example, you could
Speaker 6: buy a bunch of land and someone can tell you, oh,
Speaker 6: that's zoned a certain way, you can't build that business there.
Speaker 6: You can't do that saying there. So now you have
Speaker 6: this whole plan for yourself. But because you didn't know that,
Speaker 6: the person in office doesn't once you building a marijuana
Speaker 6: business in his state.
Speaker 5: Now you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So there's an importance in addressing it from all areas.
Speaker 6: And I think that young people who feel jaden just
Speaker 6: have to remember you're not voting because you think that
Speaker 6: that's going to be the one thing you can do
Speaker 6: to save the world. You're voting because you need a
Speaker 6: range of tools in your arsenal.
Speaker 5: And that's you know, that's important.
Speaker 6: So the last thing I'll say, Another example that I'll
Speaker 6: give as the last thing is the Bruce's Beach example.
Speaker 6: Everyone was really excited about this family in California that
Speaker 6: gets their beachfront land back after cavan Ward and the
Speaker 6: organization where's my land? Fight for them to get this land,
Speaker 6: and they're given this land back. But when the land
Speaker 6: was taken from them, it was beachfront property with a
Speaker 6: resort on it.
Speaker 5: When it's given back.
Speaker 6: To them, it's just it's just the property, no buildings
Speaker 6: on it, nothing they can move into, nothing they can
Speaker 6: immediately profit off of. That's a tax burden in the
Speaker 6: state of California. There's no way for this working class
Speaker 6: family to make any money off of this land. So
Speaker 6: when they had to sell it back to the state,
Speaker 6: people were upset. But it's like what you should have
Speaker 6: fought for or not. You know, this isn't actually come
Speaker 6: at the activists, But what we can be fighting for
Speaker 6: on all ends is give the people their land back,
Speaker 6: and they should get a property tax exemption. And I'm
Speaker 6: fighting for a change to the property tax code in
Speaker 6: general so that black families can get more belief And
Speaker 6: you know, like those are.
Speaker 5: The sorts of things that we need elect officials doing.
Speaker 6: Or like in New York, if I didn't believe in voting,
Speaker 6: we wouldn't have someone like Drewmini Williams, who we know
Speaker 6: is always in a position to use his power for
Speaker 6: the people. So I think that we just have to
Speaker 6: remember that there are local offices that we can elect
Speaker 6: people to that can make a huge difference, and at
Speaker 6: the least we can mitigate harm and decide who do
Speaker 6: we want to be working against as we fight for more.
Speaker 6: But if you only focused on getting your money and
Speaker 6: not focused on who's trying to take your money, then
Speaker 6: you're looking at only one hand, and there's lots of hands.
Speaker 2: Wimen, that's an excellent thing.
Speaker 3: I just want you to end this by just telling
Speaker 3: the people what do you want them to get when
Speaker 3: they read this book? What is your hopes that everyone
Speaker 3: who gets this book, because everyone needs to get it,
Speaker 3: but what is your hopes that they give from them?
Speaker 5: Thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 6: My hope is that people will read this book and
Speaker 6: see that reparations is inevitable. That we can't talk about
Speaker 6: it as a we should have had it. It would
Speaker 6: be nice to have no reparations are inevitable. You're not
Speaker 6: an ally if you don't believe in reparations. You're not
Speaker 6: for our community. If you do not believe in reparations,
Speaker 6: because it is the only thing that can achieve bridging
Speaker 6: racial wealth gaps and addressing some of the environmental injustice
Speaker 6: that we're dealing with and getting to put black people
Speaker 6: in a position to finally be autonomous, to be in
Speaker 6: control of our own futures, our own businesses, our own families.
Speaker 6: So I hope that people read it and excited to
Speaker 6: work more towards reparations.
Speaker 1: A Baker, that's a word.
Speaker 2: See listen. I just want to say one more thing
Speaker 2: before we go. Her mama is bad.
Speaker 3: My mama are discermon at the book thing. I know
Speaker 3: where you get it from, because that's a bad woman.
Speaker 3: So shout out to Mama Baker. We appreciate you, We
Speaker 3: love you.
Speaker 2: Bria. Continue to be great like you've always been.
Speaker 3: I always knew that this is who you were, and
Speaker 3: I'm just proud to see you just butting like a butterfly.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I appreciate you. And I'm gonna have to
Speaker 5: tell her you said that.
Speaker 1: Yes, re a Baker. Root it, pick it up. Love
Speaker 1: you too, y'all.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Bria man, Love her to death, man book,
Speaker 3: gotta read the Love Her to Life. That's right, Love
Speaker 3: her to life. You should we all get that book.
Speaker 3: Read it. It's touching, it's real. She's everything. That's right,
Speaker 3: and it's every element of who she is. So now
Speaker 3: we get to mind. I don't get it. I posted
Speaker 3: a meme on my page last week and it was
Speaker 3: funny to me.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It was a guy he was with a girl and
Speaker 3: she started talking and he was like all, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and what else do you do? And then she just
Speaker 3: gave him this look like she was confused, and it
Speaker 3: was like huh, and then he was like what else
Speaker 3: do you do? And then she still was confused, and
Speaker 3: then it was this slow motion boys, She's like, what
Speaker 3: else do you do? And then she just still was
Speaker 3: just stuff like she didn't get it. So you know that,
Speaker 3: and the moral of the story is like there are
Speaker 3: some girls that all they can do is talk. They
Speaker 3: don't have anything else to offer, and we know there's
Speaker 3: some men that don't have anything to offer too.
Speaker 2: But it was funny, you know, just and.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of different comments on there, and
Speaker 3: then it brought me, you know, there was one of
Speaker 3: the comments where women was like, well, y'all need to
Speaker 3: not you know, you should stop liking pages like that
Speaker 3: as girls that's all they do and all you do
Speaker 3: is like it.
Speaker 2: And then it was.
Speaker 3: Some girls like, well, what else, what do we have
Speaker 3: to offer for her to have to offer more than that?
Speaker 3: So there was just different comments and different that, And
Speaker 3: one of the things it brought me to was just
Speaker 3: thinking about how we are portraying our women, right like.
Speaker 3: And it's not to take anything away from women who
Speaker 3: turk like I love to see a woman turk. There's
Speaker 3: no man, you know, there's very few. I'm not gonna
Speaker 3: say nobody. There are very few men who are heterosexual
Speaker 3: males that don't like to see a woman who got
Speaker 3: a nice body, tworking and working our body. That's just
Speaker 3: something in man. It's gonna like naturally, you know. But
Speaker 3: but when you looking to date or you actually looking
Speaker 3: to take something serious, you want to see more than that,
Speaker 3: right And I think for me, there was this conversation
Speaker 3: about BT awards, and I really didn't get involved in
Speaker 3: it because I didn't, you know, I don't. I don't
Speaker 3: want to throw shade at anybody or any individual. You know,
Speaker 3: a lot of these women are talented. They just know
Speaker 3: how to kirk and work and be talented. But there
Speaker 3: are women in this industry who don't t work, who
Speaker 3: are talented, who are skilled to adult rappers who can Damn,
Speaker 3: who can do all those things? But they just rather
Speaker 3: not work. It's just not something that they'll come through
Speaker 3: it or something that they choose to do.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So when I looked at the BT Awards and then
Speaker 3: it was people like, oh, that's all we got, and
Speaker 3: I said, damn, you know, and and and then I
Speaker 3: compared it to that meme and the reaction I started saying,
Speaker 3: you know, we are we not doing ourselves a disservice?
Speaker 1: Are we doing ourselves? Yeah, we're doing it.
Speaker 3: We're actually doing ourselves with disservice when all we show
Speaker 3: is one genre of female doing something right, because it
Speaker 3: makes it seem like that's all we have. And when
Speaker 3: you say black entertainment television, if that's the only entertainment
Speaker 3: we got, you know that then is wrong. I mean,
Speaker 3: because I know it's not the only entertainment we got.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. We have artists like Tink,
Speaker 3: We have artists like on Rhapsody, We have artists like
Speaker 3: Lady London.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: We have artists that I know that are dope that
Speaker 3: nobody and they're not talking, that's that's not what they do.
Speaker 3: They're not saying they can't, but that's just not the
Speaker 3: way that they promote their music. And when we're not
Speaker 3: highlighting them, we're not giving them the same platforms and
Speaker 3: stages that we give those who do do it, then
Speaker 3: it is an imbalance, you know. And I think that's
Speaker 3: what's happened in society all together. For me, there's just
Speaker 3: too much of an imbalance one way or the other.
Speaker 3: Like what happened to the balance, What happened to where
Speaker 3: we had conscious music? You know, we had street orientated music,
Speaker 3: we had just fun and music. We had love song
Speaker 3: like it's either this or that, right, it's it's all the.
Speaker 2: Way this, so all the way there.
Speaker 3: And it's like, I think that we need to start
Speaker 3: highlighting more things because you know, like men are either
Speaker 3: jaded with just seeing somebody talk all the time, or
Speaker 3: that's all they want to see because that's all they've
Speaker 3: been given. You know, you just start taking it ass
Speaker 3: that's all it really is. And I think it's so
Speaker 3: much more, especially as black people and entertainment television. I
Speaker 3: think it's so much more that we have to offer
Speaker 3: that we actually aren't given, you know, and it's making
Speaker 3: it's so lopsided the view of what black women is
Speaker 3: and what black entertainment is. It's just changing for and
Speaker 3: I think it's a negative you know, connotation just attached
Speaker 3: to it now. And I just wonder, I think think
Speaker 3: we have to be a lot more intentional and so
Speaker 3: I just don't get. What I don't get is why
Speaker 3: aren't these platforms highlighting different styles of music, different styles
Speaker 3: of entertainment for females. Why aren't Why isn't that something
Speaker 3: that people are intentional about doing.
Speaker 1: Well, here's my thing. Yes, balance is key.
Speaker 4: I always talk about it because I am not, you know,
Speaker 4: one to condemn, which I understand that you're also not condemning,
Speaker 4: you know, any artists, right, I don't condemn them. You
Speaker 4: know when people have come to me and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: you need to be saying something about sexy Red and
Speaker 4: Sukiana and this one and that one because it's filth
Speaker 4: and it's this and it's that. By the way, every
Speaker 4: now and then, depending on what the song is, I
Speaker 4: be bumping a little sexy Red. So I'm not I'm
Speaker 4: not if everybody say, get it sexy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not gonna be a hypocrite there.
Speaker 4: I also know that there was a people like well,
Speaker 4: one person said to me, no, it's different, it's much
Speaker 4: more raunchy.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know how much more raunchy.
Speaker 4: You could get the little Kim on the cover of
Speaker 4: her album where she was kneeling down or squatting down
Speaker 4: and you could literally see hair on the.
Speaker 1: Sides of her vagina. That's a fact.
Speaker 4: So it's been raunchy. Adena Howard was raunchy. Now perhaps
Speaker 4: the times were a little different. So it's just like
Speaker 4: you and me right like or and everybody else out here.
Speaker 1: We used to wear the.
Speaker 4: Afro and now it's the fade and whatever the caesar
Speaker 4: and it time things eball people change, But the message
Speaker 4: was still popping kouchie, sucking pp selling kouchi, getting money.
Speaker 4: There was the same message. The words is just a
Speaker 4: little bit different. I am not one of those people
Speaker 4: who's gonna sit here and say, oh, you know, I
Speaker 4: want to condemn these particular individuals. What I do think
Speaker 4: is true is that there has to be a balance. Now,
Speaker 4: b Et will say, well, they look a lot at
Speaker 4: album sales, right, they look at popularity, album sales and numbers.
Speaker 4: Social media impact all of that. So if they find
Speaker 4: that a person you know, is doing great numbers. Of
Speaker 4: course they are going to put them on the show.
Speaker 4: And then those people whose numbers may not be that good,
Speaker 4: those people don't make it. And I'm not quoting pt,
Speaker 4: but I'm saying I know the mindset because I've been
Speaker 4: in these media meetings and i know how they think.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: So, but the problem with that, and I watched some
Speaker 4: of the old time do something that was groundbreaking, and
Speaker 4: that was that they would mix in the people who
Speaker 4: you don't necessarily listen to or hear from all the time.
Speaker 4: They would sandwich them between things, whether it be at
Speaker 4: a rally. You know, it could be a new person speaking.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying that nobody really knows. But
Speaker 4: they got a powerful message. So they're gonna put them
Speaker 4: on right after Tamika Mallory or whoever, the big whoever,
Speaker 4: the other whatever, the better bigger speaker is, whoever it is,
Speaker 4: the President of the United States, whoever they'll have you
Speaker 4: introduce the President of the United States.
Speaker 2: It's like when you think about the girl who did
Speaker 2: the poetry left. I never heard.
Speaker 4: Exactly Amanda, I forget her last name, but absolutely Goldman
Speaker 4: I thing, absolutely same exact thing. And I have something
Speaker 4: to say about her, but I'm gonna wait until another
Speaker 4: time for that on my list of things thought of
Speaker 4: the day, because since she called for a ceasefire, I
Speaker 4: don't see her as much as I used to, and
Speaker 4: I'm gonna through some research to figure out what happened.
Speaker 1: But I remember looking.
Speaker 4: At her page she was calling for a ceasfire and
Speaker 4: her comment section, Baby, these people got the nerve to
Speaker 4: talk about hate and division. I can't even I'm at
Speaker 4: the point where I need a trap on my mouth
Speaker 4: like a censor because I'm ready to say things that
Speaker 4: will probably just get me black ball.
Speaker 1: For the rest of my life. And I'm already hanging
Speaker 1: off the black ball list. So whatever.
Speaker 4: Anyway, So that's what they did. It was masterful how
Speaker 4: they give you a little bit of what you like
Speaker 4: or what's being the shiny thing, and also make sure
Speaker 4: you get other things in the midst of that. Now
Speaker 4: BT will say, well, we did that with Taraji. We
Speaker 4: love her, do her political you know, her political component
Speaker 4: of her posting, and that made the numbers for research
Speaker 4: around Project twenty twenty five go up. You know, it
Speaker 4: increased obviously significantly overnight because of what she said, so
Speaker 4: they will say they do that, but with the talent
Speaker 4: piece that balance is important and they need to be
Speaker 4: intentional about that.
Speaker 1: So be quite honest with you.
Speaker 4: I looked at I went back and looked at the artists,
Speaker 4: be all of the women, right, because I wanted to
Speaker 4: see where they extremely naked as I had heard. They
Speaker 4: really kind of weren't. If you really go back and
Speaker 4: look at their outfits, they were not completely you know, undressed.
Speaker 4: Even Meg, her outfit is sexy, very sexy, and very suggestive,
Speaker 4: but if you look at it, she has on tights,
Speaker 4: she has on tights, she has on all types of
Speaker 4: things that's covering her actual skin.
Speaker 1: Glorilla, Yeah, she went.
Speaker 4: Out there and shook her little booty, but she just
Speaker 4: had a little broad top on in regular big pants.
Speaker 4: Like I really looked. Some of it was sexy, but
Speaker 4: it wasn't all. It wasn't all overly sexy. It's the
Speaker 4: content though, of what they're saying that it's content.
Speaker 3: It's the overall performance and everything, right, So yeah, with
Speaker 3: the address, at some point there's working. There's sexually suggestive
Speaker 3: inside the music, inside the performance. And I'm just trying
Speaker 3: to say there are artists.
Speaker 1: That just don't do that.
Speaker 2: Don't do that.
Speaker 4: I agree, I mean, I agree with you, and I
Speaker 4: think the standard, the double standard, it spans across many
Speaker 4: different areas.
Speaker 1: That which you're speaking of is not just in music.
Speaker 4: It's in politics, it's in everything, it's in everything, it's
Speaker 4: in social justice, it's in every world where people.
Speaker 1: It can go both ways.
Speaker 4: It's either the super conservative is the most popular or
Speaker 4: the people who are most off the chain radical just
Speaker 4: saying anything, even if they don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker 4: That is what people get attracted to because they're loud
Speaker 4: and they have the most impressions, you know, And so
Speaker 4: people who actually think don't always get the type of
Speaker 4: promotion and get to get the awareness around them and
Speaker 4: their thoughts and ideas.
Speaker 1: So I see it.
Speaker 4: I see that the balance is definitely problematic, and it
Speaker 4: just has to be one of the problems that we
Speaker 4: have because again, everybody's looking for the one hit wonder,
Speaker 4: looking to try to make the algorithm pop so that
Speaker 4: their ex point of expression can actually make it to
Speaker 4: the mouth excuse me, can actually make it to the masses.
Speaker 4: So I get that, but sometimes it's just a matter
Speaker 4: of actually calling our people in right like actually sitting
Speaker 4: down and writing a letter to be et or making
Speaker 4: a phone call to say, hey, this is what we see,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying, versus us getting on social
Speaker 4: media and being like fb et F meg F, lotto
Speaker 4: F CARDI F this one and that one. That's really
Speaker 4: not it's actually because I at all.
Speaker 1: I know that.
Speaker 4: I know, you know, I'm just speaking generally. There's so
Speaker 4: much right now. There is so much divisiveness that is happening. Like,
Speaker 4: it's so much. I can feel it in my skin.
Speaker 4: You can see it coming up the whether whenever the
Speaker 4: politics of a country.
Speaker 1: Is array ariy excuse me, awry.
Speaker 4: The people you can see it as well, right, So
Speaker 4: you got that you have so many different division points,
Speaker 4: And I don't know, I feel like we're in a
Speaker 4: place in time right now where we we gotta do
Speaker 4: a little bit more behind the scenes conversing so we
Speaker 4: can try to bring our people along versus thinking that
Speaker 4: we could just push them off a cliff because I
Speaker 4: don't think that, you know, I just don't. I don't
Speaker 4: know that that's going that's an effective strategy.
Speaker 2: I agree with it, you know.
Speaker 3: I want to hear from our viewers, like what do
Speaker 3: you think do you think that there needs to be
Speaker 3: a balance?
Speaker 2: Do you or do you like the way it is?
Speaker 2: Is it? You know?
Speaker 3: I just want to know because maybe it's just me,
Speaker 3: but I know there's so much talent and I love
Speaker 3: once Again.
Speaker 2: I love man.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I love a lot of
Speaker 3: I think a lot of was dope. I think you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying. So, but I also love Rhapsody.
Speaker 3: I love Lady London like I want to see those
Speaker 3: type of artists highlight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not exactly. I'm advocating for balance. I am
Speaker 4: not advocating to diminish these women who, through their own
Speaker 4: art and expression, are doing anything because nobody was out
Speaker 4: with not nobody, because there was some people out there.
Speaker 1: But so I mixed a.
Speaker 4: Lot David selling, Yeah, Luke, what's selling KOUCHI right?
Speaker 1: So don't tell me is different. Don't be different.
Speaker 2: Too what I'm saying. But we had ours, we had
Speaker 2: rock Ken.
Speaker 4: Hey, that's what I'm saying. I'm advocating for balance. I'm
Speaker 4: not advocating because let me tell you something, I love me.
Speaker 4: Lotto says she big mama.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 2: I'm big Mama.
Speaker 3: That brings us to the end of another T in
Speaker 3: My Show. Shout out to our guest Bria Baker, our sister.
Speaker 3: Her book Rooted. Make sure that you go get it.
Speaker 3: It is an amazing book. She's an amazing individual, as
Speaker 3: you see throughout the interview.
Speaker 2: We love her.
Speaker 3: Follow her on social media. Make sure you follow us
Speaker 3: t in My Underscore show. Send us your requests. Who
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Speaker 3: us to say? Tell us if you love us, tell
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Speaker 3: one because we know we did number one podcast in
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Speaker 3: not gonna always be right. Tamik Ma is not gonna
Speaker 3: always be wrong, but we will both always and I
Speaker 3: mean always.
Speaker 2: Be often it.
Speaker 5: That's how we ed that.
Speaker 2: So that that so check out the video version of TMO.
Speaker 4: Every single Wednesday on Iwoman dot Tv.
Speaker 1: That's how we ed