Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D. Mallory and the.
Speaker 2: Ship Boy my son in general, we are your host
Speaker 2: of t M I.
Speaker 3: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, motivation and inspiration.
Speaker 1: Name new Energy. What's going on, my son, Lennon, I am.
Speaker 3: Blessed, black and Holly favored holiday season, just trying to
Speaker 3: holiday do the holidays.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm on holiday. I'm in a you know.
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, from last week to this week, a lot has
Speaker 4: not changed. We still have a friend who's deceased that
Speaker 4: I wish could come back, but he probably will never.
Speaker 1: I mean, he won't. It's sad. Kevin just yeah, my
Speaker 1: heart is just.
Speaker 2: Big kiv man, so.
Speaker 4: Just I can't even anyway. And then our other brother,
Speaker 4: we pray for him.
Speaker 1: You know, I haven't.
Speaker 4: I haven't seen his family write his name on socials
Speaker 4: or anything, so I think, out of respect for them
Speaker 4: until they prepared to talk about his situation, that we,
Speaker 4: you know, keep his identity under wraps. Yeah, we got
Speaker 4: another friend who's really in trouble, and the holidays in general,
Speaker 4: it's pretty hard for a lot of people. I mean,
Speaker 4: I'm I'm blessed that I still have both my parents.
Speaker 4: I have a healthy thriving granddaughter. And you know, my
Speaker 4: child is here, and for the most part, the people
Speaker 4: who are very very close to me, they around, right.
Speaker 1: Even if people are struggling with a little bit of
Speaker 1: it's a little.
Speaker 4: Bit of that they're around, and so I don't suffer
Speaker 4: with some of the things that I hear from friends.
Speaker 4: A lot of friends, this is a really, really rough
Speaker 4: time for them. Moms that really celebrated Christmas. I know
Speaker 4: your mother really was into Christmas and holidays and all
Speaker 4: of that, you know, and you have other people who
Speaker 4: have lost a child, And I spend a great deal
Speaker 4: of my Christmas morning when I wake up sending text
Speaker 4: messages to all the mothers who I've worked with that
Speaker 4: I know, no matter what face they put on their
Speaker 4: child being lost, either the gun violence or police violence
Speaker 4: or overdose. That's a new world that I'm now being
Speaker 4: introduced to where so many people have lost their children
Speaker 4: to overdoses and oh man, it's just seizures.
Speaker 1: It's a lot, a lot, a lot of pain out there.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, like we said last week,
Speaker 4: it's always important for us to mention and to acknowledge
Speaker 4: what folks are going through that in many ways, are
Speaker 4: different from you know, the other experience because it's a
Speaker 4: joyous time. It's the most wonderful time of the year,
Speaker 4: for sure.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 3: And like you said, you know, it's definitely hard when
Speaker 3: your parents in our here. Like you said, my mother
Speaker 3: was very into the holidays. You'll go to a house now,
Speaker 3: her tree will be decorated. She have the whole way
Speaker 3: decorated inside the building, and she was just really into holidays.
Speaker 3: So you know, this is always a tough time for me.
Speaker 3: But you know, I'm just pushing through these kids. As
Speaker 3: long as the kids are smiling. Yeah, you know, that's
Speaker 3: all it matters. You broke at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: as long as you can. You know, I can live
Speaker 3: off bread and water man, you know, if I got to.
Speaker 2: But the kids is happy.
Speaker 4: So no adult Christmas gifts this year. I decided I'm
Speaker 4: just not doing it. I our friends and their health
Speaker 4: situations really has knocked me into a place of self reflection.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean, like, for the most part, none
Speaker 3: of these holidays are really for us anyway, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, especially as black people like you know,
Speaker 3: I don't really see we don't we especially in the financial.
Speaker 2: Time that we're in. Yeah, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: people just don't have the financials.
Speaker 3: You know. And I think, you know, if we stop
Speaker 3: putting so much pressure on ourselves to be able to
Speaker 3: financially do things and gift gifts gifts, you know, and
Speaker 3: start putting that money and invested in something that's going
Speaker 3: to mature, you know, and it's going to appreciate over time,
Speaker 3: then it makes more sense.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I don't want to take that away from kids, because
Speaker 3: I grew up when Christmas is one.
Speaker 2: Of the gifts in hearing it.
Speaker 3: But I think for adults, I think we need to
Speaker 3: be figuring out how do we save money and how
Speaker 3: do we make money build.
Speaker 1: I agree, one hundred percent. I agree.
Speaker 4: So my thought of the day today sort of is
Speaker 4: in line with this, because, you know, I had this
Speaker 4: plan for the last week and a half to do
Speaker 4: a bunch of things to go and you know, get
Speaker 4: my little secret sayners and my gifts over here and
Speaker 4: all the stuff that I'm used to doing. And then Kevin,
Speaker 4: our driver confidant, our friend died. Oh Kevin, lord, please,
Speaker 4: it's so hard. And then also our other friend got
Speaker 4: really really really really really sick and is still even
Speaker 4: though it's been a week and a half clinging for life,
Speaker 4: and I just stopped. I stopped every thing that I
Speaker 4: would generally be doing at this time in the store,
Speaker 4: calling my mother for this person's size and this and that,
Speaker 4: and I'm not I'm still not as big on Christmas
Speaker 4: and buying gifts because after we decided to stop shopping
Speaker 4: during the holidays, you know, with all the police shootings
Speaker 4: and corporate greed and all the things, I cut down.
Speaker 4: But I like to make sure my parents and you know,
Speaker 4: my granddaughter lashing and a couple of little things.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, and I'm not a person that gives
Speaker 1: people junks.
Speaker 4: So I'm looking and doing and doing all this stuff.
Speaker 4: And this year because of those, in these situations that
Speaker 4: we've been dealing with, I just stopped, and I was
Speaker 4: laying down. I laid down a whole day, entire day.
Speaker 4: And I got up finally and said, I might not
Speaker 4: go out to buy gifts and to do the marry
Speaker 4: merry thing, but I can at least work on addressing
Speaker 4: some of the things that's in my house that do
Speaker 4: not need to be there anymore.
Speaker 1: So my thought of the day today is get rid
Speaker 1: of it. It doesn't fit. It does not fit you.
Speaker 4: I've taken jackets that are now. I have bens of
Speaker 4: clothes that I have in different places.
Speaker 1: I try that stuff on the arms, don't go.
Speaker 4: You never going back to that size these jackets were.
Speaker 4: It's not just about being healthy or not. Yes, I'm
Speaker 4: bigger than I want to be. I'm one fifty three
Speaker 4: or one fifty almost one fifty five. I want to
Speaker 4: be one forty. So I know what I need to
Speaker 4: do to be around that weight, even one thirty five.
Speaker 4: I remember a time when I was trying to gain weight.
Speaker 4: If I go down to one thirty five, it's okay,
Speaker 4: I'll take it. One thirty is fine, because it's really
Speaker 4: hard at this age to get the weight off of you.
Speaker 4: But I realized that some of that stuff I'm holding
Speaker 4: on to it. I don't know why you never go
Speaker 4: into ninety eight pounds, one hundred and ten pounds, one
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty look at the one third.
Speaker 3: I mean, ZIMPI because you eat about four meals a meal.
Speaker 1: I don't eat anyway, my song, I'm whatever about.
Speaker 3: Four bills a meal, four a day, four meals a meal,
Speaker 3: like you go in order four meal.
Speaker 1: But I haven't been doing that.
Speaker 4: I just don't know because you're not sitting down eating
Speaker 4: dinner with me at the restaurant every day, so you
Speaker 4: don't know. I don't be buying four meals in a
Speaker 4: day anymore because it's just another day.
Speaker 1: I mean, in a meal. I don't do.
Speaker 2: It four meals a meal. I want you to be clear.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying a day because that just be an
Speaker 3: extra meal, four meals a meal.
Speaker 4: The point is, I know what I need to do
Speaker 4: to lose weight. I know what I need to do right.
Speaker 4: I know what to cut, I know how to work out.
Speaker 4: I know exactly what to do. But I also understand
Speaker 4: that a portion of the things that I'm holding on too,
Speaker 4: and I'm talking about years back of clothes, I don't
Speaker 4: I'm never gonna fit them. The structure of my body,
Speaker 4: even from my workout, you know, I'm heavy and pilates.
Speaker 4: My body is not even the same body that I
Speaker 4: used to have. So why do you have a jacket
Speaker 4: a suit jacket from when you was thirty two years
Speaker 4: old and you forty four sins?
Speaker 1: Let it go. It's over.
Speaker 4: And it made me think about that there are people, places,
Speaker 4: and things that just don't fit, and it's just time
Speaker 4: to let them go. And I know it hurts us
Speaker 4: to part with things like I have memories in this
Speaker 4: one blue suit jacket that's a bad ass Ralph Lurine.
Speaker 4: You know, I thought I was so cool when I
Speaker 4: first got this Ralph Lauren jacket that was like the
Speaker 4: the other than Saint John which, by the way, I
Speaker 4: got a bunch of Saint John's stuff, which is the black,
Speaker 4: fabulous black bourgeois clothes. I have a bunch of it.
Speaker 4: Can't wear it, but I'm not giving it the way
Speaker 4: y'all just can't do it.
Speaker 1: I'm not ready. It's it's just too expensive. It's right
Speaker 1: there yet.
Speaker 4: But but to get you a polo jacket, you know
Speaker 4: what I'm saying, with the Polo logo on it and
Speaker 4: the whole thing, that was a big deal for a
Speaker 4: young professional woman coming up getting you know, showing up
Speaker 4: at meetings and corporate spaces and other places having that
Speaker 4: jacket with my jeans or my blue pants.
Speaker 1: Or skirt or whatever.
Speaker 4: Girl, it doesn't fit you anymore, Let it go, Let
Speaker 4: it go, Let it go. So I hope that for
Speaker 4: the new year, even leading into the new year, that
Speaker 4: as people are listening today.
Speaker 1: It's people places.
Speaker 4: Things in your life and in your household that does
Speaker 4: not fit, and you busy trying to stuff things in
Speaker 4: closets and push things under beds and make people stay
Speaker 4: around and still keep a little thing a little bit
Speaker 4: with them, keep your feet in a little bit.
Speaker 1: Let it go it does not fit. Let it go.
Speaker 2: It don't fit. You must have quit.
Speaker 1: Child anyway, it's a difference.
Speaker 3: It's must quip no, so you don't even get it asundre.
Speaker 3: If it don't fit, you must acquit.
Speaker 2: Just quit. Quit a quit. You gotta quit. If it
Speaker 2: don't fit it, you gotta quit it. You see, you
Speaker 2: get it.
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to tell you this is this is
Speaker 3: when you are lyricist. I'm trying to put you on.
Speaker 3: That's a bar.
Speaker 4: Okay, moving right along the t m I today. You know,
Speaker 4: we don't just do a t m I all the time.
Speaker 4: We really look for the good, good one.
Speaker 1: The good. It's a lot of tm i's out here,
Speaker 1: tell you the truth a whole lot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is a good one, but this one is
Speaker 4: particularly particularly hilarious. It is the exchange between Elon Musk
Speaker 4: and Donald Trump. Now, first of all, people will say, well,
Speaker 4: what exchange, because I didn't see them go back and forth,
Speaker 4: you go making up stuff. No, no, no, it's what
Speaker 4: Elon Musk did first. That is the first.
Speaker 1: Part of this situation.
Speaker 2: Exchange.
Speaker 4: So Elon Musk tweets out or whatever he has I
Speaker 4: don't know, tweeter, I don't know whatever he has ex child,
Speaker 4: whatever he has tweet He put out a message that
Speaker 4: said no, uh no, bills should be passed until the
Speaker 4: change of power. So he wants the Republicans to stall
Speaker 4: everything that's happening until the change of power, which is
Speaker 4: when Trump takes office on January twentieth. Right now, they
Speaker 4: didn't do it. They didn't listen because they were in
Speaker 4: a stall last week. But by the time I think
Speaker 4: the end of the week came, they were able to
Speaker 4: get some things. A budget moved and they moved on
Speaker 4: and the government did not shut down. Right, but he
Speaker 4: was trying to encourage the shut down and to stop
Speaker 4: all everything, all progress, all bills. I don't even know
Speaker 4: if they progressive but whatever. And then all of these
Speaker 4: memes were out. There was like twenty means where they
Speaker 4: all are like Trump is this little person sitting in
Speaker 4: a chair next to the desk, and Elon Musk is
Speaker 4: big and he's behind the chair, which is to say
Speaker 4: that he's the president. That Elon Musk is the president
Speaker 4: and Trump is just like a little side show. And
Speaker 4: there were other memes and other comments being made and
Speaker 4: pieces being written on Elon Musk and his influence in
Speaker 4: the administration.
Speaker 1: Right, so then.
Speaker 4: Trump, you can always leave it to a little person.
Speaker 4: To God, they gotta go. He got, he couldn't take it.
Speaker 4: He couldn't take it. So he wrote this whole long
Speaker 4: thing on his stuff, which is truth. So I know
Speaker 4: that on truth dot com or whatever that is. And
Speaker 4: he says, you know, oh you know, I'm the president
Speaker 4: elects and I'm going to be president. And Elon Musk,
Speaker 4: thank you for your time and thank you for whatever
Speaker 4: you did. You spent a lot of money on the election.
Speaker 4: But I'm the president. I'm in charge. Other words, go
Speaker 4: somewhere and sit down. So the TMI today is that
Speaker 4: this is about to be a shit show.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is going.
Speaker 4: To field that he is in a position of power
Speaker 4: because you have ingratiated him.
Speaker 2: This is happen dump.
Speaker 1: This is what happens when you give people when you
Speaker 1: spend billions.
Speaker 3: When you spend Danny a billion dollars to support somebody
Speaker 3: a quarter billion dollars to support somebody, and then you
Speaker 3: give him a position in the White House within the staff.
Speaker 4: Then he figured, I don't even know if his position
Speaker 4: is in the White House. It might be in the
Speaker 4: Executive Chambers, which is across the street, so I'm not
Speaker 4: even sure, but it would be in the administration in
Speaker 4: the administration.
Speaker 3: And if you give him that that level of power,
Speaker 3: and you give that to a person who's already a narcissist,
Speaker 3: you give that to a person who is pretty much
Speaker 3: the richest man in the world and controls everything and
Speaker 3: everybody around him, and then you think that you're gonna
Speaker 3: control him when you have less than him. It's just
Speaker 3: not really common sense, because he's never let nobody control them, right,
Speaker 3: So I don't know how you think all of a.
Speaker 2: Sudden you're gonna let him cot True, he was playing chess.
Speaker 3: He utilized his money and his relationships, his platform, all
Speaker 3: the things to put you in a position because he
Speaker 3: felt he can control you. So now you think it's
Speaker 3: gonna change because you're the president. In his mind, is
Speaker 3: I'm the reason you the president like you, You wasn't
Speaker 3: gonna win this without me. You better stop playing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: now now I'm gonna call the shots like I've been doing.
Speaker 3: Like I was telling you. You listen to me to
Speaker 3: get to the presidency. Now you want me to fall back.
Speaker 2: No, it don't work like that, does It don't work
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: That's actually that'll get you hurt. It really will. But
Speaker 1: you know what I said.
Speaker 4: Gud get the blocks, close the gates, they out the
Speaker 4: asylum all him, because that's what's about to happen. It's
Speaker 4: gonna be a shit show. And you know what, I'm
Speaker 4: back to what you said the other day. You kind
Speaker 4: of got me together and you didn't even know it.
Speaker 4: You was just talking. You know how sometime we be
Speaker 4: talking to each other. I know what happens with Linda
Speaker 4: and me all the time. I'm on the phone with her,
Speaker 4: and I bet you Angelo does it because I call
Speaker 4: him and I just be talking about everything.
Speaker 1: I'm pissed about this. You did this to me. I'm
Speaker 1: my son. I'll be telling on everybody.
Speaker 4: My son didn't listen, he didn't do it, and y'all
Speaker 4: both I'm trying to tell y'all do this and I
Speaker 4: know that man halfway here, half what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And Linda and I do it to each other all
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: We just go go go go, go, go go, getting
Speaker 4: it all out, and every now and then the other
Speaker 4: person go, girl, what mm hmmm. The other day you
Speaker 4: was just talking and I'm just like halfway listening.
Speaker 1: Way you went from stocks to something else.
Speaker 4: You went to like five things, and I'm just listening
Speaker 4: to you. And then you said, and I think Charlamagne
Speaker 4: said this too, that I don't want to see Donald
Speaker 4: Trump fail because we, we are the citizens, we will
Speaker 4: be impacted.
Speaker 2: I want you to prove me wrong.
Speaker 1: That's what you said, and that got me together.
Speaker 2: Like if he proved me wrong, I'd be the happiest person. Listen.
Speaker 2: I don't want to see American employed.
Speaker 3: I don't want to live in a you know, a
Speaker 3: place where everybody is damn there, destitute in the third
Speaker 3: world country. Like, but when I'm looking at the Donald Trump,
Speaker 3: the mind state and the people around him.
Speaker 2: I don't see how it went. So I want you
Speaker 2: to prove me wrong.
Speaker 3: I want to sit down and say, damn, you know
Speaker 3: why I was one hundred percent wrong and we're doing good.
Speaker 3: Everything is good here, that's what I want. I don't
Speaker 3: see it though, and then sometimes you sometimes you could
Speaker 3: be wrong.
Speaker 2: It's nothing wrong with me being wrong. If I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: If Donald Trump does all the shit that y'all people
Speaker 3: that you know, the trump coat, if he do what
Speaker 3: y'all said, then listen, I'm gonna do nothing but say, yo, y'all.
Speaker 2: Was right, because I don't have a problem for being wrong.
Speaker 3: But if he don't, then I'm gonna say because if
Speaker 3: he what this is gonna be, this is gonna be
Speaker 3: a lesson because sometimes you just pay you when you
Speaker 3: start doing your math. The math that I'm doing this
Speaker 3: ain't mathing.
Speaker 2: Before. It's just like it ain't math.
Speaker 3: But hey, if it math, if it's right, then y'all
Speaker 3: just smarter than me, and I can be wrong. And
Speaker 3: I'm gonna start paying attention to the people that's smart,
Speaker 3: the people that predicted that Trump is gonna do this
Speaker 3: and it's gonna change the world. It's gonna be positive
Speaker 3: and we're gonna live happily after if that happens, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna take your advice and I'm gonna follow what y'all say.
Speaker 3: But if not, I'm gonna say I told you so.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely gonna say I told you so.
Speaker 4: Now why we might not need to well, But see
Speaker 4: the problem is even with that I told you so,
Speaker 4: is that we're all gonna be living.
Speaker 1: You might not have.
Speaker 2: But the thing is, I'm gonna be preparing.
Speaker 3: I'm preparing for it like I'm boarding up the house.
Speaker 3: It's just like you know, it's off and I look
Speaker 3: out there and see know where y'all like this? Man, No,
Speaker 3: I know the off I'm going with. Noah, I'm boreding
Speaker 3: it up and make me my own little off. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna help him build it because I believe that he
Speaker 3: what he's saying is right, y'all.
Speaker 2: I don't think that we need to arc. I'm over
Speaker 2: here building the art.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 3: If we don't need to act, then I just got
Speaker 3: a big ass boat that's outside. That's gonna be something
Speaker 3: that y'all can look at.
Speaker 2: But if in the.
Speaker 3: Case that I'm right and we need to arg, or
Speaker 3: I got me a room and everything in there.
Speaker 2: Because I don't help build the.
Speaker 1: Shit, I don't know what you're talking.
Speaker 2: Okay, you'll see.
Speaker 1: But okay, we get to our guests.
Speaker 3: Yes we should, so today we are joined by friends
Speaker 3: and family. As we always say, you know, two brothers
Speaker 3: that I respect just watching them do this work that
Speaker 3: we call, you know, intervention work, gun violence prevention work.
Speaker 3: And these are two brothers that really do this work,
Speaker 3: you know, and just watching them, just actually being with
Speaker 3: them in their community, which is a very high risk community,
Speaker 3: and just understanding their stories. These two brothers are actually
Speaker 3: respect And we're joined by Khalil Tut aka Tut and
Speaker 3: Shady Dukes aka Eighth the Great, and they are the
Speaker 3: founder members and the presidents of New Direction and it's
Speaker 3: a community based nonviolence intervention organization based inside of Newark,
Speaker 3: New Jersey. They're both active gang members, but the way
Speaker 3: they approach gang life is different.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: These are these are the big homies that are giving
Speaker 3: you the right direction and telling you the real things
Speaker 3: to do. These are the real big homies. So I'm
Speaker 3: happy to be joined by the real big homies.
Speaker 4: Hey, you like ten years old talking about big homie like.
Speaker 6: How you know, because we're from a community and the
Speaker 6: coaching that don't define leadership by age, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. We define leadership by actions, right, Yeah?
Speaker 1: No, you actually you have children and everything. So you're
Speaker 1: a whole grown up.
Speaker 4: But when I see you, I always admire your youth,
Speaker 4: you know, and I think that probably helps to attract
Speaker 4: some of the younger people to you, to know that
Speaker 4: you're not out here like wilding out and doing all
Speaker 4: of that.
Speaker 1: So it's cool. It's good to see y'all. Thanks for
Speaker 1: coming to T and mind.
Speaker 2: It's good to have you.
Speaker 3: So explain to us what new direction is and how
Speaker 3: did it come in to be a new direction.
Speaker 5: This new direction stething I created for the gang culture
Speaker 5: when I came home, you know, just to show my homebies,
Speaker 5: you know, something different. You know, I've been through, you know,
Speaker 5: some significant, you know things in the city. You know,
Speaker 5: we're involved in some high profile situations since the game
Speaker 5: culture came over. I was one of the ones that
Speaker 5: really was like putting on for it because I believed
Speaker 5: in it. And you know, my big hombide he had
Speaker 5: brought me home, he had went to jail real early
Speaker 5: and before the gang stuff really kind of like took off.
Speaker 5: He kind of left it on me to like kind
Speaker 5: of like beat him. But I wasn't ready for it
Speaker 5: because I was like young, and I thought, you know,
Speaker 5: being a game and we got to put on and
Speaker 5: you know, hurt people and you know, get respecting the hood.
Speaker 5: You know what I'm saying. I ain't realized like what
Speaker 5: the games really was created for until I went to
Speaker 5: prison and really got the knowledge and information you know,
Speaker 5: from him and other big homies who was already down
Speaker 5: serving time life sentences, and they became conscious behind the wall.
Speaker 5: And you know that conscious stuff don't make it to
Speaker 5: the streets unless you got a conscious stol y'all there
Speaker 5: pushing the line, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 5: wasn't that yet. I wasn't ready for that. You had
Speaker 5: to go through some things to get there, you know.
Speaker 5: So when I went to prison, you know, I kind
Speaker 5: of like, you know, got with them, seeing bros, you know,
Speaker 5: the serving life sentences, not never coming home with the
Speaker 5: look at the feet on their face. And I followed
Speaker 5: these guys here, so you know, I mean, I asked
Speaker 5: to bring homies, like, what's the plan for us getting
Speaker 5: out of here? Ain't nobody had on It's like, you know,
Speaker 5: I ain't nobody forced you to do what you do?
Speaker 5: You know what come with this? And you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, But a lot of us didn't. We thought
Speaker 5: we were just with the brus moving. I ain't never
Speaker 5: knew jail was gonna come with this or life in
Speaker 5: prison or death. You ain't tell us that, you know
Speaker 5: what I'm saying. We had to learn that the hardway,
Speaker 5: so you know, us going through me going through my struggles,
Speaker 5: having to learn the hard way and saying they ain't
Speaker 5: had no answers for me. I had to step up
Speaker 5: and become my own leader and find some answers, you know.
Speaker 5: And you know that's like the birth of new direction
Speaker 5: because it's basically me going in a different direction than
Speaker 5: the homies. And you know when you say we active game,
Speaker 5: it was like we couldn't like drop our flags and
Speaker 5: do this because if we dropped our flags and did it,
Speaker 5: we ain't gonna be to reach them because it's like,
Speaker 5: oh yang with us, no more y'all on this. So
Speaker 5: we had to stay active in it to just be
Speaker 5: able to change it from within, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: So that you know, I mean, we could get people
Speaker 5: to believe in and it's a risk, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean, because you know you're trying to challenge the coach,
Speaker 5: You're trying to challenge the trenches, Like who is you
Speaker 5: to challenge the blood? You know what I mean? You
Speaker 5: ain't the biggest blood out here, you know, but you know,
Speaker 5: like what Bro said, it ain't about your size and
Speaker 5: your statues, your mind, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 5: I could. If I'm thinking bigger than the big homies
Speaker 5: and it's working for us, you know, then I'm gonna
Speaker 5: become the biggest one, and I'm gonna hold it the
Speaker 5: right way, and I'm gonna keep pushing it in the
Speaker 5: right direction and saving some of these young bros that's
Speaker 5: out here in the streets. That was kind of like
Speaker 5: Misgod it and we left some bad stuff behind for
Speaker 5: them to hold on too. That wasn't right. So when
Speaker 5: I when I came out of my situation and God
Speaker 5: blessed me with you know, having another opportunity see freedom again.
Speaker 2: How long was you incarcerated?
Speaker 5: I did fifteen street, so I had thirty and I
Speaker 5: had gave ten back through the grace of God on
Speaker 5: the pill and they gave me twenty thirteen. I had
Speaker 5: to do the fifteen to max it out, and I
Speaker 5: came out. I went in when I was like twenty
Speaker 5: twenty one young, So that fifteen years was something that
Speaker 5: I kind of needed. I didn't want it, but you know,
Speaker 5: it helped me, know, become conscious because, like I said,
Speaker 5: I ran into a lot of the bros behind it,
Speaker 5: like the BLA dudes, and I realized what political prisoners
Speaker 5: was and what revolutionary socialism and things like that we
Speaker 5: didn't know. They started giving me them books to read,
Speaker 5: George Jackson books and you know, the audacity, the whole
Speaker 5: Obama like a lot of stuff they was given. It
Speaker 5: was making us read that and you know, I learned
Speaker 5: a lot, you know what I mean reading those books,
Speaker 5: and it made me had a whole different perception on
Speaker 5: what we could be doing as game. Like we came
Speaker 5: together and start you know, doing things the right way,
Speaker 5: like how powerful it be, you know what I mean?
Speaker 5: And then we just came around and put it in motion.
Speaker 4: So you you went to jail when you was twenty one,
Speaker 4: and you did fifteen years straight, right, Y'all's oh, but
Speaker 4: time has really stood still, right because I'm sure that
Speaker 4: people looking at you today just you would never know
Speaker 4: that y'all have that many years you know behind you
Speaker 4: of life that you've done.
Speaker 1: You know, wow, wow wow, I mean it's impressive.
Speaker 4: The work that the two of you doing, you know,
Speaker 4: I even longer than my son, have been a unfortunately
Speaker 4: or fortunately or whatever you want to call it, have
Speaker 4: been sort of like a mentor to many younger grassroots
Speaker 4: organizers that are coming up, some coming out of prison,
Speaker 4: some just coming you know, out of college, different things.
Speaker 4: And I know the difference between authentic and not because
Speaker 4: I've watched it all, all of it, And we were
Speaker 4: just talking about people be nutty, you know, people be
Speaker 4: having serious mental health issues.
Speaker 1: People.
Speaker 4: And when I say nutty, I'm not making light of
Speaker 4: mental health because some of them they don't even have
Speaker 4: mental health. They just haters, angry, just mad at everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 4: just just messy. That's a good word for it. And
Speaker 4: I when I look at the two of you, I
Speaker 4: know that there's something different there, Like you guys are
Speaker 4: You're very authentic, and I was drawn to your work
Speaker 4: and what you do. And obviously the same applies to Angelo,
Speaker 4: who's not here with us today, and then my son.
Speaker 4: And so why this, Why not just come home and
Speaker 4: say Okay, I can go get a job or you know,
Speaker 4: work with my family, Cause some days the money.
Speaker 1: Ain't coming into the organization.
Speaker 4: It's hard to keep the doors open, hard, to keep
Speaker 4: the bills paid.
Speaker 1: Why this and new direction? What was the reason for
Speaker 1: that eight?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 1: That you wanted to join with what he was doing.
Speaker 6: Right, because we had similar outcomes but different journeys. Right.
Speaker 6: And although I didn't have an extensive stint in jail
Speaker 6: like he did, I've had expect sperience, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean with going downstate and seeing what that was like.
Speaker 6: And the biggest thing that it did for me is
Speaker 6: it changed my perception of the world, right, because I
Speaker 6: seen the world on a smaller scale. I seen how
Speaker 6: you know. I mean, when a Spanish guy comes to
Speaker 6: the unit, the rest of his community don't have to
Speaker 6: know him from a can of paint, but they would
Speaker 6: embrace them. Wow, right, They'd give them something to eat,
Speaker 6: he'd have a laundry man x y Z. A Caucasian
Speaker 6: god comes the same thing. But soon as myself or
Speaker 6: another black person comes to the unit, even though we
Speaker 6: the majority, we'll all start sniffing him out right like
Speaker 6: where he from? Right, you know, we just we're just
Speaker 6: unpack each other to the point where we'll find the
Speaker 6: smallest thing to disassociate ourselves with each other. And it
Speaker 6: bothered me. Right, and then even when we had things
Speaker 6: like you know, on Tuesdays, right, like we get to
Speaker 6: watch VH one, but all the other six days did
Speaker 6: take VH one off the off the TV. So I
Speaker 6: just started seeing like a losion of freedom, right, like
Speaker 6: you you're free to change the channel to whatever you want,
Speaker 6: but they controlled the program that came to your television,
Speaker 6: and things like that always bothered like, it started bothering me,
Speaker 6: you know, I mean the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is why VH one Because.
Speaker 5: We wanted to watch love and hip hop?
Speaker 6: Right, So we was the majority, so the majority got
Speaker 6: the rule, so we was able to to to lobby
Speaker 6: for us to be able to watch for these programs
Speaker 6: on these certain days, right, But it was it was
Speaker 6: it was really just a way to just spoon feed
Speaker 6: and keep keep everybody calm, all right, I give you,
Speaker 6: I give you a dose a happiness, right, and y'all
Speaker 6: just y'all just performed. And I always had I was
Speaker 6: always taught to to say what I mean and mean
Speaker 6: what I say, right. I was always to how to
Speaker 6: speak up for myself, and that was one of the
Speaker 6: things that was bothering me. So you know, I just
Speaker 6: seeing an illusion of power, right, And it was the
Speaker 6: same thing for when I was inside the neighborhood like
Speaker 6: a dif we blood and we this, and we we
Speaker 6: quote unquote run our neighborhood while every time law enforcement
Speaker 6: pull up, we running, or they could pull up and
Speaker 6: they could give us any reason. There wasn't no way
Speaker 6: for us to hold us accountable. So when I came home,
Speaker 6: I just wanted to change the narrative of who I
Speaker 6: was and who people said that we are. And I
Speaker 6: just I started doing small things for our community. And
Speaker 6: then it led to me becoming a district leader, right
Speaker 6: because I was approached by some guys who was district
Speaker 6: leaders and it was like, you know, they took a
Speaker 6: liking to me and how I was able to you know,
Speaker 6: command my neighborhood and a positive outlook. And then yeah,
Speaker 6: they talked to me about becoming a district leader. And
Speaker 6: so long story short, I ran. Then I actually won.
Speaker 6: So now when lawf forcement pulled up in the neighborhood,
Speaker 6: they had to speak to Shati Dukes and tell us
Speaker 6: who made the call and why are you out here? Right,
Speaker 6: like how can we how can we get in front
Speaker 6: of this without somebody being arrested, and you know, so
Speaker 6: I started growing into that and then you know, just
Speaker 6: growing out into it more. I started in twenty nineteen,
Speaker 6: I did a podcast right just on my own. I
Speaker 6: just wanted to push the work that we was doing
Speaker 6: even more further because I was learning more about it. So,
Speaker 6: you know, I'm a person that just take control of things,
Speaker 6: so I can't delegate things. So I just did it
Speaker 6: upon myself. I did in my grandmother basement and upon
Speaker 6: touch a rival back home, he did a video, right,
Speaker 6: and he sent the message out to the community, to
Speaker 6: the culture, and he spoke the same language that I
Speaker 6: was speaking. And I always I always knew of him.
Speaker 6: But growing up, he was from a different age bracket
Speaker 6: than myself. Right, So me and my friends we always
Speaker 6: looked up and we had Mayer Chuck, but for the
Speaker 6: wrong reasons, right because of the incident that took place
Speaker 6: at the school, but more so how he delegated himself
Speaker 6: out in the streets. So he said a standard for
Speaker 6: guys in the street to upholl right, And we wanted
Speaker 6: to be We always wanted to be like Chuck growing up.
Speaker 6: But we was just wanted to be like come in
Speaker 6: the wrong way. So we did the podcast and for
Speaker 6: the first time he came and he spoke his true
Speaker 6: story to the culture, right, and we did it together because,
Speaker 6: oh why, he didn't have to know me personally. He
Speaker 6: knew we represented the same same purpose, right, And it
Speaker 6: was times where he was even off of money to
Speaker 6: go on podcasts and shared his story. But he chose
Speaker 6: to come sit down with me and do it. And
Speaker 6: from that day long, like he didn't have to ask,
Speaker 6: He didn't have to ask me to join him in
Speaker 6: the old direction, So why would he have to ask
Speaker 6: me to join him in a new direction? The end
Speaker 6: goal makes sense? So you know, that's why we're sitting
Speaker 6: here today.
Speaker 3: I love that because it's similar to my story, right,
Speaker 3: being incarcerated and seeing the reality of what we're dealing with, right,
Speaker 3: and then saying and choosing that I'm gonna do something different,
Speaker 3: you know what I'm saying, and utilizing the power, the recognition,
Speaker 3: all of the notoriety that you have and saying, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna utilize that something for powerful like you. You was
Speaker 3: looking up to him for the negative thing, just like
Speaker 3: when I came home with people old mice on y'all.
Speaker 3: I know he put this in and I came home
Speaker 3: and I was just like, Nah, they stripping us down
Speaker 3: in the sales in jail, and you can't. They stripped you,
Speaker 3: not even a man in jail, and they taught us
Speaker 3: that when we went there that made us more something
Speaker 3: and they literally taking.
Speaker 2: Our manhood from us.
Speaker 3: So I wouldn't be who I am if I lead
Speaker 3: you to that destruction, right they killing I'm watching young
Speaker 3: boys coming to jail with forty and fifty years at
Speaker 3: seventeen and sixteen.
Speaker 2: And it's never coming home.
Speaker 3: I'm seeing the ogs that I look up to with
Speaker 3: a hundred years in jail telling me I need to
Speaker 3: go home and tell him something difference, right, So I
Speaker 3: you know, so you hold on to that, you know,
Speaker 3: and when you really a man of honort, that's what
Speaker 3: you bring out. So just watching y'all, it reminded me
Speaker 3: of so much of myself and just seeing y'all connect
Speaker 3: the same way that y'all did and really lived that.
Speaker 3: But what's one of the biggest challenges that you feel
Speaker 3: like you face?
Speaker 2: Right now, both of y'all, you can start.
Speaker 5: To Yeah, so well, I'm asking the other questions with
Speaker 5: her too well to we could ask about a sustaining
Speaker 5: new direction with like resources and stuff like that. So
Speaker 5: when we first started a new direction, like how you
Speaker 5: explained like I already had influence in a gang coachure
Speaker 5: coming home like little bros that looked up to me
Speaker 5: from the story that happened at the school. So you know,
Speaker 5: I already had like created a legacy, you know, in
Speaker 5: the culture. So it was even for me to come on.
Speaker 5: I was bro playing because every time you know, we
Speaker 5: came from prignant, we get the home, We had meetings,
Speaker 5: we go to the park, but our meetings was all
Speaker 5: about like you know, negative stuff. So by looking for
Speaker 5: my direction when we come home, like big broback on
Speaker 5: a lot of stuff gonna change you hear how you
Speaker 5: moving in prison? Because I was already starting a new direction.
Speaker 5: When I was in prison, we was called like new culture.
Speaker 5: We was having a little meetings on the units every
Speaker 5: jol we went to where they had like gang issues.
Speaker 5: Once I got in the building, administration run down on
Speaker 5: me because they know and I got the influence. They
Speaker 5: know I got this high risk think following me because
Speaker 5: we been heard about how in there before we even
Speaker 5: got out of here, So they was like I'm riched
Speaker 5: everywhere I go because of my case. So any jail
Speaker 5: I go to, they are alert and no I'm coming in,
Speaker 5: And I got influenced with the gang. So certain big
Speaker 5: homies coming certain prisons, it'll spike up the valance because
Speaker 5: certain big hompies are coming in with a different approach, likeyo,
Speaker 5: we ain't on this, w ain't over there with them,
Speaker 5: we ain't doing that. But I came in with like
Speaker 5: ad by a unity or already like clans from the
Speaker 5: MCU managed the control unit where they had me at
Speaker 5: where I met all them like bla dudes and all
Speaker 5: the big homies. They was isolating a unit called Managed
Speaker 5: Control Unit, and it caused us like title thirty nimates.
Speaker 5: So if you was a gang member, it was STG
Speaker 5: and you was a threat to the population of the
Speaker 5: prison because your influence and officers. So they was isolating
Speaker 5: us in these units, but they was putting us all
Speaker 5: together in one unit, locking us down, giving us time
Speaker 5: to build with each other and figure this thing out.
Speaker 5: So anybody that made it out of that unit came
Speaker 5: out with a certain level of consciousness knowing what we
Speaker 5: was up against against the system. So I came out
Speaker 5: of there and just started educating every population I went to.
Speaker 5: But we wasn't violent. We were just getting them more, right,
Speaker 5: we moving militant, be coming out the mess all together,
Speaker 5: were eating together, and sometimes they were shipping me out
Speaker 5: because they didn't know what I was doing it for, right,
Speaker 5: because they think and I'm just doing it to try
Speaker 5: to like take over the jail or something. I'm really
Speaker 5: doing it to keep my brother's focused so they could
Speaker 5: get home to their families. And I'm talking and I'm
Speaker 5: letting the brothers know that, and They're appreciating. I ain't
Speaker 5: got them popping on this, popping on that. So when
Speaker 5: I say it was working in there, what we was doing,
Speaker 5: I knew I was coming home with that same approach.
Speaker 5: So me to running at eight and get this out
Speaker 5: there to the pub, like, yo, this is what I'm on.
Speaker 5: You know this when I'm pushing we started doing new direction.
Speaker 5: They got it, got recognized by the mayor and the like.
Speaker 5: We ain't golding no with the organization to get funded,
Speaker 5: and they recognized what we was doing and they had
Speaker 5: to let us know, y'all funded people for the same work.
Speaker 5: If we found out we getting people getting funded, and
Speaker 5: we really out here got the trenches, coln Andy, you
Speaker 5: ain't taking care of us, so it had to kind
Speaker 5: of let us know. So that's why I've never been
Speaker 5: about the money with us. That was a bonus. I mean,
Speaker 5: I was already set up when I went home and
Speaker 5: had a plan before it came to the hood. I
Speaker 5: needed to have my own money cause I had nigga
Speaker 5: in the streets offering me stuff, Y're gonna get this work,
Speaker 5: you do this, you'll come back outside. Y'all got to
Speaker 5: connect for you. I'm like, now, I ain't doing. I
Speaker 5: went to the warehouse, worked in the warehouse, getting paid
Speaker 5: five hundred a week for like six month, and I
Speaker 5: had a plan to get my CDL. So I'm gonna
Speaker 5: work get my CDL. Streets calling me O, got this
Speaker 5: before you got my Ain't doing none of that, bro,
Speaker 5: Because first of all, when I came home, I got
Speaker 5: a big target on me because I went to jail
Speaker 5: for police officer. It was just like so now they
Speaker 5: already checking me coming home, making sure I'm not about
Speaker 5: to come out of hand spark stuff up. They already
Speaker 5: ten steps ahead of me. They came to see me
Speaker 5: before I came home, Like Major Crime Task Force somebody
Speaker 5: from the federal brewer and I gave from the county,
Speaker 5: and I'm thinking I got a new charge. They just
Speaker 5: trying to check the temperature where I'm not like you
Speaker 5: were about to get out in a couple of days.
Speaker 5: It's a big light on you out in the streets.
Speaker 5: So that kind of strepped the new direction too, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean, if I had any of the
Speaker 5: thoughts and not going in the better direction. When I
Speaker 5: seen it, they came like, look, yeah, I ain't doing nothing, bro,
Speaker 5: because like I'm good, I'm going down to Maryland, my family.
Speaker 5: I'm getting out of it. I just did that. I
Speaker 5: ain't trying to come back to jail, so you know,
Speaker 5: being born again. I'm just coming out of prison, storuce.
Speaker 5: I'm coming back first, So I ain't coming out in
Speaker 5: the gangster ready for No, I'm nervous.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 5: Somebody gonnaknock my head off. I don't know. I've been
Speaker 5: going for a minute. I was the police gonna try
Speaker 5: to take me out, so I had to get away
Speaker 5: from the hood. And then when I was working and
Speaker 5: doing stuff that I was doing, building myself up, realizing
Speaker 5: what credit was and I had money when I came
Speaker 5: back to the I got CDF, so I'm making money
Speaker 5: in the truck. So were able to still get the
Speaker 5: movement moving, even looking out for people because I always
Speaker 5: did that for my bros. My bros called me, they
Speaker 5: want to rob somebody, Nah, broll do that. You need
Speaker 5: a couple of dollars. I gam one hundred dollars to
Speaker 5: calm down or something. I man bro was remembering that,
Speaker 5: and as I'm staying consistent with the new direction, they
Speaker 5: started rocking with it. Because the first least I was
Speaker 5: bluffing trying to get the police off of me, and like,
Speaker 5: all right, I'm keep the police offing and act like
Speaker 5: I'm doing these bunds underneath the service. I'm pulling buttons.
Speaker 5: I really wanted doing that. When they was really on
Speaker 5: to me, they seeing it I really wasn't doing all that,
Speaker 5: they fell back, and they fell back, and then new
Speaker 5: directors start expanding, and I can stand next to mayors
Speaker 5: and stand next to other people because I'm coming with
Speaker 5: clean hands. And the period I took up about three
Speaker 5: years before we got next to the man. We was
Speaker 5: out here pushing before the may and vices is standing
Speaker 5: next to him and be a part of peace in
Speaker 5: the hood because he had to believe that we really
Speaker 5: was on it, because some people could say stuff, but
Speaker 5: underneath the surface they still outside because you got to
Speaker 5: you gotta maintain a stain level credibility in the streets
Speaker 5: because they do only respected vallence. So we coming out
Speaker 5: here like waving the white fact. Hey, everybody stopped around
Speaker 5: it like we got solved. I don't want to hear that.
Speaker 5: But you know me, I put so much work in
Speaker 5: out there, y'all know I ain't get y'all know I
Speaker 5: couldn't have got solved. So now like Touch's saying this
Speaker 5: is like, man, maybe we gotta listen, but you're gonna
Speaker 5: have someone that's still like mad because I'm pulling they
Speaker 5: homies away. I just ain't have the resources. I could
Speaker 5: have changed the whole streets and nort if I have
Speaker 5: resource to pull all them off the corner. Like if
Speaker 5: I'm gonna come in like all y'all getting job tomorrow,
Speaker 5: come to my office, the corners to be empty. But
Speaker 5: they know I ain't had that. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 5: All I guys like a message and then as certain
Speaker 5: ones I can help kind of want it you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. But it's still gonna be challenges when
Speaker 5: you're trying to change a culture of people who had
Speaker 5: stuff going on and I'm coming home.
Speaker 2: Stop changing, you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Definitely, So talk about both of you have referenced being
Speaker 4: away and in prison, So talk about what happened.
Speaker 1: You want to start eight in your life? How did
Speaker 1: you get there?
Speaker 6: Well, minds, My minds were simple. It was just it
Speaker 6: was just it was a poor mind friend, a retaliate.
Speaker 6: It was just a retaliatory remind state. And ultimately it
Speaker 6: was the same thing that birth my change, right, my retraining,
Speaker 6: the thinking because I didn't so it wasn't me. It
Speaker 6: wasn't me getting shot, It wasn't me having a child,
Speaker 6: it wasn't me going to jail, quote unquote. That made
Speaker 6: me like change my direction. It was the fact that
Speaker 6: you know, I had I had my daughter and once
Speaker 6: my once my brother got killed, right, and I sat down,
Speaker 6: I told my daughter, you know what happened, and her
Speaker 6: immediate response, you know, I mean, as we was crying,
Speaker 6: her first response was we gonna shoot them back.
Speaker 1: How old was she?
Speaker 6: She was about like seven or eight years old at
Speaker 6: the time, right, And in that moment right there, that
Speaker 6: that changed my life because I realized I wasn't I
Speaker 6: wasn't reasoning my daughter to be a young lady. I
Speaker 6: was raising her to gang bang, and I just wanted
Speaker 6: to offer her something different. From that day long I was,
Speaker 6: I just become extremely conscious of the person that I
Speaker 6: showed her. So this was you know, this was in
Speaker 6: two thousand and this was in twenty and fourteen, twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: How long were you at this?
Speaker 6: What happened? So I was away before that. I was
Speaker 6: away in two thousand and ten, So I was I
Speaker 6: was only a way for twenty four months, not only
Speaker 6: because I felt every day right now, you know what
Speaker 6: I mean. But you know, but the crazy thing is
Speaker 6: it's psychologically and our coachd right.
Speaker 5: Monday, you know what I'm saying. But we don't.
Speaker 6: But we don't glorify that part of it enough, you
Speaker 6: know what I mean. That's a scared bill.
Speaker 2: You did.
Speaker 6: You did a five lucky you see what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And should I can sitter that right.
Speaker 4: Because listen when I would go to the little and
Speaker 4: this and see I'm saying, the little arrest when we
Speaker 4: do a civil disobedience like a lot of people. Some
Speaker 4: people they just pop in and out and they think
Speaker 4: it's cool. But I literally have claustophobia, so it's not
Speaker 4: a joke for me. Like I'm making a serious sacrifice.
Speaker 4: When you stick me in a paddy wagon with the
Speaker 4: wall in between, where the spaces this close and it's
Speaker 4: people packed in, I be crying, like it's really hard,
Speaker 4: you know. They sometimes it'll be like women on this side.
Speaker 4: And I remember one time Yandy and I got arrested together.
Speaker 4: It was Yandy, somebody else was in the truck with us,
Speaker 4: might have been Porsche. They was singing and singing me
Speaker 4: through like I was crying and hyper ventilating.
Speaker 1: And in Louisville it was hot. When I say hot, no.
Speaker 3: Hot, it was on your knees, and they had your
Speaker 3: lot of this way and besus was dripping into your eyeballs.
Speaker 4: And you had to have and they and they strapped
Speaker 4: you and they strapped you down this way. And because
Speaker 4: of the fact that so many people were arrested, like
Speaker 4: eighty something eighty seven eighty seven of us, that meant
Speaker 4: that it's processing this van in this van and this van,
Speaker 4: so you waiting and waiting and waiting for them to
Speaker 4: pull off that jam is no joke, right, no joke,
Speaker 4: So I can imagine twenty four months.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we take we often, we too. We often we
Speaker 6: take two of the situations and the circumstances that we're
Speaker 6: in and the sacrifices that we make. And I think,
Speaker 6: you know, and I think woped my mom, so to speak.
Speaker 6: It not just woped my mom, but it lit a
Speaker 6: fire underneath me to represent myself a certain type of
Speaker 6: way and not care about what anybody else stood about me,
Speaker 6: because it was, like you said, like once I had
Speaker 6: that knowledge of where I'm leading my people too, and
Speaker 6: I felt like I lost, like you know, I lost
Speaker 6: close family members underneath my watch, I feel right, and
Speaker 6: there's nothing that I could do in the physical world
Speaker 6: to replace that. So I'm always conscious of, you know,
Speaker 6: what I'm saying, like where I'm taking my people to,
Speaker 6: because we don't get our friends, but we don't get
Speaker 6: our family members back, and especially when we have people
Speaker 6: who follow on our lead. And it's just something that
Speaker 6: you know, like I said, it just lit a fire
Speaker 6: underneath me. And I walk inside my purpose confidently every day.
Speaker 6: And that's why, you know, that's why everybody reference to
Speaker 6: my name ate the Great right. That was just me
Speaker 6: calling myself Greek. You know what I mean. Ain't nobody
Speaker 6: named me Eat the Greek but myself. That was just
Speaker 6: me telling That was just me speaking confidence and to
Speaker 6: myself because I had people shooting me down for so long.
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, I underplayed my own hand
Speaker 6: and you know, so, yeah.
Speaker 1: When you say shooting you down, what does that sound like?
Speaker 1: You know? Negativity?
Speaker 6: It was all negativity and possible, right because I live
Speaker 6: on the edge of impossibles, right like us doing new
Speaker 6: direction was impossible five years ago to people who we
Speaker 6: tell our visions to us. Sitting down with y'all right
Speaker 6: now was impossible, right Like I remember, you know I
Speaker 6: made during COVID and particularly watching everything that y'all was
Speaker 6: doing and being introduced to a Tamika D. Mallory. I
Speaker 6: was always aware of my son because you was integrating
Speaker 6: the hip hop culture. You know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 6: watched your freestyles, I seen what you did. I seen
Speaker 6: you and trade of truth. I seen you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. So it's even big for just you know
Speaker 6: what I mean, for whenever my mother see me a
Speaker 6: monks y'all. You know what I mean, She always light
Speaker 6: up whenever she see me a monk's y'all, because we
Speaker 6: get to determine who our heroes are, you know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. We get to determine you know what I mean,
Speaker 6: who we look up to and who we follow. And
Speaker 6: I think that's one of the biggest things that we
Speaker 6: do for the youth and our community, so to speak. Like,
Speaker 6: so that's why we we walk amongst the people. That's
Speaker 6: why we always angst our people because don't don't don't
Speaker 6: title us, don't put no label on them, right, don't
Speaker 6: limit it, don't don't limit us, because we've been to
Speaker 6: those limits. You know what I'm saying, Like, who are
Speaker 6: you to be eighth degree? You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: Who are you to say that you're going to do
Speaker 6: a podcast? Who are you to say that you're going
Speaker 6: to do new direction? And you could tell somebody to
Speaker 6: put a gun down to stop shooting, Like say, I'm you.
Speaker 2: You you you have right right here.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about your story.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I had went, I got incarcerated for a
Speaker 5: police officer losing his life, you know, trying to protect
Speaker 5: kids at a school and which is will lead to
Speaker 5: a lot us what we do with the safe passions now,
Speaker 5: which why we so passionate about that safe passage program
Speaker 5: that we run it because you know, it came from
Speaker 5: a personal place. I know how it is when these
Speaker 5: kids be up there fighting at the schools and then
Speaker 5: their parents get involved and they come up to the
Speaker 5: school and just hood stuff and then stuff could go leven.
Speaker 5: That's kind of like what happened in my situation. And
Speaker 5: you know, my sister was fighting at the high school
Speaker 5: and we got the call that she was up there
Speaker 5: fighting and in the every that the school was in.
Speaker 5: That's like where my set was that like we got
Speaker 5: that whole hood. So if I get a call at
Speaker 5: my sister down school fight and you know, we're gonna
Speaker 5: get down there quick to make sure she good. And
Speaker 5: we had went down there to make sure she was
Speaker 5: all right, but we ain't go down there like trying
Speaker 5: to get him into a new law enforce or nothing
Speaker 5: like that. We just kind of break it up, make
Speaker 5: sure she could get her home. And we ran into
Speaker 5: a law enforcement officer who had kind of prior knowledge
Speaker 5: of who I be and us being out there because
Speaker 5: I had just came home for something happened. Some rival
Speaker 5: gang members got shot. It was like a block of
Speaker 5: two blocks away from the school and it was a
Speaker 5: police officer out at the time doing beat walking, and
Speaker 5: they kind of charged me. They charged me with the
Speaker 5: case and they were saying I sent gods through here
Speaker 5: to do it and the officer was got shot. So
Speaker 5: they had locked my mother and father up before they
Speaker 5: could get to meet because I'm still out in the
Speaker 5: streets moving around. So when my mother called me and
Speaker 5: the police department saying that they had her, that joint
Speaker 5: just did something to me that just made me like
Speaker 5: hate police officers. But I didn't take accountability that. You know,
Speaker 5: it's all love and fan war. If they you know,
Speaker 5: your family all on the line. Were you out here
Speaker 5: doing that? But you know, that was a shock and
Speaker 5: blow when they touched my mom and them and she
Speaker 5: cause my mom worked for Dife. It's good lady, she
Speaker 5: and nothing. But you know, my actions in the streets
Speaker 5: that had brought that to my family. And you know
Speaker 5: when they finally had caught me and I and I
Speaker 5: was in the county and stuff. I was always thinking
Speaker 5: about that. Stuff like that. It just made me hate
Speaker 5: the police. I didn't take accountability of why they did that.
Speaker 5: So when I had got out, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: I was just on that with them with the police.
Speaker 5: I just like, but I was talking about it around people.
Speaker 5: I wasn't like trying to do nothing to new cop.
Speaker 5: But I but it's life and death and the power
Speaker 5: of the tongue and sit that in the Bible. So
Speaker 5: I was speaking. I situated like that into existence when
Speaker 5: I was around my homie every time we went in
Speaker 5: a car ride and we just talking about fuck the
Speaker 5: poliics might seeing because I just want to feel some
Speaker 5: type of way about what they did with my mother
Speaker 5: and father and there like lot my mother father them.
Speaker 5: I used to go out on the homies like, man,
Speaker 5: they lock it up for y'all because I'm doing this
Speaker 5: for y'all, you know what I mean, and my mother
Speaker 5: and son. No, I can't play with d So I'm
Speaker 5: using that situation and further them to be you know,
Speaker 5: further goons for me against them. And it ain't even like that,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. I spoke that thing up, man,
Speaker 5: when the police officer try to get me and they
Speaker 5: overprotected me and and guys moved out for me. You
Speaker 5: know what I mean, And I and actually had nothing
Speaker 5: on me out didn't you know, shoot the office and none.
Speaker 5: But I had people with me that was overprotecting me
Speaker 5: because I was putting that in them, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. So when they moved, I wasn't even mad
Speaker 5: because I preached that to him and I encouraged that.
Speaker 5: But they knew it. They knew the whole situation and everything.
Speaker 5: But if they were charged it the right way, I
Speaker 5: probably wouldn't be sitting here talking to me all right now.
Speaker 5: But they try to put it on me as if
Speaker 5: I would have want I crazed guy would a gun
Speaker 5: and shot the officer, lined to the family, lined to
Speaker 5: the public, like I was the one that really did it. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I was the engine behind it, but I want the
Speaker 5: one that actually did it. And that's how I got
Speaker 5: convicted of reckless manstre because the jury saw through the
Speaker 5: facts of the case when it came out, and that's
Speaker 5: why they charged with causing it by me being reckless
Speaker 5: with my actions, but not guilty of the murdered weapon
Speaker 5: and not guilty of shooting you know, police officers. And
Speaker 5: that's how I was able to, you know, get the
Speaker 5: fifteen years and come home because a lot of people
Speaker 5: I didn't shoot, I didn't kill a police officer. I
Speaker 5: wouldn't be standing, you know how they take that, you
Speaker 5: know what I mean. So you know me being able
Speaker 5: to you know, overcome that. But I took accountability for
Speaker 5: my actions. And you know, law enforce was the enemy.
Speaker 5: That's what the enemy to me, you know what I mean.
Speaker 5: When I was living a legal lifestyle. They wasn't our friends.
Speaker 5: They trying to capture us, were trying to get away
Speaker 5: from them. So my mindset against them was what it was.
Speaker 5: But it led to something like that happened, and I
Speaker 5: didn't realize I had the power and influence to allow
Speaker 5: something like that to happen under my you know call,
Speaker 5: until it happened, you know what I mean. Then I knew, like, oh,
Speaker 5: I gotta be careful with my power influence of what
Speaker 5: I say out my mouth. Since that situation, I've been
Speaker 5: careful with what I say out my mouth, my influence.
Speaker 5: I understood it, you know what I mean. But I
Speaker 5: had to go through that to really get to where
Speaker 5: we're at now. But if that wouln't happened, we wouldn't
Speaker 5: be here with new directions we won't be here over
Speaker 5: protecting these schools, making sure these kids are safe. And
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. It was something like God
Speaker 5: allows certain things to happen for whatever reason you're allowed
Speaker 5: to happen for. But you know, I just try to
Speaker 5: make the best of it, in the grade of it,
Speaker 5: because I know that situation harms our city. To this day,
Speaker 5: we still have, you know, issues with people, you know,
Speaker 5: it divided city, especially when it kind of law enforcement.
Speaker 5: You know what I mean, ain't never gonna understand me.
Speaker 5: Some of them did. The younger ones that respect the
Speaker 5: revolution to understand what's going on. But the older ones
Speaker 5: ain't gonna really understand that. Some people and politics ain't
Speaker 5: gonna want to be next to me. I ain't gonna
Speaker 5: want to stand next to me, you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: because you know, everybody got to keep a good, you
Speaker 5: know relationship out here. The relationships is everything we understand
Speaker 5: and with us doing we doing, you know it ain't
Speaker 5: you know, it ain't beneficial to law enforcement that we
Speaker 5: stopping people from going to jail and you know, and
Speaker 5: and surviving out here and not dying. My mother walking
Speaker 5: to the store and safe. We thought that was beneficial
Speaker 5: to law enforcement. But we know it's different things that
Speaker 5: goes on, you know, with money and people getting too
Speaker 5: in care of so we understand, like you know the
Speaker 5: politics of that, but that'd be hurting me sometime too
Speaker 5: when I'm coming with clean hands and pure hearts, and
Speaker 5: forget pologizy just for any actions that I did to
Speaker 5: make that happen, but showing by my actions like I
Speaker 5: can do in front of the judge, say Judge, I'm
Speaker 5: sorry what i'ma pologizing then for why I'm gonna say,
Speaker 5: have mercy on the judge. But it ain't getting hurt,
Speaker 5: he ain't doing they good. I gotta go prilogize to
Speaker 5: my community. And that's by my actions by making sure
Speaker 5: that no another officer gets shot out here, no kids
Speaker 5: fighting at the school, nobody else get ain't no game
Speaker 5: wards in our city. I'm giving way back more then
Speaker 5: I kind of took away, because this is what we build.
Speaker 5: They're gonna live beyond us. It's gonna be a legacy
Speaker 5: beyond us. Were about to open the school to change
Speaker 5: up with eighth degrade for our at rich youths who
Speaker 5: don't nobody want to rock with because they scared of
Speaker 5: these little young guys. And when the young guys see
Speaker 5: you scared of them, they gonna run rap laps around you,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. But we ain't afraid of them,
Speaker 5: and we ain't afraid the doctor. What we believe it
Speaker 5: because we already died and came back, so to speak,
Speaker 5: face to all our fears. So you know, we just
Speaker 5: gonna can't continue to push forward and just hoping that
Speaker 5: you know the right people are sitting next to y'all.
Speaker 5: We already made it, you know what I mean?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 5: Like you know what when our home we see this,
Speaker 5: I rose behind the wall and all that, Like you
Speaker 5: don't know what that do for the coaching. But everybod
Speaker 5: ain't gonna understand us, but we understand us.
Speaker 3: It was something that you said the other day at
Speaker 3: the at King College and you said something about my future.
Speaker 3: What would you say something about my past?
Speaker 2: What did you say? I don't know exactly what you said.
Speaker 2: It was a strong story.
Speaker 5: And it was like similar what I kind of spoke on.
Speaker 3: It's like you foks because of something. I don't know
Speaker 3: what it was, but I just want to say that
Speaker 3: we commend you, yeah, because the work that you're doing,
Speaker 3: and like you said, it's action. It's showing you know,
Speaker 3: because I'm telling you, watching y'all is just it just
Speaker 3: it reinforced. It gives me energy because you get tired,
Speaker 3: like you know, it's hard and you go through this,
Speaker 3: and you got people that want to hate on you,
Speaker 3: and people and and and what I always say is
Speaker 3: my actions speak louder than what you're saying. You can
Speaker 3: say whatever you want, but for the last decade, I've
Speaker 3: been showing you what it is that I do, and
Speaker 3: I put the work and I watch y'all do the
Speaker 3: same thing every day. So I want you to just
Speaker 3: give me, like I said before, what is like some
Speaker 3: of the hardest things that you got to deal with
Speaker 3: right now?
Speaker 5: For me, man, it's just for you too, because we
Speaker 5: looked up to you, bro, and we still do to
Speaker 5: this day, even that we're next to you, we still
Speaker 5: do because you always inspired it. Even when I came
Speaker 5: home and I'm tapping more in with your stuff cause
Speaker 5: I got to see more of your stuff when I
Speaker 5: got home because you know, we got phones now, we
Speaker 5: got more access to things, So you know, you was
Speaker 5: inspiring me. I'm looking up to you like damn, big
Speaker 5: Bro might sign and then your consciousness and you already
Speaker 5: was like there, so I felt cold with being in too.
Speaker 5: And then all the bros like you like the might
Speaker 5: Sign generation, like a lot of my brothers are saying that.
Speaker 5: To me, that was strong. But the challenge for me,
Speaker 5: it's like egos with the other bros and stuff out here,
Speaker 5: like you know what I mean, because like you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of different bigger homies that's out here
Speaker 5: that got you know, stayed and got influenced. And you know,
Speaker 5: if I'm coming out here trying to push guys forward,
Speaker 5: they don't want to feel like they following my lead.
Speaker 5: Like well, I took saying peace because nobody was saying
Speaker 5: peace before I came home or pushing it. But with me,
Speaker 5: I always tried saying them, I'm just trying to inspire
Speaker 5: other leaders to be better leaders.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I'm not trying to like take over and be like hey,
Speaker 5: I got to listen to me or this go on,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean? Because I had those challenges
Speaker 5: at first with certain little bros. I'm hearing they said, man,
Speaker 5: new direction ain't all that, And then I got to
Speaker 5: pull up on them, what you mean that new direction?
Speaker 5: And I had to get out of that, because I
Speaker 5: can't fight against everybody that's saying like they might not
Speaker 5: be off of it, you know what I mean. If
Speaker 5: a dude can't tell me that to my face when
Speaker 5: I come around, it's all love. It's big bro, we
Speaker 5: love what you're doing, but you see something behind my back.
Speaker 5: I can't really like be trying to approach that. But
Speaker 5: I'm that type of person like if you wanna say
Speaker 5: something were gonna, I'm pulling up on you on your hood,
Speaker 5: don't care where you're from, what niggas you're around. I
Speaker 5: got you got exposed fixed stuff. And when people would
Speaker 5: just trying to go against something that makes sense for us,
Speaker 5: that's the only challenges we be having because it's.
Speaker 6: Not for a person writing it.
Speaker 5: It's like, you know, it's just no God, just be
Speaker 5: hating because of power, you know what I mean. So
Speaker 5: we kind of like we came and took the streets.
Speaker 5: We knew direction. They adn't think we was gonna be
Speaker 5: do that, like challenge the culture, and some of the bros,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean, can be hating on that,
Speaker 5: and I want them to influence no younger bro to
Speaker 5: think they could challenge us and then we get back
Speaker 5: to the old direction, our whole movement over, you know
Speaker 5: what I mean. So that be the challenges that we get.
Speaker 5: It's trying to stay humble, righteous and militant, and that's
Speaker 5: that's challenging of itself. Dealing with the word, that's the
Speaker 5: challenge for us, bro, you know what I mean. But
Speaker 5: we've been doing a good job with it, man, and
Speaker 5: we're gonna keep going.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, you was telling me a story about the
Speaker 3: situation that happened with a young kid.
Speaker 5: Because my grandmother, she don't want me doing this work
Speaker 5: like family member get away. You did enough for North
Speaker 5: come out of there, But same thing right right, So
Speaker 5: you know, we deal with the We don't deal with
Speaker 5: the polished kids. We deal with the at risk high
Speaker 5: resus to these the guys that get kicked out of
Speaker 5: school for having guns and stolen cars. Come after youth, oule.
Speaker 5: They're the ones that's wild. So we're trying to get
Speaker 5: with a lot of these kids, get on focused, get
Speaker 5: them back on the right track. And some of them
Speaker 5: don't be you know what I mean, They ain't all
Speaker 5: that clean. So we had a bunch of group of
Speaker 5: kids around. We're gonna do more of making sure we
Speaker 5: searching our kids because we didn't want to move by
Speaker 5: our kids, like we don't know police stuff with it,
Speaker 5: because we're gonna lose them like that. So sometimes we
Speaker 5: gotta be a little cool with them, you know what
Speaker 5: I mean. We ain't really on them. I'm not thinking
Speaker 5: you got none of your book bad, but I know
Speaker 5: we going into a center any place where I'm trying
Speaker 5: with these kids. I'm making sure you ain't bringing that
Speaker 5: name because they got metal detective. They got stuff going on.
Speaker 5: Because these kids they like they got like PTSD. I
Speaker 5: think some of them from seeing some of their fathers
Speaker 5: die out here, some of their uncles. The violence in
Speaker 5: or effect some of the kids too.
Speaker 4: No, we know people, We know people that can't go
Speaker 4: anywhere unless they got to.
Speaker 1: We go in to the fanciest rest. They still talking,
Speaker 1: I can't go. I can't bring my ship, like.
Speaker 5: For real, Yeah, exactly, And that's what we're dealing with.
Speaker 5: So we're dealing We go to a basketball game. So
Speaker 5: we go to basketball game. That mind you, I'm telling
Speaker 5: these guys. So we got a van full of kids,
Speaker 5: we got the trouble got so we are all our
Speaker 5: kids packed things we had to take him from getting
Speaker 5: some jobs earty kid. Yeah, so we we take him
Speaker 5: getting some jobs, give job training at the re engagement center.
Speaker 5: And then it was a basketball game, so we took
Speaker 5: him down to the bat So we don't we don't
Speaker 5: know what these kids got on when they coming in.
Speaker 5: They putting whatever they got up. So one of them
Speaker 5: said something got missing from him out of one advanced
Speaker 5: from another kid. So what you had, think like the phone?
Speaker 5: So he sat a gun. So I'm like, fuck, you
Speaker 5: got a gun for on?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: So's I'm trying to count our kids. We found the
Speaker 5: kid was missing, so I'm calling, like, Yo, where you were at?
Speaker 2: Bro?
Speaker 5: He's like he ain't answering them calling them, didn't answering,
Speaker 5: And I'm texting them. They're like, you ain't got nothing
Speaker 5: to do with this, big bro. Fuck the nigga. They
Speaker 5: trying to rob me. They some girls he was gonna
Speaker 5: rob me. You're talking about who? So buck chirping our
Speaker 5: So but he walking there, he left us. He on
Speaker 5: urged trunk some in the hood with a gun on
Speaker 5: the pipe from and he going through a mental episode. Wow,
Speaker 5: So I call his mom. She tell me you know
Speaker 5: what I mean, Like, yo, she got a track on
Speaker 5: his phone. So now we're tracking a little bro. So
Speaker 5: now I don't want to run up on a little
Speaker 5: bro and he just upping on us on some wild
Speaker 5: because but this little proper, I've been dealing with him,
Speaker 5: but to my first time having him around a bunch
Speaker 5: of other kids. Now he got issues being around people.
Speaker 5: He don't trust everybody. You gotta let me know that,
Speaker 5: because this thing almost cost us just now bruh. So
Speaker 5: when we pulls up on him, we find out yet
Speaker 5: he rode on like YO, come here, browing me. How
Speaker 5: you got to give me that strip back you got?
Speaker 5: He whipped it out like yo, back up and ran.
Speaker 5: So now everybody car doub We got eight daughter in there.
Speaker 5: We got the kids behind us, three cars, three fans
Speaker 5: deep on him. So I'm like, we can't let him
Speaker 5: get away with this joint bro, because I noticed little niggas.
Speaker 5: I'm mad right now. We can't try to put this
Speaker 5: kid down. If the police se him running around the
Speaker 5: hood like this because he got it out, that's like
Speaker 5: moving they gonna do. They gonna put him down. They
Speaker 5: a don't have no patience with him. So when I
Speaker 5: pulled around the corner, he hides somewhere. So we got
Speaker 5: the car looking for the backyard. So now I want
Speaker 5: him to just up it on us, thinking we but
Speaker 5: I'm like, yo, what you're doing, bro?
Speaker 1: So he like real danger, real danger.
Speaker 5: So I don't know he gonna pull up the cut
Speaker 5: and just start throwing at us and nothing, but I
Speaker 5: heard something move. We didn't you know that was him?
Speaker 5: And then we left out the back and then we
Speaker 5: got a call Munt say it was by the liquor store.
Speaker 5: So we pull up by the liquor store. He see
Speaker 5: if he runs out. Now he pulls the car. He
Speaker 5: pulls up at the first car to pull up on
Speaker 5: and I'm saying, butna pull up on him because he wild.
Speaker 5: They time a car pull up on it, he lifted it.
Speaker 5: And I know he don't know what he's doing. This
Speaker 5: is his first gun. I know this, little bro, this
Speaker 5: is your first gun. He just filling hisself with it
Speaker 5: right now. So I got out the car and I'm
Speaker 5: I'm gonna get out the car and talk to Hi.
Speaker 5: I'm like, yo, bro, you're gonna shoot me. He's like, nah, big, oh,
Speaker 5: this don't got nothing to do with you. Do Niggas
Speaker 5: know what they did you know what I'm saying, ain't
Speaker 5: nobody with me but me, bro. So he walking down
Speaker 5: the street with it out, talking and I'm just praying
Speaker 5: at God that those cop card has bend the corner
Speaker 5: and see this little kid walking down the street with
Speaker 5: a gun out like he just out. He had it out, like,
Speaker 5: walking with it so I can't get up on him
Speaker 5: to get it from him. He's like, Chuck, don't come
Speaker 5: up on me, bro, like you're gonna blow it. I'm
Speaker 5: so you're gonna blow me, bro. He's like, no, I
Speaker 5: ain't got nothing to do with you. So once I
Speaker 5: knew he was in his mindset that blow me, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna stay with him and keep walking with him. Calm
Speaker 5: them down. So he put I said put it up, bro,
Speaker 5: because I don't want the police to be in the
Speaker 5: corner and see you with that joint out like that.
Speaker 5: So he listened to put it up for a minute.
Speaker 5: Then I was trying to get a little close and
Speaker 5: when he got it up so I could get it
Speaker 5: from him while he got it up. So when I
Speaker 5: got close to him, he like, oh, bro' come up
Speaker 5: on me. Bron't pull it back out. So I'm like naw,
Speaker 5: he gets it out like he like, so, who's gonna
Speaker 5: shoot me? Brou I come up on you. So I'm
Speaker 5: like your mother on her way, because I got his
Speaker 5: mother on the phone. She screamed it. So I'm like, yo,
Speaker 5: you go and mess around and let the police business
Speaker 5: corner and we're not gonna be able to save you.
Speaker 5: Bro So when I said that again, he put it
Speaker 5: back up. So when he put it back up, I
Speaker 5: was a little more closer to him, and I knew
Speaker 5: he want gonna pull it back out, and I drussed
Speaker 5: him right quick. And when I grabbed that, I went
Speaker 5: fright for that because I seen where he put it
Speaker 5: at both times he put it up and he tried
Speaker 5: to reach forward, and I just pushed it, wrestled it
Speaker 5: from gave it to the broke, and then I just
Speaker 5: threw it a little down like the little brothers, bang
Speaker 5: him up, beat him up for the door and that shit.
Speaker 5: We ain't doing him too bad, but you know that situation,
Speaker 5: we could have died in that situation because he if
Speaker 5: he would have panicked shot the car that hit eight
Speaker 5: door to hate my little niece in them. We got leeing,
Speaker 5: We got everybody here, be coming from a game all
Speaker 5: these kids with his mother's and trusted these kids with
Speaker 5: us in one of these bass kids did something like that,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean to put all us in danger?
Speaker 3: See, the reality is that's what high risk intervention is,
Speaker 3: you know. And you can't really pay nobody for that,
Speaker 3: right you got to You have to really have love
Speaker 3: for your community, have love for these kids, and really
Speaker 3: want to save them to put yourself on the front
Speaker 3: lines like that. And I understand what that is. I've
Speaker 3: literally stood in front of the dudes with guns. I
Speaker 3: literally had to stand in front and be like, yo,
Speaker 3: I'm not letting you shoot nobody. I'm not letting you
Speaker 3: like with people that I love. It's like, yo, get
Speaker 3: on my way, and I'm like, nah, we're not doing that.
Speaker 2: You're not doing that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're gonna have to shoot me, Like I
Speaker 3: literally had to say that. So I understand that. So
Speaker 3: a lot of people don't understand how serious this work is,
Speaker 3: and you don't understand how much respect that.
Speaker 2: You have to have right and to be able to
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 3: Like they said, gangster, Yo, you gang It ain't gangster
Speaker 3: because you can shoot somebody when you real gangs, you
Speaker 3: got enough respect in your community that you can stop
Speaker 3: somebody from gang. That's what that's That's what leadership is.
Speaker 3: That's what the big homies is.
Speaker 2: For me.
Speaker 3: If if you, if you, if you call yourself a
Speaker 3: big home man, you ain't sureing to do, how to grow,
Speaker 3: how to get no money, and how to survive.
Speaker 2: You just an older little nigga's that's what we said,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 5: And even with some of the stuff that we do
Speaker 5: with we get mothers that call us that be finding
Speaker 5: guns and stuff and they kids brom They can't call
Speaker 5: the policecause the don't want to send the kick to jail, right,
Speaker 5: So what're going They gotta call somebody who could come
Speaker 5: in here and get these stuff up out of these stuff.
Speaker 5: And that's what we're do. We're coming in and make
Speaker 5: sure we get that stuff up out of it and
Speaker 5: then get it to the proper people. We have to
Speaker 5: make sure we keep it everybody safe. But that's the
Speaker 5: type of stuff that we having to get calls on.
Speaker 1: What would you say the hardest parts of the job.
Speaker 6: I mean, for me, what I believe for all of
Speaker 6: us is the hardest part is our sanity. Taking care
Speaker 6: of our own mental health inside of this space because
Speaker 6: we know, we know that we were in a time
Speaker 6: where you can't fight can't you can't fight hate with hate, right,
Speaker 6: you go on to combat hate with love, right, But
Speaker 6: that thing gotta give a plenish, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: because ultimately the hate gets so thick at times where
Speaker 6: I have to I have to learn and train myself
Speaker 6: to be prepared for, you know, the worst situations possible
Speaker 6: every day, every single day, right Like, and then I
Speaker 6: have you know, I have teenage daughters inside of my
Speaker 6: city that go to the school. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: I didn't choose to take my kids out of this city,
Speaker 6: right Like, my kids go to these same schools, they
Speaker 6: have these same basketball games, They walk in these same
Speaker 6: streets because.
Speaker 1: And they want to go out.
Speaker 6: They want to go out and have a good time.
Speaker 1: And you like, why don't you just stay.
Speaker 6: In that south And I understand that they don't want
Speaker 6: to stay in the house. So my job is to
Speaker 6: be able to make sure outside to see it, because
Speaker 6: having the prettiest house on the block means nothing. If
Speaker 6: the rest of the block is messed up, the property
Speaker 6: value ain't going to go up because of one house,
Speaker 6: all the houses got to be up to park, you
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying. So that's what I always you
Speaker 6: know what I mean, That's what I always think of
Speaker 6: it like, and you know, like, how do I walk
Speaker 6: to a mediation and not personalized? Somebody might want to
Speaker 6: get d you know what I'm saying, Foday, I don't
Speaker 6: want to hear that shit, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: or have it go or even how we just talked
Speaker 6: about with that situation. My daughter was in that car,
Speaker 6: My firstborn child was in that car. You know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. How do I respond? How do I respond
Speaker 6: to that going off and God forbid hitting my child?
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying. How do I respond if
Speaker 6: that thing go off and it hit somebody in here
Speaker 6: and now I have to go to their parents? You know?
Speaker 6: So I always operate from that mindset because I'm always
Speaker 6: wary of people, people playing us against each other, because
Speaker 6: that's what they always done. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: We always had at the Bill o'nills, right, like we
Speaker 6: always we always had the judases amongst us, right, and
Speaker 6: how do we how do we stay focused? Like how
Speaker 6: do we keep everything tight like through communication, having clarity.
Speaker 6: If I'm not feeling something, I got to be able
Speaker 6: to go to my brother and tell them I'm not
Speaker 6: feeling it because I'm If I don't, then I'll sit
Speaker 6: there and I'll let a damage. Ob then it's a
Speaker 6: damage our relationship.
Speaker 4: That's the reason why the relationship between the four of us, Angelo,
Speaker 4: my son, Lindon, and me, why our relationship is what
Speaker 4: it is because it's it's difficult at times, like it
Speaker 4: comes to get it out what we feel and what
Speaker 4: we're experiencing. It's not always pretty. We be at it,
Speaker 4: especially this right here, and Angelo too. Angelo, I literally
Speaker 4: walk away from conversations crying from talking to the two
Speaker 4: of them because they don't be making.
Speaker 1: No sense to me whatsoever.
Speaker 4: But I always walk away better than I was before
Speaker 4: we started the conversation, even if I still don't agree.
Speaker 4: Something in what we discussed makes all of us better.
Speaker 4: And that's but that's hard work. That is very difficult work.
Speaker 4: And I would imagine that the work that we do
Speaker 4: to lead together has spilled over into our other relationships
Speaker 4: and how we, you know, operate on the on the daily.
Speaker 4: I know, certainly even with my son like, I'm just
Speaker 4: thinking about you said the SMD and all of that.
Speaker 1: But these kids or people will see you.
Speaker 4: I've watched him grow, I watched you go a lot
Speaker 4: because he used to be ready to fight.
Speaker 1: And I would be like, but you know that you
Speaker 1: can't be the thing.
Speaker 4: What they My old boss used to tell me, you
Speaker 4: can't be big and little at the same time. Y'all
Speaker 4: choose one, right, so you can't do this and that,
Speaker 4: you know, And he would be ready to fight, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, but this is not really how it's supposed
Speaker 4: to go. And I've done it too, But I would
Speaker 4: say that and we still will get into a fight.
Speaker 1: Let's just be clear.
Speaker 4: So that nobody is confused. If you roll on us
Speaker 4: the wrong way, we're gonna fight you. We're not gonna
Speaker 4: let people try. But we were no longer letting you
Speaker 4: talk us into a fight. It's gotta be.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 6: Like how how you just made clarity of that. I
Speaker 6: don't don't want to make clarity of that. I don't
Speaker 6: even want to take how take it how you want.
Speaker 6: That's it. My job is to put it to the universe.
Speaker 6: My job isn't to put like you said, I can't
Speaker 6: be big and little. I can't. I can't give the
Speaker 6: message and worry about how you're receiving it either. My
Speaker 6: job is on either give the message. You know what
Speaker 6: I'm saying. So if you want to take it, man
Speaker 6: after that, nigga, man, how I do this? Then? Okay?
Speaker 6: All right, however you say or man, I won't eat
Speaker 6: step up. Either way, it don't deter me for my
Speaker 6: next move. You know what I'm saying. So I don't
Speaker 6: care to clear nothing up, no more, right, but I
Speaker 6: have to be in that space because I understand the
Speaker 6: powers in the tongue as well, like test it. The
Speaker 6: power is in my own mental you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: So I don't even have to I don't even have
Speaker 6: to say it out loud if I'm thinking about it
Speaker 6: too much, I'm a manifested I'm gonna find it and
Speaker 6: then I'm gonna respond to how Oh this is the
Speaker 6: moment right here. Look you know what I mean. Look
Speaker 6: he trying to play in And that's why I believe
Speaker 6: everything is mental. Everything, all this high risk intervention, everything
Speaker 6: that we do, it's ninety mental. It's ninety percent mental.
Speaker 6: And once I learned how to master my own mind,
Speaker 6: I like, I leave the rest. I leave the rest.
Speaker 6: I leave the rest for it to late with Lake.
Speaker 6: And I'm gonna just conclude that were saying that, you know,
Speaker 6: that's the biggest thing that I that I that I
Speaker 6: appreach to, not just the youth, but to anybody. You
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying, don't give nobody that type of
Speaker 6: power over because you're giving people way too much power over.
Speaker 6: Hell is rough because if it wasn't rough, then anybody would.
Speaker 6: You don't have no problems everybody being their own world,
Speaker 6: So I don't. I don't feed into the comments. I
Speaker 6: don't feed it whether it's negative or positive. I appreciate
Speaker 6: both of the interactions. I don't care what it is
Speaker 6: that you're saying about me, positive or negative. I appreciate
Speaker 6: because that means you're paying me attention, and it's my
Speaker 6: job to give you something to pay attention to.
Speaker 5: Wow we get.
Speaker 4: Before we go, though, I want you to talk about
Speaker 4: the women of New Direction, because they have an age
Speaker 4: of role that they play working with you all.
Speaker 1: What do you what's your like? How how great is
Speaker 1: the need to have the sisters alongside you?
Speaker 6: Right? I guess I'll jump in there first, But for me.
Speaker 6: It's it's extremely it's extremely great for the women, but
Speaker 6: it's extremely difficult because everybody don't understand your vision, right, Like,
Speaker 6: it's a lot of sacrifices that go into just having
Speaker 6: a relationship, whether it's with a partner or with just
Speaker 6: our kids, because I you know, I often have to
Speaker 6: tap in with my kids just as much because I
Speaker 6: do a lot for the other kids out in the community.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's deep.
Speaker 4: And I wasn't even you on a whole different thing
Speaker 4: which I want to hear about. I was speaking specifically
Speaker 4: about staff members and people who are working in the
Speaker 4: organization and what that's like. But that's very powerful having
Speaker 4: to because I've done that. I lost my relationship with
Speaker 4: my son for a long time because I became mommy
Speaker 4: street person instead of mommy home person.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so keep going.
Speaker 5: Right, Oh well, yeah, I apologizing.
Speaker 1: Keep going, keep going. You can talk about both, right.
Speaker 6: But that's a real space, right And you know, for me,
Speaker 6: I grew up inside of a household. I grew up
Speaker 6: in a two parent household, right, and so did my mother,
Speaker 6: and show did it my father, right, So I came
Speaker 6: up with a full family and then you know, fast
Speaker 6: forward into today where I have You know, I have
Speaker 6: multiple different kids, right, I got I got five kids, right,
Speaker 6: so but I have three different I got three different
Speaker 6: baby mothers. So I never learned how to have kids.
Speaker 6: I never I never experienced reason kids from outside of
Speaker 6: a household. So that was already a strain on it
Speaker 6: fromt the beginning. Because I have kids that I spent
Speaker 6: that se get to see me every day. Then I
Speaker 6: still have three more kids that have to see me
Speaker 6: twice a week, once a week sometimes sometimes every so
Speaker 6: often every time, you know what I mean. So that
Speaker 6: is strenuous on me myself. And that's something that I
Speaker 6: have to live and die with because that's something that
Speaker 6: life can't prepare you for, you know. And I just
Speaker 6: want to take this time out to shout out our
Speaker 6: brother traded truth, right who going through? He going through?
Speaker 6: And I want to you know what I mean, because
Speaker 6: that's a serious situation, and you know he touched on
Speaker 6: like you know, very rarely do a mother go a
Speaker 6: week without seeing or speaking to their child, right, But
Speaker 6: we don't never get to talk about how strenuous that
Speaker 6: is for a father as well, Like we feel that
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying, that's a real space and
Speaker 6: it get downplayed a lot inside our community and our culture,
Speaker 6: you know what I'm saying. But I'm saying as a father,
Speaker 6: I feel that, you know what I'm saying, and that's why,
Speaker 6: you know, I also pray for my brother the trade
Speaker 6: of truth to you know what I mean, get his
Speaker 6: daughter back and also you know I mean be able
Speaker 6: to make peace you know what I mean with with
Speaker 6: his uh you know, his baby mother or whatever, because
Speaker 6: they are not our ops. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: No matter what journey it is, or how much we
Speaker 6: disagree with each other, our our our our our other
Speaker 6: parents can't could never be our op because we got
Speaker 6: the same common goal, which is that child. You know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. So I live with that every day
Speaker 6: and you know, just having my kids, you know, sometimes
Speaker 6: see me doing all this stuff out in the community,
Speaker 6: but I'm not there to take them. I don't know,
Speaker 6: to go ride they bike today, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: or they see me. You know, my oldest daughter is
Speaker 6: very active, right. She she my biggest challenge. We talked
Speaker 6: about challenge. It was turning that corner with her right
Speaker 6: because she was raised underneath you know, the gang banging,
Speaker 6: and I didn't understand that. So her attitude was real
Speaker 6: messed up, like she was real. She get into fights
Speaker 6: a lot. She you know, she she's real handsy. So
Speaker 6: you know last summer, well last year around this time,
Speaker 6: she got jumped by some girls in school and then
Speaker 6: you know, it was instantly like how do we move
Speaker 6: forward and make peace with that? Right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 6: How do I be a father and get a phone call?
Speaker 6: I'm doing all this community work and now my daughter
Speaker 6: get jumped. So now what I go fight?
Speaker 2: They?
Speaker 5: Father? Do I go?
Speaker 6: You know what I'm saying, I'm faced with this in
Speaker 6: real time.
Speaker 4: What was your advice during this time? What did you
Speaker 4: say when he said his daughter got jumped?
Speaker 5: Well, we have to stay focused. Man found out who
Speaker 5: who got jumped? While she got jumped, was she wrong
Speaker 5: and anything? Sometimes we gotta be hold lot of people
Speaker 5: accountable to, but definitely to you know, not get to
Speaker 5: a point where you know, he know, we know how
Speaker 5: to hands and stuff like that. We ain't gotta be
Speaker 5: like going back to our old ways. I definitely keep
Speaker 5: him focus beause that's just you know what I mean,
Speaker 5: that's that's what I need too, And that's his daughter
Speaker 5: so we definitely trying to keep him focusing. Now we're
Speaker 5: gonna handle it. We're gonna get on top of it.
Speaker 5: And he know, like we do how to handle stuff
Speaker 5: like that.
Speaker 4: That's human though, that's very human, Like he gotta tell you,
Speaker 4: remind you.
Speaker 6: Because we learned from each other, and we'll be fools
Speaker 6: to repeat history on a negative aspect. So you know,
Speaker 6: I'm just concluse that with that though, man, like you
Speaker 6: know we we you know, what makes this dynamic work
Speaker 6: is because you know, like how you talked about it's
Speaker 6: for y'all, right, our advantages just that it's two of us, right,
Speaker 6: and it's a shared vision. So it's easier for us
Speaker 6: to have disagreements with each other because we know we
Speaker 6: both operate from a police of love. So even when
Speaker 6: we don't disagree, we just bro whoever plan make the
Speaker 6: most sense, you know what I'm saying. So it's never
Speaker 6: its and it's never we do more than enough work
Speaker 6: for us to get stuck on one thing, you know
Speaker 6: what I'm saying. We do more than it. So even
Speaker 6: if we don't agree on what time we're doing safe passage,
Speaker 6: we still agree on you know, I mean, yo, we
Speaker 6: gotta get these kids together, there's Wednesday and go feed them. Right,
Speaker 6: So we got more than enough things to keep us busy,
Speaker 6: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: So you're then y'all disagree with way more.
Speaker 6: Way, way more.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna ask about your staff people to
Speaker 1: work with you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was good having the females with us, because
Speaker 5: you know, when we was going to these schools, most
Speaker 5: of the issues we was having was like girls fighting,
Speaker 5: like that was all girls. It wasn't really the guys,
Speaker 5: you know, like doing the fighting at school mostly the girls.
Speaker 5: So we just try to inspire some of the females
Speaker 5: that was working with us to start tapping in with
Speaker 5: the younger girls and you know, doing the same thing
Speaker 5: were doing with the younger guys. So we get them
Speaker 5: all together, and then once we got the young girls
Speaker 5: and the young guys together, we could teach them together
Speaker 5: how to be I'm sure dells respecting each other because
Speaker 5: a lot of that was going on with these little
Speaker 5: guys talking to the girls certain way, call them out
Speaker 5: their names, and the girls trying to fight them and
Speaker 5: smacking them in their face and just trying to be
Speaker 5: like why yang they call them young and young lembers?
Speaker 5: I don't like to use the word too much. We
Speaker 5: try to get away from but a lot of our
Speaker 5: young girls just doing that. So we wanted to try
Speaker 5: to get them all together and have us all doing
Speaker 5: the work together, working on issues amongst each other and
Speaker 5: seeing that we can grow and feed off each other.
Speaker 5: And you know, women is strong and certain stuff that
Speaker 5: we're not strong in. You know, when it's doing some
Speaker 5: of these outreachs wal good. We go into some hoods,
Speaker 5: we got the girls with us. That's gonna break the
Speaker 5: guys down a little bit because they see the girls
Speaker 5: with us, so they look, we ain't coming in here
Speaker 5: trying to arm nobody. But we got the girls and
Speaker 5: had them doing more leading and and it's showing how
Speaker 5: important they are to us. It's saying showing how youremportant
Speaker 5: they are to us as a whole. And wanted to
Speaker 5: show the little bros that too, because we wasn't having
Speaker 5: the young girls part of our meetings. We were just
Speaker 5: doing like man's meetings with the little bros. And then
Speaker 5: we're seeing that the bros put on for the girls,
Speaker 5: so they want to show off for them. All the
Speaker 5: little bron show off for other little girls. So we
Speaker 5: get all the little girls y'all trying to show off
Speaker 5: for and then show you what they really like and
Speaker 5: what we all really should be on and what we
Speaker 5: should be on. And that that's that helped us. Like
Speaker 5: we do, we change the dynamics of the movement. And
Speaker 5: having the females working with us. They more reliable than men.
Speaker 5: You know, they're gonna be They more courageous than some men,
Speaker 5: you know what I mean. They more knowledgeable than men,
Speaker 5: so you know us and get tapping in with them
Speaker 5: and trying to make sure that we preserve them so
Speaker 5: they could be good because without them is to us.
Speaker 5: But they're doing a good job of tapping in. They
Speaker 5: get to know some of the other girls because it's
Speaker 5: like us talk to some little girls about fighting, but
Speaker 5: we got other strong women telling them, like little queen,
Speaker 5: what you be doing in your head? Done it? You
Speaker 5: know how to tap more? When them we can tap
Speaker 5: them with the little bruce, but they could tap on
Speaker 5: with the girls. Then we get them all together, then
Speaker 5: we could be able to you know, tapping with them all.
Speaker 5: So having the young girls with us, that's that made
Speaker 5: us stronger. Man appreciate our baby girls. Man, We were
Speaker 5: gonna keep them focused.
Speaker 2: The work you're doing is just amazing and it's and
Speaker 2: it's authentic.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Make sure y'all follow New Direction. Make sure you follow
Speaker 3: eight through grade. Make sure you follow touch. These brothers
Speaker 3: are living. They not just talking about it every day.
Speaker 3: I get up sometimes and I be like I'm lazy,
Speaker 3: and then I look in their pages. Okay, time for me,
Speaker 3: give me.
Speaker 2: Putting work.
Speaker 3: I just want to commend y'all continue on the path
Speaker 3: that you're going. I already see that you're not gonna
Speaker 3: be swayed and gonna stop because it's in your heart. Man,
Speaker 3: So we appreciate your appreciation. Always welcome here.
Speaker 4: Listen, this is the holiday time of the year when
Speaker 4: people like giving money, and you feel so sad that
Speaker 4: you haven't done anything to help your community in a
Speaker 4: long time. Give money to New Direction, because although you
Speaker 4: are haven't said that raising money is hard.
Speaker 1: It's hard as hell to sustain when you.
Speaker 4: Know, if somebody gets shot, unfortunately, everybody want to give.
Speaker 4: But the whole job is to not have someone getting shot.
Speaker 4: And so then when it's quiet, that's when you really
Speaker 4: need the support, not when it's It's the same thing,
Speaker 4: same thing with us when someone's killed by the police.
Speaker 4: Everybody want to call us, how can we help you?
Speaker 4: We see y'all out there, But most of the time
Speaker 4: our work is in preventative measures, right, trying to keep up,
Speaker 4: trying to keep peace within our communities, working with groups
Speaker 4: like yours, trying to find ways to take money that
Speaker 4: has come to us and regranting it to other people
Speaker 4: so they can do work. And that takes a lot,
Speaker 4: and we need support that is consistent. We need people
Speaker 4: that are smart to help us think and help us
Speaker 4: strategize and open up resources and bring us into spaces
Speaker 4: that we don't generally have entree into. So make sure
Speaker 4: that you take the information and donate. Give is five dollars,
Speaker 4: We appreciate five dollars.
Speaker 1: Ten dollars, fifty dollars, and that's that's right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Invest in the work.
Speaker 4: So I'm excited and I'm so happy to hear you
Speaker 4: talk about togethernness. That one of the reasons why Linda
Speaker 4: and I made a final decision that we were going
Speaker 4: to leave the Women's March was because we knew one
Speaker 4: they was trying to drive us crazy, but also we
Speaker 4: knew we could not build what we see for.
Speaker 1: Black brown folks.
Speaker 4: Without having men and women together at the table, it
Speaker 4: just doesn't work, you know. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 4: there shouldn't be spaces for men, there should be spaces
Speaker 4: for women, but what we had to have a table
Speaker 4: that allowed for all of us to sit around and
Speaker 4: be together because the issues that we face it's very
Speaker 4: it's intersectional, it's both at the same time. And if
Speaker 4: you let the internet dictate what's happening in our communities,
Speaker 4: there's this big divide. It's always important to be reminded
Speaker 4: that our brothers love us as women and that we
Speaker 4: love our brothers and to still be in space. So
Speaker 4: I'm proud of the two of you. I'm kind of
Speaker 4: like the Elder Statesman over here on this show. Not
Speaker 4: in years to your point, but in the time that
Speaker 4: I've spent in this movement. Over thirty years I've been
Speaker 4: doing this and I know when I see talent, dedication
Speaker 4: and authenticity, and I'm just so proud of the work
Speaker 4: that y'all are doing.
Speaker 1: Thank you to be the Lady.
Speaker 2: Eight, the Great tut We love y'all, y'all.
Speaker 3: I'm so inspired by Toutt and eate Man, the those like,
Speaker 3: you know, since we first you know, usually when you
Speaker 3: meet people, you know when you when you have that connection,
Speaker 3: when you got a vibe, and immediately when I met
Speaker 3: both of them, it was just like kindred spirits, is
Speaker 3: like you have the same spirit, and it was just
Speaker 3: like they were my little brothers, man. And just watching
Speaker 3: them grow into this work, you know, it's been I've
Speaker 3: known them for about two years now working in Newark
Speaker 3: and just watching them constantly do this work and seeing
Speaker 3: them grow into this leadership role because a lot of
Speaker 3: when they first started, they just wanted to do the work,
Speaker 3: Like Tet was explaining, you know, he came home from
Speaker 3: prison and he was just he knew he wanted to
Speaker 3: do the work. But it was these complications. Then you
Speaker 3: got to figure out how do you balance that. You know,
Speaker 3: and I've been around people who want to do this work.
Speaker 3: You do not have the emotional intelligence to actually do this,
Speaker 3: especially when you come from the gang lifestyle, and I've
Speaker 3: seen a lot of people resort back to that mentality.
Speaker 3: But you know, just I'm watching them grow further and
Speaker 3: further away from it and still have the same respect
Speaker 3: and the same credibility and the same strength, you know,
Speaker 3: that they have, so shout out to them brothers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I was, I'm inspired.
Speaker 4: I felt like I got teared out a few times
Speaker 4: because both of them are very.
Speaker 1: They're there, they are. I felt like they they're very.
Speaker 4: Deep, like they're the introspection. The introspection is deep for them,
Speaker 4: like understanding where they came from and the struggle and
Speaker 4: as was said, revolution and all of that, and then
Speaker 4: what that should manifest itself into is how you support
Speaker 4: other people.
Speaker 1: It just was.
Speaker 4: It was powerful. You know, I feel like eight is
Speaker 4: wise beyond his years. You know, he speaks slower and
Speaker 4: he really is processing a lot as he's speaking. And
Speaker 4: then I could tell like they're ying and yang, because
Speaker 4: you could tell that is like motivated, motivated, motivated, gotta
Speaker 4: get everybody, keep it going, keep it going. We all gonna,
Speaker 4: we're gonna do this. We're gonna push, We're gonna and
Speaker 4: it's just great. It's great because we can't all be
Speaker 4: the same thing, right, you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 4: on the days when you really need a strategist, I
Speaker 4: feel like we represent that. Some days we just need
Speaker 4: somebody that's just gonna think through slowly. And Angelo Kanda
Speaker 4: is like that right, think through slowly what's next and
Speaker 4: what moves should we be making?
Speaker 1: Should we not do this or whatever?
Speaker 4: And then we have you, who's a motivator, always trying
Speaker 4: to be like, yes, we can, we can.
Speaker 1: Do it, let's go, let's go.
Speaker 4: So everybody has something different and I see greatness in
Speaker 4: them period.
Speaker 3: They're definitely destined for greatness. And it's just like the
Speaker 3: vision that I have for this work. You know, I'm
Speaker 3: constantly meeting brothers who fit into that space like this,
Speaker 3: this work should be celebrated and marketed and promoted as
Speaker 3: what it is.
Speaker 1: These These are hero y public health work.
Speaker 3: You know, it's not exactly these these are these are
Speaker 3: our superheroes. And if you've got these young boys to
Speaker 3: see these type of individuals to be if that work
Speaker 3: is highlighted, you know, if you put him and Trey
Speaker 3: and you know Zeke from New Direction and just brothers
Speaker 3: all around the city at New era, my fault, New era,
Speaker 3: and you put all of these brothers in the same
Speaker 3: room and whenever it's something to be done, and we
Speaker 3: all moving together, and these young kids could see those
Speaker 3: type of men move in that manna and be celebrated
Speaker 3: and be able to survive in that manner like that'should
Speaker 3: you know how how the world would.
Speaker 2: Shift if that's what we were celebrating. But you know
Speaker 2: that's my vision.
Speaker 4: That's what you have to You have to celebrate yourself
Speaker 4: a right like you have to celebrate yourself. We have
Speaker 4: to have more spaces where we're now waiting on some
Speaker 4: outside entity because the one thing we didn't get a
Speaker 4: chance to talk about was Mayor Baraka, and I would
Speaker 4: imagine may Burrocka gotta be taught, like you're trying to celebrate,
Speaker 4: make sure you get resources. Deal with the fact that
Speaker 4: you getting calls all the time. This is a problem.
Speaker 4: That's a problem this person that you know, it's a lot.
Speaker 4: So we have to find more opportunities to celebrate ourselves,
Speaker 4: to celebrate leaders like him that would provide space because
Speaker 4: they I'm sure there are people, especially with him now
Speaker 4: being a candidate for governor of New Jersey, I'm sure
Speaker 4: there are people who are telling him you got to
Speaker 4: cut the ties with people like tut You know police
Speaker 4: officer was involved and lost his life. You know, you
Speaker 4: can't work with Tamika Mallory because she and her relationship
Speaker 4: with men's apharicon you can't, you know what I'm saying, Like,
Speaker 4: I'm sure people are giving him that type of advice.
Speaker 4: And I'm not talking about white folks. I'm talking about
Speaker 4: black folks who know our stories. They know everybody, They
Speaker 4: know Jamila T. Dave, doctor, Jamilit Davis, they know everything
Speaker 4: because they're in the room. They are seen to be
Speaker 4: a friend, so they are told and experience and have
Speaker 4: the ability to hear about the weaknesses and the things
Speaker 4: that we all fight against and all of that. Every day,
Speaker 4: those same people to ingratiate themselves when they have an
Speaker 4: opportunity to give what they.
Speaker 1: What's the strategy.
Speaker 4: It involves cutting everybody but them and anybody else who
Speaker 4: seem to be safe. And it takes a lot of
Speaker 4: discernment as a leader to hear your people giving you
Speaker 4: advice that is often reinforced by the white folks, but
Speaker 4: can can start with your own people and to say
Speaker 4: I know that this thing happened, but I see what
Speaker 4: I see touch value, I see what he brings to
Speaker 4: the table. And actually, I'm going to go ahead out
Speaker 4: on a limb and I'm still gonna work with my brother.
Speaker 1: Because I know what he's trying to do and I
Speaker 1: know he's changed his life.
Speaker 3: Because because it's shown, because it's through actions, you know,
Speaker 3: they say, and we always say, those closest to the
Speaker 3: solution are closest to the problem, you know, and that's
Speaker 3: what we have to invest in. So, like you said,
Speaker 3: shout out to me and Baraka for seeing that vision
Speaker 3: and just the way that he has been a mayor
Speaker 3: in Newark.
Speaker 2: Right, it's to find, you know, the the.
Speaker 3: Roses that grow from the concrete, right, just to understand
Speaker 3: how important it is and how much and and it
Speaker 3: makes you. It inspires you, right as somebody who who
Speaker 3: he believes in. It makes you to make sure that
Speaker 3: I can't mess up because I can disappoint him because
Speaker 3: you know that he's willing to go to bat for you.
Speaker 3: So it pushes you to that level when I tell
Speaker 3: people all the time, when you show somebody that you
Speaker 3: believe in them, it inspires them and motivates them beyond
Speaker 3: even their own faults, even their own weakness.
Speaker 2: It makes them that much stronger.
Speaker 3: So you know that ecosystem that they've created in New
Speaker 3: Work with the ov PTR and the.
Speaker 4: One half Office of Violence, right, because you bet we
Speaker 4: all we say the.
Speaker 3: Acron shout out to Colia, shout out to everybody over
Speaker 3: there's that's doing a.
Speaker 1: Lot of people doing great workout in new work.
Speaker 2: But that brings me to my I don't get it.
Speaker 2: What I don't get today is how.
Speaker 3: A man can set someone on fire on the public
Speaker 3: transportation in New York City and then sit there and
Speaker 3: watch the person burn, like you gotta be.
Speaker 2: Deranged people. The person the person literally allegedly set this lady.
Speaker 3: On fire, allegedly got off the train and if you
Speaker 3: there's a bunch of videos and then and when you
Speaker 3: look at the video, the person who allegedly set the
Speaker 3: person on fire was sitting on the bench just watching
Speaker 3: the person on fire. They didn't have any Yes, they
Speaker 3: didn't have any prior according to allegedly, they didn't have
Speaker 3: any prior relationships.
Speaker 2: They didn't know the person.
Speaker 3: The person was literally on the train sleeping and the
Speaker 3: man just went and set this lady ablaze and the
Speaker 3: lady was standing up there.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 3: It was a very visual thing and a lot of
Speaker 3: people why do you put I'm like, this is on
Speaker 3: every news site on the world, like I found it,
Speaker 3: and I couldn't believe at first. I put it because
Speaker 3: I thought it was just maybe AI or somebody, and
Speaker 3: I was like, yo. But then when I started realizing
Speaker 3: that this was really actually something that happened, and then
Speaker 3: you just see, even if police are just walking by,
Speaker 3: it just seemed it didn't seem real.
Speaker 2: It seems so real.
Speaker 3: It seemed like there would have been a level of distraught,
Speaker 3: a level of confusion, a level of like emergency that
Speaker 3: I didn't see. There was no sense of urgency to
Speaker 3: help this woman, put this lady out, no water, there
Speaker 3: was no blanket, nobody was doing anything to stop this
Speaker 3: this lady from being on fire.
Speaker 1: But she didn't seem that uh.
Speaker 2: It just it seemed to me that he.
Speaker 1: Was even standing there.
Speaker 4: Like when I saw a little clip that you know,
Speaker 4: I don't like watching videos, but I saw a little
Speaker 4: clip of it on somebody else's page. I think it
Speaker 4: was brother five. I saw a clip of it, and
Speaker 4: I'm like, Okay, she's not like screaming running. I don't
Speaker 4: I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 3: That's why I was confused. What I would think is
Speaker 3: at the nervous because it looked like from the.
Speaker 2: Top, it looked like it was completely burnt.
Speaker 7: It didn't even look like so she was already so
Speaker 7: it probably just when you see the step, it probably
Speaker 7: was just like a reflex because I don't think I
Speaker 7: think that person had already passed with the reflex of
Speaker 7: the body was probably.
Speaker 1: Still moving in motionless.
Speaker 2: It was terrible, man, I just you.
Speaker 4: Know, people, that's why Daniel Penny had to kill Jordan
Speaker 4: Nearly because he was a threatning thing is just something.
Speaker 2: Like, but that's the person, this is, this is the
Speaker 2: person you're supposed to kill.
Speaker 1: Don't say that, but I know.
Speaker 2: But what I'm trying to tell you if if you
Speaker 2: sit there and watch somebody set somebody off.
Speaker 1: Somebody actually did the actually set and then.
Speaker 3: They got off the train and was able to sit
Speaker 3: in a chair and get on another train. Literally the
Speaker 3: person got on another train and was apprehended on another train.
Speaker 3: So like the fact, the fact that nobody apprehended that person.
Speaker 3: But you thought Daniel Penny, I mean that you thought
Speaker 3: Jordan Nearly. You know, Michael Jackson was frustrated, hungry, you know, destroyed.
Speaker 4: Yelling, yelling, and I said, but didn't didn't approach anybody
Speaker 4: or touch anybody, but you let him.
Speaker 3: This is that That's another thing I don't get right
Speaker 3: how How How was the threat? How was Jordan nearly
Speaker 3: the threat enough for you to choke him to death?
Speaker 3: But this man who set somebody on fire didn't even
Speaker 3: get touched, not one person, not one person.
Speaker 1: So you would have ran up to the man.
Speaker 3: I would have done something. There's no way I was
Speaker 3: gonna watch you set somebody on fire and didn't just
Speaker 3: sit there.
Speaker 2: There's no way. Not me, No, you would have. It's
Speaker 2: just no, It's just no way. There's no way.
Speaker 4: Like I would have been screaming and trying to get
Speaker 4: something to throw, like taking my police walk.
Speaker 3: There was no there was no urgency. Nobody was like, yo,
Speaker 3: that's the person. Nobody was in wait, like that's the
Speaker 3: person who did.
Speaker 1: It was just nothing, It just was maybe you just
Speaker 1: don't see it in the video.
Speaker 2: It's not happening. The police walked by him.
Speaker 1: He was able to get the lady still at the time.
Speaker 1: That see I didn't watch the.
Speaker 3: If you watch the video, if you watch the video,
Speaker 3: the door is open and the one that I have
Speaker 3: is a man table. He's like, yo, rip to the lady,
Speaker 3: but this is on fire. This really, this is really
Speaker 3: a person on fire, he said him. He said it
Speaker 3: was a man, but we find out a lady was
Speaker 3: a lady.
Speaker 2: He said he's on fire. He's on fire.
Speaker 3: And then you see the police walk by the door,
Speaker 3: open door, with the person on fire walk by. You
Speaker 3: see the person sitting on the bench, and then you
Speaker 3: see the person on fire take like a step, and
Speaker 3: that's when the person on the bench gets up. The
Speaker 3: police don't already walk by him. This person's still sitting there.
Speaker 3: There's no sense to urge. There's nobody around. Everybody just
Speaker 3: completely gone. And it's just like this didn't seem like
Speaker 3: it was real. It didn't seem like it was an
Speaker 3: emergency situation. It didn't seem like nobody took this serious.
Speaker 3: And it's just like, I just don't understand.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 3: My condolezs goes out to the family, you know, you know,
Speaker 3: and I don't know what the mind that you have
Speaker 3: to have some type of mental health to do that.
Speaker 2: I just don't.
Speaker 3: I don't even understand what else it could be, you know,
Speaker 3: for you to just set a stranger ablade.
Speaker 4: The mental health crisis of you know, this city in
Speaker 4: New York is very significant. It's very severe, and we
Speaker 4: won't be able to choke our way out of it,
Speaker 4: to kill our way out of it, to arrest our
Speaker 4: way out of it. We won't be able to solve
Speaker 4: it with rhetoric or with new laws. We will only
Speaker 4: be able to settle it if a new law is
Speaker 4: created that mandates very severe mental health support for people
Speaker 4: from school age all the way up to people who
Speaker 4: are working.
Speaker 1: In this city.
Speaker 4: You have people who are going to jobs every day
Speaker 4: that are working high level jobs. You got people sometimes
Speaker 4: you in the train station, people start cursing and they
Speaker 4: stay employee. In fact, I was going through security a
Speaker 4: couple of months ago and really got into it with
Speaker 4: the TSA agent who really thought we was in the
Speaker 4: street like we was outside. Well, I don't know, but
Speaker 4: you ain't gonna be able to win. Okay, But sweet
Speaker 4: are I understand what you're saying. I'm just telling you
Speaker 4: that it always works. So if you're saying that I
Speaker 4: need to take it off now, it's a certain way
Speaker 4: you need.
Speaker 1: To speak to it.
Speaker 4: I don't got to speak to No, yes, you do,
Speaker 4: because guess what, I am paying for you to stand
Speaker 4: here and do a job. And so there is a
Speaker 4: way that I would like to be talked to. I
Speaker 4: don't you don't I'm not a person that gives people problems,
Speaker 4: and they in the point of authority to tell me
Speaker 4: you need to put this in the bind or you
Speaker 4: gotta do I'm not getting into no fight over that.
Speaker 4: But you're not gonna talk to me like me and
Speaker 4: you outside in the projects on one whatever street. But
Speaker 4: what I'm telling you is that people be going through stuff.
Speaker 4: So whereas you would think that because we're in this
Speaker 4: environment and I could get into it, which you back
Speaker 4: and forth and didn't keep going, you never know, she
Speaker 4: might have.
Speaker 1: Came flying through the thing, knocked me down. Try to
Speaker 1: fight me.
Speaker 4: Because people are going to corporate jobs, they're going to Broadway,
Speaker 4: they're going.
Speaker 1: To hospitals, and they are the people.
Speaker 4: They are the worker, the doctor, the the whatever whatever
Speaker 4: the corporate and the executive having very serious mental life
Speaker 4: would do.
Speaker 2: I had to think.
Speaker 3: I had a receipt in my pocket, you know how
Speaker 3: you taking the stuff out, you put it in there.
Speaker 3: And I was going back through and it was a
Speaker 3: little receipt and I just put it on top of
Speaker 3: the thing, and she's like, don't just throw that there.
Speaker 3: I said, well, man, will should I put it? Well,
Speaker 3: I don't know what you should put it, put it
Speaker 3: in garbage. Would you just throw that in your in
Speaker 3: your house like that? I can imagine how you live?
Speaker 3: I said, man, where did all this come from?
Speaker 2: You don't know nothing about how I live, you know.
Speaker 2: And she was a very she was a very big lady.
Speaker 3: And I was about to say, well, I can imagine,
Speaker 3: and I didn't want to, and I didn't get into
Speaker 3: that because I was really I was like, well, why
Speaker 3: would you talk about how you all this over a
Speaker 3: piece of paper?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, I could just tell, but.
Speaker 4: That's what I'm saying, Like people are going there and
Speaker 4: then that the problem is that what so happened if
Speaker 4: you would have responded to her in the same way
Speaker 4: that she was speaking to you, and then it would
Speaker 4: have turned into a thing. So because because because trust me,
Speaker 4: like you, like her, like anybody, we all got stuff
Speaker 4: going on. So it's not just a one sided thing.
Speaker 4: You might meet somebody on the other side who might snap,
Speaker 4: and that means that we have to be dealing with
Speaker 4: mental health from when our children are very, very small.
Speaker 4: The one thing I heard those brothers saying today, tut
Speaker 4: and Ate, is when this young man was with them
Speaker 4: and they took him out right, and he's telling they
Speaker 4: telling the story he does not like. He gets nervous
Speaker 4: around other people. God only knows the story of how
Speaker 4: he got there, but there's been no one to address it, right,
Speaker 4: so nobody else. So this day he could have created
Speaker 4: a mass crisis off of trauma that might have set
Speaker 4: in at four years old.
Speaker 1: Three years old, we don't know. So with that being said,
Speaker 1: you know, and it might not be that.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's something that he went through outside at twelve
Speaker 4: that nobody knows about. I'm just saying all of this
Speaker 4: to say until we take a serious, serious look at
Speaker 4: how to deal with mental health, not to the point
Speaker 4: that you have to be in crisis to get support,
Speaker 4: but that you have tools for addressing the potential of
Speaker 4: a crisis. And that only comes from from school age,
Speaker 4: from a child very small, being given the tools to
Speaker 4: deal with pressure, to deal with the response to the
Speaker 4: world and all the crazy things that's constantly going on.
Speaker 1: You need tools, and we're not we've not been presented
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 2: We sure have not.
Speaker 3: Y No, Well, that brings us to the end of
Speaker 3: another episode. Shout out to our brothers eight and tut
Speaker 3: from New Direction. Make sure you follow those brothers. They're
Speaker 3: doing amazing work. Thank you to our followers. You always
Speaker 3: support us. Make sure you follow us on YouTube at
Speaker 3: TMI Show PC and subscribe to our YouTube channel, and
Speaker 3: then follow us on ig it's TMI Underscore Show. Leave
Speaker 3: suggestions any guests you want to hear. If you love us,
Speaker 3: you hate us, just let us know. We appreciate all
Speaker 3: the feedback and we appreciate y'all for making us the
Speaker 3: number one podcast in the world. Shout out to Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory.
Speaker 3: She's not gonna always be wrong. I'm not gonna always
Speaker 3: be right, but we both always and I mean always
Speaker 3: be authentic peace.
Speaker 2: So look, that's how we a