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Speaker 1: And they put you in a boat you've never been in,

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Speaker 1: and a life jacket that you really don't know how

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Speaker 1: to use, and water you can't swim in, in a

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Speaker 1: place that you can't get to from your neighborhood, and say, row,

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Speaker 1: I bet it, I bet it.

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Speaker 2: They pushed us out. We didn't move. That's what I

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Speaker 2: said the line in the book. One of the kids outside,

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Speaker 2: I got to call him out, but he's my boy,

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Speaker 2: Deshaun Benson. He starts crying and I was like, man,

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Speaker 2: I know you. You don't have the gang shootouts you saw,

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Speaker 2: and you like you go outside the next day, the

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Speaker 2: next moment, you know, and you cried in a boat.

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Speaker 3: That's so different, you know.

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Speaker 2: And I remember we wouldn't move and they had to

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Speaker 2: pull us back in. They were looking at each other

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Speaker 2: like what did we get ourselves into?

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Speaker 3: Welcome everybody to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.

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Speaker 3: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, and entrepreneur,

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Speaker 3: and I'm a football coach in inner City Memphis. And

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Speaker 3: the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for the

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Speaker 3: film about our team, it's called Undefeated Guys. I believe

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Speaker 3: our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch

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Speaker 3: of fancy people and nice suths talking big words that

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Speaker 3: nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an

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Speaker 3: army of normal folks, US, just you and me deciding, Hey,

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Speaker 3: I can help. That's what r sha Cooper, the voice

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Speaker 3: we just heard, has done. Arhade grew up in the

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Speaker 3: West Side of Chicago, one of the most dangerous and

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Speaker 3: impoverished neighborhoods in our country. And yet this kid who

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Speaker 3: couldn't swim became the captain of the first all black

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Speaker 3: rowing team in the United States. And it was a

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Speaker 3: pretty rocky start, as you just heard. But since then,

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Speaker 3: and Urche has helped start a ton of inner city

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Speaker 3: growing programs. His book, A Most Beautiful Thing was turned

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Speaker 3: into a movie by Dwayne Wade Grant Hill and was

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Speaker 3: narrated by Common I can't wait for you to meet

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Speaker 3: ur Shay right after these brief messages from our generals sponsors,

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Speaker 3: welcome everybody to an army of normal folks, which is

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Speaker 3: something I don't often say. I usually just jump in.

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Speaker 3: Our guest today is Rhae Cooper, and I cannot wait

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Speaker 3: to talk to him and talk about his story. But

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Speaker 3: it's also an opportunity to talk about a lot of

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Speaker 3: a lot of what our society is dealing with, confused about.

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Speaker 3: And I am more than excited to have this time today.

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Speaker 3: And for those of you listening, it's going to be

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Speaker 3: a really cool opportunity for you to uh get a

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Speaker 3: reality check on what goes on and so much of

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Speaker 3: the city centers across our country. So with that, we're

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Speaker 3: going to get started. R Shae Cooper. Hey, bro, I

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Speaker 3: am I am so stoked to get ready to talk

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Speaker 3: to you. Let's just dive into urhe the young man.

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Speaker 3: I want to hear about where our shade was born.

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Speaker 3: You know, siblings, and I'm not talking about thirteen year

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Speaker 3: old in high school before that. You know, just where

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Speaker 3: you came up to tell us where you came from.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I was born in Chicago, Chicago West Side. You

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Speaker 2: know my mother was born in Mississippi.

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Speaker 3: You're ah, whoa, wh whoa. I didn't even know that. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Do you know where was at Jackson? Yes, my grandmother's

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Speaker 2: from Jackson and great grandmother yeah, and.

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Speaker 3: Your great grandmother, great grandmother, she would have been maybe

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Speaker 3: even a sharecropper.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, my grandmother said she picked cotton, and

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Speaker 2: you know she was out there in the field. So

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Speaker 2: that's the Yeah, does.

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Speaker 3: Your mom remember that.

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Speaker 2: No, my mom moved my grandmother. She said she wanted

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Speaker 2: to escape the violent South until when my mom was born.

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Speaker 2: She moved.

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Speaker 3: She wanted to escape the violence South and went to

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Speaker 3: west side of.

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Speaker 2: The West Side of Chicago, Miss brother. And you know,

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Speaker 2: she's looking for more opportunities. And I didn't know that

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Speaker 2: until I was a teenager. But yeah, Chicago West Side

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Speaker 2: is where I was born. And you know, as a kid,

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Speaker 2: I can remember just my mom and my stepdad and

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Speaker 2: she had a job, she was working, My stepdad was working.

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Speaker 2: I had an older brother and a younger brother and

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Speaker 2: younger sister. Touch four of you, four of us, right,

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Speaker 2: and it just seemed like it seemed like a normal life.

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Speaker 2: I was young, but I think I was about nine

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Speaker 2: years old when I started noticing a difference difference in.

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Speaker 3: What and a difference in your own family's reality changing,

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Speaker 3: or a difference in your family dynamic and other things.

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Speaker 2: A difference in my family dynamic, not just compared to others,

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Speaker 2: but the change of being able to have dinner and

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Speaker 2: sit at a table with my family to step that

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Speaker 2: not being there the difference, and you know, my mom

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Speaker 2: being home with us every night to the point that

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Speaker 2: she's not there, you know, arguments every night, mother scratching

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Speaker 2: her skin, Christmas gifts no longer there. On December twenty fifth,

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Speaker 2: I was too young to understand what was happening, but

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Speaker 2: things were changing, and it wasn't until maybe I was eleven.

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Speaker 2: I was sleeping on the couch and my brother had

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Speaker 2: this this old chilling's bucket. You know, people would make

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Speaker 2: chiplins and they'd keep the buckets and use it for

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Speaker 2: a mop bucket or something like that.

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Speaker 3: I thought chitlins were only in the South. I guess

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Speaker 3: it came from Jackson with your great grandma brug It, Chicago.

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Speaker 2: And I remember him throwing a bucket of water on

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Speaker 2: me and he said, wake up, let me show you something.

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Speaker 2: So I followed him through the hallway and uh, he said,

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Speaker 2: look through the keyhole. And I looked through the keyhold.

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Speaker 2: I seen my mom, my stepdad, and my aunt and

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Speaker 2: it was a mirror and it was white powder on

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Speaker 2: the mirror. He said, you see that, that's called drugs.

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Speaker 2: And the first thing that came to my mind was

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Speaker 2: these like like a box of lemon Head or Boston

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Speaker 2: Baked Beans that says say no to drugs when you

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Speaker 2: open it, or a commercial to say this is your brain,

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Speaker 2: this is your brain on drugs. And I was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: this is not good. And that's when I noticed a

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Speaker 2: change in my family dynamic and I became aware that

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Speaker 2: you know, we are not the same that we were

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Speaker 2: maybe you know a few years before, Like there's no

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Speaker 2: happiness here because now there's fights and now we go

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Speaker 2: from being punished to like sitting on the corner or

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Speaker 2: or writing to getting beat with belts or extension chords and.

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Speaker 3: So all is a result of ultimately addiction.

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Speaker 2: Addiction, you know.

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Speaker 3: No, so our shape. That's such a good picture up

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Speaker 3: to eleven, and we're going to go chronologically, but it's

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Speaker 3: a good time to talk about. Now, how do you

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Speaker 3: know I am?

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Speaker 2: How forty?

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Speaker 3: You're old? Brother? But looking back, okay, because if that's

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Speaker 3: the case, that was the late eighties, early nineties, yep, right, Warren,

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Speaker 3: drugs just say no, I mean all that stuff. But

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Speaker 3: before that reality you had a mom that was working

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Speaker 3: and a stepdad that was working in a seemingly organic family.

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Speaker 3: What was the socioeconomic situation that your family was in.

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Speaker 3: What kind of jobs was your dad or your stepdad

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Speaker 3: and your mom holding.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he was like a mechanic, right, blue collar do

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Speaker 2: a mechanic, you know. And my mother was working at

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Speaker 2: a laundry, matt. It was a little simple job, blue.

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Speaker 3: Collar, but blue collar, but they were making.

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Speaker 2: Enough to make a family, enough to keep a family together.

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Speaker 3: And do you think there was addiction prior when you

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Speaker 3: were younger or did it evolve as you got older.

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Speaker 2: No, I think it evolved as I got older, And honestly,

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Speaker 2: I don't I don't want to skip anything, but I

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Speaker 2: didn't ask my mom about this until I was older.

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Speaker 2: And my stepdad hanging out with their own crowd, right,

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Speaker 2: they were young, and he started doing drugs and he

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Speaker 2: introduced it to my mom, you know, and uh my

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Speaker 2: mom did it because she loved him and and I

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Speaker 2: think it was at parties from there, you know stairsteps, yeah, stairsteps,

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Speaker 2: And it became an everyday thing.

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Speaker 3: So your your your family is living under one roof.

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Speaker 3: It's not your father but stepfather, and I assume he's

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Speaker 3: taking the father role at that point, right, and he

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Speaker 3: got a mom, both are employed. Uh, kids are clearly

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Speaker 3: cared for up until a day took over. All right, Well,

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Speaker 3: that doesn't agree with a societal story about inner city

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Speaker 3: Black families, which is it's all fatherlessness, it's all you know.

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Speaker 3: Remember what was the term welfare queen, I think to describe,

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Speaker 3: you know, women having children just to get the extra

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Speaker 3: WICIC or welfare check. But you had the organic family,

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Speaker 3: You had the two parents working you on the incomes

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Speaker 3: that your parents are making. You certainly weren't living in

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Speaker 3: some big, fancy house, but you had a home, you know.

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Speaker 3: And it's interesting you just described going from having a

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Speaker 3: family dinner at the table to not which means there

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Speaker 3: were family dinners at the table. I mean to me,

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Speaker 3: it sounds like an inner city Black version of Leave

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Speaker 3: it to Beaver starting off just an organic American family.

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Speaker 3: That is not what most people think when they think

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Speaker 3: Chicago Westside.

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Speaker 2: Ye.

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Speaker 3: So, how many kids at four or five, six, seven

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Speaker 3: years old in your reality, how many kids had that

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Speaker 3: started with that type of dynamic? I mean in your neighborhood.

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Speaker 2: Not a lot, I'll tell you that, not a lot.

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Speaker 2: I mean my h and I think maybe some, but

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Speaker 2: you know, I'm just thinking about my five closest friends. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you know what I mean, one of them, one of

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Speaker 2: them had a dad around.

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Speaker 1: And.

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Speaker 2: You know they we all counted on each other for food, right,

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Speaker 2: Like you don't have food, let's all go to donald

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Speaker 2: because Donald's the one who family has food. You know

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Speaker 2: what I mean? This week, this week exactly, and so

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Speaker 2: same story. Right, family comes from the South, some mom

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Speaker 2: with single parent, moms who work a few jobs, and

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Speaker 2: some moms was on drugs and one mom was selling drugs.

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Speaker 3: You know what I mean, Were you living in a project.

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Speaker 2: We were not living in projects that apartment or apartment

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Speaker 2: buildings where it's like yeah, just families. You know, people

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Speaker 2: doing drugs in a hallway, I mean the access it

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Speaker 2: was a high rise, inner city building.

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Speaker 3: I mean I'm in I'm envisioning the Jefferson's Build, not

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Speaker 3: the Jeffersons, the Good Times building.

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Speaker 2: Good Times building that kind of yeah, like that kind

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Speaker 2: of like that. You know, you walk in the hallway

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Speaker 2: and people are doing drugs, people are shooting dice. Right,

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Speaker 2: You're definitely walking through the cloud of rock cocaine.

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Speaker 3: Most times, So even when your family union had not

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Speaker 3: been gripped by addiction, you were still surrounding.

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Speaker 2: You're still surrounded by it.

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Speaker 3: And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,

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Speaker 3: we're now offering premium memberships for the Army of Normal

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Speaker 3: other Premium members and me access to monthly Ask Me

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Speaker 3: Anything episodes, and occasional bonus audio. If you're interested in this,

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Speaker 3: I hope you go to normal Folks dot us and

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Speaker 3: click on Premium. But guys, that's really not what it's about.

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Speaker 3: You get all that cool stuff, and we're going to

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Speaker 3: provide all that stuff. But the truth is we're trying

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Speaker 3: to grow the Army of Normal Folks and have a

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Speaker 3: greater impact on the country, and with the premium memberships,

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Speaker 3: So we've decided to set an exciting new goal of

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Speaker 3: trying to be on Apple's Top Shows chart for our

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Speaker 3: entire first year, which will mean more attension, more listeners,

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Speaker 3: more Army members, and most importantly more impact. But we

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Speaker 3: need you as always, So go to normal Folks dot

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Speaker 3: us and click on Premium if you're down to help.

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Speaker 3: If not, just keep listening. We'll be right back. So

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Speaker 3: when you wouldn't know this, so I'll just tell you

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Speaker 3: my father left when I was four. My mother was

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Speaker 3: married and divorced five times, and as a result, I

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Speaker 3: had two a paternal and a maternal set of grandparents

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Speaker 3: that cared for me deeply. Thank goodness. My mother left

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Speaker 3: me and tried her best, but you know, and she

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Speaker 3: still loves me and I love her. But I mean,

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Speaker 3: it's the fact is with with five divorces, there's not

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Speaker 3: a whole lot of at least as a young man,

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Speaker 3: you don't feel a lot of stability. But despite all that,

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Speaker 3: I found a way to go to college on scholarship, graduated,

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Speaker 3: worked hard, made money and worked my way up and

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Speaker 3: started coaching football and teaching school, got into business and

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Speaker 3: ended up at Manassas and coach football there seven years.

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Speaker 3: The reason I'm telling you this is, prior to my

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Speaker 3: time at Manassas, my mentality was a very ingrained American mentality,

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Speaker 3: which is we have a free education system. We are

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Speaker 3: the freest country in the world. We are not held back.

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Speaker 3: We have free will, and if we want to take

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Speaker 3: advantages of the amazing opportunities this country offers us, we

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Speaker 3: can go to school, we can get an education, we

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Speaker 3: can pull ourselves up from our bootstripes despite any of

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Speaker 3: our circumstances, and we can find a way to be successful.

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Speaker 3: That was my belief set. And then I spent seven

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Speaker 3: years of Anassis and Manassas is a neighborhood. The neighborhoods

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Speaker 3: is surround Nasses. Ironically enough, one's called New Chicago and

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Speaker 3: the other is Green Law and the other is Smoky City.

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Speaker 3: And the kids that I coached from that area. Prior

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Speaker 3: to going to Manassas, I would have said, I get

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Speaker 3: there coming from poverty. I get there coming from destitute situations.

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Speaker 3: I get there coming from places when you walk down

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Speaker 3: the hallway you see addiction and all of this dysfunction

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Speaker 3: around you like you do as a kid. But they

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Speaker 3: still have free school, they still have an opportunity. They

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Speaker 3: can still do it this great country we have. But

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Speaker 3: I don't believe that anymore. I believe that opportunity exists,

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Speaker 3: but I believe there are fundamental barriers that exist in

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Speaker 3: inner city neighborhoods across our country to kids much like

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Speaker 3: the kids that are your friends that you grew up

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Speaker 3: with and you that are barriers that weren't in my face.

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Speaker 3: And while you can still do that, there's a whole

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Speaker 3: hell of a lot more to overcome than just go

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Speaker 3: to school, get an educational work hard talk to me

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Speaker 3: about that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, the first thing come to mind when

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Speaker 2: you said that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you that's a great point. What do

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Speaker 3: you hear when you hear a white dude say that?

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Speaker 3: For real? What do you feel in here?

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Speaker 2: You know, it's just you know, I think people do

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Speaker 2: have You know, it's rough because you know, it goes

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Speaker 2: back to just this this thought, especially when you talk

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Speaker 2: about opportunities and you know, you know, everyone should be

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Speaker 2: able to go to schools, free education and work. And

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Speaker 2: I explained why. It goes back to me missing forty

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Speaker 2: days of school my eighth grade year and walking into

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Speaker 2: school and I didn't have to go to school anymore

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Speaker 2: because my mom wasn't around at that point. She was,

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Speaker 2: I mean, she would come home every now, Dan, Grandma

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Speaker 2: had too much going on.

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Speaker 3: Because your mom wasn't at it.

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Speaker 2: She's in the streets, and my teacher told me, you

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Speaker 2: know what, you're gonna die before fourteen years old? If

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Speaker 2: that because the times I was there, I just couldn't learn.

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Speaker 3: I know, I understand. I want the people listening to

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Speaker 3: us to understand why a kid from inner city West

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Speaker 3: Side Chicago can't learn in school, even though it's free

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Speaker 3: and provider for Yes, why can't you learn?

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Speaker 2: I live in an environment where have nots must have,

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Speaker 2: and people do whatever it takes to feed their day

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Speaker 2: shall or feed their family. And because of that, I

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Speaker 2: heard gunshots when I slept, I skipped over pools of blood.

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Speaker 2: I lost friends, I ran for my life. I seen

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Speaker 2: people take others lives to protect theirs, and I've seen

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Speaker 2: what some soldiers have seen in war. But before I

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Speaker 2: was thirteen years old, and I am hungry. At the

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Speaker 2: same time, I wonder if my mom's going to go home.

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Speaker 2: And there's no way after seeing all that, I can

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Speaker 2: walk in the classroom and learn about who really discovered

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Speaker 2: America or what's fifty percent of half. There's just no way.

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Speaker 2: It's impossible.

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Speaker 3: Do you do? You do? You know as a twelve

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Speaker 3: year old you're not learning what you're supposed to be learning.

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Speaker 3: Are you even aware?

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Speaker 2: You know, I'm not aware. I just know that you

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Speaker 2: I knew that I wasn't doing well because I didn't

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Speaker 2: feel well. You know, honestly, you because you know kids

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Speaker 2: clown each other and roast each other. You believe that

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Speaker 2: a teacher is always right. And when you hand or

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Speaker 2: you handed a piece of paper that says F or D,

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Speaker 2: you think you're just dumb. You're not smart because you

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Speaker 2: don't understand the systemic you know, issues behind that, and

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Speaker 2: so you grow up losing that confidence, losing that help.

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you got to throw a chest out and a

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Speaker 3: bravado like you're a badass to survive while in between

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Speaker 3: your ears and your heart and your head you feel

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Speaker 3: like hell, I.

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Speaker 2: Feel like hell, absolutely that that is that is it?

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Speaker 2: That that that is the answer, And of course we

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Speaker 2: want it right. You want the education.

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Speaker 3: That's another thing that's interesting. A lot of people will

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Speaker 3: say the education is there, they just don't want it. Quote,

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Speaker 3: you can't help these these folks end.

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Speaker 2: Quote yeah, I think that. You know the same folks

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Speaker 2: will say, hey, you know, I just got a divorce.

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Speaker 2: Our kids need therapy. You know what I mean?

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 2: You know, you think about what we saw, you know,

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Speaker 2: and there's no access to therapy or talking to someone

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Speaker 2: about one social worker in a school of four hundred people,

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Speaker 2: and so even what soldiers see and they're older, of course,

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Speaker 2: let's advocate that they talk to someone to have to

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Speaker 2: see what they just saw. There was no access for.

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Speaker 3: Us to that. Yeah, well, what you're talking about is trauma,

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Speaker 3: which is interesting you you went to that because that

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Speaker 3: was my next question. But first a few messages from

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Speaker 3: our sponsors. You know, I was shot at down the

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Speaker 3: hallway when I was a kid by my fourth daddy.

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Speaker 3: The third daddy was a guy that I got into

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Speaker 3: my first fist fight with because he was yanking on

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Speaker 3: my mama's hair and I was too young, but I

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Speaker 3: was ready to roll at fourteen. You don't know what

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Speaker 3: You don't know what's going on or what's right or wrong.

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Speaker 3: You see something, you act right. And now, as a

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Speaker 3: fifty three year old man, I'll look back on that

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Speaker 3: and I recognize that I was traumatized as a child

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Speaker 3: by some of those situations and by constantly believing that

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Speaker 3: this man's finally I'm going to have a father that's

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Speaker 3: committed to me, that loves me for the rest of

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Speaker 3: my life and then he's gone. And so I understand

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Speaker 3: childhood trauma in a very personal way, but I didn't

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Speaker 3: until probably ten years ago, and I lived with it

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Speaker 3: all through being married as a husband and a father

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Speaker 3: and a business owner and a football coach and everything,

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Speaker 3: still never really understanding even my own insecurities as a

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Speaker 3: grown man as a result of that trauma. So in

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Speaker 3: your book, it opens with something that, dude, it just

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Speaker 3: I mean, I read it like four lines. I read

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Speaker 3: it over and over and over again, and everybody listened

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Speaker 3: to me get r say Cooper's book, and the opening

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Speaker 3: line is you had a raggedy fan in your apartment

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Speaker 3: and it wasn't any count but it's all you had.

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Speaker 3: You weren't gonna go buy a new one because it

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Speaker 3: blue air. But it clicked, and it clicked all the time.

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Speaker 3: And if you walked into the apartment first time in

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Speaker 3: the apartment, you would have noticed the clicking. But when

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Speaker 3: you live with this fan in your apartment your entire life,

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Speaker 3: you just don't even hear the clicking anymore. It's just

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Speaker 3: a fan over there clicking, and you just tune it

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Speaker 3: out because it's so common and it's just something you

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Speaker 3: every time the fan plade spends around, which is a

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Speaker 3: lot of clicking. And the metaphor you use is that's

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Speaker 3: what death and drugs and murder and gang life and

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Speaker 3: everything is to a kid in westside Chicago. Is it's

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Speaker 3: just a clicking fan that you get used to and

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Speaker 3: you ignore it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. One of my teammates said in a documentary, he said,

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Speaker 2: when he was asked how did it affect it, he said,

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Speaker 2: it didn't you know? That was every day, that was that,

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Speaker 2: that was our way of life. I also said in

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Speaker 2: the book because of that, I felt like and my teacher,

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Speaker 2: who I love, who was amazing, was a part of

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Speaker 2: my life in seventh grade, she said, I want to

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Speaker 2: tell her at my wedding. At my wedding, she said

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Speaker 2: that I said, God exists everywhere, but on the West

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Speaker 2: side of Chicago, you know, And which.

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Speaker 3: Is ironic that everybody over there calls himself Lord. Which

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Speaker 3: we'll get to it, we get we'll get to that

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Speaker 3: in a minute. But the point is that clicking of

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Speaker 3: the fan that you grow to ignore because that's where

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Speaker 3: you live, and it's just a noise in your life.

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Speaker 3: So is death and murder. And everything. And the point

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Speaker 3: is tying it back to my personal story is you

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Speaker 3: were traumatized. So were all of your friends, So are

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Speaker 3: your classmates. So I mean, do you think it's is

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Speaker 3: an exaggeration overstated to say that the fast majority ninety

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Speaker 3: five percent or better of the kids growing up in

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Speaker 3: West Side Chicago by the age of eleven are traumatized. Yeah, absolutely,

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Speaker 3: No different than a Vietnam War veteran.

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Speaker 2: No different.

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Speaker 3: So how are they to concentrate in school? They go

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Speaker 3: can so how are they to learn? So how are

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Speaker 3: they to break the cycle of the despair and destruction

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Speaker 3: that is their lives and the lives of those around them?

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Speaker 3: And so therefore do they have the same opportunity in

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Speaker 3: a life that I had.

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Speaker 2: I think that's the answer everyone needs to hear, Bill.

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Speaker 3: But am I being a white paternalist in overstating this

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Speaker 3: or is this real? It's real?

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Speaker 2: I think it's absolutely real. And I think that the

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Speaker 2: way and it's told effectively through our storytelling, you know

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Speaker 2: what I mean? And I think our film really highlights

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Speaker 2: and get people an opportunity to walk through walk through that,

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Speaker 2: to understand, to see it, and also shout out those

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Speaker 2: rates of PTSD on the West side of Chicago, you know,

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Speaker 2: and the statistics says that one out of every three

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Speaker 2: child on the West Side of Chicago have lost a

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Speaker 2: close friend to my family member.

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Speaker 3: Just to say that again, everybody needs to let that

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Speaker 3: one sink in.

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Speaker 2: One out of three young people on the West Side

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Speaker 2: of Chicago have lost a close family member or friend

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Speaker 2: through game violence.

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Speaker 3: Now, let's talk about in psychology, there's a list of

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Speaker 3: things called stressors, and if you experienced two of the

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Speaker 3: top ten within a year of your life, you were

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Speaker 3: considered highly stressed, highly traumatized, right, And it's the death

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Speaker 3: of a child, the death of a spouse, the loss

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Speaker 3: of a job, witnessing a robbery, all the way down

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Speaker 3: to losing your watch. You know. It's a list from

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00:28:07,119 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 3: really traumatic things all the way down to ultimate things.

436
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:12,359
Speaker 3: And if you add up the points of the stressors

437
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:16,600
Speaker 3: that are happened, that kind of puts a number on

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00:28:16,680 --> 00:28:19,400
Speaker 3: your stress and if you're over a certain level, then

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00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 3: you're considered a highly stressed traumatized individual. The death of

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00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:29,680
Speaker 3: a friend or watching a crime committed is way up there,

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00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 3: and you're saying, by eleven years old, you'd experienced all

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00:28:33,600 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 3: of it.

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00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 2: Absolutely. How do you break out of that?

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00:28:38,440 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 3: How do you you know, how do you expect them

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00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 3: to go to school and care about your abcs when

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00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 3: you're just trying to survive.

447
00:28:46,520 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 2: Also, I look at like the mass shootings that happened,

448
00:28:50,280 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 2: like in suburban schools. I even remember Columbine, and I

449
00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:57,680
Speaker 2: remember it was happening more often. And the first thing

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00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 2: they would say, we will send in trauma house and

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00:29:00,200 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 2: trauma experts to help these kids unsee what they saw,

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00:29:04,160 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 2: and we're gonna give them time off from school and

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00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:08,080
Speaker 2: everyone will be able to see someone. I was like,

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00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:12,800
Speaker 2: damn that every day, you know. They it was like

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00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 2: why you learned it?

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00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 3: You saw?

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00:29:14,640 --> 00:29:17,640
Speaker 2: We just saw? That was every day and you expect

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00:29:17,880 --> 00:29:20,480
Speaker 2: suck it up, be a person. And the thing about

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00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:23,719
Speaker 2: trauma is that, you know, we are taught to bury it,

460
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 2: but the thing is that you bury it alive.

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00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:28,800
Speaker 3: And you bury it alive.

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00:29:28,920 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 2: And it always comes back. Everything reminds you of it.

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00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:34,320
Speaker 2: You know, you see some of these kids in the courtroom,

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00:29:34,360 --> 00:29:37,640
Speaker 2: your friends who are doing life, and you can see

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00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:40,640
Speaker 2: the pain in their eyes and the hurt and the

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00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:44,240
Speaker 2: pain and the trauma that they endure. And the thing

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00:29:44,360 --> 00:29:47,280
Speaker 2: is is that if you never gave them access to

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00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 2: heal from that trauma and pain. They're gonna grow up

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00:29:50,080 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 2: and redistribute that saying trauma and pain to their peers,

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00:29:53,920 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 2: and that's what we're seeing.

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00:29:55,000 --> 00:29:57,719
Speaker 3: And their children and their children and their grandchildren, and

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00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:00,560
Speaker 3: their wives and their husbands and everybody us as close

473
00:30:00,600 --> 00:30:05,440
Speaker 3: to them, they will redistribute that to them, and thus

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00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:07,000
Speaker 3: goes the cycle.

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00:30:07,720 --> 00:30:14,400
Speaker 2: I think any Soljia in comic will tell you that.

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00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:18,280
Speaker 3: That concludes Part one of our conversation with R. J. Cooper,

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00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 3: and I hope you'll listen to Part two that's now available.

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00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:24,880
Speaker 3: But if you don't, make sure you join the Army

479
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 3: of Normal Folks at normal Folks dot us and sign

480
00:30:27,680 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 3: up to become a member of our movement. It only

481
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 3: takes committing to doing one new thing this year to

482
00:30:33,520 --> 00:30:36,640
Speaker 3: help others, and there will be a ton of awesome

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00:30:36,680 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 3: ideas on this podcast from the folks we're featuring. Some

484
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:43,480
Speaker 3: of them may resonate with you and others may not

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00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:46,000
Speaker 3: at all, and that's okay, because we're all called to

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00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:49,640
Speaker 3: do different things with our different talents. By signing up,

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00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,360
Speaker 3: you'll also receive a weekly email with short episode summaries

488
00:30:53,720 --> 00:30:55,800
Speaker 3: in case you happen to miss an episode, or prefer

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00:30:55,920 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 3: reading about our incredible guests. Together we can change the country,

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00:31:00,880 --> 00:31:03,560
Speaker 3: and it starts with you. I'll see you in Part two.

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00:31:15,640 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 2: M