Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy centralow.
Speaker 2: Because Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, more people are
Speaker 2: celebrating than ever before. The only problem is not everyone
Speaker 2: knows the best way to celebrate.
Speaker 3: Walmart is under fire for selling Juneteenth products that some
Speaker 3: people say are tone deaf and insensitive. The products have
Speaker 3: been lambasted by many online after pictures of Juneteenth ice
Speaker 3: cream and party supply surface.
Speaker 4: The Children's Museum of Indianapolis is apologizing after backlash to
Speaker 4: a Juneteenth inspired food item in its cafeteria. Museum offered
Speaker 4: the Juneteenth Watermelon Salad. The museum released a statement saying,
Speaker 4: in part, as a museum, we apologize and acknowledge the
Speaker 4: negative impact that stereotypes have on communities of color.
Speaker 2: Oh this shit pisses me off so much. How are
Speaker 2: you gonna make a Juneteenth ice cream? I hope they
Speaker 2: took it all off the shelves and they gut rid
Speaker 2: of it. In fact, I don't trust them. Hope they
Speaker 2: send it here to the Daily Show and I'll I'll
Speaker 2: deal with it personally. Oh, every single one of those
Speaker 2: ice and any other ideas they have ice cream, they
Speaker 2: better send them here. It's got a randomness. What are
Speaker 2: you doing, What are you doing? You know, apart from
Speaker 2: the watermelon black people's stereotypes. It's amazing to me how
Speaker 2: America does this, Like they turn every meaningful holiday into
Speaker 2: an excuse to spend money. Like that's part of the
Speaker 2: problem here. You don't need to sell things for Juneteenth.
Speaker 2: Juneteenth wasn't even a mainstream thing last year, think about it.
Speaker 2: But now already they've turned it into a day of
Speaker 2: merch And look, I mean, I'm not hating you know,
Speaker 2: we do it too here on the show. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: this whole segment is brought to you by Taco Bell's
Speaker 2: brand new Flaming June teen Cordita's Taco Bell Emancipate your
Speaker 2: taste bods. All right, that's it for the headlines. But
Speaker 2: before we go, let's check in on traffic with our
Speaker 2: very own roy Wood Junior.
Speaker 5: Everybody else?
Speaker 3: What out board?
Speaker 4: What's up?
Speaker 6: What the see on?
Speaker 4: See thet the feel there?
Speaker 2: Let's jump in, sugar, what's happening in the traffic.
Speaker 1: Coming to these road?
Speaker 7: Real quick?
Speaker 1: Though, Before I do the traffic, here's thing about that
Speaker 1: watermelon salad. Yes, first of all, this is part of
Speaker 1: the problem with them trying to get see our t
Speaker 1: out of schools. Now they just slapping it on all
Speaker 1: the food and trying to sneak black history on you
Speaker 1: in the middle of the damn day while you're trying
Speaker 1: to eat some salad. And that's that's that's just too much, man.
Speaker 2: So you you don't w a juneteen salad.
Speaker 1: No, what I what I feel doog, is that we
Speaker 1: tried with Juneteenth.
Speaker 6: We tried.
Speaker 1: We tried to celebrate it collectively as a group. It
Speaker 1: didn't work. You got to give back to black people.
Speaker 1: This is just ours and we'll just take it and
Speaker 1: we'll just celebrate it by ourself with nobody else involved.
Speaker 1: It's just certain stuff that's just gotta stay black. We
Speaker 1: just got to keep it black.
Speaker 2: We tried.
Speaker 1: We just get certain stuff. It's just for us. It
Speaker 1: just don't make a share. We gotta keep Junie teenth,
Speaker 1: gotta keep Kwans, we gotta keep essence. Festival will take
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown and it's just certain stuff. It's ours. It's
Speaker 1: just ours.
Speaker 2: So the holiday would only be for Black Americans, then no.
Speaker 1: It's not. It's like it's our holiday. It's separate, but
Speaker 1: it's equal. See, you're trying to throw me off. This
Speaker 1: is all I'm saying that.
Speaker 2: I didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: All I'm saying is that you don't have to put
Speaker 1: history in everything. The salad looked good. That's the thing
Speaker 1: that was so sad about it. Had the little feather cheese,
Speaker 1: that had the vinegar rette. And now you didn't have
Speaker 1: to put.
Speaker 7: June teenth on it.
Speaker 1: All you had me at watermelon.
Speaker 2: That's all I have to do.
Speaker 1: But it's cool.
Speaker 4: It's cool.
Speaker 7: I'm gonna do the traffic.
Speaker 1: You want to do the traffic?
Speaker 7: Man, Do we even have time for traffic?
Speaker 6: No reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's traffic. Man. If we don't, don't, it's
Speaker 1: messed up.
Speaker 2: If you.
Speaker 1: Know where that is, then you know not to go there.
Speaker 1: Don't go there. Back to you.
Speaker 2: You may remember that President Trump had to move his
Speaker 2: big rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because it was originally scheduled
Speaker 2: on the same day as June teenth. Now that was
Speaker 2: particularly awkward because Tulsa is the site of an infamous
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty one massacre of black people. But in a
Speaker 2: new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump says that
Speaker 2: he had no idea June teenth was even a thing,
Speaker 2: and that he pulled many people around him and none
Speaker 2: of them had heard of June teenth either. Now I
Speaker 2: don't know why that's surprising. Of course, nobody around Trump
Speaker 2: had heard of June teenth. Look at the people he
Speaker 2: has around him. Look at them. Mike Pence doesn't even
Speaker 2: know what a Cayenne pepper is. You think he's gonna
Speaker 2: know about black history. But to be fair, Trump is
Speaker 2: hardly alone. There are many Americans who don't know what
Speaker 2: Juneteenth is. And if you're one of those people, Dull
Speaker 2: say sloanness, he had to explain it in her new segment,
Speaker 2: Dull sayan.
Speaker 8: Tomorrow is June tenth, the day we celebrate slavery officially
Speaker 8: ending in America.
Speaker 7: Or if you're gone with the.
Speaker 8: Wind fan a day of morning now, you might be
Speaker 8: thinking the end of slavery.
Speaker 7: So this is about the Emancipation Proclamation.
Speaker 8: Nope, the Emancipation Proclamation of eighteen sixty three didn't end slavery.
Speaker 8: Slavery didn't even end when the Civil War was over
Speaker 8: in eighteen sixty five. In reality, it took two months
Speaker 8: after the Civil War ended for the Union Army to
Speaker 8: get into all the slave states and free the slaves.
Speaker 8: When it came to giving out freedom white people ran
Speaker 8: on CP time, but on June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five,
Speaker 8: a Union general named Gordon Granger occupied Texas, the last
Speaker 8: slave state, and declared all the slaves free.
Speaker 7: I can a hero, and it looks like the brest
Speaker 7: of my coffee shop.
Speaker 8: I'm gonna have to thank him next time I order machiato.
Speaker 8: And freeing the slaves in Texas was especially important because
Speaker 8: although Texas was the last state to be emancipated, it
Speaker 8: had a ton of slaves.
Speaker 7: It was blacker than a family reunion in w Conda.
Speaker 8: That's because during the war, a lot of slave owners
Speaker 8: shift their slaves to Texas for state keeping, knowing even
Speaker 8: Union troops couldn't.
Speaker 7: Reach that far.
Speaker 8: They were basically treating Texas like the couch cushions to
Speaker 8: hide to weed in when the cops come. Officer, I
Speaker 8: didn't know I got this couch on Greg's list. It
Speaker 8: came with the we need. Of course, even though we
Speaker 8: celebrate Juneteenth as the end of slavery, it took many
Speaker 8: more months and a military occupation to actually enforce it.
Speaker 7: Because it's one thing to tell people they can't have slaves.
Speaker 7: It's another thing to.
Speaker 8: Go door to door like hey, you paying these guys,
Speaker 8: because if not, this better be a big ass sleepover.
Speaker 8: And all this still didn't free slaves in Union territories.
Speaker 8: That didn't happen until the third thirteenth Amendment. Yeah, that's
Speaker 8: right there, re Union states with slaves. Imagine living in
Speaker 8: New Jersey and being a slave. That's one human rights
Speaker 8: violation on top of another. Either way, Black people in
Speaker 8: Texas recognize June nineteenth as the day they were liberated.
Speaker 8: They organized the first celebration of June teeth. Then over
Speaker 8: time it's spread as black people migrated, and today is
Speaker 8: celebrated by black folks around the country. June teen celebrations
Speaker 8: have evolved and become a real way to.
Speaker 7: Pay homage to those who came before us.
Speaker 2: It is a representation of our freedom where we.
Speaker 8: Can all come together on one street, closed down the
Speaker 8: city to represent the culture.
Speaker 7: You see.
Speaker 8: That's why juneteenth is my favorite Independence Day. It goes
Speaker 8: June teenth Independence stay will Smith, then the fourth of July.
Speaker 6: I'm not a fan of fireworks.
Speaker 7: Sounds like someone's doing a drive by on a sky.
Speaker 8: So if you ask me, we should make June teenth
Speaker 8: a national holiday because everybody, everybody should celebrate the end
Speaker 8: of slavery, the beginning of freedom for black people, and
Speaker 8: the long march toward America's founding ideals. Also, we get
Speaker 8: the day off. I don't want to be starting an
Speaker 8: office in June. Heaven keeps heating up fishing a mircrowave
Speaker 8: because he's a pascatarian, and then he keeps poking.
Speaker 6: Out his day.
Speaker 2: Today is a really special day in African American history,
Speaker 2: and to learn more about it, we turned to Roywood
Speaker 2: Junior in another episode of CPE Time.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Cepee Time, the only show that's for the culture.
Speaker 1: The month of June is a special time in America.
Speaker 1: It's the start of summer. It's the time allergies rick
Speaker 1: havoc on our sinuses. And it's the month my hyperactive
Speaker 1: child is out of school and back in the house
Speaker 1: all day. The whole point of having kids is for
Speaker 1: them to be somewhere else, But Niama's gonna be around
Speaker 1: as much I wouldn't have had them. June is also
Speaker 1: a special month for black people because it marks the
Speaker 1: holiday June teenth, celebrating when slavery ended on June nineteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty five. Not many people think slavery was ended
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty three by everyone's favorite exhausted magician, Abraham Lincoln,
Speaker 1: but many slaves weren't actually freed until two and a
Speaker 1: half years later, proving that even black people's freedom runs
Speaker 1: on CP time. So in celebration of June tenth, I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about some of the slaves who celebrated
Speaker 1: their freedom early by escaping from slavery on their own.
Speaker 1: Slaves like Henry box Brown, a Virginian slave who's snuck
Speaker 1: inside of a wooden cratee and shipped himself to Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: where he could live as a freeman. The trip took
Speaker 1: twenty seven grueling hours. It could have been the same day,
Speaker 1: but box Brown couldn't afford Amazon Prime. Luckily, Henry Brown
Speaker 1: arrived safely in Philadelphia and turned his story into a
Speaker 1: stage act. Every night, Henry would climb into that same
Speaker 1: wooden crpe to reenact the arduous journey that carried him
Speaker 1: to freedom, which was brave of him. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I could relive a traumatic experience like that over
Speaker 1: and over again, and I've had bad experiences with packages.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, I used to work for a
Speaker 1: moving company. One time I moved all of a customer's
Speaker 1: possessions to the wrong apartment. My customer thought I was
Speaker 1: a thief, and the people in the apartment thought I
Speaker 1: was a reverse burglar. Every one was equally upset. Another
Speaker 1: slave who took his freedom into his own hands was
Speaker 1: Lewis Williams. He actually escaped slavery not once but twice.
Speaker 1: After his first escape, he was caught and brought to trial,
Speaker 1: but he got a look alike to switch places with
Speaker 1: him in the courtroom, and by the time the courts
Speaker 1: realized what had happened, Lewis had escaped again. Although that
Speaker 1: look alike was probably just a random black guy for
Speaker 1: being real about it, because Lewis knew that those white
Speaker 1: folks couldn't tell black people apart. Just the other day,
Speaker 1: I was mistaken for Forrest Whittaker, which would normally be flattering,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately mister Whittaker owed this gentleman a substantial amount
Speaker 1: of money. He whooped my ass for us.
Speaker 6: He owe me.
Speaker 1: But maybe the most heartwarman escape is that of William
Speaker 1: and Ellen Kraft, two slaves who got married and decided
Speaker 1: to run away. Because Ellen had light skin, they hatched
Speaker 1: a plan where she dressed in men's clothes and wrapped
Speaker 1: her head and bandages and posed as an injured white man.
Speaker 1: William then posed as her servant, and the two bordered
Speaker 1: a train north. Now, being on a train full of
Speaker 1: white men must have been scary, but I can only
Speaker 1: assume that Ellen practice her white man small talk. Well, yes,
Speaker 1: fellow white person, I too am afraid of the sun. Yes,
Speaker 1: some blocks, some block, some blocks, h Blocky's weel you've
Speaker 1: eat some blocks?
Speaker 2: Home book.
Speaker 1: So the next time June nineteenth comes, remember these stories
Speaker 1: of heroic slaves, which I plan to do with the
Speaker 1: Juneteenth celebration in Bloomington, Indiana this evening. Now, if you'll
Speaker 1: excuse me, I have to get there fast, and airfare
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. But thankfully Box Brown is an innovator. I'm
Speaker 1: royal with Junior. This has been CPE time, and remember
Speaker 1: well for the culture. Somebody come push me to the
Speaker 1: post office. Just need to get me a couple of
Speaker 1: snaps and some auto trick dip for me, some pretzels.
Speaker 5: I'll be on my.
Speaker 2: Wingilliams, welcome to the daily Social Distancing show.
Speaker 6: Thank you, and happy social distancing to you.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, my friend. This has been quite
Speaker 2: the year for many human beings, arguably the worst year
Speaker 2: for many and for some, a year that many people
Speaker 2: have written off. Pharrell Williams isn't one of those people
Speaker 2: you've said, I know it's twenty twenty. I'm going to
Speaker 2: stay at home as much as i can, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to still do things and do things.
Speaker 4: You have.
Speaker 2: You have a new skin line, you have a new
Speaker 2: podcast and a podcast network. You've also got new music
Speaker 2: that you're working on. And I think and then we've
Speaker 2: got some initiatives that are probably going to change the
Speaker 2: face of how corporate America works. So let's start with
Speaker 2: the most important one, Rihanna's new album. I know everyone's
Speaker 2: waiting for the vaccine, but the other half of the
Speaker 2: country's waiting for Rihanna's new album. What can you.
Speaker 6: Tell us about it?
Speaker 2: There's nothing I could say, Dammit, Forrell, I knew you
Speaker 2: were going to say that to me. His interview is over, nah.
Speaker 5: Man, because this is funny because once they once like
Speaker 5: I get asked this question, then I feel like the
Speaker 5: other interviews that follow, they'll ask for more details.
Speaker 2: Of I feel you.
Speaker 5: I'm just so not at liberty to say, but man,
Speaker 5: I can tell you that she's making some amazing music
Speaker 5: and we're incredibly honored to be a part of that conversation.
Speaker 2: Something I've always admired about you as a person is that,
Speaker 2: like when you speak, you speak to be heard, and
Speaker 2: most of the time I find you listening. Tell me
Speaker 2: what Parola is doing in the podcast space, why did
Speaker 2: you choose to jump into it, and what is the
Speaker 2: new network going to be about?
Speaker 5: So we started out with Apple some years back and
Speaker 5: just took a little break from it, and when we
Speaker 5: came back, it was like, man, there have so many
Speaker 5: other ideas that I can't do or be on, and
Speaker 5: I'm not, you know, quite frankly not the right person.
Speaker 6: For these things.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to like enlist really big personalities that
Speaker 5: could tell big and great stories for the network. And
Speaker 5: then the reason why we're back at it with other
Speaker 5: tone for the show is, Man, I've always seen my
Speaker 5: podcast experiences as crash courses into these other people's lives.
Speaker 6: So I don't want to.
Speaker 5: Have somebody on it I can't learn something from Howard
Speaker 5: Stern's a genius, That's why he does what he does right.
Speaker 6: It's like the best right.
Speaker 5: But for me, I use them as an opportunity in
Speaker 5: a platform for me to just for me to go
Speaker 5: to college, you know, in that person's universe.
Speaker 2: Truly, one of the most impressive, impressive initiatives that I've
Speaker 2: seen Farrell Williams working on, and I know you worked
Speaker 2: on this for a while, was your program to reward
Speaker 2: and inspire black excellence. Talk me through what this initiative
Speaker 2: is and how you're hoping to inspire black and brown
Speaker 2: kids and young adults to become the leaders and the
Speaker 2: visionaries of tomorrow.
Speaker 5: In a nutshell, we don't have enough of a voice
Speaker 5: in our country because we don't own enough, you know,
Speaker 5: and our our dollar, our currency, the African American and
Speaker 5: African diaspea dollars, stays in this community for six hours.
Speaker 5: Why because we don't own enough businesses to keep our
Speaker 5: money and currency circulating.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 5: So it's our theory that if we can find a
Speaker 5: way to galvanize as many black entrepreneurs as possible, then
Speaker 5: all of a sudden, the community, you know, has proportionate
Speaker 5: access to education, proportionate access to healthcare, and proportion access
Speaker 5: to representation and legislation. And so we felt like the
Speaker 5: best way to get that going was to launch these
Speaker 5: prizes with historic black colleges and universities.
Speaker 6: HBCUs.
Speaker 5: You know, we are less than thirteen percent, you know,
Speaker 5: in this country, and we're north of thirty million, but
Speaker 5: our influence, you would think we were.
Speaker 6: Half this country. You know what I'm saying. Right Well,
Speaker 6: when we.
Speaker 5: Start to have more ownership, we have more of a voice,
Speaker 5: and then we have more of the American pie the
Speaker 5: pie chart, and that's literally what we want to do
Speaker 5: with black ambition. I'm like super excited because man.
Speaker 6: These are the HBCUs. They need to be lifted.
Speaker 5: And I don't feel like the schools get the love
Speaker 5: and appreciation the institutions, the black institutions don't get that love. Well,
Speaker 5: here's an opportunity to give them, give them some limelight
Speaker 5: in this partnership.
Speaker 2: There's also, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful
Speaker 2: movements that you've been spearheading, which has been the Juneteenth Pledge,
Speaker 2: where you've said, as black Americans for many, many, many decades,
Speaker 2: people have said, hey, guys, why is Juneteenth not celebrated
Speaker 2: as a day when we can say that unanimously black
Speaker 2: people in this country received their freedom, And some critics
Speaker 2: have obviously said well, you've got fourth of July, and
Speaker 2: it's like, yeah, but for everyone to be free. You
Speaker 2: kicked off the Juneteenth Pledge, and you realize something really smart.
Speaker 2: You said, look, you may not get the government to
Speaker 2: initiate it, but most people work for a company, and
Speaker 2: so companies can make this a public holiday that is paid.
Speaker 2: How much progress of you mean? And why do you
Speaker 2: think it's so important to do this?
Speaker 6: Everything boils down to what we're buying.
Speaker 5: Especially if COVID has not taught us anything beyond the
Speaker 5: fact that we haven't been selfless enough with each other
Speaker 5: and wearing our mask. It's also taught us that people
Speaker 5: are buying, you know what I'm saying. And before we
Speaker 5: have been more of a consumer base than anything else.
Speaker 5: And I think the smart companies are recognizing that they
Speaker 5: know that the consumer base is paying attention and they
Speaker 5: have opinions, and they vote, and they and they activate.
Speaker 6: If you will, with their dollar.
Speaker 5: So to see these companies come on and and and
Speaker 5: just jump in like that, that's just been great. I
Speaker 5: want to just tell you some of the people who
Speaker 5: have taken the pledge, as Adidas, Nike, Levi's Target, Wow.
Speaker 6: Wow, Walmart, is coming. I'm gonna say that right now.
Speaker 6: Come on Walmart, come up, Wall Wallmart.
Speaker 5: It's important that the big behemoths, you know, get involved.
Speaker 2: Right And I remember, I remember when we spoke about
Speaker 2: this a while ago. You were like, yo, man, we
Speaker 2: got to get your people involved. And I'm excited. We've
Speaker 2: been keeping it under wraps for a while. I was
Speaker 2: waiting for you to come on the show. But Viacom
Speaker 2: CBS our parent company, So everything from Nickelodeon through CHAMTV
Speaker 2: they're joining in. They've signed this pledge as well, the
Speaker 2: Juneteenth Pledge. So we're getting all the behemits involved, and
Speaker 2: so I hope we hope on pushing. Man. I'm glad
Speaker 2: that we can be a part of it, and I
Speaker 2: hope that we can get as many of these corporations
Speaker 2: together so that everyone in the country at some point
Speaker 2: goes like, all right, man, this is the day when
Speaker 2: we celebrate the promise of freedom that was denied from
Speaker 2: so many for so long.
Speaker 6: So yeah, absolutely, it's you guys.
Speaker 5: If you're paying attention out there, it's the Juneteenth Pledge
Speaker 5: dot com you can go on. So, by the way,
Speaker 5: you don't have to be a big behemoth like what
Speaker 5: Trevor and I are talking about, because we want all
Speaker 5: the big guys too, but the small businesses.
Speaker 6: Man. This is the thing is is that I love
Speaker 6: Fourth of July. I do. I was red, white, and blue.
Speaker 5: You know, burgers, hot dogs, like chips, Like, who doesn't
Speaker 5: love that, fireworks?
Speaker 6: It's great.
Speaker 5: But my ancestors fought in that war when they were
Speaker 5: not free, you know, and they fought in that war willingly.
Speaker 5: Like they wanted their what should have just simply been
Speaker 5: their white brothers and sisters, but it was their masters
Speaker 5: at the time. For the most part, they wanted them.
Speaker 5: They wanted to see them have their independence. And like,
Speaker 5: the thing is, if Juneteenth is the official day when
Speaker 5: all Americans were free and shout to our you know,
Speaker 5: First Nations brothers and sisters because they haven't been treated
Speaker 5: so well. But Juneteenth is pretty much when everybody was
Speaker 5: supposed to be free. So I feel like it's something
Speaker 5: that all Americans should be celebrating, right, you know, because
Speaker 5: by the way, we were set free in eighteen sixty three,
Speaker 5: but you know, they didn't choose to acknowledge it until
Speaker 5: eighteen sixty five, So you got to understand that that
Speaker 5: is a it was long overdue then, and it's long
Speaker 5: overdue now.
Speaker 2: I feel you that man, Barroh Williams. Congratulations on everything
Speaker 2: that you were doing until I chat to you again,
Speaker 2: my friend, look off to yourself. Stay grateful.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for everything. Man, everything that you're doing.
Speaker 6: It's awesome.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you my doing.
Speaker 5: Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by
Speaker 5: searching The Daily Show wherever you.
Speaker 6: Get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central
Speaker 2: on Comedy Central and stream pull episodes anytime.
Speaker 5: On Fair Amount Plus.
Speaker 7: This has been a Comedy Central podcast