Speaker 1: I'm Tamika d Mallory and it's.
Speaker 2: Your boy my son.
Speaker 1: In general, we are your host of t M.
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Speaker 2: Them with you?
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Speaker 2: We're gonna hit you up until Freedom.
Speaker 1: Listen.
Speaker 4: So we gotta move quickly today because we have the
Speaker 4: guests coming up that's gonna educate us, and you know
Speaker 4: we're gonna learn a little bit or something something.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about my thought of the day.
Speaker 4: So there was an interview that I did a while
Speaker 4: back where I was talking. I was on TMZ and
Speaker 4: Kamala Harris was selected as the vice presidential pick.
Speaker 1: And I remember I was in the car.
Speaker 4: I was on my way to Brooklyn to a photo shoot,
Speaker 4: and while I was talking to the folks on TMZ,
Speaker 4: they asked me, do you think that Kamala Harris can
Speaker 4: become president?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you think she can also be president?
Speaker 4: So she's vice presidential pick, but do you think that
Speaker 4: she can run and ascend to the presidency? And I said,
Speaker 4: I don't know. I said, because you know, racism is terrible,
Speaker 4: so that's already bad enough, and sexism, when you bring
Speaker 4: that into the equation, it's even worse. Right, So if
Speaker 4: you listen and I and a couple of people started
Speaker 4: attacking me. They went crazy. Not a lot of people,
Speaker 4: but you know, there's a certain segment. A couple of
Speaker 4: people called me up, like, I'm just trying to understand
Speaker 4: your perspective because a lot of people are very sensitive
Speaker 4: about that racism and then comparing it with sexism, and
Speaker 4: it felt like I was including all women, white women,
Speaker 4: this woman, that woman or whatever, over black people and
Speaker 4: what black people have experienced, and specifically black men.
Speaker 1: And so I was explaining it to a good friend
Speaker 1: and He.
Speaker 4: Was like, why are you, Like, are you seriously trying
Speaker 4: to explain to me what you meant? Like I'm stupid,
Speaker 4: Like I understand exactly what you're talking about. It's not
Speaker 4: that I was saying that racism is not the most horrific, horrendous,
Speaker 4: disgusting atrocity of American culture. That is not what I
Speaker 4: was saying. What I'm saying is when you are black
Speaker 4: and then you had maybe let's just use it another example.
Speaker 4: You black and you have a disability, or you're black
Speaker 4: and you are I don't know, you're black in you're trans,
Speaker 4: you're black in whatever, poor, you're black, and that makes
Speaker 4: what you experience already as a black person worse because
Speaker 4: you're adding another element onto it that really sort of
Speaker 4: deepens the hate and the oppression and the disgust that
Speaker 4: a person has to endure. And So when I look
Speaker 4: at Kamala Harris at that time, this is prior to
Speaker 4: right now, this is years back. Like a lot of times,
Speaker 4: we are ahead of ourselves when we speak on issues.
Speaker 4: So I'm looking back at that time and I said
Speaker 4: that sexism is even worse. So what I was saying
Speaker 4: is that as a black woman, not as a woman
Speaker 4: in general, even though you see Hillary Clinton, also more qualified,
Speaker 4: didn't win the election. But that's a whole different set
Speaker 4: of circumstances. But when you look at Kamala Harris as
Speaker 4: a black woman, she's going to deal with being black
Speaker 4: and then having on top of that her being a
Speaker 4: woman as another way for people to disrespect, discredit and
Speaker 4: even our own people, even our own people.
Speaker 1: And let's just keep it. A hundred men.
Speaker 4: In our community and women, men and women, but a
Speaker 4: lot more men who are unwilling to support her just
Speaker 4: because she's a woman, right Like there's some people who
Speaker 4: have policy disagreements with her, there's some people who are
Speaker 4: They look at it and they're like, listen, I have
Speaker 4: issues with Kamala Harris with things that she may have done,
Speaker 4: or things she said, or things the positions that she
Speaker 4: supports right now, and I'm not arguing with any of those.
Speaker 1: But when I have.
Speaker 4: People on my page calling her a thing, calling her
Speaker 4: a wench, calling her all these disrespectful names, and then
Speaker 4: I also see that there are people who could be
Speaker 4: helping her, But because of the way that you watch
Speaker 4: them treat women in general, you know why they are
Speaker 4: unwilling to support her because they never when I'm asking
Speaker 4: certain people, they like, oh no, I just don't think.
Speaker 1: I just don't. They don't really have a real answer.
Speaker 4: Okay, So anyway, I just want to say to myself,
Speaker 4: right like how Snoop said, I want to thank me.
Speaker 4: I just want to say to me, I was not
Speaker 4: wrong in what I said. And it's playing out for
Speaker 4: us to see it happening in real time.
Speaker 1: And I know that.
Speaker 4: When I spoke on it, I spoke on it not
Speaker 4: just as a black person, but as a black woman
Speaker 4: who I even know in spaces where we are doing,
Speaker 4: you know, in civil rights spaces and social justice spaces,
Speaker 4: in business spaces, I know that I am treated a
Speaker 4: different way than some of the black men who are
Speaker 4: my counterparts, or black men who may not even be
Speaker 4: as effective or as progressive or as whatever as me.
Speaker 4: But just because I'm a woman, I deal with another
Speaker 4: layer of disrespect and of the sexism that is also
Speaker 4: ingrained in American culture.
Speaker 3: Well, I have to agree, man, you know, I've said
Speaker 3: the same thing, and I think shout out to applies man.
Speaker 3: He had to give apology to black women because he
Speaker 3: didn't even understand the level of hate that Black women
Speaker 3: have experience, and I've listened to dudes just tell me, yo,
Speaker 3: she's a woman. She just shouldn't be leading you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying, And she's nobody's gonna respect her and
Speaker 3: this and that, and it's like, wow, why I respected
Speaker 3: my mother? My grandmother was one of the strongest people
Speaker 3: I know in my life. So when we have these conversations,
Speaker 3: there is definitely a facet of America where men do
Speaker 3: not respect women, and nick definitely do not respect Black women.
Speaker 3: Malcolm said it, the most disrespected, unprotected, and neglected woman
Speaker 3: in the world is the black woman. So person in
Speaker 3: the world, not just the woman, the most neglected person
Speaker 3: in the world is a black women. So we are
Speaker 3: able to see this in real time. So like, when
Speaker 3: you said it to me, I understood.
Speaker 2: Exactly what I was.
Speaker 1: It was Mark Thomson. He was like, like, why are
Speaker 1: you explaining it?
Speaker 4: Anybody with good sense knows exactly what you're saying. They
Speaker 4: are trying not to know, or they're emotion. And it's
Speaker 4: funny because some of these same people.
Speaker 1: Always are like, oh, let's not move with emotion.
Speaker 4: And then when I speak to something that is my
Speaker 4: experience as a woman then it's emotional. That's cute. But anyway,
Speaker 4: let us move on. This is a point we're not
Speaker 4: going to do t because we gotta go. So you
Speaker 4: go see a music segment, all right, So.
Speaker 3: We're gonna go to my music segment. Shout out to
Speaker 3: Marvin Being. You know, we was out.
Speaker 1: In Detroit, super organized.
Speaker 3: Marvin King Being Man, he put us all together. You know,
Speaker 3: you had a panel in Detroit with Ice Wear, Vessel Killer,
Speaker 3: Mike Push your T, Beanie C.
Speaker 2: Freeway. You know, it was so many.
Speaker 4: Different Nipsey Hustle's brother. The brother's name, it always escapes me,
Speaker 4: but I love.
Speaker 3: Him so much, Black Sam, Black Sam, and we had
Speaker 3: a beautiful panel shadow.
Speaker 1: To take the eating. We can't be leaving people out.
Speaker 4: Since you want a name, pastor, Mike mc Mike McBride,
Speaker 4: what's our other brother's name?
Speaker 1: Oh lord, but.
Speaker 2: Listen, it was a dope panel.
Speaker 3: And there's a soundtrack and the first song off the
Speaker 3: soundtrack is called still Here and it's the Vote or
Speaker 3: Else soundtrack and it's featuring Benny the Butcher, is featuring
Speaker 3: Jae Electronica, Freeway, Black Thought, Metal Feet, and Joe taking Eadie.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Joe Taker.
Speaker 1: You know she wasn't singing on this, but you know
Speaker 1: she she out here. She thinks she a singer.
Speaker 2: Yes, she definitely thinks she can sign.
Speaker 3: She's actually the song is dope and it's really touching,
Speaker 3: so make sure you go.
Speaker 2: It's on all platforms.
Speaker 3: Still here, his vote or else and is featuring all
Speaker 3: all this side this name and shout out to.
Speaker 1: Phil Agnew was Agnew?
Speaker 4: See I knew it was somebody important and feel is
Speaker 4: our brother.
Speaker 1: That is yellow pain Yellow. It was a powerful it
Speaker 1: was a.
Speaker 2: Very very powerful discussion. My boy Smoke Dizzer was on there.
Speaker 4: And so much music came out. I mean, music is
Speaker 4: coming out of here.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a dope. I'm going to be
Speaker 2: on the soundtrack, so it's gonna be on the.
Speaker 1: S king bing king bing ing, not me king.
Speaker 2: Make sure that you go and listen to that song.
Speaker 2: Still here. The soundtrack would be out very soon.
Speaker 1: And still here, Still here. That's what's up. That's what's up.
Speaker 4: And today we are joined by a super friend who
Speaker 4: has some information. I mean, as we've been saying, this
Speaker 4: election is really important for us.
Speaker 1: We don't really care who doesn't like it, right, We don't.
Speaker 4: Care who is not interested and who's mad at us,
Speaker 4: and who said we shouldn't be and don't this and that,
Speaker 4: go talk to somebody else, because we we're really deeply
Speaker 4: into this thing. And tm I has really been turned
Speaker 4: into a show to discuss all the elements of the
Speaker 4: election for the next several weeks. And so in our
Speaker 4: super friend world, l Joy Williams, who's joining us today
Speaker 4: is somebody who of course is very special to me,
Speaker 4: and now you know, over the years she's become special
Speaker 4: to you as well, President of the NUBACP Brooklyn Network
Speaker 4: and also she and I serve on the board of
Speaker 4: Higher Heights, which is an organization that does a lot
Speaker 4: of political education and raising funds for black women candidates.
Speaker 1: We do so many things.
Speaker 4: She's a consultant, super brilliant, you got all the things
Speaker 4: in this one woman. But what's important for why she
Speaker 4: comes here today is because Joy has created. Joy is
Speaker 4: an educator, an educator, and so she's created a guide
Speaker 4: for the it says, a journal for the empowered voter,
Speaker 4: call Get Vote Ready, Get Vote Ready. And so today
Speaker 4: we're gonna be hearing from our sister l Joy Williams
Speaker 4: and I'm excited about that, just.
Speaker 2: Her story, just when we're talking about the kids, Like.
Speaker 4: Even though she's doing all this leadership in the community,
Speaker 4: she also is fostering several children at the same time.
Speaker 3: That's why I love doing this podcast, right, because we
Speaker 3: get an opportunity to interview and highlight our friends who
Speaker 3: are doing so many dope things. So shout out to
Speaker 3: el Joy for educating us about civics and about what
Speaker 3: it looks like to vote in which we need to
Speaker 3: know about voting. And they're also educating us about humanity.
Speaker 4: You know, right, it is humanity when you like, I'm
Speaker 4: gonna take Not only am I out here fighting for
Speaker 4: our rights, but then I learned that children needed help,
Speaker 4: and like she said, out of a.
Speaker 1: Personal situation came her story.
Speaker 4: So when people asked me, well, what's the first thing
Speaker 4: that I should do, I'm like, look at your life,
Speaker 4: look at the things that are near and dear to you,
Speaker 4: and make decisions about how you can get active based
Speaker 4: upon that. Because people who jump into stuff that has
Speaker 4: nothing to do with what they're really interested in, or
Speaker 4: because they get in it because they're like, oh there's
Speaker 4: a check, or oh there's you know, or everybody else
Speaker 4: is doing it.
Speaker 1: I think I do it better.
Speaker 4: Then you're in an area that does not really really
Speaker 4: make you feel like you're you're getting to your passion,
Speaker 4: like you're serving your purpose.
Speaker 1: So there's that.
Speaker 3: Yes, we definitely do have our sister el Joye. She
Speaker 3: is an educator, she is a friend. She is one
Speaker 3: of those individuals that when you think of her, she's
Speaker 3: always smiling, but you know, she's about business. So we
Speaker 3: have our sister, the one, the only El joy in
Speaker 3: the building.
Speaker 5: Yeah, man, I love that, and I gotta come here
Speaker 5: more often.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for both of you for inviting me today.
Speaker 5: I appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being with us.
Speaker 4: Joy tell us you know, first of all, let's just
Speaker 4: get straight on in DOUAA CP Networks Chapters branch French.
Speaker 4: Oh my gosh, Okay, listen, we did not have a rivalry.
Speaker 1: If nan right.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just you know, we birthed everybody.
Speaker 1: You see shade and shot already. That's what I love
Speaker 1: so much about you, Joy, Like I think so.
Speaker 4: Many people feel like in the movement we are just
Speaker 4: stoic and boring and we're not like we enjoyed one another.
Speaker 4: We make jokes. We snacked like we did at the
Speaker 4: house back in the days when we were kids, and
Speaker 4: we have a good time. And you know, you're one
Speaker 4: of those people who, like my son says, you're always smiling,
Speaker 4: but you'd be serious as hell.
Speaker 1: You'd be scaring me.
Speaker 5: You say that in the elected say that too. Sometimes
Speaker 5: they don't know the difference between if I'm coming and
Speaker 5: being like, hey, how you doing, and like hang out
Speaker 5: to like, oh no, what did I do?
Speaker 1: Well?
Speaker 4: You're coming in the tradition of our queen mother, which
Speaker 4: is Mama Duke's Hazel and Dukes. Who is the president
Speaker 4: or the former? I saw somewhere the other data. I
Speaker 4: guess she's kind of like kind of she's cheat.
Speaker 1: She's ninety two.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, she said that she's not going to
Speaker 5: do it anymore. State NAACP Conference President.
Speaker 1: Chargeah okay, got it.
Speaker 4: So tell us about your book, This guide for you said,
Speaker 4: a journal for the empowered voter. Yeah, and I love
Speaker 4: the fact that you're speaking into people because I don't
Speaker 4: be feeling like people that empowered. So, you know, but
Speaker 4: talk about what your journal is all about.
Speaker 5: Well, you know, one of the missions of what I
Speaker 5: do sure with Sunday Civics, which is every week, I
Speaker 5: sort of use what's happening in the political landscape to
Speaker 5: empower people with the knowledge to get involved and engaged
Speaker 5: in politics, because, as you know, part of our work
Speaker 5: as organizers, the first thing we do, particularly when we're
Speaker 5: going into spaces, is helping people understand how the system
Speaker 5: has worked, where you know who the decision makers are
Speaker 5: and then what you can demand, what you can do.
Speaker 5: And in starting Sunday Civics, I realized that was a
Speaker 5: lot of Even in working inside government, I would still
Speaker 5: go into spaces, whether it was in the Controllers office
Speaker 5: or the city hall or whatever, and I would do
Speaker 5: the back door and I'm like, Okay, this is what
Speaker 5: you need to ask for, this is what is possible,
Speaker 5: this is what can happen. You know who, this is
Speaker 5: the person you need to push. And I realized that
Speaker 5: that is something we take for granted a lot that
Speaker 5: everybody knows like who the decision maker is what I
Speaker 5: should be asking for. And that's why I started Sunday
Speaker 5: Civics with the Get Vote Ready Journal. You know, notice
Speaker 5: as we go through the journal, there's nothing, there's no
Speaker 5: emotion in it, there's no you know, you know, one
Speaker 5: party over another party. It is helping you make a
Speaker 5: strategic decision for you to prepare yourself and make sure
Speaker 5: you have the information to engage in the election. And
Speaker 5: then too, starting with yourself and not with the candidates.
Speaker 5: You start with in the book, what what are the
Speaker 5: issues that matter to me? You know what moves me?
Speaker 5: What is the you know, kitchen table issue that I'm
Speaker 5: most concerned about. Then you go to the candidates based
Speaker 5: upon those issues to determine okay, now which one most aligned?
Speaker 3: So based on this book, you know what was like
Speaker 3: the what made you say, you know what, I really
Speaker 3: need to make this book?
Speaker 2: What made you sit down and say that?
Speaker 5: Two reasons. One, you can always go to family. So
Speaker 5: this is for my cousin who call and text me
Speaker 5: on election day to ask me who were voting for
Speaker 5: or to ask me when is the election again? Or
Speaker 5: oh they got there. They may know okay, I know
Speaker 5: who I'm going to vote for mayor I know who
Speaker 5: I'm going to vote for president. But then they get
Speaker 5: there and they be like, it's some questions look like
Speaker 5: that I don't know nothing about. And to my dad,
Speaker 5: you know, God bless his soul. Who literally he would
Speaker 5: call me to me from the voting book, right, And
Speaker 5: I'm like, Dad, you can't call you.
Speaker 1: That's actually illegal, right.
Speaker 5: And then I hear him arguing with the people in
Speaker 5: the like the pope. But I'm like, because they're doing
Speaker 5: this job, right, you're not supposed to do that. So
Speaker 5: this is for them.
Speaker 4: I sent it to somebody. Is that I'm waiting, like,
Speaker 4: text me back what I'm supposed to do, and that's
Speaker 4: like illegal.
Speaker 1: You'll take a picture of the ballance. I bet you
Speaker 1: you didn't know that.
Speaker 5: This is for them. This is for you know, my
Speaker 5: cousin Candae and them, you know, so that they have Okay,
Speaker 5: this is my journal. This is my guy to prepare
Speaker 5: myself before I go into the voting booth. And it's
Speaker 5: designed and meant not for me telling you what to do,
Speaker 5: but for you to put together's prompts and questions and
Speaker 5: spaces there for you to contemplate. You know, what matters
Speaker 5: to me might be different than what matters to you, right,
Speaker 5: and so it's space for you to put that and
Speaker 5: to you know, teach you. This is how I should
Speaker 5: engage in a political process, in the election process, you know,
Speaker 5: not so much to be swayed by celebrities, and I
Speaker 5: know that's the thing that everybody, well my favorite celebrity
Speaker 5: endorsed this person or did not write. But no, they're
Speaker 5: voting their own interests. They're voting their own money in
Speaker 5: their own pocketbook, Like this is how you vote and
Speaker 5: make your decisions for you.
Speaker 4: I had to really get into the book. As soon
Speaker 4: as I saw you promote that it was ready, I
Speaker 4: called immediately got listen because I know it's necessary. Because
Speaker 4: even though this is a very contentious time. And let
Speaker 4: me tell you, I am so ready for November fifth
Speaker 4: to come and go. My spirit and my stomach and
Speaker 4: literally my body cannot sustain two or three more months
Speaker 4: of all this arguing and people right and crazy, and
Speaker 4: you're fallen out with friends and family. My cousin and
Speaker 4: I was in a big blow up about at a
Speaker 4: family occasion. We end up being back love, but still
Speaker 4: we had to go through this like really difficult conversation.
Speaker 4: And the one thing I've realized is that civics one
Speaker 4: oh one, like basic understanding of politics and electoral politics
Speaker 4: and all of that, a lot of our people don't
Speaker 4: have it. And it was done on purpose to us
Speaker 4: and we have to really understand that it's not that
Speaker 4: you don't know just because you weren't paying attention or
Speaker 4: you're not smart or whatever. It's literally that it has
Speaker 4: been designed that we would not know. And that, for
Speaker 4: me is it almost makes this moment, while it is
Speaker 4: incredibly stressful, it makes it like, I'm glad that we
Speaker 4: have this type of race where people get to pay
Speaker 4: attention and start asking the questions, even if it's the
Speaker 4: most ignorant conversation you've ever been involved in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I know you had to be like.
Speaker 4: Oh, no, we're not gonna do this, we gonna learn
Speaker 4: something because this ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well, not only that, and that this shouldn't be the
Speaker 5: only one that you do, because the work that you
Speaker 5: all do right and until freedom and talking about the
Speaker 5: district attorneys, talking about governor's races and things, those are
Speaker 5: where we need to get engaged. And that's one of
Speaker 5: you know, I said to someone recently, it's something I
Speaker 5: say all the time. When we throw back to the
Speaker 5: modern civil rights movement and talk about the right to vote,
Speaker 5: particularly in the South, you know, people just like, oh,
Speaker 5: we got the right to vote, and you know, that's
Speaker 5: it That's what our ancestors died for the right, and
Speaker 5: I think we do a disservice by not following that,
Speaker 5: not giving contexts and qualifying them and saying they weren't
Speaker 5: just dying to be able to go in the boot,
Speaker 5: that's right.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: They wanted to elect sheriffs, district attorneys that would protect
Speaker 5: their communities that they were building, that weren't members of
Speaker 5: the KKK, that weren't members of the White Citizens Council,
Speaker 5: and would actually prosecute people if someone came through and
Speaker 5: lynched their brother or their cousin.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 5: They wanted you know, just think about Brown v. Void
Speaker 5: and the original cases that led up to that. They
Speaker 5: wanted they were paying into a system that weren't properly
Speaker 5: providing resources for their children's education, and so they wanted
Speaker 5: the ability to be on the school board to say, okay,
Speaker 5: our district, our schools need a bus, our schools need
Speaker 5: proper books and materials. Right, And so they knew that
Speaker 5: generation knew that it was tied to their vote to
Speaker 5: be able to elect people that were making those decisions.
Speaker 5: And we lost that, as you said, it was deliberate.
Speaker 5: We lost that knowledge that these things of depressing. Our
Speaker 5: communities were tied to these elected positions, that we needed
Speaker 5: to be in those rooms, and we needed to have
Speaker 5: our voice in those rooms, even if we weren't the
Speaker 5: ones elected. And so that's what I try to do
Speaker 5: with Sunday Civics is so to remind our communities, right
Speaker 5: that this isn't just about electing somebody popular that looks
Speaker 5: like you. This is electing someone that will listen to you,
Speaker 5: that is responsive to your advocacy efforts, that has the
Speaker 5: wherewithal to come back and engage with the community or
Speaker 5: be within the community, and understanding those tools and how
Speaker 5: to exercise right that civic bone that we all need.
Speaker 5: I think it's really really important.
Speaker 3: So I want to ask you this just based on
Speaker 3: local levels, right, Like, what do you think the most
Speaker 3: important elections that people don't even really focus on, because
Speaker 3: I know there are certain elected officials that control so
Speaker 3: many different things financially, the resources within the community, the programs,
Speaker 3: all those things. What do you think just on a
Speaker 3: local level, because everybody's going to talk about the president, Like,
Speaker 3: what do you think as a person that just goes
Speaker 3: to work every day, that lives inside the community, what
Speaker 3: are those jobs that.
Speaker 2: You think civics that we should be focusing on voting for.
Speaker 5: I'd like that you brought up that point, because it
Speaker 5: depends on where you live and that you know, and
Speaker 5: that's the and why I provided the space for that,
Speaker 5: because you know, in some places, depending on how your town,
Speaker 5: how your citory is incorporated or structured, the power of
Speaker 5: the budget, you know, may be with the county executive, right,
Speaker 5: not the not the city council or the you know,
Speaker 5: or the mayor. The mayor may be a ceremonial and
Speaker 5: he sell carpets on the weekend right right, right, or
Speaker 5: you know, right, and so that that he's just there
Speaker 5: as an administrator or she's just there as an administrator.
Speaker 5: So part of that education is also understanding that you
Speaker 5: start local, don't start at the top, don't start at president,
Speaker 5: don't start at governor, start local. How is my town incorporated?
Speaker 5: And where is the seat of power?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 5: Is it the city council? Is it the state legislature?
Speaker 5: Who has control over the issues that I care about
Speaker 5: and about my budget? Like who makes those decisions? My
Speaker 5: brother lives in an area over in the Poconos incorporated
Speaker 5: a little differently than like us here in New York City,
Speaker 5: and he sits on a board that makes decisions about
Speaker 5: the town's you know, money, on whether or not they're
Speaker 5: going to do sidewalks or they're going to invest or whatever.
Speaker 5: Those things are important. And once he got on there,
Speaker 5: he was like, Oh, I guess the.
Speaker 4: Way the rue like something really has. This is not
Speaker 4: rules that does come from the sky.
Speaker 5: They're people, right, And there's regular people that are my
Speaker 5: neighbors that are sitting around the table making a decision
Speaker 5: and no one's ever there, right, but they're making a decision.
Speaker 5: And he may be at a barbecue or something and
Speaker 5: hear people complain about something and not realize that, oh,
Speaker 5: that is a decision I made, you know, or didn't make.
Speaker 5: And so that's I think what's important is looking at
Speaker 5: how your town, how your area is incorporated. And I
Speaker 5: provide examples of that in the book of like how
Speaker 5: you can find that, how you can find that out,
Speaker 5: and learning what what is the seed of power in
Speaker 5: that instance, because particularly nationally, everybody focuses on the big
Speaker 5: cities Chicago or New York, the top one hundred cities,
Speaker 5: and more than likely a lot of them are incorporated
Speaker 5: the same or organized the same there's a mayor, there's
Speaker 5: a city council, or there's you know, some balance or whatever.
Speaker 5: But people live in a lot of different things, and
Speaker 5: you could work in one area that's a town or
Speaker 5: a county and live in another one that's rural, and
Speaker 5: it's a group of your neighbors who are making those decisions.
Speaker 5: And so that's why I think it's important for you
Speaker 5: to understand. And it may not be that you're gonna
Speaker 5: engage daily, right, You're not gonna be me and Tamika,
Speaker 5: and you're gonna be like every event, every protest and
Speaker 5: things like that and every town meeting. But at least
Speaker 5: the issues that you care about and things that you
Speaker 5: care about, and understanding who makes those decisions, where the
Speaker 5: money comes from, who's it directed to, is important. And
Speaker 5: you can look at some of our poor estates, like
Speaker 5: Missis be a place like that. If you look at
Speaker 5: how money and contracts bounce back and forth, it's like
Speaker 5: the same people just it's like, oh, you got it
Speaker 5: for two three years and then we're gonna vote for it.
Speaker 5: Like over here. Meanwhile, you have some of the worst
Speaker 5: education outcomes, you have some of the you know, most violility,
Speaker 5: all of that kind of stuff that are depressed, and
Speaker 5: so that's why it's important for people to understand that.
Speaker 4: So what is there a portion of the guide that
Speaker 4: the journal I want to call it a guide so much,
Speaker 4: but the journal that because I guess the journal the
Speaker 4: guide tells you what to do. The journal gives you
Speaker 4: the opportunity to like write things and think through the process.
Speaker 4: So I got it, trying to get it right so
Speaker 4: it sticks. Is there a part in there or at
Speaker 4: least can you speak to when you don't like either candidate, right,
Speaker 4: and you're like, I don't want to vote for none
Speaker 4: of these folks, but yet somebody gonna be in charge.
Speaker 1: So what what would you say to that? Or is
Speaker 1: that in the book?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a very very important part. And it's something
Speaker 5: I just talked about on Sunday because that's one of
Speaker 5: the things that people give pushback, Right they both crooks,
Speaker 5: Like I'm not voted for neither one of them. Right,
Speaker 5: But elections and if again, you take the emotion out
Speaker 5: of it, and even those of us who are celebrating
Speaker 5: you know that it's the first black candidate or the
Speaker 5: first black woman or whatever. Let people experience that that's right.
Speaker 5: You don't need to. Yeah, it's not okay, let them experience.
Speaker 5: That's perfect time. If you're on another wavelength, that's cool, right,
Speaker 5: But then it's what candidate and I lay out for
Speaker 5: ways to decide to pick a candidate for yourself. But
Speaker 5: ultimately you're deciding where can I push progress forward and
Speaker 5: do the least harms.
Speaker 1: In my community harm reduction?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 5: Like that is the that is the thing. But I
Speaker 5: lay out my four steps of picking a candidate. One again,
Speaker 5: you start with yourself, what are issues that matter to me?
Speaker 5: And then looking at that the candidate's records, not who
Speaker 5: you want to be on the ballot, but who's the.
Speaker 1: Actual is actually on the back right and who can
Speaker 1: really win?
Speaker 5: Yeah, and then decide, okay, which of these candidates you
Speaker 5: know most aligned with my values because nobody is going
Speaker 5: to align one hundred percent unless you run it.
Speaker 1: That was that was.
Speaker 4: Nobody align And even then you might have disagreement with self,
Speaker 4: especially when you realize that a big part of politics
Speaker 4: is about compromise.
Speaker 5: Exactly, and that's knowing that it is important. So after
Speaker 5: you you know, right, you say, okay, based upon what
Speaker 5: this person said, what their track record, is this is
Speaker 5: who most aligns, this is what their record is on
Speaker 5: the issue. The other thing is who are you more
Speaker 5: likely to move or your advocacy efforts be receptive, like
Speaker 5: are you going to elect someone that's just like I
Speaker 5: don't care, I double down, right, like, this is what I.
Speaker 2: Believe the access to anything?
Speaker 5: Right, And when we say access, we're not saying like
Speaker 5: going to the White House right, right, Like we're not
Speaker 5: talking about that.
Speaker 3: We have people inside the administration that actually got hired
Speaker 3: to do jobs that you can have a communication with
Speaker 3: and say hey, that's close inside of that administration and
Speaker 3: say hey, look these are the issues that we're dealing
Speaker 3: with our community, right and they know you, and it
Speaker 3: can relay that message to your elected officials and probably
Speaker 3: gets you some type of meat or get something to
Speaker 3: actually materialize from you know, you actually making this vote.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, and sometimes because you're speaking as a person who's
Speaker 4: very close to the top of the food chain, so
Speaker 4: you can make the call. But if you're Johnny and
Speaker 4: you live in a certain community, you might not be
Speaker 4: able to make a call ever that gets to the
Speaker 4: people you want. But you can be a part of
Speaker 4: joining with others that have that power.
Speaker 1: And pushing because there's power in numbers.
Speaker 4: So when we say we going to Washington about gun violence,
Speaker 4: or women's rights or whatever, whatever cease fire, whatever the
Speaker 4: issue may be, you need to be able to say,
Speaker 4: I can send out tweet, texts, a mail, chimp, whatever,
Speaker 4: all the different things, phone calls, and there's gonna be
Speaker 4: one hundred, two hundred, one thousand or more Johnnies from
Speaker 4: a particular community that.
Speaker 1: Will be there. That's how we build power.
Speaker 4: And a lot of people because they don't see themselves
Speaker 4: being able to call Kamala or call whoever Joe Biden,
Speaker 4: whoever you know, even if it's your mayor, because they
Speaker 4: can't make those phone calls, they feel very detached. Now,
Speaker 4: one phone call you can make, and one place that
Speaker 4: you can walk into any time you want is the
Speaker 4: campaign office and or the district office of your city.
Speaker 1: Council person in your state, your state legislator exactly.
Speaker 5: The congressional member.
Speaker 4: You can walk right in the door, and the squeaky
Speaker 4: whell gets the oil because we know you go in
Speaker 4: there every other day, send letters, write. They will have
Speaker 4: to respond to you because you are a constituent in
Speaker 4: their district versus you trying to talk to President Soul
Speaker 4: and self.
Speaker 5: And I think that's important because you're evaluating is this
Speaker 5: person responsive to those rights? Yes? Are they doing a
Speaker 5: press conference and they're saying, I don't care how many
Speaker 5: people come to my office, I'm voting this way, or
Speaker 5: are they like after set deliberation with constituents in my community,
Speaker 5: you know.
Speaker 1: After I got my ass kick right, got barrassed or.
Speaker 5: Even you know, or even got better understanding of right,
Speaker 5: because we assume that politicians know everything about the issue,
Speaker 5: and they do not.
Speaker 4: They we went to Washington, you know, we walked two
Speaker 4: hundred and fifty miles from New York City to Washington,
Speaker 4: d C. Where Carma pres and our family at the
Speaker 4: gathering for justice Justice League And.
Speaker 1: Why did you join us? You did?
Speaker 4: You came somewhere You was at the beginning that no
Speaker 4: stat No no no stat. Nyland is where most people
Speaker 4: met us. Okay, So when we got to Washington, the
Speaker 4: last part of the march was to do our advocacy Day,
Speaker 4: where we went and talked to all the legislators and
Speaker 4: these are congressional members.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about. We went down, like you said,
Speaker 1: to Alabama to talk to no no, no, no. We
Speaker 1: were in Washington, D C. And the Congression.
Speaker 4: Baby, we were having to tell congressional members what their
Speaker 4: colleagues in Congress have on the table in terms of bills.
Speaker 1: They did not know.
Speaker 4: They had to be educated. They were like, oh, we
Speaker 4: were bringing them together.
Speaker 1: We've done that. I know you've done it in Albany,
Speaker 1: in the state capitol of New York.
Speaker 4: Especially around for us it was around raised the age.
Speaker 4: Well we had to go shut it down, like completely
Speaker 4: busting to the meat and like, what is the problem
Speaker 4: up here?
Speaker 2: Two in the morning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so people think, I mean you were basically living
Speaker 4: up there dealing with these issues. People really think that
Speaker 4: these folks know and that they're smarter than you, or
Speaker 4: that they know. They just had the courage to go run. Yeah,
Speaker 4: and they could raise the money.
Speaker 5: And if there and if they're experts on an issue,
Speaker 5: it's probably one or two that's not on it.
Speaker 4: It's not all of us are in that situation. Although
Speaker 4: the Internet would have you thinking you know everything, you have.
Speaker 2: Everything right, That's what I want to ask you.
Speaker 3: Does it frustrate you just watching misinformation, just being secivically
Speaker 3: engaged in knowledgeable does it frustrate you on the internet,
Speaker 3: just seeing people just say things that are so outlanded
Speaker 3: and seeing people grab onto it like it's actually fat.
Speaker 5: Let me tell you something, This is when I feel
Speaker 5: the most old. Yeah, because I scrolled through and I'll
Speaker 5: see stuff and the old woman responses come out of me.
Speaker 5: Now you know that don't make me Benny, you saw it?
Speaker 1: Sound like.
Speaker 5: Right, and you know I'll tell again my cousins or
Speaker 5: other people calling me and I'm like, use your comments comments, now,
Speaker 5: why would that? Like now, why would some why would
Speaker 5: that happen?
Speaker 1: Just think like, just let's think that through what you're saying.
Speaker 5: Right, And you know, it's the same thing I use
Speaker 5: on my kids, you know, And I'm like, let's think
Speaker 5: about this a little bit, you know, and play it
Speaker 5: out and see how So that kind of thing does
Speaker 5: absolutely frustrate me.
Speaker 4: But it's also for you a person that you can't
Speaker 4: take stupidity. It's like it really doesn't. It aggravates you
Speaker 4: to the point who.
Speaker 5: Knows, And it's I'm come from a long line people
Speaker 5: that my grandmother who I'm actually named after, Joyce, would
Speaker 5: say that, like you say something or whatever, just why
Speaker 5: would you just bring stupid into.
Speaker 1: The house.
Speaker 5: Like it was and it was a cancer or something.
Speaker 5: And so that it makes it extremely difficult too, because
Speaker 5: it's there's so much things that are true to fight against,
Speaker 5: to like to engage that when you make up stuff,
Speaker 5: it's just like you don't even got to make.
Speaker 6: It, have to make because that all the time, Like
Speaker 6: I could find you five things that's true that we
Speaker 6: should be challenging about, which at the candidate, including kam
Speaker 6: La Harris, I got five or six things, and you
Speaker 6: want to make up some story about you talked about
Speaker 6: celebrities and their impact.
Speaker 4: We just finished talking on the show about Janet Jackson
Speaker 4: and like how she's like, well, I heard you had
Speaker 4: our daddy's white like this, what right?
Speaker 1: What are you?
Speaker 4: We heard some things about you and your family too,
Speaker 4: and we still wrack with you, and we also try
Speaker 4: not to spread it as intelligent people who have the
Speaker 4: best interest of all of us in mind. Yeah, And
Speaker 4: you know one thing I say about you know, uh
Speaker 4: as you're seeing issues that you even want to address
Speaker 4: with a candidate that you support, you know, and.
Speaker 5: I always say, you know, I say it to lectus
Speaker 5: today face. I look forward to protesting you.
Speaker 2: Right like.
Speaker 5: You're visiting right, because it's part of and literally I
Speaker 5: have said that's a common land. She was like, come on,
Speaker 5: because that is your role, right, Like, that is your
Speaker 5: role to educate me on the process. Every photo line
Speaker 5: that I've been in, I've talked to her about like
Speaker 5: something else, and she has said she's like, every time
Speaker 5: you come in here, she got something else. Some other
Speaker 5: people so so whatever. And to people like her that
Speaker 5: are committed to public service in that way, it's just like,
Speaker 5: that's your job, that's your role, right, Like I understand
Speaker 5: where you are coming from where, and it's not coming
Speaker 5: from a malicious place, it's coming from That is your role.
Speaker 5: My role is here and often we intersect and we
Speaker 5: may be on different sides on different issues, and then
Speaker 5: we can come together on you know, on different things. Absolutely,
Speaker 5: and I think that that's we have to think about
Speaker 5: those we elect as our utility players, right and that
Speaker 5: you know, you pull them in when you need to,
Speaker 5: you rally against them if you need to. But going
Speaker 5: back to that harm reduction as you mentioned, is really important,
Speaker 5: and the last one is thinking about the political landscape.
Speaker 5: What is happening in the country, what is happening in
Speaker 5: your state, what is happening in society, and based upon
Speaker 5: who's running their record, their disposition, is this the person
Speaker 5: I want to lead during this time.
Speaker 3: That's the realist thing. And I want to just say
Speaker 3: we always say that, we say we're not fighting for allies,
Speaker 3: We're fighting for a better opponent.
Speaker 2: Right, that's what we elected.
Speaker 3: We want to elect the best appointed because we understand
Speaker 3: that in government, you're going to make decisions. The government
Speaker 3: is gonna have different you know, ideologies and understands and
Speaker 3: have different point of views and needs that they think,
Speaker 3: and we represent the people will have to make sure
Speaker 3: that we argue on behalf of the people all of
Speaker 3: the time. So if we understand that process, then we
Speaker 3: should always feel like we have to challenge our government
Speaker 3: officials always. But what I want to say is this
Speaker 3: this whole ideology, Like you know, I've I've just become
Speaker 3: civically engaged in like the last ten years. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm from the hood, so I really didn't pay that
Speaker 3: much attention. But there's this ideology in the streets that
Speaker 3: either we shouldn't vote, right, we shouldn't vote, or you know,
Speaker 3: just mainly we shouldn't vte. I'm not even gonna say
Speaker 3: to all, because that is that makes actlutely no sense,
Speaker 3: even though shouldn't vote makes.
Speaker 2: No sense to me.
Speaker 3: But what do you tell the person that says they're
Speaker 3: gonna sit home and just not vote.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're not gonna vote for the third party?
Speaker 3: Because there was a whole thing, like the was a
Speaker 3: thing today where you know it's been. It was on
Speaker 3: a breakfast club when Angela Roe I was talking to
Speaker 3: Jill Stine and she asks her a lot of questions and.
Speaker 2: There was both pushed back.
Speaker 3: So I want to hear your perspective on another party,
Speaker 3: you know. And then the people that say don't vote.
Speaker 5: Okay, this is where I might get a little nerdy.
Speaker 5: So you know, I mean in community all the time,
Speaker 5: you know, in Brooklyn, and I get that question all
Speaker 5: the time either I don't do politics or voting doesn't matter,
Speaker 5: the system's rigged and all that kind of stuff. And
Speaker 5: it's something that I address all the time out in
Speaker 5: the street. One I never start with as an organizer,
Speaker 5: I need you to come out and vote. I never
Speaker 5: started that way. I always started where people are like,
Speaker 5: what you know, what do you need? What's you know? Like,
Speaker 5: what's what's your concern? In that way. But even when
Speaker 5: I do get to the point where someone says, I
Speaker 5: don't do politics, we shouldn't vote anyway because it's you know,
Speaker 5: all raised, then I asked the question, then.
Speaker 1: What do you do?
Speaker 5: Like, you know, what do you do right? And more
Speaker 5: often than not, you know, people might say, oh, I
Speaker 5: volunteer here or things or whatever, and I was like,
Speaker 5: what is the reason you have to volunteer for kids
Speaker 5: to have food for lunchtime? Because there isn't someone making
Speaker 5: a decision that those kids don't need the resources for
Speaker 5: them not to eat. So you not doing politics, meaning
Speaker 5: those kids don't have another advocate to make sure that
Speaker 5: they are eating and their bellies are full for them
Speaker 5: to learn. So you're depriving those kids of your voice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're actually you're actually going against what it is
Speaker 3: that you actually want to do right.
Speaker 5: And then talking to people, which is I think you
Speaker 5: talk about, is deliberate of taking civic education. It's also
Speaker 5: deliberate that we took the word power and political power
Speaker 5: out of civic because civic is like, oh, let's go
Speaker 5: like volunteer at the library or pick up trash or
Speaker 5: like it's like these passive actions rather than it's about
Speaker 5: control and wielding your political power, right, me, you and
Speaker 5: others in our community coming together are a powerful voice
Speaker 5: to push back against money grabbing landlords, right like us.
Speaker 5: So they diminished right, So local we're diminishing because people
Speaker 5: are afraid of the power. And that's what you're doing
Speaker 5: with voting, that is what you're doing with organizing. You
Speaker 5: are collectively coming together to wield your political power. And
Speaker 5: in Brooklyn and DOAACP, I go a step further where
Speaker 5: I tell people we're doing an action in Brownsville and
Speaker 5: stuff like that. I was like, come with me, let's
Speaker 5: build black political power, right and see what we can
Speaker 5: do with that collectively in the state, in the city,
Speaker 5: on the city level, and then you know, on the
Speaker 5: national level that is scary to people that people would
Speaker 5: come together to build back black political power. We've seen
Speaker 5: that all throughout history. And so helping people to understand
Speaker 5: that that this is about power and part of your vote.
Speaker 5: That's why when I talk about that political landscape is
Speaker 5: where will I have the most power? Right not only
Speaker 5: in pushing this elected this you know, advocacy or what
Speaker 5: have you. So then when you get to the third party,
Speaker 5: will I have power if I vote for a party
Speaker 5: that can't get the two hundred and seventy electoral votes.
Speaker 4: Do you believe like we do, that it's time to
Speaker 4: create other options, like viable options, to open up our This.
Speaker 5: Is where I get a bit nerdy because this is
Speaker 5: part of the problem. I don't have a problem with
Speaker 5: like folks like Joe Sein and others or whatever running
Speaker 5: like like you know, do you whatever. What I have
Speaker 5: a problem with is that there are because these are
Speaker 5: state by state processes in terms of ballot access getting
Speaker 5: on the ballot, and we have defaulted to two parties
Speaker 5: not only on the national level, but on the state
Speaker 5: wide level, and so you have to break that stronghold
Speaker 5: of two parties in order to get to more viable options.
Speaker 5: There's absolutely no reason why Hillary Clinton and AOC should
Speaker 5: be in the same political party. There's absolutely no like
Speaker 5: like from a political idea.
Speaker 1: Depends on how you're feeling, you might want either one
Speaker 1: of them.
Speaker 5: Depending on whatever. But there's no reason why Bernie Sanders right,
Speaker 5: and you know, Barack Obama are in the same political party.
Speaker 5: It does it's like it doesn't work, like.
Speaker 4: It really turns people off because the messaging is mixed,
Speaker 4: and it seems like there's a fight going on like internally.
Speaker 5: Right, And that is because we've defaulted as a country
Speaker 5: to a two party system, and in order to get
Speaker 5: to a more representative thing, we do need to break
Speaker 5: that stronghold and that comes with changing state laws and
Speaker 5: changing the national process. And that's hard work that people
Speaker 5: don't want to, you know, accept. So you know, you
Speaker 5: could say the third party option, but that is hard
Speaker 5: to do. That takes much more money. And the person
Speaker 5: that got the closest was Bernie Sanders, right, but he
Speaker 5: also did it using a two party, using one of
Speaker 5: the major political parties. He didn't use the third.
Speaker 1: Party because we know that.
Speaker 4: Listen, I know we have to wrap up. We could
Speaker 4: do this for a while because it's so much. Yeah,
Speaker 4: there's so much to learn. When I want you to
Speaker 4: tell folks where they can get your book, But when
Speaker 4: you do that, the next thing I want to ask
Speaker 4: you about is your own advocacy. Like your personal advocacy
Speaker 4: with your husband has been to take children into your
Speaker 4: home who are in the force se care system and
Speaker 4: all of us. That's why I always tell people we
Speaker 4: don't have to do things the same way you don't
Speaker 4: have to sit in your home right now and say, well,
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna do what Tomik Mallory does.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm not gonna do it. Aljoy and MASANDU. You
Speaker 1: can figure out.
Speaker 4: Your own ways to impact so much of people's lives
Speaker 4: who need help. And you all have taken on children
Speaker 4: who who need homes, and I just want you to
Speaker 4: talk a little bit about that process and why you
Speaker 4: all decided to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, first of all, you can get get Vote
Speaker 5: Ready on Amazon journal, the journal for the empowered voter,
Speaker 5: And I say empower voter because you are already empowered, right,
Speaker 5: you have to give you power. You already have it.
Speaker 5: You just have to learn how to harness it and
Speaker 5: use it for yourself, your family, and your community. So
Speaker 5: you go to Amazon and search get Vote Ready Journal.
Speaker 5: It's actually number two right down and it just debuts
Speaker 5: the number advocate. It's a great thing for someone who
Speaker 5: may be voting for the first time or not a
Speaker 5: regular voter or even a prime voter, you know, like it.
Speaker 5: It's a really good exercise I think into Okay, let
Speaker 5: me go through the process of making sure.
Speaker 1: That I'm engaged.
Speaker 5: And it's for any election, not just this one, you know,
Speaker 5: so it's something that you can use for that. The
Speaker 5: second piece, in terms of what my husband and I do,
Speaker 5: it started from a personal space. It started from, you know,
Speaker 5: a family member needing care and the government, you know,
Speaker 5: acs showing up saying we're taking a baby, and I
Speaker 5: was like, taking who baby? Like not like you know,
Speaker 5: and it's said, no, you know, we're gonna take care.
Speaker 5: And then, you know, once my husband and I started
Speaker 5: that process and realized how many other you know, young
Speaker 5: people are caught up, particularly black and brown children right
Speaker 5: are in the system. And a lot of it is
Speaker 5: because of poverty. A lot of people children are taking
Speaker 5: because of privy, because I love the child, because of
Speaker 5: and they classified neglect as oh, you don't have enough
Speaker 5: food in a refrigerator, or do you have a stable
Speaker 5: place that just because you're CouchSurfing or it's something like that. Like,
Speaker 5: there's so many different reasons why children end up in
Speaker 5: the system. And it's not to say that there aren't
Speaker 5: very real cases of neglect and abuse, because there are,
Speaker 5: but for there's a large portion of it it is
Speaker 5: because of issues of poverty. And then after that family member,
Speaker 5: who's now you know permanently with us, we kept our
Speaker 5: license open and so far we have fostered children their
Speaker 5: parents are under twenty five or twenty.
Speaker 1: Five, And so you chose that area what it just so.
Speaker 5: Happened to be. And you know when I talked about
Speaker 5: like one of the things I say in a photo
Speaker 5: line to the Vice President every time I talk to
Speaker 5: her about foster care. Right, and even though it is
Speaker 5: a process that is governed by states, it is a
Speaker 5: national crisis certainly that was exasperated by COVID that needs
Speaker 5: to be addressed in terms of the resources because it's
Speaker 5: an ongoing cycle. Just our brief time of ten years
Speaker 5: doing it, we've seen the vicious cycle of a young
Speaker 5: person in care, they not having the adequate supports or resources,
Speaker 5: They then become parents sooner than they need to be,
Speaker 5: and then they don't have basic supports to be able support,
Speaker 5: so now their children are taken and it's so sort
Speaker 5: of an ongoing cycle from that standpoint, And so we
Speaker 5: really have to focus not only as a state, but
Speaker 5: as a nation and how we are addressing the needs
Speaker 5: of people twenty five and under in this country. Because
Speaker 5: we for a lot of things, we leave it up
Speaker 5: to just the parents. And what happens when those there
Speaker 5: are are no supports or the parents need additional supports
Speaker 5: in order to continue to raise them and engage for
Speaker 5: their livelihoods.
Speaker 3: Well, Donald Trump said, you just need a day to
Speaker 3: purge and just beat them up when they still, you know,
Speaker 3: just beat the kids up they still, You rough them
Speaker 3: up real, real violently, and then everything go back to normal.
Speaker 2: So that's how you do that.
Speaker 1: That's not you know, I wrote on your page how
Speaker 1: I feel about that.
Speaker 2: Definitely, there was definitely some what we call explotives.
Speaker 4: Because I'm just so tired of it. But I I
Speaker 4: just want to thank you, el joy who are coming
Speaker 4: to be with us today. Get this book. It is
Speaker 4: the get Vote Ready Journal, the journeys you got to do,
Speaker 4: the empowered Voter.
Speaker 1: And I hope that everybody who's like, what do I do?
Speaker 1: How do I do it?
Speaker 4: With a instead of us becoming so anxious that we
Speaker 4: disengage because you just overstimulated. There are actual tools and
Speaker 4: I believe that your book is a tool. Let me
Speaker 4: touch it so I can feel it and put a
Speaker 4: little bit of a blessing that I.
Speaker 1: Have on it.
Speaker 4: You know that there are real people who have sat
Speaker 4: down out and said, let me help you so that
Speaker 4: you are not anxious, but you're actually ready, ready to go. Well,
Speaker 4: you know, she's a super friend, a super friend, l
Speaker 4: Joy Williams, the president of the NAACP Brooklyn branch, but
Speaker 4: also so so so much more and also an author here. Okay,
Speaker 4: that's what I'm talking about. Thank you, thank you so
Speaker 4: much for thanks.
Speaker 3: So with that said, we're going to go into my
Speaker 3: I don't get it since we're talking about civics, you know,
Speaker 3: and I haven't really said anything about the Eric Adams
Speaker 3: charges because I don't really know a lot of it
Speaker 3: about it, right, But I read the indictment and then
Speaker 3: I read the article that I read today just talking
Speaker 3: about you know what there he's being accused of and
Speaker 3: just getting a breakdown.
Speaker 2: And I don't get how.
Speaker 3: Someone who is an elected official, right, and they have lobbyists.
Speaker 3: I've heard about having lobbyists, and they lobby for certain things,
Speaker 3: and they lobby on behalf of certain things. And you know,
Speaker 3: the elected officials, the campaigns are funded, they have dinners,
Speaker 3: they raise money, and all of these things are supposed
Speaker 3: to be that you build a relationship with the elected
Speaker 3: official that you know that you advocate on behalf of yourself.
Speaker 3: And now when it seems to me, right because I've
Speaker 3: heard this a few times that every time there's a
Speaker 3: black elected official, those things become criminal, right, And I'm
Speaker 3: not saying it is because I don't know all of
Speaker 3: the intricate things, like we don't know all of the evidence,
Speaker 3: we don't know all the things, but it actually it
Speaker 3: seems to me as if you being close to an
Speaker 3: elected official, you know, raising money on behalf because you
Speaker 3: want to see that person in power, that you believe
Speaker 3: in that person, and you having a relationship which puts
Speaker 3: you in a position to where you could say, hey,
Speaker 3: these things are wrong in our community or these things
Speaker 3: we need in our community, and him be able to
Speaker 3: advocate on behalf of you now with something that's ilegal,
Speaker 3: it's it's a bribe.
Speaker 1: So I'm glad you're being vulnerable and.
Speaker 3: I'm not listen to me and I don't know, and
Speaker 3: I don't agree with Eric Adams on a lot of things.
Speaker 3: And we, like we just said, we pushed back and
Speaker 3: I've had you know, if you look at I would
Speaker 3: drink Champs interview.
Speaker 2: I sat down and I explained him to things.
Speaker 3: I didn't agree with, but as a man and as
Speaker 3: a black man, I understand that it's hard, especially in politics.
Speaker 2: I've watched this situation happen. This is not the first.
Speaker 3: Time, this is not the second these this same situation
Speaker 3: I've seen happen to like four elected officials black elected officials.
Speaker 2: Right right.
Speaker 3: So I'm really don't get why the you know, the
Speaker 3: the threshold right right, Why the criteria for advocacy and
Speaker 3: in fundraising and things seem to change when black officials are.
Speaker 1: In Yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't change.
Speaker 4: And that's why I said, I'm glad that you asked,
Speaker 4: because I think, as you said, that TMI is a
Speaker 4: forum and should be for us to educate people.
Speaker 1: But also sometimes we just don't know.
Speaker 4: And when we don't know, we should not feel like, oh,
Speaker 4: we can't talk about that because we don't know. No,
Speaker 4: it's okay for us to say I don't know. And
Speaker 4: so here's the thing. First of all, yes, there is
Speaker 4: an attack on black elected officials.
Speaker 1: We see it happening all over the country.
Speaker 4: What's our sister's name in Maryland, in Baltimore, and Marilyn Moseby,
Speaker 4: she is on.
Speaker 1: House arrest right now.
Speaker 4: For something that is completely asinine, right, using her own
Speaker 4: money in the purchase of a home, her own money,
Speaker 4: not stealing from the taxpayers, and making a mistake on
Speaker 4: the application. Even if the mistake was something that some
Speaker 4: people will say it's intentional, she says that it wasn't.
Speaker 4: In fact, she says that it did not even happen
Speaker 4: the way in which it has been portrayed, especially in
Speaker 4: the media. But now she's on house arrest, and you know,
Speaker 4: I think it's asinine. You now see that Angela Asselbrooks,
Speaker 4: who's running for senate in also in Maryland, she is
Speaker 4: being accused of not registering her grandmother's property the right way,
Speaker 4: which looks very to me as an oversight. But nonetheless
Speaker 4: she's also experiencing this. You see Brian Benjamin, who has
Speaker 4: never even purchased marijuana. Okay, this is a man who
Speaker 4: Brian as our friend. He's probably the cleanest clean person
Speaker 4: I've ever ever ever met.
Speaker 1: In my life.
Speaker 4: I know Brian, and you know Brian, and we've looked
Speaker 4: at his evidence, and we've looked at all of that,
Speaker 4: and this young man's life has been destroyed, even though
Speaker 4: he's rebuilding it.
Speaker 1: He will be fine.
Speaker 4: Before the moment, Brian as the lieutenant governor of New
Speaker 4: York State who was about to go on and become
Speaker 4: the governor. Right, he was definitely going to be the governor,
Speaker 4: There's no question about it. He could raise the money,
Speaker 4: he had, the relationships, he had the posture of not
Speaker 4: being like a He'll say I'm a black capitalist, right,
Speaker 4: and that's something that he and I have gone back
Speaker 4: and forth on. Nonetheless, when he says I'm a black capitalist,
Speaker 4: I know there's some people who like to, you know,
Speaker 4: who are looking at more their interests in politics.
Speaker 1: They're like, okay, I could get with him. He's not the.
Speaker 4: Liberal, super progressive, you know, against people making money type
Speaker 4: of person. So he did all the things right, he
Speaker 4: checked all the boxes, and still they took him down
Speaker 4: over something that when you look at the evidence, first
Speaker 4: of all, they've had to walk back some of it,
Speaker 4: and second of all, the individual who was accusing him
Speaker 4: was a white man who's deceased now. But also he
Speaker 4: was somebody who was a criminal already in charge in
Speaker 4: trouble for some other things. And Brian seemed to become
Speaker 4: the fish that he could give to the prosecutors and
Speaker 4: to the United States.
Speaker 1: The FEDS basically to why can't.
Speaker 4: I get the US Attorneys Office to get them to
Speaker 4: maybe back down off of him, or just to ingratiate
Speaker 4: himself with the system. So this goes on and on
Speaker 4: and on, and we could keep going, Kim Fox this
Speaker 4: people running for office and people in elected office all
Speaker 4: over this nation, black people, so cool.
Speaker 1: The charges for Eric.
Speaker 4: Adams, if there is evidence for those charges, real evidence
Speaker 4: that sticks on him, they are charges that are serious
Speaker 4: because number one, it's not that it's just people advocating
Speaker 4: for themselves the way that you and I do.
Speaker 1: These are business folks. These are not.
Speaker 4: Community advocates who are like, oh, you know, I want
Speaker 4: to see more community centers and whatever.
Speaker 1: These are people who are making a lot of money.
Speaker 4: And by the way, Turkey specifically is not on a
Speaker 4: good list with America. I don't want to give the
Speaker 4: wrong title, but I know they're on some list of
Speaker 4: like not being our friend or not being a nation
Speaker 4: that America has a strong relationship with. So when you're
Speaker 4: in relationship with them, and then they are able to
Speaker 4: do business with the city. And then they said that
Speaker 4: the fire codes in the building that they wanted were
Speaker 4: not up to par and it was like ninety different issues,
Speaker 4: and they claimed that Mayor Adams called the fire department
Speaker 4: over and over even after they declined to give them
Speaker 4: the building, and they made it happen. This is what
Speaker 4: they This is what they're saying. I'm just you know,
Speaker 4: so if there's evidence to prove that, if there's evidence
Speaker 4: to prove it, then we will be able to see
Speaker 4: whether he was actually involved in these things that they
Speaker 4: say happened for ten years or a longer period of time.
Speaker 4: The main thing, though, which is the same kind of
Speaker 4: issue or the same charges that they bought against Brian Benjamin,
Speaker 4: is the Straw donations, which is the ten million dollars
Speaker 4: that they speak about where they say he stole ten
Speaker 4: million dollars, and it's also the way that the media
Speaker 4: talks about these things. It stole ten men million dollars
Speaker 4: makes you think that he siphoned it off or put
Speaker 4: it in his bank account and spent it on his
Speaker 4: family and friends and was out partying with it. But
Speaker 4: what they're saying is that these connects that he had
Speaker 4: in Turkey, they had relationships, they took their relationships with
Speaker 4: other people, gave them money, and then those people made
Speaker 4: donations on their behalf to boost their support.
Speaker 1: For him, so that he would be indebted to them.
Speaker 4: And so I look at that, and if there's, like
Speaker 4: I said, real evidence for it, I can.
Speaker 1: See why he would be in real trouble.
Speaker 4: Now he says that the allegations are lies and it's
Speaker 4: a bunch of slander and things that's being made up
Speaker 4: or that is being blown up to make it look
Speaker 4: like he's running some type of criminal enterprise, which, by
Speaker 4: the way, it is all kinds of investigations flying around
Speaker 4: his office for different things. A couple of things I
Speaker 4: know is when I look at people who are also
Speaker 4: in the administration, like David Banks, who's the chancellor of
Speaker 4: New York City Public Schools, and also sheen or right,
Speaker 4: and just a bunch of people there.
Speaker 1: I could go on with the names. These are people
Speaker 1: that I know.
Speaker 4: I know, especially the two that I named, I know
Speaker 4: that they would never be involved in a criminal enterprise.
Speaker 4: I know that there are many people within that administration
Speaker 4: that they would never. Ever, that's just not their character,
Speaker 4: it's not who they are. And I could say that,
Speaker 4: and if I was ever proven wrong, I would have
Speaker 4: to come back and say I apologize, But I know,
Speaker 4: I know that these are people who just that that's
Speaker 4: just not with it. That's not what they do. The
Speaker 4: bank's family is just not what they do. So with
Speaker 4: that being said, we have to before we start talking
Speaker 4: about step down, resign all of this, we really do
Speaker 4: have to be able to see whether or not this
Speaker 4: evidence is true and is tried and tested in the court.
Speaker 4: Because my perspective on this is, even though Eric and
Speaker 4: I have many, many different things that we disagree on
Speaker 4: many his support for Israel and unfortunately the way in
Speaker 4: which he either will not even address the palace in
Speaker 4: their community or the way in which it's almost like
Speaker 4: he mocks it. I don't like that. I don't support that.
Speaker 4: I don't like his consistent support for police officers that
Speaker 4: we believe are rogue and disrespectful and harmful, very dangerous
Speaker 4: in our communities.
Speaker 1: So there's enough.
Speaker 4: There's a list of things that I could sit here,
Speaker 4: like we said, you don't got to make anything up
Speaker 4: because there's a list of things. But I also want
Speaker 4: to challenge those people who jump up and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's it, you out.
Speaker 1: I want to challenge those people.
Speaker 4: You want poky though, who goes through who gets arrested
Speaker 4: and all of that to be able to go before
Speaker 4: a court a law.
Speaker 1: And for the evidence to prove they're wrong.
Speaker 4: But then when it comes to him, we want to
Speaker 4: have a different standard, And I just that's something that
Speaker 4: you can be mad or you want with me, but
Speaker 4: I just don't support it. I'm not mad at anybody
Speaker 4: who says we don't like Eric Adams.
Speaker 1: Never did and therefore we.
Speaker 4: Feel that this is a moment when his leadership has
Speaker 4: been shown to be like ineffective and he needs to
Speaker 4: step down.
Speaker 1: But I do think that there is something to be said.
Speaker 4: About these investigations that happen to be going on all
Speaker 4: across the country to our or black elected officials.
Speaker 1: I just I'm not with it.
Speaker 4: So there's a side of me that understands what you're saying.
Speaker 4: But then there's also a side that we have to
Speaker 4: be very clear that the charges against him are not
Speaker 4: a joke.
Speaker 1: They are serious charges.
Speaker 3: No, And I understand what you're saying. I'm just saying
Speaker 3: based on what I was reading when I read the article.
Speaker 4: The article you're talking about, you're talking about an article
Speaker 4: that says that the charge like it's an overcharge, like
Speaker 4: it's an overread, which is the same thing they did
Speaker 4: to Brian.
Speaker 3: And because it basically described what exactly happened to Brian Benjamin.
Speaker 3: So when I'm listening, I'm like, well, this is the
Speaker 3: same thing that happened to Brian Benjamin.
Speaker 2: And it's like, how do in what they say?
Speaker 3: The main thing that they say about these cases that
Speaker 3: there has to be quid quote pro.
Speaker 4: Quid pro pro quote fault. I can't never say quote
Speaker 4: quid pro quote, quit.
Speaker 2: Quit pro quote.
Speaker 3: The main thing they say about these cases they have
Speaker 3: to be quit pro quote. And that means that there
Speaker 3: has to be an established agreement between two parties that
Speaker 3: if you do this, then I'll do that, right, And
Speaker 3: that's what has to be established and.
Speaker 1: Based on this, and they couldn't establish it for Briant And.
Speaker 2: There was no not really at all.
Speaker 3: All they had him doing was actually just given the
Speaker 3: grant organization for him to do what he does with
Speaker 3: the kids. There was nothing that you do this and
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do that, right. So, and what I'm saying
Speaker 3: is this.
Speaker 4: And the judge said that, let's just be clear judgment
Speaker 4: qui pro quo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, That's what I'm when I'm reading this article, they're
Speaker 3: saying the same thing.
Speaker 2: It's okay.
Speaker 3: Most of the time people do things for elected officials.
Speaker 3: This is the elect official that you're trying to get
Speaker 3: in that you're going to try to get But the law,
Speaker 3: the law said that you would.
Speaker 2: Have to know.
Speaker 3: That's that's where quid quote pro quote comes in. Well,
Speaker 3: I would have to be aware that something's happening. If
Speaker 3: you decide you you're one of my constituents, right, you
Speaker 3: want to make sure I'm running for men, you want
Speaker 3: to make sure that I get it, And you go
Speaker 3: to all the whole block, like, listen, we need to
Speaker 3: donate to my songs, and you get everybody and you
Speaker 3: rallying off and they all donate and they come from
Speaker 3: you and this and that right, and you decide I
Speaker 3: don't have any well.
Speaker 1: Like the promise.
Speaker 4: But the problem is, well, I mean, but still again,
Speaker 4: it's all about evidence, because if you alleged that someone
Speaker 4: knew or that there was conversations between a staff and
Speaker 4: team members where they were coordinating, that it's one thing
Speaker 4: to rally up your community.
Speaker 1: I remember one time I said to an elected official.
Speaker 4: I can't remember who it was, but I said, oh, okay,
Speaker 4: you want my mom and dad. I didn't know. I
Speaker 4: was very I didn't know. So they said, oh, my
Speaker 4: mom and dad. I said, oh, well, I'm not going
Speaker 4: to make them spend their money to donate for you.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give them money. And the elected official,
Speaker 1: I can't remember.
Speaker 4: I know it was a man, but I cannot remember
Speaker 4: who it was stop me immediately and said it might
Speaker 4: have been Jamiani. Stopped me immediately and said that is illegal.
Speaker 4: You cannot do that, absolutely not. And if your parents
Speaker 4: are to give me, it has to come from them.
Speaker 4: You can ask them to donate to me, but that's fundraising,
Speaker 4: but you cannot fund them giving me money. So again,
Speaker 4: that would be something where they would have to be
Speaker 4: evidence of it. Now we can speak to it as
Speaker 4: it relates to Brian, because we with Brian we know
Speaker 4: from talking to him directly. We ain't talk to Eric
Speaker 4: about this. Eric Adams, the mayor, but we have talked
Speaker 4: to Brian. We know that he had if it was done,
Speaker 4: he don't know a dang one thing about it, was
Speaker 4: never involved in anything like that.
Speaker 1: So I'm sure that that is this.
Speaker 4: Maybe maybe that's I don't know where Eric's I'm not
Speaker 4: going to try to deliberate his faith. But that would
Speaker 4: be a problem that you cannot give people money to
Speaker 4: give And it's not just being around somebody my son,
Speaker 4: it's also a person. Like one of the things I
Speaker 4: saw in the evidence is they're saying, like, Okay, you
Speaker 4: wanted to get you want to go to on a
Speaker 4: plane a plane and instead of you paying fifteen thousand dollars,
Speaker 4: which is the cost of the ticket, you're paying one
Speaker 4: thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Now should people And it's a lot of people that don't.
Speaker 4: Even care about that because I don't care about that,
Speaker 4: Like that doesn't move me at all, because I do
Speaker 4: understand it. If I'm in relationship with you and you
Speaker 4: have the ability to give me a deal on a
Speaker 4: plane ticket, I don't see anything wrong with that.
Speaker 1: But the law says that that is illegal.
Speaker 2: See I didn't know that. I didn't know that the
Speaker 2: law you take on somebody funding you.
Speaker 4: Affair, yes, you can't do it. And if you no, no,
Speaker 4: now you can. Like you can't even go out to dinner,
Speaker 4: I cannot take you know, we have many friends in
Speaker 4: their administration.
Speaker 1: When we go out to dinner, they have to pay
Speaker 1: for themselves.
Speaker 4: They cannot even take a dinner from us, if then
Speaker 4: they could take it from me as a friend. But
Speaker 4: you know, you applied to the city for which ultimately
Speaker 4: puts me in it. But you applied to the city
Speaker 4: for the youth centers and all of the youth operations
Speaker 4: that you do in Newark. You're trying to do it
Speaker 4: here in New York. Well, when you as soon as
Speaker 4: that application is in, you no longer because now that
Speaker 4: would mean that you are providing favors for something in return. Now,
Speaker 4: because I'm friends with these people and there's clear evidence
Speaker 4: of us partying together YouTube, hanging out. They know we
Speaker 4: are friends, I might pay the bill at dinner and
Speaker 4: that's okay.
Speaker 1: But even then, depending on when.
Speaker 4: It is what the conversation at the table was. Cause
Speaker 4: if the next person who's sitting at the production crew,
Speaker 4: this gentleman is sitting there and he said, oh, they're
Speaker 4: over there talking about whatever, you can't even do that.
Speaker 4: So it has to be very very You could be
Speaker 4: talking about twerking and whatever you think, and that's cool.
Speaker 1: But soon as you say, well, you know, we put
Speaker 1: this application in for the city.
Speaker 4: Da da da da da, and we're trying to figure
Speaker 4: out the dada that becomes that that elected official has
Speaker 4: to pay for it, and then the reason why they
Speaker 4: do that is to cut back on people being able
Speaker 4: to pay the play.
Speaker 2: So well, that makes sense, you know.
Speaker 3: So what I what I will say is that that's I'm.
Speaker 1: With you with the everybody black, but.
Speaker 3: It's it's definitely everybody black. I said, I said this
Speaker 3: the other day. Black man got bad black man, damn
Speaker 3: bad man. It's like when when we look at the news,
Speaker 3: it's just being from were just being taken down from
Speaker 3: all angles man. And I want to give the benefit
Speaker 3: of the doubt, right, I want I want everybody's case
Speaker 3: to try out in court. Right, I'm not convicting anybody.
Speaker 3: People like, why you don't speak on Diddy? Why you
Speaker 3: ain't speaking because I don't know what happened with Diddy.
Speaker 3: I know I spoke when I seen what happened with Casie,
Speaker 3: I spoke about it.
Speaker 2: I said that it was Carol culture. I said that
Speaker 2: I didn't condone that.
Speaker 3: I said, whatever he had to deal with that he's
Speaker 3: needed to be held accountable for everything else I don't
Speaker 3: know anything about. And I'm gonna let it play out
Speaker 3: in the court of law. And I would think that's
Speaker 3: what men supposed to do in this situation.
Speaker 2: Just like with Eric Adams, I don't know what he did.
Speaker 3: I don't and I'm not gonna sit here and pile
Speaker 3: on another black man who's dealing with whatever he has
Speaker 3: to deal with, because I would want somebody I went
Speaker 3: to trial for my life, right, and I was facing
Speaker 3: a bunch of time and I blew trial crime I
Speaker 3: didn't commit, and I had to deal with that right.
Speaker 2: So I understand those realities. So don't ask me.
Speaker 3: Don't come to me and ask me to pile up
Speaker 3: on another black man about something that I don't know about.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna let that man have his then court and
Speaker 3: if he's found guilty, then he'll be held accountable. But
Speaker 3: he's not gonna be held accountable for me because I'm
Speaker 3: not the judge or the jury in those situations. And
Speaker 3: that's why I have this segment called I don't get
Speaker 3: it because I didn't get it.
Speaker 2: So you gave me some education about certain things.
Speaker 4: Well, there are some people who will say, well, what
Speaker 4: about Tory Lanes and why was that different?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: And what I would say is, first of all, we
Speaker 4: had we're looking at the case, or you were looking
Speaker 4: at the case. So we knew a lot more details
Speaker 4: than most people knew because we were actually getting We
Speaker 4: were like out there looking and calling around trying to
Speaker 4: find like because for a woman to like lie on
Speaker 4: a man and say that he shot her.
Speaker 1: That was something that really disturbed me.
Speaker 4: Like I was really like, Nah, this can't this can't
Speaker 4: be but what I and so we were looking at it.
Speaker 4: But one of the things that I I did, if
Speaker 4: you ever go back and you look, I never said
Speaker 4: he did it or didn't do it. I just said
Speaker 4: stopped lying and saying that she wasn't shot because she
Speaker 4: was and she was being antagonized. And after I did
Speaker 4: my due diligence and my research, it became very clear
Speaker 4: to me what was going on and what happened to her.
Speaker 4: But what I can appreciate about you is that you
Speaker 4: did say after you first was like he did it.
Speaker 1: He did he did it?
Speaker 4: Because you know, sometimes we get passionate and over zealous.
Speaker 4: You said, you know what, actually I'm wrong for posting
Speaker 4: this that I'm gonna take it down because it was
Speaker 4: wrong for me to even come out here saying these
Speaker 4: things without this man being able to go through his
Speaker 4: dand court.
Speaker 2: Yep, and that's you know, and it was wrong.
Speaker 3: And I said that as a man, and I learned
Speaker 3: from that situation, even though that's how I felt in
Speaker 3: my heart, even though I knew certain things about the situation,
Speaker 3: and we watched things play on in court. It's like,
Speaker 3: you know, a man got caught with the gun. He
Speaker 3: did this, and I heard the videotape, I mean, the
Speaker 3: audio table was happening. I like, there were certain things,
Speaker 3: and then I watched when he said a friend did
Speaker 3: it and then said she didn't do it, like I
Speaker 3: literally watched and said to myself this, I've seen this
Speaker 3: behavior before. So I made my decision based on it,
Speaker 3: and I was willing to stand by, but I still
Speaker 3: didn't want to come out publicly and say what I said.
Speaker 2: I was frustrated and I was watching.
Speaker 3: I felt like the woman was being attagonized and I
Speaker 3: was trying to stand up for her, and I moved
Speaker 3: in a way that I normally.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't move, and I apologize for that as a man.
Speaker 3: So moving forward in this situation, I'm giving everybody the
Speaker 3: same grace because I have way less information about these
Speaker 3: cases than I even had a boy.
Speaker 4: Because we literally was online digging for a court document,
Speaker 4: a dialogue with Tori.
Speaker 3: And just explained to him and just the way, the
Speaker 3: way that he carried it to me was wrong. And
Speaker 3: you know, I don't wish jail on anybody. You know,
Speaker 3: I'm here a lot of things that he's he's doing
Speaker 3: things for inmates and jail, donating to their funds. You know,
Speaker 3: hopefully he comes home, he's he's more successful, he's learned
Speaker 3: from whatever mistakes he's made in the past. I do
Speaker 3: not wish jail on anyone in the world, but I
Speaker 3: understand that there are consequences for your actions, right, and
Speaker 3: you need to be held accountable.
Speaker 2: And if you did something, then you got to deal
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 3: As men, we fall down, we realize we made mistakes,
Speaker 3: and we get back up and we move forward. So
Speaker 3: you know, I just want everybody to just moving up.
Speaker 3: Just understand, we dealing with a lot of dark forces
Speaker 3: right now. There's a lot going on, and black men
Speaker 3: are under attack, and I keep saying black men are
Speaker 3: damn bad. So I'm just saying, just hold the complete judgment, right.
Speaker 3: You cannot like somebody, say that you don't like somebody,
Speaker 3: but just hold off from paling on right, because when
Speaker 3: you pile on to somebody you know and you don't
Speaker 3: know what's going on and you just completely convict, it's
Speaker 3: hard to eat that crow you.
Speaker 4: But and I mean, you know what I feel as
Speaker 4: a woman, I feel many different ways. And this is
Speaker 4: not something that I have not said directly to puff
Speaker 4: to others that are close to this situation. After not
Speaker 4: just watching the video or Cassie, but also listening to
Speaker 4: some of the stories, It's disturbing. That's it. It's nothing else.
Speaker 4: It is disturbing. It's painful. I you know, my heart
Speaker 4: goes out to Cassie because even in the midst of
Speaker 4: all of this, while it may seem like, you know,
Speaker 4: justice is coming, she still suffered and experienced something that
Speaker 4: I watched happen with my eyes on that videotape.
Speaker 1: That couldn't have been the first time. It just couldn't
Speaker 1: have been.
Speaker 4: That's the way I feel about it, and I have
Speaker 4: no problem saying that in public. Nonetheless, I know how
Speaker 4: these prosecutors work. When they give you an indictment. Baby,
Speaker 4: the charges got stuff in it that you're like, WHOA,
Speaker 4: what is this?
Speaker 1: How is that?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: And they make it you know, because even having a
Speaker 4: thousand big bottles of baby oil and lubricant or whatever. Now,
Speaker 4: while that may give you some type of thought about
Speaker 4: what could be happening, it's not illegal. And I don't
Speaker 4: believe that a jury is gonna be like, oh, that's it,
Speaker 4: that's the convicting thing. So this but that's and that's also.
Speaker 4: But that's how we know from reading indictments. That's how
Speaker 4: it works. So when you actually get court documents and
Speaker 4: you are in court and you can hear what is
Speaker 4: being said and how information is being translated, that's when
Speaker 4: you start to understand like what it boils down to
Speaker 4: what is the real truth in the end of the day.
Speaker 4: So that's what we all will see and have to
Speaker 4: wait to see, not just in that case, but it's
Speaker 4: a many of them life.
Speaker 1: We got this case.
Speaker 4: It's a lot going on. But anyway, so we out
Speaker 4: of here today.
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