Speaker 1: Media. So I saw this thing on the internet. How
Speaker 1: many things in our life start like that? A video
Speaker 1: of some sorority sisters doing their black sorority linestepping dance
Speaker 1: thing that if you are familiar with black fraternity and sororities,
Speaker 1: no big deal. But I kind of didn't know how
Speaker 1: I felt about this because these sisters were not black.
Speaker 1: Were some sort of persons of color, but they definitely
Speaker 1: weren't black. Just kind of left me a little a
Speaker 1: little unsure of how I felt about it.
Speaker 2: So let's unpack some stuff here, all right. So this
Speaker 2: has been a week.
Speaker 1: I am in a different location, so if it sounds different,
Speaker 1: it's because I'm sitting at my kitchen table because there
Speaker 1: was a incredible happening inside our studio, which is just
Speaker 1: the back room of my house. I'm like, either I
Speaker 1: am in complete misalignment, just completely of the will of God,
Speaker 1: or I'm finna get blessings rained down on me because
Speaker 1: got Dog finished the Bastard barbecue shot out Scratch Bastard,
Speaker 1: probably one of the greatest DJs I've ever met in
Speaker 1: my life, and he let me rock there.
Speaker 2: It was a great thing.
Speaker 1: And then I noticed that the carpet in the studio
Speaker 1: up under my desk where the sound space is is
Speaker 1: sopping wet, and apparently the little copper pipes decided to
Speaker 1: break right at the foundation line. So I've been spending
Speaker 1: the last few days breaking concrete. I learned a lot. Nevertheless,
Speaker 1: he persisted, it has been fixed. I'd like to thank
Speaker 1: my Lord it saving Jesus Christ for leading me to
Speaker 1: marry into a Mexican family so that I could ask
Speaker 1: my brother in Lauchino shout out daxon journey. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, for showing up with the journey, showed
Speaker 1: up with the tools. I'd ask Dak's questions here and there.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Simmer Simon from East of
Speaker 1: the River. It helps, which leads me to the topic
Speaker 1: I wanted to cover today, which is about just really
Speaker 1: I think, ultimately something called cultural competence tapping in with me.
Speaker 1: So y'all may remember during Black History Month, I told
Speaker 1: y'all I was not gonna spend any time this Black
Speaker 1: History Month educating anyone on blackness. There has been books written,
Speaker 1: there's documentaries, there's movies.
Speaker 2: You have the resources. If you want to know, you
Speaker 2: can know.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to enjoy my blackness and ask questions
Speaker 1: of black people, like when are we gonna let go
Speaker 1: of this speakerphone thing. It's stuff black people do, but
Speaker 1: that's in house. It's none of your business, speaking to
Speaker 1: none of your business. There are a few things that
Speaker 1: I feel like black people have made into an art form,
Speaker 1: which is what makes this next thing something that seems
Speaker 1: so intuitive to me. It doesn't seem like something that
Speaker 1: you would need to explain. But I think I've examined
Speaker 1: why I feel this way, and I've only come up
Speaker 1: with a couple answers.
Speaker 2: That I don't know.
Speaker 1: They're kind of anecdotes, but one of which is maybe
Speaker 1: there's something about the unique experience that I specifically had
Speaker 1: by like growing up in such a multicultural space, not
Speaker 1: so much like a lot of people grow up in
Speaker 1: melting pots or whatever, or diverse areas, but you don't
Speaker 1: really interact with those other cultures.
Speaker 2: They're just your neighbors.
Speaker 1: I truly lived tri culturally and shout out rad Mattic
Speaker 1: like he was making fun of me for knowing what
Speaker 1: the province was bamboo. All these fools have been like, damn,
Speaker 1: you might be more Filipino than we are. It's just
Speaker 1: because I be in y'all circle. You guys all know
Speaker 1: all of the latinos, specifically the Mexican American references the
Speaker 1: area I grew up in because I literally have been
Speaker 1: with y'all and I'm actually black as hell, And then
Speaker 1: you have to we all have to know dominant culture stuff.
Speaker 2: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Some of that might just be my curiosity, but then
Speaker 1: I think there's an element of knowing how to act
Speaker 1: when you're in somebody else's house, one of which is
Speaker 1: knowing what is my business and is not my business,
Speaker 1: and that, my friend, is essential to growing up black.
Speaker 2: You got to know.
Speaker 1: There are so many ways for us to tell you
Speaker 1: to mind your business. And something is not my business.
Speaker 1: Y'all remember the episode about the Supreme Court. Y'all don't
Speaker 1: sign my check nor marinate my chicken, then what you're
Speaker 1: doing is not my business. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: I don't know what about our culture values that so much.
Speaker 1: But when I tell you stat of grown folks, bis,
Speaker 1: when I tell you how your parents drill in you,
Speaker 1: some stuff is just not your business.
Speaker 2: I feel like you grow up being able.
Speaker 1: To recognize when certain things are When I was up
Speaker 1: in Vancouver earlier this year in February, at this like
Speaker 1: artists retreat for like faith, art and mental health.
Speaker 2: The lady that was running it gave us this motif.
Speaker 1: She was like, Yo, there's being welcomed, there's being invited in,
Speaker 1: and then there's belonging. To me. A good way to
Speaker 1: say that is like if I have you over my house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're You're welcome. You're welcome here.
Speaker 1: If I've invited you in, you get refrigerator rights, Like
Speaker 1: you can get up and go into the refrigerator. Like
Speaker 1: that's you know, you're you're, I'm inviting you in, I
Speaker 1: am giving you permission. Belonging is like you ain't even
Speaker 1: got a knock. This experience would not be the same
Speaker 1: without you, Like something is missing if you are not here.
Speaker 1: That's belonging. You're supposed to be here and hopefully that's
Speaker 1: like should be the goal of humanity anyway. Now, as
Speaker 1: Juneteenth approaches, the question I get every year, generally from
Speaker 1: white people, but sometimes there's variations, is how should you
Speaker 1: celebrate June teen? Sometimes I give suggestions, But in light
Speaker 1: of this video, let me fall back and talk about
Speaker 1: a bigger thing now, there's questions around the N word
Speaker 1: that you ask ten different Black people, you gonna get
Speaker 1: ten different answers. Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this,
Speaker 1: and it's important, especially in light of these white South
Speaker 1: Africans that just got here apparently being oppressed, and their
Speaker 1: oppression is different than everybody else's oppression. There is an
Speaker 1: acceptable oppression in relation to our president. Molly has done
Speaker 1: an amazing I don't know, twenty part series on Weird
Speaker 1: Little Guys about this white South African genocide, which is
Speaker 1: a spoiler alert, not actually happening. But let's just say
Speaker 1: you're a non black person, white person, you grew up
Speaker 1: in black neighborhoods, grew up with black families, and maybe
Speaker 1: among the homies, they have no problem with you using
Speaker 1: the N word. Now, the cultural competency is to know
Speaker 1: the difference between welcoming and belonging. If you truly knew
Speaker 1: who we were and understood what we went through, you
Speaker 1: would understand that even with that pass, that the past
Speaker 1: is non transferable. To me, that seems like a no brainer.
Speaker 1: There's a relation. You have to earn that with every
Speaker 1: new group of black people, because you truly understand what
Speaker 1: it means to be one of us. That is a
Speaker 1: cultural competency to me. So I don't know those ladies
Speaker 1: or the connection they may have to a black sorority.
Speaker 1: They might be a chapter of one. I don't know that.
Speaker 1: That's why I said I don't know how I feel
Speaker 1: about it. I'd have to do some more investigation. They
Speaker 1: are not the point of this discussion. The point of
Speaker 1: this discussion is asked answering your question about how you
Speaker 1: should participate in Juneteenth and in any other cultural celebrations.
Speaker 1: I live five to ten minutes from Monterey Park. Is
Speaker 1: the northern part of East Los Angeles, which is I
Speaker 1: don't know. I would venture to say one hundred percent Asian,
Speaker 1: specifically Chinese. I would venture to say that is probably
Speaker 1: the largest population. I'm not checking any of this information.
Speaker 1: That is the center of the Chinese American community in
Speaker 1: Los Angeles. It's like their Boyle Heights. Every year they
Speaker 1: do a Chinese New Year celebration. Now, when I used
Speaker 1: to work in Diamond Bar, this is a very la statement.
Speaker 1: It's also a large Asian population. You know, parents would
Speaker 1: like bring the little red envelope with twenty dollars. You know,
Speaker 1: they would dress up, they would do their thing, and
Speaker 1: and it was great. I appreciated them inviting me into
Speaker 1: the experience, but I kind of knew what was my
Speaker 1: business and not my business. I will go to the
Speaker 1: Chinese New Year celebration. Sure, I'm gonna bring my kids.
Speaker 1: We'll watch the dragons walk by. It'll be a great time.
Speaker 1: We'll eat dumplings. But the thought has never crossed my
Speaker 1: mind to put on an outfit and get up under
Speaker 1: that dragon, because that's not my business.
Speaker 2: That's y'all's business.
Speaker 1: Now, if you particularly say, hey, I want you to
Speaker 1: handle this, if you walk up to me specifically at
Speaker 1: hand me a sparkle and say, okay, way a bit
Speaker 1: like this, that is because you specifically right now invited
Speaker 1: me in. But I still understand there are certain things
Speaker 1: that are none of my business. While I feel very
Speaker 1: connected to many cultures, I just understand there are certain
Speaker 1: conversations that are just not mine to have. There's some
Speaker 1: cultural expressions that are ancestral you, that are sacred to
Speaker 1: that community, and some stuff is meant to be shared.
Speaker 1: But either way, it's not my position to make them
Speaker 1: share things that they may find sacred. Some things come
Speaker 1: out of joy, some things come out of oppression, and
Speaker 1: some things are just that.
Speaker 2: Family.
Speaker 1: The point is, I'm cognizant enough to understand that there
Speaker 1: are some things that are just off limits for me
Speaker 1: because I don't have the sweat hour. I feel the
Speaker 1: same thing about being black. There are certain things that
Speaker 1: no one on this earth will understand if they did
Speaker 1: not walk, if they don't walk through this world in
Speaker 1: a black body, especially in America, there are certain things
Speaker 1: that we have created out of our need for survival.
Speaker 1: You know why there are HBCUs, it's because colleges were segregated.
Speaker 2: We had to do that.
Speaker 1: Why the parts of the pig that we eat is
Speaker 1: because that's all y'all would give us. Why our neighborhoods
Speaker 1: look the way they look, redlining y'all made us be
Speaker 1: over here. These were things that came out of our
Speaker 1: oppression of Sure, we made treasure out of our trash.
Speaker 1: Sure we made beauty out of chaos. And there are
Speaker 1: certain things that we just give and freely and invite
Speaker 1: y'all into a lot of that is our music. We
Speaker 1: invite you into our music. Please enjoy, sit down, sit
Speaker 1: a spell.
Speaker 2: Have fun.
Speaker 1: There are things about our music that I've said many
Speaker 1: times about being black. It's truly a meritocracy. If you
Speaker 1: can sang, you can sang. I have a homegirl that
Speaker 1: wrote a poem about she saw this white lady singing
Speaker 1: wade in the water and her The reframe in the
Speaker 1: poem was what water? What water are you waiting in?
Speaker 1: You have to understand where that song came from. This
Speaker 1: is about I mean, wade in the water. God's going
Speaker 1: to trouble the water. There's a lot of things happening here.
Speaker 1: There's a reference to Jesus performing a miracle. There's us
Speaker 1: traveling among river lines to get to cross the Mason
Speaker 1: Dixon through the underground railroad. There's the waters of us
Speaker 1: crossing the Atlantic Ocean and actually surviving. You know some
Speaker 1: of our ancestors who decided they would take the ocean
Speaker 1: over slavery. When we talk about wading in the water,
Speaker 1: there's a depth of pain to this, and if you
Speaker 1: truly love us, you would know that you didn't experience this.
Speaker 1: So my encouragement this year is just pull back and
Speaker 1: say where am I welcomed? What am I invited to?
Speaker 1: And where do I be long walking into any cultural situation.
Speaker 1: That's all I ask. So listen, put your Jim Bay
Speaker 1: drums away, take off that damn daishiki. You look ridiculous
Speaker 1: and had us played a barbecue, enjoyed this catfish and
Speaker 1: listen to the speeches and dance awkwardly when the DJ starts.
Speaker 1: You're welcome. I don't know those sorority sisters. I don't
Speaker 1: know their history. They're not the point. All I'm saying is,
Speaker 1: have some antendants tap in with me