Speaker 1: That's what's up. Family. It's your girl, Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory, and it's your boy, my son and general, and
Speaker 2: we are.
Speaker 3: Your host of street politicians the place, the streets and politics.
Speaker 2: Me, it's so funny. You just eat bunny.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you are fink. Let me tell you so.
Speaker 3: I just saw a friend of mine a few moments ago,
Speaker 3: and she went to is it called Pouquette. I think
Speaker 3: it's pouquette. People be saying fuck it, but I think
Speaker 3: it's we call it fuck it, it's pouquet. And like
Speaker 3: all of these places that she went to, Bali and
Speaker 3: when she left, like me, she was struggling with love handles.
Speaker 3: You know, we always talk about how we feel like
Speaker 3: we got these little love handles we can't get rid of.
Speaker 3: And then three weeks later when she gets back, she's massive, small,
Speaker 3: like her stomach has gone down. The love handles are
Speaker 3: almost completely gone. And I'm like, what happened to your no?
Speaker 3: The food with yo? I just said the other day,
Speaker 3: these rats in New York City, they are so big,
Speaker 3: and the rats eat the same food that we eat
Speaker 3: because basically they eat garbage. So if the rats are
Speaker 3: growing big like that, and you can clearly see that
Speaker 3: she left town.
Speaker 1: And got smaller. Well, she was still eating she says,
Speaker 1: she still ate rice.
Speaker 3: They were still eating seasoned food all the time. They
Speaker 3: were still eating much of the same things, especially dishes,
Speaker 3: Asian style dishes over there and here, the same food.
Speaker 3: In fact, she said that the other night she had
Speaker 3: a taste for something that, you know, some Asian dish
Speaker 3: that she ordered from somewhere, and she felt sick after
Speaker 3: eating it, but she was just eating it there and
Speaker 3: it was fine. So that just tells me that what
Speaker 3: we're putting, what we're consuming, the preservatives and additives and
Speaker 3: the spray and the treatment of the meat and whatever
Speaker 3: else we're eating, it's really not healthy.
Speaker 2: They've been saying.
Speaker 4: They've been saying that most of the year USDA food
Speaker 4: would never pass inspection in.
Speaker 2: Most of the other countries.
Speaker 4: Like we have the lowest, lowest grade of meat, We
Speaker 4: have the lowest grade of most of the stuff. If
Speaker 4: you eating trash, you're eating triple trash. And if you're
Speaker 4: eating good, then you eating bottom level good. So the
Speaker 4: best thing you can do is eat good, Like that's
Speaker 4: the best thing you can do. Like I just eat
Speaker 4: I eat green. I don't even eat rice no more.
Speaker 4: Only eat green vegetables. Maybe some cart sometimes hame some corn,
Speaker 4: but for the most part, it's green vegetables. And my
Speaker 4: I do a little bit of poultry because you know,
Speaker 4: I mix it up with my with my seafood. But
Speaker 4: that's pretty much it for me. Man, I try not
Speaker 4: to eat a lot of condiments. I try not to
Speaker 4: do bread.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to be a lot more intentional about my health,
Speaker 4: trying to flush, you know, because I normal drink me
Speaker 4: a little bit ain't now and then, So I try
Speaker 4: to drink water, either alcohol or water. You might drink
Speaker 4: a little ginger ale here and there.
Speaker 1: But for the ginger is water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so pretty much that's that's all. That's what it is.
Speaker 2: So it's like we were not We ain't no spring chickens.
Speaker 4: We gotta be a lot more intentional about our health, man,
Speaker 4: because if you got to take care of your body,
Speaker 4: so when you get older, your body take care of you.
Speaker 3: In fact, my father always said that you take care
Speaker 3: of your teeth, they'll take care of you. If you
Speaker 3: take care of your body, it'll take care of you.
Speaker 3: My father, as.
Speaker 1: You know, is a man of few words.
Speaker 3: When he's, you know, just wants to drop a gym.
Speaker 1: He always said, some they're good.
Speaker 3: We're back and forth between Kentucky and run home, try
Speaker 3: to make sure you take care of your children and
Speaker 3: do the things you need to do for your family stuff.
Speaker 3: And then over here work and gotta get your hair
Speaker 3: done and your haircut, and boom back on the plane
Speaker 3: back to Kentucky with our entire team. You know, I
Speaker 3: want to say that two things about Kentucky.
Speaker 1: The first thing is that.
Speaker 3: The most traumatizing part of being out there registering voters.
Speaker 1: We were just in the mall the other day.
Speaker 3: Of course, it's traumatizing when people say ignorant things like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't do politics, because politics one hundred percent?
Speaker 1: Do you?
Speaker 3: And if you saying you don't do politics, and yet
Speaker 3: you living halfway on the edge, living in certain communities,
Speaker 3: living certain you know how people, some of them live
Speaker 3: certain ways of you know, we got our different things.
Speaker 3: You know, some of us might be living in extremely
Speaker 3: you know, I don't want to say extremely wealthy, because
Speaker 3: I know that's a very small percentage, but living middle class,
Speaker 3: living pretty well, even that, even though you may think
Speaker 3: you sort of separated from it, the politics control whether
Speaker 3: how it's maintained. Like everything we do, politics do us.
Speaker 3: So that's of course very you know, concerning, but it's
Speaker 3: the amount of folks who said, I can't vote because
Speaker 3: I'm a felon. When I tell you that every maybe
Speaker 3: every four black men, if I saw ten to twelve
Speaker 3: black men in one area or just in the course
Speaker 3: of registering people throughout the day, two of them could register.
Speaker 1: The rest could not.
Speaker 4: Lot Man and I want to give a shout out
Speaker 4: to David Ayala, you know who we did a.
Speaker 2: Press conference and we actually partnering with in our campaign.
Speaker 4: He is the executive director of Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People
Speaker 4: and Families Movement and they have a campaign called Free
Speaker 4: to Vote in which, you know, they have been working
Speaker 4: on restoring the rights formally incarcerated, system impacted and justice
Speaker 4: impacted individuals as they call it, and they've done a
Speaker 4: lot of work and actually about two hundred thousand people
Speaker 4: have gotten their voting rights restored, and a lot of
Speaker 4: people don't even know that. So when we have that conversation,
Speaker 4: you know, and they say that, and a lot of
Speaker 4: times were able to look up and say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: you actually can vote. You know, ve shot them out
Speaker 4: for that. They had a ceremony in which they unveiled
Speaker 4: a new billboard that's going to be in low vote
Speaker 4: and it's going to be on the buses in Loco
Speaker 4: and we partner with them, so you know, it's going
Speaker 4: to show that we're working with them and we're doing
Speaker 4: a lot of work. Hopefully, you know, we'll be able
Speaker 4: to get people out to vote because it is a
Speaker 4: very very very important election. You know, we need the
Speaker 4: people that's free to vote to go vote for Brianna.
Speaker 3: They already not vote for Brianna. On November fourth, will
Speaker 3: be there marching folks to the polls and then November
Speaker 3: seventh is election day, so November second, November two. November
Speaker 3: two is the beginning of early voting where you don't
Speaker 3: need an excuse.
Speaker 1: You can just go.
Speaker 3: Because if you have an excuse like you're going to
Speaker 3: be traveling or you have a disability, there is a
Speaker 3: list of things if.
Speaker 1: You go to go vote dot Kentucky dot.
Speaker 3: Com, you can go on there and find a list
Speaker 3: of things that would give you an excuse to vote
Speaker 3: early than November two. So there's an earlier vote in
Speaker 3: October where people who have an excuse, who have a
Speaker 3: reason to vote early, early can go and vote, They
Speaker 3: can cast their vote. But the November second date is
Speaker 3: the date we're focused on. When it's early voting, whether
Speaker 3: you have an excuse or not, just everybody, lotty dotting
Speaker 3: and everybody can.
Speaker 1: Go to the polls.
Speaker 3: We want to make sure that we turn folks out
Speaker 3: beginning November second, so you're not even worried about standing
Speaker 3: on the line on November seventh and all day and
Speaker 3: whatever the inconveniences are, you can get out there on
Speaker 3: November two. On November fourth, which is a Saturday, we
Speaker 3: will be organizing folks to show up to go to
Speaker 3: the polls. So that's the deal. We're gonna march with folks.
Speaker 3: We're gonna have food, we're gonna have all the things
Speaker 3: that people need to get involved.
Speaker 1: So we want to make sure that folks are aware
Speaker 1: of that.
Speaker 3: And the speaking of police brutality and Breonna Taylor, I
Speaker 3: just posted and we are now you know, have now
Speaker 3: entered the support for Steve Perkins family. This is a
Speaker 3: young man in Alabama, Mobile, Alabama to stay with my mother.
Speaker 3: Was born and raised the state where I spent most
Speaker 3: of my summers my family members live in Mobile right now.
Speaker 3: Shakisha Clemens is from Mobile, Alabama. Who's another person that
Speaker 3: was abused by police there in in in Mobile or
Speaker 3: the little town neighboring town of Mobile. And you know,
Speaker 3: we've spent a lot of time there, so we know
Speaker 3: a lot about the difficulties of the relationship between police
Speaker 3: and community. Obviously as it relates to Steve Perkins, there's
Speaker 3: much work to be done. I just want to tell
Speaker 3: so I can just tell you the story off the
Speaker 3: top of my head for folks who are listening, and
Speaker 3: you should absolutely do your research and shout out to
Speaker 3: our brother, attorney Lee Merritt, who is the attorney for
Speaker 3: the family. So Steve Perkins is in his house sleeping.
Speaker 3: He heard some noise out in his yard, a loud noise,
Speaker 3: so he ran out to see what was going on
Speaker 3: with his weapon in tow which is it is It
Speaker 3: is legal. He had a legally registered weapon and he
Speaker 3: went out to see what was going on.
Speaker 1: There was a tow truck attempting to take his vehicle.
Speaker 1: He went out.
Speaker 3: He said to the tow truck driver, Hey, hey, don't
Speaker 3: touch my vehicle. It is no longer in repossession. State
Speaker 3: or whatever. I'm you know, don't you can't, don't take
Speaker 3: my car. I already has been straightened out. The tow
Speaker 3: truck driver left or put the car down or whatever.
Speaker 3: I might be wrong about that, but I know the
Speaker 3: tow truck driver, Steve went back into the house and
Speaker 3: thought the situation was resolved, and the tow truck driver
Speaker 3: called the police, told the police that Steve Perkins pointed
Speaker 3: a weapon at him, and at which time the police
Speaker 3: set up sort of you know, sort of like the
Speaker 3: same thing they did with the Tatiana Jefferson where they
Speaker 3: were hiding in the dark, and they allowed the man
Speaker 3: to go back and begin to tow the car again.
Speaker 3: So he when Steve came back out, he had a
Speaker 3: gun with a flashlight on it. He came out, He's
Speaker 3: pointing the gun and the flashlight, which again is on
Speaker 3: his property. He's already told this man tow truck company
Speaker 3: to leave, and he had he does not see police officers.
Speaker 3: The police, like you said, they ambushed him. They shot
Speaker 3: and they killed this man, this father, husband, son, you know,
Speaker 3: upstanding citizen and a licensed person who had a license
Speaker 3: to carrying, a license to have his weapon in his home.
Speaker 1: On his property.
Speaker 3: He wasn't down the street, he wasn't at the store,
Speaker 3: he wasn't across the street. Then, wasn't in his car,
Speaker 3: He didn't sneak nobody. He was at his own home,
Speaker 3: and he told the toe truck driver to leave, and
Speaker 3: he didn't.
Speaker 1: There are many other details in terms of the.
Speaker 3: Many of the details in terms of this ship that
Speaker 3: was said, the ways in which the cops have behaved.
Speaker 1: And now hopefully by the time that folks see.
Speaker 3: This show or hear this show, they would have released
Speaker 3: all the videotapes, the body cameras of the officers who
Speaker 3: were there, and furthermore, those offices will be arrested and
Speaker 3: charged with the murder of Steve Perkins.
Speaker 4: It's just so mind boggling how we keep having the
Speaker 4: same shit over, like they keep too much as training
Speaker 4: shit and this and that, I don't understand what human
Speaker 4: being goes to somebody's house, right, and you're just interested
Speaker 4: in trying to shoot and kill them and the thing
Speaker 4: is for me. And they keep saying it's not racially motivated.
Speaker 4: They keep saying that, you know, it's it's the law
Speaker 4: and it's not racial. It's just and it's like they
Speaker 4: find a way not to.
Speaker 2: Kill white people.
Speaker 4: You know, somebody they sent me a video yesterday where
Speaker 4: a white lady is banging on the precinct doing with
Speaker 4: the gun window woomb and boom, bangings and and she
Speaker 4: starts shooting the window.
Speaker 2: Nobody shoots the white lady. She leaves.
Speaker 4: She they they arrest her without incident. And it's like, I.
Speaker 3: Just did the video of the white man who drove
Speaker 3: his truck into the police station, jumped out doing some
Speaker 3: crazy stuff. They got him, they put their hands, put
Speaker 3: them on a handcuffs so the wall, and arrested. They
Speaker 3: didn't just come out like because I'm gonna be honest
Speaker 3: with you, but yo.
Speaker 4: I would have been that's wing. I could sit there
Speaker 4: and say, damn, I don't know what this man might do.
Speaker 4: But the thing is they see white people as humans.
Speaker 4: They see him as they identify them as hut. They
Speaker 4: see that they might be sitting wrong with them. They
Speaker 4: immediately have been trained. Even black officers have been trained
Speaker 4: to view black men and women as a threat. They
Speaker 4: just view us as a threat. They feel out your
Speaker 4: life is always engaged you when it's a black person,
Speaker 4: you know, and it's crazy.
Speaker 3: Folks should look out for more from until Freedom on
Speaker 3: the Steve Perkins situation because it's just it's just, it's
Speaker 3: just that. But in this topic I want to talk about,
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be a topic, but because we have
Speaker 3: our guests coming on, I'm going to merge it with
Speaker 3: my thought of the day. Why don't people read? Like
Speaker 3: really read? And I wonder if people know that headlines
Speaker 3: rarely match the exact sentiment of a story.
Speaker 4: The headline is to make you pay attention to the story.
Speaker 4: You know, what they said this or what they said,
Speaker 4: so that you can actually go read the story. So
Speaker 4: if you make an assessment just being through the headline,
Speaker 4: then you might be completely awful about what you're coming
Speaker 4: in on.
Speaker 3: Further More, a headline is very short, so there's no
Speaker 3: way for its capture unless you are extremely thoughtful. There
Speaker 3: is almost no way for it to capture exactly what
Speaker 3: you are attempting to say.
Speaker 1: And so with that being said, it brings me.
Speaker 3: To for just Carly Russell's situation that I've been talking about,
Speaker 3: and I'm going to continue to what I'm saying is
Speaker 3: one thousand percent right. I know there's nobody that can
Speaker 3: convince me of anything different. Nobody that's going to tell
Speaker 3: me that the point that I'm raising is not an
Speaker 3: important point.
Speaker 1: In this moment.
Speaker 3: Using Carly Russell as an example, I wrote in my
Speaker 3: post on my page the first line that Carly Russell
Speaker 3: has received swift justice. I didn't say injustice. I didn't
Speaker 3: say I said swift justice, which means that at this
Speaker 3: point she's already been to court now hurt. Between her,
Speaker 3: the lawyers and the judge, they're working on whatever ruling
Speaker 3: that's necessary, probably to limit the amount of time that
Speaker 3: she would have to do, but keeping it keeping her
Speaker 3: from having to go through a long trial and doing
Speaker 3: all that stuff. They are trying to move things along,
Speaker 3: and the judge has already given his recommendations as to
Speaker 3: what he feels should be done, and now it is
Speaker 3: up to them to solidify it and move forward. Okay,
Speaker 3: so this is what has happened. So what I said
Speaker 3: was Carly Russell has received swift justice, moved through the system.
Speaker 1: She was found to do something dumb and dangerous.
Speaker 3: I said that dumb because it was definitely dumb and
Speaker 3: it was dangerous, and she absolutely must face the consequences
Speaker 3: of her actions.
Speaker 1: I said.
Speaker 3: At the same time, Shan'tquella Robinson's murderers are still free.
Speaker 3: It hasn't it's gone unaddressed, I said. Brianna Taylor's mother
Speaker 3: is still waiting for justice for her child.
Speaker 1: And there are a number of other.
Speaker 3: Cases just like they said, well, Carly created anxiety because
Speaker 3: she lied and she did all of this. Cops lie
Speaker 3: still and kill on a daily basis, and sometimes we're
Speaker 3: waiting five, six years and even more for there to
Speaker 3: be any accountability in those cases. I said, So everybody
Speaker 3: can carry on to talk about Carly because folks celebrating deaths, right,
Speaker 3: she deserved it. And some people said, well, I'm not
Speaker 3: celebrating it. I'm not sure that everybody reads what they're
Speaker 3: writing and may and I'm sure there's some people that
Speaker 3: are not celebrating it. But if you read some of
Speaker 3: the comments they like, that's right, that's right. She deserved that.
Speaker 3: She needs more time. So while folks cheer on the
Speaker 3: process for working quickly to make sure that she's accountable,
Speaker 3: I know I understand that this system will often move
Speaker 3: quick to find justice and accountability and to demonize us
Speaker 3: when we do anything. From still a py anything, what
Speaker 3: was his name?
Speaker 1: Khalie Browner.
Speaker 3: They say he had a book bag that he stole
Speaker 3: from somebody, right, he had a book bag that they
Speaker 3: never even they were never even able to confirm he
Speaker 3: had the book bag.
Speaker 1: The next thing you know, he ended up in Rikers.
Speaker 3: Island as a minor. He was being beaten and raped
Speaker 3: in prison. So they can gay can they can go
Speaker 3: from a book bag to a robbery to a kidnap,
Speaker 3: a fake kidnapping, and lies quick about us. And we
Speaker 3: will make sure we aid in that, we will stand by.
Speaker 3: We would say that's throw the book at them. They
Speaker 3: wrong that this that we would we will join in
Speaker 3: the choir of making sure there's accountability when we feel
Speaker 3: that something someone has done inconvenience does hurt us, have
Speaker 3: impacted us.
Speaker 1: All of those things are true around Carly.
Speaker 3: But when it comes to a constant determination to push
Speaker 3: back on the fact that for whatever reason, their own
Speaker 3: that when when when when the system is responsible, responsible
Speaker 3: for correcting itself and for holding itself accountable, then all
Speaker 3: of a sudden, it's complicated. It's more complicated, okay. And
Speaker 3: I said they got to get somebody else to do it.
Speaker 3: I refuse to participate in it. It doesn't mean that
Speaker 3: I don't understand. I'm not out here going to court
Speaker 3: with the young lady or saying that she shouldn't receive time.
Speaker 1: You have a different perspective. I don't even share you.
Speaker 4: I mean, I've been in the streets for my whole life,
Speaker 4: right and I know dudes that got gun chargers. I
Speaker 4: know dudes that got assault chargers that didn't get a
Speaker 4: year in jail, they got probation, they got six months,
Speaker 4: that did all types of shit. So you know, as
Speaker 4: much as I think what she did is dumb, and
Speaker 4: she definitely needs some accountability. Giving that lady a whole
Speaker 4: year in prison like a regular working lady, like it
Speaker 4: just to me, it's just stupid.
Speaker 2: Nobody was harmed, you know that. I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't see I don't even see the lodger, but
Speaker 4: I see what they're trying to do. They want to
Speaker 4: make some level of example. But it's just like, I
Speaker 4: think that's a poor example. I think that making a
Speaker 4: pay man, even if you put up on house arrest
Speaker 4: and make it I have to do community service where
Speaker 4: she got to go deal with women who were batter
Speaker 4: you know, have to go to shelters and deal with
Speaker 4: women who actually have been abducted, and you know, and
Speaker 4: listen to their story, like those are the lessons you teach.
Speaker 4: Just sending somebody to jail, will you take a year
Speaker 4: their life away? You know, it's gonna be hard for
Speaker 4: to find a job. She's gonna have to leave, you know,
Speaker 4: her apartment or whatever. Don't know if it's gonna be
Speaker 4: able to sustain, to live somewhere like it's it's it's
Speaker 4: prison is one of the biggest inconvenience and just it's
Speaker 4: a reset for life. And sometimes everybody don't need the reset,
Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. Everybody don't need like a research.
Speaker 4: And sometimes people need accountability. They need to see the
Speaker 4: errors in their ways. You know, you charge her some money,
Speaker 4: you make her do community service in certain places, you know,
Speaker 4: you send her to certain programs. To me, I think
Speaker 4: she dealing with mental health. I don't think you know,
Speaker 4: I think that.
Speaker 3: They don't say that because, honey, that's because it is.
Speaker 2: Because health everything is not.
Speaker 4: But the thing is, if you just decide that you're
Speaker 4: gonna call, say somebody kidnap you, like, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't see somebody who's a solid mind saying no
Speaker 2: shit like that.
Speaker 1: Someone made the point that the reason.
Speaker 3: Why she may be the way that she is is
Speaker 3: just being spoiled, you know, just plain old being spoiled.
Speaker 3: And I'm not going to disagree. I'm not gonna disagree.
Speaker 3: But what I do know is that even privilege can
Speaker 3: cause you to have mental health challenges that need to
Speaker 3: be addressed. Privilege can do that to you because you
Speaker 3: can be you can really be so caught up.
Speaker 1: In needing to win, or needing.
Speaker 3: To be liked or whatever, or feeling like you haven't
Speaker 3: been liked, you haven't been treated properly. So even though
Speaker 3: you have money, you don't have status, or you don't
Speaker 3: you ain't cool, or whatever the case may be, to
Speaker 3: the point where your mind tells you that the way
Speaker 3: to get attention, attention seeking is absolutely something in the
Speaker 3: mind that needs to be dress because somewhere, there's a
Speaker 3: whole something is telling you that you are not enough,
Speaker 3: even though you may have privilege. So, you know, perhaps,
Speaker 3: but I don't even want to get into the argument
Speaker 3: of whether or not she has mental health.
Speaker 1: I'm saying different from you.
Speaker 3: You're saying you don't think you've been to jail, and
Speaker 3: you sat in prison for a long period of time,
Speaker 3: and you know that prison is not the only recourse to.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, you can speak.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's definitely it's not the only recourse to
Speaker 4: just to criminal activity, especially when it doesn't involve violence,
Speaker 4: it doesn't involve malice, It doesn't involve malice.
Speaker 1: It does. She did do something that I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was made because if you
Speaker 4: saying malice, the malice was on her own.
Speaker 2: She was looking for a level of attention, right, she didn't.
Speaker 4: She never It wasn't like she gave she pointed somebody
Speaker 4: out and said this person abducted her. Right, It's not
Speaker 4: like she didn't do any of those things. Those are
Speaker 4: things that we assume she never even said. And when
Speaker 4: she came home she said that she didn't even know
Speaker 4: what it looked like, and then she ultimately just admitted
Speaker 4: that she lied. You know, I think she she bit
Speaker 4: off more than she chew. I think she was trying
Speaker 4: to get her boyfriend to care about her. Whatever it is,
Speaker 4: it's stupid nobody and she needed to be held accountable.
Speaker 4: But I think a year in jail is obsessive. I
Speaker 4: just I just don't see where a year in jail
Speaker 4: helps her do anything, and I just don't wish. I
Speaker 4: think it just it traumatizes her more.
Speaker 3: And I appreciate your sensitivity for her. You said it
Speaker 3: traumatizes her more. Most people do not care about whether
Speaker 3: or not it traumatizes her more because she caused trauma
Speaker 3: on others.
Speaker 5: So trying to trying to compare the it's not one
Speaker 5: thing is this when you say you cause trauma on others.
Speaker 4: These are civilians who looked at her life and decided
Speaker 4: that they felt a way about it, right. These are
Speaker 4: people that were watching and seeing on social media that
Speaker 4: felt the.
Speaker 2: Way about it.
Speaker 4: I don't think any one of her family members will say, yeah,
Speaker 4: she needs to go to jail. The people who directly
Speaker 4: that were impacted, the people who who felt the worst
Speaker 4: of it, the people who couldn't sleep and was trying
Speaker 4: to go. I don't think any one of them will say,
Speaker 4: you know what, I think they are real victims, right.
Speaker 4: I don't think that they will say, yo, I want
Speaker 4: her to go to jail for a year, So we
Speaker 4: know that though they so I'm saying I might, but
Speaker 4: I don't. I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know that.
Speaker 4: I don't there's no way that a family member mindset
Speaker 4: did that. I'd be like, nah, she needs to go
Speaker 4: to jail for a year.
Speaker 3: Well no, but it's not just the family member of hers,
Speaker 3: of course not but the mother who and I forget
Speaker 3: her daughter's name. God blessed me for forgetting her name.
Speaker 3: But the mother who was out there day and night
Speaker 3: for her and with her family whose daughter died, the
Speaker 3: daughter was abducted and found dead, and she was out
Speaker 3: there and I and heard from her. I don't know
Speaker 3: what she feels, but it would be it would not
Speaker 3: be a far fetched for her to say, after I thought,
Speaker 3: I was out here fighting for you to come back,
Speaker 3: believing that if I could save you, at least it with.
Speaker 1: Feel a little bit of the whole of my own daughter.
Speaker 3: And you put me through all of that, And yeah,
Speaker 3: you should serve time. I'm saying, you and I are
Speaker 3: both agreed. Let me just spend my point and then
Speaker 3: you go. You and I both agree, and we I
Speaker 3: know that prison we want.
Speaker 1: We are abolitionists.
Speaker 3: We don't even want there to be prisons at all
Speaker 3: that exists.
Speaker 1: I'm still I.
Speaker 3: Guess I'm not one hundred percent of abolitionist yet, because
Speaker 3: I'm still at the point of if you rape children.
Speaker 1: Or if you murder people, murder you know.
Speaker 3: Children specifically children, then I don't I need you to
Speaker 3: be somewhere. And if you're a white supremacist who is
Speaker 3: out here shooting people at the Times supermarket, I need
Speaker 3: you to be locked away, right. So I do believe
Speaker 3: in it from that perspective, But I am not a
Speaker 3: person who believes that prison should be for somebody who stole.
Speaker 1: Something or fake the kidnapping or whatever. I get that.
Speaker 3: I'm saying for the purpose of this situation, understanding that
Speaker 3: the system is what it is and we live within
Speaker 3: it unfortunately. And I'm going after you finish saying if
Speaker 3: she's in prison, if she has to go to prison
Speaker 3: for a year, which it won't be a year, or
Speaker 3: if she has house to rest, that's fine with me.
Speaker 1: She did something wrong, it was.
Speaker 3: Wrong, It hurt people, folks were invested, and it's terrible.
Speaker 3: And I understand people who don't have the sensitivity that
Speaker 3: you are speaking of right now, for this young lady,
Speaker 3: I get it well.
Speaker 2: For me, is this right? Because there's so many different.
Speaker 4: Things, like like I think women who foresee accused men
Speaker 4: of battering and rape should be charged. Battery or rape
Speaker 4: should be charged. There's no charge. They just dismissed it.
Speaker 4: Oh it was you did wrong.
Speaker 1: Like so that's not one hundred percent true.
Speaker 3: It is not overwhelmingly the case that women who lie
Speaker 3: get charged. But there are women who have been charged
Speaker 3: and convicted of a crime. I don't know if they
Speaker 3: actually went to prison.
Speaker 4: I have yet to hear of a woman went to
Speaker 4: prison for law I've never heard.
Speaker 2: I don't think I ever and I'm gonna look it up.
Speaker 3: Maybe I am lying to law enforcement in general is
Speaker 3: a crime surgery if and there are people who have
Speaker 3: been charged with lying to law enforcement. However, to your point,
Speaker 3: it is not overwhelmingly the case, and so it is
Speaker 3: very much so an inequity if you are unequal situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so that's what I'm saying, Like if we ain't
Speaker 4: if that, because that that damnage is a person's life,
Speaker 4: a person's reputation for the rest of their life. Men
Speaker 4: got even when even after you say you was lying
Speaker 4: or you you you you get found line. Men gotta
Speaker 4: live with a stigma. So, like I think, if we're
Speaker 4: gonna if we're gonna start advocating for people to go
Speaker 4: to jail.
Speaker 2: Those are people that need to go to jail, not.
Speaker 4: A woman who and her family trying to get some
Speaker 4: attention from her family. You know that it isn't falsely
Speaker 4: accusing any individual that ain't got nobody if somebody had
Speaker 4: got locked up, if she has said this person did.
Speaker 3: This to me and did try to say the orange
Speaker 3: taired man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she tried to create us. What the thing is?
Speaker 4: Ultimately she was never identified.
Speaker 2: Of course we're not. The problem is it's just like.
Speaker 3: Because what if they would have started arresting orange taired
Speaker 3: men with the woman in the car just while you know,
Speaker 3: trying But you don't.
Speaker 1: Know how many people hold over?
Speaker 2: How many What.
Speaker 3: About the police officers the time that it took for
Speaker 3: them to sit down and try to run orange hair men.
Speaker 4: That's been in the money they get for free police officers. Man, Please,
Speaker 4: they all here getting test place.
Speaker 3: But you're saying, but I still I still feel like
Speaker 3: I get the point of her having to receive some
Speaker 3: measure of constantly for our actions. What I'm saying is
Speaker 3: that to me is cool. And people said, well we
Speaker 3: can we can do both things at once. We could
Speaker 3: be outraged about both things at once, and I'm saying that, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a wonderful statement, it's a great snap back. But
Speaker 3: the problem is that only one side of those is
Speaker 3: really working. So you're outraged even though you're saying you
Speaker 3: could be outraged about two things at once a lot,
Speaker 3: only one side is working well, which is the outrage
Speaker 3: that you have for things like the Carly Russell and
Speaker 3: the accountability of black and brown people for anything we do,
Speaker 3: any action that we make, from bubblegum stealing all the
Speaker 3: way to whatever other murders and everything else. So you know,
Speaker 3: it's only working on one side for the most part.
Speaker 3: So I just want to make sure that people understand
Speaker 3: that what I'm raising is not a point about what
Speaker 3: you can and cannot be outraged about and how you
Speaker 3: should and should not feel. I'm talking about this system
Speaker 3: and for us to recognize that oftentimes we got a
Speaker 3: lot of smoke for our own people and we don't
Speaker 3: necessarily have the same level of venom and anger.
Speaker 1: We always want to find some.
Speaker 3: Excuse about why, Just like right now, I posted about
Speaker 3: Steve Perkins being killed by the police, right and some
Speaker 3: person is in my comments like, well, tell the whole story.
Speaker 3: He was behind on his payments, but it wasn't in
Speaker 3: repos status. And the fact and then you know he
Speaker 3: came out with the gun, this and that and the
Speaker 3: third wasn't in repost status. Is a fall sentence boom.
Speaker 3: It was not in repost status. So do you know
Speaker 3: what was supposed to happen at the point that it
Speaker 3: wasn't in repost status. The cop was supposed to take
Speaker 3: his ass to the front door and knock on it
Speaker 3: and say, hello, sir, hello human being, Hello person with
Speaker 3: some civil fucking rights, Can I ask you a question
Speaker 3: about what's going on here?
Speaker 1: That's what was supposed to happen.
Speaker 4: That's right, that I mean, they wasn't supposed to ambush
Speaker 4: a man to sit in the bushes and wave for
Speaker 4: him to come out, already knowing he's angry at the person,
Speaker 4: because they already got the call from the person and
Speaker 4: they said he waved the gun or whatever. So you
Speaker 4: anticipated you just lwered him into a trap. You didn't
Speaker 4: come as you know, it's just very strange.
Speaker 3: What are you talking about? So with so it's right.
Speaker 3: So then to get back to the point, you could
Speaker 3: come over here and make the excuse and the reason
Speaker 3: for why, well, it's George Floyd, it was this, and
Speaker 3: so and so was dad and Brianna's boyfriend was in
Speaker 3: the house. And then shanmquela might have did this, and this,
Speaker 3: that and the third. But I'm telling you that let
Speaker 3: you commit one crime, you do one thing wrong, they
Speaker 3: will put your ass up under the jail.
Speaker 1: But if somebody murders you, blows you.
Speaker 3: Up, put eight bullets in your body or whatever, we're
Speaker 3: gonna have to fight because it's more difficult and it
Speaker 3: takes longer to decipher, and it's more details, and it's this,
Speaker 3: that and the third. And meanwhile, you don't have no
Speaker 3: freaking rights, no rights. But I bet you one thing,
Speaker 3: don't you inconvenience no white people and make them have
Speaker 3: to go do paperwork and shit for you missing and
Speaker 3: they wasting and you they wasting their time.
Speaker 1: On you because you going to jail, in jail, You
Speaker 1: going to jail, and.
Speaker 2: You're gonna pay twenty five thousand dollars a restitution.
Speaker 3: And we're gonna make sure of it. But over here,
Speaker 3: the inconvenience of the whole community having to watch people
Speaker 3: being shot dead, having to see all the blood that
Speaker 3: is spilled on the streets of this America with black people.
Speaker 1: Oh well, it's complicated, very.
Speaker 4: Strange, very complicated. We can talk about this all day
Speaker 4: because this is the reality. But we have our guests
Speaker 4: that it's about.
Speaker 2: To show up. You know.
Speaker 4: Friend, friend of the family is one of my guys.
Speaker 4: Man love him to death. I can't wait to interview
Speaker 4: to death. I love him to life, my fault. I
Speaker 4: love him to life. He's one of the best photographers
Speaker 4: hip hop photographers that you will ever meet.
Speaker 2: He's a connector.
Speaker 3: He's so much more than a noteworthy award winning photographer.
Speaker 3: I would, you know more so give him the title
Speaker 3: of documentarian, someone who is capturing so many of our moments.
Speaker 3: I mean when you think back to the struggles, and
Speaker 3: not just the struggles, but the moments, the historic moments
Speaker 3: of a previous time. Often when we're living through it,
Speaker 3: we don't see the value and or understand the importance
Speaker 3: of the story that will be told to our children
Speaker 3: and what will be the historic value of our lives.
Speaker 3: Just everything we did, the fashion, the entertainment, the moments
Speaker 3: that the rooms that we were in, when we were friends,
Speaker 3: when we were not Who.
Speaker 1: Was together, who wasn't together?
Speaker 3: You know when we were fighting for the rights of
Speaker 3: our people, I mean all those things.
Speaker 1: At one point or another, it will become the.
Speaker 3: Only thing left right to tell the stories to our children.
Speaker 3: And so I think that all the flowers that Johnny
Speaker 3: Nunez has been receiving as of shout out to our
Speaker 3: sister Belisia Butterfield Jones for being one of those to
Speaker 3: really ensure that Johnny receives as flowers has really been fitting.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much. That means a lot to me. Miko.
Speaker 7: I really feel like, you know, it's an honor to
Speaker 7: be a witness to what you've not only achieved but
Speaker 7: will continue to achieve for the cause of not only
Speaker 7: our race, but our culture. And you guys are the
Speaker 7: hidden figures that give a voice to the voiceless. My
Speaker 7: camera lends an eye to those atrocities and beautiful moments,
Speaker 7: you know. So I'm just excited that I was able
Speaker 7: to be invited to be, you know, able to capture
Speaker 7: a moment and emotion suspended in time for eternity.
Speaker 4: Yes, man, like shout out to you, Johnny Man. I
Speaker 4: always tell you, man, how much I love you and
Speaker 4: I love what you do. You always did with that
Speaker 4: camera flashing. You know, I tell a story all the time.
Speaker 4: How my first video, I mean photo shoot when I
Speaker 4: was signing death g and violated that Johnny did it
Speaker 4: in front of the legendary tunnel, like nobody even knows.
Speaker 4: Like I think about that all the time, and just
Speaker 4: to see that both of us are here, you know,
Speaker 4: thirty years later, damn there, you know, after after all
Speaker 4: of that, I just want to know, like, Johnny, what
Speaker 4: made you start doing photos and what was the inspiration?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 7: In my other you know, interviews, I was going to
Speaker 7: school for radiation therapy on college and I don't want
Speaker 7: to get anybody. I see the name of the hospital.
Speaker 7: I don't get nobody in trouble. But there was a
Speaker 7: hospital that was known for racism. And just as I
Speaker 7: was getting ready to graduate in three months as a
Speaker 7: radiation therapy technician. For those on the show that don't know,
Speaker 7: I was thinking I was entering a program to take
Speaker 7: X rays of people with broken arms and broken legs.
Speaker 7: I wound up entering a program to tweet people with cancer.
Speaker 7: But in my application, out of four hundred and twenty interviews,
Speaker 7: I was one of the lucky twenty two that they
Speaker 7: chose because at the time, I fed the homeless, I
Speaker 7: worked and donated my time to a lot of organizations
Speaker 7: to help children. I was adopting myself and foster care,
Speaker 7: so I wanted to, like not wanting to, but always
Speaker 7: had it in my DNA to give back. So I
Speaker 7: chose radiation therapy on Collogy. I started it, go through
Speaker 7: with it, and I got kicked out of the program Sadly.
Speaker 7: Three months before graduating, I witnessed an atrocious racist attack
Speaker 7: and I went back to my roommate who I was
Speaker 7: staying at his house with his wife, and I told
Speaker 7: them what I witnessed, and I couldn't believe my eyes.
Speaker 7: They said, Johnny, you do what's in your heart. I'm like, well,
Speaker 7: what should I do? They said, tell the professors what
Speaker 7: you saw, And I did, and the next thing I know,
Speaker 7: I went to North Show University Hospital to the department
Speaker 7: and they came up to me, motherfucker, nigger, you spick bastard.
Speaker 7: My husband's a police officer and he'll shoot you in
Speaker 7: the fucking face. That's what they told me. I could
Speaker 7: curse on this show.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I was mortified.
Speaker 7: And my professor said, you're Johnny for us to make
Speaker 7: a complaint about this radiation therapy on college department, you
Speaker 7: have to produce some kind of evidence. We can't just speculate,
Speaker 7: and you have to have hard evidence. So I told
Speaker 7: my professors go to Rose, who was an orderly that
Speaker 7: would bring the patients to the treatment center of the
Speaker 7: department for cancer treatment. And one time she went to
Speaker 7: go take a lunch break and I said, whoa, you know,
Speaker 7: I can't leave, and she's like, well, I'm going to
Speaker 7: my lunch break, I'm very tired.
Speaker 6: When I come back out, I'll bring more patients.
Speaker 7: These technicians wanted to take a break longer, and that's
Speaker 7: why they wanted to take her out of her own
Speaker 7: time to accommodate themselves. So when she refused, they said,
Speaker 7: you know, you know, Rosa, if the massill catch you,
Speaker 7: he gonna give you a good whooper and they started
Speaker 7: to chuck and drive dancing, and she said, I'm gonna
Speaker 7: report you. So that was my evidence because the professors
Speaker 7: went and told her, well, unfortunately, my son, that's what
Speaker 7: started it. I was immediately kicked out.
Speaker 6: Of the program. An accident occurred.
Speaker 7: They blamed it on me, and here I am thinking,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna be a radiation therapist.
Speaker 6: Now I'm living homeless in my masa three two three.
Speaker 7: The apartment that I had, the landlord wanted to rent
Speaker 7: it to another senate for more money, so I lost that.
Speaker 7: I asked if I could take their room. They said
Speaker 7: somebody else was going to take that for more money.
Speaker 7: So I packed my stuff up and embarrassed, and I
Speaker 7: put my stuff in storage. Because my family adopted me,
Speaker 7: the family that adopted me raised me to be a
Speaker 7: certain way, and I could not return back to my
Speaker 7: dad with nothing or to tell him and thrown out
Speaker 7: as a program.
Speaker 6: So that wasn't an option.
Speaker 7: So I went back to delivering pizza and chicken and
Speaker 7: being a home healthy for elderly people. The girl I
Speaker 7: was dating what I was unmarried. I wound up telling them, hey,
Speaker 7: I got kicked out. I got kicked out of the program,
Speaker 7: but don't worry. I'm gonna figure this out. She was like, Janny,
Speaker 7: I met somebody at Sonybrook University, and I've been meaning
Speaker 7: to tell you.
Speaker 6: I think it's time we just become friends.
Speaker 7: So I lost my girl, I lost my apartment, I
Speaker 7: lost my career that I thought, and I resorted back
Speaker 7: to what I did to get through college, which was
Speaker 7: deliver a pizza pizza hut.
Speaker 6: So I was out and this is how I became
Speaker 6: a photographer.
Speaker 7: As I went to deliver one delivery an individual who
Speaker 7: sold street pharmaceuticals. I got to his beautiful house and
Speaker 7: he said, who knows, Wait, mane, ain't you in medicine.
Speaker 7: I'm like, yeah, but here's your pizza. He's like, oh,
Speaker 7: you're probably doing this to finish paying off your medical
Speaker 7: loans and stuff like that. Right, I'm like, correct, he said,
Speaker 7: reach down in my pocket, and I'm like what, He's like,
Speaker 7: reach in my pocket.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 7: I got the pizza, got soda, and I pulled out
Speaker 7: a knot of hundreds. I said, so and so I
Speaker 7: just started my shift. I don't have change. He goes,
Speaker 7: just peel wanted them out. Peel one of them out,
Speaker 7: filled out one hundred dollars bill. This is like nineteen
Speaker 7: ninety six.
Speaker 6: You know. He's like, keep that. I'm like, keep that.
Speaker 6: You sure? He's like, go ahead, stop playing. Sorry. I left,
Speaker 6: and when I got to my car or should I
Speaker 6: say my.
Speaker 7: Living room, started to punk the horn and disrelief that
Speaker 7: in a manner of one complaint on racism. I'm now
Speaker 7: kicked out of the program and now have to live
Speaker 7: in the car. So myke's girlfriend's mother still loved me
Speaker 7: so much. A lot of mix girlfriend's moms. I was
Speaker 7: the best ex girlfriend's son in law to be. And
Speaker 7: the next day after that delivery, my manager called and said, Johnny,
Speaker 7: I don't know what you did. You gotta come here
Speaker 7: right now to the pizza side. I said, it's not
Speaker 7: my day to work. There's a guy inside the shop.
Speaker 7: Just went back outside. He said he's not leaving until
Speaker 7: he speaks with you. And by the way, when you
Speaker 7: come to the pizza hut, not come to the front,
Speaker 7: come through the back. I'm driving through the pizza hut
Speaker 7: area and I see nothing.
Speaker 6: But would look like a car show.
Speaker 7: Porsches, convertible, BMW's bens. It looked literally like a car show.
Speaker 7: By the time I came to the back, I said
Speaker 7: to my general manager Tony, what's going on? That dude
Speaker 7: right there he wants you to he want to talk
Speaker 7: to He won't leave me, and he told me to
Speaker 7: call you. So I don't know what you did. Bro,
Speaker 7: you better go out there and take care of it.
Speaker 7: I go outside and it's same homeboy. I'll call him Defer.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 6: I'm like, Yo, d what's going on. He's like, Yo,
Speaker 6: Johnny Man heard what happened?
Speaker 2: Bro?
Speaker 7: I said hey. He's like, I want you to come
Speaker 7: work for me. I said, you opening up a pizza
Speaker 7: rea too. He's like, no, I want you to come
Speaker 7: help selld me. That help comes out so that white girl,
Speaker 7: I'm my white girl. It was work, nigga. I'm like,
Speaker 7: wait a minute, Danny, if you're saying what I think
Speaker 7: you're saying, I changed my life. Now it's about pizza
Speaker 7: and I'm not doing medicine no more. And I definitely
Speaker 7: can't play with blood money. He goes, he ain't fucking
Speaker 7: play money. I need you, Jay, because I remember in
Speaker 7: high school and in junior high school, he was a
Speaker 7: quick connected You was always networking. He was introducing people
Speaker 7: to people. I need that on my team. I said, WHOA,
Speaker 7: I don't know, Dan. He goes, give me your hand.
Speaker 7: I held out my hand and he put paper in
Speaker 7: my hand and then he rolled my hand into a
Speaker 7: fist and he squeezed it. He said, Johnny, if you
Speaker 7: decide you don't want to work for me, keep that.
Speaker 7: It doesn't matter. But if you decide that you want
Speaker 7: to work for me, just plenty more where that came from.
Speaker 7: And then he balanced. I couldn't wait to see what
Speaker 7: was in my hand, and it was a thousand dollars
Speaker 7: in cash. That time, my ex girlfriend's mom called me
Speaker 7: and said, Johnny, I made your favorite dish, Haitian turkey
Speaker 7: wings and rice and beans.
Speaker 6: I'm like, oh boy, I'm coming over, you know. And
Speaker 6: I went over there.
Speaker 7: To get the food. And my ex girlfriend was away
Speaker 7: in college. I go over there and she converted one
Speaker 7: of the rooms into a makeshift. Ever, she said, Johnny
Speaker 7: still got closed from when he was dating my daughter.
Speaker 7: I don't know what you're going through, but tonight this
Speaker 7: is your room. You know where the shower is at
Speaker 7: and oh, by the way, here's your favorite dish. So
Speaker 7: when she closed the door, I began to cry. You know,
Speaker 7: I'm a man, I ain't you know. I started crying,
Speaker 7: and I said, God, I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 7: You have me about to be in the medical world,
Speaker 7: and then now you lowered me now to where I'm
Speaker 7: living in my car. Now I'm getting offered this kind
Speaker 7: of a business lane. All I wanted to do is
Speaker 7: help people. I wanted to be. I wanted to be
Speaker 7: a priest too. I wanted to join the Peace Corps.
Speaker 7: I wanted to go to Africa and built hunts and houses.
Speaker 7: I was all about that, But now I want to
Speaker 7: murder some people. Murder was never on my mind. I
Speaker 7: wanted to literally kill certain people, and on top of that,
Speaker 7: get into a lane of destruction with drug dealing.
Speaker 6: And I said, God, if you.
Speaker 7: Don't give me an when I wake up tomorrow morning,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna go sell drugs and I'm gonna get my
Speaker 7: vengeance in Jesus's name.
Speaker 6: That's how down I was.
Speaker 7: That I was angry at God, and I could not
Speaker 7: believe where I was. I was embarrassed. I could not
Speaker 7: understand what was going on. The next morning, you guys
Speaker 7: don't have to believe me. I woke up in the
Speaker 7: morning and I saw a camera. It was in the air,
Speaker 7: and I rubbed my eyes to me like this, man,
Speaker 7: I'm really tired.
Speaker 6: I looking there.
Speaker 7: It was like a spaceship or a helicopter hovering and
Speaker 7: I was like, for my.
Speaker 6: Hands and grab it. I went.
Speaker 7: I went to grab a camera and my hands went
Speaker 7: through the camera and it dissolved, and I said me,
Speaker 7: I am really tired, maybe because I've been sleeping in
Speaker 7: that car. Who and then boom it popped up again,
Speaker 7: and I said, okay, God, no more jokes.
Speaker 6: I asked for an idea, and I see a camera.
Speaker 7: God, if this is what you want me to become
Speaker 7: a photographer, give me one more sign, and I swear
Speaker 7: I won't bother you for a while. Just give me
Speaker 7: one more sign. In my faith, they call it the
Speaker 7: Holy Spirit. And out of nowhere, a supernatural energy entered
Speaker 7: my body and I went to some of my friend's
Speaker 7: houses where I know we took showers, and I told
Speaker 7: them as they were playing Mortal Kombat, Yo, fellas, I
Speaker 7: know what I'm gonna be. And they were like, Johnny,
Speaker 7: what are you gonna be? I said, i'mna be a photographer?
Speaker 7: And as they were playing Mortal Kombat. I still remember
Speaker 7: my boy Pat, another Asian brother, he was like, Johnny,
Speaker 7: you live in a car, you got kicked out of
Speaker 7: a medical radiation therapy program, and you come over our
Speaker 7: place to eat off food or our refrigerator and not
Speaker 7: replace it and take showers in our bathroom. What makes
Speaker 7: you think you're gonna be a photographer who told you
Speaker 7: you're gonna be a photographer.
Speaker 6: I said, God did? He said what I said? God did?
Speaker 7: Okay, now you're a bugging Johnny did the Readia she
Speaker 7: never hit your head? I said, no pact, Johnny. You
Speaker 7: don't even own a camera. Bro, you're living in the
Speaker 7: call what money? I said, I don't know how I'm
Speaker 7: gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it. So long
Speaker 7: story short. There was a book I was reading called
Speaker 7: Unlimited Power like Anthony Robbins that was actually given in
Speaker 7: me by a group of my friends who we got
Speaker 7: into a very racial political argument when I got kicked
Speaker 7: out of that medical program. Not only were they racists,
Speaker 7: I was warned by a white woman how racist they
Speaker 7: were and how they were quick.
Speaker 6: To kick out people of color.
Speaker 7: And I just thought, I'm such a people person, but
Speaker 7: they're gonna love me until I saw what they did
Speaker 7: to this poor black woman. They actually physically harmed her,
Speaker 7: and I refused to help them transport her body into
Speaker 7: a different position unless someone aided her head, because she
Speaker 7: had just had a tracheotomy and when she's freemed with pain,
Speaker 7: she was making sound that sounded like this, like a
Speaker 7: and these white technicians all started laughing, cracking up in
Speaker 7: her presence. There was a man who had age just
Speaker 7: like her, but they gave him so much respect. They
Speaker 7: held him, they protected him, They gave a conversation with
Speaker 7: this black woman.
Speaker 6: They refused to talk to her.
Speaker 7: They wore face mask, they wore gloves, so that in
Speaker 7: humane feeling of feeling like.
Speaker 6: You're not there, you're trash, that's what they did to her.
Speaker 7: So that's why I told them that I wasn't going
Speaker 7: to help transport her body until someone supported her head.
Speaker 7: By that, by the time I got out of the
Speaker 7: room to the console to deliver the radiation, these same
Speaker 7: group of people were cursing me out racially and telling
Speaker 7: me you're finished.
Speaker 6: And that's when I went in age complaints.
Speaker 7: But that was the greatest, greatest blessing to get kicked
Speaker 7: out of a medical racist school program. Why because I
Speaker 7: wouldn't have had this opportunity to complain to God and
Speaker 7: then God direct me. So when I was reading that
Speaker 7: book Unlimited Power, it said in one chapter, whatever you're
Speaker 7: doing right now, stop what you're doing and see where
Speaker 7: you want to be in three years. So of course
Speaker 7: I'm working this sweat job it is horrible factory. I'm
Speaker 7: still living in a car, and I'm illegally reading a
Speaker 7: book I'm supposed to be working. I then turned the
Speaker 7: page and said, stop what you're doing. If you didn't
Speaker 7: stop and see what you're doing in like the next
Speaker 7: three to five years, go back to the page before
Speaker 7: and look and visualize where you want to be. So
Speaker 7: I stopped the conveyor belt. I heard the general manager
Speaker 7: of the building screaming, who stopped the fucking bell? So
Speaker 7: I looked at this wall, y'all don't have to believe me,
Speaker 7: and I saw myself shooting Jay Z, shooting Sean Combs,
Speaker 7: shooting nail Me Campbell, being in the private jet traveling
Speaker 7: the world, doing all kinds of cool shit, and being
Speaker 7: a bore us and meeting Russell Simmons, all these kind
Speaker 7: of like yeah, right.
Speaker 6: And then the manager came up.
Speaker 7: To me said, if you ever fucking pressed that conveyor belt,
Speaker 7: I will kick your ass and I will personally kick
Speaker 7: you out of this factory. Why the fuck did you
Speaker 7: stop the machine? I said, I thought I saw something,
Speaker 7: so I wanted to stop it. Here was turner machine
Speaker 7: back home. So the moral of the story is by
Speaker 7: the end of nineteen ninety seven, I would have made
Speaker 7: ninety eight thousand dollars. No longer living in the car.
Speaker 7: I wind up being a personal photographer to Jay Z,
Speaker 7: personal photographer to Sean Colmes Titty, personal photographer to NAS,
Speaker 7: personal photographer to Russell Simmons, eventually the personal photographer Michael Jordan,
Speaker 7: personal photographer Lebron James, Michelle.
Speaker 6: Obama, Barack Obama.
Speaker 7: Obama traveled the world as an ambassador representing the United
Speaker 7: States of America under the Obama administrative administration. Wind up
Speaker 7: being the first black Latino Grammy Recording Academy of Photographer,
Speaker 7: Music photographer, Now a VMA photographer and an MTV photographer.
Speaker 7: I wound up raising money for the Blind. I now
Speaker 7: shoot for Tamika Mallory. I got to shoot the first
Speaker 7: cover of my son's Rap Problem. I can go on
Speaker 7: for days talking about over Winfree, Gil.
Speaker 1: King, Johnny.
Speaker 8: Usually by now we would have cut it to James.
Speaker 8: But the way that you tell that story, and the
Speaker 8: heart and soul, the pain, the triumph, the when you
Speaker 8: keep saying you don't have to believe me. First of all,
Speaker 8: I've known you twenty years, and I've never known you
Speaker 8: to tell one lie ever in your life, never ever, never,
Speaker 8: never never.
Speaker 1: And I believe you.
Speaker 3: I might not have had something to pop up in
Speaker 3: the in the sky, but I know what that existential
Speaker 3: feeling is that comes over you, that lets you know
Speaker 3: it is something bigger than human nature. Like it's not,
Speaker 3: it's something of a life that you you are you,
Speaker 3: You only hope to be able to receive a message
Speaker 3: from God in that way. And I and it, and
Speaker 3: it inspires me so much that I want people to
Speaker 3: hear it just like that, like the whole story, you know,
Speaker 3: And I want to say that.
Speaker 1: Each Even when I think.
Speaker 3: About when you were speaking, the tears in my eyes
Speaker 3: began to come, not even for you, but more so
Speaker 3: for my son, because I was thinking about seven years
Speaker 3: in prison, believing that you were going to be one thing,
Speaker 3: going in the door and coming out something totally different,
Speaker 3: and how you could be mad at God, ten white
Speaker 3: men and some other people and instead figuring out what
Speaker 3: could you do to make good of instead of bad
Speaker 3: with whatever has your experiences been.
Speaker 1: And I begin to get.
Speaker 3: Emotional because I know that it's not easy to have
Speaker 3: dreamed of something your whole life, or believed something your
Speaker 3: whole life and then in the blink of an eye
Speaker 3: a shift happened, and we're not.
Speaker 1: Always ready for that shift.
Speaker 3: So I just wanted to say that I just it's
Speaker 3: just it's shit.
Speaker 1: But you know, I do have one question.
Speaker 6: Thank you talked.
Speaker 1: About all of those people.
Speaker 3: Trust must clearly be a thing I have never seen
Speaker 3: Johnny Newness post or be the center of a gotcha moment.
Speaker 3: And I'm one hundred percent sure that you've been in
Speaker 3: spaces and places where people got the white stuff still
Speaker 3: on their.
Speaker 1: Nose and they don't know it's there, and you know they.
Speaker 1: I know you've seen relationships.
Speaker 3: That ain't supposed to be people with people coming from
Speaker 3: places doing things, But you have never ever been in
Speaker 3: a person as far as I know that, Uh, you know,
Speaker 3: meddled in mess.
Speaker 1: So talk about trust back.
Speaker 3: Ha TMZ things talking about that trust factor and that
Speaker 3: was that a business decision?
Speaker 1: Or is just you all?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 6: Mh.
Speaker 7: You know one thing about me, you know, having the
Speaker 7: opportunity to be adopted by a Portican family that didn't
Speaker 7: have much themselves but gave me everything. They were able
Speaker 7: to show me the value of of of neighborhoods and respect.
Speaker 7: I would go up through neighborhoods in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where
Speaker 7: I was raised and I was born in Brooklyn, I
Speaker 7: would be called nigga, I would be called speck. I
Speaker 7: couldn't walk down certain blocks. I was constantly being chased
Speaker 7: by dogs because certain white men and white women would
Speaker 7: let their dogs loose just to see me run. And
Speaker 7: so for the white that lived on my block, I
Speaker 7: try my best to, like, you know, let these motherfuckers
Speaker 7: get away with a lot of shit, you know, But
Speaker 7: I just wanted to be cool so that no one
Speaker 7: would refuse me being in their circle. You know, be calm, chill,
Speaker 7: you know they're going to crack them jokes. So what
Speaker 7: does that have to do with your to your point
Speaker 7: is that I always know that respecting people and helping them,
Speaker 7: whether they're the number one on the top charts or
Speaker 7: just opening up act, give them the respect. The low
Speaker 7: the lowest level tiers, give them the respect as if
Speaker 7: they was the top tier. And when they do become
Speaker 7: the top tier, they're going to remember those people that
Speaker 7: came to them to their performance at SOBS.
Speaker 6: They're going to remember you. Was that at Maria.
Speaker 7: Davis's showcase, one of the photographers showing them when they
Speaker 7: didn't even have a label deal or or.
Speaker 6: A hit song. So for me, it's actually.
Speaker 7: An opportunity where I get your help and I feel
Speaker 7: great that I could be apart one brick in that
Speaker 7: home that helped build this artist's career. So to your point,
Speaker 7: I cannot put anything that would jeopardize them because it
Speaker 7: would only shoot myself in the foot when they do
Speaker 7: blow up, you know, and some people want to get
Speaker 7: that fast buck. Catch a picture of two people come
Speaker 7: out of a hotel, catch a picture of a person
Speaker 7: in a car with somebody, or a fight breakout. If
Speaker 7: I had one thousand dollars every horrific photo, whether it
Speaker 7: be with violence, sex, crime, robbery, you name it, I
Speaker 7: probably have at least two to three million dollars on me.
Speaker 7: But the blessing is that I'm not in it to
Speaker 7: lift myself up by just throwing your career. I'm in
Speaker 7: this to raise our babies so that we have knowledge
Speaker 7: of self, so that our children and their children would
Speaker 7: only sulfer lie upon themselves and their own race, not
Speaker 7: trying to segregate from the same. We don't need anybody.
Speaker 7: We built this country. America is our Ancestress Foundation. They
Speaker 7: built this for us and we are the descendants of
Speaker 7: a dream of kidnapped Africans and genocided or I don't
Speaker 7: think that's words that were sacrificed so that we have
Speaker 7: this opportunity to be where we are today.
Speaker 4: It's called integritive, called and you have a lot of
Speaker 4: and I think that's the reason why you've lasted so long.
Speaker 2: And everyone sees Johnny.
Speaker 4: Whenever you see Johnny as a happy moment like you,
Speaker 4: I don't care what artists superstar. Every time I see
Speaker 4: you and you get them on camera, they look at you, they're, oh,
Speaker 4: it's Johnny.
Speaker 2: Like you know what I'm saying. It's like it's like cheers,
Speaker 2: you like norm coming to Cheers.
Speaker 4: Man to where you are man, because because you created this,
Speaker 4: you know this atmosphere of trust and and just love
Speaker 4: and you always connecting people like you said that the
Speaker 4: god the guy says, you know that you're connected, and
Speaker 4: you know how to do this. You walk and you're
Speaker 4: not only taking pictures. And if anybody knows that, Johnny
Speaker 4: will put you next to somebody that you never met.
Speaker 2: And like, I want you guys to take a picture.
Speaker 4: When then introduce you to the guy and said, boom,
Speaker 4: this is such and such and it's such, and you
Speaker 4: guys need to me he does this, and he does this,
Speaker 4: and she does this and this, and you know in
Speaker 4: the way that you do it is so effortlessly.
Speaker 2: It's effortless, and it it helps a lot.
Speaker 4: Of artists, right, new people because a lot of people
Speaker 4: walk into spaces and they're around big artists, you know,
Speaker 4: and they don't really know these artists, but you know them,
Speaker 4: so you know that the connection needs to be made.
Speaker 2: You know, they wanted they need to be comfortable in
Speaker 2: certain spaces.
Speaker 4: And I watch you navigat and do that so well, man,
Speaker 4: you know, it's amazing. It's a tribute to the person
Speaker 4: you are. But I never knew that you were adopted.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So I'm Black, Chinese and Venezuelan from the island of Trinidad.
Speaker 7: But I was blessed enough to go find my biological
Speaker 7: family and I met my real family and and I
Speaker 7: realized why God blessed me with my adoptive family. No
Speaker 7: pun intended, but I just thank God that, you know,
Speaker 7: he brought.
Speaker 6: Me into this remarkable family that.
Speaker 7: If I had to do it over again, I would
Speaker 7: not change the thing because I had a remarkable upbringing
Speaker 7: of a family that took me under their wing as
Speaker 7: if I was their own, and you know, raised me
Speaker 7: to be with these values. Help people, love everyone, do
Speaker 7: your best to help people, you know, and don't get
Speaker 7: it twisted. I'm very, very radically militant with black and
Speaker 7: land history. I'm very much about a matter of factness.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 7: I just used my lens in a way that could
Speaker 7: help lift and push the narrative of our culture through
Speaker 7: the lens, you know.
Speaker 3: And I would say, I'm one of those people that
Speaker 3: when I started, I remember you, Rachel nord Link invited
Speaker 3: you to the first event where I became executive director
Speaker 3: of National Action Network and Victoria what's the name Victoria
Speaker 3: Web and Carell God bless his soul. They were the
Speaker 3: co hosts for the event. It was my first little
Speaker 3: like celebrity thing. And I mean this is years ago now,
Speaker 3: and you're a photographer, and ever since then, you've always
Speaker 3: done exactly what my son says, depending on you know,
Speaker 3: whatever room. You know, I'm not the person that's going
Speaker 3: to be asking people for pictures and you're like, no.
Speaker 1: No, no, you gotta you know, Tamika Mallory.
Speaker 3: You know while you're taking pictures, you've always done that
Speaker 3: and you're one hundred percent right. You've been there with
Speaker 3: me from in someone else's shadows all the way to
Speaker 3: standing on my own. So I say name for that,
Speaker 3: but I will say my last thing. If you have
Speaker 3: a very no chill way of taking pictures. So if
Speaker 3: you're not ready when Johnny snaps the camera, that's just
Speaker 3: your problem.
Speaker 1: Johnny's in the room. You gotta be ready when he
Speaker 1: say yo, yo yo, you gotta be ready. So what
Speaker 1: is that?
Speaker 3: Because I know people tell you that all the time,
Speaker 3: like Johnny, wait a minute, give me a minute. But
Speaker 3: your are you trying to get people in their natural habitat?
Speaker 3: Is it just rushing or do you want people to prepare?
Speaker 3: Like what is the mindset behind how quick you move.
Speaker 7: In a room? So, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 7: I was never diagnosed with add you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 7: But I've always been like make the moves now. My
Speaker 7: wife actually sometimes tells me, yeah, you need to chill, man.
Speaker 7: You know what I'm saying. You gotta you like to
Speaker 7: you like to kick your gys and questions later when
Speaker 7: you should be thinking about what you want to do first.
Speaker 6: That does get me in trouble sometimes.
Speaker 7: But to answer your question, I like to actually say
Speaker 7: this quote and maybe it'll stick to you both. And
Speaker 7: that is history repeats itself. Opportunity does not. You have
Speaker 7: to be ready. And I say all that to say
Speaker 7: that when I'm shooting a photographer, when they sell photos
Speaker 7: or when they show their work, they're actually not showing
Speaker 7: the subject in the photo. I mean, technically you are
Speaker 7: if I shoot you guys with jay Z inside the
Speaker 7: forty forty private room like we did for the eleventh
Speaker 7: anniversary of the forty forty, which is not there no more.
Speaker 7: It's being relocated. I believe that moment is in all
Speaker 7: your glory, right, But it's also the opportunity for the
Speaker 7: photographer to show the viewer what they see. So like
Speaker 7: a painter with its paint brush and it's different colors
Speaker 7: and it's different palettes, different color than the palette, and
Speaker 7: it's in the canvas and the strokes of their their
Speaker 7: their their.
Speaker 6: Paint brush.
Speaker 7: Or an artist with his words written on his paper
Speaker 7: from his pen making a song, or of someone in
Speaker 7: politics or in social equality, that's writing and preparing a
Speaker 7: speech so that they can get the word out. That's
Speaker 7: the same caliber of energy that the photographer wishes to
Speaker 7: show the people that look at his photos. It's not
Speaker 7: what's in the photo, it's what they see. And they
Speaker 7: want you to see what they see. So when I'm
Speaker 7: shooting me cute, Oh you're always I would never want
Speaker 7: to put you in a bad light. You know, you
Speaker 7: you bless, you know you're hot. You know, I'm just
Speaker 7: keeping them one hundred. So yeah, So for me, I
Speaker 7: just like, there's no time to get ready ready now
Speaker 7: right here? You know what to get ready. There's four
Speaker 7: or five other photo set opportunities. Gail King just gave Oprah.
Speaker 7: You know, there's there's Michael Jordan laughing with whole like
Speaker 7: and and this firstone right here wants me to say,
Speaker 7: hold on, hold on, we get ready.
Speaker 6: You know, you get ready.
Speaker 2: We're about to let you go, Johnny.
Speaker 4: But before you go, right, I just want to give
Speaker 4: you your flowers because you deserve them.
Speaker 2: Man, you you you want the great one of.
Speaker 4: The greatest who've ever done it? Man Like, you talk
Speaker 4: about the people you you've worked with, and then I've
Speaker 4: seen the pictures that you've taken and this pictures you've
Speaker 4: taken of us, like you just talked about that picture
Speaker 4: with Hope, like I got that one.
Speaker 2: Yes, I got it blown up in my room right now, Sean.
Speaker 2: Sean came over. Yep, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 2: it's an amazing picture.
Speaker 4: Like you, you've just been doing this so long, and
Speaker 4: everybody who, everybody who, somebody knows who Johnny is, and
Speaker 4: right then respect you and they love what you do.
Speaker 2: I just want you to what do you want?
Speaker 4: What do you want your legacy to be? When it's all,
Speaker 4: when it's all, what do you want you?
Speaker 7: I want to be able to And just is real
Speaker 7: quick within that answer. When I look back now and
Speaker 7: I see him myself. Wow, look where God has brought me.
Speaker 7: Like I was in Beckingham Palace when Queen Elizabeth alive,
Speaker 7: I was on the phone with el Chapel when he
Speaker 7: was nine jail. I used to shoot from kings and
Speaker 7: queens to masterminds of crime. You know, as a personal photographer.
Speaker 7: How the hell you trust someone who never even went
Speaker 7: to school for this, you know. But then I look
Speaker 7: back and I realized when I was a child, I'm
Speaker 7: sure both of y'all used to sell candy for your school.
Speaker 7: And they wouldn't give you no money, but they give
Speaker 7: you this like this name you of items, So this
Speaker 7: much candy, you can buy this watch or this water gun.
Speaker 6: You remember that, y'all.
Speaker 7: Yeah, No matter how many points I was trying to
Speaker 7: go for how many cookies or candies, I was always
Speaker 7: trying to get a camera. So that to me shows
Speaker 7: that God already had implanted it from when I was
Speaker 7: three or four years old, in kindergarten, five years old,
Speaker 7: to just like planting that seat and saying, you're gonna
Speaker 7: go through some rough patches, not gonna lie and be
Speaker 7: covered in dirt and be in the dark. I'm gonna
Speaker 7: sign some light on you. You're gonna grow like like
Speaker 7: a flower through the cracks. You're gonna survive. They don't
Speaker 7: wanna let you blossom. And you're gonna have in your
Speaker 7: phone book. You're gonna have in your phone book. I
Speaker 7: can't even lie Spike Leave's phone number. You know what
Speaker 7: I'm saying. You're gonna have Naza's phone number. You're gonna
Speaker 7: have Pat Joe's phone number in your book. You're gonna
Speaker 7: have Rich Paul's number in your book. You're gonna be
Speaker 7: well taken care of, and you're gonna be a cop,
Speaker 7: a founding contributor to the largest photo agency in the
Speaker 7: world called Geddy Images.
Speaker 6: Can't even make that up. People think I work for getty.
Speaker 7: I'm a grandfather contributor aka my partner.
Speaker 6: You feel me.
Speaker 7: So I say that to say, that's how God, That's
Speaker 7: how good God is. It's amazing He could take you,
Speaker 7: whether you had to go to jail or you lost
Speaker 7: a loved one that was so did you that it
Speaker 7: just shifted your life to then now you wake up,
Speaker 7: you're in the rich hotel in Paris, a balcony looking
Speaker 7: towards Canon and the film festivals at Canone. I mean,
Speaker 7: I have stories to tell you. The legacy is to
Speaker 7: leave an opportunity for our young brothers and sisters of
Speaker 7: color and others to be able to photograph and be
Speaker 7: business men and women of their own, so that they
Speaker 7: don't have to work for a company. They could start
Speaker 7: a company. I pray that what I leave behind is
Speaker 7: But Gordon Park started, and Jamal Shabbaz, then the and
Speaker 7: then you have Ricky Powell and God bless the dead.
Speaker 6: Ricky Powell and.
Speaker 7: Chimo Doom they started companies, but they were never able
Speaker 7: to pass on how to do it. I want to
Speaker 7: be able to teach the babies how to start their
Speaker 7: own company and be self sufficient, so they didn't have
Speaker 7: their own company. Right now, both my son and daughter
Speaker 7: both know how to do photography. And now the next
Speaker 7: step is how do we market them? How do we
Speaker 7: brand them? I got my daughter, you know, Michael Jordan
Speaker 7: Nike campaign. I got my son in a morning side
Speaker 7: gallery for Faces of Harlem exhibit which ends in November.
Speaker 7: You know, I'm trying to leave, but not just for
Speaker 7: my children, all the children especially that were affected by
Speaker 7: the demonic colonizing of American history. So that means we
Speaker 7: got work to do to teach the children, not just photography, videography, rap, songwriting, music, political.
Speaker 6: What's the word being a social apple?
Speaker 7: To get for justice, we have to bring them with
Speaker 7: us so and show them from my own hands and
Speaker 7: our own minds.
Speaker 3: Johnny Neonaz, thank you so much, brother. We love you,
Speaker 3: we admire you, we respect you. I appreciate your understanding
Speaker 3: of history. You really truly are a gem. Your wife
Speaker 3: is a gym, your family everywhere you all are beautiful,
Speaker 3: never changing, you never act funny when you see people that, oh,
Speaker 3: today we in the room with Diana Ross. So therefore,
Speaker 3: to Meeking Mallory is not important.
Speaker 1: You like Diana Ross. Do you know to meek A
Speaker 1: Mallory you should know? Yeah, number exactly.
Speaker 3: So God bless you, We love you on your journey,
Speaker 3: keep telling your story.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 7: Want to see my lemonade, Mighty Joyful Lemonade, It's available
Speaker 7: on my website Mighty Joyful dot com. It's the first
Speaker 7: of a lemonade that was inspired by hip hop and
Speaker 7: it's inspired by Mama Wan so go by can telephone
Speaker 7: and telephone mighty mighty joyful her Yeah, Mighty joyful lemonade.
Speaker 2: Mighty Joyful lemonade joy Yeah.
Speaker 6: And he love lemonade too, I like can't.
Speaker 7: Has a different each man has a different element of
Speaker 7: hip hop. Is a graffiti artist. That's my son and
Speaker 7: daughter back to back in the b Boys stand. The
Speaker 7: next one is uh the DJ, which is my daughter scratching,
Speaker 7: the MC which is my son with the microphone. And
Speaker 7: then last one not least the bee Boy breakdancing, and
Speaker 7: that's me doing a windmill.
Speaker 6: So you can collect all four.
Speaker 4: Okay, Well, make sure you go out support Johnny Noona.
Speaker 4: Tell them where they can find you again, Johnny.
Speaker 7: Go to my Instagram or go to the website Mighty
Speaker 7: joyful dot com or my excuse me, mighty Joyful lemonade
Speaker 7: dot com.
Speaker 2: What's your Instagram?
Speaker 7: Johnny Noona is j O h n n y nunyas
Speaker 7: is and you and easy.
Speaker 2: We love you, Johnny, keep it up, but I love you.
Speaker 2: That's how we owned.
Speaker 4: Shout out to Johnny neonan is Man our brother the gym.
Speaker 4: He's YO since I was a teenager. He took me
Speaker 4: the first photo shoot in front of the tunnel.
Speaker 6: Man.
Speaker 4: Amazing just to watch him, you know, grow and get
Speaker 4: the accolades he deserves. And just hearing that story, Like
Speaker 4: you said, we couldn't even stop him, Like usually we
Speaker 4: don't let nobody just talk for fifteen twenty minutes, but
Speaker 4: we couldn't stop that story. It was just so felling
Speaker 4: and heartfelt and real and I just want the audience
Speaker 4: to hear it exactly how he told it.
Speaker 2: So shout out to him. Man, that brings me to
Speaker 2: my I don't get it.
Speaker 4: We talk about pictures and were talking about you know,
Speaker 4: recording history, and we talk about these things. If everybody
Speaker 4: knows unless you're under rock, you just blond of death.
Speaker 4: We know what's happening, you know, in Israel and Palestine
Speaker 4: right now, and we've seen, you know, the loss of life.
Speaker 2: We've seen bombing.
Speaker 4: It's war, you know, we've seen that there's war, and
Speaker 4: you know, and I think for me, what I don't get.
Speaker 4: You know, First, we want to we always want to
Speaker 4: acknowledge that we do not condone violence, murder, killing, kidnapping
Speaker 4: at all, and we vehemently you know, denounce that, you know,
Speaker 4: but we want that we need that the media properly
Speaker 4: report what's going on. You know, the media. The media
Speaker 4: is so dangerous and you know, when you when we
Speaker 4: look at what happened to this israelly people who are
Speaker 4: actually at a party, you know, and we see how
Speaker 4: you know, they were invaded, were kidnapped, the lives were lost,
Speaker 4: and it was it was a horrible thing, and nobody
Speaker 4: could condone that. Nobody, even the Palestinians don't condone, you know,
Speaker 4: they are Palestinians that all of our friends here said
Speaker 4: that that is the worst thing and they would not
Speaker 4: condone it.
Speaker 2: They don't celebrate it.
Speaker 4: They don't think it's okay, but when you look at
Speaker 4: the media and how they cover one side or something,
Speaker 4: you know, and unfortunately we have to go to social
Speaker 4: media where there are certain people who are accurately reporting
Speaker 4: what's actually happened with the Palestinians, you know, and their
Speaker 4: lives being lost every day, their babies, they have account
Speaker 4: for over one hundred babies that have been dead. They
Speaker 4: have videos of this happened, and they have all of
Speaker 4: these things. And when you look at the news and
Speaker 4: you look at how they report at one side, and
Speaker 4: they talk about how Israel has the right to defend
Speaker 4: themselves and and they're saying babies were dead and women
Speaker 4: are killed, and they're not saying that that's happening in Palestine.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 4: They're not saying that they cut off all the water
Speaker 4: and those people are over there. They're not saying that
Speaker 4: they even American citizens who are locked in guys on
Speaker 4: the strip that they won't allowed to leave. That I've seen,
Speaker 4: you know, reports and I've seen people on calls and
Speaker 4: videos talking about they pretty much just waiting to die.
Speaker 2: They haven't had water, they haven't.
Speaker 4: Had food, and you know, and so when these things
Speaker 4: aren't reported and is reported, one way I want. I
Speaker 4: want people to understand that these things are done for
Speaker 4: a reason, whatever reason it is, you just have to
Speaker 4: use discernment. You know, I've been around and I've watched media,
Speaker 4: being inside of this industry and being part of the
Speaker 4: social justice movement, I've watched the media lie. I've watched
Speaker 4: the media create narratives that aren't true. I watched the
Speaker 4: media term tell one side of narratives. And this is
Speaker 4: what's happening here, man, And you know, we we we
Speaker 4: we're not gonna allow that.
Speaker 2: We're gonna utilize our voices to tell the truth. All time.
Speaker 4: Were people who actually went to Palestine, and we know
Speaker 4: what's happened there. We know the history of what's happened there,
Speaker 4: you know, And as much as we do not condone
Speaker 4: what happened to the israelis what happened what Hamas has done,
Speaker 4: and we do not condone that, we will not allow
Speaker 4: there to be a one sided story to act like
Speaker 4: Palaestinians haven't been dying and aren't still dying as we
Speaker 4: speak right now. So you know, I just wanted to
Speaker 4: send out my regard, my prayers to all the people
Speaker 4: who lost that their loved ones all the ones who die.
Speaker 4: You know, this is war and it's not okay. You know,
Speaker 4: we were looking for a peaceful resolution. But if you
Speaker 4: do not acknowledge that peace only comes when there's justice.
Speaker 4: You know, peace only comes when there's freedom. There's no
Speaker 4: people who are pressed, who are going to continue to
Speaker 4: be oppressed, who are going to die without any level
Speaker 4: of fight, you know. And I think any person of
Speaker 4: good nature and moral conduct wouldn't even want people to
Speaker 4: be oppressed.
Speaker 3: Well, here's the thing I would say that one not
Speaker 3: all Palestinians. You said, Palestinians don't even want the killing
Speaker 3: to continue. And I want to make sure to be
Speaker 3: careful about that, because while we certainly absolutely unequivocally believe
Speaker 3: that the killing of innocent people, children or otherwise, women, men,
Speaker 3: anyone that is innocent that is not at the forefront
Speaker 3: of or you know, or leading the charge to murder
Speaker 3: and oppress others, we don't agree with that. I use
Speaker 3: the example that I don't believe people should kill cops,
Speaker 3: even though I know cops unjustly kill us all the time,
Speaker 3: and even though they say, well it's one bad apple,
Speaker 3: but if the rest of you stand by and watch it,
Speaker 3: then we could sit here and say that all of
Speaker 3: you are complicit, and therefore someone retaliated against an entire
Speaker 3: precinct and blew it up and killed all the police officers.
Speaker 3: There's some people that can make a justification for that,
Speaker 3: because hey, if you didn't, if you're not joining us
Speaker 3: to turn in to report, to condemn other officers who
Speaker 3: are doing wrong, you are just as complicit. And there
Speaker 3: are some people who have that mindset but still as
Speaker 3: a righteous people that have been for far too long,
Speaker 3: for all of my life and the lifetime of even
Speaker 3: those who came before us, who walk through while being
Speaker 3: holes down with the fire hoses, watermelon, throne at them.
Speaker 1: Spit on, beat on, and still they.
Speaker 3: Talked about loving their enemies. They talked about, you know,
Speaker 3: turning the other cheek. They talked and some said it
Speaker 3: was passive. Others said it was a form of being
Speaker 3: able to maintain your personal righteousness while fighting systems and
Speaker 3: not people. I mean, there's been many different theological breakdowns
Speaker 3: and explanations for why violence does not beget violence right,
Speaker 3: and we choose to walk in alignment with the idea
Speaker 3: that we are never to spray the park and shoot
Speaker 3: up everybody and let the grandmother get shot and the
Speaker 3: chot the children get shot on the playground when is in.
Speaker 1: The middle of the war between men.
Speaker 3: We have always said that, so we don't nobody's going
Speaker 3: to trap us into a cycle of conversation. But I
Speaker 3: will say that I don't want to speak on behalf
Speaker 3: of all Palestinians, because different Palastinians have different feelings.
Speaker 2: I know the people that I know, the ones that I.
Speaker 3: That we know, the ones that we know, and I'm
Speaker 3: not even going to put language in their mouth. I'm
Speaker 3: not going to put the word denounce in their mouth,
Speaker 3: because you know, I don't.
Speaker 1: I've never been.
Speaker 2: One anybody I denounced the violence. I've never one who.
Speaker 1: Wants to use that word.
Speaker 3: But I will say that I know everybody that I
Speaker 3: know that is Palastinian, that is close to this issue
Speaker 3: does not want to see children die or people die
Speaker 3: at all. And as a result, what they are calling
Speaker 3: for for is the best way to solve the problem,
Speaker 3: which is to deal with justice and to not allow
Speaker 3: one group or any particular person or any government to
Speaker 3: rule and reign over the lives and the freedom for
Speaker 3: self determination of another group. So we're saying that You're right,
Speaker 3: nobody should be dying. Anybody who feels that way, You're
Speaker 3: never going to get us to disagree. We support that
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. We support the fact that Israeli children, women,
Speaker 3: families are to be safe. We support that, and we
Speaker 3: know that the path towards it. It's for every single person. Again,
Speaker 3: going back to the police references, for the cops to say, hey,
Speaker 3: if we're going into communities throwing people up against the wall,
Speaker 3: treating them like shit, hurting them, harming them, disrespecting them,
Speaker 3: dehumanizing them, then you know what, I'm going over there
Speaker 3: as an officer by myself into the community late at night,
Speaker 3: thinking that somebody might not try to retaliate against me
Speaker 3: when they can get the one.
Speaker 1: Up on me.
Speaker 3: So therefore I'm going to walk with respect. My father
Speaker 3: was a correction officer for more than twenty years. He
Speaker 3: never had a problem with the UH incarcerated individuals, especially
Speaker 3: in the last jail that he was in in the
Speaker 3: Bronx House. Never had a problem. I have met formally
Speaker 3: incarcerated people who told me I hated that jail. I
Speaker 3: hated those officers. But Mallory, Stan Mallory, I've never had
Speaker 3: a problem with him. And you know why, because he
Speaker 3: treated every man with respect. He understood that just because
Speaker 3: you're in this situation, it's not all of you, and
Speaker 3: he got their stories even when they were right wrong
Speaker 3: or he was not to all be there be the judge,
Speaker 3: the person who could the what do you call it, no, no, no, no, no, whatever,
Speaker 3: the exactly the judge and the jury.
Speaker 1: But I was trying to say something else. That was
Speaker 1: not his role. It was not his role to judge.
Speaker 3: His role was to ensure the safety of the officers
Speaker 3: and the incarcerated people. In order to do that, he
Speaker 3: felt respect of everybody was the best way. So that's
Speaker 3: what we're saying. And therefore, when folks said, why is
Speaker 3: Sean King only showing the images of the Palestinians, Well,
Speaker 3: who else gonna do it?
Speaker 1: Because the show ain't on the TV.
Speaker 3: The TV at the news station is telling you about
Speaker 3: one side of a story. Somebody has got to use
Speaker 3: a major platform to provide some balance. And the last
Speaker 3: thing I want to say is the big ass lie
Speaker 3: that they have been telling that they now have had
Speaker 3: to retract of saying that the children's head that they
Speaker 3: had pictures of and the president saw pictures. Our president
Speaker 3: saw pictures of children beheaded.
Speaker 1: Why is that so important?
Speaker 3: Because some people will say, well, people still died, so
Speaker 3: regardless of whether it was beheading or not, children's people
Speaker 3: still die.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you why that's important.
Speaker 3: Because in every comment section that I've read, folks are
Speaker 3: using that as an egregious like the atrocity is so big.
Speaker 3: They're using that to say, I can't even hear the
Speaker 3: Palestinian struggle because as whatever whoever I am, black, white, Jewish,
Speaker 3: whatever I am, I'm so outraged over the beheading of
Speaker 3: children that I can't get past that. But then that
Speaker 3: actually didn't happen. So now what you're gonna say? Because
Speaker 3: the President said, oh, I saw the pictures, then the
Speaker 3: White House secretary or whomever was the White House immediately said,
Speaker 3: I actually didn't.
Speaker 1: It was from a report that came from net and Yahoo.
Speaker 1: Who we know who he.
Speaker 3: Is and the acts of terrorism that he has been
Speaker 3: inflicted upon even his own damn people, as far as
Speaker 3: I'm concerned. That So then they say, oh, event now
Speaker 3: even the Israeli government has had to come forward to
Speaker 3: say that there's no, there's actually not proof of such,
Speaker 3: which means it was a lie because at the time,
Speaker 3: it was all about sensationalism. It was all about making people.
Speaker 3: Because if this one thing that you cannot explain to me,
Speaker 3: I don't give a damn what happens in the world.
Speaker 1: You could.
Speaker 3: You could come in my house right now. You can
Speaker 3: shoot my mama, my daddy, my son. You could kill
Speaker 3: every single one of us, and for whatever reason, I
Speaker 3: might be able to rationalize it because of some shit
Speaker 3: we did. Maybe my brother killed somebody, or my cousin
Speaker 3: hurt somebody, and therefore war's war. Retaliation is retaliation. I
Speaker 3: might try to understand what I'm saying. I never would,
Speaker 3: but I'm just using a super duper extreme example. But
Speaker 3: if you behead my grandchild, if you cut off my
Speaker 3: one year old granddaughter's head, Lord God bless you, me
Speaker 3: and the rest of this world, that.
Speaker 2: Is you're the devil.
Speaker 4: That's it, demonic you you you you're not even human.
Speaker 4: It's it's no way I can humanize you. And that's
Speaker 4: what that's what this is meant to do. It's meant
Speaker 4: to be humanized because once somebody says that, because I
Speaker 4: don't give for how angry I am if I'm in war,
Speaker 4: this and that there's no way that I even want
Speaker 4: to harm a baby. So for me to sit there
Speaker 4: and grab a baby and decide I'm gonna cut a
Speaker 4: baby's head off or any individual, this is that's that
Speaker 4: is the devil reincarnated. That is pure evil, you know,
Speaker 4: And that's why those stories are being told to our
Speaker 4: people to to take away your empathy for and your
Speaker 4: humanization of those individuals.
Speaker 2: So we're not gonna allow that. We're gonna always speak truthful.
Speaker 3: Because because to lend a Sorces point, the story is
Speaker 3: bad enough. We don't need no extra The people were killed,
Speaker 3: that is bad enough. But when you start talking about
Speaker 3: beheading children, you know what you're doing. You're creating an
Speaker 3: additional level of trauma.
Speaker 4: Because you know that you know what you're doing, because
Speaker 4: you know that there's a there's a story that can
Speaker 4: say that we were people are dying over here too,
Speaker 4: and people were killed, right, so they know they know that.
Speaker 4: When they say that, and they just say, well they
Speaker 4: kill people, and then we can say, well they kill
Speaker 4: people here, it pretty much is like, well, y'all need
Speaker 4: to fix this, right, But once you and the baby,
Speaker 4: then it's all no, no, ain't nothing, worse than that.
Speaker 2: So this is this out.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you right now, wipe them out.
Speaker 1: If you do it.
Speaker 3: To wipe them out, every every man woman is nothing, nothing.
Speaker 3: We've scrubbed the bottom and I know that's why they
Speaker 3: presented that, and now it has to be walked back
Speaker 3: because there's actually no evidence of it. Oh so now
Speaker 3: let's now let's go back to having a conversation on
Speaker 3: equal playing field. And it's still not equal playing for
Speaker 3: we know that because we understand. But I'm just saying,
Speaker 3: let's go backwards now and start having it. And then
Speaker 3: once we get on this equal playing field, now we
Speaker 3: got to start telling some truths about what has happened
Speaker 3: and the history and the foundation, and then that's when
Speaker 3: things start going to rye because people don't like to
Speaker 3: have that conversation. I want to give Julianne Read some
Speaker 3: credit because Wow, she certainly you know, wants to make
Speaker 3: sure that she presents the truth and it's provided some
Speaker 3: fair and balanced coverage of these things. I know it's
Speaker 3: not easy for her to be able to do that,
Speaker 3: So I give Joy a lot of credit for making
Speaker 3: sure that her show is not used to just talk
Speaker 3: about one side It's a shame that black people who
Speaker 3: are on TV are sitting here and won't even call
Speaker 3: a Palestinian's name.
Speaker 1: That's disgusting, But anyway, gotta go.
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika Di. Marriage is
Speaker 4: not gonna always be wrong, but we will both always
Speaker 4: and I mean always, always, always be authentic and speak
Speaker 4: truth to power peace.
Speaker 3: Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: And catch us every single Wednesday for the video version
Speaker 4: of Street Politicians on eyewomen dot TV.
Speaker 2: That's