Speaker 1: I'm Tamika D.
Speaker 2: Mallory and the ship Boy my Son in general.
Speaker 1: We are your host of t M.
Speaker 2: I Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration,
Speaker 2: New Energy.
Speaker 3: What's up, my Son Lennon, Greetings, Tamika D. Mallory. How
Speaker 3: are you feeling today?
Speaker 1: I'm doing okay, okay.
Speaker 3: Until freedom down today a little until.
Speaker 1: On time, summertime.
Speaker 3: I love. It's way too hot outside.
Speaker 1: You say that every week every week.
Speaker 2: I went outside and I've seen the devil licking somebody's
Speaker 2: face out of it.
Speaker 1: But it's better than it was last week. A little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the heat is still on hell man.
Speaker 1: I mean that's just a reality. I think. You know,
Speaker 1: when you hear.
Speaker 4: Certain groups of peace people trying to deny that climate
Speaker 4: change is real, I mean, it's actually playing out before
Speaker 4: our eyes like we see it, so I can tell
Speaker 4: me that's not real.
Speaker 1: AnyWho.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm really about to like change my profession.
Speaker 4: I'm telling you because I would like to focus on
Speaker 4: quality control.
Speaker 1: That's what I want to focus on. That's the thing
Speaker 1: I want to focus on.
Speaker 4: I realized that I that in my third life because
Speaker 4: I have one that is an organizer for social justice.
Speaker 4: I have another one that is an event planner, and
Speaker 4: then I have a third one that should be in
Speaker 4: customer service and quality control. I had an experience during
Speaker 4: my family reunion where you know, I checked into an
Speaker 4: Airbnb and when I got there, beautiful space in a
Speaker 4: town that does not have much my family's town in Moreauville, Alabama.
Speaker 4: You know, it's there's a there's two different sides to
Speaker 4: it with like like with many areas that's heavily populated
Speaker 4: with black boats. You got downtown some kind of like
Speaker 4: some would say uptown, you know, and there's some white money,
Speaker 4: and there of course are black affluent people there as well.
Speaker 1: But it is a very very very country town, small town.
Speaker 1: And so when you think of and there were there
Speaker 1: used to be businesses that were like amazing, right, like
Speaker 1: you know, factories and lots of businesses, and all of
Speaker 1: that was purchased by big business and then they shut
Speaker 1: production down and so for years and year in years,
Speaker 1: those jobs have not returned. So there is the tale
Speaker 1: of two cities. Again.
Speaker 4: There are people who are retired, people who moved there
Speaker 4: for various reasons to teach college to you know, maybe
Speaker 4: it's just they found a good town that they like
Speaker 4: to spend the rest of their lives. You have that,
Speaker 4: and then you have people who are absolutely struggling and
Speaker 4: really suffering with a lot of desperation. So when you
Speaker 4: see beautiful airbnbs popping up because people are starting to
Speaker 4: invest in this area again, it's really cool. Shout out
Speaker 4: to my cousin OLA's Garden, Kim Abney, who has opened
Speaker 4: up a number of rentals and airbnb properties and they
Speaker 4: are phenomenal beautiful. You walk in the details is just
Speaker 4: like his mama, my auntie Ola May Abney taught him
Speaker 4: this other airbnb very nice, walked in, loved beautiful. But
Speaker 4: as soon as my and my brother Milton is with me,
Speaker 4: so it's not just me because I know y'all gonna say, oh,
Speaker 4: she always got something. Soon as we walk into the bedroom,
Speaker 4: he's helping me put my suitcases up. You clearly see
Speaker 4: a stain on the bed. Then he pulls the cover
Speaker 4: back and there's another stain. Now, these two stains are
Speaker 4: more than likely clean. They're more than likely clean, right,
Speaker 4: And in fact, I'm just gonna make this my thought
Speaker 4: of the day today because it's so it's just these
Speaker 4: two stains are there. More than likely it's clean and
Speaker 4: it's wear and tear. It looks like an old oil
Speaker 4: stain or something. But the bed looks clean. It's just
Speaker 4: it has these two stains on it. So immediately I
Speaker 4: reach out to the management and say there's stains in
Speaker 4: the bed, and their response and by the way, I
Speaker 4: don't hear anything back.
Speaker 1: Is going on three hours before.
Speaker 4: I had to send an email going through all of
Speaker 4: it to get the attention of the individual. And eventually
Speaker 4: she calls me back and she's like, yeah, well, but
Speaker 4: it's definitely clean. I understand what you're saying, and I
Speaker 4: believe that it's clean. But I should not have to
Speaker 4: sleep in a bed that has stains on it, regardless
Speaker 4: of whether it is clean or not. Whether it's clean
Speaker 4: or not is not the point here. The point is
Speaker 4: there should not be stains in the bed.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 4: Let me just say from the onset that it was corrected.
Speaker 4: But it was corrected after having to go back and
Speaker 4: forth with this woman several times, and then eventually she
Speaker 4: said to me, oh, and she said, well, this one
Speaker 4: is busy, which is the lady who is the cleaning person?
Speaker 1: She herself, This woman was with her.
Speaker 4: Family, and she's telling me all of these things and
Speaker 4: continuing to say and then texting me that I know
Speaker 4: for a fact.
Speaker 1: Those sheets were washed, that bed was clean, those it's clean.
Speaker 1: Still not did it.
Speaker 3: She didn't get what was going on.
Speaker 4: She did not understand that when you check into a hotel,
Speaker 4: you check into a rental property, you don't want to
Speaker 4: see any type of stain.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that is called wear and tears.
Speaker 1: So what you do when it.
Speaker 4: Has a stain on it, it's time to throw it
Speaker 4: out and get new ones. This happens all the time
Speaker 4: when you are running. Well, no one else has ever complained. Meanwhile,
Speaker 4: my brother he's like you, he ain't trying to have you.
Speaker 1: Know, Milton, it is not that serious. It's fine. When
Speaker 1: he looked at it, he was like, nah, this is
Speaker 1: a stain.
Speaker 4: Like and you know, I'm the one and all of
Speaker 4: the guys around me would be like, oh boy, here
Speaker 4: she go to glass the four, this, that, that and the third.
Speaker 4: But even he was like, no, no, that's a stain.
Speaker 4: It's two stains, and it's one under the comforter. In
Speaker 4: my thought of the day today is that, of course,
Speaker 4: as a black woman, you know I want to I
Speaker 4: should be able to say and defend my position as
Speaker 4: black women, and I would imagine black people we are
Speaker 4: constantly shrinking ourselves so that we don't upset, annoy, agitate others,
Speaker 4: or bring further harm to ourselves. So all of the
Speaker 4: hotels in this particular area, it's places that I personally
Speaker 4: would do.
Speaker 1: I don't like to stay. This is my mother's hometown.
Speaker 4: I love it there, love it there, grew up there,
Speaker 4: can't wait to go back. But I don't like staying
Speaker 4: in the hotels. So the idea that there are Airbnb
Speaker 4: properties that are very nice popping up is really really good.
Speaker 4: And I don't want to put myself in a situation
Speaker 4: where I have a bad rating or you know that,
Speaker 4: where these people can write whatever they want. I've already
Speaker 4: been down the road with Airbnb where somebody blatantly lied.
Speaker 4: The management company blatantly lied. Airbnb knew it from reading
Speaker 4: all of the messages back and forth between us, but
Speaker 4: still told me that they cannot delete the comments on
Speaker 4: the review that was left for me.
Speaker 1: Because it still is up to the will of.
Speaker 4: The property manager, even though they read screenshots and saw
Speaker 4: that it was a lie and it's very basic. They
Speaker 4: tried to say that I had an additional person in
Speaker 4: the house above the people that were supposed to be there,
Speaker 4: but then it was proven that that was the driver
Speaker 4: who dropped off our bags and was only in the
Speaker 4: house for maybe fifteen minutes, and it was proven in
Speaker 4: the messages, but they still left on my comment thing,
Speaker 4: you know, my review and Airbnb that I had an
Speaker 4: additional person in the house and so I violated the
Speaker 4: rules right and Airbnb could not and would not do
Speaker 4: anything about it.
Speaker 1: So therefore, here I.
Speaker 4: Am dealing with this sheet situation. And instead of me
Speaker 4: doing what I know how to do, which is to
Speaker 4: write and be very clear about why this is problematic
Speaker 4: and to make my point and also to demand of
Speaker 4: this woman to stop telling me like I'm a child,
Speaker 4: over and over again that the sheets are clean, I
Speaker 4: am unable to do that because I need to try
Speaker 4: to protect my name, my brand, myself physically. Who knows
Speaker 4: like this is a white woman in a country town somewhere.
Speaker 4: I don't know what the hell she might do. I
Speaker 4: have no idea I know her husband is, I don't
Speaker 4: know how children are. So I don't want to get
Speaker 4: into a back and forth with this woman. So ultimately,
Speaker 4: if you read my messages, I'm saying I'm my apologies,
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm the freaking customer, and I'm apologizing to
Speaker 4: the lady and trying to be as nice as possible
Speaker 4: to try to de escalate or whatever you want to
Speaker 4: call it, diffuse any possibility that this situation was somehow
Speaker 4: backfire on me. And I just feel like that is
Speaker 4: the most uncomfortable for the rest of my trip. It
Speaker 4: was in the back of my mind that this woman
Speaker 4: had been extremely rude to me. I mean, it goes
Speaker 4: on and on, and we don't have the time to
Speaker 4: talk about it today, but it was nothing that I
Speaker 4: could really do because I wanted to be in a
Speaker 4: comfortable place where I could stay for my family reunion
Speaker 4: and also not interrupt other people for feeling like they
Speaker 4: needed to protect me. So, you know, that's a that's
Speaker 4: a it's a very uncomfortable place that we as black
Speaker 4: people are constantly trying to shrink ourselves so that we
Speaker 4: don't upset other people even when they're doing us wrong.
Speaker 2: That's that's really a real thing. I go through it
Speaker 2: all the time, you know. I try not to be
Speaker 2: as aggressive when I'm communicating with certain people, understanding that
Speaker 2: I speak with the level of passion that I've been
Speaker 2: told is aggressive and scared people. You know, a lot
Speaker 2: of times, in certain situations where I don't even think
Speaker 2: I'm wrong, I apologize because, like you said, you fear
Speaker 2: the backlash of what can come out the situation. You know,
Speaker 2: we constantly have to do that, you know, and knowing
Speaker 2: how picky you are, and it's nothing wrong with being
Speaker 2: picky when you're paying your money for something. You know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, and that's customer service. Like you know,
Speaker 2: you know, I play with you a lot and go,
Speaker 2: oh gods, it's gonna go. But the reality situation is,
Speaker 2: it's not like you're wrong. You don't want dirty civil
Speaker 2: where you don't want dirty cheeks, you don't want dirty things.
Speaker 2: You don't want to overlook that as a state on you,
Speaker 2: and you don't really have to, because when you provide
Speaker 2: a service, especially with people have to lay and their
Speaker 2: heads and live living for us, it should be immaculate.
Speaker 3: Actually, it should be an immaculate space to.
Speaker 2: Where the sheets where people have to lay their body
Speaker 2: or they don't know if this is a fucking comstain
Speaker 2: or whatever stain that comes from somebody else, like nobody
Speaker 2: should have to guess what kind of stain is on
Speaker 2: the sheet in the blanket, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And you and if you don't see that you're willing
Speaker 2: to move past it, then you you shouldn't have to.
Speaker 2: And when you bring it to someone who is providing
Speaker 2: the services to you, when you bring it to their attention,
Speaker 2: it shouldn't be any pushback. It should just be like,
Speaker 2: oh my, I apologize, you know, even though they're clean,
Speaker 2: I understand, I apologize.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna make sure I get you guys some fresh sheets.
Speaker 2: And that's it. It really shouldn't be much more than that.
Speaker 2: But that's just not where we are, you know. And
Speaker 2: unfortunately we live in a time where, you know, especially
Speaker 2: as black people that we like you said, we have
Speaker 2: to try not to say as much and try to
Speaker 2: cause it's less problems because we always gonna be seen.
Speaker 3: And unless unless it's a videotape or something.
Speaker 2: Just like you said, you you had the whole screenshots
Speaker 2: of text messages would showed that somebody lying on you
Speaker 2: and you still had to deal with the backladgh. So
Speaker 2: it's just like a lot of times you want it,
Speaker 2: it's even worth it. You know, you got to weigh
Speaker 2: your options. Do I even standing up for myself or
Speaker 2: do I be quiet? Because I know standing up for
Speaker 2: myself can give me ostracized and you know, in ridiculed.
Speaker 3: So it's a lot man.
Speaker 4: And meanwhile, this white woman got to walk away from
Speaker 4: the situation. And by the way, the way Airbnb works
Speaker 4: for people who don't know, you make a review first
Speaker 4: and then she makes a review after, so they and.
Speaker 1: They don't get to see it until after they make
Speaker 1: their review.
Speaker 4: But nonetheless, you make a review first and then they
Speaker 4: make a review.
Speaker 1: So for me, I and you know, I'm just, I'm
Speaker 1: just like.
Speaker 4: Systems and customer service and quality control needs a new focus.
Speaker 4: It really does, because people are spending their money services
Speaker 4: that they don't like.
Speaker 1: Products are coming.
Speaker 4: Listen the way in which people the clothes are being made.
Speaker 4: Everything is just being thrown together and people are basically
Speaker 4: being forced to to I don't know what you call it.
Speaker 4: I got some moose from my hair and the top
Speaker 4: of the moose bottle was cracked open, and they were
Speaker 4: trying to tell me, oh, there's no way.
Speaker 1: To exchange it.
Speaker 4: And this this and that I had to go all
Speaker 4: the way to the corporate office to get five dollars.
Speaker 4: But if you mailed me something and it's broken, you're
Speaker 4: supposed to replace it. Like, how dare you even think
Speaker 4: you can have a policy that says that you don't
Speaker 4: have to. So this is something that for me is
Speaker 4: a real passion. I have no idea the process of
Speaker 4: getting you know, scooting myself from one world to the net,
Speaker 4: but I really I wish that and when I go
Speaker 4: and come back that I would be in quality controlled
Speaker 4: and customer service.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, man, I know if you and customer service,
Speaker 2: the customer service is going to be immaculate because what
Speaker 2: you demand from customer service, it's pretty much what we
Speaker 2: all shit.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I joke about it a lot. But
Speaker 2: should we should have Queen Silp? Should have people, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. We should have people who want
Speaker 2: to be actually like their job, Like their attitude shouldn't
Speaker 2: be like you bother them because you're asking them to
Speaker 2: do things to make you comfortable as a customer.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, we shouldn't thank you very much. So
Speaker 1: do we have a music spot?
Speaker 4: Like, listen, I don't want us to just be giving
Speaker 4: the music spotlight to people that don't deserve it.
Speaker 2: So I don't have a music spotlight, but I do
Speaker 2: want to highlight a clothing brand that has beautiful clothing
Speaker 2: and it is my guy Smith is Smith, and it's
Speaker 2: called Actively Black Actively Black.
Speaker 3: This is a shirt. Look see this.
Speaker 1: Let me say that a more confident Okay, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is one of the church black and cocky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Actively black man. So they sent me a bunch
Speaker 2: of stuff. Shout out to him, Listen to me. It
Speaker 2: is quality sportswear, quality sports. Where they sent you a
Speaker 2: whole box of stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to start going through it for my travels.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Landy Smith. Shout out to Actively Black.
Speaker 2: If you do not have some of their clothing, then
Speaker 2: you need to go on actively black dot com.
Speaker 3: Right now.
Speaker 2: They partner with Alan Everson. I've seen Obama and some
Speaker 2: of their clothing. You know they're doing. They're doing amazing things.
Speaker 2: It's one of my premium brands, top brands. He sent
Speaker 2: me a box of stuff that I'm gonna work out
Speaker 2: it and some it's fly stuff.
Speaker 1: It is work.
Speaker 3: It ain't just worker, it's quality sports.
Speaker 2: Were man it's real quality, high quality sports with Wow.
Speaker 2: If you look at I've had a free shorts from
Speaker 2: last year that I got that's still in tip top shape,
Speaker 2: Like I work out in them all the time.
Speaker 3: My favorite work out you.
Speaker 4: That's what I was gonna say that well, a little
Speaker 4: different from you. They also sent me a box, and
Speaker 4: I'm so proud of Actively Black. First of all, I
Speaker 4: remember when you first started promoting them, a lot of
Speaker 4: people didn't know who they were, and this was like
Speaker 4: at the very beginning of folks saying we need to
Speaker 4: buy black, and you were immediately on Actively Black. So
Speaker 4: shout out to you for that, especially after the Nike
Speaker 4: situation when we decided to not wear night y'all don't
Speaker 4: even miss Nike anymore.
Speaker 1: Like actually I told you, I.
Speaker 4: Don't even see it anymore as something like I don't
Speaker 4: feel I don't I just don't.
Speaker 1: Feel attached to it. So that's that.
Speaker 4: But but they sent me things and the quality, like
Speaker 4: you said, is so good. It's so it's such a
Speaker 4: good brand. And so for people who are like you know,
Speaker 4: I want to support some black owned business, but I
Speaker 4: want myself to be because sometimes, let's be clear, try
Speaker 4: to support our own and the stuff don't be that
Speaker 4: good quality, like I'm just saying, And it's not just
Speaker 4: our own. Sometimes we support other brands and the equality
Speaker 4: is not there, you know what I'm saying. And then anyway,
Speaker 4: it's not their customer service quality I got.
Speaker 1: I could go on.
Speaker 3: But I won't.
Speaker 4: Customer service Actively Black they definitely have good customer service
Speaker 4: and they have a heart for the community and the people,
Speaker 4: and a lot of folks are starting to get into it.
Speaker 4: You know, people have been supporting them, So keep supporting
Speaker 4: Actively Black.
Speaker 3: Because I am actively Black, all right.
Speaker 4: Family, So today you know, we always have our friends on,
Speaker 4: but today we got our little sister, and I am
Speaker 4: really really excited because this is a young woman who
Speaker 4: is an example of what we tell our young people
Speaker 4: they need to do. She's not waiting for anybody to
Speaker 4: give her position. She's not waiting to be lifted and
Speaker 4: we need to pass the torch and no, no, she
Speaker 4: is blazing her own trails and carrying the torch all
Speaker 4: at the same time. And we're just I don't know
Speaker 4: my song, what's the word. It's not just excited, it's elated.
Speaker 4: It's elated crowd to have this young woman as our sister,
Speaker 4: our colleague, and the struggle and just so many things.
Speaker 4: And I can actually cry because it's just that deep knowing,
Speaker 4: you know, watching all of us grow over time, but
Speaker 4: especially watching Bria Baker, our young sister, go from on
Speaker 4: the streets, on the ground to putting it in a
Speaker 4: book and now she has such an amazing project. Let
Speaker 4: me tell you a little bit about Bria Bacon. Now,
Speaker 4: y'all know I don't read bios on this show. It's
Speaker 4: very limited, but in this situation, we want to make
Speaker 4: sure that our sister is properly introduced.
Speaker 1: To all of you.
Speaker 4: So, Bria Baker is a freedom fighter and writer and
Speaker 4: a national and global strategist. Come on, now, tell them
Speaker 4: exactly who you are. She has contributed to dozens of
Speaker 4: electoral and advocacy campaigns, including the twenty seventeen Women's March
Speaker 4: on Washington, the twenty eighteen student walkouts against gun violence,
Speaker 4: and Jamani Williams successful bid for New York City Public Advocate.
Speaker 4: Ria has a BA in political science from Yale University,
Speaker 4: where she served as president of Yale's NAACP chapter and
Speaker 4: co director of the AIDS Walk New Haven, Okay. Now,
Speaker 4: Ria has a book. It is called Rooted, the American
Speaker 4: Legacy of land theft and the modern Movement for Black
Speaker 4: land Ownership. It delves into one of the nation's first
Speaker 4: and stealing and hoarding the land, and follows Ria and
Speaker 4: her family on a personal journey to preserve her ancestors
Speaker 4: land in North Carolina.
Speaker 1: Ria, thank you so much for joining us on Tami.
Speaker 6: Sah no is going to make me cry because they
Speaker 6: are being too kind, like little sister. But like I
Speaker 6: was just following around, happy to learn at y'all's feed
Speaker 6: and Carmen and Linda and just learn so much from
Speaker 6: the two of y'all though of course through gathering and
Speaker 6: other spaces. But it is just so special to get
Speaker 6: to talk to y'all about a book after having been
Speaker 6: the little intern volunteer assistant who was taking notes all
Speaker 6: those years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I just want to say, first of all, I'm
Speaker 2: very proud of you, and this book is just pretty
Speaker 2: much a testament of who you are. You know, like
Speaker 2: you always found things that needed to be spoken on,
Speaker 2: Like even when I go to your social media, you
Speaker 2: speak on the things that we need to say talk about,
Speaker 2: but nobody actually highlights.
Speaker 3: And you have a knack for that.
Speaker 2: You know in this book right here just pretty much
Speaker 2: speaks to who you are, Like, what made you say
Speaker 2: that I want to write this book and about what
Speaker 2: you wrote about.
Speaker 5: Thank you for saying that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, you know, right before we got on
Speaker 6: this call, you and I Mice were talking about grief
Speaker 6: really quickly, and grief is definitely what pushed me to
Speaker 6: write the book and family and love for what it
Speaker 6: means to be black and happy. And I think I
Speaker 6: had gotten to a place where I was in the
Speaker 6: work because I was angry, and then my grandfather passed
Speaker 6: away in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 5: And it kind of made me stop.
Speaker 6: It was right after Jimani was elected, and so it
Speaker 6: was really just like stilled me and forced me to
Speaker 6: really think about what legacy meant for my family, not
Speaker 6: just for what I was doing for a theoretical community,
Speaker 6: but what am I doing for the black people who
Speaker 6: I'm related to? What's our story? What's the legacy that
Speaker 6: I need to continue on for my grandfather now that
Speaker 6: he's not here. And the last words that he said,
Speaker 6: or some of the last words he said in his
Speaker 6: hospital bed was don't sell the land. So it felt
Speaker 6: so clear learn more about why he cares so much
Speaker 6: about this land, make sure that the family stays together,
Speaker 6: because grief can be a time when we.
Speaker 5: Are ununited.
Speaker 6: And I just wanted to make sure that we understood
Speaker 6: that we have to be really locked in and laser
Speaker 6: focused on what he saw is important. And the more
Speaker 6: research I did, the more it was like, well, now
Speaker 6: I'm not just doing it for him, I'm doing it
Speaker 6: for me.
Speaker 5: I'm doing it for my little one.
Speaker 6: I just I want more of us to have access
Speaker 6: to land as a vehicle for wealth, but also as
Speaker 6: just a place where we can be ourselves. And it's
Speaker 6: we don't you know, We're not under someone else's thumb
Speaker 6: or being policed.
Speaker 5: We're in our own space.
Speaker 4: So you talked about America's first sin just stealing land,
Speaker 4: which makes it not hard for us to understand why
Speaker 4: they are so supportive of Israel as it steals land,
Speaker 4: the land of the Palestinian people. Why don't you talk
Speaker 4: a little bit about that, like in your research. I mean,
Speaker 4: we know it theoretically.
Speaker 3: We talk about.
Speaker 4: The native people to this land. We talk about how
Speaker 4: their land was stolen, it was encroached upon, how they
Speaker 4: never have been properly acknowledged for the fact that they
Speaker 4: were already here and then we came to this country.
Speaker 4: We were, I always say, trafficked to America, and we
Speaker 4: built the nation on our backs. And I would love
Speaker 4: to hear you talk about your research because I can imagine,
Speaker 4: again from one perspective, we all know it, but when
Speaker 4: you started to do that research, you probably found some
Speaker 4: pretty egregious stuff.
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, definitely, definitely, because I mean the things that
Speaker 6: we know about are the Tulsa massacres, which are horrible, horrific, right,
Speaker 6: but we think that they were few and far between.
Speaker 6: And the Tulsa massacre happened inineteen twenty one. Two years
Speaker 6: before that was the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen, but
Speaker 6: even that is like a misnomer because it was all year,
Speaker 6: just a massacre every other day across the country. And
Speaker 6: then before then was the nineteen oh six Atlanta massacre,
Speaker 6: and then before then was the Wilmington massacre. So number one,
Speaker 6: seeing the scale of how often black people were being
Speaker 6: forced out of the South. So, as you said, like
Speaker 6: the word traffic, I think it's important that we use
Speaker 6: this deeper language because yeah, we were trafficked here and
Speaker 6: then we weren't just like moving and migrating north. We
Speaker 6: were running for our lives and being forced out of
Speaker 6: an expulsed out of, very similar to things that are
Speaker 6: happening in Palestine and the Congo and other similar places.
Speaker 6: And it actually made me, It made me feel even
Speaker 6: stronger in my result that there has to be a
Speaker 6: free Palestine, because if I know what happened to my
Speaker 6: family in North Carolina, what happened to a lot of
Speaker 6: black families across Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, et cetera, I
Speaker 6: know intimately what a Palestinian family who is watching their
Speaker 6: village be turned into an Israeli settlement, seeing olive groves
Speaker 6: be transformed into like tourism spots for settlers, Like it's
Speaker 6: you watch your dreams literally get ripped from under you.
Speaker 6: In the case of Palaestinians, you're watching bulldozers literally crush
Speaker 6: your homes. In the cases of the black people, they're
Speaker 6: burning all black towns, lynching people, forcing you north, and
Speaker 6: from a distance, you have to watch a new thing
Speaker 6: get built on what was yours, like Lake Lanier, right,
Speaker 6: like that was a black town that they said we're
Speaker 6: going to put a lake over this and like you
Speaker 6: have to watch now, like you know, generations later, decades later,
Speaker 6: you have to watch white people get on jet skis
Speaker 6: on a lake where there are cemeteries under there. There
Speaker 6: were churches, there were schools, there were homes, And that
Speaker 6: happens in a lot of places. And it's not always
Speaker 6: the overt violence like the massacres. Sometimes it's the violence
Speaker 6: of eminent domain. It could be a lot of different things,
Speaker 6: but a lot of policy and outright violence has been
Speaker 6: you use to take people like black people's life, savings, dreams,
Speaker 6: everything we've worked towards. So when people say things like, well,
Speaker 6: we got to work together, like insert community, and it's
Speaker 6: like we have always worked together.
Speaker 5: It's just right at the time that we're succeeding.
Speaker 6: Jealousy makes white supremacy say, ooh that needs to be mine.
Speaker 6: I deserve it more than you, and that's what needs
Speaker 6: to be stopped.
Speaker 3: M that's amazing.
Speaker 2: So give us a little bit of your personal, you
Speaker 2: know situation when you when your your grandfather said, don't
Speaker 2: sell the land. So what was the process like for that,
Speaker 2: and was there people trying to take the land from you, Like,
Speaker 2: what was the process that happened with them.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, thankfully, when my grandfather passed away, my grandmother
Speaker 6: was still living, so it was still in her hands.
Speaker 6: And then after that it was put into a trust
Speaker 6: and a land trust for our family to kind of
Speaker 6: hold on to. And that's important for us to know,
Speaker 6: is that you need more than just a standard will
Speaker 6: or more than just well I want it to be
Speaker 6: this person, like you really got to get the paperwork
Speaker 6: to really shore up these assets. Because black people, we
Speaker 6: are resilient, we are innovative, so we can make some money,
Speaker 6: but are we going to be able to pass on
Speaker 6: in inheritance that the next generation can still get? So
Speaker 6: I feel grateful that it is still in our family
Speaker 6: since he's passed away, But the larger story of our
Speaker 6: family absolutely has a lot of theft in it. So
Speaker 6: our family still has about one hundred acres in North Carolina,
Speaker 6: which is huge to me. But when I was doing
Speaker 6: the research, we used to have a six hundred acre
Speaker 6: farm in like the thirties, and it's like, so we
Speaker 6: owned more and had more as a family, Like we
Speaker 6: had more equity as a family almost one hundred years
Speaker 6: ago than we do now in a post racial America.
Speaker 5: And that's the story of a lot of black families.
Speaker 6: And again, like families that were starting over in Chicago, Detroit,
Speaker 6: New York, Oakland, Newark, they weren't selling their land and
Speaker 6: starting over with the profits they you were running and
Speaker 6: you didn't get to bring it with you. So there's
Speaker 6: a lot of wealth that has been left behind in
Speaker 6: the South or stolen and kept in the South, but
Speaker 6: out of black people's hands. But I'm still grateful that
Speaker 6: we do have a little bit or not. So a
Speaker 6: little bit one hundred acres is something beautiful. We have
Speaker 6: a substantive family plot still, which is really really beautiful.
Speaker 6: But I know that in two generations it went from
Speaker 6: six hundred to one hundred. So I'm trying to make
Speaker 6: sure that it only grows from here and doesn't continue
Speaker 6: to get smaller and smaller and smaller.
Speaker 4: So what would you say is the most important thing
Speaker 4: that you have learned on this journey?
Speaker 6: I mean, I always knew this, but it's important to
Speaker 6: realize how hard it is for black people to hold
Speaker 6: on to our stuff, so that we understand and appreciate
Speaker 6: what it means to keep it. And like there's a
Speaker 6: lot of critique of oh, well, you know, grandma didn'
Speaker 6: keep the brownstone, but who was helping her with the
Speaker 6: property taxes? Who was being a part of and making
Speaker 6: sure that she knew that you were interested in keeping
Speaker 6: that going. And we can't let our elders re hire
Speaker 6: with assets that feel like burdens to them but could
Speaker 6: be equalizers for us. We have to have deeper intergenerational
Speaker 6: conversations with our elders, know their stories, know what they have,
Speaker 6: because a lot of us are like, oh, yeah, my
Speaker 6: family used to kind of have some land, and we
Speaker 6: don't even know the full story of it, whether anyone
Speaker 6: in the family is still tied to it, and so
Speaker 6: we kind of lose sight of acres that we do
Speaker 6: have or homes that we do have, just because it
Speaker 6: kind of goes to disrepair. So I think the biggest
Speaker 6: thing is just how much how important it is to
Speaker 6: talk about these things, especially as black people, and then
Speaker 6: for white people to do the same, Like there are
Speaker 6: white people who inherit things and they never critique where
Speaker 6: it came from, why they are able to have certain
Speaker 6: leisure and ease that other people don't. And even if
Speaker 6: you don't think of yourself as someone who's super, super
Speaker 6: wealthy if you inherited part of a business, a small family, home, stocks, whatever,
Speaker 6: that's something that a lot of black families have not
Speaker 6: and not because we don't deserve it or haven't worked
Speaker 6: for it, but because it's been taken from us.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, you know what, just listening to what you're saying.
Speaker 4: When I think of black people that I know, older
Speaker 4: black people, it was always like a big secret.
Speaker 1: Everything they had was a secret. Don't talk about it.
Speaker 4: You don't tell people how much it costs or how
Speaker 4: it came into ownership of it. It's like, that's nobody
Speaker 4: else's business. Hide the papers, you know, put it in
Speaker 4: the in the floor in the house. But that's not
Speaker 4: helpful to a second generation or a third generation that
Speaker 4: is attempting to learn or that would like to mar
Speaker 4: so that they could keep the legacy going. And I
Speaker 4: think I hear you saying when you say talk about it,
Speaker 4: we're not saying just sit around and be like, yeah,
Speaker 4: buy home, holds up. We're saying, give the details of
Speaker 4: all of what has taken place, and then and then
Speaker 4: also be willing to show the family where things currently stand.
Speaker 6: Exactly that, exactly that, And like you said, it's a
Speaker 6: I'm a response to want to not get too wide
Speaker 6: with it, knowing that if too many people know, they.
Speaker 5: Want what's yours.
Speaker 6: I mean, that was even a conversation I have with
Speaker 6: my aunt I'm thinking I'm being the family activist.
Speaker 5: I'm like, Auntie, I don't like that you have.
Speaker 6: Guns, you know, gun violence and all this stuff, And
Speaker 6: she's like, Briya, we live in North Carolina. We are
Speaker 6: a black family with a lot of acres that a
Speaker 6: lot of people want. We have to protect ourselves and
Speaker 6: what is ours. And it gave me a different understanding
Speaker 6: and nuance that I still fight for gun safety and
Speaker 6: gun regulation and gun protection and we can't leave black
Speaker 6: families defenseless, and we can't force black families to put
Speaker 6: themselves out in the open. But at the same time,
Speaker 6: there's a difference between telling strangers on the internet your
Speaker 6: business and telling the family.
Speaker 5: And what used to happen when I was young.
Speaker 6: Is at the family reunion, the elders would tell the
Speaker 6: story of the family. There was a shirt that had
Speaker 6: a family tree on the back and we would just
Speaker 6: record this oral history and people knew what it was.
Speaker 6: And I think that that is a missing recipe that
Speaker 6: we got to get back to because other people don't
Speaker 6: need to know, but we do need to have intra
Speaker 6: conversations so that younger generations value it and don't settle
Speaker 6: for a shoe box apartment that they rent forever when
Speaker 6: they know that there's land that is their birthright, when
Speaker 6: a home is their birth right, when kids running free
Speaker 6: in a backyard is their birthright too.
Speaker 3: So there's been a lot of talk about deed death right.
Speaker 2: We had a black woman on here, actually it was
Speaker 2: Queen of four and she was telling us a parent
Speaker 2: I think she said it was her grandmother's home or
Speaker 2: something that they literally she was still fighting for a
Speaker 2: home that she grew up in and they just pretty
Speaker 2: much told her that she didn't. So do you know
Speaker 2: anything about that especially? And we were talking also talking
Speaker 2: about the black farmers with what they've been dealing with
Speaker 2: with their lane. So give us a little insight that
Speaker 2: you have on those things.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's a really that's a really important part too,
Speaker 6: the food justice side of it, because isn't it interesting
Speaker 6: that we go from black people are the forced laborers,
Speaker 6: we're forced to work this land, so then just a
Speaker 6: generation and a half later, we are in food apartheid
Speaker 6: in communities where there are only bodegas and delis and
Speaker 6: fast food, and we can't access the food that our
Speaker 6: ancestors were forced to grow. And that's also something that
Speaker 6: I say, is like we were forced to work the land,
Speaker 6: and when they couldn't profit off of our free labor,
Speaker 6: it was like, Okay, well now we want y'all to
Speaker 6: have nothing to do with it. And so now we're
Speaker 6: so detached from it. Where organic food and clean air
Speaker 6: and clean water used to be a birthright for us
Speaker 6: and normal for us. My grandmother used to say that,
Speaker 6: like we used to grow our own cucumbers, grow our
Speaker 6: own fruit, have our own pigs and chickens, and now
Speaker 6: we're forced into these Flint and Newark sort of communities
Speaker 6: where having a healthy lifestyle is really not even up
Speaker 6: to you. It's up to the infrastructure you and whether
Speaker 6: the powers that be will let you have clean air,
Speaker 6: clean food, clean water.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: And so to your point of those sorts of like
Speaker 6: attacks and the deed theft and how that affects farmers,
Speaker 6: I mean, deep theft in general is a big thing.
Speaker 6: There's a documentary called Silver Dollar Road that kind of
Speaker 6: digs into this and a black family that had grown
Speaker 6: up on this land their whole life were told that
Speaker 6: they were trespassing on land that they'd lived on their
Speaker 6: whole lives. They were like middle aged at this point.
Speaker 6: We're told they were trespassing in that if they didn't leave,
Speaker 6: they would go to jail. They didn't leave, and they
Speaker 6: actually incarcerated these like I think sixty year old black
Speaker 6: men who had lived on this land their whole life.
Speaker 6: That happens all the time. Sometimes it's they they're just
Speaker 6: hoping you can't prove that you have the deed, and
Speaker 6: if a paper gets lost or whatever and you can't
Speaker 6: prove it, then they've shuffled some paperwork around and now
Speaker 6: they can't prove it, and now you're just lost in paperwork.
Speaker 6: And if your lawyer can't handle being tied up with
Speaker 6: their lawyer, then you just can't afford the fight. Other
Speaker 6: Times it's overt like in the Willington massacre, they literally
Speaker 6: were burning deeds, so after the massacre was over, survivors
Speaker 6: wouldn't be able to prove whether they owned anything in
Speaker 6: the community.
Speaker 5: That also happened in Tulsa, So.
Speaker 6: There's a lot of shady, shifty, manipulative stuff, and that's
Speaker 6: definitely something to be vigilant of. This idea that you
Speaker 6: know it's easy to build a black wall street is look,
Speaker 6: you can build it, but to protect it, to maintain it,
Speaker 6: to keep it going is the hard part, because white
Speaker 6: supremacy will do this all the time. I mean, the
Speaker 6: move bombing in Philly was way more recent than some
Speaker 6: of these massacres I'm talking about, and that was like
Speaker 6: what the seventies, the mid seventies.
Speaker 5: So this government has.
Speaker 6: Shown that it will turn the other way or be
Speaker 6: actively participating in dispossessing us. And I think that is
Speaker 6: the challenging part, is how to keep people optimistic and
Speaker 6: motivated to keep fighting for it.
Speaker 5: But I think we just have to because it is ours.
Speaker 5: We deserve it. I mean, our ancestor.
Speaker 6: If they didn't fight, we wouldn't be here having a
Speaker 6: conversation like we are. And I just feel so lucky
Speaker 6: to have learned from people like you two, from people
Speaker 6: like mister B, from people who just have been relentless
Speaker 6: about speaking up about things that feel so like the
Speaker 6: odds feel so sacked against us, but still we keep
Speaker 6: sounding the alarmed. So we just got to keep fighting
Speaker 6: and keep trying new things, but self protection is definitely
Speaker 6: part of it, because they will try and convince us
Speaker 6: we don't own what we own.
Speaker 4: Well, here's the last question that I have for you,
Speaker 4: and I just want to thank you for giving us
Speaker 4: your time and your brilliance, because you know what you this.
Speaker 4: My son made a very good point at the top
Speaker 4: of this interview, and that is that you are always
Speaker 4: on a different vibe, like you're educating people. Your content
Speaker 4: is different from what everybody else is talking about. So
Speaker 4: while folks running around up and down about Trump this
Speaker 4: and Trump that, you'll be on your page talking about
Speaker 4: land ownership, of talking about women's rights, young people, you know,
Speaker 4: and young people's power and so on and so forth.
Speaker 4: So I appreciate the fact that you stay. You are
Speaker 4: a person who dances to your own tumb and it's
Speaker 4: not off beat. It's always I was watching my family
Speaker 4: reunion the line dances, as you know, that's a big deal.
Speaker 4: Everybody does a great line dance. They got about twenty
Speaker 4: five of Fama and I have some cousins that are
Speaker 4: so skilled at the line dances that they go in
Speaker 4: the opposite direction in the midst of the crowds are
Speaker 4: going one way and they're going in the opposite direction.
Speaker 4: But it's never off key. It's always key and it
Speaker 4: stands out. And I think that's you know, I think
Speaker 4: of you that way. But I want you and I
Speaker 4: want you to speak to this really quickly. There are
Speaker 4: people who are advocates for land ownerships. They are advocates
Speaker 4: for economic development and economic sustainability in our community.
Speaker 1: Is there.
Speaker 4: They are advocates for us being smarter about investments and
Speaker 4: savings and all of that, and some of these saying
Speaker 4: people believe that the political process is not that important,
Speaker 4: that voting is not important. All of these candidates ain't
Speaker 4: no good, and therefore I'm not voting for anybody. I'm
Speaker 4: just gonna focus on getting money.
Speaker 1: And in a time where we see the Tulsa massacre.
Speaker 4: Proceedings being thrown out of the highest court, at a
Speaker 4: time when we see the Fearless Fund under attack, which
Speaker 4: is an effort to help fund black women's businesses by
Speaker 4: black women, at a time when we see an effort,
Speaker 4: and not just an f a very successful campaign to
Speaker 4: dismantle DEI practices within corporate institutions, educational institutions, government institutions.
Speaker 4: What do you say you're a younger person too, you
Speaker 4: have your finger on the pulse of what is happening
Speaker 4: with young people. Do you think that at this point
Speaker 4: voting is pass and we should just be focusing on
Speaker 4: getting money or do you see value in voting?
Speaker 5: I definitely see value in both.
Speaker 6: I'm not someone who thinks any one strategy can work
Speaker 6: by itself, because again, you can be focused on getting money,
Speaker 6: and if you're not building up protections and safety nets, then.
Speaker 5: That can just get snatched from you.
Speaker 6: And if you only focus on voting, which some people do,
Speaker 6: and present that as like the thing that's going to
Speaker 6: save democracy, when it doesn't save democracy, then you disappoint
Speaker 6: people because it's like you just told me this was
Speaker 6: the most consequential thing I could do in my lifetime.
Speaker 6: I did it, and it doesn't feel consequential if things
Speaker 6: feel the same. So I think think it's both in
Speaker 6: I think those who are pushing people to vote have
Speaker 6: to stop pretending as though it's going to be this
Speaker 6: like one hundred and eighty degrees change. A lot of
Speaker 6: things will be the same, but there's also a lot
Speaker 6: we can change. Voting is not just for the president.
Speaker 6: There's so many down ballot positions that we vote for
Speaker 6: commissioners of agriculture, right, jobs that we're like we don't
Speaker 6: even even really think about, but have so much say
Speaker 6: over things like what you can do with your land. Like,
Speaker 6: for example, you could buy a bunch of land and
Speaker 6: someone could tell you, oh, that's zoned a certain way,
Speaker 6: you can't build that business there. You can't do that
Speaker 6: saying there. So now you have this whole plan for yourself.
Speaker 6: But because you didn't know that, the person in office
Speaker 6: doesn't once you building a marijuana business in his state.
Speaker 5: Now you know what I mean.
Speaker 6: So there's an importance in addressing it from all areas.
Speaker 6: And I think that young people who feel jaded just
Speaker 6: have to remember you're not voting because you think that
Speaker 6: that's going to be the one thing you can do
Speaker 6: to save the world. You're voting because you need a
Speaker 6: range of tools in your arsenal.
Speaker 5: And that's you know, that's important.
Speaker 6: So the last thing I'll say, Another example that I'll
Speaker 6: give as the last thing is the Bruce's Beach example.
Speaker 6: Everyone was really excited about this family in California that
Speaker 6: gets their beachfront land back after cavan Ward and the organization.
Speaker 5: Where's my land.
Speaker 6: Fight for them to get this land, and they're given
Speaker 6: this land back. But when the land was taken from them,
Speaker 6: it was beachfront property with.
Speaker 5: A resort on it.
Speaker 6: When it's given back to them, it's just it's just
Speaker 6: the property, no buildings on it, nothing they can move into,
Speaker 6: nothing they can immediately profit off of. That's a tax
Speaker 6: burden in the state of California. There's no way for
Speaker 6: this working class family to make any money off of
Speaker 6: this land. So when they had to sell it back
Speaker 6: to the state, people were upset. But it's like what
Speaker 6: you should have fought for or not. You know, this
Speaker 6: hasn't actually come at the activists. But what we can
Speaker 6: be fighting for on all ends is give the people
Speaker 6: they land back, and they should get a property tax exemption.
Speaker 6: And I'm fighting for a change to the property tax
Speaker 6: code in general so that black families can get more relief.
Speaker 6: And you know, like those are the sorts of things
Speaker 6: that we need elect officials doing. Or like in New York,
Speaker 6: if I didn't believe in voting, we wouldn't have someone
Speaker 6: like Drewmini Williams, who we know is always in a
Speaker 6: position to use his power for the people. So I
Speaker 6: think that we just have to remember that there are
Speaker 6: local offices that we can elect people to that can
Speaker 6: make a huge difference, and at the least we can
Speaker 6: mitigate harm and decide who do we want to be
Speaker 6: working against as we fight for more. But if you
Speaker 6: only focused on getting your money and not focused on
Speaker 6: who's trying to take your money, then you're looking at
Speaker 6: only one hand, and there's lots of hands moving.
Speaker 3: That's an excellent thing.
Speaker 2: I just want you to end this by just telling
Speaker 2: the people what do you want them to get when
Speaker 2: they read this book?
Speaker 3: What is your hopes that.
Speaker 2: Everyone who gets this book, because everyone needs to get it,
Speaker 2: but what is your hopes that they give from them?
Speaker 5: Thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 6: My hope is that people will read this book and
Speaker 6: see that reparations is inevitable. That we can't talk about
Speaker 6: it as a we should have had it. It would
Speaker 6: be nice to have no reparations are inevitable. You're not
Speaker 6: an ally if you don't believe in reparations. You're not
Speaker 6: for our community. If you do not believe in reparations,
Speaker 6: because it is the only thing that can achieve bridging
Speaker 6: racial wealth gaps and addressing some of the environmental injustice
Speaker 6: that we're dealing with and getting to put black people
Speaker 6: in a position to finally be autonomous, to be in
Speaker 6: control of our own futures, our own businesses, our own families.
Speaker 6: So I hope that people read it and excited to
Speaker 6: work more towards reparations.
Speaker 1: A baker, that's a word.
Speaker 3: See listen.
Speaker 2: I just want to say one more thing before we go.
Speaker 2: Her mama is bad. My mam apre dis sermon at
Speaker 2: the book thing. And I know where you get it from,
Speaker 2: because that's a bad woman. So shout out to Mama Baker.
Speaker 2: We appreciate you, We love you.
Speaker 3: Bria. Continue to be great like you've always been.
Speaker 2: I always knew that this is who you were, and
Speaker 2: I'm just proud to see you just butting like a butterfly.
Speaker 5: Thank you. I appreciate you. And I'm gonna have to
Speaker 5: tell her you said that.
Speaker 1: Be a Baker. Root it, pick it up. Love you too, y'all.
Speaker 2: Shout out to Bria Man, Love her to death, man book,
Speaker 2: gotta read the Love Her to Life. That's right, Love
Speaker 2: Her to Life. You should all get that book. Read it.
Speaker 2: It's touching, it's real, it's everything that's right and it's
Speaker 2: every element of who she is. So now we get
Speaker 2: to mind. I don't get it. I posted a meme
Speaker 2: on my page last week and it was funny to me.
Speaker 2: You know. It was a guy he was with a
Speaker 2: girl and she started talking and he was like yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and what else do you do? And then she just
Speaker 2: gave him this look like she was confused, and it
Speaker 2: was like huh, and then he was like, what else
Speaker 2: do you do? And then she still was confused, and
Speaker 2: then it was this slow motion boys, She's like, what
Speaker 2: else do you do? And then she just still was
Speaker 2: just stuff like she didn't get it, So you know that,
Speaker 2: and the more of the story is like there are
Speaker 2: some girls that all they can do is talk. They
Speaker 2: don't have anything else to offer, and we know there's
Speaker 2: some men that don't have anything to offer too. But
Speaker 2: it was funny, you know, just and there was a
Speaker 2: lot of different comments on there, and then it brought me,
Speaker 2: you know, there was one of the comments where women
Speaker 2: was like, well, y'all need to not you know, you
Speaker 2: should stop liking pages like that as girls that's all
Speaker 2: they do and all you do is like it.
Speaker 3: And then it was.
Speaker 2: Some girls like, well what else, what do we have
Speaker 2: to offer for her to have to offer more than that.
Speaker 2: So there was just different comments and different that, And
Speaker 2: one of the things it brought me to was just
Speaker 2: thinking about how we are portraying our women, right like.
Speaker 2: And it's not to take anything away from women who
Speaker 2: tork like I love to see a woman turk. There's
Speaker 2: no man, you know, there's very few. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: say nobody. There are very few men who are heterosexual
Speaker 2: males that don't like to see a woman who got
Speaker 2: a nice body tworking and working our body. That's just
Speaker 2: something in man. It's gonna like naturally, you know. But
Speaker 2: but when you looking to date or you actually looking
Speaker 2: to take something serious, you want to see more than that,
Speaker 2: right And I think for me, there was this conversation
Speaker 2: about BT awards, and I really didn't get involved.
Speaker 3: In it because I didn't, you know, I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't want to throw shade at anybody or any individual.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of these women are talented. They
Speaker 2: just know how to work and work and be talented.
Speaker 2: But there are women in this industry who don't work,
Speaker 2: who are talented, who are skilled too, adult rappers who
Speaker 2: can n who can do all those things, but they
Speaker 2: just rather not work. It's just not something that they'll
Speaker 2: come through with or something that they choose to do.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: So when I looked at the BT Awards and then
Speaker 2: people like, oh, that's all we got, and I said, damn,
Speaker 2: you know, and and and then I compared it to
Speaker 2: that meme and the reaction I started saying, you know,
Speaker 2: we are we not doing ourselves a disservice?
Speaker 1: Are we doing ourselves? Yeah, we're doing it.
Speaker 2: We're actually doing ourselves with disservice when all we show
Speaker 2: is one genre of female doing something right, because it
Speaker 2: makes it seem like that's all we have. And when
Speaker 2: you say black entertainment television, if that's the only entertainment
Speaker 2: we got, you know, then is wrong. I mean, because
Speaker 2: I know it's not the only entertainment we got. You
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. We have artists like Tink, We
Speaker 2: have artists like on Rhapsody, We have artists like Lady London.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. We have artists that I
Speaker 2: know that are dope that nobody and they're not talking
Speaker 2: that's that's not what they do. They're not saying they can't.
Speaker 2: But that's just not the way that they promote their music,
Speaker 2: and when we're not highlighting them, we're not giving them
Speaker 2: the same platforms and stages that we give those who
Speaker 2: do do it. Then it is an imbalance, you know,
Speaker 2: And I think that's what's happening in society all together.
Speaker 2: For me, there's just too much of an imbalance one
Speaker 2: way or the other. Like what happened to the balance,
Speaker 2: What happened to where we had conscious music? You know,
Speaker 2: we had street orientated music, we had just fun and music.
Speaker 2: We had love song like it's either this or that, right,
Speaker 2: it's it's all the.
Speaker 3: Way this, so all the way there.
Speaker 2: And it's like, I think that we need to start
Speaker 2: highlighting more things because you know, like men are either
Speaker 2: jaded with just seeing somebody talk all the time, or
Speaker 2: that's all they want to see because that's all they've
Speaker 2: been given. You know, you just start taking it as
Speaker 2: that's all it really is. And I think it's so
Speaker 2: much more, especially as black people and entertainment television. I
Speaker 2: think it's so much more that we have to offer
Speaker 2: that we actually aren't given, you know, and it's making
Speaker 2: it's so lopsided the view of what black women is
Speaker 2: and what black entertainment is it is just changing for
Speaker 2: and I think it's a negative you know, connotation just
Speaker 2: attached to it now. And I just wonder, I think
Speaker 2: think we have to be a lot more intentional and
Speaker 2: so I just don't get. What I don't get is
Speaker 2: why aren't these platforms highlighting different styles of music, different
Speaker 2: styles of entertainment for females. Why aren't Why isn't that
Speaker 2: something that people are intentional about doing.
Speaker 1: Well, here's my thing. Yes, balance is key.
Speaker 4: I always talk about it because I am not, you know,
Speaker 4: one to condemn, which I understand that you're also not condemning,
Speaker 4: you know, any artists, right, I don't condemn them. You
Speaker 4: know when people have come to me and they're like, oh,
Speaker 4: you need to be saying something about sexy Red and
Speaker 4: Sukiana and this one and that one because it's filth
Speaker 4: and it's this and it's that. By the way, every
Speaker 4: now and then, depending on what the song is, I
Speaker 4: be bumping a little sexy Red. So I'm not I'm
Speaker 4: not if.
Speaker 3: Everybody say, get it sexy.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not gonna be a hypocrite there.
Speaker 4: I also know that there was a people like, well,
Speaker 4: one person said to me no, it's different.
Speaker 1: It's much more raunchy. Well, I don't know how much
Speaker 1: more raunchy.
Speaker 4: You could get the little Kim on the cover of
Speaker 4: her album where she was kneeling down or squatting down
Speaker 4: and you could literally see hair on the sides of
Speaker 4: her vagina. That's a fact. So it's been raunchy. Adena
Speaker 4: Howard was raunchy. Now perhaps the times were a little different.
Speaker 4: So it's just like you and me right like or
Speaker 4: and everybody else out here.
Speaker 1: We used to.
Speaker 4: Wear the afro and now it's the fade and whatever
Speaker 4: the caesar and it time things the ball people change.
Speaker 4: But the message was still popping Kuchie, sucking pp selling,
Speaker 4: Kuchie getting money. There was the same exac message. The
Speaker 4: words is just a little bit different. I am not
Speaker 4: one of those people who's gonna sit here and say, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, I want to condemn these particular individuals. What
Speaker 4: I do think is true is that there has to
Speaker 4: be a balance. Now, b Et will say, well, they
Speaker 4: look a lot at album sales, right, they look at popularity,
Speaker 4: album sales and numbers, social media impact all of that.
Speaker 4: So if they find that a person you know, is
Speaker 4: doing great numbers of course they are going to put
Speaker 4: them on the show, and then those people whose numbers
Speaker 4: may not be that good, those people don't make it.
Speaker 4: And I'm not quoting pt, but I'm saying I know
Speaker 4: the mindset because I've been in these media meetings and
Speaker 4: i know how they think.
Speaker 1: Right. So, but the problem with that, and I.
Speaker 4: Watched some of the old time do something that was groundbreaking,
Speaker 4: and that was that they would mix in the people
Speaker 4: who you don't necessarily listen to or hear from all
Speaker 4: the time. They would sandwich them between things, whether it
Speaker 4: be at a rally. You know, it could be a
Speaker 4: new person speaking. You know what I'm saying that nobody
Speaker 4: really knows. But they got a powerful message. So they're
Speaker 4: gonna put them on right after Tamika Mallory or whoever,
Speaker 4: the big whoever, the other whatever, the better bigger speaker is,
Speaker 4: whoever it is, the President of the United States, whoever
Speaker 4: they'll have you introduce the President of the United States.
Speaker 3: It's like when you think about the girl who did
Speaker 3: the poetry left.
Speaker 4: I never heard exactly Amanda, I forget her last name,
Speaker 4: but absolutely Goldman a thing, absolutely same exact thing. And
Speaker 4: I have something to say about her but I'm gonna
Speaker 4: wait until another time for that on my list of
Speaker 4: things thought of the day, because since she called for
Speaker 4: a ceasefire, I don't see her as much as I
Speaker 4: used to, and I'm gonna through some research to figure
Speaker 4: out what happened. But I remember looking at her page
Speaker 4: she was calling for a seaspire and her comment section, Baby,
Speaker 4: these people got the nerve to talk about hate and division.
Speaker 4: I can't even I'm at the point where i need
Speaker 4: a trap on my mouth like a censor because I'm
Speaker 4: ready to say things that will probably just get me
Speaker 4: black ball for the rest of my life. And I'm
Speaker 4: already hanging off the black ball list.
Speaker 1: So whatever. Anyway, So that's what they did.
Speaker 4: It was masterful how they give you a little bit
Speaker 4: of what you like or what's being the shiny thing,
Speaker 4: and also make sure you get other things in the
Speaker 4: midst of that. Now, BT will say, well, we did
Speaker 4: that with Taraji. We let her do her political you know,
Speaker 4: her political component of her posting, and that made the
Speaker 4: numbers for research around Project twenty twenty five go up.
Speaker 4: You know, it increased obviously significantly overnight because of what
Speaker 4: she said. So they will say they do that but
Speaker 4: with the talent piece, that balance is important and they.
Speaker 1: Need to be intentional about that.
Speaker 4: To be quite honest with you, I looked at I
Speaker 4: went back and looked at the artists, all of the women, right,
Speaker 4: because I wanted to see where they extremely naked as
Speaker 4: I had heard. They really kind of weren't. If you
Speaker 4: really go back and look at their outfits, they were
Speaker 4: not completely, you know, undressed. Even Meg, her outfit is sexy,
Speaker 4: very sexy, and very suggestive, but if you look at it,
Speaker 4: she has on tights, she has on tights, she has
Speaker 4: on all types of things that's covering her actual skin. Glorilla, Yeah,
Speaker 4: she went out there and shook her little booty, but
Speaker 4: she just had a little broad top on in regular
Speaker 4: big pants. Like I really looked. Some of it was sexy,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't all. It wasn't all overly sexy. It's
Speaker 4: the content though, of what they're saying, and it's content.
Speaker 2: It's the overall performance and everything, right, So yeah, with
Speaker 2: the address, at some point there's working. There's sexually suggestive
Speaker 2: inside the music, inside the performance. And I'm just trying
Speaker 2: to say there are.
Speaker 1: Artists that just don't do that.
Speaker 3: Don't do that, I agree.
Speaker 4: I mean, I agree with you, and I think the standard,
Speaker 4: the double standard, it spans across many different areas. That
Speaker 4: which you're speaking of, is not just in music. It's
Speaker 4: in politics, it's in everything. It's in everything, it's in
Speaker 4: social justice, it's in every world where people. It can
Speaker 4: go both ways. It's either the super conservative is the
Speaker 4: most popular or the people who are most off the
Speaker 4: chain radical just saying anything, even if they don't know
Speaker 4: what they're talking about. That is what people get attracted
Speaker 4: to because they're loud and they have the most impressions,
Speaker 4: you know, And so people who actually think don't always
Speaker 4: get the type of promotion and get to get the
Speaker 4: awareness around them and their thoughts and ideas.
Speaker 1: So I see it.
Speaker 4: I see that the balance is definitely problematic, and it
Speaker 4: just has to be one of the problems that we
Speaker 4: have because again, everybody's looking for the one hit wonder,
Speaker 4: looking to try to make the algorithm pop so that
Speaker 4: their exploit of expression can actually make it to the mouth,
Speaker 4: excuse me, can actually make it to the masses. So
Speaker 4: I get that, But sometimes it's just a matter of
Speaker 4: actually calling our people in right, like actually sitting down
Speaker 4: and writing a letter to be et or making a
Speaker 4: phone call to say, hey, this is what we see.
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, versus us getting on social
Speaker 4: media and being like F b et, F Meg, F Lotto,
Speaker 4: F CARDI F this one and that one.
Speaker 1: That's really not it's.
Speaker 4: Actually because I at all. I know that, I know,
Speaker 4: you know, I'm just speaking generally. There's so much right now.
Speaker 4: There is so much divisiveness that is happening. Like, it's
Speaker 4: so much. I can feel it in my skin. You
Speaker 4: can see it coming up the whether. Whenever the politics
Speaker 4: of a country is array ariy excuse me, awry the
Speaker 4: people you can see it as well, right, So you
Speaker 4: got that you have so many different division points, and
Speaker 4: I don't know, I feel like we're in a place
Speaker 4: in time right now where we we gotta do a
Speaker 4: little bit more behind the scenes conversing so we can
Speaker 4: try to bring our people along versus thinking that we
Speaker 4: could just push them off a cliff because I don't
Speaker 4: think that, you know, I just don't. I don't know
Speaker 4: that that's going that's an effective strategy.
Speaker 3: I agree with it, you know.
Speaker 2: I want to hear from our viewers, like, what do
Speaker 2: you think do you think that there needs to be
Speaker 2: a balance or do you like the way it is?
Speaker 3: Is it? You know?
Speaker 2: I just want to know because maybe it's just me.
Speaker 2: But I know there's so much talent and I love
Speaker 2: once again. I love man.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying. I love a lot of
Speaker 3: I think a lot of was dope. I think you
Speaker 3: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So, but I also love Rhapsody, I love Lady London
Speaker 2: like I want to see those type of artists highlight.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm not exactly. I'm advocating for balance. I am
Speaker 4: not advocating to diminish these women who, through their own
Speaker 4: art and expression, are doing anything because nobody was out well,
Speaker 4: not nobody, because there was some people out there. But
Speaker 4: so I mixed a lot David selling, Yeah, Luke, what's
Speaker 4: selling KOUCHI.
Speaker 1: Right, So don't tell me is different. Don't be different.
Speaker 3: Too what I'm saying. But we had ours, we had
Speaker 3: rock Ken.
Speaker 4: Hey, that's what I'm saying. I'm advocating for a balance.
Speaker 4: I'm not advocating because let me tell you something, I
Speaker 4: love me. Lotto says she big mama.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: I'm big Mama.
Speaker 2: That brings us to the end of another t in
Speaker 2: my show. Shout out to our guest Bria Baker, our sister.
Speaker 2: Her book Rooted. Make sure that you go get it.
Speaker 2: It is an amazing book. She's an amazing individual as
Speaker 2: you see throughout the interview. We love her. Follow her
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Speaker 3: I'm not gonna always be right, tamik Ma.
Speaker 2: It's not gonna always be wrong, but we will both
Speaker 2: always and I mean always be often.
Speaker 3: It that soon so.
Speaker 4: That that.
Speaker 3: Check out the video version of TMO.
Speaker 4: Every single Wednesday on Iwoman dot Tv.
Speaker 2: That's how we