July 25, 2023 • 31 mins
Arshay grew up on the West Side of Chicago and his life was forever changed when he joined the first all-black high school rowing team in the nation (and became the captain). As an adult, Arshay found success as a chef before returning to his true passion by starting inner-city rowing teams. He’s the author of “A Most Beautiful Thing,” which was made into a critically-acclaimed documentary by Common, Dwayne Wade, and Grant Hill.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
And they put you in a boat you've never been in,
and a life jacket that you really don't know how
to use, and water you can't swim in, in a
place that you can't get to from your neighborhood, and say, row,
I bet it, I bet it.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
They pushed us out. We didn't move. That's what I
said the line in the book. One of the kids outside,
I got to call him out, but he's my boy,
Deshaun Benson. He starts crying and I was like, man,
I know you. You don't have the gang shootouts you saw,
and you like you go outside the next day, the
(00:41):
next moment, you know, and you cried in a boat.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
That's so different, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And I remember we wouldn't move and they had to
pull us back in. They were looking at each other
like what did we get ourselves into?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome everybody to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, and entrepreneur,
and I'm a football coach in inner City Memphis. And
the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for the
film about our team, it's called Undefeated Guys. I believe
our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch
(01:25):
of fancy people and nice suths talking big words that
nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an
army of normal folks, US, just you and me deciding, Hey,
I can help. That's what r sha Cooper, the voice
we just heard, has done. Arhade grew up in the
West Side of Chicago, one of the most dangerous and
(01:45):
impoverished neighborhoods in our country. And yet this kid who
couldn't swim became the captain of the first all black
rowing team in the United States. And it was a
pretty rocky start, as you just heard. But since then,
and Urche has helped start a ton of inner city
growing programs. His book, A Most Beautiful Thing was turned
(02:08):
into a movie by Dwayne Wade Grant Hill and was
narrated by Common I can't wait for you to meet
ur Shay right after these brief messages from our generals sponsors,
(02:32):
welcome everybody to an army of normal folks, which is
something I don't often say. I usually just jump in.
Our guest today is Rhae Cooper, and I cannot wait
to talk to him and talk about his story. But
it's also an opportunity to talk about a lot of
a lot of what our society is dealing with, confused about.
(02:55):
And I am more than excited to have this time today.
And for those of you listening, it's going to be
a really cool opportunity for you to uh get a
reality check on what goes on and so much of
the city centers across our country. So with that, we're
(03:18):
going to get started. R Shae Cooper. Hey, bro, I
am I am so stoked to get ready to talk
to you. Let's just dive into urhe the young man.
I want to hear about where our shade was born.
You know, siblings, and I'm not talking about thirteen year
(03:40):
old in high school before that. You know, just where
you came up to tell us where you came from.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I was born in Chicago, Chicago West Side. You
know my mother was born in Mississippi.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You're ah, whoa, wh whoa. I didn't even know that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Do you know where was at Jackson? Yes, my grandmother's
from Jackson and great grandmother yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Your great grandmother, great grandmother, she would have been maybe
even a sharecropper.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my grandmother said she picked cotton, and
you know she was out there in the field. So
that's the Yeah, does.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Your mom remember that.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
No, my mom moved my grandmother. She said she wanted
to escape the violent South until when my mom was born.
She moved.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
She wanted to escape the violence South and went to
west side of.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The West Side of Chicago, Miss brother. And you know,
she's looking for more opportunities. And I didn't know that
until I was a teenager. But yeah, Chicago West Side
is where I was born. And you know, as a kid,
I can remember just my mom and my stepdad and
(04:57):
she had a job, she was working, My stepdad was working.
I had an older brother and a younger brother and
younger sister. Touch four of you, four of us, right,
and it just seemed like it seemed like a normal life.
I was young, but I think I was about nine
years old when I started noticing a difference difference in.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
What and a difference in your own family's reality changing,
or a difference in your family dynamic and other things.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
A difference in my family dynamic, not just compared to others,
but the change of being able to have dinner and
sit at a table with my family to step that
not being there the difference, and you know, my mom
being home with us every night to the point that
(05:49):
she's not there, you know, arguments every night, mother scratching
her skin, Christmas gifts no longer there. On December twenty fifth,
I was too young to understand what was happening, but
things were changing, and it wasn't until maybe I was eleven.
I was sleeping on the couch and my brother had
(06:10):
this this old chilling's bucket. You know, people would make
chiplins and they'd keep the buckets and use it for
a mop bucket or something like that.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I thought chitlins were only in the South. I guess
it came from Jackson with your great grandma brug It, Chicago.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And I remember him throwing a bucket of water on
me and he said, wake up, let me show you something.
So I followed him through the hallway and uh, he said,
look through the keyhole. And I looked through the keyhold.
I seen my mom, my stepdad, and my aunt and
it was a mirror and it was white powder on
the mirror. He said, you see that, that's called drugs.
(06:50):
And the first thing that came to my mind was
these like like a box of lemon Head or Boston
Baked Beans that says say no to drugs when you
open it, or a commercial to say this is your brain,
this is your brain on drugs. And I was like, oh,
this is not good. And that's when I noticed a
(07:11):
change in my family dynamic and I became aware that
you know, we are not the same that we were
maybe you know a few years before, Like there's no
happiness here because now there's fights and now we go
from being punished to like sitting on the corner or
(07:31):
or writing to getting beat with belts or extension chords and.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So all is a result of ultimately addiction.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Addiction, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
No, so our shape. That's such a good picture up
to eleven, and we're going to go chronologically, but it's
a good time to talk about. Now, how do you
know I am?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
How forty?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
You're old? Brother? But looking back, okay, because if that's
the case, that was the late eighties, early nineties, yep, right, Warren,
drugs just say no, I mean all that stuff. But
before that reality you had a mom that was working
(08:23):
and a stepdad that was working in a seemingly organic family.
What was the socioeconomic situation that your family was in.
What kind of jobs was your dad or your stepdad
and your mom holding.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, he was like a mechanic, right, blue collar do
a mechanic, you know. And my mother was working at
a laundry, matt. It was a little simple job, blue.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Collar, but blue collar, but they were making.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Enough to make a family, enough to keep a family together.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And do you think there was addiction prior when you
were younger or did it evolve as you got older.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, I think it evolved as I got older, And honestly,
I don't I don't want to skip anything, but I
didn't ask my mom about this until I was older.
And my stepdad hanging out with their own crowd, right,
they were young, and he started doing drugs and he
introduced it to my mom, you know, and uh my
(09:26):
mom did it because she loved him and and I
think it was at parties from there, you know stairsteps, yeah, stairsteps,
And it became an everyday thing.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So your your your family is living under one roof.
It's not your father but stepfather, and I assume he's
taking the father role at that point, right, and he
got a mom, both are employed. Uh, kids are clearly
cared for up until a day took over. All right, Well,
(10:02):
that doesn't agree with a societal story about inner city
Black families, which is it's all fatherlessness, it's all you know.
Remember what was the term welfare queen, I think to describe,
you know, women having children just to get the extra
(10:26):
WICIC or welfare check. But you had the organic family,
You had the two parents working you on the incomes
that your parents are making. You certainly weren't living in
some big, fancy house, but you had a home, you know.
And it's interesting you just described going from having a
family dinner at the table to not which means there
(10:51):
were family dinners at the table. I mean to me,
it sounds like an inner city Black version of Leave
it to Beaver starting off just an organic American family.
That is not what most people think when they think
(11:11):
Chicago Westside.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So, how many kids at four or five, six, seven
years old in your reality, how many kids had that
started with that type of dynamic? I mean in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Not a lot, I'll tell you that, not a lot.
I mean my h and I think maybe some, but
you know, I'm just thinking about my five closest friends. Yeah,
you know what I mean, one of them, one of
them had a dad around.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
You know they we all counted on each other for food, right,
Like you don't have food, let's all go to donald
because Donald's the one who family has food. You know
what I mean? This week, this week exactly, and so
same story. Right, family comes from the South, some mom
with single parent, moms who work a few jobs, and
some moms was on drugs and one mom was selling drugs.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
You know what I mean, Were you living in a project.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
We were not living in projects that apartment or apartment
buildings where it's like yeah, just families. You know, people
doing drugs in a hallway, I mean the access it
was a high rise, inner city building.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I mean I'm in I'm envisioning the Jefferson's Build, not
the Jeffersons, the Good Times building.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Good Times building that kind of yeah, like that kind
of like that. You know, you walk in the hallway
and people are doing drugs, people are shooting dice. Right,
You're definitely walking through the cloud of rock cocaine.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Most times, So even when your family union had not
been gripped by addiction, you were still surrounding.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You're still surrounded by it.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
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(14:39):
when you wouldn't know this, so I'll just tell you
my father left when I was four. My mother was
married and divorced five times, and as a result, I
had two a paternal and a maternal set of grandparents
that cared for me deeply. Thank goodness. My mother left
(15:00):
me and tried her best, but you know, and she
still loves me and I love her. But I mean,
it's the fact is with with five divorces, there's not
a whole lot of at least as a young man,
you don't feel a lot of stability. But despite all that,
I found a way to go to college on scholarship, graduated,
(15:23):
worked hard, made money and worked my way up and
started coaching football and teaching school, got into business and
ended up at Manassas and coach football there seven years.
The reason I'm telling you this is, prior to my
time at Manassas, my mentality was a very ingrained American mentality,
(15:51):
which is we have a free education system. We are
the freest country in the world. We are not held back.
We have free will, and if we want to take
advantages of the amazing opportunities this country offers us, we
can go to school, we can get an education, we
(16:11):
can pull ourselves up from our bootstripes despite any of
our circumstances, and we can find a way to be successful.
That was my belief set. And then I spent seven
years of Anassis and Manassas is a neighborhood. The neighborhoods
is surround Nasses. Ironically enough, one's called New Chicago and
(16:35):
the other is Green Law and the other is Smoky City.
And the kids that I coached from that area. Prior
to going to Manassas, I would have said, I get
there coming from poverty. I get there coming from destitute situations.
I get there coming from places when you walk down
the hallway you see addiction and all of this dysfunction
around you like you do as a kid. But they
(16:56):
still have free school, they still have an opportunity. They
can still do it this great country we have. But
I don't believe that anymore. I believe that opportunity exists,
but I believe there are fundamental barriers that exist in
inner city neighborhoods across our country to kids much like
(17:20):
the kids that are your friends that you grew up
with and you that are barriers that weren't in my face.
And while you can still do that, there's a whole
hell of a lot more to overcome than just go
to school, get an educational work hard talk to me
(17:40):
about that.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, you know, the first thing come to mind when
you said that.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, what do you that's a great point. What do
you hear when you hear a white dude say that?
For real? What do you feel in here?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
You know, it's just you know, I think people do
have You know, it's rough because you know, it goes
back to just this this thought, especially when you talk
about opportunities and you know, you know, everyone should be
able to go to schools, free education and work. And
I explained why. It goes back to me missing forty
(18:22):
days of school my eighth grade year and walking into
school and I didn't have to go to school anymore
because my mom wasn't around at that point. She was,
I mean, she would come home every now, Dan, Grandma
had too much going on.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Because your mom wasn't at it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
She's in the streets, and my teacher told me, you
know what, you're gonna die before fourteen years old? If
that because the times I was there, I just couldn't learn.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I know, I understand. I want the people listening to
us to understand why a kid from inner city West
Side Chicago can't learn in school, even though it's free
and provider for Yes, why can't you learn?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I live in an environment where have nots must have,
and people do whatever it takes to feed their day
shall or feed their family. And because of that, I
heard gunshots when I slept, I skipped over pools of blood.
I lost friends, I ran for my life. I seen
(19:27):
people take others lives to protect theirs, and I've seen
what some soldiers have seen in war. But before I
was thirteen years old, and I am hungry. At the
same time, I wonder if my mom's going to go home.
And there's no way after seeing all that, I can
walk in the classroom and learn about who really discovered
(19:49):
America or what's fifty percent of half. There's just no way.
It's impossible.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Do you do? You do? You know as a twelve
year old you're not learning what you're supposed to be learning.
Are you even aware?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
You know, I'm not aware. I just know that you
I knew that I wasn't doing well because I didn't
feel well. You know, honestly, you because you know kids
clown each other and roast each other. You believe that
a teacher is always right. And when you hand or
(20:35):
you handed a piece of paper that says F or D,
you think you're just dumb. You're not smart because you
don't understand the systemic you know, issues behind that, and
so you grow up losing that confidence, losing that help.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, you got to throw a chest out and a
bravado like you're a badass to survive while in between
your ears and your heart and your head you feel
like hell, I.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Feel like hell, absolutely that that is that is it?
That that that is the answer, And of course we
want it right. You want the education.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That's another thing that's interesting. A lot of people will
say the education is there, they just don't want it. Quote,
you can't help these these folks end.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Quote yeah, I think that. You know the same folks
will say, hey, you know, I just got a divorce.
Our kids need therapy. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (21:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know, you think about what we saw, you know,
and there's no access to therapy or talking to someone
about one social worker in a school of four hundred people,
and so even what soldiers see and they're older, of course,
let's advocate that they talk to someone to have to
see what they just saw. There was no access for.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Us to that. Yeah, well, what you're talking about is trauma,
which is interesting you you went to that because that
was my next question. But first a few messages from
our sponsors. You know, I was shot at down the
(22:28):
hallway when I was a kid by my fourth daddy.
The third daddy was a guy that I got into
my first fist fight with because he was yanking on
my mama's hair and I was too young, but I
was ready to roll at fourteen. You don't know what
(22:49):
You don't know what's going on or what's right or wrong.
You see something, you act right. And now, as a
fifty three year old man, I'll look back on that
and I recognize that I was traumatized as a child
by some of those situations and by constantly believing that
this man's finally I'm going to have a father that's
(23:10):
committed to me, that loves me for the rest of
my life and then he's gone. And so I understand
childhood trauma in a very personal way, but I didn't
until probably ten years ago, and I lived with it
all through being married as a husband and a father
(23:32):
and a business owner and a football coach and everything,
still never really understanding even my own insecurities as a
grown man as a result of that trauma. So in
your book, it opens with something that, dude, it just
I mean, I read it like four lines. I read
(23:54):
it over and over and over again, and everybody listened
to me get r say Cooper's book, and the opening
line is you had a raggedy fan in your apartment
and it wasn't any count but it's all you had.
(24:14):
You weren't gonna go buy a new one because it
blue air. But it clicked, and it clicked all the time.
And if you walked into the apartment first time in
the apartment, you would have noticed the clicking. But when
you live with this fan in your apartment your entire life,
you just don't even hear the clicking anymore. It's just
a fan over there clicking, and you just tune it
out because it's so common and it's just something you
(24:36):
every time the fan plade spends around, which is a
lot of clicking. And the metaphor you use is that's
what death and drugs and murder and gang life and
everything is to a kid in westside Chicago. Is it's
(24:56):
just a clicking fan that you get used to and
you ignore it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah. One of my teammates said in a documentary, he said,
when he was asked how did it affect it, he said,
it didn't you know? That was every day, that was that,
that was our way of life. I also said in
the book because of that, I felt like and my teacher,
who I love, who was amazing, was a part of
(25:23):
my life in seventh grade, she said, I want to
tell her at my wedding. At my wedding, she said
that I said, God exists everywhere, but on the West
side of Chicago, you know, And which.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Is ironic that everybody over there calls himself Lord. Which
we'll get to it, we get we'll get to that
in a minute. But the point is that clicking of
the fan that you grow to ignore because that's where
you live, and it's just a noise in your life.
So is death and murder. And everything. And the point
(25:56):
is tying it back to my personal story is you
were traumatized. So were all of your friends, So are
your classmates. So I mean, do you think it's is
an exaggeration overstated to say that the fast majority ninety
five percent or better of the kids growing up in
West Side Chicago by the age of eleven are traumatized. Yeah, absolutely,
(26:21):
No different than a Vietnam War veteran.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
No different.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
So how are they to concentrate in school? They go
can so how are they to learn? So how are
they to break the cycle of the despair and destruction
that is their lives and the lives of those around them?
And so therefore do they have the same opportunity in
a life that I had.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I think that's the answer everyone needs to hear, Bill.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
But am I being a white paternalist in overstating this
or is this real? It's real?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I think it's absolutely real. And I think that the
way and it's told effectively through our storytelling, you know
what I mean? And I think our film really highlights
and get people an opportunity to walk through walk through that,
to understand, to see it, and also shout out those
(27:14):
rates of PTSD on the West side of Chicago, you know,
and the statistics says that one out of every three
child on the West Side of Chicago have lost a
close friend to my family member.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Just to say that again, everybody needs to let that
one sink in.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
One out of three young people on the West Side
of Chicago have lost a close family member or friend
through game violence.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Now, let's talk about in psychology, there's a list of
things called stressors, and if you experienced two of the
top ten within a year of your life, you were
considered highly stressed, highly traumatized, right, And it's the death
of a child, the death of a spouse, the loss
(27:59):
of a job, witnessing a robbery, all the way down
to losing your watch. You know. It's a list from
really traumatic things all the way down to ultimate things.
And if you add up the points of the stressors
that are happened, that kind of puts a number on
your stress and if you're over a certain level, then
(28:19):
you're considered a highly stressed traumatized individual. The death of
a friend or watching a crime committed is way up there,
and you're saying, by eleven years old, you'd experienced all
of it.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Absolutely. How do you break out of that?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
How do you you know, how do you expect them
to go to school and care about your abcs when
you're just trying to survive.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Also, I look at like the mass shootings that happened,
like in suburban schools. I even remember Columbine, and I
remember it was happening more often. And the first thing
they would say, we will send in trauma house and
trauma experts to help these kids unsee what they saw,
and we're gonna give them time off from school and
everyone will be able to see someone. I was like,
(29:08):
damn that every day, you know. They it was like
why you learned it?
Speaker 3 (29:14):
You saw?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
We just saw? That was every day and you expect
suck it up, be a person. And the thing about
trauma is that, you know, we are taught to bury it,
but the thing is that you bury it alive.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
And you bury it alive.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
And it always comes back. Everything reminds you of it.
You know, you see some of these kids in the courtroom,
your friends who are doing life, and you can see
the pain in their eyes and the hurt and the
pain and the trauma that they endure. And the thing
is is that if you never gave them access to
heal from that trauma and pain. They're gonna grow up
(29:50):
and redistribute that saying trauma and pain to their peers,
and that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And their children and their children and their grandchildren, and
their wives and their husbands and everybody us as close
to them, they will redistribute that to them, and thus
goes the cycle.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I think any Soljia in comic will tell you that.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
That concludes Part one of our conversation with R. J. Cooper,
and I hope you'll listen to Part two that's now available.
But if you don't, make sure you join the Army
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(30:36):
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(31:00):
and it starts with you. I'll see you in Part two.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
M
And they put you in a boat you've never been in,
and a life jacket that you really don't know how
to use, and water you can't swim in, in a
place that you can't get to from your neighborhood, and say, row,
I bet it, I bet it.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
They pushed us out. We didn't move. That's what I
said the line in the book. One of the kids outside,
I got to call him out, but he's my boy,
Deshaun Benson. He starts crying and I was like, man,
I know you. You don't have the gang shootouts you saw,
and you like you go outside the next day, the
(00:41):
next moment, you know, and you cried in a boat.
Speaker 3 (00:48):
That's so different, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And I remember we wouldn't move and they had to
pull us back in. They were looking at each other
like what did we get ourselves into?
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome everybody to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, a father, and entrepreneur,
and I'm a football coach in inner City Memphis. And
the last part unintentionally led to an oscar for the
film about our team, it's called Undefeated Guys. I believe
our country's problems will never be solved by a bunch
(01:25):
of fancy people and nice suths talking big words that
nobody understands on CNN and Fox, but rather by an
army of normal folks, US, just you and me deciding, Hey,
I can help. That's what r sha Cooper, the voice
we just heard, has done. Arhade grew up in the
West Side of Chicago, one of the most dangerous and
(01:45):
impoverished neighborhoods in our country. And yet this kid who
couldn't swim became the captain of the first all black
rowing team in the United States. And it was a
pretty rocky start, as you just heard. But since then,
and Urche has helped start a ton of inner city
growing programs. His book, A Most Beautiful Thing was turned
(02:08):
into a movie by Dwayne Wade Grant Hill and was
narrated by Common I can't wait for you to meet
ur Shay right after these brief messages from our generals sponsors,
(02:32):
welcome everybody to an army of normal folks, which is
something I don't often say. I usually just jump in.
Our guest today is Rhae Cooper, and I cannot wait
to talk to him and talk about his story. But
it's also an opportunity to talk about a lot of
a lot of what our society is dealing with, confused about.
(02:55):
And I am more than excited to have this time today.
And for those of you listening, it's going to be
a really cool opportunity for you to uh get a
reality check on what goes on and so much of
the city centers across our country. So with that, we're
(03:18):
going to get started. R Shae Cooper. Hey, bro, I
am I am so stoked to get ready to talk
to you. Let's just dive into urhe the young man.
I want to hear about where our shade was born.
You know, siblings, and I'm not talking about thirteen year
(03:40):
old in high school before that. You know, just where
you came up to tell us where you came from.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I was born in Chicago, Chicago West Side. You
know my mother was born in Mississippi.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
You're ah, whoa, wh whoa. I didn't even know that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Do you know where was at Jackson? Yes, my grandmother's
from Jackson and great grandmother yeah, and.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Your great grandmother, great grandmother, she would have been maybe
even a sharecropper.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, my grandmother said she picked cotton, and
you know she was out there in the field. So
that's the Yeah, does.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Your mom remember that.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
No, my mom moved my grandmother. She said she wanted
to escape the violent South until when my mom was born.
She moved.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
She wanted to escape the violence South and went to
west side of.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
The West Side of Chicago, Miss brother. And you know,
she's looking for more opportunities. And I didn't know that
until I was a teenager. But yeah, Chicago West Side
is where I was born. And you know, as a kid,
I can remember just my mom and my stepdad and
(04:57):
she had a job, she was working, My stepdad was working.
I had an older brother and a younger brother and
younger sister. Touch four of you, four of us, right,
and it just seemed like it seemed like a normal life.
I was young, but I think I was about nine
years old when I started noticing a difference difference in.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
What and a difference in your own family's reality changing,
or a difference in your family dynamic and other things.
Speaker 2 (05:28):
A difference in my family dynamic, not just compared to others,
but the change of being able to have dinner and
sit at a table with my family to step that
not being there the difference, and you know, my mom
being home with us every night to the point that
(05:49):
she's not there, you know, arguments every night, mother scratching
her skin, Christmas gifts no longer there. On December twenty fifth,
I was too young to understand what was happening, but
things were changing, and it wasn't until maybe I was eleven.
I was sleeping on the couch and my brother had
(06:10):
this this old chilling's bucket. You know, people would make
chiplins and they'd keep the buckets and use it for
a mop bucket or something like that.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I thought chitlins were only in the South. I guess
it came from Jackson with your great grandma brug It, Chicago.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
And I remember him throwing a bucket of water on
me and he said, wake up, let me show you something.
So I followed him through the hallway and uh, he said,
look through the keyhole. And I looked through the keyhold.
I seen my mom, my stepdad, and my aunt and
it was a mirror and it was white powder on
the mirror. He said, you see that, that's called drugs.
(06:50):
And the first thing that came to my mind was
these like like a box of lemon Head or Boston
Baked Beans that says say no to drugs when you
open it, or a commercial to say this is your brain,
this is your brain on drugs. And I was like, oh,
this is not good. And that's when I noticed a
(07:11):
change in my family dynamic and I became aware that
you know, we are not the same that we were
maybe you know a few years before, Like there's no
happiness here because now there's fights and now we go
from being punished to like sitting on the corner or
(07:31):
or writing to getting beat with belts or extension chords and.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
So all is a result of ultimately addiction.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
Addiction, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
No, so our shape. That's such a good picture up
to eleven, and we're going to go chronologically, but it's
a good time to talk about. Now, how do you
know I am?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
How forty?
Speaker 3 (08:02):
You're old? Brother? But looking back, okay, because if that's
the case, that was the late eighties, early nineties, yep, right, Warren,
drugs just say no, I mean all that stuff. But
before that reality you had a mom that was working
(08:23):
and a stepdad that was working in a seemingly organic family.
What was the socioeconomic situation that your family was in.
What kind of jobs was your dad or your stepdad
and your mom holding.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, he was like a mechanic, right, blue collar do
a mechanic, you know. And my mother was working at
a laundry, matt. It was a little simple job, blue.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Collar, but blue collar, but they were making.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Enough to make a family, enough to keep a family together.
Speaker 3 (08:56):
And do you think there was addiction prior when you
were younger or did it evolve as you got older.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
No, I think it evolved as I got older, And honestly,
I don't I don't want to skip anything, but I
didn't ask my mom about this until I was older.
And my stepdad hanging out with their own crowd, right,
they were young, and he started doing drugs and he
introduced it to my mom, you know, and uh my
(09:26):
mom did it because she loved him and and I
think it was at parties from there, you know stairsteps, yeah, stairsteps,
And it became an everyday thing.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
So your your your family is living under one roof.
It's not your father but stepfather, and I assume he's
taking the father role at that point, right, and he
got a mom, both are employed. Uh, kids are clearly
cared for up until a day took over. All right, Well,
(10:02):
that doesn't agree with a societal story about inner city
Black families, which is it's all fatherlessness, it's all you know.
Remember what was the term welfare queen, I think to describe,
you know, women having children just to get the extra
(10:26):
WICIC or welfare check. But you had the organic family,
You had the two parents working you on the incomes
that your parents are making. You certainly weren't living in
some big, fancy house, but you had a home, you know.
And it's interesting you just described going from having a
family dinner at the table to not which means there
(10:51):
were family dinners at the table. I mean to me,
it sounds like an inner city Black version of Leave
it to Beaver starting off just an organic American family.
That is not what most people think when they think
(11:11):
Chicago Westside.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Ye.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
So, how many kids at four or five, six, seven
years old in your reality, how many kids had that
started with that type of dynamic? I mean in your neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (11:25):
Not a lot, I'll tell you that, not a lot.
I mean my h and I think maybe some, but
you know, I'm just thinking about my five closest friends. Yeah,
you know what I mean, one of them, one of
them had a dad around.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
And.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
You know they we all counted on each other for food, right,
Like you don't have food, let's all go to donald
because Donald's the one who family has food. You know
what I mean? This week, this week exactly, and so
same story. Right, family comes from the South, some mom
with single parent, moms who work a few jobs, and
some moms was on drugs and one mom was selling drugs.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
You know what I mean, Were you living in a project.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
We were not living in projects that apartment or apartment
buildings where it's like yeah, just families. You know, people
doing drugs in a hallway, I mean the access it
was a high rise, inner city building.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I mean I'm in I'm envisioning the Jefferson's Build, not
the Jeffersons, the Good Times building.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
Good Times building that kind of yeah, like that kind
of like that. You know, you walk in the hallway
and people are doing drugs, people are shooting dice. Right,
You're definitely walking through the cloud of rock cocaine.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Most times, So even when your family union had not
been gripped by addiction, you were still surrounding.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
You're still surrounded by it.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
And now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
we're now offering premium memberships for the Army of Normal
Folks for ten bucks a month. You'll receive special benefits
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(13:15):
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You get all that cool stuff, and we're going to
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(13:58):
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If not, just keep listening. We'll be right back. So
(14:39):
when you wouldn't know this, so I'll just tell you
my father left when I was four. My mother was
married and divorced five times, and as a result, I
had two a paternal and a maternal set of grandparents
that cared for me deeply. Thank goodness. My mother left
(15:00):
me and tried her best, but you know, and she
still loves me and I love her. But I mean,
it's the fact is with with five divorces, there's not
a whole lot of at least as a young man,
you don't feel a lot of stability. But despite all that,
I found a way to go to college on scholarship, graduated,
(15:23):
worked hard, made money and worked my way up and
started coaching football and teaching school, got into business and
ended up at Manassas and coach football there seven years.
The reason I'm telling you this is, prior to my
time at Manassas, my mentality was a very ingrained American mentality,
(15:51):
which is we have a free education system. We are
the freest country in the world. We are not held back.
We have free will, and if we want to take
advantages of the amazing opportunities this country offers us, we
can go to school, we can get an education, we
(16:11):
can pull ourselves up from our bootstripes despite any of
our circumstances, and we can find a way to be successful.
That was my belief set. And then I spent seven
years of Anassis and Manassas is a neighborhood. The neighborhoods
is surround Nasses. Ironically enough, one's called New Chicago and
(16:35):
the other is Green Law and the other is Smoky City.
And the kids that I coached from that area. Prior
to going to Manassas, I would have said, I get
there coming from poverty. I get there coming from destitute situations.
I get there coming from places when you walk down
the hallway you see addiction and all of this dysfunction
around you like you do as a kid. But they
(16:56):
still have free school, they still have an opportunity. They
can still do it this great country we have. But
I don't believe that anymore. I believe that opportunity exists,
but I believe there are fundamental barriers that exist in
inner city neighborhoods across our country to kids much like
(17:20):
the kids that are your friends that you grew up
with and you that are barriers that weren't in my face.
And while you can still do that, there's a whole
hell of a lot more to overcome than just go
to school, get an educational work hard talk to me
(17:40):
about that.
Speaker 2 (17:41):
Yeah, you know, the first thing come to mind when
you said that.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, what do you that's a great point. What do
you hear when you hear a white dude say that?
For real? What do you feel in here?
Speaker 2 (17:58):
You know, it's just you know, I think people do
have You know, it's rough because you know, it goes
back to just this this thought, especially when you talk
about opportunities and you know, you know, everyone should be
able to go to schools, free education and work. And
I explained why. It goes back to me missing forty
(18:22):
days of school my eighth grade year and walking into
school and I didn't have to go to school anymore
because my mom wasn't around at that point. She was,
I mean, she would come home every now, Dan, Grandma
had too much going on.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Because your mom wasn't at it.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
She's in the streets, and my teacher told me, you
know what, you're gonna die before fourteen years old? If
that because the times I was there, I just couldn't learn.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
I know, I understand. I want the people listening to
us to understand why a kid from inner city West
Side Chicago can't learn in school, even though it's free
and provider for Yes, why can't you learn?
Speaker 2 (19:06):
I live in an environment where have nots must have,
and people do whatever it takes to feed their day
shall or feed their family. And because of that, I
heard gunshots when I slept, I skipped over pools of blood.
I lost friends, I ran for my life. I seen
(19:27):
people take others lives to protect theirs, and I've seen
what some soldiers have seen in war. But before I
was thirteen years old, and I am hungry. At the
same time, I wonder if my mom's going to go home.
And there's no way after seeing all that, I can
walk in the classroom and learn about who really discovered
(19:49):
America or what's fifty percent of half. There's just no way.
It's impossible.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Do you do? You do? You know as a twelve
year old you're not learning what you're supposed to be learning.
Are you even aware?
Speaker 2 (20:12):
You know, I'm not aware. I just know that you
I knew that I wasn't doing well because I didn't
feel well. You know, honestly, you because you know kids
clown each other and roast each other. You believe that
a teacher is always right. And when you hand or
(20:35):
you handed a piece of paper that says F or D,
you think you're just dumb. You're not smart because you
don't understand the systemic you know, issues behind that, and
so you grow up losing that confidence, losing that help.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Yeah, you got to throw a chest out and a
bravado like you're a badass to survive while in between
your ears and your heart and your head you feel
like hell, I.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Feel like hell, absolutely that that is that is it?
That that that is the answer, And of course we
want it right. You want the education.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
That's another thing that's interesting. A lot of people will
say the education is there, they just don't want it. Quote,
you can't help these these folks end.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Quote yeah, I think that. You know the same folks
will say, hey, you know, I just got a divorce.
Our kids need therapy. You know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (21:30):
You know.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
You know, you think about what we saw, you know,
and there's no access to therapy or talking to someone
about one social worker in a school of four hundred people,
and so even what soldiers see and they're older, of course,
let's advocate that they talk to someone to have to
see what they just saw. There was no access for.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
Us to that. Yeah, well, what you're talking about is trauma,
which is interesting you you went to that because that
was my next question. But first a few messages from
our sponsors. You know, I was shot at down the
(22:28):
hallway when I was a kid by my fourth daddy.
The third daddy was a guy that I got into
my first fist fight with because he was yanking on
my mama's hair and I was too young, but I
was ready to roll at fourteen. You don't know what
(22:49):
You don't know what's going on or what's right or wrong.
You see something, you act right. And now, as a
fifty three year old man, I'll look back on that
and I recognize that I was traumatized as a child
by some of those situations and by constantly believing that
this man's finally I'm going to have a father that's
(23:10):
committed to me, that loves me for the rest of
my life and then he's gone. And so I understand
childhood trauma in a very personal way, but I didn't
until probably ten years ago, and I lived with it
all through being married as a husband and a father
(23:32):
and a business owner and a football coach and everything,
still never really understanding even my own insecurities as a
grown man as a result of that trauma. So in
your book, it opens with something that, dude, it just
I mean, I read it like four lines. I read
(23:54):
it over and over and over again, and everybody listened
to me get r say Cooper's book, and the opening
line is you had a raggedy fan in your apartment
and it wasn't any count but it's all you had.
(24:14):
You weren't gonna go buy a new one because it
blue air. But it clicked, and it clicked all the time.
And if you walked into the apartment first time in
the apartment, you would have noticed the clicking. But when
you live with this fan in your apartment your entire life,
you just don't even hear the clicking anymore. It's just
a fan over there clicking, and you just tune it
out because it's so common and it's just something you
(24:36):
every time the fan plade spends around, which is a
lot of clicking. And the metaphor you use is that's
what death and drugs and murder and gang life and
everything is to a kid in westside Chicago. Is it's
(24:56):
just a clicking fan that you get used to and
you ignore it.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah. One of my teammates said in a documentary, he said,
when he was asked how did it affect it, he said,
it didn't you know? That was every day, that was that,
that was our way of life. I also said in
the book because of that, I felt like and my teacher,
who I love, who was amazing, was a part of
(25:23):
my life in seventh grade, she said, I want to
tell her at my wedding. At my wedding, she said
that I said, God exists everywhere, but on the West
side of Chicago, you know, And which.
Speaker 3 (25:34):
Is ironic that everybody over there calls himself Lord. Which
we'll get to it, we get we'll get to that
in a minute. But the point is that clicking of
the fan that you grow to ignore because that's where
you live, and it's just a noise in your life.
So is death and murder. And everything. And the point
(25:56):
is tying it back to my personal story is you
were traumatized. So were all of your friends, So are
your classmates. So I mean, do you think it's is
an exaggeration overstated to say that the fast majority ninety
five percent or better of the kids growing up in
West Side Chicago by the age of eleven are traumatized. Yeah, absolutely,
(26:21):
No different than a Vietnam War veteran.
Speaker 2 (26:22):
No different.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
So how are they to concentrate in school? They go
can so how are they to learn? So how are
they to break the cycle of the despair and destruction
that is their lives and the lives of those around them?
And so therefore do they have the same opportunity in
a life that I had.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
I think that's the answer everyone needs to hear, Bill.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
But am I being a white paternalist in overstating this
or is this real? It's real?
Speaker 2 (26:53):
I think it's absolutely real. And I think that the
way and it's told effectively through our storytelling, you know
what I mean? And I think our film really highlights
and get people an opportunity to walk through walk through that,
to understand, to see it, and also shout out those
(27:14):
rates of PTSD on the West side of Chicago, you know,
and the statistics says that one out of every three
child on the West Side of Chicago have lost a
close friend to my family member.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Just to say that again, everybody needs to let that
one sink in.
Speaker 2 (27:30):
One out of three young people on the West Side
of Chicago have lost a close family member or friend
through game violence.
Speaker 3 (27:38):
Now, let's talk about in psychology, there's a list of
things called stressors, and if you experienced two of the
top ten within a year of your life, you were
considered highly stressed, highly traumatized, right, And it's the death
of a child, the death of a spouse, the loss
(27:59):
of a job, witnessing a robbery, all the way down
to losing your watch. You know. It's a list from
really traumatic things all the way down to ultimate things.
And if you add up the points of the stressors
that are happened, that kind of puts a number on
your stress and if you're over a certain level, then
(28:19):
you're considered a highly stressed traumatized individual. The death of
a friend or watching a crime committed is way up there,
and you're saying, by eleven years old, you'd experienced all
of it.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
Absolutely. How do you break out of that?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
How do you you know, how do you expect them
to go to school and care about your abcs when
you're just trying to survive.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Also, I look at like the mass shootings that happened,
like in suburban schools. I even remember Columbine, and I
remember it was happening more often. And the first thing
they would say, we will send in trauma house and
trauma experts to help these kids unsee what they saw,
and we're gonna give them time off from school and
everyone will be able to see someone. I was like,
(29:08):
damn that every day, you know. They it was like
why you learned it?
Speaker 3 (29:14):
You saw?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
We just saw? That was every day and you expect
suck it up, be a person. And the thing about
trauma is that, you know, we are taught to bury it,
but the thing is that you bury it alive.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
And you bury it alive.
Speaker 2 (29:28):
And it always comes back. Everything reminds you of it.
You know, you see some of these kids in the courtroom,
your friends who are doing life, and you can see
the pain in their eyes and the hurt and the
pain and the trauma that they endure. And the thing
is is that if you never gave them access to
heal from that trauma and pain. They're gonna grow up
(29:50):
and redistribute that saying trauma and pain to their peers,
and that's what we're seeing.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
And their children and their children and their grandchildren, and
their wives and their husbands and everybody us as close
to them, they will redistribute that to them, and thus
goes the cycle.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
I think any Soljia in comic will tell you that.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
That concludes Part one of our conversation with R. J. Cooper,
and I hope you'll listen to Part two that's now available.
But if you don't, make sure you join the Army
of Normal Folks at normal Folks dot us and sign
up to become a member of our movement. It only
takes committing to doing one new thing this year to
help others, and there will be a ton of awesome
(30:36):
ideas on this podcast from the folks we're featuring. Some
of them may resonate with you and others may not
at all, and that's okay, because we're all called to
do different things with our different talents. By signing up,
you'll also receive a weekly email with short episode summaries
in case you happen to miss an episode, or prefer
reading about our incredible guests. Together we can change the country,
(31:00):
and it starts with you. I'll see you in Part two.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
M
Host
Bill Courtney
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