February 25, 2025 • 43 mins
Khali started Downtown Boxing Gym to use boxing as the hook to teach vulnerable Detroit kids about life. Ironically, none of the kids are now using their boxing ring, but their STEAM Lab and other awesome stuff have helped 1,500 kids graduate high school and 98% go on to post-secondary education!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
So I lost a car, So what. I lost an apartment,
so what? I lost friends who didn't get it. So what?
I lost family who didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
So what.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I don't care about that. But to lose a life,
something so precious as a human life, to lose a
life somebody who could potentially be the next person to
invent something, the scientists, doctor lawyer, that who might have
a cure for cancer. One of our coaches told me
one time, he said, man, the most talented is in
a graveyard. And I looked at him. I was like, man,
(00:30):
how true that is. Some of your greatest discoveries are
in a graveyard. Some of the guys who may have
solved the the the mysteries of the universe are in
a graveyard or sitting behind bars somewhere. When I hear
people say, man's people could play basketball better than Michael
Jordan in prison, and I say, man, what a waste.
What are we really losing by losing a car, or
(00:51):
an apartment or a few pounds. I'm willing to make
that sacrifice to save a life.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inner city Memphis. And the last part, somehow it led
to an oscar for the film about our team. That
movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
(01:21):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
and nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of
normal folks. That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey,
you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Kylie
Sweeney has done. As you just heard, he lost everything
(01:45):
except his integrity and his soul to try to save
the lives of Detroit kids from that humble start. Downtown
Boxing Gym has since served fifteen hundred kids and get this,
one hundred percent have graduated from high school in ninety
eight percent have gone on to post secondary education. I
(02:09):
cannot wait for you to meet Collie. Right after these
brief messages from our general sponsors.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Kylie Sweeney, man, welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you for having me you, Uh, Detroit, how'd you
get down here?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah? What did you did?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Were you able to catch a direct flight?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Direct flight Yeah. It was direct flight. It was it
was short, got here.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Quick, good good. Did you get here last night?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Did you go eat anywhere? Did Alex take you anywhere
to eat? Worth a crawd?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
No, we went. We went to a couple of good restaurants.
I actually have fun. The food was delicious, especially the
one we went to last night was barbecue.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And then we had McK ewansy had barbecue and yeah
Central for lunch. Yeah, and then mckwens for dinner. What's
wrong with that?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Both excellent spots if you asked me, I mean I
had both excellent.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, and I've read that Kylie really likes the blues
and this is the home of it. Did you take
them to anywhere to listen to some blues?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I mean I had.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Okay, you're a loser, no no more talking to the
prediction last night? Yeah yeah, because somebody did their research.
You are a blues guy. Well you know you're I mean,
you're only an hour and a half north of the
Crossroads bro Okay, Okay, So I mean there are people
selling their soul down there. No, not so, Kalie Sweeney
(03:44):
is uh downtown boxing Gym from Detroit now called DBG,
I believe. Correct, Yeah, y'all call it DBG, right, correct,
who's uh doing some amazing work and has a crazy
interesting story. And where you are now, does it really
have context without understanding where you came from? I know
(04:08):
it's six weeks old. Your parents gave you away to
a woman in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'll start there and let you take it to maybe
adolescents and give us an insight into into fundamentally how
you came up and why that's your main to what
we're doing today.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So, like you just said, my mother and father they
gave me away when I was young, when I was
a baby. They not only gave me away, they gave
my brother away too, because they were dealing with some
issues with with with narcotics, with drugs, and they.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Were dealing with the same lady by the way, or
do they not separated.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
My brother went, my brother went with my biological family,
and I went to the lady down the street. I
don't know how it happened, but that's how it happened.
That's how it worked out. And you know, you know
how you feel, you feel that you feel that abandonment,
you know what I mean, you feel let abandon me
wide me. And so I had a chip on my
shoulder and I went to school. You know, I just
(05:05):
always had this a little chip on my shoulder. And
then when I found out I couldn't read or write
in the third grade, because I realized that myself I
couldn't read or write third grade, I knew that I
couldn't read or write at all. I knew it, and
so I developed these little strategies to get kicked out
of class. I would start cracking jokes hoping that they'll
kick me out, and just like clockwork, they would either
kick me out. And the times that they didn't kick
(05:25):
me out, I would just punch somebody in the face.
I'm like, they're gonna kick me out regardless, I'm gonna
start a fight or whatever. And I would do that,
and in the third grade, nobody nobody asked me the
critical question, like you know, what is the problem, what's
going on? You know? Instead, I can remember my third
grade teacher. I can remember one of my third grade
teachers and the gym teacher. The gym teacher at that
they would let me and my friend out of class
(05:47):
and we would go down the street and pick up
they package. And they package would be some gin and
orange juice and two packs of cigarettes. And so we
would do that, and they passed us to the next grade,
and so we would be the guys who run to
the store and get their stars up and bring it
back to school. In third grade, third grade, I would
go down to the corner store and pick up their package.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
So two questions, that's a teacher, yes, doing that? Yes,
And then there's an adult at the corner store given
a third grader gin and smokes, come up with that?
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You tell me. I don't know, but that was how
invested they were in my into my future. At some
point in time, they gave up on me ever being
successful because all the other adults would always tell me,
you're gonna be dead or in jail before you twenty one.
What do you see yourself? You're not gonna be able
to work at a garbage You're not gonna be able
to be a garbage man, or you're not gonna be
able to work at a fast food restaurant. So what
(06:39):
is the other options for me? What are you telling
me at third grade? You're at third grade, fourth grade,
fifth grade, what are you telling me. You're not giving
me any other options. You're just telling me that I'm
gonna be dead or in jail before i'm twenty one,
and I'm not gonna be able to work as a
garbage man or a fast food restaurant. So you give
up on life, you give up on dreaming. I stopped
dreaming as a kid. I didn't think about the only
thing I used to think about is what it's gonna
be like when I get killed. Are they gonna really
(07:01):
remember me? They already gave me away. Who's gonna be hurt?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Do you really remember at a young age thinking about
what it's gonna be like when you get killed? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, I remember that. I remember everything. I remember my
first day of school. I remember a guy shooting at me.
I remember all of that. I remember walking down the
railroad tracks, getting shot at and screaming and chasing the
person that was shooting at me because I thought this
person was the person I was supposed to look up to.
So I remember all these things.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I don't forget it when the guy you're supposed to
be looking up to as like a gym teacher, supposed
to be a mentor, and you're rolling to pick up
smokes and gim for him.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I mean at that age, at that impressiable age, were
you cognizant of how dysfunctional that was? Or do you
not think that was the world?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
No, not at all. I didn't. I didn't that that
didn't it didn't FaZe me. I didn't. I didn't think
about that at all. That that didn't make I couldn't
rationalize that. I didn't understand that I was a child.
I was still trying to find the words to ask
for help, and the way that I was asking for
help was to start a fight or crack jokes, you
know what I mean. I didn't have the language to
even ask for help from myself, to let alone know
(08:07):
that going to get cigarettes was wrong. I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
A friend of mine has a nonprofit organization called Coaching
for Literacy. You may have seen it. Coaches football and
basketball coaches in the pro and college level where little
Green Ribbon lapel and they The whole idea is to
raise money and bring light to the fact that there's
(08:32):
a lot of kids in our community that can't read.
And the reason I'm bringing this up and I hadn't
even thought about this for right, now. But you said
third grade. And one of the demographics they talk about
all the time is that if a kid is not
reading and writing on grade level at third grade, he
(08:55):
is seventy two percent more likely to end up in
jail then need to have a job.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I've heard third grade.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I've heard that. I heard that. I heard that here
in America, and I've heard it in Germany. I was
in Germany. When I was in Germany, they were saying, like,
by the third grade, they already know where you're going
by your test scores. And they were saying that in Germany.
And I've been hearing that a lot my whole life,
about third grade test scores. But the thing about what
I'm saying is like there was no intervention. If this
(09:25):
knowledge about third grade, there should have been some intervention
at that stage, but it wasn't. I made it all
the way to the twelfth grade without being able to
read or write until one day.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You just make it? You just keep going, You go
to class, or you don't go to class, or whatever,
somebody passed you. If your school is not going to
get what they need, if it's a fail in school, somehow,
you're going to slip through the cracks. I see it
right now today.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And what you mean and what I learned at my
time at Manassas listen man Detroit, Memphis, Chicago, Charlotte, Birmingham, Montgomery, Albuquerque, Denver, LA.
Wherever you live and you're listening from Detroit, is the
conversation we have is only a microcosm what's happening all
(10:10):
over our country, and that is in inner city schools.
And do not equate that with black because in some
neighborhoods in West Virginia this happens with all white kids
in inner city schools. In some areas out west it's
heavily Hispanic. But in a lot of the inner city
(10:31):
there are kids that get advanced because they simply get
old enough or big enough. And the reason is the
school does not get their funding if they don't show
passing grades.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Speak it, well, you said it, but like I said.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
But I mean you lived it.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Oh yeah, you said it. So with that being said,
I don't want to ever come down really come down
on a school. It's because I know it's some teachers
there who really love their job. But at the end
of the day, if you have you don't have the resources.
You don't have the resources. I think some resources should
be poured into these school systems and pay these teachers
(11:15):
what they deserve, and pour some research resources into these schools,
and that way they can get things done. But a
school can't do what we do well we do in
our program. Well we do in our program. If we
have a kid, or we identify young person who is
behind grade level, we can go back and work with
that young person to get them above grade level. The
(11:35):
school system may necessarily can't do that. Like you just said,
I can't have a guy seventeen eighteen years old in
the fifth grade. He's not gonna he's not gonna blend
in the fifth grade. If he's seventeen eighteen years old,
he got hair on his face, he can't be in
the fifth grade our But in our program, we can
go back to the fifth grade and give him the
foundation that he needs to be successful in life.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Our listeners are probably confused hearing downtown boxing gym in
your program. We'll get to that. Spoiler alert. We will
get to that. But there's more to unpack about you.
And there's another question. This is one of the squirrels
I'm chasing up a tree, go ahead, But I agree
with you. I've again, I've worked in their city. I've
been a teacher for a living. Most teachers do not
(12:18):
go into it because they think they're going to get rich. Yes,
most bright eyed college student getting out of school. Teachers
are really genuinely do it because they want to teach.
And depending on the district and the school and the
administration they get with determines their ability to be successful.
A lot and the district's need for money and the
(12:40):
top heavy administraight of stuff that goes on in a
lot of public districts take away from the kids, and
that is one of the biggest services of our culture.
But children need to be red bedtime stories. They need
to be sung lullabis. If you aren't, if you aren't
(13:02):
hearing language and being read to and seeing words and
associating pictures with words when you're in third, fourth and
fifth grade, I don't care what the school does, you
are behind. So when you say what you said about
the schools, saying I want to take up for some
of these teachers, I do too. But honestly I want
(13:23):
to hit some of these folks in the mouth that
are having kids and don't do nothing with them.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So are you talking about the parents? Because I want
to be clear, because because you said.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Some of these folks no, no, no, no no, I'll be clear.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
No no, no no. Earlier you said these kids need to
be they need to read other kids. That's what you
said earlier. You made a MISSA made as I got you?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
When when when when children? The science and the research says,
when you read a bedtime story and children see pictures
and associating with words, when they're three, four and five
and they're hearing lullabys in the home and they see
books and reading in the home, they've got a shot.
But these kids who never see that in the home
(14:09):
are already against all. So I got to get to school.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So I got you. So I got you. I wanted
to be clear about it before I answered. So here's
my answer. Right, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna show
you in real time.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Me.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I couldn't read or right at all. The guy who
adopted me, him and his wife. He came from Philadelphia, Mississippi,
picking cotton. He couldn't read or write. His father couldn't
read or write. My biological father couldn't read or write
my mother who just passed away from Mississippi. They came
(14:42):
up here from picking cotton. They came up here from sharecropping.
They came here from a school district that was far
different than the school districts that you see in the suburbs,
so they could barely read or write. Only thing they
did they came to Detroit. They when all of our
families came in Detroit, because most of the people that
you see in Detroit come from from the South. They
all sharecroppers and picking cotton. Them guys, that's down in
(15:03):
Detroit right there. They came down there to get those
jobs in the factories. My father worked at General Motors
for thirty three years. Could not read or write, and
only missed two days of work because he was in
a car accident. And by the time he left General
Motors at thirty three, he was sweeping a broom in there.
So no, he didn't read to me at home. He
(15:23):
heavily believed that the school system would take care of that.
And a lot of our parents who have to work
and struggle to pay rent and pay their bills, they
believe wholeheartedly that the school is the answer. But now
we're telling them that you need more than just the school.
You need after school programs, you need intervention, you need
other help youth. As the parent, you need to if
(15:46):
you have time, take some courses or get your kids
in some extra places for extracurricular activity, because that's what's
happening in every suburb across America. It's not just at school,
it's when they get home. They got other things to do.
And like you say, they see the parents with whole
multiple degrees. If you look at where I'm from a Detroit,
nobody holds a degree. These are first generation young people
that are going to school. This is something that happened
(16:08):
a long time ago. It's nothing new. At one point
in time, it was never illegal for you to learn
how to read and write. It was illegal at one
point in time for other people to learn how to
read and write. So that was passed on generation and
generation and generation. It was only fifty years ago. Sixty
years ago. That's not a long time. We're not talking
about four hundred, five hundred years. We're talking about sixty years,
fifty years, So that's the difference. So it's gonna it
(16:30):
is a gap. There's a gap that needs to be filled.
But it's gonna take time. It's not punching anybody in
the mouth. It's education, understanding and bringing people along for
the journey.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
That would mean that you weren't the only guy going
through your school system that was graduating.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Same problem.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Correct. I've literally had guys that I went to school
with and I'm thinking, these guys are like I'm thinking
they're crushing it. I felt alone, I felt the shit,
not being able to read as a lonely place. I'm
gonna tell you that it's lonely as it is. The
loneliest place you order food even though you don't want it.
You just say, I'm gonna have what you have. And
and after I told my story publicly, I literally had
(17:14):
friends that I grew up with come out there wool work, like, man,
you know I couldn't read it write either. Man, I
never learned you know what? They just passed us. And
then certain things became a joke, like, man, you know
such and such they just passed. I'm like wow, And
I found out some of the young ladies, some of
the young people, it's like it was a disservice done
to our community, and it was done. I don't think intentionally.
I really don't think it was intentionally. I think it
(17:36):
was financing, and I believe it was overcrowding and people
slipped through the cracks. That's the only thing I hope.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I'm hoping for the best of humanity. That's what I'm
hoping for. And now a few messages from our gender sponsors.
But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join
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you'll receive a weekly email with short episodes some reason
in case you happen to miss an episode, or if
(18:03):
you prefer reading about our incredible guests, we'll.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You know, it's interesting for.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Alex. Alex isn't gonna like what I'm about to.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Say, but I'm gonna say it anyway.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
We really try. I'm gonna preface this, an army of
Normal Folks does not care if you're black, right, Asian, Latino, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic.
We don't care how you vote, how you love, how
you look, how you worship. If you're doing something for
(18:48):
people that aren't as fortunate as you in your neighborhood,
we can celebrate you, and we hope the same about
someone else from another place, and from that foundation may
be culturally we can convalesce around one really positive thing
and start seeing each other in a different light. Okay,
(19:10):
So set that up for our more conservative listeners who
often bristle when they hear some societal issue whose first
word is systematic, systematic racism, systematic poverty, systematic, this systematic
(19:37):
that you know, people want to believe in this amazing
country we have and the freedoms we have that if
you can just pull yourself up by your brute straps
and work hard, everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
But what you're.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Saying to me reeks of systematic issues. Because if the
school has to have money to exist, and they have
to continue to advance and promote kids grade by grade
regardless of their ability to be able to get that
money to exist, and they're under resourced and they don't
have help at home, whether it's a parent's fault or not,
(20:13):
the fact is they don't have help at home. That
is a generational, decades long system that continues to fail
our children.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So what I'm gonna say is this changes need to
be made. I mean, everybody has to look at it.
As This is humanity we're talking about. We are we're
human beings. We're all in this together. This is one
thing that's going to affect everybody if we don't deal
(20:45):
with it, and we have to be equal. We have
to be fair with this thing. We have to be honest.
Everybody has to come to the table, sit down and
have dialogue and talk. We have to talk. Like you said,
it's not about politics, it's not about all the other
stuff that you said. It's about staying focused on them,
on what's most, which is our youth. Our youth is
the core to you know what I'm saying. Everybody loves
(21:06):
and respects and believe that our youth deserves it. So
if we truly believe that, we'll do what needs to
be done to make sure that the youth are successful
in this country. And that's all I can say about that.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
And part of that is changing the broken system. Is
finding a way to change the broken system, which ultimately
is what I think you do. But you'll get to
spoiler alert, we'll get there. But there's still more to
your story. One thing else I want to tell you,
I can't pass by it. I was at Manassas High
(21:40):
School seven years, NASA's high school is much like the
high school youth came from. I could give you a big,
old long list of demographics that would illustrate the poverty
and the disenfranchisement, the loss, and the neighborhoods that's around
Manassas where the goods come from. The one that is
most dark is And this goes back four years, so
(22:03):
it may have changed a little, but if at all,
it's probably gotten worse. An eighteen year old male from
the neighborhoods that surround Monassis, an eighteen year old male
is three times more likely to be dead or incarcerated
by his twenty first birthday than is to have a job.
(22:24):
Three times more likely. And I think it's interesting because
in third grade you were told you could be dead
or in jail, be for twenty one And it feels
to me like when I hear your story and I
know that demographic to be true in some degree, this
(22:46):
is a structural, self fulfilling prophecy for a lot of kids.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So with me, when people were saying that to me
all the time, and when they would send me home,
and I'm seeing and the guys that I grew up
with and I'm seeing this and I'm seeing guys disappear,
and it's like, Okay, when is it gonna be my turn.
I'm seeing guys get killed, I'm seeing guys go to prison,
I'm seeing guys go to the juvenile system. I had
(23:12):
really just believed in that narrative, that narrative that was
created for me. I believed in it because the adults
kept saying it, and I was hearing so many people
say it. Even in the streets. People were saying, man,
you the way you're going, you're gonna be dead in
jail before you twenty one. And I kept hearing that narrative,
and so I bought into it wholeheartedly and I hit
the streets running for it. Yeah. So once I dropped
(23:33):
out of school in my twelfth grade year, I dropped
out of school. It's like, why am I even here
if I'm gonna be dead? Like I gotta live fast,
die young, And so I just started just like completely
committed myself to just being out here in the streets.
And when I did that, I seen so much different
destruction around me. It was my older brother who came
to me one day, and he came to me and
(23:55):
he was living the same lifestyle, living in the same thing.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
The only thing about him fast.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, but at the same time, he still was in
an area that had a recreation center and they had
some kind of They had lunch trucks that would come through.
They had bookmobiles and swim mobiles and things like that. Ye,
we didn't have that. No, we didn't have that. That couldn't
come in our neighborhood. That wouldn't even that couldn't even
have came in there. And so we didn't have playgrounds
or stuff like that. I can remember we used to
(24:21):
put crates up. We would not cut the bottom of
the crates out and put crates up as basketball rims
and stuff. I remember flooding our street to make our
street into ice for the kids to play. So we
you know, I've done. I had a friend of mine
called me from thirty years ago. He said, Man, I
was like, who is this. He like, I'm gonna tell you,
why are you putting those long nails in that thing?
I said, so it had never come down. I said,
(24:41):
how you doing, Keith? Because he asked me, he said,
why are you putting those long nails in that thing?
I said, because every time we make a basketball rim
in falls down. So I went and found some long
nails and put some long nails in there, so you know. So,
But anyway, my brother he came to my neighborhood and
he walked through a whole group of guys on my
front porch and he said, Bro, you do understand that
(25:02):
the rest of the world don't live like this, right?
I said, what do you mean? He say, Bro, do
you understand that the rest of the world does not
live like this? He said, five minutes in any direction
outside of the trait, in any one of the suburbs.
They don't live like this. He said, Man, all these
young guys around you, they dying young and going to
jail young. For real, Bro, there's no resources in your community.
(25:23):
There's nothing here. It's just kids dying. He said, Bro,
you understand that this is not real. And I remember
my answer like it was yesterday and my brother just
passed away. And I said to him, Man, go back
to where you from. This is my reality. Go back
to where you're from. Go back. And so he asked
me to come to his house. He said, Bro, can
you come to my house man help me move something.
(25:46):
So I went over there and He asked me to
move something, and I remember telling him, man, pick it up. Man,
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Stop?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Stop standing there, pick it up.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Are we moving it or not?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
He's like, look at that picture, he said, that's the
picture that we took at your house when we were
going Pontiac skating with my friends and your friends. He said,
let me point out your friends. He's dead. He's dead.
He's dead. He's dead. Michigan most wanted, he trait most wanted.
This guy's on America's most wanted Bro, don't be the
next guy on this picture. What do you want to
do with your life? What do you see yourself? What
(26:17):
do you want to do? And this is my brother
had no better life than me, besides the bookmobile and
all that type of stuff, But he saw something that
the adults didn't say. He asked me something that no
adult had ever asked me. What do I want to
do with my wife? And my brother asked me that.
And the only thing I could think of was learn
how to read, because that's the only thing I was
scared of was I wasn't scared of federal indictments. I
(26:38):
wasn't scared to die already. I had already succumbed to that.
I already believed that it was gonna happen. I didn't dream.
I just was saying, but it's gonna be like when
I get shot. So when I got shot the first time,
I thought nothing of it. It's like I didn't hurt
like they said it was gonna hurt. Didn't feel like it.
You know what I'm saying. I'm still alive, you know
what I'm saying. So he changed my life. He asked
me that question, and I went home and said, only
thing that made me scared was a book. That's the
(27:00):
only thing I was scared of was a book. So
I decided to change my life that day.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
You said, you said something quickly that about ten minutes
ago that I found really interesting. You said when I
went out to eat or something, I couldn't even ren
him menu, and I'd just say, man, I'm man, what
you having?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah? Yeah, that was my goats of them.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, let me tell you something that coaching for literacy
the whole reason. My friend that started it with his
son played basketball for the University of Memphis back in
the day when will In Bedford and Keith Lee and
Memphis Tigers were really good. Back in those days. He
was a shooting guard. And so when he got older,
(27:44):
he started coaching AAU basketball and his son was on
the team, and they would go off to Birmingham and
New Orleans to play in AAU tournaments and one of
his players, one of their best players, guy named Big Frank.
Anytime they went to eat lunch or dinner at Applebee's
or whatever, he would just always order what my friend's
(28:05):
son would order. And finally they figured out the reason
he did that is he could not read them, inn't
you And for you to have said what you just
said and connect that dot. By the way, Big Frank
got educated, got able to read, and went and got
a degree from LSU playing football and is doing great now.
So I can drop Big Frank's name and all that,
(28:26):
But the point is that was the first time I'd
ever heard that story. And then you just said the
same thing, which tells me maybe that's not that uncommon.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
It's not. I mean, I had a guy that I
grew up with. He's like, which one of these is
my prescriptions? And I was like, this is the prescription.
This was whatever you have in your hand right there.
He's like, now, which one and I was like, what
are you talking about. He's like, man, I can't read.
And I was like, man, it's like everybody. And he's
a little bit younger than me. It's like, man, like
everybody that came up in that school. It's like so
(28:57):
many people with the same story. And like you self conscious,
Oh yeah yeah still to this day. I can read.
I can I can read. I can read now, but
I'm self conscious. If you put something in front of me,
it's like I turned back into that same young person.
I freeze up because you.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Know that's PTSD, right, that's trauma.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, I say, that's something I need to get over.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
It may be that's something I changed.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
What it is, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna use
it as a crutch.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Not me.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Man, my for daddy shot at me down the hallway,
all right. I can hear the crack of a gun
and I go right back to that night. It just
is what it is.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
And that's why I don't go to the gun range.
You know, I bet I've been I've been shot. If
you be like, let's go to the gun range, I'm like,
you haven't been shot yet. You haven't been shot yet.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I haven't been shot, but I've been shot at and
I understand the fear.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, I was. I was in I was in a
situation where I was kicked out of schools in Detroit.
I was kicked out of schools on the East side
of Detroit, probably even some of the West side schools.
And I was in a house with some people, and
long story sort there was a misunderstanding and somebody who
was supposed to be real close to the family shot
(30:06):
at me and it hit the wall and stuff hit
me on the side of my face, and I was like,
I wasn't really phased. But I was thinking back now,
like at thirteen, I should have been terrified of that,
and it didn't really phase me.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah, for a thirteen year old, do not be phased
by that. That that is actually normal and just part
of life for a thirteen year old. Yeah, maybe that
says everything anybody needs to hear right there. Yeah, yeah,
we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So yeah, so I changed my life. I went back
to school. I remember being in. I went to get
a GED I gave it. I paid the school of
forty dollars for the GED thing, and as I was
taking the GED course, the guy came up to me
and said, hey, you can't take the GED the thing,
and I was like, man, what are you talking about.
I was highly upset and offended. He said, you seem intelligent,
you're very smart, well spoken, but you can't read. And
(31:11):
I was like what, I paid my money like everybody else.
And so he said, no, you need to go take
a real class, start from the beginning, because you're very intelligent.
And so I did that. I said, if I can
dedicate my life to being out here in the streets
and being a knuckle ahead one hundred percent, I can
dedicate myself myself to rebirth and doing something positive with
my life. And so I went and started over again
at school and didn't get the GED, but you know,
(31:32):
I started over and I got the fundamentals of going
back from the kindergarten.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Basically, you said something really profound. You said, people on
the streets will be your family if you don't have one.
But that comes to the cost. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
you can with the perspective behind that quote.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So so you know, there's a lot of when people
are all in the same situation, people get comfortable and
they're all in the same situation, people get comfortable, and
sometimes you commit yourself to the to the wrong cause,
(32:09):
and and there's there's nobody there to re focus that,
there's no guidance. It's the blind leading the blind. And
so that's what I meant by that when I was
talking about that being in the in in these these
quote unquote situations with gangs, cause I was I was
a former gang member, and being in a gang and
the gang whole culture is about being a family. But
this family comes with a cost because there's nobody actually
(32:31):
leading us in the right direction, a positive change. It's
just you're in a gang and it's just, you know,
it's us against everybody, not knowing that we all are
part of one community. So if you if you, if
you're a part of a gang with no positive goal,
you're gonna go down the wrong track. And that's the
price you'll pay, and it could be your life and
it could be your freedom.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
So you know what, I'm supposed to just move on,
but I can't. I mean, I just think that's I
think we know it. The problem is we see so
much crap on TVs and movies and then the news
that I do think we get desensitized to the dysfunction
(33:14):
and trauma that so many kids in our communities and
our culture are living under. People in the streets will
be your family. First of all, somebody between the age
of one and eighteen ain't supposed to be need them.
Family's supposed to have one. Just the mere fact that
they're looking for a family says a lot that we
(33:38):
need to fix. But then the fact that just to
be part of something that you can at least belong to,
i e. This street, family, gangs, whatever. Yeah, but it
comes at a cost. A family's supposed to be where
you get unconditional love, and that unconditional love is what
(34:01):
propels you to be able to be a productive member
of society. What you say is so poignant, it comes
at a cost. And my version of that is that's
conditional love, and conditional love will always end up hurting you.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
I agree with that. I totally agree with that, because
I've seen it happen. I've seen, you know, I've seen
situations where you know, people expect you to move a
certain way and when you don't move that way, now
everybody's upset.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
With you, you know, and you pay for that, Yeah,
you pay for that.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
So you tell you tell it like if you tell
a guy like, you know what, I don't. I don't
agree with that. I don't believe in that. I don't
think that's something that we should do. I don't feel
like that, you know, that's the way that we should go.
And you'll, you'll, you know, you'll get some heavy pushback,
you might get beat up, you might get ostracized, you
might get black ball, you might be told to lead
a neighborhood whatever. Anything could happen. And so with that
(34:58):
being said, it goes back to having something positive for
young people to do. You have to have something for
people to do, because if you don't, things will grow.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
The last thing on this before we move on. You know,
all these people that are gonna ride or die with
you, your brothers, those folks that got you. You know, it's interesting,
where are they when you die? Where are they when
you in jail?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I don't know. I mean, that's that's a lot of things.
That's a lot of that's a lot of things. You
can say, that's your bowling team, that could be your
little league team, that could be your basketball team, that
could be a lot of stuff. You know, I always
tell that's fair, that's a lot of things. I mean,
that's your chess club, that's your club.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
That's a fair perspective that people move on. People move
on with life.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's anywhere you look, anywhere you cut it, people will
move on with life.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
But ain't nobody on your bowling team talking about bowl
or die. They ain't saying we're gonna ride or die here.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So hold on, hold on, hold on, take that back.
Let's take that back.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I work security for a long time, and I did
security for a few events, and I actually did security
for a balling event and I literally seen bowling teams
of suburban nights going crazy, fighting each other, so much
so that the police department had to come in and
they were police were getting swung off. These guys were
punching police officers. I'm talking punching police officers where they
(36:24):
were begging us as security to help them.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
You gotta understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
You don't understand not not this conditional pay for it,
belonging family, love, So listen comes at a cost, and
when you're paying that price, rarely are those people in
your corner.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
So no, I want to say this one thing, so
that could be baseball you got. You just look, turn
on the baseball game. You see them run out to
the mound. Everybody's running out there. You can watch the hockey,
everybody's running out there. So that that right there, you
know you're gonna ride with the people that you work
out with every day. You're gonna look at those people,
view those people as family. If somebody coming to your
house right now and grab somebody in your house is
(37:04):
going down, I guarantee you're going to give them everything
you got. So it's the same in the neighborhood. You
grow up with these guys, You go to the same
places of worship with these guys. You you you, you
you went through four, third, second grade with these guys.
So when you it's like, it's not like the guys
in the neighborhood are not familiar with one another. Some
of these guys are family members, are related to each other,
you know, from going way back to even before they
(37:26):
even came to Detrait. So no, it's not that, you
know what I mean, You're gonna ride with them because
they're from the same neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I guess I get that.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
But where the line is drawn at what I'm speaking
of where the line is drawn at when they say
let's do something illegal and you say, hey, I'm not
doing that, and if you say no, then some people
don't understand that. And that's where the line is when
somebody said let's do something illegal, Just like with those bowlers,
when those guys wanted to fight those other balling league.
(37:57):
That was they were fighting. But when the police came,
that's when it got out of control. When they started
beating up police officers, they crossed the line. And that's
when guys should have walked away from that.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Alex. I bet you never thought in a million years
in the middle of this interview we would talk about
a fight and a bowling out. This is how it goes.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Anything can happen with your two knuckles.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Oh my gosh, I want to start a bowling team
that says ride or down the back of my jersey
or whatever. They got it all right. So that's a
lot of perspective of where you come from. And I
gotta be honest with you, the whole baseball bowling thing
has me rethinking some stuff I thought I had right
in my mind. And I love that, dude. I mean,
(38:44):
I really do appreciate that and I hope our listeners
are thinking about what you're saying, because if you want
to be real about it, that's true. That is true,
all right. So that's the perspective of where you came from.
And now you took these classes to read, but now
(39:04):
you just a guy can read.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So what next?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So I made myself a promise, and a lot of
people who know me know that if I say there's
something that I'm going to do, is something I'm gonna do.
And I said, well, if I dedicated myself to the
streets and dedicated myself to this this concept that somebody created,
this narrative that they created for me, I said, let
me reinvent myself and create and and dedicate myself to
the new invention of myself. And so I said, I'm
(39:33):
going to get a job. I'm never going to do
anything else, and then I'm gonna make it about uplifting
everybody in our community. And so I would catch the
bus to work and go to work every single day.
All the while I would try and talk to everybody
about changing their life and changing course. And I noticed
that it was falling on deaf ears because they had
already been too old, and it had already set in,
(39:53):
and they had already got set in their ways. And
so I was like, man, it's falling on deaf ears.
Nobody hearing me. And it's like it's like people who
or to church, they want to spread the gospel. I
wanted to tell everybody about this new freedom I found
and reading and this new joy I found and doing
things without looking over my shoulder, you know. I wanted
to spread that to everybody, and it was falling on
deaf ears because people were still dealing with their own
(40:14):
situations in life themselves. They hadn't got to that turning
point themselves. They hadn't had a brother like me that
came and told me to look at the world and
see what it really is. And so I was trying
to do that and it was just falling on deaf ears.
Then I said, every time I'm out in the yard
shadow boxing and and and punching at the air and
working out, I noticed the young people pay attention. I said,
(40:38):
that's it, right.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
You mean in the neighborhood, the kids I can box too.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Man, Like, can you fight da da Da? And I say, oh,
I got them. I said, this is how I'm gonna
get them I started saying, Okay, I'm gonna use this
as an icebreaker to the bigger conversations. If you want
me to teach you how to box, I'll teach you
how to box, but you first got to do your
homework first, and you got to do your homework. And
all the guys that was like interested in me when
I exercising and working out, I say, listen, you you
(41:03):
went to school, helped this kid with his homework, then
I'll train you for free. And so that's how I
started my free program. My program is free, but it's
free because I had people. I'll train them as long
as you help this kid with their homework.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
And now at this point, it's ain't no organization. You
just med Yeah, just normal dude in the yard. Yeah decide. Now,
I'm gonna try to help these kids if they are interested.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Because people are still dying, people still can't read it. Right.
I'm looking at little mini versions of myself every day
as I'm walking on the bus that gets the bus
to work. I'm seeing it every day. I'm walking saying
that it's still nothing around here. And then when I
looked at this, I looked at this newspaper one time
and it said only thirty percent of the people in
this neighborhood graduate from high school. I say, well, what
(41:47):
happens to the other seventy percent of the people? What
happens to the other seventy percent? And then I'm looking
like you said about the most dangerous neighborhoods in America,
and I'm seeing my street as the most dangerous neighborhood
in America. And I'm seeing neighborhoods around me coming up
as number two and three and then skip. Then these
go to other places, then they come back. Number five
and six is still in Detroit. It's like, these are
(42:09):
the most dangerous streets in America. And I'm like, man,
we got to get these kids while they're young, before
they go down that path, before they get set in
their ways, before some adult puts some nonsense in their
head and creates a narrative for them. So no, we're
gonna stop it before this narrative is put in their
head and they started living out this this death wish,
and so we changed. We're gonna change that. That's why
(42:31):
I did what I needed to do.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Colie
Sweeney and you don't want to miss Part two that's
now available to listen to together. Guys, we can change
this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in
Part two
So I lost a car, So what. I lost an apartment,
so what? I lost friends who didn't get it. So what?
I lost family who didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
So what.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
I don't care about that. But to lose a life,
something so precious as a human life, to lose a
life somebody who could potentially be the next person to
invent something, the scientists, doctor lawyer, that who might have
a cure for cancer. One of our coaches told me
one time, he said, man, the most talented is in
a graveyard. And I looked at him. I was like, man,
(00:30):
how true that is. Some of your greatest discoveries are
in a graveyard. Some of the guys who may have
solved the the the mysteries of the universe are in
a graveyard or sitting behind bars somewhere. When I hear
people say, man's people could play basketball better than Michael
Jordan in prison, and I say, man, what a waste.
What are we really losing by losing a car, or
(00:51):
an apartment or a few pounds. I'm willing to make
that sacrifice to save a life.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney,
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach in
inner city Memphis. And the last part, somehow it led
to an oscar for the film about our team. That
movie is called Undefeated. Guys, I believe our country's problems
(01:21):
will never be solved by a bunch of fancy people
and nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses
on CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of
normal folks. That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey,
you know what, maybe I can help. That's what Kylie
Sweeney has done. As you just heard, he lost everything
(01:45):
except his integrity and his soul to try to save
the lives of Detroit kids from that humble start. Downtown
Boxing Gym has since served fifteen hundred kids and get this,
one hundred percent have graduated from high school in ninety
eight percent have gone on to post secondary education. I
(02:09):
cannot wait for you to meet Collie. Right after these
brief messages from our general sponsors.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Kylie Sweeney, man, welcome to Memphis.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you for having me you, Uh, Detroit, how'd you
get down here?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
Yeah? What did you did?
Speaker 1 (02:37):
You?
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Were you able to catch a direct flight?
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Direct flight Yeah. It was direct flight. It was it
was short, got here.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
Quick, good good. Did you get here last night?
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Yep?
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Did you go eat anywhere? Did Alex take you anywhere
to eat? Worth a crawd?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
No, we went. We went to a couple of good restaurants.
I actually have fun. The food was delicious, especially the
one we went to last night was barbecue.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
And then we had McK ewansy had barbecue and yeah
Central for lunch. Yeah, and then mckwens for dinner. What's
wrong with that?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Nothing wrong with that.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Both excellent spots if you asked me, I mean I
had both excellent.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
Well, and I've read that Kylie really likes the blues
and this is the home of it. Did you take
them to anywhere to listen to some blues?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
I mean I had.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Okay, you're a loser, no no more talking to the
prediction last night? Yeah yeah, because somebody did their research.
You are a blues guy. Well you know you're I mean,
you're only an hour and a half north of the
Crossroads bro Okay, Okay, So I mean there are people
selling their soul down there. No, not so, Kalie Sweeney
(03:44):
is uh downtown boxing Gym from Detroit now called DBG,
I believe. Correct, Yeah, y'all call it DBG, right, correct,
who's uh doing some amazing work and has a crazy
interesting story. And where you are now, does it really
have context without understanding where you came from? I know
(04:08):
it's six weeks old. Your parents gave you away to
a woman in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (04:14):
I'll start there and let you take it to maybe
adolescents and give us an insight into into fundamentally how
you came up and why that's your main to what
we're doing today.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
So, like you just said, my mother and father they
gave me away when I was young, when I was
a baby. They not only gave me away, they gave
my brother away too, because they were dealing with some
issues with with with narcotics, with drugs, and they.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Were dealing with the same lady by the way, or
do they not separated.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
My brother went, my brother went with my biological family,
and I went to the lady down the street. I
don't know how it happened, but that's how it happened.
That's how it worked out. And you know, you know
how you feel, you feel that you feel that abandonment,
you know what I mean, you feel let abandon me
wide me. And so I had a chip on my
shoulder and I went to school. You know, I just
(05:05):
always had this a little chip on my shoulder. And
then when I found out I couldn't read or write
in the third grade, because I realized that myself I
couldn't read or write third grade, I knew that I
couldn't read or write at all. I knew it, and
so I developed these little strategies to get kicked out
of class. I would start cracking jokes hoping that they'll
kick me out, and just like clockwork, they would either
kick me out. And the times that they didn't kick
(05:25):
me out, I would just punch somebody in the face.
I'm like, they're gonna kick me out regardless, I'm gonna
start a fight or whatever. And I would do that,
and in the third grade, nobody nobody asked me the
critical question, like you know, what is the problem, what's
going on? You know? Instead, I can remember my third
grade teacher. I can remember one of my third grade
teachers and the gym teacher. The gym teacher at that
they would let me and my friend out of class
(05:47):
and we would go down the street and pick up
they package. And they package would be some gin and
orange juice and two packs of cigarettes. And so we
would do that, and they passed us to the next grade,
and so we would be the guys who run to
the store and get their stars up and bring it
back to school. In third grade, third grade, I would
go down to the corner store and pick up their package.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
So two questions, that's a teacher, yes, doing that? Yes,
And then there's an adult at the corner store given
a third grader gin and smokes, come up with that?
Speaker 1 (06:18):
You tell me. I don't know, but that was how
invested they were in my into my future. At some
point in time, they gave up on me ever being
successful because all the other adults would always tell me,
you're gonna be dead or in jail before you twenty one.
What do you see yourself? You're not gonna be able
to work at a garbage You're not gonna be able
to be a garbage man, or you're not gonna be
able to work at a fast food restaurant. So what
(06:39):
is the other options for me? What are you telling
me at third grade? You're at third grade, fourth grade,
fifth grade, what are you telling me. You're not giving
me any other options. You're just telling me that I'm
gonna be dead or in jail before i'm twenty one,
and I'm not gonna be able to work as a
garbage man or a fast food restaurant. So you give
up on life, you give up on dreaming. I stopped
dreaming as a kid. I didn't think about the only
thing I used to think about is what it's gonna
be like when I get killed. Are they gonna really
(07:01):
remember me? They already gave me away. Who's gonna be hurt?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Do you really remember at a young age thinking about
what it's gonna be like when you get killed? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yeah, I remember that. I remember everything. I remember my
first day of school. I remember a guy shooting at me.
I remember all of that. I remember walking down the
railroad tracks, getting shot at and screaming and chasing the
person that was shooting at me because I thought this
person was the person I was supposed to look up to.
So I remember all these things.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I don't forget it when the guy you're supposed to
be looking up to as like a gym teacher, supposed
to be a mentor, and you're rolling to pick up
smokes and gim for him.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I mean at that age, at that impressiable age, were
you cognizant of how dysfunctional that was? Or do you
not think that was the world?
Speaker 1 (07:45):
No, not at all. I didn't. I didn't that that
didn't it didn't FaZe me. I didn't. I didn't think
about that at all. That that didn't make I couldn't
rationalize that. I didn't understand that I was a child.
I was still trying to find the words to ask
for help, and the way that I was asking for
help was to start a fight or crack jokes, you
know what I mean. I didn't have the language to
even ask for help from myself, to let alone know
(08:07):
that going to get cigarettes was wrong. I don't know that.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
A friend of mine has a nonprofit organization called Coaching
for Literacy. You may have seen it. Coaches football and
basketball coaches in the pro and college level where little
Green Ribbon lapel and they The whole idea is to
raise money and bring light to the fact that there's
(08:32):
a lot of kids in our community that can't read.
And the reason I'm bringing this up and I hadn't
even thought about this for right, now. But you said
third grade. And one of the demographics they talk about
all the time is that if a kid is not
reading and writing on grade level at third grade, he
(08:55):
is seventy two percent more likely to end up in
jail then need to have a job.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, I've heard third grade.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
I've heard that. I heard that. I heard that here
in America, and I've heard it in Germany. I was
in Germany. When I was in Germany, they were saying, like,
by the third grade, they already know where you're going
by your test scores. And they were saying that in Germany.
And I've been hearing that a lot my whole life,
about third grade test scores. But the thing about what
I'm saying is like there was no intervention. If this
(09:25):
knowledge about third grade, there should have been some intervention
at that stage, but it wasn't. I made it all
the way to the twelfth grade without being able to
read or write until one day.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
How does that work?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You just make it? You just keep going, You go
to class, or you don't go to class, or whatever,
somebody passed you. If your school is not going to
get what they need, if it's a fail in school, somehow,
you're going to slip through the cracks. I see it
right now today.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
And what you mean and what I learned at my
time at Manassas listen man Detroit, Memphis, Chicago, Charlotte, Birmingham, Montgomery, Albuquerque, Denver, LA.
Wherever you live and you're listening from Detroit, is the
conversation we have is only a microcosm what's happening all
(10:10):
over our country, and that is in inner city schools.
And do not equate that with black because in some
neighborhoods in West Virginia this happens with all white kids
in inner city schools. In some areas out west it's
heavily Hispanic. But in a lot of the inner city
(10:31):
there are kids that get advanced because they simply get
old enough or big enough. And the reason is the
school does not get their funding if they don't show
passing grades.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Speak it, well, you said it, but like I said.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
But I mean you lived it.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Oh yeah, you said it. So with that being said,
I don't want to ever come down really come down
on a school. It's because I know it's some teachers
there who really love their job. But at the end
of the day, if you have you don't have the resources.
You don't have the resources. I think some resources should
be poured into these school systems and pay these teachers
(11:15):
what they deserve, and pour some research resources into these schools,
and that way they can get things done. But a
school can't do what we do well we do in
our program. Well we do in our program. If we
have a kid, or we identify young person who is
behind grade level, we can go back and work with
that young person to get them above grade level. The
(11:35):
school system may necessarily can't do that. Like you just said,
I can't have a guy seventeen eighteen years old in
the fifth grade. He's not gonna he's not gonna blend
in the fifth grade. If he's seventeen eighteen years old,
he got hair on his face, he can't be in
the fifth grade our But in our program, we can
go back to the fifth grade and give him the
foundation that he needs to be successful in life.
Speaker 3 (11:55):
Our listeners are probably confused hearing downtown boxing gym in
your program. We'll get to that. Spoiler alert. We will
get to that. But there's more to unpack about you.
And there's another question. This is one of the squirrels
I'm chasing up a tree, go ahead, But I agree
with you. I've again, I've worked in their city. I've
been a teacher for a living. Most teachers do not
(12:18):
go into it because they think they're going to get rich. Yes,
most bright eyed college student getting out of school. Teachers
are really genuinely do it because they want to teach.
And depending on the district and the school and the
administration they get with determines their ability to be successful.
A lot and the district's need for money and the
(12:40):
top heavy administraight of stuff that goes on in a
lot of public districts take away from the kids, and
that is one of the biggest services of our culture.
But children need to be red bedtime stories. They need
to be sung lullabis. If you aren't, if you aren't
(13:02):
hearing language and being read to and seeing words and
associating pictures with words when you're in third, fourth and
fifth grade, I don't care what the school does, you
are behind. So when you say what you said about
the schools, saying I want to take up for some
of these teachers, I do too. But honestly I want
(13:23):
to hit some of these folks in the mouth that
are having kids and don't do nothing with them.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
So are you talking about the parents? Because I want
to be clear, because because you said.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Some of these folks no, no, no, no no, I'll be clear.
Speaker 1 (13:36):
No no, no no. Earlier you said these kids need to
be they need to read other kids. That's what you
said earlier. You made a MISSA made as I got you?
Speaker 3 (13:46):
When when when when children? The science and the research says,
when you read a bedtime story and children see pictures
and associating with words, when they're three, four and five
and they're hearing lullabys in the home and they see
books and reading in the home, they've got a shot.
But these kids who never see that in the home
(14:09):
are already against all. So I got to get to school.
Speaker 1 (14:11):
So I got you. So I got you. I wanted
to be clear about it before I answered. So here's
my answer. Right, I'm gonna show you. I'm gonna show
you in real time.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Me.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
I couldn't read or right at all. The guy who
adopted me, him and his wife. He came from Philadelphia, Mississippi,
picking cotton. He couldn't read or write. His father couldn't
read or write. My biological father couldn't read or write
my mother who just passed away from Mississippi. They came
(14:42):
up here from picking cotton. They came up here from sharecropping.
They came here from a school district that was far
different than the school districts that you see in the suburbs,
so they could barely read or write. Only thing they
did they came to Detroit. They when all of our
families came in Detroit, because most of the people that
you see in Detroit come from from the South. They
all sharecroppers and picking cotton. Them guys, that's down in
(15:03):
Detroit right there. They came down there to get those
jobs in the factories. My father worked at General Motors
for thirty three years. Could not read or write, and
only missed two days of work because he was in
a car accident. And by the time he left General
Motors at thirty three, he was sweeping a broom in there.
So no, he didn't read to me at home. He
(15:23):
heavily believed that the school system would take care of that.
And a lot of our parents who have to work
and struggle to pay rent and pay their bills, they
believe wholeheartedly that the school is the answer. But now
we're telling them that you need more than just the school.
You need after school programs, you need intervention, you need
other help youth. As the parent, you need to if
(15:46):
you have time, take some courses or get your kids
in some extra places for extracurricular activity, because that's what's
happening in every suburb across America. It's not just at school,
it's when they get home. They got other things to do.
And like you say, they see the parents with whole
multiple degrees. If you look at where I'm from a Detroit,
nobody holds a degree. These are first generation young people
that are going to school. This is something that happened
(16:08):
a long time ago. It's nothing new. At one point
in time, it was never illegal for you to learn
how to read and write. It was illegal at one
point in time for other people to learn how to
read and write. So that was passed on generation and
generation and generation. It was only fifty years ago. Sixty
years ago. That's not a long time. We're not talking
about four hundred, five hundred years. We're talking about sixty years,
fifty years, So that's the difference. So it's gonna it
(16:30):
is a gap. There's a gap that needs to be filled.
But it's gonna take time. It's not punching anybody in
the mouth. It's education, understanding and bringing people along for
the journey.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
That would mean that you weren't the only guy going
through your school system that was graduating.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Correct.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Same problem.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Correct. I've literally had guys that I went to school
with and I'm thinking, these guys are like I'm thinking
they're crushing it. I felt alone, I felt the shit,
not being able to read as a lonely place. I'm
gonna tell you that it's lonely as it is. The
loneliest place you order food even though you don't want it.
You just say, I'm gonna have what you have. And
and after I told my story publicly, I literally had
(17:14):
friends that I grew up with come out there wool work, like, man,
you know I couldn't read it write either. Man, I
never learned you know what? They just passed us. And
then certain things became a joke, like, man, you know
such and such they just passed. I'm like wow, And
I found out some of the young ladies, some of
the young people, it's like it was a disservice done
to our community, and it was done. I don't think intentionally.
I really don't think it was intentionally. I think it
(17:36):
was financing, and I believe it was overcrowding and people
slipped through the cracks. That's the only thing I hope.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I'm hoping for the best of humanity. That's what I'm
hoping for. And now a few messages from our gender sponsors.
But first, I hope you'll consider signing up to join
the army at normal Folks dot us. By signing up,
you'll receive a weekly email with short episodes some reason
in case you happen to miss an episode, or if
(18:03):
you prefer reading about our incredible guests, we'll.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
Be right back.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
You know, it's interesting for.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Alex. Alex isn't gonna like what I'm about to.
Speaker 1 (18:22):
Say, but I'm gonna say it anyway.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
We really try. I'm gonna preface this, an army of
Normal Folks does not care if you're black, right, Asian, Latino, gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, agnostic.
We don't care how you vote, how you love, how
you look, how you worship. If you're doing something for
(18:48):
people that aren't as fortunate as you in your neighborhood,
we can celebrate you, and we hope the same about
someone else from another place, and from that foundation may
be culturally we can convalesce around one really positive thing
and start seeing each other in a different light. Okay,
(19:10):
So set that up for our more conservative listeners who
often bristle when they hear some societal issue whose first
word is systematic, systematic racism, systematic poverty, systematic, this systematic
(19:37):
that you know, people want to believe in this amazing
country we have and the freedoms we have that if
you can just pull yourself up by your brute straps
and work hard, everything's going to be okay.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
But what you're.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Saying to me reeks of systematic issues. Because if the
school has to have money to exist, and they have
to continue to advance and promote kids grade by grade
regardless of their ability to be able to get that
money to exist, and they're under resourced and they don't
have help at home, whether it's a parent's fault or not,
(20:13):
the fact is they don't have help at home. That
is a generational, decades long system that continues to fail
our children.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
So what I'm gonna say is this changes need to
be made. I mean, everybody has to look at it.
As This is humanity we're talking about. We are we're
human beings. We're all in this together. This is one
thing that's going to affect everybody if we don't deal
(20:45):
with it, and we have to be equal. We have
to be fair with this thing. We have to be honest.
Everybody has to come to the table, sit down and
have dialogue and talk. We have to talk. Like you said,
it's not about politics, it's not about all the other
stuff that you said. It's about staying focused on them,
on what's most, which is our youth. Our youth is
the core to you know what I'm saying. Everybody loves
(21:06):
and respects and believe that our youth deserves it. So
if we truly believe that, we'll do what needs to
be done to make sure that the youth are successful
in this country. And that's all I can say about that.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
And part of that is changing the broken system. Is
finding a way to change the broken system, which ultimately
is what I think you do. But you'll get to
spoiler alert, we'll get there. But there's still more to
your story. One thing else I want to tell you,
I can't pass by it. I was at Manassas High
(21:40):
School seven years, NASA's high school is much like the
high school youth came from. I could give you a big,
old long list of demographics that would illustrate the poverty
and the disenfranchisement, the loss, and the neighborhoods that's around
Manassas where the goods come from. The one that is
most dark is And this goes back four years, so
(22:03):
it may have changed a little, but if at all,
it's probably gotten worse. An eighteen year old male from
the neighborhoods that surround Monassis, an eighteen year old male
is three times more likely to be dead or incarcerated
by his twenty first birthday than is to have a job.
(22:24):
Three times more likely. And I think it's interesting because
in third grade you were told you could be dead
or in jail, be for twenty one And it feels
to me like when I hear your story and I
know that demographic to be true in some degree, this
(22:46):
is a structural, self fulfilling prophecy for a lot of kids.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
So with me, when people were saying that to me
all the time, and when they would send me home,
and I'm seeing and the guys that I grew up
with and I'm seeing this and I'm seeing guys disappear,
and it's like, Okay, when is it gonna be my turn.
I'm seeing guys get killed, I'm seeing guys go to prison,
I'm seeing guys go to the juvenile system. I had
(23:12):
really just believed in that narrative, that narrative that was
created for me. I believed in it because the adults
kept saying it, and I was hearing so many people
say it. Even in the streets. People were saying, man,
you the way you're going, you're gonna be dead in
jail before you twenty one. And I kept hearing that narrative,
and so I bought into it wholeheartedly and I hit
the streets running for it. Yeah. So once I dropped
(23:33):
out of school in my twelfth grade year, I dropped
out of school. It's like, why am I even here
if I'm gonna be dead? Like I gotta live fast,
die young, And so I just started just like completely
committed myself to just being out here in the streets.
And when I did that, I seen so much different
destruction around me. It was my older brother who came
to me one day, and he came to me and
(23:55):
he was living the same lifestyle, living in the same thing.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
The only thing about him fast.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Yeah, but at the same time, he still was in
an area that had a recreation center and they had
some kind of They had lunch trucks that would come through.
They had bookmobiles and swim mobiles and things like that. Ye,
we didn't have that. No, we didn't have that. That couldn't
come in our neighborhood. That wouldn't even that couldn't even
have came in there. And so we didn't have playgrounds
or stuff like that. I can remember we used to
(24:21):
put crates up. We would not cut the bottom of
the crates out and put crates up as basketball rims
and stuff. I remember flooding our street to make our
street into ice for the kids to play. So we
you know, I've done. I had a friend of mine
called me from thirty years ago. He said, Man, I
was like, who is this. He like, I'm gonna tell you,
why are you putting those long nails in that thing?
I said, so it had never come down. I said,
(24:41):
how you doing, Keith? Because he asked me, he said,
why are you putting those long nails in that thing?
I said, because every time we make a basketball rim
in falls down. So I went and found some long
nails and put some long nails in there, so you know. So,
But anyway, my brother he came to my neighborhood and
he walked through a whole group of guys on my
front porch and he said, Bro, you do understand that
(25:02):
the rest of the world don't live like this, right?
I said, what do you mean? He say, Bro, do
you understand that the rest of the world does not
live like this? He said, five minutes in any direction
outside of the trait, in any one of the suburbs.
They don't live like this. He said, Man, all these
young guys around you, they dying young and going to
jail young. For real, Bro, there's no resources in your community.
(25:23):
There's nothing here. It's just kids dying. He said, Bro,
you understand that this is not real. And I remember
my answer like it was yesterday and my brother just
passed away. And I said to him, Man, go back
to where you from. This is my reality. Go back
to where you're from. Go back. And so he asked
me to come to his house. He said, Bro, can
you come to my house man help me move something.
(25:46):
So I went over there and He asked me to
move something, and I remember telling him, man, pick it up. Man,
what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Stop?
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Stop standing there, pick it up.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
Are we moving it or not?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
He's like, look at that picture, he said, that's the
picture that we took at your house when we were
going Pontiac skating with my friends and your friends. He said,
let me point out your friends. He's dead. He's dead.
He's dead. He's dead. Michigan most wanted, he trait most wanted.
This guy's on America's most wanted Bro, don't be the
next guy on this picture. What do you want to
do with your life? What do you see yourself? What
(26:17):
do you want to do? And this is my brother
had no better life than me, besides the bookmobile and
all that type of stuff, But he saw something that
the adults didn't say. He asked me something that no
adult had ever asked me. What do I want to
do with my wife? And my brother asked me that.
And the only thing I could think of was learn
how to read, because that's the only thing I was
scared of was I wasn't scared of federal indictments. I
(26:38):
wasn't scared to die already. I had already succumbed to that.
I already believed that it was gonna happen. I didn't dream.
I just was saying, but it's gonna be like when
I get shot. So when I got shot the first time,
I thought nothing of it. It's like I didn't hurt
like they said it was gonna hurt. Didn't feel like it.
You know what I'm saying. I'm still alive, you know
what I'm saying. So he changed my life. He asked
me that question, and I went home and said, only
thing that made me scared was a book. That's the
(27:00):
only thing I was scared of was a book. So
I decided to change my life that day.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
You said, you said something quickly that about ten minutes
ago that I found really interesting. You said when I
went out to eat or something, I couldn't even ren
him menu, and I'd just say, man, I'm man, what
you having?
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah? Yeah, that was my goats of them.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Well, let me tell you something that coaching for literacy
the whole reason. My friend that started it with his
son played basketball for the University of Memphis back in
the day when will In Bedford and Keith Lee and
Memphis Tigers were really good. Back in those days. He
was a shooting guard. And so when he got older,
(27:44):
he started coaching AAU basketball and his son was on
the team, and they would go off to Birmingham and
New Orleans to play in AAU tournaments and one of
his players, one of their best players, guy named Big Frank.
Anytime they went to eat lunch or dinner at Applebee's
or whatever, he would just always order what my friend's
(28:05):
son would order. And finally they figured out the reason
he did that is he could not read them, inn't
you And for you to have said what you just
said and connect that dot. By the way, Big Frank
got educated, got able to read, and went and got
a degree from LSU playing football and is doing great now.
So I can drop Big Frank's name and all that,
(28:26):
But the point is that was the first time I'd
ever heard that story. And then you just said the
same thing, which tells me maybe that's not that uncommon.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
It's not. I mean, I had a guy that I
grew up with. He's like, which one of these is
my prescriptions? And I was like, this is the prescription.
This was whatever you have in your hand right there.
He's like, now, which one and I was like, what
are you talking about. He's like, man, I can't read.
And I was like, man, it's like everybody. And he's
a little bit younger than me. It's like, man, like
everybody that came up in that school. It's like so
(28:57):
many people with the same story. And like you self conscious,
Oh yeah yeah still to this day. I can read.
I can I can read. I can read now, but
I'm self conscious. If you put something in front of me,
it's like I turned back into that same young person.
I freeze up because you.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Know that's PTSD, right, that's trauma.
Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, I say, that's something I need to get over.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
It may be that's something I changed.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
What it is, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna use
it as a crutch.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Not me.
Speaker 3 (29:24):
Man, my for daddy shot at me down the hallway,
all right. I can hear the crack of a gun
and I go right back to that night. It just
is what it is.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
And that's why I don't go to the gun range.
You know, I bet I've been I've been shot. If
you be like, let's go to the gun range, I'm like,
you haven't been shot yet. You haven't been shot yet.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I haven't been shot, but I've been shot at and
I understand the fear.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah, I was. I was in I was in a
situation where I was kicked out of schools in Detroit.
I was kicked out of schools on the East side
of Detroit, probably even some of the West side schools.
And I was in a house with some people, and
long story sort there was a misunderstanding and somebody who
was supposed to be real close to the family shot
(30:06):
at me and it hit the wall and stuff hit
me on the side of my face, and I was like,
I wasn't really phased. But I was thinking back now,
like at thirteen, I should have been terrified of that,
and it didn't really phase me.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah, for a thirteen year old, do not be phased
by that. That that is actually normal and just part
of life for a thirteen year old. Yeah, maybe that
says everything anybody needs to hear right there. Yeah, yeah,
we'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
So yeah, so I changed my life. I went back
to school. I remember being in. I went to get
a GED I gave it. I paid the school of
forty dollars for the GED thing, and as I was
taking the GED course, the guy came up to me
and said, hey, you can't take the GED the thing,
and I was like, man, what are you talking about.
I was highly upset and offended. He said, you seem intelligent,
you're very smart, well spoken, but you can't read. And
(31:11):
I was like what, I paid my money like everybody else.
And so he said, no, you need to go take
a real class, start from the beginning, because you're very intelligent.
And so I did that. I said, if I can
dedicate my life to being out here in the streets
and being a knuckle ahead one hundred percent, I can
dedicate myself myself to rebirth and doing something positive with
my life. And so I went and started over again
at school and didn't get the GED, but you know,
(31:32):
I started over and I got the fundamentals of going
back from the kindergarten.
Speaker 3 (31:36):
Basically, you said something really profound. You said, people on
the streets will be your family if you don't have one.
But that comes to the cost. Oh yeah, oh yeah,
you can with the perspective behind that quote.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So so you know, there's a lot of when people
are all in the same situation, people get comfortable and
they're all in the same situation, people get comfortable, and
sometimes you commit yourself to the to the wrong cause,
(32:09):
and and there's there's nobody there to re focus that,
there's no guidance. It's the blind leading the blind. And
so that's what I meant by that when I was
talking about that being in the in in these these
quote unquote situations with gangs, cause I was I was
a former gang member, and being in a gang and
the gang whole culture is about being a family. But
this family comes with a cost because there's nobody actually
(32:31):
leading us in the right direction, a positive change. It's
just you're in a gang and it's just, you know,
it's us against everybody, not knowing that we all are
part of one community. So if you if you, if
you're a part of a gang with no positive goal,
you're gonna go down the wrong track. And that's the
price you'll pay, and it could be your life and
it could be your freedom.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
So you know what, I'm supposed to just move on,
but I can't. I mean, I just think that's I
think we know it. The problem is we see so
much crap on TVs and movies and then the news
that I do think we get desensitized to the dysfunction
(33:14):
and trauma that so many kids in our communities and
our culture are living under. People in the streets will
be your family. First of all, somebody between the age
of one and eighteen ain't supposed to be need them.
Family's supposed to have one. Just the mere fact that
they're looking for a family says a lot that we
(33:38):
need to fix. But then the fact that just to
be part of something that you can at least belong to,
i e. This street, family, gangs, whatever. Yeah, but it
comes at a cost. A family's supposed to be where
you get unconditional love, and that unconditional love is what
(34:01):
propels you to be able to be a productive member
of society. What you say is so poignant, it comes
at a cost. And my version of that is that's
conditional love, and conditional love will always end up hurting you.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
I agree with that. I totally agree with that, because
I've seen it happen. I've seen, you know, I've seen
situations where you know, people expect you to move a
certain way and when you don't move that way, now
everybody's upset.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
With you, you know, and you pay for that, Yeah,
you pay for that.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
So you tell you tell it like if you tell
a guy like, you know what, I don't. I don't
agree with that. I don't believe in that. I don't
think that's something that we should do. I don't feel
like that, you know, that's the way that we should go.
And you'll, you'll, you know, you'll get some heavy pushback,
you might get beat up, you might get ostracized, you
might get black ball, you might be told to lead
a neighborhood whatever. Anything could happen. And so with that
(34:58):
being said, it goes back to having something positive for
young people to do. You have to have something for
people to do, because if you don't, things will grow.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
The last thing on this before we move on. You know,
all these people that are gonna ride or die with
you, your brothers, those folks that got you. You know, it's interesting,
where are they when you die? Where are they when
you in jail?
Speaker 1 (35:29):
I don't know. I mean, that's that's a lot of things.
That's a lot of that's a lot of things. You
can say, that's your bowling team, that could be your
little league team, that could be your basketball team, that
could be a lot of stuff. You know, I always
tell that's fair, that's a lot of things. I mean,
that's your chess club, that's your club.
Speaker 3 (35:45):
That's a fair perspective that people move on. People move
on with life.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
That's anywhere you look, anywhere you cut it, people will
move on with life.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
But ain't nobody on your bowling team talking about bowl
or die. They ain't saying we're gonna ride or die here.
Speaker 1 (35:58):
So hold on, hold on, hold on, take that back.
Let's take that back.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
Now.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
I work security for a long time, and I did
security for a few events, and I actually did security
for a balling event and I literally seen bowling teams
of suburban nights going crazy, fighting each other, so much
so that the police department had to come in and
they were police were getting swung off. These guys were
punching police officers. I'm talking punching police officers where they
(36:24):
were begging us as security to help them.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
You gotta understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
No, I don't.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
You don't understand not not this conditional pay for it,
belonging family, love, So listen comes at a cost, and
when you're paying that price, rarely are those people in
your corner.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
So no, I want to say this one thing, so
that could be baseball you got. You just look, turn
on the baseball game. You see them run out to
the mound. Everybody's running out there. You can watch the hockey,
everybody's running out there. So that that right there, you
know you're gonna ride with the people that you work
out with every day. You're gonna look at those people,
view those people as family. If somebody coming to your
house right now and grab somebody in your house is
(37:04):
going down, I guarantee you're going to give them everything
you got. So it's the same in the neighborhood. You
grow up with these guys, You go to the same
places of worship with these guys. You you you, you
you went through four, third, second grade with these guys.
So when you it's like, it's not like the guys
in the neighborhood are not familiar with one another. Some
of these guys are family members, are related to each other,
you know, from going way back to even before they
(37:26):
even came to Detrait. So no, it's not that, you
know what I mean, You're gonna ride with them because
they're from the same neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
I guess I get that.
Speaker 1 (37:35):
But where the line is drawn at what I'm speaking
of where the line is drawn at when they say
let's do something illegal and you say, hey, I'm not
doing that, and if you say no, then some people
don't understand that. And that's where the line is when
somebody said let's do something illegal, Just like with those bowlers,
when those guys wanted to fight those other balling league.
(37:57):
That was they were fighting. But when the police came,
that's when it got out of control. When they started
beating up police officers, they crossed the line. And that's
when guys should have walked away from that.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
Alex. I bet you never thought in a million years
in the middle of this interview we would talk about
a fight and a bowling out. This is how it goes.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Anything can happen with your two knuckles.
Speaker 3 (38:19):
Oh my gosh, I want to start a bowling team
that says ride or down the back of my jersey
or whatever. They got it all right. So that's a
lot of perspective of where you come from. And I
gotta be honest with you, the whole baseball bowling thing
has me rethinking some stuff I thought I had right
in my mind. And I love that, dude. I mean,
(38:44):
I really do appreciate that and I hope our listeners
are thinking about what you're saying, because if you want
to be real about it, that's true. That is true,
all right. So that's the perspective of where you came from.
And now you took these classes to read, but now
(39:04):
you just a guy can read.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
So what next?
Speaker 1 (39:10):
So I made myself a promise, and a lot of
people who know me know that if I say there's
something that I'm going to do, is something I'm gonna do.
And I said, well, if I dedicated myself to the
streets and dedicated myself to this this concept that somebody created,
this narrative that they created for me, I said, let
me reinvent myself and create and and dedicate myself to
the new invention of myself. And so I said, I'm
(39:33):
going to get a job. I'm never going to do
anything else, and then I'm gonna make it about uplifting
everybody in our community. And so I would catch the
bus to work and go to work every single day.
All the while I would try and talk to everybody
about changing their life and changing course. And I noticed
that it was falling on deaf ears because they had
already been too old, and it had already set in,
(39:53):
and they had already got set in their ways. And
so I was like, man, it's falling on deaf ears.
Nobody hearing me. And it's like it's like people who
or to church, they want to spread the gospel. I
wanted to tell everybody about this new freedom I found
and reading and this new joy I found and doing
things without looking over my shoulder, you know. I wanted
to spread that to everybody, and it was falling on
deaf ears because people were still dealing with their own
(40:14):
situations in life themselves. They hadn't got to that turning
point themselves. They hadn't had a brother like me that
came and told me to look at the world and
see what it really is. And so I was trying
to do that and it was just falling on deaf ears.
Then I said, every time I'm out in the yard
shadow boxing and and and punching at the air and
working out, I noticed the young people pay attention. I said,
(40:38):
that's it, right.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
You mean in the neighborhood, the kids I can box too.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Man, Like, can you fight da da Da? And I say, oh,
I got them. I said, this is how I'm gonna
get them I started saying, Okay, I'm gonna use this
as an icebreaker to the bigger conversations. If you want
me to teach you how to box, I'll teach you
how to box, but you first got to do your
homework first, and you got to do your homework. And
all the guys that was like interested in me when
I exercising and working out, I say, listen, you you
(41:03):
went to school, helped this kid with his homework, then
I'll train you for free. And so that's how I
started my free program. My program is free, but it's
free because I had people. I'll train them as long
as you help this kid with their homework.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
And now at this point, it's ain't no organization. You
just med Yeah, just normal dude in the yard. Yeah decide. Now,
I'm gonna try to help these kids if they are interested.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Because people are still dying, people still can't read it. Right.
I'm looking at little mini versions of myself every day
as I'm walking on the bus that gets the bus
to work. I'm seeing it every day. I'm walking saying
that it's still nothing around here. And then when I
looked at this, I looked at this newspaper one time
and it said only thirty percent of the people in
this neighborhood graduate from high school. I say, well, what
(41:47):
happens to the other seventy percent of the people? What
happens to the other seventy percent? And then I'm looking
like you said about the most dangerous neighborhoods in America,
and I'm seeing my street as the most dangerous neighborhood
in America. And I'm seeing neighborhoods around me coming up
as number two and three and then skip. Then these
go to other places, then they come back. Number five
and six is still in Detroit. It's like, these are
(42:09):
the most dangerous streets in America. And I'm like, man,
we got to get these kids while they're young, before
they go down that path, before they get set in
their ways, before some adult puts some nonsense in their
head and creates a narrative for them. So no, we're
gonna stop it before this narrative is put in their
head and they started living out this this death wish,
and so we changed. We're gonna change that. That's why
(42:31):
I did what I needed to do.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Colie
Sweeney and you don't want to miss Part two that's
now available to listen to together. Guys, we can change
this country, but it starts with you. I'll see in
Part two
Host
Bill Courtney
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