When Will This Dumspter Fire End?

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know, one of the most chilling parts of this
report is like the focus on misinformation and censorship, digital censorship, misinformation,
how they undermine democracy. The more conservative these channels get,
will they start to suppress progressive voices, progressive accounts.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
You have to have like judgment enough to say, let
me look up whether this is true or not, and
a lot of people don't.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Let's be real.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
And I always I find it funny because like, these
are the same people growing up who are like, don't
believe everything you see.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
We'll be on the internet distressed and stuff.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
And I'm like, and they're the same ones now who
are just yeah, everything's real and it's hey.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Be a fam Welcome to brown Ambition. I'm your host,
Mandy Money. I am joined in the stew, the virtual stew,
with my beloveds Chris Browning of Popcorn Finance and jan
Nelly s Finale aka must be Helpful. Hey, guys, Hey,
how's your summer's going. It's hot. It's hot.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
It is I feel like I've been traveling NonStop, but
everywhere I go there's either rainstorms, flooding, or heat wave.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
And you're really getting a toward day, towards a climate
change is what it feels like. I mean, you know,
I'm scared.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
It's what. I won't talk about the weather over here
because it's none of those things. So I'm much.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
I was gonna call it earlier today with someone in
Cali and they were like, it's great today, y'all. Ugh,
And I was like, I don't need to hear any
complaints right unless you got like forest fires. No, no complaints.

Speaker 4 (01:35):
Place, no good place because it may or may not
be sixty one degrees right now over here.

Speaker 1 (01:40):
Oh, you're perfect climate.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
It really is.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
That's the worst of it. I'll take it. I'll take
it well. I just got a text actually from my
brother breaking news. Have y'all heard? You know, what's the
older brother from the Cosby Show? The actor what's his name? Malcolm? Yeah?
Malcolm Yeah? Passed away?

Speaker 4 (02:07):
What really?

Speaker 5 (02:08):
Goodness of what causes what happened?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
I don't know. My brother just texted that he passed away.
He played Theo Huxtable on The Cosby's. I don't think
we've had I remind me if I'm wrong. I don't
think anyone prominent from the Cosby Show has passed away.

Speaker 5 (02:24):
No, he's fifty four years old.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Y'all.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
He was, Oh, my goodness, he's so young.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
What's so young?

Speaker 3 (02:31):
I was just talking to a friend about one of
my favorite shows, like I gess, like late nineties was
Malcolm and Eddie where it was him and uh, what's
that Eddie was? It was last name, Eddie griff was good,
the last name, but the comedian. They had a show together.
It was like, said kind of the two of them,
they lived together, and I was like, I love that show,
but no one really ever watched it.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Oh no, y'all.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
He died of an apparent accident till drowning.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
No. Oh, that breaks my heart. You know.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Ever since I was a little girl, I always used
to be like pushing, push, pushing that people need to
learn how to swim, swim, swim because I went to
a middle school called Philippa Skuyler Middle School, which was
I s thirty three.

Speaker 5 (03:06):
Shoutout to everybody who went to Skyler in Bushwick. It
wasn't named you know.

Speaker 2 (03:11):
It was named after a woman named Philippa Skuyler who
Keys Alicia Keys was supposed.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
To play her in a film.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
But the thing about her, she was a child prodigy,
an exceptional pianist like by the age of three years old,
she was composing music playing piano, This black woman who
nobody almost pretty much nobody really knows her name, And
when you look up her story, the most tragic thing
she died when she was trying to save children who
were in the water and she couldn't swim, but she
was going out trying to save then she ended up drowning.

(03:40):
And I was probably like eleven years old in middle
school when they taught us the story of Philippa Skyler,
and ever since then it stuck with me, like, yo,
if she just knew how to swim, she would still
be a liight or not today, but she would probably
maybe still her legend would.

Speaker 5 (03:51):
Be one of like living to old age.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
And being able to tell the story of being a prodigy.
Like that is just so heartbreaking. The fact that he
died of an accidental drowning. I don't know dak details,
but I just looked it up real quick and it
says that apparently over the weekend he had a tragic,
unexpected accident where he drowned, just like.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
No, actually, some people drown who do know how to swim.
It depends on like the currents. Do you remember the
oh that beautiful girl from Glee, what was her name,
you know, and she was like, oh, that's the most
heartbreaking drowning. I mean, obviously her condolence is the Malcolm story,
Malcolm's family. Yeah, she was. She was in the middle
of a lake and you wouldn't think a lake would

(04:29):
have crazy currents right now, you're rivera, No, that's her name,
thank you. That was terrible. I remember when that happened,
and like she could swim and she was able to
swim and save her son, but the currents were so
strong from the wind, I guess. Yeah. So, but whatever
the circumstances, that is absolutely tragic, vacation with his family, terrible, iconic.

(04:52):
The COSMU show is everything. And I know that Bill
tried to do what he could to smear the legacy
of that show and almost, excuse me, succeeded. But we
still have so many greats that have come from that show,
and he was one of them. And that's really right.

Speaker 5 (05:08):
And all the kid actors on that show, like, we're phenomenal,
every single one.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
They were, oh incredible. It gave us Lisa Bonnet, they
gave us Felicia Rashad, they gave us raven some mound.
Did y'all grow up watching The Cosby Show? Yes, oh yeah, yeah,
of course.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
For sure that and uh what was it spen off?
A different world?

Speaker 1 (05:32):
M h, a different se before. But now the kids
have we have streaming apps, we have like we had DVR,
which eventually came to be. But if you were not
sad for those shows, you would like miss it. And
so sure, I don't know what my childhood schedule was,
but A Different World was not. I couldn't watch it
as much. I would love to watch that now as
an adult, though, I think you can on Netflix. Yeah,

(05:54):
it's on Netflix myself.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
What's that, oh, Sidia, it has to be streaming somewhere, because
I'm pretty sure I watched it like reruns, like during
the day, like you know, like in the summer vacation.
That's when I watched a different word a lot, like
it was a Cosby Show or a different world, like
sometimes randomly in the morning that it would come on
on some channel, you know, you know, back of the day.

Speaker 4 (06:10):
You don't know what y'all know what I was watching.
I just turned the TV on and something what's happening?

Speaker 2 (06:14):
I was the one who was up late my mom
and dad would go to sleep, and I would stay
up late watching Livy Single like I was watching The
Cosby Show.

Speaker 5 (06:23):
A different world. I watched all the late night.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Shows, or at least nick at night. They would play them,
and I would just literally stay up till two in
the morning. My mom would think I was sleeping because
she was pray Hullo Rosary and go to sleep, and
I would get out the bed.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
And go Wader, How did you hide the sound?

Speaker 2 (06:38):
No, because their room was like two or three rooms
away from the living room, so I would just put
it on low volume.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
They wouldn't even know.

Speaker 3 (06:44):
That's how you do. That's how I watched all of
the Jeffersons was naked night late at night. Just you
just gotta close the door a little bit and hope
nobody watched my nose.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
You're awake. That's right.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
Well, that's so sad. Condolence sister, his family. I don't
know if he had kids or anything like that, but
I'm sure I'm sure that the cast will be issuing statements.
He was in a show with Tracy Ellis Ross too.

Speaker 4 (07:09):
That's right.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
I forgot about that show. You were thinking of Eddie Griffin.

Speaker 4 (07:13):
There we go.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, that's right, Malcolm and Eddie. That was ninety six
to two thousand. Oh man, Well, what else has been
going on in the world? I wanted? I was like, well,
that was kind of I mean, that's very sad news.
Do I have to jump directly into more sad news?
I mean, let's just keep the let's just keep it going.

(07:36):
I have to talk about y'all know, the National Urban League,
iconic organization right has been you know, for decades now
working to advance equality for us, and they issued this
report called the State of Black America, which just came
out this past week. I was on the embargo list

(08:00):
because I guess they're partnering with NABJ and I don't
know how so I hadn't I had an advanced copy
of it. And the first thing I see when I
have y'all seen have you opened the link that I
put in the show notes.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
I didn't get to read it thoroughly, but it looks
like it's very detailed.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Just just open just open the front, open the door.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
Everything with fire. Everything's on fire.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
That's great, literally a dumpster fire. Literally. They were like, hmm,
what could be the right image to straight to accurately
represent How about? And I can just imagine the zoom
call they were on and someone's like, I have an idea, please,

(08:40):
A flaming hot pile of garbage. No, but literally a
garbage can on fire. What have we got in this
garbage can? We got the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act,
we got freedom of speech, we got the FDA, we
got the us Aid Organization Title nine, which stops racism
and discrimination in schools. We got at the USDA, FEMA

(09:03):
Title X funding snap benefits. I mean, you know, I
bet they were adding things to this up until the
last second.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
Right, Yeah, because you just never know what's gonna pop
up next, Right.

Speaker 5 (09:14):
There's so much to choose for put it all in there.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
The sad thing is this is not even exaggeration. They
probably had to leave some stuff out. They can't fut
anything else in our dumpster fire, you guys, we have to.
We got to stop it somewhere. But just some of
the I did want to read some of the main
points and bea family can put this in those show notes.
It's hard because when you're living it, it feels like,

(09:39):
why do we want to belabor these points? And just
like re traumatize ourselves to what's going on. But the
first thing I thought about when I saw this wasn't necessarily, oh,
this is really depressing. I don't want to read this
as sucks. We already know what's happening. It's more like
this is a document that can supplement our kids' education
in the future. Like this is history. This is like

(10:00):
a history book. It's a snapshot of what's going on
in Black America right now. And for that, I feel
like it's really important that we do have some sort
of like we have a historical documentation of what has
been happening and the context of everything, the order of things,
from the far right media to legalizing our justice system

(10:22):
against pretty much every constitutional right that's meant to protect us,
the policy rollbacks, the DEI rollbacks. I'm sure there's stuff
in here about police brutality as well. You know, it's
an important document.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Now.

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Is it light bedtime reading? Probably? No.

Speaker 4 (10:38):
I would definitely not read this before from going to bed.
I was supposed to.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Speak at the Urban League this summer. Oops, I messed up.

Speaker 4 (10:48):
I was to what happened.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
It was a virtual It was a virtual thing, like
it was gonna it's a virtual conference. I think it's
happening this week, which is why they brought out them.
They issued this report in tandem with that or last week. Yeah,
so National Urban League. They had invited me to do
a talk something personal finance related months ago, and I
was supposed to submit like a video. I was supposed
to record my session and then submit it and I

(11:11):
just plum, I just plumb forgot. And then it wasn't
until Melissa Millennial what it was not Broken Millennial in debt,
thank you. It wasn't until she had posted on LinkedIn.
I was like, oh damn, I'm not supposed to be there.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
I think I was supposed to do that too, and it.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Was a paid gig too. But it was fine because
they also kind of forgot, and I kind of forgot.
It's the best one that happens. But I'll see them
next year, I guess.

Speaker 4 (11:40):
I mean they at least said you this too.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
Yeah. Maybe that's why I was on the press list
for this. So if you want to read that whole
beautiful thing, beautiful document, it would not be using a
Trump term. We can't use the word beautiful any Jesus.
I cannot.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Well, my question for you then man is like someone
who like, you know, journalism is your background, and I
mean it's tough reading anything right now. It's tough being
present and aware and you know, up to date. How
how do you handle your own mental health when you
know stuff feels rough.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Like this, I garden, I go to the Gaunton Darling,
I escape. You know what I think the biggest it's
so it's it's really hard to say this with a
straight face because obviously it is incredibly difficult and challenging
and the hardest work you'll ever do in your life.
But having kids is sort of a cheat code if

(12:38):
you enjoy it, because if you like, if you enjoy it,
having kids is honestly the biggest cheat code for like
as a coping mechanism, as a like a as an exercise,
and staying present and not giving in to waves of
anxiety because like the definition of anxiety is being out
of the present moment. It's about thinking about what's to

(12:59):
come and the what if send, the you know, preparing,
And there's healthy levels of anxiety and then there's the
excruciating levels, which I am prone to, as so many
women are, especially women of color. But having kids that
just at the end of the day, they cannot Like
if I let them go loose in my house while
I'm doom scrolling, my house will be destroyed. Everyone will

(13:20):
be screaming at each other. I got to get them
at the house. I got to go take them to
the pool. And while I'm at the pool, which is
what I did yesterday, I can't have my phone on me.
I can't be looking you have like you literally have
to be present or else they will find a way
to kill themselves like it is just a fact or
mortally injure themselves or someone else. So yeah, I mean

(13:42):
so in a way, that's one way. And also just
like contextualizing things from the eyes of you know what
this means for my kids. So like the way I
did it was thinking about how maybe I can save
this to supplement their future education. Who the hell knows
what kind of textbooks are going to be reading when
they get to be school aged, like you know, middle
school and high school age, when they start to really

(14:03):
dive into history. So that that helps. And just knowing that,
I I think that there is some there. There's a
lot to argue for just sticking your head under a
pillow and just sleeping all day and like you know,
checking out and falling into a depression because there's just
a lot to be depressed about. Let's just be honest,

(14:24):
I just don't have that option. Like I can be depressed,
but I have to be functionally depressed, and to a
certain extent, forcing myself out the house even if I
am really depressed, because I do still have periods of depression,
but getting outside and engaging with society is something I
have to do as a mother, and it helps. I'm

(14:46):
not gonna lie.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
You know what that that's a good point because it
is those moments where I step outside and you see
other people or.

Speaker 4 (14:52):
You're like okay, all right, kind of kind of ground
you a little bit.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
That you're like, okay, it's uh, it's things aren't going great,
but at least you know, it's not as bad as
like your mind could kind of catastrophize it, like it
feels like everything is just burnt to the ground, and
sometimes to kind of snap yourself out of it. Stepping
outside does help, even if it feels so cliche to say,
oh what, you go outside, but it kind of does
help a little bit.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
It has to. I mean, like you have to. You
have to. But that's the hardest part. It's like when
you're in that state, when you are just so I mean,
do y'all deal with depression at all or have you
had depression in your lives?

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I'm not gonna lie. I have not had a ton
of issues with depression. And I wonder if that's because
of constantly being surrounded by people like you know how
you talk about Mandy, how you don't really have a choice.
You have to be You do have to be functional,
whether you want to or not. Like I'm one of
nine siblings, so it was if it wasn't one of
my siblings, if it wasn't my mom or my dad,
it was always constantly others around me, meeting me right

(15:50):
to be present. And I feel like that just that
is like my mind. In my mind, the vision that
I have of myself is like the energizer bunny, Like
I have no choice.

Speaker 5 (15:58):
To just keep going and going and going and going.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
If it's not personal family stuff, it's work. If it's
not work, it's my own person. It's my business, or
my relationship or my friends or my nieces will text me.
And I just constantly feel like I'm in go go
go mode, and then when I do get a chance
to pause and reflect and take a break if anything,
I just I'm like, I need to take a nap,
Like I just need to rest. So it's just the
cycle of like like literally dentergizing money.

Speaker 5 (16:22):
Go go, go, go go.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Oh that's wonderful. Yeah, I mean I maybe there is
something to that. It sounds right, I mean having good
healthy family dynamics or at least you know so. And
I know there's no all perfect family, but still.

Speaker 2 (16:36):
Right absolutely not to say there's no chaos, no drama,
no toxicity, just in terms of me dealing with it internally,
not a lot of depression on my part.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, blessed.

Speaker 3 (16:49):
I would say I've never, like like not clinically you know,
diagnosed with depression. But I know I've definitely dealt with
anxiety for most of my life, and then I've definitely
appeared in time when I was like, I don't know
if I'm depressed. This kind of feels like it it
can be hard to snap yourself out of it.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
I think it's been a year since I was in
LA and I think at that time, weren't you just
kind of coming out of a like a, well, no,
you had like done your fitness journey and stuff by that.
I don't know, but it felt.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
Like it was at the start of it kind of
like breaking out of it.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
Like I got like really down and kind of like
especially I think it is that that isolation like you
were talking about, like I was, you know, living by
myself at that point, and you know you kind of
like I was started therapy already and I was kind
of I think that sometimes it's that there's that period
of time where you're in therapy and you got to
like really dig it into some stuff you don't want
to talk about, and then you really had to face
a lot of parts of yourself. And I think that's
where I was like really like, oh god, you know,

(17:39):
how's this going. You know, I don't want to I
don't really want to go do things. I didn't really
want to hang out that much. I was just like,
you know, just you just kinda stay inside way too much.
And I was in that phase kind of breaking out,
and then I hang out with you many like that helped.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
Like we went outside. I had to go on a
hike with you and almost fall off the side of
a cliff.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
And wow, I made you get up so early? Oh
my god, did I save you? Was it me? Was
the idea?

Speaker 4 (17:59):
I'm not giving you that credit. I would not give it.

Speaker 5 (18:04):
Who needs antidepressives and you got Maddy as a friend.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
No. But that was perfect for me too, because I
was just coming out of postpartum, like I had been
a year, and that was my first trip by myself
to have my whole brain to myself. I was so
excited to just like I was giddy to be out
there and like be communicating with people and you know,
working on my book and all that. So oh, I
love that for us because it was I feel like

(18:28):
maybe we were on like kind of the same wavelength
of you know, do we want to go do this hike?

Speaker 4 (18:32):
No?

Speaker 1 (18:33):
But then once you're doing it, at least for me,
I was like, let's do more, let's go further. Then
I saw how much you sweat, and I was like, no, abort,
this is disgusting. I don't want to see no mo this.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Oh No, it was hot. You know, she takes us
on this hike. It is out, there's any shade, You're
just in the sun, just getting ruin.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
No my fault, California ain't got no shade.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
It was so hot that day, it had to be
pushing ninety ish and I don't even know what it was,
but it was way too but it was, you know,
even despite it almost have a heat stroke.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
It was it was nice to get out.

Speaker 5 (19:03):
It was worth it. Besides that it was worth it was.

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Why are we talking? Oh, yeah, just depression in general. No,
but I think I think for me, the cycles of depression.
What's great about my journey, you know, to understanding myself
is things do tend to go on a cycle, and
so I can recognize when we're going down, and then
it actually makes it easier to cope with because I

(19:27):
know that what goes down must come up. And then
I just kind of almost you lean into the downward
slide a bit. And by leaning into it and just
be honest about it, then people are you know, ones
who I've opened up to, like my husband and my neighbors,
my family, They can one give me space to just
like be a grumpy monkey. Amazing book. If you're a parent,

(19:51):
you need to read a book to your kids about
being depressed and just leaving people to feel their feelings.
I can just kind of be a grumpy monkey and
then just know that it will pass and feelings change
and you know all that, and it's it's helpful in
that way. You know. One of the most chilling parts
of this report is like the focus on misinformation and censorship,

(20:15):
digital censorship, misinformation, how they undermine democracy, the surge and
right wing extremist language. You know, Trump has his own
social media platform. Now, who knows what the hell he gets.
I mean, some people are over there apparently, because I
saw a headline about how he used an AI generated
clip of Obama being taken away in handcuffs and just

(20:38):
posted that on his his his true social account. And
the more conservative our social media platforms get, y'all saw
all those tech executives social media saw Zuckerberg, you know, now,
we got Elan, we got Musk, you know, overseeing Twitter now.
So the more conservative these channels get, will they start

(21:00):
to suppress progressive voices progressive accounts? And I mean shit,
I was on YouTube earlier and it was the most
convincing AI. I almost believed for a second that Oprah
Winfrey was sch was like a shilling for Himalayan pink salt.
She was like, hey, guys, like you heard about the

(21:21):
Himalayan pink salt diet. I'm like, what is this? I
was like, wait a second. I had to look so carefully.
It was honestly, it looks so real that I just
if I hadn't already intellectually known that this has been
happening to celebrities, including like Gail King her friend, and
I was like, this can't be right. But it's so

(21:41):
hard to trust everything.

Speaker 2 (21:43):
I know. You have to have like judgment enough to say,
let me look up whether this is true or not.
And a lot of people don't. Let's be real.

Speaker 3 (21:50):
Oh there's so many people would just see stuff and
be like oh okay. And it's like you can if
you looked at it, you could tell it's fake. But
like you said, Mandy, it's getting harder and harder. You
really have to be skeptical. And I always I find
it funny because like my parent not my parents are
not too bad because my dad barely knows how to
use the internet. But my friends, their parents, they'll be
like believing stuff is sending it to them and they're like,

(22:11):
what are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (22:12):
This is fake?

Speaker 3 (22:12):
And I'm like, these are the same people growing up
who are like, don't believe everything you see. Yeah, I'll
be on the internet distrusted and stuff, and I'm like,
and they're the same ones now who are just yeah,
everything's real And it's oh.

Speaker 1 (22:23):
My god, the number of like ridiculous YouTube videos. My
dad sent me about how Beyonce is like is demonic
and satanic. I'm here in jay Z this man. Ah,
He's like, just watch y'all. Don't y'all won't be watching
what I'd be sending you. I'm like, Dad, if I
see it's from Facebook, I'm not click. The reason why
we don't watch it.

Speaker 4 (22:43):
It's probably like forty five minutes too.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Oh Lord, only talk about the decline obviously. In DEI,
I was looking, I'm going, I'm gonna be speaking at
an event this week, and one of the panelists I
know used to be the head of DEI for a
big media brand and now her title is just Inclusion Officer. Okay,
which is interesting. I guess inclusion's fine.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
Including everybody, but that's just that's literally what EI means.
But okay, exactly, but okay.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Well, there is some there are some bright spots in this.
They talk about there's been a five percent increase in
voter participation in states that have implemented same day voter registration.
So they're basically laying out like, if we want more,
we want our voices to be heard, we have to
we have to focus on yeahs such a good message.
We have to focus on voter engagement. So how do

(23:33):
we actually get more people to the polls? I know
when I had Mickey Kendall on the show a few
months back, a couple months back now, she's the author
of Hood Feminism, and she's like a scholar and very
like exceptionally intelligent woman, and she she was theorizing that
it wasn't that Black America didn't vote for voted for Trump.
It was a lot of people voted for Trump. It

(23:55):
was that a lot of people didn't vote period. And
being able to increase access to the polls, if we
could make it as easy to vote in elections as
we did to vote for Nicolandria, Like you saw what
Nicolandra and Nation did for Nick and Landriy, y'all saw
what we did for them, right, Like we need apps,
we need there's the technology is there? That's the sad part,

(24:18):
you know, it's you know, our our lawmakers do they
have an appetite, and do they have the will? Do
they have the fire?

Speaker 5 (24:26):
The fire tax is so easy, but you can't vote
as easily.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Make it makes sense.

Speaker 3 (24:32):
They could be holiday on top of that, Like that's
that's just never something that they've done.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
There, Work's the simplest damn thing, exactly. Thank you for that.
Every major voting holiday should be every major voting national election.
I would even argue, like at your state level, like
mayor mayor mayoral races and gubernatorial races, because local politics
is so much more important now.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yes, at the very least a half day, a mandatory
half day, like, come on.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
It would be It would be nothing to make that
a thing.

Speaker 1 (25:01):
But no. So they also say seventy one percent of
those who registered online turned out to vote, compared to
forty eight percent and fifty two percent of those who
registered by mail or through a state state agency. So
seventy one percent of those who registered online. So if
we could just do more online registrations, we can get

(25:23):
more votes out. Twenty two million registered voters could be
added to state voter roles in the first year. If
every state were to today implement automatic voter registration. We
just need like a million on ellies out there saying,
like lobbying for these types of changes.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
And the thing is, it's not that difficult when it
comes to the local level, because generally speaking, lawmakers are
afraid to not get reelected if their constituents are sending
them emails and giving them phone calls saying this needs
to happen. So as long as at the local level,
you kind of you know, create that like local effect.

(26:01):
It's much harder to change things nationally. So I really
do feel like there's so much hope hearing that this
is at the local level because that is so much
easier to address and trying to get federal mandates.

Speaker 1 (26:11):
That's right. It all comes down to these local elected
officials and the decisions they're making for day to day
survival versus long term democracy. Like and it's it's quite sad.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Yeah, I mean, I truly do not understand why. Why
is same day voter registration not like who who would
argue against that? And why what is the argument against
same day voter registration? Please make it make sense. The
fact that if I can, if I can wake up
today and go sign up for the army, why can't
I wake up today and go sign up to vote.

(26:44):
Doesn't matter that the election is today, It doesn't matter,
Like I truly cannot understand what.

Speaker 5 (26:49):
The argument against it is, because somebody can make it
make sense. Please please, they're so good at tracking. Also,
like they're so good at tracking when someone turns eighteen,
so you can get that, you know, get that, get
that check from them for their taxes, and or even
before that, when someone's working, you know, when someone's fifteen sixteen,
I was having taxes taken out of my you know,
my paychecks, and I didn't even know I could get

(27:10):
a refund.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
So anyway, the IRIS is so good about tracking that.
Why the hell can't you automatically get a voter registration? Like,
why can't you be automatically registered to vote the minute
you turn eighteen? It's complete nonsense. It should just be
like here's your voter registration. You don't even need a card,
but like here's your card, here's your whatever acknowledgment.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
You're a voter, and they're not taking your choice from
you because ultimately the choice to go to decide to
get up and go actually vote at a polling place,
that's still ultimately your choice. But you're registered, so that you,
so you can go like I just don't again, make it.

Speaker 4 (27:40):
Make sense exactly.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
I mean, when I turned eighteen, I got one of
those what the registration cards for the like the draft
registration cards. When I turned eighteen. I didn't feel out
a thing, and I think should but they sent to teams.

Speaker 5 (27:53):
They sent it to you.

Speaker 1 (27:55):
There you go. Well, we got to also take a
moment to just shout out the organization and the representatives
who actually are fighting back against all these policy changes,
these laws. So NAACP, if you're looking for organization to donate,
to become a recurring donor to, I would say NAACP,
the a c l U American Civil Civil Liberties Union. Yes. So,

(28:21):
NAACP has a lawsuit working its way through the courts
right now challenging the defunding and dismantling of the Department
of Education. The National Urban League National Urban League itself
has sued the Trump administration to challenge executive orders to
terminate DEI programs as well as like grants and contracts

(28:44):
tied to equity related purposes. So there are also the
US or sorry, state's attorneys general. State attorneys general? Which
one do you make? Plural attorneys things state attorneys general.
I went to a really amazing event that had Tiss

(29:05):
James and four other state attorneys general. Why is that
so hard from other states? And they were literally on
tour to talk about the way that they are trying
to protect people civil rights, you know, at the at
the state level, and you know they're doing extraordinary work

(29:26):
as well.

Speaker 2 (29:27):
Yeah, it's all important because a lot of us are
too quick to talk about what is being done to
dismantle democracy, but not many of us are aware of
what's being done to fight back against that. And I
think that they're equally important to talk about. They should
be discussed in tandem every time you fix them off
to say, oh, and they're coming for the Department of Bay,
but also, here's how we're fighting back against that, because

(29:49):
otherwise we're spewing the narrative that this is all falling
apart and that nobody is fighting up back against it,
and that's just not true.

Speaker 3 (29:58):
Oh I was gonna say, yeah, I A because like,
I feel like you don't get those pieces of news together.
And so for me when I'm reading the news, you know,
you just it caused you, I think, to spiral out because.

Speaker 4 (30:08):
It feels so hopeless that.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
You don't normally get both sides simultaneously. It's like maybe
a few days later you might hopefully come across something
that makes you feel more hopeful about the situation.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 2 (30:19):
That's why journalism is so important, you know, events like NABJ.
I just went to NAHJ National Associates for Hispanic Journalists
last two weeks ago in Chicago. It was amazing, it
was so incredible. I got to attend two of the
sessions before I had to fly to Puerto Rico, CAA's
I had a bachelorette and a concert to go to.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
But it was a brand, very on brand.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
But I did sit for a panel just where we
I was a panelist where we just talked about like
what every journalist needs to know about their own personal finances.
And that was Yeah, that was put together by CNBC.
Sharon Eperson at CNBC. She's incredible, the senior corespondent.

Speaker 1 (30:55):
Oh, I love my Sharon. Amazing, She's coming on the
show next week. It's amazing.

Speaker 5 (31:00):
Place are I said, Hey, I love her. So I
saw her in Chicago.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
And what I'll tell you after that session was over,
it was like the lunch session ended, we did that panel,
and then I walked into the hallway. There was a
line of people lining up to talk to us, to
the panelists, and every single person that I spoke with said,
this was the best session. I've been coming to these
events for a decade and I have yet to sit
through a session that focused on what I can do

(31:24):
for my personal financial situation given the journalism industry and
how tough it is because oftentimes you'll say, oh, pick
up a side hustle, but if you're a journalist, you can't.
You know, you're literally pouring your sweat, blood and tears
into these stories where you don't have time to go
pick up side gigs in side hustles, and so a
lot of the tracks and.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
You're prevented by your contract typically and a lot of
times your contract, right, So you have these traditional financial
tips and tricks that don't work for journalists a lot
of times.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
And so we kind of addressed that, and we talked
about that, and I think just in general, the importance
of like journalistic work that is truly a unbiased and
be like Chris to your point, really sharing both sides,
both sides of any like give it, you know, give
the perspective and then immediately share. And that takes a
lot of research. It takes digging and really caring intimately

(32:13):
about what you're reporting on. And I feel like that's
why journalism is so social critical today, even more than before.
I feel like we've always elevated journalistic work, of course,
knowing that it's important, but in the climate that we're
in now, it's even more important. I would argue, M
I agree, And.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Then sister friend, all right, well, let's leave this dumpster
fire report to the side. Be a fam you could.
You could find it in the show notes bookmarket, share
it with your families, just let them know that we're
I love that we have like a document. I mean,
there's so much content out there. Sometimes just having an
on plane English on a piece of paper or a
PDF is helpful. I just want to my to my

(32:52):
son's future history teachers, like be prepared to be sick
of me. I will be fact checking everything you sent home.
I will be asking about field trips and supplemental readings.
And I feel like any school where the pe coach
is the history teacher is like a hard no for me.
They will not be attending.

Speaker 5 (33:09):
No, thank you just underfunded, baby, but come on, we
got to do better.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
Yes, all right, Well moving along, I wanted some happy news.
Is JP Morgan chases out with a new report that shows, finally, Americans,
we are getting the picture. We're getting the memo about investing,
and more and more households are starting to shift their
money out of checking and regular savings accounts into investment accounts.

(33:35):
Fighting Meanwhile, my dad's like, how much money do I
have in Vanguard? Can I get some of that? I'm like,
you better stop listen.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
We a while back during the pandemic, my parents my
dad had just turned sixty five, No, my dad had
just turned seventy, my mom had just turned sixty five,
and we're working with them to just try to like
shift into like the retirement mindset. And we just had
to put structures in place, systems in place, because it's
just so First of all, the system is so difficult.

(34:08):
Like my parents don't speak English, they didn't have bank accounts.
They've always been cash only, immigrant lifestyle. And so I
first had to tell them that you cannot claim your
Social Security benefits with a paper check in the mail anymore.
And they thought that they could just fill out some
application and start getting a check in the mail and
take it to the check cashing place, and I'm like, no,
In case you did not know, the Social Security Administration

(34:28):
does not issue paper checks anymore. That stopped happening like
back in twenty sixteen. So the only way you can
claim your benefits is if you have a online bank.
If you have a bank account that you can link
it online through your Social Security portal. And then they
direct deposited every month. So we had to open bank
accounts for them both, which they had never done. And
then it was COVID, so we couldn't go in person
to the banks. So I had to search and find

(34:50):
online banks that would allow me to open accounts for
my parents or with my parents, And the language barrier was.

Speaker 5 (34:56):
An issue, and it was truly I'm talking.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
About jumping through hoops and so and now we have
a whole system that works. But thank goodness, at that time,
I convinced my family, my siblings to start saving and
investing so that in five ten years anytime, my parents
couldn't make, you know, make the difference of their medical
costs or you know, make the difference for bills that
we would pull from the savings and investments accounts and

(35:19):
like you know, make up the difference for them. And
now you know, we're starting to see that that coming
to fruition, that like the little bit of like the
fruit from those seedlings that we planted all those years ago,
where like my parents will say, oh, we want to
do this, we want to do that, and I'll be like,
don't worry about it.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
We have it.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
We have it in savings, we have it in investments.
So I'm I'm floored, Like this is amazing to hear
people are starting to shift, even if it's just small percentages,
because it starts to become part of the national conversation,
get national attention and headlines and news pieces and TikTok
you know content where we just start to recognize how
important it is. That being said, I feel like a
lot of these traditional institutions JP Morgan, Chase, all these institutions,

(35:57):
City Bank, Bank of America, Wells Fargo. They love to
put out these reports, but where are the high savings accounts?
They don't offer them, right, They only offer traditional savings
because their banking institutions benefit from giving the super super
lowest possible interest rates they can on savings and yet
maximizing by charging super high interest rates when they borrow
when we borrow money from them to loans. So I yes,

(36:18):
I love the data. I love the reports. I'm gonna
need y'all to back it up with some action and
shift to a model of there's no such thing as
a traditional savings account anymore.

Speaker 5 (36:27):
It's a thing of the past. It's a relic, it's
a fossil. And now we literally only have Higo savs
accounts or investment accounts and checking accounts and that's it.

Speaker 1 (36:35):
Yeah, they're getting away with it no matter what they
can do. Let me open up. I'm trying to find
an article that's not Dann Paywild. I'm sorry, US News.
I'm not all these I'm like, if the Associated Press,
where is it?

Speaker 4 (36:52):
All? Right?

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Yeah, so JP. But the thing about Chase is at
least they have the data, right, So they have four
points seven million households, you especially at a time when
inflation it's under control. But it's just really good. I
mean under control, but it's really it's good to see
that at least we are trending in the right direction.
I'm trying to find out if they have any information
broken down by race, because y'all know, we believe in

(37:17):
ourselves behind.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Yeah, it was a really good one a few years
ago from Aerial Investments under Melody Hobson's leadership, and they
talked a lot about how during the pandemic in twenty
twenty and twenty twenty one particularly, there was a huge
uptaking black investors, and in particular young black investors. So
gen Z millennial investors who were black were pouring money
into the markets. And granted, some of it was for

(37:41):
the wrong reasons because they were chasing some hot stocks
and mean stocks and all that, but the point is
just the fact that they were creating investment accounts is
a huge thing to celebrate.

Speaker 5 (37:51):
But yeah, I'm curious to see that demographic breakdown too.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Wow, stay stand stand by, because it ain't here they did.
We'll circle back to that, all right, Moving right along?
What else is going on?

Speaker 4 (38:05):
Oh this?

Speaker 1 (38:06):
I have so much hate and disdain for organizations that
try to control what you do in your whole, your
own damn house. And when I saw this headline, the
rage that boiled in my veins. Y'all. Poor this poor
woman me open this up. I think she was in
Atlanta there was a woman, a black woman, who because

(38:27):
she got into a spat with her homeowners association over
a patch of brown grass in her own God damn yard.
I cannot spent a week in jail, a week in
jail over that dispute. Yes, her name is Irena Green,
she said, the dispute between her and the homeowners association. Oh,

(38:48):
she lives in Tampa. Okay, y'a, elly, watch out. I
know you don't own a house right in Florida. Do
y'all have a drought? Or what's going on? A patch
of brown grass in the summer?

Speaker 3 (38:59):
Girl?

Speaker 1 (39:00):
Just right now, you don't not real grass. I don't understand.

Speaker 4 (39:03):
It is air like water anyways in Florida. How has
anything bad?

Speaker 1 (39:08):
It just gets so high it drives up quick. I
don't look look. Yeah, so, Green said, she attributed the
condition of her grass to a drought, all right, and
they had also she lived in a place where they
had mandatory county wide watering restrictions, and that her yard
was not the only one that had that had brown grass.

(39:31):
They also cited her for mildew on her mailbox, a
dent in her garage. So who the hell is out
there with your magnifying glass, I'm saying, And also, why
does that bother you?

Speaker 2 (39:42):
Well, because look, she was not the only one with
brown grass in front her house, but she was the
only one with brown people inside the house.

Speaker 5 (39:48):
Let's call it what it is.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Let's call it what it is, right, the fact that
other people had the same issues as her, but she
was the one being singled out. You know, I really
hope she can get a civil rights attorney or somebody
on her kid, because this is just getting ridicul this
there was a I mean, this is also like horrible, horrible.
But there was another story that I saw like early
two days ago from Florida as well, which was a
Jacksonville man who was stopped by the police. His name

(40:12):
is William McNeil. He's twenty two years old. Stopped by
the police in Jacksonville. Stopped him talk about how he
was supposed to have his lights on because of inclement weather.
It wasn't rainy, it wasn't foggy, it was four pm
in the afternoon.

Speaker 5 (40:22):
What do you mean an officer? So he was asking
them to show him what law?

Speaker 1 (40:25):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 5 (40:25):
Like, I don't think I have any reason for you
to stop me.

Speaker 2 (40:28):
So they were like, get out the car and get
out the car, and he was like, what can you
call your supervisor?

Speaker 5 (40:32):
They broke his window, punched him in the face, opened
his door, took off his seat belt, threw him to
the ground.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
He had to get stitch nine stitches on his face
because his tooth went threw his upper lip. He had
and he had he suffered a concussion and short term
memory lost. This man, it has been put through it
and it's it's July. It's late July. Okay, it's about
to be August. Damn near August of twenty twenty five.
And this happened in February of twenty twenty five, Like

(41:00):
all of these months go by.

Speaker 5 (41:01):
So we hear stories like this and you're.

Speaker 2 (41:03):
Like, come on, can we how can we act like
it's not the fact that these folks are black and brown?

Speaker 5 (41:09):
Like I'm at the point where, especially in Florida, we
see so much of these stories and they just they
get brushed up under the rug, they get hidden.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
And the crazy thing about that story with William McNeil
was that when you look at the report or the
details about what the police officer wrote in the report,
oh a whole bunch of lies, a whole bunch of
lies talking about the man wasn't wearing his seat belt.
But when you look at his video, he took off
his seat belt to get him out the car.

Speaker 5 (41:33):
So, sir, make it make sense.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
How did he not even though you know, good and
god damn well, you have a body cam on just
they don't care care.

Speaker 5 (41:41):
Hasn't even been released yet.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
I'm talking about a cell phone video that William posted
on his social media that Barrau has over two million views,
that he.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Was being arrested, but he managed to take video.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
He managed to have his phone on the dash and
he just pressed record. Then goodness that he did, because
you can see the interaction and how ridiculously facet escalated
for no ass reason. And yeah, it was just so ridiculous.
And I just feel like you keep hearing these stories
and coming out of Florida in particular. This is probably
like the third or fourth one that I've heard in
just the past two weeks where it's black families, young

(42:13):
black men, and the officers happened to be the complete opposite,
you know, middle aged white men, and you just like
it just so heartbreaking and granted, this woman. Thank goodness
that she didn't have to deal with, you know, police
brutality in this specific situation. But the fact that I
read the article is, say she was driving home from
picking up her daughter from cheerleading practice, and the cops
stopped her vehicle and said, did you know that there's

(42:34):
a worn out for your arrest through her in jail?
No bail, no bound, no opportunity for her to come
out and go home to her family until they figured
it out. Nope, she had to sit there in jail
for seven days. And then the judge who was assigned
to her case was like, she needs to go home.
She's been sitting here for seven days in jail over
some patch of brown grass. And then goodness that the
judge she got assign the second judge she got assigned

(42:57):
and pushed for her to go home because they were
trying to keep her in jail because of this stupid
patch of brown grass and because of the lack of compliance.
Mind you, she specifically said multiple other residences in the
same HOA had similar, if not the exact same issue,
and they weren't sitting in jail.

Speaker 1 (43:17):
The level of stress that I mean, I think we
make a lot of I mean, it's funny to like
to talk about or I guess you have to laugh
at some things, but it's like we make a joke
out of how type A, how aggressive, how insane type
these hoas can be, but the amount of mental strain

(43:37):
it puts on you to not even feel safe in
your own goddamn home that you paid for. Like my
brother has dealt with a really aggressive HOA. One of
my mandy moneymakers couldn't even like had to tell me
she couldn't participate in my coaching program because she has
a neighbor who is aggressively trying to ruin her life,

(43:57):
who's on and is like and is causing all this
alma for her within her HOA, and like it is
it's it's sad. Those people should be put in jail.
Like I had read yan Ellie that her attorney like,
that's sorry. The hoa's attorney showed up in court and
they're like, no, she needs to stay here.

Speaker 5 (44:16):
Yes, okay, that's what we're going to get water, Like
this is bullshit.

Speaker 2 (44:20):
Thank goodness that she had a fair judge who was like, oh,
that don't make no damn sense, right, But let it
have been a judge who was like, yeah, okay, yep,
this this administration from the HOA says this, I'm gonna
go ahead and grant that, like thank goodness for her right.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
And she was like, what if you're having a hard
time and you can't afford a landscape or you can
or you're disabled all of a sudden and you can't
get out there and water like you used to, Like yep,
so what you're just gonna like these violations are like
they're inhumane to a certain extent. Whatever happened to like
rolling up your sleeves and going to help your neighbor. Oh,
I pay into this.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
H wait, you pay all this money in hi way
fat parts. They can't come around and take a little
pot of that when and say, hey, if ever there's
a hardship for the sake of us all having you know,
the same beautiful front of our homes, we're gonna come
and create a little hardship fund.

Speaker 5 (45:04):
No, no, no, no, We're gonna put you in jail.

Speaker 1 (45:08):
I can't.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
This is why I don't own no damn property. This
is why I do not own property, especially not in Florida.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
But I can't. I don't have an HLA but I
do have really nosy neighbors who will report your ass
if your grass is too high. I can't.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
You know Chris's point earlier about how like when you
don't go outside for a long time, you don't see
other people, you don't talk to people, it's really hard.
That's another reason that has kind of like dissuaded me
from buying a home or from living in a home,
because right now I live in an apartment complex where
like the moment I step outside onto my patio, there's
a bunch of people, There's kids running to them from
the pool, there's families, there's people barbecuing, and that like

(45:42):
environment is just so important for me to just keep
my energy up, to stay socializing, to just you know,
meet greet people when.

Speaker 5 (45:48):
I come out.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
Imagine, you know, you're in a house, you're already dealing
with who knows what, so many things going on personally freshman,
who knows. I mean, we're in a really bad economy,
and then you're being villainized in a hacked and jailed
for these tiny, stupid, insignificant little offenses Like I just
it just makes me not want to ever buy a house,

(46:10):
especially not in the state of Florida.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Definitely avoid in h away. Tell me about it if
you can. I need. That's something that as I'm looking
to buy a new house, like, that's something I refuse.
I don't care how nice they are. I don't care
how beautiful it is. Right, And there's this heartbreaking quote
where she's like, it worked hard to put my family
into a nice neighborhood, and it's just sad to me

(46:32):
that the nice neighborhoods don't love us back. I mean,
it's bad, but it's true. But I will say in
my neighborhood, which is majority black and brown, and it
has been for decades, but COVID has been changing that.
And obviously gentrification and like housing prices are insane. But
this was like one of the last affordable neighborhoods in

(46:53):
my county. And this family moved in across the street
from me. I love them there. They lived in Brooklyn. There.
The woman is California, and she's a white woman. She's
married to a Japanese American man. We have our That's
why I do my community garden with They're great, but
my elders are elder neighbors. From the minute they moved in.
But they weren't. They weren't having it. They really don't

(47:14):
like the fact that, you know, young white families are
moving into these neighborhoods and gentrifying, and you know, there's
suspicion there, which honestly I understand, like I understand, and
I think even to a certain extent, my neighbors do,
like they understand why they are treated with suspicion. But ooh,
bebe if her grass is a centimeter too high, Ruler,

(47:36):
she's gonna get a picky on her window saying you
are in violation of the town code, even if they're
because they're not. There's no age away, but there's a
town code, right, So it's just and I feel back
because you know, those neighbors, but it's like, hurt people,
hurt people, and like, I know that's how it was
when probably she first moved into the neighborhood a few
decades ago with her family, and slowly this neighborhood became

(47:58):
majority minority, but it wasn't always that way. And I
just wish we could live and let live, but.

Speaker 2 (48:04):
It's going to take time and healing a lot of
healing needs to happen because that shit don't.

Speaker 1 (48:08):
Go away overnight.

Speaker 4 (48:10):
No, not at all.

Speaker 1 (48:11):
What's it like for you in s Chris but you're renting.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Yeah, so I mean for me, it's it's different. I mean,
I mean it's San Francisco. It's a much different scenario.
And there's not a lot of single family homes that there.
There's a lot of multi unit homes. So like most
of these places here, it's going to be like two
to four six units in the building. And you know,
it's much more like kind of like city life a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
So I have a lot of high rises are there.

Speaker 4 (48:32):
Are there a lot of.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
High rises and that stuff in the downtown areas sit
downtown right right over there. But mostly I think because
most of the city has like an ordinance that prevents
the height, that limits the height of buildings I think
three stories and a lot of neighborhoods.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
So it is nice.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
You get like, you get a lot more sunlight, you
get a lot more openness. But if you do go
like to like the downtown areas, you get a lot
more of those like brand new buildings that are popping
up and it's changing. But it's definitely a lot more
community like force community, just because the fact that you
know there's a bunch of people living in tight proximity
to each other.

Speaker 1 (49:03):
Yeah, well, we just need to we need to be kinder.
And I'm just so glad to shout out to Irene.
I hope that you're home. I hope that you get
to you move to a new area, and I hate
that you have to move, but sometimes you gotta go.

Speaker 2 (49:15):
Yeah, seriously, she deserves an area that people won't treat
her like that.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Or if she had the resources, I would say, start
to go fund me and counter see their asses, because
that is all types of inhumane. Yes, hey, ba, fam,
we got to take a quick break, pay some bills,
and we'll be right back. All right, moving along, let's see. Oh,
I did want to do a quick shout out the
WNBAS In the middle of their they go, do y'all

(49:42):
know about sports stuff? I don't know too much about
sports stuff, but I do like women to get paid
a lot of money.

Speaker 5 (49:47):
That part I don't follow this. I don't follow that
she was sports stuff.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
But my sister is a huge WNBA fan and was
like telling me about how they're doing collective bargaining again
and like trying to fight for for what my understanding
is they're not trying to fight for the same pay
in terms of dollar amounts as the NBA players, but
they're trying to fight for the same percentage profit share.
So my understanding is that the NBA has a fifty
percent profit share model, whereas the WNBA is anywhere between

(50:13):
like ten and twenty percent, and they're just trying to say, hey,
can we get that closer to fifty percent? That's literally
all they're trying to do, and they're getting pushed back
on that, which is wild to me because over the
past two years, I feel like the craze around Kayln Clark,
Andrew Rees, Asia Williams, all these players is like, how
can we not recognize that the growth has been so

(50:33):
insane that this deal should model that type of growth,
Like it should follow suit, they should be aligned.

Speaker 5 (50:40):
Like I was shocked when I heard this, Like.

Speaker 2 (50:42):
They wouldn't even increase the percentage profit share. They're not
even asking for the same dollar per dollar pay.

Speaker 4 (50:49):
It's wild because you.

Speaker 3 (50:50):
Even end up with like they started a new team,
they expands a team here in San Francisco, the Valkyries,
and I think not even like a couple months into
the season, they already valued is like the most valuable
NBA team I think at like five hundred million dollars
or something like that. So, I mean you're seeing the
growth and like you said, it's crazy. A'm not asking
for crazy money to you, ask for a better share
because I mean, there would be no product without the

(51:10):
players on the creer.

Speaker 5 (51:12):
I mean, the audience grows, the merch sales, everything has
boosted like crazy, Viewership is up, attendance to these games
is up. I mean, how can you not also then
increase the pay like I just I don't know. I
feel so bad for these ladies having to fight, fight, fight,
like hell, and.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
This is ages all tails all the time, because this
is something that has been happening for ages where we
constantly see WNBA being tossed little you know, hear low
peanuts and they're supposed to be happy with that. Some
basketball players are making millions and millions and millions. These
girls are sometimes making seventy k a year, Like, come on,
that is wild to me.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Wild. They're gonna have to go on strike, right, I
mean they have to. They're gonna have to, yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
Because I mean, they play so much more than the
men do as well because their season is short, but
most of them go overseas and play in other leagues
and other countries, so you don't even be going for
parts of their season because they make significantly more playing overseas.
So it's like, I mean, that's a lot of weird
hearing your body. There's a lot of time with your family.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
So don't give me a segue into Love Island. I
could be playing overseas.

Speaker 5 (52:14):
Boy, please, you can't.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
I'm not even going to give y'all context. Ba FAM's
not worth it, all right. Well, I did see the
T shirts they were wearing. Pay us what you owe us. Yes,
we love a coordinated T shirt.

Speaker 5 (52:29):
Get a T shirt? I need one, Hey them, you
need them.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
I want to see some good old fashioned protesting. I
want to see picket signs. I want also the fans.
I think the fans should be a part of the
protest too.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
You know, all these girls that show up to the game,
that look up to them and all that, Like, okay,
let's get them involved in understanding what's just and injust
like that for sure is a really great.

Speaker 5 (52:50):
Lesson in pay equity and just fair pay. Come on,
fair pay for fair work.

Speaker 1 (52:56):
Yep. I literally have no reason like that this doesn't
tie into brown ambition at all. It's not about black people.
It's not about our economic freedom, it's not about brown people.
Even some rich white guy. I was at a Coldplay
concert and he was like camera with his mistress, and
I love I love it so messy.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
I just feel like we needed that collective experience of
juicy gossip together to like just bring us together one
good time. It felt like everybody and their mama was
talking about it from one second to the next.

Speaker 4 (53:29):
It means amazing.

Speaker 3 (53:32):
Have you seen them doing the Coldplay kissed camp at
other storting events and people posing.

Speaker 2 (53:37):
Yeah, everyone's like, oh, and they're I just kidding, we're married.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
It's like, it's so funny. It's so funny.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
There's one hilarious one that my fitness trainer reposted, which
is like me getting caught on cam with my ninth
cheat meal this week and he's like.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
A burger and trick and sold on.

Speaker 2 (53:53):
The camera catches and he's like no, and he ducks
with his burger in his hand.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
I'm dying. That's like, that's like when my kid catches
me eating something that I told him he couldn't have.
He's like mommy. I thought, we can only have that
with our dinner, not you for the dinner, you baby, you,
but not mommy.

Speaker 5 (54:11):
Mommy's follows different rules.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
H Well, now, because of the freaking Internet, I can't
I don't know what's real or not. But I thought
the wife had posted this like insanely good statement on TikTok.
I should have known it was on TikTok, but her
daughter was posting. Their daughter was posting some some content.
It's just it's like, it's like the plot of a
White Lotus episode series kind of thing.

Speaker 5 (54:36):
You know, somebody post for real, somebody posted that.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
He that like, they wouldn't be surprised if because no,
he stepped down obviously he or got fired. That if
in a couple of weeks he posted something on LinkedIn
being like I was caught having an affair. I had
a Coldplay concert. Here's what it taught me about B
to B sales.

Speaker 1 (54:53):
Yeah, please, like a homeboy who Leonardo DiCaprio played in
that Wolf of Wall Street movie. He's like a really rich,
like public speaker, now, motivational speaker. What's his name? Who? Yeah,
he'll be fine, he'll be fine. They can take the heat.
Yeah all right, yeah, maybe his daughter will be on

(55:13):
the next season I'm Dancing with the Stars or something
like that. Maybe his wife.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
It's just like a it's such a good lesson to
young people to like, when you do something wrong, you
that shit is in your bones.

Speaker 5 (55:25):
You know you're not supposed to be doing that, you
know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Because if they had just played it cool, nobody would
ever even know who they were.

Speaker 5 (55:31):
They probably wouldn't, that would never even made it outside.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Of the stadium.

Speaker 5 (55:34):
But the fact that he ducked.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
Like that and she and she like immediately went to
cover her face, It's like, just when you do stuff
you know you're supposed to be doing that, shit like
this is this is what happens, right. So I think
it is a lesson in a little bit in like
you understanding like human behavior. It's very very rare that
something like that in the spotlight and your instinct would
be just play it cool, no, because you know you

(55:57):
wrong and you know what you're doing is wrong and
it's in your so just don't do it.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Don't do it. I needed to be caught Karma, karma
in action. Thank you for the giggles. I guess it
is brown ambition because you gave us something to laugh at,
you know, in a world that hates us. So we
appreciate your service. Very tall white guy, you'll be fine.
All right, We're gonna take a quick break. Ba family,
We'll be right back. We're gonna do our brown boost
brown break all right, y'all, Brown Boost Brown Break time.

(56:29):
I don't want to go first, so I'm gonna make
y'all want to go first. Chris, you have a big
fat nothing next to your name on this list.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
I didn't know there was a spot putting stuff in it.
I only want to put stuf in it because you
just veto everything I put in there.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Yeah, I need a chance to veto it. That's why
exercise our power.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
What's the point of having power if you can't exercise its.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
Editorial judgment, congrab on your baby nephew. We know he's
here in the world now.

Speaker 3 (56:58):
The world, but you said he cannot be the brown
boost anymore. So I picked something else, Thank you very much.
Even though new life.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
You know, when he gets a first investment account, then
he can be a boost.

Speaker 3 (57:09):
We will be working on that five twenty nine plan shortly.
But okay, so my brown boost is going to be
a book because I mean, I think I mentioned before
I had like a little impromtu book club here would
be that we've been doing. So the book we've recently
read I really enjoyed is a Martyr. It's by h
I hope I pronounce his name correctly. I think it's

(57:29):
Cava Akbar. He's an Iranian American poet and writer. And
this really like it's just beautiful book. It's it's fiction,
but it's about a guy dealing with substance of use
and his own sexuality and kind of knowing where he
stands and trying to find purpose and meaning in life.
And he tries to find it through this concept of

(57:50):
being a martyr. Even though he doesn't want to necessarily die,
he feels like his life should mean something because his parents.
He felt like his parents died with no meaning, like
their death just happened, living these hard lives. And so
it's his journey to find like meaning and purpose in
his life and through all of his struggles. And it's
written as well as books. It's written in such a
way that's like it's very like beautiful, like the words

(58:12):
he uses, the phrasing, and it's just like so visual.
You can really feel everything he's writing. And he does
it through these like dreams that the character's having where
he like takes these two figures over his mind and
they have these like conversations together and then his journey
to like, uh, you know, connect and figure out what's
going on.

Speaker 4 (58:28):
So great book.

Speaker 3 (58:29):
I think he's received a ton of awards at this
point in recognition. Our friend Berna, Hey, Berna, she has
the same ligulal agent as as Copa, and so they
she told me she need to get to meet him
when they were all doing like their book introductions. So
it's really really interesting read, really thought provoking, and uh, yeah,
that's that's my brown boost.

Speaker 4 (58:50):
I'm trying to read board.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Yeah, he's a New York Times bestseller. Look at that.

Speaker 5 (58:53):
So many amazing books and I never even heard of.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
I need to put this one on my list. And
I love him. I love memoirs so much. Is it
a memoir? What do you know?

Speaker 4 (59:02):
It's not.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
There are elements because he is a poet and the
character is a poet, and but this is not about
his life personally.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
Nice okay, but it.

Speaker 4 (59:12):
Almost feels like a memoir to some degree. But it's not.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
I am stressed. I have to pick a book club
pick for August and it is July twenty. First, I can't.

Speaker 4 (59:21):
Decide, James, did you read that one?

Speaker 1 (59:25):
I did read, James.

Speaker 4 (59:28):
It was good.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
Yeah, I read it. But is it a book club pick?
I don't think so. You know, I'm really I'm this
close to picking it. Kennedy Ryan romance novel. I really
want some kind of sexy and fun because I don't
want to have a book club that's just like really
hard to read true literature, you know, Kennedy Ryan's amazing
they do. And I didn't love like the last book

(59:53):
I read of hers, But I think this one that
I'm in the middle of can't get enough that it's
a little bit and I like it better. I don't know, though,
Stay tu it is. I think I'm in like a
fun summer mood. Then tell me why. When I checked
out books from the library this week, it was like
I heard this author who wrote a book called Color

(01:00:13):
Television dan Zia something. She was on NPR. I heard
her and it's not a very fun read, but it's
a good one.

Speaker 5 (01:00:23):
I mean, you know what that that will that will
take me to my brown Boost.

Speaker 2 (01:00:27):
Speaking of summer vibes, I had the incredible experience of
attending Benito.

Speaker 5 (01:00:34):
Martinez Porcasio concert. It was amazing. I went to Bad
Bunny's concert in Puerto Rico.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
So if y'all didn't know he has as his name,
I'm like, that's a really long, incredibly name. I did
not know his full name, I know, but.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
He is doing thirty concerts in Puerto Rico, in his hometown,
right And the whole thing about it is that there's
really no other thing that kind of compares to this this.
I mean, I guess like Vegas residencies. I guess you
could say, like, you know, but like he's going to
his hometown. It's not in Vegas, you know, and that
is so special because of that.

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
The only way you can.

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Experience about Bunny concert from his world tour in the
United States is by going to Puerto Rico.

Speaker 5 (01:01:21):
And I happened to be.

Speaker 2 (01:01:23):
There with some friends for a girl one of my
close friends bachelorette party in Puerto Rico. I went straight
from Chicago from n EHJ to Puerto Rico for the bacherette,
and then the Saturday night while we were there, we
went to the concert, and it was amazing. When I
tell you three hours of NonStop I heard, Oh my goodness,
when I tell you this man played all the hits,
all the throwbacks, the current album of course, but then

(01:01:46):
he did something amazing where he took some of his
Regadon songs and had a live, full ass salsa band
turned them into salsa.

Speaker 5 (01:01:56):
So then he's singing the words to Regaton song, but
it Sasa music. It was a amazing I was like,
oh my goodness, this is so incredible.

Speaker 2 (01:02:03):
And the energy in there was amazing because after the concert,
people were singing the entire way down the stairs all
the way out the concert venue, and they.

Speaker 5 (01:02:10):
Put so much attention to detail.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Before the concert even happened, there were these like instagrammable
little stations, food vendors, Domino's playing, like all this stuff happening.
That was like a whole vibe before you even get
into the stadium. And the reason it's a Brown boost,
I will say, is because a lot of people talked
about Beyonce level and Taylor Swift level economic boost to
economies during rough times. Puerto Rico had such a rough

(01:02:34):
economy this year. They didn't know if they were going
to be able to balance the budget, and Bad Bunnies
single handedly brought two hundred million dollars of an economic
boost to Puerto Rico, so much so that they will
not have to end in the red this year on
their with their with their budgets, so that it's just
amazing and the energy is amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
There's so much positivity, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:02:55):
And I'm just you know, I'm Dominican, so I'm putting them,
I'm putting the Dominican Puerto.

Speaker 5 (01:02:59):
Rican b I'm squashing that right now. We love bad
but because.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
Bad Bunny is so dr coded sometimes.

Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
Like there's so much is he said it in multiple interviews.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
But he loved me, didn't. He do a whole video
in dr.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
The album The Umber, which was last summer, he did
a whole thing about how Dominican Republic was the first
place that he truly felt like a celebrity, that he
felt famous there because we immediately just accepted him, we
raised him, we celebrated him, and that the type of
music that we have in the Dominican Republic is slightly
different from Puerto Rican and other Latin American music because

(01:03:34):
we have something called pedical crepo, which is a specific
type of medan ga tipico that uses African you know,
African influence, Africa coaming, and so he talked about how
that influenced him to write which is a medan ge
tipical very much.

Speaker 1 (01:03:48):
I was gonna say, like I've heard maderga in his yes,
in his music. I'm not as expert as you are,
but that now.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Obviously, if you listen to Puerto Rican music, they also
have midaninge, but it's not the same type of medane.
The undertones of the music is not like as African
for medenghe as tipico. So he definitely loves Dominican Republic,
the people, the culture of the place. But I feel like,
you know, growing up in New York City and especially
in Brooklyn, there's always been Dominican Puerto Rican beef in
New York. But I feel like Bad Bunny single handedly

(01:04:15):
squashed that beef when he put out on Beranocinthi, and
so I'm here to say it's officially squashed. We love
him and his concert was incredible and the tickets were
probably now maybe two three thousand dollars for seats that
are close to the floor of her it's.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Just about to ask what ticket prices were.

Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Like, but we got lucky. We got them for seven
hundred bucks, which is still expensive. Let's not lie, but
we got him really last minute, three seats together, super
close to the little casita where he performed separately from
the stage, so there were kind of two stages, one
in the front and one in the back or center,
which was a house at actual physical house in the
stadium with couches inside, TVs inside, a bar inside, people inside,

(01:04:51):
and he was performing on the rooftop.

Speaker 5 (01:04:53):
So it was just ough.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
I mean, I cannot I'll take at my phone back.
I need to train the TikTok algorithm and to serve
me clips correct. I only get clips of Cardig Cowway Carter.

Speaker 5 (01:05:02):
I get get the Cowboy Carter to I get the
Cardboard Carter.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
But Benito killed it, and he it's just I mean,
everybody is so proud of him.

Speaker 5 (01:05:12):
He's a kid who came from the slums, you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:05:14):
He came from the slums, and he just literally took
a chance and posted his music on SoundCloud back in
twenty twelve, twenty thirteen, thinking nobody would hear it, and
this one DJ found it and was like, Wow, this
kid's pretty good and now he's freaking Bad Bunny like, so,
I mean, it's just it's it's one of those things
that inspires you through to your bones.

Speaker 5 (01:05:30):
And the guy loves his craft. He loves music.

Speaker 2 (01:05:32):
Every single one of his songs sounds different, sounds unique.
He blends genres in a way that is just masterful.
So I loved it, and I'm so proud of him
for bringing two hundred million to Puerto Rico. It's definitely
an island that has been struggling and they need it,
so you gotta give props words due.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I think it's so beautiful when artists, sorry, go ahead, Chris, No,
go for it. Ma I think it's so beautiful about
artists who are That's what I think about Beyonce and
Bad Bunny have in common, is like the audience they
make them feel so good, Like Beyonce makes me so
proud to be a black woman and loved being a
black woman. And I feel like Bad Bunny, it feels
like like just hearing y'all talk about him that he

(01:06:10):
makes y'all feel so proud to be Latino, to be
Puerto Rican, and you know, like all that, and and
but at the same time, I don't feel any less
isolated from listening and enjoying his music. It's just like
and I probably no to for Beyonce, and it's just
that's that's the kind of artistry that we need. It's
like such a good, such a good example of just
like lean into who you are and serving your audience.

(01:06:33):
And it really can be universal.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Yes, especially when your music has meaning, right like Beyonce's
music is constantly uplifting the black struggle and paying homage
to black history and Bad Bunny's whole entire residency is
called no Michkeiro Yacki, which means I don't want to
leave here, which is literally him saying Puerto Rico is
getting gentrified and they're kicking us out of our own home,
and we don't want to leave. We want to stay here.
In his entire album, Showcase In highlights the plight of

(01:06:57):
Puerto Rican people trying really hard to stay there while
gentrification is coming in and regulation and policies are putting
preference on outsiders coming in, giving them tax benefits that
locals don't get. He's really highlighting these real issues in
a way that just you know, got to give them.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
Man props have We talked about that on the show,
about some financial some financial influencers moving to Puerto Rico,
and for that reason, where.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
We could do a whole episode about that. Because if
it's not great though, it's real estate. If it's not
that his investments, listen, it's.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Yeh, it's messy, mental mark, mental Bookmark. Well, thank y'all
for joining me at the brown Table. RBA fan, We're
gonna close out the show. What do I have to say?
Don't forget to join the Patreon. Also, I have Cebo
Campbell confirmed he is joining BA fam. He's going to
be on the show, or sorry, not on the show.

(01:07:48):
The author of sky Full of Elephants our June July
book Club pick. We are doing a Q and A
with him this coming Friday, so stay tuned to that.
I'm going to put the link to register in the
show notes so that you'll all can be there. It's
gonna be Friday. I'm gonna be in Miami. My yan Ellie.
By the way, I'll be there for two days. Hit
me out Thursday Friday, and I will be excited to

(01:08:10):
see you. And while I'm there, Cibo will be doing
a virtually but he and I are both randomly going
to be in Florida, so check tune in for that
ba Fam, and I promise I'm gonna have something to
share with y'all that day about our August September book
Club pick. I don't know, we'll find out time. It's hard.
How did piano people pick this every month? I'm doing

(01:08:33):
it every other month and it's already stressing me out.
But we'll get there, all right, ba Fam. Goodbye. We'll
see y'all on Friday for the ba QA. Thank you
on Ellie and Chris for joining me as always. Bye,
okay va fam, thank you so much for listening to
this week's show. I want to shout out to our

(01:08:53):
production team, Courtney, our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for
idea to LAUNCHS. I want to shout out my assistant
Lauda Escalante and Cameron McNair for helping me put the
show together. It is not a one person project, as
much as I have tried to make it so these
past ten years, I need help, y'all, and thank goodness

(01:09:17):
I've been able to put this team around me to
support me on this journey. And to y'all bea fam.
I love you. So so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe,
Make sure you're signed up to the newsletter to get
all the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our ten year
anniversary celebrations to come, and until next time, talk to

(01:09:37):
you soon bea buy

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Host

Mandi Woodruff-Santos

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

24/7 News: The Latest

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}When Will This Dumspter Fire End?