Let's Discover Our Agency with Dr. Charles Cole III

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Next term every time. Welcome to Hello Somebody, a production

(00:27):
of The Black Effect Podcast Network and I Heart Media.
Where we rage against the machine, where we raise our
voices against injustice and stand up for justice. Where we
embrace hope and joy with an optimism for a bright
or more just future. Each week I'll be dropping knowledge,

(00:48):
whether it's a solo episode from me or a hearty
discussion with esteam guests doing great things in spaces and
places of politics, entertainment, social justice, and beyond. We get real, baby,
I mean really real. We get honest, We get up
close and personal for you, yes, you, because everybody is Somebody.

(01:16):
Before we begin, I want to give a special shout
out to my team. Thank you, Sam, Tiffany, Sam and
the team over at Good Juju Studios, Erica, England, Pepper Chambers,
the Hot One, and my social media team. The many
hats I wear, and the unique positions and opportunities I've had.

(01:39):
One of the most enjoyable and favorable life experiences is
certainly being an educator. As many of you know, I
was a tenured assistant professor at the one and only
Cuyahogan Community College h S. If you're in the Cleveland
Ohio area. And one of my greatest loves, other than
my son and my two grand babies baby, is being

(02:01):
in that class room. Hello, somebody talking about the history
teaching our young folks and people who are young adjacent
about life and where they come from. Especially in regards
to my teaching of black history. It was so rewarding.
And educators certainly are the glue that keeps our young

(02:23):
folks our community connected. Teachers helped connect our young people
to their imagination, to their dreams, and to their passion,
or at least they should. And speaking of educators, oh
we today, I am honored to have Dr Charles Cole
the third. He's with us today and Dr Cole is
an educator who focuses on the advancement of youth, but

(02:46):
more specifically Black men. His experiences include serving as a
social worker, a director for Teach for America, the vice
chair of the California Young Democrats Caucus, and at a
director's level at various youth focused nonprofits. Hello and welcome,

(03:09):
Dr Cole. It is certainly a pleasure to have you
on the show today, and I was a guest on
your show as well. I'm just so glad to have
you here with me today, Dr Charles Cole, the third, Absolutely, yes,
the third. We gotta get that right. It's a those

(03:31):
are two different people. I love him, I can't. I
can't with you. I cannot. I had to clean credit
because of that early on. So yeah, I get it
that that credit score matters. Doc. I don't know if
you knew that. I'm a gmon now that's what they
call us in this generation of Grandma's look very different
from my older generation of grandmama. So we're not gonna hate.

(03:53):
We're not gonna hate on the generations Grandma big Mama's,
Big Mama's or something. It's a whole different time right now. Listen,
you will never ever catch me saying, you know how
young people be saying I ain't my ancestors. You'll catch
these hands. Listen, Man, if most of the people in
our generation had to deal with half the stuff that
our ancestors dealt with, they folded, they there would be

(04:17):
no social media to complain about it on. You just
gotta deal with it, So there's always honor the people
that came before us. While we're on that point, because
I want to get into your bio and have you
tell your story. But that point about, you know, because
I've been in several spaces and places and you know
the song y'all gonna make me lose my mind up
and here, up and here. I've had those moments when

(04:39):
mo fos want to say, don't talk about the ancestors,
or if I see one more a story about slavery,
what you're gonna do if you see one more imagine
what it was like to have to live it, and
you get a chance to watch it on the screen,
and then you got something to say. That is a fallacy.
To me. It is some kind of way how we

(04:59):
have been brainwashed that people can control our very minds
and our movement and our existence if they try to
make us forget whence we came. James Balban want to say,
you know from whence you came? If you know from
once you came, it's virtually no where you can go.
So how do you feel about some And I know
we're not homogeneous in our thought processes, and I'm not

(05:21):
trying to make us that way, but I am highly offended. Seriously,
I want to fight you offended when I hear people
saying I don't want to see one more show. I
know it's traumatic, So some people may be saying it
in that way because it's hard to deal with and
always have to go back. But then others are saying
it in when I say it happy Black History Month

(05:42):
and somebody say it's Black Future Month, Well, we can't
have a future without understanding the past. Don't get me started.
So dot, how do you feel about that? I feel
I mean, listen, man, like we keep creating these false
dichotomies right like in Black History Month, talk about anything
that that's black. You know what I'm saying, Like who
you don't get the stuff? I get the sentiment. I
get what everybody's trying to do. And we live in

(06:02):
a time where everybody is somewhat trying to quote unquote
controlled the narratives. And what I tell my young people
when we do research, I'm starting to research with you.
I'm starting it with who you are and what you
want to see change. But what I always tell them
is you're entitled to your experiences. You're entitled to your
story and to your own feelings and emotions, but you
are not entitled to your own facts. And I think

(06:24):
that that is what I'm hearing you say. You cannot
erase the parts that make you uncomfortable. You gotta tell
a full story. And I think that sometimes when pendulum
swing listen, when I hear somebody say that Senator Nina
Turner ain't left enough, or like, I'm just like, what
are you? What are you talk? Like? What is happening? Like?

(06:46):
What is where are we at? Where reality and common
sense is going away? And I think that I don't
rock with like super extreme right people or super extreme left.
I think people make decisions every single day, and part
of that stuff. In order to make those great decisions,
you have to know where you came from. Now, I
will agree, and I will push and say, our history

(07:07):
doesn't start a slavery, and you should like be sharing
our greatness and things of that. But we can't skip
over that piece. You know what I'm saying. I don't
want I wouldn't want to. I don't want Jewish people
to skip over the Holocaust. I don't want Asian people
to skip over what happened when we was building the
railroads and how they got, you know, in the internment
camps that we had here. You know what I'm saying,
I think this is a part of history and I
think that's part of the this whole lynchpin thing of

(07:29):
everybody making this artificial, not real bag of throwing of
the CRT bag. One CRT is not even a thing
that like people is having an issue with because that's
not a thing that gets taught in schools, right, that's
not a thing that gets taught in the elementary schools.
But they're talking about theory. I want to say, just
in case if somebody's critical race theory and and and

(07:49):
but it's but it's basically become a dog with so
of anything that makes the nationalists, loving people here feel
uncomfortable that our great history might be staying by some
stuff up. And I think that the same thing I'll
say the teachers, social workers, doctors, don't hide behind data,
stand next to it, stand with it. Let it be
a catalyst to be better. Say this is where we started,

(08:11):
but then it ain't gotta be where we finished. Like
like two things can be true at once, man, Like listen,
there's a lot of inequities. There's a lot of things
in this country that's jacked up that we're still working on.
I just got pulled over a few weeks ago. I
got a video I'll send it to you on the YouTube.
And he pulled me over. He couldn't understand that I
lived in Chicago and in Oakland. He couldn't understand that

(08:31):
I was coming from a book signing and like that
I had cars in Oakland in a car here like.
So he was like, he caught the drug dog on me.
I'm on the side of the freeway and I asked him, yeah.
I recorded the conversation because you know, we got friends.
I say, they're down for us, but we're telling our
stories and they sound crazy. So we out there. Everything
was done. I said, hey, man, let's just have a
talk real quick, like because I work with young people,

(08:52):
and I just let me know what set you off,
what scared you because you you had your hand on
your gun. You were nervous. I saw you nervous, right,
And he said, your cologe, your cologne smell real good.
And I basically thought she was highing something. I said, So,
so it's like, yo, we're getting pulled over and detained
for cologne. So there are some issues in this country.
And I've also been abroad. I've also seen real poverty

(09:16):
in real places. Uh. And I grew up in poverty
and even in the poverty that I grew up in
was light years ahead of this other place. There are
things about this country that I love and that I'm
gonna take advantage of. And I'm gonna continue to everything
don't have to be super extreme, but I'm gonna make
sure that the humanity of my people, the humanity of me,
the humanity of people like a Senator Nina Turner. And
here's the thing. Senator Nina Turner is a person. She

(09:39):
is a human, and she has some very strong beliefs
that people feel are super leftist, right, But it's like,
but but she married a copper what I've heard? So
I remember because when you came into our show, we
had to do background and I just follow you, right,
and I'm just like, what is wrong with people like yo? Like,
this woman is a human. She is not a statue

(09:59):
of of my ideals that you can just throw things into.
Like if you can't everybody tries to strip your humanity,
it's not Sometimes it's not just your your enemies, right,
Sometimes it's people that actually really believe in an idea.
You gotta let me be a whole human first, because
I'm gonna mess up. I'm gonna make mistakes. If Martin
Luther King Jr. Live today, Senator Turner, he wouldn't be

(10:20):
dr King as soon as them tapes got released on Twitter.
It was a rap. Even with us knowing the outcome,
we still would have been like, but waits, hold on,
you can't have this dream yet. Brother, You know what
I mean. And I just think that, like, I don't
want us to do ourselves any disservices. Let me stop,
because I'll be I told you I'm long when it's okay.

(10:41):
What you're laying out is so true. I am even
though the people who are joining us today can't see
my face when I just hear things I'm not left enough.
What the hell does that mean? I'm standing up for
humanity period, and I love how you are framing it. Yes,
I'm a human and I have my own thoughts and agency,

(11:01):
even the T shirt that you're wearing right now. I
talk about agency all the time because I do feel
as though the agency of black people is taken away constantly,
and especially of black women, and particularly in the political realm.
For me being a Chocolate sister, especially, so we got
all these levels of hell, you know, and for somebody

(11:23):
like me. I think I'm at the lowest level of
hell sometimes right now, Yeah, I mean Jacob's Ladder for real.
And even some African American folks feel as though it
is okay to strip away our agency. In other words,
we have to all comport ourselves put ourselves out to
the world in the same way. And if you are
in a certain industry that is even especially so don't

(11:46):
show emotion, and especially the angry black woman trope. You know,
they definitely throw that on me and other I think
sisters like me who express I just feel like if
the situation calls so some emotion, that's what you're gonna get.
I won't be clutching nod and pearls. Somebody out there drowning,
drowning in the ocean. What I look like clutching pearls. Now,
I need to jump myself phone in there and aggressively

(12:08):
give it all. I got to try to save your life.
And that's that is how I roll. So it does
bother me greatly that a lot of people, as you said,
friends and friend of me and enemies kind of feel
like they can control certain people and control our thoughts.
So your T shirt says my love language is agency?
What brought you to that? Oh man? So I have

(12:29):
this thing right, If my freedom, if my livelihood, if
my happiness depends on racist people no longer being racist,
broken systems that's been broken from multiple centuries, not tomorrow
no longer being broken, or somebody else having some pity
on me, then take me out like I don't if

(12:51):
I can't be a driver in my own life, I
just don't want to play that game. I'm just not
that type of victim. But if I can do anything
to change what that position may be for myself and
for my family, then I'm all in it. And so
an Age, that's what agency is. And and we were
talking about Big Mama and and our and our ancestors.
I'm gonna say this for because I'd like to talk

(13:11):
to our people, because this is the one thing when
black folks become doctors and all this stuff, like, because
I was like, you gotta call me documents, and one
of these these sisters in the middle whest you had
elders call you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Well one of these
elders right correct. They stopped me and she said, baby,
that's not your degree, that's our degree. So we're gonna
call you that because you earned it. That belongs to us,
because you belong to us in your hours. And I

(13:34):
remember when I was doing my dissertation and it turned
into a book that the one and only Elaine Brown
told me to write, call Beyond Great Resilience. And what
happened was I got into a big fight with the university.
This is gonna wrap up my agency thing, I promised,
and they said, well, you gotta right to the academy.
You gotta right. I said, I don't give it them
about the academy. I don't care about these people. These

(13:54):
people don't care about me. I didn't even really want
to do this degree. I was told by an elder
Dr Howard Fuller actually is the person who told me
to go ahead and do my my doctorate. And we
came to a resolution. And basically, every time I got
a chapter approved, I took it to a group of
black moms and whatever they didn't understand or whatever it
didn't make sense, we either changed it or we took
it out. Because what's the point of this research of

(14:17):
us researching ourselves if the people that I care about
can't read it and can't connect to it. I don't
need to build a new theory and put critical on
the end of it, and and build things that are
are unattainable. My job is to take things that have
been over complicated and make it simple for my people
and give them access to it. So agency it means

(14:37):
for what the Big Mama would tell you. You've heard
your granny say that. She didn't say agency, but what
she said was she prayed for discernment. Discernment meaning I
know what's good for me. I know when I'm getting quality,
I know when I want when I deserve something better.
And the hardest part of my job and education and
social work and healthcare, all the stuff that I do

(14:57):
is convincing black people that they deserve better. You deserve better,
and this is how you can get to better. So
we created a thing in my reports. We gotta do
the policy goals because that's what funders want. What's the
policy change? But I created this term called agentic What
are the agentic goals? That means that if the system
don't change tomorrow, these people still racist tomorrow. All this

(15:20):
stuff that's probably gonna happen as the sun rises. What
am I leaving my people with that they can use
right now? So that means I gotta pay them for
their time and their energy. That means that I gotta
give them tactics that they can do on their own.
So there's this great system in Oakland, and I'm glad
that our stuff passed through. And it's sitting at the
school board with a seven old vote right now and
they don't agree on nothing. So I'm glad we're there.

(15:43):
But what I'm more proud of is that we trained
over three or four thousand students how to better read
their own transcripts for themselves and teach themselves. I'm proud
of we trained over five hundred parents on how to
do this and how to check for these things. So
agency is the thing that we are born with. It
is the thing that we have. It is what separates
us from animals. It is a thing that separates us

(16:04):
from robots. We are human beings, and in this country
with the rights that we do have right now is
messed up, as some of the other stuff is. This
is a place where you can start from one place
and end up somewhere else. And I want to equip
my people to fight. I want to teach as many
people to fish as I can with what I got,
and I ain't perfect, and I'm gonna mess up, and

(16:25):
you're gonna mess up, and we're gonna make mistakes. But
the goal ain't perfection. The goal is excellence, and there's
a difference between the two. So I'm gonna strive for
excellence and I'm gonna mess up a lot alone. The
way I'm gonna say the wrong thing. I'm gonna step
on somebody's emotional accidentally, and I know that I did that.
I'm gonna alienate somebody else when I was trying to
lift up someone else, and I'm gonna ask for grace

(16:47):
on that, but I gotta keep walking in that path.
That's what agency is to me. Yeah, true, true that
I'm amen and everything that you're saying, and we are
all gonna mess up because it's called being human. So
unless you can take that out of the equation, it
means we're gonna mess up. And that's the PG form
because I'm thinking of another word. I have messed up
and I will mess up again. You had mentioned the name,

(17:13):
and I want to briefly go back to her and
pay her her due, and that is Missy Lane Brown.
You want to say a few words about the one
and only Black Panther herself. I think she was the
only woman to ever lead the Black Panto. And she's
still here. So yeah, oh she's here, and she is
here in a major way. The young kids would say,

(17:34):
she's she's swaggy, you know she she is. Uh, she's
still one of the best dressed people out unseen. She
fled everywhere she goes and she talked that fly you
know what I mean. She's from Philly, but you know
it was, but Oakland was where she kind of settled
in with the Black Panthers, and she got all of
that swag of Philly and Oakland together. I think she's
the reason that those are sister cities at this point.

(17:54):
She's just phenomenal. I don't I don't even know if
she remembers every single conversation we've had or whatnot. She's
a powerful one in that I'm sure a lot of
people get time for. But she's given me time and
mentorship and guy. And she's the one who slapped me
in the back of the head when I was dancing
around maybe writing a book, and she was like, just
write it, just like yes, ma'am. She said some other

(18:14):
words in there. But again I don't I don't want
to be cursing up on your show. But that woman
is is royalty to me, and she means a lot
to me. And and if I don't never talk or
see her again, She's already filled me up with so
much and I'm just very grateful for her and just
her stand for justice. I remember when like all this
work was happening, right, it was during the Black Lives

(18:34):
Matter stuff and all these other terms right was coming up.
But I remember her doing an interview and she said,
why y'all making new turns? But what her point was,
and where I think a lot of people missed for
the sensationalism of was that you don't have to rebuild
the things that we've already set for you. We need
you to build on top of it. And I think
sometimes she gets misunderstood. But she is like the women
in my family, right, like I was. I don't have

(18:56):
to get used to being around strong black leadership because
the matriarch to my family were very, very strong. So
Missy Lane Brown the only woman to chair the Black Panthers.
She is in California. Man, She's so dope, she really is.
I mean, she definitely epitomizes courage and strength and understanding

(19:17):
agency because she definitely understands her agency and she uses it.
So just want to shout her out and send her
some love. You certainly through your life experience and thus far,
because you have much many more miles to go and
much more life in you. You've been a beacon of light,
but your light didn't always shine as brightly as it
is shining now. Tell us about your journey. Yeah, So

(19:41):
I was born in Maywood, Illinois's a west suburb of Chicago,
and I was born in eighty three and there was
a brand new drug that came out that was hot
on the streets and cheaper than cocaine, and that thing
was cracking it. It is something that I've been obsessed
with because it is It's been just a huge part
of my life in a bunch of different ways. So

(20:01):
we struggled. My my maternal grandmother would eventually move back
to Kentucky, so I would go back and forth between
the Chicago area and Paduka, Kentucky and be with her,
and she was basically my mom. My parents were younger,
and it's so crazy, like how hard I might have
been on my parents then. But now I'm thirty eight,
and I think about my mom. I like them. She
had a seventeen year old at that point and far

(20:24):
less resources that I got access to now. But when
I was around nine or ten, my grandmother passed away,
and I remember when she got sick. I was very
sad when she was getting sick, and she she didn't
die on this one, but we had this talk and
then she had a heart attack and would pass on.
But she said, baby, you gotta let me go. I
earned this. It's something better waiting for me. I I've

(20:44):
been here, I've done my job. I've earned this death.
The whole reason I believe in God, the Trinity, any
of that stuff is because of that woman. That's the
first person I've seen excited because she has done what
she felt like she needed to do and there was
something else waiting for her. And and I just shared
that story. But so she passed away. My dad had

(21:05):
his sister in California, and we headed out there and
I ended up I would eventually end up in Oakland, California,
where I would say I'm from I've been I was
there from ten eleven two now, right, And so I
love being in Oakland. I went to the same elementary
school as Hue P. Newton, and if you read his
book Revolutionary Suicide, he starts by talking about how bad

(21:25):
the Oakland public schools are so and and that's one
of the reasons that they built their own schools. And
I just got to be a part of that legacy.
My parents would get clean in middle school. Very proud
of them. And one of the biggest blessings for me
is I used to go to NA meets with my mom.
I loved NA meetings. And I think that it is
all these things. This is why my company is called
Energy Converters, because things that happened to you don't have

(21:47):
value until you give it. So people can see this
stuff like, oh, this is sad, this is blah blah blah.
But this is a happy story. This is like, I'm
really blessed by all these things. One I got to
be from Chicago, Paduca and in California, which allowed me
to deal with a whole bunch of different types of
people across the country. And what if you know about
California And I love the Bay Area, but they tend
to turn their nose up at the Midwest and the

(22:09):
South you know, they tend to down talk them. And
living in Kentucky, like I saw people that worked in
like coal mines or uh did other type of jobs
and have to depend on those things. And so in
these in a meetings, I saw doctors, I saw all
every color like crack didn't CARRYO. Crack was coming and
it hurt us the most. It hit us hard, like

(22:30):
a ton of bricks and left. But people don't understand
the chemical makeup of cracking what it does. For five dollars,
you take this hit and it's the most insane high,
and it only lasts for five or ten minutes and
then it's gone. And on that point, the whole notion
of chasing the high. Absolutely it's never gonna be as

(22:51):
good as the first one. So you're trying to always
catch that again. And that's what gets you. So both
of your parents, both of yours, with drug addicts, yep, yep, yep.
And then and and and my mother went to rehab first,
and we we had family and all that stuff. And
I was supposed to go to a foster home. And
I'm gonna be honest with you, I was very excited.
I'm writing another book, and I would have a whole chapter,

(23:13):
like because I would have my own room and a
telescope in it. And these people, these are first people
in my life that I saw. I have two refrigerators.
I didn't know why they had to, but that means
they had a lot of food. And then my dad
at the last minute was like, no, I'm keeping my
family together. I was very mad at him. I get
why he did that and why he worked on that.
And then my mother got clean. And then she had
a very honest talk with my dad and he didn't

(23:35):
believe that me was greasy at first, and then she
went on the date. The dude bought me an ear
ring and my dad saw it. Don't know how. I
don't know how he knew that came from somebody. And
my dad is an interesting catman. But that dude. One
thing about that dude is he loves my mom. Me
and him don't always get along or see how the
I but you say something about renaut A Cole to
Charles Cole Jr. It's gonna be a problem. And uh,

(23:57):
And he got clean, He got clean. He he just did.
He just stopped. Don't tell me what the love of
a black woman can do. Man, don't tell me. So
from that I played ball. I did a bunch of stuff.
I was gonna go to college. And the lot that
I told myself, I call it a beautiful lie, was
I gotta do everything my parents didn't do. So the
first thing they didn't do that neither one of them
went to college. So I had to figure it out

(24:19):
and I got myself into college. I took these loans
that were super predatory, but it didn't matter right because
I gotta do this or I'm gonna die. I'm not
built to sell dope. I'm not built to to do
those things. I'm a square man. And it just wasn't
the shoes for me. And then put myself through grad
school and I started my career as a social worker
and did that for five years because I used to

(24:41):
deal with social workers as a kid. But there was
always these white casts that didn't understand my family, and
there's not a lot of black men in the social
work field. And so I was able to get in
with this program and shout out to Schwarzenegger because he
signed this thing that let me do an ms W
exception because I did not want to get a traditional MSW,
but this program allow me to work, take classes, and

(25:02):
have special supervision to where I could get my MSW
and practice in California, and Schwarzenegger signed it. And then
from there I went and did another master's in public
administration Nonprofit development at San Francisco State, and I started
working with youth, and you know, I love I did
really well there and got hundreds thousands of black kids
in and through college, many without having to take in

(25:23):
college debt, even though I was still collecting it for
grad school. And then UM ended up doing my doctorate
in education at San Francisco State, and my research was
on black kids that grew up during the crack epidemic
that went on to be doctors. And I wanted to
build I don't do research that says I'm smarter than you,
and here's this thing, and here's the right answer. What
I wanted to do was capture experiences and navigation tales.

(25:45):
I wanted to capture oral histories and the African tradition
of people that persevered and captured these moms, and I
wanted us to tell those stories. And so there are
stories of three black men from different parts of the
country and how they navigated that moms and parents trying
to figure out can look at And let me tell
you one of the biggest things and why it's important
that we research ourselves. I remember bringing one of the

(26:06):
stories back to a group in my in my program,
and it had some white folks in it, and there
was a story where the boy got beat up in
East Stockland and he came back in his mom's was like,
you better take your ass back outside or you're gonna
fight me, like it's gonna be a problem. And I
remember these white women like recoiling right, like being like, oh,
she's a terrible mom. And that that it all became
clear to me why God put me in this program,

(26:28):
because you don't understand the nuance of what that is
for a kid growing up in the eighties and nineties
in East Stokland. She understands the streets. She knew that
it's better that he go out there and get his
ass beat again and again so he would not be
picked on for the rest of his life. You know,
like there are certain codes and rules or whatnot, and
it might not be the way you would do it,

(26:49):
but this woman was doing the best she could with
what she had, and she did something right because the
boy is a doctor. Now, the boy is a very
renowned doctor. But that was the moment where I knew
it's danger risk when other people that don't know us
and don't know our stories are the people that's reporting
on them and telling them. And I think that's why
it's really important that you're in that Senate, Senator Nina,
because you understand what real people, especially in that Cleveland area,

(27:12):
are going through. You know what I'm saying. You under
you see people going to work, you see how hard
they are, and you see that they don't have time
for elite people having in fighting. But then they get
to go to the golf course after hours and get along,
you know what I mean, And they know laws being
passed to help us. So thank you. I know that's right.
Oh well, thank you. It's certainly an honor to have

(27:32):
been able to serve in that capacity and and doing
what I'm doing right now. And you're right, I'm just
hearing you tell that story and right that story of
the mother saying their son, you gotta go back out there.
It may be an unconventional way to try to save
his life in the long run, and yes, it's not
how we wanted to be, but that's just how it

(27:53):
was in that moment, and for her to to do
something like that to save her son's life. And when
people don't have cultural context, and I'm not just talking
about a cultural context from the lens of I'm black,
you're white, or I'm you know, African American and your
ancestors help from Ireland or England. I'm not talking about

(28:14):
that kind of context. I'm also talking about a cultural
context from a social economic lens well, a cultural context
from a regional perspective as well. All of those contexts
the year that somebody grew up in or came of
age in where they live, when they were coming of age,

(28:36):
what was happening in the world when they were coming
of age, what was happening to their immediate family. All
of those things make us who we are, and we
don't take enough time to peel back the layers. And
in terms of can people relate to us, sometimes they
just cannot. It's a black thing. I remember, I don't

(28:56):
know if you remember, there was a saying in our
community as a black thing and you just wouldn't understand.
And that is true, not saying that everything within the
black experience can only be understood by black people. But
there's some intricacies even when you're in an environment where
there are very few black people and you get that
nod or you get that look like, hey, I see you.

(29:18):
It's a black thing. You wouldn't understand. So it's from
something as simple as that to something as complex as
the story that you just shared about a mother knowing
that if her son did not face these demons, No,
not right, that's not how we want kids to have
to grow up. That they got to fight to survive.
But the mother knew because she was living in it

(29:40):
and to save her son's life. And and and now
her son is a doctor. I am so glad that
you are in the profession that you are in, which
leads me to this question. So few black men, as
you laid out, are in social work, and so few
black men are educators. Knowing that, did you have a
deep understand standing of that and that is what motivated

(30:02):
you to go into it? Did you ever feel at
some point these are not masculine? And I'm saying that
in the context of how masculinity is defined in this patriarchal,
ridiculous as society. The white supremacy and the patriarchy that
has really plagued the entire world. But we we'll say
that for another conversation. What was it that gave you

(30:24):
both the courage and the energy and the foresight to
really go into these two fields knowing that there's a need,
there's a need for black men like you and these arenas.
It's very selfish. One is, I got to have a
career right out of college. And I don't care if
y'all said was feminized or not. I have a career
and I specialized in working with kids with special needs

(30:46):
and my aunt, my favorite aunt, her son is on
the autism spectrum and he's nonverbal, and so one it
became a free way for me to give resources to
my aunt because we're very expensive. Those services are very expensive,
and to I dealt with false there uh and family,
and I had to deal with that as a kid
growing up. And I didn't see us reflected, but really
at the time I was dating this this this young lady,

(31:07):
and there was just a cool job that where I
got to work with kids on the spectrum and I
was really good with it, and they asked me if
I wanted to be a social worker and found that
whole Schwarzenegger thing, and and they took care of it.
And then at that point, being a black man in
that work, because there is a lot of our young
people that would have what we call behaviors, especially when
they hit puberty some some sometimes kids on the spectrum,

(31:29):
their behaviors mellow out a lot, and sometimes they spike.
So you can't send a young lady in a certain
environments with a fourteen fifteen year old boy on the
spectrum whose behaviors are spiking. My first year on the job,
this kid was about five eleven, about two fifty and
his mom, you know, we were having a conversation. She
wasn't supposed to say no. It was part of the plan.

(31:50):
We were redirect and do this stuff. And she got
frustrated and said no, and he hard off and hit her.
And I saw this dude push a refrigerator. So at
that point I became very valuable to the organization because
because there wasn't a lot of men black men that specifically,
I got more cases than other people did because you
can't send certain people into those environments. And so, but

(32:11):
being a social work with such a blessing, because it's
the inverted career of teaching. It's the cousin career of
teaching in the sense that in teaching, you learn about
the subjects, you learn how to teach it, you try
to control your environment, you do your pedagogy, and you go.
Social work is the opposite. It's you learn a little
bit about a lot. So you gotta know enough about education,
enough about the legal system, enough about cops, enough about

(32:32):
the law. You gotta be in court, you gotta do
these things, and you learn that you don't have a
lot of power in your jobs to truly wrap somebody
in services. And so it was easy for me to
pivot into healthcare into education after that. So if people
are looking for something to try, there's a lot of
realms of social work. Once I got into the education thing,
it's selfish again. I didn't have a meet. I didn't

(32:54):
have somebody that dressed how I dressed, that cared about
how they looked, wanted to be fly grew a poor
But it's like living a good life off of their
mind and education. And like, I didn't want to just
teach you simple topics. I wanted to teach you that
you could live, that you could like you can enjoy yourself.
I don't know where. And there's always this notion that
when black people become professionals, we gotta be broke. And

(33:16):
I don't know what that is. That's a lot from
from Satan himself. That's from the Pits of Hell. I know,
I know, I was gonna say. My grandmother would say
all the time, that's the line from the pits of Hell. Man,
it's from the pits. It's it's from that bottom round
of that ladder that right now, we gotta gotta debunk that.
So once I got in and I was good, you know,
things just started to grow. And I remember watching Jerry McGuire,

(33:37):
Senator Turner. You've seen Jerry McGuire, right, I love to
one of my favorite movies. So remember this partly. Remember
Tom Cruise has the number one draft pick and his daddy,
eracis so he loses him. And then Tom Cruise is
like the press. He drunk, but he got this fly
b net on, right, he got this custom blazer on.
He's about to catch a plane back to his house

(33:58):
that's on a beach where his partner is Renee Zellweger,
and they work together and end up being together. And
this is the worst day of his life, Senator Turner.
So in my mind, the worst day it is white
man's life. It's better than the best day I could
have ever imagined. But that cat might as well have
been Bruce Wayne Batman because I didn't see sports agents

(34:21):
that looked like me at that time, so I didn't
even pursue it. I would have loved to have had that.
So I want to get in front of as many
of us and as many of little means as I can,
just as an option, just as something that you can
see that you know, just so you know it's real,
just so you know you can do it. So when somebody,
when a little girl sees Senator Nina Turner and they're like,
wait a second, hold on, Like this woman gets to

(34:43):
speak her mind, be her, She wear flyglasses every time.
She get to tell these white folks about themselves or whatnot.
And she gets to live in between d C and
in Cleveland and do it, and she get to be
on planes. You know how bad The way I got
to Oakland was on a Greyhound. You know I takes
to get to Oakland. It takes life plus dates. Okay,
So so again, right, it's all about perspective, and I

(35:05):
always had that motivation. So in education it would just
a gateway for me that has allowed me to do
a lot of things. And my hard work has been
able to afford a lot of things for a lot
of people in my community and not just for me.
And so when I do a REA, when I do research,
I command money that's gonna pay the kids or the
families of the end uses of education is what I

(35:26):
called them. I served the end uses of education and
that's in disordered as students, their parents, and then their community,
and then you got teachers and administrator. But it's very
important that you have a ranking system because you will
get lost in some of this. And guess what, Senator
Turner also works for the Democratic Party. I was the
vice chair of the Black Young DEM's in California for

(35:48):
a few years. I co founded Black Young DEM's Oakland
and back Black Young DEM's San Francisco. And what turned
me off to the party. I'm still technically a Democrat,
but what turned me off is every time, even as VP,
when I would try to bring up black issues was
always a problem. But if he wanted to talk about technology,
if we wanted to talk about tech, bros. Their issues

(36:08):
always superseded, and I always was like, Okay, we'll do yours,
but when is our turn? When's at our turn? Wins
at our turn? And our turn would never come around.
And I had to leave a post because I'm like,
I gotta go do something that's really gonna help black people.
You know. People keep asking if I'm gonna run for something.
I say, absolutely not, And uh, I like doing my
work in education, and I sit on the UCSF beny

(36:28):
Off Children's Hospital board in the Bay Area and we
oversee about four billion dollars in healthcare stuff. So part
of the reason I joined that Senator Turner was because
I grew up a few blocks from this hospital and
never went to it. Didn't feel like the hospital was
for me. Black folks having a version to healthcare and
hospitals in that way. And uh, you know, so one

(36:49):
of those things, I just want my people to be healthy.
I want us to have a healthy relationship, you know,
with going to the doctor, and said, I'm grown, I
got degrees, I got a little bit of a bread,
I ain't balling, but and I it's still take a
lot for me to go to the doctor. My damn
self right, so right. I mean, first of all, I
think that's some cultural complexities to men, especially black men,
going to the doctor, but they're economic complexities to so

(37:11):
hard for universal health care. And I will say about
the Democratic Party, we have to be allies to each
other on the causes of humanity. So I understand exactly
where you are coming from. Now, the Energy Converters, Let's
let's talk about your organization, because you were talking about

(37:34):
the ordering and how students and parents are at the
top of the ordering or the hierarchy, if you will,
you lay their focus in on them and their knees. First,
what made you create that organization? I know it's a tool,
and you're using your tools. You're using really what you've
been blessed through your life experience. I know you aren't

(37:56):
always feeling blessed throughout your life, but all of that
came to order your steps. I want to say it
that way and make you who you are right now.
So you created an organization called Energy Converters, both a
nonprofit and llc UH two different things. And basically I

(38:16):
wrote a thing for Huffton Post a long time ago
when miss Ariana Hufton was still there, and it kind
of blew up. But it was basically around me putting
into perspective my journey and like how that has guided
things and how it's been a blessing for me. And
basically what I'd like to teach young people is we
don't have to wallow. We can acknowledge that things are

(38:36):
not where they need to be, but what are we
gonna do about it. I'm not hopeless, I'm not a victim,
and you don't need to be one either. That don't
mean we don't push systems. We're gonna push systems, but
we're also gonna make sure you got the things and
you know how to fend for yourself. Because I would
see educators and they thought they were doing well, like
here's another story, because I'm a story guy. Was like

(38:57):
I had this young staff, and I would this activity
with young people when we when when I work for
somebody else, and basically we would give them these papers
at the beginning of the year and we tell them
to put them in somewhere safe because at some point
we're gonna ask for him and you're gonna have to
be able to get it by the next day. And
the reason I did that is because when I was
in college, financial a would lose my paperwork every single year.

(39:18):
It was like a thing. And going into the financial
aid office if you ain't got a relationships, it can
be a really tough place, especially and with the population
I worked with. So there was this white young lady
that worked there and I had her duty assignment. I
was a supervisor and the kids didn't do what they
need to do and she just was like, well, they've
had trauma and they've had this, and they said, listen, listen, listen.
I know that you want to feel good right now

(39:40):
that you've given these young people a break, Like I
know that you want to feel like you're part of
this group or whatever. But I'm preparing them for what's
about to come. Like there's gonna be fights that they're
gonna have. They're cute kids now with a story that
you know and you care about. But cute kids turn
into like adults outside of this space, uh, and they're
gonna be left to their women. They're not gonna get

(40:01):
no second chances. So I'm trying to prepare them for
the things that might come. And that's when I realized
I can just be mad ass systems. I can complain
about somebody else's company. I can complain about what the
government doing or ain't doing, what the schools are doing
or ain't doing well, I can start my own thing
and put my money where my mouth is. And so
I wanted to build an organization at what prepare young

(40:23):
people for the journeys ahead of them and teach them
how to find the lesson and everything that they do.
And here are the three things. And you do this
very well, Senator. We have three things around agency that
if you remember these things, you will be okay. Awareness, navigation,
and duty. And you do this perfectly. What I'm gonna
make you aware of the system. I'm gonna tell you
where where it ain't fair, what is fair. I'm gonna

(40:45):
show you other examples so you know that there's other
things out there, that there's better stuff and all that too.
Even though we talk about these utopias and we think
about them, and you talk about them a lot around
what we could do if we had universal health care,
if we actually got rid of like college debt for people.
But the young people that we have now, they are
still responsible of navigating things as they are today. So

(41:06):
how do we make sure that they're Okay, how do
we make sure that they're not at the whim of
somebody else, you know, needing to be generous that day
or whatnot. So how do I help you navigate? And
then the final part is now duty, Now that you
know better, how do you do better? Right? And so
when I was in high school, I learned how to
read my own transcript because I had to figure out
college on my own because both my parents didn't go

(41:27):
and I played ball. But once I learned how to
read my transcript, and it's like, hey, somebody else from
the team, Hey, hey, man, bring your report card over
here too. I'm I'm I'm just going through and seeing
how my classes and filling out this stuff. This is
how you do this, you know how to do this
and whatnot. Like our young people go out and make
changes on their own, you know what I mean. Like
now that they know better, they're activated to go do better.

(41:48):
And that's the that's the basis of what we do
is awareness, navigation, and duty. So we do these scientific reports.
We follow scientific you know, we follow a method of methodology.
We follow these rules. It always centers and starts with
those young people around what they like in their community.
And school and what they want to see change. We
get their stories, they blog about it. We got a
whole online magazine that as people have used for pds

(42:12):
across the country. It's over a hundred articles. And then,
like I said, you entire up to your own experiences
and your own your own feelings, but you're not in
touch with your own facts. So then we start looking
what are the literacy rates here? What does this look
like versus the rest of the country. Why is it
that black folks are at the bottom of this, this
and this, you know, in all these other places, right, like,
what does it what does it mean to have a
black educator? What does the research in the data say?

(42:34):
So now these young people are looking at these stats,
not just his numbers, but oh these people talking about me.
Wait a second, they're making plans around me, you know.
And another interesting thing I've lived in interest in life.
You remember ebonics, Remember that whole thing. I went to
West Lake Junior High School. I was one of the kids,
a part of the study, and I remember they would

(42:54):
pull us out of class to talk about it and
stuff like that. And then I think Saturday Night Live
lampounded like they didn't they didn't sell it good to
the public. They didn't really like he is now in
a different place and it's talked about differently, but at
the time bondings became a joke, right, and so but
they're just abandoned us, Like so we had all this
time we missed in class and nobody gave us no money.

(43:14):
Like now we also behind and this other thing, and
oh yeah, there's this joke thing. Y'all just get to leave,
like that's what we're doing. So anytime I do research,
even if it don't go well, even if our stuff
gets rejected, like you at least coming out with your
time being paid for and you being valued and you
got some tools that you can use, because Dr Cole
ain't gonna be around. Like, I don't want any young

(43:36):
person depending on me. And if you're an educator, you're
not trying to build young people to be depending on you.
You want them to be independent, free thinkers. I never
tell my kids what to think. I just give them
every side of stuff. So, okay, we'll we'll go through
a political thing. Senator Turner put this out, Well, what
what do her supporters say and then what do her
opponents say? Is there an opponent in the Senate that

(43:57):
has something to say. Grab all of that stuff. I'm
not going to tell you what to think. Read these things.
Let's go read some history. Now, where are you landing?
Tell me why you think that? And I love when
kids end up on different sides of it and have
to defend it critical thinking. And I debated in high school. Uh.
I was forced because I kept getting kicked out of class,

(44:19):
my history class because I would always argue. And my parents,
my history teacher who was a debate coach, and my
basketball coach conspired against me and they said, you, if
you gotta go to this debate camp, you have to go.
It was that you c Davis. And I went and
I got thirteenth place, and I didn't want to go,
but they said I couldn't play basketball if I didn't.
I got thirteen place in the camp, I took my

(44:40):
medal and I chucked it because who wants third team place?
And I came back, got a new partner, and then
I won the whole tournament and never did it again.
But what I learned in it is that it trains
you to always look at multiple size of an argument.
Because the way debate seasons works. You get a topic
at the beginning, but you don't know if you're gonna
be the affirmative or the negatives, and so you have

(45:00):
to do all this research and data around it, uh,
and then make an argument. You know, at the drop
of a hat. The secret and debate though, y'all is
everything leads to nuclear war and people gotta just prove it.
But anyway, I just say all that to say energy
converters as an amalgamation of my grandmother's of how I
was born, of you know, having to be the new
kid everywhere I went, having to depend on me um,

(45:22):
not having strong roots anywhere home is, wherever my backpack is,
and wherever I'm at at the moment, and just knowing
that God has put me on here like God puts
his soldiers through certain things. So you can testify about
it and actually add some sense to it, and you
can do sense making like Ozetta and Ernestine, who could
have never dreamed that I'll be on the Come on,
I'm in a meeting with Senator Nina Turner, like talking

(45:45):
about my life like these were simple women, yo, Like
my grandmama still did, like some tea that we have
to wait all day for and like you know what
I'm saying, Like we lived in the projects in Paduka, right,
Like their sacrifice could not be in vain. And so
whatever I was to honor those women, and whatever mistake
I make, y'all blame that on me. But anything good

(46:06):
that comes from me, it's them women. It's because of them,
I would say. He said simple, And there's nothing wrong
with simple, Simple, and Mary the way that you're defining
and describing them. And they are very much a part
of who you are today and who you will be
in the future because you carry them with you. Their
spirit is with you too, and not strive for simple.

(46:27):
I like simple. It's beautiful. I know that's right. Don't
too much complicate, too much, too complicated. I don't like
not knowing where I'm gonna live. I don't like like
having to be in a new I don't like instability.
I grew up homeless. I like simple. I like to
know what's coming. I like to be prepared and living
in big cities. I appreciate slowness now, like I appreciate

(46:47):
the diner that you go in the Midwest and they're
not serving you until you greet them, and they're like
it's gonna take thirty minutes for it to come out,
because ain't nothing more important than you're getting this meal
and being with in community with another human. Right now,
I'm lived in a big, fast, bubbling places. Man, I'm
I like simple. I would retire somewhere simple. Absolutely simple
was beautiful. There is a gentleman by the name of Mr.

(47:11):
Is it Dirrik Dirt Tillers till Oh, yeah, you did
some oka she don did some research. I love it.
Can you talk a little bit about him? And absolutely
port helped develop you to the leader you are today. Yeah.
So last year was a tough year. I lost eleven people.
Uh not everything was COVID related. It was just a
tough year and I'm used to losing people like in

(47:34):
the work that I do, especially with black boys. One
of my best friends was murdered in between eighth and
ninth grade selling dope and then, like a few other friends,
one trying to go out the game. He was killed.
He just had a daughter. If you read the book
I talk about them. And then last year reminded me
of those times right where I was just losing people
to violence and stuff and dirt. It's somebody who had

(47:55):
ties in New York in Oakland, and he was about
black education and he didn't care about the meth. He
didn't care if it was a traditional school, a charter school,
private school, whatever. He believed that black parents should be
sovereign over how they want to educate their kids. Like
if you got the bread to put your kid in
the private school, and ain't nobody, don't nobody need to
shame you for that. If if you choose that charter school,

(48:16):
you want to choose that other school down the block,
that's your business. And he fought for that, and he
tapped into me because my mother had a record, like
I told you, and I wanted to go to the
school Berkeley High. It was designed by UC. Berkeley is
where all of the people with money and the church
since they kids. It was a public school, but I
lived in Oakland, and she applied for an auditional transfer
and she got denied. But she was reminded, ma'am, you

(48:39):
have a record. If we find out that, like you're
committing for all to get your kid in X school,
you go to jail. And I remember my mom like
crying of it. I don't even think she ever knows
that I saw her, and so the next day I
was like, my don't want to I don't even want
to go to that school. I want to go to
the school across the street. Like that's why I want
to go. That's what you know. It's a smaller school.
I could go on the basketball team, right. I just
didn't want her to have that pressure because I think
she would have took that risk for me. And Dirk

(49:02):
is somebody who fought to make sure that that was
a reality for parents. And so when we and him
met up in Oakland, he's one of my advisory board
members for Energy Converters. We co founded Families and Action
and Education in Oakland, we co found another thing called
State of Black Education, and he just was a good mentor,
Like he was a very calm guy. I was the

(49:22):
I was the senator turner of like that group in
the sense of I'm ready for all the smoke. I
ain't scared a none of you people. What's gonna happen,
because again, in our community, something is there worse than death.
Somethings are worse than as beat. And also I'm just
not scared of ol white ladies at like school board
means I don't understand this, like these are very controlled environments.
I think this is growing up in hoods have helped
me with this, and I'm not a hood dude, but

(49:43):
and I think that's part of why you are how
you are in the center floor. You're like just the
safest place. What they're gonna do, Like I'm gonna say this,
what's gonna happen? So you know, um and then Dirk.
During this time, home invasions have risen in Oakland. Crime
has changed a lot in Oakland. We used to put
a map out every year out the murders and Oakland's
not that big of a city. A lot of people
don't realize how small Oakland is, so the murders per

(50:06):
capita are a lot. But then it come down for
a little bit, and then the COVID hit and then
people got Hongrykus also one of the most expensive places
to live in the world. Uh, and it's growing because
they said it wasn't valuable when it was a black city,
right even though it's seven degrees all year, is right
by the water, and then white people want they spot back.
So you know, now it starts to gentrify, and you know,

(50:28):
somebody ran up in his house, shot his wife and
shot him and he died. And if you knew dirt,
he would have just been like, man, take what you
need and get up out of here. Man, Like you
know what I'm saying. It didn't need to happen. He
was such a crusader for young people. He was such
a crusader. And his story itself. He became a lawyer,
but his story is not very different from mine, and
it's like East Coast poverty and like living in cars

(50:50):
and a whole bunch of stuff. He didn't often share it.
I used to push him to share a story more
because it's important, I think, for the people that I
tend to care about, Like I talked to church communities
a lot, like I talk I talked to you know,
black folks in our in our communities a bunch, right,
And they need to be able to relate to you.
They gotta be able to feel you before they can
really hear you. But he just was a phenomenal guy
and I miss him every day and every presentation I

(51:13):
give around education, I give honor to him. As we
expand energy converters, you know, I'm always honoring him. And
I'm gonna name some type of scholarship or something after him.
But I'm very blessed to have had him in my life,
and I hope he is getting to sit somewhere on
high and and watch a leaf from his tree, you know,
continue to carry on some of the things, uh, that

(51:35):
we started, and hopefully he's not cringing too much by
even some of my missteps in this uh, in this conversation,
you know. And I just think we're not gonna focus
on that, but you know, it's yeah, yeah, I mean,
he was an amazing guy and he didn't deserve that.
He didn't he didn't gotta put that out there, this
kind of nonsense. I get it that people are desperate

(51:59):
at times, hungry at times. I know what it's like
to be hungry. You know, they call it food and secure. No,
just flat out didn't have enough food. Didn't have a
fancy word for it, right, don't don't don't fancy right,
don't fancy it up, don't doctor it up. No, just
didn't have enough food to eat. Whatever it is. I
still believe that unless your life is in danger, you

(52:19):
don't have a reason to do what they did to
him and his wife. It just it's nonsense. To me,
it's it's unmanacceptable. It's totally unacceptable. I know many a
poor people, many a desperate person, and they never invaded
anybody's home, they never knocked anybody over the head. And
the ship is unacceptable. So that kind of stuff just
gets makes my blood. Boy, that you think you can

(52:41):
take other people's stuff, you cannot, and you should not
be doing that, as hard as times are, especially doing
it to individuals in that particular way, just it boggles
my mind. It bothers me greatly. I appreciate that and
to and what he would have said to honor him properly.
I broke down one time and I was on stage
in Indian I hate breaking. I don't like doing it,
but I brought was on stage and it was right

(53:02):
after it happened and I was doing his tribute and
uh that a black Hands was on tour and I
broke down talking about him because he was an integrowing that.
But what he would have said was if that boy
had had a good education, with educators that loved him,
with people around him that showed him other ways, and
the economic opportunities, uh, and a good job and all

(53:24):
these other things that you know, we're supposed to be
able to provide in this society, this probably wouldn't have happened.
That's who Dirk was. He always saw this other side,
even when they were things that targeted him. I remember
something else I got in stolen from him and and
I was heated. I was when I was mad, and
he was just like, but I'll get it back. It's okay,
Like we're gonna be all right, Like it's good. Let's

(53:45):
look at it from this person's perspective. And and he
loved Nipsey Hustle. And I don't know that Nipsey Hustle
really really it changed him a little bit. It's weird
because Dirk was an older cat like, he's not a
rap dude like I'm the rap cat like. But it
to him in a different way. And that's when he
started to like finally open up a little bit more
about who he was. And and he loved that story

(54:06):
of how enough if he would go back to his
place to do these things and stuff. So I hate
that he had a similar you know what I'm saying,
that somebody in your own neighborhood that's fighting for you,
and that's and that's what happened. So thank you for
letting me. Thank you for that, because I wasn't I
wouldn't have said it. So I appreciate you giving me
that opportunity. No, I'm glad. I'm glad you did. And
we need people in the world like Dirt feeling the

(54:29):
way that he does, and we need people like me
feeling the way that I do too. I agree with
everything you just said. That he would have said all
of that. Two things can be true at once. He
still didn't deserve that. It's just pretty sad, some sad commentary.
So two quotes. I always start to show with quotes
and end the show with quotes, but we dived right

(54:49):
into I want to say that to No, you don't
have to it's not your fault. Is beautiful. So, George
Washington Carver, education is the key to unlock the a
golden door of freedom. We know that George Washington Carver
was an inventor, Hello somebody from the Ways to Use
the Peanut just an extraordinary, extraordinary man. And then from

(55:13):
the one and only w b D Voice. Education must
not simply teach work. And I think this is the
point that you're making, Doc. He said, education must not
simply teach work, It must teach life, and that is
what you are doing in your capacity as the leader,
the creator of energy converters and everything else that you

(55:35):
touch and doe to lift so many people, starting with
our babies and then their parents and then everybody else
is below that. I thank God for you and the
journey that you're own and for all that you had
to endure to be molded into the young man that
you are right at this moment and the best is
yet to come. You are just at your sunrise, baby,

(55:55):
very much in the sunrise and watch our world. Well,
I appreciate that. I so grateful for you. And you know,
not nervous, but you know you wanna you never know
if you get to talk to somebody again, so you
just wanna get as much in there and and and
share that moment. So thank you for having this moment
with me and anything I can do to be supportive
of you. And uh, if we're doing quotes, uh, this

(56:16):
is one thing that oz Atta Hooper, my maternal grandmother,
would say. She would say, baby, you are You're an
apple seed. And apple seeds don't have to try to
grow and bear fruit. They just do and it just
nourishes other people, So just be you being is enough.
But then she would also say, but there everybody is

(56:36):
not apple season. It's okay. Some people are farmers and
their job is to find fertile soil, put the right
seeds together, give it like, give it water, and feed it.
Everybody got a part in a role to play, regardless
of your race, your color, where you come from. Some
people of seeds you gotta let them shine and bear fruit.
But there are some other people, you know that can

(56:57):
help spread those seeds out so they can do the
best job they can. So I'm working hard to be
both seed and farmer. And I think that Senator Turner,
you are living in both, and I I'm so, I
really want you to just get your flowers. So I
think the way we started this conversation about miss Elaine Brown,
who was the legend or an angela days, they are

(57:21):
who is are? But and and people don't see themselves, right,
you don't. Nobody is seeing themselves as history as it's happening.
They just living. But you're that person. You have stood
up for us. You have stood up you know you have.
You have meant what you said, and you have said
what you meant you have taken pushback and blowback and
you know, and I think you have also told us
that this okay. We don't have to agree on every

(57:43):
single thing, like that's that's life. You just have so
much grace and and and poison the way that you
do it. And I feel like you're gonna be the
blueprint for somebody else. Everything from the glasses on day
down to the to the way you walk. And that
was one of the biggest finders in my in my
last report around black students, Black lead charter schools from
the voices of black students, and one of the girls

(58:05):
said about her Black woman CEO, was that I watched
how this woman walks, how she talks. I never even
thought about a career in education, but she just commands
rooms and I want what she has and I have
a leader in that every day and you are that
for somebody. So thank you, thank you. Wow, we got

(58:26):
me all choked up here. I'm tearing up a little bit.
It's a vibe. I think everybody has a vibe. Our
vibe is just something about it. It's spiritual. It's a vibe.
So I received that. I'm just gonna say thank you.
I absolutely received that, like, how can people find you?
How can they purchase your book? I know there's a
documentary all kinds of good things. Absolutely there is at

(58:50):
Charles coe to third dot com, Charles cole I dot com.
You can find like all my work, my books, the
clothes where I'm gonna be talking at how to book
me if you want energy converters and we spell converters
different instead of E r s is o r s
because we wanted to own the the whole thing. So
energy converters dot org. You can kind of kind of
come find our work. And also you can hear me

(59:13):
running my mouth every Sunday night nine pm Eastern on Twitter, Facebook,
all that stuff with a Black Hands and now on
Twitter that's at a Black Hands one where Senator Turner
has been a guest. And then I started another show
that's about black and brown folks kind of coming together
and what that could look like. And that's called Common
Grounds of Self Determination. We're gonna change the name soon,

(59:33):
but that we we started that kind of black people
working on themselves and brown people working on themselves and
then we come together. What could that mean? And I
and I'll be remiss if I didn't name those brothers.
And that's Friday. I'm on Twitter at C col I I,
that's at C C O L E I I and
uh and I'm not I'm just not hard to find

(59:53):
and and any anything I can do. I want to
be on the record saying this. You need me to
show up somewhere, You need me to fly somewhere, You
need me to talk somewhere, even to shut up, you
even do whatever. Um, I am in service. You are
the boss. I have no problems to mend to the
love an amazing strong black woman. Um and you know,
just keep doing your thing. Man. Thanks that. I appreciate you, loving,

(01:00:14):
loving you so very much. You are the absolute best.
So thank you so much for being on this Hello
Somebody's journey. Because everybody is somebody Hello, somebody, Hello, somebody
Turn at Mary story very thing, somebody and then to

(01:00:34):
turning somebody turning somebody to reach turn. Yeah, change is coming.
The pain is nothing trying to shoot for the stars.
If you're gonna ang for something, embrace the love for

(01:00:56):
your brother and sister. You need these the mission brush,
we need the puzzle, the pictures painted up and frame
it up for the world to see. Hain't to hatred up.
Enough is enough, It's enough making changes or enough in
turn of a voice of the truth to wise world.
Despire the youth to keep their eyes on the roof.
It's the end. Never give up, keep conquering goals. To
the eye intelligent silver, wisdom is gold. Back to the end.

(01:01:19):
Now is your time, Stay firm, don't fold to the
a or you need is the three bones. That's what
Rannie said. Now I'm gonna make sure these words from
Rannie spread for all the hair to give it your air.
She can take him to the promised man. I swear
world pieces what they fear. Queen's the Cleveland, Ohio were here,
famous famous turning somebody don't need to turn up, spanning

(01:01:46):
about somebody even turn out Hello, Somebody need to turn up.
Times at t o hands, not Hello Somebody. Is a

(01:02:13):
production of I Heart Radio and the Black Effect Network.
For more podcast from our Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

.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;}Let's Discover Our Agency with Dr. Charles Cole III

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

All Episodes

Let's Discover Our Agency with Dr. Charles Cole III

Stuff You Should Know