Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Turn everything. Welcome to Hello Somebody, a production of The
(00:28):
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, whether it's
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a solo episode from me or a hearty discussion with
esteem 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. Before
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we begin, I want to give a special shout out
to my team, Thank you, Sam, Tiffany, Sam and the
team over at Good Jujuic Studios, Erica, England, Pepper Chambers,
the Hot One, and my social media team, Hello Somebody,
and welcome back family to Hello Somebody. At a time
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when voter suppression, ballot box trickery and folks who will
do anything to block your right to vote has reached
new loads in this country, that has happened, I think
now is not the time to stop talking about voting rights.
We gotta talk about voting rights. All the time, and
people of color, especially black men, have a very significant
impact on voting, even though the system does not treat
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them as if they do, but they do. When we
actually organize, we win, when we vote in record breaking
numbers and we do the damn thing. And we need
to look out for our interests more than what we
do and stop giving our vote away to people and
speaking of doing what we do in a deep and beautiful,
magnificent way. With us today is w Minddale Robinson. We
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are going to discuss how important this work is and
why we have to continue to uplift this topic and
get out there in the streets and motivate people to
vote for their best interests and for the interests of
our larger community. Min Dale Robinson is the founding principle
of Black Male Voters Project, the first and only national
organization with the sole purpose of increasing black men's participation
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in the electoral politics. He is also running to be
the next mayor for the great City of Infield, North Carolina.
Welcome Mindale to the show so much. I'm so glad
you are here and I'm ecstatic about the work that
you are doing. Thank you so much. It's a wonderful
day that I get to talk to you. I'm so
excited about being here. I'm excited to be here with you.
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As you all know, I often talk about voting. So
I got a man with me, Mindale. He has been
working all over this country. He knows a little bit
something about the struggle when it comes to voting, especially
in the twenty one century. Not a lot of change
or I don't know my deal. When people say the
more things change, the more they stay the same, we
find ourselves right now in one of those moments. We're
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looking an awful lot like things are staying the same.
So voting is so important, and it is important that
we exercise our vote, even in our anger, our disappointment
are what in the hell is going on? Our w
t F. I get it, I got you on it,
But I still I still believe that we should go vote.
And it is one of the most powerful and loudest
ways that the country sees and hears you. Most people
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are not gonna run for office. You gotta vote and vote.
It's not the big in and of the process. It's
the end of a process. There's a whole lot that
has to go on when it comes to voting and participating,
and we have an expert on that. So at a
time of voter suppression is happening, the ballot box trickery
is all over the country states where GLP le legislatures
and governors and secretary of States. They're doing everything that
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they can to turn back the hands of time. And
the folks who are doing they're doing it. They're doing
it all. And not to be partisan in this conversation,
but mindel, I'm not being partisan, right, I'm telling the
truth about who is doing the bad things when it
comes to pushing public policy that makes it hard for
people to vote. We gotta be honest about this. And
people talk about, you know, voter suppression and the partisans.
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It's not the partisan issue. And this is not to
say that Democrats are amazing. It's to tell the truth
though Republicans that's all over this country are trying to prevent,
like in brown people who going to the polls. And
we should be extremely clear, especially black people, from going
to the polls because when we turn out and high numbers,
it's to the detriment of them. And part of that
is because it's it's not a chicken over anything it's
if you change your policy is where you're recruiting black
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people or you're passing policies that are not restricting our
ability to be equal or get closer to equity in
this world, then maybe we would vote for some Republicans.
But that's not the case. And I know black people
are on a monolith, but we vote monolithic basically. I mean,
there's no demographic in this country that vote together like
black people. And I'm talking about black women and black men.
Of course, black women outperform black men by somewhere around
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ten percent historically, but what we do know is there
there are no white men and white women vote together
ninety percent at the time. That's not happening with our
Latin ex brothers and sisters or anyone else. So they're
trying to do everything they can to destroy the black
vote because it's not their base, and it's never gonna
be their base as long as they are advocating destruction
to women's ability to choose what's good for their health,
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destruction of us being having a chance to have real
criminal justice reform, and and all these other things that
Republicans are are set out to do with their absent
I call it the absent platform. So yeah, I think
it is. It's a partisan issue, but it's a part
of the issue because they made it that way. And
it's also a racist issue because they made it that
way as well. That's right, and that's historic on the
ratio front, and it used to be a partisan issue
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in the reverse. Uh. You know, when we talk about
the nineteenth century, talking about the eighteen hundreds, it was
the other way around. The Democrats were the party of
the slaveholder and doing everything that they could after the
fourteen fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving us equal protection
on the law, making black people, you know, citizens, and
giving black men the right to vote. But there was
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a structure in this country and it still has its
I want to call it a shadow of itself in
the twenty one century, you know, and it is piercing
like that same energy. I don't know, mind, this is
the way I think of it, the same energy that
has always been is meaning that there are people with
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that same mentality and places and spaces of power, having
the same mentality of the people of the twentieth century,
the nineteenth century, the eighteenth century that did not want
to see black people be equals and any other people
of color to be equals and did not want to
see women be equals. And so that status quo power
is still revealing itself in the twenty one century. People
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often think that just because we've conquered something that stays conquered,
it doesn't stay conquered, you know. And the work that
you've been doing black men vote, I mean, you've been
all over the country with that, and I want to
talk about that. But before we go into the work,
I want to talk a little bit about you first,
and then we're gonna get to the work. I'm gonna
reverse this thing because your mission is part of who
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you are, but it's not the only thing that makes
you who you are. So I got a fun fact,
you know, as I was reading more about your bio,
I learned that you are one of thirteen children. So
can you just stare with us a little bit about
you know, what it was like growing up in your
youth poverty, just to struggle, Like, what was it like
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and what motivates you to do what you do in
the present, Because you're gonna evolve. We all evolved, but
the mind, the all that right now, what made you
be who you are? At this moment, and where do
you see yourself after this moment. There's a joke between
me and congress Woman to leave about you know, she's
one of fourteen. I'm on the thirteen. We say we
get together with a whole voting block. That's the professive
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voting block right there. Um. But I think I think
my childhood is actually the reason I am who I
am right now. I didn't grow up wanting to be
a firefighter or police officer and astro. Now. I just
wanted to be a race man. And I learned that
at fourteen. I think what happened was I was extremely
young when I realized that, you know, poverty was a
situation that was designed for us. And what I mean
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by that is, if you are black and not in poverty,
you should consider yourself one of the blessed souls, because
that is not the come home black people, especially in
North Carolina. I'm forty three. So my dad was the
son of a sharecropper. My grandfather was a sharecropper. My
father got a felony at seventeen for hitting the white
man's son who on the farm, for smacking my grandmother
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and knocking off the porch nothing happened to the white boy,
of course, but my father got a felony conviction. That
felony conviction followed us my entire life as I watched
my dad, who could do so many things. They concrete,
fixed roofs, trained dogs, fixed cars, and yet and still
we still had trouble making gravy enough for thirteen kids.
At first, I resented my dad, like, how could you
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do so much? How could you be so great teach
so many people in the neighborhood how to do so
many things, and yet and still we can't eat it,
or sometimes we can't have a house without a hole
in the floor. So that coupled with the fact that
when I was fourteen, my mom told me about her
being sprayed with a water holes downtown by the white guy.
At that time was a fire chief, but when I
was growing up, he was the mayor of my hometown,
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and so I felt helpless seeing this white man. And
I can do nothing to for spraying my mom with
the fire holes because she was blacking downtown and that
was her crime. So I used to dumpster dive to
help my parents pay the bill. Back then, we used
to have sodos in glass bottles. We can get fifteen
cent for those bottles. Then I remember that I was
dumpster diving one day getting bottles and I found this
book called The Souls of Black Folk by W. DeVos.
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I read them. I read the book four times, and
now I realized that I didn't understand it completely. But
I knew at that moment that's exactly what I wanted
to do. I wanted to see how I could be
that mystic that he talked about about the black preacher
that organized he talked about that existed in black people,
and and the purpose of the barbershop, and also the
stuff you know that the black community did for itself
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and it was subversive even though white community didn't recognize it.
So I started reading everything I could about black people
and our history. Back then, we had these things called cyclopedias. Yes,
just on that point, I remember my grandmother and I
want to go back because you went so I mean,
I am I am stuck in place with what you
just said happened to your father. I can't move on
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from it, so I want to back up on it
a little bit. But I didn't want to stop your
flow because you were flowing. You were vibing. And now
I don't want to stop it, but I just stopped
it just now when you talked about encyclopedias, and and
I remember my maternal grandmother. She could she only had
a third grade education. She knew how to sign her name,
you know, she knew enough to function. She was born
in nineteen fifteen, and she could get a you know,
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get around. She was she was cold. She had mother
with and I know, you know women like that, especially
you being a son of the South. I my certainly
my grandparents are from the South, but I'm not. My
mother was not. But I remember my grandmother purchasing a
set of Britannica encyclopedias. And I know the New Jack's
know nothing about this. They just know Google. But before
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google was a verb, there was encyclopedias. Man, And I
just daydreaming. I could see myself laying on my belly,
you know, with my legs up, and just leafing through
the pages of that encyclopedia, trying to figure out, you know,
imagining what I could be when I grew up. And
I will forever love my grandmother, who's no longer with us.
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But the reason why she purchased those encyclopedias her grandchildren,
and she wanted us to do better and have better
in her I don't think I ever got the opportunity
to tell her how much purchasing those encyclopedias and a
set it was expensive to get a set of Britannica
encyclopedias at that time. I never had a chance to
tell her how important that was to me and how
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it changed me. Yeah, I'm so glad you did stop me,
because you just said something that's pretty powerful. I think
people should understand. Your grandmother was born in nineteen eighteen,
right in nineteen fifteen, that's a few years after Frederick
Douglas died, and we're talking about what was going on
in eighteen nineteenth century. We're talking about things that affected
us in a real way. We're talking before your grandmother
was born. Her, your great grandmother, was living in a
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time where the fifteenth Amendment was a hope, probably a
hope that people never thought would happen. The fifteen amenments
the moment, of course, it's supposedly a black name right
to vote. So when people talk about Republicans of today
during the voter suppression or testing us, this is the
normal atmosphere where black people vote. We used to have
the councilar sugar and salt to try to rest ourselves.
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So this pite voting in the hostile, hostile space is
nothing new to us. So when you said the morning
they change, the more they say the same, You're absolutely right.
And I think that shadow is darker than most people
want to admit. The shadow that you said, it's still
the Confederate flag never went away. We celebrate the Confederate
flag in the wait. That is beyond toxic to black
people in this country. It's traumatizing. It's a custant reminded
that you shouldn't be free. Man. I want that to
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sink in. We gotta go back to your dad though,
a lot of things are bubbling up. For me, First
of all, it makes me sad. I could really cry
right now, and I cry, you know, I feel deeply,
you know in my crying. Sometimes you cry in sorrow,
like deep sorrow, and sometimes you cry and anger and
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hearing you tell that story for me is both. But
I want of the reason why I want to go
backwards is because a lot of things. You could tell
a lot of things about what you just said. One
the level of disrespect for black women. Your dad was
defending his mom and how black men have had to
shoulder the burden of not being able to fully defend
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and provide for their families systemically. I'm not a man,
you know, and even if we now in the century
Parson out what man here should look like, I'm not
here to debate, you know, toxic masculinity and all of that,
because I do think that there's some things about the
euro Centric worldview that makes it incredibly difficult to be
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a man. And I put that in air quotes, you know,
somewhe I'm just talking about the point of if black
men are indeed equal to white men and any other
man walk in the face of the earth, it is
within your right, like your human urge, to be able
to defend what is yours, either physically if you have
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to economically, socially, politically. Damn to add salt to the wound.
This is somebody who has my dad's age right, so
that means he grew up with this kid, which also
means my grandmother had been cooking for him and provided
for him his entire life, and he felt he had
dominion over earth and everybody else related to her. On
that on that property because his dad, who was actually
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robbing my family constantly, because you never made a profit
in sharecropping. It wasn't designed that way. It was designed
that you you at the end of the year, you
owe money and you could get food possibly, but you
couldn't get free. So I'm trying to imagine what my
dad's rate was, but I couldn't even because this guy
you grew up playing with it, probably he got to
a certain age and realize that you are nigger and
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he ain't, which means he colones you in a certain
way because this is the same family that did own
my family doing slavery, right, because you didn't get free
and go far. That's that's not how the system was
set up. The freem b row didn't give you money.
It was part of the compromise. We'll leave, he won't
fund the Freeman's Bureau, so they'll sit right back. Will
will either give him a felon and conviction where they
have to be sold by the form of the ship
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of the state, or they're gonna go work back because
it's the only place they can't get food. And that's
what happened with that pain Niche was real Yeah, think
about it. Before North Carolina freed black people, the state,
the entire state only have four or five prisoners jails.
They weren't even prisoner with jails right out the slavery.
And it jumps to some of like hundreds, so they
can send people right back to the plantations. People. We
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live in the space where we see police today as
if they had always been there. But when I when
my when my grandfather's lifetime, that farmer was his police, right,
the guy who owns that farm who said, I'll kick
your family off if your son don't do something or
if your if your children act out of the way.
Because my dad defended his mother almost cast his family
that contract, so called contract to farm that land, which
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is absolutely disgusting when you think about it. So where
were they again, Infield, North Carolina? Infield, North Carolina where
you are now running for mayor running for mayor, come on,
come on, talk about that. We're talking about white supremacy,
but we're learned calling the shadow because I like I
like that you said that the shadow of white supremacy
still exists in that talent percent black right now, it's
always been ninety episode, it's only been two elected mayors
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and the first one got ran out by our police
chief and white yeah, because they didn't want black people
in power. The police chief used to come in when
the first black mayor, K. Halloway got elected, sitting there
with his gun and sit in front of the front
of the town meeting with his gun, unhosted, looking at
the black mayor at like he was gonna kill him.
What year was this in our lifetime? In our lifetime?
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And that's why it's important that we have these conversations
because one of my I'm gonna say, pet peeve, just
to stay kind of PG for now. But what you're
saying is making me want to cuss. I got all
types of w tf is going on right now? Black
people don't understand how we must clearly understand our history
in a deep way because we must never forget it.
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We can't let other mo fos forget either. Exactly that's real,
but we brushed it off and we allow other people
to make us feel some kind of guilt for wanting
to understand it deeply. Know, Like every time I hear
people say I don't want to see another slave movie,
I don't want to see damn it all you got
to do is watch the movie. Don't watch it because
you got a choice not to watch it. But what
they're saying, and I get the pain because I get
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in that mood sometimes too, because around you know, from
m OK Day to end the Black History Month, you know,
all many of us go deeper than what we ordinarily go.
Like I go deep because it's three sixty five for me.
I used to teach Black history at Cuyahoa Community College,
so I was reliving our experience at least on this
continent primarily every single semester. And it breathes, ain't I mean,
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I found myself being angry. I had to bring myself
down on a regular basis because when you really get
at the root of what happened to us in this
country and why and what happened to us is the
footprints to why things are still happening to us in
this way, it does make you madder than the mofo.
And if it don't, you ain't thinking. So the fact
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that black people, like you said, we're not a monolith,
but we do vote in a monolithic way. And when
we get to this point, because I still gotta stay
on your personal I gotta let you finish your story.
I life. I'm angry at us, and I'm also disappointed
in us that we accept so little that we don't
put a demand for our vote, and we get so
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convinced by these Democrats, by these Liberals that what's behind
the door is worse. We've lived worse. To me, that
ain't enough for you to say, do this vote for me,
or it's gonna be worse. We've always had worse. What
I need the Democratic Party to do is prove their
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love and loyalty to us as much as we do
love as a people over collectively. And as you said,
black women vote about tem percent higher than than black men.
Black men ain't that far behind us, in my opinion,
but black people as a whole. I just said last night,
I was at an event and I said, you know,
our Latino sisters and brothers will tip out on the
Democratic Party, Our Agan sisters and brothers will tip out.
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All other people will tip out and date somebody else,
but not Black folks. And you better not fix your mouth.
The critics size any Democratic leader of note because black
folks would jump you before anybody else. Am I lying
about that? No, You're not lying. I'm mad I'm mad
and sad about it. I think part of it is
is it's a couple of things, right. First of all,
we don't really have enough option. Like, if you are
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a black person in this country, America doesn't give you
an option. Everybody else has the option of pretending to
be white, like two, three, three generations in and you
can be white that they'll let you assimilate. If you're black,
that's never gonna happen for you. This country does not
have a space. There's no pathway to assimilation for black people.
That's a fact. I also think part of the misunderstanding
of our vote is tied to the cycle. And if
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you think about psychology and what Maslow tells us, people
without their basic needs, man can't think about things that
are self actualization. Right. So there's there's a lot of
ways I explain it. I think the best way to
say is if someone is homeless, you can't talk to
them about having a savings account or vacation because every
piece of money they get is about addressing something that's
plaguing them hunger, the need for clothing to protect them
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from the weather, or finding a hotel one where they
can bathe for one night, they're not talking about saving money.
I think the way that we present politics to black
people in this country is the same way black people
live on the margin for the most part. We don't
have the ability to do things that are self actualization.
And the way we present the vote, it's just that
it comes around at the Labor Day proverb, your fried
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chicken a church fan, and talking about this is the
most important election, this is the most important candidate. You
gotta vote for him. And I think the failure of
that is it loses all the cultural competence that's associated
with the hundred and fifty two years where we've been
fighting voted suppressionhere. People have been trying to keep us
out of the poll, and nothing has really progressed in
some of these people lives like a lot of black men.
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When I say a lot, i'm talking about half of
the brothers who are already regstered to vote have not
voted in five consecutive elections. Now, that means more than
half of black men don't participate in politics at all
because some of them aren't registered. Some of them can't register.
So if you consider that number, you're looking at a
serious failure of the political system, and that's why we
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started black Mail Voter Project. Give us that stat again. Yeah,
so it's it's it's right about fifty. It's not fifty exactive.
It's like black men have not vote five consecutive federal elections.
That is crazy. Whatever you're doing, whatever the status quo
was doing, you are failing epically. These are the brothers
who are already rested the vote across this country. That's
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the number. Then you have to add the brothers who
are in prison, the brothers who can't vote, and the
brothers who are not wrenched. And then you said an
overwhelming number of black men don't vote at all. In Georgia,
for ant, there's one point two million black men rested
the vote. Of them, four hundred and sixty thousand were
old enough to vote for Barack Obama that did not
They didn't vote for Stacy Abrams between eighteen or anybody
(22:42):
else in between. But the green light, the goal on
that is these brothers are political creatures. There's no a
political black men in this country, and we target them
in and of that four and six thousand, we were
able to get a hundred and twenty four thousand to
participate in the primary. Joe Biden can't claim credit for
that because by the time Georgia had his primary, he
(23:02):
was already the nominee. John also can't claim creatit for
that because he had already tried to reach these brothers
the first time he ran and lost badly. Right, So,
but what we did do we use local elections to
excite these brothers. And we saw in the counties we
were working there were no drop off between the sheriff
election and John also off who was the top of
the ticket, because Warnock was in a special elector, he
didn't have a primary. So we know there's ways that
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you can tie in local issues by listening to brothers,
finding out what's important to them, and then making sure
you have a cultural competent program that speak to the issues.
What happens is with our job is to move. If
you think about Masilo, hierarchy needs self actualation at the
top of the pier made basically is at the bottom,
and there's four or five steps in between. If we're
successful at moving voting from the top of that pierre
(23:44):
self actualization to where black people sit as a tool
to address us plague in them, then we're more likely
to participate in it. So that's what we do, and
we're Blackmail Voter Project and we just this is why
our program is not based on political science but instead
of psychology and its asso hire kar needs lesson. And
then also twelve steps of selling stuff. We used that
as well. And what motivated you and you know others
(24:07):
who work on the black Mail Voter Project with you,
what motivated you to create this organization and to go
as hard as you're going and to start in Georgia. Yeah,
it was. The good thing was I think I can
pride myself instaid. I never took a check from the
Democratic Party at the national level, and I had already
spent seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars of my own
money trying to figure out what moves black people that
(24:30):
don't vote anyway. So then I've been doing it for
like twelve cycles, and as start, spent my entire life
savings on creating the B and MEB editory approach. So
the BM MEB editory Approach is already older than Blackmail
Voter Project. I went down to Florida and built the
organizing department for desman ME and Florida Right Investoration coalition
and train all the staff is down there in our approach.
(24:51):
When I saw the amendment pass and outperform any Democrat
on the ballot that year, I say, we're on. We're
only something that same idea. All of the power Pack
work Steve feel in Georgia and North Carolina. I also
deal woke volts Field work. So I was doing work
for organizations. But I was like, yo, we've been talking
to black men year round with this work, So that's
why I funded it. Plus I saw white consultantsping billions
(25:13):
of dollars on their friends to do stuff I knew
was not gonna move black men at all. And it
also this idea that you can go to the barbershop
and film it with white folk in the barbershop and
talking about you having a real conversation with black men
was ridiculous to me. And it also wortered down the
possibility of what black men thought politics. So we needed
to address the idea that politics is this transactional thing
(25:36):
that white people do every four years in our communities
and make it something about our communities from our communities.
So just you know, I grew up when we had
colors cross colors, Foo Boo and all these other black
and I wanted something like that politically for black men.
So that's why I created it, not saying that there
was work for sisters to be done, but I already
knew a ton of sisters like yourself and so many
(25:57):
others that were already on lock with the sisters that
I need need to do something for black men. I
think it's beautiful. I really do. One of the things
that really gets to me a lot, and I'm not
sure if others share the same anxiety and frustration is
the way the Democratic Party addresses our community. We are
just the ways to a means like there is no
(26:19):
real love like that deep love. One of my mentors,
Mayor Frank G. Jackson, former mayor City Cleveland, long and
servant mayor here. He always says, you can't serve that
which you do not love, and that is real. And
because it's transactional, our vote is transactional, but it's a
one sided transaction and until we put value on our
(26:42):
own vote. And it was something that did he, you know,
a couple of years ago, was pushing I think some
other people did. He said, you know, he recorded one
of his videos one time for Instagram, and he basically said, Hey,
we gotta get something for this vote. We ain't just
gonna give it to you and p but we're real
And why would you say that we gotta get Trump
(27:02):
out and all that. Hey, yeah, well, y'all need to
act like we gotta get Trump out to then don't
just expect the black community act like we gotta get
Trump out. You act like it by the things that
you are going to actually deliver to the Black community.
And if we can get more black people to embrace
that that we are powerful, not powerless, and that the
(27:26):
Democratic Party could not win without us, they can't. So
they need to act like it and stop asking us
as voters to act like it. But my other point
I wanted to make to that point leads me right
straight to black men. The Democratic Party so often puts
Black women on a pedestal. Now, I ain't gonna do
ship for us. I'm talking about materially, like make sure
(27:47):
our babies are educated more than adequately. I'm talking about
excellently making sure that we got excellent jobs, excellent homes,
excellent community. That's what I'm talking about. Doing something for
us by older policy. But they elevate Black women and
we should be. I mean, we know historically black women
have been placed in a position that we have always
(28:10):
had to come through for the black family from the
beginning on this continent, you know, just on this continent,
because we got a history that's bigger than this continent.
I'm just talking about American descendants of enslaved people and
this modern day black women are the backbone of the
Democratic But I'm tired of black women having to be
(28:32):
the backbone of the Democrat. How about the Democratic Party
be the backbone for Black women who have been delivering
their community to the Democratic Party for a very long time.
But this is what they do. So they'll say all that,
they'll try us out, mothers of the movement, all that
kind of stuff, love of mothers of the movement, the
saying about them. I'm just saying how Democrats treat us,
(28:52):
and then they kind of put the black man in
the corner and then wonder why them stats you just
gave us are real because the party does not address
black men. I'm not saying black women should not be
lauded and lifted and recognize, but they do it in
such an artificial way. The way that they do it
(29:12):
does not leave room for the black man and the
black community. So what I've said the black folks, we
are not at a level of political maturity in this
country where we can allow anybody to separate us. That
doesn't mean black women not gonna have our little family
meeting and black men had their little meeting. But when
it comes to politics, we have to be together for
(29:34):
our liberation, so you can't throw the black man away.
We're not there yet, so I said, we're picking up
other people's bad habits. Maybe one day black women will
be able to do a white feminist can do, But no,
we ain't there yet, and I'm not so sure I
ever want to rock that way because I got a
black son, and I got a black grandson, and I
got a black day, and I love my black brother
(29:57):
I got black men, and I love them, and I
ain't a shame to say it, even though y'all make
me mad as hell a lot of time. Listen, I
get mad at brothers sometimes too, But I think it's
an important thing that and people shouldn't like gloss over
what you just said. It is absolutely designed where they
feed this scarcely mentally, like it could only be you
or your brothers. It can only be you or your husband.
(30:18):
Both of y'all can come to this white house East
egg Row, right. So part of the problem those is
and I gotta keep it a book. Part of the
problem is some of us that have got on the
inside are comfortable with that idea. I never let people
saw that discourse about black men and black women and
black men support black women because because in my community,
all I know support from our black women black people,
(30:39):
I mean like looking out for each other. And I
think I think that's not to say that there's no
into relationship problem that happened amongst us, because it is.
That's that's that's unrealistic to believe that. But what I
do know is, like you said, our political space is
not in a spot. But we can just say I'm
out here for black women or black women over everything
and forget everybody else. It's it's black people. It's been
(31:00):
liberation and black liberation does not happen but half of
our demographics being excluded or forgotten. And I think the
Democratic Party understands that in a way that they weaponize it.
They needed to use black women or black girl magic
so that they can push the white women's movement or
the white women's and I think, and I'm not saying
that white women don't have issues or like there's not
(31:20):
sexism that affects them, but I'm saying that a white
feminist is not subtle America like black women do them properly.
Black women up sometimes seem like they're using it for
pumping show. And I think sisters, sisters deserve so much more.
I and I agree with you that we we have
to be more mature and our thinking about how we
when we do have that family meeting that's joined men,
(31:43):
women and non gender performing folks, that we're talking in
a way that's beneficial to all of us and not
one of us. That said, and I'm tired of being
used as props, and I'm tired of our people being
used as props. But you're right, mind Dell, there are
some black people who are very comfortable with that because
it edifies them. They made they come up, and they
really don't care from a systemic from we're talking about
(32:05):
changing systems, you and I I'm talking no superficial stuff.
They don't care from a systemic angle or perspective whether
or not it helps our people as long as they
get what they get, as long as they can be
the gatekeepers, as long as they can be invited to
the Christmas party. That's all they care about. And they're
not gonna do anything to rattle the cages. They're not
gonna do anything to bump the status quo because then
(32:26):
now they're not gonna be in the end crown. Right.
That's a fact. That's a fact. And I think the
tragedy is I mean, I literally talked to a brother
who is one of the democratics leading consultants at well
black consultants. He don't make what the white folk get,
but he makes to be a black consultant. He told me,
I don't care about I just want the money. That
he said, he'll even take money from the Koch brothers.
(32:46):
And I think that type, that type of thinking from
black people is beyond scary to me. You have officially
said that the community can suffer whatever, at any cost,
as long as you get the bag. And I think
that that way of thinking is so dangerous, it's so
the way of thinking, that way of thinking, if we're
not even a historical is that way of thinking that
had Martin Luther King's approval rating in our community when
(33:07):
he was murdered. Yeah, because he was talking. He was
talking about what it means to be you know what,
what black people were old beyond. I see that a
lunch counter when he started talking about the Martin Luther
King about lunch counters and riding the bus in the
front seat. Didn't get murdered the Martin Luther King talking
about equity. Come on, a natural and come on, and
what shouldn't be happened in Vietnam is the Martin Luther
(33:29):
King that got murdered that said against the war, militarism, poverty,
and materialism. Absolutely. Dr Cornell West's book The Radical King.
People don't want to talk about that King. They only
want to talk about that I have a dream King.
He's all of those things. He is that King. He's
also the radical King that put this country on notice.
(33:50):
He did. And so you're right, the overwhelm majority of
black folks didn't have no holla for the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr. And I keep always try to
make sure I put Reverend in front of that because
that in warm who he was and who he is,
his spirit, his essence. They don't have no holiday for that,
and we know white folks that the Poland was totally
I mean, it was worse than black people. But it
(34:11):
is a shame that black people felt that way. It
felt like he was going reaching too big, you know.
And if if there are those are things that you
people like you and I we hear that kind of
stuff all the time. You're reaching too big, you you
you're dreaming too big, You're reaching too far, you know,
take your time. Don't be angry about to be because
I mean, I can't tell you the number of people
I look at them like they're crazy. Because this is
the thing for me. We can disagree you. I'm not
(34:33):
asking anybody to agree with me my approach, but this
I do know. If you are hungry every night or
every other night, if you can't paid for your gas
to get back and forth to work, if you work
a job and you still can't make ends meet, you
don't want nobody talking about we'll get there buying by
by and by. You want somebody that's gonna stand up
and say you need it and you deserve it right now.
(34:54):
And there are times where you can't be polite about it.
If you in the middle of the ocean, drowning. I
don't want no polite person coming to save me. I
want somebody that's gonna radically like tear off clothes, do
whatever it takes to come out there and save me
and drowning in the middle of that ocean. And I
think that is the place that we are right now.
I think it's a place that we have always been
(35:15):
for a very long time when it comes to the
suffering that Black people are under this pressure cooker that
we constantly are under generation after generation, and we only
get a little relief, Like those of you who could
picture those chefs that may be listening to us, the
people cook in the kitchen and if you used the
pressure cooker when you got to release that vialve just
a little bit. But the pressure is still on, and
(35:37):
the pressure for us, no wonder we ain't went like
as a collective people in this country, Stark raven mad.
It is only by the great I mean, I'm a
woman of faith. It is only by the grace of
an almighty God that we ain't just lost our minds.
You know that song, y'all gonna make me lose my
mind up in here, up in the air. It's a
(35:59):
it's at the battle for us not to go. Yeah,
that's why I tell people all the time. And when
they said, oh, you fit the model of like an
angry black man or angry black woman, I'm like, you
shouldn't be black in this country and not be angry.
So if I see a black woman or a black
man that ain't angry, I'm skeptical of them. Like what
you're lying about? You damn ring about James Baldwin said.
He said, to be black in America's being a rage constantly.
(36:22):
I'm paring, I'm paraphrasing them. Most of the time, people
misunderstood what Malcolm X was saying. Malcolm X ballot of
the bullet speech. If you, if I would advocate everybody
listening to the whole fifty four minutes, but if you
don't have time, fast forward the twenty four minutes and
listen to the rest of it and see, don't it
sound just like Malcolm X was living yesterday. He's talking
(36:43):
about police brutality against our community. He's talking about people
trying to prevent us from voting. He's talking about everything
that we're suffering from right now, back then. So this
idea that we're not we're not in the pressure cooking
that we're not bubbling or those with our right mind
are not bubbling about what we find ourselves politically, especially
those who play politics for a living. Uh, we should
(37:07):
always come in the room on fire. That's always coming
in the room fire, I think, because what happens when
we don't we give them a pass? Right now, I'm
hearing from a bunch of donors, Oh, we have a
gap with moderate white voters. We need to figure that out. No,
we don't. White voters have sold out our way of
thinking since the past forty years. They're not. That's something
(37:28):
we're not gonna win. Also, on a base you should
be trying to win because it requires you to cut
off some of us, some of some of them bring
more people into the fold. We we out here act
like we're a big tip party when it actually we're not.
We're just trying to bring in more white people. If
we were really about the business have been a big
tip party. Joe Biden wouldn't have swore on his family
name in Georgia that the most important part of the
(37:51):
base with black voters, and he would He promised black
voters that if we gave him two senators from Georgia.
He would prioritize our issues. He gets into the White House,
and I ain't seeing those priorities. A matter of fact,
you didn't start fighting for criminal dusters form a so
called criminusters form, or the voting right until it was
a political year. It was this year you started. And
that's tacky to me. That's not prioritizing my issues. So
(38:13):
you lied on your family name to get elected. And
that's what black people say. That don't matter to me.
They're just gonna lie and get in office. This is
why black men say, don't play my face. So you
take trusted messages and you send us out there and say, Okay,
we got a chance, this is possible with this administration,
and then you get in there and do the same
thing you'll always done. I ain't talking about how you
disrespected Derek. And that's one thing, right when you basically
(38:37):
told them boys to sit down and shut up. It
ain't happening. Yes, within the first couple of months of
your presidency. And for those who I'm talking about Derek
in the recp, but I'm talking about that's a slapping
in the face to the black community in general. I'm
not saying that ANOTHERCP is the voice of black people
or that they aren't. I am saying, though it's a
old institution in our community. And to feel comf enough
(38:58):
as the president who just lie to us a couple
of months ago and say that means you know something
about us that we don't know. And that's something that
is we're coming back for that vote again. That's it.
And even what what what you know? He said that
Charlemagne the god, you know, when Charlottagne was interviewing, you know,
if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. He
meant that just the way he said it, just like
you said. And you've got people, especially black people, making excuses,
(39:20):
you know, if you want to say, maybe he said
something he was feeling in artfully in air quotes. The
bottom line is that the premise is still the same.
Black sees black people as the monolithic voting base that
we are. If you don't vote for me, you ain't black. Now,
Yet Trump was beyond problematic because he's a neo fascist. Okay, understood,
(39:42):
you ain't gonna get in an argument with me over that.
That does not abdicate the responsibility of the Democratic Party,
of which I am a member of from doing all
that it can to enhance and better the lives of
black people. Two things can be true at once. But no, oh,
it's this man is so bad that you only can
(40:03):
vote for me. And guess what, because you always are
gonna vote for me, I really ain't got to deliver
for you because you don't have any other choice. And baby,
I know you don't have any of the choice. Hints,
if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. They
got us my dad and and and primarily they got
us because of leaders who, as you and I have
already said, and we're gonna have to do a part
(40:24):
two on this, they relish in this because they got
theirs and they don't care if we get ours. And
that is the antithesis of our collective culture going back
to the motherland, like that has been embedded in us
from our lived experience in North America in a place
(40:44):
called the United States of America, but before it was
the United States of America. We had to be together
or come together because we're from different tribes. We had
to come together just to survive. I'm tired, and it's
really nice to have a real old conversation. I don't
know people are gonna say, oh my god, I can't
know believe we're saying it. I'm tired of playing games. Yeah,
(41:06):
and I'm tired of our people being taken advantage of.
And I think what what the party refuses to do?
And part of it is because they're still running Bill
Clinton's playbook with the same people. People talk about James
Carver like he's a political genis he? Ain't you know
how to talk to white people? You know what they
did and and what Clinton did was almost as racist
what the Republican Party did. I mean, Clinton basically kill
the black person. He turned the man who was mentally
(41:28):
five years old over to the death penalty. So you
can get white people, white Republicans off his back, right,
And he's also the person who got it the social
state thing network as it pertains to the welfare system.
Why why he was complaining about people and allowed the
black welfare queen image of black women to permeate into
this day. They are white folks who still believe that
(41:49):
when we know it's mostly white people who are on
the system of welfare, and when we talk about poverty
and Dr William Barber talks about this all the time.
When you're talking about now disproportion only it's more black people.
When you're talking about this raw number, they're a hundred
and forty million people in this country who are just
either dead ass poor or just one or to paychecks
(42:09):
from being right there, they're functioning poor. And most of
those people are white. Hence the vision that the Reverend
Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Had when he started the
Poor People's Movement. What he was saying is that all
of us, no matter how we identify racially, ethnically, genderized,
sexual oriented, hey, we got to get together because the
(42:29):
real family meeting, the big family meeting, because we got
many family meetings, but the big family meeting is about
all of us that are catching hell because we are poor.
And I mean, listen, my mama voted a certain way.
I voted a certain way. You know, I ain't a
Democrat because you know I thought they were. My mama was,
and that's usually how people vote. Love the Clintons, I
(42:52):
mean the swag that I remember when he was on
the our Sinel Hall Show, playing the Sacks and all
of that in our community, about the swim hag, about
the Swagy playing the Sacks and found all of the things.
I was swept up into that too. I really did
think the Clintons were all that. But Dr mia Angelo said,
when you know better, you should do better. And once
(43:15):
I came into the knowledge of there's a book I
want to recommend people listen to read to or listen
to it you can. It's called Listen Liberal, and this
author breaks down the Clinton ears and really like the
truth of neoliberalism. That's it. And so we have other
people in representing neoliberalism, and right now it happens to
(43:38):
be President Joe Biden. It is. And people should also
know that neoliberalism is always at the expensive focal, not
a part of the status quo, and that means people
are suffering from it, whether we acknowledge it or not,
or if we're afraid. But I find solace in the
generation behind me, the millennials and the generation behind them,
knowing that they're afforded to resist something other than white
and they are not party loyalists. I laugh. I'm a
(44:00):
whole The fact that it's forty pair of gene companies.
Now it's not just Levi. You gotta buy the genes
from anywhere. It's fifty sixty pair of jeans that people
are buying. And I think that's because that our generation,
uh Cisternina was too small to change things. We had
to keep buying Coco Pepsi because it was only seventeen
million of us. But this generation, it's seventeen orange soldas
(44:20):
out there right now. And I think it's because they
pride themselves on the diversity of thought. And we also
see that they're not as naive or as tuned out
as the world want them to believe, just because there
are enough phone all the time. We see young people
performing at rates that baby boomers did. Right like, they
outperformed baby boomers. They performed at the same level, and
(44:41):
they are the voting They're the largest voting block, those
two voting block. Baby Boomers was the largest generation. Then
it was millennial, and the generation behind Millennial's gonna be
bigger than even millennials. So I'm super excited about America
being this young and not so white. And I feel
like if if we pay attention to the need to
for talking to these people, we could engage them in
a way that other generations that were young didn't get
(45:01):
wrote off, like he's wrote off when they were young
and and finding themselves. So I think it's it's also
we shouldn't continue to call them kids either, because I know, baby,
I know, I know millennials that our grandparents right, people
that were to school were the forty years old that
our grandmothers and grandfathers. So I mean, so I think
I think it behooves us to pay attention to those
(45:21):
behind us. And I think we don't have answers. When
I say we am talking about people older than us,
don't have the answers. They already ran their course. And
I feel like we have the oldest Senate right now
and more young people than we ever have. The Supreme
Court is the old has ever been. We gotta do
something about that. I mean, we already started doing about
that as a sister up there now, thank god. But um,
I think there's there's more to be done. And I
(45:42):
think it happens with unelected some incumbents. I feel like
the power that our part of Democratic Party, miss I'm
talking about the progressive is we spend too much time
arguing with the neoliberals and not enough were and our
people for primaries. We don't need to have as much
money as them, but we're obligating to outwork them in
the primaries. And if we did that, we controdinarives so
much more because once we got through the primary system,
(46:04):
then we would force the party to have to deal
with us or support the Republican And I know that's
not about them, but but it would be less likely
that they would. You know what I'm saying, it's not
above them. When we saw it happen. I mean with
our sister India Walter, and she won the Democratic primary
and Democrats status quote Democrats and status quo Republicans found
a way to unite and beat her in that general election.
(46:24):
So they will definitely off to say they will kill
their own mama to stop a progressive. And I'm not
even calling us because that board has been co opted now,
so I'm calling us mind, I'm calling us a freedom
fighting progressives. I gotta put something else on it, because
I just can't even take it freedom fighting progressives. But
if you ain't a freedom fighting progressive, that's okay. You
could be slightly progressive because people do evolve over time,
(46:46):
and I do leave room for that. I want that
to be known. I leave room, but There's a difference
between using the title for your political expediency knowing that
you ain't gonna do a damn thing to change anything
that puts you in jeopardy. There's a difference between that
just using the title and living out that progressive agenda,
the ideas of it, and willing to put something on
(47:08):
the line and shake power trees. And the promise is
a power that was written by Mayor Carl B. Stokes.
He talks about being careful whose power trees you shake.
If you ain't willing to shake some power trees, then
you ain't a freedom fighting progressive. You just a wanna be.
But you ain't. But she ain't. Oh my god, brother,
(47:28):
we're gonna we will have to do this again. I
want to read a quote from you and and this
has been so edifying, at least for my soul. So
you made me think of a book from James Baldwin,
that prolific twentieth century novelist who was always spitting fire.
But the book The Fire Next Time, And we know
that was a letter to his nephew and it reads,
(47:49):
please try to remember that what they believe as well
as what they do, and cause you to endure does
not testify to your inferiority, but to their in humanity.
Can I just say that one more time to his nephew,
please try to remember that what they believe, as well
as what they do and calls you to endure, does
(48:12):
not testify to your inferiority, but to their in humanity. Man,
take it, Take it, baby, whatever you want to do
with that. That's the great and amazing James Baldwin. So
in Divinity School, I learned when somebody says something that's perfect,
just say amen. So amen me to me too. We
come from that Black church tradition. That's it. That's it.
(48:33):
He also went on, the most dangerous creation of any
society is a man who has nothing to lose my mind. Yeah, yeah,
that's Lord, have mercy on our black souls. Yeah, we're
gonna have to do this again. I'm not to have
you on here regularly. I know you're running for mayor
and how can people find you both in terms of
(48:53):
your run for mayor and then also for the organization
Black Male Voter Project on all social media platforms with
Blackmail Bow the project, I am Mondale Everywhere Monday Robinson, Twitter, Instagram,
and also Facebook and YouTube as well, because that's what
black men, that's the black man's newer cyclopedia. YouTube. If
you're trying to reach black men and you ain't on YouTube,
(49:15):
you waste of your time. So it's gonna have to
be get on YouTube a little more. I'm only a
little bit, but I need to dip in deeper. Oh
my God, you are amazing in every way. I know
nothing but love for you, brother Mondale. Just nothing for love.
And I'm glad that God has blessed and conditioned you
(49:37):
and it has given you the assignment that He has
given you. That you are unflinchingly black and you stand
up for our people and we definitely need that. In
the words of the Great Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, unbought and
unbossed man a story, everything's will somebody else take a time.
(50:05):
Believe it about somebody turning universe. That's given us somebody
in the time time. So yeah, change is coming. The
pain is nothing trying to shoot for the stars. If
you're gonna ain't for something, embrace the love for your
(50:25):
brother and sister. You need these the mission brush. We
need to puzzle this pictures, painted up, frame it up
for the world to see. Ain't to hate it up.
Enough is enough, It's enough making changes 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. Intelligence, silver,
(50:46):
wisdom is gold. Back to the end. Now it's your time.
Stay firm, don't fold to the a or you need
is the three bones. That's what Randy said. Now I'm
gonna make sure these words from Rannie spread for all
the hair. To give it your hair, she can take
him to the promised land. I with world pieces what
they fear from Queens to Cleveland on how yo were here?
Famous fas? Turn up any calls? Hello, somebody you need
(51:11):
to turn up? Whepanning somebody, ship turn on? Hell, somebody
you need to turn up? In times points trying one
of those great wars going on our hands? Well, Hello Somebody.
(51:41):
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