May 18, 2022 • 13 mins
Christian Wise Smith returns in this deep dive to inform how your vote is a money move and the importance of voting within the black and brown community. Additionally, he talks about his children's book " WISEUP Adventure Series: Chris & Key Go Vote!" to help young children understand the voting process.
Guest IG: @ christianwisesmith
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's Deep Dive,
we are joined by the attorney seeking to make change
(00:21):
with compassion, Christian wise Smith. This Deep Dive has brought
to you by MasterCard bridging the Well Gap together with Greenwood.
If you missed our previous episode, Christian shared his inspiring
story about entering the political sphere, and today we have
him back and we're going to talk all about some
very important issues, including your right to vote. Hi Christian,
(00:42):
and welcome back to the show. Thanks for having to
be back. It's an honor to be here and an
honor to talk about something so important voting. Thank you, Yes, yes, Christian.
You know, I feel like the past couple of years,
when we've seen, you know, out of the tragic events
of killing, murder of George Floyd, Ahmad, Aubrey, Brianna Taylor,
(01:04):
and so many more, there's been this rise in this
social justice movement, but that I think that it's sort
of chiseled off a lot of I like to say,
the clay that we all were in because we didn't
know or we didn't really pay attention to how important
these social justice issues were. And I think voting in
particular has been a really hot topic that I would
(01:24):
love to shed some more light on. And I know
you were passionate about it and have been for a
long time before you were even in the race for
running for Attorney General. And I even heard that you've
written a book on the subject. Yes, so I wrote
a children's vote. It's called a Wiles Up adventure series,
Chris and Keig Vote. Here's a picture of it. I
(01:44):
love it. But the so the neat thing about this book, though,
is it it doesn't just tell kids about voting. It
actually teaches them how to vote. The kids fill out
a voter registraction card and they can color a picture
of themselves. Then they cast a ballot for their fame
of our color blacker and teaching the kids the process
in a simple way and hopes that they will grow
(02:06):
up understanding how important the process is and to make
sure that they participate as soon as they're old enough to. Oh,
you know, I love this so much because at Greenwood
and especially in the Money News podcast, we're really intentional
about sort of breaking some of the narratives that we
have carried forward from our ancestors, from our grandparents, etcetera,
especially in and around finance, financial stability, financial literacy, and
(02:30):
voting ties right into this because I think the narrative
in our community for a long time, and especially in
immigrant communities in particular, is that my vote doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what I vote for because my experience
as a black person, as a person of color in
this country is exactly what it is, and I haven't
been able to really see change for many, many years.
Where does that come from and how can we change it?
(02:53):
I think it starts with a children's book, but I
know that you're doing so much more. I think the
mentality comes from just generations of seeing our neighborhoods and
our communities looking the same way. But I want to
let people know that our neighborhoods and our communities look
how they've looked for so long because of voting Traditionally,
(03:14):
you know, black neighborhoods have you know, chet cash in places,
liquor stores, fast food restaurants. You go from state to state,
city to city, Uh, they are pretty much looked the same.
And one of the reasons is because of something called zoning.
So zoning laws are significant because you know where you're
sitting right now, where I'm sitting, you know, somebody had
(03:38):
to zone this space to be what it was built as.
And the people who decide that were voted into office.
So you know, several decades ago, certain people across the
country were voted into you know, whether they were county
commission seats or city council seats, you know, state rep
state sentence. Folks got to vote on how to zone
(03:59):
where we live, and they were intentional about making a
low income you know, black areas look a certain way
where you saw a project house and you saw you know,
everything I mentioned before. So that all ties back to voting.
And so one of the ways that we can change
that is to participate in the process and vote for
(04:20):
candidates who we know we'll have our best interests in
minds to change things and level playing fields. Because when
we don't vote, you know, the people who make the decisions,
we don't necessarily care about things our best interests or
things that are important to us in our communities. What
I really want our money moves audience to understand is
(04:40):
how important voting is, and especially you know, when you
look at it from the perspective of educating our children
on how how to vote and how to have these
conversations from a very young age, it breaks sort of
these narratives that it's not important or our vote doesn't matter.
One of the things that I also think came out
of these past elections is how every vote does matter,
(05:00):
not just your own personal vote, but voting in people
at municipal levels, in your school boards, all the way
up you know, to attorney general and of course you know,
the president of the country. How do you see this
changing for people? How are we better able to educate
people um on researching candidates and the importance of really
(05:21):
understanding what a candidate does. So one of the benefits
we have right now is living in a technology age
where you know, everybody has a cell phone and you
can google. I mean, you can google most candidates. You
can figure out, you know, their background, what kind of
things that that they've spoken about, have been passionate about,
you know, like you can tell the things that I'm
(05:42):
passionate about, and you can really see what people are about.
And you know, this show is called money Move. So
I would like to break it down into a money way. Please,
do have you ever gotten a traffic ticket for anything? Sadly? Yes?
And did you have to pay for it? Yes, somebody
(06:03):
voted on how much you have to pay. So every
traffic offense in the style, just keep it within the
state of Georgia. It's codified within the Official Could to
Georgia O c g A. And some legislator at some
point was voted into office and they decided on how
much to make speeding tickets, how much to make seatbelt tickets,
(06:25):
how much to make UH stop sign violations. So that's
a simple way to break down how politics impacts our
daily lives. When you get in your car to drive,
if you get pulled over, you have to go pay
for a ticket. That's voting. Voting determined how much you're paying.
At one point in time, somebody voted on who made
the decision and how much you pay on that ticket. Wow,
(06:46):
that's such a great example. And you know, when you
think about you know, money, news and just the power
that our vote has as it translates to you know,
building wealth, keeping our money or where we put our
tax dollars like, becomes so much more important because you
just think, Okay, somebody else is in charge, but really,
we as a people, we as a collective, we are
in charge. That's the whole point of a democracy, is
(07:08):
it not yes, my own beside who represents us? And
if and if we don't use our vote, then that
means somebody else's deciding for us. Christian again, talk more
about this children's book because I just love that you're using,
you know, children's literacy to really break these negative barriers
and narratives around um voting in our community to really
(07:31):
impact change. So when I ran for office in one
of the things I was confronted with is what we've
been talking about so many people who felt like their
votes didn't matter, the votes weren't important, their votes weren't
going to change any thing. And so I have the
opportunity to really build a great relationship with Shaka Zulu,
who was a co founder of Disturbing the Piece Records
(07:53):
with Ludicrous Luda and a couple of other big artists.
Is at a great career and the entertainment industry, and
Shaka actually blessed me with once in a lifetime opportunity
and took me to l A to meet Clarence Avon,
who's known as the Black Guy Farmer. There's a phenomenal
documentary about him on Netflix. I recommend you if you
(08:14):
haven't seen it. But Mr Avon has always had his
hand in politics. He was he played a significant role
in getting Jimmy Carter elected as President, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama,
Andy Young when he ran for Congress. You know, Mr
Avon was always kind of behind the scenes helping these folks, uh,
(08:34):
you know, advanced their political careers in their campaigns because
he understood that without the right to vote, there's not
much we can do. So I'm at lunch with Mr
Avon and he's talking about my d A campaign. He's
talking about, you know, my future aspirations. And you know,
one of the things we spoke about two with Stacy
Abrams and how she lost in t eighteen, but she
(08:56):
didn't disappear. She really went on this crusade of you know,
protecting voting rights and making sure that the voters counted,
and she was really vocal invisible in terms of you know,
making elections fair. And so he challenged me to come
up with a way to continue the momentum that I
built in that DA's race, and you know, children's book
(09:18):
just popped in my head and I came back from
l A, came down into my basement and started writing.
I reached out to my little brother, who I knew
could draw, and you know him and his daughter family affair. Yeah,
and so you know, within I would say two weeks
of Shaka taking me to meet Mr Avon. You know,
(09:39):
I finished the book and then we put it out
in January, put it out on my birthday. Wow, that's incredible.
Well where can people find this book? First of all,
I want to make sure that the good deeds and
the good works that you're going are going very much
noticed by our community. Thank you, Thank you. It's it's
purely online. I self published through Amazon. So Amazon dot com.
(10:01):
If you type it in the search you wise up
adventure series Chris and Keigo vote, You'll find it there
and you know that'll shipping straight to you if you
have prime the next day. Amazing, incredible, Well, Christian, thank
you so much. I want to close out by asking
one more question that I think is really important. Can
you talk to us about the important our votes have
in our local elections versus a national election, So local
(10:26):
elections have more of a big impact on our day
to day lives. Kind of like the example I gave
earlier with the traffic tickets and also the example I
gave about zoning. So your your city council people, they
get to decide, you know, all things around you know
where you live your mayor. Your mayor is a person
(10:47):
who in the city of Atlanta in state of Georgia.
The mayor picks your police chief, and the amer controls
the police department, the school board. You know, they determined
to budget on what happens with your kids school. So
there are so many things that happened every single day
that we absolutely use every single day that local elections
(11:08):
play an impact. All your local district attorney and you
know what criminal charges go forward. They determined, you know,
if they want to give people second chances or put
people in programs, or if they want to be strictly
tough on crime and lock everybody up again, that's something
that local elections decide. So please please please never set
out any election. You know, pull out your phone and
(11:30):
go to Google see what the candidates are. You know,
they will take you two minutes to do that, so
you can make an informed decision on who you want
to vote for and make sure you're picking people who
have similar views to what you have. Amazing. Thank you
so much Christian for being with his here on the
Money Means podcast our audience and I appreciate you. Can
you again remind our audience where they can find you
(11:51):
on social media? I G. Christianize Smith. It's my name altogether,
C H R I S T I A n W
I S C as in th same on Facebook. Just
my name Christian wat Smith and play to support the
campaign for Georgia Attorney General. We have to make history.
I'll be the twelve black A g ever in US history,
(12:12):
the second black AG in the state of Georgia. Www.
Dot y Smith for that's the number four g A
dot com and thank you so much for this opportunity.
It's an honor to be talking to you. I've seen,
you know, a lot of your other podcasts and interviews
before then. Uh, you know folks like JB. Smooth and
you know he's one of my favorite comedians. So it
(12:34):
was great. That was so much fun and you're talking
to me. Thank you well. Thank you, Christian. We wish
you all of the best of luck in your upcoming campaign.
Make sure that our Money Moves audience goes out and votes.
It is the most empowering thing that you can do,
not just for yourself, but our communities as well, and
one of the ways that you can help make your
(12:56):
money move for you, So Money Movers, that's all the
time we have for today, but make sure you follow
Christian on all of us social media handles and go vote.
And if we have helped you make your money move,
please make sure to let us know by sending us alike,
sharing some of the knowledge on your social and leave
us a review on Apple podcasts. Make sure to tune
(13:16):
into Money Moves and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast
powered by Greenwood, so that you too can have the
keys to financial freedom you so rightly deserve. Thank you
so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you
want more or a recap of this episode, please go
to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out the
Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I heart
(13:40):
radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by sun Wise Media, Inc.
For more podcast on I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from
Hey, Money Movers, Welcome back to Money Moves, the daily
podcast determined to give you the keys to the kingdom
of financial stability, wealth and abundance. On today's Deep Dive,
we are joined by the attorney seeking to make change
(00:21):
with compassion, Christian wise Smith. This Deep Dive has brought
to you by MasterCard bridging the Well Gap together with Greenwood.
If you missed our previous episode, Christian shared his inspiring
story about entering the political sphere, and today we have
him back and we're going to talk all about some
very important issues, including your right to vote. Hi Christian,
(00:42):
and welcome back to the show. Thanks for having to
be back. It's an honor to be here and an
honor to talk about something so important voting. Thank you, Yes, yes, Christian.
You know, I feel like the past couple of years,
when we've seen, you know, out of the tragic events
of killing, murder of George Floyd, Ahmad, Aubrey, Brianna Taylor,
(01:04):
and so many more, there's been this rise in this
social justice movement, but that I think that it's sort
of chiseled off a lot of I like to say,
the clay that we all were in because we didn't
know or we didn't really pay attention to how important
these social justice issues were. And I think voting in
particular has been a really hot topic that I would
(01:24):
love to shed some more light on. And I know
you were passionate about it and have been for a
long time before you were even in the race for
running for Attorney General. And I even heard that you've
written a book on the subject. Yes, so I wrote
a children's vote. It's called a Wiles Up adventure series,
Chris and Keig Vote. Here's a picture of it. I
(01:44):
love it. But the so the neat thing about this book, though,
is it it doesn't just tell kids about voting. It
actually teaches them how to vote. The kids fill out
a voter registraction card and they can color a picture
of themselves. Then they cast a ballot for their fame
of our color blacker and teaching the kids the process
in a simple way and hopes that they will grow
(02:06):
up understanding how important the process is and to make
sure that they participate as soon as they're old enough to. Oh,
you know, I love this so much because at Greenwood
and especially in the Money News podcast, we're really intentional
about sort of breaking some of the narratives that we
have carried forward from our ancestors, from our grandparents, etcetera,
especially in and around finance, financial stability, financial literacy, and
(02:30):
voting ties right into this because I think the narrative
in our community for a long time, and especially in
immigrant communities in particular, is that my vote doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what I vote for because my experience
as a black person, as a person of color in
this country is exactly what it is, and I haven't
been able to really see change for many, many years.
Where does that come from and how can we change it?
(02:53):
I think it starts with a children's book, but I
know that you're doing so much more. I think the
mentality comes from just generations of seeing our neighborhoods and
our communities looking the same way. But I want to
let people know that our neighborhoods and our communities look
how they've looked for so long because of voting Traditionally,
(03:14):
you know, black neighborhoods have you know, chet cash in places,
liquor stores, fast food restaurants. You go from state to state,
city to city, Uh, they are pretty much looked the same.
And one of the reasons is because of something called zoning.
So zoning laws are significant because you know where you're
sitting right now, where I'm sitting, you know, somebody had
(03:38):
to zone this space to be what it was built as.
And the people who decide that were voted into office.
So you know, several decades ago, certain people across the
country were voted into you know, whether they were county
commission seats or city council seats, you know, state rep
state sentence. Folks got to vote on how to zone
(03:59):
where we live, and they were intentional about making a
low income you know, black areas look a certain way
where you saw a project house and you saw you know,
everything I mentioned before. So that all ties back to voting.
And so one of the ways that we can change
that is to participate in the process and vote for
(04:20):
candidates who we know we'll have our best interests in
minds to change things and level playing fields. Because when
we don't vote, you know, the people who make the decisions,
we don't necessarily care about things our best interests or
things that are important to us in our communities. What
I really want our money moves audience to understand is
(04:40):
how important voting is, and especially you know, when you
look at it from the perspective of educating our children
on how how to vote and how to have these
conversations from a very young age, it breaks sort of
these narratives that it's not important or our vote doesn't matter.
One of the things that I also think came out
of these past elections is how every vote does matter,
(05:00):
not just your own personal vote, but voting in people
at municipal levels, in your school boards, all the way
up you know, to attorney general and of course you know,
the president of the country. How do you see this
changing for people? How are we better able to educate
people um on researching candidates and the importance of really
(05:21):
understanding what a candidate does. So one of the benefits
we have right now is living in a technology age
where you know, everybody has a cell phone and you
can google. I mean, you can google most candidates. You
can figure out, you know, their background, what kind of
things that that they've spoken about, have been passionate about,
you know, like you can tell the things that I'm
(05:42):
passionate about, and you can really see what people are about.
And you know, this show is called money Move. So
I would like to break it down into a money way. Please,
do have you ever gotten a traffic ticket for anything? Sadly? Yes?
And did you have to pay for it? Yes, somebody
(06:03):
voted on how much you have to pay. So every
traffic offense in the style, just keep it within the
state of Georgia. It's codified within the Official Could to
Georgia O c g A. And some legislator at some
point was voted into office and they decided on how
much to make speeding tickets, how much to make seatbelt tickets,
(06:25):
how much to make UH stop sign violations. So that's
a simple way to break down how politics impacts our
daily lives. When you get in your car to drive,
if you get pulled over, you have to go pay
for a ticket. That's voting. Voting determined how much you're paying.
At one point in time, somebody voted on who made
the decision and how much you pay on that ticket. Wow,
(06:46):
that's such a great example. And you know, when you
think about you know, money, news and just the power
that our vote has as it translates to you know,
building wealth, keeping our money or where we put our
tax dollars like, becomes so much more important because you
just think, Okay, somebody else is in charge, but really,
we as a people, we as a collective, we are
in charge. That's the whole point of a democracy, is
(07:08):
it not yes, my own beside who represents us? And
if and if we don't use our vote, then that
means somebody else's deciding for us. Christian again, talk more
about this children's book because I just love that you're using,
you know, children's literacy to really break these negative barriers
and narratives around um voting in our community to really
(07:31):
impact change. So when I ran for office in one
of the things I was confronted with is what we've
been talking about so many people who felt like their
votes didn't matter, the votes weren't important, their votes weren't
going to change any thing. And so I have the
opportunity to really build a great relationship with Shaka Zulu,
who was a co founder of Disturbing the Piece Records
(07:53):
with Ludicrous Luda and a couple of other big artists.
Is at a great career and the entertainment industry, and
Shaka actually blessed me with once in a lifetime opportunity
and took me to l A to meet Clarence Avon,
who's known as the Black Guy Farmer. There's a phenomenal
documentary about him on Netflix. I recommend you if you
(08:14):
haven't seen it. But Mr Avon has always had his
hand in politics. He was he played a significant role
in getting Jimmy Carter elected as President, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama,
Andy Young when he ran for Congress. You know, Mr
Avon was always kind of behind the scenes helping these folks, uh,
(08:34):
you know, advanced their political careers in their campaigns because
he understood that without the right to vote, there's not
much we can do. So I'm at lunch with Mr
Avon and he's talking about my d A campaign. He's
talking about, you know, my future aspirations. And you know,
one of the things we spoke about two with Stacy
Abrams and how she lost in t eighteen, but she
(08:56):
didn't disappear. She really went on this crusade of you know,
protecting voting rights and making sure that the voters counted,
and she was really vocal invisible in terms of you know,
making elections fair. And so he challenged me to come
up with a way to continue the momentum that I
built in that DA's race, and you know, children's book
(09:18):
just popped in my head and I came back from
l A, came down into my basement and started writing.
I reached out to my little brother, who I knew
could draw, and you know him and his daughter family affair. Yeah,
and so you know, within I would say two weeks
of Shaka taking me to meet Mr Avon. You know,
(09:39):
I finished the book and then we put it out
in January, put it out on my birthday. Wow, that's incredible.
Well where can people find this book? First of all,
I want to make sure that the good deeds and
the good works that you're going are going very much
noticed by our community. Thank you, Thank you. It's it's
purely online. I self published through Amazon. So Amazon dot com.
(10:01):
If you type it in the search you wise up
adventure series Chris and Keigo vote, You'll find it there
and you know that'll shipping straight to you if you
have prime the next day. Amazing, incredible, Well, Christian, thank
you so much. I want to close out by asking
one more question that I think is really important. Can
you talk to us about the important our votes have
in our local elections versus a national election, So local
(10:26):
elections have more of a big impact on our day
to day lives. Kind of like the example I gave
earlier with the traffic tickets and also the example I
gave about zoning. So your your city council people, they
get to decide, you know, all things around you know
where you live your mayor. Your mayor is a person
(10:47):
who in the city of Atlanta in state of Georgia.
The mayor picks your police chief, and the amer controls
the police department, the school board. You know, they determined
to budget on what happens with your kids school. So
there are so many things that happened every single day
that we absolutely use every single day that local elections
(11:08):
play an impact. All your local district attorney and you
know what criminal charges go forward. They determined, you know,
if they want to give people second chances or put
people in programs, or if they want to be strictly
tough on crime and lock everybody up again, that's something
that local elections decide. So please please please never set
out any election. You know, pull out your phone and
(11:30):
go to Google see what the candidates are. You know,
they will take you two minutes to do that, so
you can make an informed decision on who you want
to vote for and make sure you're picking people who
have similar views to what you have. Amazing. Thank you
so much Christian for being with his here on the
Money Means podcast our audience and I appreciate you. Can
you again remind our audience where they can find you
(11:51):
on social media? I G. Christianize Smith. It's my name altogether,
C H R I S T I A n W
I S C as in th same on Facebook. Just
my name Christian wat Smith and play to support the
campaign for Georgia Attorney General. We have to make history.
I'll be the twelve black A g ever in US history,
(12:12):
the second black AG in the state of Georgia. Www.
Dot y Smith for that's the number four g A
dot com and thank you so much for this opportunity.
It's an honor to be talking to you. I've seen,
you know, a lot of your other podcasts and interviews
before then. Uh, you know folks like JB. Smooth and
you know he's one of my favorite comedians. So it
(12:34):
was great. That was so much fun and you're talking
to me. Thank you well. Thank you, Christian. We wish
you all of the best of luck in your upcoming campaign.
Make sure that our Money Moves audience goes out and votes.
It is the most empowering thing that you can do,
not just for yourself, but our communities as well, and
one of the ways that you can help make your
(12:56):
money move for you, So Money Movers, that's all the
time we have for today, but make sure you follow
Christian on all of us social media handles and go vote.
And if we have helped you make your money move,
please make sure to let us know by sending us alike,
sharing some of the knowledge on your social and leave
us a review on Apple podcasts. Make sure to tune
(13:16):
into Money Moves and subscribe to the Money Moves podcast
powered by Greenwood, so that you too can have the
keys to financial freedom you so rightly deserve. Thank you
so much for tuning in Money Moves audience. If you
want more or a recap of this episode, please go
to the bank Greenwood dot com and check out the
Money Moves podcast blog. Money Moves is an I heart
(13:40):
radio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by sun Wise Media, Inc.
For more podcast on I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your
podcasts from
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.