Jab It Like It's Hot (with Madison Shepard)

Are anti-vaxx propaganda being targeted towards Black people? Langston and his guest Madison Shepard (Single Drunk Female) are boosted and ready to review this conspiracy theory.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Do you suffer from something like anaphylaxis? If you if
you are the opposite of throat go and your throat
closes up from contact, then you gotta be responsible, you know,
Nancy Reagan, you gotta you gotta take your time to
figure this ship out. You know what I mean? Chips

(00:28):
in yours are racist money mary stuff. You can't tell me. Yep, yep, yep,
there it is. There it is. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome

(00:50):
to another phenomenal episode of My Mama told me the
podcast will be dive deep, deep into the pockets of
black conspiracy there and we finally worked to prove that yes,
Trey Songs invented sex, but more importantly, he invented sexual assault.
That's right, ladies and gentlemen. Trigger was at the forefront

(01:13):
of both. He's too damn good at both of them.
You know, he's good at sex. But the man is
a master at wraith, and we need to celebrate him
for his work. That's the conspiracy theory I'm spreading. I'm
your host, Lankston Kerman as always coming in hot baby
doing doing what I do. You know what the funk
it is? This is the New York edition of the podcast,

(01:35):
I'm I'm in a I'm in a What what was
told to me is a one bedroom apartment in New
York City. And what I can tell you is them
niggas lied to me because a bedroom, No, sir, this
this is a This is an open floor plan of
of studio. You know what I mean. It's a studio

(01:57):
with the taste with just a little extra, a little
see easing it right on the side. But that's not
that's not important. That doesn't affect the podcast at all.
It really just places my temperament, I guess it. It
sort of gives you a sense. If I'm a little
spicy in the podcast today, just know it's because I
ship where I sleep now based on where I live.

(02:18):
But that's that's not important, because my guest today, I
don't think she ships where she sleeps. I think she
probably sleeps in a completely separate space from where she ships,
and I bet they're both beautiful spaces. She's she's a
hilarious comedian. She's a wonderful actress. You know her from
from her work on single Drunk Female show That is

(02:38):
is still out. It's on free Form. You can watch
it on Hulu if you ain't free forming, but you
you still Hulu and she will also be on the
season premiere of Barry, a show I Love Dearly. I
can't wait for it to come out. I think it
comes out in April. I don't know the specific date,
but that's not my responsibility. You piece of ships. Don't
worry about that. Just worry about who the guest is.

(02:59):
She's so funny, so great. Please give it up for
my guest, Miss Madison Shepherd. Hello, oh yeah, oh my gosh. Wow.
I would like to make people feel welcome here. Listen,
I mean from your studio apartment to mine. I love it.
Don't you say that they said it's a one bed room.

(03:19):
Don't you take this away from me? How are we? How?
How's everything are you? Well? I'm I'm well. I'm you know,
excited for all the stuff to come. I'm keeping a hopeful,
manifested vibe. You know, it's being positive about my life.

(03:40):
You know it's so good. That doesn't sound like the
way I approach things, But I'm excited that that's you
to each of his own. I guess if that's how
you want to do it. I'm I'm more of a
of a gun in my back pocket kind of man.
You know, at this point, I don't actually have one. Metaphorically,
I understand, I understand, let's not let's not meander here,

(04:02):
let's not dilly dally right as as the streets would say,
we have a really I guess a good I think
it's going to be an exciting conversation to enter to
enter into today because your conspiracy theory. You said, my
mama told me black people are being targeted with an

(04:24):
anti vax propaganda. Yeah, it's more well, I mean probably
the most. The biggest example of this is there was
a film that came out last year about medical racism,
and it was, you know, supposed to be this like
one hour free expose about how the medical institution is

(04:51):
killing black people with not it doesn't blatantly say the
COVID vaccine, but it is clearly about the COVID vaccine.
And it's it's interesting because I also, you know, I'm
not on black Twitter no more because I had a
little issue with Twitter, and uh, I was busy wasting
my time. You know. I was like, listen, I was

(05:12):
spending too much time, was affecting my mental health. I
was like, there are better Let me go walk outside
or pet a dog or anything but a cursed app.
So I got out the Twitter before before you go
any further, you said you're not on Twitter anymore because
you had an issue. Was this just a personal issue
where you were like I am not doing well with
this or was it like, oh, they came for you

(05:32):
in a way that you had to uh to dismount
from this space and never returned to it. Unfortunately, that
was never really my journey on Twitter. Like I don't
think anybody buck. I felt like I was on Twitter
for seven years and I did all the things, and
then nothing happened on my Twitter. So I was like,
maybe I give it up, you know, maybe it's like
not for me. So unfortunately nobody cares enough about me

(05:55):
to come for me. But it's a sad truth, and
listen that that sometimes can feel more heartbreaking than than
if they say they want to kill you dead. Right.
Indifferences a bit, but anyways, I was just like, what
are you doing on Twitter? It's a waste of time.
But anyways, you know, I'm on black Internet, and there's

(06:16):
beyond this, like film that circulated a lot last year,
there's memes and TikTok's and all of this sort of
propaganda that's like really leaning into black people's in America's
inherent distrust of the medical community, which is real, but
using it in a way to dissuade black people from

(06:38):
getting the vaccine that they are which will protect them
from a virus which they are disproportionately affected by, which
is insane. But it's all comes from these like this's
a group of like basically they call it, I think
it's like the Dirty Dozen is like the name for it.
But it's the group of like twelve people who put
out like sixty or of all of the anti vax

(07:03):
misinformation in America. So, yeah, we were targed. So we
were targeted specifically. So the film that you're referring to,
and this is I'm glad you're bringing it up so
early in this, But the film that you're referring to
came from former Senator Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The son

(07:24):
of of the Kennedy that everybody liked and the nephew
of the Kennedy that everybody liked. For a while, and
then they killed him. I guess they killed both of them,
but one day shot uh I guess cooler than the
other one. Either way, one of them fucked Marilyn Monroe,
so you know what I mean, Like definitely, Yeah, they all,
like the boys, had fun and then they got taken

(07:46):
out of here pretty quickly. But the point is that
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I think, is much more of
a wild conspiracy theorists and sort of a a person
living in the outliers of the Democrat Raddick Party and
not necessarily a welcomed voice. But he put together this

(08:06):
film entitled Medical Racism the New Apartheid, in which it
did exactly what you were suggesting. It was meant to
target black and brown people, to get them to to see,
to open their eyes to the possibility that in fact,
the vaccine was wrong and dangerous and meant to hurt them. Yeah,

(08:27):
and I mean that came out. I think it was
last summer, you know, during that three weeks when we
forgot about the freaking COVID virus and we were just
out maskless, you know what I mean, just living our
lives in June. This is probably I think it came
out before the delta variant really got us. But you know, anecdotally,

(08:47):
I worked during the pandemic when everything shut down, I
didn't have a job. I was like, funk, what am
I gonna do? And I worked at a vaccine and
testing sites in Los Angeles, and so I got to
see firsthand directly from like specifically older black people who
would be there to take a relative to get the vaccine,

(09:10):
and I'd be like, I can get you vaccinated right now.
You just say the word, I'll make you an appointment,
will set it up. I have an extra shot right
here for you. And they would literally be in the
car holding the hand of their relative and say no,
I'm good DA. So that was before this documentary even
came out. So I think it was that document quote documentary.
I'm doing the finger quotation things for the listeners. We

(09:36):
got silent mix on this podcast, so when it comes
in hot, it's loud, it's it's a talu size, its slants,
it's underlined, it's bolded. Documents read. So when this came out,
like I think it's just a kind of a large
part of a larger wave of stuff that was coming
out about why the vaccine is anti black and we

(09:57):
shouldn't get it. Yeah, it's it's interest thing because so
much of this propaganda, right is it reminds me a lot.
Maybe this is a good way of entering the what
I'm trying to say. It reminds me a lot of
when they told us that that the Russians had hacked
our elections? Do you know what I mean that? Like

(10:17):
they said this thing where where for a while it
felt like they had like literally gotten into our database
and we're changing the votes to to not be for
Hillary and instead for Trump. And then after a while
it became clear, Oh, they didn't do nothing but get
on Facebook and say some wild ship and then a

(10:37):
bunch of us were already toxic and sick and willing
to play wild ship games, so when they started talking,
we were like, fuck, yeah, I get down with this ship.
So it wasn't a a hacking of our elections as
much as it was them just starting a conversation and
us being broken enough to continue it. Yeah it, And

(11:01):
I mean the vaccine, Uh, you know, there's something like
five billion people worldwide have gotten it. So like obviously,
you know, anecdotally, most of us survived it and our
doing fine in our triple vax and all of that,
but there's still people who. You know, it's hard to
change people's minds once they have emotionally connected with an

(11:25):
idea or I believe it's really hard. Like even though
like that whole stuff about the election, my mom still
says wild tinfoil hat shit about the Russians involvement in
our election, but she was the main wine shared shipped
on Facebook. I'm like, Mom, this isn't even a reputable source.
Where did you read the article? She's like no, but

(11:46):
the headline says it all. I'm like, well, you know,
it's hard to it's hard to disengage our our minds
and hearts from a topic if we believe it to
be true. You know, I think what makes now so
cool is that we are all trying to be a
helpful resource to other people, like and and this is

(12:07):
me trying to approach this, I guess with less cynicism
than I often approach a lot of things. But I
do think that there's a part of us that's at
least trying to be a helpful resource where we go,
like I read this thing about the vaccine or about
COVID or about like all of the ship and then
I'm willing to go share that information with the world

(12:30):
with the intent that like, I want the people around
me to also be awakened to that truth. But then
you you see what truth they're trying to awake us too.
When you're like, bro, that's that's dumb. It's that you
didn't read, Like you can't awake I can't be awakened
if you didn't read. Yeah, no, I mean, what's the

(12:53):
name of that gallon TikTok who came up with that?
Like it's a it's an upside down triangle where it's
like and RC theory will keep you on the hook
until it starts to get weird, and like everyone sort
of has this breaking point, but some people never get off,
and so then they just continue to go on this
massive journey of disinformation because they're hooks. I mean, you

(13:15):
know it's why it's it's uh, it feels like this
unbeatable game almost of like it's it's like you said,
it's once you're on the hook, you can't fucking get
off the hook. It just it continues to latch onto
in a way that you know, I'm somebody who gets
off the hook quick. I'm like, you know what, this
is a lot of work at a certain point, I'm like,

(13:36):
it's too much. Listen. I was a B student and
I don't need to, like, you know what I mean.
I don't like stay involved and do my own resource ship.
I don't have so many books I haven't read sitting
on my nightstand right now. Why do I need to
do my own research about something? It's like I'm done. Yeah,
And frankly most of us were were be students and

(13:57):
below you know what I mean, Like, there's a reason
a students are a students and it represents a type
of exceptional care in reading and effort, or at least
pretending learning the game enough to pretend to do so.
But it it's the reality is a lot of us
probably couldn't do effective research even if we wanted to,
and to pretend Like suddenly at thirty eight, you've like

(14:21):
you've nailed down how to break break down a peer
reviewed article. You're full of shit. You don't know anything.
I mean, listen, even in like I was just like,
let me go to the CDC website just to like
look at an article or two before I come in
and speak on this like topic with you. And like
I started scrolling and I was like, well, where are
the picture graphs. I mean, give me the highlights. I

(14:43):
was like two paragraphs in and I was like, well,
I gotta find another source because I'm not reading this
ship right now. No. I feel the exact same way.
I'm I'm literally attempting to make sense of an article
as we speak, just to be able to to use
some of that resource when you talk about the research
and ship and a whole lot of it would be
made easier if there was like a thumb that you know,

(15:07):
or like one of the pictures where it's like filling
up to the brim and you just look at the
number on the brim and you're like, Okay, I understand this,
but it's all these lofty words and in medical terms
that I'm not familiar with, so I the article is
not gonna make sense to me. I immediately get lost
when it's too many percentages and then like long scientific

(15:28):
words that I don't know, and I'm like, well, I
guess that's it. Yeah. What sucks me up is when
they do percentages, like they'll say like, this group represented
this percentage of this thing, and then afterwards they'll say
what sounds like very similar language and give you a
different percentage, and then I go, all right, well, which

(15:50):
one is the percent I was looking for for what
I need? You know what I mean? Like, I don't
know how to always parse out the difference in terms
of like what these numbers to represent. And that truly
is the reason people go to school is to be
able to like differentiate between what things mean. And I
didn't do that. I went to school for fucking poetry.

(16:12):
I have no clue what any of this is. Yeah,
I dropped out of acting school, so you know what
I mean, Like, honestly, it's the same boat, different but
you're you're doing it now. Huh look at look at you.
A whole bunch of fucking idiots probably stayed in school
and and aren't on TV shows, right, people who fucking

(16:34):
took math beyond geometry. Good for them, I guess, Yeah, no,
you should. You guys should feel stupid. Yeah, dummies, Madison said,
sucker dick, you dumb dumbs. Okay, So you're you're clearly
not on board with or, at least from what I'm gathering,
you're not a n anti vax or you're not a

(16:55):
person on board with any of what this this propaga
and is asking us to believe. I guess the question
I want to ask you before we go to break
is do you feel uh And I'm specifically asking this
from I guess a black perspective, whatever that means, But
do you feel like you at least understand or or

(17:18):
connect with why this anti VAXX propaganda matters so much
to the black community. I mean, again, just an anecdote here,
but when I was working at the vaccine site, when
when I found out in November that there would be
a vaccine coming and that we because we were working

(17:39):
what was testing at the time, but we were working
and testing in vaccines, that we would be first on
the list to get the vaccine. Initially, I was like,
looking around other black people at the sidelight, we're not
gonna do this right, Like yeah, y'all, go ahead, y'all first,
go ahead, I'll catch up with you later, Like I
don't think that's off for me. And then came anywarry

(18:00):
one and they were like, um, so, who wants to
get the vaccine? And I raised my hand. First, let
me tell you, not of the people, you know what
I mean? And not only that, but I looked at
other black people and I was like you have to
get it, you know what I mean. You have to
get it. Like we're getting it, you know what I mean.
So I understand why people have been unsure of getting it,

(18:26):
but just due to the history and all that. But like, frankly,
like people are smarter than me, and I just gotta
listen to like the scientist and you know, yeah, you know,
I think that's um That's similar to how I sort
of approached it. I didn't want to be first in
line by any means, and I like had a lot
of hesitancy that you can probably even track in the

(18:48):
communication on this podcast. There was a points where I'm like,
I don't know about fucker. I'm not saying don't do it,
but takeing time. But then it reached a point where
it was like I really want to go back outside,
and I think this is how I do it. So
I'm a I'm willing to get this shot because whatever,
especially the fear, like I think I I relate most

(19:12):
with the fear that the government has obviously demonstrated a
a very intentional history of poisoning black people and other
types of people of color over the course of centuries.
Right that, like literally if you look throughout, Like the
type of ships and ship that they've done. Puerto Rico
is a great example, like literally they have they have

(19:34):
made it so that, uh, infertility in Puerto Rico is
like the the largest in any country in the world
because of and I know Puerto Rico is not technically,
but the point is that that territory is so fucked
up because of intentional work that the government was doing
to basically make women infertile. Like it is not we

(19:57):
we would be remiss, I guess too, to pretend as
if like the government doesn't have ill will at times
towards people of color or poor people or whatever it is.
That said, if that's the fear, I can respect it.
Let's negotiate, let's figure out an answer. But if the
fear is that these motherfucker's are micro chipping me or
that like there this is gonna be a way that

(20:19):
they're gonna track my movements, go ahead, dog, I'm just
I'm just going to bed at around nine thirty to
take thirty every day. You're not getting anything special out
of me. I'm not chirping about that ship, you know, Yeah, yeah,
for sure, for sure, Yeah I move Yeah, So that's

(20:40):
I get it. I was hesitant, but you found your
way to the other side of it. And hopefully, hopefully
they are micro chipping us and they're they're real disappointed
with what they're finding, and they'll just shut the chips down.
You know, no, I'll be honest. The real micro chip
is already in your hand. You know it's already you
already got it. They're already trying you. Wait a minute,

(21:01):
they get That's how they get you. I don't disagree, sweetie.
If the government wants to find your ass, they're gonna
find you. They're gonna find it. And it's not because
they stuck up. You know. Five million leaders are not
even meliotes or whatever. They stuck a percentage of a
syringe in your arm. It's not because of that. Yeah, yeah,

(21:22):
for some reason, and five million leaders in my head
sounded like leaders and not meliote you know what I mean?
My god, damn, we got five leaders effect that will
kill us. That is why everybody's so concerned with what
this is. You know what I started to say, the
number of what I tried to remember it was, but
then I was like, bitch, you you barely made it

(21:43):
through Earth science. Come on, now you don't know what
you're talking about. And that's okay. It's okay. We're all
thriving as best week gained. We're okay, We're gonna take
a break. We'll be back with more medicine Shephard and more,
my mama told me, and we are, Yeah, we're back

(22:16):
here were more medicine shepherd more. My mama told me.
We're still talking about the possibility that black people are
being intentionally targeted by propaganda, uh, anti vaxx propaganda. Let's
let me ask you this question. Do you think that
black people are similarly being targeted by like vaccine propaganda?
Are they like making some weird extra effort with us

(22:39):
on that side of things? Yes? Absolutely. I don't know
if you remember last year. I don't see it as
much this year, but you know, they always have like
some medical it's a public health commercial, or it's a
commercial for a cell phone, or it's a commercial, and
it's always like, hey, y'all, let me tell you about
the new miss to bet Galant. I can't even say

(23:02):
the word, but you know, it's always it's But there
was so many weird vaccine commercials telling black people, and
I was like this is never gonna work, you know
what I mean? There were I agree, there were some
pretty odd ones, I feel like, and I truly don't
remember it well enough to even be able to articulate
it fairly, But I do remember watching a commercial that

(23:24):
essentially had the feeling of a dude being like, what's up,
niggas ah me and me and the squad is doing?
Is getting vaccinated out here? If you ain't vaccinating, you
can't get down with our crew. And it's like, if
the funk out of you, ain't nobody talking like this,
This isn't a real human being that you like found.

(23:44):
This is truly the most hateful stereotype you could come
up with for what you think black people need to
be persuaded into joining the vaccinated camp. Because I'm a
black woman. All the odds were like, I'm getting vaccinated
for my family as a hard working black woman, single

(24:05):
black woman out here in these streets. You know, girl,
do it for your family. And I was like that,
I have two dogs, Like I have the opposite of that. Yeah,
I ain't got no family. What's up? My dog ain't
gonna get sick. I have my dogs and my white mom.
That's it, you know. Yeah, they're like three dogs in
history that got COVID and they were all they're fine, nobody,

(24:27):
you know what I mean, they did all that ship
where they were like telling us, oh, no, Chim Jim
at the zoo got COVID and Chimp Chim was fucking okay.
Everybody was was perfectly fine when everything was said and done.
I mean, this has a been a traumatic experience overall,
so it's hard to remember remember all the details of it.
But do you remember how like some exotic animals were

(24:49):
getting vaccinated before people were No, absolutely, like lions, tigers, bears,
type of ship. Yeah. No, they were real concerned with
making sure that these animals that they've been keeping in
captivity against their will for for decades for a profit,
remain profitable, whereas human life was not a priority. All Right,

(25:15):
we're getting we're getting sad, we're getting morbid, We're we're
accusing them of treating black people worse than animals. And
I think some of those accusations are fair. But what
we need to do is jump into a little bit
of this research. So one of the things that I
found that I that I guess was most surprising for
me was how efficient some of the propaganda actually is?

(25:38):
Right that, Like, again, so many of the things that
they talk about in terms of propaganda feel like they
would easily be sort of dismissed that Like I, I,
as a reasonable person or you, as a reasonable person,
can look at this and go, I I see the
trick in this. I know how commercials work. I know
the things that you're saying are not necessarily true. But

(25:59):
as it turns out, I read this article that suggested
that two thirds of the anti vax material that we
see on the Internet can actually be traced back to
just twelve influencers slash accounts. Twelve doesn't Yeah, just twelve
people are like fully controlling the masses on the Internet.

(26:24):
And that's crazy, It's nuts. Yeah, Like what do you
do with that? Listen? I mean I also have to
monitor my TikTok usage because they recommend me shipped to
buy on Amazon all day long. So if I was
just like a little more gullible, you know what I mean,
less reasonable than I am, I have gotten got I

(26:45):
get it. I almost bought a broom that has a
vacuum on it, a dust pan and a vacuum because
TikTok told me too, you see what I mean? Yeah,
I could have knocked on the vaccine and vacuums have
been technology that's existed for for a long long time now,
and I think they haven't improved that much because we

(27:07):
did the best we could with them the first time. Like,
I don't think you're supposed to be attaching all that
ship to it because it's not gonna work. And you
would have just fell for the roofs because TikTok told
you so. They had a cute sound and it was
all aesthetic. So yeah, of course I'm not shocked. That's
that's true. Damn Okay. So what what I guess surprised

(27:32):
me the most with these twelve influencers slash accounts is
that the material just seems to be amplified and spread
through our own algorithms, right that, Like, essentially it's I
decide I'm going to post some anti vack ship and
then you and your can, your your friends, your your cohort,
whatever it is, then take that information and make it

(27:54):
hell allowed for your communities, and then that community makes
It's truly a pyramid scheme of bad ideas, right, and
on top of that, the the sites that are claiming
to crack down on this stuff, the facebooks, the instagrams,
the TikTok's, all the places that have poisoned your life.
Well Twitter, I skipped over Twitter that when I hurt

(28:16):
you the most, it sounds like, wow, it just hurt
my ego. But it's all right, okay. But but they
claim to be cracking down on sort of like this
irresponsible uh language or ideas or whatever it is. But
the the ultimate reality is that these sites cannot exist
without clicks and without views. And if you take away

(28:38):
this powerful deity like uh group of influencers, suddenly you're
losing viewership. You're losing opportunities for clicks and for sales
and for vacuums to be pushed down the throats of
the people who want them. And so subsequently they leave
these accounts up, and the accounts continue to do exactly

(29:00):
what the fuck they've been doing. And I guess my
question for you is is there anything you think we
can do about this? I mean, divest get off of it,
like please. I mean, and maybe it's because I'm I was, look,
I might be an outlier here, but I could I

(29:22):
deleted Facebook, I deleted Twitter. I sometimes get on TikTok,
but not really archived most of my Instagram. I'm just like,
you know, I have to spend so much time on
social media, you know, like it's okay to put a
block on it, to take off the app, because I
don't know of another way to stop it, right, Like there,

(29:44):
there doesn't appear to me to be a way to
stop the algorithm from, for better or for worse, doing
its thing for good and for bad. Right, So it's like,
how about I just live my life and like get
my news and all of that, then the old fashioned way,
you know, visiting Google, which is also an algorithm which

(30:05):
is specifically tailored to me in my interest. So you know,
I'm I'm, I'm I'm going back on what I just said.
But no, but I think you're making a really, I guess,
fair and important point here because one of the things
that it made me think about is how often, because
of its twelve influencers, that tells you that not as

(30:26):
many people as we think actually believe in the ship
that's being said, right, that it truly is just a
person says a thing, and then it then gets spread
out by a bunch of people who probably don't even
believe it necessarily or care about the ship, but are
willing to kind of invest in the antics of the moment. Right.
But part of the people investing in it aren't just

(30:48):
people who believe it but it are, in fact people
who don't believe in it, And there are some of
the worst spreaders of the information because you see somebody
say some wild ship, then you screenshot it, you dunk
on them, you go on the internet and you go,
look at this dumb motherfucker. I can't believe anybody would
be this stupid, And in doing that, you're creating dialogue

(31:11):
around their stupidity, even if your intention was just to
make them look less than right. And that works until
it doesn't. At a certain point when people should on
things too much, at least for me, I can say,
I go, well, now, wait a minute, why is everybody
shitting on this so bad? Let me go investigate myself.

(31:31):
And suddenly I'm clicking on their ship, I'm scrolling through
the comments, I'm liking, I'm like reporting, you know, I'm
I'm engaged in it in a way that's like it
doesn't serve me, and it also doesn't serve my like
point of view, doesn't It doesn't mean anything for my
real life. So yeah, I mean, just there, listen, there's

(31:52):
always something you can be doing. Is your laundry folded?
Is your floors clean? Have you read a book? Have
you called an old friend? Have you written anything or
thought hard about? Like have you bakedicate? What their ship
in your life? You can do other than scroll get
And I'll be honest, I haven't done any of the
things you just listed, and I feel terribly ashamed. But

(32:12):
I do think that that at its core, that point
is very very real and true and needs to be
considered as we approach all of this ship that like
the reality is is that, like we don't have nearly
as much control as we think we do. When the
bagel boss bugged the funk out in that restaurant and
he was custom the dude out and he was a

(32:34):
little fellow, and we all laughed at how little he
was and stupid he was, he capitalized on that. He
then went on to become like he made money off
of being a piece of ship in a bagel restaurant,
you know what I mean. And that's not something that
was our intention, nor is it something we can control,
it just is. And so until we reach a point

(32:55):
where we can just look at this ship and go,
I'm not going to engage with that, just gonna let
that that die off the way it's supposed to, or
we're always going to be victims of the algorithm, right,
I Mean there is something too, there's like a saying
for this. But you know, whatever you put your attention to,
it like spotlights it right and makes it amplifies kind of.

(33:18):
And if it's not what you are into or what
you believe, like turn the spotlight of your intention, attention
and intention somewhere else. You know. Yeah, I I think
that's I think that's smart. I think that's fair, and
all's easy to do, but no, it's it's truly one
of the hardest things in the world right now to

(33:39):
like put your phone down and and not not be
a part of whatever social media is telling you you
need to be a part of. Like, I think so
much of our our human worth, unfortunately, has been deeply
tethered to our our numbers and identity online and it

(33:59):
feels insane to be the one person who's choosing not
to be a part of that stuff. But at the
same time, I do think it's until we can collectively
find a way to step outside of that, we're not
ever going to reach the happiness we were aiming for.
One of the things that this reminds me of, because

(34:19):
you brought this up earlier, this medical racism and the
New apartheid that that film that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Is working on or worked on rather and uh, super
effective for black people. Oh, I all the black people
I know are constantly talking about medical racism, the new apartheid.
It's it's all over the streets and one oh six

(34:41):
in part they play that at the end of all
the videos medical apartheid, it's it's killing it out there.
But the point is one of the things that that
they talk about in sort of like the creation of
this thing, right is the sort of like intentional strategy
that they even used when it came to building the

(35:03):
information that like part of the strategy he and his
team were employing is talking to reputable black educators and
experts and having them talk through their own personal fears
and the history of mistreatment by the American government as
it relates to like vaccines and the previous generations. And
then they're applying that logic to contemporary conversations unbeknownst to

(35:27):
the people they're speaking with. Does that make sense? Yeah,
I mean there was a lot of There was like
one lady in particular who sat down did the interview.
Vaccines never came up. They didn't even use the word vaccine.
It was not a thing. They just talked about the
history of the of the medical community abusing people of color.

(35:52):
And she didn't even realize until after the interview was
done when she asked, who else are you interviewing and
they couldn't give her names, that maybe something was up.
You know, yeah, it's They truly like did a switch
a row on her, a little white devil bait and switch,

(36:12):
and they went, you know, we're we're just we just
want to know your thoughts as a historian and as
this intellectual about all of this stuff. And then afterwards
they were like, got you, bitch, you work for the
you work for the Q and nine crazies, you stupid asked,
and and now that's where she's at. It's just a

(36:32):
lady who has to go to now real news sources
and be like, hey, y'all they tricked me. I don't
want you to think. I don't want you to think
this is what I'm into personally, but amazing that she
had to go on an apology tour for being misled
by the producers of this documentary who were trying to
mislead the public. You know, yeah, I mean, And part

(36:55):
of it is like it just shows you how easily
we can all find ourselves being manipulated. This isn't an
unintelligent person, right, She's not a dumb lady, but she's
being placed in circumstances where it feels like you're doing
the right thing by sharing your thoughts on this and
then however you share it, even if it is real,

(37:18):
information can easily be manipulated into other stuff. I remember
years ago, my wife and I this is before we
were married. We were like walking in Hollywood and we
passed a place called Museum of the Museum of Psychology
and Death. I know it well, you know the Museum
of Psychology. So for those of you that don't know,

(37:42):
the Museum of Psychology and Death is like a really
interesting hookie type name. That's it's a museum right next
to Chick fil A out in in in the heart
of West Hollywood. And we were walking and we're like,
holy ship, that seems like an interesting place. We'll go
in there and we'll check out what they got they
got going on, and think it's free. You can just
walk in and it's a free museum. And when you're

(38:04):
walking in that begins by telling you all the funked
up ship that that psychology and sort of like, uh,
the government has sort of done to manipulate and hurt
people specifically like disadvantaged people throughout history, and you see
little babies in cages and people being stuffed with electrodes,

(38:25):
just electrodes up there butt and electrocude until yeah, they
the butts, and in my story, they're doing all kinds
of wild ship and you're like, damn, this is a
crazy museum. I never knew about none of this stuff.
And then at some point in the museum you get
to a room where they're like, also, you shouldn't take medicine,

(38:48):
and they're like, yo, when this flip and they're like, yeah,
don't give your kids medicine either, because medicine is bad
for you. And then by the end of it, you realized,
holy shit, this is a scientology museum. The entire time,
it's all just propaganda for for Scientology, and then at
the end there's just a dude with a clipboard being like,
can I have your name? And you gotta be like no,

(39:09):
no, no no, I don't want to give you my name.
Run out of there, and you don't buy nothing from
the gift store, and you just fucking beat it. But
it's it's that right that, like some of what they're
saying wasn't untrue, but what they want you to gain
from it is wrong and dangerous. Yeah, that place is.
I mean, I don't know if it's just because I

(39:29):
have a natural distrust of anything that looks to organize,
like I guess because like I you know, I went
to high school here in Los Angeles, so I basically
grew up here. So for me, I've been ducking and
dodging the scientologists for damn your twenty years now. So
I was well aware that like what that museum was,

(39:51):
because I remember like walking past it as a young person.
But to the layman who maybe has never encountered scientology
properly Ganda before, they would be like like you walking
out ship. Because they also have a museum of death
in Hollywood, they have a museum of sex. They have
believe it or not. You're like, oh, ship, this is
just like a little offbeat, weird museum, let me check

(40:13):
it out. And then it's just straight up propaganda. Why Yeah,
And and frankly, the Museum of Death isn't is not
what they promise either. It's just a room full of
stuff that they've purchased from serial killers. Yeah, it's just
like here's the toothbrush Jeffrey Dahmer used after he ate
all those babies, And it's like, god damn, I don't

(40:34):
think that this is as much a museum of death
as it is like some dudes fetish that he's like
put on display for all to enjoy. Right, it's very strange. Yeah,
it's it's all scary and haunting, and it's it's hard
to know what's what into your point. And I do
think this is a great point for us to leave

(40:55):
on before break. I think the biggest point that I
can I and I hope we can all pull from
this is the only way we can effectively not get
duped by anti vaxx or scientology or any other kind
of bulls keo propaganda machine, Yes, keto, whatever it is,
it's the only way that we can avoid it is

(41:18):
to just pull ourselves out of the game more than
to keep thinking we can outsmart the game. The house
always wins. This casino ain't gonna stop getting it squap,
So just leave, you know, Yeah, yeah, damn all right,
We're gonna take a break. We'll be back when Mart
matters to Shephard mar mop on the dog and we

(41:50):
are waiter. He gets the rebound, passes it to the man,
shoots it and boom goes to dynamite. Yeah, we're back
here with more for medicine, Shepherd more. My mama told me,
we're still talking about the possibility that we're getting We're
getting bamboozled. The black people are being bamboozled by by

(42:10):
these anti VATS propagandists, these people who want us to
not get vaccinated. You you worked in the vaccine space,
and I'm curious to know what was the main reason
these older black people sounds like, particularly older black people,
were the main ones being like, no, I'm not gonna

(42:30):
do it. What was the main reason they gave you
for why they were like no, I'm straight on this
vaccine ship. I don't know if you ever try to
press up an older black person for something that they
don't want to give you, like some information about themselves,
especially when you're like, you know, in a position of
kind of assumed power. They're not gonna They're not gonna
tell you ship, No, they are not. All I got

(42:52):
was like, are you sure like we could talk about it.
I have a medical professional right here. You could talk
to this nurse, dentists whoever was administering the shot that
day next to me, and they were like, no, no, sorry,
I'm not gonna do it. And yeah, and of course,
like I'm I know why that is. It's you know,
because of the Tuskegee Sympilis experiment and you know Henrietta

(43:16):
Lax and this long history of black people being abused,
specifically by the medical community. But it was interesting to
me because like also, you know, I was like digging
around before I got on this call with you. But like,
you know, San Francisco in the nineteen hundreds, I guess
they had a plague outbreak and they got it in

(43:38):
their heads that it was only Chinese Americans who were
spreading the plague. So they made a law in San
Francisco in nineteen hundred that all Chinese people or people
who they considered to be Chinese had to get some
sort of like vaccine against the plague, you know. So
it's not just like specifically Black people that have been targeted.

(43:59):
I mean, there's a long history of like Native people
being horribly abused and mistreated and either experimented on or
not given treatment or not given the vaccines or medicines
that would save their lives. It's also like Native people,
and it's it's you know, like and X folks. It's
not just us who have been victimized in this way.

(44:20):
But because I'm Black, I'm like, come on, please, I will,
I will give you the shot right here. You know.
It was just strange. Yeah, no, I mean we've talked
about it a ton on this podcast. But truly, some
of the birth of even our our medicines in this
country were born from foul experiments that were used on

(44:41):
Native Americans and Black people, black slaves that like literally
our technology for like O. B. G. Y N's was
born from them from one dude just doing funked up
experiments on black women while he had them held captive
as slaves. And so it's not it's not unreasonable to
be like, nah, I don't trust that ship. And then

(45:03):
even in watching the way that COVID was handled throughout
this entire process, right that like, there's obviously a bunch
of things that we were just learning and discovering, and unfortunately,
because of the way the news works, we have to
speak in in these definitive statements when in fact some
of these things are just up in the air and
we need time to figure it out. But then there's

(45:25):
a lot of things that they like they just made
you make choices about that truly didn't need to be choices,
Like even being on sets, I you know, I had
right for a show, which meant that I'm technically not
I'm not on camera, which means that they have to
treat me differently than a person that's on this case.
And when they do, they go like, this was height

(45:46):
of the pandemic that we're like, yo, if you need
to talk to the star of the show, you need
to put on goggles because we're finding that COVID is
actually now being spread through the eyeball and if you
ain't got on goggles, you can't go over there. They
still make me wear goggles at work, and it's nuts
because the reality is now we're you know, however, many

(46:08):
months away from that, and nobody's brought up goggles once
as a viable way of avoiding COVID or any kind
of sickness, and it just was them guessing. And I
get it, we should try to figure out ways to
prevent this thing. But like, also, god damn it, you
made me look so stupid with those fucking goggles on.

(46:28):
And now I'll never believe you about any of the
other things that you try to tell me. I mean,
remember when everyone was wiping down their their groceries or
packages that came in, or like, there were so many
things because we just had so little information that we
just kind of had to go with. Okay, well, I
guess this makes sense because the news said it. Okay, yeah,

(46:51):
but like nobody caught COVID from their groceries like that.
You know, there was an article I read, uh this
is probably a year ago, year and a half ago,
where they were saying that China was they were testing
for COVID via anal swabs that like if you went
to the airport, you would just get your anus swabbed
to see if you had COVID. And I still don't

(47:13):
know if that's true that it was. It appeared in
an article that looked like it came from somewhere reputable,
but truly it could have been manipulated information or I
could have just been going with what was the funniest
thing to see that day? And and I don't fucking know,
but you goddamn right, I have told people that's what

(47:33):
they're doing over there. I'm not not irresponsible, like I'm
gonna do the ship, you know what I mean? Listen
and we're here, man, you're allowed. I shouldn't be. And
that's part of the problem. I shouldn't be allowed to
do ship. I am not a big boy. I'm a
big old idiot. So one of the other things that
I thought was worth mentioning that I read that I

(47:56):
think was actually a really helpful articulation that I had
never heard before. But one of the things that that
an article I read warned about is the conflation these
sort of like confusion that's being uh, the mixing up
between someone who is vaccine hesitant versus someone who is
an anti vaxer. Do you know what I mean? That?

(48:17):
Like a lot of times we are using this very hard,
definitive language about individuals who are expressing their hesitancy around
vaccines and saying they are anti vaxers, when in fact
a lot of them are not like, yo, I wouldn't
funk with any vaccine or no, I don't believe in
this stuff. It's more I'm just scared given the circumstances

(48:41):
of this individual vaccine or or given my current state
in the world, that hesitancy I think should be treated
with a little more care and grace, because that, in
my opinion, is how you get people to actually come
all the way around to getting the shot in the law. Yeah. Fully,

(49:01):
and I mean I would say that, you know, aside
from the like, you know a handful of black people
that you know, the older black people who outright were like,
not fun this, I'm not getting it even if you're
offering it to me right here. And now, you know,
we had people when we were filming the show last
summer who were just like, no, you know, and I

(49:23):
know these black people's hearts. It's not like they're being like,
like you say, anti vax but they are being vaccine hesitant.
That is probably a better way to describe black people's
relationship to the vaccine, because even though I got it,
and I helped, you know, thousands of people get it.
I was also hesitant about it, you know, and it's

(49:46):
just it just is what it is. But I like
that that phrase hesitancy. I think it's more it's more correct. Yeah,
I think so. And even when you look at the numbers,
and it's part of what makes I think the odd
propaganda games so dangerous is that part of what the
the the targeting of black people for this propagandist suggests

(50:09):
is that black people are like otherwise just refusing to
get vaccinated or refusing to participate in any of this stuff.
And that's just not true statistically. And this is you know,
some of that information I was trying to figure out earlier.
But statistically it looks like, uh that that black people
hover around like fifty seven percent as of between March

(50:32):
one to March seventh of last March one of last
year to March seventh of this year, that like fifty
seven percent of black people are are tabulating that we've
been vaccinated, right, and then for white people it's coming
in at at sixty two percent. It's not this massive

(50:52):
like difference in terms of like the numbers between these
communities in fact, the only people who are really like
just fully fucking committing to the vaccinations are Asian people.
Asian people are like fucking give me that shot. I
am sucking around with this because they're all the way
up at like of the Asian community is bought into vaccines.

(51:12):
But it's truly like we're we're talking about the difference
in in small percentages, and they're making it seem as if, like,
you know, black people are just this impossible group to
to get vaccinated, and really the most vocally anti are
white people, right, I mean, listen, if they can, if
they can make something our faults, they will find a

(51:33):
way to make it our faults, you know. But I mean,
I'm just startling back to that idea of like, you know,
vaccine hesitancy, because it's like there are also some underlying
medical conditions which would prohibit people from getting the vaccine,

(51:54):
including but probably high on the list compared to anything else,
as people who are highly allergic to think like just
people who have who have a history of anaphylaxis, which
is like a such a severe allergic reaction where your
throat closes and you nearly die. Those are those people
and and folks you don't know if you're going to

(52:16):
be allergic to the new vaccine or not, because you
know it's new. The people who fall in that category
or no, people who do, I'm like, yeah, like it's
it's I get it, you know. Yeah, But that's a
small population, but it's still present. It's still present. And
obviously there's a bunch of people who I think are

(52:37):
unfairly associating themselves with people who have real risks and
real fears for the intention of whatever, like crazy ship
they have going on whatever is Yeah, and that doesn't
mean you're anti as much as it is you are
taking proper risk or or assessment of risk before you
you've taken on. And I don't think that that's a

(52:59):
terrible thing. Now. Where I do think it starts to
become complicated is what is the end goal for all
of this stuff? Right Like when Kyrie Irving, for example,
and I you know, I think we're all, uh, we
all struggle with wherever Kyrie is at times. But I
do think part of what Kyrie was saying wasn't insane
of being like, it is weird that our job is

(53:22):
essentially asking us to take this this thing so early
into the sort of like testing of the vaccine and
making sure I want to make sure that it's healthy
for my body. That's not going to have like a
weird reaction. While that's not the response that I personally had,
I can respect someone wanting to do that kind of
uh take that kind of care and do that kind

(53:43):
of research. But unfortunately, I think what becomes or what
often happens, is people don't do any work beyond that moment, right,
you stop doing research. You're not actually trying to figure
out what the best result of it is. You're just
saying I'm gonna do my research, and then you go
watch is this cake on Netflix? Right, and and that

(54:06):
it ain't gonna help any of us in the long
run by ignoring your responsibilities. M hmmm, No, I mean,
and of course, with like Kyrie's you know quote on that,
I mean, look, I understand why an athlete who uses
their body to make their money and in his case
creating intergenerational wealth. I get it, you know what I mean,

(54:31):
Like why he would be like, I'm not sure, but
if you work at like Costco, my g maybe get it.
It's gonna be all right for you. You work at Target,
I think you might you at risk, baby go I
didn't check into that. Yeah, I think it's worth it.
And frankly, whatever poison you can afford to eat based

(54:51):
off of your target salary, you're dying either way, So
go ahead get that vaccine. Die die a traditional route,
not not the route of dying from an easily preventable virus. Well,
my goodness, this I think we we intended on having

(55:12):
a party and then it turned into uh, it turned
tough right at there. It got dark right right towards
the end of it. But this is a fun episode
I think overall, Madison, could you tell the people at
home where they can find you what cool ship you
have going on? Obviously it's not at Twitter but everywhere
else maybe No, it's literally just at Instagram. You can

(55:35):
find me on Instagram at Madison Underscore Shepherd. I would
love it if you followed me. I am very limited
in what I post, so I won't suck up your
your algorithm. If that's your concern, you know, um follow
me there and yeah, if you're in the l A
or southern California area, I post what stand up shows
I have on my website, which is Madison Shepherd dot

(55:58):
com and um, just stay tuned. You know what bitt
look stuff is happening. We don't know. We're just gonna
stay open to the possibility of what's forthcoming. So okay,
stay open to the possibility. Follow Madison at on Instagram,
nowhere else, nowhere else. She's banned on every other website
and you knew that going into this. Uh and and

(56:22):
check out her stand up And as always, you can
follow me at Mike stint Kerman on all platforms. I'll
never leave, I'll never cower out spaces uh and uh
watch bus Down It's on Beaco. It's available streaming now.
It's thank you and uh and boy did they make

(56:44):
a mistake to let us uh. And finally, you can
subscribe to the podcast. And if you wish to to
send me drops or send me your thoughts, you can
send them to my Mama pod at gmail dot com.
I would love to hear from you. Otherwise that's it,
by bitch because of me brown bis my crop chips

(57:08):
in your mans o Koala bears are racist. The old
school player from olds the Morney R. She's defending turkey stuff.
I can't tell me going