Talk That Ship To Me (with Troy Walker)

Did slavery not exist because Black people were already in America? Langston and his guest Troy Walker (Jimmy Kimmel Live) navigate this wildly debunk-able conspiracy theory.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I actually went to a NASCAR race the other day.
It felt weird, like I was like going around going like,
there's another black person, and there's a black person there,
Like I was probably the most racist person there, just
because I kept pointing out, well, Troy, let's be honest, No,
you weren't. But that said, you might have been the
most actively uh acknowledging the race in the room in

(00:27):
a way that that you didn't expect. I know, I
was the only person that said, there's two more niggers
out loud, out loud, Yeah, chips in your racist money.

(00:55):
Actually stuff, I can't tell me. Yep, yep, yep, there
it is. There it is. Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome to
another phenomenal episode of My Mama Told Me, the podcast
where we dive deep deep into the pockets of black

(01:15):
conspiracy theories and we finally worked to prove that the
noose in Bubba Wallace's garage was not a hate crime,
but rather a warning from a time traveling nigga from
the future to tell Bubba chill with the NASCAR and
learn to host the b ET Awards instead. Look, man,

(01:36):
you ain't that good at driving. You got to get
on the b ET Awards. That's what the man from
the future was trying to say to him with the noose,
and he was completely misinterpreting it. That's the conspiracy theory
I'm spreading this week. That's the nonsense I'm putting out
in the world. I'm your host, lanks to Kerman as
always coming in hot baby, coming in hotware back. This

(01:58):
is our our second week back from hiatus, and I'm
happy to be with you. But more importantly, I'm happy
to be here with my guests. And here means over
zoom because I don't think in person ever is going
to exist again because you niggas don't know how to act.
But the point is over zoom. My guest today is
a hilarious I'm so happy he's here, hilarious comedian, hilarious

(02:20):
stand up. You know him as a writer on Jimmy
Kimmel Alive. That's that's one of the good late night shows.
There are some stinkers, but Jimmy Kimmel Alive and one
of them, and he helps write that show so funny.
Please give it up for my guests. Mr Troy Walker, Hey,
happy to be here, man, I'm happy to be here.

(02:41):
I'm happy you're here. You know, it's funny about that.
Intro actually went to a NASCAR race the other day. Whoa, yeah,
how was it? Honestly it was great? It Okay, this
is this is exciting for me because I was actually
having a debate and different writer's room about whether or

(03:02):
not black people can show up to NASCAR and be
un unbothered, you know what I mean. Like I always
I thought, like, all right, I like the idea of
getting drunk and watching cars going circles. That seems fun,
but I would imagine that the community of NASCAR is
not gonna be like chill with me being there. I mean,

(03:25):
this was so I went. It was the first time
I've ever gone to one, and I kind of went,
I guess in that same kind of like let me
just see you know. I went with like one of
my comic friends, Brent gil I think you know Brent. Yeah. Uh.
So we go out there, we like drive to Fontana
or whatever, and I mean there is that like thing

(03:45):
where it's like trumpy, right, Like there's like the fun
Joe Biden t shirts or whatever, and like trucks with
the big flags and stuff and as as it should
be if if ever there was a space for that,
they built that. If you build, they will come. Yeah,
I get it. But honestly, the vibe was like pretty
good other than that, And there were way more black

(04:07):
people than I ever expected to see, Like, way more
black people than I ever expected to see. Bro, that's
that's actually really encouraging. Yeah, I was blown away actually
by how many black people are actually there. I have
to figure that's Bubba, Like, you know, how we do it,
Like there's like a black dude doing that. We're gonna
was Bubba racing? Was he was? He? Now? He was there?

(04:30):
How do you do? What place he come in? Look,
that's not the point. We all got to talk. Why
why are you trying to be negative? Look he was there,
that's that's what he came in a strong thirty fifth plade,
and they are saying he's one of the best thirty

(04:51):
fifth place performances they've ever seen. Look it wasn't his fault.
You know, they kept they kept the police kept pulling
him over during the race. Uh No, it was like
it was honestly, man, it was like kind of fun,
Like it's like it's loud, it's like, you know, he
just kind of sitting there drinking. It's it's good. Yeah,

(05:12):
it seems I mean like a lot of live sports
that are more fun to obviously watching person than they
are on television. I feel this way about baseball. It's
one of those things where it seems like you could
check out for a while and you haven't missed a thing,
and so it's it's that's great for fucking live because

(05:34):
you can just talk some ship hang out and then
you go back and it's like, oh yeah, they're still
doing loop de loops perfect. Yeah. Yeah. But it's also
like in person, it feels like less time when they're
on the other side than it does on TV. You know,
like TV it feels like, oh, like what do you
do the other time? You know, like when they're not

(05:54):
right in front of you, but right there. I mean,
they're going so fast that it's like, you know, it
pretty it's pretty quick. It actually was like nowhere near
as boring as I thought it might be. And uh yeah,
it was like I don't know, it's like good energy.
They do five hundred laps, that's the deal. No, I
think the one I saw was like maybe a hundred

(06:15):
and fifty. Oh so I'm way over or something. It
wasn't like anything because I thought, like the same thing,
it was like something like two hundred, but I know
it wasn't actually two hundred laps. I think it was
like one fifty because they did like three stages, Like
I learned like a decent amount while I was there.
They do like the races and stages. Now see, I'm

(06:36):
gonna sunk around and go somewhere and be like what
they doing five hundred laps and then those white people
are going to have a reason to be my ass,
you know what I mean. They're gonna be like, look, man,
we're cool with y'all being here, but you can't be
in here dumb as fuck asking questions. But it was
like yeah, then like people like wearing like his stuff,
like his like Bubba Wallace's jerseys and stuff. Yeah, it

(06:58):
felt he got jersey. I gotta give me a bubble
while jerky number thirty. You can get a whole Yeah,
you can get a whole jacket and everything. I love that. Okay,
we can't. We can't talk about Bubba and his hen
and against all day because you came to us with
a conspiracy theory that frankly, I don't know that I've

(07:18):
ever heard before, and I'm super excited to talk about
you said, my mama told me slavery with faith and
black people were already in America. I saw this on
Twitter a while back, and then apparently it's like like

(07:40):
b O. B is like kind of a believer in this,
Like I said, like an article I found about this, well, yes,
and I I get. I dove deep into the article
and the article is actually written by a former guest
on the show, Michael Harriet of the Route, and it
is jarring uh discovery from b O. B. That's right,
Bob has discovered that slavery in fact is a complete

(08:05):
ruse because he's not exactly clear why, but it's a
complete ruse because black people, I guess, we're in America
before we were originally brought here quote unquote originally brought
here via slave ship. Yeah, Like he like was saying,
wouldn't like that. It's like shoot where you're like that's

(08:26):
not true, like something so easily disprovable. Like he's like,
you haven't noticed, you never see a slave ship. You
feel like you just told me you don't go to museums. Bro,
I feel like that's the only thing you told me. Okay,
So so I think based on your energy alone, I
get the sense that you're not bought in on this

(08:47):
conspiracy theory, that this is hell No you're subscribing to
and B O B is not a selling point for you.
You're not B O B doesn't make you want to
believe it more. No, bro, come on now, I look,
I'll admit I had his albums that a lot of
people did. I had his albums, but no, let me

(09:11):
ask you this were When when did you first discover
that B O B was is a conspiracy theorist? Was
this the one that broke you open? Or were you
aware of his earlier conspiracy theorists theories? Excuse me, I
don't know that I know of his other conspiracy theories.
Oh yeah, well he has one that that really ruined

(09:33):
his career. And he was an early early investor in
the flat Earth movement. He was actually one of the
first sort of like celebrity people to come forward and
be like, the Earth ain't ain't round, it's flat. And
he even went so far as to make a very
public go fund me so that he could invest in

(09:53):
in creating a satellite type situation so that he could
prove that the Earth is flat. He's fully invested. This
isn't just like a passive theory for him. He he
invested in a satellite. No, no, no, he invested in
setting up a go fund me so that so that

(10:15):
the public could invest in a satellite that I guess
he was gonna build to try to figure out if
the Earth is in fact flat. I mean, you know,
sometimes you know how you go like, you know, like
some people shouldn't have money, Yeah, you know, like when
you go like somebody else should be in charge of
their money. Absolutely, And I feel like that's one of

(10:38):
those situations. But it's also like bad because it's like
he wasn't even gonna put his money behind it, Like
he was like, I'm gonna start to go fund me No,
And and I would dare to say it's because he
doesn't have much money left. I don't know that. Uh,
that B O B is now raking in the coin
from those early two thousand CITs that probably have carried

(11:00):
as long as we wish they would have. Oh god,
he spent all the Strange Clouds money. Yeah, man, it's
all gone. What was that the joint with Bruno Mars.
It's gone, it's it's done. Okay, So so you're not
bought in on Bob's conspiracy theories. That sounds like any

(11:20):
of them, certainly not not the current one, the most
recent one that we're talking about. No, no, no, no,
no no, I mean, how could you. That's like a
hard one. Sure, it's it's a silly it seems silly.
Let me ask you this this now follow up question.
I guess are you a person who buys into conspiracy

(11:43):
theory in general? Are you like anti conspiracy theory? Are
you very much like No, the government tells us the
truth and I dig what they got going on. I don't.
I don't feel like it's those extremes. Oh you don't
like the set up, the trap that I put you win? No,
I don't know that you have to be I think
you can be like I think most conspiracy theories are trash,

(12:05):
but I'm not. But I also don't think like, oh,
you know, the government tells us everything the truth. But
I think, like, you know, I don't. I mean, I
think that would be like necessilly black man that believes that. Yeah,
I don't know who that is. I know he wears
a lot of polo shirts. Yeah, frankly, I don't even

(12:27):
know if he's still doing that. Nobody's checked on B
O B and so long that his style, his energy
has changed in a way that who knows what he looks,
who knows what he's doing. But no, no, I wouldn't
say no. I don't typically subscribe to conspiracy theories because
I feel like the thing about conspiracy theories is they
always require like a bunch of stuff to perpetuate themselves,

(12:51):
you know, like it's always like one of those things
where like the second there's like evidence against the conspiracy,
they have to like use that is more evidence of
the conspiracy. You know. It's always yeah, you're like people
like that's not a thing. I have like a chart
with numbers that shows you why that's not true. And
they go, yeah, well who made that chart? They're just right,
like it's just like and I'm just not I have

(13:15):
a lot of agree man, Like I just can't think
like that, you know, Like, yeah, I I think I've
talked about this before on the podcast, but when Kyrie
came out as a quote unquote flat earther, I was
actually there. He talked about it at the All Star Game.
I believe it was like seventeen. I was there shooting

(13:35):
a VR thing for I think it was Oculus or
some ship. I don't remember, but the point is I
was sort of like standing near the the podiums of
everything that was you know that all Stars were all
sitting around They're doing their various press conferences whatever, and
they asked Lebron actually because Kyrie had said it earlier

(13:57):
that morning, and then they asked Lebron because they're still
on the calves together at the time. They're like, a, Brian,
have you heard that your star teammate thinks that the
Earth is flat? And then Lebron yells over to the
other podium that Kyrie is at. He goes, yo, read
you think the Earth is flat? And then you can
see Kyrie go and it's very much this is early

(14:18):
in Kyrie trolling doing the thing phase. I think he's
in a much different space now, but at the time
you just see Kyrie's eyes get real low and he
goes yeah, and you can tell he doesn't believe it.
But what he did sort of suggesting things that I
followed up on and things that I read, and even

(14:40):
Steph Curry got in trouble for some weird conspiracy theory
ship around the same time. And the point that I
think a lot of these guys kept trying to make
is that history books don't always tell us the truth,
and so there's plenty of reason for us to question
the history that we have. And I think that's sort

(15:03):
of like the dangerous game that conspiracy theory creates because
that statement is a true history books lie to us constantly.
We're not always being presented with the truth, even in
in you know, current media. That said, there has to
be a point where you stop asking questions and you
take it at a level of face value. And if

(15:25):
you keep just asking more and more, well, how do
we know, how do we know? You're just trapped in
a a very dumb tunnel. Yeah, man, I used to
have a bit about how you can't question everything, like
because at a certain point you have to trust something.
Because the thing is the other thing about the conspiracy
theory people to me is they trust people. It's not

(15:48):
that they don't like In fact, they're like the most
trusting people I've probably ever talked to in my life.
It's always like, you know, but the difference is is
that instead of trusting the CIA. They trust like a
dude with like a clip art website, right. It Like
it's not like I'm not saying you should trust the CIA.
I don't think you should, certainly not as a black person.

(16:11):
They have, like you know, there's like tons of history
of like, no, they're pretty cool. Let's let's take it easy.
The CIA is fucking nailing it. We all should be
big fans, right what I'm saying, Like, you know, if
you're gonna go like, Okay, I don't trust the New
York Times, but like I would, I would be more

(16:31):
amenable to it if you were to say, but I
also don't trust this like dude on reddit. But they're
completely all in on dude on Reddit. And that's like
so to me, it's like not that they don't trust everything.
It's like if anything, to me, they probably don't question enough.
They just question. They question anything that isn't them being

(16:54):
in on something. Yeah, I mean I think to some extent,
it's it's the trust. Is I trust that that there
are more questions here, and that's that's probably a good instinct, right,
Like that almost feels like some scientific method ship. But
then the questions that you're asking are falling far short

(17:16):
of scientific anything scientific. It's just being like, well, how
do you know? And it's like I don't, bro Like,
I can't prove every single element of this because I'm
not an expert in every field. No one is, and
so it becomes this unwinnable game that only they can
sort of like stake a flag in. Yeah, but it's

(17:39):
also like there are experts in fields, but sometimes like
they'll act like the person who is an expert can't
be trusted specifically because they are an expert like that
kind of yeah, And it's like but that, like I
guess in in the end, it's like you can question everything,
m but at a certain point you have to trust

(18:01):
something specifically because you can't, like nobody can be an
expert in everything, like, so ultimately you have to trust
somebody about something. And you know, on balance, I'd probably
rather trust like to do with a bunch of like
degrees and stuff on it than like dude on Reddit,
I think, yeah, I think there's probably a balance that

(18:22):
needs to be had of this probabilities wise, Yeah, I
can say, you know, I fuck with the dude on
reddit for for introducing me to questions that I had
not considered, while simultaneously acknowledging that these educated people probably
are coming from a level of no how and and

(18:44):
learning that is still useful to the greater good of
the world, or at least greater learning of the world. Right.
It's it's a dance, you know what I mean? Yeah,
but I also like tend to like I kind of
like operate on that, Like, yeah, you know what is
like they say, like never like attribute to malice what

(19:04):
you can attribute to stupidity or something like that. Like,
I think a lot of stuff happens because people are idiots. Yeah,
So like I don't need to like see like a
whole bunch of like lines between everything. Sometimes if like
the simplest explanation, this is probably like a big screw
up right up. Yeah, And I do think that that

(19:28):
also is is a thing that that conspiracy theory sometimes misses,
is that it creates like a a giant, massive conspiratorial
like everybody behind the curtain was moving perfectly to create
this dangerous mayhem whatever thing to happen, when in reality,

(19:49):
most of us are idiots. Like the absolutely vast majority
of the world is run and moved by idiots. Even
the people who are intelligent are only intelligent and specific
ways and often fumble in other ones. And that means
that those idiots funk up. And then that creates a
way that that sometimes people are hurt or sabotaged or

(20:10):
treated poorly, and we we ain't gonna apologize, so we
just invest in the in the damage that we've done
instead of just being like, oh, fuck, Steve's a dummy.
I don't know what to tell you. That's why that happened. Yeah, bro,
Like I feel like, Um, the other thing about it
is like it's interesting to me with like conspiracy theories

(20:31):
a lot of times because it will be like this thing, well,
they'll be like where everything behind the scenes operated perfectly
to like make this conspiracy when like nothing works like that,
Like every like for the conspiracy to be true, like
all of the different parties and like organizations and people
and all, and none of it will get out. None
of it gets out officially. Everybody keeps their mouth shut,

(20:53):
nobody tells their cousin when they're drinking or something like,
none of none of that stuff ever happens, and everybody
pulls off the conspiracy perfectly. Yeah, like it's that's that's
just not how anything. Yeah, nobody's snitching, nobody's fumbling the
the truly in like super like complicated thing that's happening

(21:18):
in front of you. It it just is everybody's working
perfectly and it it never fumbles. But apparently on the
other side, we fumble all the time. It's yeah, it's
it's too complicated for for it to all work out
the way that the conspiracy theorists want us to believe.
That said, I think it's also more complicated than oftentimes
the history books try to break it down where it's

(21:40):
just like, yeah, a few mean men did a mean thing,
and uh, those mean men are gone now and we're
all sweets ever since. Yeah, No, I don't believe that
ship either. I think you cannd like I think. I
think there's a difference between saying they don't tell you
the whole story versus that there is a completely different

(22:02):
story that has nothing to do with it, Like, they
obviously don't tell you the whole story, and they obviously
try to sanitize it and everything. But yeah, I don't
tend to go in too deep on conspiracy theories. There
are certain ones that I'll be like, yeah, maybe I
feel like there's probably something to that, and then they're
like other ones that are obviously have been proven true. Well, well,

(22:25):
let me ask you this before we go to break.
I guess I want us to get back to the
the conspiracy theory at hand. I think we've been living
a lot in theory right now, which is nice. I'm
enjoying the conversation. Don't you stop having a good convo
with me, tru. But I'm wondering if there's any element
of the conspiracy theory at hand that you are brought

(22:45):
into do you want to mean that? Like, basically, b
O b And and people like him are suggesting that
slave ships did not exist, and that slavery as it was,
at least as the way that we understand it didn't exist,
and that black people existed in America well before we
think they did, that we are more original to America

(23:07):
than than we are led to believe. Is there any
element of that where you're like, I can see what
they're doing there from the stuff I've seen, No, WHOA,
You're like like, these n is just making stuff up? Yeah,
Because to me, it's like and I guess maybe in
a way, I sort of respond viscerally to it because

(23:29):
in a way it feels like letting white people off
the hook in a way, Oh interesting, you know what
I'm saying, Because it feels like it's almost like they go, like,
the Atlantic slave trade is like one of the greatest
genocides in human history, and so for you to act

(23:50):
like it didn't exist to me is like it's like
Holocaust denial to me, Oh that's interesting, and there's like
things like that that really bother me about and so
and so. In a way, it kind of because because
from what I've seen, basically the argument is like they

(24:10):
tell you that so they can subjugate you, so that
you don't know that you were already here, right, But
they they the subjugation after slavery existed, whether slavery rehappened
or not, right, But in saying that it didn't, you
take a whole horrible piece of that history away and

(24:35):
act like it didn't happen. Arguably one of the worst
parts because of the amount of time slaves like we're
you know, they were branded in Africa, had to walk
like hut miles and miles and miles before they even
sold put on the ships. Then the ships sat on
the coast of Africa, often for months before they even departed.

(24:58):
People just sat there longer on the coast of Africa, Africa,
and those tight quarters on those ships before the ship
has even left Africa to head across the Middle Passage. Right,
And you've gotten rid of all of that, and you've
turned it into all to be able to create like
a American Nigga origin story. That yeah, it's like yeah,

(25:20):
and I and to what purpose? Well, and to your point,
I think it the purpose almost is is not worth
the sacrifice that's being presented, right that, like the Transatlantic
slave trade is not something you can you can dismiss
or should be dismissed, rather simply to be able to say, naw, brother,

(25:43):
wake up. You belong in America. You are of America,
and you your history is rooted here, and so it
creates this sort of complicated dance I guess where it's like.
I think their intention is good right there, saying look,
you don't have to feel like a foreigner in your
own country. You should feel pride in sort of knowing

(26:07):
that you are of this land. But in doing so,
I think to your point, you're also dismissing the insane
amount of genocide, sacrifice, whatever you want to call it,
that happened before this from generation of generations of right.
And I don't think it's a I don't I don't
think it's a choice. Like I think it's like like

(26:29):
to me, the whole reason Black Americans have can have
pride and ownership in this land is because our blood
is in the soil. That's all. That's the entire reason.
Like this this ship is, this ship is mine. Like
that's if there's anything that kind of bothers me about,
Like some of that ship were like you know, all

(26:51):
the like Trump eas and stuff, and they try to
like claim that man like all of the people, all
the black people that I grew up idolizing, like my
black heroes who were Americans, whether that's Malcolm X, Martin
Luther King, whether that's Jackie Robinson, like, whether that's Frederick Douglas,
like whatever, Like we've fought in every single war this

(27:13):
country has ever had against like odds, we've fought. We've
helped build this bitch, we built the White House. Nigga.
I don't need you to make up a fake story
for me. Like, if anything, the whole reason this is
the only shift I have is because that happened, so
like it's it's like to me, it's like a false choice.

(27:35):
It's like you're you're taking the reality of the pain
of this a way to give me something that I
already had. Bro Well, I'll say this, Your heroes may
have fought here, but my heroes are Kim al Ju
and Kim Tumbo, So we differ in that way. But
the Kimba was a nugget, so for me him too.

(27:59):
Those are the only civil rights leaders I acknowledge. Is
uh former NBA centers. All right, we're gonna take a break.
We'll be back with more Troy Walker and more, my
mama told me. And we are back. You got what

(28:27):
I need. Yeah, We're back here with more Troy Walker more.
My mama told me. We're still talking about the possibility
that slavery is a long con. It's a big ruse
that was played on all of us because black people
were in America to begin with. We've always been here,

(28:47):
they say on the internet, in their lonely little pockets
of stuff. Do you do you know at all if
that there's any truth to that side of it, that
that people were in fact originally in America before the
trends and the Atlantic slave trade introduced us. I feel

(29:08):
like I heard some kind of thing a long time
ago about how like supposedly some ship like there was
like some historical record thing for like ship from Africa
having like made it to the New World at some point.
But I, you know, i'd have to like dig into that,
like and you know, research it. But I feel like

(29:30):
I heard that like a long time ago. It's also
possible that I completely just made that ship up. Well
rest your furrow brow, Troy, because I took the time
to do some of that research, and I can tell
you that, as it turns out, there were a ton
of black people who participated in the Age of Exploration,
which was the early fifteen hundreds, and who found themselves

(29:53):
traveling to North, central and South America for new lives
and new opportunities. So black people were in at touching
the America's well before the Transatlantic slave trade ever happened. Now,
I'm sure you know about like the just being aware
of like this sixteen nineteen project where they talk about

(30:13):
the fact that you know, twenty something black people were
sort of like introduced to America, and I believe jonestown
and that was the beginning of the quote unquote slave
trade to the America's But at the it says, at
least from the very short and and possibly short sided research,

(30:34):
I did that all the way back to the early
fifteen hundreds, black people were kicking it around here. I
mean I buy that all right, Like I bought Here's
why I buy that, because you know, I was listening
as other this other podcast is like a history podcast,
is I'm like a big nerd and ship and uh,
I was talking about how it was like a thing
I had really considered just that like Africans are of

(30:57):
the old world and and you know, I mean there's
like a reason of Othellos are more right, Like there's
like obviously it wasn't like Europeans and there weren't aware
of black people, like that's right, and they know there
was movement between all those countries and all that kind

(31:18):
of stuff. Like it's it's to me, it stands to
reason that black people would have made it to America. Yeah,
in in another capacity. And I do think again, if
we're talking about sort of like the intentional manipulation of history,
this feels like a great example of it is not
working to any colonizer's advantage to suggest that black people

(31:44):
were here before they were do you know what I
mean that Like if if early fifteen hundreds black people
were had already been traveling and already knew how to
get here and all that stuff, then that's sort of like, uh,
dismisses a lot of the the quote unquote discovery of America,
all the things that we've been told in terms of like, oh,

(32:06):
this is when Americans has it worst started to arrive.
So it's easier to just be like, na, man, black
people didn't come here, and so we we brought him here.
And so you know, technically you are visitors or at
least unwelcomed guests in our territory, when in fact, we
were all as unwelcomed as everybody else. You know what

(32:26):
I mean, We're all sneaking as motherfucker of course like that. Yeah,
that that to me, I don't have. My issue is
with like, no, slavery was fake. That's that's bullshit. Yeah,
that's my that's my issue. Yeah. No, And I think
to that point, the fact that black people existed in

(32:47):
America before slavery does not make slavery any less of
a real thing for the millions who were unwillingly transported
to this country. And moreover, I read in the article
about the often overlooked relationship between black people like captive
black people and Native Americans that was born during slavery. Right, Yeah,

(33:11):
there's like a whole broad like history of it. I think, Like,
I think my thing about that conspiracy is it's like
this weird like hotel inception thing and ends up being
self defeating. It's like it's like man like all of
this stuff, like like I was saying, like Africans of

(33:34):
the of the old World, Like Africans, you know, countries
had kingdoms and everything else. It stands, you know, for
thousands of years. It stands completely to read boats ropes.
Let's let's just be as frank as probably. It doesn't
matter if you have kingdoms and math and all the other.
Ship We had fucking boats and we knew how to travel,

(33:57):
and y'all are trying to pretend like we were just
so dumb and so naked that like we we couldn't
even figure out how to float on water. Y'all didn't
invent that ship man. Relax, Right, Yeah, of course My
thing is, just don't tell me right now to the
question or or the point of the black people in

(34:19):
the Native Americans, because I do think that this is
an important point that might coincide with some of what's
happening in the hotels, the b O B mindset right
the Native Americans, which I didn't realize, and it's not
something that's often, I guess promoted, advertised, published in a

(34:39):
lot of our history books. But Native Americans were also
forced into slavery in this country alongside their black counterparts.
Right they shared bondage, and oftentimes they found themselves in
this shared bondage hooking up. They were intermingling. They you know,
relationships were being born, and sometimes those relationships would even

(35:01):
go so far as to marriage. But because that marriage
between a Native American person and a black person was
considered such a taboo, they never were allowed to make
those marriages legal, and so there's very little documentation of
the actual like bonds that were built between these groups.

(35:21):
And subsequently, the children that were born of those relationships
were often forced into a more extreme version of slavery
because you're basically like a little cursed child, like a
little uh, what the funk is this humunculous baby that
nobody wanted, and so it just turns into this weird
game I think for the the hotels that read this

(35:46):
thing where we're conflating this relationship that that goes undocumented
in these relationships that no one talks about with an
origin story, these relationships weren't coming before America's started. We're
just having relationships with the people who were here before
America started and intermixing. And now your history is tied

(36:09):
with their history in a way that isn't being acknowledged.
Oh yeah, but I mean that's you know, you put
people together, man, that's that happens. And it's just like
black indentured servants would hook up with Irish indentured servants
like you know and like all that, like the sixteen
hundreds before it was like before slavery was specifically about race,

(36:32):
and you know they were they were black indentured servants.
They would sometimes like have babies and stuff with you know,
these like white immigrants from Europe and stuff like that.
It's like the race based slavery, my understanding is, came
later as a way. You know, slavery had been like

(36:53):
a thing throughout history, but to make it specifically like
if your black, you're a slave was a very American thing. Well, yeah,
it's it's a very American thing that we do in
a lot of ways, right, It's it's branding. We we
truly are. We We love fucking capitalism in this country
and we have since its conception, And so I think

(37:15):
in a lot of ways, it's like, well, what's the
easiest way to ensure that our slaves remain slaves and
don't start finding upward mobility? We base it off of
their skin color, and that they can't dismiss your skin
You can say you ain't Irish, you can say you
ain't Italian, you can pretend to be not Jewish or

(37:35):
whatever the funk it is that that we were attempting
to attach to people's shame. But black, that's its permanent baby,
and Native American y'all dark too, We'll fuck you up
the same way, yeah, man, And I think like that
that thing, there's something to the like, they're all these
other aspects of the history that aren't told the same way.

(37:58):
What I think the issue with and what they're doing
is they go there all these other aspects of the
history are told the same way. So that breaks It's
like they go like the percentage of it overall in
the in the whole like spectrum of the history of
slavery and everything. Right like they dismissed like the seventy

(38:23):
five of it because isn't as as well documented or
as well publicized. Right like you watch like documentaries on slavery.
They basically talked about the biggest part. They don't talk
about the Native American part as much. They don't talk
about if they do it all whatever. But that is

(38:45):
not a reason to dismiss the slave trade. No, And
it's it's similar in an odd way. I didn't know
this either, but there were also Native Americans who owned
black slaves. There were black people who owned slaves. Yeah,
that that this is a more complicated thing than just
being like white people devil, Black people good, Nave Americans good.

(39:07):
But like you know, there were people who were just
taking advantage of the the times and the financial institutions
at play, and they were able to own slaves. But
even during their ownership, the intermingling, much in the way
that we saw with the whites was still happening. And
so it is it is creating even more complicated inconvenient

(39:29):
conversations to say, like the slave owners were sucking the
slaves and they didn't really want to be slave owners sometimes,
but it was the best way to make money. And
here's this and that and all of these things, when
the reality is the easiest way to settle all of
this is just to be like, we brought you here
at at this point, you showed up, and we yelled

(39:49):
at you for a while, beat the ship out of you,
and then we let you go. Problem solved. Everybody's free,
and now we get to move on with America as
it is. And it's like, yeah, I think there's a
few more things going on here, fellas. Oh yeah, there's
a ton more going on. Yeah, man, I was like,
I actually was like reading this thing the other day
about this woman as a black woman who had been
a slave and then she got her freedom, and I

(40:12):
forget how I think she may be married like some
into some money or whatever and like went out and
got slaves as soon as she could. Yeah, like and
like has like uh like a there's like a historical
plantation I think in Florida that was like a black
owned plantation, which is like one of the wildest fucking

(40:33):
things you could think about, right, Yeah, it's like a
national like landmark. I guess, I mean, I it seems
less wild. I guess if she wasn't a former slave,
like if it was just a lady who was like, hmm,
I can't wait to own me a nigger. That seems
I can't see how you make it to that point
as a black person in this country. But if you

(40:54):
went through it the idea of being like, as soon
as I get out, I'm gonna put someone else through
that ship. Yeah, that's wild. Yeah, it was so wild,
man Like I went down like a whole like internet
like rabbit hole, like just read, just reading about craziness. Damn.
I hope I'm not related to her, you know. That's

(41:16):
that's a part of our history. So much of our
our history as black people has cut off from us,
and and some of it is intentional, and some of
it is just our our families don't track that stuff
the same way that white historians have have long sort
of made the checkpoints for track. But that eighty, well,

(41:39):
it stopped at the water. We tried to trace it back, don't.
I don't know what country we came from, but I
guess Maryland is where I started. But that said, I
do feel like a bunch of us. At some point
they're gonna start figuring out that, like we just had
black slave owners and our family white ones. You know

(41:59):
what I mean That we're just maybe maybe you'll be
the first person on talking to Henry Lewis Gates would
be the first black dude to get that. He goes
like this and you go, he's just gonna look at
my papers and be like, hey, can we come to
commercial fellas. Uh. I don't know if this one is
as good of an episode as the previous, Like this

(42:21):
is what your grandmother did, and you go, oh, not me,
Oh guy, Oh, Henry, let's talk tons again. It was
much better when you talk to nas. Yeah, somebody has
to be the first black person to be embarrassed on
finding your roots. Well, I guess I'm willing if it

(42:42):
means more TV time, I'm willing to make that sacrifice.
I will be the first person to come forward as
the descendant of a black slave owner. Exciting times for me,
terrible news for the rest of America. All Right, we're
gonna say one more break. We'll be back with Marsry
Walker I'm what my mama told me, and we all

(43:12):
back anyway. Yeah, we're back here with more Troy Walker. More.
My mama told me. We're still talking about the fact
that the slave trade may be a long con. It
might be a big old trick that that the white

(43:33):
man is playing on us because we've been Americans this
entire time. Is what is what they're saying, and Troy
does not believe it. He's furious at the idea. He'll
beat your ass. B o b That's what he said
during break. If I see that, nigga, I'm a punch
himent of the clouds and in the strange clouds. Okay,

(43:56):
I want I have a few more, I guess research
points that I'd love to unpack with you because one
of the first questions that I asked myself as I
was sort of sitting down to look through all of
this is, and I'm maybe a little embarrassed to say it,
but the question that popped in my head is why
don't we see more slave ships? You know, because like

(44:17):
to your point, there there are a few museums that
have remnants and sort of like pieces of slave ships
or ships that transported slaves, but it's not as if, like,
given the scale of what the trans Atlantic slave trade was,
it's not as if we're seeing a ship ton of
them or even know where all of them, any of them,

(44:38):
frankly ended up. And so that was the question that
I immediately asked myself. Now, I have some answers, but
I have a feeling you have an answer on the
tip of your tongue as to why we haven't seen them.
I mean, I guess I figured I didn't research. It's
that's not your responsibility, like I know, like, uh, like

(44:58):
the Smithsonian have some stuff, and like some others have
some stuff in there. Like I figured it was probably
because they were mostly would and uh, I figured that
was probably a significant part of it. I also figured,
it's not exactly like the kind of ship that like
at the time they were trying to like you know,
cot and lacquer and keep around, you know what I mean,

(45:19):
Like like this, like again, what you do that with
Like oh, this ship, this ship took out six British frigates,
right like the Revolutionary War. I get what you save
that one. I don't know if you I don't know
if you necessarily go through the effort to like you
probably take it apart and build something frigates African niglets

(45:42):
one of them, one of those. Yeah, it wasn't like
they didn't know slavery was bad at the time. Like
I feel like it's like the same, like you know,
like sometimes they like in a way people will act
like they didn't know, but they like they were well
aware they knew slavery was bad. I don't know that
anybody would trying to like right, there had to be

(46:02):
people on the boat being like, hey, not gonna lie.
This is fucked up. I know we can pay you.
I'm really I'm really happy to be working with you fellas,
but this is pretty fucked up. The original Declaration of
Independence that Thomas Jefferson wrote called out King George saying like,
how dare you have introduced slavery? You stole Like it's

(46:24):
like they knew. Yeah. And to that point, I've done
a fair amount of research on Thomas Jefferson's black ass,
and uh, that's for the listeners. They know that he's
secretly mixed. But the point is Thomas Jefferson, actually, despite
having owned slaves, was super anti slavery. He like wrote

(46:46):
constantly about like man slaveries trash and then would go
fuck a slave later that night who who did not
want to be a part of that. It wasn't like
they were making love that these were unwilling fox. Yeah,
it's like, uh, I mean it's not like this, but
like it's like this. It's like how always a good

(47:08):
start to an analogy. Like I'll be like, man, like, man,
what Kanye's doing. He's like tripping, but like I'll buy
any album he makes. There's like you know what I mean,
Like I'll be like, oh, this is like horrible. Like
he's like he's like stalking hers like all this stuff.
And then like he'll put out like I saw like

(47:29):
that video where he you know, berries Pete Davidson up
to his neck and on and stuff, and I was like, man,
that's like awful. This motherfucker's crazy. And then it was
the first thing I played when I got in my
car ship So you are I love, I'm awful, I'm terrible.
Well to you and you said you you said would,

(47:51):
and I a part of me wanted to do to
Steve Harvey good answer, good? You know what I mean?
What can I say? Would? He's saying, uh it turns
out that, to your point, most of the materials that
slave ships were made of weren't exactly going to make

(48:12):
tests stand the test of time. Right, what is a
very flimsy, easily deteriorating material, and between shipwrecks and time,
the once powerful slave ships were no longer able to
hold up the same Because I got me thinking like, well,
is that actually true for all of these other famous

(48:33):
ships that we've heard of over time, and the same
apparently as true for ships like the Mayflower. The Mayflower
no one has seen in any version of recent history,
and many believe the ship was scrapped for timber and
other recyclable materials. And I to your your grander point
about the not wanting to keep these things around, I

(48:54):
have to assume that with the fall of the trans
atlantic slave trade, those ships likely face stay similar fate
where they were recycled by the owners who could probably
no longer afford to keep these deteriorating ships with no
niggers at the bottom. You know what I mean. If
you can't keep the blacks at the bottom, these ships
are fucking worthless and carry quite a bit of shame

(49:16):
with them. So we're gonna we'll turn those into uh
panels for people's houses. Yeah, it's like UH, as a kid,
you ever build like a lego thing that you're real
proud of and then like you needed the legos for
something else, and you might not want to take it apart,
but you do. But now imagine that those legos were evil.

(49:41):
I think about how fast you would take it apart?
Right now? What if those legos killed your grandma? Now
would you take that? Imagine if your entire family for
the rest for generations would be shamed by that go
house you built, It might change your mind about the plays.

(50:03):
How fast you would take it apart. You're taking apart
real fast. I love that. So in thinking about I
guess the slave ships and the pieces that are often
that that go missing. I found this article on National
Geographic about a group that had uncovered UH It's called
Portugal's sal Jose Paquette Day Africa. It was a slave

(50:28):
ship that sets sail from Mozambique in destined for Brazil
and basically never made it. A whole bunch of people
died on that slave ship. And these black divers, these
black scuba scuba divers are where the main people sort
of leaving leading this excavation of the this this famous

(50:49):
slave ship, which I thought was extremely telling. You know,
black scuba divers are the only motherfucker's looking for this ship, right, Yeah,
because I don't know if it's like imagine being like
the white dude who's like, well, I'm gonna find me's
some slaves. What did you say? It was called? Again?

(51:11):
You you're gonna make me say it again? Sal Jose
Paquette day Africa. Yeah, I want to just say it
again because it reminds me of like me trying to
like order on the menu that I I'll take the
sal Jose for this one. I'm not even gonna pretend

(51:32):
to do Portuguese because I know it's not a Spanish accent,
but I know it's not far. I just embarrassed myself
if I even attempted. So I'm just gonna stick with
the worst American version of it. Yeah. That's like, yeah,
like when you go like, uh, your goal out of
the country, like you know, like in some other country
you don't speak the language, and you're like, um, you

(51:55):
try to say it. Yeah. I I always find that
when I travel, I it about I get about three
attempts in before I completely revert to asking for the
dude that can speak English to come help me with
whatever it is. Like, I'll like, I went to Mexico
City a couple of years ago and I was like

(52:16):
by myself trying to figure some sh it out, and
after about three attempts, I was like, you know what, y'all,
I ain't gotta do this, and you don't need me
to do this. There's enough of you that speak English.
And I apologize for being the ignorant American who needs this,
but I can't keep attempting to use my remedial Spanish
and failing this major league. Yeah, man, I did the

(52:39):
same thing in Montreal. I was like, I once I
tried to pay with American money at a thing, and
it's like it got really mad at me. I didn't
mean to. I thought it would be like a good
feel like every black person feels like you're gonna be
a better tourist, like an international tourist than like what
you hear white people are like. And now not even
a little bro Nope, not even for a second, not

(53:01):
even black countries. Once to Jamaica and we stayed at
a resort and it was My entire family was just
it was just black people complaining about the food about
like it's too salty, and they're just stucking their teeth
and rolling their eyes at you, just like, man, well,

(53:22):
I guess this is what they did to us. So
to the slave ship conversation, one of the things that
you said that I think is really important. It's part
of the reason we're not uncovering these remnants of this
history is because white people aren't eagerly investing the efforts
or the manpower to uncover this history. And this is

(53:43):
actually a direct quote from the article that I this
puts it in perspective in a really jarring way. But
there are there were over twelve thousand ships making over
forty voyages over two hundred fifty years of slave trade.
To date, there are only five five slave ships in

(54:04):
maritime history in the database. Why is that five? There's
only five five ships? What do you when you say
in the in the maritime database, what do you mean
like that you can go visit, meaning that there are
only five that they actually were that they've documented as

(54:25):
their purpose was for transit transferring black people. As far
as I'm understanding that, like they have five ships that
they know for sure they can prove had black people
on them transferring them to the these various places. I
mean that seems low because I know there's like there's

(54:47):
like documented like companies that they had in Europe that
that was like that they would literally call themselves like
the black like the Black Shipping like whatever. Like. Yeah, No,
I think I think part of it is an intentional
sort of like erasing of that documentation after that. It's
not it's not that they never documented it, it's that

(55:10):
since then they did a lot of work to sort
of like squeaky squeaky, squeaky clean that that situation. Yeah,
And I think like after like because they banned the
importation of slaves in like eighteen o eight, so after
that it was illegal. Most of most of those slave

(55:30):
runs would have been illegal, So you probably don't, you know,
keep like records of it. But then yeah, they probably do,
like didn't exactly take that much care and trying to
keep up with it. No, and for what did you know,
what do you want to tell people about this for
cut it out? I don't know, man, That's what I'm saying.

(55:53):
I think like it's one of those things where as
if you if you remember that people at the time
knew it was bad. Like a lot of stuff to
me starts to fall into place where you go like, yeah,
they probably didn't want to like maintain the records the
same way they probably didn't wanna maintain the ships and

(56:16):
like evidence of it, the same way. They probably were
faster to repurpose stuff in ways that they wouldn't have
otherwise to go like, oh, we used to use this
ship for that, like now it's use it for this,
and not say anything about what we used to use
it for like that exactly. I think. I think the
larger point that the quote is trying to make is

(56:37):
that these documentations are being erased and then subsequently the
ships are being repurposed, and so now we only have
five ships that we can actually point to and say
we know for sure this existing piece of material held
the bodies of of black people being transferred from this
place to the next. So those five like currently exact,

(57:00):
like you can go see them. That's my understanding. Yeah,
See that's okay. See I was confused. I thought you
were saying like in like written record, No, no, no,
I think they have more records of of people being transferred,
although I don't know that they have nearly as many
records as the amount of people transferred in the amount

(57:21):
of trips. I think for the current existing like they
they have five for sure. This is the body of
the ship that transferred these people at the time, right, Okay,
that makes more sense because I was like, man, like,
they only know the names of five of them, no more. Yeah,

(57:42):
that's what I was saying. That's why I was like,
I misunderstood you. I was like, if it was just five,
if there's more Jackson's than there are names of ships,
and maybe B O B is right, and and we're
foolish to be having this conversation. Yeah, I misunderstood you. Okay,
you can go visit five. Yeah, so like that, I
don't know that I I don't know. That's like one

(58:03):
of those things where you go, like would I want
to visit a slave ship as a black man. They
used to make us do it in like middle school
and ship where you it wasn't we visited a slave ship,
but you had to like we went to the museum
and they would make you lay on the ground and
do the thing where like you had to lay side
by side with the other kids to to feel what

(58:25):
it was like to be in the you know, the
cargo of these ships. And uh, yeah, you don't need
to do that. You could just tell me, you know,
I don't. You don't need to feel that. Maybe that's
better for white students. Maybe they need that that experience,
that empathy to sort of flight kick in. For me,
I was like, this feels fucking dumb. Why am I?

(58:47):
Why am I here? I ain't nobody my grandma did that.
It also doesn't like exactly work when you're gonna like
get up in a second and they're gonna be like,
all right, so here's everybody's sandwiches. Yeah, all right, lunchables.
Uh if you got if you got the pizza lunchable
and you stand in this line and everybody else this way. Yeah,

(59:09):
it's like that wasn't like. But I do think there's
like an overall treatment of slavery that is in some
ways not serious in in a general sense, like I
I it's like it's like how people will have a
plantation wedding, right, or how like a plantation Like there

(59:32):
are plantations all over the South that are like airbnb
s now right, or like you can go on YouTube.
I did this the other day. I got so man,
I got so fucking mad. You can go on YouTube,
you know how people will do like the video real
estate tours and like this lady starts off and goes
so I just want to start off by saying that
this this house did have enslaved workers, but all of

(59:57):
the like slave stuff has been torn down, Like it
was like a selling point, like don't worry the cabin. Yeah,
don't worry the slaves. They got booted a while ago.
But I could totally move into the Like that kind
of thing is crazy when you really think about it, right,
I mean, I think, to the larger point that you

(01:00:18):
made early in the conversation, there's there's a real danger
in our willingness to dismiss or skip over the scale
and weight and importance of all of these things. And
while I don't want to find myself in some situation
where like I'm constantly yelling at people because of slavery,

(01:00:40):
I do think that like we we need to find
some sort of balance in saying like, hey dog, we
don't just get to pretend like these plantations you've preserved
don't come with the costs, don't didn't weren't built on
the lives of a lot of people who made sacrifices
they didn't even want to make. They weren't even that
heroic in that sense. They didn't come here to be

(01:01:02):
like I want to help America find it's it's voice.
Like that wasn't the ship. They were forced into this
ship and y'all then get to celebrate off of their bones.
That's that's weird. Ye. Yeah, I don't think there's any
like responsibility to be like constantly angry or yelling at me,
but I do think it's important for me to be

(01:01:24):
aware of how bad it was. Yeah, as far as
informing my conception of self and conception of self within
this nation. Doesn't mean I don't have proud like pride
in it, but if but part of that comes from
the rise, right, like from people going from about the

(01:01:46):
lowest station they could to like we Tunnias on TV Bro. Yeah,
you know what I mean, Like I can take pride
in that like while knowing it. At the same time,
I don't need be ob to like make up a
thing and like dismissed this for me to like own it,
you know. So just to be clear, you take no
pride in the lessons from b Ob not one. Damn

(01:02:11):
well bl b uh. This is a great episode for us,
devastating episode for you, b O B. I don't think
you get to walk away from this episode unscathed as
much as you thought you might have at the beginning. Hey,
you know, sometimes you put yourself out there. B O B.
Was just putting himself out there and it didn't work

(01:02:33):
out for him. But this is great. Troy, could you
this is a fun episode. Could you tell the people
where they can find you and what cool ship you
have going on? They can find me on Twitter and
Instagram at Troy Walker e s Q. Hell yeah, And uh,
you know, I'm just right and right for the show
doing stand up. Watch watch Jimmy Kimmel alive. Maybe you

(01:02:57):
see some of my nonsense. All right, Well, watch the
ma cam O Live. Follow Troy on on Instagram and Twitter,
do all of that stuff. And as always, you can
follow me at Lankston Kerman on all platforms. Would love
for you to do that. I fucking love it. And uh,
watch bus Down. It's on Peacock. It's it's a nonsense
show I made with my friends, and I would love

(01:03:18):
for more of you to see it. And then, finally,
if you want to subscribe to the podcast, review the podcast,
do all the things that podcasts are meant to have
done to them consensually, then feel free to do it
and send all of your conspiracy theories through my Mama
pod at gmail dot com. I would love to hear
from you. Okay, I did all my spield by bitch quos,

(01:03:51):
more racists, mostly money n s W. I can't tell
me nothing on my long