July 21, 2022 • 39 mins
Today is a special collab with the Spit podcast from 23andMe. Prop took his DNA test to look at some of his health risks.. then hops on the line with his mom to talk about their family history, and black families making life work in the hood despite living in a food desert.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Have you ever thought about how incredibly complex I SPIT is.
It may only be water, but just aliva isn't simple.
That remaining one holds incredibly meaningful information that could change everything.
And I'm not just talking about your family treat Hi.
I'm barretton Day Thurston and on this season of SPIT
(00:24):
and I Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and me,
we explore how DNA isn't just about ancestry, it can
also be key to understanding your health. Hey, you welcome back.
We've had some really great conversations on SPIT, but today's
episode is truly something special. On Hood Politics, rapper and
(00:47):
author Propaganda discusses geopolitical topics from the perspective of urban life,
and today he's using that perspective to talk about health
and how it relates to your family history. Prop discovering
more about his own health from his twenty three test reports,
sits down with his mother to help him better understand
what his DNA could be telling him about his past
(01:08):
and his future. Together, they slowly peel away the layers
of props family history, looking back at family members who
have gotten ill or sadly passed away. How can the
information from props twenty three and me test help him
stay healthy in the future. Together, these two learn more
about the awesome power of genetic testing when it comes
(01:29):
to understanding your health, as well as some other family
secrets and a few surprises. Hopefully this episode will inspire
you to learn more about your own family history and
maybe even inspire you to reach out to your own
mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or whoever else
you might owe. A phone call too, and I mean
a phone call, not a text. Let's listen in Okay, Okay,
(01:57):
so check this out. The politics this my mom, Mom, Yes,
you'll know what's called me. Hello. Hello. I'll call you
Jason when I'm close to you in case I need
to pop you one. But I give you your propers
to call your properm in. Okay, I appreciate it, you know. Okay, y'all.
(02:21):
So this is a special hood politics. Uh, this is
in partnership with spit and twenty three and me. We're
gonna talk about little family issues and how it kind
of hits the hood and he hits us and what
we could possibly do about it. So a little background,
um I had at some point I feel like I
made this like off hand comment off of listening to
(02:44):
another podcast about Dolly Parton Believe it or not. She
had said in this podcast, like, and you know, you
kind of never really know your parents. And I thought
to myself when she said that, like, dude, that's crazy. Yeah,
I kind of don't. And let's sners. No, you know,
I'm boring to raise Los Angeles. My mom is not though.
My mom Southeast d C. You know what I'm saying,
(03:06):
northwest Southeast, you feel me? She Obama right there, you
know what I mean? And uh came over here to
l A. You know, actually got married as kids, married
my dad as kids, stayed there until we were grown
and they split up and eventually she went back home.
But is itching to get back to l A because
you got grandkids now in my life? Come on now,
(03:32):
and okay, okay, I appreciate it. But there's an entire
history you know, with your parents that like you just
don't know, you know what I'm saying, And how could
you you were in there and just the reality that
like she was an entirely different person before kids, Like
you know what I'm saying, Like marriage and kids changed. Yeah,
so it was put on your heart to write me
(03:55):
a letter, right, that's right, Yeah, so you can take
over from there a little bit like what you want
to talk about in a letter, not specifics obviously because
that's between us, but just kind of what you wanted
to inform well in the letter. I first of all,
it you had come on a surprise visit to me,
and when you made that comment, it was the look
(04:17):
on your face and almost like a dagger in my
heart for a couple of different reasons. That one was
because you and I in your growing up years were
very very close and we had a special bond that
you used to share with me some things that were
(04:38):
actually t m I for me. But but as a kid,
you were as just as curious as you are now,
very curious and inquisitive and either not I don't want
to say you demanded an answer, but you inquired until
you've got one that who ever you were speaking to
(05:01):
thought they had given you a sufficient answer. So when
you said you didn't know me, and I had taken
you to the airport, and it just haunted me and
was in my spirit the whole time coming back home
that I thought, well, you know, he really he knows me.
He doesn't realize that he knows me because the am
(05:24):
the person that I am in my heart and in
my spirit. I have always been that person because that
was how God made me. But the fact that you
really didn't know my background on my childhood and specifics
because I would only tell you or we only would
(05:45):
discuss certain things when they came up, as to, well,
you know, your dad was in the house, your dad
drove a cab, you know, speaking to my dad, my
dad smoked a cigar, my dad. You know, my mom
and dad had nine children. We lived in a certain place,
and some of the things that went on is we
(06:07):
were children. But I never really really told you anything
about me as a child. And the funny thing about
that is that I always had a curiosity and still
do about how my parents were as children. By the
(06:27):
time you really know them or actually realize anything about them,
you're a little person, or you're a teenager, or you're
an adult. But you fail or I feel, or we
felt sometimes I realized that our parents were little people
at one point too, you know, they were they were
(06:47):
little people that played on the playground and they go
to bed when their parents told them to go to bed.
Maybe played top Scotch or whatever they played in the
areas or the cities where they lived. Because my mother
was born and raised in Washington, d c. She's a
blood Washingtonian, but my dad was raised in the South,
(07:09):
in South Carolina. So I always, you know, I used
to reflect and think a lot about I wonder what
they were like as little kids. You know, what did
they think about when did they get hurt themselves, or
when did somebody pick on them? Or you know, what
were the things that they did that they didn't want
their parents. It's just little people's life. And so when
(07:32):
I was going over all that and I said, well,
my son, you know, he doesn't he didn't. My my
children they don't know that about me. It was just
something that came up. Nothing that wasn't that, it wasn't important.
It just was something that never presented itself. So in
writing the letter, which you know, I started when you
(07:54):
left in February, and I was writing the letter and
writing the letter, then we were hit with COVID or
COVID came and I stopped. Then I had a little
issue with one of life. I slipped and fell and
hurt my finger naturally, so I couldn't type on the
(08:17):
computer as I wanted to, and then one thing happened
right after the other, then more COVID, and then I
got kind of like, okay, I wanted to. Once I
got into it, everything opened up. And even now the
letter that you have is only what they say, half
of the story, because there was so much and you
(08:39):
know so um yeah, you came back a lifetime into
a letter, yes, a letter, and then individuals that touched
your lives, what they meant to you, the little, small,
little things that you go through. So what I did
in the letter was trying to give to you whatever
God brought into my heart to give to you. That
(09:02):
was about me, And it wasn't about trying to make
the letter all about me, but in essence, I wanted
you to know all about me, the things that you
didn't know, Like how was I in junior high school?
And I told you about that where I started off,
you know, a brainy ac and then what happened and
(09:28):
so those things that you probably you never you never
knew those things. So I went in writing the letter
and it got longer and longer, not only chronologically but
in the duration of the letter. And finally I gave
you the letter with something still unfinished, and probably some
(09:51):
things that I thought were very important left out because
I thought you got tired of waiting, And I thought, Okay,
how much longer is this going to be? Because it
was supposed to be a letter it ended up being
over forty page. Yes, it ended up being a novel.
And then I went through, Okay, well do I the titles?
(10:11):
Do I call it everything you wanted to know about
your mother? And you didn't know? Or he was going
he was getting creative. Yeah, I was just getting creative.
And then you kept hearing the phrase in this pop
culture is that you know your narrative? What's your narrative?
Let's somebody right? So I thought, you know what, that's
what I'm gonna call it. I'm writing my own narrative
(10:34):
so that my son, my daughter, and whomever they choose
to share it with. Yeah, family wise would would know.
And so here we are now you're sharing it on
a podcast. Yes, not the specifics per se, because some
of that stuffs like I'm still kind of processing, you
know what I'm saying. There's some things that I really loved,
(10:56):
like I knew, but like didn't know you know what
I'm saying, like ideas about like like granddad and and
you know, the the running the numbers and the card
games and the gambling and stuff like that, because which
is just hood life. You know what I'm saying, right,
And you know you get it. How are you living?
You call it hood life now? But for us, it
was survival. For them, it was survival. For them, it
(11:19):
was doing what you know to do the best way
you could do it and stand away from the popo. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so you get it. How you're living trying to stay out,
stay stay under the radar, you know what I'm saying
exactly exactly. Yeah. But what I what I found interesting
specifically for why I wanted to tell that story as
background for this was, um, I took a twenty three
(11:41):
and me DNA test right, and it gives you not
only like your ancestral heritage and stuff like that, but
it also talks about the part that we're interested in
is like is our health background right, and like a
wellness stuff, you know what I'm saying. And one thing
that like that stood out for me in your story
in that story is like there's an assumption and and
(12:04):
it's a true in most situations that like you know,
the projects, you know what I'm saying, Like in the
in the sense that y'all actually experienced is a food
desert that you're just not eating well and making like
good choices for your your health, you know what I'm saying,
(12:25):
because you're just trying to survive. And what I noticed
your story, it seemed like that wasn't the case, Like
y'all ate, all right, It's exactly we were at all right. Now.
I'm not saying that we weren't exposed to the chidlins
and the hog mad and all of that, because we
had it, and I ate it and we ate it.
(12:46):
But basically, I don't know if it was because and
it probably was because of my father's background being in
the South. My mother used to say rabbit food. That
he loved rabbit food. And out of the nine of
us of their children or nine of us are still
(13:06):
eating well, you know, my two brothers are deceased, but
the seven of us still live off and love rabbit food. Now,
the fact that nobody is in a vegetarian, I'm a Presbyterian,
and um, they love meat, they love their ribs. I
stay away from that because that was my matter of
(13:28):
choice after a few years after I got grown. Yeah,
and that's that's something I wanted to ask you about. Yeah, okay, okay, no,
but go on. Yeah, but generally rabbit food is in
like y'all eat fruits and vegetables. We eat fruits and vegetables.
I mean I would sit by as a little girl
my mother watching her make potato salad and before she
(13:52):
would People in the black community, and I'm sure another
another races, uh, ethnic backgrounds, they may potato salad differently,
but my mother A lot of people peel the potatoes
and then this is just a side peeled potatoes and
then chop them up. But my mother would boil the
(14:13):
potatoes first before she chopped him up. And I was
always there sitting beside her with my elbow on the table,
waiting for a piece of raw potatoes before it even
went in the pod. My dad used to come and
he would give us rud Baker's. We would eat raw
(14:36):
sweet potatoes, anything that was. It was like right out
of the garden, and we all loved it. And to
this day, my sisters and my brother, we and you
will know in your and our family, when we all
lived as a family together. You always had a what
there was always a salad. There was always there was
(14:57):
always a salad. There was always we would come home
and always green, something green. You had to have something
green on your plate. So that's the way we were raised,
no matter what. And even now it's like any any
family functioning or gathering, somebody's going to make a salad. Yeah,
it's kind of crazy because, like like I said, like
(15:18):
in you know, in a macro sense, like living in
like inner cities are considered like we said, food deserts
where you can't really get fresh food. It was like
just what you said, like whatever decisions you made, that
wasn't the case in our house. There was always fruit.
You always had it. We come home and it wasn't
like there wasn't a bag of chips. It was oranges, right,
(15:41):
we sat down and we ate oranges we had. That
was just a decision you made. And some of those
decisions were around like when I when I go through
these results, like I'm really interested in I want to
hear your reaction because some of the stuff you you
said you just kind of like made these food decisions
for us because you was watching what seemed like was
(16:04):
hereditary what was just happening in our families where we
was dying over getting sick over and so. And you
said it in the in a story too. But I
remember you telling us all the time like, yoll watch
out for this because this in your family, this in
your blood, and it's crazy without you doing any tests,
this was just the stuff that you was just like,
well it just keep having it, you know what I'm saying, right,
(16:26):
So tell the folks what what What were some of
those things that you just kind of picked up and
was like, we can't eat this because this in our family.
Well I don't, I don't know you. You didn't have
a lot of things that I said you couldn't eat
because the entire choice was not my own. You know,
your father was there and he had things that you
(16:46):
know that he believed that weren't detrimental, but they ended
up being detrimental. You can probably being detrimental. So um,
the thing is that I tried not to of you
a lot of sugar. Remember I used to say you
couldn't have right because of the diabetes that you I
(17:07):
didn't want you to have a lot of sweet sweet cereals,
those sugarcoated cereals that you couldn't have, which was torture,
which was torture. And as a matter of fact, when
I wanted to give you a treat, you could have
your captain crunch that. Yeah, and they and that was
(17:29):
because that the diabetes was running in the family. My
my grandfather, my my maternal grandfather had suffered from diabetes
that put him in it in a in a chair
towards the end of his life. My uncle on my
(17:49):
mother's side was diabetic and it took him put him down.
And aunt that came to live with me as my
sweetie Luna caused her on n t Helen on Helen.
When she was here living with me, it was always
sugar and my mother was a sugar candy fanatic. And
(18:15):
my sister, who later in years late in life, found
out she was a diabetic, would always we would always
have sweets. That part of it became and so you know,
I realized that these things just they weren't good healthy wise.
It had nothing to do with what you may hear
(18:37):
quote some people talk about generation curses. I don't believe
in generation curse. I don't believe in that. I believe
in our bloodline and the things that we are susceptible
due to because of our bloodline. And so I feel
that it's it's wiser to make the choices when you're
(18:58):
able to make the choices, then wish later on you
hadn't made the choices. Like I have an aunt that
passed away, and when I had spoken to her when
she had became ill, the one thing she said to
me was that I'm not afraid to die. I'll miss
the family, but I wish I had made better choices
(19:20):
in the way I ate. And so these were this
was almost her dying doxology that she had wished she
had made a better choice. And the things that she
ate because she loved to eat. And I mean it's fatty,
fatty stuff like raw ground beef and raw bacon. And
(19:41):
so you know, when I used to see a member
of our family delving into that, it would just it
would just make me cringe because there's no purpose in it.
You know, vegetables will well suffice in and keeping you
and keeping you healthy. And I and I, you know,
I had tripping that I don't brag. I thank I'm
(20:02):
thankful for the grace of God on my life. But
you know where I am in life. You know how
old I am. You know what I have suffered physically
and what I haven't suffered physically. And I attribute all
of that because of the choices that I said. Not
a whole lot of ship since I was a child,
(20:22):
That's what I'm saying, not a lot of fats. And
for the past two years, I haven't had a piece
of fried chicken. Now you're talking crazy, okay, uh no. Um,
So what I noticed what our family was like kidney cancer,
you know what I'm saying. And then but some of
(20:43):
these weird things. So so the aunt that she talked about,
my Helen, which is my great aunt, that's my grandmother's sister.
My mom's direct hunt was like, I mean, she was
a two packet day smoker and she outlived everyone more
than that, more than more than two packs to see,
That's what I'm say. And so like there was these
weird like things where you just like, I don't know,
(21:04):
is that just that's just in our blood? Like why
how come that ain't? And of all the things that
actually killed it was the sugar, you know what I'm saying.
So we like, how is it that you know? Say it?
So so there's these things that are like our diet
and then these things that are in our blood. So
but there's one thing I want to interrupt to say,
then this could be an inspiration to someone who may
(21:28):
have been or know someone that had been a three
packet day smoker, is that she had a stroke. After
the stroke, she gave up cigarettes at eighty eight years old,
so she had been smoking from her twenties until in
her eighties and still not a not a thing, not
(21:49):
a drop of cancer in her blood. She um was hilarious, y'all.
Like the one thing that is in our DNA. I'm
pretty sure this some twenty three and me thing is
going to prove is that we have sarcasm in our
DNA and for some reason, like everybody really good at it.
(22:10):
You know my right now, y'all, my mom is being
very well behaved, but she being real nice. But Helen
was hilarious. She was remarkably sarcastic and uh and would
say stuff like that like smoke to me, facts, I
won't you being prejudiced against my age exactly to say that.
(22:39):
So I'm gonna read through a few of these things
can get your reactions on this. Some of the stuff
that you thought maybe like you was like yep, or
are surprised about. So the first thing I'm gonna look
at is like, once you get this result, I'm gonna
look at like the my wellness thing. Right, So how
my DNA responds to like diet, exercise, and sleep. Right,
(23:00):
So your boy's genetic weight meeting, like in my predisposed
to become overweight or stay pretty pretty thin. What you
think you're gonna stay thin? Yep, that's predisposed to weigh
less than average. That's what this monk said. So you
know what I'm saying. And it's funny because you know,
even as a kid, I'll try my best. Remember we
(23:21):
bought all the weights, never worked and oh yeah, I
just did not work, right, So all the variants in
my blood are associated to like that you're just gonna
be thin? Right? Well? Can I say something there too, though, yeah,
go for it. Is that you know that out of
(23:42):
my eight siblings, I was considered the runt. Yeah, because
I was the only one five five. I say five too,
but I'm five one and a half. I never got
any bigger. Then, you know, I've always kept my weight down.
And then your father was tall and slim. It's tall
(24:05):
and slim, so I can see how that would happen. Yeah, yeah,
I look good now, but he's yeah much older anyway.
And also your choices too. Yeah yeah, totally. Uh, lactose intolerant.
It's in my blood and it's true. Here's what's funny.
(24:25):
Here's a funny one caffeine consumption. I am likely to
consume less caffeine than anyone else. Really, ain't that weird?
That's what it says based on my DNA. It says
that if you consume caffeine. The current Guidelines of Healthy
Adults says adults should drink no more than three twelve
(24:46):
ounce cups of coffee or eight ounce cups of tea
per day, which is crazy because I drink probably for yeah,
I don't be getting jittery, but I don't know. Maybe
I'm defining my DNA here. Muscle composition, it's my muscle
composition is common for elite athletes. Okay, I can see that.
(25:10):
I can see that totally. Yes, let's see. Now, let's
go to like the not so fun stuff health highlights. Okay, dementia, Alzheimer's.
What do you think do I think that? In your DNA,
you're prone to it. Yeah, uh possibly, yeah, so slightly
at risk. Yeah. And and I say that because of
(25:34):
my paternal side of the family. Yeah, and I don't
know if it's happening now on in my on this
side of the family, but basically not not on my
maternal side. Yo. And here's what's crazy is according to this,
like the variant I have generally comes from people of
(25:57):
European descent, So thank you again, trans Atlantic slave trade.
I'm saying, we're just reaching into our blood causing problems
age related macular degeneration, which I don't even know what
that is that has to do with your vision. Oh yep,
two variants detected, which is crazy because I'm the only
(26:19):
one of everybody related to that don't wear glasses on
both sides of my family. And it has nothing really
to do with with your vision. It's something that happens
to the eye, the eye itself. And um, I can
see that because my mother and one of her sisters,
(26:41):
two of her sisters, as far as I know, had
what's called LACMA. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We weren't
supposed to say names. Look at us. Well, I just
wasn't saying that, yeah, um, kidney disease, which you think, no,
I got one variant, Okay, yeah, but there's a lot
(27:02):
more variance in there. That's my DNA that says that
you should probably like watch your kidneys. Okay. And then
the last one, which you probably already knew this already,
is a sickle cell. Yes, of course we do. That's
that's paternal also. Yeah, and uh, fun thing about sickle
cell is that comes from Africa and it's part of
(27:26):
why we can a lot of us. Uh. It was
a it was a reaction to mosquitoes and malaria. It
was like with sickle cell, which I think is pretty dope,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, now let's see. Uh,
let's see some other stuff in here that's pretty crazy
so far as my gut health. Things that will set up,
(27:46):
like uh, colon cancer. Okay, I ain't got it. Okay,
McColl is good. Mcguts are good. Let's see here, genetics
of like cilantro version. According to this, I have a
slightly higher loads of disliking cilantro which is not true
because it's not true, and I love it. Yep, yep.
(28:09):
Let's see sleep movement. It says, I'm about average. I
sleep like everybody else. Mosquito bite frequency. You know how
black people say you got sweet blood, it's really a thing.
Yeah that's from your grandmother. No, I have about the
same as everybody else. But like some people got sweet blood. Nikki,
(28:31):
my sister, she got sweet blood. Who news the thing?
Ain't that crazy? That's crazy, that's crazy. That's actually used
used to say that, yeah sweet blood that you actually
do got sweet blood. But yeah, uh type two diabetes
(28:52):
that we talked about before, Yeah that's huh. I got
thirty seven chance. Yeah. So it's like, so the choices
that you're saying is like, of all the things that
are here, that's the one thing I can do something
about exactly. And what's crazy is like you being wise
(29:13):
enough paying attention. Before we knew how to take no DNA,
nothing that was just looked around. It was like, look,
let's make these changes now, observation, you change in the narrative.
One thing I wanted to add to when you talked
about us being raised in the projects, and this is
not an effrontery on anyone else that was raising the projects,
(29:36):
but my mother, well in the projects. Anyone that who's
ancestors or family, grandma and grandpa, anybody lived in the
projects knew that they used to have uh a community
center where they would give you government food, government cheese,
government peanut butter. But government this government that my mother
(30:00):
never took it. Yeah, we never received anything from them
because she chose not to. And one of the reasons,
probably as as I got older, I used to tell
people that raising nine children. First in what I realized now,
which our normal reminded me of, is that when we
(30:23):
lived in southwest Washington, d C. When I was very
little and born down there, it was considered the slums.
Right now, it's the warf everything is exclusive, but back then,
when they had black people running around in there, it
was the slums. But to raise a family like that
and not get any government assistance, that talks of the
(30:47):
struggle of h And I'm sure my dad wasn't the
only black man that went home, went out of the
house in the morning and returned back home in the
evening for the betterment of his family. And so we
just we just were never exposed to those things. And
so that's how we grew and that's how I wanted.
(31:09):
I wanted us as a family to eat just good,
healthy food. And you know that's that's that's what I did.
I remember the time that I that I suggested to
the three of you, let's go vegetarian. Do you remember
that conversation? And when I got so much opposition that
the three of you looked at each other as if
(31:30):
to say, oh you talking about And then and then
somebody said, you mean I can't have any more ribs?
And then somebody said no more steak, and you said,
oh no, ma, And I said, okay, well then you
guys just go ahead and do But this is how
I'm gonna eat. And I didn't go vegetarian, but I
(31:52):
just I just cut out a lot of stuff. Man, Yeah,
you did, you know? And I mean I've made similar choices,
like I haven't gone full of it starian, but um,
for the most part pescatarian, you know, in as in
as best as I can be. Uh. But I think
one thing that we do here is like you know,
my wife is like super good at like if we
(32:13):
are buying beef or chicken, it's like the high end stuff.
You know what I'm saying, Like she'll like she'll break
bread for that. That's like you know, no nitrates, like
you know, completely organically and what's crazy about like the
Latino community to which like again it's just a different
narrative than you know, which is posed to us. Is
(32:35):
like you know, in Acapulco, like they was dirt poor,
you know, no running water styles, but like you got
fresh fruit every day. Yeah, there was. You got up
in the morning and you went and bought the food
for the day. So it was fresh fruit, fresh vegetables.
She's always eight like that, you know what I'm saying.
They when they were kids, she talks about this too,
(32:57):
like they didn't get fast food, like her mom didn't
do it. She was just like no, they cooked every
day and it was like but you go to the market,
you buy the beans, boil the beans. You know they
bought you go to the corner where there was like
the fruit lady right exactly in the corner like eating
what I'm saying. So you just they always ate like that,
you know what I'm saying. So you know, of course
(33:18):
they was you know when they got to l As,
you know, you had your you had your talkies and
hot cheetos like they did, you know what I'm saying.
But it was like no, we like we chopped vegetables
every day, made beans every day. You know what I'm saying,
what can you know what that that that's a beautiful
thing though I don't mean it interrupted, but that's a
beautiful thing because when you think of people living in poverty,
(33:42):
a lot of people that have lived that way and
have I don't I don't want to say that have
been their lifestyle has been governed because of poverty or
mid level poverty. They go for the cheapest things or
whatever it is convenient. But when you sign a family
(34:03):
like hurt, like almost background in my background where no,
that was no go that that was just no, it
wasn't it wasn't an option, you know. So and um,
it continues on, it continues on, and the girls eat
well and you do too. Very yeah, it's true. It
(34:24):
just continues on. The one thing that did like for her,
She's like, what kills us is is there's a tortilla
with every meal. So we're just so it's the same thing.
It's like sugar, yeah, I mean, so we try to
do the we try to do corn instead of flour,
you know. But whatever we're doing, we're doing the best
we can. Anyway, Mom, thank you for your transparency. Yeah,
(34:46):
this is fun. Yeah, and thank you to twenty three
and me for letting us do this. And then there's
like all the other like that you are on my
maternal side, like the ancestry stuff, like on the maternal side,
your blood is Bantu. Did you know that African? Yeah?
You from the Bantu reason according to it this Okay,
(35:07):
I know that one of my sisters had told me
one time that my my dad was from Angola? Is
that part of that now my my dad's dad because
of like how close that angling is to our to
our line, like since he's like your grandfather, he takes
up a lot of the percentage because that just threw
(35:28):
through that DNA in there. But but we're essentially we're
essentially like subsepharent East African, Okay, you know, which is
like not average for you know, slave descendants. Most slave
descendants are mostly West African. But which we're that too,
(35:48):
because any slave descendant is everything, you know what I'm saying.
But Bantu and Fulani. Hm. Well, I used to get
a lot when I was in California where you know,
especially when I start wearing my hair down and I
used to get comments about how was I from the Islands,
(36:13):
and it was like, you just don't look like you're yeah,
that you're all from that. Yeah, and my comment is
that none of us are all black anymore. Yeah, so
there's that, right, yeah, yeah, all the mistaken for Ethiopian stuff,
Like I don't know, maybe you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, anyway, Uh, mom,
(36:40):
you want to give everybody your socials? I'm just kidding,
just kidding. Please get nobody. Do not follow my MoMA
on Instagram. I slap and playing man. So checking out
from Maryland from the d n V. You know what
I'm saying from you know, pre GC Prince George County
as a gentleman, my dukes does go. Thank you very much, Mama. Alright,
(37:06):
so my pleasure eat? Well, yes, that's right. Oh yeah,
you got any words of wisdom for these folks, Well,
my only word of wisdom would be to make wise
choices when you eat, because you aren't always gonna be
thirty five. You're always gonna be forty, God will and
(37:26):
you aren't always gonna be sixty one day, you're gonna
be seventy or eighty. And you want to still be
able to walk around the block without having your shortness
of breath. You want to be able to run a
half mile without shortness of breath. You want to be
able like me to do sit ups and push ups
and leg binds and all of that. It's all in
(37:49):
our choices, not only what you eat, but your life choices,
in the things that you expose yourself to. I don't
know where that came from. Just the depths of your soul.
Eat your veggies. There, they're the good Earth. There's there's
from the good Earth. Then, and stay away from that fried,
(38:10):
greasy food. You broke up? You broke up? Okay, looks
good as smells good. But no, I'm being silly. You didn't.
I just didn't want you to drop the gym's I know.
But all I'm saying is that you'd be surprised at
what you can ove and fry and enjoy it. So
(38:32):
just just stay healthy. If you want to stay alive,
stay and eat healthy. You will be thankful when you
get over. All right, And that's it. On another dope show,
(39:00):
did this episode inspire you to take a closer look
at your health history, your genetic makeup? Who new DNA?
Could reveal so much about our past while also holding
the keys to certain health insights that may impact our future.
I continue to be inspired by these stories, and I
hope you do as well. Catch you next time. Listen
(39:20):
to Spit, an original podcast from I Heart Radio and
twenty three in the on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast
Have you ever thought about how incredibly complex I SPIT is.
It may only be water, but just aliva isn't simple.
That remaining one holds incredibly meaningful information that could change everything.
And I'm not just talking about your family treat Hi.
I'm barretton Day Thurston and on this season of SPIT
(00:24):
and I Heart Radio podcast with twenty three and me,
we explore how DNA isn't just about ancestry, it can
also be key to understanding your health. Hey, you welcome back.
We've had some really great conversations on SPIT, but today's
episode is truly something special. On Hood Politics, rapper and
(00:47):
author Propaganda discusses geopolitical topics from the perspective of urban life,
and today he's using that perspective to talk about health
and how it relates to your family history. Prop discovering
more about his own health from his twenty three test reports,
sits down with his mother to help him better understand
what his DNA could be telling him about his past
(01:08):
and his future. Together, they slowly peel away the layers
of props family history, looking back at family members who
have gotten ill or sadly passed away. How can the
information from props twenty three and me test help him
stay healthy in the future. Together, these two learn more
about the awesome power of genetic testing when it comes
(01:29):
to understanding your health, as well as some other family
secrets and a few surprises. Hopefully this episode will inspire
you to learn more about your own family history and
maybe even inspire you to reach out to your own
mom or dad or grandma or grandpa or whoever else
you might owe. A phone call too, and I mean
a phone call, not a text. Let's listen in Okay, Okay,
(01:57):
so check this out. The politics this my mom, Mom, Yes,
you'll know what's called me. Hello. Hello. I'll call you
Jason when I'm close to you in case I need
to pop you one. But I give you your propers
to call your properm in. Okay, I appreciate it, you know. Okay, y'all.
(02:21):
So this is a special hood politics. Uh, this is
in partnership with spit and twenty three and me. We're
gonna talk about little family issues and how it kind
of hits the hood and he hits us and what
we could possibly do about it. So a little background,
um I had at some point I feel like I
made this like off hand comment off of listening to
(02:44):
another podcast about Dolly Parton Believe it or not. She
had said in this podcast, like, and you know, you
kind of never really know your parents. And I thought
to myself when she said that, like, dude, that's crazy. Yeah,
I kind of don't. And let's sners. No, you know,
I'm boring to raise Los Angeles. My mom is not though.
My mom Southeast d C. You know what I'm saying,
(03:06):
northwest Southeast, you feel me? She Obama right there, you
know what I mean? And uh came over here to
l A. You know, actually got married as kids, married
my dad as kids, stayed there until we were grown
and they split up and eventually she went back home.
But is itching to get back to l A because
you got grandkids now in my life? Come on now,
(03:32):
and okay, okay, I appreciate it. But there's an entire
history you know, with your parents that like you just
don't know, you know what I'm saying, And how could
you you were in there and just the reality that
like she was an entirely different person before kids, Like
you know what I'm saying, Like marriage and kids changed. Yeah,
so it was put on your heart to write me
(03:55):
a letter, right, that's right, Yeah, so you can take
over from there a little bit like what you want
to talk about in a letter, not specifics obviously because
that's between us, but just kind of what you wanted
to inform well in the letter. I first of all,
it you had come on a surprise visit to me,
and when you made that comment, it was the look
(04:17):
on your face and almost like a dagger in my
heart for a couple of different reasons. That one was
because you and I in your growing up years were
very very close and we had a special bond that
you used to share with me some things that were
(04:38):
actually t m I for me. But but as a kid,
you were as just as curious as you are now,
very curious and inquisitive and either not I don't want
to say you demanded an answer, but you inquired until
you've got one that who ever you were speaking to
(05:01):
thought they had given you a sufficient answer. So when
you said you didn't know me, and I had taken
you to the airport, and it just haunted me and
was in my spirit the whole time coming back home
that I thought, well, you know, he really he knows me.
He doesn't realize that he knows me because the am
(05:24):
the person that I am in my heart and in
my spirit. I have always been that person because that
was how God made me. But the fact that you
really didn't know my background on my childhood and specifics
because I would only tell you or we only would
(05:45):
discuss certain things when they came up, as to, well,
you know, your dad was in the house, your dad
drove a cab, you know, speaking to my dad, my
dad smoked a cigar, my dad. You know, my mom
and dad had nine children. We lived in a certain place,
and some of the things that went on is we
(06:07):
were children. But I never really really told you anything
about me as a child. And the funny thing about
that is that I always had a curiosity and still
do about how my parents were as children. By the
(06:27):
time you really know them or actually realize anything about them,
you're a little person, or you're a teenager, or you're
an adult. But you fail or I feel, or we
felt sometimes I realized that our parents were little people
at one point too, you know, they were they were
(06:47):
little people that played on the playground and they go
to bed when their parents told them to go to bed.
Maybe played top Scotch or whatever they played in the
areas or the cities where they lived. Because my mother
was born and raised in Washington, d c. She's a
blood Washingtonian, but my dad was raised in the South,
(07:09):
in South Carolina. So I always, you know, I used
to reflect and think a lot about I wonder what
they were like as little kids. You know, what did
they think about when did they get hurt themselves, or
when did somebody pick on them? Or you know, what
were the things that they did that they didn't want
their parents. It's just little people's life. And so when
(07:32):
I was going over all that and I said, well,
my son, you know, he doesn't he didn't. My my
children they don't know that about me. It was just
something that came up. Nothing that wasn't that, it wasn't important.
It just was something that never presented itself. So in
writing the letter, which you know, I started when you
(07:54):
left in February, and I was writing the letter and
writing the letter, then we were hit with COVID or
COVID came and I stopped. Then I had a little
issue with one of life. I slipped and fell and
hurt my finger naturally, so I couldn't type on the
(08:17):
computer as I wanted to, and then one thing happened
right after the other, then more COVID, and then I
got kind of like, okay, I wanted to. Once I
got into it, everything opened up. And even now the
letter that you have is only what they say, half
of the story, because there was so much and you
(08:39):
know so um yeah, you came back a lifetime into
a letter, yes, a letter, and then individuals that touched
your lives, what they meant to you, the little, small,
little things that you go through. So what I did
in the letter was trying to give to you whatever
God brought into my heart to give to you. That
(09:02):
was about me, And it wasn't about trying to make
the letter all about me, but in essence, I wanted
you to know all about me, the things that you
didn't know, Like how was I in junior high school?
And I told you about that where I started off,
you know, a brainy ac and then what happened and
(09:28):
so those things that you probably you never you never
knew those things. So I went in writing the letter
and it got longer and longer, not only chronologically but
in the duration of the letter. And finally I gave
you the letter with something still unfinished, and probably some
(09:51):
things that I thought were very important left out because
I thought you got tired of waiting, And I thought, Okay,
how much longer is this going to be? Because it
was supposed to be a letter it ended up being
over forty page. Yes, it ended up being a novel.
And then I went through, Okay, well do I the titles?
(10:11):
Do I call it everything you wanted to know about
your mother? And you didn't know? Or he was going
he was getting creative. Yeah, I was just getting creative.
And then you kept hearing the phrase in this pop
culture is that you know your narrative? What's your narrative?
Let's somebody right? So I thought, you know what, that's
what I'm gonna call it. I'm writing my own narrative
(10:34):
so that my son, my daughter, and whomever they choose
to share it with. Yeah, family wise would would know.
And so here we are now you're sharing it on
a podcast. Yes, not the specifics per se, because some
of that stuffs like I'm still kind of processing, you
know what I'm saying. There's some things that I really loved,
(10:56):
like I knew, but like didn't know you know what
I'm saying, like ideas about like like granddad and and
you know, the the running the numbers and the card
games and the gambling and stuff like that, because which
is just hood life. You know what I'm saying, right,
And you know you get it. How are you living?
You call it hood life now? But for us, it
was survival. For them, it was survival. For them, it
(11:19):
was doing what you know to do the best way
you could do it and stand away from the popo. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
so you get it. How you're living trying to stay out,
stay stay under the radar, you know what I'm saying
exactly exactly. Yeah. But what I what I found interesting
specifically for why I wanted to tell that story as
background for this was, um, I took a twenty three
(11:41):
and me DNA test right, and it gives you not
only like your ancestral heritage and stuff like that, but
it also talks about the part that we're interested in
is like is our health background right, and like a
wellness stuff, you know what I'm saying. And one thing
that like that stood out for me in your story
in that story is like there's an assumption and and
(12:04):
it's a true in most situations that like you know,
the projects, you know what I'm saying, Like in the
in the sense that y'all actually experienced is a food
desert that you're just not eating well and making like
good choices for your your health, you know what I'm saying,
(12:25):
because you're just trying to survive. And what I noticed
your story, it seemed like that wasn't the case, Like
y'all ate, all right, It's exactly we were at all right. Now.
I'm not saying that we weren't exposed to the chidlins
and the hog mad and all of that, because we
had it, and I ate it and we ate it.
(12:46):
But basically, I don't know if it was because and
it probably was because of my father's background being in
the South. My mother used to say rabbit food. That
he loved rabbit food. And out of the nine of
us of their children or nine of us are still
(13:06):
eating well, you know, my two brothers are deceased, but
the seven of us still live off and love rabbit food. Now,
the fact that nobody is in a vegetarian, I'm a Presbyterian,
and um, they love meat, they love their ribs. I
stay away from that because that was my matter of
(13:28):
choice after a few years after I got grown. Yeah,
and that's that's something I wanted to ask you about. Yeah, okay, okay, no,
but go on. Yeah, but generally rabbit food is in
like y'all eat fruits and vegetables. We eat fruits and vegetables.
I mean I would sit by as a little girl
my mother watching her make potato salad and before she
(13:52):
would People in the black community, and I'm sure another
another races, uh, ethnic backgrounds, they may potato salad differently,
but my mother A lot of people peel the potatoes
and then this is just a side peeled potatoes and
then chop them up. But my mother would boil the
(14:13):
potatoes first before she chopped him up. And I was
always there sitting beside her with my elbow on the table,
waiting for a piece of raw potatoes before it even
went in the pod. My dad used to come and
he would give us rud Baker's. We would eat raw
(14:36):
sweet potatoes, anything that was. It was like right out
of the garden, and we all loved it. And to
this day, my sisters and my brother, we and you
will know in your and our family, when we all
lived as a family together. You always had a what
there was always a salad. There was always there was
(14:57):
always a salad. There was always we would come home
and always green, something green. You had to have something
green on your plate. So that's the way we were raised,
no matter what. And even now it's like any any
family functioning or gathering, somebody's going to make a salad. Yeah,
it's kind of crazy because, like like I said, like
(15:18):
in you know, in a macro sense, like living in
like inner cities are considered like we said, food deserts
where you can't really get fresh food. It was like
just what you said, like whatever decisions you made, that
wasn't the case in our house. There was always fruit.
You always had it. We come home and it wasn't
like there wasn't a bag of chips. It was oranges, right,
(15:41):
we sat down and we ate oranges we had. That
was just a decision you made. And some of those
decisions were around like when I when I go through
these results, like I'm really interested in I want to
hear your reaction because some of the stuff you you
said you just kind of like made these food decisions
for us because you was watching what seemed like was
(16:04):
hereditary what was just happening in our families where we
was dying over getting sick over and so. And you
said it in the in a story too. But I
remember you telling us all the time like, yoll watch
out for this because this in your family, this in
your blood, and it's crazy without you doing any tests,
this was just the stuff that you was just like,
well it just keep having it, you know what I'm saying, right,
(16:26):
So tell the folks what what What were some of
those things that you just kind of picked up and
was like, we can't eat this because this in our family.
Well I don't, I don't know you. You didn't have
a lot of things that I said you couldn't eat
because the entire choice was not my own. You know,
your father was there and he had things that you
(16:46):
know that he believed that weren't detrimental, but they ended
up being detrimental. You can probably being detrimental. So um,
the thing is that I tried not to of you
a lot of sugar. Remember I used to say you
couldn't have right because of the diabetes that you I
(17:07):
didn't want you to have a lot of sweet sweet cereals,
those sugarcoated cereals that you couldn't have, which was torture,
which was torture. And as a matter of fact, when
I wanted to give you a treat, you could have
your captain crunch that. Yeah, and they and that was
(17:29):
because that the diabetes was running in the family. My
my grandfather, my my maternal grandfather had suffered from diabetes
that put him in it in a in a chair
towards the end of his life. My uncle on my
(17:49):
mother's side was diabetic and it took him put him down.
And aunt that came to live with me as my
sweetie Luna caused her on n t Helen on Helen.
When she was here living with me, it was always
sugar and my mother was a sugar candy fanatic. And
(18:15):
my sister, who later in years late in life, found
out she was a diabetic, would always we would always
have sweets. That part of it became and so you know,
I realized that these things just they weren't good healthy wise.
It had nothing to do with what you may hear
(18:37):
quote some people talk about generation curses. I don't believe
in generation curse. I don't believe in that. I believe
in our bloodline and the things that we are susceptible
due to because of our bloodline. And so I feel
that it's it's wiser to make the choices when you're
(18:58):
able to make the choices, then wish later on you
hadn't made the choices. Like I have an aunt that
passed away, and when I had spoken to her when
she had became ill, the one thing she said to
me was that I'm not afraid to die. I'll miss
the family, but I wish I had made better choices
(19:20):
in the way I ate. And so these were this
was almost her dying doxology that she had wished she
had made a better choice. And the things that she
ate because she loved to eat. And I mean it's fatty,
fatty stuff like raw ground beef and raw bacon. And
(19:41):
so you know, when I used to see a member
of our family delving into that, it would just it
would just make me cringe because there's no purpose in it.
You know, vegetables will well suffice in and keeping you
and keeping you healthy. And I and I, you know,
I had tripping that I don't brag. I thank I'm
(20:02):
thankful for the grace of God on my life. But
you know where I am in life. You know how
old I am. You know what I have suffered physically
and what I haven't suffered physically. And I attribute all
of that because of the choices that I said. Not
a whole lot of ship since I was a child,
(20:22):
That's what I'm saying, not a lot of fats. And
for the past two years, I haven't had a piece
of fried chicken. Now you're talking crazy, okay, uh no. Um,
So what I noticed what our family was like kidney cancer,
you know what I'm saying. And then but some of
(20:43):
these weird things. So so the aunt that she talked about,
my Helen, which is my great aunt, that's my grandmother's sister.
My mom's direct hunt was like, I mean, she was
a two packet day smoker and she outlived everyone more
than that, more than more than two packs to see,
That's what I'm say. And so like there was these
weird like things where you just like, I don't know,
(21:04):
is that just that's just in our blood? Like why
how come that ain't? And of all the things that
actually killed it was the sugar, you know what I'm saying.
So we like, how is it that you know? Say it?
So so there's these things that are like our diet
and then these things that are in our blood. So
but there's one thing I want to interrupt to say,
then this could be an inspiration to someone who may
(21:28):
have been or know someone that had been a three
packet day smoker, is that she had a stroke. After
the stroke, she gave up cigarettes at eighty eight years old,
so she had been smoking from her twenties until in
her eighties and still not a not a thing, not
(21:49):
a drop of cancer in her blood. She um was hilarious, y'all.
Like the one thing that is in our DNA. I'm
pretty sure this some twenty three and me thing is
going to prove is that we have sarcasm in our
DNA and for some reason, like everybody really good at it.
(22:10):
You know my right now, y'all, my mom is being
very well behaved, but she being real nice. But Helen
was hilarious. She was remarkably sarcastic and uh and would
say stuff like that like smoke to me, facts, I
won't you being prejudiced against my age exactly to say that.
(22:39):
So I'm gonna read through a few of these things
can get your reactions on this. Some of the stuff
that you thought maybe like you was like yep, or
are surprised about. So the first thing I'm gonna look
at is like, once you get this result, I'm gonna
look at like the my wellness thing. Right, So how
my DNA responds to like diet, exercise, and sleep. Right,
(23:00):
So your boy's genetic weight meeting, like in my predisposed
to become overweight or stay pretty pretty thin. What you
think you're gonna stay thin? Yep, that's predisposed to weigh
less than average. That's what this monk said. So you
know what I'm saying. And it's funny because you know,
even as a kid, I'll try my best. Remember we
(23:21):
bought all the weights, never worked and oh yeah, I
just did not work, right, So all the variants in
my blood are associated to like that you're just gonna
be thin? Right? Well? Can I say something there too, though, yeah,
go for it. Is that you know that out of
(23:42):
my eight siblings, I was considered the runt. Yeah, because
I was the only one five five. I say five too,
but I'm five one and a half. I never got
any bigger. Then, you know, I've always kept my weight down.
And then your father was tall and slim. It's tall
(24:05):
and slim, so I can see how that would happen. Yeah, yeah,
I look good now, but he's yeah much older anyway.
And also your choices too. Yeah yeah, totally. Uh, lactose intolerant.
It's in my blood and it's true. Here's what's funny.
(24:25):
Here's a funny one caffeine consumption. I am likely to
consume less caffeine than anyone else. Really, ain't that weird?
That's what it says based on my DNA. It says
that if you consume caffeine. The current Guidelines of Healthy
Adults says adults should drink no more than three twelve
(24:46):
ounce cups of coffee or eight ounce cups of tea
per day, which is crazy because I drink probably for yeah,
I don't be getting jittery, but I don't know. Maybe
I'm defining my DNA here. Muscle composition, it's my muscle
composition is common for elite athletes. Okay, I can see that.
(25:10):
I can see that totally. Yes, let's see. Now, let's
go to like the not so fun stuff health highlights. Okay, dementia, Alzheimer's.
What do you think do I think that? In your DNA,
you're prone to it. Yeah, uh possibly, yeah, so slightly
at risk. Yeah. And and I say that because of
(25:34):
my paternal side of the family. Yeah, and I don't
know if it's happening now on in my on this
side of the family, but basically not not on my
maternal side. Yo. And here's what's crazy is according to this,
like the variant I have generally comes from people of
(25:57):
European descent, So thank you again, trans Atlantic slave trade.
I'm saying, we're just reaching into our blood causing problems
age related macular degeneration, which I don't even know what
that is that has to do with your vision. Oh yep,
two variants detected, which is crazy because I'm the only
(26:19):
one of everybody related to that don't wear glasses on
both sides of my family. And it has nothing really
to do with with your vision. It's something that happens
to the eye, the eye itself. And um, I can
see that because my mother and one of her sisters,
(26:41):
two of her sisters, as far as I know, had
what's called LACMA. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We weren't
supposed to say names. Look at us. Well, I just
wasn't saying that, yeah, um, kidney disease, which you think, no,
I got one variant, Okay, yeah, but there's a lot
(27:02):
more variance in there. That's my DNA that says that
you should probably like watch your kidneys. Okay. And then
the last one, which you probably already knew this already,
is a sickle cell. Yes, of course we do. That's
that's paternal also. Yeah, and uh, fun thing about sickle
cell is that comes from Africa and it's part of
(27:26):
why we can a lot of us. Uh. It was
a it was a reaction to mosquitoes and malaria. It
was like with sickle cell, which I think is pretty dope,
you know what I'm saying. Yeah, now let's see. Uh,
let's see some other stuff in here that's pretty crazy
so far as my gut health. Things that will set up,
(27:46):
like uh, colon cancer. Okay, I ain't got it. Okay,
McColl is good. Mcguts are good. Let's see here, genetics
of like cilantro version. According to this, I have a
slightly higher loads of disliking cilantro which is not true
because it's not true, and I love it. Yep, yep.
(28:09):
Let's see sleep movement. It says, I'm about average. I
sleep like everybody else. Mosquito bite frequency. You know how
black people say you got sweet blood, it's really a thing.
Yeah that's from your grandmother. No, I have about the
same as everybody else. But like some people got sweet blood. Nikki,
(28:31):
my sister, she got sweet blood. Who news the thing?
Ain't that crazy? That's crazy, that's crazy. That's actually used
used to say that, yeah sweet blood that you actually
do got sweet blood. But yeah, uh type two diabetes
(28:52):
that we talked about before, Yeah that's huh. I got
thirty seven chance. Yeah. So it's like, so the choices
that you're saying is like, of all the things that
are here, that's the one thing I can do something
about exactly. And what's crazy is like you being wise
(29:13):
enough paying attention. Before we knew how to take no DNA,
nothing that was just looked around. It was like, look,
let's make these changes now, observation, you change in the narrative.
One thing I wanted to add to when you talked
about us being raised in the projects, and this is
not an effrontery on anyone else that was raising the projects,
(29:36):
but my mother, well in the projects. Anyone that who's
ancestors or family, grandma and grandpa, anybody lived in the
projects knew that they used to have uh a community
center where they would give you government food, government cheese,
government peanut butter. But government this government that my mother
(30:00):
never took it. Yeah, we never received anything from them
because she chose not to. And one of the reasons,
probably as as I got older, I used to tell
people that raising nine children. First in what I realized now,
which our normal reminded me of, is that when we
(30:23):
lived in southwest Washington, d C. When I was very
little and born down there, it was considered the slums.
Right now, it's the warf everything is exclusive, but back then,
when they had black people running around in there, it
was the slums. But to raise a family like that
and not get any government assistance, that talks of the
(30:47):
struggle of h And I'm sure my dad wasn't the
only black man that went home, went out of the
house in the morning and returned back home in the
evening for the betterment of his family. And so we
just we just were never exposed to those things. And
so that's how we grew and that's how I wanted.
(31:09):
I wanted us as a family to eat just good,
healthy food. And you know that's that's that's what I did.
I remember the time that I that I suggested to
the three of you, let's go vegetarian. Do you remember
that conversation? And when I got so much opposition that
the three of you looked at each other as if
(31:30):
to say, oh you talking about And then and then
somebody said, you mean I can't have any more ribs?
And then somebody said no more steak, and you said,
oh no, ma, And I said, okay, well then you
guys just go ahead and do But this is how
I'm gonna eat. And I didn't go vegetarian, but I
(31:52):
just I just cut out a lot of stuff. Man, Yeah,
you did, you know? And I mean I've made similar choices,
like I haven't gone full of it starian, but um,
for the most part pescatarian, you know, in as in
as best as I can be. Uh. But I think
one thing that we do here is like you know,
my wife is like super good at like if we
(32:13):
are buying beef or chicken, it's like the high end stuff.
You know what I'm saying, Like she'll like she'll break
bread for that. That's like you know, no nitrates, like
you know, completely organically and what's crazy about like the
Latino community to which like again it's just a different
narrative than you know, which is posed to us. Is
(32:35):
like you know, in Acapulco, like they was dirt poor,
you know, no running water styles, but like you got
fresh fruit every day. Yeah, there was. You got up
in the morning and you went and bought the food
for the day. So it was fresh fruit, fresh vegetables.
She's always eight like that, you know what I'm saying.
They when they were kids, she talks about this too,
(32:57):
like they didn't get fast food, like her mom didn't
do it. She was just like no, they cooked every
day and it was like but you go to the market,
you buy the beans, boil the beans. You know they
bought you go to the corner where there was like
the fruit lady right exactly in the corner like eating
what I'm saying. So you just they always ate like that,
you know what I'm saying. So you know, of course
(33:18):
they was you know when they got to l As,
you know, you had your you had your talkies and
hot cheetos like they did, you know what I'm saying.
But it was like no, we like we chopped vegetables
every day, made beans every day. You know what I'm saying,
what can you know what that that that's a beautiful
thing though I don't mean it interrupted, but that's a
beautiful thing because when you think of people living in poverty,
(33:42):
a lot of people that have lived that way and
have I don't I don't want to say that have
been their lifestyle has been governed because of poverty or
mid level poverty. They go for the cheapest things or
whatever it is convenient. But when you sign a family
(34:03):
like hurt, like almost background in my background where no,
that was no go that that was just no, it
wasn't it wasn't an option, you know. So and um,
it continues on, it continues on, and the girls eat
well and you do too. Very yeah, it's true. It
(34:24):
just continues on. The one thing that did like for her,
She's like, what kills us is is there's a tortilla
with every meal. So we're just so it's the same thing.
It's like sugar, yeah, I mean, so we try to
do the we try to do corn instead of flour,
you know. But whatever we're doing, we're doing the best
we can. Anyway, Mom, thank you for your transparency. Yeah,
(34:46):
this is fun. Yeah, and thank you to twenty three
and me for letting us do this. And then there's
like all the other like that you are on my
maternal side, like the ancestry stuff, like on the maternal side,
your blood is Bantu. Did you know that African? Yeah?
You from the Bantu reason according to it this Okay,
(35:07):
I know that one of my sisters had told me
one time that my my dad was from Angola? Is
that part of that now my my dad's dad because
of like how close that angling is to our to
our line, like since he's like your grandfather, he takes
up a lot of the percentage because that just threw
(35:28):
through that DNA in there. But but we're essentially we're
essentially like subsepharent East African, Okay, you know, which is
like not average for you know, slave descendants. Most slave
descendants are mostly West African. But which we're that too,
(35:48):
because any slave descendant is everything, you know what I'm saying.
But Bantu and Fulani. Hm. Well, I used to get
a lot when I was in California where you know,
especially when I start wearing my hair down and I
used to get comments about how was I from the Islands,
(36:13):
and it was like, you just don't look like you're yeah,
that you're all from that. Yeah, and my comment is
that none of us are all black anymore. Yeah, so
there's that, right, yeah, yeah, all the mistaken for Ethiopian stuff,
Like I don't know, maybe you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, anyway, Uh, mom,
(36:40):
you want to give everybody your socials? I'm just kidding,
just kidding. Please get nobody. Do not follow my MoMA
on Instagram. I slap and playing man. So checking out
from Maryland from the d n V. You know what
I'm saying from you know, pre GC Prince George County
as a gentleman, my dukes does go. Thank you very much, Mama. Alright,
(37:06):
so my pleasure eat? Well, yes, that's right. Oh yeah,
you got any words of wisdom for these folks, Well,
my only word of wisdom would be to make wise
choices when you eat, because you aren't always gonna be
thirty five. You're always gonna be forty, God will and
(37:26):
you aren't always gonna be sixty one day, you're gonna
be seventy or eighty. And you want to still be
able to walk around the block without having your shortness
of breath. You want to be able to run a
half mile without shortness of breath. You want to be
able like me to do sit ups and push ups
and leg binds and all of that. It's all in
(37:49):
our choices, not only what you eat, but your life choices,
in the things that you expose yourself to. I don't
know where that came from. Just the depths of your soul.
Eat your veggies. There, they're the good Earth. There's there's
from the good Earth. Then, and stay away from that fried,
(38:10):
greasy food. You broke up? You broke up? Okay, looks
good as smells good. But no, I'm being silly. You didn't.
I just didn't want you to drop the gym's I know.
But all I'm saying is that you'd be surprised at
what you can ove and fry and enjoy it. So
(38:32):
just just stay healthy. If you want to stay alive,
stay and eat healthy. You will be thankful when you
get over. All right, And that's it. On another dope show,
(39:00):
did this episode inspire you to take a closer look
at your health history, your genetic makeup? Who new DNA?
Could reveal so much about our past while also holding
the keys to certain health insights that may impact our future.
I continue to be inspired by these stories, and I
hope you do as well. Catch you next time. Listen
(39:20):
to Spit, an original podcast from I Heart Radio and
twenty three in the on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast
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