Should Black People Learn a Trade or Earn a College Degree?

Dr Steve Perry joins Tezlyn Figaro to discuss the ongoing debate about if Black people specifically Black men should earn a college degree, learn a trade or do both. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, don't want to ask your question.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Real good, Let's just keep it real straight eye with
no chaser, I'm gonna get a little bit rougher.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
I'm here for it.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
Those who really believed in the American process, all of
us street shot, no chase, shut with your girl tends
some figure out.

Speaker 1 (00:23):
On the Black.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Effect Podcast Network, Hello, Hello, hello everybody. Well, today's sparked
a very interesting conversation. I made a post before I
bring my special guests in tonight uh Impromptu live because
the conversation was so good. I said, let me tap
in to the good brother, doctor Steve Perry, so we

(00:44):
can have this conversation. So just a little set up
before I bring him in. Put a five in a
chat if you can hear me. Thank you for joining.
I went to my daughter's college orientation today and the
numbers were alarming when they talked about eighty eight men

(01:07):
for every one female enrolled in the college at an HBCU.
So I made the posts about wanting to know what
motivates black men to go to college.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
I did this because I constantly have conversations about higher education,
and I already know which y'all don't like about education.
I already know you're gonna say a trade is better.
I should have made a trade. I should have did
a trade. You can make more money on the trade.
Black women got degrees, they wasted their money in they time.
Don't nobody want to know? Student loan blah blah blah

(01:41):
blah blah blah blah, all of that. Already knew all
of that. So when I made the posts, I'll put
in the caption, Hey, I already know why people don't go,
meaning all of the things that I just said. But
this post is about what motivated the black men that
did go and attend. Somebody in the comments put a

(02:01):
ten what motivated them to go, And the answers were remarkable,
everything from television to an expectation with their family, from
breaking generational curses, so forth, and so on. Phenomenal answers.
But there was still a couple of folks that felt
the necessity to say, well, I went, but I should

(02:25):
have got a trade. And even a sister said, well
it's better to get a trade, or you make more
money as a trade, or why don't you get a trade,
or some people even claim to say I did both.
So so the good doctor Steve Perry is going to
join us to unpack why this is such a complicated

(02:45):
question when it comes that, thank you, there's a tendant
and then there's graduated. So the good doctor Perry is
gonna unpack why this particular conversation is so triggering to
many of us, in particular our brothers. So let's bring
him on, doctor Steve Perry. Not an honorary degree, but.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
This one actually is it? No? No, but this one
actually is an honorary degree, this one right here, I
do have a real one, but this one.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Let's focus on the real one. Degree is really confused.
And now let's focus on the realtor. And you are
not only that, and you know, I know you are
a very humble guy, but I do want people to
know the position and what you're coming from. Can you
tell the folks who are not familiar with you your
current opposition and Capital Trick, and just a little bit
about your education background as we have this conversation.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
So sure, first of all, thank you for having me.
This is a very important conversation and quite frankly es
central to everything I do every day. I'm the head
of schools and founder of Capital Preparatory Schools, in New
York and Connecticut. This is the twentieth year that we've
been running our own schools, black schools, founding the Black
community for Black and lives and children. And it's important

(03:58):
to understand that one of the reasons why this issue
is so important is because much of what we deal
with is the headwind that our own families put in
front of their children by saying things like I don't
want loans. Meanwhile they have Alexis. You know, I'm not

(04:19):
about to go into debt, and they got a credit
card in seventeen eighteen to twenty thousand dollars. They say
that you don't need to go to school. You know,
there's books, marts and street smarts. And I ain't never
seen anybody matriculate beyond prison or death who stays in
that street game for too long. And that yet there
is an outcome from the academic side. But I understand

(04:43):
the complexity of the relationship, especialially Black men have with
what we refer to as traditional education. And it is
because by and large, if you ask, if most people
ask who taught you while you were in school? Where
did you learn mas? Science, socialis? What have you? In
most cases it was white people, more specifically a white woman.

(05:05):
And it is impossible for someone to teach people who
they don't know and maybe don't even in love if
they don't get to know them. And in most cases,
the data is pretty clear that black boys are they
really do absorb the brunt of American public education. As
a result, African American children make up it's just about

(05:28):
eighteen percent of all kindergarteners, yet forty eight percent of
all kindergarteners who are suspended or expelled. The numbers don't
even add up, and on and on and on. So
what we see is that many people who are black,
especially black men, have a late in distrust for the

(05:48):
system because almost upon entry we're dogged, I mean, and
if a boy is a what we refer to as
masculine or aggressive, is that would be he's especially put
in his place as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, if the
boy is more amenable, as some would say effeminate, not

(06:09):
about sexuality, just in terms of meaning being more amenable,
then in fact that boy gets a little bit more,
not a lot, but more than the other boy. And
when the boy is a great athlete, that same system
will allow him the space to do and be a
little bit more. I'll give him a little bit more latitude.

(06:31):
But if you take the saying African American boy who
is aggressive and who's what we would consider traditionally a boy,
but he's not good at sports at all, and he's
not on a team at all, that boy is a castaway.
That boy is set adrift, and he's among those forty
eight percent of the kindergartens. We're talking about five year olds.

(06:52):
By the way, when talk about kindergarten, five year olds
who are being suspended expelled are in some way disciplined.
So the complexity of the issue is I guess why
many men say I don't care. I don't care because
we've been made to feel like we're stupid. These schools
are not designed for us. Nobody in them really looks
like us. They're very few times that you'll ever encounter

(07:13):
a person, black or white who has had more than one,
if ever one black male teacher, if if won in
all thirteen years of high school. I mean, I'm sorry,
K twelve. So I get why it is complicated, But
more importantly, TuS, you get this. So what we have

(07:36):
to find a way to overcome the complexity of that,
and understand that the numbers are the numbers. You know
they say, you know, Jay says, men lie, women lie,
numbers don't. And if you have a hope of quite frankly,
earning to your potential, the highest probability you have is
if you get a degree. Doesn't mean people don't have
degrees of bad people. It just means that there's a
cost of admission into the economy. And if you want

(07:59):
to pay the cost of admission, there are a couple
of ways you could do that. You could pay it
with your body climbing up underneath a deck to put
in piping. You can do that, or you said on
top of the deck after you went to college and
pay somebody to do that. It's a choice that you
can make.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
And so let's deal with because one of I want
to deal with a couple of the as they would say,
a myth, but it's not a myth, but a couple
of the pushback that we typically hear with this, And
I kind of want to unpack this one on one.
Number one, one by one, I make bore money at
a trade. Let's be clear and let's have some critical
thinking here. No one is saying there seems to be

(08:38):
this ideology that all trades make more than degrees. That
is not true, just as all degrees don't make more
than trades. So when we look at you know, well
I made more of the trade, that's fine. I also
know people who have trades who are struggling. I know
people who have degrees who are struggle. When we look

(09:01):
at where black people are, particularly we'll talk about black men,
But when we look at where black people are and
the income gap, the wealth ratio gap opposed to our
white counterparts, the gap is too wide for us to
be putting anything back on the tape, meaning any tool
that I can get that can give me a chance up,

(09:24):
whether that be a trade, a skill, a degree, a
graduate degree, anything beyond high school that would give me
the probability not guarantee, because there's seems to be a
confusion about the probability, the likeliness of me having an
opportunity to get a yes opposed to a noe. So

(09:47):
there's a couple of different things. I worked at the
first and third largest staffing firm in the world, A
Decko and Robert have all my own staffing firms, so
I've seen thousands of resumes that come through the door,
and from the moment they come through the door, before
they even know there's even bodies with that, if there's
Teslin and Arkeisha or Jamal or any of those that

(10:08):
just on a piece of paper before you even step
foot in the door, they are looking for a way
to put you out the system. And one of those
things to put you out the system is a degree.
We see that within the government sector that you must
have a degree in order to promote. They don't care
what it's in basket weaving, race car driving, whatever it is,

(10:30):
anything which is the largest employer of black people, by
the way, anything that can stop me from promoting you
that degree. I want, I need you to think about
this that it's not even about who's smarter and who's
and who's not. It is about checking the box to
say I have the degree, yes, sir, Because even when
you walk in the door, they're still going to look
for a way to put you out because next is

(10:52):
going to be, well, you don't have enough experience or
you don't have a degree, Well what about your background,
or what about your pedigree, what about how many children?
All of those things that already put us out the door.
I need people to understand, doctor Perry, that this for
me is about checking the box. Can we just start
there on the importance of checking the box and what

(11:12):
that means.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
All the times we say that we don't want something
that we don't think we can have, and so if
you don't think you could do well in school, and
there seems to be a shorter cut, you take it
if you believe that. And what is so hard about
the work that we do running charter schools in some

(11:36):
of the poorest communities in America is convincing children that
just because you live here, and just because you come
from these circumstances, it does not mean that you have
to stay under these circumstances strengths. Let me tell you difference.
When we were starting our first school, Teslan, one of
the things I did was I went and visited wealthy
white schools. And that's true, I really did. I went

(11:58):
and visited these elite private schools. They spent a lot
of money to send mostly white kids there, and black
kids do play basketball. So I went and what blew
my mind was I sat down with these two young ladies,
both of whom were white, and they were seniors, and
they weren't terribly impressive as kids, and nothing disrespectful about them.

(12:22):
They were like men. And I remember watching the college
representative leaning to them and talk to them about what
it was they were interested in. And these two young
ladies just had a like a bounce to them, like yeah,
what I belong here? And I'm thinking I got a
bunch of little girls back back at the organization that

(12:45):
I was in part top dep a bomb program I
was run at that time. Who smoked these girls? They
may conjugate their verb a little differently they they may not,
they have a different action, but in terms of pure
to your point, pure intellect, my girls would smoke them.
It wasn't closed. But how many times have I had
to sit down with one of our little boys and
when our little girls and say them, no, no, no, you

(13:06):
can go to college. Nah. You know, my mom said
that she don't feel like taking out a loan, and
you know she ain't trying to go into debt. But
she's got a car that's worth forty thousand dollars and
she's renting an apartment and the numbers ain't numbering. I
can't tell you to us how many times. And it's
a really tough time that I had to sit with

(13:29):
a child whose parents will not pay the one hundred
dollars to reserve their seat after they've been accepted into college,
because so many of us genuinely don't believe that the
investment is worth, that the juice is worth the squeeze
of education. But here's the problem. You have been lied

(13:50):
to if you believe that you've really been played. And
it's important that you understand that the same people telling
you that God did agree, people people like what doesn't
matter if you get one or not. No homeboy, that
guidance counselor has at least two degrees. She's saying that
to you because she doesn't see you as worth investing in.

(14:13):
Let me tell you that sign. So in one of
our schools, we had started a gift in talented program.
In my own school, I was seeing that there weren't
as many black boys who were being recommended to the program.
Try to stand before my staff and say, y'all need
to look up here to who you see here. Play
with me. If you don't bring me black boys' names

(14:34):
by nine am, pubably, I ain't gonna be working here.
No more so we got that out the way so
people can understand who because when you run the schools,
you can do things in a particular way. So of
course we found more African American boys who are tested
in to what we refer to ask Johns Hopkins Gift
in Talented program. Here's the hard part test. I remember
calling the mother one time and saying, your sons, even

(14:56):
we're gonna want to come on Saturdays for this Gift
in Talented program. She said, ain't gifted on our sais
you understand? I'm saying like he actually like he tested
the top seven percent of the United States for watching
World like. It is so seared into so many of
our brains that we are not intelligent because we don't
talk the same way that they do or or know

(15:18):
the same information that they do, that we're not smart
and they are. And our challenge is to say them, no, no,
you are smart. If you ultimately want to go and
you want to drive a bus, then so be it
for the bus. But ain't nobody saying you can't drive
a bus with a degree if you want to become
a cop.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
What is the confusion that more than one thing can
happen and let me address my friends in the comment.
I know him personally, and he said, you know, more
than a degree, we need to learn how to work
in white spaces. Guess what degree teaches you that. See,
that's the whole thing. A degree teaches you that a
degree is more because they talk that. Somebody said facts, well,

(15:59):
actually not facts. I know Maurice personally from Orlando. Guess
what Maurice, when you go to a four year institution. See,
this is why when people have an argument about income,
well I can just make more money as a plumber.
Well you may or may not. It is more that
you are achieving by getting a four year degree. Besides

(16:19):
just income, there is the ability to complete a major task.
The ability. Let me just tell you with today with
Jada's orientation, what he's learning from the moment she walks
out the class, from the moment she walks out the door.
This is real time. God, when I saw what he
had on is very casual. And I said, Jada, you're
going to your orientation. When you're going to your orientation,

(16:44):
we need to show up as if we are meeting
professors that were meeting folks on the job. And this
is a true story as we're meeting people on the job,
because our first impression is a very important impression. She said, well,
it's going to be hot outside. I don't to crave
about none of that. We're gonna go to the university
as if we're going to the university. The moment we

(17:06):
got on the elevator, one of the advisors was on
the elevator who she did not know, never met. Oh,
you sure to look cute today. Your hair is nice,
and you look nice, said mama. Kind of know what
she talking about, kind of right, kind of just a
little bit, I know, just a little bit of what
I'm talking about. Then they went on to talk about
that in the orientation, how they are constantly recruiting, how

(17:28):
Chase and Bank of America and all these corporate five
hundred companies are recruiting. And although you want to be yourself,
although you want to dress cool, whatever, whatever, the university
actually teaches you those things, those soft skills, those how
you show up, how you present yourself. One lady asked
a question and said, my daughter has ADHD. She's also

(17:51):
an introvert. How can we get her the tools so
that she can be more confident in how she presents
guess what my recent you know me for sir, You
know I had three hundred plus employees. So all those
things actually teach you how to work in white and barbaracy.
So let's stop saying more important than the degree, we
need this. Let's stop doing the and R because that's

(18:13):
what bothers me. I don't have a problem with people
want to get in trades. My problem is when we
say we don't need degrees, we need trades. We don't
need to worry about degrees. We need to worry about entrepreneurship.
We don't need to worry about degrees. We need to
focus on working on white people. Well, I guess guess
what the answer is. I got military experience at entrepreneur experience.

(18:34):
I've been self employed for eighteen years. I've worked in
ten of the top corporate companies in America. I have
been employed ten awards saying you are indeed a business woman.
All of those things can buy. And I'm in law
school right now at my big age with master's degree,
bachelor's degree. I need people to understand it is about

(18:55):
checking the box. And let's give let me give y'all
some breaking news and give this back up His sister
MMYK means and build them. Let me give y'all some
breaking news. There's a white man and fam you right now,
almost sixty years old at our black HBCU, using our
black HBCU dollars at almost sixty. See, somebody told them

(19:16):
that they can continue on. Let me give you some
breaking news. Whatever told y'all that you can't achieve nothing
past twenty three or twenty five? I got news for you.
My mother can't plead at her bachelor's at sixty. You
have fifty years if we go from twenty to if
you live the seventy to get the degree, to get
the trade, to get the business, to get the entrepreneurship.

(19:37):
Where are y'all getting that you can't have more than one?
What makes y'all think that nobody in the college campus
know how to do hair? What makes y'all think that
nobody on the college campus is a carpenter? What makes
y'all think that nobody on the college campus is a barber?
Guess what? We do it all? It is about being
able to do it all. Let's stop the one or

(19:58):
the other and let's just to do it all for
those who can't to be out everybody can't. But I
don't like doctor Perry the hitting on those who said
I want to get one more positive attribute, even if
that means I go intt even if that means it
may not work out. What we do know is that
the probability of it working out for you is more

(20:19):
favorable than it not work out.

Speaker 1 (20:29):
One of the things that you said, one of the
many things you said, is super important. What people don't
often understand is when you go to a vocational technical
high school, the way that the curriculum is typically set
up actually prevents you prohibit you from having the prerequisites

(20:50):
that are necessary to go to college. What do I mean,
In order for you to get your trade hours in
you often cannot take the higher level math classes. They're
just not that many hours in a day. You can't
take a foreign language, they're offering not enough hours in
the day. So what happens, though, is even if you

(21:11):
just decided mid high school career that you wanted to
go to college, you could be missing out on core
classes that are necessary for you to go to college.
Say there for a second, so if you take what
I said about being the most suspended, expelled and disciplined
and then you add to that sending us to the

(21:31):
voticational technical high schools, and when we do go as
a choice option as opposed to a college preparatory school,
then we can see how the jig is up, how
you've been put into a shoot to end up not
having options. And to your point, I cut here all
the way through college, all the way through college, all

(21:53):
the way through college. It paid my bills. That was
not just a hustle. Everybody knew. Like we came to
campus to speak when he was filming, do the right thing.
He said, need to shape up.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
And that's the trade. Correct, So you did have a trade.
Oh wow, going to college all.

Speaker 1 (22:09):
Day, all day day, and when and when black dignitaries
would come to campus and they needed somebody tighten them up.
But here's I want you to even state that and
then watch how this works because I had that. Because
I'm coming back to you on something I think it's
so important that people really reflected on about you, because
they just taken they might be taking you for granted
for a second, because I was the brother on campus

(22:30):
who could cut hair. One of people's hair I cut
was a dean at the college who happened to be
a black man. And while I'm cutting his hair, he says,
some what are you gonna do next year? I said,
I'm not really sure, sir. He said, well, have you
even thought about graduate school? I said, I thought about it,
but I don't. I don't have any money, so I
don't know how I'm gonna go to graduate school. My
mother was just moving out the projects, my father was
in prison. I got where am I gonna get money from?

(22:53):
And he said, so you want to go to you
want to go to graduate school. I'm cutting his hair.
He says, I got you up to the University of
Pennsylvania on a full scholarship, and I believe school because
of my trade and my academics. How they came together.
What a lot of people take for granted about your
way also.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Point the relationship because the probability of you talking to
the dane of just walking off the street that can
invest in you mentally push you. Let's let's be clear
about that too, because there's relationships that you get in
these circles of future doctors, attorney's accountants, all of that.
I want to put a note on that too, because

(23:31):
that's also undervalue.

Speaker 1 (23:32):
But what I think is super important about you is
you reflect, quite frankly, the intersection of the best that
we have. Not just because you're in law school now,
you got a bunch of degrees before that, So law
school is dope. That's dope, full stop, and you already
had a bunch of degrees. But more importantly, the reason

(23:53):
why schir A Lamain calls you the hood whisper is
because you are as comfortable on the block as you
are on the corner. You can't organize our people if
you can't be seen by our people as one of them.
And one of the most important parts of what you
bring to this global zeicheist is you are someone who allows,

(24:14):
now I'm gonna stay with black women, black women in particular,
the opportunity to feel like so I can speak my
authentic self braids and and and and and and bombshell
and brains all at the same time, I could be
all that. Yes, yes you can, and every day in
your person. My little girls they see you on Fox

(24:35):
because my little girls will say, you know her, Yeah,
I know her? What she she? They say, she talks
like we talk. She is one of us. And for
many black people, the challenges feeling like if I go
to get an education, I'm gonna be extricated from the

(24:57):
community and I'm no longer going to be one of few.
And you think I do, because how about this. How
many times have you seen a going away party for
a kid's going to college versus going away party for
somebody's going to jail?

Speaker 2 (25:09):
But I know for sure, well they do plenty of
parties when you come home. I do think there's some
truth to that, But I also think and I'm not
disagreeing with that, but I think it is more what
you said in the beginning, not believing that you can
not believe somebody's not telling you. And I tell people
that all the time, and shut again. Maurice, I know

(25:29):
him personally. I remember when he was pushing, working really
hard and studying to get all of his OLCEHAP certifications
because I was in HR at the time and Maurice
did a lot of his ocean certifications. I tell people everyday,
for every one person that tells you you can't do it,
think about ten of me telling you that you can.

(25:50):
I think people believe that it is so unattainable, and
because they've reached a certain age, because a lot of
this has to do with age too. You know, my
time has passed on. I don't have any time left.
What's the point now? And and because of like we
talked about earlier people, there's more people at the family
reunion that doesn't have it that does say you thank

(26:10):
you all that because you got a degree, You think
you smarter than us, you wish you that, or whatever that.
People tend to have a negative approach or like we're
seeing here in the comments. I want to make sure
I read mk We's comment or like we're seeing here
in the comments. Oh everybody's gonna need a plumber, but
everybody don't need a degree. Let me give you some
breaking news. You can be the plumber and have the degree.

(26:31):
Let me say that one more time. You can be
the plumber and have the degree. And I want to
point on this. There's something called physical labor. And y'all
need to really get this cause let me tell you
what the one because because a brother made a comment
about well, you know, you pretend to respect the blue collar. Yeah, okay, whatever.

(26:52):
I was married to a mechanic. That's all I've ever
been with. Everybody know that blue collar that's that's it.
That's all I've ever been with. When I first got
Mary Maya's husband made three or four times me as
I was going to school to get my degree. Jeff
It still does well as the manager of FedEx over

(27:13):
all the FedEx fleet. But do you know what the
twelve and fourteen hours, six seven days a week has
done now at his big age at fifty two, walking
with a limb, having health issues, not being able to see.
So when people say why can just be a plumber,
let's talk about what are you gonna do as you

(27:34):
start getting into your fifties and sixties and seventies. The
ability to be able to do the physical labor with
the arth rightist, with the joint, the bone, the bone
like my uncle love him to death, but he boned
the bond. He was a sanitation worker for twenty five years.
All of those things that physically are going to break

(27:55):
your body down is where the degree can come in.
And this is why I'm gonna say this. This is
when I'm talking about the Black family and the nucleus
of the Black family, I say we need it all
in our families. Somebody need to have the degree. Somebody
need to be a plumber, Somebody need to be a
business owner. Somebody need to be a scholar. We cannot
afford to tell each other or that person in the

(28:18):
family that, no, you don't need to do this. Everybody
can't be plumbers of doctor Perry. Everybody can't be content creators.
Everybody can't be accountants, everybody can't be attorneys. But for
us to sit up here and be negative and say
you don't need something in a space where we don't
have what we have to even compete with our right

(28:38):
counterparts is ridiculous. It's as backwards and it is detrimental
to black society. It just makes no sense at all.

Speaker 1 (28:47):
We have unfortunately run into this business collision where when
you rightly point out the importance, so it's just say
Ebony points out them.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Let us know, because she's a like every love making
sure y'all know she can do nails. You know. She
always say, hey, if the degree don't work out, if
being in the turn don't work out, I will do
a manicure and pedicure on you.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
So we talking about the box we got we got,
We go over up a spar I cut the hair
she can do and off with.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
The curls on. I do not Wade. Oh, your mamma
was a licensed cosmetologist. Wants to my mother do these things?
And this is where we go back to what you
see you believe my mother worked at the television station
as a secretary. She came home. She had creative typing service,
her own business where she did the programs the of
visuaries for the church. She also was a licensed cosmetologist.

(29:39):
Watching her do Wade Newbaus and and Jerry Curls. She
was a licensed realtor. Shout out to the sister that's
a realtor that said, you don't need a degree. My
mother disagreed. She set soul real estate for real for
a bye real estate. She's so herbal life as she
was a fox, a stone cold fox, an Ebony magazine
bachelor wreck. When I say my mama checked the boxes, mail,

(30:00):
Oh no, she checked the boxes. A member of Alpha
Kappa Alpha. Shout out to m W. B. K Willis,
She checked the boxes, baby, So I'll watched my mother
check the boxes, so all I knew was to check
the boxes. Check the boxes, check the boxes. Nobody's saying
don't be an entrepreneur. Nobody's saying, don't get a skill
nobody's saying don't get a trade. Well, we're saying right now,
twenty twenty five, you better have it all because this

(30:23):
administration got something for your ass. If you think that
that you're gonna sit back and be able to figure
it out without having the box checking all the boxes,
then you're in trouble.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Let's break down what people For a lot of people
if not had the chance to go to college or
not taking the chance, I don't know what your circumstances are.
What going to college essentially is is learning how to
learn something in a period that you have been prescribed
and proving that you know how to do it. That
is a skill that you will take you through in

(30:56):
anything you want to do, whether you are majoring in
theater or biology. Taking learning to do something that someone
who who is ostensibly your boss tells you they want
you to know how to do and showing them that
you really know how to do it is how you
will advance throughout the rest of your life. Now, your

(31:17):
boss may be an individual, or it may be a
client or a cash of clients, whatever it is, learning
how to write and communicate effectively is something you will
need to do even now when you text and send
emails when someone receives something from you that is important.
Having basic number since understanding how numbers move around is

(31:41):
not going to hurt you. It's not bad for you, period.
So doing those things, having those skills, and having another
skill only make you more skilled, not less. But again,
so many of us are led to believe that by
being an educated person that you are in fact not

(32:05):
as black as everybody else. It is still, sadly an
insult that we use when we call young people who
speak a particular way white, as if that's a thing,
or putting people in a position where at the cookout
it's more appropriate to talk about what we have in common.

(32:30):
You know your story about birthdays, I want you to
share that, but talk about what we have in common
as opposed to putting it out there and be aspirational.
What if during I'm just pointing here because we had
a cook out here this weekend. What if during the
cookout somebody went out on a limit, say you know,
I want I'm thinking about going back to school, and
then we all huddled around. I'm like, yeah, what's up,

(32:50):
let's go, let's do that. You got that, let me
show you, let me call this person, let me call
that person, as opposed to who's on what team? In spades?
And what if? What if during that time that we
were building up, Because don't think for a second, the
people from the communities that are telling you that they
want more trades are saying that because they want you
to own a business. They just need more people to

(33:11):
work for them and to break their bodies, literally break
their bodies. I watched as this was being built. I
watched them climb up underneath it, and I was like, dang,
I'm not doing that. And I remember when I was younger,
living in public housing. It wasn't that I was the
smallest cat on my block. It was just that when

(33:33):
I saw these other dudes were doing to make money.
First of all, I was one hundred and forty five
pounds of light skin. Prison was not for me, so
slinging anything was out of the question. I was like,
that's easy. They'll take that off that on the career study.
You don't have to worry about me picking that. And
then when I saw dudes in the summer cooking on
the roof, tacking ash fall off, or I saw them

(33:57):
outside in the winter shoveling or or I just thought,
I want to be inside, man like I don't. I
don't know what inside looks like, but I want to
be inside. Inside definitely seem like it's a better place. Sadly, though,
if you go to most historically black college campuses, what
you will find a very few black men, very few

(34:17):
and and.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
And there's no disrespect to the LGBT community, but a
lot of the black men that are there are from
the LGBT community.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
That's just a fact in fact, and in many cases
is And I'm saying that if you think of it
just as it is.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
And I don't know nobody saying I'm being homophobic. I
want to point out why we're pointing that out. When
we talk about building the black family, you know that
that they say they all about building. And we talk
about my daughter compared to white women that go to
college and meet their husbands. You know, both both my

(34:55):
best friends met their husbands in college. I did not.
That's it. I'm married the the mechanic. But when we
talk about the white woman that actually goes to college
with ring before springing in mind, and for those of
you who don't know what that means, it is very
intentional when white women are sent to college with the

(35:16):
intention of networking, being around, congregating and marrying a peer
that is on the same life trajectory as hers. So
when you send a black girl to college and it
is eighty eight women for every one man, who is

(35:38):
Jada going to meet? And that's obviously not while I'm
senter to college. But I want you to know when
we talk about, what are the chances of those women
actually meeting men in college that they fall in love with,
that they graduate together. Because you know, they all about
let's build bill bill, so build that's the building phase,
getting out of college, building together, getting our house together,

(35:59):
getting our biggs, getting our children together. At that age,
what is the likelihood that black heterical sexual women and
men can do that if the majority, if there's eighty
eight women for every one man, and then that one
man is more than likely not henial sexual. So these
are the things you know that that we're that we're
talking about. One brother said, well, that's exactly why to

(36:21):
go to HBCU. I guess he suggested he date the
white women. I guess, And what okay with the fine?
But for those that want to say black men and
black women this is simply a numbers game. This is
simply just a numbers game. And again, I keep going
back to a seat, what is wrong with having both
where let's say that, here's the both. Let's say that,

(36:41):
why not the boat.

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah, let's say that for a second. I want to
continue down that conversation. There are certain personality types of
boys that again we're talking pure stereotypes, so he relaxed.
But when we look at what we would consider the

(37:02):
traditional athletic boy, the kind of boy who needs a
coach to get up in his chest in the most
aggressive way for him to understand. Okay, okay, I understand
what you're saying. I get what I get where you're
coming from. Who doesn't respond to the passive aggressive teacher,
who likely is female, who is put off by his
willingness to tackle somebody in class because that's just the

(37:26):
way he communicates. He's not being rough, he's just being himself.
That personality, which is typically assigned to heterosexual boys, typically
assigned heterosexual boys in masculinity, is the most reviled personality

(37:46):
in education. And I want to say that again. I
want people to understand. How many times have the mothers
of boys found yourself down at the school trying to
explain why he didn't mean it when hemp on his
friend's back. He would do that at home if he
was if his brother accusses with home, they would jump

(38:06):
on my I used to call it bumbling, be upstairs,
bumbling and and just literally up there fighting because that
was a way they communicate it. Those boys who communicate
that way are going to be ostracized. If they play
sports well, they will be in the bubble for as
long as they play sports well, and they are their

(38:28):
bodies can be used for the commodity of the school's
success and visibility. So as long as they do right,
long as they keep producing, catching, throwing balls, they'll be fine.
But there's a large passion of boys who have that
same exact personality type who do not play sports. Maybe
some of them rhyme, maybe, but most of them don't

(38:51):
rhyme terribly well, trust me on this one. And just
because cuss words they didn't talk about drug that, it
didn't make it any better. It's bad performance in my opinion.
So that group doesn't often have a home, and the
only other people who are going to talk to them
that way are on the streets, and so this group

(39:12):
of boys who are rough and rugged, they'll find their
home among teams, and the teams will carry them all
the way through. And if you go to a college,
whether it be a white college or a black college,
you will see that those boys who are like that
are literally cordoned off. It's very hard to bump into
a basketball player on campus because their coaches virtually own them.

(39:33):
They keep them day and night, they have them every
so they keep them cordoned off. So that's the only
time that person generally speaking. I was just in Georgia
earlier this week and we were meeting about schools in
Georgia and maybe opening some schools there, And just to
your point, TuS, there were some folks there and they said,

(39:54):
we appreciate the fact that you remind us of a
particular personality type that we don't typically see education. That's true.
If I had come up through education and traditional ROW,
I would not have worked in education because I would
not have gotten hired by the largely likely white group
of women who would have been interviewing me. They would
not have seen me as somebody who would fit into

(40:16):
their group because I didn't. They didn't I had to
start my own schools in order for that to happen.
So there's a personality type that we would consider traditionally
when I'm referring to as masculine, and that group is
made to feel like they don't belong in school. So
it's no surprise after they've been suspended, disciplined, or expelled

(40:38):
that they get out of school as quickly as they can,
and if they're not good in sports, that they have
no place in school. That's why when you go to
Jada's school you see eighty eight to one women to men,
because they've been weeded out all the way through. I've
seen it.

Speaker 2 (41:05):
Let me reset this for somebody in the comments that's saying,
you know, because we love to say and I'm and
I don't mean to be disrespectful, brother or sister. Whoever
said this, you know, this is a media narrative. That's
a that's a very lazy argument. I just want to
be clear. I want to reset it. If you're not
familiar with who doctor Perry is. He actually is a
founder and principal of how many schools?

Speaker 1 (41:25):
Uh, we've started two, four, five, six, seven, eight and
counting school? Okay, of our graduates on the four year
colleges for twenty consecutive years. Correct, I'm not worried about
somebody checking out and they're not fearing.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
I want to be clear and reset it because a
lot of times when people come late to class, they're.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Not familiar class.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
So I'm just elect the class and all my lives.
Let me say, see me after class. We're talking about
black men that uplift themselves. We are not talking about it.
Black people don't we do that. We do this work.
We get this is what this whole conversation is about.
We are talking about the discrepancy between black men in
college versus black women, and what are the things that

(42:14):
drive that. No nobody's name called them. Tighten it up,
tighten it up. This is called an intellectual conversation, and
I'm getting if you're familiar with my work, then you
should be familiar with how I get out. I am
resetting the conversation so that you know what we're talking about,
because we're not talking about Atlanta. We're not talking about
if men don't uplift themselves, not just in Atlanta, anywhere
in the country. We are having a very specific conversation

(42:37):
about why people feel they have to choose between the
degree and the trade versus not having the degree and
the trade. And what are the things that block people
on why in this one particular example, why a prairie
view is eighty eight to one men women ratio. So
that's what we're talking about. We're not talking about the

(42:59):
people uplift people.

Speaker 1 (43:00):
Yeah, and let me give you a.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Nobody called you a name when I said it's being
intellectually lazy. I mean, we just ought to make it
go to say, oh, that's just the media. Oh that's this,
I see this. We're not talking about what you see.
We are talking about the masses of numbers, you know, overall,
and we're unpacking those issues. Last year, we're talking about
the thin piece of Coca colas or whatever. We're talking

(43:24):
about right here. Let's keep up with what's going on
right here. We're not talking about think pieces. We're talking
about right here.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Last year, at one of our schools, one which is
one hundred percent black in Latin, one hundred percent of
the sixth graders that we enrolled, meaning the school started sixtuarde,
one hundred percent of sixuaders we enrolled were below grade
level in math. Think about that for a second, just pause.

(43:49):
Do you know how hard it is to make sure
that nobody can do math at twelve year olds level?
Do you know how committed a system has to be
to tearing down little boys and girls so that none
of them. It's easier to get one hundred pent to
be able to do it than it is to make
sure no one knows. That's pretty spectacular. So at this

(44:11):
school that we haven't, this one is a harlem. One
hundred percent came in that far behind at the age
of twelve. There's a learning of calcitrants, which means it's
harder to teach people a little longer they don't know,
not just because it's harder for them to get the skills,
but it's harder to convince them that they can learn.
Because when we talk to the mom about you know,

(44:34):
your son's math scores are pretty bad, should be her
answer is typically, I'm bad at math.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
And buying's going out.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Sorry, sorry by something happened when I was doing hand justice.
It told me don't do hand justice. This ai is
too much. When they'll say I'm bad at math, he's
bad at math, my mother's bad a man, we're all
bad at math and they don't understand that it's not
that they're bad at it, it's that the person responsible
for teaching them was not good at it. One of

(45:10):
the most important things that we can do, is educators,
is build the confidence of our children. Because when we
build some call them scholars, because that's what we call them,
build a constance scholars because confidence precedes competence. When you
think you can do something, you're much more likely to
give it a shot and work your way through it
and potentially do it. So school is one of those

(45:31):
things that many of us are led to believe that
we actually don't do well, and we do it as
well as anyone. If you want to know, the school
that sends the most black men to Harvard is Morehouse.
So here you have what's supposed to be the top

(45:52):
academic institution in the country, and argue the world, where
do they go to get black men Moorehouse, You're still
looking at black doctors. They still come from HBCUs at
a higher rate, Black attorneys at a higher rate. And
it's not because and this is where people go wrong.
It's not because there are so many more in those schools.

(46:14):
Their schools want to come up that are online like Liberty.
It's not all online, but it has a large online presence.
And University of Arizona, University of Phoenix, I mean Universit Phoenix.
I'm sorry. A lot of those schools have a lot
of black people in them, but they still don't produce
more black UH doctors, lawyers, and attorneys than the HBCU system.

(46:36):
Because the HPU system in general, even with its gremlins,
as you'll see, even with its grimlins in operation, builds
the confidence of its students.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Can we stop right there for a moment, so you
know whether or not applied for law school because I
would have loved speaking to especially to the person in Atlanta.
So those don't know, I located to Atlanta the beginning
of the year. My goal because I love Atlanta, I
love the Black Mecca. My goal was to stay in

(47:09):
Atlanta because that's just where I wanted to be. That's
where I saw myself being able to, you know, really
do a lot. With my brother Killer Mike, I was
motivated by I talked about this all the time with Ebony,
Like we compared New York UH and Atlanta, there was
no place that I felt more in home. However, at Lanta,

(47:33):
even with the HBCUs Morehouse, Clark Spelman, Morris Brown, there
is not one law school, not one law school. Now,
a lot of people get that confused because they think
I'm talking about pre law or majoring in law or paralegal. No,
there was not one law school. And I truly and
everything knows this to be true. And I told you,

(47:54):
I believe. I told you. I really tried to say,
let me go to John Marshall Law School, which is
the white law school in Atlanta. I said, let me
go tour because maybe I can just stomach it instead
of going to an HBCU. Maybe I could just stomach
it because I want to be in Atlanta so bad.
I know, I want to be in the Black Mecca.

(48:15):
I went to John Marshall Law School in Atlanta and
the lady that was giving me the tour was talking
about a case that attorney.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Crump worked on.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
So here I'm saying, yeah, that's my client. We actually
worked on that case. For those of you don't remember,
I forgot the guy's name, but remember the bed bug,
the guy that was the bad buddy. Yes, she was
talking about how they were studying that case, and I said,
my client attorney Crump, who I'm the senior public policy
advisor for my biggest cheerleader when it comes to go

(48:49):
law school. That's her actual case. And she said, who's
attorney Crump? At that moment, I left him immediately. There
was no way I could go to a law school
that is working on a case about what we call
whether y'all like Crump or not black American's attorneys in general,

(49:10):
and you don't even know his name.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
There is no place that I.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Could see myself being successful matriculating through. And let me
explain what that means. But those of y'all that don't understand,
only five percent of attorneys in America are black. Let
me let me say it again.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Only to do even say it again because I don't
think people really understand what that means. That means you
just just just paused it, because I don't think that
it's what you are talking about a pink elephant when
you're talking about a black attorney. A lot of people
think that they know a lot of black attorneys because
they see Crump, but you don't. You really don't.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
And probable why I forgot who said this is what
somebody committing to somebody. They said, why do black people
do so well in the NBA and in the NFL.
The person said, because that's the only thing in America
that everybody knows the rules. That's the only place where

(50:09):
we know the rules and the people watching no rules,
and we can put a flag on the plate. What
we know about law school, when we know about the law,
it is learning the rules, learning the rules of law,
learning not only the rules, but my biggest motivation and
making sure I go to HBCU, even though a lot
of white folks go, and if white folks are involved,

(50:31):
we get all of that. But my biggest motivation going
with HBCU is because I need a professor that is
invested in me enough to not only tell me the rules,
but the loopholes to get around the rules. I wish
I had this somebody in the chat that could understand
what I'm talking about, not only know the rules, but
how do I get around the rules? Something called the defense,

(50:56):
something called when the state is coming at you. Because
I want to be clear for those of y'all that
don't have twenty million dollars, a fight of recocase, when
the state is coming at you, it serves you well,
when a black attorney is at the table that knows
how to get around the rules, I wish I just
knew somebody when we're taking these law classes and assault

(51:17):
means one thing on the civil matter on a tour,
and assault means a different thing on the criminals. And
then this Supreme Court in Washington said one thing, and
then the support of Supreme Court said another thing, and
then the doorga Supreme Court said another thing. See, when
you know the rules as an attorney, you're able to
sympathize those things and say, I'm sorry, judge, what you

(51:37):
said is wrong because the state of California said this,
so we should be going by this. See that's the
power of knowing the rules. That is why when black
folks started going to law school, they said, wait a minute,
hold up, let's get the l said wait a minute,
hold up, let's make sure we have a process to
get in law school. For those of y'all that say

(51:58):
anybody can go to law school, let me be clear,
this is one of the most competitive years to get
in law school. It's not like a bachelor's program. Guys.
It's not like you just signed up and you just go. No,
you actually got to be accepted. You actually have to
have the l SAT score, You actually have to have
the letters of recommendation. Over two thousand plus people apply
their FAMU for only one hundred and fifty seats. That's
why I keep saying I'm proud to get admitted to

(52:20):
two law schools. And then if you go to law school,
it's something called getting passed first year, and then it's
something called passing the bar. Every obstacle that is put
in front of you to make sure that we don't
know the rules is why only five percent of attorneys
in America are bland mission. And you can truly do
that through going through college to get your bachelors and

(52:43):
your masters.

Speaker 1 (52:44):
It was seen that somebody, no, no, no, It was
seen that I, as somebody who runs schools its therefore
it runs the system, would have a different perspective on
what I'm saying, what I'm about to say. But the
reason why we run our own schools is because I
understand what's happening to our children in the schools. Do

(53:06):
you know that it is common that when children graduate
high school, they want to be doctors and lawyers. They
generally want to be doctors and lawyers. If you were
to go to any black high school in the United
States of America and you were to ask most graduating seniors,

(53:27):
they would sell you they want to be doctors, lawyers,
or entrepreneurs. That's what they say. Those are typically.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Can I just say this if you as an immigrant,
if you as an immigrant, especially a from Indian descent,
that's your only option doctor, lawyer, or engineer, period.

Speaker 1 (53:47):
So stay there. So then so then what happens is
to your point about knowing the rules, they were not
prepared for college. So they got in, but they may
not have been prepared. So they take those weed out classes,
those biology one oh one classes, they take the whatever

(54:08):
the pre law equivalent of that is, or they take
some other accounting class. The classes are designed at the
colleges to weed out to identify those individuals who came
from a particular school setting where they learned this particular
skills set. Not intelligence. Intelligence is not a static experience.

(54:30):
There are many forms of intelligence, and intelligence is it
isn't measurable by a single examination. However, talk about knowing
the rules. If you did not go to a school
where you were taught either the content that they were
going to teach you in those weed out classes. Then
your dreams of becoming a doctor, a lawyer, or business person,

(54:56):
they're dashed within the first twelve weeks of college. That's
it's it's design to do that day.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah, it's designed way.

Speaker 1 (55:06):
Conversely, though, especially in mostly you talk.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
About our test taking skills, but I know you can
talk about that is what you know and how a
formal tests taking go ahead?

Speaker 1 (55:14):
Should should we performed the way we're designed to. The
test wasn't designed by us. It wasn't taught to us
by the people who designed it, and as a result,
they were taught the rules and we were not it.
It's just the facts of the matter. Those are not
what they refer to as the hard skills. So that's
the first part. The second part of what we were

(55:35):
not taught in terms of the rules. Stanford did a
study on whether or not black children form study groups,
again a skill that you're not taught by and in
most in most high schools, you're not taught to dudes
who work in groups. But anyone who's been in college,
it's like group after goddamn group after goddamn groups, like

(55:56):
group every time you try to like hein't doing no
group like I want my own a thank you very much,
by the way, but for the group, right. But if
you don't do that in high school, you don't know
how to fit in. But here's the part where the
Stanford study really showed the distinction again, talking about learning
the rules. This is why we as a community, we

(56:16):
don't do as well in the traditional academic setting, especially
at the college level, especially at the professional schools, because
we don't learn these skills. But the most important of
the skills that we don't learn is how to ask
for help, how to form a study group, how to
see somebody in your class who is different than you

(56:38):
are and who doesn't come from where you come from,
and you ask like I did Elizabeth Murphy who had
read here now like we do now.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
But even at this big a Hey, doctor Perry, help
me understand. That's why we're in this liab right now. Hey,
doctor Perry, help me understand what am I missing? See?
The thing about education is always having the thirst to
learn more. That's the whole thing having a which is
why I got my mask, was an adult education because
I actually do like working with Lazaris. I actually do
like telling lasbis hey you know what. I know. They

(57:06):
told you your whole life you can't learn. But I'm
here to tell you different. I know in life, Nope,
you didn't want to ask any questions, which is why
I love virtual training, because people are able to hide
through the mask and be able to ask the questions
that they're embarrassed to ask. But he says that, so
go ahead.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
I just remember but that you and I said, so
you took me to the next point. Most of us
are told, especially boys, if you raise your hand asked
the question, then you stupid, right, So I'll tell you
a really question story. I was when I was in
my first graduate school. There's this woman and there it's Rachel, White, Jewish,

(57:42):
very smart woman, a super smart woman. And I'd done
well in undergrad after I figured out the rules. Actually, literally,
a white professor pulled me aside. This is a true story.
Doctor Steven would pull me aside and sat me down
and said, hey, I'm gonna basically put you on. He
showed me how to do well in college, he didn't
literally show me how to do it. So fast forward,

(58:02):
I'm in graduate school and every time we're in class,
I'm watching Rachel raise her hand or raise her hand,
or raise her hand. And one time, and I wouldn't
raise my hand in graduate school because we know where
the Ivy League school. And I'm thinking, I already am
the only black white man in this entire school, in
my whole class class. So last thing I'm gonna do
is raise my hand. Because I learned from third grade,

(58:22):
shut up, stupid, Why you ask so many questions? You stupid?

Speaker 2 (58:25):
You stupid?

Speaker 1 (58:25):
Why you ask so many questions? So I've been taught,
don't ask questions. Just if you don't know, then you stupid,
not understanding you're in school because you don't know. And
that's what they're there to tell you, is they did
here to show you how to do it. So fast forward.
I remember pulling Rachel Aside out of the class one
time and saying that it's a white always asking questions.
Because I know you're super smart. I know you know

(58:47):
these things. She said, You ask questions because that's how
you learn. She said, I'm trying to learn, so I'm
asking them questions. I never had permission to ask questions,
not just me, but the land of me. Black Yeah,
and even our culture.

Speaker 2 (59:01):
Even our culture. Look at how we're raised, our parents
did not our grandparents and parents. It wasn't all this
asked a question, your curious to know why it was,
I told you to do it, and that's that. It
was never about the why, never about the explaining, never
about when I took Jada the orientation today, I didn't
just say, hey, put on a different outfit. I explained why.

(59:25):
I explain why this makes sense, why you need to
know these things, why it is important. So to people's
point when they said, you know you can learn these
things in high school, no, because what she is now
at eighteen, as a young woman, she will be moving
differently than what she did when she was a teenager.
So to my friend's point, my recently said, well, we

(59:45):
got to learn how to work around whitefol We got
to learn. Yeah, her as an adult having to get
up in the morning. I told her she was hanging
out last night. I said, Jada, make sure you're home
early so that you can be prepared for your business.
She said, oh, I know how to get up early.
I said, it's not about knowing to get up early.
It's about I'm trying to teach you how to have
the discipline to say I have business to handle in

(01:00:07):
the morning and I'm gonna put my business before the bullshit. See,
these are things that you have to learn as an
adult when you have freedom to move around. Those are
the things that you learn in college. It is not
just about if you can get out and make more
money as a plumber by all means be a plumber.
You can be a plumber and have a degree. I'm
going to give with the good news you really can

(01:00:28):
have both. It is about learning the other skill sets
that you need in a systematic racist system that is
that is designed to pull you back. So do you
want to bet on school or do you want to
bet on school the prison pipeline. Do you want to
bet on the fact that it is not a lot

(01:00:50):
of black men in college, or do you want to
bet on the fact that it's more black men disproportionately
in prison than those who are enslaved in eighteen fifty.
It's really up to you on what you want to
bet on. Do you want to bet on getting a
student loan or bet on doing time? I think for me,
I want to bet on the loan before I bet
on doing time, because the reality of the world that
I grew up in that if you are not having

(01:01:12):
something else on the list to do to keep your
mind busy, then that means I'm gonna be in the streets. Now.
For those of the auto baby didn't have a streets
as an option. For me. It was that or the streets.
It was the air Force. I continue to be the
dope boy's girlfriend and get shot in the head, or
have the dope on me, or be in the wrong
place or the wrong time. It was either go to
the military or do that. It was either go get married,

(01:01:34):
go get a degree, or do that. So I am
talking about real choices here, guys, on this option versus
that option. That's it just that simple and just that
damn place. And we again, we think it's over at

(01:01:56):
twenty five. Hey, guys, you can go back and get
whatever you want right now. White people are taken advantage
of it right now. Sixty year old white man in
the black ahpC you've claimed, he said, you don't don't
worry about y'allimost the dollars. I'll come get that seat
be to a six year old black man.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
There's a one. There's a statistic I heard, and I
cannot verify it, So I'm just going to repeat it.
As something. I heard that there are more white people
at Howard than there are black men at Howard. Now,
some people will say that's impossible. I don't think it's impossible.

(01:02:32):
I don't think it's I can't verify it. I'm not
saying that it's a verifiable fact. But if you just
took a prayer View and took eighty eight to one,
if you had two white men at prayer View, you'd
have more than the one black man you have in
that freshman class. So it doesn't take. But that's about
huge numbers in order to get there. And the fact

(01:02:53):
that it's even a believable statistic is because we have
watched the destruction of our children by something that was
called a school system for generations, and now black people
had bought it. Black people have bought it, And it'd
be one thing to us if they were saying, I

(01:03:13):
love plumbing. When I was a little boy, I played
with wrenches. I always wanted to be a plumber. I
always wanted to be a plumber. Then yes, you should
be a plumber and you should get a degree because
both can be good for you. It's another thing. If
it was I decided I needed to do something because

(01:03:35):
it was the only thing that I could do. And
too often what's happening is most specifically for men, and
let's keep it a bug. Not everybody who didn't get
a degree did go and get a trade. We're talking
about a lot of cats who are working in jobs
for which you will soon be replaced by something that

(01:03:56):
is a machine. You will be in this lifetime not
long when I as when I started going out and speaking.
It seems like a hundred years ago, but I guess
it was about twenty years ago when I was get
When I would get on the road from the curb
of the airport to the flight, it was people, somebody

(01:04:19):
checking my bags, right, somebody checking me in printing upper ticket.
You know, to everyone. So much of what's happening now
is done by some form of technology. And I don't
know about you. Last time I went to a Walmart
or a home depot, the number of people in those

(01:04:41):
massive stores very very few, very very few people. I
mean they are very few per square foot. So when
we're talking about the importance of making your checking the boxes,
as you say, what we're doing is we're trying to
get you to understand that you owe it to yourself
to put more money in the bank, investing yourself. See

(01:05:03):
yourself as the commodity, investing yourself as the business, as
the entity. So that just in the same way, if
you were starting a liquor store, you may have to
go in there and put a little money down to
rent the building, to go in there and do renovations.
The same is true for you. You got to go and
and put some money down on yourself and put the
renovations together so that when when the consumer comes in,
that you create a space that they want to be in.

(01:05:25):
You tas know this better than most people are. You know,
I do deeply appreciate your humility because I don't think
that people truly understand the grind that you are. And
I say it that way in order for you to
sustain yourself through what has been essentially you as an
entrepreneur for what twenty thirty years, now you have to

(01:05:50):
I'd say twenty thirty that would make me.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
That would make me a damn this.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Self good No, no, no, but.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
Working since fifth grade though, by the way, we're gonna count.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
But saying if you if you do twenty you know
you do such as you've been doing whatever you've been
doing as a as an entrepreneur, by and large is
my point, By and large, working other jobs while being
an entrepreneur, That's what I'm saying. That's exactly what I'm saying.
That's exactly what I'm saying. All of those things, where

(01:06:21):
all of those things you were able to do in
such a way, and and and you were able to
do them because you create it for yourself a marketability,
a transferability of skills that has made it possible for
you to sustain yourself when other people could not. If
all you had was the skills that you learned during

(01:06:41):
the five days of training at Amazon, then what happens
when Amazon fires ass If all you have are is
the one week onboarding that you got at the post office?
Post Office gets rid of you. What do you offer
to the next job? What is it that you offer?
What can you say? And one of the things that

(01:07:03):
that I find especially interesting is when people say, well,
you can go to be a pop or a firefighter,
or you can be a civil servant. All those civil
servant jobs have as a carrot going to school, because
even they want you to go to school.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
Yeah, station from ups to Amazon to Walmart, they want
and by the way, guys, I am saving in this life.
They want you to go. One of the things that
I found attractive because I was gonna do it at
one point just to get the education paid for, was
working at ups. You know, I don't know if they
still have this, but a couple of years ago, if
you go do the morning shift, the four am to

(01:07:39):
whatever time, you got one hundred percent tuition reimbursement. That
to me was worse going in and physically doing a
job just to pay the tuition, which means they are
saying have a trade in addition to get the education.
I just want us to stop the and or and

(01:08:00):
the shitting on one versus the other, because that is classicism.
If we just want to just lay it on the
table dog and really talk about it. We understand you,
and I said this offline. We understand that somebody in
your family said you ain't shit because you didn't go
be whatever. We understand the talented tenth mindset of they

(01:08:20):
went and got a degree, so they came back and
they looking at you like you ain't shit. We understand
that you would much rather this goes back to the
birthday thing. One reason why you guys, you see where
I don't put my birthday up, just have one. By
the way, what I found is is that I won't
have people who have never said one thing to me
and y'all, And I want to ask y'all in the comments,
and we want y'all think about this. That one cousin

(01:08:43):
that ain't never said nothing of you all year loan
will send you a happy birthday text, Hey, happy birthday.
But if you say, hey, I just got admitted in
the law school, or hey, I've just won twenty twenty
three Entrepreneur of the Year from the United States Department
of Common Hey I just won UCLA Long Champion of

(01:09:03):
the Year. Hey I just got being crumple. While I'm
naming my wards in case I don't know, I'm naming them,
not one text saying congratulations on that. But there's something
about the birthday that makes people comfortable because it evens
the playing field. Y'all just think for me for a second.
There's something about saying if I say happy birthday to you,

(01:09:25):
I got a birthday, you got a birthday. There's nothing
that puts the distinction that makes me feel less that
because that's really what it is. When it comes down
to you, there's nothing that makes me feel like I
have not achieved because somehow by celebrating you, tesling means
that I am doing less than opposed to my mindset.
That said, there's something about Ethny Kate Williams and having

(01:09:47):
that Esquire my sister in the comments that I like.
There's something about I could easily be People tell me,
why are you going to law school? You already with
the ban Crump Law firm.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
But it's something about having the paperwork that I want
for myself. There's something about aspiring to that. There's something
about saying, Ben, can you help me? Can you give
me some advice? Yes, I will write your letter of recommendation.
There's something about me expiring to be that rather than
shitting on that and saying I don't need that. I
can make just as much money. I make a lot

(01:10:18):
more money than a lot of attorneys that I know.
This is not about making money. It's about having the
paperwork to be able to say I don't need being
the right emotion for me. I can write it for myself.
And because we have been, like we said, tricked in
the system to believe that in being inspired wanting more.
If we tell each other, hey, you know what, I'll
even using a relationship thing. A brother come up and say,

(01:10:39):
I don't want to blow your head up, but you
know you look good. Mama, Well why not blow my
head up? I'm blowing your man up? Why not? What
is it that we don't want to command each other,
But yet we'll get in the comments and say I
don't like a hair and I don't like a lashes,
and I don't like a listener. We have been programmed
to not praise the positive, to not encourage the positive,
to not you know, to do that, and that has

(01:11:01):
a lot to do to do with our educational choices
as well. So you'll get happy birthdays all year long.
I say keep that if you not gonna congratulate me
for getting in the two law schools. Don't worry about
the birthday because the birthday I had no control over.
My parents have me systematic on purpose that I was planning.
They have me on purpose. I don't know when I'm
gonna die, so I have no control over when I

(01:11:22):
was born and when I die. If you can't celebrate
the dash, the thing in the middle, the thing that
I had to work my ass off, the thing that
I had to do it with my baby on my hip,
the thing that I had to prey on my knees
and not have to lay on my back to get
the things I accomplished, the things that kept me pushing,
the things that kept me grounded. If you can't celebrate that,

(01:11:42):
don't worry about the birthday. I don't want the birthday.
Keep it to yourself.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
As only successful peoples can support the success of others.
And success does not mean economic a person who feels
like they are there in their own space having the
time of their life.

Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Because I got a lot of homies who are who
don't feel success. And this is very rare because you
are right in overall successful people successful people. But I
do want to show some love to my homeboys who
the founder of prince yall Mafi in his sixties, that bill.
He says all the time, I'm not a smart person,

(01:12:27):
but I'm proud of you, homegirl. There are some that
say if I can't do it, I want you to
do it. And even and even there's some even if
you have a selfish motive to say, well, at least
we got one homegirl we can call at least we
know we can. And that goes back to what I'm
saying about. We need to have it all in the nucleus,

(01:12:49):
somebody in the family. We need to be able to
call to say if I can't do it, then maybe
tesling can do it if I can't. So even my homeboys,
they benefit from my brain. So even if let's say
they're jealous and they really don't give a shit about
what I'm accomplishing, what they.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
Damn shown't give a shit about.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Is they know they can call it nobody raise somebody
they trust to stay Teslim. I don't understand this and
this and this and that. And because I understand that
I am here to serve the least of these, that
this is the problem with our educated brothers, because I
understand that a part of why God has blessed me
to matriculate, a part of the reason why He's given

(01:13:26):
me the opportunity is to come back and tell it
to Lazarus. That's my responsibility to say, no, brother, they
playing you this contract, actually say this, this this. So
if the educator is working with the down troy, if
those who have had an opportunity, it's still respecting and
loving on the least of these, then maybe we can

(01:13:46):
get somewhere. So to the brother that said tells them,
I wish you had a training on this, Well, guess
what I do is on teslimfiguro dot com. That's all
I try to do is to train adults. I go
to the prisons to train to let you know that baby.
Even on that prison job, you can take those same
skill sets and walk into somebody's job and tell how
yours Washing distance And here's a skill set from the

(01:14:09):
Washing dissident. All I'm telling people to do, doctor carry
is get what you can while you can't. If you
got a baby and you can't figure it out, go online.
I don't want to go online either. They try to
shoot on me when you went online. Get what you can't.
If you can't go online, get that certification. If you
can't get that certification, get that trade. But what we
cannot do it tell others not to go get the rest.

(01:14:31):
That's what we cannot do.

Speaker 1 (01:14:33):
We have you know, I nowhere near on the top
of the hour. I'll say this, one of the most
important conversations that we can have as a community is
to encourage each other to get all of the boxes.
Chance all of them. And there is no dishonor in

(01:14:55):
going to college. There is none, and it's our responsibility
to demystify the process of getting in. We send one
hundred percent of our graduates on there for your college
every year because we know how to get kids into college.
It really ain't as hard as it seems. It just
that we make the decision to do so. And the

(01:15:16):
reason why I make that point is I cannot tell
you t us how many times shoot me, somebody has
called me, who's asked me, Hey, I'm trying to get
my child into this or that, and can you talk
me through it? And a lot of times it's people
you might not anticipate. You might think that they know
the answer because they have certain economics wherewithal. But here's

(01:15:38):
the thing. The smartest people are the ones who ask
the best questions. And we have to encourage our people
to be curious and to push the line, as you say,
and to put them in a place where they are
pushing the line and asking the questions so that they
can have a better understanding of a system that was

(01:15:58):
intentionally hooted. They don't know what is being said about
them this system. As we talk about it, which is
a series of actions and individuals that make sure that
we don't have what it is that we need.

Speaker 2 (01:16:13):
Mm hmm. And I just want to note this for
the record, my good sister and Yka, we just want
to know for the record, the last risk you will
have to pay the retainers.

Speaker 1 (01:16:23):
We just want to make it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:24):
Although I will be spreading the good news last risks.

Speaker 1 (01:16:34):
For life. Last risk doesn't get pro bon.

Speaker 2 (01:16:36):
But I did my pro bone all time. I did
my time. So hey, y'all gonna come in that training
I'm doing now here.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Today's rate.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
I want to say this too, Yeah, because I got
to pay them loans because you know, they say they
don't want us to have loans, so let's get the retainers.
And I want to say this because uh he came
w F K. Williams. I love the way she formulates
this argument. And this is not to gender or anything.
I just want to put it out there since we're
having this conversation, because I'm gonna leave this live up

(01:17:06):
we here oftentimes, and this is really important. I'm talking
to the ladies. You know, people who are anti education.
They'll say, uh, well, you know black women got these
degrees and I make more money than a black woman.
Let's let's unpack this right now, because this is important
and I love the way ek she gave me this gym.
I said, well, I'm using it. I want to give

(01:17:26):
a credit for it. So let's be clear, guys, when
you can when you compare yourself. If I am an apple,
let's make it really plain. If I am an apple,
you are supposed to compare yourself to other apples. Nobody
goes into the produce section and grabs an apple and says,
I wonder if this apple compares to a pineapple. When

(01:17:51):
you are comparing yourself black man, you are supposed to
compare yourself to not only your peers, meaning other apples,
but also the closest thing to your fear. So let's
just break this down. If we were say that black
men were apples, you compare yourself to the other apples,
who were the best apples? Would apples have the best

(01:18:12):
you know? And I'll go to that a minute. And
then you're going to compare yourself to the closest thing,
probably let's say a pair or will be a close thing.
I'm not a produce major, but the closest thing to
an apple, certainly not an orange that will be the
white man. What you don't do is compare an apple
to let us. Now I'm saying that to say that

(01:18:34):
when you think you're eating as the kids say, when
you say I make more money than Black women who
have degrees, let's explain this. Black women that have degrees,
we compare ourselves to black women that do not have degrees,
not black men, because you're supposed to make more. That's
the breaking news. Black men are supposed to make more.

(01:18:56):
Men due to the patriarch, are supposed to make more.
Just to give you a breaking news, black women with
degrees make more money than black women without degrees. As
a whope. Now that doesn't mean that the hairdresser that
may not have a college degree doesn't make more money
than me. There might be some years that she make
more money than me, or I make more money than

(01:19:16):
or her. What we're saying is, as a collective, black
women with degrees, based on the data, make more money
than black women without. You know why, because if it's
a bunch of hairdressers that make a lot of money,
you're still as a collective are not making more than
black women. Attorneys than black women accountants than black women doctors,

(01:19:38):
So they all go into that bunch as well. So
when we're talking about the collective black women, we have
checked the box as high as we possibly can. So
when you say, well, black women are done forgetting degrees
because they got so much debt, well we're trying to
check the box and try to achieve as much as
we possibly can as black women, because the reality is

(01:20:00):
black women still don't make would white women make with
or without a degree. So, brothers, if you want to
compare yourself, don't compare yourself to the woman. Compare yourself
to black men with or without degrees, and then guess
what else you get to compare yourself to the white
man that you still don't make more money than with

(01:20:21):
or without a degree. The white man makes more money
than you. So you competing with the woman with totally
different plumbing systems. Since sh'all tackle love talking about plumbing,
let's talk about plumbing. I got a different plumbing to
shall specialize in plumbing. Don't compare the two plumbs we
gotta make a thing for.

Speaker 1 (01:20:42):
I knew it was coming.

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
I was waiting for that. Don't compare the kitchen plumbing
to the bathroom plumb because although the pipings may intersect,
at one point I wish I had a plumber, and.

Speaker 1 (01:20:58):
It's still different that you want a plumber.

Speaker 2 (01:21:04):
Trying to make love talking about plumping. And then another
thing that e kW brings up, where is the influx
of these blue these jobs that y'all saying everybody going

(01:21:24):
to get Because as it stands, the Hispanic community have
the ownership and the monopoly when it comes to ownership
within construction and plumbing in those blue collar jobs. And
we know why because systematic racism.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
We know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:39):
Like I'm not saying, brothers, this is all your fault.
What I'm saying is, let's stop the disparaging comments about
how you actually think that a black man who's making
more money as a trade is somehow wiser and smarter
than the black woman that has a degree that's in debt.
Because I am simply checking the boxes that are available
to me in order for me to be success.

Speaker 1 (01:22:01):
I'm going to help. I'm going to help that argument
once step further. If you feel like as a keep
saying plumbers, but if you feel like as a plumber
or an electrician or trades person who went and got
your whatever your certification you have, that you make more
than many women. I just want to help you with something.
If you say, for instance, that you make one a teacher,
I just want to help you. You work two hundred

(01:22:22):
and ninety to three hundred and twenty days a year.
She works one hundred and eighty. She works half as
many days as you do. So if she makes anywhere
near what you make, she makes more than you. It's
really simple, little call.

Speaker 2 (01:22:34):
She doesn't give it much into the man.

Speaker 1 (01:22:37):
She's not on call at all. And in fact, if
she woke up past nine today, it's because she wanted to.
And if she's in Erks and Kkos today's if she's
in Turks and Caicos today and you're not, it's because
she got a degree and she was able to make

(01:22:57):
those decisions. So when you look at money, you not,
you shouldn't look at it, and you have to look
at it on a per diem, right, So you have
to look at it from that perspective if you if
you want real numbers, but but let's sit there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
That's get They don't want to hear that. They just
look at I'll make X amount even though I had
to work seven days a week, eighteen hours a day,
and you made less working five days with they don't
that's that's too much data.

Speaker 1 (01:23:23):
But but go ahead off five days. And again, if
you're talking about a teacher, five days is basically four
hours of teaching a day, maybe by four including depend
upon where you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:33):
Just be off on summers as well? Does that also
go into.

Speaker 1 (01:23:36):
The data off on every single day that you could
be off. If you are in a Jewish community, you
get y'all, I'm kapoor. If you are in a Spanish community,
you get three kings, and if you are in a
Black community you get kwansa. Your December in January look
real good. So you are just short of a summer

(01:23:56):
break between those two, I mean, it ain't that. I
mean you get all days off, days that most people
don't even think. Who gets a day off of professional development?
I mean where you know, as a plumber, you don't.
It's these things you don't do. But to this whole point,
and you know less lest someone cut this up and
say that you or I have an issue with plumber.

Speaker 2 (01:24:16):
Right because they're already saying in them are you saying plumbers?
Why we can't see those those things in your head
that told you you were less than the society. Maybe
somebody Mama, that cousin, that uppy cousin that came home
and made that. That's not what the homegirl's telling you. See,

(01:24:37):
but it proves that you didn't hear anything we said.
You immediately went to ain't nothing wrong with me. We're
here to tell you that we know. We're here to
give you the breaking the news that you can be
a plumber and a teacher. In fact, they teach you.

Speaker 1 (01:24:52):
You can actually go to a degree and teach it.
And and here's what's dope about it. If you're a tea,
you're teaching plumbing, right of your teacher teaching electricity.

Speaker 2 (01:25:04):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:04):
If you're doing those things, you work one hundred and
eighty days a year. Let me tell you what you
get when you work one hundred day of days year.
You get to get home, when your kids get home.
You get to coach your kids. You get to go,
in some cases go to the same schools they if
they go to your school, you get the same vacation
as they do. Your quality of life. You can be
in the Mason's, you could be in a delta, you

(01:25:26):
could be a que you could be an AKA, you
could be all those things. You could contribute to your church,
you could run for office. You can do all those things,
because you know what, ain't nobody calling you past three
forty five, but anything ever, you can do all those
things too. And the problem is because you have been

(01:25:46):
beaten down to believe that. If you hear somebody who
has degrees and who has titles to think that I
am saying that you that there's something wrong with you.
I know why you think that way. You may not,
and if you do, then I need you to own that.
I'm not the one who hurts you, bro, I'm the
one saying to you've been hurt and it's not cool

(01:26:08):
what they did to you. It's not cool because I'm
the first one who you will find, whether it was
at a strip club or in a bob mitzvah, at
a barbecue or whatever. If I see somebody who says, hey,
I want to go to school, hey man, what do
you need to do? How do you want to do that?
As the guy who built this edition, he is really

(01:26:28):
good at math, and he's got eight fingers now for
real because of this work doing this stuff. And he said,
you know, he said, I can't get up and down
the ladder anymore. Dude, like fifty forty eight fifty. He's
not old, right, And I've said to him, I call
him cool Curd. I'm like cool Curve. Man. You know,

(01:26:50):
you're really good with math, like really good with math,
like in a way that when you starting out the room,
it's like, I mean, he.

Speaker 2 (01:26:58):
Please, I'm terrible. Come when you said the parent to say,
I'm bad man, I'm that parent. Like when it comes
to math, Oh man, mindsell who's a mechanic. You have
to be really really good at math, really good. So
never an argument about who's the smartest or who knows more. No,
that's not what this is about.

Speaker 1 (01:27:16):
Trying to put you on options, just trying to put
you on with options to say, my man, you have
I've said the Kirk will tell every time it comes to you, like, man,
you ever think about going back to school. Well, I
stopped going to school when I was fifteen. Bruh. If
you stop going to school at fifteen, hey, you're that
good at man, you are freaking savant. So let me
sell you something. A g didn't nothing but a couple
of hours away for you. So then after that's flat

(01:27:38):
streets and green lights. My man, then you don't have
to climb up on nothing to go underneath anything. You know,
not work when it's when it isn't rained, when it's raining,
or come outside that day is when he's out here.
I'm like, man, damn, bro, you want something to drink? Like?
That's that's all I can give you. It's it is
a hundred degrees outside. I mean, I'm gonna pay you,
but what's the impact on your body? But I'm saying

(01:28:00):
to him is it's the same thing I will say
to anybody I care about. I want what is a
more comfortable existence for you? I want you to do
what you love. How many times have I seen dudes
who do have degrees who decides, you know what, I
went to college to do this thing, and I like
making tables. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna
go make tables and I'm gonna make these fancy tables

(01:28:21):
that I'm gonna sell them. Well, who do you think
you're gonna sell them to? You're gonna sell them to
people like you who also want to hear about how
you went to school and how you did those things
and how they can identify you with you, and they
think that it's worth more to them if there's someone
who reminds them of themselves. We have to call balls
and strikes here. Too many of us were led to
believe that college wasn't for us because the system was

(01:28:44):
set up to make sure that you never ever ever
felt that way. And then when someone says to you,
there's more for you than your insecurities, kick in my
man and you start saying, so what you think I'm
not good enough? Come on, dog, Come on dog. If
you think me saying that's more for you makes you
feel bad about you, then you got to ask yourself

(01:29:05):
the question, because for me, encouraging somebody believes is evidence
that you believe that there's more in them. And when
you believe there's more in them, you in fact see
the beauty in them. You're not limiting them to where
they are, you see them as more. So I challenge you.
If somebody's saying, yo, man, I think you could do more,
you need to throw you both arms around that person
and hop on their back and say, all right, even

(01:29:26):
show me where I can go, show me what I
can do? True sorry, and shut out.

Speaker 2 (01:29:31):
To you who always pouring into me to do more.
Shut Out to Ebony, I'm glad when I said, yeah,
I'm finally because I've always law school was always on
the list. I need my dollar to go to school,
so I actually could have time to actually go to
school with shut out to her and Judge Belvin Perry
to she judge of you know, Orange County that wrote

(01:29:53):
my letter recommendation being Crump wrote my leg recommendation representing
Lebron Bracy wrote my letter recommendation six, Oh, come on in,
there's room for you. So I encourage you guys, get
around somebody that's gonna just gonna say you can do it,
that's gonna say you can do it, and and and
stop talking to people that say you can't, because that's
really what this has come down to. Somebody is telling

(01:30:14):
you that you're not good enough. Get around others. And
that goes back and talking about the HBCU. You know,
listening to that orientation today of having those students keep
standing up and saying I am enough, I'm more than enough.
There's a different environment, which being nothing against the p
w out of white institutions, but there is a very
distinct different.

Speaker 1 (01:30:31):
Difference there's a difference. There's a difference. There's difference. And
you know, when when I was in social work school,
one of the first things that they taught us was
that the most most convincing and powerful voice that you
will ever hear is the voice that's in your head.
And what this culture, with this society, what this country

(01:30:52):
has done to you. If you think that you have
hit your top, is it works because at this point
you're in a no one's even talking to you like that,
no one's even saying that. Now that's just an auto positive.
So we look at someone. But I want to give
you credit here to us, because you consciously surround yourself
with people who are going to pinch your meat a

(01:31:14):
little bit, like come on, you gotta look come on,
come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
And and I encourage you others to look.

Speaker 2 (01:31:24):
Like they don't know that we actually I'm looking at
into the group chat now, constantly pushing each other, constantly
saying no, I don't really how many time we picked
up the farm like, oh no, I'm not gonna push
back on that. I don't know that constantly that's the
learning process. You don't in the college environment It's not
just people say I can just read books on my own.

(01:31:44):
It's not about just reading books and reading words and
flipping through to find what you believe in.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
It is about.

Speaker 2 (01:31:50):
Reading it, comprehending it, being tested on it, and also
being around others that put you into thinking something else,
that challenge to have a different viewpoint, that gets you
to see something else, that gives you a different outlook
on line. That is what makes you successful.

Speaker 1 (01:32:08):
That is what I'll give you another example of that.
Think of it this way. Just think of it this way.
Lebron James clearly can play basketball, but think of how
many different coaches he has. He has attricious, he has
a person, he probably has nothing short of ten people

(01:32:32):
who work just with him to do something that one
could argue he already knows how to do better than
any one of them individually. But he's smart enough to
know that if I want to be better, I have
to surround myself with people who will push me to
be better. Similarly, the higher you get as you see

(01:32:52):
an education, you actually get more advisors, more people telling
you how to do stuff. What happens with the general
population is you don't have somebody telling you So could
you go to the gym and lose weight by yourself?
You could, you absolutely could. Could you develop muscular muscularity
you could. But if you really, really really got serious,

(01:33:14):
you'd hire a trainer or two. And if you really
really really got serious, you had a trainer, a nutritionist,
a stretch coach, a physician. You would just load up.
You really really really the same. That's college right there,
that right there that experiences college. If you really yes,
you could just go out and read on your own.
But if you really got serious, you would have all

(01:33:34):
these other people who are experts in their field pushing
and pulling you and getting you to think beyond the
condition that you're in. Because you can only push yourself
as much as you know. It isn't until someone else
introduces a concept to you. I mean, let me say so,
when I was in undergrad, I remember when I got there,

(01:33:57):
I went to a PWY and I remember when they
would talk, it sounded like a different language. Test I
didn't grow up talking like that. People in my neighborhood
didn't talk like them. There were words that they would
use that I didn't know. And this is back before
I could google anything. So I kept a notebook with me. Well,
I would write down the words that I as I

(01:34:18):
thought they were written, and so I would try to
improve my vocabulary. I put a whole bunch of you know,
adjectives on the front of the superlatives. I would oh, man,
I sounded like that sketch from in Living Color when
they were in prison, so the Pacific State, I would
talk like that. I was trying. I was just trying

(01:34:38):
to sound like I was smart, because that's what they did.
And I was always looked for for opportunity to say
words like perhaps, because it just sounded like such a
smart thing that they and somebody would beat me too
if they'd say perhaps, I'm like, God, damn, Like you
can't say perhaps after somebody else is said right. But
I grew up, I grew up speaking with a particular way.

(01:34:59):
My family's from North Carolina, and my father never graduated
uh well, it never made it past eighth grade. And
my mother, she had me on her sixteenth birthday. I
was at her high school graduation. Like they're pictures of
me at my mother's high school graduation. So you know
the point that I'm making is that while I was there,
I was picking up a vocabulary that I can switch

(01:35:20):
to when I need them to do what I need
them to do. Here's the thing they can't switch to.
Mind mmm, I speak their language, that's right.

Speaker 2 (01:35:31):
And that's what makes the educated black man one of
the most dangerous, the most dangerous in society. Go ahead,
you can cold switch in, but they can't go.

Speaker 1 (01:35:41):
But stay there for a second. So let me just
tell you that this is a true story. So I
had my last book that I wrote, Uh is with
the big publisher, and I don't have any sense, and
so I'm me all the time, and I was on
the phone with the publisher. He was is this like

(01:36:01):
he is the whitest human being on earth, Like they're like,
if you think of the whitest man, you know he's
on the other side of that. And he was he
was talking the way I don't think that he was
thinking that was gonna come back with a different energy
than what he had. And so he said to Uh,
to me, I need you to write a book for
the mainstream. And I asked him what he meant by that,

(01:36:25):
because he didn't want to say what he meant. And
I kept pressing him and pressing him and pressing him.
And he said, uh, I need you to write a
book for the mainstream. I said, well, hip hop is
the largest music farm in the world. So to me,
ready like that, is that what you mean? You know
that's not what I mean, Steve. He refused it on me,

(01:36:45):
Doctor Perry, you know that's not what I mean, Steve.
And he had no degree. He only had a bachelor's degree.
But keep in mind he's white, so uh so he
could do that.

Speaker 2 (01:36:54):
I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:36:55):
I can't be doctor pared in him. I'm Steve right
because he got he got to take all my extra
degrees way right. So fast forward. I'm going back and
forth with him, and he gets He gets to the
point where he says, write a book for a middle
aged white man. He says this out loud to me.
He says, it's outloud to me, and I ain't say

(01:37:16):
that's I let it go. That's not what I meant.
That is exactly what you meant. But here's the point
of the story. I knew how to get him on
his heels, speaking his language. He couldn't speak mom. He
didn't know how to piss me off. There's some things
he could have said, like people I grew up with
if he had said it, I snapped. I snapped because

(01:37:36):
they was taking me back to a certain place, and
I've talked to him a certain way, and it's been
like all reckless conversation when you're off in school and
you're in there, and and and some white boy asks
you if you get a tan, and you want to
just slap fire out of him. Absolutely learn when when
there's a professor who calls on everybody in the class.

(01:37:56):
But you you gotta learn, You gotta figure out that means.
It's not just my youngest son who goes to an HBCU,
my oldest one to a pw I, and my youngest
son works at a camp where he's the only one
of the only black uh young people working there and
very few black students are there. It's the area that

(01:38:18):
we live in, and even he is finding himself confronting
these what we refer to as microaggressions that he but
he when he comes home, we can troubleshoot, we can
problem solve, we can work through it. I can tell man, look,
you guys, you know his I know the first couple
of things you want to say, None of those are
options if you want to work there tomorrow that you

(01:38:42):
none of those are options. It doesn't mean I mean
you have to do it to cost to learn those things,
but it's a really good place to learn them. And
you're in a three hundred and sixty degree experience where
you're there with them all the time, and so you
learn their ways. They never ever stop to even try
to figure yours out. All you do is come out
with advantages.

Speaker 2 (01:39:02):
Nothing but advantages. And when I see people and then
we'll rap it U because I don't get back to
my studying. I see people say, and you know, I
question that, and I don't want to call anybody a liar.
But when I hear somebody allegedly claim to have a
degree and say I regret it being a black man,
or when they say, well I got a degree and

(01:39:23):
a trade and I regret it.

Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
I.

Speaker 2 (01:39:26):
It's very hard for me to believe because I don't
know any Now we might write about the loans or
you know, hey it wasn't you know, I could have
did whatever, but I never And I'm not a black man.
So you can say together with just a poe, we
don't know every black man that has a degree. But
in my experience, I have not ran in any black

(01:39:47):
man that I can verify that I know, because you
can say anything on app you know, sometimes people just
say something just to have stake in the conversation. If
I say, well, only doctors know this, they'll say, well,
as a doctor, I ain't saying So they say what
they want to say, and there's no way to verify it.
But out of the men, out of the black men
that I know that I actually know have a degree,
I have not heard one, again my very small poe,

(01:40:09):
that have said I regret it. If there's things change, Yes,
maybe the loan, maybe I would have had a differend made, whatever,
but not one that regrets it. Because the pros outweigh
the comments. And I certainly haven't found one that's doing well,
that has a degree and a trade in making money,

(01:40:30):
because too many things are in your favor for you
to say I regret it. That just doesn't add up
to me. When you look at all of the pros
that you get and having an advantage in a world
that doesn't even see you as a full human being,
it is very hard for me to believe that one
of the things that they don't want you to have
is an education. That that hasn't served you well. And

(01:40:52):
if it hasn't served you well, let me just say
this because of no shade. But when I see people
that make a point to say something negative about people
going to college, I wonder, did you finish? Is this shade?
Because you didn't finish? So now you're a set and
you're projected did you never go? Or did you go?
And you did not know how to parlay it into
something else? And opposed to you raising your hand to say,

(01:41:15):
how can I parlay this? How can I network? How
can I figure out how to actually use this degree?
Because maybe my people skills ain't on point. So because
I did not implement it properly, now I am bitter
and of set because I didn't know how to play
the game. Because a lot of this is knowing how
to play the game. It's plenty of people that get degrees,

(01:41:35):
plenty people that go to law school. But if you
don't know how to network, if you don't know how
to build relationship, if you don't know how to get clients,
you simply just have a lot of agrees. There's probably
very few medical medical doctors. Probably one of the few
an engineer that could just come out of college and
just immediately go, you know, get a job. But there's
some of us that require an additional skill set and
because they haven't been able to implement that skill set,

(01:41:59):
then now all of a sudden, the degree was a
waste of time. No, perhaps you waste your time and
you did not get all of the necessary tools that
you need in addition to that paperwork.

Speaker 1 (01:42:09):
Or did or did or did your girl cheat on
you with a guy.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
That could be but blue collar brothers, I'll say that
a lot of a lot of blue collars. A lot
of the white collar brothers don't like our blue collar
brothers too.

Speaker 1 (01:42:26):
That it goes both ways down and I don't get
it's weird and.

Speaker 2 (01:42:35):
The white collar brothers and you know what, it comes
down to a lot of times, women always and that's
why you if you look in the comments today, I
really enjoyed seeing what motivated black men because I don't
want to hear the negative. I want to hear the positive.
And there were a lot of men that said a
lot of women. I enjoyed. That was one of the things.
I also didn't know that the movie Boomerang was.

Speaker 1 (01:42:55):
So hey, hey, hey, that's that. Hey what inspire me.

Speaker 2 (01:43:02):
Boomerang, I see not know. There was several brothers that
was like you a Different World Cosby Show, but Boomerang,
I guess they wanted to be more.

Speaker 1 (01:43:11):
All of those. Let me just be Crystal. I'm gonna
keep it a buck. I watched TV one day a
week when I was in college. It's a true story.
It was on Thursday nights. I watched it on Thursday nights,
I watched a Different World and I watched the Cosby Show.
For me, somebody who grew up in a largely white city,
you know, uh, even in a poor Minoriti community, for

(01:43:33):
me to see those people doing those things, it was
like watching superheroes for me, and then to the point
where I was, I mean, I wanted to be them.
It was everything in me. And let me take to
let me add one piece that keep in mind, during
that same time, Chuck d and Public Enemy were telling
me that to be black and proud. And you know

(01:43:57):
that krus One was the tea and these men had
these amazing vocabularies and and and right not long after that,
Farakahn was telling them, telling us to meet them in
d C. And so during that time, let me be
crystal Clear. The zeikeist was pouring into me in a
way where I just you know, I've started with the

(01:44:19):
reading of autobiotics via Malcolm X, and then I turn
on my television one day a week, and then on
Fridays in my senior year, I started to watch Family Matters.
But you understand the point which on Friday nights. My
point is that he seeing those images at a time

(01:44:44):
time when even member members of my own family made
me feel like or attempted to me and make me
feel but attempted to make me feel that there was
something wrong with me. And then coming back to literally
going away parties and and they were cats who were
going to prison, and I'm like, yeah, like you know

(01:45:06):
how broke I am up at college, Like do you
understand that this? I don't want to cut all these
dudes hair. I don't want to.

Speaker 2 (01:45:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:45:12):
My white roommates were like, yo, man, they keep sitting
on my bed. I'm like, well, didn't say something to them,
but I got to make these this brad dog like you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:22):
People in the hood. Just to that point earlier, because
we were talking about this before that not everybody's yealous,
because you had a lot of dudes in the hood.
It was like, no, this ain't for care.

Speaker 1 (01:45:31):
They literally did we want to shot Crystal Clear? No
crystal No, no, crystal Clear, crystal Clear. That were yo,
you gotta go young blood, like, well, why are we chilling? No,
we ain't chilling. I'm upa beat your ass. If you
don't get up out here. Well, you know, say she
put it that way, I'd.

Speaker 2 (01:45:53):
Tell me before we get off, what was it about?
And I'll just say this because television is so critically
important too, which we see in the comments. And guys,
we're talking about the comments that were made today on
my posts about black men and going to college and
what motivated them. Rather than talking about all the negatives,
I wanted to know what motivated and there was a
lot of reference with Cosbi shelling a different world. And

(01:46:14):
I was enlightened today to know that boomerang. You know, now,
I know what I saw from it. I didn't think
about college. I thought about for me because I was
in sales, and always in sales. I know I had
to get to gas. So I saw Robin Gibbns' character
as the boss that I am, you know, in the sale.
So I saw those opportunities through sales. I didn't see

(01:46:36):
the college connection. But what was it about it? I
guess was it because Marcus the only attainable way was
through college? Is that why they're saying maybe it's funny?

Speaker 1 (01:46:48):
Is what's so funny? I know Boomerang embarrassingly well, like
it's one of those movies that you probably shouldn't watch
it with me because I'm gonna talk. I'm gonna say
the whole thing. What moved me about Boomerang because it
came out in my senior year of college. What it
was so beautiful? So the Marcus was I mean I

(01:47:14):
used to try to do my hair like he had
done his air. I'm telling you, I was locked in
on more somebody.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
In the comments Marcus's apartment.

Speaker 1 (01:47:22):
Yeah listen. And and I mean, let's be honest, that
was That was Apex halle Berry. No disrespect since then,
but I mean at that point, it was like, oh
my god, who is she? Just what who made? Like?
What had she made him? That's not even a real
human being? And just that nobody died, nobody got shot,

(01:47:44):
and and and think about how important that image is,
Like I really want to state the man I wish
you had said this at this point because you know
what you got. I got to be a sober friend
and let you get back to work. So I'm not
gonna hold you long on this, but let me say this.
After that, there were no more.

Speaker 2 (01:48:00):
Well, what about the best man? Was that close?

Speaker 1 (01:48:03):
Not even in the same era. Best man came out
much later.

Speaker 2 (01:48:07):
What was the best man for that era? Though similar
or different? I don't see it. The corporate So are
we talking about so with.

Speaker 1 (01:48:15):
Booming watch Marcus at work? Marcus says that on his
job name name name another non attorney black man who
was just dope. He was, you know, and he was
so if I'm keeping it a bug, I mean that's

(01:48:38):
what I want to do my schools. I want boomerang,
Like who doesn't want that? He just was just so
immaculate in his presentation of blackness. And all the way
down to the male room, Chris Rock, where everybody in
there was was rooting for this dude, and there was
nothing off putting about him or any of the wells

(01:49:00):
developed characters. Nobody was out of pocket. Show me a
person who can watch boomerang. Honestly, that's a very important
stage of our lives and not pick a person they
wanted to be.

Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
No, we didn't come out in because somebody here is
saying the Wood is. Another example that's a different error.

Speaker 1 (01:49:21):
D it's not ninety two is when Boomerang came out
summer of.

Speaker 2 (01:49:27):
Let me see when the Wood came out. So there's
also eraror so when you say name another movie. So
so the Wood came out in nineteen ninety nine, not
to say it still wasn't you're saying in corporate America
on the job, black people in charge making decisions, the
cool guy, the handsome guy dressed.

Speaker 1 (01:49:48):
Wet every god, every single one of them. Yeah, every
single one of them. There was not one member of
the cast who was a person. Everyone Grace Jones was dope.
I mean, it was just so perfectly timed. And if

(01:50:09):
I'm being honest, there have been a couple of times
in different corporate settings that I've been in that have
been led by black people, you know, many of them famous,
but that it actually didn't look that different than that.
If you peel back a lot of black people's successes,
they're like, yeah, I got this from bove Ring. Like
I remember when Marcus had that long black jacket on

(01:50:30):
and the turtleneck and I was kind of going for
the black turtleneck thing. It was so beautifully done that
they've never done it again. Think of this for a second.
Think of all the Eddie Murphy movies that they've been in. Right,
they've done more than one of them. Boomerang's got nothing,

(01:50:53):
but Boomerang could be a series, right, they get mared,
they have kids, she's a teacher. That's a whole series, right.
M During that time, you had the Fresh Prince of
bel Air, uh, the Cosby Show, a Different World, Family Matters,

(01:51:14):
and they're all gone, and they were all sold off
for Boys in the Hood, New Jack City, and all
of those Juice, all of those kill Kill Kill movies,
all of them Justice, somebody dies in all of them,

(01:51:37):
every single one of them. Talk about Hollywood going off
the cliff. It went here, and then all at once
they all.

Speaker 2 (01:51:46):
Want right, Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And this is
why I'm always trying to encourage filmmakers. Were good for,
you know, Deon Taylor to get involved with with us
in the movement to use the these movies as stories.
Because even if if we're going to tell the story
and a lot of folks if y'all haven't go back
and listen to my podcast that I did on Straw.

(01:52:08):
You know a lot of people are set like, you know,
you're always showing the down trying black women in the
struggle with black women, and a lot of people I
know is like I refuse to watch it. I'm like,
I get it, but let me try to pull something
from this. There were nine public policies and laws that
I identified in that movie from the very beginning to the end,
to change the outcome of ju Night. So if we
are gonna watch that, we are gonna get continue to

(01:52:30):
invest in that and tell those stories, which is important.
What can we give the person to do besides be
pissed off about it and actually do something about it.
But to your point, I mean, to my point I
want to make about how important television is. And I
keep saying I'm gonna get off, but I really am.
Thursday Night was mandatory watching in my house.

Speaker 1 (01:52:50):
Mandatory, it will manatory.

Speaker 2 (01:52:52):
My mother was very clear, you know Thursday Night. My
stepfather was a dentist. My mother actually had mannerism, just
Claire Huts. She always wanted to be an attorney, but
she never went to law school. But literally had mannerism
just like Claire Hosible. I had had to watch Gore
to Pizza Hut meat Lovers every Thursday. When I got

(01:53:13):
my first twenty dollars I made, I was so excited,
I'll get to buy pizza this week. Those first thing
I wanted to do was treat my family like, Okay,
now I'm bringing something to the table.

Speaker 1 (01:53:22):
Can you just pause there for because I don't want
you to jump over. I know you got to go through,
but I just want I don't think people it's easy
if you, hopefully everyone who's listening to you now can
understand that you just described the moment within which one
of your aspirations as a young woman was to be
able to provide the pizza for the night that the

(01:53:42):
family came together to celebrate blackness. Think about that for
a second. That's a pretty big that's a pretty heady
notion and character travels, and here you are the same
person doing those types of things for our community, but
that your family baked into your life this moment. And
we can say what we want about media not being

(01:54:06):
important to the way we see ourselves. I got a
text today. I texted Chuck d who is like, I'm
embarrassed by how much he matters to me, Like I'm
embarrassed by how much he really He just means, if
you knew how much Fear of a Black Planet was

(01:54:26):
playing in my head, like if you knew how often
the entire CD is playing in my head like that?
What is wrong with you? Obsessed with with what he
did during the time when my brain was forming. So
I think now where our kids' brains are forming, and
what they're listening to and what they're seeing and what
they considered to be I felt like it was my
obligation to go to school during that time because these dudes,

(01:54:52):
you know run DMC went to Saint John's University. I mean,
since kindergarten applied to knowledge and a first twelfth grade
I went straight to college.

Speaker 2 (01:55:02):
And let me let me speak to that because it's
an interesting point you make up and to the sister
that says she wants you to repeat a school type
that up again so he can answer your question. Uh
one I want to say before I forget about the
importance of television and why it was so important to
my mother or other was real big in words and
kind of going back to when we say, you know,

(01:55:22):
people saying you're dumb and you can't do it. I
could not watch the watch Sanford and Son, you know,
for that reason. Although you know, Red Fox is celebrated
up one of you know, the best comedians of our time.
My mother was really serious about She did not like
a black man telling his son he son, he was dumb.
She did not like big dummy, even if it was
in jest, she just didn't like it. She also was

(01:55:46):
not a fan of Good Times, and people say, why,
you know, James was a good daddy. She won a
fan of Good Times for the same reason Jane John
i'm amos was not. The same reason the real characters
had a problem with Good Times.

Speaker 1 (01:56:00):
They were literally written by white people, literally written by
like literally written by white people.

Speaker 2 (01:56:05):
The characters literally Yeah, but you say, well, why she
don't like it? The same reason why they why John
left the show. She wanted to know when was the
next step? I could I ever watch the Jeffersons because
she leave an entrepreneurship and she wasn't Yeah, she wasn't
putting anybody down. She just understood the importance of what

(01:56:27):
is the next step. But I want to say this,
especially for those of y'all to keep saying, you know,
gett an entrepreneurship, getting on newship. And I was telling
this to Ebony because we were talking about you know
when kids say, you know, I want to take a
year off and you know, let me go do X,
y Z and then I'll go back to college. And
I said that was my mistake because I was always
entrepreneur driven, you know, I was excited to be able

(01:56:51):
to because for me, it was security. It was never
money like buying things and I don't buy things now.
It was always being able to be the one, you know,
to provide security and me being more interested in that.
Because my mother all those she did all those things,
she didn't push me to go to college, even though
she went to Oklahoma State and stopped. She didn't say

(01:57:12):
college or else. She was kind of like, well, don't
do whatever whatever you want to do. So I said, well,
I want to have I want to pay my car payment,
I want my own apartment. I'll go to the military,
I'll take three hours at a time. Took me almost
twenty years, Doctor Perry, with on and off, because once
life started, you know, once I got the house and

(01:57:32):
once I got this and once I got that, it
took me forever started stopping, starting, stopping, starting, stopping to
complete the degree. So I tell parents, even if it's
something else they want to do, let let them get
that first. You've always got time to do the other thing.
You got to entrepreneur, you got time to do whatever

(01:57:56):
you want to do. You got time to start fifteen businesses.
Go ahead and get that under your belt, because when
you do it the other way, it is so hard
to put life in the middle of that, and you
end up going online or not getting the full experience.
I was in tears of day, just so excited to
watch my baby, like, Wow, she gets the full experience.

(01:58:17):
She really does get the different worlds. She really does
get to go to the dorm and live that experience
and not have to try to figure out how she's
gonna pay this and pay that, because that was what
my assertation was. I'm like, well, I don't want to
give up my car. It wasn't that I had a
baby or kid or none of that. I just di
I was like, hell, am I gonna pay my car
not and still go to the door.

Speaker 1 (01:58:36):
It just wasn't feasible to me, And that's what so many,
so many young people fall into that same track. And
this is what. It's a real simple trap. They started
school and then what happens is they have a tough
semester or two, usually a tough semester, and they decide, well,

(01:58:56):
you know what, let me get a job. And they
get a job doing something that is into taxing. Maybe
they work in a bank as a teller or something
like that. And then yeah, and then and then someone says, well,
you gotta I'm not gonna keep driving you back and
forth to the thing. You gotta get a car. So
you get a car. So you're save enough to get
a car. Now you got a car, you feel like

(01:59:17):
you're an adult. And then you hang out kind of
like an adult. So that requires money, and then you
you you get caught up, and maybe you get an apartment.
What happens is now you gotta pay Now you gotta
work enough to pay that, and on and on and what.
And the difference is if you're around people who are
working to live, then you will take on the same

(01:59:42):
schedule that they do. It's it's not as it's not
as egregious as it seems. It really is. And you know,
someone I'm thinking of right now who family member I
love very dearly. And she's watching she don't know what
I'm talking about. She's watching her cousins finish up, and yeah,
she's got a car, and you know she's got you know,

(02:00:04):
look like they get a little boyfriend's situation. So you
feel like you've gotten it. Now. Understanding is you have
no idea what you're missing, right And then then and
when they're twenty and twenty one years old and they're
done with college and you're twenty and twenty one years
old and you got twelve credits, you're thinking, Jesus Christ, Yeah,
I'm ninety something credits away from graduating, Like I'm literally

(02:00:26):
off one hundred get eighteen yep, and you get caught.

Speaker 2 (02:00:30):
Up in the income of it all. That's why keep
telling people it's not about the twenty three years old,
bought up first house, built up first house. I was
going to college, thankfully because I was married, I didn't
have any children. That was the first time I was
actually able to go to community college and just work
twenty thirty hours a week because my husband actually was
a provider and I didn't have any children, and I

(02:00:51):
got the bulk of my degree done while I was
married because I had a supportive husband that allowed that,
and I didn't know just rare which is rare.

Speaker 1 (02:01:01):
I did not both of what you're rare, right, both
of which you're rare.

Speaker 2 (02:01:04):
Correct. But when we got a divorce the second half
half of the sixty hours, that's when the child challenge
came in because now I'm working full time with a
very present father of my child, by the way, who
only has one child who This was not some baby
daddy story. This was a we waited seven years before
we had Jada. We had her in wedlocked the marriage

(02:01:26):
in workout. Sometimes it happens very present with her. But
he moved and relocated to another city's job, sent himself
a city. So I was doing the heavy lifting, and
that's where the taking three hours here then stopped and
then started. So then they put a big fee on
you where now you got to pay this to get
back it because if you don't finish the twelve hours

(02:01:47):
in the middle of the semester, you drop out because
you say, hey, you know I'm not doing well. So
rather than getting this f let me drop out. Then
the school. Do you know how many times I had
to pay that fee just to get back in to result,
you know, to continue to pick up where I left off.
That last sixty hours was the hardest sixty hours that
in my I did. I did I have important? I

(02:02:11):
did not get it in the beginning because I was
attracted to the income I was making money saff at
that time, you know, being twenty one years old. Hey,
I'm out the military. I'm making one thousand a year.

Speaker 1 (02:02:23):
Degree for what.

Speaker 2 (02:02:24):
I was the same of what y'all talk about, degree
for what. But looking back, and I don't regret how
I got it, because that's the key docuentary. I still
win and got it. See, these people are saying you
don't need it and don't.

Speaker 1 (02:02:36):
Ever go back and get it because they don't understand
what the other side is, right, because.

Speaker 2 (02:02:40):
I'm just gonna be working to pay bills the rest
of my life without having another option. And now at
this big age, Now at this big age, I can
say I have all that experience, all the entrepreneur and
the degree. So if I don't want to keep having
a hustle, but I don't want to keep having the
sale off, but don't keep.

Speaker 1 (02:02:59):
I just go and be done. The other side, the
other side of is this, the other side of is this?
It's really simple a twenty one year old with a
degree versus a twenty one year old without a degree. Thanks,
you start taking a look at how the separation starts
to happen. Separation starts to happen when you're thirty years

(02:03:22):
old and you're working at FedEx and a twenty one
year old comes in with just a bachelor's and she
makes at least what you make. So you are tripping
because you think she works at FedEx, I work at FedEx. No, homeboy, see,
and that at four years has cut twelve years of

(02:03:43):
hard labor off of her back. So it took you
twelve years to get to she got to and four
Now all she's got a flat streets and green lights,
so she is virtually where you are and you've been
there all this time. And you say, yeah, but she's
got two loans. Oh no, no, no, don't do that to yourself.

(02:04:03):
You got car loans, you have you pay a rent,
You pay rent because you probably don't own a house
at that point. Now she's gonna close on you. So
when you want to go buy a house, because y'all
now make virtually the same amount of money. She's twenty one,
you thirty something, and you make most basically the same
amount of money. Then what Here's what happens is you

(02:04:26):
go to the bank and you say I want to
get a loan, and they look at your work history
and they think, okay, cool. They look at her college degree,
twelve twelve to fourteen months of work, and she has
as much credit solvency as you do, if not more,
because you may have missed a car note, you may
have missed some other things. So now she and you

(02:04:48):
are in the same place and she's closing in on
you real fast. Then all she's got to do is
get into that master's program online, get that joint in
sixteen months. And she's not she's not just your boss,
she's your sector's boss. And now you were for a
twenty five year old and your bitch ass and sitting
there talking about she ain't as smart as she thinks

(02:05:09):
she is and she don't know. And I've been here
all this time. You're right, you have been. But the
company believes in her more than they do you because
they put feel like she put time into her practice.
They feel like she she did what she needed to
do so dollar for dollars, she's quught you and she's
past you. What you gonna do now? Bruh?

Speaker 2 (02:05:28):
Who can I say? That also applies in the military,
and and that's where the bitterness comes in as well.
And I and I can tell you as as enlisted
for those of y'all who don't know, when you get
a college degree first before going into the military, you
are automatically in office.

Speaker 1 (02:05:47):
You'id you you're it.

Speaker 2 (02:05:50):
All the enlisted and enlisted people look at we look
at the real side out like you don't have to,
because even in basic training, they don't talk to them
the way they talk to us. They don't. It is
like dirt. They don't look at the officer gets to
come in and bypass. And yeah, you feel away, much
like people in the comments, because that's what that is.
You feel away where you're like, well, damn, he didn't
have to do it. I had to do it. Don't

(02:06:10):
nobody respect that because you didn't come the rights, which
is true, you didn't come through the river, but the
officer sudden back. But why you didn't get it the
way I got Because I got it. I got it
the smarter way. If I'm gonna be in the military.
I'm gonna come in at the highest pate with the
most respect, with stars on my on my sleeve because
I went and got the degree first. That's a fact.

(02:06:31):
So people don't have to lie. And that degree may
not do anything more than, like you said, than what
I know. But there's something about completing a major task
that gets a benefit than others, which is why white
people keep telling y'all the white supremacy talking points, keep saying.

Speaker 1 (02:06:47):
Don't worry a degree, need a degree. You don't need
a degree, and and and and employ an entire school
system to commitce you that you don't need one. Right,
you don't need it, don't worry about it, don't worry
about it. And now that putting in place, now some
of y'all's president as you thinking we need more trades.
His kid goes to NYU. He's all jacked up. He's

(02:07:09):
all jacked up because these other schools didn't accept his kid,
so he's going after them with full barrels.

Speaker 2 (02:07:17):
Come.

Speaker 1 (02:07:17):
None of his kids are doing trades. Just talk of none.
I bet you Baron can't change the light bulb.

Speaker 2 (02:07:24):
And why and if it's all about trades, why did
he just pass administer past policy? That one changed the
student loan payment program. Do y'all know it went from
twelve options to pay loans back to now only two.
Let me say it again, twelve options. I'm saying, hey,

(02:07:47):
I can't pay it this way, but I can pay
it that way, to now only two. And then in
addition to that, the direct plus loan, which is for
graduate degrees, professional degrees, pass your undergraduate they have now
reduce that.

Speaker 1 (02:08:01):
So they have.

Speaker 2 (02:08:02):
Literally closed the door or something they say y'all don't need.
Now they have closed the door with access to pay
for it. They have closed the door on a firm
when I applied for law school, when I went in
for my because this happened, I need to even know.
This happened this year in real time, when I went
in and my application one day said list your race.
The next day was completely gone, doctor Perry, completely.

Speaker 1 (02:08:23):
Do Let me say that for a second. Let me
say that for a second. I need people to really
understand what you just said, and I really need them
to let to sit on their hearts for a second.
If you hear nothing else from this conversation, I need
you to hear this. The fact that many eight people

(02:08:46):
who are in power who happen to be white are
telling you that you don't need a degree should give
you the indication that you might actually need it.

Speaker 2 (02:08:55):
Do they know that the fact that white people are
Do they think that's just their own self assessment.

Speaker 1 (02:08:59):
Or are these both?

Speaker 2 (02:09:01):
How are they getting that message?

Speaker 1 (02:09:03):
And I think it shot shot. It started with a
system that told them that they that they don't need it,
and then they then they began to believe it themselves.
But let me just take this one step further. The
creation of what we refer to as the middle class
in the United States of America as well as the suburbs,
is born out of the g I Bill, the GI

(02:09:24):
Bill where mostly white men went to college for free
and they created generational wealth. What you think of Warren
and Jude Cleaver, when you think of the Brady Bunch,
all of those TV images, those guys I dream a

(02:09:45):
genie all went to school on what would have been
the GI Bill, and they created all sorts of generational
wealth that exists today. Chances are the people who live
in your mixed this neighborhood got their homes because the
banks were giving loans to GI's who they knew had

(02:10:07):
degrees and solid careers. So they set up entire generations
to today just by going to school for free because
the government gave them that. Now, the same government recognized
that black women are the single largest most educated demographic

(02:10:30):
in the United States of America. That is a fact.
All of a sudden, the pathways that we used to
use to get into college are being closed. The door
is being closed to college. Why if the if the
power structure wasn't threatened by it, then they would open

(02:10:51):
the door. But what door are they opening. They're opening
it to the trades and not really opening it to
the trades. What they're doing is they're setting saying you
should go to the trades. We're not gonna pay for
you to go to the trades. We're not gonna pay
for you to go to trades. In fact, we're gonna
send any brown people from another country out of here
who can do the trades, and we're not saying and

(02:11:12):
in change for that, we're going to create an opportunity
for you. They're saying that the single greatest route out,
which is through college, we are shutting it down. We're
cutting back on subsidized loans, which means loans that the
that the that the government will guarantee the banks will
get paid, so the banks will give you a better
rate on They're saying that they are going to cut

(02:11:36):
down on their roots out. They gotta cleep down on
your roots out. So if you don't hear anything else
from this conversation, and your little feelings got hurt because
you thought somebody said something because you're a barber or
a hairdresser, or because you're that you saw somebody's talking
down to you, I'll let you deal with inside yourself.
I can't I can't do that for you. Well, here's
what I can do for you. If the people in

(02:11:57):
power are telling you that you don't don't need it,
that's a hit for your ass. That is exactly what
you need. It's exactly what you need.

Speaker 2 (02:12:06):
Right. Well, this was awesome. We went two hours. I'm
gonna leave this live up also uploaded to the podcast
because I just appreciate your time down to Pat we
were at just so you guys know. This came again
the post that I posted today. I went to a
college orientation and again, because I'm always trying to expand

(02:12:28):
the conversation, I don't. I don't ever want to just
sit in the room and not ask why. I don't
want to just sit there and look around and say
why does this look like this? So I made a post.
Doctor Perry, you know, hit me up. We were talking
and talking about it all day. He was like, Tess,
we gotta go live and talk about this, and I said, well,
I'm gonna go home and study and waste more time

(02:12:49):
studying the night since they say it's a waste of time.
I said, because I gotta study. But then he said, okay,
well let's do it another time. And then somebody kept
going back and forth. I said, okay, we forget, let's
just do it. Let's just get it done because this
is very, very important and it's a conversation we have
all the time behind the scenes. So thank you for
lending your time and giving this knowledge. And I hope

(02:13:11):
you guys found something out of this. Again, the moral
to the story is for me, do it all while
you can, get it all while you can, and if
you can't do it, be honest enough to say it's
not for me. You know that's not something I can do.
But cousin so and so, if you go get that,

(02:13:33):
or if you say you can't do it, ask yourself.
I don't know, let me give it a try, because
you saying that you can't do it might be a
lie and a trip from the enemy. Don't just automatically
think you can't do it now. Sometimes it's just not
for people.

Speaker 1 (02:13:48):
Know.

Speaker 2 (02:13:49):
I get that you may not enjoy it. Some people
just literally may not enjoy it. But I don't want
you to count yourself out the program because this is
absolutely a program. None of us a bigger than the program.
Our community Black people, we need it all. We need
it all. So let's just stop shitting on each other
about what is better. Let's stop the end or let's

(02:14:12):
stop believing that you can't go get it at thirty
and thirty five and forty and forty five and fifty fifty.
As long as God gives you air in your body,
be open to learning something new, and it's not just
by watching a YouTube video or this line. Be open
to say, I'm gonna go sit my ass in somebody's
classroom and be challenged to have the discipline and the

(02:14:35):
piece of paper that y'all say don't matter, because that
piece of paper is gonna get more and more value
guys right now, and what we're talking about if they
really it really really is. And I'll say this for
people say, well, people with degrees got laid off. Guess what,
there's some job they come for the jobs that don't
have the degrees. See, this is the race to the box.
So if you're laughing at them, for many of you,

(02:14:56):
that took a lot of you really thought you were
saying something about look at all those degree peeple, where
they're gonna come be supervisors on your job. They're gonna
come be the warehouse worker at your job. And guarantee,
mister Charlie is going to take more or less. If
I can have more or less, I'm gonna hire more.

(02:15:17):
So what does that mean put you in the back
of the line. So let's be careful on this degree.
People don't have no job because they're coming for your job. Nick,
this is a race to the bottom, guys. So let's
so let's let's make sure we're checking the box all right.

Speaker 1 (02:15:32):
Just love you you take no care. Biels.

Speaker 2 (02:15:35):
If you like what you heard on straight Shot No Chaser,
please subscribe and drop a five star review and tell
a friend straight Shot No Chaser is a production of
the Black Effect Podcast Network in iHeart Radio Antism figure Out,
and I'd like to thank our producer editor mixer Dwayne
Crawford and our executive producer Charlotte Magne to God. For
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(02:15:56):
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