Reparations and Historical Injustice

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaks to the planning. I'll go by the name of
Charlamagne of God and guess what, I can't wait to
see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival.
That's right, We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April
twenty six at Poeman Yards and it's hosted by none
other than Decisions Decisions, Mandy B and Weezy. Okay, we
got the R and B Money podcast, were taking Jay Valentine.
We got the Woman of All Podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts.

(00:22):
We got Good Mom's Bad Choices. Carrie Champion will be
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podcast with more to be announced. And of course it's
bigger than podcasts. We're bringing the Black Effect marketplace with
black owned businesses plus the food truck court to keep
you fed.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
While you visit us. All right, listen, you don't want
to miss this.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Tap in and grab your tickets now at Black Effect
dot Com Flash Podcast Festival.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
I'm Tamika D. Mallory and the Shit Boy my Son
a General.

Speaker 4 (00:48):
We are your host of TMI.

Speaker 5 (00:50):
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration.

Speaker 4 (00:55):
New name new energy. Say what's going on my son, Lennon?

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Ay much? Tamika? Do you Marry? How you feeling good?

Speaker 4 (01:06):
Doing good?

Speaker 6 (01:06):
I mean you know I've had obviously, we have had
a major blow in the last few days with the
loss of my godmother, my movement mother, my friend, my
big sister, my link sister, so many things, mentor all

(01:28):
the things, my leader, Hazel and Dukes. For people who
don't know doctor Duke, she is an icon, a living legend,
or now unfortunately a deceased legend, someone who never really
looked for the cover of magazines and you know, to

(01:48):
be the most noticed, but she did, has done the
most organizing of anybody that I know.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
I don't know anyone who lived as.

Speaker 6 (01:57):
Long as she lived who made such an incredible impact
on our society. My Dukes was on the board of
the NAACP, I'm sure for more than thirty years. She
is a grassroots organizer from Harlem and her community of Hall.

(02:20):
Doesn't that that she could be on the national board
to NAACP. She could be over here in another country
helping with humanitarian efforts. Baby that Harlem, that local community.
She was hard pressed about ensuring that the people of
Harlem knew her. She walked the streets, she shook hands,

(02:42):
She paid light bills, phone bills, rent went to court,
family court, went to criminal court.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Did all of that with people from Harlem.

Speaker 6 (02:52):
She was a go to for elected officials to be
able to get her her. She was one that you
had to kiss the ring, because not because she was
ostentatious and or egotistical, but because she was such an
important and formidable force within the community that if you

(03:15):
didn't kiss the ring and people didn't see her with you,
they want to know what's wrong with you that she was.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
You know that she didn't support you.

Speaker 6 (03:23):
And I tell you even with my dukes, where we
sometimes wouldn't agree politically. So I'd be with one candidate
and she'd be with somebody else, and I'll be saying, Ma,
you know, I don't know why you supporting that person.
She said, Baby, you live to see a day when
you put yourself in a position that no matter who win,
they got to talk to you. So it don't really

(03:45):
matter like you might be caught up in Well, you
and I got to be on the same side.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
We don't.

Speaker 4 (03:51):
We don't agree on the same issue.

Speaker 6 (03:53):
She used to tell me you and I have different perspectives.
I come from a perspective where, yes, I care about
my youth. I want to see programming for the youth.
I want to see violence decreased. I want to see
all that. But I'm also an elder, so senior care
is important to me, and workers, civil servants, those types

(04:15):
of things you might your interests might be focused on
police accountability, which she cared about, but that might not
be one on the list. That might be three and
one for her is making sure elderly people didn't get
evicted from their homes, and then making sure that people
got their medication and that the hospitals was good. It
just depended on who was running and what the issues were.

(04:39):
And sometimes I would be like, well, Ma, you know,
but what about my candidate. She say, send me the link, baby,
I'm gonna send them some money.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
So she would.

Speaker 6 (04:46):
Donate even to my person, who she may not have
been supporting, because she was that strategic that she knew
how to deal with the entire board, not just be
so caught up in one thing that you can can't see,
as she says, the forest from the trees. And so
I learned a lot of my organizing from her. And
another thing she used to tell me was don't do

(05:08):
everything I do. Do your own thing. Listen to me wisdom,
but don't do everything I do. You do your thing
your way. And she was very supportive of us. She's
been by our side. She's been with me in every
foxhole I ever got into. If I was in trouble,
she got in trouble with me. You know, she would
never just let me be out there by myself. And
so I just Min's passed and we all call her

(05:32):
my dukes and you know, for me, and I've been
getting a lot of text messages from people saying, naw,
like she really really loved you. And I think she
loved all of us. She had many children, She loved
every single one of us, and she loved us hard.
But I think with me she saw a little organizer,

(05:52):
like a little rival rouser, and.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
So she knew I needed a lot of a lot
of protection.

Speaker 5 (05:58):
I think would think she's seen her a bit of
herself in you. You know, when I when I listen
to you and I'm listening to her, there's this spice
and there's this vigor that y'all both have.

Speaker 2 (06:10):
And I think she's seen. She's like a little bit
of hunt you so.

Speaker 4 (06:15):
But I think she could find a little bit of.

Speaker 6 (06:18):
Her in all her everybody, all children, a little bit
a little bougie, a little you know, organizer from like
an organizational perspective, you know, because us we're kind of
like decentralized, you know, we believe in having organization and
things happening all over, and that's kind of that's something

(06:38):
that she knows how to do because she worked within
an organization that has you know, units everywhere, chapters moving
or whatever. But some of her children are all about
structure and organization and that's what they into and she
into that too. So you could she could see look
at so and so every little detail, you know, on

(06:59):
a little detail, Oh look at so and so knows
how to rally orly elected officials.

Speaker 4 (07:04):
Oh look at so and so. Good fundraiser.

Speaker 6 (07:07):
She could see herself in every one of us in
different ways. But with me, I think she always knew
that I was the one to say the thing and
get myself in trouble, and so she felt like I
needed protection. Every child probably need something different from her,
and I was the one who she needed to protect.

(07:27):
Marvin bing our brother. She knew she had to always
monitor his health. He's gonna do his business. But whether
or not he was taking care of himself, whether or
not he was letting the stress and the trauma of
his life, things that happened to him, you know early
on in life. If he was allowed, if he was
letting that kill him, she gonna be on top of it,
you know what I'm saying. So everybody, we all are

(07:50):
suffering such a great loss. It's such a huge loss
that it is indescribable that you know, I was there
with her six or seven days before she passed away.

Speaker 4 (08:04):
You knew it was coming because we could see it.

Speaker 6 (08:06):
You walk in the door, You're like, damn, you know
her time is winding down. But it's just nothing like
that last moment when the eyes are closed and the
story is over.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
So it's a tough thing.

Speaker 2 (08:19):
We've in peace to the Queen, Hazel and dukes Man.
We missed you already.

Speaker 6 (08:26):
Well anyway, here we are at the end of the
first season of the Team my podcast, but not the
first season of us doing a podcast together. New energy,
the same old us, and as we rebrand, we rebranded

(08:47):
this season we became the Tamika Mason Information Podcast. But
I think we now have moved to being a show
and not so much a podcast, although I still love
the grassroots and grassrootness of podcasts. I love that, and

(09:10):
you know, and I am so grateful for the people
that I meet, especially on my book tour, that are saying,
oh my god, I love your podcast.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
I watch it.

Speaker 6 (09:20):
I you know, I see y'all all the time. I
love what you're doing, and so I'm I love that.
I love that about the fact that this this vehicle
gives us a way to touch people that we don't
even get to see until you happen to be in
West Bubblehell and there goes somebody that's like, oh man,

(09:40):
I remember that episode when y'all was talking about song.
So I was so mad because I wanted to get
my thing in there, and what about me? Because I got,
you know, my product needs to be on your show too.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
You know.

Speaker 6 (09:50):
I hear that all the time, and it lets us
know that we got so much ground to cover. Our
people are spread out all over this country, all over
the world, with so much to contribute to the fight
to information, to fact finding, to truth finding. And I
am very committed to what we look at feel like

(10:11):
we change so much about our visuals. We had so
many great shows during the season, and some of y'all
stuck with us, and we've got more work to do.
We've been trying to fine tune so you can find
us easily on YouTube, so you can listen to our products,
so that our schedules are tight enough that we're dropping
what you're supposed to see and hear from us on

(10:31):
a regular basis. And we're working on all those things.
But thank you so much for sticking with us.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
Folks. We love and appreciate every.

Speaker 6 (10:39):
Single supporter of the team my show, and we appreciate
those people who send feedback to help us be better
at what it is that we're doing.

Speaker 5 (10:49):
We truly appreciate y'all, man, keep supporting us. We are
going to keep giving y'all all content and all the
best interviews that we can give you, and we're going
to try to make sure that everything we give you
is fact you and that you are definitely in love
with this podcast because we need about twenty more seasons. Man.

Speaker 6 (11:07):
Yes, absolutely, we're gonna We're gonna be on TV one day.

Speaker 4 (11:10):
That's the goal.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
We're gonna have our own channel.

Speaker 4 (11:15):
So for today, we.

Speaker 6 (11:16):
Did not want to do a show with one guest
because we couldn't figure out which guests to bring on
and what exactly to talk about.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
So we said, bring them all on. Let's do a panel,
bring bring them out, rather than all.

Speaker 6 (11:29):
Of the different segments that you're used to hearing, which
we're fine tuning in.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
Those as well.

Speaker 6 (11:33):
We see what works, what y'all love, We see what
has actually sparked conversation on our social media. Uh, And
so we're gonna we're gonna lean more in the next
season into those things and just try to revise some
of the other things we want to tell y'all the
greatest music and all of that. But sometimes y'all don't

(11:55):
be paying us no attention and we be thinking it's hot,
and then they don't.

Speaker 4 (11:59):
I don't know.

Speaker 6 (12:00):
We gotta, well, we gotta find a way to what
y'all said. What did you tell me? Uh that Lauryn
Hill said you got to add a motherfucker to So
y'all put a little bit of strawberry and.

Speaker 2 (12:17):
Catch up. You gotta get a little you gotta get
you edible, you know what.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
God, Sorry, No, you don't have you. Okay, all right, Okay.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
You do it.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
They are puffect.

Speaker 6 (12:31):
So we're gonna find tune that stuff as well. But
on for today, we wanted to have a panel discussion,
and uh, I think that this is a good way
for us to wrap up the season because we have
individuals who will be here to talk about some of
the stuff that we've been working on, especially during this
critical time.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
And so I'm really excited to introduce a panel of powerful, powerful.

Speaker 6 (12:54):
Individuals to you and we will see you in the
next season after this interview. So we have an entire
panel of friends today. As I mentioned to you all,
we at the end of our season of TMI, our
newly branded podcast, our show. We've been calling it the

(13:18):
TMI Show. We're no longer the TMI podcast. We're moving
up in the world. And you know, at the as
we come to the end of this season, which has
been one of our best seasons, we put a lot
of energy into this show. We understand that in the
age of misinformation, it is going to be on us

(13:41):
to create content and to make sure that we have
information for our community where people can find facts. And
if we don't know, we say we don't know, and
we go find out. And so today we got a
group of people to find some things out from because
they know all kind of stuff. And y'all know that
our friends are really important to us here at TMI.

(14:03):
So I'm excited to welcome the guests. My son, you
ready for the invitation of all our fabulous, fantastic guests.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
I mean, I'm always ready. Man.

Speaker 5 (14:13):
We happen to be aligned with some of the most
brilliant political and just minds in this world, so and
it happened to be our friends.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
So it's good that we have the ability to.

Speaker 5 (14:25):
Get people on the line that can speak truth to power,
that can break things down eloquently and with facts, because
that's all I'm about.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
I ain't with the rest giving me the facts.

Speaker 5 (14:34):
Y'all can have the you know, your opinions, and you
can have all the rest of the stuff. I just
want the facts, or the closest thing to the facts.
And if you don't know, then don't tell me, you know.

Speaker 6 (14:45):
So, first of all, I want to introduce who someone
I consider to be my leader in many ways, as
Pastor Michael McBride. So yes, absolutely, I don't know why
you're looking like you confuse every day, I talked to
Pastor Mike to just get a little bit more fine.

Speaker 4 (15:04):
Tuning in how I approach the world.

Speaker 6 (15:07):
Pastor McBride is a co founder of the Black Church
Pack and also executive director of Live Free.

Speaker 4 (15:14):
He'll tell us a little bit more about what both
of those.

Speaker 6 (15:17):
Entities do, but I can tell y'all, of all the
people that's doing anything, Pastor Mike is really doing it.
Let's just put it that way. And then we have
my two sisters, Teslain Figureo. Y'all know her as the
Hood Whisperer. She is a Revolt News correspondent. That's her
newest role, and I'm so excited that Revolt understood that

(15:40):
they needed you there, tas as well as the host
of Straight Shot No Chaser, a podcast on the Black
Effect podcast network, my podcast sibling.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
As they say.

Speaker 6 (15:52):
And then Nina Turner, the honorable Nina Turner. Make sure
y'all never ever forget to add the honorable. She is
the founder of We Are Somebody and also leading the
efforts around Strike for All, And in this particular moment,
I would say, I would say that Nina Turner is

(16:13):
one of the most important political minds in our time
right like they're gonna be history books later to talk
about how Nina Turner knew to educate us in a
way that nobody else knows how to do it. You
talk straight, you're courageous, you're bold, and black, you super black,

(16:36):
and we love at we love at about you. So
we've got a great panel today. Let me just start
off with you, Tesla, and let me just let me
let me preface all of this that, as my son said,
everybody's talking.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Everybody's talking. One of the problems that I think we have.

Speaker 6 (16:53):
I wish the Internet would just cut off sometimes because
we have so many.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
People who believe that they are an expert.

Speaker 6 (17:00):
And I do believe to some degree, y'all that folks,
they're Our lived experience does make us an expert at
what we experience, what we're going through, what's happening in
our local communities and with the people that we talk to.
But sometimes the information that we hear is wrapped in
stuff that's not factual, and that's something that we want

(17:22):
to TMI is really, really, very very careful about that,
and I try to be careful about it in my
day to day communication with people. So one of the
big top lines in the podcast YouTube World, is this
idea that we must build our own, that we must
take advantage of the struggles of this moment that everybody's watching.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
People who never thought about politics, don't care none about politics.

Speaker 6 (17:50):
They're all paying attention in this moment, and this is
a time where we can use that energy to build
our own. We agree one hundred percent that we cannot
come out on the other side of this doing the
same things that we've been doing for the last unpteen years,
and we don't have new systems, new mechanisms and things
that we control our own. We've had a lot and

(18:14):
we lost a lot Black media. We're down to barely
anything in terms of networks and magazines and newspapers that
are flourishing that we own. So we know that some
of these things we've found out from these boycotts that
distribution is important, hugely important. How are these black businesses
going to get their products out there if black people

(18:35):
and others decide to turn off Target Walmart, Amazon.

Speaker 4 (18:39):
So on and so forth.

Speaker 6 (18:41):
But we also understand that when people say build your own,
it takes time to stand up a hospital in every
community that people can get to in five minutes from
their home, no matter where they live.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
It takes time to build grocery stores and.

Speaker 6 (18:59):
All the things things that we know the federal government
is responsible for federal and local government because our tax
dollars not handouts. We ain't asking for handouts for our
tax dollars are responsible for how some of those things
are built and maintained and the jobs that go into

(19:20):
keeping those things going and tesling. Lately, I've been hearing
you talk a lot about federal workers. Not only are
you talking about it publicly, you've been texting saying, hey, y'all,
we on a lot of stuff, but we ain't focused
on the federal workers and how this is going to
impact our communities. So why don't you talk about that
while we're building our own In that context, what do

(19:42):
we do about the workers that are losing their jobs?

Speaker 7 (19:45):
Thank you, Tamika. I am. There's a lot of things
that I've organized for throughout my career, like many of us,
but this one particular thing, to Mika is literally disturbing
me on a personal level. As you mentioned, we are entrepreneurs.
You know, we build our own if you will. I've

(20:08):
won several awards for having a business a Minority Entrepreneur
of the Year from US Department of Commerce last year,
Women Who Mean Business, Orlando, Florida, forty under forty NAACP.
I've won awards. I've had three hundred employees. I'm saying
this because it's important because as we're having this build
Owned conversation, a lot of people who are talking about

(20:28):
build their own, the reality is they've only had one
or two employees, which is the national average for most
black businesses. I've had up to three hundred employees signed
in the front of the check in Orlando, Florida, the
Amway Center. I say that to say I am the
biggest proponent of build your Own. I also know that
it also took government of private partnership, public partnership in

(20:52):
order to get access, you know, to those types of contracts.
It also took access to be able to have a
people hire my folks. And I also know, Tamika, everybody's
not an entrepreneur. Everybody doesn't have the patience if you will, persistence,
if you will to say you know I'm gonna do

(21:12):
without health care. See, we got to really start having
this conversation. Build your own means I haven't had health.

Speaker 3 (21:17):
Care insurance for eighteen years.

Speaker 7 (21:18):
Build your own means. There has been times one, two,
three years at a time where I haven't made an income.
Build your own means, And since an eternity can attestify
to this, when I was applying.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
At Kroger to.

Speaker 7 (21:32):
Carry bags out, while I was building my own, when
I was ubering in two thousand and eight, while I
was building my own, while I was selling shoes at dealers,
building my own, while I was selling mobile phones at
T Mobile, building my own. So in this moment, if
we're going to educate folks on what it means to
build your own, I want you to build your own,
but I also want to be truthful about what it takes.

(21:55):
The support system you may or may not have. Because
I didn't have one, both my parents are in the ground.
I believe you really can get it out the muscle.
But at the same time, what I'm finding is they're shaming,
if you will, of folks who are depending upon their
federal jobs. We cannot let it be remissed. I'm all
about making sure the business is getting taken care of,

(22:16):
making sure the DEI, the contracts, the target, this to that.
But what is so pressing upon me is the middle class.
The center of black middle class is directly in Maryland.
We're not making this up. We're talking about the median
income between eighty thousand and one hundred thousand off of
those federal jobs. So what I'm seeing in the internet world,

(22:39):
you know folks just talking who I believe are capitalizing
on the devastation and the desperation of black folks saying
we know this is a perfect time for you to
stop begging for money and you need to build your own.
I take personal issue with this, Tamika. My mother was
sixty two years old. She did and just barrel men
as I just say this and I'll give them back.

(23:01):
Senator Turner knows this because she was with me during
my time when I lost my mother. She did everything
to build your own. She worked at the television station.
She did she was a cosmotologist, had her own cosmetology business,
had her own typing business. She typed up obituaries, she
typed up church programs.

Speaker 3 (23:17):
She also was a notary.

Speaker 7 (23:18):
She also was a real estate agent. She saw herbal life.
She was never on welfare. She did it all to
build your own. But she also still had a job
and the one thing my mother said before she passed away, tesling,
If I could just get this government job, If I
could just get this government job to get the benefits
that I need to be able to take care of myself, Tesldan,

(23:40):
if you just get a government job, you'll be safe.
I watched my mother to making you know this in
your book. I live to tell the story. Can I
tell you my mother did not live to tell the story?
Can I tell you that for six and seven years
she sat in the house, did not want to leave
the house, smoking cigarettes back to back to back to
back because nobody would hire her.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
After the two thousand and eight financial crisis.

Speaker 7 (24:02):
Can I tell you that my mother said that I
feel worthless because nobody wants me.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
What have I done?

Speaker 7 (24:09):
Why can nobody take my skill set and the one
job that gave her the opportunity like many federal jobs
and state jobs have done. We know this on record
for black people was the Department of Oklahoma, the Faith
based Initiative. My mother finally got a job to Meeker
at sixty years old. She was diagnosed with cancer several
months after that, and she said, TESLM, I've been wanting

(24:30):
to die the last several years and finally the moment
that somebody says I'm worthy enough to be a secretary
for them, I find out I got eight months to live.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
See she didn't live to tell the story, But have the.

Speaker 7 (24:45):
Health care not been there, which was still inadequate by
the way Medicare for all. This is what allowed my
mother to be able to have the treatments so that
I was able to still see my mother while she died.
These are the things when that people are not understanding
that the federal government was all that was willing to
give her an opportunity. So when I hear people say,

(25:08):
don't worry about it, that's what they get. They gotta
come down and do like everybody else. A sixty two
year old woman in articles about it right now in NPR,
she was told she had ninety minutes to take her
stuff out of her office. I think about my mother.
To me, but what that would have devastated my mother.
I think about my grandfather, retired at the post office twice.

(25:28):
All he's ever known was being a post office. He's
dead and gone. I think about my uncle, who was
a waste management who was a garbage man for the
city of Houston, retire twice when y'all say build their own,
What was my grandfather supposed to do? Go start a
post office? What was my grandfather's supposed my uncle's supposed
to do, Go start his own waste management? What was
my mother supposed to do for the benefits that she

(25:49):
needed as she set up and sped up.

Speaker 3 (25:51):
Her half getting lung cancer?

Speaker 7 (25:53):
It is in critically important that we have conversations about
black business, but we must talk about what is happening
with these workers. Where do they transfer these skills, Where
do they go into the private sector, What jobs do
they get? Who will hire them? Because everybody can't be
a podcaster, Everybody can't do or don't want to be
in the digital space. So I feel that i'll shut

(26:16):
up now that there's not enough conversation. Pastor Brian said
it on the call the other day. You may have
heard him. He said, three hundred thousand black people will
be directly impacted this month alone from these federal jobs.
And so I just I am trying to find ways
to meet to because I don't have the answers to
micro organize to get people in the room. If it's
one hundred people in the room, I'm doing it at

(26:37):
my town hall in Atlanta, one hundred people in the room. Hey,
who in here know how to sew? Who in here
know how to fish? Who in there know how to
fix a car?

Speaker 3 (26:44):
Who in here know?

Speaker 7 (26:44):
Is that type of micro organizing that people need right
now before we get the forty six million on board
and build your own and have these conversations, we need
twenty five people in the room, thirty people in the
room that can have a rent party, that can help
people have a place to stay. We are in building
time like now more than ever before. And this is
not a scare tactic. Everybody doesn't have a try to

(27:06):
make I don't have my parents. I've lost twenty five
members of my family. The movement has become my family.
So I know everybody doesn't have that, And can we
be transparent?

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Everybody in the movement don't have it right, all of
us don't.

Speaker 7 (27:21):
Have you talked about it in your book? I told
you two three weeks ago. I was like, girl, I
wanted to come, but I couldn't afford the ticket. I'm
trying to buckle down. We got to start having these
real conversations on this Bill Jones concept that we're talking
about because it's hard out here and people will need
our support.

Speaker 3 (27:38):
That was long winded, but I.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
Know it was.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
It was needed.

Speaker 5 (27:40):
It was it was it was all the things that
we've been talking about. You know, me and Test get
on the text thread and we be pissed off and
we go back and forth, and it's real, and I
just want to say that I love you. You know
what I'm saying, And whatever we gotta build, I'm gonna
build with you. And you know, I understand. I'm just
hear the pain in your voice. But it's it's real.
And when we have these common stations with individuals and

(28:01):
we're telling them to build their own from a place
of privilege, right, when you speaking from a place of
privilege because you're able to build your own, I always
give this this conversation.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
It's like telling everybody you can be Lebron James. That's
not the fact. If everybody could be Lebron James, then
we wouldn't be calling him remarkable. Right.

Speaker 5 (28:17):
Everybody is not gonna be the best player in the NBA.
Everybody ain't gonna be Michael jan So they are gonna
be role players.

Speaker 2 (28:23):
And we and us asked if we the Lebron James.

Speaker 5 (28:26):
We're supposed to make sure that the role players have
a seat at the table, that they have places to play,
and when we diminish them and act as if we don't,
if you just want a job, then there's something wrong
with that.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
If you're going to school every day and you've studied.

Speaker 5 (28:39):
Because you want this career and you wanted to be
in government, and there's something wrong with that. We're not
having real conversations and we're not speaking to the needs
and the realities of our people. So I just want
to say thank you Taz for expressing it that way,
because I don't think nobody else could have said it
that way. I want to go to you now, Pastor
Michael Brodd, and I just want you to speak about
this whole Build your Own and how the Black Church

(29:01):
has been in the lead a building your own. You
know for years you've been talking about that, and even
though you've talked about it and they've been doing it,
it's not that easy.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
No, it's not that easy. And I think you know.
I also want to just honor your story since the test.

Speaker 8 (29:16):
I hadn't heard that story before, and I appreciate you
being vulnerable to share that. I pastor a bunch of
black folks who have that story, and I think there's
there's too much cavalier throwing around about what people should
do and not enough proximity to the people who are
every day trying to just make their ends meet. They

(29:37):
don't want to be a billionaire. They want three meals
to feed their children, a safe neighborhood, and a roof
over the head.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
That's all they want. They're not trying to be billionaires.

Speaker 8 (29:49):
And I think some of what is happening is our
people are buying the propaganda of this kind of demonizing
of government as if it has not been one of
the important ladders out of exclusionary poverty that we as
a people. I mean, these are the fights our ancestors

(30:10):
literally died for to have access to the wealth of
this country that are housed largely in the federal reserve,
the federal budget, our tax dollars. Every day we're paying
into these pots of money, and every federal job is
paid by our tax dollars. If we pay taxes, why
should we not have access to the labor force of

(30:33):
our tax base, And then why should we not also
have the federal civil rights protection so when we want
to go get capital to start a business, get capital
to get a house, get capital to build a church
where they're not rent lined or frozen out because racist
white folk and others want to use their own biases
to further lock us out of capital. It should be

(30:54):
the conversation at the end of the day about freedom,
the freedom to choose what you want to do with
your life and not have yourself locked out in. The
Black church, for all of its challenges, has been one
of the most important anti white supremacists fighting organizations since
this country started. It was founded because we were locked

(31:16):
out of white churches and white spaces, and black freedom
fighters abolitionists built institutions to ensure that black people could
have land, could have resources, have schools, have businesses, and
informal informal networks for two hundred, three hundred years to
ensure some self determination. And I do think it's really

(31:36):
important for us to not allow the kind of talking
points of small government or the demonization of the federal
infrastructure and apparatus to become the enemy of that which
has literally been our lifelong struggle. Black churches, you know,

(31:56):
employ a lot of folks as well. It's really important
to say that Liverpool wages. But how many black folks
have gone to college because of a black church scholarship fund.
How many black people are getting paid small dollars to clean,
to play music, to do daycares, on and on and
on self funded stuff. But it is still not enough
access to capital to actually solidify the black community. The

(32:20):
average Black church in this country is less than seventy
five members. So if you have more than one hundred
and fifty members, you're in the top ten percent of
Black churches in this country. We look at Jamal Bryant
and Gina Stewarts and TV Jakes and all these sorts
and think the average Black churches is that big and
has that much access to capital resources in land and
is just not the case. So you have these small

(32:42):
mom and pop institutions that have been an anchor, but
it is not enough. And this is why we have
to have access to everything, access to everything, that nothing
should be taken off the table in order for us
to build and stabilize our communities. And this president, this
administration is already signaling, if have not already done, they
have stripped, removed and taken protections out that our ancestors

(33:07):
have fought for two hundred years. Of course, I would
say the Democratic Party has not been our friend, but
I will also say that we must have a both
and conversation because there are things that were one on
our blood sweating tiers, not the Democratic Party, our bloods,
wedding tears, and at the very least some of that
stuff was protected. Now it's actively being stripped back. We

(33:27):
are to join this fight from every place where we
are in this country, but not loose factor freedom, the
freedom of chruse, the freedom have access. That must be
our rallying cry and our foundational commitment across the board.

Speaker 6 (33:40):
You Pa, I appreciate that that's true that a lot
of black churches they hire people as well as as
you said, you got the minister of music. That's where
they get their extra money for the daycare or.

Speaker 4 (33:55):
For their family to have a little.

Speaker 6 (33:58):
Bit of enjoyment on the week weekends. You know, the
person who cleans the church. You know the people who
answer the phone on Sundays get a little fifty seventy
five dollars.

Speaker 4 (34:09):
Like you said, it all makes up a pot. That
is what people are sustaining themselves on.

Speaker 6 (34:15):
And I think we need all of those things. A
Senator Turner, I want you to talk about some of
the things that we're doing and some of the I
want to say solutions, and will break down what I
mean by that in the moment. But before we get there,
in the build your own conversation, what we're now talking

(34:37):
about is.

Speaker 4 (34:38):
People who would be at home.

Speaker 6 (34:41):
Right because they don't have a job their tax dollars.
At that point, I guess I don't know. I mean,
obviously you're gonna still pay taxes. I don't care if
it comes from Medicaid and your check and matter of fact,
elon must you can't have a welfare check as what

(35:02):
do they call public assistance because you're parasite.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
So I'm not sure.

Speaker 6 (35:06):
But let's just say a person is working at a
job and their taxes is they're coming out every month,
and then you're still telling them.

Speaker 4 (35:15):
Go and build your own. The question I have for
you is can they stop paying their taxes?

Speaker 6 (35:20):
You don't only want to hear that it was an
elected official test were you ever elected?

Speaker 4 (35:25):
No, so you are elected official here? Can you just
stop paying your taxes?

Speaker 6 (35:31):
Because they tell me that in the comments section every
day that I need to stop paying taxes.

Speaker 4 (35:38):
I need to go and be something else.

Speaker 6 (35:40):
I guess I'm more or whatever some other thing, and
I could stop paying my taxes. And then, because I'm
just trying to understand, if I'm paying my taxes, how
am my ware I'm supposed to get the money from
to do the building my own? Do I need to
strip at night? Like I'm serious too, I'm not even joking,
so I could build my own. So I just want
to know from you, what's the formula here to get

(36:02):
into what these people are talking about.

Speaker 9 (36:04):
Well, it's certainly not paying your taxes. Uncle Sam getting
his one way or the other. He will come for
you eventually. It might not be overnight, but they will
get you. So no, that's not an option. And just
to be with this old gust panel today does my
heart so much joy to be with true freedom fighters.

Speaker 3 (36:22):
And to my sister FIGUREO.

Speaker 9 (36:25):
I mean, we were on the campaign trail of Senator
Bernie Sanders when she lost her mom and she didn't
miss a beat. You know, I am in the lost
your mama club as well. And it's a hard thing.
It doesn't matter how young you are, how seasoned you are,
Mama's mean a whole lot in this world.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
And when I.

Speaker 9 (36:43):
Tell you she did not miss a beat, you're talking
about a true soldier. You wouldn't have never known that
she lost her mom, and certainly similar what you're going
through now, TDM with the loss of Mama Dukes. But
I just want to lift her up because she told
the absolute truth.

Speaker 2 (36:59):
There.

Speaker 9 (36:59):
Work for government jobs used to be a virtue, and
we let these clowns come in here and make it
something that is not.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
Virtuous any longer. Federal workers are public servants.

Speaker 9 (37:09):
They just not elected public servants, but they are the
public servants. The people who work at the Veterans Affairs Administration,
the people who work at that Social Security Office, you
name it, the person who.

Speaker 3 (37:21):
Works at the Post Office, and so on and so
forth those.

Speaker 9 (37:23):
Departments, they are public servants. And Eli must need to
have several seats because he's on the government dole.

Speaker 3 (37:30):
He receives corporate wearfare. He is a warfare.

Speaker 9 (37:32):
Recipient, and we need to let the world know the
difference between him and Big Mama and Big Papa, who
may be receiving some assistance.

Speaker 3 (37:40):
Because of tax dollars.

Speaker 9 (37:41):
It's called a social contract that we put money in
a pot But the full fledge attack that Figaro is
talking about is primarily on black folks, but there will
be a ripple effect for everybody else because when this
nation come for black folks, contrary to popular understanding.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
And belief, poorer and working class people and barely making it.

Speaker 9 (38:01):
Middle class folks get hit too, of all backgrounds, So
they need to always watch what's happening to black people.
But that is how we got into the middle class,
not just on the federal level, but the state level,
the local level, and the regional levels of government, because
our ancestors fought to make sure that that government at
least would not discriminate against us in jobs. When we

(38:22):
think about people like asum Philip Randolf, who stared down
President FDR to try to desegregate it and integrate not
only just the armed forces, which came by way of Truman,
but what he was able to get from FDR is
what you're not gonna do is discriminate.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
In defense industry. So black folks got higher.

Speaker 9 (38:42):
See, this has been a long journey since they brought
a shift our behinds over here to fight for a
type of equality and liberation. So we cannot allow an
elon musk a President Donald J. Trump or any others
of those folks to diminish.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
It is not normal for.

Speaker 9 (38:58):
Us to look at our sisters and brothers and family
and friends who work for government on any level and
tell them get a real job or welcome to the
private sector.

Speaker 3 (39:06):
Why we lowering standards. We need to.

Speaker 9 (39:09):
Raise the private sector jobs up to the government level jobs.
Black people would not be as cemented in the middle
class had it not been for government jobs. And the
reason why we're cemented is not by happenstance.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
It is because freedom fighters who came.

Speaker 9 (39:23):
Before us ensured that at least in one place, we
weren't gonna be discriminated against. It's the place where we
pay our taxes. Y'all gonna hire some black folks up
in here. That is so real, So anyway that you know.

Speaker 5 (39:42):
It's two hundred percent right, and it's so unfortunate that
our people have been brainwashed by this. They figured out
a way to utilize this social media to keep telling
us the same thing and make us believe that it's
something wrong with us, for one, in what we deserve,
what we naturally deserve. And it's such a confused thing, you.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Know, passing.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
I want to ask you this question because I do
this anti violence work.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
I do get violence interruption.

Speaker 5 (40:09):
And when we talk about these federal cuts and we
talk about all these things that are going to be dismissed,
you know, the Safer Communities Act, which had distributed hundreds
of millions to anti violence work in the communities, has
been cut.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Now, how is that going to affect us?

Speaker 8 (40:25):
I mean, it's it's brutal. I mean, you know, we
should appreciate that. All the way back in two thousand,
Man was a new town. Twenty twelve, a number of
US led the largest group of black directly impacted folks
the gun violence inside the White House under Obama was
asking for six billion dollar commitment to fund community violence

(40:48):
intervention or urban gun violence, and Obama didn't even move
on it. Biden said he wasn't going to do it.
And it took us about ten years just to get
legislation written called the Break the Cycle of Violence. It
did not get passed, but it was put inside the
Safer Communities Act, and it set aside about four hundred
million dollars to ensure that we could at least get

(41:09):
these resources jump started. We also organized about organizing about
fifty cities across the country under this thing we called
fund Peace, and we're able to get the America Rescue
Plan dollars, the Partner of Education housing, a number of
federal grant programs to be opened up for local communities
to apply to do CVI work. All of that added

(41:31):
up to help contribute to a massive reduction in gun
related shootings and homicides across the country and get it
back to pre COVID levels over the last five years. Now,
why do I say that once the ARP funds, which
pretty much of sunset it disappear in local cities, we
are now left with a pre COVID level funding for

(41:54):
Community Vice Interventions, which has been one of the most
intensive workforce development program for black men, black women, some
Latino folks who had criminal convictions, who come out of
gangs and groups and incarceration to do peacemaking work in
the community. Trump has not only been noncommittal in continuing

(42:16):
that funding, a lot of the funding that was allocated
under the Biden Harris administration has been frozen. Hundreds of
thousands of dollars that was coming to our work in
the Bay Area frozen. Nonprofits are closing down as we speak,
because they can't make payroll because even the federal grants
that we all fought hard to apply for are reimbursable grants,

(42:36):
So that means we spent the money already waiting for reimbursements,
and the Department of Treasury has frozen that under the
DOGE stuff. So it is, indeed, I think, a very
perilous moment in our movement for the kind of non
law enforcement gun violence intervention programs grounded in public health
that mice in so many in New York and Chicago

(42:59):
and the Bay we have fought for. There is an
important kind of consideration that we now have to figure out,
how do we leverage our tax base locally, leverage our
tax base perhaps at the state level, to try and
open these resources back up, and or figure out is
there a level we can push at the congressional level

(43:19):
or even inside the White House health freezer is over.
I guess maybe I don't know, Maybe he'll do something right.
I don't know, But this is a donut hole in
the work that has been at least fifteen years in
the making, and a lot of us are trying to
figure out where do we go from here. It will
have a massive impact in building the infrastructure, public health,
mental health, and workforce development for those numbers of individuals

(43:43):
in our communities at the highest risk of shooting and being.

Speaker 3 (43:46):
Shot can asen. I want to bring you.

Speaker 6 (43:48):
I want you to come in and talk, but I
would just want to ask you if you could speak
to are we begging? I know y'all already covered it,
but I'm asking you directly. Do you feel like what
you just heard Past and Mike say sounds like he's
begging the government to come and do something to save
us what that we could do for ourselves.

Speaker 7 (44:07):
You know, we're accessing what we've already paid into. You
know a lot of these folks who are talking about
stop begging also be asking for cash apps. A lot
of these folks who'll be saying stop begging also were
making money off use. You know a lot of these
folks who are saying stop begging, we are circulating the dollar.
And it is called a private public partnership. And if
you give a damn about what's happening to the least,

(44:28):
we just got to just start naming this for what
it is. If we give a damn about what's happening
to the least of these, then you do care about
gang intervention programs that are now being cut because of
the lack of funding. If you give a damn about
what's happening to your cousin that you forgot about, because
we all not even six degrees separation, but three degrees
separation from somebody who is hurting and who actually need

(44:49):
with the recidivism program, with people that are coming out
of prison, that actually need to be have resources to
train to get jobs to have that because these build
your own people are not hiring them. And again we
are not against build your own, but I like to
just use real testimonies, guys, because a lot of times
it goes over people's head. And that's why I try
to be so transparent, you know, and sharing a personal,

(45:10):
you know, personal story so they can get it. I
want to touch on a minute about the disabled and
like and how this is happening with disabled because we've
had a lot of conversation on DEI and people think
we're just talking about somebody's pot pottery business or pots
and pans and targeting. No, no, no, We're also talking about
those of us who have decided to say I'm not

(45:31):
gonna just sit home and be disabled. I'm not just
gonna sit back and depend on the government. I'm actually
going to go get a job. And a lot of
these federal jobs have hired people because they do get
incentivized to give people a federal job.

Speaker 3 (45:43):
Just a quick story.

Speaker 7 (45:44):
When after I got done building my own in Orlando
with my three hundred employees, and we lost our contract
in the volatile private sector, guess who hired me?

Speaker 3 (45:53):
In Oklahoma, I went for one year. I was a.

Speaker 7 (45:55):
Disability adjudicator at the Department of Oklahoma at the Social
Security Administration. Tammy, my very best friend of thirty years,
was able to give me a referral to get on
that job. Tammy has been suffering. I'm saying this because
it is so important to me. Come again, I'm tying
in your book with the anxiety and depression people who
have been suffering that for a very long time. My

(46:16):
best friend can't even stand up for long periods of
time because of her physical disability. The government gave her
job rather than Tammy sitting at home. The same one
that gave me a job went and got a job
rather than her sitting at home. The government gave her
an opportunity. The banks would not hire her. She couldn't
get a job anywhere else now because they're now forced
to come back into the office.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
My friend is suffering physically.

Speaker 7 (46:39):
She was doing an at home job, still doing the
best that she could. When we talk about how this
is affecting people, to the disabled, to people who were
discriminated against my mother being hired at sixty years old,
nobody thought she was worthy enough to meka. She wasn't
that she didn't want to work. It wasn't that she
didn't want to pull herself about the bootstraps. It wasn't
that she didn't want to do for self, and it's

(47:01):
do for own. These have been places where, like Senda
Turner eloquently pointed out, that have had an opportunity to
they otherwise would not have. And so it's just it
is heartbreaking to me personally, heartbreaking to watch those who
are literally going into the job with anxiety, with depression,
who are now literally trying to figure out am I

(47:21):
gonna have a job. My best friend twenty five years teacher.
They've now went to four days of school, four days.
Our babies are not learning what they need in.

Speaker 3 (47:29):
Five China's way ahead of us with education. So because
of the cuts.

Speaker 7 (47:34):
Now with education, we got our teachers who are now
working four days a week. What is her recommendation for
build her own go start a new school where that
takes capital. We got doctor Steve Perry starting schools. But
who gonna give them the Capital's right? It requires a
government partnership. This ain't begging.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
This is about the reality of what it takes to
start a hospital.

Speaker 5 (47:59):
To start everybody else is doing and everybody this nation
are utilizing. Look, it's a pubblic good bro. It's like
we ask the black people to do something that no
other group of people are being asked to do.

Speaker 2 (48:15):
It's ridiculous and that.

Speaker 6 (48:16):
And people can't say we don't have businesses because I
always say we got to get.

Speaker 4 (48:21):
Straight on what we're putting out in the world.

Speaker 6 (48:24):
On one hand, we're telling folks that we don't have businesses,
we can't get capital, all of that, and then on
the next hand we say you gotta shop at Target
because my businesses is there.

Speaker 4 (48:33):
Either we have the businesses all we don't. It's one
thing or the other.

Speaker 6 (48:38):
But sit of a turn that when we talk about solutions,
we know that there's no one hit that can strike
all these things down at one time. There's a there
are pieces we've got to build on it. But when
we talk about not begging, and you hear Tesling saying
that DEI is not just dee I, but it's diversity,

(49:00):
the equity, inclusion, and the disability. People have put the
A on the end, which is accessibility. So it's covering
all of these things. When we hear companies that are
having the audacity to debate, or.

Speaker 4 (49:16):
Not even debate, because I didn't even see a debate.
I just saw Elon Musk, President Musk and co President
Trump say diversity, equity, and inclusion out and the companies
just start dropping their draws one by one by one
by one.

Speaker 6 (49:32):
And so I want to hear you talk about the
target fast because I know what happens. I've been told
that a Caucasian fellow who probably had all the right reasons,
put out the one day nobody buy anything.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
We didn't put that out.

Speaker 6 (49:48):
Also, there's another schedule of boycott Amazon for two weeks,
and this for two weeks, and that for two weeks.

Speaker 4 (49:54):
We want people to enter the struggle, however they get there.

Speaker 6 (49:57):
But we have been very focused that we're taking in
one company and looking at the impact that we can
have there as a part of how we intend to
use our consumer dollars to push back against all of
this stuff.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
Why don't you.

Speaker 6 (50:11):
Talk about that really quickly after this, you know, maybe
another question or two, one question for everybody, but please
talk about that. Let us know why the target boycott
and what can we look for and expect to come
of it as we go forward.

Speaker 9 (50:27):
There's definitely power in our purchase. So people need to
really understand that before I go there. Sister t just
got amen, everything that was said ahead of time. When
it comes to black people, this country always sacrifices us,
and we know this. The original class class the original
class clash was chattle slavery, all right, So for those

(50:50):
folks who care about class over race or cast shall
I say, then, they need to understand in the United
States of America, the original.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Class clash was chattel slavery.

Speaker 9 (51:05):
So when we think about the Capitol and what is
old to black people and why we are not.

Speaker 3 (51:10):
On a level playing.

Speaker 9 (51:12):
Field, it is by design, it is on purpose. Policy
is not immutable. So if this country really wanted to
level the plan field and honor social contracts. It would
have given us absolutely what it owed us, which was
the forty acres and the mule, and it still can
give us. They would talk a lot about the debt
what is old. Well, the number one debt old in
this country is reparations to those who are descendants of

(51:34):
enslaved people. That is the number one debt that this
country needs to pay. Black people would be better positioned
if during the American Revolution, when the colonists were fighting
for their freedom, while they were talking about give me
liberty or give me death. Hello Patrick Henry, that they
had in that moment of their transformation and recognizing that
they didn't want to be controlled by the crown anymore,

(51:56):
they could have set our ancestors free right then and there,
and baby, we wouldn't be having this conversation most likely.
But they did not do that. There is a connection
to that. That is a connection to red lining, to
Jim Crow, to Jane craw to the prison industrial complex,
to the fact that black people have the least amount
of generational wealth of any other group in the United

(52:18):
States of America.

Speaker 3 (52:19):
And we built this place. So I want to put
that right. If anybody talking about we need to pull
ourselves up, and.

Speaker 9 (52:25):
We done pulled up the whole joint and still got
a beg y'all to do right by us. You know,
the great Bayard Rusting One said that this country never
has a never will do anything.

Speaker 3 (52:36):
Solely for the negro. That is true when he.

Speaker 9 (52:39):
Said those words, and it's true today and once we
as black people understand that we're.

Speaker 3 (52:42):
Gonna maneuver this thing.

Speaker 9 (52:43):
There's a book I want to recommend called Faces at
the Bottom of the Well written by a great constitutional attorney,
by Derek Bell, who just laid it out that this
country always gonna be like this. But he didn't say
we should not resist. And that's what this is about.
It's about setting the record straight and resistant. Part of
that resists is to boycott Target. Our target and is

(53:04):
Target because the CEO at the time that George Floyd
was murdered came out there and said all the right things,
which is that could have been one of my employees.
Because this has happened, this is my obligation. This is
what I am going to do as the leader of Target.
We're going to spend two billion dollars over five years
with the black community.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
He said that specifically, and not just.

Speaker 9 (53:25):
Associates and stores, but also people who provide contracts. For example,
you can retrofit a Target store that kind of thing
two billion dollars over five years, and he said he
was going to increase the internal workforce of black people
inside those Target stores. He did that, and that was
the right thing to do and the right thing to say.
I happen to believe that you can do well and

(53:45):
do good at the same time. Now, what we come
to find in twenty twenty five, under the auspices of
now president and president Shadow President Eli Musk, is that
CEOs liked this one at Target wasn't obligated to it
in the first place, because if they were obligated to it,
they wouldn't be so quickly to your point, when did
they have a meeting and say that they weren't committed

(54:07):
to it.

Speaker 3 (54:07):
You wouldn't be.

Speaker 9 (54:08):
So quickly uncommitted if you were, in fact committed to
the fact that diversity, equity and inclusion means something.

Speaker 3 (54:16):
It doesn't even benefit black folks the most.

Speaker 9 (54:18):
Hello, somebody, it benefits white women more than any other group.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
However, it's a path.

Speaker 9 (54:25):
So as we we are somebody until freedom of pastor
Jamal Brian is involved in this. So many others are
like setting the stage for this boycott of target.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
We got.

Speaker 9 (54:37):
Boycotts have to be specific and they came in until
we get what we want. So why I salute the
folks who went on the twenty four hour boycott.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
The thing is.

Speaker 9 (54:45):
I want we want people to get involved, come in
where you fit in. We also want them to join
this because if I'm doing a twenty four hour boycott, hell,
I'm gonna buy my stuff either before or after. What
is the long term impact to do these businesses so
that they know we not playing games. If we can't
move politicians because they answer to their owner donors, then

(55:07):
we got to deal with the owner donors. Target and
picking one specific entity right now because we know the
others gets us what we need to be able to
fight the others. It is likened to the Montgomery bus boycott.
They didn't boycott every place in Montgomery that wasn't doing
black folks right. They picked one target for three hundred

(55:30):
and eighty one days, sacrifice life, physical life, and limb.
At least in the twenty first century, we got more options.
We're just telling people boycott Target, but they can go
to some of these other places and get what they need.
And then to roll that into what Pastor Jamal Brian
is doing, which is the Target fast from ash Wednesday
to Easter, over one hundred thousand people, which he got

(55:52):
those sign ups to say we will not shop at Target.
We're asking people to make a sacrifice, and God help
folks that just can't make this. This is very easy
sacrifice when the people who came before us, and some
of them are still walking this earth, made sacrifices that
are more deeper than what we could ever make.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
And then you got, well I was gonna call them mofos.

Speaker 9 (56:13):
You got people who don't even have enough intestinal fortitude.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
To just just just don't go to Tark.

Speaker 9 (56:21):
But we pushing, were pushing. Nevertheless, we're gonna make an example.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
I want to.

Speaker 7 (56:27):
I want to say this just for the Dude for
the Self community, because I I it would be disingenuous
if I did not mention this. I did have a conversation,
you know, one of our brothers that is leads this
Dude for Self, you.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
Know, conversation.

Speaker 7 (56:40):
I won't say his nagas he's not here to you know,
give his own retort, but I will say that we
did have a very robust conversation, and I think more
conversations like this needs to happen to me because he
did explain to me his position that he was not
against the things that we're talking about, and I did
have I did think he was. I did, you know,

(57:02):
And he told me it's not against understanding the politics
and protests are very much a part of it, but
he's talking about a long term vision and he talks
a lot about.

Speaker 3 (57:12):
Local politics, and so I just told him, you know,
I would.

Speaker 7 (57:15):
Appreciate if you maybe figure out a way to include
it in your conversation, because it's being taken as if
you know, you're not considering those things. And he said,
you know, those are not the things that I that
I'm an expert on, and I said, and I respect that,
But he did say he was talking about a long
term plan to do for self.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Community talks about a long term plan, and I said,
I get that.

Speaker 7 (57:33):
I respect that, but I'm talking about what's going on
April first, literally April first. So I think I know
that this conversation is helpful. I think we need more
of it. I've invited him to come to my platform
to continue it with, whether it's Instagram, live platform, no platform,
you know, whatever it is.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
I think these.

Speaker 7 (57:51):
Conversations are important because those of us who really are
committed to this the right way, I think it's going
to show up. We're gonna see in this moment who
really about black people and who's really not. So I
do want to take leadership to me because I tapped
into her leadership because you know, normally I ain't got
nothing on it, but I tapped into Tumika's leadership this week,
and I did hold the space to at least try

(58:13):
to hear, you know what, what I'm misunderstanding. And so
I think as we continue to have this may maybe
I'm not understanding what y'all mean when y'all saying do
for self, because we getting real confused on this side.
So I did have the conversation, and I think we
need more of it because we are not against nobody
not being successful or a millionaire or I am not

(58:33):
pushing people just being complacent. But to respect to what
pastor Mike said, not everybody has the same ambition, right,
and that's what we recognized that.

Speaker 5 (58:42):
And I think it feeds into this capitalist mondste right
that separates us. When you do for self, it doesn't
mean you're doing for us right, because I don't want
it like as a leader, as someone who wants to
see better for my community, better for all of us.
I don't want to do for self. I do for self.
I never had a problem doing for self. But when
I look at the majority of my people and understand
that they're not gonna be in rooms, They're not gonna

(59:04):
have opportunities that I have. They're not gonna have the
same luck that I've had to get into spaces and
acquire things that I've acquired, I know that I have
to provide and fight for them to be able to
survive in the ways that they are capable of surviving.
That's what leadership looks like for me. I don't understand
the mentality of do for self because that what it does.
It pits me against you. If I gotta do for self,

(59:25):
then I gotta make sure that I do better than you. No,
I wanna do for me so I can make sure
that we're all good. I want to do us to
do as a unified front. And I think that's that
messaging for me is confusing I don't. I never think
about myself when I think about this, because I'm gonna
always survive the way I've always survived. I Dodne, lost
million dollar record deals, came home from jail, figured it out,

(59:46):
got it out the mud. I'm gonna get it somewhere
like my kids is gonna eat. I like nice things.
I'm gonna figure out how to get it. But I
understand the majority of our people don't have that reality.
So when we have in those conversations and if we
and we're talking about being leaders and from a position
of leaders, then we have to speak to our people
on the same level that they are and try to
bring them to where we are.

Speaker 7 (01:00:07):
But it's say, when they tell you what you just
need to tell everybody to just step it up.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
They should want more. What is your answer?

Speaker 5 (01:00:14):
My answer to that is that, like I said about everything,
everybody is not gonna be Lebron James, everybody ain't gonna
be Kobe Bryant, right, And the understanding that we were
on a team, and if I know that I'm a leader,
if I know that the skill set and the reality
of my situation is not everybody's, then I have to
play a team team ball with them. I gotta make
sure that I provide a shot for the two guard

(01:00:34):
who can create his own shot. The center ain't gonna
be able dribble the ball like he can't do old things.
I gotta make sure I throw alley you to him.
That's what leadership is, That's what teamwork does, is understanding
the deficiencies and the skill set of everybody else and
providing opportunities and way for them to be able to score.

Speaker 8 (01:00:51):
I just can I just quickly say to you know,
the insidious part of this whole conversation about do it
for yourself being like injected as a delegitimizing of the
effort to stay federal jobs, to me, has to be
called out as a co intel protactic. I know that

(01:01:12):
it may not be the intent of some folk, but
we who know history have to acknowledge that black folk
have always been attempting to do for ourselves, and they're.

Speaker 4 (01:01:24):
We built stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
We built.

Speaker 5 (01:01:30):
Look, whenever we built Black Wall Street, whenever we built
anything that was black wealth centered, the US government literally
burned to the ground, bombed, sent white vigilantes and mobs.

Speaker 8 (01:01:46):
So so the idea that you can just create something
that's that's just by black people for black people. If
we don't have federal civil rights protections at work to
protect us from the violence of white vigilantes, doing for
yourself is not enough without the protection that we all
our ancestors fought for to make sure that when we

(01:02:08):
do do for ourselves, we are not redline, we are
not victims of predatory lending and capital and all these
other kind of things. And so the conversation has to
be expanded. And I would also say it, since it
is the case that the largest growth of the middle
class black middle class is for federal jobs, should that
not be seen as a positive for.

Speaker 2 (01:02:29):
The do it yourself?

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
No, no, no, no, pastor Mike.

Speaker 7 (01:02:32):
And the reason why, I'm just gonna go ahead and
name it like I get it as a counter pro tech.
But some of this is just bottom line jealousy. Let's
just name it for what it is. And I'm just
talking about the miserable people in the comments. I'm not
talking about the grand scheme of things. Yeah, you know,
the bigger thing, I just because I try to That's
why I say I'm the hood with I try to
talk to every lane and what to be honest, with.

Speaker 3 (01:02:53):
You, pastor Mike.

Speaker 7 (01:02:55):
The people in the comments that are saying, uh, yep,
come back down here with us. Some of the oh yeah,
the bou leg oh yeah, they just said all those
kind of Some of these people again in the comments,
are just simply jealous that that cousin went and got
a degree, went and got a job, went and made more,
and was able to leave a level of poverty, never

(01:03:15):
look back. Maybe they didn't give a cousin two hundred
dollars five out, whatever it is. And some of this
just bottom line jealousy. There are some people that have
records that did not esponge the record figure out another
way to change their life around, like my soigns. So
they get bad at my son because he's elevated himself
on different level. Some of this ain't even that complicated
as no counter, but its just bottom line. I want
to see you do bad because I'm doing bad. And

(01:03:37):
we have to name that very clear, because what I
like to remind people is America is a hierarchy.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
Baby. So if these people are.

Speaker 7 (01:03:44):
Coming down where you are, guess what's gonna happen to you.
You're gonna go further. See the high argument. You're gonna
go further down. We are in a race to the bottom.
So if the qualified multiple.

Speaker 3 (01:03:56):
Degree, master's degree, have him.

Speaker 7 (01:03:57):
Self, whoever it is, they got the government job, that
now they got to come to the warehouse where they
gonna be the supervisor. And that means whatever supervisor job
you want it because again, at the end of the day,
is still based on skilled education, experience.

Speaker 3 (01:04:09):
All of that.

Speaker 7 (01:04:10):
We are in a hierarchy system. Now you're gonna be
pushed out of your job, sirs and ma'ams, and you're
gonna be in a lower position. So there is this
conversation pastor might between the have and the have nots.
The town's are tenth in this the bulet that you
can look at my comments when I put it in
and say, oh, that's right, the bulet all the people
crying about these federal jobs. Is the bulet too bad?
They're gonna have to figure it out. They gotta come

(01:04:31):
down here with the rest of us. Okay, sir, I'm
agreeing you're gonna be put out your position as well.
And I'm not saying it's not count of protelle. I
know it's still the same tactics, but for some people
it's very very Now look at you. Now you're gonna
suffer like me, and misery loves company, and I love
to see people take a loss. I worked a federal job,
and I didn't like it for me because federal jobs

(01:04:52):
they typically promote you based on tenure and all of that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
I like to be I like the private sector.

Speaker 7 (01:04:58):
But for many people, people are j us that people
have had those opportunities past the mike, and they just
don't want to see people do well. That's just the
honest true. These are the same people that celebrate any
time somebody take a loss. They're the first ones pointing
now out of booboo because they're they're they're they're thriving
off of resentment, and they have folks that follow them
that thrive and feed off of that same type of

(01:05:18):
red meat.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
Yeah, I agree with you.

Speaker 8 (01:05:22):
When I say cortel pro I'm meaning the tactic to
divide us, to ensure that we can't get the momentum
necessary to win over the long haul. I'm not suggesting
that somebody sitting in the federal government like yeah, but
it's just the tactic to divide.

Speaker 2 (01:05:37):
They're more sophisticated.

Speaker 5 (01:05:39):
They don't have to, but they don't need it anymore
because we're doing it to ourselves. You know, the box
that being my comments, it's amazing, Like I know, I
know that they send them there to my comments. It
don't even make no sense because it's no reason for
you to be here because me and y'all don't think
nothing alike.

Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
So it's no need for y'all to have one hundred
comments or something. What's ironic to me?

Speaker 8 (01:05:59):
If you have a job and you're solidly in a
black middle class, would you not have more liquid income
to buy from a to it for yourself?

Speaker 5 (01:06:06):
That's what most people do me all man. My best
friend started his store. He started, you know, he started
selling clothes out his trunk. He started selling hats. He
opened the store, and he worked for the transit every night.
He get his benefits. He put his money into the store,
and he about to open another restaurant, but he said,
I'm gonna keep this job.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Though.

Speaker 7 (01:06:31):
We're making the assumption, yeah, we're making the assumption that
some of these people really want people to do for themselves.
You know, like when you say, well, wouldn't that we
have more access to buy more product? These people A
lot of these people are talking they don't have no
products to sell.

Speaker 3 (01:06:44):
They want to sit. You know what I'm saying, We
acting like that's the real motivation. I'm talking to that group. Now,
we all talking to different groups. I'm talking to.

Speaker 7 (01:06:50):
The bottom line, jealous bottom line. They don't have no
business to sell. They're not trying to free up no capital,
so perp. They just spoken.

Speaker 3 (01:06:58):
That's it. They just bottom lie.

Speaker 7 (01:07:00):
Everybody's gonna sell T shirts, everybody's not gonna sell hats,
and everybody's gonna start no damn podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:07:05):
And that's why we and that's why we need our
brothers who are not that to understand that they feeding that.
That's why we love y'all and y'all can't feed that
because they can't wait. They just want they want to
see us drown anyway. So when you say that, they
utilize that as ways to tear us down and to
feed into the negativity. So that's why I just having

(01:07:25):
a conversation. I'm like, brother, we don't kind of agree
about everything, but don't utilize. Don't let these people utilize
you to try to bring us all down at the
same time because they utilizing your mentality of being an
entrepreneur and maybe because you don't know. Maybe you don't
understand that you're not politically savvying that, and in that regard,
you don't understand what boycotts and what the diversity equity

(01:07:45):
inclusion actually mean to the majority of people. Since you
don't know it, they don't make it seem as if
that's something wrong, right, because they're gonna utilize you. They're
gonna keep tagging me that you said this and oh
such and said I'm not here to go through that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
I'm especially with you because me and you are not
my equal.

Speaker 5 (01:08:01):
You know, I debate with my equals everybody else I teach,
and I don't even feel like I want to teach
you because you don't want to be taught. You just
want to be you know, control oppositions. I just want
our brothers to understand don't let them use you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:14):
But I want to call time. I thank y'all so
much for coming.

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
In because we be here O day. I'm just.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
Now.

Speaker 6 (01:08:24):
I want I want to I want y'all to come
back the next time we invite y'all.

Speaker 4 (01:08:29):
But I do want to say that, you.

Speaker 6 (01:08:31):
Know, I hear you test and I appreciate and I've
had many conversations with many of our brothers and Sistern,
who said, well, you know, I'm not necessarily well versed
in that area. And also, that's not what I'm saying.
And so if people took it that way, that's on them,
because that's not what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:08:52):
One of the things that I learned is, you know,
when I made the statement about Kamala Harris, I was
by TMZ, do you think that Kamla Harris can become president?
This is once she was the nominee or once they
were elected Biden Harris, and they said. The TMZ person
asked me, well, do you believe that she will become president?

(01:09:15):
Because most vice presidents ascend to the president to seat,
or at least they tried.

Speaker 4 (01:09:21):
And I said, well, I don't know.

Speaker 6 (01:09:24):
I said, you know, racism is terrible, I said, but
sexism can be worse. And when I said that, it
went out that Tamika Mallory has said sexism is worse
than racism. And I don't know, maybe my words was
a little different or whatever, but that was my point.
Sexism is worse. And I was speaking because I knew

(01:09:46):
I was talking about a black woman. So it's not
like I'm saying white women, the sexism for white women
is worse than the racism for all black people.

Speaker 4 (01:09:57):
My point was that as.

Speaker 6 (01:10:00):
A black person, you already got some sahi t you
gotta deal with, and then when you add on top
of it that she's a woman, now, that creates a
whole other another layer of disrespect, so on and so
forth challenges. But I noticed that a lot of people
heard that what I said, they heard it a certain way,

(01:10:20):
and so I have to take responsibility for the fact
that I need to be real clear very much. So
what I learned from U test I hear you talk,
you break down all the points. You don't really let
people cut you off. You make sure that and and
you will not just be clear about it, but you
repeat the same things, sometimes ten times until people get

(01:10:40):
it right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
You do it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:42):
That's what you do.

Speaker 6 (01:10:44):
And because I didn't do that, I left it open
that even people who respect me and love me were
contacting me like yo, what you were saying here because
I didn't get it.

Speaker 4 (01:10:55):
So we are responsible for what we put in the universe.

Speaker 6 (01:10:58):
And if you see that your words is creat are
are creating a certain type of response.

Speaker 4 (01:11:06):
You got to do better. In the way in which
you communicate. So if you don't know that what you're
doing is making it seem like institutions are the elder
institutions have been diminished, or you are diminishing their value.
If you don't realize that that's what you're doing, you
have to fix that. But I believe that people are

(01:11:27):
real clear on what they're doing, and what is happening
is that the rest of us are seeing it and
speaking out about it. And as a result, now it
becomes well, that's not really what I'm trying to say,
and I'm not this, that and the third. So I
can't get I can give but so much grace because
this has been going on with a lot of our
people that are out there.

Speaker 6 (01:11:48):
They have influence online, podcaster, this, that, and the third.

Speaker 4 (01:11:52):
They continuously say things that is a dig.

Speaker 6 (01:11:56):
At the institutions and the organizations and the efforts of
our people of the past. And I just want to
say for this, for today, nothing that anybody is talking
about is a new strategy or a new idea.

Speaker 4 (01:12:10):
Build your own. We already did that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:13):
Invest in community, we did that Montgomery bus boycott. They
had Uber before Uber was created. Because how you think
they got bull of them. People shuffled back and across
the think across the city. Meanwhile, they didn't even have
cell phones to be able to do it. We've done
all of this stuff before. What I think would be

(01:12:34):
would benefit us best is that every time we get
an opportunity in a platform to speak, rather than calling
out what somebody else didn't do, what's your plan? That's it,
Just tell us this is what we want need to do.
Here's where you need to put your money, this is
how we're gonna do it. And if you are asked
about institutions, oh, they did a great job with their

(01:12:57):
in their time. But we are evolving this thing. We
kicking it up to the next level, and we're using
some of the wisdom of the past in order to
inform how we move forward. That to me is an
honest leader. I think it is disingenuous and it is
extremely harmful to our community when we look at all

(01:13:17):
of where why are we sitting here today?

Speaker 4 (01:13:19):
It's because we built it. I mean Senator Turner already
said that we built this entire thing. So to say
that we got.

Speaker 6 (01:13:26):
Lazy or we dropped the ball, no, we wouldn't even
be sitting here talking about any of this if it
were not for the hard work of people who came
before us. And I just say, Mama Dukes in her honor.
She was one of those who built her own, helped
to build the NAACP, put young people in college, so

(01:13:48):
many young people she fought for to She done paid
light bills, she done paid college tuition, and she helped
to organize some of the most powerful institutions that have
done so much to help us in our community.

Speaker 4 (01:14:01):
So rest in peace to her.

Speaker 6 (01:14:04):
And I ain't never heard my ever walk around downing
what anyone else has done. She only just took the
time to focus on building what she was doing. But
we also, to me, we got to add an extra
slice of an extra challenge up what's the plan in
the next sixty days? Because what I learned when I
did my show the other day and he came in
with these big plan they love talking about what's such

(01:14:24):
and such road and such and such book and the
great this said that no, no, no, no, no, you know,
I cut folks off, tell.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
Me what we've just do on April.

Speaker 7 (01:14:32):
First, Let's narrow this scope a little bit, because when
we ask what's the plan the answer usually is twenty
thirty years.

Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
We gotta do this, we gotta do that, we gotta
get forty six men on board together.

Speaker 7 (01:14:41):
Let's let's challenge it a little bit and let's talk
about what you're gonna do the next thirty days. The
next thirty days, I already know, like you said, nothing's new.
We already know do this, build on infrastructure, circulate the
dollar we need to be No, just tell me what
are we gonna do, because I can tell you what
I'm doing March thirtieth. I tell what I'm doing April first,
I tell what I got on April fifteenth.

Speaker 3 (01:15:01):
Let's just talk about what we're gonna do right now.

Speaker 7 (01:15:03):
And you'll notice that when you ask that, not just
what's your plan in the next thirty days, homie, what
you're doing the next third day, you'll notice there's no answer.

Speaker 3 (01:15:12):
There's absolutely no answer.

Speaker 7 (01:15:13):
So let's let's let's step it up a little bit
and ask for the next ninety day plan, and then
let's circle back in ninety days and let's do a
review and let's see where everybody's staying with it, because
this is how we have to start moving moving forward.
We just got to start doing report cards, cards, moving forward, soul.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
And let's put im table.

Speaker 4 (01:15:32):
I love y'all so much. Thank you. This has been
a wealth of knowledge.

Speaker 6 (01:15:35):
This episode being at the end of our season gets
us kicked off for the next season the right way
because this graduation.

Speaker 8 (01:15:43):
Y'all winning y'all dope season two.

Speaker 7 (01:15:45):
Congratulations, Congratulations to you guys. Shout out to Black Effect
Podcast Network. Charlemagne had the vision to build your own
five years in the game, all of us we started
right at the beginning of the tooth. I don't mean
take over there, but I got a shout out. We
got to shout out Charlemagne, who had the ideal when
they said, oh, well, why you partner with our heart? Well,
many of those people that said you should just build

(01:16:07):
joe own one hundred percent, guess what, they started networks
and their networks and not standing today. So there has
to be something said about partnership, partnering with other entities
to get black voices out. Fifteen sixteen creators that go
out every week, three hundred episodes strong. I've done for
five years. I know y'all have just as many as
the same that actually putting this content out. Building our

(01:16:29):
own never stopping our voice, not one time if somebody
told me you can't say this, and you can't say that.
We have absolutely been able to be on the largest
audio platform in America and don't nothing get more build
your owning that.

Speaker 3 (01:16:41):
So shout out to you.

Speaker 7 (01:16:42):
Congratulations guys for being my podcast siblings on the Black
and Fed podcast.

Speaker 4 (01:16:47):
I Love you, Love you Pasting night. Thank you so too.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
That was an excellent panel, you know, and I knew
it would be because the brilliant minds and people who
just have perspectives that are elite, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
And and Tessant really touched me.

Speaker 9 (01:17:06):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
I speak to Testant all the time.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
Tessnan't and me are in chat messages and text messages
all the time, and whenever something goes on, she will
send me a screenshot. But like look, and then we
go back and forth, and then we go in the
in and it because we don't just we don't just
be talking to each other. We take we take our
gripes to the internet.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
You know.

Speaker 5 (01:17:22):
She'll tell me when she got a gripe with the situation,
she go right on the internet and then she'll send
me something that piss me off. And the next thing
I know, I do them posted about it, so you know,
that's my sister right there.

Speaker 2 (01:17:33):
So with just hearing her passion and just understanding.

Speaker 5 (01:17:36):
The severity of where you know, this federal situation is,
and her speaking that passionately about it, like you always
hear her speak passion, but I never seen her get
teary eyed, you know, speaking about a situation that was
that personal for us. So you know, I just want
to send our love for her for being that transparent
and and choosing our platform to even have that conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:17:57):
I love it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:58):
I appreciate it as well. And I was say that Teslin,
as she said, she built her own right, and we
built our own from nothing. We started this podcast. We
didn't have a Black Effect deal when we started. We
made it to Black Effect because they saw what we
were doing by.

Speaker 4 (01:18:19):
Ourselves with nothing. Shout out to Patrick.

Speaker 6 (01:18:22):
Had to give her a lot of respect because she's
one that noticed us and you know, believed in us
and gave us the space. But we've been producing our
own podcast even before we joined Black Effect, which God
thanked God they came and bless them, and my Lord.

Speaker 4 (01:18:38):
Thank you Jesus.

Speaker 6 (01:18:40):
It was hard to do on our own and it's
still a struggle. It's still a struggle. But also, you know,
we have businesses I haven't worked for, and I've never
really worked for white folks.

Speaker 4 (01:18:54):
I've never I always worked for somebody that built their own.

Speaker 6 (01:18:58):
Law firm, supermarket was the Latino community built their own
that I haven't worked yet. The supermarket that was the Latinos,
they built their own.

Speaker 5 (01:19:10):
I worked for Macy's in nineteen ninety four. That was
the last time I had a job that we didn't
build their own.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:19:16):
The law firm that I worked for, Michael Hardy, Shert
Wiggan Hardy.

Speaker 4 (01:19:23):
They built their own. Okay.

Speaker 6 (01:19:25):
Then I went to Nan National Action Network built its own.

Speaker 4 (01:19:30):
So I don't know. That's all I know.

Speaker 6 (01:19:32):
But my parents who gave me an opportunity. Both of
them collected a check from school servants, and they the
ones that put me in a position to be able
to build my own.

Speaker 4 (01:19:46):
So this all makes perfect sense to me.

Speaker 6 (01:19:50):
And I'm not you know, I'm not gonna let anybody
make us think we're crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
But we oh, we ain't crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:19:54):
Man, speaking to thinking own, this is pretty much my
I don't get it of the day. You know, I
wanted to and It's something I heard a couple of
weeks ago, you know, and I hear this a lot,
you know, Shout out to doctor Umar's who's somebody I
actually respect.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
I think he's a brilliant man.

Speaker 5 (01:20:10):
Sometimes he says things that throws me off, and then
sometimes he says things but I feel like he hits it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:15):
On the mark.

Speaker 5 (01:20:16):
But this one right here was something that I had
to speak of because these are two situations that I
personally were involved in. You know, he was talking about gatekeeper.
Shout out to my Sarah. Sarah, the kid who is
from the Bronx and he's a rapper and he has
a podcast, and he was talking to Doctor Umar, and

(01:20:39):
Doctor Umar was talking about black gatekeepers, and you know,
he mentioned a lot of names, and all of them
I couldn't, you know, speak up because I don't really
know their situation. But he talked about jay Z and
then he's talked about Ben Crump. So yeah, he said
that jay Z was a gatekeeper based on what happened
with callan kappening. And he said, you know, jay Z

(01:21:02):
took a deal with the NFL and Kulin Kapernick never
got his job back, you know, and being on the
front line of that situation, being out there in front
of the NFL protesting Forkalent Cappenick, fighting for kaln Kaepernick,
being and having knowledge of actually went on. Count Kaepernick
had filed a lawsuit against the NFL and then had

(01:21:25):
a settlement with a non disclosure. Nobody knows what the
settlement was. Nobody knows what happened at that point. It
quieted the reality of what was going on with the protests.
Those of us who are on the front line didn't
even know what was going on. We couldn't even fight
no more. We were trying to fight, but there was
no more account Kaepernick. And that's just the reality. I

(01:21:45):
don't know what we're on behind the scene. I can't
tell you why, but I just tell you that a
lot of us were confused, you know. So what jay
Z did was after that situation. Now, whatever him and
jay Z had a personal situation, I can't speak to that.
But Jay's is he in the NFL deal was not
hindering what Kelan Kaepernick had going on with the NFL,

(01:22:07):
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
And that's just my p Well.

Speaker 6 (01:22:09):
You and I have debated this many times. We've debated
it many times. I I feel like, yes, Colin may
have reached the settlement with the NFL, but there was
still a lot of energy in the fight because it

(01:22:30):
got bigger than that. People started talking about domestic violence
issues and lack of ownership with black folks of the
different teams, like it grew beyond that. What happened, in
my opinion, was that Colin in many ways kind of
stepped away to do his own thing. He was really quiet.

(01:22:53):
There was no real coordination. In fact, I brought this up.
I write about this in my book, that there was
no real coordination.

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):
Unfortunately, the way that people operate in.

Speaker 6 (01:23:03):
Movements is that most people want the person who is
the family of the victim or the person who was
harmed or whatever they want to see them. They feel
like they could get behind messaging that's coming from that person.
You said that it was because after the settlement, Colin

(01:23:24):
kind of had no choice but to accept the agreement
and whatever the terms was. I don't know, perhaps it was,
but what I noticed from behind the scenes was that
and maybe.

Speaker 4 (01:23:36):
That was the beginning of it, is.

Speaker 6 (01:23:37):
That there were a lot of changes happening and a
lot of energy or lack of energy.

Speaker 4 (01:23:44):
That was unsaid to the public.

Speaker 6 (01:23:48):
So it's a lot of things that people do not
even know what's happening. And I witnessed some of it.
You witnessed some of it. A lot of us witness
different things. So I don't think that Jay was being
a gatekeeper, but I do think that people had the
right to question and feel a way when they were
in the middle of being like the NFL is canceled

(01:24:10):
and then all of a sudden, j comes out with
a deal with the NFL.

Speaker 4 (01:24:17):
What I have been saying is that the.

Speaker 6 (01:24:20):
Resources that they received are part of the deal that
they made. Absolutely went to grassroots efforts around the country.

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
I know it for sure. We saw the numbers.

Speaker 6 (01:24:32):
We know whether it was Parchment Prison or if it
was Kansas City, Kansas, other things.

Speaker 4 (01:24:38):
That we've done. Breonna Taylor.

Speaker 6 (01:24:40):
They invested the folks, our people, the Crutcher Foundation and
the family there had resources that they were able to
get to do work in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 (01:24:52):
And the list goes on.

Speaker 6 (01:24:54):
A Carmen President in the Gathering for Justice, The list
goes on and on and on. The ACLU working on
some of the cases of people who have been vindicated
and freed they took money from the NFL and applied
it and put it towards grassroots groups and other groups
that are doing things that we all claim we care about.

(01:25:15):
So I don't know if I would call a gatekeeper,
but I know that the way in which everything happened
in the beginning, when the outside world is unaware of
what's going on, it can definitely seem as though some
funny business went down.

Speaker 5 (01:25:28):
But I think for me, I think what I'm saying
is this and I'm not saying it doesn't seem what
I'm saying is my personal just based off what I
ain't know about the situation. Jay Z was not involved
to silence the voice of account of Cappin. Jay Z
didn't get involved in silence because that's what gatekeepers didn't, Okay,
So that's what I'm trying to say. Jay Z got

(01:25:49):
involved with Kala Kaepernick, and he took a knee with him,
he wore his jersey, he said that we don't need
to be in NFL. Was he was there to support
count of Kaepernick. I think that based on what the
knowledge that I have, because I was there to support
Klein Kaepernick, I boycotted the NFL.

Speaker 2 (01:26:06):
I said that I wasn't doing all these things. And
I think that after.

Speaker 5 (01:26:10):
Whatever the settlement was with Kalan Kaepernick, a lot of
us were left confused.

Speaker 2 (01:26:15):
Now, I don't know if that was jay Z's situation.

Speaker 5 (01:26:17):
Maybe he had a different situation, but I know a
lot of us on the front line were frustrated because
we didn't know what was going on. All we heard
was that there was a settlement, and then whatever direction
that Kinen decided to.

Speaker 2 (01:26:29):
Go in, it wasn't.

Speaker 5 (01:26:30):
It wasn't on the same course that we were moving on,
and we were sacrificing. I was literally sacrificing things that
I didn't even have the sacrifice. So at that point,
when he said that jay Z gate Keep and count
of Kapniy didn't get to get his job, I said
to myself, if I sue my job right and I
come with a settlement in a non disclosure, they're not

(01:26:52):
going to let me work there. Again, that's just not
how this works. That's just not how it works.

Speaker 3 (01:26:58):
Different.

Speaker 6 (01:26:59):
That's that I agree with you about that, and that's
my whole situation.

Speaker 4 (01:27:04):
I kind of feel like history is going to have
to tell this story.

Speaker 5 (01:27:08):
I mean, history would have to tell me I'm just
I'm telling my story just based off somebody who was
out there advocating, who was a starch advocate for Klean Kaepernick.
I was everything Klen Kapepernick, and I've seen how it unfolded,
and I just want I personally will not allow people
to say something that I think is false without me
giving my perspective from being in there. I do not

(01:27:31):
believe that jay z Gate kept that situation. I think
that in the situation when he looked and seeing that
there was a settlement and people were moving in a
different direction and there wasn't no cohesiveness, he figured out,
how do I maximize on the situation and be able
to benefit black people the best that I can. And
That's just my perspective. And now I'll move on to
the next person because I want.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
To get to that.

Speaker 5 (01:27:51):
He talked about Ben Crump being Crump is somebody that
I know personally who works with these families, who puts
so much into it. I've never seen get Bankrump Gate
keep anything. I watched Bankrupt's sacrifice. He does the best
business or. He is a civil lawyer.

Speaker 2 (01:28:09):
He does not.

Speaker 5 (01:28:12):
Defense attorneys, not a prosecutor. He can't prosecute these cases.
Only thing he can do is take the cases and
make sure these people are paid for them being the
civil injustice that they get.

Speaker 2 (01:28:25):
That's the only thing he can do.

Speaker 5 (01:28:26):
So when he speaks about Ben Trump saying how can
he gate keep anything, I've never watched gate bank.

Speaker 2 (01:28:32):
Trump quiet anybody. I watched Ben Crump.

Speaker 5 (01:28:34):
Go out there and speak for the families and say,
this is the worst thing we've ever seen. These people
need to be compensated. The person needs to be prosecuted
to the fullest extent of the law. So those are
two people that he made a statement on that I
just wanted to say that I didn't understand it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:49):
I didn't get it, and I didn't believe that.

Speaker 5 (01:28:51):
It was it was warranted that he made those statements
about those two individuals.

Speaker 6 (01:28:57):
Okay, I mean I I you know how I feel
about Ben's so I don't know. I would love to
hear more about what he thinks Ben has done to
be a gatekeeper. I mean, Ben's politics is not always
the same as doctor Umar's, right, so they, you know,
do operate in two different worlds. But from what I

(01:29:19):
have always seen of been, he you know, he always
empowers the local community to do whatever they got to do.
That He's definitely not gonna sit here and say go
burn the town down, but he's not stopping people from
passing local legislation demanding whatever.

Speaker 4 (01:29:40):
In fact, I have literally witnessed.

Speaker 6 (01:29:43):
The White House or and or you know, somebody in
the federal government or in Congress calling him like Ben,
like you're killing us. Why are you how he is
suing us for the farmers, Like you're supposed to be
our guy. We invited you to the picnic, and now
you're suing us for the black farmers. Or you're suing
the federal government for many different reasons he been and

(01:30:06):
suing attorney Suanne Robinson, are suing the federal government right
now for Shanquala Robinson because they won't extradite the person
who we believe is responsible for Shanquala's death to Mexico.
And they also haven't brought an charges on their own.
So I mean, I would just like to hear more

(01:30:26):
about it. Not that I will ever agree, but I don't.
I want to be able to speak intelligently in terms
of my response to it. So I would love to
hear what he has to say about why he thinks
that Ben specifically is a gatekeeper.

Speaker 5 (01:30:40):
I think it's just a narrative, right, just like it's
a narrative that Ben loses cases all the time, right,
And that's just so crazy because he's not the prosecutor,
he's not the defense attorney. So when they say he
loses cases, and then you actually look at if you
actually look at his documentary and see the amount of
cases he's won, I don't really know too many cases
that he's actually lost that he's litigated.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
It's not too many of them, you know.

Speaker 5 (01:31:03):
So those are these are narratives that are out there
because you stand by black people because when the situation happens, right,
you're the most prominent face in the most dominant voice,
because they know when they see you, they need to
be scared. And most people who who are who have
those situations, who have civil cases, are gonna call Ben
Crump because they know that he's gonna make sure that

(01:31:25):
the publicity gets there, that people paying attention to it,
and he's gonna get what it is that you deserve.
So I think, because it's like anything else when we
have conversations, these narratives get pushed aby the individual because
they have a certain level of visibility and fame, you know,
And I think it's it's unwarranted for Ben because he's
one of the most genuine, part you know, honest brothers

(01:31:46):
that I know like and and you know, if you
don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:31:49):
Those individuals, then you don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:31:51):
But I think it be remiss if I didn't speak
on behalf of people that situation. I mean, I think
I would be if I didn't speak on behalf of
individuals that I know and I work with all the time,
and I know situations.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
So I just wanted to speak to that because I
really just didn't get it.

Speaker 5 (01:32:11):
Okay, Okay, So with that said, we at the end
of another episode and the end of another season of
the TMI Podcast. We appreciate y'all for supporting us and
making us the number one podcast in the world. We're
just gonna get better and better and better. Thank you
to all of the guests who are on this season.
We had an amazing season. Shout out to Podcast Central

(01:32:35):
Armine Do for supporting us. Shout out to our fans.

Speaker 2 (01:32:37):
We love you. We're gonna see you next season. We're
gonna be bigger and better and make sure.

Speaker 5 (01:32:42):
That you understand that we do have power, and we
do love you. And I'm not gonna always be right,
Tamika d. Marriage is not gonna always be wrong, but
we will both always and always I mean always be authentic,
So Louke

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Mysonne

Tamika Mallory

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