DENZEL & KELLY ROWLAND FIGHT BACK, ATLANTA GENTRIFICATION

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
All right, Roland, thank you so much for the lead,
and we love being on the Black Star Network. This
is Truth Talks where we keep it all the way real.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Let go, Are y'all all ready to roll?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let y'all welcome to Truth Talks, the show that gives
you black people arguing like we're at the barbecue. We
used to be the number one show on Fox Soul.
Now we're here with Roland Martin because we needed a
blacker pop platform. But it's still the opinionated, unapologetic, highly
black truth telling you are used to on Truth Talks,

(00:49):
and it would not be Truth Talks if doctor Cheyenne
Bryant was not here. Welcome, my sister.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
What's up? Truth Tellers?

Speaker 4 (00:55):
We're here on Blackstar Network, like my brother Torrey said,
and y'all know how we do.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
We're gonna be covering some things.

Speaker 4 (01:02):
We're gonna have different representation, different perspectives on things. You know,
I may choose to push back on a lot of folks,
or who knows, I may be a little polite to
Torrey today and agree with him like I did from
time to time.

Speaker 5 (01:14):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Who knows?

Speaker 4 (01:14):
We got to tune in to find out tune in
to find out it's spicy.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Don't make it easy for me. We disagree. I'm old,
they're young, we're left and right. We're American and Canadians,
speaking of which they're Sarah Fount No welcome.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
What's up? So happy to be here and like a barbecue,
we gonna keep it spicy. Okay, Truth Talks, Let's get.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
It Indeed and our other newest co host, Young Big
Bro Tob tre Wiley from the Lost Lover Boy podcast. Welcome.

Speaker 6 (01:47):
I'm trying to be found out in the street. So
ms Wiley. If you're listening, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
Coffee, I'm Torre, you know b I've been in the
game forever. Let's get into it. We've been talking with
trending truths all week about Diddy. We want to give
you a break from Ditty the Trial of the Century.
We've gone through the minutia of that, but there's another
story that's going on that also a lot of people

(02:13):
are talking about a legend, one of my mom's favorite
singers of all time, Smokey Robinson, in a lot of trouble,
accused of sexual assault by four of his former housekeepers.
A truly gruesome story. We have video from the accuser's attorney.
Let's see that.

Speaker 7 (02:31):
Well today against Smokey Robinson, the women who used to
work for him say he sexually assaulted them and created
a hostile work environment, among other things. Robinson's wife is
also named in the lawsuit. It details multiple allegations, some
as recent as last year. One employee says Robinson sexually
assaulted or at least twenty three times. Three of the
women say they didn't want to report it to police,

(02:52):
in part because they were afraid of risking the possible
adverse effect on their immigration statuses. According to the suit,
Another says Robinson's quote brutal sexual advances were constant and
even predictable while she worked for him.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
This is horrific. We also see the difficulty for immigrants,
like when immigration is criminalized, then they are unsafe. These people,
these women felt unable to say anything to be tree
because if I report what happened to be then I'm
going to be in trouble, So then your accuser can
get away. And you see this throughout immigration, all of them.

(03:29):
But this is a Smoky Robinson's story, and it's a
gruesome story. To meet you what are you thinking.

Speaker 6 (03:33):
You know, this is a common thing. It's what happens
when power is in play. Power often plays on blackmail,
often plays on your ability to need them to keep
your secrets, or them to keep you protected, or them
or you to keep safe from them. So the thing

(03:55):
about it is, this is a common thing, you know.
But to me, there's so many layers to this conversation
because apparently Smokey's wife was a co conspirator and all
this Apparently there was white tiles laid out on the
bed and this was a routine thing between him and
his wife where she was watching X y Z.

Speaker 8 (04:15):
I think this is the first time we've seen it
in this case.

Speaker 6 (04:17):
But for me, it's it's pretty.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Doctor b this is gruesive. What do you think, Well,
you know.

Speaker 4 (04:26):
The legendary late Barry White is my uncle. So I
grew up around men. Yeah, he's my uncle, so rest
in peace. I grew up around the Jackson's and Smokey
Robertson and Gloating White, which is my auntie and so forth.
And I say all that to say I've never experienced
anything like that from Smokey. But again, you know, allegations
are allegations. Into proven guilty.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
Correct.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
My thing is I know that what I'm hearing on
the street per se is a lot of especially black men,
are looking at it like damn, you know, another one
of our legends is getting taken down, and it seems
like they're waiting, like Bill Cosby and many other brothers,
for them to be of age to start to speak
up on these experiences. Are these allegations and although, of

(05:09):
course right legend or not, if you are sexually abusing somebody,
a crime is a crime. I'm just looking at it
how it has an impact on our community. In addition
to that, I want to say that, you know, in
his era, and this is not condoning sexual abuse, not
condoning anything of that sort, but in their era, back
in that day, their climate of how they approached, how

(05:32):
they dealt with women, and those things were very very different.
And so prior to the Me Too movement, men were
very vogue, not saying it's okay, and they were very
more firm are sometimes aggressive with women. Post the Me
Too movement, men now don't even say you're beautiful. They
won't even approach you, they won't even look at you.
They're like in a fear based place when it comes
to dating or approaching. So what I'm saying is that

(05:53):
now with the me too movement, it's much easier for
folks to say, well, look, I'm gonna come out with
my allegations of what happened, because now I know that
there is a place for my voice to be heard,
and there is a place in the courtroom where this
is not normal anymore.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
No, that's absolutely right. You know you remind me of
I was on CNN right after Barry White passed and
in the introduction, the anchor is saying, well, he's saying
these amazing love songs, but he wasn't the best looking man.
And as soon as she he talks to me, I'm like,
excuse me, Barry White was a beautiful man. What are
you talking about? Like, get out of here. But what

(06:29):
an amazing legend. I want to hear more about that
later on. This Smoky Robson story is horrific, and doctor
breed Doctor B brings up the whole thing of like,
are they after our legends? I know a lot of
people think about that. I don't think that there is
some effort to get our legends. Doctor B rightly notes

(06:52):
some folks Bill Cosby others being caught when they are older. Well, yeah,
that's when they flow out of their zone of power
and their victims are better able to say, hey, that
person didn't because you don't have as much power as
you did at your zenith. I think it's really hard
to deal with somebody who is at the zenith of
their power. You saw Bill Kelly, R Kelly, Bill Cosby,

(07:15):
R Kelly, all these sort of people like when they're
at their zena it's hard, right, Go ahead.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Sarah, Well, I was just going to say, and we
were chatting, actually, I was having a conversation with Dimitri
earlier about this that's happening. And it's wild because you know,
we were talking about our people destroying our legends or
is it our legends actions that are tarnishing their own brands.
And I think, really and truly, you said, doctor b

(07:39):
you were talking about prior to the Me too movement.
I personally have been in the entertainment industry for almost
twenty years, and I have effectively learned how to navigate
the vulgarity that comes because the truth is regular men
air quotes here regular men or normal men are much
more appropriate these days but Richmond still aren't not because

(08:01):
there are still very rich and wealthy men that will
say whatever they want to say because they know they
can get away with it. And so even for me,
a part of me is like, dang, are this are
modern day women like getting soft? Or am I just
so groomed into being that I've normalized that bad behavior
where I learned and still do laugh it off this story.

Speaker 4 (08:23):
Yeah, I want to say to that, because that's a
good point, Sarah, because you may laugh laugh it off, right,
and I get that, But there's other woman who it
is very traumatizing to. It's other women who do see
it as sexual assault, and they do see it as
the me too movement. That's how the me too movement
was created, was women saying, listen, me too, I'm not
okay with it, right, And so we got to normalize respect,

(08:48):
We got to normalize boundaries, but we also have to
normalize letting a man be a man when he is appropriate,
when he is trying to approach, when he is trying
to make more of a a a positive gesture and
not a sexual assault.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
This story, though, is a little bit different. I feel
like we've heard most of this story before. Which is
not to say that it's okay. But his wife seems
to be a part of this in an almost enthusiastic way,
which is different than what we've heard. Quite often, we've
heard the wife seeming to be unaware of what's going on,

(09:21):
or at least pretending to be unaware of what's going on.
But this wife situation seems like she was like aware
and like encouraging and like okay with this because like
I'm good with him, so you like it's all very
icky and cringey and not unlike our second story, which

(09:41):
is not anywhere nearly as horrific but also cringey. Viral
moment out of the Can Film Festival our prints are
Caig Denzel Washington wrongly treated at Can when he's there
for his new Spike Lee movie Let's See the Videos.

Speaker 9 (09:58):
Ensues after a fatagh bunggorpher grabs him to get his
attention for a photo not a good idea. Denzel snaps,
pointing his finger at the photog in sternly declaring, never
put your hands on me.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
You know I have been on the other side of
the rope, like where the photographer is at the Oscars
and Golden globes and other things. I mean just the
social feeling of like, no, you cannot touch them, like
they're on the other side of the road. They have
the stars. These are the people that we are here
to talk to do our jobs, like we have tremendous

(10:33):
respect for them, to say nothing of Denzel at Can
so doctor b This gets me into like do they
think so little of our bodies that they could just
touch them even in incredibly inappropriate situations. I mean, Kelly
Rowland went through the same thing at Can last year
security guard, but still the same difference. Let's hear Kelly.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
The woman what happened. I know what happened, and I
have a boundary and I stand by those boundaries and
that is it. And there were other women that attended
that carpet who did not quite look like people, and
they didn't get that skuld.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Are pushed off, are told to get up, and.

Speaker 4 (11:23):
I stood my ground, and she felt like she had standards.

Speaker 1 (11:26):
And I stuck my ground and I said, good for her.
I mean, like again, our bodies, our basic human boundaries
not being respected. Will Smith had the same thing. It
was twenty twelve on a red carpet, but look at
this video turn that was problem. Oh wow, you know,

(11:50):
I mean, like it's just a basic disrespect of people
who you are there to venerate, to cover, to interview
and talk to. Your job is to talk about and
talk to them. So it's kind of crazy to leap
over to like disrespecting the doctor. B what's going on?

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Well, one, I just think when you're another country, and
I say this with all due respect, when foreigners are here,
or because I travel a lot and I try or
I travel abroad, they have a different boundary in Europe perspective.
Oh they do. I mean they don't have a boundary.
It's very touchy philly. They're up on you, they walk

(12:27):
past you, they don't speak. It comes off rude, but
that is their culture. Even when they come to the
US and we're driving in our cities or we are
at the airport with them, we notice I've noticed that
they're brushed by you, bump you not say excuse me.
They will just do certain things that from my experience,
is just like the foreigner forte per se. They don't

(12:48):
have like that California or not California, that American back up.

Speaker 3 (12:53):
We got boundaries.

Speaker 1 (12:54):
That's so you don't think this is as disrespectful as
we're sort of so I think it's disrespectful.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
I don't think it's a racial issue. I think the
boundary the part is the issue was the boundaries when
when when listen, when Denzel said, back the hell up,
don't touch me, that was a clear boundary of back
the held up. Just like Kelly Rowan, I always call
it the black woman's finger. When our finger comes up.
The finger is a boundary. So once we do this,
just understand what follows. This is a boundary.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
To your point, is Sarah, doctor b is noticing, Okay,
there's different more as in Europe, which is absolutely true.
I definitely think you're right that their sense of social
space is very a little less right. So maybe this
this white photographer is not intending to be disrespectful with
the first touch, but Denzil lays down a clear marker

(13:46):
that is not for me, and he does the photographer
does it again. So now I feel like we're beyond like, oh,
Europeans are different. I told you don't touch me, and
he touched him again. So where are we then, Sarah.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
I think that it's full blown entitlement, and I think
that it's entitlement to celebrities because I am on such
a small scale, but from small experience, I've had been
at dinner with my family or I've been out in
intimate spaces with my girls, and people will walk directly
into my.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
Face and say, hey, can we take a picture?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
We have to not even sometimes they don't even ask,
let's take a picture, right, And so there's a level
of entitlement because they're so used to seeing you that
they treat you like they know you. They treat you
like you're anybody else, and not to say that that's okay.
And then on top of that, like doctor B said,
being in a different country from personal experience, I was
in Rome at this live show watching the show. The

(14:39):
show was amazing. I'm looking at all the musicians. I'm
watching them play the music. I'm like singing along, you know,
dancing in my chair. I go to the washroom, and
I come out of the washroom. When I'm there, one
of the musicians literally we had made eye contact while
he was on stage, and I guess he thought that
that meant give it a go. He literally tried to
kiss me near the washroom quite literally. Now, this is

(15:01):
the thing, maybe that's normal over there, but it's not
normal over here. So I think that it's a level
of entitlement because you're a celebrity. You're supposed to do
these things. You're supposed to take pictures of me, you're
supposed to see me, And then also the physical boundaries
are a little bit different. I don't think it's a
racial thing either, Deko.

Speaker 6 (15:19):
You know the thing about it is, I do think
it's a racial thing. That's me personally. I do understand
the celebrity aspect of it. How celebrities aren't necessarily granted humanity.
I get that part. But you when respectability will not
protect you, when the world views your black skin, it's
public property.

Speaker 8 (15:39):
No matter how much people think they know you.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
The idea of it is they feel like what I
see that would it could have never been a black
reporter grab it.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Any of them.

Speaker 6 (15:49):
I don't think any of them are isolated incidents. I
think it's the idea of not only entitlement, but remember
you're black.

Speaker 8 (15:56):
That's what I see.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Hell yeah. In our politicking segment, the Trump administration is
making it harder for some black communities to access clean
water because they've terminated an old Civil Rights Settlement dismissing
it as DEI. So now people are at risk for
severe health challenges. In Alabama. There is feces in the water.

(16:21):
You cannot drink it. Look at that golden brown water there,
like that is disgusting to say nothing that Flint still
lacks clean water. And you know, you wonder if there's
something larger. We talked about the disrespect of black bodies.
This is again the disrespect of black bodies and black
people and black communities. But you wonder if there's something

(16:45):
even more insidious going on, dimitri in terms of like
are they doing this sort of thing to get at us,
to mess with us because they know our birth rate
is outpacing theirs, So maybe there's some higher plan of
like let's really screw with them, like on a physical
neurological level, so they can't ever get strong.

Speaker 6 (17:09):
Absolutely, And to me, it seems like they're defunding survival,
indeed blaming the sick for not succeeding. That's that's what
I see from Flint to Alabama, all the way from
it starts to feel like the new Jim Crow, unseen,
unspoken and deadly.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
Mm hmm, yeah, Sarah, they are eliminating or slicing and
dicing with medicaid. So the ability to get help when
you are poor is being taken away, and adverse chemicals
being introduced into your community. This is a death spiral, Sarah,

(17:52):
she's on mute.

Speaker 4 (17:53):
I was muted, unmuted.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
I couldn't agree with you more in the sense where
sometimes you know, where we it's I don't think it's
necessarily throwing away the blacks as much as it is
throwing away the impoverished people. It's suppress those that are
in poverty.

Speaker 4 (18:08):
And you know, I think.

Speaker 3 (18:09):
About the Flint whole situation, how they do not they
still don't have clean water. Well, you know that happened
in twenty fourteen. We're now in twenty twenty five and
they just got paid a six hundred and twenty six
million dollar settlement, but only eighty percent went to the
people that actually had the claims. And it's no different
inside of of Alabama. And the problem and the thing

(18:30):
that we really need to rally against is what this
dirty water is causing. It's causing cholera, it's causing diarrhea,
d century, it's causing typhoid hypatitis, a polio. There are
so many different things that this water can do, bacterias,
even death. Let's just keep it real, like that's as
bad as it gets us. Worst case scenario or worst
case scenario could be living with a disability, illness, or

(18:53):
ailment because you didn't have a basic human resource like water.
Everybody should have an opportunity to have clean water.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
You know, we talk a lot about Trump and we
see how dumb he is, and we call him a
clown and all these sort of things, but not everybody
around him is dumb or a clown. And when you
have someone like Stephen Miller, who is evil but smart
and insidious and horrible, he's the sort of person this

(19:24):
has like Stephen Miller fingerprints on it to be like,
he's the sort of person who would be like, yeah,
let's put dirty water in black communities because he thinks like, oh,
they're lesser, and like who cares about them? Doctor b
To your.

Speaker 4 (19:40):
Point, love you, doctor Sarah, love you says, but this
ain't about throwing away no impoverished people. This is called
environmental racism, straight up. That's exactly what it is. The
Trump administration earlier this year got rid of a settlement
that settlement was for public health because there was a
public health crisis, not for DEI. They made it DEI

(20:03):
because Flint and Alabama are what predominantly black, So of
course DEI and black people to the Trump administration and
many other people are tied in. They're married. So what
am I saying is that this movement to allow shit
in feces to be in water is about an environmental crisis,

(20:24):
which is a direct environmental systemic racism move on behalf
of these people. And the sad part is they cut
funding from this settlement.

Speaker 3 (20:34):
So the Alabama health officials said, look, we're.

Speaker 4 (20:36):
Going to continue to try to fix this septic system,
but we're running out of money, so this ain't gonna
last us too freaking long. And guess who doesn't give
a damn about that, this administration. So I'm gonna say
it once and I'm gonna say it loud. This is
an environmental racism problem.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
I think it's tempte right to be tree. It is
hard to live in black communities hardly because of stuff
like this. We are over policed, we are under resource
quite often, we are in food deserts, and then you
get environmental racism like this that this specifically can lead

(21:14):
to neurological damage in children. A lot of the kids
in Flinn who went through all this crap the last
decade neurologically damaged. You're never going to get past that
like that will affect you your entire life. This is
a real tragedy and yet another challenge of living in
a black community.

Speaker 6 (21:32):
Oh absolutely, I think now is the time we actually
start to do something of that. All these fundraisers and everything,
the United States themselves has the money to fund and
fix these problems. That's because the thing about it is,
you can't drink diversity reports, you can add clean wounds
with fucking press conferences. You actually get out and do

(21:54):
something because but the thing about it is, if it's systemic,
if this is intentional, there's your problem.

Speaker 8 (22:00):
They wanted to last.

Speaker 6 (22:01):
Because to doctor Bryan's point, if it's environmental, racism is
done for a reason on their end.

Speaker 8 (22:08):
But we should step up as well to do sothing.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
Sarah, what do you want us to do for us
to make this a little bit better?

Speaker 3 (22:17):
Man? I want us to rally together and fight one
thing at a time, because if we literally sit here
and try to fight every systemic issue that we have,
every white oppression, that we have, all of these different problems.
We will never get anything done. It's true, it's too
many different directions being pulled in. So I think that
it would be really powerful just the people.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
We the people. I'm not talking about.

Speaker 3 (22:40):
Legislature or policies, but if just we as the people,
would start rallying against one issue at a time.

Speaker 4 (22:46):
We need water. What do we need to do?

Speaker 3 (22:47):
Okay, well, we're gonna stunt what we purchase over here.
Because although we are the biggest consumers in this nation,
that's also one of our superpowers because if at any
moment we decided as black people to not purchasing from
any one thing, we will immediately stunt the growth and
income that that company or that that whatever is making.

(23:09):
If we chose to work together. Oh you guys don't
want to help us with the water, We're gonna stunt this.
In the grocery stores. We're gonna stunt this, in the
stock market. We're gonna stunt this because that's the only
way to really get changed. When it comes to white people,
they care about the money. How can we make that
hurt so that they want to make a change.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
I love that idea, and we tried a little target
boycott as a community a little while ago and had
some effect. But here's the thing. What we've been doing
is announcing we're gonna have a boycott on Friday and
it's gonna last three days or a week, whatever it is.
So what that does is it gives the corporation time

(23:49):
to get prepared. It gives them time to say, don't
worry about the numbers here because they're boycotting us, and
we know when it's gonna end. A real boycott, would
the company would not know what's coming. They would I
don't know how long it's going to be. They would
not know what's going They would be freaking out.

Speaker 8 (24:03):
Like we are.

Speaker 1 (24:05):
We are giving them too much information.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
That goes back to the black group, right. That goes
back to us coming together as a community and strategizing
the plan together, not just putting it on social media. Actually,
like you're saying, don't put it on social media at all.
We need to come together as a community and rally
against one thing at a time, what is the most pressing,
and then work our way back, make majorities have votes,

(24:30):
like really, make it like this is the community village
where we are trying to do the best for the colony.
But I think that a lot of us are more
selfish than anything else, or we're just stuck in our
own day in lives.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
So wait a minute, now, you give me a beautiful
lead in there to the main topic, right, because we've
been talking about community and what we kind of want
to talk about is we brought this out a little bit.
Is gentrification and why gentrification is bad or if it
even is, it's bad. A lot of times, what we're

(25:03):
talking about gentrification, we're talking generally about poorer communities, quite
often in the middle of cities, inner cities that we
used to call them, where developers come in new housing,
new businesses. You get a Starbucks, you get a glass
apartment building, you get a new Target, you get a
new Apple store, and the community value rises, and the

(25:27):
usage of the community rises, the property value rises. New people,
white people move into the community, right, move into the area.
We decided in this country we're going to make inner
cities or city areas much more livable, and we have
done that. Now this is great in many ways because
it makes the world Like I live in an area

(25:48):
where I've been in this area in Brooklyn, Fort Green
Spike leaves to live here as early films like The
six Seven, early films were set here or shot here.
So you know what this looks like. In the twenty
thirty years I've been living here, I've seen an apple
store come in, a target an Alamo. So being less,
neighborhood has like grown and changed. It's wider, it's more
affluent than it needs to be in a lot of ways.

(26:10):
That is better, but at the same time that displaces
a lot of the consistent community and culture and the
people who have lived there. Quite often, gentrification means poor
people have to move to another area. Right they might
have been in that area for generations. Now you have
to move somewhere further away from work, further away from

(26:31):
the city, which is hard for them. They may lose
money in the economic change, all these sort of things,
Doctor b. Gentrification is complicated for our communities.

Speaker 3 (26:42):
Yeah, no, it definitely is.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
You know, although there are some parts of gentrification. You know,
it does create a loss of affordable housing, it does
increase crime, it does create a social inequity, okay, and inequality,
and you do get a loss of culture diversity with
the those areas. However, right, gentrification, it provides a convenience. Right,

(27:06):
it does come in and and clean up or beautified
deteriorated neighborhood so that you can attract higher income residents
and businesses.

Speaker 3 (27:15):
Now, let's go residents and businesses for a moment.

Speaker 4 (27:17):
Right, you have folks who are homeowners, Like in my
neighborhood where I live, it's a ninety two percent homeowner rate.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
What does that mean?

Speaker 4 (27:25):
Whenever you have my homeowners, you have lower crime rate,
you have better school systems, and you have neighborhoods and
communities where people feel safe and we commune more.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
That's just the truth of it.

Speaker 1 (27:37):
Now you hear more about the community because they are
financially committed to it.

Speaker 4 (27:42):
They have skinned the game and they are investing in
that community by paying those those property taxes for that
city to be beautified and for their home to be
well kept. Right, But then what happens, Okay, you have
taxes that increase. You have folks who can't afford the
cost of living in that area. Because in order to
bring in this gentrification, you got to have money that
you put into it. And then you have to expect

(28:03):
folks who live in it to pay higher tax rates
so that they can kind of pay back the gentification
that you just did. So it does push out a
lot of our people. But I think the bigger question
is how do we help our people help themselves become
more socio economically stable and established so that gentification becomes

(28:24):
convenient for a convenience for them and not a hardship
where they end up more poverished than they were before.
Because what I've learned and out of land on this is,
you know, because as in it places to be president,
we talk about the gentification thing a lot, and I
happen to be one that is for it. And because
I'm the one that's for it, I get a lot
of pushback from my counterparts because they're saying, Doc, what
do you mean why people are coming in and taking

(28:45):
over our communities. I'm saying, but yes, many of our
communities are suffering from, you know, just the high crime rate.
We're suffering from the inability to even have a public transportation.
We're suffering from the inability to have a grosser tree
store versus a liquor store on the corner. So there's
a lot of things that we have to look at
as a group of people to say, listen, is it

(29:08):
working for us and we are not able to work
ourselves in it? Or is it working against us because
we are having to move ourselves out of something that
you know, we can actually try to become a part
of and make it a convenience to our lifestyle. I
think it can add to the quality of our lives
if we can figure out a way to blend with
it and not go against it.

Speaker 1 (29:27):
Dock. It adds to the lives of middle middle class,
upper middle class, upper class Black people who can afford
these gentrified prices for homes and lattes and other such things.
It doesn't help our working class brothers and sisters who
cannot afford to continue to live in these communities and
have to move out of them, right, And the gentrified

(29:51):
communities tend to be safer. They are more expensive, but
are absolutely safer, And yet our communities are just displaced.
Put the picture again with the with the different houses,
and you see the difference between pre gentrification and post gentrification.
They're not respecting the community, right, They're not respecting the

(30:12):
people who live there. So there is a challenge. I
find it hard to understand why you're like, I'm pro
gentrification when it is nuanced and complicated. I understand the
value of gentrification for some people, and it is very
difficult and dangerous for some black people as well.

Speaker 4 (30:32):
Yeah, because you know why when I go into our
inner city, you know what I see. I'm a little
girl from the inner city. I grew up in the hood.
Very proud to say that, from the hood to the hills.
When I walk around in my neighborhood as a child,
when I go back to what to give back, because
I give back all the time as much as I can.
I still see the same rhetoric where there hasn't a
gentification at There's still liquor store on every corner. We

(30:54):
still have a high rise in homelessness, we still have
a high rise in in addiction, we still have a
high rise in crime, and we still have a very
low social economic well being. We also have a low
level of public safety, and people are not able to
get healthy food, so not able to get resources.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
That they need.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
You have a lot of the community centers that are
supposed to be created for resources hold on not available,
shutting down. We just put myself, my organization just put
a skate park in a city called Harbor City, which
is a very rural inner city in the hood for
these kids. You know why because in there there's no gentification.
But there's also nobody making investments in that neighborhood so

(31:33):
that these folks can have a better quality of life.
So there is negatives to it, I hear it. But
there also has to become a time to ray, y'all
where we have to be able to move and evolve
as a people out of the poverty, out of the
middle class, or at least out of the poverty, and
start to allow our environments to look like more of
a resourceful, good quality of life that we all deserve

(31:55):
but we all can't afford.

Speaker 6 (31:58):
I think, and this is just my opinion. I believe
it's a double edged sword. You grab it from one way,
you're cut. You grab it from another.

Speaker 8 (32:05):
Way you cut. Because the idea of the hood. I
grew up in the hood, my whole life West Side
of Chicago.

Speaker 6 (32:10):
If you come here, they refer to it as two
ninety x y Z blah blah blah. But the reason
the hood is the hood is because there's less ownership there. Right,
ownership will benefit from gentrification. It's not cleaning up the
hood if you have to remove the people in order
for them to enjoy.

Speaker 8 (32:28):
It, you understand what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 (32:29):
It does not make sense if you're literally for some people,
for the middle class, like you said, sorry for the
middle class. Yes, it's a coffee shop. For others, it's
a fucking eviction. Note behind the coffee. It's different. And
the thing about it is, my grandmother was barely paying
her mortgage, barely.

Speaker 8 (32:48):
Ended up taking that mortgage y Z.

Speaker 6 (32:50):
And granted I was a lot younger at the time,
proud to say I now own that home that my grandmother.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
Grew up in.

Speaker 6 (32:55):
But the thing about it is, it's in that neighborhood
in Chicago that they're trying to It's right next to
the United Center out here where a bulls play.

Speaker 8 (33:03):
So for me, I've winnessed the first hand.

Speaker 6 (33:06):
I've witnessed the Starbucks pop up out of nowhere, but
steal next to a liquor store. And the thing about
it is, I think this conversation is a double aed sword,
because if you do not have the money to sit
in the gentrification, you'll never enjoy the gentrification.

Speaker 1 (33:20):
That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right. I remember
going to Philadelphia around forty excuse me, Baltimore around the
Freddy Gray situation. Recover that so it is there for
a week, like really understood Baltimore. There is like a
line a DMZ that is not crossed. There is a
gentrified harbor where there's nice stores and nice cute homes,

(33:41):
and the hood don't go there. You can, like, you
could get there in twenty minutes, but the hood doesn't
go there. They just hang out in the hood. They're
not really wanted there. So I mean, when we have gentrification,
it beautifies things for the middle class, in the upper class.
It doesn't really do anything for the working class. They're
just left out in the cold. They're just exiled somewhere

(34:02):
else and correct.

Speaker 8 (34:04):
Can we talk about what Tyler Perry did?

Speaker 6 (34:06):
Can we talk about what Tyler Perry did when he
built Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta. He paid for one
hundred homes mortgages so they could remain there during this gentrification.
He knew his studio would bring the property value up,
increasing taxes, increasing all these things. That's what we need
to see so people in the hood can enjoy.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
The hood, But because a mayor of Atlanta andre, Okay,
how was it? How was it to me?

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Because we don't have a bunch of billionaires that are
going to come in and do the same exact thing,
Like whose fault is it? And this is the thing
when we talk about playing victim, right, whose fault is it?
When homes and neighborhoods start getting run down? When are
we going to start taking care of our stuff? And
even like on a small level, like, have you guys
ever gotten the first time you got your your first

(34:56):
car that you were so proud of?

Speaker 1 (34:58):
Right?

Speaker 3 (34:59):
The difference between because I don't I'm not from the hood.
I'm from Canada. We don't have hoods, but we have poverty.
I'm from the Prairie and I had to choose between
a butter sandwich or I could put bologne on my
sandwich and nothing else.

Speaker 1 (35:11):
Right, Like, you don't have hoods in Canada. Don't put
poor people live together?

Speaker 4 (35:15):
Oh no, no, no.

Speaker 3 (35:16):
What I'm saying is there's not we don't shoot in Canada.
We stab terrible.

Speaker 4 (35:22):
But also is that mean?

Speaker 8 (35:29):
Mean?

Speaker 1 (35:31):
Is something?

Speaker 2 (35:36):
No?

Speaker 10 (35:36):
No testing here, nobody can talk talk, No, I can't.

Speaker 4 (35:48):
Can you guys hear me that I have something to say.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
I vague.

Speaker 8 (35:56):
There's a static going on with the echo that fixed it?
Get think you fixed it?

Speaker 1 (36:01):
Go again, shy and say something. Just say hi, Hi,
my Mike's fit.

Speaker 4 (36:12):
Okay, I'm.

Speaker 8 (36:15):
The problems fun.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Oh ye sounds bad. I can hear you guys.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Well who you?

Speaker 3 (36:26):
I can hear you guys.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
Oh it sounds terrible. It's okay. Sorry, we had technical
difficulties for a second, but we've got that fixed. Look.
Tyler Perry is an interesting part of this whole gentrification conversation.
He went into his community in Georgia, built this amazing
studio where they filmed Black Panther and all these other things.
But he didn't just forget about the people around him,

(36:52):
because when something like that comes into a community, the
property value of everybody around him is going to be
raised immensely. But if you can't afford the new property
taxes because your house is much more valuable, then you're
going to be priced out. He was so smart and
thoughtful that he thought of that and paid their taxes
for twenty years into the future to take care of

(37:14):
so they wouldn't be displaced the way that gentrification generally
displaces people. That is really powerful and beautiful. There are
not Tyler Perry's for every community. We will need other
ways to save ourselves beyond having a billionaire cove in
and and make it Wakanda and Atlanta's not even Wakanda

(37:36):
anymore to be treat But you know, doctor b what
are some of the ways that we can do things
at the grassroots level to improve our communities and get
more of what we need from the political system.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
I love that question because that's exactly where I was
going to write. So as a representative and present INAACP here,
we work with elected officials. I'm officol commissioner for our
assemblymen as well as a California Democratic Delicate elected official.

Speaker 3 (38:06):
So what do I do?

Speaker 4 (38:07):
I work with the elected officials to make sure that
the developers who are coming in to our cities and
developing have to contribute our donate a percentile of that
development that they will be making money from back into
the community. What does that mean that they have two
problems to invest in low income housing within the juridiction

(38:28):
of where they are developing or guess what they do
not get the okay from the city council to develop
in that area.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
Why, because a lot of elected officials were doing pay
to play.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
If you're paying me some money, then you can go
in and play in my juriddiction and build and develop
certain things, and that right there was killing us. The
sad part about it is it's not just white politicians
who were doing it. You got black and brown politicians
who were letting white developers come in, pay them a
nice little amount, shut them up, and build up everything.
And now you got politicians who are becoming career politicians

(38:58):
and millionaires once they retire, and developers who are coming
in and no one is in the service position that
elected official is meant to be in. So long story short,
we are making sure that developers have to donate and
contribute to the juridiction where they're building, to the community
of people who they are already building in. And they
have to make sure that they keep somewhat of the

(39:19):
culture that was already there, whether they let people do
like you know art they called graffiti art here in
Los Angeles on the walls in that company, right, or
they have to add some type of like whatever culture
that was there. So, yeah, those are some of the
resolutions that we've been.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
Is art absolutely to bed.

Speaker 6 (39:38):
Yeah, I musa speak to the exact same point from
a different standpoint through and I briefly touched on it
before we had our technical difficulties.

Speaker 8 (39:46):
But not just me.

Speaker 6 (39:48):
I was not the only one who purchased my great
grandmother's home.

Speaker 8 (39:52):
She owned this in nineteen seventy.

Speaker 6 (39:54):
I purchased him because no one in my family was
willing to do so until I was of age. But
me and three of my friends now owned property that
was in our family to keep it there. We refused
it to lose it to the city. I refused to
watch all the hard work and fight my grandmother put
up go to waste, because what was gonna happen is
someone was gonna move on in a four layer brick

(40:16):
building would have been bought in seconds.

Speaker 8 (40:18):
Her property is now valued at over eight hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 6 (40:21):
So it's not just what the city can do, it's
what the people can do.

Speaker 8 (40:26):
It's what you care when.

Speaker 6 (40:27):
You actually put the thought in and saying because I
can't control I grew up in poverty, but I can't
control what happens after the fact.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
You're twenty eight, Yes, how hard was it to get
the cash to buy. You bought an eight hundred thousand
dollars house.

Speaker 6 (40:42):
So what I did personally, My grandmother still owned maybe
fifty thousand left on this building, so quick claimed it
over to me, paid the fifty thousand reconstruction loan, fixed
the whole building.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
See that on on the other and pass on. Because
so often in our communities, there's something we call a
negative inheritance. Right, White people generally don't have this. We
generally have to take care of our elders near the
end of life, and that drags us down financially. We
love them, so we do it out of our heart,

(41:16):
but like it. Whereas white people quite often are experiencing inheritance,
they get money from their elders to start a business
or to pay to pay a down payment for a home.
So they're moving forward. So I love that you are
part of that. Quickly, Dmitri, when you are in the
dating scene and you are telling women, hey, I own

(41:37):
a home. Is that not a super green flag?

Speaker 6 (41:40):
You know, I hate to put a flex on it,
but it ain't the only one I own.

Speaker 8 (41:46):
Hey, listen, I'm proud to be a black man. I'm proud.

Speaker 6 (41:49):
I know y'all call me young, But I want to
touch on this because I don't want to make it
sound too easy. There is a lot of things that
you have to jump through as a young black man.
I'll started to develop our credit at sixteen years old.
I attempted to learn from a negative space as a child.
My parents didn't have it like that, my friends didn't
have it like that. But it was conversations amongst our
friendship growing up that we can do better, and.

Speaker 8 (42:11):
It's wanting to do it.

Speaker 6 (42:13):
Of course, I had to deal with my grandmother and
her I don't know if you really know, but when
they get above eighty, they get like a territorial heart's
connected to this building. And it was my It was
my dream, my all time goal, my desiring life. To
make sure this woman sees this building in its glory

(42:33):
days so she can remain comfortable. That was my and
it was not easy. I don't want to precate it easy,
but you can learn, you.

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Know the real estate space, probably better than anybody. This conversation,
let's talk a little bit about how more people, young
people can be like DM Tree and begin to own,
because if we create more home black home ownership, that
is the path to communal wealth.

Speaker 3 (42:58):
Well, what I love is that he's talking about what
was already owned in his bloodline, right, So you're starting
with a with a with a lesser hurdle because instead
of it costing eight hundred thousand, he probably put one
hundred and fifty two hundred thousand dollars into this house,
which is so much more manageable than that eight hundred
thousand number.

Speaker 4 (43:16):
And so one thing that I.

Speaker 3 (43:17):
Do want to address is why are our neighborhoods getting
run down in the first place. And like I said before,
there's definitely, you know, there's a perk to gentrification in
the sense where we get better shopping centers, better healthcare,
better school zones. There's so better stores, better food options.
It's not just fast food everywhere. We definitely do have that.

(43:37):
But I would actually challenge you Tore that it's not
just the working class, but it's also the middle class.
That that gap is created between them and the upper
middle class and the upper class right because they really
and truly can't afford to be there.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
So it is this double edged sword.

Speaker 3 (43:55):
And I feel like we really have to stop blaming
the white man forever, because the truth is a lot
of us don't know how to take care of our stuff.
A lot of us. No, No, let me just say
this because when I go to my great aunt Marg's Okay,
I lived with my great aunt for three years in Compton.
She's the one that taught me about credit. She's the
one that taught me how to make a bed. She

(44:16):
told me, Sarah, man will never love you if you
don't make your bed. She gave me real raw, unfiltered.

Speaker 8 (44:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (44:22):
Yes, thank you, Aunt Marge. I say that to say
when I go to my Aunt Marge's house, she still
has the couch with the plastic on it.

Speaker 1 (44:29):
Oh my god, the running.

Speaker 4 (44:30):
Carpets that you have to walk on.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Don't you dare step off of that carpetge shout out
to you, Aunt Marge for.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
Keeping your stuff together. She still has. She has cleaners
that come and dust.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
And when it started, it was a two bedroom house
with the kitchen, and it was so small. She's expanded
on her land that she has.

Speaker 4 (44:49):
She's added an additional.

Speaker 3 (44:50):
Sitting area, a whole additional room in the back area.
Like she's taken what she's had and she's expanded with it.

Speaker 4 (44:56):
Because she takes care of her stuff.

Speaker 3 (44:58):
And I do want to challenge that a lot of
us black folks, especially impoverished black folks, don't take care
of the things that we have and got me Ah.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
That is not my experience, Sarah, not my experience that
poorer people don't take care of their things. I think
many of them absolutely do. I don't want to make
a general station about every single person, but I think
a lot of them take very good care of the
small number of things that they have. I don't want
to cast dispersions on my working class brothers and sisters,

(45:28):
but just to pull back for a second, I think
that what happened to inner cities in our country is
that when we were do when we in the fifties,
when we were more of a manufacturing nation, the notion
was have factories in the city because that's where you
could afford. You get lots of workers who live in
easy working distance of the factory. A lot of those

(45:50):
would be working class people, because working class people tend
to work in the factory, so they wanted to be
near the factory. And the Great Migration sent a lot
of black people from this out to Chicago, New York, LA,
where they worked in inner cities. Money of them didn't
have much money. So yes, these neighborhoods were difficult, right,
and white people, especially the white power structure, made them

(46:12):
more difficult. As we go into the nineties and the
eighties and nineties and we're moving away from manufacturing, America
does not make anything anymore, the inner cities start to revitalize, gentrification.
They look nice again. So you know, black people shunted
out to the outer areas of these cities. So this
is it's not like our faults that we were pushed

(46:35):
to the inner city because that's when we were met
for workers, and then we're pulled out when that's the
metal of white people.

Speaker 6 (46:40):
I love I love this idea A good a good friend.
Jody Mine once referred to me as a black unicorn,
and I take it. I hold it dear to my heart.
I appreciate it. But understand this. The thing about it
is in Missia, I love you dearly, but I have
to completely disagree. I have to completely walk the other direction.
For me, I am a product of all I did
not see. That's the rarity. That's the only one rarity

(47:03):
I can give you. What people don't understand is what
this means when you excuse me, when you're born into poverty,
rights it's this is generational. It doesn't just abruptly come
to an end one day unless someone makes a difference.

Speaker 8 (47:18):
My parents didn't have the means to do so.

Speaker 6 (47:20):
Imagine saying, Okay, I'll change these windows and these gutters.

Speaker 8 (47:24):
And worry about the outside of this house. But you
barely got money.

Speaker 6 (47:27):
To put in your refrigerator. That's the difference. You barely
got money to make it to work. You can't build
up the wealth of this building because I gotta worry
about real shit, keeping the goddamn lights on for the kids.
That was my parents' experiences, and I'm saying. All I'm
saying is I can never slay them for that. I've
witnessed my parents change and become generationally better than what

(47:51):
they they've had to deal with from learning from their child.

Speaker 8 (47:53):
My mother will tell you, so there.

Speaker 6 (47:56):
You have to You have to be a little more
careful with the words you.

Speaker 4 (48:00):
No know to me, I challenged her. I'm not saying
that it's a choice.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
I'm saying, you know, I'm not even talking about necessary
the expansion of your homes. I'm talking about taking care
of what you have I've I come from poverty. We
went from a two family income household to one because
my dad ruptured a disc in his back when I
was ten years old, and I saw my mom have
a full time job, going to school full time to
get her master's and engineering all of us kids, taking
care of my dad, and also trying to make sure

(48:26):
that we weren't homeless. So I'm not saying I'm a
stranger to freaking poverty. I know what it's like to
even as an even moving to America, I had to
choose between was I going to put gas in my
car or food in my fridge. I was that girl
that was digging in the couch trying to find change
so I could put three dollars on pump five And
not because I was in a rush, but because this

(48:46):
was literally all that I had. And in spite of that, I.

Speaker 8 (48:50):
Have four kids and got an eviction.

Speaker 3 (48:52):
Note I have an eviction.

Speaker 8 (48:54):
No, everyone, this is reality for a lot of people.
I know for a lot of people.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
I'm not saying it's not the reality.

Speaker 3 (49:02):
What I'm saying is we have to do a better
job of taking care of our stuff, because what happens we.

Speaker 8 (49:09):
Never own you a lot of apartment.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
Why.

Speaker 3 (49:15):
This is exactly why gentrification is happening, because if you
don't own it, you don't take care of it, it
gets run down. And so now you're trying to hold
onto something that's following over.

Speaker 1 (49:26):
I want to put up one idea, and I know
Dmitri knows about this. Poverty is expensive. Yes, poverty costs
money in and of itself, right like people interest are yes,
are overcharging poor people. There's late fees, There's all these
ways that being poor costs you money. So when we're
talking about poor people, you're basically talking about poor people

(49:49):
not getting the most out of their money. But their
money is running them. They are not running their money,
So to blame them for a situation where they're about.

Speaker 4 (49:58):
The money to ray. This is what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
The stuff that you have, take care of it. Take
care of the things that you can afford. Because if
you you don't have to have the Rolls Royce or
the Mercedes Bins or the BMW, you don't have to
have that. You could have the two thousand and one Camry.
But to clean your car, it's not you have stains
on your carpet and dust inside of your vents, if

(50:22):
you take care of yourself and you take care of
your stuff. And a lot of us were so tired
and we're so exhausted, and we're so impoverished, impoverished that
now with you for us not to do okay, let
me let me.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
Show as we're doing it. And that sister right there
said she has no poor friends. All her friends are I.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
Was gonna say that. I was just gonna say that
the big I want to clarify that really quick.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
I do not.

Speaker 3 (50:57):
I didn't grow up inside of prive. I came from
property and love. I built my privilege. I built my
businesses from the ground up.

Speaker 8 (51:06):
Literally.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
I got sued for three thousand, five hundred dollars worth
of late fees because in my Hollywood apartment that I
lived in for four years, I only paid my rent
twice on time. So I know what it's like to
be there. That's why I don't want to hear excuses
about it.

Speaker 9 (51:21):
Let me go.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Rotherhood to the inner city two a bit of different things.

Speaker 4 (51:30):
But let me say this time, we're talking about taking
care of our stuff, and we're talking about taking care
of family, and we're talking about generational wealth, and we're
talking about ownership is what I hear all of y'all
saying collectively. Okay, that is more than just owning your
property in the inner city. Yes, that's also having life
insurance for your children. Sure, Okay, that's also teaching Dimitri's

(51:55):
son how he created this real estate portfolio. Okay, my
father passed away. He was a hood dude, went from
the hood to a well off business man, so he
made it out the hood. I got a check in
the mail, didn't even know life insurance, two different checks.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
I borrowed my eyes out.

Speaker 4 (52:15):
Not because the amount was nice, because my father thought
of me post his death.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
My father thought of me. I ain't telling you. My
father thought of.

Speaker 4 (52:24):
Me in his legacy in creating after death. That life
insurance check is important to kids. Second thing is we
didn't have to spend a dollar on my father's funeral,
his plot or anything. You know why, because to Sarah's point,
he took care of his shit. My grandmother who I
took care of in hospice to her last breadth two
years ago, dying from cancer. And guess what, we didn't

(52:46):
have to pay a dollar for hers. You know why,
because she took care of her shit. Now, let me
go further. She didn't own a property, she didn't own
a business, but she damn sure had life insurance that
covered herself so that when she passed away, she did
not leave us in debt and we were not in deficit.
How do we had I paid for it? Hell, y'all
would have paid for it. But the fact that I
didn't is what I call privilege. Is what I call

(53:06):
generational wealth, is what I call taking care of each other. Now,
I bought my first house at nineteen and created a
hell of a real estate portfolio up until right now.
I bought an estate four years ago, and I just
built out a compound, which means I have four houses
on one property in Los Angeles where all of our
family can live here. Why because that's how you create
generational wealth. That's how I let my children that are

(53:27):
not even born yet. Called preparation and planning for my
kids before I have them, I say, listen, all, y'all
got a place on this one compound. So I don't
want to hear anything when Mama leaves. In the event,
I don't get the opportunity to continue to and create.
So what I'm saying is that it is our responsibility
to create and make sure there is equity for the

(53:48):
family that we are going to birth and for the
family that is here.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
Demetrian is doing it well, Dmitri.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Dmitia.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
We have established that doctor Bryant is rich. That's is
I will say.

Speaker 4 (54:04):
I was a little girl from the hood to the hills,
and I definitely want from porta middle class to a
rich b I two c s and.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
I'm just staying.

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Here's the thing to be treat Sarah's Sarah Keys making
the point, But why do poor people be cleaner? You're
cabrity green?

Speaker 8 (54:23):
Right? Come on, man, what are we talking about?

Speaker 1 (54:25):
I mean, like, is is there a prop do you do?
You've been in the hood? Are we keeping it clean
in the pjs or not?

Speaker 6 (54:34):
You know, the thing that about the hood that a
lot of people misunderstand the hood is literally saying, okay,
what you'll be cause what y'all telling me is why
don't I make my bed when my room's fucking filthy?
The thing about it is doctor b said something about
life insurance. Fuck life insurance when you can't afford carn insurance.

(54:55):
Fuck life insurance when you can't afford living people. I
don't I don't think people understand this though. To your
point too, Ray, are we keeping it clean? I'll be
honest with you, No they're not. But the thing about
it is it does not matter if.

Speaker 8 (55:07):
It's clean, if you barely.

Speaker 6 (55:09):
Have it the dealership when they come repoll your car,
they don't give a fuck if it's car washed or not.

Speaker 8 (55:15):
It's getting taken. And that's the thing.

Speaker 6 (55:18):
People are literally making life change and displaces, split decisions
with the money they're making.

Speaker 3 (55:24):
And I don't know if you know taken, Dmitri. Why
is it getting taken?

Speaker 4 (55:27):
Who's responsibility think that they obtained?

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Whose responsibility is it?

Speaker 4 (55:33):
I'm asking a general question to us, are you whose responsibility?

Speaker 3 (55:36):
It is an absolute cop out, okay, And I'm probably
gonna piss a lot of people off because I know
that the struggle is.

Speaker 4 (55:43):
Not easy, but that doesn't mean that it's impossible.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
And one of the things that we all have to
realize is y'all talking about Yeah. I moved from from
Canada Reginas because a satchee in Canada to Los Angeles.

Speaker 4 (55:54):
I moved to Hollywood, California.

Speaker 3 (55:56):
My root was seven hundred and eighty one dollars and
every single month I was, I was late to pay
my rent. Every single month, I was calling around trying
to see if I could get help. Every single month
I was hustling, trying to figure it out. And you
know what, inside of trying to figure it out, even
though I was crying myself to sleep.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
At night, I was putting a plan in place.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
I may have started broke. It's like the quote that says,
if you were born broke, that is not your fault,
but if you die broke, that is absolutely your fault.
And then if we continue to regurgitate that rhetoric that
because it's hard and that you don't have enough money
to live your life, that then it's okay for you
not to have life in you're not taking care of yourself.

Speaker 4 (56:34):
It's not okay.

Speaker 3 (56:35):
And hold on, hold on, hold on to because Sarah.

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Hold on to Sarah's point. I said something very significant.
I said, my father was a street guy, and even
though he was a street guy, he's still invested in
life insurance.

Speaker 3 (56:49):
You know why, because he knew the.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Lifestyle he was living and it may have not been
a promised one. So I want to say this to
Dmitri though, because Dimitri and I do have something in common.
We both do come from the inner city. We both
are little kids from the hood that hapened to do
damn well for our family make it out. So I
totally understand you when you say, listen, you know when
you're trying to pay your cardinal, you're just trying to
see if you can get to a free clinic because
you ain't got health insurance. You're just trying to see

(57:12):
how you can get to high school, how you can
get to get to the next stop from the seventy
two bus and get a transfer to the next one.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
I totally get it.

Speaker 4 (57:19):
But let me say this, there's people like you and
there's people like me who figured out, with a strong
internal locus, what kind of plan was needed for us
to navigate through that Dmitri And guess whose responsibility that was?

Speaker 3 (57:31):
It was yours, And guess who responsibility it was for me?
It was mine.

Speaker 4 (57:35):
And so when I when I tell my story, I
don't just give props to the people who raise me.
I give props to Schyenne Nicole Briant, and I get
props to Jmiti Wabi. What I'm saying is that just
like we held ourselves responsible to make sure that we
did something with the crumbs that we had and made
a loaf out of it. People still got to be
able to figure out how to do it, Dmitri, and
people like you and me, we are responsible for going

(57:57):
back and saying, bruh, sis, I see you in me.
This is how I did it. Maybe this is a
tool that can help you do it. It's not about
leaving them hanging, but we gotta hold them accountable.

Speaker 1 (58:09):
I soolute you, Sarah, Dimitri. My father's also projects to
having his own business and creating the pathway for my life.
He lived in the projects right over there, right on
the other side of the park in the area where
I live now in like a nice home, which is
like this amazing, you know, generational leap. But we're not

(58:32):
really dealing with the fact that being poor and being
in poverty is in and of itself traumatizing. And I
hold on you, Sarah for being able to have a
long term plan in that situation. But a lot of
people were in that situation aren't able to long term
plan because money and the economic opportunities are so huge,

(58:54):
and they're constantly fighting with the things they've already bought.
The basic bills, not not talking about went out and
bought orders. I bought an expensive television, So about the
basic bills, I am and for.

Speaker 4 (59:05):
Their lack of exposure, the lack of exposure to other
things outside of the inner city.

Speaker 3 (59:10):
Guys, when I moved, when I moved here, do you
understand that my credit score was a five oh eight,
Because having no credit is worse than having bad credit.
So I couldn't rely on the credit system. I couldn't
rely on my parents, I couldn't rely on my friends.
And this is what I'm saying. I'm not saying that
every excuse isn't valid. They probably are so valid. However,

(59:33):
they don't give you a result. And so when we're
talking about gentrification, we cannot continue to blame the white man.
We've got to blame our own decisions and not being
willing to do the work necessary.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Here's the thing. If if I mean some people escape,
absolutely and good for them, and I'm glad, and I'm
glad we use the word escape because it is hard, right,
it's not easy. What my father did, what Giant's father did,
is very, very different. We have a situation where people
are born with no financial resources, right their family doesn't

(01:00:08):
have any they're born and they go to a crappy school.
Now they're in the workforce. Maybe they lived in a
shitty neighborhood where there was the drug trade, because that
often happens in shitty neighborhoods, because that is a good
employer for a lot of people. So I caught a felony.
I wasn't even in the game, but I was out
when everybody else was. I caught a fella. So now

(01:00:30):
I can't even get a great So now I've been
boxed in by mass incarceration, by bad education, by general segregation.
And I'm twenty four, twenty five. I have a shit education.
I have a felony. And Sarah's going pick yourself up
by your bootstraps.

Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
It'll get on YouTube. Then something get around people. Put
yourself in environments where people are winning. There are so
many free seminars. Do the work, go to the library,
do you I used to take the bus two and
a half hours one way, actually two two trains and
a bus. No two buses in a train one way,
two hours in one way, three hours ride back, so
I could go to my mentor to learn. If you

(01:01:08):
want it, you will do it. That's it, and most
people want their excuses and they're comfortable inside of that
trauma more than they want the results.

Speaker 8 (01:01:16):
I much spend that back one time.

Speaker 6 (01:01:18):
I'm gonna take it back to gen I'm gonna take
it back justification for a second, because the thing about
this is all of this is explaining why people in
the inner city, in the hood can't remain there when
gentrification takes place. If the answers that y'all spewing in
me is saying it's a choice because you did not
choose to seek better help when he just explained to

(01:01:40):
you exactly the box life traps you in before years
at the age of sixteen years old. You know how
many people I know start selling drugs just to help
their mama. Like, what are we talking about. It's not
a choice, it's not a seminar you could take. There's
nothing you can do to escape what the hood traps
you in before you're eighteen years old, so you cannot
ford to remain there when gentrification takes place.

Speaker 8 (01:02:03):
Saying I'm a centification doctor, doctor, I.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
Could be in the hood right now. My father, my
father was sixteen, he had a child, and he was
running around carrying a gun in the nineteen fifties. That
was huge there guns were not late nineteen fifties, early sixties,
the guns were not proliferated the same way they are now,
So that was a huge deal. His mother when he
was seventeen, said we are changing your life, and they

(01:02:29):
went from Brooklyn to Boston when it is last year
in high school. Completely changed his life. Right, he was
probably on a path to jail or something. So somebody
cared enough about him to make a significant choice that
would change his life, probably against his wishes. Right, he
left the child that he had in another city. Right,
that's his story, and we tell it another day. But

(01:02:52):
it's not easy to get out of poverty. And yes
there are pathways, but these are hard. But I don't
want to demonize or look down.

Speaker 4 (01:03:05):
Yeah, we want to do We don't want to demonize
the people who got out. But I do want to
say this, Torey. I want to say that, you know,
when I was growing up, there was a store called Payless.

Speaker 3 (01:03:14):
I don't know if y'all remember that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:15):
Maybe get they're too young, the tore you wouldn't remember that. Now, Yeah,
we got we had Payless, Right, So what I did
as a little girl was.

Speaker 3 (01:03:22):
I went to Payless and bought me some real.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
Cheap shoes because it didn't matter what name, rand of
the price they were, and they happened to be sneakers,
I calm tract shoes. I laced them bitches up. I
didn't know where I was going, but I knew I
was gonna get the hell out of there. I knew
I knew where I wanted to get away from. When
I laced them sneakers up, which today's people see heills,
I still got them on. I ran as far as
I can away from what I did not want to be.
And as soon as I took off running, God did

(01:03:45):
something real, real, specially that he does with people will
have faith. He started to order my steps, and I
started to take one step at a time, one step
at a time.

Speaker 3 (01:03:51):
What am I saying?

Speaker 4 (01:03:51):
What am I saying to you is that, yeah, I
am saying what it sounds like Sarah was saying. Find
you a Payless, find you a dollar store, find you
a Walmart, find you a Target, find you a liquor store,
get you some sneakers, lacing things up, and guess what,
run your ass out of what you don't want you
just might run into what you do want. So what
I am saying is, yes, grab your bootstraps. What I
am saying is that pull them up. What I am
saying is that gets the internal luck.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
This.

Speaker 4 (01:04:12):
What I am saying is that gets so mad, get
so upset, get so unhappy with their environment that you're in.
Like Demetrius said he did of seeing everything you don't
want to be and run the hell away from what
you don't want to be, you just might end up
like Demitri. You just might end up like me or
Sarah and run into the things that you do want
to be. You have to take an action, whether it's
norm where you're going or knowing what you're getting away from.
But you can't just sit there and say I'm not

(01:04:34):
responsible for doing nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
I totally totally quickly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Because we're getting out of here. Who's responsible for the
state of our neighborhoods we are?

Speaker 3 (01:04:44):
We are?

Speaker 4 (01:04:44):
You are Torre, you are Demeri, you are doctor Sarah,
and I am absolutely we are.

Speaker 10 (01:04:51):
No.

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
Yes, it's white people. It's white people. There's always white
people that are correct, There's always white people.

Speaker 3 (01:04:55):
And you'll always be powerless and you always be you
always be.

Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
At their footstool. If you think like that, so sorry,
sorry that you have that limited thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
White It's not limited. I have understand very white supremacy
in control of our of our system.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
It's in control of you. It's not a control of me.

Speaker 4 (01:05:17):
You because you fall prey to that, because maybe you
need a little more hood in your life.

Speaker 3 (01:05:22):
But it's not a control of me. Baby.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Aware of that. You're very unaware to the country.

Speaker 4 (01:05:29):
Very unaware, because if you're aware, you will understand that
it does not control you. You have a mind that's
not in captivity. But as long as you have that
slave mindset Stockholm syndrome, then you can say that the
man whose white runs you, I don't have the same
narrative you keep yours, and I'm gonna keep ying.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Wake up whatever narrative you want. But you say you can.

Speaker 4 (01:05:53):
You can say what you need to stay an inferior
black man to the superior white man. But I still
will love you.

Speaker 1 (01:06:00):
Your superior serior to us. They have more, they have
more money.

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
You are inferior to your problem, I love, You are
inferior to your problem.

Speaker 3 (01:06:09):
You are powerless to your problem, my love.

Speaker 1 (01:06:11):
Yes, I am inferior to white par absolutely my problem
is greater than be I cannot my problem, which is
white supremacy. That is the biggest White supremacy is will always.

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
Be your I agree, we agree, you're inferior to We
agree I am not. That is not my narrative at all.

Speaker 8 (01:06:30):
Can I can?

Speaker 6 (01:06:31):
I believe I'm gonna tell y'all two things about the
hood that y'all I don't know. If y'all know, y'all
may not know. Just like you said earlier, Tore, there's
this thing called Austin Boulevard in Chicago. Nois on one
side completely gentrified, the other literally across the street. The
other direct poverty direct.

Speaker 8 (01:06:50):
I drive. I drive on the street every day. It's
not ten blocks from my house.

Speaker 6 (01:06:53):
The thing about this is, and the reason I say
it is, well, people don't understand about that poverty side.

Speaker 8 (01:06:58):
They don't think the other side is achievable.

Speaker 6 (01:07:01):
Of course, yes to doctor Brian and Sarah's point, it's
a mental thing. But what people don't understand this it's
a mental thing be due to white supremacy, due to
the past. If you're born into a hole and you've
never seen light, you never understand what that looks like.
You understand what I'm saying, until you discover it. I
looked around, I've seen what I liked. I implemented it

(01:07:23):
in my own life. Not everybody has that. But due
to the fact of not everybody having that, things are situational.
My parents did not believe what I'm doing currently today
was possible until our show them it was so. All
I'm gonna say is when we talk about who whose
fault is it? Or it's everybody's Wait, no, not everybody's

(01:07:51):
our fault.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
All problems are not our faults. You're dealing with a
system that we were not meant to be in. This
is not the country we're supposed to be in. We
are dealing with.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):
He's he's having account. I'm gonna tag you on this department.

Speaker 4 (01:08:09):
I love you.

Speaker 3 (01:08:10):
I love you so much. I love all of us,
and I love that we can have this conversation with
love without you know, it getting personal or angry, like
we're literally just having debate.

Speaker 5 (01:08:17):
No.

Speaker 3 (01:08:18):
I love that for us. However, the fact it is,
it's it's.

Speaker 4 (01:08:22):
Toxic in my mind.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
It is toxic to say we will never reach a
certain point because of them, because what you're doing is
you're placing all of your power outside of you. And
if all is your power is outside of you, you
are powerless to make a change. When you start taking
one hundred percent accountability for all things in your life, good, bad, right, wrong,

(01:08:44):
ugly or beautiful, that's when you can actually change it.
When we start managing the energy. One of the things
to uh Torey. We were having a phone call the
other day catching up uh chit chatting, and I was saying,
you know, one of the things that I say when
I when I'm really frustrated, instead of giving it my energy,
I say, isn't that interesting? There's no reason why I'm

(01:09:06):
going to allow anything or anyone else to take my
power away.

Speaker 1 (01:09:11):
Sarah, what is the what is that you're more Christian
than I am? What is this thing? Give me the
grace to what is it? To accept the things I cannot.

Speaker 3 (01:09:19):
Change and the power that I can.

Speaker 1 (01:09:24):
Because I believe, I believe in accountability for the things
that are within my control. And if I have any
ability to change the situation, I will internally be like, well,
what did you do? And what did you not do?
But I understand that there is a part of life
and a part of living in this society that is
beyond my specific control and beyond the control of the
specific black community and the black community, that I understand

(01:09:49):
that there is nothing inherently wrong with us, That we
are amazing and beautiful and controlling white supremacy that continues
to hold us down. There is no nothing wrong with us.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
So let me say, not in your control, tore, what
is not What is an example?

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
What is not in your control?

Speaker 1 (01:10:08):
I mean, if I encounter the police, let's say we
all know that I don't have control in that situation.
My god, I was playing tennis. This is a real story.
I mean I played tennis every day. But this happened
three weeks ago where we got into an argument over
whose court it was. It was mine, but she wouldn't
get off. I swear she would have been at January

(01:10:29):
sixth if she had enough money for bus fare, right,
she had like ninety seven percent of her teeth, right,
like that sort of person. And she called the police
and said that I assaulted her. So when the cops came,
the question is did you assault her? In that moment,
I rely on the cop to listen to me because
he could have easily said, well, let's just arrest him

(01:10:49):
and figure it out later, So I don't have control
in that moment. And you know what's crazy. You know
part of how I got out of that because the
other white people at the court were like, yeah, we
saw it. He didn't hit her. Like so I'm relying
on white people to save me in this bobent, which
goes to.

Speaker 4 (01:11:06):
Show that they're not the enemy. And also the.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
ID I'm not saying every specific white person is the enemy.
You have some white friends. I'm saying there is a
system that controls us that some of our friends will
perpetuate that system.

Speaker 3 (01:11:28):
Go Sarah, Okay, I just have to say this. The
only thing in life that we have control over.

Speaker 4 (01:11:35):
It is not the socioeconomic climate.

Speaker 3 (01:11:37):
It is not how much we are going to get opportunity,
It is not the color of our skin. The only
thing that we have control over is ourselves. And if
in that moment you got into that argument with the
girl that plays tennis and you would have gone off
on her and was super loud, I'm sure that you're
not that way. You might be outraged at times, but
you don't get dramatic in the sense of where you're

(01:11:58):
ready to put your hands on someone where someone else
might go there because they don't even have control over themselves.

Speaker 1 (01:12:05):
No, but I had self control. But the conversation came
down to what the police officer. And that's just one.
That's just one discussion one.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
Because when I hang on, the truth is inside of
that moment, Torey, had you been the angry black man,
the loud, angry, disrespectful black man, I'm doing quoting fingers
for those that are listening that person, then that you,
the police officer wouldn't have needed the white people. He
probably would have already assumed you were guilty just off

(01:12:38):
of your energy.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
But I wasn't then, and I'm still sorry.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
We get you weren't the angry black man. That we
get your point.

Speaker 4 (01:12:45):
What I hear you saying when you talk that is
is uh.

Speaker 3 (01:12:51):
Baffles me.

Speaker 4 (01:12:52):
Is you describe, you know, the exact definition of inferiority
and hold on before you respond. That is something that
I feel that our people has worked very hard to
come out of. I hear you saying that white people
cause problems, and they have been the nucleus to a
lot of our problems. But when when you say that
they are the covering problem, that is an inferiority complex

(01:13:14):
which you've already said that you're inferity, inferior to the
systemic racism of things. But that mindset cannot overcome something
because inferiority and overcoming cannot coexist. You can't build yourself
up while you break yourself down. It doesn't work. You
gotta choose one. And when you choose to go up,
you are no longer inferior.

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
You are evolving.

Speaker 4 (01:13:37):
And it's not about being superior to another race. It's
about being superior to yourself and being vertical on who
you are and understanding that out of all powers of powers,
you do have the power of choice, and if you
use it as much as you can, it does change
your life.

Speaker 1 (01:13:54):
If we look at this situation in this country and
we see white people have a majority of the money
and a majority of the power as far as politics
and corporations, how do we explain that. How would I
explain that to a six year you don't have to
white people are better? Or would I say racism explains

(01:14:17):
why we're in that situation.

Speaker 3 (01:14:18):
I think the bigger question is why are you trying
to explain it? Who are you trying to explain it?

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
To the explanation of why somebody outside of you doing
anything is irrelevant. What are your black tail doing for change?
What is your black tail.

Speaker 3 (01:14:31):
Doing for your family?

Speaker 4 (01:14:32):
You are educated, you wrote a book, You're doing better
than your parents.

Speaker 3 (01:14:35):
What do you toray? No, you don't have to explain
what an outside party is doing.

Speaker 4 (01:14:40):
This is in house stuff. As black people we in house, I.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
Would feel bad. I would feel bad for black people
who failed to understand that racism and white supremacy is
the main reason for our problems, because then you would
have to blame yourself.

Speaker 8 (01:14:56):
And I got it in this.

Speaker 6 (01:15:01):
The question is, but we're talking about gentrification right in
the neighborhood.

Speaker 8 (01:15:06):
Y'all to know who I blame. I blame my mom,
I blame my dad. I blame my ancestors.

Speaker 6 (01:15:10):
But I also blame more than them, more than them.
I blame the judicial system. I blame poor funding and
low funding communities in the hood. I blame police brutality
on black Americans. I blame There's a number of people
to blame. It's not just one particular person. You don't
look in the mirror and say I could do better
one day and then they go out and now you

(01:15:32):
can pay your bills before.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Y'all were before y'all were in Chicago. Where were you
got it?

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
That's it?

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Which southern state were you in?

Speaker 8 (01:15:39):
Us?

Speaker 2 (01:15:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 8 (01:15:41):
Mississippi?

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Yeah? So do you should also blame the sharecropper who
was stealing money from your grandfather and the slave bass
stealing money from your great.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
Everybody, And you disagreed with him? He said, everybody ten
minutes ago, and you said.

Speaker 4 (01:15:56):
Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa curl start to fluff
up your curls with bouncing and stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
You know you was having a moment, man, he was
having a moment.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Who This show has been a moment. I love you guys.
This has been the most passionate show we've had yet.
I hope you guys love it because I sure I
got bruses, doctor, big up bruises. Everybody got into it.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
You guys brought the noise in the funk today. I
love you guys. That's doctor Shyanne Bryant. That's doctor Sarah
fo Dmitri Wiley, who owns fifteen homes. Sarah owns three.
Doctor shyan owns half of California. She's grazy out here.
We're gonna have other amazing people on this show this season.
Deal Hugley, MDK Williams, Mark Lamont Hill. You gotta come

(01:16:45):
and see who's here with us as we're going. We're
gonna be here every night, eight pm weeknights.

Speaker 3 (01:16:53):
We even have judges on the show. We even have judges,
Judge Lauren Lake.

Speaker 1 (01:16:58):
This is your True Talk family, So come he hang
out with us. Like comment, subscribe on our YouTube at
truth talks dash Live. Watch us here in the Black
Star Network, support black media the links on your screen.
Please come hang out with your Truth Talk family every
night at a pm. We love you and we love
each other. Even though we argue, we out

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}DENZEL & KELLY ROWLAND FIGHT BACK, ATLANTA GENTRIFICATION

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

DENZEL & KELLY ROWLAND FIGHT BACK, ATLANTA GENTRIFICATION

Stuff You Should Know