Diversity in Storytelling Featuring Jermaine Woods

Jermaine and Delvin discussed the evolving landscape of storytelling and representation in media, particularly focusing on marginalized communities. They highlighted how increased democratization of storytelling has allowed underrepresented groups to tell their own stories, which sometimes challenges the comfort of those who are not used to seeing diverse perspectives. They also discussed how media representation has changed over time, with positive black characters becoming more prevalent as more black writers gained access to creative spaces. The conversation touched on the importance of personal connections and understanding in shaping perceptions of different communities, and they noted that many people lack direct relationships with LGBTQ+ or trans individuals, which can influence their attitudes and understanding.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
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(00:20):
Thank you. Welcome to the Delvin Cox

(01:21):
experience, the podcast which each week I'm on a one man
mission to you, not our culture to diversity.
I'm your host, Delvin Cox with me on the podcast, a special
guest, my friend, my brother Jermaine Woods, AKJV the
monster. How you doing bro?
Man, I'm doing great, bro. Good to be with you.
Good to be with the with the manof many hats.

(01:43):
Just just just a great dude in general on the experience.
I'm, I'm, I'm happy to be with you, man.
Appreciate you bro, we'll see how you feel after the end of
the show, hey. Let's go.
As always, like to start the podcast off at the five for
five, five questions, 5 asks to get the ball rolling.
JV, Are you ready? Ready as I'm going to be.

(02:04):
OK question #1 name me an underrated 80s song.
Wow, an underrated 80s song. I think the lady's name who
sings it is Patty something. But the warrior thinking that

(02:31):
The Wall's a Hardy Bang Bang. You know that that song, that
song's a jam and like needs to be in more things.
I know this. I know what song you talk about.
I'm trying to think of the name of the song.
That is a very good song. Damn.
What is the name of the song? Yeah, that's that's, that's one

(02:53):
of the joints I hear it in. Like that's, that's, that comes
on the playlist and I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm in the zone for
whatever I'm about to do. The group is the scandal.
OK. And so Patti Smith is the lead
singer. Yes, warrior, the Warrior.
There you go. Just the scandal on Patti Smith.

(03:13):
The Warrior Fire Song. It was the intro for Glow.
Yes, it was Netflix. And I feel like it.
I feel like it's just waiting tobe featured like prominently in
a James Gunn movie. That'll be perfect.
Yeah. P Smith This will be good for.

(03:34):
It would be. It'd be it.
It would actually fit that perfect.
Question #2 which is a kind of aflip question #1.
OK. What is an underrated 80s movie?
That's a good question. An underrated 80s movie.

(03:55):
I'm going to go with Miracle Mile with Anthony.
I think it's Anthony Edwards wason ER.
It's just a really it It's like a real time movie about a guy

(04:17):
who accidentally hears a call that the world is about to end.
Oh. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's really,
it's really good. It's like maybe a little over 90
minutes and like it's, it's toldin real time and it's just like
really, really good. I, I, I came across it on the

(04:39):
list and was like, oh, I'll check it out and was
disappointed I didn't see it beforehand.
So Miracle Mile got to give it up.
With Anthony Edwards. Yeah.
I'm looking this up right now. OK, yes, I.
I think it's on Amazon Prime right now.

(04:59):
That's even better. Yeah.
Anthony was one of those actors that was like everywhere at one
point in time. Yeah, yeah.
He's, he's in so much stuff that, like you, you remember him
from ER, but he's kind of just ubiquitous in the 80s and the
90s. He's just like, it's so much

(05:20):
stuff. And he's always really good.
And this was one of those roles that he had that he was a star
in and just a really, really, really cool movie.
Yeah. I would encourage everybody to
watch it. Yeah, I'm going to check that
one out. My underrated movie probably

(05:43):
would be from the 80s. The movie.
Gotcha. Gotcha.
You remember this film? It sounds familiar, but no.
What what's what's the What's itabout?
OK, I'm going to. I want to make sure because I
want to. I'm looking up the cast right

(06:04):
now, I think because I remember they used to show this movie all
the time. Let's see, I I remember, I
Remember, Remember correctly. Gotcha.
Gotcha is a 1985 American actionspy comedy film starring Anthony

(06:24):
Edwards and Linda Florentino. Wow.
Now in the school in the film, Jonathan Moore, who is Anthony
Edwards, is a shy UCLA veterinary student and the
reigning champion at Gotcha, a campus wide paintball game.
And while he's on vacation in inParis, he's seduced by an older

(06:48):
woman, the sexy, mysterious Sasha, and becomes embroiled in
an international spy and espionage game.
It's a yeah, It's a action comedy movie.
That is. It's silly and cheat it is.
To me, it's one of those movies that kind of like, define the

(07:09):
80s. Like it has it screams 1980s all
over it. The plot is ridiculous.
Where the story goes is ridiculous.
Like this would never happen in real life.
This college kid who just has tobe really good at like,
paintball. That paintball, that paintball.
Is goes to Paris and is mistakenfor a secret agent, a spy.

(07:32):
It's seduced by the sexy woman and gets in this in this kind of
weird game espionage and stuff. And instead of like killing
people with a gun he's using because of the veterinarian a a
tranquilizer dark gun. Wow.
And and the woman he's seduced by is the 14.

(07:54):
Yes. Wow.
OK. Very interesting movie.
I'm, I'm with it like give, giveme some some 80s Linda
Fiorentino. I'm here.
Feel like I feel like gotcha shit shit be like on tubi or
something like that. It's got to be somewhere.
It's got to be. I remember it like it used to
come on like regular TV all the time.

(08:18):
Like literally all the time. I want to see you curious.
Well I'll I'll find out where wecan watch that so people can
look it up, but I'm quite sure it might even be on YouTube to
watch. Says it's on YouTube for 399.
Oh it's on YouTube for 399. That's, you know what, that's
three 99 well spent. It's also on the Internet

(08:43):
Archive, which works for me sometimes and and doesn't work
for me sometimes. It just kind of depends, but
yeah. They have to move you on
Blu-ray. I did not know this.
I will be buying this on Blu-ray.
That's crazy. OK, this is on Prime Video so
I'll be checking that out. But yeah, I just love the movie
as a kid. OK.

(09:05):
I'll check it out. Absolutely.
Question #3 JP OK, I saw this question on Facebook where all
the old men hang out and people were kind of whoop who winning
and stuff like that. And I wanted to ask you this

(09:26):
question. OK, I'm going to flip it a
little bit. Mighty Morphin Power Rangers
versus Voltron, but which franchise has more staying
power? Just based off of the longevity

(09:51):
of the franchise and the stayingpower, which one you got?
Just based off the longevity andthe staying power.
And popularity, of course, like you.
Know and popularity. I I will, I will go with Power
Rangers even though the the Voltron kind of like reboot on
Netflix was really dope. Yeah, they had, they had Voltron

(10:14):
has had multiple reboots. I don't know people know that,
realize that. Yeah, yeah.
And they, I think they've all like been to varying degrees of
quality. But I I'll tell you the real
reason beyond longevity, becausethe Power Rangers have one thing
that Voltron does it and. What is that?

(10:34):
Tommy, it's Tom. They have Tommy and and Tommy is
like just one of the formative heroes of my youth, so.
I've always said for all those people who look at Power Rangers
and don't get it, when that thatepisode came out, what Green

(10:58):
with Envy episode one, it was like a game changer.
It was so like formative in so many people's childhood because
they like even now you'll watch videos on Facebook and Instagram
and TikTok and people talking about that, that like 4 part, I
feel like 5 part miniseries of this guy who's this, this other

(11:23):
Power Ranger that they didn't know that that existed.
Who just out in the boxes beating the Power Rangers ass
for like 5? Episodes roofing, whooping
everybody's ass and doing it like ruthlessly.
It just like like, yo, where is this dude from?
And I, I actually remember maybeit was replaying during the

(11:49):
summer. That was the first time I saw
it. But I would come to Dallas every
summer and kick it with my cousins.
And I remember we made it a point to like tape it.
We taped the whole thing that that's how, how far that goes
back. We literally had AVHS blank tape

(12:10):
and we, we tape all four episodes and we just watched
them like over and over again. We wore that tape out.
Yeah, man, I, I don't think it gets I, I I just think Voltron,
like Voltron has Voltron. Yes, Voltron is incredible.

(12:30):
And, and it's, and it's awesome,but the Power Rangers, dude,
they got, they got Tommy man, they like one of the best, one
of the best superheroes of the 90s.
One of the best story arcs in kids show probably ever.
And and the the way they even ended it like the the whole like

(12:51):
the green Ranger had like a whole story arc from him being a
bad guy to a good guy to becausehe was a bad guy, losing his
power slowly, right? The losing his powers completely
then coming back as the white Ranger.
Yeah, yeah. Like to me, the the thing with

(13:14):
that was probably outside of Star Wars, it was the first
thing that I remember watching that was that was serialized.
Yeah. Like that, that story and that
that sort of stuck with me and became a through point in the

(13:35):
stories that I liked. But but before that, really the
only thing that I could think of, and I'm sure there were
others, but the only thing that stuck out in my childhood was,
you know, the Skywalker saga. So to to see something like that
with Power Rangers, which was already super incredibly

(13:57):
popular, like it was over it, it, it was over already.
And then to to have Tommy came, come in, and that was just that
was just awesome. Yeah.
I agree. All right, question #4.
Let's go. What artists do you think let's

(14:21):
do it, Let's do it fun? Male or female?
Male and female? So 1 male, one female.
OK, which artists you think define this generation like, you
know, the 80s? Michael Jackson?
Madonna. Yeah, man, it, it's really

(14:51):
difficult 'cause I think I, I, Ithink to a certain degree the
women have had more of a steady run.
And if you if you want to make like, you could make an argument
for. If you want to do 2 women I'm,

(15:12):
I'm fine with that for this generation.
To me, I, I would do two women and I, I would say it's Beyoncé
and Taylor Swift and I, I just don't think the the magnitude of
the artist they are, whether youlike their music or not.
And I and I happen to enjoy boththeir music to to varying

(15:35):
degrees. They just have such a outsize
impact. They're they're 2.
They are two artists that that are literally an economy, an
economy to themselves. If they come to your town, your
town will have a minor boom, right?

(15:56):
So you just look at it. Speaking of Taylor Swift, like
she's getting married to Travis Kelsey, and that is that that
actually came across because Adam Schefter of all people
broke it, which for those of those people listening that
don't know who Adam Schefter is,Adam Schefter is an NFL insider

(16:19):
and one of the best reporters inthe sport.
And he actually broke the story that Taylor Swift and Travis
Kelsey are engaged. And that kind of tells you the
magnitude of what she is beyond her artistry.
It it's so her and and then Beyoncé, who is one of my

(16:39):
favorites, but just as undoubtedly like singular.
She's she's just, she's just singular.
Whether you vibe with her music or not, there's no doubt that
when she takes the stage, like that's an experience.
I I also think it's interesting with both of those people
because the impact that both of those people have in terms of

(17:02):
Beyoncé and Taylor Swift is almost incalculable.
Like Taylor Swift got millions, let's say millions of women to
become like Chiefs fans who don't watch football.
I think she generated a whole bunch of money for the Kansas
City Chiefs because of the idealof her being at the game.

(17:26):
Right. On the flip side of that,
Beyoncé got a whole bunch of black women who never really
rock with country like that to not only buy a country album and
go to a country show, but to dress up like country artists.
Yeah, yeah. I, I think the, the impact, the

(17:47):
impact of, of those things just tells you how important that
they are, which is why it's, it's hard for me to find any
male artists within their stratosphere.
To me, Taylor writes great songs.
You know, you've, you've writtensongs, I've written songs.

(18:10):
I think what Taylor does a lot of times people simplify it and
it's just OK. Well, this is just, this is just
like typical white girl stuff. Like it is very hard, I think to
be as simple as she can be sometimes, but it's clever.
And then to build a brand on on top of that.

(18:32):
And the brand is you. I don't think people realize how
difficult it is to write a hit song.
Yeah, to write one hit. One hit song.
Like if you if you are a one hitwonder you you beat the odds.
Like, like Right, Said Fred, toosexy.

(18:53):
You beat all the odds. It doesn't matter if somebody
thinks their song is cheesy. For Taylor Swift and Beyoncé to
be able to actually be songwriters and to do what they
do consistently, I think well also changing multiple hits.

(19:13):
In multiple genres. Changing, changing genres and,
and then what Beyoncé has done for I think for black folks in
particular and country and understanding how much of an
influence there was like I, I can never give her enough
credit. She put Linda Martel on a record

(19:36):
and Linda Martel was just duringcountry at a time in the 70s
where outside of Charlie Pride, there was no, there was nobody
else getting that type of burn during country.
You you had the sounds of moderncountry by Ray Charles and and
again, you had Charlie Pride. But certainly for a black woman,

(19:59):
Linda Martel, for her to be getting her flowers all these
years later and Free Ann and Giddings and and just all these
wonderful artists. Yeah.
It's hard to put anybody in the stratosphere of those two.
I think they're they're both excellent at what they do.
So I would say those those to meare.

(20:21):
They kind of conquer everything.I agree.
All right, question #5 And I saythis for five, this can be a
much more deeper question. Sure.
What is 1 lesson do you think you've learned as a person from
the last year that you may have not known that's.

(20:47):
A great question. I think maybe the biggest lesson
that I've learned is that I'm more prepared for adversity than
I thought I was. That's.
A good lesson and to trust myself.

(21:09):
I was laid off this year or I should say late last year.
And it unfortunately it was justone of those things, you know,
it, it happens. It happened to me and hundreds
of other people at our company. And I didn't realize how much I

(21:34):
had learned how to sort of trustthe process that things are
going to be OK and how much I mentally and kind of emotionally
prepared myself and how much I trusted myself, you, you kind of
to to learn that I could trust myself to handle it.

(21:57):
I think in a way that I wouldn'thave been able to handle it five
years ago or 10 years ago. Leaning on leaning on myself.
Like actually I mean some big self belief I think was was a
big lesson I learned. Trust, trust yourself, trust
your instincts. You.
You're probably right. That's a good lesson.

(22:17):
It's a really good one. Yeah.
I I think in terms. Of what about you?
I knew you've asked that. I think the biggest lesson I've
learned over the past year, and I think it's been resonating
with me a lot more as this year goes by, that a lot of people

(22:38):
are willing to sacrifice their own well-being as long as
someone else doesn't succeed or get above them.
I think that as you know, as this year has gone by and I look

(23:00):
at all the things that's happened in this country in
general and not to get political, but no, we don't get
a look at political with this. When you see people sacrifice
their own benefits so someone else can have some benefits, the
same rights and value, it kind of it kind of puts things in a

(23:24):
different perspective for you and it kind of push things in a
different mindset when you see like, OK, just so they won't
have this. Right.
I I'm willing to sacrifice this and hurt myself and my family
just so this group of people want to have a little, a little

(23:45):
portion of the pot. And I've always thought like,
what's the point of sacrificing yourself just so someone else
can't have something? I never understood, never
understood that. And.
It's odd. It's just.

(24:06):
It's very peculiar. It's, it's very peculiar.
It's, I think it is very it, it's, it's very obvious now and
it's very alarming. I do think it is something
that's been happening for a verylong time.

(24:27):
The idea that you would essentially that you would say
in order for us not to be equal,I will contribute to my own bad
health. I will contribute to my own my

(24:50):
my own lack of education funding.
I will contribute to lack of clean resources to make sure
that somebody who I feel is inferior to me also doesn't have
those things is just a I think alevel of hate honestly that it

(25:13):
in some ways is very hard to understand if that's not how
you're wired. But in the history of this
country happens to be something that continues to repeat itself
over and. Yeah, I bring it up because I
had a conversation with somebodythere right happen at my job.
And it's, you know, the lady she's left Latino and she's just

(25:37):
casually like she, she does likesome work, like helping people
find houses and stuff like that.And she brings up this kind of,
she brings up this kind of offhanded comment about like,
hey, it's really Hard Out Here for these people to find houses
because, you know, they don't have papers and they're hiding

(25:57):
from, you know, ICE and stuff like that.
She's like for the first time yesterday, she saw ICE on the
streets of Miami. And I'm like, well, I see them
all the time on the streets of Miami.
It's like he like really like, yeah, I see them all the time.
And I see and I and I know this because I hear this because of

(26:19):
my background. And you know, my ex-wife was
Hispanic. I hear the stories of, you know,
Ice trying to go into churches and stuff like that and places
to go pick up people. And I see, I hear these stories
and these things like people that she was petting to go pick
up, like older, these like 80 year old, 7 year old people who
been in this country all their life.
They may be in here illegally, but they've put their life here

(26:43):
and they going to pick them up out of these churches and these
other places that are that they normally wouldn't do that at.
She made the comment like, yeah,I've been seeing stuff like that
too. I've been hearing about stuff
like that too. And I thought I and I thought he
was only going after the criminals.

(27:05):
And I'm like, and my whole thingwas like, how would you figure
that out? I said that that statement, that
statement never made any sense. Like how would you determine
someone's a criminal unless you know they're a criminal?
Just numbers wise, you know, some of the numbers they were
talking about as far as wanting to deport people, there's not

(27:30):
there's not that many people with criminal records, right,
whether they're here undocumented or not, there's
just not that many people. And so I, I think the thing that
to me that has been frustrating is that writing's always been on

(27:52):
the wall. Every everything that we're
seeing now is something that hasbeen on on the wall.
And if you're you're sort of a apolitical nerd or history nerd
like myself, I don't profess to be the smartest person, but if
you're a history nerd, you couldsee the writing on the wall.

(28:15):
Once, once Donald Trump decided to run the first time he was he
was very much open about what hewanted to do and how he want to
accomplish those things. And now that we're here, and I
think the shock to the average American of seeing people,

(28:37):
masked people taking individualsoff the street or day laborers
from Home Depot or going into ifyou said it, going into
sanctuaries, right going on to Little League builds.
That's scary because these are your neighbors.
These are your neighbors that you've known for, for years and,

(28:59):
and you've not really thought about them being undocumented.
There's this, there's this idea of like an illegal alien, what
that looks like. And then there's, there's the
reality of an undocumented individual that has been living
beside you for years that is also paying taxes, by the way.

(29:20):
So all these, all these things that you've been told, but
they're, they're showing up and they're arresting people who are
just being good neighbors and being being good stewards.
It's, I think what what what kind of baffled me about the

(29:42):
whole thing is it's because I live in Miami, FL and South
Florida is predominantly Latino,right?
Like a large part of our population is Latino and he won
a large popular even with a large I'm out of those votes
like most of those votes he won and that and it baffles me

(30:09):
because it affects those people.Now those same people are having
family members who are they can't find, who are missing, who
aren't hiding. And like this it, it sucks
because like this is what y'all chose to vote for.
But I still have that as a as a human being.
You still have to have empathy for the people who are going
through this. Yeah, I definitely think so.

(30:33):
And I, and I think that becomes I, I think it becomes difficult
because people are saying, well,how did you, how did you not
know? Why did you think that you were
the exception? Why?
Why did you think that you were somehow going to be the
exception to this rule When, because when they say they're

(30:56):
going to go get criminals, Well,if you're undocumented and they
say that's a criminal act by being here undocumented, then
you're then you're a criminal intheir eyes.
And it doesn't matter what good you've done in your community,
what type of life you've LED. Doesn't matter whether you've
kind of played a good clean gameyour whole life.

(31:19):
They don't care about that. And I, I think what's happening
now is because everything is so much more in your faith because
of, because of ICE, because of the National Guard in
Washington, DC, because of, I think what's likely to happen is

(31:43):
seeing the National Guard in Chicago, seeing, seeing your,
your military turned inward towards your people.
There is a shock, but there shouldn't, I don't think there
should be a shock. If you were paying any
attention. And these are, these are just

(32:05):
politics of divisiveness. And it doesn't really matter who
you are. Ultimately this is, this is
going to affect you. And so we're, we're not on the
precipice of an autocracy anymore.
We're, we're living in it. We're we're living in it.
It's happening now. It's sort of what we decide to

(32:27):
do and how we decide to fight back.
And can people, can people actually look at each other,
come together and say, hey, we just, this isn't OK.
And it doesn't matter what my background is.
It doesn't matter if I'm collegeeducated, I'm a blue collar
worker, whatever. These things are wrong and we

(32:50):
can't have this here. So we'll, we'll see, man.
We're we're at a tip, we're at aserious tipping point and I
don't know which way we're goingto.
Yeah. And I want to one.
Well, I can tell you why I want to talk to you about today
because I think this is leads isalso part of this conversation.
And we had a conversation a couple weeks ago with a

(33:11):
gentleman, talk about televisionand stuff like that, how he's
writing a book about how, you know, he feels in his opinion
that television has been used asa tool to mold people's minds to
think a different way in terms of I, I, I his, his words away
from God, let's say, OK. Yeah.

(33:34):
And I, I bring you on not at thecounter, but to have another
conversation because for simply you, because we've watched this
year, some of the things that welove and we watch go completely
mega. And, and, and I bring this up

(33:56):
because it seems like especiallythis year, television is being,
well, television entertainment in general, whether it's
television, whether it's commercials, whether it's all
sorts of what they want to call forms of entertainment is being
politicized more than it's ever been.

(34:19):
Like, you know, and I bring thisup because UFC has always been
kind of conservative coded, magnet coded for, for so long.
And I had this conversation a couple months ago with someone
and my, my, my, and you probably, I'm probably sure you
saw this conversation because they happened in the discord.
And my thing was, hey, do you notice that WWE is leaning way

(34:44):
more in the conservatives than they ever have, especially
considering that Vince McMahon was always the one who was like,
we don't, we may dabble in politics, but we don't really do
politics. WB itself is apolitical and.
That. Pretty much changed this year in
terms of they have had more far right leaning people on the

(35:08):
show. They have not only like taking
at this point, they've they've been working with the President
that work with the President of the United States and not only
just like Linda, not only not only with Linda McMahon who's
always with. Triple H.
Yeah. But with the actual CFO of the

(35:29):
company literally working with the President of the United
States and it being publicized on WBTV, it's different.
Now absolutely 100%. So my question to you is how do
you feel with this all out therenow in terms of the like the the

(35:50):
entertainment that you watch andthat you love and you still
watch it the same way? How do you feel about like OK,
does it change your perspective on things?
Not a whole bunch in in in the reason for that.

(36:12):
There's a few reasons for that. One, I, I think you have more
choice than ever. And so you're kind of able to
build your own bubble of what you want to see and what you
don't want to see. And you can choose and how to

(36:32):
engage with that. I mean, even even on even on
cable TV, right? If you if you want a
conservative bent, you can go watch Fox News.
If you want something even further than that, you can go
watch OAN. If you want something that is

(36:55):
completely left-leaning, you canwatch MSNBC.
And if you want something that'sjust people arguing with each
other, I guess you can watch pretty much any panel show on
ESPN or or excuse me, on on CNN,but also ESPN in a whole nother
world. But let.
Me ask you this question, is that a good thing?

(37:24):
No, it, it, it So in no, in in this, in this specific sense,
no. In terms of news, yeah, I, I
think punditry in news when we were kids on entry and news was

(37:48):
I, I, I can't remember the, the show that would come on NBC on,
on Sundays might have been the McLaughlin Group.
And that's where you had explicitly political pundits
talking about the news stories of the day and bringing their
own experience to it, right. But your news, for the most

(38:10):
part, was your news in terms of getting it as straight up as you
could. The news At one point in time,
your Evening News was facts werefacts based as opposed to
opinions, right? Wrapped around certain aspects

(38:33):
of facts, right? There's there was a, there was
kind of a, a, a different time journalistically where you were
just reporting the facts. Now we have to be specific when
we say that obviously if you're getting facts from the police

(38:54):
who are giving you the facts, then you're getting a certain
story. But, but what I mean to say
overall is Dan Rather was prettymuch just giving you the news.
Ted Koppel was just giving you the news and certainly I think
you can still get that locally. I think your local news is still

(39:15):
a great source, but but specifically news wise, it is
turned from information to entertainment and kind of
engaging in the worst, the worstthings possible to get ratings
right. So I I think in that way
specific to the news, we certainly have a problem with

(39:41):
not only broadcast news, but news in general.
For entertainment wise though, and this is sort of my counter
to what was the gentleman's name.
Which gentleman the. Gentleman, that was on a couple
of weeks ago. Oh, let me see his name right
now. Carmine.
Don't Carmine. I I think what I would say to

(40:06):
Carmine is you can feel that wayand certainly there are much
more. There are things that I wouldn't
necessarily call racy. There are just many more people
telling their stories. But by that same token, you can
just also not watch those things, right?
Nobody The the idea that somehowmedia is forcing you to

(40:30):
participate in these things thatquote, UN quote, expose your
children or the culture to something which I don't believe
in. But if you think that you can
just not watch it and you can have hundreds of hours of
entertainment that is just suited to you.

(40:52):
And I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing.
And the reason why, the reason why delve in and you'll
understand this when I say it isthere are more people than ever
being able to tell their own individual stories in the ways
they want to tell them. Well, let's talk about it since
you brought it up on a break, I want to since you brought up

(41:13):
that topic, I want to hold you there right there because I want
to talk about this quote from Snoop Dogg.
Because when we're, and this is one of the reasons why we have
this conversation, because when we're talking about this, we're
starting to get these, and this is not because of Carmine.

(41:35):
This is just how societies work work as of late because people,
more and more people because of who's in office, are being more
open with their conservative views.
Right. So Snoop Dogg said on a recent

(41:55):
podcast, I want to give the podcast and it's called It's
Giving Podcast. I don't know if this is a true
statement, true story, he said, a true story that he's talking
about, but this is what he said.Snoop said his grandson had
asked him while watching a the movie.
The movie was light year. How could two women be able to

(42:17):
have how two women can be able to have a child?
And his response was, oh, shit, I didn't come in here for this
shit. I just came to watch the goddamn
movie. He the rap, the rap legend
recall thinking it fucked me up.I'm scared to go to the Movies
Now. Y'all throwing me in the middle
of shit that I don't have an answer for.

(42:39):
These are kids, we have to show them at this age.
They're going to ask questions. I don't have the answer now.
He was saying all this because the movie Lightyear had a same
sex marriage couple who had a child, right?

(43:02):
And apparently he can't explain to his grandkid why this is the
thing. Right.
So the reason why I laugh at it is because it's it's coming from
Snoop of all. People and and and.
It's OK to laugh because it's anabsurd statement.

(43:24):
It it, it really is. It's an absurd statement because
it almost feels like he's gaslighting.
Me, yes. The man who wrote the song
Murder, with the case that they gave me, the man who served
actual trial was on trial was for murder, Pen explains his
grandkids. That is that same sex marriages

(43:45):
exist. The man whose first album was
called Doggy Style right With with with the cover of the album
was the was the dog having sex with another dog that were
anthropomorphic dog having sex with another dog.
So it so so this logic, he can explain that album cover to his

(44:06):
grandkids, but he can't explain that same sex marriage to his
grandkids. Or is he going to be able to
explain how he wrote a song about group sex to his grandkids
with Ain't No Fun If the homies Can't Have None?
Yeah, that that his voice is on.Yeah, yeah.
Is he going to be able to explain if someday his his

(44:28):
grandson comes across the porn that he shot that has girls
kissing girls in it? Yeah, it's, it's an asinine
statement because at least in myeyes, Snoop Dogg, who I love,
I'm a big Snoop Dogg fan. You build an empire off of hip

(44:51):
hop and the things that you did in hip hop, whether you know,
you know, whether the you want to talk about the negativity of
hip hop and the things that he said like you know, gangster
rap. He put Empire off that to feed
his family which has done a great job, which has done a
great job with hip hop, gave himthe ability to be a multi

(45:14):
millionaire so his grandkids don't have to struggle or ask
for anything. Right.
But at that same note, it's not like you were Will Smith
teaching positivity in your raps.
No, no, it and and here's the thing.
Like I don't care what some dog says in his raps.

(45:35):
Like I. I love doggy style.
You love doggy style. I agree.
We're from that, from that age, right?
So. Like on its face it's absurd
because the. It's a it's a weird hill to die
on. Yeah, it the very point of it is
just like, oh, so now we have toexplain to kids women and women.

(45:57):
Well, do you do you think kids don't ask about princesses
kissing Princess like it like it's it's a very simple
conversation. Some Boys Like Girls, some girls
like boys, some girls like girls, some boys like boys, some

(46:18):
people like everything. And, and I, I think it's a, to
me, it's a pretty straightforward conversation.
The, the kid is asking because if, if his grandson actually
asks, this is asking because they don't know, but a kid
doesn't put any value judgment on that.

(46:40):
The kids not asking because they're like, oh, I, this is
complex to me. No.
Relationships are complex to children.
Yeah. Relationships within of
themselves are complex to children and if your child's
never seen a same sex couple that has a baby then they're
going to have questions about it.
You know what else kids ask questions about?

(47:02):
Like how is the moon up there? Like what are the clouds made
of? Or to flip that, to flip his
question, to flip that scene that he was talking about on its
head. What if it was a man and a
woman? Right.
And whether the kid asked and asked the exact same question,

(47:24):
how do they have a baby? Is it?
Exactly. It's the same question that kids
are going to ask. Kids don't know how men and
women have babies. So eventually they're going to
ask, hey, how do these two people have a baby?
And it really doesn't matter what the two people are.
And the the idea of like that being something that, Oh my

(47:47):
gosh, I have to explain. No, you're a grown man who has a
grandchild that asked you a question about the world.
You should be able to answer that.
I mean, what underlies all of that is homophobia, right?
There's going to be people that are like, no, no, it's more no,

(48:07):
what underlies it is, is homophobia and not being
comfortable explaining to a child that people just love
people. And this is, this is normal.
So, and again, it kind of goes back to what I was saying about
in the creative space, you can choose to watch what you want

(48:32):
not and not watch things. I think what people are mad
about, and Carmine sort of gave this some voice, is I am cool
with you if you lived your life,don't do it in front of me,
correct? If we don't ask everybody to do

(48:53):
that, we don't ask straight couples not to live their life
in front of us. We don't we don't ask straight
white men not to live their lives in front of us.
You know, what they choose to door not do is not an affront to
us. So now I think what's happening
is to a degree, as storytelling,as the options for having your

(49:22):
story told become more democratized.
And you have people who have always existed, like trans
people have always existed, the LGBTTIA community has always
existed, Black folks have alwaysexisted, women have always
existed. But we haven't always been able
to tell our stories the way the ways in which we want to tell

(49:47):
them where they're. We're the center of that story.
And what I think makes people uncomfortable is the fact that
people are living out loud and you don't like the idea of us
having some equity in these spaces.

(50:08):
I agree. And I think when it comes to
entertainment, perception is a lot of times reality and based
on how people see things. And what I mean by that is there
was the era of TV where you had a lot of black people seen as
criminals, thugs, drug dealers, pimps, etcetera, etcetera.

(50:33):
As time went on, you had your Carl Winslow's, you had your
Uncle Phil's. We had more positive black men
show on TV and more positive black TV characters show like
you know what, even when it go like to monitor like we like you
know, Cap, like Miles Morales and Captain America, you know.

(50:55):
Blackish. Blackish Yeah, As you had those
shows come to fruition and that those things happen because more
black writers got into those rooms, like, you know, make
things like a Black Panther or aCreed, you know, it changes the

(51:17):
landscape of how we are perceived, right.
So people don't. The younger generation at least
doesn't see us in the same way as the boomerous may have saw
us. So when you see a lot of those
tapes like, oh, there's either thugs or criminals, a lot of

(51:37):
times it'd be the boomerous who were saying things like that or
the younger generation is rocking kids, Lamar stuff like
they like and. And because the Boomers have
like, you know it, the Boomers, Gen.
Xers, even some millennials don't have a point of reference
for a person of color in their life, Black person or person of
color in their life. People when people are talking

(52:00):
about our trans brothers and sisters, they most people don't
know anybody who's trans. Correct.
And so they don't, they don't have a a personal connection to
the thing that is offending them.
It's just the idea that it exists in that this person is

(52:22):
not willing to live in silence for you to be comfortable based
on something that you've learned.
If you want to really be honest,I know this is going to shock
people. A lot of people don't know
anyone who's openly gay. Yeah, and what I mean, know them
like know them as a person. They may see them out in the

(52:44):
streets and walk past, but. They don't have a personal
relationship. Correct.
A lot of people don't have that personal relationship or know a
person who's gay, right? And that affects how they treat
them. And and that's, that's what sort
of bothers me about, well, the media is corrupting thing.
Or, you know, one of the things he said is like, I'm cool with

(53:07):
everybody, but you know, all sins are equal and we're all
sins. Well, that's, that's you
assuming that I think that's a sin or, or you assuming that we
read the book of Leviticus and we came out with the same
conclusions. Like the the that idea I think

(53:28):
that permeates that specific part of conservative culture is
really the ideas that that difference is bad.
I also think that's a flawed notion.
Incredibly, just incredibly flawed.
Incredibly flawed in, in every sense of the word in, in I, I

(53:54):
think one of the things that that I do love about media right
now is we do get to see these stories.
We Laverne Cox was the 1st transperson that a lot of trans that
a lot of straight hetero people knew when they saw Orange is the

(54:16):
New black. For a lot of people that was
their first encounter with anyone trans inside their real
lives or in media and Laverne Cox has become a superstar.
We could talk about what she's her dating life interesting, but

(54:38):
but she became a superstar because one, she's an incredibly
talented actress, but two, there, there was a an
opportunity to tell the story ofher character in Orange is the
New Black. That immediately did the thing

(54:59):
that I think kind of cracks the facade in all of this, which is
you see somebody and you understand their humanity and
then you realize that there are some differences, but you guys
are just people and that's downs.
That sounds so I, I think that sounds so trite to say, but it

(55:22):
is I I think it really is the advantage of having all this
media. But again, if you're car mining,
you want to shut it off, then you could shut it off and you
can, you can go watch. I think it's Angel Studios.
They produce all Christian content.
You, you can go see that. I, I don't feel, I don't feel

(55:46):
the need to infringe on those studios making their content.
I don't think you should feel the need to infringe on the
things that we watch and like. I, I think the problem is, and I
think a lot of those people don't want to admit it.
What is this, this truth? The content that comes out of

(56:07):
those places usually isn't very good.
No, I've been let's, let's, let's be on let's call the
famous babe. As much as as much as they want
to say that we want, they want more conservative leaning
content, not really good. They, they, they still want to
go watch the Avenger movies, they still want to watch the DC

(56:30):
movies, they still want to watchthe stuff the slaps Jurassic
Park, because it's the peacemaker, because it's stuff
that is popular and it's not popular just by straight white
males. It's popped by everybody because
good, good content is good content.
And when you make good content, the cream rises to the top no
matter what leaning it is. Like I I tell people all the

(56:52):
time, one of my favorite TV shows ever, 24 Jack Bauer.
Yeah, everything about that showis conservative leaning as fuck.
It's. Conservative leaning.
It it it like for me and probably for you and a lot of
our friends. Yeah, completely problematic.

(57:15):
Very much so like this, this onerogue agent who's like, I have
to save the world by any means necessary by torturing, by
torturing terrorists to get information.
Define presidential orders. But it's it's just a great
television show. Yeah.
I, I, I agree. I the first like three or Four

(57:36):
Seasons, 24 I love even as I'm actively watching it and being
like, this is so bad. Yeah, this is like he's
committing this guy. He's committing war crimes.
This is. It's war crimes.
This is like every this is everysort of leftist or or even semi
radicals like nightmare. Yeah, if like if he was a real

(57:59):
person, yeah, we would have a huge problem with Jack Allen,
like an insane problem. But because of the TV show and
we can kind of like, you know, separate facts from fiction, we
can enjoy it. And I think that's the thing.
I think we have these people. And I think Carmine was saying
that he want, he wants more conservative leaning stuff and

(58:23):
more stuff leaning towards towards God and things like
that. But we have that stuff out there
and we have it in, we have it indroves.
The WE is one of the biggest properties in the world.
It is far conservative. It's not even a little bit
conservative. Yeah, certainly, certainly over
the last few years and and I think The thing is like really

(58:44):
important to point out that likeyour God, the God that you
worship, you can find things like you, you might worship the
God of Abraham and in all the different Abrahamic religion
religions. And I guarantee you can find
something that will fit your worldview.
But I, I think the idea that it is somehow changed America, it

(59:12):
is just false and such an old argument because this, this goes
back to the the thing about thatargument that these things are
first of all, woke. I I just need people to stop
using. It woke is just.
We did. With that, they call the Cracker
Barrel. They call the Cracker Barrel

(59:33):
logo woke. I'm like, what are you talking
about? No, that's not that's.
Not Cracker. Out of all places, Cracker
Barrel. Yeah, right.
It's like that. Just please like PSA to anybody
who wants to use woke. This is this is a black term.
That don't use it. That that, well, probably well

(59:55):
meaning liberal white folks glommed onto and started using
in a completely different way. I'm not going to even tell you
how we use it. You don't need to know, but
you're using it wrong. That being said, like the idea
of oh, everything is so woke when you can go back to it's
very controversial. Ricky and Lucy had a baby.

(01:00:18):
An interracial couple had a babyon 50s TVTV as as it's
progressed in movies, as they'veprogressed Star Trek Star Star
Trek first interracial kiss interracial kiss all these

(01:00:40):
things have happened. George Jefferson had a trans
friend. There was there's a whole
episode of of him coming to grips with the fact that one of
his best friends is trans. I I I disagree with his take on

(01:01:01):
Archie Bunker. Archie Bunker the the racism was
never OK with Archie Bunker. Archie Bunker wasn't stupid, but
he was made out to be a a personwho was like this guy living in

(01:01:22):
an old world that was progressing and and if he was
made out to be the fool, it was only because he was being
racist. But they would show you all the
times that that Archie would make make exceptions.
He made an exception for Sammy Davis Junior.
That's a famous episode, right? Which shows you that Archie,

(01:01:45):
that that racism is functionallystupid if you can make
exceptions for it. So Archie worked.
Because Archie Bunker and himself is a flawed character,
and people, television likes, likes flawed individuals.
Yeah, they work on TV very well.Yeah.

(01:02:05):
Because we're flawed. We're flawed.
And so we want to see flawed individuals.
And so, you know, the idea that it is always been conservative,
but we used to look at it differently.
No, that's that's not true. Every TVTV and movies in
particular have been transgressive since their

(01:02:30):
existence because the very nature of them existing was
transgressive to a society that did not have a concept of
television or of movies or of moving pictures.
So the very idea of them as art is transgressive and they've

(01:02:51):
always changed and evolved. And I would simply say like,
none of this stuff is more woke.It's just that there are more
depictions of people that you domeet in everyday life.
So the idea that something is quote UN quote, whoa, it's just

(01:03:13):
bullshit. Yeah, I think it just is.
I think what's happening is there's a lot more diverse
people in these rooms creating content for them.
Also, if you want to be honest, it's a lot more company like,
you know, Tyler Perry. Say what you want to say about
Tyler Perry has given a lot of people jobs and opportunities to

(01:03:34):
create spaces for themselves andto create more black content.
Like, you know, Andrew Salba, you know, like, he's he, Tyler
Perry has brought a lot of famous black people to the
limelight, you know? And The thing is, The thing is,
bro, what it really comes down to in so many of these places
when we start talking about evenbeyond media, but but especially

(01:03:58):
when we talk about that, you know, you and I are both gamers.
The the new Naughty Dog game that's coming out, the response
to that trailer and the character, what it really is is
that when when the characters aren't, when the main characters

(01:04:20):
are not straight white guys anymore and they're it's not
consistently across the board, even though it's the majority,
but it's not consistent across the board.
What it really is is those people saying, I feel like
you're taking something away from me because now you have you

(01:04:41):
have more equity in the storytelling.
You have you're getting equal screen time.
You're not just telling stories about one type of person.
And so that what for us has beena boon and really a marvelous
thing to see diverse voices, even though that's not really

(01:05:05):
affecting the stories that you're telling.
It feels like something's being taken away from you.
Because now not every, not everytime slot or not every streaming
channel is filled is filled withpeople who are 25 to 50 year old
white guys solving a crime or running a business or, or a

(01:05:30):
group of white friends. And, and by the way, that's all
good. I love Breaking Bad, I love Mad
Men. I love, I love some shows about
some peak white mess. I love it.
But there's also other people telling those stories.
And it's not that your stories are being lessened.
It's just you don't you don't like the feeling of other people

(01:05:56):
having the same opportunities because your privilege makes you
feel like something's being taken away, which by the way, is
happening in in so many sectors of our world.
The actual rights are being taken away.
Right, right. In that, in that feeling kind of

(01:06:16):
kind of going back to what you were saying is that feeling of I
would let's let's make it plain.I would rather be a poor white
person without access to medicalcare, without access to healthy
food, without access to education, if it means that a

(01:06:40):
person of color and a lot of times a black person is, is, is
going to be able to have those things that I would have.
I don't want them to have the same thing I have.
And I don't want them to have the same thing I have because
I've been told the lie my whole life, right.
And so if if that happens, then that challenges my feeling of

(01:07:06):
superiority when really it should be, well, no.
Because if I'm doing good and you're doing good and we live in
a community that's doing good, guess what?
It's better housing for people, that's better education for
people, more people paying property taxes, getting filled
back into the city. But just like so many things in

(01:07:26):
this country, we're on such a schism and so many lies have
been told that the racism, the discrimination, the misogyny,
all of those things don't just affect the people that they're
aimed at, They're also affectingthe people that are upholding.
And so that's, you know, I hope at some point that can change,

(01:07:52):
but I'm not so sure. And I think people talking about
media and what we see in these game trailers, what we see in
these review bombings is a microcosm of that.
Yes, final question. It's an important yes.
Well, I guess it's a two-part question.
Sure. One, where do you see us four

(01:08:17):
years from now? And two, can we ever come back
to some normality in this country again after all this is
said and done? Or is this the new normal?

(01:08:38):
I'll answer the second part first.
In my personal opinion, I'm not.I'm not sure I'll speak for
myself. To me, this is not abnormal.
The things that we are seeing right now are abnormal to the

(01:09:00):
country at large, but they're not abnormal in the
neighborhoods that I've been to and the people that I've been
around and things that I've experienced first hand.
And so the the idea that we can ever get back to normal, to me,
I would say it's a definitive. We have to, we have to determine

(01:09:24):
as a people what we want normal to be.
And normal is either going to bethis and become more and more
extreme and it's going to affectyou.
Doesn't matter in this case. It's there might be certain
things that will help you, but it's it's, it's largely not

(01:09:45):
going to matter if we're living in autocracy.
You're not going to like the waythings turn out because shit
rolls downhill and most of us are not within the elite that
can be protected and even them will not be protected.
I mean, they just rated John Bolton's house.
So to give me an idea of where we are and, and I think in order

(01:10:08):
to do that, we'd really have to,we really have to address some
of the original problems that wejust that we just never have.
And those are difficult conversations, but they're
conversations that have to be had.
What was the first part of the question?

(01:10:30):
Where do you see us four years from now?
Well, let me ask you this. You want you want the do you
want the Jermaine hopeful answeror do you want the Jermaine
amateur history guy being prescient as possible?

(01:10:52):
I'd say speak with your heart and Fiat.
And I think in four years from now, and to be frank, I don't
see anything from the Democrats that would allow me to think
that that is a, that that is a successful route to

(01:11:20):
exterminating the sort of abuse and malice that we're seeing
within our political system. I haven't seen the backbone.
They can't even seem to get behind somebody that a city
wants, like Mandani. You may not like his politics,
but it's clear the Democrats of New York voted him right.

(01:11:42):
So they can't get it together. The Republican Party no longer
exists in any way, shape or formthat it has.
It is, it is truly a cult of personality.
And I, I think if we don't make some serious, serious decisions

(01:12:08):
as people because, because we are the ones we're waiting on.
I, I, I'm sorry to tell y'all, there's not a politician that's
coming to save you. There's no, there's no person
that there's no elected officialcoming to save you.
We have to save ourselves. And that, that does mean people
like Carmine, who I think is very intelligent and I, and I

(01:12:30):
think stands on the strengths ofhis beliefs.
But that does mean that somehow me and him would have to find
Tom Brown. And if, if we can't do that and
we can't see the humanity withineach other, then in four years
we'll be, we'll be a crumbled empire like every other empire

(01:12:50):
that's come before US. History, history says you get
about 250 years of this and we're, and we're there.
And I think in four years, if wecan't do something, the America
that you've that you've known and grown up in, if you're 20
years or older, it's not going to exist.

(01:13:14):
I've said this to somebody privately and I, I think this
kind of resonates the whole, it's true to this.
We were having a conversation about that interview and stuff
like that, and I was saying thatone thing that we have to
understand the society, whether we like it or not, 74,000,000

(01:13:36):
Americans chose that guy. Yeah.
To get back some sort of normality, we may have to
negotiate some of them away, even the ones that either the
ones that are there that may notgo negotiate some of them away

(01:14:00):
or the ones who just aren't completely checked out.
Yeah, I. And I think that's a problem.
Yeah, I, I think I, I think so much of this comes down to can
you see the humanity in people that you don't know, that you,
that you haven't been always able to break bread with them?

(01:14:22):
One, are you able to break breadwith them?
Are you willing to, are you willing to see who they are not?
And I don't want to sound like the rainbow coalition, but not
the color of their skin, but their sexual orientation of
their gender things to, to me that that frankly, to me, do not
matter. I don't care if you're an

(01:14:43):
atheist, if you're a Christian, I don't care what you believe
in. I don't care who you sleep with.
I don't care about any of that. What I care about is that you're
healthy as a human being, that you're not hurting other people,
that you are. My hope for people is that they

(01:15:07):
are able to be loved and love the people that they want to
that they are able to be safe and consent and be considerate
and be able to follow their dreams so long as they aren't
harming people in the process ofthat.

(01:15:30):
If we can figure out that which I think we're a long way from
but if but if you could just tryto connect with somebody and I'm
and I'm be real. Yeah, liberals need to give
conservative space, I guess. But I'm going to be real.
I'm speaking to mostly conservatives here, not fiscal

(01:15:51):
conservatives. I'm speaking to people who are
spiritually religiously conservative and that have
certain beliefs. You have to be able to open up
your heart and, and what I wouldsay just as a, as a pardon
thing, Delvin, especially in this country for those who are
Christian conservative, ask yourself instead of just wearing

(01:16:16):
the bracelet with the T-shirt, ask yourself what would Jesus
do? Jesus, Jesus would not be in the
White House. Jesus, hey, Jesus went inside
the temple when he turned over to money changers.
Jesus was rocking with people that other people would not
touch. So ask yourself, if that is what

(01:16:37):
you're representing, then are you actually doing that and
living it to its fullest extent?And are you living your life in
a way where you are not judging others, but loving others?
If you can do that, then we can make some inroads.
If not, you know, see you in thegreat nation of California.

(01:16:57):
Whatever it becomes, I. Think that's perfect?
We're in this episode. Thanks, Jermaine.
Let me notify you brother. I am on Twitter under JV the
Monster. I have some things in the works,
but quickly I just want to shoutout, obviously, I'm on Delvin's

(01:17:19):
show with Delvin. It's on PSVG with Donnie and
Devin. Go listen.
Go listen to the tales, the tales of the Forgotten Audio
Fiction Network, My Home Girl Crystal and Pixel.
Go listen to mortal verse from the homeboy.
Matthew, please go check out my wife's TikTok.

(01:17:43):
She is a touch of chaos on TikTok.
She is a beautiful black woman who is out here talking about
books, engaging with people. I happen to think she's the
best. Also married to her.
So I'm biased. But yeah, check out, check out
all my peoples, support your peoples, and we'll have

(01:18:06):
something, something cooking up new for you pretty soon there.
You go. Thank you for listening.
As always Devin Cox experience. We are out peace.