May 25, 2025 • 24 mins
"Unseen, unheard. We've lived like that far too long." These powerful opening words set the stage for an intimate conversation with her brother Peele Wimberly, a music producer and record company owner, in this revealing episode of Quiet, No More.
We explore the concept of respect from multiple angles, challenging conventional wisdom about how it functions in relationships and society. "Respect should be given until it's deemed unnecessary," Peele asserts, offering a fresh perspective on human dignity that doesn't rely on power dynamics or hierarchies. Our conversation weaves through personal experiences, family history, and broader societal structures, revealing how respect (or its absence) shapes everything from family interactions to national policies.
I share remarkable stories about our family legacy - pharmacists across generations, land ownership dating back to our four-times great grandfather who amassed 200 acres in eastern North Carolina, and how their mother's family was never enslaved. These personal histories stand in stark contrast to the limited narratives often taught in American classrooms, demonstrating why preserving and sharing such stories is an act of resistance against historical erasure.
The discussion takes unflinching looks at systemic issues - from America's disrespect toward other nations to the capitalist underpinnings of racial hierarchies. We explore how following the money reveals uncomfortable truths about American institutions, including how slave patrols evolved into modern law enforcement and how Social Security initially excluded farm workers and domestic servants. Through it all, my brother and I emphasize the importance of speaking up, voting in local elections, and recognizing privilege within our communities.
Join this powerful sibling conversation that will challenge you to examine your own understanding of respect, history, and responsibility. Then ask yourself: What truths have I kept quiet about that need to be spoken?
====================================
Carmen Wimberley Cauthen is an author, speaker, and lover of history, Black history in particular. As a truth teller, she delights in finding the hidden truths about the lives of people who made a difference - whether they were unknown icons or regular everyday people.
To Learn more of Carmen:
www.carmencauthen.com
www.researchandresource.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm Carmen Coffin and this isQuiet, no More.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So hello, this is a new thing.
Today I have my first guest andit's his own fault for being
here at Quiet no More with hissister.
This is my brother, peelWimberly, who is just an amazing
young man.
Aw Aw, there's five yearsdifference between us.
(00:40):
He has a recording studio andthat's where I am.
He is a producer and a recordcompany owner.
His company is HarmonicValhalla.
Did I say that, right?
And I was talking about honorand respect, and I finished the
(01:03):
first part and he looked at meand he said, well, I feel like
respect is, and said somethingand I thought, okay, well, you
come around on the other side ofthe table and we'll just have
this conversation, so let megive you, um, this, this one is
going to be a little bit moreabout respect than honor, and
(01:24):
let me give you the definitionsthat I found.
So respect is esteem for, or asense of, the worth or
excellence of a person, apersonal quality or ability, or
something considered as amanifestation of a personal
quality or ability, of apersonal quality or ability.
Synonyms are honor, homage,reverence and estimation.
(01:50):
So deference to a right,privilege, privileged position,
or someone or somethingconsidered to have certain
rights or privileges, properacceptance or courtesy.
And then the third is thecondition of being esteemed or
(02:10):
honored.
So welcome Peele.
Let's talk about respect, okay,so tell me what you said, if
you remember what you said.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Oh, I remember, yes, okay.
So I feel like respect shouldbe given until it's deemed
unnecessary and based on ourhuman condition.
We're all here, going throughwhatever we're going through,
(02:37):
learning whatever we're learning, and one of the reasons I think
it's important to look at itfrom that perspective is if you
(02:58):
look at it from the otherperspective, then there's always
power in the situation.
So when I say respect should begiven, like, I feel like
constituents have to respecttheir authorities, but the
authorities also have to respectthe constituents.
Um, or if you look at it from agang perspective, they say
respect has to be earned.
Well, what happens if theydon't respect you?
You get, you get on.
(03:20):
What do they call it?
Unalived.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So, um, yeah, yeah, we have to all respect each
other for just for our existence.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Right, and that's you know.
That's important.
I've been talking about it interms of family, but when you
consider that we are all part ofthe human family, then
everybody should get respect andit should be an equal thing.
And that's what Peel's sayingand that's important.
(03:51):
It's not, and I'm not sayingthat you don't respect in terms
of hierarchy, but what he'ssaying also is that hierarchy
needs to respect down.
So there's a two-way streethere.
Respect down, so there's atwo-way street here.
So you respect your elders, butyour elders respect you.
(04:13):
They don't say that just becauseyou're young, whatever you
think or say is unimportant, orwhatever your feelings are
should not be taken intoconsideration.
That doesn't mean necessarilythat because they take something
into consideration, that theymake a decision, if they are in
decision-making authority, thatthey choose to do what you would
(04:35):
like for them to do, but theyhear what you have to say and
they weigh it in.
And sometimes that's hard,because a lot of us weren't
raised that way.
We were raised that whoever'sgot the authority makes the
decision, and they might haveheard what you said, but they
ignored what you said, and sothere's a different that.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Right, there's also a time factor.
Sometimes you don't have timeto stop and explain something.
You have to make a choice, butI think it's good to revisit it
and explain that choice.
Uh, and when you're takinglet's say you're taking your
child's perspective uh, I forgotthe phrase Into consideration.
(05:17):
Into consideration, yes, youwant to explain to them why it
might not be the best way tomake that choice.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
We could go deep from there, but yeah, yeah, just
when we're looking at ourcountry today, there is not,
there's a lack of respect forother countries.
It's like there's thishierarchy that has been created
(05:48):
in the minds of many Americansand the president that America
is the greatest, it is the best,it is the biggest.
That America is the greatest,it is the best, it is the
biggest.
And is that true?
Were all the countries, all thecontinents, were they all
created at the same time?
Should they have equal weight?
(06:10):
You know, for years and years,when you look at the continent
of Africa, those countries weretaken over by Europeans, and one
of the questions that I've beenreading about this week,
something that I did not know,was that South Africa, in its
apartheid, even though that landwas originally African, black
(06:35):
African, only 7% of the land isowned by people.
No, 7% of the people are whiteAfricans, who are European
Africans, who own all of theland, and so they have now a
policy of trying to work withthat history and repatriate some
(07:02):
of the land, and that's causingall kinds of frustrations here
in America.
It's like we didn't do thatwith the Indians.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Right.
You know, Well, and that's whatkills respect is the power
structure?
Yeah Right, that's the.
That's what kills respect isthe power structure yeah Right.
So, um, it's hard to think forpeople who have decided that
they own whatever it is they ownto want to respect anybody who
(07:34):
encroaches on that ownership.
So what do we do about that?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So my part is to tell all history and tell it
truthfully, because somethinghas to combat that I would say
ignorance.
But I don't think it'signorance.
I think it's willfuldetermination that I want to do
what I want to do, and that'snot the same as ignorance of the
truth and so, but there are somany people who are ignorant of
(08:05):
the truth, regardless of race,regardless of gender, because
that truth has not been taughtin our school systems.
And of course, that's anotherpushback is that we don't want
to teach the truth, so we don'twipe it out.
We're not going to let you tellit, but you can't wipe out what
I know and you can't wipe outwhat I'm sharing, because you
(08:27):
don't control me.
I am not going to be quiet and,as one of my friends from
college said, he didn'tunderstand why I was calling
this podcast quiet no more,because he'd never known me to
be quiet to begin with.
But it is so important for thethings that Peele and I learned
(08:47):
when we were growing up at home.
There were things that weren'tbeing taught in the classroom.
Our family history obviouslywas not being taught in the
classroom.
Our family history obviouslywas not being taught in the
classroom.
Our, the people that we werearound and the things that we
saw them do.
We saw on a regular basis, Iwould even say daily.
(09:10):
We saw black teachers, we sawblack pastors, we saw black
doctors and lawyers and pilotsand all the things.
And so for someone to come nowand say, oh, you can't do that.
We're in our 60s.
We've been seeing this for 60years, so I know that that's not
(09:33):
true.
And so when I was talking inthe earlier podcast about honor
and wanting to honor my motherour mother, it's because she
made sure that those thingsstayed forefront.
Our father was a pharmacist.
Our grandfather was apharmacist.
(09:53):
That was on my father's sideand he was two generations from
enslavement On our mother's side.
Our family was never enslaved.
On our grandfather, on ourgrandmother's side of the family
, on our grandfather's what fourtimes great grandfather,
grandpa Tom.
(10:13):
He amassed 200 acres of land ineastern North Carolina and made
sure that his children weregiven land.
He made sure that his children,in his will, everybody got some
(10:34):
land.
Everybody was trained.
The boys were trained in aspecific trade, but some of them
one of those sons sold his landin order to pay for dental
school and went on to become adentist and dean of Howard's
Dental School, but the familystill owns the land.
(11:03):
We didn't get rid of land, wedidn't get rid of education, we
didn't get rid of the importanceof any of those things, and it
was passed down to ourgeneration.
And from our generation down Ithink there's at least two more
generations under us.
We have cousins, we have firstcousins, we have
great-grandchildren.
So all of that is stillimportant and you have to share
(11:26):
it, you have to teach it.
You can't wait on a schoolsystem to teach that.
You have to teach all of thepieces, the respect, the
education, the knowledge aboutyour history.
And if you don't know it, thenyou go look for it.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
What I was going to say is that a good response to
your friend would have been well, now I'm speaking with purpose,
you know You'd say yeah, andanyone that you encounter who's
doing something with purpose.
They certainly deserve respect,even if you don't agree with
(12:07):
what they're doing.
It's the people who are sittingby and just watching and
waiting, and whatever lamentingor not, I mean, you still
respect them for what they'redealing with as human beings.
But then it's time to try andtalk them into action.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Action is important and that is one of the things
that too often when I'm talkingto young folk, I'll never forget
going to the doctor last summerand going to have some blood
drawn in the lab and asking theyoung lady that was drawing my
blood, the phlebotomist I saidare you planning to vote?
(12:56):
Are you registered to vote?
And she said oh no, I don't dothat, it's not, it's not gonna
make a difference.
And I thought who in the worldraised you?
It's like you were out in thewild.
You had to fend for yourself,because it does make a
difference and you know, whenpeople talk about voting today,
(13:17):
so many of us think in terms ofnational elections, but when you
consider a local election,there's someone who determines
what happens with your water,and we want to be able to drink
it, so it needs to be cleanedand purified, and so there's a
board that handles water inevery district.
(13:50):
There's a board that handleswater in every district, and in
our mother's hometown there hasbeen an issue with the water for
years and you know, has to dealwith somebody in the government
, and that's somebody that youprobably had to vote for, or if
you have an issue with somethingif you didn't vote.
I mean, they still have torepresent you, but it makes a
difference if they can put aface to a vote or a face to a
(14:13):
name, or know that you're notthe person who's going to be
quiet, because they don'tnecessarily have to pay
attention to you.
And the other thing that ourmother in particular and it
wasn't that our father didn'tteach any of this, but daddy was
always at work at the store,and so we would have these
conversations.
(14:33):
But most of these conversationswere growing up, with mama at
home at the dinner table tellingus about things that were going
on, and one of the things thatwe learned was, when we affected
change or we voiced our opinion, it wasn't just about us, it
was about our community.
(14:54):
Whatever our community was,whatever our community was if it
was our community of playmates,if it was our community of
classmates, if it was ourcommunity of a larger group of
people it was important to havean opinion and to share it with
others.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
How are some of the ways that you do that?
Today I talk to my coworkersabout maybe ways that they're
not being treated fairly.
I push things to my friends totry and get them to look at
different perspectives andconsider what somebody else
might be going through otherthan you know trying to be cool,
(15:39):
or you know they're set up tomake money already.
So who's not who in our friendgroup doesn't have that ability
and you're talking aboutprivilege.
I'm talking about privilegeAbsolutely Same thing within the
music business.
I talk about how the business,being part of our capitalist
(16:04):
society, is also part of thesystemic racism, especially that
our Black artists are beingtreated in the same way that
white artists were by theirBlack record label execs and the
(16:24):
managers and all that sort ofthing, instead of trying to
change the game and do better.
It's the same old system.
So there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
When we talk about systems andsystemic racism, it's what's
built into every system that wehave, not just the music
business, not just when we, evenwhen we just talk about history
.
The capitalist system is whatcreated the history of America.
The history that was writtendown was written by people who
(16:59):
could read and write and peoplewho were doing that to take care
of their finances.
So if you're able to go back,if you are Black and your family
was enslaved and you are ableto find out information about
them, it's because you were ableto go back to the slave records
, the sale records of anenslaver and especially those
(17:21):
who had large plantations,because they had to keep a track
.
They had to keep track of wherethe money was going, and Black
people were the money.
They were the commodity, justas much as the horses and the
corn and the wheat and all thosethings, and that's hard to
think about that.
(17:42):
We were a commodity.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah, I mean, we were three-fifths a human by law.
And when that's written intolaw, that's in the Constitution,
right, it was in theConstitution.
So when that's written in,that's immediate disrespect,
right.
And if you're not consideringour history based on that, then
(18:09):
you're not really getting ourtrue history.
You can't.
When it's written that way,that means that those people
never expected to to respect us,to ever have to deal with us,
for us to ever have a voice orhave any kind of power in the
system.
Same thing for women.
They never thought that thatwas going to happen or that they
(18:31):
were going to have to deal withthat.
And you see what's happeningnow that we're pushing these
ideas forward Certain peoplethat don't want to have to deal
with it.
They don't want to push back,right, and they're the same
people, they're the descendantsof or they're the same types of
people who wrote theConstitution.
So and they feel it they don'twant to feel that I don't have
(18:52):
power or they don't want to feelsomething that's unfair to them
, right.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It's unfair to their money.
Yeah, I don't think theyconsider it unfair to their
personal self.
They think it's unfair to themoney that they make.
It all goes back.
You always have to follow themoney line and that was
something that I had to learnbecause I think when we were
taught things, when we wouldhave these conversations growing
(19:19):
up I don't think I recognizedand I don't know that mama
talked about that it went backto the money.
So it's follow the money,always, always, and so when you
don't, you don't get the full,the true sense of what's going
on.
Right, and you know when we,when we read all these articles
about the billionaires taking,it's the money.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
It is the money, but money also often is a part of
where it's really a big part ofpeople's identities.
Yes, so they may not bethinking specifically about the
money the people you're talkingabout are.
They're talking about money allthe time, but a lot of people
aren't thinking about that moneyas part of the power structure.
(20:03):
They're thinking about theiridentity, their identity.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
But their identity still has been tied to money,
absolutely, even the fact whenwe think about the slave
patrollers, which is where thesheriff's offices came from.
In America, slave patrollerswere poor white men who were
hired to chase after escapedslaves, and that was how the
(20:33):
sheriff's office came.
While it was based on what wasin Great Britain, it was
specific to money and in thatprocess, overseers and slave
patrollers were paid more moneyin order to subjugate Blacks.
Now that says a lot, and itsays a lot about the hierarchy
(20:57):
there as well.
So you will find that a lot oftimes, the hierarchy in the
financial system is poor.
Whites are used to make thesegrandstands and they're the ones
who are going to get affected,and we see that in the changes
(21:22):
in DEI and immigration.
Dei.
Diversity is not black.
Diversity's definition is notblack.
It is diverse.
It is difference, and that isone of the things that's being
pushed.
We are different and differentmust mean black.
(21:44):
Different doesn't mean that youhave a disability.
Now, I have a disability.
I'm considered disabled becauseI had a rare disease that put
me on oxygen, so that's adiverse thing.
If you have a family memberwho's in a wheelchair, that's
diverse.
They have a hard time gettingaround where they need to get.
(22:07):
And if you consider that ifthere is a health diversity that
takes your money, it'sexpensive to be sick, and so
that pushes down, and so thatpushes down.
A lot of you don't know that, interms of the Social Security,
(22:28):
up until I would say, the 50s,people who worked on farms, or
farmers, or housekeepers, maidservice, janitorial workers,
were not allowed to get SocialSecurity benefits, because that
was one of the compromises thatwas made for in order to get the
(22:51):
Social Security Act passed.
So you know, there are a lot ofthings that we don't know, that
we need to know because theyaffect everybody.
And you're concerned about theprice of eggs today.
I like to bake cakes.
(23:15):
I'm concerned about them too.
But think about the people whoare making laws or making these
changes.
They don't go to the grocerystore and buy something.
They pay somebody else to dothat, and as long as they can
afford to pay somebody else todo that, they can afford to pay
for what they're sending themfor.
So it doesn't affect theirbudget like it affects yours.
So I've gone way away fromrespect, but it's all part and
(23:37):
parcel of the same thing.
Peele, I want to thank you somuch for coming on the other
side of the table, from theexecutive producer side, and
talking with me and helpingpeople to understand that it's
important that we be quiet, nomore.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
You've been listening to Quiet no More where I share
my journey so you can be quiet.
Unseen, unheard.
We've lived like that far toolong.
I'm Carmen Coffin and this isQuiet, no More.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So hello, this is a new thing.
Today I have my first guest andit's his own fault for being
here at Quiet no More with hissister.
This is my brother, peelWimberly, who is just an amazing
young man.
Aw Aw, there's five yearsdifference between us.
(00:40):
He has a recording studio andthat's where I am.
He is a producer and a recordcompany owner.
His company is HarmonicValhalla.
Did I say that, right?
And I was talking about honorand respect, and I finished the
(01:03):
first part and he looked at meand he said, well, I feel like
respect is, and said somethingand I thought, okay, well, you
come around on the other side ofthe table and we'll just have
this conversation, so let megive you, um, this, this one is
going to be a little bit moreabout respect than honor, and
(01:24):
let me give you the definitionsthat I found.
So respect is esteem for, or asense of, the worth or
excellence of a person, apersonal quality or ability, or
something considered as amanifestation of a personal
quality or ability, of apersonal quality or ability.
Synonyms are honor, homage,reverence and estimation.
(01:50):
So deference to a right,privilege, privileged position,
or someone or somethingconsidered to have certain
rights or privileges, properacceptance or courtesy.
And then the third is thecondition of being esteemed or
(02:10):
honored.
So welcome Peele.
Let's talk about respect, okay,so tell me what you said, if
you remember what you said.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
Oh, I remember, yes, okay.
So I feel like respect shouldbe given until it's deemed
unnecessary and based on ourhuman condition.
We're all here, going throughwhatever we're going through,
(02:37):
learning whatever we're learning, and one of the reasons I think
it's important to look at itfrom that perspective is if you
(02:58):
look at it from the otherperspective, then there's always
power in the situation.
So when I say respect should begiven, like, I feel like
constituents have to respecttheir authorities, but the
authorities also have to respectthe constituents.
Um, or if you look at it from agang perspective, they say
respect has to be earned.
Well, what happens if theydon't respect you?
You get, you get on.
(03:20):
What do they call it?
Unalived.
Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
So, um, yeah, yeah, we have to all respect each
other for just for our existence.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Right, and that's you know.
That's important.
I've been talking about it interms of family, but when you
consider that we are all part ofthe human family, then
everybody should get respect andit should be an equal thing.
And that's what Peel's sayingand that's important.
(03:51):
It's not, and I'm not sayingthat you don't respect in terms
of hierarchy, but what he'ssaying also is that hierarchy
needs to respect down.
So there's a two-way streethere.
Respect down, so there's atwo-way street here.
So you respect your elders, butyour elders respect you.
(04:13):
They don't say that just becauseyou're young, whatever you
think or say is unimportant, orwhatever your feelings are
should not be taken intoconsideration.
That doesn't mean necessarilythat because they take something
into consideration, that theymake a decision, if they are in
decision-making authority, thatthey choose to do what you would
(04:35):
like for them to do, but theyhear what you have to say and
they weigh it in.
And sometimes that's hard,because a lot of us weren't
raised that way.
We were raised that whoever'sgot the authority makes the
decision, and they might haveheard what you said, but they
ignored what you said, and sothere's a different that.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Right, there's also a time factor.
Sometimes you don't have timeto stop and explain something.
You have to make a choice, butI think it's good to revisit it
and explain that choice.
Uh, and when you're takinglet's say you're taking your
child's perspective uh, I forgotthe phrase Into consideration.
(05:17):
Into consideration, yes, youwant to explain to them why it
might not be the best way tomake that choice.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
We could go deep from there, but yeah, yeah, just
when we're looking at ourcountry today, there is not,
there's a lack of respect forother countries.
It's like there's thishierarchy that has been created
(05:48):
in the minds of many Americansand the president that America
is the greatest, it is the best,it is the biggest.
That America is the greatest,it is the best, it is the
biggest.
And is that true?
Were all the countries, all thecontinents, were they all
created at the same time?
Should they have equal weight?
(06:10):
You know, for years and years,when you look at the continent
of Africa, those countries weretaken over by Europeans, and one
of the questions that I've beenreading about this week,
something that I did not know,was that South Africa, in its
apartheid, even though that landwas originally African, black
(06:35):
African, only 7% of the land isowned by people.
No, 7% of the people are whiteAfricans, who are European
Africans, who own all of theland, and so they have now a
policy of trying to work withthat history and repatriate some
(07:02):
of the land, and that's causingall kinds of frustrations here
in America.
It's like we didn't do thatwith the Indians.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
Right.
You know, Well, and that's whatkills respect is the power
structure?
Yeah Right, that's the.
That's what kills respect isthe power structure yeah Right.
So, um, it's hard to think forpeople who have decided that
they own whatever it is they ownto want to respect anybody who
(07:34):
encroaches on that ownership.
So what do we do about that?
Speaker 2 (07:43):
So my part is to tell all history and tell it
truthfully, because somethinghas to combat that I would say
ignorance.
But I don't think it'signorance.
I think it's willfuldetermination that I want to do
what I want to do, and that'snot the same as ignorance of the
truth and so, but there are somany people who are ignorant of
(08:05):
the truth, regardless of race,regardless of gender, because
that truth has not been taughtin our school systems.
And of course, that's anotherpushback is that we don't want
to teach the truth, so we don'twipe it out.
We're not going to let you tellit, but you can't wipe out what
I know and you can't wipe outwhat I'm sharing, because you
(08:27):
don't control me.
I am not going to be quiet and,as one of my friends from
college said, he didn'tunderstand why I was calling
this podcast quiet no more,because he'd never known me to
be quiet to begin with.
But it is so important for thethings that Peele and I learned
(08:47):
when we were growing up at home.
There were things that weren'tbeing taught in the classroom.
Our family history obviouslywas not being taught in the
classroom.
Our family history obviouslywas not being taught in the
classroom.
Our, the people that we werearound and the things that we
saw them do.
We saw on a regular basis, Iwould even say daily.
(09:10):
We saw black teachers, we sawblack pastors, we saw black
doctors and lawyers and pilotsand all the things.
And so for someone to come nowand say, oh, you can't do that.
We're in our 60s.
We've been seeing this for 60years, so I know that that's not
(09:33):
true.
And so when I was talking inthe earlier podcast about honor
and wanting to honor my motherour mother, it's because she
made sure that those thingsstayed forefront.
Our father was a pharmacist.
Our grandfather was apharmacist.
(09:53):
That was on my father's sideand he was two generations from
enslavement On our mother's side.
Our family was never enslaved.
On our grandfather, on ourgrandmother's side of the family
, on our grandfather's what fourtimes great grandfather,
grandpa Tom.
(10:13):
He amassed 200 acres of land ineastern North Carolina and made
sure that his children weregiven land.
He made sure that his children,in his will, everybody got some
(10:34):
land.
Everybody was trained.
The boys were trained in aspecific trade, but some of them
one of those sons sold his landin order to pay for dental
school and went on to become adentist and dean of Howard's
Dental School, but the familystill owns the land.
(11:03):
We didn't get rid of land, wedidn't get rid of education, we
didn't get rid of the importanceof any of those things, and it
was passed down to ourgeneration.
And from our generation down Ithink there's at least two more
generations under us.
We have cousins, we have firstcousins, we have
great-grandchildren.
So all of that is stillimportant and you have to share
(11:26):
it, you have to teach it.
You can't wait on a schoolsystem to teach that.
You have to teach all of thepieces, the respect, the
education, the knowledge aboutyour history.
And if you don't know it, thenyou go look for it.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
What I was going to say is that a good response to
your friend would have been well, now I'm speaking with purpose,
you know You'd say yeah, andanyone that you encounter who's
doing something with purpose.
They certainly deserve respect,even if you don't agree with
(12:07):
what they're doing.
It's the people who are sittingby and just watching and
waiting, and whatever lamentingor not, I mean, you still
respect them for what they'redealing with as human beings.
But then it's time to try andtalk them into action.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Action is important and that is one of the things
that too often when I'm talkingto young folk, I'll never forget
going to the doctor last summerand going to have some blood
drawn in the lab and asking theyoung lady that was drawing my
blood, the phlebotomist I saidare you planning to vote?
(12:56):
Are you registered to vote?
And she said oh no, I don't dothat, it's not, it's not gonna
make a difference.
And I thought who in the worldraised you?
It's like you were out in thewild.
You had to fend for yourself,because it does make a
difference and you know, whenpeople talk about voting today,
(13:17):
so many of us think in terms ofnational elections, but when you
consider a local election,there's someone who determines
what happens with your water,and we want to be able to drink
it, so it needs to be cleanedand purified, and so there's a
board that handles water inevery district.
(13:50):
There's a board that handleswater in every district, and in
our mother's hometown there hasbeen an issue with the water for
years and you know, has to dealwith somebody in the government
, and that's somebody that youprobably had to vote for, or if
you have an issue with somethingif you didn't vote.
I mean, they still have torepresent you, but it makes a
difference if they can put aface to a vote or a face to a
(14:13):
name, or know that you're notthe person who's going to be
quiet, because they don'tnecessarily have to pay
attention to you.
And the other thing that ourmother in particular and it
wasn't that our father didn'tteach any of this, but daddy was
always at work at the store,and so we would have these
conversations.
(14:33):
But most of these conversationswere growing up, with mama at
home at the dinner table tellingus about things that were going
on, and one of the things thatwe learned was, when we affected
change or we voiced our opinion, it wasn't just about us, it
was about our community.
(14:54):
Whatever our community was,whatever our community was if it
was our community of playmates,if it was our community of
classmates, if it was ourcommunity of a larger group of
people it was important to havean opinion and to share it with
others.
Speaker 3 (15:18):
How are some of the ways that you do that?
Today I talk to my coworkersabout maybe ways that they're
not being treated fairly.
I push things to my friends totry and get them to look at
different perspectives andconsider what somebody else
might be going through otherthan you know trying to be cool,
(15:39):
or you know they're set up tomake money already.
So who's not who in our friendgroup doesn't have that ability
and you're talking aboutprivilege.
I'm talking about privilegeAbsolutely Same thing within the
music business.
I talk about how the business,being part of our capitalist
(16:04):
society, is also part of thesystemic racism, especially that
our Black artists are beingtreated in the same way that
white artists were by theirBlack record label execs and the
(16:24):
managers and all that sort ofthing, instead of trying to
change the game and do better.
It's the same old system.
So there's a lot of that.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
Yeah, there's a lot to unpack there.
When we talk about systems andsystemic racism, it's what's
built into every system that wehave, not just the music
business, not just when we, evenwhen we just talk about history
.
The capitalist system is whatcreated the history of America.
The history that was writtendown was written by people who
(16:59):
could read and write and peoplewho were doing that to take care
of their finances.
So if you're able to go back,if you are Black and your family
was enslaved and you are ableto find out information about
them, it's because you were ableto go back to the slave records
, the sale records of anenslaver and especially those
(17:21):
who had large plantations,because they had to keep a track
.
They had to keep track of wherethe money was going, and Black
people were the money.
They were the commodity, justas much as the horses and the
corn and the wheat and all thosethings, and that's hard to
think about that.
(17:42):
We were a commodity.
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Yeah, I mean, we were three-fifths a human by law.
And when that's written intolaw, that's in the Constitution,
right, it was in theConstitution.
So when that's written in,that's immediate disrespect,
right.
And if you're not consideringour history based on that, then
(18:09):
you're not really getting ourtrue history.
You can't.
When it's written that way,that means that those people
never expected to to respect us,to ever have to deal with us,
for us to ever have a voice orhave any kind of power in the
system.
Same thing for women.
They never thought that thatwas going to happen or that they
(18:31):
were going to have to deal withthat.
And you see what's happeningnow that we're pushing these
ideas forward Certain peoplethat don't want to have to deal
with it.
They don't want to push back,right, and they're the same
people, they're the descendantsof or they're the same types of
people who wrote theConstitution.
So and they feel it they don'twant to feel that I don't have
(18:52):
power or they don't want to feelsomething that's unfair to them
, right.
Speaker 2 (18:58):
It's unfair to their money.
Yeah, I don't think theyconsider it unfair to their
personal self.
They think it's unfair to themoney that they make.
It all goes back.
You always have to follow themoney line and that was
something that I had to learnbecause I think when we were
taught things, when we wouldhave these conversations growing
(19:19):
up I don't think I recognizedand I don't know that mama
talked about that it went backto the money.
So it's follow the money,always, always, and so when you
don't, you don't get the full,the true sense of what's going
on.
Right, and you know when we,when we read all these articles
about the billionaires taking,it's the money.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
It is the money, but money also often is a part of
where it's really a big part ofpeople's identities.
Yes, so they may not bethinking specifically about the
money the people you're talkingabout are.
They're talking about money allthe time, but a lot of people
aren't thinking about that moneyas part of the power structure.
(20:03):
They're thinking about theiridentity, their identity.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
But their identity still has been tied to money,
absolutely, even the fact whenwe think about the slave
patrollers, which is where thesheriff's offices came from.
In America, slave patrollerswere poor white men who were
hired to chase after escapedslaves, and that was how the
(20:33):
sheriff's office came.
While it was based on what wasin Great Britain, it was
specific to money and in thatprocess, overseers and slave
patrollers were paid more moneyin order to subjugate Blacks.
Now that says a lot, and itsays a lot about the hierarchy
(20:57):
there as well.
So you will find that a lot oftimes, the hierarchy in the
financial system is poor.
Whites are used to make thesegrandstands and they're the ones
who are going to get affected,and we see that in the changes
(21:22):
in DEI and immigration.
Dei.
Diversity is not black.
Diversity's definition is notblack.
It is diverse.
It is difference, and that isone of the things that's being
pushed.
We are different and differentmust mean black.
(21:44):
Different doesn't mean that youhave a disability.
Now, I have a disability.
I'm considered disabled becauseI had a rare disease that put
me on oxygen, so that's adiverse thing.
If you have a family memberwho's in a wheelchair, that's
diverse.
They have a hard time gettingaround where they need to get.
(22:07):
And if you consider that ifthere is a health diversity that
takes your money, it'sexpensive to be sick, and so
that pushes down, and so thatpushes down.
A lot of you don't know that, interms of the Social Security,
(22:28):
up until I would say, the 50s,people who worked on farms, or
farmers, or housekeepers, maidservice, janitorial workers,
were not allowed to get SocialSecurity benefits, because that
was one of the compromises thatwas made for in order to get the
(22:51):
Social Security Act passed.
So you know, there are a lot ofthings that we don't know, that
we need to know because theyaffect everybody.
And you're concerned about theprice of eggs today.
I like to bake cakes.
(23:15):
I'm concerned about them too.
But think about the people whoare making laws or making these
changes.
They don't go to the grocerystore and buy something.
They pay somebody else to dothat, and as long as they can
afford to pay somebody else todo that, they can afford to pay
for what they're sending themfor.
So it doesn't affect theirbudget like it affects yours.
So I've gone way away fromrespect, but it's all part and
(23:37):
parcel of the same thing.
Peele, I want to thank you somuch for coming on the other
side of the table, from theexecutive producer side, and
talking with me and helpingpeople to understand that it's
important that we be quiet, nomore.
Speaker 1 (23:59):
You've been listening to Quiet no More where I share
my journey so you can be quiet.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com