You Want to Fix the Crime? Love the Children! Dr. Ashonta Wyatt

Dr. Ashonta Wyatt is a consulting producer of Hulu/ESPN's "Algiers America." Directed by multiple primetime Emmy award-winning director, producer, and cinematographer Jackson Fager, the Golden Globe Awards have said of this docuseries, "Every once in a while, there comes a story that is both uplifting and painful. Very often, this combination creates the best art..." It's truly a MUST see.

Dr. Wyatt is seen throughout the docuseries advocating for students while simultaneously off-camera experiencing a cruel America of her own. Her troubling story as Principal of Edgar P. Harney began with her elementary school, a well-known pastor, mysterious bank accounts, and simple inquiries that led to an FBI investigation. Then Dr. Wyatt's professional career imploded! While the perpetrator eventually confessed, was convicted, and recently sentenced, Dr. Wyatt remains blacklisted in Louisiana, the state she has loved and served her entire life. But she is a fighter! Hundreds of thousands viewed and supported her New Orleans City Council address on social media. Still, with 20 years of experience in education, Dr. Wyatt remains unemployed. I ask that you do three things:

1. Listen to the first 15 minutes of this TEEM Leadership interview on iHeart to hear her audaciously viral speech to the New Orleans City Council.
2. Give to Dr. Wyatt so she can rebuild, provide for her son, and try to restore the life she has lost. $AshontaWyatt (no amount is too small)
3. Watch Algiers America on Hulu to see the Edna Karr Cougars in New Orleans push through the pain of death and violence with relentless love from their coaches, caring teachers, and advocates like Dr. Wyatt.

Having watched all five episodes of Algiers America, I can attest that it is a profoundly moving, brilliantly told story!!

Dr. Ashonta Wyatt is an education and social justice advocate currently serving as Chief Consultant of A. Wyatt Solutions Group. The consulting firm provides professional development, coaching, and a broad range of advocacy services for marginalized communities.

Dr. Wyatt is a parent, former Principal, community servant, and Edna Karr Magnet High School graduate. She has a bachelor's degree from The University of New Orleans and a Masters's and Doctorate in Educational Leadership from the Xavier University of Louisiana.

Stay connected for more exciting stories! Follow me on Facebook 1: Dr-Cecelia Martin; Facebook 2: Dr. Cecelia Martin, PhD; Instagram: @dr_ceceliamartin; Twitter: @drceceliamartin

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Hello, Welcome to Team Leadership Radio. I'm your host, doctor
Cecilia Martin. To my faithful listeners, team players and subscribers
around the world, I want to give a shout out
to Brazil, in India, Japan, Denmark, Nigeria, Indonesia, Ecuador and

(00:46):
the Philippines. Thank you so much for tuning in. You
don't know.

Speaker 2 (00:51):
I appreciate you guys so much.

Speaker 1 (00:54):
Listen, guys, today I have a true firestarter, so you
might as well buckle up. Okay, and we're already gonna
consider this part one all right, because we're gonna have
to circle back. We have a lot to unpack. That's
all I have to say. I have with me today
none other than doctor Ashanta Wyatt, who is an education

(01:18):
and social justice advocate who currently serves as the chief
consultant of a Wise Solutions Group. A Wise Solutions Group
is a consulting firm that provides professional development and coaching
to individuals and organizations to increase organizational effectiveness. The company
also provides for a broad range of advocacy services on

(01:42):
behalf of marginalized communities. Now doctor Wyatt, she is a parent,
former principal, community servant, and graduate of Edna Carr Magnet
High School. She has a bachelor's degree from the University
of New Orleans and a master's and doctor degree in
Educate Occasional Leadership from Xavier University of Louisiana. Doc to

(02:05):
why it believes it is her duty to help dismantle
systems that perpetuate and benefit from our oppression or why welcome.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Thank you, thank you for having me. Thank you. It's
odd to listen to your to your own bio.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
I know, right, it feels like we're right like yah, yeah,
oh my gosh. Like I said at the beginning, there's
so much to unpack. We'll get as far as we can.
I know you have other appointments. So first of all,
you we know you're from New Orleans. What was it
like growing up there? Was it drastically different from how

(02:45):
we see New Orleans today?

Speaker 3 (02:48):
You know it's it has its similarities and its differences.

Speaker 4 (02:53):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
Right now, we're besieged by youth violence. And there was
violence when I was growing up.

Speaker 3 (02:58):
But as I would tell anybody, I I firmly believe
that there was a cold, an unspoken cold to how
you maneuvered in this world. If you were doing less
than desirable things. You know, there was a cold to
not harm women and children. There was a cold to
not do any drug dealing around schools. Like it's weird

(03:19):
to hear people say, but some of our people who
were doing less than desirable things still had a morality
clause about themselves and they governed themselves accordingly.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
And I think we've.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Lost sight of that because crime is inevitable, right, But
it's the type of crime we're seeing. It's the ages
of the people who are out here committing the violence.
It's the victims of the crime. I mean, we're killing
seven year old children, We're killing thirty one year old
mothers with three and four kids in a car, you know.
And so yeah, there's some similarities about the way I

(03:54):
grew up in New Orleans. It's always been, you know,
a violent place for lack of a better world at
this moment, but I believe that our violence was tamed
somehow by a code of ethics. Whether you could subscribe
to that or not, that's just the way it was, sure,
And I think.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt, but yeah, I can
relate because it seems like today there that we're praying
on the vulnerable, the children, the senior citizens, and that,
like you said, there seems to be no honor.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
Well I like that, Doctor Cecilia. I liken that to
a degradation of community right.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
And so when you devalue things, everything that is supposed
to help a person thrive, when you devalue them by
stripping them up those resources, then in some circumstances you're
forcing people into diere situations, and desperate people do desperate things.
And so I don't believe we will incarcerate our way
out of criminality.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
I don't think that we could police our way out
of it.

Speaker 3 (04:56):
I think we have to get back to the foundation
of who we are a as people, and that's loving
each other, respecting each other as human beings. No matter
how I choose to live, if it differs from how
you choose to live, there's still a respect for the
right to live how you want to live, as long
as you're not infringing upon the rights of other people,
as long as you're not endangering other people. And I

(05:18):
think we're we've strayed so far away from that because
as a country, we're going in a rapidly declining direction
and we're degrading humanity. We're degrading people, and the outcomes
of those types of situations is violence. You know, wherever

(05:39):
you see extreme poverty, you're going to see violence. Wherever
you see a lack of a solid school system, you're
going to see violence. When people have a hard time
paying for rent, you're going to see violence. So these
are the resources that I'm talking about. If you put
the resources and the places they need to be, then
people are less inclined to do things to make ends
meet because our systems are working. And right now when

(06:01):
New Orleans, our systems are broken. And so yeah, we
see similarities, but there's a whole bunch of differences in
the New Orleans I grew up in.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
In the New New Orleans, I see the day. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
And you know, speaking of which, you have been such
a strong advocate for the city itself, for the state
of Louisiana. I want to get to at some point
I heard you say in a talk that you're not
from Nola, You're from New Orleans. What does that mean?

Speaker 3 (06:29):
Well, because I you know, I think words matter. I
think the intent behind behind words matter. And we're going
through a cultural gentrification in New Orleans and a lot
of people who are not from here, not homegrown. They've
come here, bought property here, and they want to change

(06:50):
the way the very cultural fabric of New Orleans. What
I also said in that speech is they want our culture,
but they don't.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Want its people.

Speaker 3 (06:57):
And I really mean that, because you want everything that's
beautiful about New Orleans, but you don't want the Native
New Orleanians to be here to benefit from that culture.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
It's a culture we built, so you.

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Want to be able to bask in it, but you
don't want to share it with its indigenous people.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
And that's the problem.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
And so I think no La is a very gentrified term,
and I think they use it with the intent to
be a gentrifier.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Right.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
It's like you're trying to reimagine New Orleans by calling
it Nola, And I push that very hard against.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
That, you know. So I just want people to honor
who we are as people, Honor.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
The land that you found here, you know, honor the
culture that you found, our music, our food, all of that,
you know, is at the hands of the most marginalized
people are cooking those meals, you know, are playing up
the saxophone in that band that you like, you know,
beating the drums in a French quarter that you like
to hear. Those are all people that the system is

(07:52):
trying very hard to erase. And if you respected the
culture of New Orleans, you will honor it by keeping
a lot of that alive and keeping a people here
to enjoy it. You can't take our city and push
us out and then just reimagine it as Nola.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
This is New Orleans, and I'm from New Orleans, and I'm.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Gonna stand firm and fighting for what it's culturally ours
so that people who are indigenous to this community could
benefit from all.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Of its work. Yeah, that's how I feel you preaching.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
So listen. The people need to hear the speech itself.
It's about six minutes. Let's talk about it a little bit.
You were you were addressing the New Orleans City Council
and the clip from that video went viral. It had
over one hundred and eighty thousand views and fifty thousand

(08:40):
shares and one hundred thousand comments, and I mean it's
just all over the place. So set set this up
for us before we listen to the actual audio that
I'm gonna I'm gonna play it. What's this Your first
time having public comments while were you there? What set
the stage for us a little bit?

Speaker 3 (08:57):
No, So it definitely wasn't my first time. I'm, you know,
always trying to stand in the gap for my community,
So it wasn't my first time.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
And actually what you heard is not what I went
up there to say.

Speaker 3 (09:10):
Okay, something, something just came over me and I just
felt like unmasking things because we will never fix issues
if we keep pretending that these issues don't exist, or
if they're not real, or if they're not in crisis mode.
And I, you know, after seeing a lot of the
turmoil that was going on in the meeting, probably to

(09:31):
me speaking, it changed the direction of what I had
to say because the system has created a it insulated
itself so much that it has individuals fighting each other
instead of fighting together against a broken system. And so
that's what I saw, and so I called it out
and I'm like, all of y'all up here, know what's
going on. You know, you know what the situation is,

(09:54):
right and that, and it just kind of went from there.
It's like, stop pretending to solve a problem, Stop playing
dress up, stop putting lipstick on a pig, Stop putting
a bandit on a bullet wound.

Speaker 2 (10:05):
I just lost it. I really did.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
I lost it because I got so unnerved by the
performative feelings that I was getting. It was just like,
let's just hear them out. Let's just pretend we're listening,
and we'll just go about our day. Like children are dying,
our ancestors are living, our elders are living on toxic soil.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Like this city is burning, and that's the that's.

Speaker 3 (10:32):
The fire that I felt when I went to the mic,
And I honestly can tell you I didn't even know
what was gonna come out of my mouth.

Speaker 2 (10:38):
It just it just took out the life of its own.

Speaker 1 (10:42):
From TikTok to every place else, people were singing your
praises because you were saying what people were thinking. So
let's listen to the clip.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
I came up here with something.

Speaker 5 (10:59):
So I'm still gonna say it, but I think that
this is indicative of what our children witness and the
reason why our children act the way they act, because
we are the exemplars for their behavior. And I think
to have grown black men created.

Speaker 2 (11:17):
A circus.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
With the cameras here tells our children that they could
participate in the circus. What the problem is you only
blame the children when you created the circus. We went
from integration to gentrifications, all on the back of miseducation. So,
if you want to fix crime and fix the schools,
I've been saying that for quite a long time. I

(11:42):
hold a doctorate in education, Yet I stand before you unemployed.
I'm not unemployed because of white supremacy.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
I'm unemployed because of black elitism.

Speaker 5 (11:51):
And these New Orleans see I'm from New Orleans, twenty
thirty five Hendecourt, Apartment three B. They call it the
dark side of the Ficial Project, and they called it
the dog side because that's where Hope went to die.
But I stand before you the product of a formerly cracked,
addicted mother. My mother has been cleaned for thirty years,
but I tell everybody she was on drugs because her

(12:13):
story is my story. I'm the product of an absent father.
So when you talk about it starts at home. I
didn't have the foundation at home. My foundation came from school.
So if you want to fix the crime problem, fix
the schools, let's talk about how I've applied for job
after job, even at the places where nobody wants to work.

(12:33):
The branch cities and the jgis and Bridge City told
me I was overqualified.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
But you have children breaking out and committing crimes every
single day.

Speaker 5 (12:43):
I'm asking you to give me the children that you
don't want, let me have them.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
I'm asking you.

Speaker 4 (12:50):
To get out of my way.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
White folks didn't do this to me. People who look
just like me did this to me.

Speaker 5 (12:55):
When we talk about going looking for the pastor's folks
and it's election time, a pastor did this to me.
Some of y'all calling friends and that's why y'all helped
him blocking me from jobs.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Let's talk about the truth. You can't fix the children
when you're hurting the children. I'm somebody's child too. That's
right when you talk.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
About raising broken children, only that you would grow up
and to the broken men.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
I was a broken child who went to.

Speaker 5 (13:20):
School, got educated and got my degrees, and I was
rebroken by black people in my city. I'm not from Nolan,
I'm from the Words, you know, the place that y'all
trying to make disappear because we are no longer desirable.

Speaker 2 (13:33):
You want our culture, but you don't want its people.

Speaker 5 (13:36):
Everybody want to talk about how to fix the crime.

Speaker 1 (13:39):
Love the children, Love the children.

Speaker 2 (13:43):
Somebody loves me.

Speaker 5 (13:44):
Somebody told me that I'm mad her, even with your
crankhead Mama, and.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
You're mist and daddy, you mad her. Somebody told me that.

Speaker 5 (13:53):
But y'all playing because y'all perpetuate this foolishness, because you
benefit from this foolishness.

Speaker 2 (13:58):
You have content people fighting the mayor.

Speaker 5 (14:01):
You have the mayor trying to fight against the comfortable. Yeah,
you want to tell the children, don't fight.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
What is happening to her? Truth? What far happened to me?
She's qualified, But.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
Yet y'all gotta go nationally her look for somebody.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
And I'm right here, and I'm.

Speaker 2 (14:16):
Asking you give me the children that you don't run.
Don't don't send them.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
To jail, send them to me.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Now. I love them already.

Speaker 1 (14:26):
You know why y'all love.

Speaker 5 (14:27):
Them because I was them. I used to fight with
my fenser till somebody told me I'm mad her.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
The children fighting for.

Speaker 3 (14:33):
With dogs because y'all ain't let them know they matter.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
That's the problem.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
I'm begging you for a job in my city where
I was born, when I was educated, and.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
I'm begging you to work, and people can move.

Speaker 5 (14:46):
Here from the author homers in the orhios, and the
children gonna get the best foods and they're gonna move
into the best communities.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And I gotta beg you don't work. The people came
to seize my house, the house.

Speaker 4 (15:00):
That I worked so hard to pay for, because I
don't have a.

Speaker 2 (15:04):
Job to pay the mortgage. And you want to sit
here and talk bullshit. Give the children to me.

Speaker 5 (15:13):
You want to talk about crimes. What is happening to
me is criminal. What is happening to me is criminal.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
They have children out there who love me.

Speaker 4 (15:25):
There's a community who loves me, and I have people
who potential respect me. Blocking me from the ability to
feed my son is criminal.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
I'm playing with the children's life.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
You want the chaos because you benefited from the chaos.
There's no reason why people have some bad fol thought
of a housing and y'all throwing up air being beings
like Oprah gave away callers.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Stop playing with us. I'm sick and tired of being.

Speaker 5 (16:03):
Stick and tied because everything I do I do for free.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Because you don't want me to work. My voice is respected.
Why don't you want to use it. You know why,
because then you gotta look at.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Your friend in his faith and tell them you wrong for.

Speaker 2 (16:18):
What you did.

Speaker 5 (16:19):
That young lady, but you can't do that.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Because you benefit from the chaos.

Speaker 5 (16:25):
You want the children to stop fighting, you better stop
fighting first.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
You want the children to do better, You have to
do better.

Speaker 6 (16:35):
Everybody wants to be somebody's someone. My children want somebody
to love them from, see them from, value them, to
encourage them.

Speaker 2 (16:46):
To treat them like they're human things.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
If you treat them like animals, they will act like animals.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
You've got a land in the corner, and I guarantee
you it's gonna come out swinging.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Whoa, that's my first time listening to it.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Because I could see the expression on your face and yeah, some.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Of the tears. Well enough, but honey, let me tell you.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
You have hundreds of thousands of people who were saying, yeah,
what she said, she spoke, She spoke truth to power
in that moment. What happened afterwards, I mean we're saying backlash?
Did they I know they had closed down some of

(17:39):
the schools that were performing well behind It seems an
individual who was responsible for finances who were I think embezzling, mismanaging.
He was actually convicted, confessed.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
And they still are.

Speaker 1 (17:53):
The other schools reopened now.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
So he was in charge of one school, which was
my school.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
And when I took the job, I took the job
knowing that the school was struggling because it was all
in the media, right, But I still felt like, Okay,
I went to school to be a turnaround principle, and
so this is this is the type of environment that
I was trained for, and so I went in there
with the hope of being able to apply everything that
I learned in school to be able to improve outcomes

(18:23):
for children. And so that's what I was doing. And
then I very quickly realized that the dire situation that
I thought we were in was a fabrication because the
money was there, it just wasn't in the right place.
And that is when I began to ask questions about
why is there money going to individuals who are not

(18:45):
employed by me? Why is the money in an account
that is not governed by me? Like it was just
questions like that because I was acting as a CEO principal,
so I should have added access to things that I
didn't have access to, and I started to question these things,
and I think that is what made him realize that
the jig was up right. It's like, okay, she knows,

(19:06):
but really and truly, I didn't know that he was
doing it.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
I just knew something was wrong.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
And he was a pastor, so I trusted him, you know,
like he was the board president for my school, but
he was also a very well known pastor in my community,
and so I just could not connect what I was
seeing through understanding that he was the reason why it
was happening. And I didn't know, and so I thought
this was mismanagement at the at the level where I worked,

(19:34):
not at the board.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
I didn't I just didn't know he was doing it.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
And when I realized he was doing it, he immediately
moved to fire me because he didn't want the public
to know that I knew. But I had already sounded
the alarm before he fired me, and it started the
media to investigate. And he's very well connected, very politically connected,
so they insulated him and they protected him. And even

(19:58):
though I had all of this evidence, I was made
out to be the pariah and I was made out
to be the outcast. And I have not worked in
a principal role since then, because his connections have made
it such that I can't even get past the first
round of applying for jobs. And it wasn't until three

(20:19):
years later that I met with an FBI agent and
he was interested in what happened to me, and I
told him what happened to me. And then two years
after that, charges were barret up against him. He was indicted, tried, convicted. Wow,
and he's now in prison for five years, which was
almost the max. Sixty three months was the max that

(20:41):
he was facing, and the judge gave him sixty months.
And it was because of the work that I just
I never stopped trying to make the truth come to light,
and I paid a hefty price for it because I
am stilled to this very day unemployed. So nothing really
happened other than the video going viral and people appreciating

(21:02):
what I said. But it has not opened up any
employment doors. It has not changed my circumstances in the
least bitfoot I am still standing and I'm still fighting
on behalf of this community and its children. So that's
never gonna stop with without employment.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
So, my goodness, that is incredible. So an essence, you
were a whistleblower. Yes, there are laws in place that
are supposed to protect whistleblowers.

Speaker 3 (21:29):
There are, And the FADS wanted, they wanted, They tried
everything they could, but there was no statue federally that
could protect me because I wasn't listed as a harmed party.
The school was, but I personally wasn't listed as a
harm party, and so the Feds.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Couldn't do anything.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
And then locally, you would have to find somebody with
the courage to stand up against this.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
It's a system, it's a machine. And nobody's willing to
take my case.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
Nobody's willing to say, you know, I'll help you you uh,
you know, litigate this. I've tried, and it's just nobody
wants to take the case. And so that's the hard part.
But yeah, so there's been no recourse for me.

Speaker 1 (22:10):
So would you consider so I know that you have
said that you would. You are loyal to New Orleans
for life? Would you consider moving out? I mean, is
that an option for you in order to find viable employment?

Speaker 2 (22:28):
I know it.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Shouldn't be that way. Yeah, you know, given your life
in essence to the system, you grew up in the system.

Speaker 2 (22:35):
You matriculated through from.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
You know, the time that you were a child all
the way through post secondary education. You've given back, you've advocated,
you've served the community, you've I mean, it's just incredible
that they are able to blackball you in this way.
It doesn't there do you feel any sense of vindication
even with him being sentenced.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
Well, to the people who loved me, it was more
so for them to exhale as well, because people loved
me and supported me through this, and I know that
wasn't easy for them. So I felt vindicated in a
way that the people who supported me understood that they
were standing on solid grown and supported me. It's not
real vindication because I mean, I was making six figures

(23:23):
as a CEO principle, and to strip me of my livelihood.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I went from making that to no income. It's been hard.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
It's been very hard, and so no, I don't feel
vindicated in the way of being whole.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
But I feel.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
Vindicated in a way that now everybody knows the truth,
whether you want to accept it or not.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
The truth is the truth.

Speaker 3 (23:47):
The Department of Justice wouldn't side with me if I
wasn't telling the truth. The federal government doesn't come for
you unless there's a solid case against you, and so
it's amazing how they know all of these things. But
it's some sort of blind loyalty to him, because doctor Martin,
there were people very prominent in this community who wrote

(24:08):
letters on his behalf to the judge asking for leniency
even though he stole from children and ruined my career.
There were prominent people in my city, you know, one
being a council person who I was speaking directly to,
and that speech that you just played, he wrote a
letter in support of him to ask for leniency because.

Speaker 2 (24:27):
Of all of the good he's done for the community.

Speaker 3 (24:30):
And you know, my answer to that was everything that
that you did good was washed away when you decided
to steal from kids.

Speaker 2 (24:40):
And that's how I feel.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
So what's your path forward? Will you remain? Is it
your desire to remain in New Orleans.

Speaker 3 (24:47):
At I think that is so hard. It's almost like
grieving a death right. And I think that's what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
I'm grieving the death of my career in New Orleans.
And I have a son.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
He's a rising senior, so he has one year left
of high school and I've promised myself that when my
son is done, if nothing has changed in my professional
life here, I have to go because I can't continue
to love a city who just isn't loving me back.

(25:20):
And that's what's happening in my case. I love New Orleans.
I love, you know, being here. You know, I love
the air here, you know, I love the energy of
our people here. But there's a cloud of dysfunction and criminality,
and and it's almost mafia like that has it just

(25:45):
it just bogs you down and it weighs you down,
and you just have to, you know, put it on
a scale and weigh the pros and cons. And right
now there are more things pushing me to leave than
there are holding me here to state. And it's hard
for me to say that, but that's just the truth
of it. I'm grieving the loss of what I thought

(26:07):
my life's work was, which was to help revitalize my
city and my community and my children.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
You know.

Speaker 2 (26:15):
So that's that's hard.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
I hear you loud and clear, because you know, sometimes
the death of an idea of what your life would
look like it's harder than a physical death of sorts,
because you really do have to reimagine life in general.
And believe it or not, I know it sounds crazy,

(26:39):
but your story, your path, your journey is helping so
many Just this conversation right now is helping so many
people who too have to deal with the reality of
the death of an idea of what the life would
look like, their profession, their marriage, their children. You know.
And unfortunately, in your circumstances you have been victimized by

(27:06):
the same system that victimized the children to some extent,
or the gentlemen that they allowed to stay in place
and continue.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
I'm sure maybe.

Speaker 1 (27:18):
Once you get out of jail, he'll probably get some
support and get a job, you know. And here are
like you said, what I loved about this speech. You don't.
You have no idea. There's so many layers to unpack
because you talked about, you know, black men who are
supposed to be the exemplars the life of our children.

(27:40):
You talked about gingrification and the divide that it causes
the community. And then of course the correlation we all
know between education and crime.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yes, yes, because you know that's the quiet part.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Nobody wants you to say out loud, you know, because
if you're not familiar New Orleans is the only parish
in the entire United States that is one hundred percent charter.
So we don't have traditional public schools, and this parish,
your only choice is to attend a charter school. And
so when seventy two percent of your kids can't read
on grade level, more than fifty percent of the schools

(28:16):
are failing, and you have eleven, twelve, and thirteen year
old children picking up gus, You're not going to tell
me that the school system is not accountable for some
of that. You're not going to tell me that, right
because if our schools, I've not met many places where
there's a solid school system that is thriving and it's
churning out productive citizens and the murder rate is sky high.

(28:41):
I don't know an environment like that, you know, it
would be an oxymoron, like it was, like it just
does not go together.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Like I've not.

Speaker 3 (28:48):
Seen any place where they do schools well and they're
also besieged by crime, by youth violence. I've not seen
a place like that. And so for me, I always
want to tell the truth. It may not feel good
to us to hear it, but unless and until we
tell the.

Speaker 2 (29:06):
Truth, that we can't have real change, and we can't find.

Speaker 3 (29:09):
Real answers because we're fighting a full problem like it's fabricated,
because you're pretending that it's better than what it is.
And so we're not attacking the problem with the sort
of energy that it deserves because we're pretending that it's
better than what it is.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, and you even mentioned that how And we've seen
this happen in other urban settings. And like you said,
I too, as an educator, you know, have worked pretty
much in every capacity from pre K up to the
state education the state of education. It's not seen where

(29:50):
there is a thriving educational system and a high rate
of crime, right, It's usually the reverse, you know. Yeah,
And so there is a natural, a very natural correlation there.
But then there's something else you mentioned, which is the
elephant in the room and the whispers that teachers, principals

(30:12):
and people who work for state education agencies talk about
behind closed doors, and that is the people who benefit
from the king who from the broken system. Kind of
boils down to economics to some extent, and it's a
shame because it goes back to where you started with
how we're praying on to some and that we know

(30:34):
not everyone is doing this, but there are too many
of the bad apples that are praying on the demise
and failure of my children.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Yeah, And the thing about it is I did a
segment for the news that it's called Wounded City, and
I was on there with somebody from the mayor's office,
somebody from the police department, the council people, and I
was the only citizen, you know, representing the community voice
at the table. And they were talking about streets and

(31:06):
buildings and roads and all of this, and I sat
there and not the very first comment I said was
everybody want to talk about infrastructure, but the infrastructure that
is invaluable to this community is its people.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Nobody's talking about the people. You can have all the.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Roads you want, you can have the best buildings all
you want. If you do not take care of your people,
the buildings will collapse, the roads will will will will tumble,
because it takes leveraging people human capital to make cities thrive.
And you show people you don't care about them by
continuing to force seven five cent an hour on them,

(31:41):
forcing them at a server, to forcing them into low,
low wage paying jobs and degradated housing, and you know,
it's it's it's almost like insanity to sit here and
think that people don't know what they're doing wrong to
this community.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
You know what you're doing wrong, but you benefit from
doing wrong. That is why you contain to do wrong.
Because it's profitable. That's just the facts. The facts. That's
the facts. If it wasn't lucrative, they would do something different.

Speaker 3 (32:08):
But it's It makes a whole lot of money to
disservice children, to disservice communities, to pretend to fix a problem,
so that you can create a problem, so you could
create your solution to the problem that you created.

Speaker 2 (32:20):
It's money in it. It's money.

Speaker 3 (32:22):
You can hand out contracts to your friends, you know,
and you could get your kickback on the back end
from your friend from making sure.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
They get the contract right. You know.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
That's the reason why folks can move in our communities
and pretend to be affordable housing, and then when they
get the contract and they get the city block grant
funding for it, then they can say, oh, we changed
our minds. We want to, you know, make this into
some over expensive townhomes that the regular people can't afford.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
You know, that's what they do. They let these people
securities this land.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
They get this funding promising that they're going to do
right by the community, and then they could just change
their mind, you know, or let the people live there
for two or three years and then say okay, enough
of that, we're gonna raise your rent, and then you
push people out so that you can get the people
you actually built the buildings for to move in. That's
the game that they're playing on us in broad daylight,

(33:13):
right in front of our face.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I hear you loud and clear. I hear you loud
and clear. There's so much work. There's so much work
to be done. And I'm hoping that someone hears this
and will see you as part of the solution. Okay,
And speaking of which a Wyatt Solutions group, Yes, to me,

(33:35):
what services you provide? And also I want to know
how people can reach you because as a turnaround principle, right, yes,
that is that is extraordinary work. I was a specialist. Yes,
large urban school district. And it's also though to me

(33:59):
it will is the most valuable work to see people
come out of a failing status, to see them improving
their scores, to improve the culture of the climate, the
partnerships and family engagement. I mean, that's where the real
work is because if you do it right, I know
so one in fact who's a principal. When you do

(34:20):
it right, you see that school come out of the
depths of fail and.

Speaker 2 (34:28):
They begin to thrive.

Speaker 1 (34:29):
And then guess what, you can move on to another
sight failing school to do the same.

Speaker 3 (34:35):
Thing, which doctor Martin is why you know it's not magic, right,
it's not rocket science. People who are turned around specialists
understand that you see an issue and you put a
plan together to attack that issue.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
And that is how you turn the school around. Right.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
You don't turn it around pretending to do the work.
You have to actually do the work. That is how
I know without a shadow of a doubt. A lot
of this is performative not really doing school here, which
is why it's so evidently falling apart because you're not
providing services to our most vulnerable populations of children. This
city is still really from the trauma of Katrina and

(35:15):
then we were hit by Ida. You know, then we
have a murder issue. So it's trauma on top of
trauma on top of trauma, and none of it is addressed.
But yet you want people to go out and pretend
like everything is normal. It's not normal to go have
an issue and and and it's and it's manifesting itself
inside of you, and you can't talk about it. There's
nobody to listen to you, nobody values what you have

(35:38):
to say, and so you suppressity suppersity suppressed it and
then you pop and everybody's like, oh my god, what's
wrong with him? Well, that is years and years and
years of ignoring, push, being pushed to the side, being devalued,
being you know, and marginalized, and it.

Speaker 2 (35:56):
And it's showing itself. That's all that there is.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
Turnaround Principles are not doing magic. Turnaround principles are not
afraid to go into environments that are very challenging. Turn
Around Principles have skill sets to build leaders. So you
ask me what my organ my friend does we leverage
human capital. And so what I say by that is
I help do professional development for organizations, namely schools. I

(36:21):
do coaching for organizations namely schools. I teach strategies to
to novice teachers so that they can know how to
handle classrooms. Because there's only so much Harry Wong is
going to teach you about the first hundred days of
school and the textbooks. It's about It's about applying things
and not theorizing them.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Right.

Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yeah, it's a Classroom management is a theory to most people.
But when you know how to apply the theory that
you've learned, then that is when you are are successful
at that thing. But just holding the book in your
class and referencing it when you feel like something is wrong,
it's not going to teach you anything. If you want
to see what professional development or with classroom management looks like,

(37:02):
go shadow somebody that does it well right, or lets
somebody come into the room and shadow you and give
you pointers about how to do it well. The number
one thing that I tell all educators about classroom management
is a you cannot fear the children. They will smell it.
They will smell it. You have to command the room
such that it is yours. Every room I step in,
I command it such that it's mine. That's how I

(37:24):
operate right. Proximity control is the easiest thing. When you
see something happening in a classroom that you feel that
you don't want to happen, move closer to that thing,
because when you move closer to it, the children are less.

Speaker 2 (37:34):
Likely to do it right.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
You can't run a classroom from your desk because you
can't see everything. You know, so just walking around and
progress monitory and things.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
It's simple stuff. It's not rocket science.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
But if all you've ever done is you read progress
monitoring in a book and you never actually saw it,
looks like it's going to be very very hard to
be an effective educator fresh out of college or fresh
out of a different profession and thinking that you have
a handle on this, Because what I can tell you
after being in this profession for more than twenty years
is the children are different. They're very different. But different

(38:10):
doesn't have to be a negative thing. Different just means
we have to sharpen our knives right because what we learned.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Twenty years ago is not working right now.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
So we have to figure out what moves the children,
what motivates them, what gets their attention, and figure out
how to take that and put it into our classroom
so that learning is engaging, you know, we work set.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
Our children to that and then wonder why their.

Speaker 3 (38:32):
Reading scores are dropping, or are their engagement is dropping,
or their motivation is dropping because they're tired of saying
the same work sheet, just different words on the paper
every day.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
They're tired of it. When the kids can can almost
project what you're going to bring to them, then.

Speaker 3 (38:47):
School is longer fun, it's no longer engaging, it's no
longer a place where I want to be. And so
my organization coaches teachers, we coach school leaders, we.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Do professional developments. I do speaking engagements. I motive the staffs,
I motivate children.

Speaker 3 (39:02):
I do all of that, and then and then inside
of all of that, I still do a whole lot
of community work pro bono. You know, I show up
in my community every single day fighting to keep children
from killing kids, you know, from keeping kids from being killed.
And when they do get killed, I'm the voice you
hear at their balloon releases and at their funerals and
things of that nature.

Speaker 2 (39:23):
So I still do all of that, even with trying to.

Speaker 3 (39:28):
Manage my life after the implosion of losing my job
and even my firm is hard because a lot of
the things that I do are so intricately connected to schools,
and the schools don't really want me there, so they
don't really hire my firm. So I've been ghost higher before,
Like they'll hire a different firm, but that from a
contract with mine, so that the school system doesn't look

(39:50):
like they're contracting with me. I've been ghost hired before
because they don't want people to know that they're working
with me. So, I mean, it's it's very hard, but
a lot of my work it's advocacy and going into
schools with families who have been harmed by the school
or disserviced by the school, and they bring me in
as their advocate, and more likely than not, they come

(40:11):
out with a favorable outcome.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
M M.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
You know, as you were talking, a couple of things
came to mind. One the work of turnaround and your
company is what we call them, the military boots on
the ground, right doing the real work every day in classrooms,
coaching teachers, demonstrating coaching the principal. I know very well

(40:34):
what that work looks like, and it's the type of
ingredients to the recipe that actually moves the needle of progress.
Right he is, And so I'm hoping that others who
are listening, who know they need boots on the ground
when it comes to classroom management, when it comes to
getting these new teachers through the year who have been

(40:57):
thrown into the lines then who have no experience and
helping teachers inspire their principles.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
And so.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Those type of organizations are really partners and allies. And
I would say too, even for those in Louisiana, that
it seems to me that they would want to have
you as an ally. You know, I was watching the
news the other day, the World news, and how the
United States of America is soliciting Russian hackers, right, yeah,

(41:29):
and know how to do counter defense.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Yeah, So it.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Doesn't even make sense to have you villainized or portrayed
as an antagonist or on the opposite side of the
fence because you actually know and can identify problems before
they arise and help work as an ally as a solution,
as an a Y solutions group to the problem.

Speaker 2 (41:58):
Right well, doctor Martin. A lot of the times here.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
I've been told that I need to change, you know,
my approach or change the way I speak, and and
and I was even told that it's not always good
to be honest. Somebody told me that, and I just
was flabbergasted because I was just like, so, it's not

(42:25):
like you're saying what I'm saying is a lie. You're
not saying what I'm saying is wrong. You're not saying
that I'm not hitting a target with what I'm saying.
You just don't like the way I said it, and
you want me to not be as truthful in my
calling out of it. That's what I've been told is
my issue. They you know, they don't like that I

(42:48):
loudly say the quiet parts, and that's what I've been told.
I've even been told that if I want to work here,
I have to learn how to.

Speaker 2 (42:57):
Play the game.

Speaker 3 (42:59):
And I just respectfully disagree with that because I don't know,
you know, to your listeners.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
To be spiritual or whatnot.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
But I know who I am, and I know whose
I am, and I know he made me just the
way he made me for such a season as this one.
And if I masquerade and being someone else, I can't
be great at being me. I don't know how to
do anything but be doctor Orshan to Wiatt. I don't
know how to censor myself to make other people comfortable

(43:30):
when they're disservicing my children.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
I don't know how to do that. And I ask
God all the.

Speaker 3 (43:35):
Time, you know, to allder my steps and to show
me what it is that I'm not doing that it's
pleasing to him. And somehow every time a microphone comes
up in my face, God speaks through me. And so
that is my confirmation. Because I never know what I'm
going to say. I don't rehearse it, I don't think

(43:56):
about it. I allow the true truth to find its
way to the surface. That is how I live.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
And if that's the.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Wrong way, if that's keeping me from jobs, my only
answer to that would be those are not the jobs
that offered me. And that's just how I have to
look at it, because how do you get angry with
the truth. We can't fix a problem unless we're honest
about the problem.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
And just yeah, because I hear you loud and clear.
You know that old saying they used to say, you
can catch more.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Yeah, I've been sold that.

Speaker 1 (44:35):
Yeah, bes honey, than you can with vinegar. But there
is a time when you need a boxer and Ali.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
In your corner.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Because he wasn't quiet either.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Muhammad Ali was loud.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
He spoke truth, He went against the grain, he went
against the government based on his conviction. So, like you said,
there is a group, an organization, a community, schools, parents,
teachers who.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Needs writer on their side, you know.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
And here's the thing, if you do right by my kids,
maybe I will say it a little nicer, like I
don't know any people who go to war and they
and they decide I'm not gonna hit you that hard
or I'm not going to pull out that weapon. If
you declare war on my children, you don't get to
tell me how loudly to speak up against it. And
that's just how I feel about it. And I tell

(45:27):
people all the time as well. I love Malcolm and
I love Martin. Some situations call for Malcolm, some situations
call for Martin. And at the end of the day,
they were more like than they were different, because if
our goals aligned and we're working toward alligance, the way
you do it works for the people who do it
your way. The way I do it works for the

(45:47):
people who honor it the way I do it. And
there's room for everybody in this work, because everybody doesn't
like a soft spoken leader. Everybody didn't like allou aggressive
leader for lack of a turn. So there's there's somebody
for everybody in terms of who you decide to get behind.
But the only people that I ever care to affirm

(46:10):
me are the children of this community.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
I fight for them, and they're the.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
Only people whose opinions I actually take to heart. And
the children understand who I am, and they understand why
I fight the way that I do, because, like I
tell them, if the people were doing right by you,
then I would have to yell and scream and demand right.
But I've never uh justice the man's accountability right like.

(46:34):
And nobody's gonna, like just just give you the key
to their castle when they know it's built on a
whole bunch of lives. They're gonna they're gonna throw everything
that they can at you to keep you from discovering
that it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
And this school system is not all it is cracked
up to be.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
And that's the only thing that I care about dismantling
is the perpetuation that our schools are doing well and
they're not.

Speaker 2 (46:59):
Our kids can't read, they can't read.

Speaker 1 (47:03):
The irony of it is, and we definitely don't have
time to unpack this is that when we when we
hear parents who are not parents of color, yes, act
loudly and hate and go on the hill and do
everything else then they are helicopter parents are operating out

(47:24):
of concern for their children. But when it's parents of color,
often more than not, they are perpetuated as an inconvenient,
a nuisance, a problem.

Speaker 2 (47:37):
And you know it is you.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Know, it's just something that we really have to have
more conversations about about situations like this. I mean, even
in your case, your son is in the system. As
a parent, you are invested in its success, Okay, isn't
the need and desire for them to succeed is embedded.

Speaker 3 (48:02):
Yes, yes, And then and at the heart of our conversation,
and that the heart of a lot of the work
that I do is the realization that there's a whole
lot of anti blackness from black people because they don't deserve.
They don't they don't believe they deserve more than what
the system is giving them. And so any time you

(48:23):
push against the system and the system has given them
any any iota of anything, any crumb, they're going to
fight you because you're fighting a system that's feeding them crumbs,
because they value the crumb because they don't understand that
it came from a whole pie that they can't to see, right,
And so that's the hardest part of my job and

(48:46):
what I do for this community is fighting against black
people for the betterment of other black people.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
You know, because you're employed by that school.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
So you feel like, oh, you're not going to talk
about my school because it gives you a check. So
that's the reason why you're fighting so hard for it.
But do you realize that your school is an f
school that is graduating kids a year in and year
out that are not even on grade level, sending them
out into the world unprepared. You're not gonna talk about that,
but you're gonna fight me because that's the job that gives.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
You a check. And so that's what It's a lot
of anti blackness.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
It's a lot of I don't think that you deserve
to have all of that, even if they're benefiting from it, right,
even if if they're doing well in this community, they
don't think that you deserve an opportunity to do well
because they want to be the only black family inside
that gated community with all their white neighbors.

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Right.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
They want to be that token black family that pull
themselves up by their bootstraps. They don't want that chance
for everybody else. And it's very obvious when you hear
people say stuff like I paid my student loans.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Why would I want somebody to forgive student loans? What?
Because it helps the entire economy? Right, you should want
people to not have to go through the strife that
you went through. That's what you should want. That is
how we evolved.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
But no, we fight each other because the system teaches
us that, you know, we have to keep infighting. They
have to keep us in fighting, so we don't focus
on the real issue. And that's what a lot of
at the heart of a lot of the work that
I do is trying to educate people on what they're

(50:22):
entitled to. You know, you have rights. You know, you
don't have to live like this. You know, if it's
good for your family, why aren't they participating in it?

Speaker 2 (50:34):
But they're pushing it on you.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
You know, I tell people, don't feed me anything you
wouldn't eat, right, don't put it on my plate. If
you don't want it on yours. If it's not good
enough for your child, don't give it to mind. And
I think we could solve a lot of the world's
ills by using that as a thought. If it's not
good enough for your family, if you will fight against
it for your family, then why would you so willingly

(50:58):
sell that poison to my family?

Speaker 5 (51:00):
Right?

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1 (51:02):
Yeah, it's like a call. It's a national call for
a family meeting, right yeah.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Family.

Speaker 3 (51:08):
I call them community conversations, you know, about issues. I
always talk about this a community conversation. I'm not talking
about anybody else's community. I'm talking to mine, the one
that gave birth to me. You know, like, we got
to have honest conversations with each other so that we
can prepare ourselves to activate in this the broader scheme
of things. And we can't activate because we're not having

(51:30):
real conversations about what is in our best interest.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
You know.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
We definitely got to have a part too, because yeah,
we got part too.

Speaker 1 (51:39):
So I'm like, we just scratched the surface. We're not eating,
we're not even halfway through what we want to talk about.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
But before I let you go, I need two things
from you.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
One, I got to have a sneak preview from a
documentary I hear you're part of. And then I and
let people know how they can get in touch with
you if they like to give, donate there whatever. But
going from six figures to zero. Honey, that is hard.

Speaker 2 (52:08):
It's hard. It's hard. So the first thing is you
don't have to have a sneak peek, Doctor Cecilia.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
It's on Hulu. All five episodes are out on Hulu.
It's called Elger's America. It's a really really dope docuseries
that follows my high school at the car and their
football program, and we're using football as a vehicle to
tell a much broader, deeper story about everything that our
children have to face to overcome.

Speaker 2 (52:35):
And to thrive. You know, all of those.

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Isms that are in the world, and all of those roadblocks,
you know, like poverty and crime and you know, low paying.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
Jobs, all of the things we talked about on this call.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
You get to see them and their families navigate all
of this and then they still do extraordinary thing's on
a football field. And they are all in college now.
The kids that you're going to see in the documentary,
they're playing at a very high level in college.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
They're doing some wonderful things. So you don't need to
stick pick.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
You could just log on to so Hulu and watch
it and tell me what you think about it.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
It's called El Jis America. I am a consultant producer
on the docu series. Jackson Fager is our director Figure Films,
So shout out to Jackson Figer. He's our director, and
he had a wonderful eye for the type of story
he wanted to tell, and our children were vulnerable enough
to open up their lives to have their stories told.

Speaker 2 (53:31):
So I'm so extremely proud of the project, and you
can reach me very easily.

Speaker 3 (53:36):
I'm doctor Ashanta A s h o n t a
Yatt w y a t t across all social media
platforms Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, A y Solutions Group is a
website online. You can look me up there. And my
cash app is the only thing that I have. It's
a Chanta Wyatt a s h o n t A

(53:57):
w y a t T.

Speaker 2 (53:58):
It's my name.

Speaker 3 (53:59):
So if you care to donate to me in any way,
shape or form, you can do it there. And my
bank is Jefferson Financial. They're not everywhere though, which is
why I never give out my my banking information because
it's like a it's.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
Like a it's like a.

Speaker 3 (54:12):
It started off as being a union for teachers and
then it morphine, so a credit union for everybody and
so I've been a part of that bank for a
very long time.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
But yes, so I'm glad to.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
Have started this conversation with you, and I look forward
to to the next one because I know there will
be more.

Speaker 1 (54:29):
So there will be more, and so I have this correct.
It's elga Is America. Is that e L g A
am I saying.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
That it's l Jiers the neighborhood where I'm from. It's
a L G I E R S l Giers America.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
Okay, that's your accent that was in there. I love it.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
That was my.

Speaker 1 (54:49):
We're gonna have to meet in in in Louisiana with
the Begnets around.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Absolutely.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
But it's called El Jeers America and it's on Hulu
and there are five five episodes.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
They're all out right now.

Speaker 3 (55:02):
We we released on one episode at a time, but
because we're already past the last date of release, they're
all up already.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
So you can you can binge watch it and let
me know what you think.

Speaker 3 (55:13):
But shout out to Figure Films and and Scape and Hulu,
UH and ESPN and everybody that helped back this this
thing to get it out to the world. I'm very,
very proud.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Of it very as well.

Speaker 1 (55:26):
You should be listen.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
I know we gotta go. I know you have another appointment.

Speaker 1 (55:30):
Yes, I am so grateful to have started this conversation
with you. Like I said, like you said, there'll be
many more, many more. Please, I'm gonna post all this,
all this. The information would be on iHeart and Spotify,
Amazon Music, Audible, all the platforms, Google, Apple Podcasts, wherever

(55:53):
you get your your music from, and we will have
the information listed there for the Hulu series so we
can all binge watch it and get as we're gonna
have any cash out there, Come on, y'all show this sister.
Thank you so much, fighting a good fight for these children.
We gotta. We're gonna keep up with you and be

(56:14):
sending you out well wishes and until the next time.
Until the next time again, thank you again, thank.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
You so much for having me tell Tyler, I say, hi,
we've been texting, but going to me messaging, but I
don't don't I've never met me.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Yes, I'll tell her. I will tell her you said hello.
She's doing best life up in New York, in New
York and Baltimore and all that good stuff.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
So listen, I'll actually be in in the d m
V area.

Speaker 3 (56:40):
Next week, I have a juvenile justice conference that I'm
going to from Tuesday to Saturday, so you know, I'll
be on Massachusetts. Uh, I know one Massachusetts all right, Yeah,
so maybe I can maybe I can see Tyler.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yeah. Uh you may have a little paparazzi there when
you get there.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:00):
Yes, so, Teller, I say hello and thank you again
for having me and until next time, I look forward
to chatting with you.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:06):
Same here.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
All right, guys, thank you again for tuning in, and
it's always thank you for being a team player.