EPISODE 19 - SEASON THREE

JBMV Discussion w/ Gentry Richardson, President of the 100 Black Men of Las Vegas, Inc.  We discuss the upcoming "Real Men Vote" Event, October 3 @ the Pearson Center, North Las Vegas, NV, aimed at mobilizing Black men to exercise their voting rights.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:13):
I'm Joseph Simmons, the host and also author of the new book,
Just Buy My Vote, African-American Voting Rights and the Chicago Condition.
First of all, I'd like to welcome everyone to season three of the Just Buy My Vote podcast.
And I'm excited and honored to have with me today, Mr. Gentry Richardson.
Gentry is president of the 100 Black Men of Las Vegas Incorporated,

(00:36):
which I think that's a particularly cool title.
And then Gentry Richardson, welcome to the Just Buy My Vote podcast.
Thanks, Joseph. It's great to be with another brother from Chicago, so we can chop it up.
Absolutely. Absolutely. So
obviously, there's several things we could talk about in the time we have.
However, I'd like to start by asking you to address the JBMV avatar,

(00:59):
and I'll explain what I mean. In my writing of the book, Just Buy My Vote,
I found myself continually asking, what are the best sources of American history?
So please address the JBMV avatar, if you will.
He or she is a 20 to 30 year old male or female and interested in history,
but for whatever reason, was not a history major in school or maybe didn't attend college.

(01:22):
He or she is wondering, where do I start?
Gentry Richardson, what have you found to be your favorite or best sources?
Well wow there's a lot of sources i mean one one we really didn't get into which was Caste.
Which which to me is an
eye-opener and and helps everybody it helps us understand why we're here in

(01:46):
so many different ways uh uh so that's more from a non-fiction perspective but
i also like i also like a book called Standing at the Scratch Line was written
by Guy Johnson okay who's Who's Maya Angelou's son.
And it's an epic, it's really an epic novel that follows this brother starting from the war.

(02:13):
And I believe it was the World War II that goes all the way through his experiences,
his travels, and it coincides with Black history.
And it touches on things like Black Wall Street.
How and the establishing the culture,

(02:33):
establishing black business and the underestimation of us as black people and
how and how he approaches that in a really kind of like a Chicago straight, no chaser kind of way.
Okay so and at the while he's
going through all these things he's building his own

(02:53):
his own empire his own he's making
moves where he's building his own wealth and and doing
things as far as creating an empire for his family as
he's continually dealing with the challenges and some
of the challenges so that he encounters are also within
his own community with his own people okay and

(03:14):
and how he deals with that so it's like
you're not only dealing with the germans and dealing with it with italians
and dealing with white people from the south but you're dealing with your own
people and how he deals through those those different periods and and and really
overcomes those challenges so that's that's that's that's one that that i that

(03:37):
i read and pass on through the family.
And those are one of the two books that we require that our youth in our family
read. Nice. Name that title again.
It's called Standing at the Scratch Line by Guy Johnson.
Once you start reading it, you can't put it down. It's an incredible,
incredible, well-written book.

(03:59):
And like I said, he did two books, but when I read it, I enjoyed it.
And then later I did, I found that he was Maya Angelou's son.
Interesting. They wrote it, yeah.
You mentioned Caste, and give us a little bit more on that one.
Well, Caste explains, as we're going through the period that we're dealing with

(04:25):
today, to me, it explains the...
White DNA and the black DNA.
Okay. And it explains for me that when you look at how the cow from a,
from a, from a position of power,
and let's just say from a white position of power and positioning,

(04:48):
positioning black people in a caste type of system is, and now India has an
incredible caste system.
And when you look at Europe in general, they, they,
they proliferate caste systems when
they take over cultures when when the english
came in they put a caste system into India that still goes
today you know so everything is touched by

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a caste system when you look at the caste system that was established for as
far as black people are concerned it was that we would we are always to be considered
at the bottom of the caste right so when they They negotiated with the Indians
and they're saying, okay, when we're reservations,
land, property, literally they were like to me, okay, we can work this out as

(05:34):
long as you will keep black people at the bottom. Right.
So then when you look at the economies and all the things that's happening,
and even today, when you look at how is it possible?
That you have someone like a Kamala Harris and people are saying things like,
well, we don't know her. She doesn't have any experience.

(05:57):
You know what nationality is she really is.
You know, you hear these things like black jobs, you know,
all these things that's put out there that really perpetuates the whole caste system,
Which makes it disappointing to me that we have our own people that really don't
understand the whole thing about how that caste system is set up.

(06:19):
Even with Haiti, Haiti comes up.
But when you look at what happened with Haiti, which is like right across from
the Dominican Republic, right?
Right. So, you know, you look at one side, it was the French and the French
got conquered and they literally took millions of dollars from Haiti as far as a fee,

(06:41):
even though they lost the war, not to attack them anymore.
And you look at it and then they cut deals where that Haiti would always be
at the bottom of the cast economically.
Right. From a trade and every other type of perspective.
Perspective and then you look over the Dominican Republic and how
they flourish right and you say you look at and so
and then you have people that are on the same island where you have one group

(07:06):
of people looking down on another group of people and they really have the same
bloodline right but it's also but it's influenced by the whole caste system
structure and as I look at where we are
financially and wealth gaps,
it's incredible to me that we are, once again, we're at the bottom with the

(07:28):
Native Americans and from a wealth gap, the Hispanics are outperforming us.
The Asians is definitely going to outperform.
But then when you look at the school systems, you have Hispanics doing better in English than us.
How is that possible? You know, how how can they how can Hispanics possibly

(07:49):
be better in English than our kids?
So it's all part of a caste system. And then it becomes when I say DNA,
when you're dealing with teachers and folks of power in their DNA,
they expect us to be at the bottom.
So when you have a Kamala Harris, they can't believe that she that that she

(08:10):
has the knowledge, the skill sets, the ability that she had,
that she that she's able to portray because as black people,
we're not supposed to be able to do that.
So therefore comes the underestimation, which is what we're seeing right now.
Well, a lot of times underestimated is a good place to be.

(08:30):
Yeah, yeah. And that's like the other book I love is Spook Who Sat By The Door.
Which is another one about being underestimated. I love that one. Yeah.
And you know, that book is so powerful. The government took that and,
and Sam Greenlee, I literally spent time in Chicago with Sam Greenlee in a basement
talking about what happened to him.
And that book is so powerful as far as a blueprint, a blueprint of revolution. Yeah.

(08:59):
That the government snatched off the shelves and they literally told Sam Greenlee
that if he ever wrote another book, him and his family would disappear.
Yeah. Yeah. It definitely at one time was considered like a manual on how to
be a successful revolutionary.
Yeah. Yeah. So it was, so when you look at that, but that all started,

(09:20):
it all happened with their underestimated on an estimation of the main character
of the book right in every step which would like you're saying play to his advantage
right because he was able to accomplish and do a lot of things because of that,
yeah it was obviously a great novel legendary and based in Chicago right about

(09:44):
About the fictional first black CIA agent.
Right. Yeah, that was brought in. He was a diversity hire.
Sound familiar, huh? Right. And that's exactly what it was. He was a diversity hire. So, yeah.
Well, those are a couple of great sources. I mean, The Spook Who Sat By The

(10:04):
Door is an old paperback that's been on my bookshelf for a long time.
Right. Yeah, I keep I keep a few I keep at least three or four handy because
when I'm talking to brothers and I, you know, I give them the book and I and
I ask them to read the book, but then return it with a discussion.
But it's definitely for like, like I said, another one of the youth in our family

(10:29):
is it's a it's a must read because they they look at it as a this can't be real.
And I said, well, it's fiction, but if you look at some of the components within it, those were real.
Because if you look at it, we're only, what?
1960 this is the 50th anniversary well

(10:51):
we're in 2024, 60th anniversary of civil rights
act right right hasn't been that long
yeah it wasn't when you look at 60 years not that long so you think about that's
when we actually could vote 60 years ago right so in 60 years we got people
talking about they ain't voting with all the stuff that happened how do you

(11:13):
get with when And so after when we got the right to vote,
you best believe through the 60s and 70s, you were there.
Everybody was voting. Right. Right.
And it was like it was like it wasn't even a second thought.
You know that. I mean, that was part of our pride. That was black pride.
So now here we go.

(11:34):
60 years after having it and you get all these you get all these folks talk.
I always, you know, I ain't going to say all.
It's not a large percentage, but it's enough where you go.
It is disappointing because it shouldn't be anybody that's black or black heritage

(11:55):
saying they're not going to vote.
Absolutely. I mean, you know, I mean, you're giving up your power,
basically, if you refuse to vote.
So my philosophy on voting, quite frankly, is I don't spend any time trying
to convince people to vote for this person or that person or that party or this party.
My philosophy is, is the more people that vote, the better off we'll be.

(12:18):
You're absolutely right. A friend of mine said, let's stop wasting time on these
people talking about they're not going to vote and who they're not going to
vote for and why that does.
You know, if you get in an argument with a crazy person, somebody walks up to
you, they can't tell the difference of who's really the one that's crazy, right? Exactly.

(12:40):
So I'm with you on that. I'm not going to have those discussions.
What I want to have a discussion about is, yeah, whatever, just get out and vote.
Sure. Let's talk about mobilizing that. that now if
you can't if you can't get behind mobilizing
the vote and understand the importance of your

(13:01):
voice then why am i
even talking to you definitely not and you
and by the way if you if you had an invite to my my barbecue
is it has just been revoked so okay
so don't even come up don't i
you know i you can't even you can't even
have pleasure breaking bread with me, if you if you You don't respect our ancestors

(13:24):
in a way and understand how we were tortured and how we died and the sacrifices
that were made to do that and really understand it.
We're talking about your grandma being a black hero. Right.
You know, and let's not go into your great-grandfathers. I mean,

(13:48):
we just go at your grandmother being a black hero,
being willing to go out there and do that and go to the meetings and do the
things that it would take for us to be able to do what we're doing today.
And then you just go, well, no, I'm not interested.
It's amazing, isn't it? Yeah. But that's the problem.
I mean, yeah, I mean, that's that's the goal, I think, really,

(14:10):
in this work that we're doing is, is that convincing people to get registered and vote is the key.
You know, beyond that, we don't have to really talk. I mean,
you can kind of, you know, folks will have I will need more about our plans
and all this, that and the other.
That's fine. Great. Go ahead and do your research.
Main thing is, is are you registered and do you have a plan to vote.

(14:34):
And don't get caught up in the distraction. See, in the Bible,
it talks about the distraction of the enemy, who is a master of distraction.
So if you look at what's happening right now, it's all about that.

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You know, the the Haitian dogs, cats thing, that's a distraction.
Right. And so you think about if you really think about it, they're saying you say, oh, that's crazy.
And how he said it. Well, what they're doing is they don't have you don't have a plan.
And, you know, and people looking at you and say, well, wait a minute,
you really don't have a plan. Let me distract you over here. Right.

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So I don't have to answer the question. Exactly. And so and so I can take you off your path.
And there's been so many distractions put out
there that that that that because of where we are from a social from a media
perspective that they can do more and more of it that you have you have folks

(15:41):
getting caught up in these false in these distractions and these lies and these
false things to take you off path. Right.
That's that's what the enemy does. Absolutely.
Consistently. Consistently. Let's shift gears a little bit. OK.
How did the 100 Black Men organization get started originally?

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The 100 Black Men organization, it started over 50 years ago in New York City
with men like Jackie Robinson, Dave Dinkins.
It originated in New York where they saw that there was a need.

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I mean, you've heard the term, the talented 10th, where they said that there
was a need of bringing black men of different fields,
different backgrounds together to help our young black males,
to mentor to our youth, looking at our youth as the future, as our future,

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and understanding the challenges.
I mean, you know, the challenges that with law enforcement and the inequities
and the things that happen, these things aren't new today.
It's just that it's more accessible because now you can see it on TV,

(17:09):
you can get it on your laptops and everything else.
But we were still having that stuff, right? Even more so. So the 100 Black Men
started there as far as focusing on mentoring,
developing of a black man, development of our black young men,
bringing in law, bringing in corporate sponsorship.
And so when you look at it, you had you had some some more, once again,

(17:32):
black heroes that said, this is what we're going to this is we're going to do
this as far as helping our community.
And I admire them because if you look at what's happening today,
you know, an output of an election like this doesn't affect you or I.
Right. But we care about our people. We care about the future of our people.

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So therefore, when you look at somebody that really is going to affect that
doesn't want to pay any attention, you know, you don't get it.
But that's how it started. It just it just it just grew from there.
Now it's headquartered in Atlanta.
Where we're not we're at. We're at over 100 chapters, 100 Black Men.

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We're international. We have a chapter in London, Turks, Caicos.
We've got approached by other, other, set up other international chapters.
So when you look at where we are today, it's incredible.
And, and just let you, so our, our, one of our taglines is what you see is what they, what they'll be.
Okay. That was, that was, that was developed and gifted to us by Nike.

(18:41):
Okay. OK, so so when you look at so when you look at how we even have corporate
corporate, I call allies and partners that's involved in in this,
you can call it a movement.
You can call it a ministry that, you know, as far as being involved in this
and having an impact as far as protecting and being advocates for our youth.

(19:04):
Sounds good. What about the chapter here in Las Vegas?
Tell me how that one got started. Well, that's, we started, we just celebrated our 25th anniversary.
Congratulations. Thank you. That was started by Larry Mosley and a few others,
once again, some more black, other black heroes where Larry Mosley was involved in a 100 Black Men.

(19:26):
A couple of other chapters came in and started it.
And today we're still, we're carrying that baton. We haven't dropped it.
So we advocate for the youth, advocate for the community, and we position ourselves
to be a respected voice in the community.
And we're really doing a great job of it.

(19:50):
It's interesting that here in Las Vegas, and I think the 100 Black Men running,
other ones, chaps running, so when you look at when we just post something that
says, hey, we're going to mentor our Black youth, our parents come in and hear
about how we can help your kids.
And you literally see people like posting things like, well,
how are you going to do that while they're in prison?
Or, you know, just all you guys are, you know, just the things that they say.

(20:14):
And it was a time where it would make me angry,
but now what it does is it makes me understand even more the need for what we're doing,
because that's the way the way to shut those type of people up and make them
angry is to be to create successful people, successful like youth.

(20:37):
And we have Brown in it too,
but our focus is making, ensuring that young Black men and women that we're
providing scholarships and internships and resources and access for them to
be successful and bring that back in the community because that's what was done for me. Yeah.

(21:01):
I mean, as long as you're doing the good work, you're always going to have criticism, right?
In fact, probably that's usually an indication that you're doing good work.
Right. Yeah. If I'm not making a man, I'm not doing my job. Right. Exactly.
So you guys have an event, "Real Men Vote" event on October 3 at the Pearson

(21:21):
Center in North Las Vegas. Tell us a little bit about that.
Well, that came about from our national 100 Black Men national.
Identified battleground looks, battleground states, and said,
let's do a Real Men Vote program as far as to bring black men together.
And again, it's not talking about why you're not going to vote.

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We will talk about the importance of it, but then what we'll do is we'll talk
about how are we going to mobilize the vote.
And our goal is to get a hundred men in that room so we can talk about what
are we going to do to help mobilize the vote.
And by the way, let's talk about some of the sneaky things that's being done
to take your vote away and what you need to do to protect that gift,

(22:10):
that ability, your voice as far as voting is concerned.
So we want to we want to energize and mobilize our black men,
because believe it or not, we're still important in the community and we're still a key part.
And we are kings in our community. And you can give your crown up if you want to.

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But we're here to give it back to you because we are even our youth,
our mentees, we call them young kings.
So we are, and so don't, so we, we should, we should be taking the lead and helping.
Our community as far as mobilizing the vote and understanding the importance of the vote.
Well, I'm, I'm looking forward to participating in that. And I appreciate your

(22:56):
invitation. I appreciate that.
Yeah. I'll have to, wear my good suit.
Yeah. Well, just be there. We're just, just, just, just, just bring, bring your voice.
There you go. Okay. What you have on, just bring your voice.
Question for you. Have you, have you studied at all? any of the propositions that are here in Nevada?

(23:18):
Do you have any feelings? I guess specifically, let me get more pointed.
Do you have a feeling about the one that, Proposition 3, that has to do with
the ballot initiatives and the nonpartisan voting?
Yeah, you know, I'm hearing about that, and I'm hearing people,
you know, it's one of those things where you have people that are like really for it,

(23:41):
for 3, three as far as nonpartisan voting
and and and and those that are against it
i always but i haven't seen enough data on it yet okay um i i i don't believe
in making any decisions based on emotion or what somebody tells you right i
need to understand that if if if that if if that passes passes,

(24:04):
what does it do for my people?
You know, so, so what do we, you know, I mean, I believe in a two party system.
I believe that's very, I believe that's very important.
I, I, I believe with that, if it passes, you can, you can vote no matter if

(24:25):
you're Democrat or Republican, you can still, you know, you can still,
you can still go in, you know, you know, you don't get a Democrat ballot.
You get a ballot for everything. Right.
And so I don't, I just don't know what, what the benefit of it is.
And usually when things like that are thrown out and put out there,

(24:47):
I always look for where's the, where's, you know, where what's,
what's, what's the underlying factor?
What's the impact of it? Right, right, right, right.
So the good Good news is, is that my next guest is going to be Professor Sondra
Cosgrove from the College of Southern Nevada, and she'll come on and inform people
on all of the propositions.
The reality on that one, though, is, is that that actually is being practiced

(25:10):
all over the country, including here in Las Vegas.
For example, you know, the mayor's race in Las Vegas, no matter what party you
were, you got a chance to vote, you know, and it's most municipal elections
are like that. So it's interesting to see how that one will break down.
So let me add to this. Here's my thing with that.

(25:30):
Get rid of the Electoral College and it makes sense. Well, definitely that.
Yeah, definitely that. See, that's that's that's what I'm saying.
It's like because because all of that, the whole Electoral College was just to appease the South.
Right. Right. And so it's been a thorn for how long now?
And so if you know, if you get rid of Electoral College and you open it up like

(25:55):
that and it's popular vote, it makes sense.
Yeah, well, of course, the Electoral College has to do with the presidential.
This one on proposition will have to do specifically with our Nevada elections.
Right. Only. Right. Yeah. And it's actually, you know,
really something that would be valuable here just because of the way the population
is broken down when they stopped requiring selecting a party when you register to vote.

(26:21):
So now we're actually looking at
about a third of the population that are registered that are nonpartisan.
So I know quite a few people, but they still vote.
Well, they get their opportunity, but they're not able to vote in the primaries is the problem.
So, you know, in those elections. Yeah. So I'm not aware.

(26:41):
So you tell me if I'm nonpartisan. You can't vote in the primary because you're
not a member of either the Republican, which would vote in the Republican primary,
nor the Democrat, which would vote in the Democratic Party.
You're nonpartisan. So you're you're wait your turn.
Which is when you do the actual election. Exactly. Exactly.

(27:01):
Because then it doesn't matter. You get both when you do the actual. Exactly. Exactly.
I'm looking forward to I don't know I don't know what the advantage is for it.
I don't know if nonpartisans really I've talked to nonpartisans.
Then, like I said, some care, some don't. Yeah.

(27:22):
Let me encourage you to listen to the next podcast when I have when I have Cosgrove come on.
She's real good about explaining what's going on. And of course,
we also have one of the items that has to do with reproductive freedom.
So we got some important.
Yeah, we got some important stuff. Got a couple of quick questions before I get out of here.
One, what brought you to Las Vegas? I was an executive at a corporation and

(27:49):
I lived in Los Angeles doing really, being quite successful.
And they said, we need somebody to help here in Las Vegas and really get us
established and grow it out. And they said the dreaded word,
when you do that, you can write your own ticket.

(28:09):
Never. My people never go along with anything that says you can write your own
ticket because there's always going to be a lie.
They will never give you a ticket that you're going to write it yourself.
So anyway, so I took the bait and I brought my family out here.
And actually, my wife ended up flourishing business-wise, you know,

(28:35):
just with what she was doing.
And I would say better than what I was doing. So she started enjoying it more than me.
Nice. So, yeah. So it's been a good growth, a good experience.
And that's what brought us out to Las Vegas. When did you come here?
How was my day? 13 years ago

(28:58):
nice yeah 14 yeah going on
yeah 14 years ago so you've seen the growth take
place incredible we get when i came out you go any from from summerland to henderson
in 20 minutes 25 minutes right right so get to the airport in 10 so yeah you
know now it's something like that you

(29:20):
had no idea what it really was called traffic is starting to get commonplace.
And it's interesting because the growth is great.
It's really how what's going to be done to have the infrastructure to support it.
Right, right. Quick question for you, Gentry, with what time we have left.
What's one piece of advice you'd offer to your 20-year-old self?

(29:45):
I offer this to myself and I offer it to pretty much everybody, especially our youth.
And it's when you wake up in the morning, the good Lord gives you two things, a chance and a choice.
So when you open your eyes, thank God because God gave you another chance.
Amen. And also gave you a choice as far as what you're going to do with it that day. There you go.

(30:09):
Sounds like great words to me. You guys have a website where we can,
folks can find you on the web?
Yeah. Obviously, www.100blackmenlasvegas.org. Perfect.
Well, this has been a real pleasure for me, Gentry Richardson.
Thank you so much. And thank you for sharing with our listeners today.

(30:31):
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me, Brother Simmons. Pleasure. All right. Take care.
Well, well, we hope you enjoyed that episode of the Just Buy My Vote podcast.
We're looking forward to the next episodes. You can find the book at JustBuyMyVote.com
and feel free to follow us at

(30:53):
JustBuyMyVotePodcast.com for notification on upcoming podcasts and events.
We thank you for the privilege of your time. And until next time, Just Buy My Vote.