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Hey humans. How's it
going? Susan Ruth here.

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Thanks for listening to another
episode of Hey Human Podcast.

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This is episode 366,

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and I had a conversation
with Seir Shapiro.

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Seir is a writer and a poet,
and his company Gang Management,

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works with artists like Chief
Keef, also known as Sosa,

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little Nar Two, rare and More.

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He actually mentions a lot of
artists in this episode to check out.

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He's working on a book and a
screenplay titled White Sex,

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and he reads an incredible poem
that he wrote about conversations

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with his grandmother when
he was young and how that

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affected him.

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It's really stunning poem
and it's so beautiful.

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We talk about generational trauma,
oral histories, creativity, music,

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poetry, racism so much. It
was a great conversation.

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I could have talked to him forever.

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We really sort of went in a
bazillion different directions and

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I really enjoyed it. So I'm excited
for you to hear this episode.

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Check out hey human podcast.com for links.

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And to learn more about my guests and
the show, check out Susan ruth.com.

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To learn more about me and
my other artistic endeavors,

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follow Susan Ruth ism and hey,
human podcast on social media.

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Find my records on Spotify,
apple music, Amazon music.

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Wherever you get your music, you
can look for the most recent album.

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All I ever wanted was everything.

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Check out my Sex and Relationship
Show with sexologists in a

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healthcare practitioner, Mara Edelman,
it's on YouTube under Are We There yet?

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Podcast show rate review,
and subscribe to Hey,

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human podcast on iTunes or wherever you
get your podcasts. It's super helpful.

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I really appreciate it.

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It pushes the algorithms to the
places they're supposed to be,

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and it's just a nice thing to do. So
please do that. Thank you for listening.

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Be well, be kind, be love.

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And here we go. Seir Shapiro,

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welcome to Hey, human.

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Well, thank you. Thank thanks for.

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Being here. Yeah. And thank you, uh,
to Rachel Keis who introduced us.

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Yes, Rachel, that's my
home girl. Good people.

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Yeah, she's awesome. I love her. She's
great. She's been on the show too.

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Well, let's get into it.
Where are you right now?

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Right now I am in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

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I am sitting on the Mississippi
River in my car right now.

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Nice. I know Wisconsin.

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You do. I.

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I have people that lived in
Baraboo. They've passed, but yeah.

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Okay. Yeah, I think I've been
through bearable a couple times.

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Yeah, it's tiny.

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Yeah. Yeah. <laugh>. Yeah.

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It's real tiny. When I was a,
when I was a rambunctious youth,

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my parents threatened to send me to live
with my aunt and uncle in Be <laugh>.

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Oh boy. Oh.

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Anyway. Where are you from
originally? Where'd you grow up?

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Milwaukee, Wisconsin. That's where
I was born and raised long time ago.

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Back in the seventies,
medium-sized family.

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I got a brother and a sister and
my two parents, uh, mom and dad,

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they still married. I think
it's, uh, 57 years next month.

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Yeah. I was the youngest
of three. There's,

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there's advantages that come with being
the youngest and I took advantage of all

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of those advantages. <laugh>.

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Yeah. Did you, uh, sneak past
all of the, the parental stuff?

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I feel as the youngest child myself,

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I feel like by the time the youngest
comes along, the parents are so exhausted.

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They just sort of let you
do whatever you do <laugh>.

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That's exactly what happened. And, and
it was a situation where older brother,

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my older siblings, my brother and
sister, they weren't necessarily, well,

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my sister was bad, but like, they weren't
necessarily bad kids. My sister was,

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but they weren't really
bad, bad. So it sort of,

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like you said, they wore 'em in.
They broke 'em in and, you know, I,

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I didn't have too much to deal with. By
the time it was my time to come along,

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it was like a seven year
difference between me and
my oldest brother. So, yeah,

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by the time I came along, it
was, it was pretty smooth.

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Were you planned? I was
not. I was accidental.

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And I'm seven years younger
than my brother too.

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I believe. You know what, I was
the only one that was planned.

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Yeah. And I get that
story a lot. Cause uh,

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what happened was my mother
didn't want to have anymore.

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And my grandfather, her
father-in-law, my dad's dad,

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he wanted her to have one more.
He said, please have one more.

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Have me a grandson. And, and
that's exactly what she did. And,

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and that, that was, uh, that was, that
was the actual planning. But she said,

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I don't want no more kids. I got a
boy, I got a girl. I'm fine with that.

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And he said, no, we need one
more. Gimme a, gimme a grandson.

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And ironically enough,

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he died on the way to the hospital
to see me the day I was born.

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Oh no. How did he pass?

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He had a heart attack.

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Oh my God. What's his name? So I was,
what's his name? I like to honor the,

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the people that have passed
by saying their names.

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Cool. Cause she named me after him.
His name is my Christian born name.

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His name is Flowers
Nash. I was born with my,

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I was born named after
him. And my dad, his son.

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So my full name on my birth
certificate was at one point in time,

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Royce Riddell Flowers Nash second.

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That's a great name.

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Thank you.

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That's an author's name. <laugh>,
doesn't it like an author's name?

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Well, thank you.

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Well, here's to Flowers Nash.

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That is so nice. Thank you. I was
born on the 27th, so this in 70.

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I just turned 50 a month ago.

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Happy birthday and.

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Thank you. And, uh,

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I was born on the 27th of
April. And that was on a Friday,

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Friday night at 7:11 PM And

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he had talked my mom through the whole
pregnancy because she didn't want to have

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a kid. She did have it cuz
he wanted one more grandkid.

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I'm sure my dad wanted another kid too.

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This was before you knew
what sexist the kid could,

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you didn't know what sex the kid
was gonna be. Right. So my mom,

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how do you know it's gonna be a boy?
Oh, I know it's gonna be a boy. He's,

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you're gonna have a boy <laugh>.
And she said, um, like he, he,

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they were really close. Like
he showed my mom how to drive.

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He owned a grocery store. So she
would, when she was pregnant,

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come to the store and sit with them
all day and help out at the store.

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He showed her how to cook a little bit,

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some different dishes and
things like that. She said,

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are you gonna babysit if I have this?
If I have a baby, gonna baby, yeah.

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I'll babysit for you, <laugh>. Are
you gonna change diapers? Yeah,

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I change diapers. I'll do
it all. I'll do it all.

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So I'm born Friday night

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and the visiting hours was over with.

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So he couldn't come see
me the day I was born.

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So he was talking to her that night on
the phone. What does he look like? Uh,

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uh, does he have any hair on his head?
How much do we weigh all these questions?

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Alright, tell Roy, my father,
I'll be out to see him tomorrow.

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Tell Roy to come get me in the
morning. I'm taking my shower and I,

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and I wanna come have him come pick me up.

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I'll be out to see my grandson
tomorrow. So my mom, okay,

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click hang up the phone. Next
morning, Saturday morning,

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he's on the phone with her. How's the
grand baby doing? Blah, blah, blah.

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They're going back and forth.
Okay, tell Roy I'm ready.

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So my mother gets off the phone, tell
my dad, your dad said Come pick him up.

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He's ready. Said my dad
leaves the hospital.

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My grandparents didn't live a
mile away from the hospital.

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And when my father pulled up, the
ambulance was already outside.

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And my father said he got out the car
and his brother was standing outside.

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And he said, what's going on? His
brother said, daddy died. So he,

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I guess my grandfather had went out to
the garage to get something out of his

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car. Had a heart attack right there
in the doorway. Ambulance came,

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picked him up, took him to the hospital.

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He was in the same hospital that I was in,

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except for he was
downstairs in the morgue.

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I was upstairs where the babies were.
So that's how I came into the world.

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And, and then, you know, ever since
I was little, that's what my, my,

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my aunts like my father's
sisters and, you know,

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his side of the family would always
say, we got you in exchange for daddy.

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We got you in exchange for daddy. So.

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Kind a heavy thing to say to a kid
like you were the exchange for the,

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the patriarch. How did that tell.

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It?

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How did that affect you
through your life? Did,

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was that something that was always
sitting on your shoulders as an honorific?

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Or did it feel more like a burden?

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Uh, it felt more like an honor.

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Cause my grandparents migrated from
Mississippi in the, you know, they,

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they were born in the twenties and
the teens, my grandparents were,

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my grandfather was born 1913,

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and my grandmother was born
1924, I believe it was.

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So they migrated, you know,

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from basically hell on
earth. Extreme, extreme,

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extreme, you know,

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racism and discrimination and
all that type of shit going on in

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Mississippi. You know, they migrated in

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46, I believe, 19 46, 47.

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And they went up north to
Wisconsin. You know, there,

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there was a big misconception
back then that, you know, if you,

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if you're black, if you leave the
south and you make it up north,

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there's some sense of more freedom
or justice or whatever the case

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may be. And I guess that
was because, you know,

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you went from not being on a farm
literally so close to what slavery was

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as a sharecropper in the field.

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You went from that to actually being
able to get a factory job or a job in a

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hotel or a job on the railroad line.

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So I guess there was psychologically a
little bit more dignity to the, to the,

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the positions that were offered
up north. But at the same time,

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the racism was just as strong,
if not stronger, up north,

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you know, and there, because the
difference is, you know, up north, it,

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it goes underground. It's,
you know, down south,

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they're gonna call you
how they feel about you.

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We don't like niggers around here. You
know, they gonna say that down south,

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up north. They're not gonna say it.
They're just gonna treat you like it.

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So it can be, you don't, you don't
really know who your friend is up north.

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You know, the lines aren't
drawn as clear. So I said,

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don't have to say my grandfather
and grandmother, when they,

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when they migrated the mass
migration and they came up north,

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they did pretty well for
themselves when they got up north.

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Very entrepreneurial. And this is
why I took the name as an honor,

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because he was very entrepreneurial.
When they reached Milwaukee,

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they bought a home.

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They immediately opened up a boarding
room for other people who were coming from

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the south up north. And they leased
out rooms in their boarding room.

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That boarding room, uh, expanded
into them starting a church.

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And especially back in those days,
churches were the staple, you know,

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of the black community.

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So that instantly put my
grandmother and grandfather,

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mainly my grandmother.
Cause my grandfather wasn't
really a church man, but it,

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it put them in a position of leadership
within the black community in Milwaukee.

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And, um, and then in the early
sixties, he opened up a grocery store.

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So he was one of the first black men who
ran a business in Milwaukee. And then,

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and then that led into him and the rest
of his kids, like my aunts and uncles,

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you know, everyone got into real estate
and they did fairly well for themselves.

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So, and he had nine kids, you know
what I'm saying? So, you know,

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between the church and the,
and the renting house rooms
out, the boarding room,

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housing situation, and the, and
the, uh, business that they ran,

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it felt like an honor, you know?
And, and it, it felt like large,

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like the stories that I heard
about him was, he was a man's man.

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Meaning he was a proud black
man. He was proud to be married,

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proud to take care of his family, proud
to provide, proud to be an entrepreneur,

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you know, and not have to work
for anyone. So it was an honor.

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And creating generational wealth,

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which is something that
historically in America,

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whites have taken from black communities.

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They've disrupted the generational
wealth. For my listeners,

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that's a real important thing to
note that in black communities,

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that we're building generational
wealth, especially after the war,

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00:13:02,740 --> 00:13:06,740
especially from the, after the Civil
War, but after the World War ii,

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that then having government
come in and steal land or,

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00:13:12,960 --> 00:13:17,420
uh, not renting out homes or
selling homes to black people,

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00:13:17,530 --> 00:13:20,180
redlining, destroying their property,

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00:13:20,490 --> 00:13:25,380
setting things on fire, drowning
out towns and communities.

221
00:13:25,620 --> 00:13:29,700
I mean, the, the history is
deep for that. So I just,

222
00:13:29,820 --> 00:13:33,100
I want that to be really clear
for anyone listening that,

223
00:13:33,290 --> 00:13:37,500
that it's so important to note that.

224
00:13:38,690 --> 00:13:40,820
Yeah. And, and just to
add on to what you said,

225
00:13:40,960 --> 00:13:45,860
one of the things that was done
simultaneously around the country to black

226
00:13:45,860 --> 00:13:48,140
communities was during the sixties

227
00:13:49,650 --> 00:13:53,700
when we decided as a country to, uh,

228
00:13:54,010 --> 00:13:56,620
improve our, our
transportation infrastructure.

229
00:13:58,090 --> 00:14:01,790
And we decided to build more highways
and freeways and things like that. Well,

230
00:14:03,770 --> 00:14:06,640
if you look around the
country, and I'll, I'll,

231
00:14:06,640 --> 00:14:08,000
I'll use Milwaukee as an example,

232
00:14:08,020 --> 00:14:09,840
but this happened in different
places in the country.

233
00:14:10,600 --> 00:14:13,400
Wherever there was a large concentration
of black neighborhoods or black

234
00:14:13,400 --> 00:14:16,640
communities, those freeways went
right through those communities.

235
00:14:18,590 --> 00:14:20,290
And I know in Milwaukee personally,

236
00:14:20,320 --> 00:14:23,490
that disrupted some 8,000
homes and businesses,

237
00:14:25,070 --> 00:14:29,890
people who lost their homes or
their business to what real estate

238
00:14:29,890 --> 00:14:34,850
caused imminent domain, you
know? And that, you know, again,

239
00:14:34,950 --> 00:14:38,490
was, was something that
really disrupted, uh,

240
00:14:39,030 --> 00:14:43,980
our ability to try to build some
type of economic infrastructure

241
00:14:43,980 --> 00:14:45,180
within the black community.

242
00:14:46,210 --> 00:14:51,140
Yeah. And imminent domain was responsible
for stealing things like waterfront

243
00:14:51,140 --> 00:14:54,420
properties, which of course,
today would be so valuable.

244
00:14:55,090 --> 00:14:55,923
Exactly.

245
00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:01,420
I'm trying to wrap my head around
the idea of coming from, uh,

246
00:15:01,520 --> 00:15:06,380
the south and going to
the northern region of

247
00:15:06,490 --> 00:15:09,780
Wisconsin, which feels pretty white.

248
00:15:10,970 --> 00:15:15,820
That had to have been daunting
to try and navigate that in

249
00:15:15,820 --> 00:15:18,020
general, because coming from the South,

250
00:15:18,030 --> 00:15:19,980
where I think probably community speaking,

251
00:15:20,800 --> 00:15:24,380
the communities of black families
and, you know, outreached further,

252
00:15:24,850 --> 00:15:29,380
then you go to Wisconsin and suddenly
those communities haven't been built yet.

253
00:15:30,230 --> 00:15:34,740
Right. Definitely outside of
the north side of Milwaukee,

254
00:15:34,790 --> 00:15:39,060
there really isn't any black
communities in Wisconsin, you know,

255
00:15:39,060 --> 00:15:42,180
especially back then. I mean, now
you can go to, you know, Madison,

256
00:15:42,560 --> 00:15:44,780
you'll find a small black community,

257
00:15:45,270 --> 00:15:49,700
maybe Green Bay lacrosse where I'm
at, where I'm at. But it's very,

258
00:15:49,730 --> 00:15:51,740
it's still very, very small. You know?

259
00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:56,740
Did your family keep the
stories alive within your

260
00:15:56,740 --> 00:16:00,500
family? Like for example, I've
interviewed my parents right,

261
00:16:00,630 --> 00:16:05,420
about their histories because they've
lived their own lives separate

262
00:16:05,420 --> 00:16:07,260
from me as mom and dad. Right?

263
00:16:07,370 --> 00:16:11,300
Like your parents have their own
histories and their own memories.

264
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:16,500
And I know there's the poem that you
wrote speaks of generational pain

265
00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:18,740
and did, did,

266
00:16:19,080 --> 00:16:24,060
I'm curious to know if your
family was open about that or if

267
00:16:24,140 --> 00:16:27,180
it was a family that kept sort of
that stuff quiet to protect the kids.

268
00:16:27,480 --> 00:16:29,260
The new generations coming.

269
00:16:30,490 --> 00:16:34,820
Well, you know, I'm, I'm, to answer
your question, that shit was kept quiet.

270
00:16:35,170 --> 00:16:39,260
Like, you know, I'm, I'm a history
buff. I like my, my degree.

271
00:16:39,500 --> 00:16:44,180
I graduated in 96 from a school
in lacrosse called Ver Turbo

272
00:16:44,180 --> 00:16:48,420
Private College. Very small, but I
loved, they had a great experience there.

273
00:16:49,060 --> 00:16:50,940
I like history. My degree is in sociology.

274
00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:55,790
So I like knowing how societies
became the way they are, how,

275
00:16:56,010 --> 00:16:59,390
how the different interactions
and relationships between groups.

276
00:16:59,730 --> 00:17:03,950
How did it get that that way?
I love that type of research.

277
00:17:05,110 --> 00:17:09,890
You know, when it comes to a lot
of what happened in most black

278
00:17:10,410 --> 00:17:15,330
families that I know of, you know, it's
so much trauma and so much dysfunction.

279
00:17:16,130 --> 00:17:20,140
It's especially my age group, it's,
it's, it's so crazy how the younger,

280
00:17:20,250 --> 00:17:22,900
like I got kids now and you know,

281
00:17:22,980 --> 00:17:27,540
I gotta tell my kids
history because mainstream

282
00:17:27,690 --> 00:17:31,740
society is whitewashing history
and they're erasing history.

283
00:17:32,830 --> 00:17:37,490
And our kids don't even know, you
know, the struggles we went through,

284
00:17:38,270 --> 00:17:41,530
the fights we had, the fight,
the losses we've taken,

285
00:17:41,590 --> 00:17:44,770
the lives that's been taken from us,
the leaders that's been taken from us.

286
00:17:45,490 --> 00:17:49,570
A lot of our leaders have been reduced
to slogans and, and, you know, know the,

287
00:17:49,710 --> 00:17:51,970
our own people have, and
what I mean our own people,

288
00:17:51,980 --> 00:17:54,010
black people as well as Americans,

289
00:17:54,150 --> 00:17:57,770
but black people in particular
have no idea of their history.

290
00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:03,580
So I was always big on that. So
I would always ask questions,

291
00:18:04,520 --> 00:18:08,900
and I would always ask my mother
and my grandmother, you know,

292
00:18:09,270 --> 00:18:13,500
about, you know, where's your father
from? Who was his father? Was they slaves?

293
00:18:13,600 --> 00:18:16,940
Who owned them? You know, how,
how many kids did they have?

294
00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:20,500
Did they get married? You know, just,
or how many times did they get married?

295
00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:25,560
And it'd be so much, it'd be so
much, like I said, dysfunction,

296
00:18:26,090 --> 00:18:30,230
abuse, poverty, hard times

297
00:18:31,870 --> 00:18:35,960
that a lot of times they don't wanna
relive it, you know what I'm saying?

298
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:40,880
They don't even wanna talk
about it. You know, so you,

299
00:18:40,900 --> 00:18:43,840
you have to probe and ask
different aunts and uncles and,

300
00:18:44,220 --> 00:18:46,600
and you might get half a story. Like,

301
00:18:46,640 --> 00:18:50,880
I just found out a month ago
that we, I got a uncle who,

302
00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:55,520
a great uncle who they
had to smuggle outta, uh,

303
00:18:55,800 --> 00:19:00,790
Missouri because he shot
and killed a white man for

304
00:19:00,790 --> 00:19:04,550
disrespecting his wife. I
had no idea about that. His,

305
00:19:04,610 --> 00:19:07,150
his last name is Mccr,
that's on my mom's side.

306
00:19:07,320 --> 00:19:11,230
She's a Johnson and a Macquarie
and yeah. So, you know,

307
00:19:11,350 --> 00:19:15,350
a lot of that shit they don't talk
about, cuz they never talked about it,

308
00:19:15,350 --> 00:19:19,460
even from back then. Like, if we gotta
smuggle and get Susan out of town,

309
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:20,860
we not telling the kids about it.

310
00:19:20,860 --> 00:19:24,020
We not telling our friends why we just
smuggling and getting her to fuck out of

311
00:19:24,020 --> 00:19:27,340
town. Cuz if they find Susan, they
gonna hang her and they gonna kill her.

312
00:19:27,960 --> 00:19:31,620
So the conversation is dead
from that moment, you know?

313
00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,260
And then you have those few great aunts
and uncles who were the, you know,

314
00:19:35,260 --> 00:19:36,940
the outcast, or not the outcasts,

315
00:19:36,940 --> 00:19:39,060
but just the wild cards in the
family that don't give a fuck.

316
00:19:39,240 --> 00:19:40,500
And they gonna tell you everything.

317
00:19:40,570 --> 00:19:42,260
They gonna tell you
everything they know at least.

318
00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:47,300
So those are the ones I tried to latch
onto and get my good information from as

319
00:19:47,300 --> 00:19:48,133
much as possible.

320
00:19:49,450 --> 00:19:53,500
This is my big frustration when
I hear the rhetoric that says,

321
00:19:54,120 --> 00:19:58,740
can we just keep the history in
the past and let sleeping bones

322
00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:00,313
lie?

323
00:20:00,920 --> 00:20:05,860
And I think there's such a danger in
that because by forgetting where we

324
00:20:05,860 --> 00:20:07,420
come from, there's, you know,

325
00:20:07,420 --> 00:20:12,380
that clear and obvious saying
we're doomed to repeat the past.

326
00:20:13,320 --> 00:20:17,660
But also I think it's such
a disrespect to our history.

327
00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:23,940
You're so on point. I mean,
it's amazing what you just said.

328
00:20:24,140 --> 00:20:27,100
I just got into like
this fucking emotional,

329
00:20:27,340 --> 00:20:29,860
I hate that I reacted
instead of responded,

330
00:20:31,110 --> 00:20:36,010
but I just reacted. And
here's another thing.

331
00:20:36,030 --> 00:20:37,650
And society as a black man,

332
00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:41,170
they're gonna label you
as angry immediately.

333
00:20:42,720 --> 00:20:47,220
We can't be frustrated, we can't
be fed up, we can't be exhausted,

334
00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:51,180
we can't be at our wits
ends. We're always angry.

335
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:54,220
And I, I,

336
00:20:54,420 --> 00:20:59,300
I was frustrated in my response
to someone the other day that

337
00:20:59,930 --> 00:21:04,090
basically tried as they're
trying to do what you just said,

338
00:21:04,090 --> 00:21:09,050
they're trying to erase history as
though it does it, it doesn't matter.

339
00:21:10,830 --> 00:21:13,170
But at the same time,
they were speaking and,

340
00:21:13,170 --> 00:21:16,290
and this is crazy cause it was a
screenwriter, this is a, he's a,

341
00:21:16,370 --> 00:21:18,730
a fairly successful screenwriter
that I'm working with.

342
00:21:19,680 --> 00:21:23,180
And we were talking about a project, a
series that I'm working on that's really,

343
00:21:23,570 --> 00:21:26,690
it's, it's really good. And I'm telling,

344
00:21:26,870 --> 00:21:31,330
and it's a series based on my life
and I'm telling him my experience.

345
00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:32,233
He's white,

346
00:21:33,110 --> 00:21:37,640
I'm telling him my experience and
he's debating me on my experience.

347
00:21:38,760 --> 00:21:39,593
Unbelievable.

348
00:21:40,520 --> 00:21:44,090
Yeah. I'm sorry. That's
quite unfortunate. I mean,

349
00:21:44,090 --> 00:21:48,250
it's a weapon for some and for
others it's just like, man,

350
00:21:48,250 --> 00:21:52,970
just take a second. You're not a bad
person. You're not a hateful person.

351
00:21:53,240 --> 00:21:57,530
Breathe the air of someone else
for just two seconds and see

352
00:21:58,680 --> 00:21:59,650
what that would feel like.

353
00:22:00,630 --> 00:22:02,090
The new thing, Susan,

354
00:22:02,320 --> 00:22:06,570
that I've been running into in
these discussions with white people,

355
00:22:06,750 --> 00:22:10,610
and this is what actually prompted me
to start working on a project I've been

356
00:22:10,610 --> 00:22:15,330
working on. The thing that I've been
running to is there's this, this new,

357
00:22:16,080 --> 00:22:17,770
over the last 15 to 20 years,

358
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:22,770
this new voice emerging from white people.

359
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:26,200
I don't even know what your
name, it's like a group.

360
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:27,480
I don't know what the name of the group,

361
00:22:27,700 --> 00:22:31,000
but it's this voice that's
emerging that's saying,

362
00:22:33,580 --> 00:22:37,240
Hey, get over it. We were oppressed too.

363
00:22:39,360 --> 00:22:43,500
And they go into these examples of how

364
00:22:44,170 --> 00:22:48,540
well my parents or my great
grandparents, or we didn't own slaves or,

365
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:53,420
you know, we weren't rich and we had
to work hard. And you know, they, it's,

366
00:22:53,420 --> 00:22:56,260
it's, it's this whole
narrative even as far as, um,

367
00:22:58,270 --> 00:23:01,010
one guy says, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm Irish,

368
00:23:01,430 --> 00:23:03,770
I'm half Irish and I'm half Jewish.

369
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:10,900
And the Irish were, the Irish were
oppressed, and the Irish were slaves also.

370
00:23:11,440 --> 00:23:13,340
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
And, you know, he's,

371
00:23:13,340 --> 00:23:16,300
he's going through this whole
line of reasoning and he's,

372
00:23:16,330 --> 00:23:21,060
he's saying all this to say, and then
he goes on to say, you know, with,

373
00:23:21,130 --> 00:23:25,850
with black people, I believe
there's just a lot of self-loathing

374
00:23:27,470 --> 00:23:31,810
and black people are inherently violent.

375
00:23:32,110 --> 00:23:36,490
Was the word that he used.
Exactly. Inherently violent,

376
00:23:36,690 --> 00:23:40,610
A lot of self-loathing. And basically,

377
00:23:43,740 --> 00:23:47,900
you know, quit, quit making
these excuses for your condition.

378
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:50,620
And yeah, I know the government,

379
00:23:50,880 --> 00:23:54,980
he says over the last 30 or 40
years was his, his time range.

380
00:23:55,560 --> 00:23:58,140
The government has used race to,

381
00:23:58,160 --> 00:24:01,860
and black people and race to
fracture society as a whole.

382
00:24:02,710 --> 00:24:06,000
Like they just picked black people
over the last 30 years, 40 years,

383
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:10,280
we're gonna use them and use race and
we're gonna subject black people to all of

384
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,400
this stuff. But at the same time now,

385
00:24:14,270 --> 00:24:17,400
it's like a self-perpetuating thing
and black people are just doing it to

386
00:24:17,400 --> 00:24:21,800
themselves. So there's
this emerging voice,

387
00:24:24,790 --> 00:24:27,260
voice that is speaking like, Hey,

388
00:24:28,860 --> 00:24:33,700
what happened to y'all? That
shit is old. Get over that shit.

389
00:24:34,890 --> 00:24:38,330
Everyone's been oppressed before. You're
not the only ones who've been slaves.

390
00:24:39,460 --> 00:24:44,030
It's very dismissive. And it, it, it
gets frustrating. And I'm working on,

391
00:24:44,300 --> 00:24:48,830
because these are things I
have to combat daily, you know,

392
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:52,830
especially in the line of work that
I'm in. Like, I just have to combat

393
00:24:54,800 --> 00:24:58,340
people from outside of our culture trying
to speak for our culture. And you're,

394
00:24:58,340 --> 00:25:01,740
you're mis you're, you're misrepresenting
how we think, how we feel.

395
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:06,540
You're trying to brain paint us with
a broad ass paintbrush and we're all

396
00:25:06,820 --> 00:25:11,000
criminals and we're all this
and we're all that. You know?

397
00:25:11,260 --> 00:25:15,910
And it gets, it gets frustrating. I mean,

398
00:25:15,910 --> 00:25:20,570
he went as far as calling me because
when he said all these things I said,

399
00:25:22,400 --> 00:25:24,820
you will call black
people inherently violent.

400
00:25:26,780 --> 00:25:28,760
But if you study the history of Europe,

401
00:25:29,910 --> 00:25:32,250
and if you study how
this country was founded,

402
00:25:34,900 --> 00:25:39,240
it was founded on violence. It was,

403
00:25:39,380 --> 00:25:40,800
it was founded on murder.

404
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:42,680
Absolute genocide really.

405
00:25:43,460 --> 00:25:48,400
And, and if you look at the treatment
in the, in the history of this country,

406
00:25:48,620 --> 00:25:49,600
if you look at, okay,

407
00:25:49,980 --> 00:25:52,960
how have black people treated white
people and how have white people treated

408
00:25:52,970 --> 00:25:53,803
black people?

409
00:25:55,280 --> 00:26:00,150
Where can you find footage or
books written or history showing or

410
00:26:00,310 --> 00:26:05,200
whatever us lynching white
people attacking white people

411
00:26:05,200 --> 00:26:08,720
with dogs, um, coming to their house with,

412
00:26:08,750 --> 00:26:12,840
with mobs and dragging by their
houses and killing them. Where, where,

413
00:26:12,850 --> 00:26:16,590
where do you see, you can't
find a history of that. So

414
00:26:18,160 --> 00:26:21,970
when you jump to the conclusion that
black people are inherently violent

415
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:26,770
because you see how we treat
each other in our communities,

416
00:26:27,400 --> 00:26:29,170
this is why he jumps to this conclusion,

417
00:26:29,870 --> 00:26:34,410
you overlook and you
bypass all of the social

418
00:26:34,810 --> 00:26:39,130
engineering and conditioning that went
into why our behavior is the way it ends.

419
00:26:39,590 --> 00:26:44,200
You were speaking on her earlier,
you overlooking the redlining. Okay,

420
00:26:44,420 --> 00:26:49,200
you're overlooking the discrimination,
healthcare, education, uh,

421
00:26:49,350 --> 00:26:54,000
jobs you're overlooking the intentional
destruction of the black family with the

422
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:56,560
welfare system, removing the
black man out of the home.

423
00:26:56,820 --> 00:26:58,360
The welfare system was first created,

424
00:26:58,380 --> 00:27:00,840
it was created for white women
and there was no shame in it.

425
00:27:01,180 --> 00:27:04,720
It was for white women who lost their
husbands in World War ii and they got

426
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:06,920
these big ass farms and they
don't know what to do with it.

427
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:11,240
And the government subsidized the land
and gave them money to not grow food or

428
00:27:11,240 --> 00:27:14,560
gave them money to go to school
and learn how to become, you know,

429
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,880
agriculturalists and so on and
so forth. Then welfare was fine.

430
00:27:18,830 --> 00:27:22,040
Then once they got on their feet, and
now black women need welfare. Okay,

431
00:27:22,040 --> 00:27:24,920
your man can't live with you if
you're getting welfare, first of all,

432
00:27:24,920 --> 00:27:28,240
your man can't. So that's taking
the black man outta the home.

433
00:27:28,240 --> 00:27:30,640
So they overlooked all
of this shit that's done.

434
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:33,960
They overlooked how crack was
intentionally placed in the neighborhood.

435
00:27:33,990 --> 00:27:38,760
They overlooked how fucking aids was
intentionally set up on the black

436
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:43,680
community. They overlooked how back in
the sixties it was heroin. And, and uh,

437
00:27:43,740 --> 00:27:47,000
and I mean they overlook
all of that and say, well,

438
00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:49,920
this guy in particular overlooked all
of that and said they are inherently

439
00:27:49,950 --> 00:27:53,840
violent. And when we saw Will Smith,

440
00:27:54,860 --> 00:27:57,680
uh, mind you, this is a
Hollywood director and writer.

441
00:27:57,900 --> 00:28:01,720
So this is someone with influence.
This isn't just some fucking dude,

442
00:28:02,540 --> 00:28:04,960
racist dude standing on
the corner talking shit.

443
00:28:05,630 --> 00:28:10,400
This is a motherfucker who has influence
and power. He says, you know, when,

444
00:28:10,400 --> 00:28:11,233
when we saw,

445
00:28:11,710 --> 00:28:16,050
when we saw Will Smith walk
up and smack Chris Rock,

446
00:28:16,550 --> 00:28:21,220
you know what the average white person
thought, right? I said, no, what, what,

447
00:28:21,220 --> 00:28:23,420
what did the average
white person, once again,

448
00:28:23,420 --> 00:28:28,330
there's two dumbass niggers
acting like niggers. I said, wow,

449
00:28:29,510 --> 00:28:32,290
you sure that's not just what you thought
you're saying that's what the average

450
00:28:32,290 --> 00:28:35,410
white person thought.
No, I, I'm telling you,

451
00:28:35,730 --> 00:28:38,490
I mean this is what the average
white person, they may not admit it,

452
00:28:38,630 --> 00:28:41,640
but this is what they
thought. Interesting.

453
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:46,760
I think that person in your life has
very much revealed themselves to you.

454
00:28:47,140 --> 00:28:50,040
You know, but they're the same people
who have this voice, you know, Hey,

455
00:28:50,660 --> 00:28:55,280
the first girl I fell in love with
is a black girl and my best friend,

456
00:28:55,350 --> 00:28:59,400
he's your complexion. He looks just
like you. And you know, that's,

457
00:28:59,400 --> 00:29:02,300
that's these white
people who it feel like,

458
00:29:02,300 --> 00:29:05,740
cause they weren't slumming with blacks
or they had these little experiences.

459
00:29:06,730 --> 00:29:09,260
It's not the up top
experience of white culture.

460
00:29:09,810 --> 00:29:12,060
It's the fucked the black girl.

461
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:15,500
Or I hung out with some
black dudes as gang members,

462
00:29:15,800 --> 00:29:19,820
or I smoked weed with the brothers.
Those are slumming experiences.

463
00:29:21,510 --> 00:29:26,440
Fetishization of any race does
not necessarily mean that you

464
00:29:26,880 --> 00:29:30,480
<laugh> that you're on their
side or you are with them or,

465
00:29:30,820 --> 00:29:32,760
or anything like that. That's, I.

466
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:33,600
Love how you said that.

467
00:29:34,020 --> 00:29:36,880
That's a historical problem as well.

468
00:29:38,220 --> 00:29:39,053
That's exactly.

469
00:29:39,580 --> 00:29:41,780
That's the other thing
is the what about isms?

470
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:47,140
Is that an Irish person talking
about how people truly were

471
00:29:47,140 --> 00:29:50,500
discriminated against Irish were,
you know, no dogs, no Irish,

472
00:29:50,670 --> 00:29:53,660
those signs did hang in.
Yep. In store windows.

473
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:58,180
We all know what it's like to be Jewish
and in the world during certain times.

474
00:29:58,200 --> 00:30:01,940
And, and antisemitism is certainly
on the rise, but it doesn't

475
00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,540
saying stuff like that, in my
humble opinion, I, you know,

476
00:30:07,580 --> 00:30:09,420
I can only go based on my own experiences,

477
00:30:09,760 --> 00:30:13,540
but it doesn't change the
truth of the other thing.

478
00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:18,460
And it certainly shouldn't take away
from the truth of the other thing.

479
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:21,660
The two thoughts can live simultaneously.

480
00:30:21,660 --> 00:30:25,860
Irish people can and have been oppressed.

481
00:30:26,130 --> 00:30:30,500
Fine black people,
oppressed violently, Asians,

482
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,140
it all can happen simultaneously.

483
00:30:34,230 --> 00:30:35,300
Right. As it did.

484
00:30:36,970 --> 00:30:41,320
Which doesn't, I, I just, I've never been
able to wrap my head around that Well,

485
00:30:41,460 --> 00:30:46,040
but anything that follows that,
those two words, well, but

486
00:30:47,980 --> 00:30:50,710
yeah, I've already lost the
plot in, in a lot of ways.

487
00:30:51,300 --> 00:30:53,630
Yeah. And I feel like, you
know, at the end of the day,

488
00:30:53,860 --> 00:30:56,350
this coming from a white male, you know,

489
00:30:56,590 --> 00:31:00,750
you're trying to diminish
my experience, you know,

490
00:31:00,970 --> 00:31:03,390
and you're trying to
comparatively diminish it.

491
00:31:03,410 --> 00:31:06,910
And that's where I run into
issue because you know,

492
00:31:06,910 --> 00:31:11,190
even if we do talk about what
the Irish went through, okay,

493
00:31:11,190 --> 00:31:14,670
we can go back to the Romans.
The Romans had slaves. I mean,

494
00:31:14,670 --> 00:31:18,990
we can go back to the Arabs.
When they first invaded Africa,

495
00:31:19,020 --> 00:31:21,350
they were the first ones
who brought amongst,

496
00:31:21,860 --> 00:31:25,670
they invaded Africa and turned black
people into slaves way before Europeans

497
00:31:25,690 --> 00:31:29,910
did. Way before Europeans did.
But with all that being said,

498
00:31:30,300 --> 00:31:35,190
there's still a distinct difference
in slavery that took place

499
00:31:35,330 --> 00:31:36,310
in North America.

500
00:31:37,490 --> 00:31:40,670
And that distinct difference
was this was chattel slavery.

501
00:31:42,090 --> 00:31:46,870
No other slavery had been such
an extreme form of actual this

502
00:31:46,870 --> 00:31:47,790
person's property.

503
00:31:48,250 --> 00:31:52,830
Chanel like a hog or a horse or this is

504
00:31:52,980 --> 00:31:53,813
chattel.

505
00:31:54,330 --> 00:31:56,230
And not considered even a full human.

506
00:31:56,970 --> 00:32:01,510
At all when he makes the point
with the Irish, okay, sure,

507
00:32:01,570 --> 00:32:06,050
we could go down a long list of people
who've been oppressed that has nothing to

508
00:32:06,050 --> 00:32:10,130
do with what we're talking about over
here. And if you're comparing the two now,

509
00:32:10,350 --> 00:32:14,490
that's when it's back and forth was
really, it, it's a, it's, it's ridiculous.

510
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:17,530
When he said, I'm half
Irish and I'm half Jewish,

511
00:32:18,790 --> 00:32:23,450
my response was, well,
Jewish is not a race.

512
00:32:23,550 --> 00:32:25,890
Jewish is a religion. I can be half.

513
00:32:26,290 --> 00:32:27,250
I think it's both. But.

514
00:32:28,190 --> 00:32:33,060
But this is, this is what my response
was. I said, Jewish is a religion.

515
00:32:34,150 --> 00:32:35,170
Now there are areas

516
00:32:37,310 --> 00:32:42,180
in Eastern Europe and throughout
Europe where they say this is

517
00:32:42,180 --> 00:32:43,820
an area where Jewish people come from.

518
00:32:45,040 --> 00:32:49,420
But that's still a group of people
that are practicing of faith and,

519
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:54,100
and the Hebrew faith. And this is why I
say that to my knowledge. Now, maybe I,

520
00:32:54,200 --> 00:32:57,860
you know, I don't, I don't have
a monopoly on the information,

521
00:32:58,080 --> 00:33:02,120
but to my knowledge,
from what I understand,

522
00:33:02,340 --> 00:33:05,770
the Hebrew faith is what's practiced.

523
00:33:07,370 --> 00:33:11,510
And there are different
groups, the Ash, Ashkenazi.

524
00:33:11,700 --> 00:33:12,910
Ashkenazi, Ashkenazi.

525
00:33:13,410 --> 00:33:14,243
Um, the.

526
00:33:15,910 --> 00:33:16,743
Sephardic.

527
00:33:17,690 --> 00:33:18,220
Right?

528
00:33:18,220 --> 00:33:23,150
So there are different
groups of people who practice

529
00:33:23,250 --> 00:33:27,190
the Hebrew faith that go by different
names. From what I was taught,

530
00:33:27,930 --> 00:33:29,790
the group of people who came out of Europe

531
00:33:31,520 --> 00:33:35,730
that practiced the Hebrew faith
are the people who took on the name

532
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:37,113
Jews.

533
00:33:40,420 --> 00:33:44,260
I think they were considered
Jewish long before that though.

534
00:33:46,080 --> 00:33:48,260
See, that's where, that's
where, yeah, I, you know,

535
00:33:48,360 --> 00:33:52,060
that's where I will be interested
in anyone who did have information.

536
00:33:52,150 --> 00:33:54,820
Cause there's different back
and forth that I've heard.

537
00:33:55,610 --> 00:33:59,140
It's a very old religion, very old faith.

538
00:34:00,300 --> 00:34:02,880
But the thing is, is if
I'm Irish and Jewish,

539
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:08,320
I can operate in the world
pretty easily, for the most part,

540
00:34:08,580 --> 00:34:11,640
at least today. And
even back then, I mean,

541
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:14,560
I suppose there were
certain things that says,

542
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:17,640
I look like an Irish person
or maybe, I don't know.

543
00:34:18,020 --> 00:34:22,160
But black person doesn't get to just
sort of turn themselves inside out and

544
00:34:22,400 --> 00:34:25,160
suddenly not, you know what I
mean? It kinda shows up a little.

545
00:34:25,160 --> 00:34:27,920
Bit stronger. That's, that's what
I told him. I said, you know,

546
00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:29,040
I said the thing is,

547
00:34:29,140 --> 00:34:33,440
is you could be a white gay racist male

548
00:34:34,140 --> 00:34:37,880
and no one would have to know,
and you could still, you know,

549
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:41,610
mistreat people. You know,
because you could cover,

550
00:34:41,790 --> 00:34:45,130
you could cover the fact that you're
gay up and you can cover the fact that

551
00:34:45,130 --> 00:34:47,660
you're racist up and you know,

552
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:51,140
or you can say that you're gay
and not say that you're racist.

553
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,580
So now you'll get accepted in
all of these protected classes,

554
00:34:55,860 --> 00:34:58,980
but at the same time you can
perform racist practices.

555
00:34:58,980 --> 00:35:01,980
Cause you can keep the fact that,
yeah, I'm a white gay male racist.

556
00:35:02,480 --> 00:35:04,500
You can't hide being
black, you know? Yeah.

557
00:35:04,500 --> 00:35:09,220
Even within the black community, there
is, there's code switching, right?

558
00:35:09,220 --> 00:35:13,380
And then there's colored tones that make
a difference. One of my friends Leah.

559
00:35:13,530 --> 00:35:16,700
Talk about it, girl, talk about it.
Girl, you know what you're talking about.

560
00:35:16,850 --> 00:35:17,980
Talk about it. Yes.

561
00:35:18,510 --> 00:35:23,340
She's her mom and dad, black and
white. And she is definitely,

562
00:35:24,380 --> 00:35:26,380
I mean, honestly, she's paler than I am.

563
00:35:27,080 --> 00:35:31,260
And so she gets to move in
circles that if her skin tone,

564
00:35:31,320 --> 00:35:33,300
her melanin come out a little darker.

565
00:35:34,600 --> 00:35:37,670
But, you know, and that's the,

566
00:35:37,670 --> 00:35:42,670
that's the unfortunate collateral
damage in the depths of what racism,

567
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:47,030
white supremacy has done to black
people. I mean, black people,

568
00:35:47,170 --> 00:35:52,100
we discriminate against each other. Do
you understand what I'm saying? I mean,

569
00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:57,100
we have these hangups in our head, you
know, and I'm 50 years old, so I'm old.

570
00:35:57,240 --> 00:35:58,180
I'm old enough. I,

571
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:01,660
I'm so grateful for the time that
we live cause or that I live.

572
00:36:01,790 --> 00:36:05,660
Cause I live long enough to
remember the world before rap music.

573
00:36:06,460 --> 00:36:08,980
I remember before rap. And I
remember when rap first started,

574
00:36:09,220 --> 00:36:12,540
I remember when rap was really
getting his legs and going,

575
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:13,900
and then I see where it's at now.

576
00:36:14,520 --> 00:36:18,220
And the reason I use rap music is because
that's the first time that as a group

577
00:36:18,230 --> 00:36:22,250
we've had a voice. Ok. Up
until before then, you know,

578
00:36:22,250 --> 00:36:25,250
we had our little r b singers, our
little disco and pop, you know,

579
00:36:25,250 --> 00:36:27,330
Michael Jackson Prince, things like that.

580
00:36:27,710 --> 00:36:30,170
But we didn't have a voice coming
out of our community saying,

581
00:36:30,170 --> 00:36:33,290
this is what we feel. This is what we
think, this is what we're going through,

582
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:36,290
this is what we're experiencing.
This is what they're doing to us.

583
00:36:36,750 --> 00:36:37,890
We didn't have that voice.

584
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:43,690
Raps, origins were of a
political nature. They were, uh,

585
00:36:44,090 --> 00:36:47,370
speaking truth to power. And you know,

586
00:36:47,470 --> 00:36:50,890
now of course there's a
bazillion different kinds of
rap like there is with any

587
00:36:50,890 --> 00:36:54,850
kind of music. And it just depends
on, on what you're listening to.

588
00:36:54,870 --> 00:36:56,290
But the true origins of it.

589
00:36:57,250 --> 00:37:01,790
I mean, it was the music
of the Youth Rebellion.

590
00:37:02,890 --> 00:37:07,190
It, it was created because in 1973,

591
00:37:08,250 --> 00:37:13,030
studio 54 was the hottest
fucking studio on the planet

592
00:37:13,170 --> 00:37:16,050
in New York City. And that's,

593
00:37:16,050 --> 00:37:20,050
that was the biggest disco
where everybody's going
into Michael Jackson when

594
00:37:20,050 --> 00:37:23,610
he's the hottest, you know,
artist. And you know, Elton John,

595
00:37:23,890 --> 00:37:25,130
everyone's in Studio 54,

596
00:37:25,870 --> 00:37:29,450
but with Studio 54 did not let in,

597
00:37:30,500 --> 00:37:33,600
was the local average
black person from New York.

598
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,290
They couldn't get in Studio
54, you had to be a celebrity.

599
00:37:37,290 --> 00:37:39,610
You had to be a star
or you couldn't get in.

600
00:37:40,510 --> 00:37:45,040
So because they couldn't get in
those type of clubs, they said, okay,

601
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:47,840
fuck it. We're gonna hook up
some turntables in the park.

602
00:37:48,090 --> 00:37:52,360
We're gonna run some extension cords
from the turntables all the way through a

603
00:37:52,360 --> 00:37:53,840
bunch of extension cords plugged up,

604
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:55,560
going through somebody
window in the project,

605
00:37:56,120 --> 00:37:59,840
plugging into their wall and we're
gonna party out here on the park.

606
00:38:01,030 --> 00:38:04,410
And it started off with DJs just
catching what they call beat breaks.

607
00:38:05,310 --> 00:38:07,850
So like the beat is going on,
then it break breakdown bunch.

608
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,730
They'll catch that and they'll
loop it and it just go on and on.

609
00:38:13,110 --> 00:38:15,490
And then it went from them doing
that to dudes coming out there.

610
00:38:15,490 --> 00:38:19,450
Now they break dancing and then it
came out to the actual mc saying,

611
00:38:19,450 --> 00:38:21,290
wait a minute, we got
these beats going on.

612
00:38:21,590 --> 00:38:25,850
Let me come out here and talk about us
having a good time. So the first rappers,

613
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,490
when you look at Curtis
Blow, the Sugar Hill game,

614
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,090
Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five,

615
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:37,380
they were the first ones that came with
a actual message with a song called The

616
00:38:37,380 --> 00:38:40,660
Message. But when you look at
Curtis Bull and the Sugar Hill gang,

617
00:38:40,810 --> 00:38:45,540
they came with Rapper's Delight.
When you look at Blindy Rapture rap,

618
00:38:45,560 --> 00:38:47,820
it was all about partying
and having a good time.

619
00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:52,170
Then Grandmaster Flash and the
Furious Five came with the message.

620
00:38:53,590 --> 00:38:55,250
And that's when rap took a turn.

621
00:38:55,280 --> 00:39:00,130
Because that song don't push
me cause I'm close to the edge,

622
00:39:00,510 --> 00:39:02,290
I'm trying not to lose my head.

623
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,850
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes
me wonder how I keep from going under.

624
00:39:06,430 --> 00:39:09,460
We was really saying some
shit at that point. Okay.

625
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:14,420
So that's when we started speaking on
the social economic conditions of our

626
00:39:14,420 --> 00:39:18,620
neighborhood. We started speaking
on the injustices, police brutality.

627
00:39:19,220 --> 00:39:23,740
I remember when NWA came out
with their first album when, uh,

628
00:39:23,840 --> 00:39:25,940
ice Cube and, and, uh, Dr.

629
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,260
Dre and e and Mc ran came out
with that song Fuck The Police

630
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:34,860
and Straight Outta Compton.
And I remember how the adults,

631
00:39:35,040 --> 00:39:38,340
all they could hear was the profanity.
And oh my God, they're cursing.

632
00:39:38,340 --> 00:39:41,100
They're cursing. If you
play that album right now,

633
00:39:42,530 --> 00:39:46,830
it sounds like the most prolific
politically conscious record

634
00:39:47,540 --> 00:39:48,373
that you could,

635
00:39:48,660 --> 00:39:52,710
that you'd ever heard When you go over
the lyrics and listen to what they're

636
00:39:52,710 --> 00:39:56,530
saying when you listen to
an ice cube who was 17,

637
00:39:56,970 --> 00:39:58,130
18 years old at the time,

638
00:39:58,940 --> 00:40:03,750
what he was saying about how police are
treating the black community and what

639
00:40:03,750 --> 00:40:05,910
they're doing to us. And now
we're at the point we're saying,

640
00:40:05,980 --> 00:40:09,030
fuck that we fighting back. We
ain't putting up with this shit.

641
00:40:09,530 --> 00:40:12,350
You know what I'm saying? But
that's what we were raised on.

642
00:40:12,650 --> 00:40:16,070
We had Chuck D and Public
Enemy. They were, they were,

643
00:40:16,070 --> 00:40:19,790
everything they did was a political
statement. Everything they did.

644
00:40:20,090 --> 00:40:23,350
So we were raised, we
had KRS One, you know,

645
00:40:23,350 --> 00:40:28,110
we had Eric B and Rakim, you know,
so these were conscious rappers.

646
00:40:28,210 --> 00:40:33,150
And then we had the party rappers, LL
Cool J Run dmc, you know, MC Hammer.

647
00:40:33,250 --> 00:40:36,070
We can party, have a good
time to 'em. But then we got,

648
00:40:36,070 --> 00:40:38,670
then we had Tribe Called Quest
come along, we can party,

649
00:40:38,740 --> 00:40:40,230
have a good time and learn.

650
00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:43,430
Cause they're gonna give us
some afrocentricity shit.

651
00:40:43,430 --> 00:40:47,710
They gonna give us everything.
Then you got Nas who, okay,

652
00:40:47,710 --> 00:40:49,390
here's another one
that's changing the game.

653
00:40:49,390 --> 00:40:51,950
Cause Nas is speaking
from the street corner,

654
00:40:52,010 --> 00:40:56,270
the dude on the street corner who's
successful and conscious and aware of his

655
00:40:56,510 --> 00:40:57,510
surroundings and what's going on.

656
00:40:57,810 --> 00:41:00,710
But I still gotta deal with this
shit and rise up above this shit.

657
00:41:01,330 --> 00:41:05,590
But these are my people. He's like
the son of Rakim. So when Nas came,

658
00:41:05,820 --> 00:41:10,670
this was like one of our prolific thinkers
cuz this motherfucker's talking about

659
00:41:10,670 --> 00:41:14,870
these conditions, but he's
maneuvering through it like a king.

660
00:41:14,890 --> 00:41:18,070
And he's coming out of it. He's
successful and he's winning.

661
00:41:18,700 --> 00:41:23,200
And he's also our
articulating our struggle,

662
00:41:23,380 --> 00:41:27,680
our pain, our story, our
our our our suffering,

663
00:41:28,140 --> 00:41:30,520
our victories, our love, our hate.

664
00:41:30,820 --> 00:41:34,500
He expressing all of that shit better
than Shakespeare growing up in that

665
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,780
period. And growing up, like where
I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

666
00:41:37,810 --> 00:41:41,260
Like I was there when Jeff, that's
why I talk so much about race.

667
00:41:41,270 --> 00:41:46,200
Cause Milwaukee, Wisconsin is one of the
most segregated places on the planet.

668
00:41:46,830 --> 00:41:50,760
It's one of, it's historically one of
the, the most racist cities. You know,

669
00:41:51,030 --> 00:41:54,560
like I said, Jeffrey Dahmer, I was the
other day, Jeffrey Dahmer got arrested.

670
00:41:55,180 --> 00:41:59,160
The infant mortality rate for
babies born in Milwaukee County

671
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:01,820
is worse than anywhere in the country.

672
00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:05,500
And it's worse than some
third world countries.

673
00:42:05,720 --> 00:42:08,540
The zip code I grew up in 5, 3, 2, 6.

674
00:42:08,850 --> 00:42:12,180
That zip code leads the nation
in locking up black males,

675
00:42:14,200 --> 00:42:16,940
leaves the nation, which
means it leaves the world.

676
00:42:17,310 --> 00:42:21,540
Cause America leaves the world
in locking up its citizens.

677
00:42:21,970 --> 00:42:26,380
Well I think about the fact that this
country was built with the blood,

678
00:42:26,520 --> 00:42:30,740
the sweat and tears of
blacks and the Chinese. And,

679
00:42:31,040 --> 00:42:34,220
and then I think, well, okay,
and then we have the industrial,

680
00:42:34,600 --> 00:42:36,020
the prison industrial complex,

681
00:42:36,590 --> 00:42:41,180
which is making billions of
dollars on what Oh, the blood,

682
00:42:41,180 --> 00:42:43,700
sweat and tears of the black
communities. For the most part.

683
00:42:44,330 --> 00:42:46,700
Slavery ain't went nowhere.
It's just been refined.

684
00:42:46,850 --> 00:42:51,660
It's just been refined. And as Ani
DeFranco said in one of her songs,

685
00:42:52,000 --> 00:42:54,780
you know sure. We've, we
don't lynch really anymore.

686
00:42:54,790 --> 00:42:56,420
We've moved on to the electric chair.

687
00:42:57,050 --> 00:43:01,780
Yeah, yeah. You know, we don't call 'em
slaves anymore. We call 'em criminals.

688
00:43:02,330 --> 00:43:04,620
Once you're a criminal, we
can take all your rights,

689
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,060
we can lock you up and you
gotta do what we say, you know,

690
00:43:08,060 --> 00:43:09,140
and you working for free.

691
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,180
And if and when you do get out of prison,

692
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,140
you now have something attached to
your name for the rest of your life.

693
00:43:17,200 --> 00:43:21,620
So that getting becoming a
a member of in of society

694
00:43:22,280 --> 00:43:27,140
is very difficult, hard to get driver's
licenses hard. You can't vote anymore.

695
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:29,180
So your voice is completely removed.

696
00:43:29,240 --> 00:43:34,220
So whatever it was that created the
circumstance that you went to prison in

697
00:43:34,220 --> 00:43:38,900
the first place, even if you do
like figure your shit out or,

698
00:43:38,900 --> 00:43:42,740
or whatever, and you get
out, your voice is gone.

699
00:43:42,960 --> 00:43:47,580
You don't even get a chance to vote
for things that would change the

700
00:43:47,600 --> 00:43:48,433
system.

701
00:43:48,890 --> 00:43:53,610
Yeah, yeah. It's a whole process
of being de dehumanized and erased.

702
00:43:53,790 --> 00:43:56,210
And you know, here's the thing though,
and I'm gonna keep it real with you,

703
00:43:56,210 --> 00:43:57,043
Susan.

704
00:43:57,590 --> 00:44:01,970
And this is where I bump heads with and
get into it with black people a lot.

705
00:44:02,040 --> 00:44:03,530
Okay? Because here's the thing,

706
00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:09,540
we can sit here and pontificate and
analyze and go over all of this shit

707
00:44:09,710 --> 00:44:13,980
about what's wrong with everything
and how it got this way. Like,

708
00:44:14,080 --> 00:44:16,820
people make a fucking living
off of our dysfunction.

709
00:44:16,820 --> 00:44:20,300
Like just studying our dysfunction.
And well the blacks, they do this,

710
00:44:20,300 --> 00:44:23,380
they do the, and you know,
it's enough information.

711
00:44:23,390 --> 00:44:27,710
We're in the age of information where
we can look up and find out anything.

712
00:44:27,710 --> 00:44:32,580
You know, like information has replaced
intelligence for the most part. Okay?

713
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:37,650
So we're in that age. So I'm
to this point personally,

714
00:44:38,100 --> 00:44:38,933
black people,

715
00:44:39,240 --> 00:44:43,370
it's time to be accountable
for our condition and our shit.

716
00:44:44,720 --> 00:44:48,370
Okay? Reparations, yes, that
is an issue that needs to,

717
00:44:48,370 --> 00:44:49,770
all that needs to be addressed,

718
00:44:50,430 --> 00:44:54,170
but it can't be addressed until
we are accountable for our shit.

719
00:44:54,170 --> 00:44:58,810
And on the same page, we're so
divided and fractured as a people

720
00:45:00,500 --> 00:45:05,430
just amongst ourselves that I,

721
00:45:05,830 --> 00:45:10,290
I find myself moving beyond
this whole black thing

722
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:12,620
and just getting into, look,

723
00:45:12,620 --> 00:45:16,620
there are either miserable people or
there are joyful people. That's true.

724
00:45:16,620 --> 00:45:17,980
How the fuck, what color you're,

725
00:45:18,350 --> 00:45:23,180
cause I ran into so many black
people who do shit to keep us

726
00:45:23,180 --> 00:45:27,740
in a fucked up position that ain't
got nothing to do with white people.

727
00:45:27,770 --> 00:45:31,900
Like your behavior has nothing
to do with white people.

728
00:45:32,280 --> 00:45:37,200
How you treat other people, how
you act, how you carry yourself,

729
00:45:37,340 --> 00:45:41,320
how you behave, how you talk to
people, how you interact, which like,

730
00:45:41,320 --> 00:45:42,520
just all of that shit,

731
00:45:43,380 --> 00:45:46,960
that's a personal choice
that you make every day.

732
00:45:47,780 --> 00:45:51,480
And you know, I ain't gonna tell,
I ain't gonna sit up here and say,

733
00:45:51,500 --> 00:45:54,480
oh black people suffer from
self loathing and blah blah. No,

734
00:45:54,480 --> 00:45:58,000
it's a lot of fucked up shit that's
been done to us. And there are some,

735
00:45:58,000 --> 00:46:01,460
some things that need to be
repaired, you know what I'm saying?

736
00:46:01,460 --> 00:46:05,300
There are some things we
have been fractured to the
point where we do need to be

737
00:46:05,300 --> 00:46:09,420
compensated for what's happened to
us. But once you get to that point,

738
00:46:10,780 --> 00:46:15,510
okay, you still have to be accountable
for yourself. Or if I'm being honest,

739
00:46:16,050 --> 00:46:18,870
you know, I understand
the social engineering,

740
00:46:18,950 --> 00:46:22,590
I understand all the shit that's taken
place. But at the end of the day,

741
00:46:23,150 --> 00:46:27,790
personal accountability is what
I gotta go by. And black people,

742
00:46:27,850 --> 00:46:29,990
we have to be accountable for how we act.

743
00:46:30,410 --> 00:46:33,670
If I can sit up here and say all this
other shit about white people about,

744
00:46:33,670 --> 00:46:37,270
and I ain't even talking about white
people. I'm talking about what the,

745
00:46:37,290 --> 00:46:40,990
the system who is ran by white people,
what it, what it has done to us.

746
00:46:41,090 --> 00:46:44,150
If I can point all of that
out, I can also point out, ok,

747
00:46:44,150 --> 00:46:45,430
what are we doing to ourselves?

748
00:46:45,980 --> 00:46:47,950
Well that's my whole point of both.

749
00:46:47,950 --> 00:46:52,590
Things can exist at the same time
and other people's oppression

750
00:46:52,810 --> 00:46:54,470
can exist at the same time.

751
00:46:55,130 --> 00:46:58,270
And racist and non-racist
can exist at the same time.

752
00:46:59,110 --> 00:47:02,430
I know everybody's exhausted.
Everyone has generational trauma.

753
00:47:02,650 --> 00:47:04,510
We all have skeletons in our closet.

754
00:47:04,900 --> 00:47:08,390
There's all this pain
that humanity carries.

755
00:47:09,050 --> 00:47:13,910
But I think there has
to be a moment where we

756
00:47:14,020 --> 00:47:18,190
hold hands and say, look, this
pain is ours. It's not yours.

757
00:47:18,500 --> 00:47:21,590
It's not mine anymore. It's our pain.

758
00:47:22,660 --> 00:47:24,030
It's a collective pain.

759
00:47:25,650 --> 00:47:28,670
You know, I think we have to let
people be who they're, you know,

760
00:47:28,670 --> 00:47:30,060
and this is what I've always said,

761
00:47:30,090 --> 00:47:34,900
like if you find some hillbilly
white boy from fucking

762
00:47:35,220 --> 00:47:39,860
wherever he's from, that just
don't like black people, you know,

763
00:47:40,050 --> 00:47:45,020
like I can't, to me, you
can't make people, you know,

764
00:47:45,440 --> 00:47:49,940
to me you cause more problems when you
try to force people to be a certain way

765
00:47:49,940 --> 00:47:50,780
that they don't wanna be.

766
00:47:51,090 --> 00:47:55,220
Well we've all seen little kids from
all different races interact with each

767
00:47:55,220 --> 00:47:59,060
other and are the human race.
Right? They don't, they don't know.

768
00:47:59,060 --> 00:48:00,860
And they're not supposed
to like each other. I,

769
00:48:01,100 --> 00:48:06,020
I truly believe that hate and racism is

770
00:48:06,020 --> 00:48:08,740
taught whether it's, I
agree, subtle teaching,

771
00:48:08,930 --> 00:48:12,620
whether it's being undermined
or whether it's overt teaching.

772
00:48:12,650 --> 00:48:17,300
Like if your grandfather was, you know,
in the clan or something. Definitely.

773
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:22,980
And I, the poem that I spoke of at
the top of this is that, you know,

774
00:48:23,120 --> 00:48:25,100
you speak to, you know,

775
00:48:25,160 --> 00:48:30,140
hating white people justifiably
you know, from a history where

776
00:48:31,680 --> 00:48:34,260
you are descended from people
that were treated like shit.

777
00:48:34,920 --> 00:48:37,100
And that's something that
has to be acknowledged.

778
00:48:38,050 --> 00:48:42,020
It's no wonder everyone's
running around like fisticuffs,

779
00:48:42,790 --> 00:48:45,500
right? So where do we,

780
00:48:45,870 --> 00:48:49,420
where do we find the intersection
where we acknowledge our ancestors,

781
00:48:50,400 --> 00:48:51,900
we honor their pain,

782
00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,660
but we release our own at the same time
so that we can fucking move forward.

783
00:48:58,800 --> 00:49:00,020
How do we do that?

784
00:49:00,760 --> 00:49:05,570
It it goes back to like what you just
said about that poem. Like, you know,

785
00:49:05,850 --> 00:49:10,490
I don't know if you ever watched had
to watch the movie Roots when you were

786
00:49:10,490 --> 00:49:13,210
growing up. We had to watch
that movie. I don't know,

787
00:49:13,210 --> 00:49:16,290
like that show used to come on once a
year at the same time on television.

788
00:49:17,460 --> 00:49:20,760
And this is in the seventies and
early eighties. And mind you,

789
00:49:20,760 --> 00:49:25,000
I'm the only black kid in my
class. So Ruth will come on,

790
00:49:26,440 --> 00:49:29,720
everyone fucking watch it and now we're
coming back to class the next day.

791
00:49:29,780 --> 00:49:32,000
So everyone's fucking looking
at me. Right? <laugh>.

792
00:49:34,020 --> 00:49:35,640
But it's,

793
00:49:36,020 --> 00:49:40,680
my reason for saying that is to say
there was a point when my grandmother

794
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:44,920
used to tell me stuff, or even just
when I would experience stuff as a kid,

795
00:49:46,270 --> 00:49:49,920
kids can sense what's fair and
unfair quicker than anyone.

796
00:49:51,300 --> 00:49:56,240
And just the unfair treatment that I
would receive as a kid being in all white

797
00:49:56,240 --> 00:50:00,520
schools, I used to get so angry.

798
00:50:01,700 --> 00:50:04,430
Okay? And then when you look on,

799
00:50:04,610 --> 00:50:08,270
you look at these programs and you
see with dogs getting sick from sick,

800
00:50:08,270 --> 00:50:12,110
dumb people from the sixties and
water hoses and lynching. It's like,

801
00:50:12,130 --> 00:50:13,670
how can you treat people like this?

802
00:50:14,790 --> 00:50:18,750
So as a kid my anger was hate. Like,

803
00:50:19,110 --> 00:50:22,580
I hate you now.

804
00:50:22,610 --> 00:50:26,730
That was me looking at TV and
seeing what's going on in, in,

805
00:50:27,400 --> 00:50:31,060
in society when I'm at school every day.

806
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:35,600
I had my little different
experiences where, you know,

807
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,040
I dealt with the prejudice and the
racism and discrimination and all that,

808
00:50:39,660 --> 00:50:44,600
but I always had one or two
white kids that was cool with me.

809
00:50:45,340 --> 00:50:47,880
So it was like this
stream of consciousness,

810
00:50:48,030 --> 00:50:50,040
even though I'm seeing
everything that's going on,

811
00:50:50,880 --> 00:50:55,280
I always had these one or two that was no,

812
00:50:55,330 --> 00:50:58,120
we're not all like that.
No we're not all like that.

813
00:50:59,290 --> 00:51:02,590
Not necessarily them saying it just by
how they treated me, how they acted.

814
00:51:02,620 --> 00:51:07,230
They're behaving, they're showing me
we're not all like that. You know,

815
00:51:07,230 --> 00:51:10,310
they would speak up when it was some
bullshit. No, that's bullshit. You know,

816
00:51:10,310 --> 00:51:14,190
they would put their selves on
the line in different situations.

817
00:51:14,690 --> 00:51:17,510
And then another thing
like I'm just not a hater.

818
00:51:18,130 --> 00:51:20,310
So when I was a kid I
felt like, ooh, I hate,

819
00:51:20,340 --> 00:51:24,710
like I hated that white man who did
that. Those white men who did that.

820
00:51:24,710 --> 00:51:29,230
Or if I saw a movie and I hated
them, kkk them white people,

821
00:51:29,270 --> 00:51:33,820
I hated them. So I had to understand
cause I'm just not a hater.

822
00:51:33,890 --> 00:51:38,650
Like I can't just see, I don't care
if you are racist, okay, that's,

823
00:51:38,650 --> 00:51:41,850
that's your shortcomings, that's,
that's your shit you gotta deal with.

824
00:51:42,370 --> 00:51:46,930
I feel sorry for you. I don't hate
you. I feel sorry for you. I think now,

825
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:50,050
like once again, the other
day in that conversation

826
00:51:52,020 --> 00:51:56,820
I run down all the shit of why black
people feel the way they feel and

827
00:51:57,210 --> 00:51:59,420
shit that just, that has been done to us.

828
00:51:59,560 --> 00:52:03,220
And when I get finished saying all of
this, the guy tells me, you know what,

829
00:52:03,850 --> 00:52:08,840
you are a racist. He told me
I'm a racist. He said, he said,

830
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:13,240
you're not gonna like to hear this
but you hate white people <laugh>.

831
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:17,780
And I was so frustrated when he said
that to me. I was like, man, fuck you,

832
00:52:18,330 --> 00:52:23,090
fuck this conversation. Fuck. And
I just got off off. But after I,

833
00:52:23,220 --> 00:52:24,053
after I,

834
00:52:24,720 --> 00:52:29,450
it's like we can't even explain
what happened to us and how we feel

835
00:52:29,450 --> 00:52:34,340
about it without being called
racist and we hate white people.

836
00:52:34,720 --> 00:52:37,220
And I'm like, dude, you
are projecting right now.

837
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:39,940
You know the shit that's been done.

838
00:52:40,500 --> 00:52:44,350
I have every right to feel
the way you're saying I feel,

839
00:52:44,690 --> 00:52:46,270
but I'm saying I don't feel like that.

840
00:52:46,410 --> 00:52:49,910
I'm saying that when you look at all
of these things, it's frustrating,

841
00:52:51,560 --> 00:52:56,270
especially when you're fighting
these same battles every day and

842
00:52:56,270 --> 00:52:58,430
people continue to act
like they don't get it.

843
00:52:58,430 --> 00:53:02,590
They don't understand or you just
making some shit up. It's not like that.

844
00:53:02,780 --> 00:53:06,910
Well and the truth of the matter is when
a white guy wakes up in the morning and

845
00:53:06,910 --> 00:53:11,390
he goes about his day, he gets to
just go about his day. I imagine you,

846
00:53:11,530 --> 00:53:14,510
you're, I mean you, I can't tell cuz
you're sitting down, but you look at,

847
00:53:14,510 --> 00:53:18,630
you're pretty decent sized black guy.
You've got braids in your hair, you know,

848
00:53:19,090 --> 00:53:20,950
you operating in your daily life,

849
00:53:21,150 --> 00:53:23,710
I feel like you probably have
to look over your shoulder a lot

850
00:53:25,360 --> 00:53:27,700
and how fucking, how is that fair?

851
00:53:28,200 --> 00:53:31,620
And there's nothing you
can do about that. Zero.

852
00:53:33,010 --> 00:53:34,700
Well I have to tam, my behavior.

853
00:53:34,910 --> 00:53:37,700
Can't but you. But but what
does it even mean? Like,

854
00:53:37,880 --> 00:53:41,140
you don't get to operate as just a
human being moving through the world.

855
00:53:41,400 --> 00:53:44,140
And that's the point. It's like the,

856
00:53:44,140 --> 00:53:46,660
the argument that I've
heard from a lot of,

857
00:53:46,870 --> 00:53:50,940
let's just say conservative side of it
and I try to listen to what everybody has

858
00:53:50,940 --> 00:53:53,460
to say cuz I'm curious about
what everybody has to say.

859
00:53:53,520 --> 00:53:58,500
But the idea that if we teach
our kids this history that our,

860
00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:01,420
our white children are too fragile,
they can't handle it. It's,

861
00:54:01,450 --> 00:54:05,320
they shouldn't have to
hear this. To your point,

862
00:54:06,030 --> 00:54:09,000
kids know what's fucking
fair and what the truth is.

863
00:54:09,620 --> 00:54:14,160
And the truth of the matter is you
operate in the world in a different way

864
00:54:14,710 --> 00:54:19,480
than someone your same
age. You know this from,

865
00:54:19,480 --> 00:54:20,360
from Wisconsin,

866
00:54:21,700 --> 00:54:26,680
who doesn't have as much melanin in
their skin. It's just a whole nother,

867
00:54:26,860 --> 00:54:29,720
you walk into a bank and I look,

868
00:54:29,830 --> 00:54:34,600
that pains me to say I don't
want to believe that to be true,

869
00:54:35,020 --> 00:54:39,680
but I'd be an idiot to not know that's
true. Do you know what I mean? Like,

870
00:54:39,680 --> 00:54:43,440
we all have that Pollyanna, well not
all of us, some of us don't care,

871
00:54:44,100 --> 00:54:49,000
but there is a Pollyanna want
of what the world should look

872
00:54:49,000 --> 00:54:52,120
like. But that doesn't mean
that that's the reality.

873
00:54:52,980 --> 00:54:53,813
Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

874
00:54:54,090 --> 00:54:56,560
Again, I'm preaching to
the choir as they say, but.

875
00:54:57,340 --> 00:55:01,000
No, but you're, you're, you're making
very good points that people need to,

876
00:55:01,060 --> 00:55:05,440
to hear and acknowledge.
Cause at the end of the day,

877
00:55:05,840 --> 00:55:07,880
I think you said it earlier, I mean,

878
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:12,100
there's only one race and
that's the human race. It,

879
00:55:12,130 --> 00:55:17,080
it's hard to not know race when that's all

880
00:55:17,080 --> 00:55:20,640
you've been treated by, is
your color. Like you said,

881
00:55:20,640 --> 00:55:23,000
when I walk down the street,
just even my tone of voice,

882
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:25,600
I can't get too worked up.
I can't get too excited,

883
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:30,320
I can't get too passionate about
anything cause I'm angry now. You know,

884
00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:32,600
I just can't. But if,
if I'm a white boy, oh,

885
00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:35,880
he's really fired up or he's so
passionate about what he loves.

886
00:55:35,990 --> 00:55:39,160
They could be saying it the same
way I'm saying, but if I said, oh,

887
00:55:39,160 --> 00:55:43,760
he seems so angry and why he, he's
so upset. You know? So, you know,

888
00:55:43,760 --> 00:55:47,560
just the way we have to, and, and
even with the code switch, like,

889
00:55:48,920 --> 00:55:53,860
I mean just, just having to know how
to communicate in different rooms.

890
00:55:54,850 --> 00:55:58,420
It's shit that white boys don't have to
think about. You can wake up every day,

891
00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:02,220
go out and just do you, you know
what I'm saying? And you know,

892
00:56:02,280 --> 00:56:06,230
we learn as time go on how to do us in a,

893
00:56:06,230 --> 00:56:10,790
in a world that's ran by people who
don't necessarily, you know, accept us.

894
00:56:11,690 --> 00:56:16,020
You know what I'm saying? So, and
it's, it's all good. Like it's,

895
00:56:16,020 --> 00:56:19,140
it's like I never wanted to get
it. I never want to get it twisted.

896
00:56:19,140 --> 00:56:22,420
Like I'm sitting here crying and
complaining because at the end of the day,

897
00:56:23,080 --> 00:56:27,100
you know, we, we all are
responsible for ourselves, you know,

898
00:56:27,160 --> 00:56:31,460
and we all have to work on ourselves
before we call ourselves fixing the larger

899
00:56:31,650 --> 00:56:32,700
society. And you know,

900
00:56:32,700 --> 00:56:36,020
we gotta get our own selves right and
get our minds right and our behavior

901
00:56:36,020 --> 00:56:40,380
right. And learn how to respond
and not react and you know, and,

902
00:56:40,480 --> 00:56:43,740
and we have to want for, you know,
other people what we want for ourselves.

903
00:56:43,770 --> 00:56:48,380
It's very simple, you know? So, and, and
I also am of the school of thought of,

904
00:56:48,400 --> 00:56:50,700
you know, the conversation
that we're having right now.

905
00:56:51,730 --> 00:56:53,740
It's one of those
conversations where it's like,

906
00:56:53,820 --> 00:56:58,100
I honestly think collectively the
social conscious is moving in the,

907
00:56:58,120 --> 00:57:02,500
in the right direction. Like I think
the average person do want better,

908
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:06,460
the average person. Um, they
don't wanna see anyone suffering.

909
00:57:06,460 --> 00:57:10,020
They don't wanna see anyone struggle.
Everyone can relate to suffering.

910
00:57:10,340 --> 00:57:13,820
Everyone can relate to, you know,
hard times to a certain extent.

911
00:57:14,100 --> 00:57:18,460
Everyone knows what it's like to go
through these human conditions, you know?

912
00:57:18,460 --> 00:57:20,140
And we have so much technology.

913
00:57:20,340 --> 00:57:23,420
I mean like we're talking right now
and the whole world can hear us.

914
00:57:23,920 --> 00:57:27,220
You know what I'm saying?
So I I, I personally,

915
00:57:27,570 --> 00:57:30,780
even though I have to deal with these
issues, this is why I'm a writer,

916
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:34,860
you know, writing is therapeutic for me
because you can get these issues out.

917
00:57:34,920 --> 00:57:38,860
You can put 'em out there on the platform,
people can discuss them, people can,

918
00:57:38,880 --> 00:57:39,370
you know,

919
00:57:39,370 --> 00:57:43,420
reflect on themselves and their behaviors
and their thoughts cause that's where

920
00:57:43,420 --> 00:57:46,740
it starts with us fixing
ourselves, you know,

921
00:57:46,740 --> 00:57:48,300
and just being accountable for ourselves.

922
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:52,180
So I honestly do with everything we've
talked about, cuz it's been kind of a,

923
00:57:52,300 --> 00:57:55,820
a heavy load of topics.
But with that being said,

924
00:57:56,740 --> 00:58:01,420
I also am very optimistic about
humanity because of technology

925
00:58:01,430 --> 00:58:03,380
right now. One, right,

926
00:58:03,400 --> 00:58:06,700
the right conscious thought can
switch everything instantly. So.

927
00:58:07,540 --> 00:58:11,780
I agree that's thinking back on what
you were saying about the music and how

928
00:58:11,780 --> 00:58:15,460
music was such a great
mouthpiece for change,

929
00:58:16,340 --> 00:58:18,380
specifically in rap, right?
I think Rachel mentioned.

930
00:58:18,380 --> 00:58:21,100
Well yeah, I work with, uh,

931
00:58:21,910 --> 00:58:24,390
a company gang management, uh,

932
00:58:25,050 --> 00:58:29,750
GMG T can get it on Instagram at Gang mgt.

933
00:58:29,970 --> 00:58:34,870
So G A N g Mgt that was
started by my brother,

934
00:58:35,330 --> 00:58:38,750
my close friend, he's my brother.
I call him my brother Ris.

935
00:58:38,810 --> 00:58:42,270
His name is Peter Pan
and him along with other,

936
00:58:42,670 --> 00:58:47,550
a group of good guys, uh, reg outta
New York. Uh, cash out of Philly,

937
00:58:47,610 --> 00:58:52,510
my myself. And, and it is really
a, a a solid group of individuals,

938
00:58:52,810 --> 00:58:55,510
but we work with and manage, uh,

939
00:58:56,320 --> 00:59:00,610
some of the biggest artists in the
game right now. Mainly, uh, he, my,

940
00:59:00,670 --> 00:59:05,130
my my my partner, uh, Eris, he
started managing Chief Keith,

941
00:59:05,630 --> 00:59:08,810
who is, is an icon in the culture. Uh,

942
00:59:08,810 --> 00:59:12,770
he started managing him a little over
10 years ago. We're still working with,

943
00:59:12,770 --> 00:59:17,290
with with Sosa today along with
the rest of the guys Gloria Gang.

944
00:59:17,290 --> 00:59:21,900
And these are guys outta Chicago
and they have basically been the

945
00:59:21,940 --> 00:59:26,460
trendsetters in a genre of hip
hop music known as drill rap.

946
00:59:27,050 --> 00:59:31,980
It's an amazing story of some
young black men who really

947
00:59:32,050 --> 00:59:36,900
made it out of a situation and
an environment in which death

948
00:59:37,720 --> 00:59:42,060
is an everyday thing, you
know, and poverty and you know,

949
00:59:42,270 --> 00:59:45,180
drugs and homicides. That's
just an everyday thing.

950
00:59:45,570 --> 00:59:50,100
I've always taken my hat off to these
young guys and I've saluted them. Cause

951
00:59:51,880 --> 00:59:55,500
so many of us don't make it out
of those conditions. You know,

952
00:59:55,500 --> 00:59:59,180
these guys grew up in the projects
on the south side of Chicago,

953
01:00:00,460 --> 01:00:04,280
you know, by the time. They're 9, 10,
11 years old, they're already in gang.

954
01:00:04,900 --> 01:00:08,600
And really before that, they born into
that. The families they come from.

955
01:00:08,660 --> 01:00:12,480
That's uncles, brothers,
fathers. So you have no choice.

956
01:00:13,080 --> 01:00:17,680
I always tell Sosa, that's what we
call Chief Keef. I always tell Sosa,

957
01:00:18,880 --> 01:00:22,300
you know, the ancestors
chose you. You know, I mean,

958
01:00:22,300 --> 01:00:25,740
this kid is really a fucking
genius. He's not, you know,

959
01:00:25,740 --> 01:00:29,140
if you just look at him when he
is rapping, I mean, yeah, he's,

960
01:00:29,250 --> 01:00:32,180
he's good at that. Whatever.
If you knew behind the scene,

961
01:00:32,320 --> 01:00:35,620
the work that this kid puts in, you know,

962
01:00:35,620 --> 01:00:40,300
he produces all of his own tracks. You
know, I've never seen him write anything.

963
01:00:40,360 --> 01:00:44,860
He just steps up and says his
shit. And he's constantly working,

964
01:00:45,150 --> 01:00:48,620
constantly working. I mean, the way
everything he got set up, I mean,

965
01:00:48,620 --> 01:00:51,460
he does his own fashion,
his own, you know,

966
01:00:52,160 --> 01:00:56,940
his own design on games, just everything,
you know, he's constantly working.

967
01:00:58,400 --> 01:01:00,610
He's made a way for himself, his family.

968
01:01:01,560 --> 01:01:05,770
He's taken care of his family since, you
know, he got his first deal with Jimmy.

969
01:01:06,110 --> 01:01:06,330
Ive,

970
01:01:06,330 --> 01:01:11,170
in Interscope Records when he was
16 years old and he signed for

971
01:01:11,170 --> 01:01:15,010
6 million and I believe he's 27 now.

972
01:01:16,270 --> 01:01:18,010
So he's been taking care of his family.

973
01:01:18,080 --> 01:01:21,410
He's been the man of the house
for the last 12 years of his life,

974
01:01:21,410 --> 01:01:22,810
since he was 14 years old.

975
01:01:23,330 --> 01:01:27,610
I, I mean, 14 a baby, first
of it's just so young, 27.

976
01:01:28,150 --> 01:01:32,130
So young still. Yeah. And I
read some of his background,

977
01:01:33,350 --> 01:01:37,250
and again, that speaks to this
thing of being a voice for, uh,

978
01:01:37,270 --> 01:01:41,650
for a particular group of people
and being the mouthpiece saying,

979
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:46,450
this is our reality. And
then as you put it, you know,

980
01:01:46,450 --> 01:01:50,290
having choices as to, you know,
there's like that thing, again,

981
01:01:50,290 --> 01:01:54,050
it's that dichotomy of have
a choice, but have no choice.

982
01:01:54,790 --> 01:01:58,450
How do you, how do you
deal with that? How do you,

983
01:01:58,790 --> 01:02:00,570
how do you move through that world?

984
01:02:01,350 --> 01:02:05,050
And then what responsibility do
you have when you, as you say,

985
01:02:05,050 --> 01:02:09,050
are given a gift from God
to, to be the spokesperson,

986
01:02:09,470 --> 01:02:10,303
if you will?

987
01:02:10,830 --> 01:02:14,890
And then how do you help Auger change and,

988
01:02:14,990 --> 01:02:18,730
and move the needle a along?

989
01:02:20,890 --> 01:02:21,723
Well, you know,

990
01:02:21,820 --> 01:02:26,540
I think that the thing that is
unique and special about Sosa,

991
01:02:27,200 --> 01:02:31,460
you know, and I say this to people all
the time at this point in his career,

992
01:02:32,280 --> 01:02:35,980
you know, he's more influential,
in my opinion, in my opinion,

993
01:02:36,090 --> 01:02:38,900
he's more influential
than Tupac or Biggie.

994
01:02:39,670 --> 01:02:41,530
Wow. That's big. That's a big compliment.

995
01:02:41,600 --> 01:02:45,170
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the
reason I say that is cause

996
01:02:46,810 --> 01:02:51,750
not only did he, did he godfather
in a whole new genre of music,

997
01:02:52,620 --> 01:02:53,453
okay.

998
01:02:53,610 --> 01:02:58,390
But if you look at the controversy
that he sustained and that he's

999
01:02:58,390 --> 01:03:02,610
been through before he
signed this deal, I mean,

1000
01:03:02,610 --> 01:03:07,170
everything from people thought he was
dead and got shot and killed by the cops,

1001
01:03:07,230 --> 01:03:11,370
to him shooting back at the cops, to
being locked up, caught with guns,

1002
01:03:11,950 --> 01:03:13,850
you know, just the on and on.

1003
01:03:13,910 --> 01:03:17,950
If you just look at all of
the controversy that he's

1004
01:03:18,580 --> 01:03:22,010
weathered the storm through and sustained,

1005
01:03:22,470 --> 01:03:26,970
and to find him now, 10, 11,
12 years later in the game,

1006
01:03:28,570 --> 01:03:32,430
and now he's doing capsules
with True Religion, Adidas,

1007
01:03:33,490 --> 01:03:36,750
uh, rest in peace. Virgil,
before he passed on,

1008
01:03:36,750 --> 01:03:41,230
they did some things with the Off-White.
And to see that he's a leader,

1009
01:03:41,700 --> 01:03:46,430
he's still a leader in a trendsetter.
If you look at what he's doing,

1010
01:03:47,910 --> 01:03:50,130
others are still following
mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

1011
01:03:50,150 --> 01:03:52,450
And he has a cult like following. And,

1012
01:03:52,450 --> 01:03:56,410
and then all of his friends
and his cousins that he's
brought along with him on

1013
01:03:56,410 --> 01:03:58,490
the journey. And like I said, you know,

1014
01:03:58,490 --> 01:04:02,130
taking care of his mom and his grandma
before she passed, rest in peace,

1015
01:04:02,310 --> 01:04:06,690
but taking care, putting his sister
through college and, you know, just the,

1016
01:04:06,750 --> 01:04:10,810
the, the people, his guys that's locked
up that he sent money to in jail.

1017
01:04:10,950 --> 01:04:15,770
You know, just all of that shit. This
is still a boy. He's 27 years old.

1018
01:04:15,770 --> 01:04:18,530
He is a kid. I got kids his age. You know,

1019
01:04:18,670 --> 01:04:23,330
so just to show her that
responsibility and still be here as a

1020
01:04:23,650 --> 01:04:27,530
creative, with all due respect
to Tupac and Biggie, like,

1021
01:04:27,530 --> 01:04:31,610
I'm not trying to say
that disrespectfully, but
I'm saying the longevity,

1022
01:04:32,390 --> 01:04:36,570
the influence, the overall
impact of the culture,

1023
01:04:37,950 --> 01:04:41,010
the creation of an entire genre, you know,

1024
01:04:41,030 --> 01:04:44,050
and then to still remain
relevant amongst his peers.

1025
01:04:45,220 --> 01:04:48,650
He's always been a leader, never
followed type dude. You know?

1026
01:04:49,150 --> 01:04:53,970
And I respect that, you know, so
interesting. That's just my opinion.

1027
01:04:53,970 --> 01:04:55,370
That's my opinion. Well.

1028
01:04:55,370 --> 01:04:58,450
Of course, I I think he sounds
fascinating too. Rachel said I,

1029
01:04:58,530 --> 01:05:00,050
I need to interview him as well.

1030
01:05:00,670 --> 01:05:04,930
Oh, definitely Sosa, definitely. Yeah.
And he don't fuck with everybody.

1031
01:05:05,030 --> 01:05:08,050
So it would be interesting, I don't know
if you looked up any of his interviews,

1032
01:05:08,350 --> 01:05:09,010
but.

1033
01:05:09,010 --> 01:05:10,570
I haven't seen any of his interviews.

1034
01:05:10,850 --> 01:05:15,650
I I only read a little bit on his bio
because I knew I was gonna be talking with

1035
01:05:15,650 --> 01:05:16,483
you.

1036
01:05:16,840 --> 01:05:19,630
Yeah. And he has an interview
in particular with a therapist.

1037
01:05:19,860 --> 01:05:22,790
Just look up Chief Keef
and the therapist. Okay.

1038
01:05:22,850 --> 01:05:26,190
You love it. I'll check it out. You'll
love it. It sounds fascinating. I mean,

1039
01:05:26,420 --> 01:05:31,190
it's not like my everyday
world I would ever intersect

1040
01:05:31,500 --> 01:05:35,950
with, with a rap star, cuz it's
just not the, the world I run in.

1041
01:05:36,250 --> 01:05:39,270
But that doesn't mean that it's
not somebody I wanna talk to.

1042
01:05:39,610 --> 01:05:42,230
It would be just so great if, again,

1043
01:05:42,230 --> 01:05:45,550
we lived in a world where everybody's
sort of intermingled all the time.

1044
01:05:45,770 --> 01:05:49,870
But the reality is that's just
not how the world works. Yeah.

1045
01:05:50,110 --> 01:05:53,610
But this is the problem. This is why
I have a show like this. This is,

1046
01:05:53,840 --> 01:05:58,770
everybody needs to hear all these
voices because it's the only way we're

1047
01:05:58,770 --> 01:06:01,130
gonna see ourselves in each other.

1048
01:06:02,230 --> 01:06:05,650
And I think this, this is a solution
to the problem, what you're saying.

1049
01:06:05,780 --> 01:06:09,730
Cause once again, the
technology has allowed us to,

1050
01:06:10,510 --> 01:06:13,650
you know, press a couple buttons
and you can be on with anyone.

1051
01:06:13,860 --> 01:06:15,770
Isn't that bonkers? And
then, you know, you.

1052
01:06:15,770 --> 01:06:16,603
You, I love it.

1053
01:06:16,790 --> 01:06:20,770
You have intersecting friends like
Rachel who I adore and you know,

1054
01:06:20,870 --> 01:06:25,810
you adore and we're all one
person away from everybody

1055
01:06:25,840 --> 01:06:29,090
else. That's, that's pretty cool. <laugh>.

1056
01:06:29,390 --> 01:06:33,770
That's amazing. That's amazing.
We have Chief Keef, we have, uh,

1057
01:06:33,840 --> 01:06:37,610
another artist who's one of the hottest
young artists coming up right now.

1058
01:06:37,630 --> 01:06:40,610
His name is too rare.
He's outta Philadelphia.

1059
01:06:41,030 --> 01:06:44,890
The number two r a r e I mean this, this,

1060
01:06:44,890 --> 01:06:49,570
this kid is going crazy
like on TikTok and Instagram

1061
01:06:49,910 --> 01:06:50,640
and you know,

1062
01:06:50,640 --> 01:06:54,770
he's always coming up with a new dance
and a new song and the kids love him.

1063
01:06:55,030 --> 01:06:59,210
So I believe he, I believe he was up
for double XL freshman of the year.

1064
01:06:59,210 --> 01:07:01,530
He may have won that. I'm
not for sure. I gotta check.

1065
01:07:02,020 --> 01:07:04,730
We're working with another rapper
out of Atlanta named Lil Na.

1066
01:07:05,230 --> 01:07:09,810
So we work with everyone from Angie
Stone to walk a flock, a flame to.

1067
01:07:10,130 --> 01:07:11,330
Freaking love Angie Stone.

1068
01:07:12,200 --> 01:07:16,450
Yeah, Angie, that's my girl. I
love Angie. Oh, work with her son.

1069
01:07:16,570 --> 01:07:18,970
I don't know if you know
the, uh, singer DeAngelo.

1070
01:07:19,270 --> 01:07:20,103
Of course.

1071
01:07:20,440 --> 01:07:23,730
Okay. You know, her and
DeAngelo have a son. This dude,

1072
01:07:23,870 --> 01:07:25,690
his name is Svo Twain.

1073
01:07:26,410 --> 01:07:31,250
S w a y v o t w a i n,

1074
01:07:31,790 --> 01:07:32,590
SBO Twain.

1075
01:07:32,590 --> 01:07:33,450
The name like that.

1076
01:07:33,610 --> 01:07:37,090
I bet he is a good writer cuz you
can't take t Twain into your name.

1077
01:07:37,450 --> 01:07:39,930
<Laugh>. Exactly, exactly, exactly.

1078
01:07:40,430 --> 01:07:44,770
That's a bonkers baby mix. That's, I
can't even imagine the level of talent.

1079
01:07:45,360 --> 01:07:47,210
Yeah. And he's just getting started.

1080
01:07:47,310 --> 01:07:51,770
He just did a remix of
his father's song, sbm.

1081
01:07:52,480 --> 01:07:54,730
It's nuts. So yeah.

1082
01:07:55,070 --> 01:07:58,370
That's some music royalty right there.
That's very cool. I'll have to check.

1083
01:07:58,420 --> 01:07:59,253
Definitely.

1084
01:07:59,520 --> 01:08:02,770
Will you, uh, do me the
honor to read the poem.

1085
01:08:02,910 --> 01:08:04,810
If you don't wanna read the
whole thing, that's okay.

1086
01:08:04,870 --> 01:08:05,970
But I would love for you to,

1087
01:08:06,030 --> 01:08:10,370
to read the poem you wrote and could you
give a little background as to when and

1088
01:08:10,390 --> 01:08:11,223
why you wrote it?

1089
01:08:12,040 --> 01:08:16,660
Okay. Well, I, a project,

1090
01:08:16,890 --> 01:08:20,140
it's, it's, it's a multifaceted,
it started off just as a novel

1091
01:08:21,720 --> 01:08:25,660
and then I talked to a friend
about the novel I was working on,

1092
01:08:26,440 --> 01:08:29,740
and he had the idea and said
this would make a great series.

1093
01:08:30,800 --> 01:08:35,580
So I started writing the screenplay
simultaneously as I'm writing a novel,

1094
01:08:37,670 --> 01:08:38,690
the story is about,

1095
01:08:38,750 --> 01:08:43,410
or the novel is about a story
that my grandmother would

1096
01:08:43,480 --> 01:08:45,930
tell me sometimes, like laying down,

1097
01:08:45,930 --> 01:08:47,650
like when I was spend
the night by our house

1098
01:08:49,260 --> 01:08:53,440
and we would just start talking
about stuff. And like I said,

1099
01:08:53,480 --> 01:08:55,840
I was one of those kids that
would always ask like, grandma,

1100
01:08:55,930 --> 01:08:59,800
where you grow up at? Or what
was it like? Or, you know,

1101
01:08:59,800 --> 01:09:01,360
maybe something happened on the news.

1102
01:09:01,430 --> 01:09:03,840
Like this one story
that I'm about to read,

1103
01:09:04,380 --> 01:09:08,720
the first time I heard the story
was in particular was I was,

1104
01:09:09,320 --> 01:09:14,320
I believe about eight or
nine years old. And a guy,

1105
01:09:14,760 --> 01:09:18,680
a black man in Milwaukee
named Ernest Lacey,

1106
01:09:19,780 --> 01:09:23,000
had just gotten choked
and killed by the police.

1107
01:09:25,060 --> 01:09:29,120
And there was like marches
and everything because people

1108
01:09:29,990 --> 01:09:33,960
were protesting saying that,
you know, the police, you know,

1109
01:09:33,990 --> 01:09:37,320
sort of like the same George
Floyd, the same story, you know,

1110
01:09:37,590 --> 01:09:38,640
just some shit like that.

1111
01:09:38,710 --> 01:09:42,960
Like they were arresting him and they
choked him to death over an arrest.

1112
01:09:43,780 --> 01:09:46,280
So I'm working on a project

1113
01:09:47,800 --> 01:09:50,100
that's basically my life story

1114
01:09:52,340 --> 01:09:56,680
and it's dealing with my

1115
01:09:56,680 --> 01:10:00,080
interaction with as, as being, you know,

1116
01:10:00,200 --> 01:10:03,120
a black person growing up
and, and where I grew up at

1117
01:10:04,790 --> 01:10:07,610
and having to deal with, you know,

1118
01:10:07,610 --> 01:10:12,610
going to school and living amongst just
a lot of racism and prejudice and shit

1119
01:10:12,610 --> 01:10:16,010
like that. Just having
to deal with that. And

1120
01:10:17,510 --> 01:10:20,890
in that process from kindergarten,
basically through college,

1121
01:10:20,920 --> 01:10:23,810
that was a situation. Like I've never
had a black teacher, a black instructor,

1122
01:10:24,050 --> 01:10:27,130
anything like that. But
throughout that process

1123
01:10:28,740 --> 01:10:31,860
I found a connection with white women

1124
01:10:34,280 --> 01:10:36,500
and that connection with white women,

1125
01:10:38,720 --> 01:10:39,740
it led to

1126
01:10:41,620 --> 01:10:44,900
a lot of like problems
within my own family.

1127
01:10:45,500 --> 01:10:49,060
A amongst people that I grew up with, uh,

1128
01:10:49,060 --> 01:10:53,160
definitely amongst black women. And

1129
01:10:54,800 --> 01:10:59,770
my connection with white women
was something that caused me

1130
01:10:59,870 --> 01:11:04,370
to write a book that I'm also writing
as a screenplay right now called White

1131
01:11:04,550 --> 01:11:08,850
Sex. And it's about the taboos,

1132
01:11:08,910 --> 01:11:13,260
the stereotypes, the
issues, the, the judgments,

1133
01:11:14,210 --> 01:11:15,060
ostracization,

1134
01:11:16,130 --> 01:11:20,900
just everything that you deal with as
a black man when you deal with white

1135
01:11:20,900 --> 01:11:25,430
women. And it also talks about how

1136
01:11:27,020 --> 01:11:28,560
it affects, you know,

1137
01:11:28,620 --> 01:11:33,360
me and my relationship with
black women within my family

1138
01:11:33,580 --> 01:11:37,480
as well as, as well as within
the black community. So

1139
01:11:39,230 --> 01:11:40,640
this, what I'm reading about

1140
01:11:42,710 --> 01:11:45,970
is part of the novel White Sex,

1141
01:11:47,150 --> 01:11:48,650
but it goes to,

1142
01:11:48,870 --> 01:11:52,850
and it's speaking about the
psychology behind how America

1143
01:11:53,710 --> 01:11:54,770
has had this taboo,

1144
01:11:56,130 --> 01:12:00,020
this taboo mentality about white
women and black men having sex.

1145
01:12:01,440 --> 01:12:06,300
And the, the, the story that my
grandmother told me when I was younger

1146
01:12:07,840 --> 01:12:11,340
had me so full of hate and rage that

1147
01:12:13,470 --> 01:12:14,700
later on in life

1148
01:12:16,790 --> 01:12:21,620
when I was a young adult and
I found out how upset white

1149
01:12:21,630 --> 01:12:24,890
dudes would get when they found out me.

1150
01:12:24,910 --> 01:12:28,610
And like definitely if it was one of
the white girls that they all liked the,

1151
01:12:28,610 --> 01:12:30,370
the popular one or the pretty one.

1152
01:12:31,190 --> 01:12:34,610
If they found out that me and
her had sex or did anything,

1153
01:12:34,610 --> 01:12:38,130
they would get so pissed. They would
be, they would be ready to fight me.

1154
01:12:38,130 --> 01:12:39,610
In some instances they did.

1155
01:12:40,370 --> 01:12:45,270
I saw how much that
upset them and that upset

1156
01:12:45,270 --> 01:12:49,780
them to the extent that
being called a nigger

1157
01:12:50,230 --> 01:12:51,063
upset me.

1158
01:12:52,600 --> 01:12:57,600
So that whole psychology of do I like

1159
01:12:57,600 --> 01:13:02,040
this white girl for real or am I fucking
her on some revenge sex to make white

1160
01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:03,680
boys upset?

1161
01:13:03,790 --> 01:13:08,520
Just this whole confusion about having
sex with white girls led to white sex.

1162
01:13:08,540 --> 01:13:10,160
So this selection that I wrote

1163
01:13:11,820 --> 01:13:16,120
is part of the psychology that I was
going through throughout all of that,

1164
01:13:18,950 --> 01:13:23,800
what have we done to each other? Where
has the humanity and humans gone?

1165
01:13:25,220 --> 01:13:28,120
I'm often consumed with issues
of race and it's exhausting.

1166
01:13:29,690 --> 01:13:33,830
I'm of feeling like I have to continuously
defend and justify my existence

1167
01:13:34,600 --> 01:13:38,550
where I'm from. We learned
early on not to show feelings.

1168
01:13:38,770 --> 01:13:40,030
That's a sign of weakness.

1169
01:13:41,300 --> 01:13:44,270
What if I cry and complain
that'll make everything better?

1170
01:13:45,360 --> 01:13:49,710
Nobody cares about my feelings.
I'm tired of feeling misunderstood.

1171
01:13:51,050 --> 01:13:55,920
I'm so over having to be
understanding how I feel and

1172
01:13:55,920 --> 01:13:57,960
what I think don't matter
to the rest of the world.

1173
01:13:58,690 --> 01:14:01,160
Black men aren't valued fuck feelings.

1174
01:14:01,660 --> 01:14:05,680
We pay such a large price just to
feel worthless. Fuck the world.

1175
01:14:06,970 --> 01:14:10,640
Think about what my father and his
father and his father had to go through.

1176
01:14:11,360 --> 01:14:14,940
Living in a country that thrives upon
the love of Hayden and killing black

1177
01:14:14,940 --> 01:14:17,420
people, black men in particular

1178
01:14:18,970 --> 01:14:22,580
victims of terrorists and
living in a system of terrorism.

1179
01:14:23,900 --> 01:14:27,680
The stories of murder and torture were
often the subject of late nights with my

1180
01:14:27,680 --> 01:14:30,480
grandmother when I was still only a child,

1181
01:14:30,860 --> 01:14:32,520
no more than seven or eight years old.

1182
01:14:34,700 --> 01:14:39,580
I could see that old white racist
bastard playing as day right now just

1183
01:14:39,580 --> 01:14:40,620
like it was yesterday.

1184
01:14:42,020 --> 01:14:45,380
I heard this story at least a hundred
times by the time I was eight years old.

1185
01:14:46,400 --> 01:14:50,260
But these times she told it, it
felt like the first time I heard it.

1186
01:14:52,450 --> 01:14:57,070
She was only four years old in 1928
living in Walnut Grove, Mississippi.

1187
01:14:58,140 --> 01:15:02,790
When on a late August night a gang of
about 13 horsemen wearing white sheets

1188
01:15:03,110 --> 01:15:06,350
surrounded the house and demanded
that her grandfather came out.

1189
01:15:07,880 --> 01:15:12,840
As she would tell the story, I could
sense her pain of recalling the situation.

1190
01:15:14,650 --> 01:15:17,950
It was though her voice would find
a deeper sorrow with each sentence.

1191
01:15:19,250 --> 01:15:23,670
The bedroom would be dark and only the
streetlights and moon would allow me to

1192
01:15:23,670 --> 01:15:25,110
see the tears swelling up in her eyes.

1193
01:15:26,450 --> 01:15:30,250
My head would be laying on
her stomach for some reason.

1194
01:15:30,970 --> 01:15:33,250
I love to hear the sound of
her voice through her stomach,

1195
01:15:34,140 --> 01:15:37,770
along with all the other little weird
noises and sounds that her intestines and

1196
01:15:37,770 --> 01:15:41,890
digestive system would make.
Her skin would smell like v's.

1197
01:15:41,890 --> 01:15:45,770
Vapor rub as she used it on her
hands to help with her arthritis.

1198
01:15:47,330 --> 01:15:51,710
The arthritis had came from years of
cleaning wealthy white people's homes in

1199
01:15:51,710 --> 01:15:55,510
Mississippi as a team and in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin as an adult,

1200
01:15:56,250 --> 01:16:01,230
until she finally saved up enough
money to open up a diner she'd have

1201
01:16:01,230 --> 01:16:02,063
on her nightgown.

1202
01:16:02,290 --> 01:16:06,870
And I'd be in my lawn Johns and she'd
tell me this story of watching her

1203
01:16:06,870 --> 01:16:10,070
grandfather and uncle being dragged
out of the house at gunpoint.

1204
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:13,570
It's like she never could get
over what happened that night.

1205
01:16:14,960 --> 01:16:19,210
Sometimes I feel like maybe I've never
gotten over that night and I wasn't even

1206
01:16:19,210 --> 01:16:23,350
there. But it felt like I was,
each time she told the story,

1207
01:16:24,010 --> 01:16:26,760
she had to continue to tell the story.

1208
01:16:27,500 --> 01:16:31,790
So we knew what happened and
who did it. White people,

1209
01:16:33,440 --> 01:16:37,940
she recall how the men in white sheets
took the butts of their guns and smashed

1210
01:16:37,940 --> 01:16:39,340
out the teeth of her grandfather.

1211
01:16:39,920 --> 01:16:42,420
Her stomach would make
a noise of hunger pains.

1212
01:16:42,680 --> 01:16:46,340
And I could hear the horrifying scream
of my great great grandfather's cry.

1213
01:16:46,890 --> 01:16:50,540
Like she swallowed the night of his
murder and housed it in her belly for

1214
01:16:50,540 --> 01:16:51,373
safekeeping.

1215
01:16:52,440 --> 01:16:56,700
She explained how others used the butt
of their rifles to smash the genitals of

1216
01:16:56,700 --> 01:16:57,533
her uncle.

1217
01:16:58,340 --> 01:17:02,240
She remembered blood squirting out of her
grandfather's mouth and landing on her

1218
01:17:02,240 --> 01:17:03,073
face.

1219
01:17:03,400 --> 01:17:07,400
I would listen while doodling with the
button by her stomach on her nightgown.

1220
01:17:08,440 --> 01:17:10,730
I would listen with the
sense of terrified anger,

1221
01:17:11,040 --> 01:17:15,770
wanting to kill the white man that did
this to my grandmother's grandfather I

1222
01:17:15,770 --> 01:17:19,410
wanted to kill. And I was
only seven or eight years old.

1223
01:17:20,170 --> 01:17:24,980
What have we done to each other as my
ear will be pressed against her stomach

1224
01:17:25,970 --> 01:17:29,440
screeching and eerie sounds at
her digestive tract would make,

1225
01:17:29,570 --> 01:17:32,440
would turn into the screams
of her grandfather and uncle,

1226
01:17:33,030 --> 01:17:37,320
both pleading for their lives while
being beaten and tied up with both hands

1227
01:17:37,320 --> 01:17:41,200
behind their backs and ankles
together trapped in her stomach,

1228
01:17:41,590 --> 01:17:45,720
screaming from the pain, the agony
of vicious blows to the head and body

1229
01:17:47,480 --> 01:17:49,420
as she would adjust herself in the bed.

1230
01:17:49,720 --> 01:17:54,620
Her old bones would crack and the sounds
of her bones cracking would only be

1231
01:17:54,720 --> 01:17:58,300
echoes of the breaking bones that cracked
in the necks of her grandfather and

1232
01:17:58,300 --> 01:18:02,580
uncle being hanged by the gang of
racist white Ku Klux Klan members.

1233
01:18:03,360 --> 01:18:07,740
And why did they drag my great great
grandfather and and Greatuncle out of the

1234
01:18:07,740 --> 01:18:09,260
house, beat them and hang them?

1235
01:18:10,350 --> 01:18:13,820
Cause they just found out that
my great-great-grandfather
had purchased the land

1236
01:18:13,820 --> 01:18:14,860
that his grandparents,

1237
01:18:14,930 --> 01:18:18,780
parents and siblings have been slaves
on and worked their entire lives.

1238
01:18:19,560 --> 01:18:24,020
He purchased it from the lady who was
the last living air of the land and she

1239
01:18:24,020 --> 01:18:26,580
sold it to him and moved
to the city of Jackson.

1240
01:18:28,170 --> 01:18:32,260
Them evil bastards killed
Floyd and Milt and cold blood

1241
01:18:33,030 --> 01:18:36,250
and told us we better get our
black asses outta Walnut Grove.

1242
01:18:36,510 --> 01:18:40,950
Or it'll be some more dead niggas
swinging from a tree. We ain't go nowhere,

1243
01:18:41,140 --> 01:18:43,890
baby. They was gonna have to kill us all.

1244
01:18:44,920 --> 01:18:48,370
Papa paid for that land and blood
and it stayed in the family.

1245
01:18:49,150 --> 01:18:53,370
Nobody was ever charged
with those murders, but the
whole town knew who did it.

1246
01:18:54,400 --> 01:18:59,280
Old Calvin McDonald baby. Don't
you ever trust white folks?

1247
01:18:59,420 --> 01:19:03,440
You hear me? She'd always say
that when she finished the story.

1248
01:19:04,790 --> 01:19:08,890
Yes, grandmama, I say unto
her belly with tears of anger

1249
01:19:16,760 --> 01:19:19,500
and hurt from my grandmother's
pain crawling down my face.

1250
01:19:20,290 --> 01:19:24,700
What have we done to each other? What
have we really done to each other?

1251
01:19:28,200 --> 01:19:32,430
First of all, that's
extraordinarily beautiful. When you

1252
01:19:34,720 --> 01:19:38,320
finished creating that work, what
did you read it to your grandmother?

1253
01:19:40,690 --> 01:19:43,190
Oh, she's not alive. None of
my grandmothers are alive.

1254
01:19:44,680 --> 01:19:47,340
What's, what's your
grandmother's name that this is.

1255
01:19:48,660 --> 01:19:49,493
Lucille Johnson.

1256
01:19:50,420 --> 01:19:53,740
Lucille Johnson. When we spoke earlier,

1257
01:19:53,930 --> 01:19:57,300
when we speak of generational
trauma, I mean the,

1258
01:19:57,300 --> 01:20:01,100
you encapsulated it so
beautifully and painfully.

1259
01:20:03,040 --> 01:20:03,900
How do we,

1260
01:20:05,840 --> 01:20:09,660
how do we come out of that
pain? Like how do you,

1261
01:20:09,960 --> 01:20:14,220
as a kid that was told to not
trust white people justifiably so

1262
01:20:14,850 --> 01:20:18,500
with the history that
runs through your veins.

1263
01:20:19,180 --> 01:20:20,420
I mean that's the thing too, right?

1264
01:20:20,490 --> 01:20:25,220
It's in our d these
traumas are in our D How do

1265
01:20:25,380 --> 01:20:28,780
we take that out and move forward?

1266
01:20:29,920 --> 01:20:31,060
Is it even possible?

1267
01:20:33,260 --> 01:20:37,650
Definitely it's possible.
Definitely. You know, it's just work.

1268
01:20:37,670 --> 01:20:41,850
You just gotta do the work, you know?
And this is the work, you know, these,

1269
01:20:41,980 --> 01:20:43,690
these things are, you know,

1270
01:20:44,920 --> 01:20:49,290
like I've read that a million times
and I've never got like that, you know,

1271
01:20:50,190 --> 01:20:53,490
you know, you just have to keep
working. You have to work through it.

1272
01:20:54,070 --> 01:20:57,530
And I don't know, you, you ask
a great question. I don't know.

1273
01:20:58,290 --> 01:21:02,850
I mean it, it's tough
though. It's tough. It,

1274
01:21:02,850 --> 01:21:06,410
it makes it a little bit easier though
when you do talk about this stuff

1275
01:21:08,320 --> 01:21:12,330
and when you do talk to someone,

1276
01:21:12,810 --> 01:21:14,610
I guess that's why therapy is important.

1277
01:21:14,680 --> 01:21:18,810
When you talk to someone who
understands or listens or you know,

1278
01:21:20,950 --> 01:21:25,740
those things are important cause these
emotions can be trapped in you and they

1279
01:21:25,740 --> 01:21:29,740
can be so suppressed that you could think
that they're not there or that you're

1280
01:21:29,740 --> 01:21:34,380
okay and that you're fine and then fam
outta nowhere, you can be triggered.

1281
01:21:34,600 --> 01:21:38,060
You know? So when you find those
triggers, just keep working,

1282
01:21:38,290 --> 01:21:41,980
just keep doing the work and know
that it's nothing that you did.

1283
01:21:42,490 --> 01:21:47,140
It's something that has been placed
in your programming at some point.

1284
01:21:47,960 --> 01:21:49,180
And you have to, you know,

1285
01:21:49,730 --> 01:21:52,620
keep working on that hardware
until it becomes a software.

1286
01:21:52,760 --> 01:21:56,300
You have to have a new software,
you know, you know, go from there.

1287
01:21:56,760 --> 01:22:00,740
Did you find the answer to your
question that you had about

1288
01:22:01,730 --> 01:22:06,020
what it was, about the connection
you felt toward white women?

1289
01:22:06,070 --> 01:22:08,500
Other than if you're sur I mean,

1290
01:22:08,880 --> 01:22:11,700
we emulate toward what
we experienced, right?

1291
01:22:12,120 --> 01:22:16,020
That's one another reason
why representation matters.
But for you personally,

1292
01:22:16,840 --> 01:22:17,860
did you find an answer?

1293
01:22:18,890 --> 01:22:19,723
Hell yeah.

1294
01:22:19,740 --> 01:22:23,260
I feel like it's so crazy cause I was
just talking to my guy about this.

1295
01:22:23,320 --> 01:22:26,260
He was like, man, <laugh>,
I remember when he asked,

1296
01:22:26,260 --> 01:22:29,620
well I remember when my other
guy asked me like, dude,

1297
01:22:29,620 --> 01:22:30,740
why you fuck with white chick?

1298
01:22:31,840 --> 01:22:36,540
And I used to say it like jokingly
because it was a rap lyric

1299
01:22:36,570 --> 01:22:40,500
that Nas had said, but it was
a lyric that was just really,

1300
01:22:40,680 --> 01:22:45,090
it really resonated. And the lyric was,

1301
01:22:45,470 --> 01:22:48,170
he said, I got some.
He said, I got no game.

1302
01:22:48,720 --> 01:22:52,720
It's just some bitches understand my
story. He said, I ain't got no game,

1303
01:22:52,790 --> 01:22:56,880
it's just some bitches. So I used to
say I ain't, and they used say, why you?

1304
01:22:57,000 --> 01:22:59,680
I used to say, cause they just understand
me, right? They understand my story.

1305
01:23:00,580 --> 01:23:04,720
So I used to say that cause of that rap
line, I used to repeat that rap line.

1306
01:23:05,360 --> 01:23:08,690
But when I started
seriously thinking about it,

1307
01:23:08,730 --> 01:23:13,380
I mean that was ultimately
the truth. And then I started,

1308
01:23:13,500 --> 01:23:17,020
I did a deep dive. Like I used
to first it started with, okay,

1309
01:23:17,910 --> 01:23:22,250
for some reason white chicks just
relate to me like they fuck with me.

1310
01:23:22,320 --> 01:23:25,910
Like if I explain like if
we having a conversation,

1311
01:23:26,030 --> 01:23:29,350
I say I feel like this blah blah
blah. Ok, they understand how I feel.

1312
01:23:29,350 --> 01:23:33,710
Oh I get that. I understand. You
know, I like that. You know, it was,

1313
01:23:33,730 --> 01:23:36,910
it was no combativeness. Even
if they felt differently,

1314
01:23:37,020 --> 01:23:40,710
they still would present their different
opinion in a harmonious friendly type

1315
01:23:40,730 --> 01:23:44,230
way. Being in school, being an athlete,

1316
01:23:45,350 --> 01:23:49,310
I mean I was in school in on all
white campuses. So just my proximity,

1317
01:23:49,930 --> 01:23:54,550
that's what I was around. Like I wasn't
at A H B C U, I wasn't at, you know,

1318
01:23:55,040 --> 01:23:57,550
there wasn't black women around.
So that's what was around.

1319
01:23:57,810 --> 01:24:02,730
But to go even deeper and say where
I honestly think the connection came

1320
01:24:02,750 --> 01:24:03,583
in was

1321
01:24:05,490 --> 01:24:10,170
I feel like we were oppressed
by the same entity white men.

1322
01:24:10,590 --> 01:24:12,290
And that's where we connected and related.

1323
01:24:14,110 --> 01:24:17,390
I feel like a lot of shit that,
especially when I grew up in the eighties,

1324
01:24:17,810 --> 01:24:21,910
the mid to late eighties,
nineties, like, you know

1325
01:24:23,550 --> 01:24:25,480
that. And that's why I
always go back to rap music.

1326
01:24:25,550 --> 01:24:29,600
Like rap music did a hell of a lot for
race relations and fucking interracial

1327
01:24:29,600 --> 01:24:33,200
relationships, you know what I'm
saying? But before then, you know,

1328
01:24:35,290 --> 01:24:39,520
it was like white girls were told you
can't talk to black guys, you know?

1329
01:24:40,700 --> 01:24:43,200
And we was told, you better
not bring no white girl home.

1330
01:24:43,820 --> 01:24:46,320
You know what I'm saying? So, but

1331
01:24:48,780 --> 01:24:52,520
our oppression, like white dudes
would always do shit to us.

1332
01:24:52,820 --> 01:24:53,653
You know what I'm saying?

1333
01:24:54,100 --> 01:24:57,040
And those same white dudes that did shit
to us would be the ones that's doing

1334
01:24:57,040 --> 01:24:58,240
shit to they white women.

1335
01:24:59,900 --> 01:25:04,280
So now when me and these women are talking
about shit and she's telling me about

1336
01:25:04,280 --> 01:25:08,440
how much Brad hates my guts and everything
he said about me and why he's such a

1337
01:25:08,440 --> 01:25:12,520
prick because he did X, Y, and
Z to so and so and so, you know,

1338
01:25:12,540 --> 01:25:15,120
now Brad's the asshole,
you know, fucking Brad.

1339
01:25:20,820 --> 01:25:23,560
So that, that was, I think
that was the connection.

1340
01:25:25,470 --> 01:25:29,250
And I was just always
in that world, you know?

1341
01:25:29,270 --> 01:25:32,730
And then black chicks would be
like, oh, you act like a white boy.

1342
01:25:33,230 --> 01:25:36,930
You know what I'm saying? Or you act
like a white boy. So I'm like, whatever,

1343
01:25:37,310 --> 01:25:39,290
you know? Okay. Whatever, you know.

1344
01:25:39,430 --> 01:25:42,730
But I know the first rule of
the game is like, who like you?

1345
01:25:42,830 --> 01:25:46,330
So I'm not gonna get caught up in
what color you are. If you like me,

1346
01:25:46,430 --> 01:25:50,380
I'm gonna figure out what you're
all about. And then I think it's a,

1347
01:25:50,760 --> 01:25:52,380
and this is what caused
me to write the series.

1348
01:25:52,490 --> 01:25:56,100
Like my first few girlfriends
were black chick, right?

1349
01:25:57,770 --> 01:26:02,340
All of them cheated. And I think
that did something psychologically.

1350
01:26:04,000 --> 01:26:08,150
Cause I know white chicks cheat,
everybody cheat. But those first three,

1351
01:26:08,180 --> 01:26:12,030
this was like my freshman year in high
school, I was in Love Love, right?

1352
01:26:12,470 --> 01:26:15,310
<laugh>, she cheated like
a motherfucker. <laugh>.

1353
01:26:17,690 --> 01:26:22,540
And then the next one was uh,
my senior year in high school.

1354
01:26:22,920 --> 01:26:26,580
And that's when I really
thought, okay, I'm in love. Cause

1355
01:26:28,480 --> 01:26:29,420
she was in college

1356
01:26:31,940 --> 01:26:36,520
and when I graduated high school and
chose the college that I was gonna go to,

1357
01:26:37,100 --> 01:26:41,920
she even transferred and came to the
college I was at and ended up fucking

1358
01:26:42,000 --> 01:26:46,950
a dude on my team. This was
black chicks. And then look,

1359
01:26:47,100 --> 01:26:48,430
each time that happened,

1360
01:26:48,770 --> 01:26:52,790
it was always a white chick there
that was understanding <laugh>.

1361
01:26:53,630 --> 01:26:58,190
<Laugh>. I we're shaped
by our experiences.

1362
01:26:58,590 --> 01:27:00,390
I mean that's just hands down what it is.

1363
01:27:00,390 --> 01:27:04,750
But you bring up a really
interesting point in that women

1364
01:27:05,060 --> 01:27:08,830
operating in the world also have
to have their head on a swivel

1365
01:27:09,870 --> 01:27:13,720
because their prey in
a world of predators.

1366
01:27:14,540 --> 01:27:18,200
And that's, that's a really
interesting comparison.

1367
01:27:19,380 --> 01:27:23,900
As a black man, you're, you also are prey.

1368
01:27:24,610 --> 01:27:28,060
Yeah, yeah, definitely.

1369
01:27:28,360 --> 01:27:32,500
And and I always go back in
history, like white women,

1370
01:27:33,840 --> 01:27:38,690
they have been the number one
aids and helping like civil rights

1371
01:27:38,970 --> 01:27:41,610
movements, anything where
people are being oppressed.

1372
01:27:42,320 --> 01:27:46,230
White women have always been the ones
who stepped up to say, let's help this.

1373
01:27:46,480 --> 01:27:51,270
Cause they could always relate because
their men have never treated them

1374
01:27:51,290 --> 01:27:55,590
as equals. So that's where the whole
white sex, what I'm writing is driven on.

1375
01:27:56,260 --> 01:28:00,160
And it's because we both had to deal
with the white men in that capacity of

1376
01:28:00,420 --> 01:28:03,000
you're not gonna be our equals,
we're gonna tell you what to do,

1377
01:28:03,000 --> 01:28:05,760
what you can do, what you can do,
what you can be, what you can't be,

1378
01:28:05,760 --> 01:28:06,840
where you can go, where you can't go.

1379
01:28:06,840 --> 01:28:08,960
We're gonna tell you all that
we're gonna treat you like a child.

1380
01:28:11,200 --> 01:28:14,140
And that's where our connection come
from. And a lot of white women, you know,

1381
01:28:14,140 --> 01:28:14,780
come on man,

1382
01:28:14,780 --> 01:28:17,980
there's been a lot of white sex just
outta resentment for how white men have

1383
01:28:17,980 --> 01:28:18,400
treated them.

1384
01:28:18,400 --> 01:28:21,260
I'm gonna go fuck a black dude just
cause I know you don't want me to.

1385
01:28:21,920 --> 01:28:26,820
But this is where we start talking about
again the fetishization of cultures.

1386
01:28:26,820 --> 01:28:27,860
Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and race. Exactly.

1387
01:28:28,960 --> 01:28:32,500
Yes. And that's what makes this exciting
to write. Cause it's so much of it,

1388
01:28:32,520 --> 01:28:33,220
I'm sure.

1389
01:28:33,220 --> 01:28:33,900
<Laugh>,

1390
01:28:33,900 --> 01:28:38,780
I mean it sounds really intriguing
and it's one of those topics where,

1391
01:28:39,680 --> 01:28:44,540
you know, people whisper in in the
quiet places, these same ideas,

1392
01:28:44,720 --> 01:28:49,720
but people are scared to say them out
loud. Like, what does it mean if X, Y,

1393
01:28:49,840 --> 01:28:54,320
Z And for you to understand yourself
enough to, to ask the questions.

1394
01:28:54,860 --> 01:28:56,320
Why am I attracted.

1395
01:28:56,820 --> 01:28:59,920
I'm attracted to beautiful
people, beautiful women, right?

1396
01:29:00,860 --> 01:29:05,190
But my experience in 19, you know, 91,

1397
01:29:05,370 --> 01:29:10,230
I'm in North Dakota and I'm around
white girls who've never seen a black

1398
01:29:10,230 --> 01:29:14,370
guy before. They've never seen black
people before. I feel like a superhero.

1399
01:29:14,380 --> 01:29:19,020
She's like, oh my god, can I
touch your skin? Yeah, that's a.

1400
01:29:19,070 --> 01:29:20,540
Weird to say to somebody.

1401
01:29:20,810 --> 01:29:24,900
Yeah, but you gotta rewind the tape.
That's not all. It's woke information.

1402
01:29:24,900 --> 01:29:26,420
This is 1991.

1403
01:29:26,680 --> 01:29:30,180
That's like something things
the serial killer says <laugh>.

1404
01:29:31,880 --> 01:29:36,660
You know, when I look
back, you're totally right.

1405
01:29:37,120 --> 01:29:42,100
But when I was 18 years old and
I'm horny and this girl just

1406
01:29:42,100 --> 01:29:45,740
wants to do whatever I
say do, this is white sex.

1407
01:29:46,740 --> 01:29:49,830
I've never seen a black guy. Oh my
God, your skin is so soft. Oh my God,

1408
01:29:49,830 --> 01:29:51,790
you're here. Oh, you smell. I mean,

1409
01:29:51,810 --> 01:29:56,230
and then just to get the conversations
and them telling me their background and

1410
01:29:56,230 --> 01:30:00,270
where they're from and how they
was raised and with their dads and

1411
01:30:01,140 --> 01:30:01,973
Oh yeah.

1412
01:30:02,770 --> 01:30:05,350
How as a father, you say
you have children. Yes.

1413
01:30:05,410 --> 01:30:10,150
How as a father has your
experiences to now helped you shape

1414
01:30:10,760 --> 01:30:14,430
their young minds? And you said
they're in their twenties now,

1415
01:30:14,610 --> 01:30:19,110
so how has that been seeing
how they navigate the world?

1416
01:30:20,400 --> 01:30:24,080
Well, I got three black girls, you know,

1417
01:30:24,110 --> 01:30:28,520
I've always given it to my daughters in
the raw, you know, they know their dad.

1418
01:30:30,070 --> 01:30:34,840
I've always treated them like
people that are growing up to be

1419
01:30:34,910 --> 01:30:37,640
individuals. So I'm gonna be your
friend and I'm gonna guide you.

1420
01:30:37,740 --> 01:30:41,890
I'm not here to tell you what to do.
I think that's the best way to parent.

1421
01:30:43,010 --> 01:30:46,850
I think a lot of people think, oh, don't
be your kid's friend. Be his parent.

1422
01:30:47,120 --> 01:30:50,770
Okay. Yeah. Well one day that parenting,
you're always gonna be the parent.

1423
01:30:50,830 --> 01:30:54,490
We know that. But if you
don't have a relationship,

1424
01:30:54,590 --> 01:30:58,930
if you don't have a friendship with
your child and you just come in as the

1425
01:30:58,930 --> 01:31:01,610
disciplinary to tell you what
you can and what you can't do,

1426
01:31:02,400 --> 01:31:05,650
then they'll get to, they'll get to a
point where they're not sharing with you.

1427
01:31:06,350 --> 01:31:08,450
And I want my kids to
always share with me,

1428
01:31:09,390 --> 01:31:11,810
and I know that they don't belong to me.

1429
01:31:12,130 --> 01:31:15,970
I was just an agent for them to get
here. They belong to themselves.

1430
01:31:17,070 --> 01:31:22,060
So I always want to leave
that space of respect

1431
01:31:22,160 --> 01:31:25,740
for what they want to do. And you
know, and let them know, you know,

1432
01:31:26,200 --> 01:31:28,980
you have your own mind,
you form your own opinions.

1433
01:31:29,080 --> 01:31:33,820
I'm just here to give you information
and give you what I've been through for

1434
01:31:33,820 --> 01:31:37,220
you to, for, for you to glean off of
and learn as much as possible. So,

1435
01:31:37,720 --> 01:31:42,180
you know, my oldest daughter, she's
doing amazing. She graduated from, uh,

1436
01:31:42,300 --> 01:31:46,660
H B C U Clark University down in
Atlanta. She's living in Brooklyn,

1437
01:31:46,660 --> 01:31:49,180
New York right now. She's
just taking her lsat.

1438
01:31:49,360 --> 01:31:52,820
So she's waiting on the scores that she
wants to get into school that she wants

1439
01:31:52,820 --> 01:31:55,260
to go to. I think she just picked one,

1440
01:31:55,260 --> 01:31:58,970
but I'm not gonna put that out
there right now. My second daughter,

1441
01:31:59,190 --> 01:32:03,340
she's just like me. She's a rebel.
She made me a grandfather a year ago,

1442
01:32:03,940 --> 01:32:08,260
<laugh>. So you know, she's out here
doing her thing. And then my youngest,

1443
01:32:08,510 --> 01:32:13,450
she's 12 years old and she's, she's
amazing. Just really a good kid.

1444
01:32:13,450 --> 01:32:17,010
She's graduating from the
sixth grade this week. Uh,

1445
01:32:17,110 --> 01:32:19,610
and she's doing amazing
and things and swimming.

1446
01:32:19,820 --> 01:32:23,650
She's gotten some state qualifying
time. So I spend a lot of time with her,

1447
01:32:24,270 --> 01:32:26,370
you know, going to swim
meets and things like that.

1448
01:32:27,440 --> 01:32:31,580
That's cool. I, her generation's
gonna save us all. Let's hope <laugh>.

1449
01:32:31,890 --> 01:32:36,180
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Know. And they, I mean,
there's, these kids are smart. Yeah.

1450
01:32:36,180 --> 01:32:40,780
These kids are very wise. And that's why
I'm optimistic. Cause my 12 year old,

1451
01:32:40,800 --> 01:32:44,140
my, all of my kids, I mean,
these kids are so mature

1452
01:32:45,680 --> 01:32:50,660
and they've seen so much and
they experienced so much and they

1453
01:32:50,660 --> 01:32:54,020
deal with, I mean, look, these kids
have been through covid and, you know,

1454
01:32:54,080 --> 01:32:58,340
all kinds of shit. You know, they're
ahead of their time. They're,

1455
01:32:58,340 --> 01:33:00,740
they're gonna make the world a better
place. I'm thoroughly convinced.

1456
01:33:01,410 --> 01:33:03,100
Amen to that. So bier,

1457
01:33:03,100 --> 01:33:07,740
tell people how folks can find you out
there in the worldwide web aons of life.

1458
01:33:08,300 --> 01:33:09,120
<laugh>.

1459
01:33:09,120 --> 01:33:13,420
You know what, I don't even really do
too much. I'm on Instagram, Tobi Shapiro,

1460
01:33:13,860 --> 01:33:18,380
S a b i r s h a p i r o. And uh,

1461
01:33:18,380 --> 01:33:20,620
that's pretty much the only
thing I've, I've put up.

1462
01:33:21,360 --> 01:33:22,193
I get it.

1463
01:33:22,310 --> 01:33:23,560
Yeah. You know, <laugh>.

1464
01:33:24,360 --> 01:33:25,193
I get it.

1465
01:33:25,220 --> 01:33:29,080
It goes back. It goes back. And I always
tell my daughter, she's like, dad,

1466
01:33:29,140 --> 01:33:32,720
you know everyone, why don't you
put up this? Why don't you do that?

1467
01:33:33,710 --> 01:33:36,610
And I said, baby. Cause it's
like, we live in this era,

1468
01:33:36,780 --> 01:33:39,850
y'all era of like, when we came up,

1469
01:33:40,270 --> 01:33:43,450
you really had to be who
you said you were. You know,

1470
01:33:43,760 --> 01:33:47,050
like you had status
without putting up a post.

1471
01:33:47,080 --> 01:33:52,050
Like you went places and people knew
who you were and what you represented

1472
01:33:52,110 --> 01:33:53,010
and what you did.

1473
01:33:53,270 --> 01:33:57,690
And you couldn't sit behind a keyboard
and make up this fake persona and all

1474
01:33:57,690 --> 01:34:00,730
these things. So I try
not to get caught in it.

1475
01:34:00,740 --> 01:34:02,890
Cause I see so many people around me,

1476
01:34:03,060 --> 01:34:07,370
especially you would be amazed at how
many people that are in the industry that

1477
01:34:07,370 --> 01:34:09,810
really get into the likes and the follows.

1478
01:34:09,910 --> 01:34:12,290
And they're like so wrapped up in that.

1479
01:34:12,650 --> 01:34:15,770
I used to post shit all the time
with my stories, but I scale back.

1480
01:34:15,870 --> 01:34:18,890
And when this, this, uh, novel wraps up,

1481
01:34:19,050 --> 01:34:22,940
I will try to utilize it
for what it's, what it,

1482
01:34:22,940 --> 01:34:26,180
what it can be beneficial for as far
as promoting that and things like that.

1483
01:34:26,530 --> 01:34:29,740
Yeah. And you're welcome anytime to
come back and talk about the novel.

1484
01:34:30,080 --> 01:34:31,980
We didn't really even
dig into that very much,

1485
01:34:32,280 --> 01:34:36,140
but I feel like we covered so
much good stuff. Thank you.

1486
01:34:37,030 --> 01:34:38,900
Thank you so much. I had a great time.

1487
01:34:39,560 --> 01:34:40,393
It was super fun.

1488
01:34:41,240 --> 01:34:42,073
Yes it was.

1489
01:34:42,510 --> 01:34:45,380
Thank you for listening everybody. Bye.

1490
01:34:50,090 --> 01:34:54,900
Rate review and subscribe to Hey Human
podcast on iTunes or wherever you get

1491
01:34:54,900 --> 01:34:56,420
your podcasts. Thanks.

1492
01:34:57,120 --> 01:34:57,340
Bye.