All right, be a fam, welcome back. I am back with the Brown Table, and I have my friends, my BA fam in person, well kind of virtually, but in person. We got Yon Nelly Ivy League educated, the Humble hot Shot from Brooklyn, New York.
Intro.
I don't know why I went, Maybe because George Foreman just passed. So I was channeling like some boxing energy. Rip you're not mad at him dying, well.
Not mad at the energy.
And also something okay, gotcha rip to the girl master of all girl masters. He really did his big one for like college students circa two thousand.
And every book out and every barbecue and every black party in Brooklyn.
Yeah, you can make two paninis at a time. But you know, oh man, I inherited my parents, George Foreman, Griddle. I think they had like other things than just like the press. The Michael Scott, you know, the one that I forgot to introduce Chris and Chris.
I was like, at some point I'll get introduced. I wasn't going to rush it, but I was like the riddle speaking.
Of Brown University, where our Ivy League Humble Hot Shot attended college. We're also joined by Chris Brown NG look at that brown ambition.
I don't I to tell people my family is the huge donor, say university, but we get you changing up a little bit that way. They don't know directly that it's my family.
But you know that's right.
Listen, clown college. You no, that's like a triple brown brown ambition, Brown University. Yes, brown.
We only brought a brown university because I'm drinking from my little college cup. And I was like, hold on, now they're not paying me to promote it, so let me cover it. But now we're promoting them anyway, so.
I mean half her back. Maybe they can pay you to speak, and then it's all symbiotic. It's all connected, you know what.
Actually I should have put that as my brown boost. But they did buy a bunch of my books and create an intro to personal financial literacy and the markets for freshman seminar.
Yeh, nelly, that's kind of cool.
Oh but seriously, I was literally in tears. I was like, wait, hold up, my book is all the sentiments.
When are you gonna get your own library? When's that going to happen?
I have to figure that out.
But got state schools, all right, So what's happening in the world. We mentioned George Foreman passed away. Why am I seeing Jonathan Major's face all over my feet everywhere I live?
Girl? Because Meghan Goood is because Meghan Good is a you know is what is? She just like doubly famous. I just feel like there was a moment where people were kind of like upset and like over him, didn't want and then Meghan bought him back.
I just because what She's America's black sweetheart and now he gets to benefit.
She was scared for her. I feel like she was everybody's nineties like dreamgirl, even mine.
I mean, and it is still is Megan When her and bow Wow did that one movie with skating, what was it they were skating? I don't know.
Anyway, it's making good, I mean, but they do seem happy. And I know this controversy around him and his violent passed and domestic issues.
With everybody and every celebrity couple seems happy, you know.
Yeah, I don't know. I guess a little bit that I have seen. But then again, I'm a hater because I didn't like Rihanna with ASAP, So I don't know.
But oh what an a SAP do?
What do you do?
He just had some he had some ignorant interviews in the past that I had seen, and I just wouldn't let him go where he said some very misogynistic shit. But you know what, maybe that was his eighteen nineteen year old self. I don't know, but I just initially when I heard the news, I was like, come on, she can do way better. But then everybody in my family was like, leave alone. She's happy, you're hating, And so.
I know, I think we do. We care. We love Rihanna, and we love making goods so much that you just want it to be good on that.
Perfect man because they're the perfect women, so they need perfect men. I don't know, that's just me. I just like, come on, ladies, like we.
Need What do you think about Jonathan Majors. Does someone like Chris as a because I know as a female, I'm just like dead dead it dead it Yeah, And and he does. It's more than rumor. It's it's like, you know, there's been leaked audio, there's been footage, like you know he was arrested, yes, yeah, so, but yeah, I'm wondering Chris, like do you think about that? Or you would you pay for a Jonathan Major's movie ticket.
You know, well, first of all, violence to gets women by man never okay, So let me just throw that out there.
You can never do that. That's what my dad thought me. Correct its coming up, that's just you don't do that. You never do that.
But after that came out, I was like, you know, I can't support this. So, you know, is he a good actor, yes, but I mean there's a lot of other good actors and there's always an option to choose what you want to go watch and who you want to support. So to me, I'm like, hey, it's not that hard to be like, you know what, I'm good. I don't need to go see him in the movie
right now. But I think he's in the news because he has I think his movie, which I thought was an old movie, but it was like coming out and that's why.
It was old because they couldn't release it because that's when he was arrested and that's why they delayed it. So now so a couple of years later, they're like, is it is it safe now? Can we poke our heads out?
Did people forget? Is it old news?
That's that's it, and that's when they intern it. Has a short memory.
It kind of get throw like, you know, pushing under the rug and then people are just gonna come back out and see if they're okay again.
That's right, Honestly. I also think it has to do with the level of talent of the person, like and how much like I do think Jonathan Major's he, I mean, objectively speaking, an incredible actor, you know, so intense on the screen like he and I can see like the how his career was just like taking off and taking off, and I feel like in it on a time where
we have so few. I mean, there's some like incredible blackmail actors, but we just lost chap Chapwick, those men, it feels like just yesterday, and you know, you don't want to see one of the few go down like that. But I do feel like if they're really really talented, I mean, Chris Brown is still selling out shows.
That's what I understanding, Because one, he messed up my name years ago, because I think we're Almos sage my entire life, He's messed up my name and I'm.
Like, how is he back famous again? I thought he was dead.
I thought, Wow, Chris Brown's that old, Yes.
Don't you remember when he came out and he was like, I'm just fifteen? Is not that one of his lyrics?
I don't even I don't ever go looking for him, so I don't know what he looks like anymore.
He was a baby when he came out at fifteen. So yes, even if it's been twenty years, the man is still making music because he started so young.
Heyh yeah, yeah.
There you go. He started at fifteen twenty years that was right, But it's so true. I do think, honestly, when I'm talking to a lot of people in my experience, which is obviously very anecdotal, a lot of the younger
I want to I want to say generation. Younger girls in particular concerned me because they overlook a lot of the stuff around Chris Brown and make excuses and say, oh no, but but but but, like he's twenty twenty three, twenty up to twenty five, twenty six years old girls, And I'm like, why are you still on Kris Brown like that, going to his concerts, doing all this and his music? Oh no, no, I love Chris Brown. I don't know. And it's like, okay, is it a generational thing?
I'm not really sure what it is, but I mean, we'll make excuses out the wall zoof of this man. So I I, you know, it's just an observation that I have noted.
I thow time, right, because like he if you're if you're young enough, right, that happened when they were probably even like maybe not even live or a little baby. It's kind of like a grade.
Third grade, righte Wahlberg.
He just some crazy stuff, but happens so long ago. People are just like, you know, they don't think about it anymore.
So voided out. Probably, I just feel like what Jonathan what? What bothers me the most is his like he's he's almost adopted this persona of like some kind of like I don't know, reform Yogi master. Like he's just like so he's like this forced again. I keep going back to the quote that came out from that trial where he had told his girlfriend she needed to be like the credit to his MLK, to his Martin Luther King junior,
and be that level of poise and stature. And I see he's like putting on that show as he is this like dignified you know, actor, this this this dignified you know, performer and creator and it just comes off so forced and so it's so much bullshit. I don't I don't feel any humility, you know, I don't feel the wow I hit rock bottom, I begged I I you know, it's like Harry said to Voldemort, like try for some remorse home skillet, like before you know, I eat that wand out of your hand, and your own
rebounding death curse kills you like I need him. I think redemption, the path to redemption is painful. It should be painful. There should be remorse, there should be statements, there should be work, active work. He has an opportunity to rehabilitate himself publicly and to actually be an incredible example for other men who have chosen violence and have not have not healed them healed their inner demons, and and you know, and he has an opportunity to do that.
And I feel like until I see that level of humility and grace like in the meantime.
Though, I mean, or really any level, because I.
Will be clicking away.
Didn't it just get swept onto the rug? Like I don't think he has.
I'm engaged now, yeah, yeah, totally.
Crying on whatever show to tell you how she means so much to me, and it's like, wait, did you just get a whole? What happened in between? It was like nothing there was. They just swept it under the rug, I feel like, and it wasn't really addressed, at least not by him and his pr folks.
Yeah, no, thank you. I need an apology tour. I need a good one. What else is happening? Can we can? I confess something? Girl?
Go?
I want to confess us. What am I gonna do about my Tesla? Y'all? What am I going to do? I feel like such a fucking clown.
I meant it before.
I was literally thinking about that on the ride. I'm like, is there a bumper sticker I could put on this car before you before you slash my tires?
Please?
Please?
It's paid off. I've had it since twenty twenty one?
Like, please? Is U?
Did you see the thing where? I think it's a company called Polestar They do the other electric car. I think they're under Volkswagon or Vobo. I forgot the company that, but they're offering incentives for people to trade in their Tesla's if they want to come over.
I need one of those. I need Rivian I would love a Rivian because, you know, like I feel like Rivian is now the progressive. I feel like brands are so politicized now.
Totally benefiting from Tesla's downfall, totally exactly. You know, my boyfriend's brother works at let me not play his business all. He does work at Rivan though, But it's so funny, girl. I'll look you what if you want to make it happen, I got you.
I would, I would g I will publicly, like you know, put my car, put the Tesla in like one of those machine like metal shredders. I'll do whatever, you know, like for to do a stunt like that to get a different car, because I I feel gross. I feel gross riding around in that.
You definitely need a ghost machine. Go to a black owned business that does like custom stickers and get one that says I bought this before Elon went crazy, and then you're supporting a black owned business. Is creative business and making sure people know your position, covering yourself because.
I don't want to just get rid of the whole thing now, but but at scene.
Time, while you're in you need something to let people know. Putting nothing on your Tesla and just leaving it parked outside in New York City is dangerous.
Yeah, I just wanted to make it look like that, like it's a niece, like a Nissan and logo to be like alt or something like that.
That's kind of funny.
I would let them slide on that. That's kind of funny. They doing something, you know, as opposed to literally doing nothing where you don't have any stickers. You don't you act like, oh, there's nothing. That to me is a little bizarre because now you just don't think there's anything wrong.
I feel like people. I can feel the parents drop at kids school pickup and drop off. I can feel other drivers looking in the car to see who's driving it. And I'm just like, I'm a black woman. I must say, like, I know it's incongruous, like I would explain it to you, but I don't have time and like just to see the like, oh, I'm gonna get a sticker, all right, but what's this pollstar? People like what kind of car is that?
What am I gonna be talking about it? But look, I don't know is it evy? You gotta say yes, you have to go test driving versus a rivie because otherwise you won't know right, like you just gotta go test driver. But everyone is talking about full Star, like this is the one I want that Montesla. I've seen that a couple different, in particular black women, black women that I'm friends with, who have posted that.
Okayy want to help the other black woman who's your friend.
She's a doctor too, so you know, trying. She's trying to not look like she pulls up to the hospital and Tesla.
Wait, well, I'm thinking about our listeners real quick, and which I always do, but y'all need to be leaving some reviews please. Just as a reminder, I would love y'all to go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review for the show because it's been quiet over there and I feel like I should probably read one out loud because when we used to read reviews out loud, people will be like, oh, well, we get my review read. So I'm going to pull up a review because do it.
It's true, honestly, you know what it is a lot of your loyal, loyal, loyal fans who come back Timetime again have probably left reviews in the past. But it's okay to post if you updated and want to just say I've been rocking with the pod since back in twenty seventeen, twenty sixteen, because those are those types of comments really really make a difference to review algorithms.
My goal is to be like the Awkward Black Girl YouTube channel of podcasts, you know how, like everyone likes to tell Lisa like, I've been down with you since the ABG days. Yes, like I know, so let me let you know, let me know how long you've been riding with BA when you leave that review, Well, here's a sweet one, all right. This is from Natural End to Issan, Oh Natural Intuition. She said. I love the new picture. Thank you, She says, Mandy, you have transition
with grace. I love the new I love the new new of the podcast and can't wait to keep listening.
I love the see girl they rocking with you. They really are. And I will say I agree with that. It is not easy to just keep it going and act like everything's all good when you know you feel like your other half and like the whole show's as totally different vibe. But you've really done it gracefully, I gotta say. And you just brought so much like fun, creative energy coming up with new ideas, trying things, not
being afraid to try things. Like girl, I mean, I know Brown Ambition is your baby, but you have really really transitioned it nice. Yeah, we'll say, yeah, you really have.
Maddie is so creative, but I'm gonna be nice to you.
So you say you feel real bad when you, you know, inevitably insult me.
Later on this episode.
Yeah, eventually I might feel bad. Keep trying.
Yeah, but it's so creative, so many great ideas. You work so hard, So I'm very proud of you and all the all the work you've transition.
That's hard to change things up like that.
Thank you, And I'm just so relieved. 'all don't even know. I've been editing the show myself for the past few months while I've been in between like working on this network situation and like figuring out this new format. It's been so much the level of stress. Plus my book. Oh girl, I can't exactly like you know how you're just like in it and you can't exactly you can't zoom out because if you zoom out, you'll just self
combust literally implode. But it was all this stuff and then I've had like three big book deadlines where I've had to submit multiple chapters. I have another one tomorrow and at the same time, and the podcast being brand new. It's been but at the same time, it's like it's so exciting. These are blessings. I don't want to complain, but it is. I said twenty twenty five smelled like money. I said that when the New Year changed over. I was like, it really just smells, just smells like money.
So far to ask you, you girl, how did you do it, and you're gonna be like, I don't know. I don't even remember. I don't even know how I did it. I just did it, and I just kept going like that I'll.
Have something to tell them four am wake up calls, don't get enough sleep. I think sometimes you have to be like I don't. There's no like productivity hack. Sometimes the hack is you work your ass off and you know that you can't sustain it at that level. I know I wasn't gonna be able to edit the show forever. I didn't fool myself to think that, but I knew
for the interim, like this is a temporary thing. I'm going to find an editor with all my free time, and I finally did and like, now that's off my plate. Shout out to Carla and Courtney Black owned Latina after Latina owned editing company. So very excited that, you know my sister speaking in which I visited my sister in Wisconsin. She's doing so much better. Be a faan I might have shared a little bit. My sister donated a kidney.
She's a living donor, a god angel on earth, and for all of her trouble, she ended up with a very rare like complication. So for anyone who's thinking about organ donation, Like I mean, already we knew it was a serious surgery, but it's obviously quite common common ish. So anyway, you really hoped, you know, the surgeon had done like a gajillion of them, so you hope that
it's just going to be textbook. But she had a rare complication which caused her like severe, severe, like agonizing nerve pain, which is it's the y'all y'all have experience with like anyone who's ever had like a nerve pain condition, chronic pain. But it's the worst thing about it is the way that doctors don't really know how to treat it, except for with really strong opioids, Like I mean, she left the hospital with mad she left the hospital with
oxy with fentanyl patch. She had been on ketamine, like there is dilouded. There's like these really strong and they're like, we don't give these medicines to people who aren't dying of cancer. Like that's how painful it was. But thank the Lord. I mean, it took way too long. It's been over two months, but she was able to finally get some treatment to actually target the nerve that's that's been damaged and set. The worst part is that your nerves.
I mean there's some surgical intervention. Obviously I'm not a neurologist, but but for in her case, anyway, it has to heal itself, you know, like there's probably not going to be oh, if we just go in and put this band aid there, you know whatever, that's not what they would do. But you know what I mean, Like so, but she was out of work, you know, and my heart goes Plus what the medication she was on, Like I said, Mallory, don't be telling anybody. By the way,
I shouldn't probably have said how many. But she doesn't have them anymore. She's off of the really heavy ones, which is part of the good thing. But it's so hard to treat chronic pain. And then she burned through her sick leave, burned through the FMLA even Yeah, it's really tough.
At that point.
That's so hard. Yeah, how's she doing now? Like percentage wise? Where is she yet? Getting back to normal?
Honestly? Every day? I mean I was there for four days and I think we had two good days and two not so good days. And it really depends on if she can stay on top of the pain with her medication. So is she taking it at the right times, And sometimes you're sleepy and you miss a dose or you're late with something, and then the pain it's hard to catch up with the pain medication at that point. And then also she is my mother's daughter, as am I, and we have a hard time. Actually, I'm really good
at taking a rest. These two though they on some other ish they cannot sit still. They want to be cooking and going out and about and cleaning dishes and folding shit. And I'm just like you guys, I'm laid up on the couch because whenever my mom is around, I'm fully fifteen again in my head. I'm just like, I'm here, I'm mom, dear, and so yeah, so she she you know, would do a little too much and then it would be a tough day.
But yeah, it's hard. Some people though, like they're just wired that way. Like my oldest sister. There's nine siblings in my family, and the oldest sister, the firstborn, she is like she's like your sister and your mom. She just cannot sit and rest. I mean, she just it like it pains her to not be to not feel productive in whatever way, whether she's doing laundry, cleaning, cooking, dusting, something out in her garden doing stuff. Was like, girl,
what like she has a garden. She lives in New York City, and she has a garden in her yard so that she can constantly be doing you know, because otherwise, Yeah, Like mentally, I think she feels drained when she's not quote unquote productive. But that is just it takes a time.
That's crazy. She feels drained by not doing something mentally right mentally because that's the thing, right, Like, eventually the draining switches over from your being mentally drained to now physically your body's literally telling you.
You need to stop you need to chill. And then eventually when it gets to that point, it's like it's it's a little late. No, it's never too late. But of course it's late because you've been constantly pushing yourself past the point of that is reasonable. But yeaht one point, she she turned some which way. I don't even remember
what happened, but her ankle. She was just literally walking and then turned around in the wrong direction or in the wrong way on her foot and had to stop and actually like go, she had to what happens, She had to get a brace on her foot.
Get injured, and then you finally forced to sit.
Down exactly exactly. So, either you choose to rest or your body's gonna force you to rest.
That's true.
That's why I prayably rest. I love not doing anything. Give me, give me a sake, and give me a chair. I'm gonna go sit in it. I'm good.
I don't know.
You've been going to the gym, You've been getting your little steps in on them hills.
I had to be doing. I do like a good walk, but I also please let me sit down. I rest. Rest are best friends. I love it.
I'm really good at just being a couch like decoration, couch trotting as they say. You know what, I realized I'm not very good at sitting in silence though, because my sister's house is so quiet, like there's no like TV on. Listen, listen and shout out to my Wisconsin people. My mom is always like, you don't you don't love
your Wisconsin heritage. I'm like mommy the way that when I went I landed, she lives like in a tiny town in Wisconsin too, shout out to Lacrosse and we when I landed in the teenious plane, ever, we went straight to the grocery store because again mom and sister, we don't cook something. And I had took this video. I was, y'all, y'all don't understand the number of ways Wisconsin people know how to make a salad. And not
like a green salad. I'm talking mayo or some sort of like creamy substance, maybe a sour cream macaroni salad, pistachio salad. Jello and the jello. The jello I'm going to show you guys after this, Like the there was literally like gourmet perfect cubes of jello, just gallons of them, and I'm like, people just show up and buy this much jello.
Because I'm trying to picture what that is.
Yeah, so like your salad in Wisconsin's usually a mix of like mayonnaise is the ideal, maybe sour cream, you know, or some kind of yeah aoli situation, but probably mayonnaise. And then the fluffs are made if I'm remembering correctly, with like maybe maybe like a whipped cream because it's fluffy. So like at Christmas, my mom my grandma would make cranberry fluff, which would be like a mix of like cranberry sauce and whipped cream. I think whipped up. I'm sorry,
I'm not endorsing it. I'm just saying there's a culture y'all want to put. There's a culture in Wisconsin, and that is it. It is the culture of fluffs and mayonnaise salads, deli salads.
If they put it on something like like like you know, like flying or like a cheesecake with fluff on top or something, but why they just eating the fluff.
It is the dish, see that I can't. I don't have a little dollipup fluff on your plate, on your plate heritage fork spoon, Oh, you mean, like, what do you what is it pair well with.
What?
I'm just I'm why do you think that it has different notes? The notes of the the cranberry fluff crisp pairs really well with the orange jello. I would uh, the orange jello and the shape of a cube, Yeah, that would pair well with it. Also, maybe a broccoli salad, you know, extra creamy would pair nicely with a fluff. And you know you wash it down with some like German or Irish beer, a Guinness. I don't know, bloom, I don't know. I don't know.
Whether you're going further and further away from where my mind and stomach want to be.
And cheese curds. Just throw some cheese curds on top. There you go.
Question like is it just like yeah, people's stomachs just like upset all the time.
Yes, First of all, I'm dairy free. It's yes. The number. Yes, there were many jokes about how everyone had to take some time with the porcelain God after certain meals. Yeah, but what am I gonna say?
I'm looking this up and you're right, they got.
Of course, I'm right. It's my heritage. I am a cultural ambassador for Wisconsin.
Pineapples with marshmallows and pistachia pudding.
Wow.
Yeah, my mom always told me don't say yuck to food because you don't want somebody's young, or you know, offensive, somebody you don't want to or whatever. But at the same time, whatever.
Dominican moms are so shady and get out of here.
Girl. The stuff my mom be cooking, I know she ain't talking, really, I know, I think. I think it's Chitlin's chills, mondongle, mondongle.
It's very different than you have. I'm sorry Christ's blushing. I didn't know a top of a bald head could blush. Here. I sent you a forty It took me forty six seconds to film the number of salads up seafood salad with imitation crabs we have. Look at the Just wait till you see the jello. It'll come through finger. They call it finger jello.
Is that what it is?
You'll have to look probably two. This is like a two finger jello. They make a healthy porsche. Okay, some kind of macaroni salad. The jello took me out. Potato salad. Wait till you see the ham spread. Wait until you see the ham salad.
Like lego blocks, all jello blocks, chicken rotisserie salad, Cashi broccoli salad.
You know what I actually do, fuck with broccoli salad. It's actually delicious if you don't over mao it look at you Ellie's.
Face spread ham spread sounds and looks.
Bacon ranch salad, poppy seed chicken salad, bacon cheddar, rotelli pasta salad.
Because it's like half of it is missing off.
Summer fresh pasta salad of course, tuna salad, the o G Macaroni Supreme. And I see peas, some peas in there.
I told you I don't lie.
You know, I could have kept going. You learned something today. I dedicate you know what. I dedicate this part of the show to my grandma. Shout out to Doris Dutton uh nay Ninimon from Brown Deer, Wisconsin. Shout out to James Dutton, my grandpa, May they rest in peace, and my mom, Laurie Dutton. If y'all didn't know, now you know that's where I come from. I don't actually was born in Georgia, born and bred around Atlanta, but yeah, I do have my Wisconsin roots.
Yeah, I was to say we're Wisconsin roots, because I thought you were from Atlanta.
But my mom is from Wisconsin. She moved out. She's a break lady. She moved from She. I grew up Irish Catholic, you know, family of five. Mom was a school teacher, dad was a brick mason. Then at like eighteen, her and her best friend were like, let's go to Atlanta. It seems hot, seems popping down there. I don't know where they got their news at the time, so they hop in the car. They don't go to college. They move to Atlanta. They get jobs as waiters. She meets
my dad at an ihop. They're both waiters. I was going to get into some of my brown boosts a little bit, but I'll do it now. But like having to be I always felt this need to be sparkly and fun and charming and successful and talented to warrant my space in that family, like that side of the family, because I feel like it was stories like that that I was told from starting getting real deep. We went
from like finger jello to racial trauma. But but like, yeah, exactly, I thought, really and the bar in real life was so low it was cranberry fluff and I was trying to be Michelin star, you know what I mean, to have a seat at that table. Really didn't need to try that hard, but I yeah, I did. I from a young age, I like I was so out of felt so out of place on that side of the family that I did think that in order to like
be accepted, it had to be exceptional. And that probably came from them like looking.
At me, like you'll never be good enough?
Like who that black baby?
Right?
Where's my pretty white bait?
They gave you that vibe if you'll never be good enough? You didn't come from nowhere. You didn't You didn't come into your head out of nowhere, right, that's yeah. Fact? Okay, girl, Well you know I couldn't help it, but look it up and there's so many interesting things here. Flutter nutter. The sandwich was made made of marshmallow, marshmallow and peanut butter. Peanut butter, Yeah, that's delicious.
Though you ever tried a peanut butter fluffed sandwich? Delicious?
Okay? Now that one is eating in wisconstant, But it didn't come from it comes from the New England areas of Massachusetts is where it started in the nineteen hundreds, and then you got Watergate salad. What pistachio pudding whipped topping in canned pineapple is called a watergate salad?
My grandma does did and what is it called pistachio? We I don't know what. Why is the pistachio so popular? But there is a pistachio pudding dessert that we do and we tear it up. It's neon green. Its delicious.
I'm looking at it now. Can you tell me why there's cherries on top of this? Those little marachino cherries? Why is that on this?
This not too much on my people?
Y'all?
Hey, all right, we're gonna take a quick break, ba fam. I hope that you weren't eating while you were listening to this. We might have made you regret that choice. And if you're hungry, then maybe you should see your pastor about that, or your spiritual guid guiter, your spiritual guide to find out why. Be right back with our brown booth Brown Break see you then? All right, we're back, ba fam. I am joined by yan nellispinal In Chris Browning, and we are going to do Brown Boost Brown Break.
Are you guys ready? You know what you're gonna do, boost or break.
I am ready watergate salad.
Should we let Cris go first?
Yeah? Do it anything? I was ready? What would I get for?
You're never ready? All right, y'all? Ellick, you can go first, girl, all right.
I'll go first. My brown break is that I noticed a lot of the youngins in my family. They don't want to use real banks. They've been hitting me up like oh the young yeah, like the the nineteen to twenty four to twenty five. They think cash Up is the bank. Like they set up their direct deposit into their cash app. They have a cash app card, and they think that they're banking, and I'm like, wait minute, Like that's if anything were to happen to cash Is
that FDAC in shirt. It's not FDIC shirt. Now, there's a loophole where if you if you follow like three steps or four steps, like if you set up direct deposit, you get the cash up card. You do you have a deposit of a minimum a certain amount every two weeks or whatever. Then you get what's called passed through FDIC insurance coverage through their partner bank. So it's not because they are not a charter bank. Cash at Venmo.
They can't they PayPal, they can't give you FSC insurance because they're not chartered banks, but they can pass through the insurance of the bank that they're partnering with. They hold your money while they show you the interface of the tech. So I try to explain that to my nieces and to my brother, my younger brother, and I'm like, you know, and oh no, no, I have passed to FDS. It says that on their site, and I'm like, okay, but that only protects you from the from the bank
that's holding the money going under. But there's nothing protecting you from like cash up going under or you know, or whatever in any case like PayPal or venbo whatever, there's no protection around these. So I'm I'm just a little nervous now, and I'm curious how wide spread this is of, Like, is this a generational thing where these younger generations are getting targeted by these apps that are basically looking like banks, acting like banks, borderline calling themselves bank,
but they're not actually banks, y'all. Like we need actual depository institutions. You need to go to a credit union, you need to go to a community bank, you need to go to a regular bank, like you need an account that is actually protected and ensured. And I just thought that people would get that, especially after like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and some of the bank failures from a couple of years ago. But I don't know.
I think some of these youngins really do think that with all the tech, the new kind of cool trendy tech stuff, that they're covered or that that's that they got what they need because they even you know, giving debit cards and things like that.
But yeah, Benmo does that too. Is that the same thing? It's always trying to prompt me for a debit card. I'm like, no, no thing care name.
They keep sending me notifications and emails and all that. So I'm just I'm curious about it. And I want to encourage you. If you're listening to this and you have a young en in your life, a young person that you care about, check in with them. Make sure they actually understand that these apps are technology that allows you to engage with the money that you have sitting
in an account at a bank. But they are not banks, so you gotta have yeah, whether it's a credit union or a bank, accounts up don't be thinking that you're banking and you have nothing but a cash app little wallet and some cash in there, and don't leave the money in the cash app or in the Venmo wallets too long.
You know, they're all doing that. That's probably why they're I mean, that's why they're offering debit cards. They're like, well, they're people are using it as a bank account anyway, right.
So we might as well emulate that. But you're not getting you know, high yield, you're not.
Getting I bet those debit cards charge fees too.
Right, So we gotta I gotta look into that more because I was just so afraid of, like how normal it was. My little brother like, yeah, I just use cash up as my bank. I was like, hold up, bro, not miss Beehulples little brother not having an those bank account. What's going on here? Like this is not acceptable, bro?
So anyway, just talk to the young you know, check in on them, because unfortunately, I do think these tech companies go out of their way to make young people think, hey, it looks like a bank, It functions like a bank. You know, when I log in, it has a debit card, and like it must dollar sign. Yeah, it holds my money, it must be a bank. And unfortunately that it's just not right.
Yeah, I mean I think too, because like the banking industry is still even though it's modernized, it's still behind, right, Like it's so easy to open up a cash app account, Venmo, PayPal, all these sayings, it's so easy, Robinhood, you know, put all these accounts on your phone. Where banking really has it and modernized that way, and I mean some reasons, it's for good reason, you know, the regulations kind of make it me a little bit more difficult to open
up an account. But I mean, I think a lot of people don't go to these like online banks where it is a little more modernized. You can open it up online. You don't got to go to a branch and sign a piece of paperwork and all that stuff.
But I don't think enough people know about it. And but they do.
Everyone knows about cash app and it looks it looks good, it's easy to use, and some people just go that way without thinking about you know, some other benefits. Like you said, but you don't have a savings account really, and then some of them do. But it ain't gonna be FDIC insured it's this whole nonsense that it the younger people kind of are in this weird middle ground. This is like the best option of them in their mind.
Yeah, and also it's not it's I don't even blame them. I do think they're being targeted. Like when you look at the way that cash apps spends their money, they have where Megan thee Stallion is teaching you what bitcoin is to try to encourage you to go buy bitcoin on the cash app platform, and like, come on, now, we all know who they're ultimately targeting when they put Megan the Stallion in their ads and not tell a swift.
So I do think that part of it is a little bit like we have to hold them accountable because they are actively targeting young black and brown consumers who are the ones that are the furthest like a way to being served properly from banks in the first place.
And so it's just and already unbanked or under bank.
Under bank for the most part, right, So it's just giving. It's giving problematic a little bit.
Do you get your paycheck deposited to your cash app?
Yes, you can see that's yep. And again it looked like a bank. It acts like a bank, it must be a bank. That's not true.
Yeah, but that's okay.
The older generations though, because I worked at bank for years, like when I was in college, and the thing is like, in I worked in a neighborhood I grew up in.
It was a poor neighborhood. A lot of people will get screw it over by the banks.
They were getting hit with all these over draft fees, they were getting hit with all these other penalties that were getting on check systems. So then they wouldn't have bank accounts. And so I think already for their probably the parents of these kids, they grew up an environment, especially if you're in a lower income area, where it's like, don't go to the bank.
The bank is already gonna like it.
I can't, I can't open account anyway, So it's not gonna teach me to go oput an account there. But there's these new alternatives that kind of bypass all of that, and I feel like it's created a really great environment for people to be like, you know what, why even go to a bank and deal with that. My family and parents that have one anyways, let me go over here.
This is so much easier that's the fact.
That's a great point, all right, Chris, what's your boost?
Like I caught up in your ellis breaks. I wasn't even thinking about it anymore, but you.
Know, I would say my break is my brown break is getting sick because I got sick last week.
Shout out to my niece. Give me all the viruses and diseases.
Flavor did you get this time? Little influenza, little hand, foot of mouthcocksacky, terrible word love saying.
It's just a regular old cold because she I went over there because I was I was visiting back.
Home Corona with my brother.
Her nose was running the entire time, just a little snap out that nose. And I know she got me. You know, she's all cute, but at some point she I'm sure she sneezed in my eye or something.
Then and now, if you.
Started eating your lunch because you didn't want to eat it in the first half of the show because we were talking about too many salads and you started right now, I'm also sorry.
People are gonna end the episode just nauseous. That's what's gonna do you have.
A go to cold remedy? What do you do? Dudes have the funniest things they do when they're sick to get better.
Go ahead, just rest it out.
That's all I do. I did nothing, rested out. Give me some vitamin see and drip some tea. I have eat about three bags worth the cough drops. Then you know, at some point and you start feeling bad.
Bags just three.
I had a friend who said he just drank gallon after gallon of water to flush it out. I'm like, you're gonna unsalinate your blood and your fluids and and in the hospital.
People better talk a lot about dehydration, but there is such thing as overhydrating. Chill out, chill out.
Now, you can sweat it out. You have sweat it all out. Yeah, take a bunch of naps and then you know. It took me about a week.
Speaking of that. I don't know. For some reason when you said sweat it out, I started thinking about my brain moves really fast. It was like hot yoga, yoga, meditation. I'm doing a sound bath tomorrow. I'm very excited about that. You never tried one, Chris.
You would like it, Chris, you would like it. I've done a few of them, and especially since I moved to Miami, they do a lot of them down by the beach, which is so beautiful. Every chance I get, I'll go on. It is so nice. So Mandy, where are you doing?
This?
Is it at yoga studio?
It is at an actual sound like this is what they do. And so I've only done it once before, but it was so exquisite. Like the feeling that I had, I just wish I could have floated and been. I didn't wish I had to get in the car and drive after because I was just so it's just when you're really focused on the meditation and when you get to them and it is a practice, like I have to do it and practice at it when you have a really good one, I genuinely, and I don't. I
don't have. I don't smoke a lot. I don't smoke at all, really, but I don't take edibles. But when I have and I've had a little bit of a high, I genuinely it's crazy how you can produce that sensation in your own body, like that calm and the humming through you, and it was amazing. So the place I'm and that was at like my local nature preserve. You know, it wasn't anything special cool.
Okay, well, but when I'm going to I didn't know what a sound bath was until one of my friends invited me like two years ago. So the people listening are like, she's going to a what a baff of what what.
To do it? Just google it, go find one and go do it.
True?
Yeah, I mean they have. It's the one with the bowls where they make them. That's not the sound because that wouldn't be relaxing, but they make them, and this is the place that I'm going to. It looks so beautiful. They have like beautiful chaise lounges that we're going to lay in with like pillows. We're gonna be so comfy, not on the hard floor the yoga matt like I.
Was last time.
That's why I've done it. Yeah, I've done it.
But that's not my boost though.
Oh okay, that was a little half boost.
That was a half boost. That was just that was just an ADHD tangent where we went down that little road, a little side show. But my boost boost her break break. All right. So I'm writing this book, y'all know. It's going to be called Brown Ambition, and I have the most incredible black woman publisher. Her name was Krishn Trautman. Legis is the legacy lit at Hashet. It's an imprint at one of the top five publishers that really focuses
on amplifying b IPOC voices. And anyhow, I got this book deal almost two years ago, and I have been writing. I mean, I've probably written one hundred and fifty thousand words by now, and half of them will not end up in the book. But I've just been writing and writing. And one of the credible things is sometimes I'll just have these like epiphanies as I'm writing. And I had one of those when I was, you know, full up
on my macaroni salad in Wisconsin this past weekend. But yeah, belly full of fluff really brought it out of me. But anytime I'm waiting for my children, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna write all day. And so I had these like intense I had this intense writing session. And it's in the chapter where I talk about my therapy journey and how I have found a lot of the like.
So I use a particular kind of therapy called DBT that I did a I just graduated actually from a I think I might have told you guys a two like a twenty week DBT training thing and anyhow, And I'm trying to connect the dots between how these like skills that I've learned, these coping skills for stress can really apply to you know, your finances and your career
and all of that. And as I'm writing it, I'm starting to think about just the word ambition and how I've always in Tiff and I talked about before too, like we always sort of had this this like dual way of thinking about ambition. It's amazing, we want to celebrate it, but ambition can sometimes drive us into like really unhealthy habits and really unhealthy ways of soothing ourselves.
Like if I just get this money, if I just if I launched this business, if I get this you know, if I get this accolade, if I succeed here, then what then, like in that blank, that blank space, like what would you fill that with? What is it that
you're really chasing? And I had said on my whole life that it was around financial security, you know, raised by a single mom, saw my mom go through a divorce financially you know, insecure, and then also my dad had his issues, and I went to school thinking, well, I'm just I can't. I don't want to be unsafe like that. I don't want to be insecureate that. So
I'm going to make as much money as possible. But in writing the chapter and peeling back the layers and I kind of talked about it a little bit earlier, but I started to realize that and this was really it was kind of it was very like, it's sad, but it's also like, Wow, I'm understanding myself so much better.
I realize why my whole life, I've had this inner drive to be successful, to be the best, and to get the a's and the four point zero and get the best score and get into a good school and you know, join all the clubs and be the president of this and that and like, and then put so much on my plate that I wind up suffering because you know, I've taken on so much for not the right reasons. I've taken on so much because I wasn't
chasing financial security. I was chasing like self worth. I was chasing this idea that I have nothing else going for me but the things that I can do, accomplish, earn, get create, and I it's almost as if my like, so now my mind has caught up to like I can intellectually, I get caught up to the to how I was processing and like why I was doing that. And what I've realized is like success in ambition, that's a form of trauma response. Like success and ambition, it
can be a trauma response for me. It's a trauma response. And you think about girls in school who you know, act out as a trauma response. They're angry, you know, especially on black girls, you know, the ones who were acting out, getting into fights. What do they do? They get arrested, they get suspended, you know, they get they get put away, and no one looks at them and says, what's what's going on? Why are you coping in this way? But they get, you know, so they get that end
of the spectrum. And then you have me, who as a response to trauma, I am over exceeding expectations. I'm achieving, achieving, And no one ever stopped and said, are you okay? Why are you taking Etceterrin in the morning so you can stay up for class because you spent all night, you know, up working and studying because you have to get an a and why are you not staying home when you're sick because you don't want to miss a day of school? You know why? And my mom was
never putting that pressure on me. And it's just like, I'm getting chills now because it's just I'm in the middle of this process of just figuring that out. And so I wonder be a fan, like how many of y'all listening, Like how many of that? How many of y'all does that resonate with? Because I do think the high achievers, the ones who are, you know, getting everything right and being perfect, I've seen in myself how that can lead down a path to damage and destruction and pain.
And it's just been really eye opening and liberating to understand where that's coming from. And I hope that with this book with Brown Ambition, I can unlock that realization for a lot of people that success can be a trauma response. But now that we know that doesn't mean that we're not going to be out here doing incredible things, but it means we're gonna learn how to sit down.
We're gonna learn that we can rest that we're enough that I don't have to do all the things to be worthy that I can do what makes me happy and what is enough for me and find peace in that. And I got through that whole thing without crying, So shout out to so loved. So never We're never gonna have the right hair, the right skin color. I'm never gonna be black enough or white enough or whatever, rich enough, or yeah.
My accent's too thick, I don't have the right connections, my network doesn't span wide enough. I'm never gonna get that promotion. It's like you constantly think that, but you know, to your point is if you finally face it and go, oh, this is why I've been like this, my whole life can be very free. I feel like that's a beautiful.
Thing and why it can bring about so much good but then so much bad, and like how to find that? You know, how to be ambitious in a healthy way. And then I just and I was like, this is how I'm closing out the book. This is the best way to do it. So I think I've finished. I think I've written the last couple chapters of Brown Ambition, and I think I finally have answered for myself what I want the book to be. I didn't want it to be another how to you know, I have so
much more to offer, I think than just then. Don't worry that's going to be in there. How to negotiate, how to you know, how to budget, how to pay off debt, how to be good at money even after you've been bad with it. All that is there, But I'm also sharing a lot of that personal journey and it just it feels good. Makes me love myself a lot more. And yeah, at my big age, it's not too late, borant.
That is so important. I mean it's hard when you're reading a book from somebody who doesn't have that relationship with themselves. You can tell, you can tell. So yeah, I love that for everybody who's going to read Brown Ambition.
Yeah, and I love the day in there too, because I mean I've read so many money books where it's like you could tell they needed a number of pages, so they just start repeating the same thing about fifteen times in the book, and I'm like, all right, I got it, Like you know, you'll need to tell me
this again. So I like that you're integrating more because I mean, money is bigger than that, whether whatever part of money you're talking about, it's bigger than so much of who you are and that stuff you deal with and the way you process that and understand it impacts the way you make decisions when it comes to your money. So I'm excited for this book because I know it's going to be It's not gonna be one of those typical books.
It's gonna be something that gives a lot more than just advice.
You know, I'm gonna tell some stories, telling a lot of stories that to.
That was That's one of the biggest things that I feel like differentiates books written by people of color in the finance and career and personal development space is that the stories that we have they not like us. They don't got these stories, they don't have these experiences. They don't and so it just colors your book in a very different in different pain strokes, in a different way that a lot of these classic money books they just can't They just can't do that. And that's okay. I've
learned a lot from classic money books. I got a lot of them behind me. But it's a different interaction with a book written by somebody who shares some of the traumas that you're talking about and having experienced, and the discrimination in the space as well, like, let's just be real, that's what it is. And when somebody comes from that understanding, it's just so much easier for you to like let your guard down and take the book for what it's giving you and not constantly be questioning
where it's coming from. Oh but you wouldn't understand this. Oh but your parents never did, never struggled with that. You can kind of just like let that go and really get from the book what it's meant to give you. At least that has been my experience, and that's why I chose to write a book too, because I just was like, wait a minute, this is not easy for me to be reading book after book after book that's missing that secret sauce. The secret sauce is the stories I think ye won't see.
I promise my sauces is sauce and not mayonnaise. Okay, it's that Georgia's southern souls.
Okay, yes, yes, it's not the Wisconsin, the Georgia.
Well, thanks for listening, Va fam, Please please please read a review. Thank you so much. Thank you to Nellie and Chris for joining me at the Brown Table this week. I'll see y'all Friday for the b a q A Bye