Yep, yep, Ghetto Boys is back and redod it all in your mind. Yeah, now deep throating. This is for the streets, the real the reil, goading, the disenfranchise, the truth escapegoating, and they ain't know where we speak the truth, so they a quoted because we wrote it. The North South East coaches, the ge be mocked for keeping your head, Bobby.
It ain't no stopping.
And once the be drops head by and then the system is so corrupt they threw the rock out their heads and then blame it on us. Don't get it twisted on coding Meg danced to put no butterment biscuits. It's Willy d y'all. Ghetto Boys in the house back with another episode of information and instructions to help you navigate through this wild, crazy, beautiful world. In the studio, My brother, my brother, Derek Muhammad, thank you for having me. Welcome back, man, Welcome back.
I appreciate it. Brother, It's and honor to be here.
Man. You are a crowd favor man. They like what you had to say about about pretty much everything, but especially what you had to say about black men, black males, young black males and what we have to do to get on the right track.
It's a very underrepresented subject. It is. It's the mathematical problem that nobody in a math class wants to solve. What do we do with the black male? And the reason that you don't hear it focused on intentionally a lot is because so many people have given up on our young boys. They've given up on black men. But I tell people all the time, you know, the moment you start thinking about giving up on black people, ask yourself the question where you would be had God giving up on you?
And where you would be if black people had given up on you. Now you think about where America would be if black people had said, I don't give down what you say, I don't care down what you do. I ain't doing nothing.
Come on with it.
Will imagine where this country would be. It definitely would not be the force that it is.
No, she certainly wouldn't be as rich as she is, she wouldn't be as wealthy as she is, she would not be as powerful as she is.
Well, it's so hard about recognizing that.
That's a good question, that's the good question. The problem is we weren't known them to recognize it. For us, Okay. See, you can never obtain your freedom if you have adopted the value system of your oppressor. When you adopt the value system of your oppressor, you devalue yourself. Why because it's obvious he don't see no value in you. If he did, he would not have been oppressing you. So what we have to do as a people is we have to go back to basics and we have to
redefine what is valuable to us. See, we were talk for a very long time. Go to school, get education, get a job, get a house, get you a nice call. And this is the mundane formula that pretty much has not worked for us. But these are the things that we have been taught to value. We must first learn to value character. We must learn to value spirituality. We must learn to value economics, but from a perspective where
we invest in assets, not in liabilities. And the thing that we really have to learn to value, brother will is each other. I say it all the time. You know the future of black people is not dependent upon how white people see black people. The future of black people is dependent upon how black people see black people.
Talk talk to me. This is why I get soul with these people who jump on the internet. Black people who jump on the internet. See, that's why we can't never were the worst, We our own worst enemy.
We wooh wooh wooh wooh woop.
And you know, seeking validation and also just being basically indoctrinated like everybody else, to view themselves as a lower class, as someone who is unworthy. And they think they make sense. They think they're smart when they say things like that. See, that's why you know black people with black people, is it black people that we have to be very careful of who's helping and who's critiquing because there's a lot
of black people out there all day long. All they do is critique black people, the black experience right, black community and black distance black people this and black black black of the black of the black black. But they ain't gotten no smoke. They ain't got no critique for nobody. Everybody else must be perfect. It's all they focus on is trying to critique black people, not helping, I said, critiquing, critiquing.
All they do. Their whole focus is critiquing. I want to go back to something that you mentioned about adopting the value system of your oppressor. That can also be levied against relationships. Yeah, Like I've heard men say, well women do it, And I mean when I say women do it, it's something that that is out of character, you know, that is not popular, something that's that's foul. They'll say, well, women do it. And now I've heard
women say will men do it? Like again, these are when they say when men do it, they're assuming the value the value system of their person oppressor, whoever that person is, is a presser who they feel like has oppressed them in some kind of way. I don't understand the stooping to a level where you you abandon your values, you abandon your attributes to acquiesce to somebody else's shortcomings.
Exactly. See what happens is we've adopted the same mentality toward relationships as our oppressor. Black people have what I call a versus mentality, meaning that it always has to be this rapper versus that rapper, who's your favorite, or this television show, this idea, whatever it is. It's a versus mentality, and whoever wins the versus whoever comes in second is irrelative. Right now, talking to a black child, a black child will say something like, you know, my
mama did more for me than my daddy. My question to that child is who taught you to compare? If you say your mother did more for you, you're admitting that your dad has done something for you. Am I correct? But you want the man to compare or compete with the woman who laid on an operating table, a delivery table, and went to death's door to give you birth? Okay, But the question is who taught you to compare what
your dad did for you. May God bless him, because it attributed to who you became, if you became somebody successful, what your mother did for you. It's beautiful. It attributed to you know who you are are if you became successful. But to make the comparative analysis between it's my daddy versus my mama. See, this is something that we've been programmed to do. That we got to get out of two black coffee shops on the same corner. Which one do you like this one versus that one? Well, they
put a little too much sugar in theirs. What their coffee is fifteen cents a little bit more expensive than this. We're always finding a reason to be divided, and it's the Willy Lynch mentality. The slave mentality that teaches us to denegrate and degrade all things that are black. So
what we do is we perpetuate the myth of black inferiority. See, we talk a lot about black white Excuse me, we talk a lot about white supremacy, but we don't talk about how you can I have white supremacy without including the myth of black inferiority. Black inferiority is what gives white supremacy its oxygen. So when somebody is on the Internet just scroll and looking for something black to criticize and to critique, they're perpetuating the myth of black inferiority.
And as long as the myth of black inferiority is perpetuated, we can never be free as a people because we are then still adopting the value system of our oppressor.
Man, let's talk about Professor Griff the Good Brother, Professor.
Griff Salama Lacam Brother, Professor Griff.
Lacam Man, Professor Griff is necessary. I came across a video from twenty twelve. Professor Griff, I like to go back in the annals of history the time and just
see how certain ideologies match up in present day. Right, So I'm watching this video clip of Professor Griff making an assessment of hip hop, and he's talking about how these white kids who are the offsprings of the white executive, the executives and hip hop had started their own subsidiaries and one of the goals was to normalize the inward and one of the goals was also to emasculate black males. And Professor Griff predicted, he predicted that black males would
be running around with purses and wearing skirts. They'll have these man versus and wearing skirts. And we see it in sports, yes, sir, we see it in hip hop. Yeah, we see it in politics even and even in the streets. What's your take on metrosexuality and hip hop?
That's a very good question. I really don't even know what the term metrosexuality means, but from my understanding of the term, my take on it is I think it's very dangerous. I think when you begin to blur the lines between manhood and femininity, then what you do is you begin to weaken the pool of men. In our culture. There are certain things that are said done, certain clothing and items that are worn. Nowadays, you couldn't get you couldn't get away with wearing a purse back in the
nineties when we were listening to you know Nwa. But I believe that Professor griff was not only onto something. I believe that his mathematical calculation of what would be is now our reality. And I do believe that this was planned. I believe that there was a concerted effort to dehumanize, demonize, and emasculate the black male. Because as long as the black man is weakened, the black woman is fair game. As long as the black man is weakened,
then there's no one there to protect black children. As long as the black man is weakened, the black community is like dust. What is dust? Dust is a particle of matter that used to be tied to something that had a function. So if you weaken and break down
the black man, then black people are defenseless. And this is where we will find ourselves if real men don't stand up in our community and protect and defend first and foremost, the dignity of our ancestors, the dignity of our history, the dignity of our women, the dignity of our elders, the dignity of our children. We need strong men,
not emasculated men. But another reason that I believe that, particularly in hip hop, that it was important to emasculate the male in hip hop is because an emasculated man is easier to steal from It's easier to take from him. So it's not a coincidence that you see the intellectual property of our rappers flying out the door. You know how when you go to a funeral and they have the doves, and as soon as they unlock that cage,
the dove just takes off and never returns. That is how fast and how far the intellectual property of our great artists is flying out of our culture. And so you've got wealthy white families who are passing on the publishing of some of our greatest rappers to their children and grandchildren. Think about that our intellectual property have become their assets. And I think that that in and of
itself is a form of emasculation. And it's not okay, you know what, because your intellectual property starts with your ideas. Where do your ideas come from? If you got a unique idea, that idea came from God, if you didn't steal it from somebody else, it came from God and it's given to you to express through your God given talent that should belong to you. But if you have been weakened and emasculated, it's easier for somebody to come and take it and you not say a damn thing about it.
Little boys, reloaded podcasts will be right back after this week. You spoke at length about generational wealth, and that's what basically, when you're passing down assets from generation to generation, from your kids to your grandkids and so on, that's generational meaning meaning extended periods. Right. So I made a post recently.
I don't know if you saw it. I need Okay, Well, this guy is talking about generational wealth and he says that it's become a catchphrase basically, and that you know, it's a marketing ploy, it's what he said something like that, and that he hates through word generational wealth because it puts undue pressure on black people to set up the generations after them, and this is why people are doing PPP loans and stuff to try to get generational wealth.
And I was actually very I guess pleased that most of the people that was in the comments wrote that off like it's the most ridiculous thing that they've ever heard. Why is it difficult for some people to wrap their head around some people, and I'll say specifically Black people, to wrap their head around the importance of generational.
Wealth because we have adopted the value system of our ancestors, and our ancestors never saw fit or never thought that we as a people should have anything.
But I mean, you're speaking not not You're not speaking about all of our ancestors though, because many of our ancestors did make way for their their children.
Yeah, but they had to get it out the mud. You understand. What did I say, ancestors are oppressor?
Well, even if we look at the oppressor, you know, like I mean, they've done pretty well. If you think about the Rockefellers and the Walters and the you know, the you know, any any of them. I mean even even you know, if you look at I hate to say his name, but even look at the Trumps. You
know what I'm saying. You look at them, you look at other families, the bodies, yeah more recently, but even the Bush right, But they are the Hilton's passing it down, passing it down because the generational the way you achieve a generational wealth is you know, you're having assets. You know you have you have assets that where you uh, don't have to touch the principle. You're making so much money you never have to touch the principle and you pass that down and that's how you get to it.
That's how you can say that, you know, Okay, we've set it up to where the generations after us are going to have it and we don't have to worry about that, right. But on the flip side of that is that I think one of the reasons why we don't get it is because we've been so wrapped up and just trying to survive. Every every one of our generations have had to face some type of oppression and and we've have to you know, we've we've have to try to walk through these minds, these these mind fields.
You know what I'm saying, it's booby traps everywhere, and a lot of it I think is just trying to you know, we've been focused on just surviving. Right now, this is probably our richest generation right now, Like we got money like out the anus, but we're not producing, we're consuming.
Yeah, but we have money, but do most of us have wealth and I think that's the term that we have to look at more carefully because generational wealth most certainly represents assets, which includes money, real estate, stocks, bonds, like you say, anything that produces property, right property. But that's not the only thing that makes you wealthy. Now,
I don't want to get away from the economics. And that's why I said, it's because we have a opted the value system of our oppressor, meaning that they never thought that black people were worthy of having anything. And if you, as a black person, even in twenty twenty three, adopt the value system of your oppressor, you still don't think that black people are worth having anything. See, we
don't know how deep this self hatred thing goes. See you have some black people who have an opportunity for upward mobility, and sometimes they'll sabotage it because they don't believe that they deserve it. They may never admit it, but they'll sabotage it because they don't believe that they deserve it. If you hate your children, then you don't give a damn about passing anything on to them. You feel like they need to get it out at the mud just like you. So it owes back to knowledge
of self. It goes back to love for self, and it goes back to reconfiguring our value system. We got to learn to see each other the way God sees us and not the way white people saw us and still see us to this very day. But I think
generational wealth should also include health. Generational health because if you have a diet that flirts with diabetes, if you got a diet that flirts with heart disease, if you're raising your children on a diet that flirts with cancer, and you know you've got these things in your family, well you may not necessarily be passing down the disease to the next generation, but when you pass down those eating habits, you are in turn passing down that disease
to the next generation. So generational wealth should also include health. It should include knowledge. We got to pass down the history to our children, and you know, all of those things that make one truly wealthy, because let's just be honest. We talked about the rock Rockefellers, we talked about the Trumps, we talked about you know, the Warburgs, and all of
these other families that literally rule the world. But some of them are in hell they're wealthy, but they are in hell, and so I see a lot of billionaires will who are saying, you know what, all this money I made, I rather donate it to charity because they see that the money, the resources, and the relationship ships have done more to ruin their children than to help
their children. So I do think that we you definitely need to focus on generational wealth as individuals, but we also have to focus on generational wealth as a collective of black people. We got to focus on generational wealth as a people.
I'm with that. With that, I was watching this video of this woman out and bat and rouge. She had jumped the bus driver with her two daughters, a thirteen year old and eighteen year old. I mean, they beat the hell out of the bus driver, a female bus driver. You know, I don't even know what the fight was about, but they jumped her, beat the brakes off of her.
Is there a way that we can like protect these bus drivers, because this is not the first fight that I've seen on the bus with parents jumping the bus driver or students jumping bus drivers. Is that something that can be done besides having an armed police officer with an AK forty seven standing at the front of the bus. Is that something that can be done to protect these bus drivers.
That's a very good question. You know, bus drivers are being attacked, teachers are being attacked, pepper sprayed and so on and so forth. That's a good question. Will I do think that you need on site security not only at the schools, but you need on site security at at you know, on these buses, not just to protect the administrations, but to protect the students as well.
Should they have guns.
They I don't. I don't think that it is necessary for all of them to be armed, or any of them to be armed. I guess it just depends on the situation. But you need security who have the mindset of security being prevention. Now I'm a trained you know, security guide in the FOI. So when we go into the projects and when we go into the schools, we try to build relationships with the children so that we can catch a problem before the problem becomes a problem,
if you understand what I'm saying. So there has to be security in there that that that that that that kind of unifies the element brings everybody together and that can work that situation. But right now, the reality in America is bro there's so much pressure in America right now mentally on people emotionally. Do you realize that we just reached over it. Two hundred mass shootings in this country. We're not even on the two hundredth day of the year.
And so the culture of violence in that America has promoted for years because this country was built on violence, is coming back to hunt the country and it is destroying the country from within. So I do believe that there should be security at these schools. I don't think that because they already have armed security with police officers right,
that's obviously not working. But I think we need the type of security that could unify the campus, the type of security that can make certain that these children have a voice, and that can come in and do what's called conflict resolution. The problem is to catch the problem before it gets out of hand.
Yeah, yeah, sort of like when you're out as an artist. The best security is the security that doesn't have to fight, the security that doesn't have to, you know, dodge bullets and stuff. Because they're focused on prevention. They can see things happening, They can see things that might happen, that could happen, So they go in and they secure the VIP they secure the entire room or club or venue
or whatever. They make sure that they know the easy end, the easy out, and it's fast, it's moving like that boom boom. That's that's good security. These guys that come in they put the gloves on and walk in like this and they got the menace in face. When when your patrons come up to the door or whatever, and are they walking in with their client and their mean mugging people get out the way. These are horrible security people. They got thet they got the wrong idea about about security.
But speaking to secure in schools, it hasn't worked. I think primarily because of what you said. These people that work in these schools are not invested in the community, do you guys in the FOI are invested in the community. In fact, you started, you know this security detail so that you know with your people in mind, like I'm going to protect my people. I don't want to you going in like I don't want no problems with my people. I don't want to put my hands on anybody. That's
the last thing that I want to do. A lot of these security people that they hire, they go in and that's the first thing they want to do. They want to put their hands on our babies, right, they look into it. And I'm not saying that some of these kids are not wild, right, They're not wild and out of control or whatever, and they don't need to be restrained in some kind of way. But restraint is different from just beating their breaks off kids and picking
them up and slamming them down and all that. They don't have to do that, and I've seen that happen many, many, many times, and I think this, it's very, very dangerous to have these type of people around our kids. And I suspect that's what they have on those buses, if they put armed security on those buses, and if they continue to put armed security in these schools. I've seen in some situations where they've dialed back. You know, with these resource offices, what.
They need to do is they have to send someone from the community who understands the plight of these young brothers and sisters. You know, I grew up in the projects myself for the better part of my childhood. My mother had a very very terrible drug problem, So I know what it's like growing up in household with a mother or a parent who has a substance abuse issue that renders him or her powerless, meaning that they don't know how to be a mother under these conditions, don't
know how to be a father under conditions. But I still had to go to school. So when I hauled off and stole somebody in the jaw, you know, back in the day, it may not be that what that person did or said to me was really, you know, that bad. But I was a ticking time bomb.
Man.
I was talking to a young lady the other day, and she's a young lady. She's in school, she's doing well for herself, and she started talking about her parents, and she talked about how her mother passed away when she was four years old and how she's never gotten over that. So I said, what about your dad? She said, oh, I don't have no good relationship with him either. So I made the mistake of asking why. She said, well, you know, when I was a senior in high school,
I had to start dancing. I say, dancing, what you mean, dancing on the dance team on the football field. She started laughing. No, I started stripping. I said, okay, she said, but my dad got mad at me because I wouldn't allow him to manage my money. So I got kicked out the house. I said, this is your biological father. She said, yeah, a child that's going through something like that. What kind of mindset do you think she's gonna have when she goes to school? You think she really give
a damn that Abraham Lincoln quote unquote free the slaves. See, you gotta have somebody in the school that understands what she's going through and has the kind of compassion where they can reach her. You know, that can de escalate a situation, that could see it before it's you know how it is back in the day when we was in the club, you could just feel when somebody was about to start shooting. It's a sixth sense that you
have for your own people. And if you bring a police officer from you know, the Woods, cut and Shoot Texas or whatever into a school in the hood, you give him a badge, you give him a gun, and you tell him, I need you to tame these wild animals in here. That's what he's there to do. He's not there to de escalate. He's there to be a force to either lock them up or get them kicked out. So there's just not enough compassion in the schools for what these children are going through. Now, that does not
excuse you putting your hands on somebody. That's a whole different, you know, conversation. But the schools have become clownhouses, brother will and I hate to say it, but all they doing is babysitting half the time. In some cases, when you walk through these schools, you feel like you are in a prison because that's what the atmosphere feels like. But every now and then there are a few teachers in that school that makes that place worth going for the students, and we just need more of that.
So would a good solution be to start early, like start like get reaching these kids at pre k kindergarten. And you're doing that, but you're also dealing with what's happening in real time right with the kids of age. Because it's very possible to walk into bubblegum. You know, two things can be true at a time at the same time, two things can be done to attack a problem at once. Oftentimes we tend to say, hey, it's one way or the other, not the one thing or
that's it. And we love putting band aids on gun.
Shaps exactly exactly exactly. I think one of the problems is the school is more of a factory where they just send everybody through the same process, no matter what might be going on at home. I think that more has to be done to identify the needs of each particular student.
But we're under attack though, if you think about it, we're under attack because the schools are actually operating exactly how they intended for them to operate. The fights with the kids and the schools, the kids fighting, the teachers fighting the bus drivers, this was planned, brother, This is all part of the agenda the school.
To pine exactly.
It's part of the whole thing. You know, you're disciplining your kids, they can call the police. I'm not even talking about beating kids to where they skin break. I'm just saying you can't even touch a catch child. The kid got the phone, right, Donald, I'm a call. So they already know you take the discipline out of out of the home. They already know what's going to happen, exactly, And so I think that it's breaking exactly the way
that they intended to intended for it to work. And I think in order for us to counter it, we're going to have to have think tank groups, think tank groups. Just like they have think tank groups to implement programs and initiatives to harm us, we have to have think tank groups to implement initiatives to counter theirs and to
improve our situations. You know, like we have to be ready for that and strike it down before it ever becomes law, because you know, they'll go in the back room and make a lawry like write a lawteryal quick and boom, and now that it's law, it don't matter how foul or the gender it is, they run with it because you know, we got some people who are just programmed and say, well, you know, that's the law and the law.
Right, especially when that the law works to their advantage. They love to lean on the law when it works to their advantage. When it doesn't work to their advantage, they just go change the law like changing the pair draws right, you know. But I believe that I agree we need think tank groups, but we also need we need execution, And I agree, but that would.
Agree, I mean that would include execution.
Absolutely, absolutely absolutely, And if we first of all, we have to accept the fact that there is a school to prison pipeline. Some of us are still in denial. And if the think tank group is to try to counter that, well, what does the CounterPunch look like? School to prison pipeline? So how do we create a school to purpose pipeline. That's the way that thought process would work.
But we are at a point that's so critical right now, Brother Will that I don't think that we can any longer get around what the most honorable Elijah Muhammad taught that we should do, and that is for us to position ourselves to teach and educate our own children. Ultimately, if we want to be able to control the education in our community, we got to open up our own schools. And it's not something that cannot be done. It is
being done on a smaller scale. But we as a people have to realize that just as our great brother said that you cannot expect justice from a system that was not created to give you that in the first place, that was WB do, you can't expect education from a system that was not created to give you an education that empowers you. Let's be honest. The American education system was designed to create a population of employees, a population
of workers. So everywhere you have in HBCU, when I speak at HBCUs, I tell them, you know, it's not a coincidence that they teach you in HBCUs how to go and conduct yourself in an interview. They tell you what to wear, how to talk, how to sit, you know, whether you should wear your natural hair or not. They teach you what to do to go and get a job, but they don't teach enough how you can take your gifts and your talents and your knowledge to go and
make a job for yourself. But right up the street at the PWU, they're teaching them how to be CEOs. At Harvard, they're teaching them how to be CEOs. And the goal is for the HBCU graduate to have to go to the Harvard graduate to get a job. And we have to circumvent that. We have to circumvint that. So in this particular, there are two educational systems in America. One is for black and poor people, all right, And in this educational system you're taught how to become an employee.
But in the elite educational system, they teach you how to become president. Even if you're a dummy, you can be a c student. Look at George Bush Junior is George Bush Junior or was either third? I don't know. Yeah, Junior, how do you become the president and you are a C student?
You dumb like Trump? Just a regular dummy like Trump, you know with the hugest word that he can use is huge.
Yeah, it's it's it's classism for that, and it's a cast system. So in order for us to escape it, we have to create what in the Nation of Islam is called a new educational paradigm. That means that we have to do away with the old way, with the European way, with the American way of educating black children, and get the best and brightest of our educators and teachers together and find a way to create our own
curriculum and educate our own children. That's the only way they'll reach their full potential.
Little boys reloaded podcasts which we break back after this week. Now, you know, once that movement starts to happen, that America is going to dangle the bag in front of the educators and say, hey, come on over here. You know, they're gonna try to steal our educators and put them right back into that system, that oppressive system, you know, like and so it goes it goes back to the money, because that's to go. It's always to go to snatch
up our best. As soon as they see one of us rising, and they see one of us, we articulate, we can we're charismatic, we're smart. You know we can, we can lead. They try to pluck you up and get you to go work for them and so that they can neutralize your progression, so that you can't help your own people. See, once they take you from your people and put you over there, then now you're in the system, and now you working for them, and now
they control you. And then you know, once you do that, you know, you kind of get comfortable with that paycheck and that status that you have over there, and that's why you turn your back on your own people and say, man, I got it out the mud I did for myself. Get it like I got it. I ain't going back over there. But everybody goes back, even if they're not going and hanging out on the block. They're stroking a check. Everybody, all of the all of the groups out there, give back. Financially,
they couldn't survive, they couldn't even make it. They couldn't even make it without doing that. It's expected, but they want to do it, and it's expected. Let's cover this. Let's cover this, this extant Thasian case. Exton Than's killer was addressed by the judge. One of his killers, you know, he had, three of them were sentenced to life in prison.
Just the little brother that got killed in Florida.
Yes, right, very very talented dude, I mean broke more heart man. I heard it was special, very talented, mean, just just exceptional, very wise for his age. And for him to get gunned down in a robbery because somebody wanted his money that he worked for. Uh, it was
just it was it was hurtful. But the judge, as he's sentencing one of the killers, Michael boltwright, he's he's describing this mundaneans, the mundaneness of what the prison experience is going to look like for him doing life in prison. And the judge said, when you took that gun and you discuided to squeeze that trigger, you effectively ended five lives,
including your own. And he said for the next he said, he said, you know, every when you leave here talking about the courtroom, when you leave here, and I'm obviously paraphrasing, but when you leave here, you're going to be taken to a prison where you'll spend every day, where you'll spend every hour, every day, every week, every year in that cell. And then one day they're going to come in in the morning and you will have passed on and they'll come get you, and only then will you
have served your sentence. But he also described the jail cell. He said, you're going to spend every hour, every day, every week, every year in that cell. And you're going to have a and iron what he said, in a metal bed, a metal bed attached to a wall, and you also have a metal sink and a metal toilet. That'll be your furniture for the rest of your life. And you could you could see dude with all that postureing he had been doing. I saw him laughing, like you know, a week or so ago and and trial,
but all of that was gone. I think if it finally hit him, this is my life. Think about that. Like we got furniture at home, sometimes we get we get tired of the furniture within a few months, be ready to change, move stuff around, at the very least moving around. I can't stand looking at this like this any longer. But that's his furniture for the rest of
his life. And in Florida, life is life. Yeah, yeah, so what And the program that you run is what's the name of it, smart Enough, smart Enough Black Male Summit, the Black Male Summit, smart Enough, where you work with these black males, many of them who are at risk.
Yes, sir.
What is it that you tell them? And what is it that you teach them? What do you show them to avoid ending up in a situation like Michael Bolt writing those others who killed.
Ex Yes, sir, We try to make it clear to them that the most profound the most profound form of mathematics is not algebra, it's not trigonometry. The most profound form of mathematics is being able to calculate future consequences for current decisions. See in that moment, that young man who killed x extent Tashion was calculating the future consequences of his actions, and he was asking himself the question
was it worth it? Was it worth it? See? When the clown is at the circus and the crowd is there, he feels useful, he feels important, he feels relevant because he's entertaining the crowd. But when the crowd is gone, and the clown looks in the mirror he realizes what he is. A clown. Wow, a crash dummy. In that moment, standing in front of that judge, he realized what he really was. You ain't no damn killer, You ain't no damn goon, You ain't no damn gang member. You ain't
no no damn step up. Use a clown right now. And the crowd is gone, The people that you were dancing for gone. You wanted to rob him so that you could buy a car to impress the crowd, so you could buy the clothes to impress the crowd. But the crowd is gone. Now you're left alone, which is you and the consequences of your actions. So we try to get through to these young brothers that this ain't
no damn game. We out here playing for keeps, and a crash dummy is somebody who was willing to do anything to be accepted as somebody that he was not born to be. So we have to be about the business of trying to create options for these young brother When people see Willie d drive by in that nice vehicle that I passed by on the way in, When the youngster see you drive by. Yeah, I want that,
And there's nothing wrong with them wanting that. But what they have to understand is that that didn't come free. That came with blood, sweat, tears, and years. And that's what we're trying to teach them, that the long game is better than the short game. See. The long game puts you in a position where you can create generational wealth. But the short game trying to rob somebody of their hard earned money. The short game robbing a damn liquor store and people don't even care cash no more, talk
about a crash dummy. The short game selling poison and pushing poison into your community, and the same dope fiend that you're selling the poison to might come back and blow your damn head off when he don't have the money to get the dope from you. See, the short game will cause you to pass on generational hell. Not
generational wealth, but generational hell. Because guess what if you go to prison and you got to do thirty years, and let's say you got a child on the way, that child does every last one of them, every day of that thirty years with you, that child doing time too, because they're out here unprotected, not cared for. You're not in a position where you can provide for your child, so they doing time too. So these are some of the things that we try to get over to these
young brothers. You know that your life is way worth It's worth way more then what it is that you think you're gonna get trying to take some from somebody, especially after they have worked hard for what they've gotten.
When I was on my way up trying to get it, battling at rying stone, wrangling, Yeah, going to Joe's on Monday nights, knocking on doors, selling newspaper subscriptions and writing in between doors and waiting on my supervisor to pick me up and take me to the next location. Yeah.
Yeah.
The entire time, I'm thinking, like I'm seeing I'm seeing other guys who already got it. Yeah, but they got it by ill means. I didn't wish bad on them, but I knew that that was short term, like he probably gonna end up dead in jail, because basically, I mean,
I wasn't a genius. I just looked at the odds, like everybody else that I know was going to jail and getting killed, you know, or getting aimed so that was just how it was, and I was thinking, I'm always I've always been a long, long, long term dude, a long goal, you know, like I'm always looking for the big play, long play longevity. To me, it ain't
how you start, it's how you end. So the little having the money for a short period of time has never interested me because I never want to be the dude who talk about what I used to do or what I used to have. It's like I got it now, you know. And so a lot of guys who had
it then they ain't got it now. And they and they every time they got out, some of them, most of them, every time they got out, they went right back to the same thing, got pot, went right back the same thing, got pop. And at the end of the day, it's kind of like a gambler. At the end of the day, all you got is a lot of lost time, you down, perhaps you broke even.
That's the worst thing you can lose.
At the best, and for most gamblers, the best that they can hope for is to break even. Most gamblers lose lose everything. There's only a few that can say
I won. But even the winners, the time that they commit to gambling, the time that they spend away from their families in the streets hustling, and the time that they spent on worrying, stressing on the money and how to get it and how to get it back and watching that back and being in that element, because that's a dark element to being in that type of environment, you know, And I've been there. That's why I could speak on it. Yeah, I did it all. Yeah, but it's definitely it was not worth it.
Yeah. And in our last conversation, I don't know if it was on a podcast or a personal conversation, you talked about the moment when you decided that you wanted to live. You know, there are a lot of young brothers out here who are in such a dark place that they've not yet decided that they want to live. So they'll risk their lives trying to get a bag because worst case scenario, I'll die in the process. Either
I'm gonna die I'm gonna get rich. That young man who was standing in front of that jadge that you just told me about, he probably wished that he had. He would rather be dead than facing what he's facing right now, because a life sentence is essentially that your life is over. So if there are any young brothers who might be listening to us right now, make the
decision to live today. And once you've made the decision that you want to have a life, then God damn it, you have to adjust your lifestyle to somebody who's finna live and not somebody who fixing to die. Stop watching the clock thinking that you're gonna die tomorrow, because guess what,
you just might live. And if God blesses you to stay alive, you only be able to look at the past five, ten, fifteen years and say that you made decisions that will advantageous to your future, advantageous to your children. God damn it. You know they got Mother's Day coming up. I tell people all the time. I tell brothers all the time, Hey, man, your life is your letter to your mama. Your life, that's your letter to your mama. Make sure that it is a letter that she would
be proud reading, whether she's dead or alive. But I said this at I said this at a conference this weekend.
Bro.
It was called mastering Manhood, and we were talking about we got a master manhood so we could be better fathers to our children, better husbands to our wives, better leaders to our community. And I said, yeah, that's true, that's fine, But I feel like, as black men, we have to adopt a new mindset. Yeah, we want to be better husbands, leaders, and fathers, But what about me want to do better for me? What about me wanting
to be healthier for my damn self? What about me wanting to be a better person, a better man for me? We don't even think like that because we have not been taught as black men, how to even give a damn about ourselves. Why because at every turn we're judged on how we take care of other people. We're not judged on how well we take care of ourselves. But we are in a health epidemic and a health crisis as black men because we don't take care of ourselves.
We're dying like ninety going north from heart disease, prostate cancer, you name it. We dying from it. You can't take care of nobody dead where y'are. You can if you leave them, you know the life insurance policy. Yeah, but if you're not here to teach them what to do with it, they still gonna end up broke.
But the person that's moving reckless they're not thinking life insurance policy anyway, right, These type people, they're not thinking like that. You know, I was one of those type of people. You don't think about that. It's going back to what you're saying. I didn't get it. I didn't figure it out till I started caring about my life. I was like, I don't want to die like a dog in the.
Street, right, And I don't want to live like a dog. And I don't I don't like a dog.
I don't want to die like a dog. You know, I don't even I don't even want to, you know, put certain things in my body that I know that it's going to what you call it. You called it, uh something about diabetes. And you were saying, anyway, I.
Don't want to generational health.
None, No, yeah, generational health. But you was you were saying, leaning toward diabetes or something some words, some phrases use diabetic.
I got you, uh uh.
But I don't want to be doing all this stuff, man, and then end up at the doctor and they tell me that I got something that could have been prevented by just my lifestyle. You know, I don't want to end up in a in a wheelchair paralyzed sitting on the porch. Can't go nowhere and let somebody take me because I participated in some activities that I didn't have to, and I already know this is what comes with it, and I did it anyway. I don't want to be that dude. So it's like, once I decided that I
love myself and I don't want nobody, I don't. I don't want nobody just shooting me, stabbing me. I take offense to that. I don't want to get stabbed. You know, I want to get shot. I don't want to have my body maimed. You know. I love my body, so I don't want it. I don't want nobody doing anything in my body. That's why I defended so well. So once I started doing that, you love yourself first to your point, and then you can consider loving others. Right,
So that's why I was with that. Man. But you said a mouthful man, and I appreciate you coming over and sharing your wisdom.
Man, I appreciate well.
You knocked it out the park again. How you do that? Man? If you was a baseball player, man, you probably get the first billion out of contract. Oh brother, man, you have a billion on a contract out there, yet.
I have no idea. To God be the glory. To God be the glory. Man, thanks for having me, brother, Will and Man. Conversations with you are like watershed moments for me, whether it's on a podcast or just a personal conversation. Man, I really really see you and know you to be one of the realists, not just have not one of the realists to just have ever wrapped, but one of the realists who to just have ever breathed. So, Man,
thank you for being you. And to anyone who might be listening to this conversation, know that both Will and Not understand that we could have just hipped a little bit to the left, to hipped a little bit to the right, and we wouldn't be in the position that we're in today. So we don't judge, but we come to the subject matter until the table with compassion. We're doing all we can to try to pour as much
into the next generation. And I think that in and of itself, like what we're doing on this podcast right now, if some younger brothers are listening and they take hold of what we're saying, we're passing on the form of generational will for the community right now. And I feel good about that.
And that's important to say, man, because it's easy. It would be very very easy for you or I to just go do whatever we want to do and get paid, you know, live a nice comfortable.
Life and not be and not be concerned.
Exactly with Yeah, we're both sharp individuals, we're intelligent. You know, we got connections, you know, we got resources. We do we want to do. But what we're doing right now, this is this is uh, this is this is perhaps the most important thing that we could be doing. And it's very very dangerous. It is you see, That's what people don't understand, Like when you start putting information out
to help black folks, that's dangerous. Yeah, and you're not going to just get You're not just gonna be targeted by you know those people. You're gonna be targeted by your people. Yeah, so you got those exactly, those Ryan those seas start with a see rhyme.
With moons, Yeah, exactly exactly. They're those among us who want to convince us that there is no hope for the young brother, you know, standing at the bus stop on Homestead with the pistol, you know, trying to see what his next move is But I remember when that was really d I'm telling you, like, I watch you go from that to this and to wherever else you're going, So I know it could be done. When I look in the mirror and I see what God has done
for me, I know that it could be done. So no matter what condition I find one of these little youngsters in, I see that in them is a greatness that has the potential to surpass yours and mine put together, The question becomes, how can I get him to see his own greatness. It's one thing for me to believe in you, but how can I get you to believe in yourself? And that's the challenge, brother, But we accept the challenge and we're up for it.
And that's why I give grace because we've already taken that journey. Yeah, and I know, yeah, like the same thing that they're getting right now, the same backlash year. They're getting the same criticism, critiquing, you know, the smoke that they get. I got it. But you know what made me, what made me get through it, what helped me get through it, was the belief in myself. It didn't matter what everybody else was saying. Yeah, even my
own family. My own sister said I need to stop this rap thing, go get a job, and she stopped saying that when I bought her that the first time I bought it. Suv what I'm saying. So, so I know I've been there, and I know, and I thank you for saying that.
Mannah, it's real, bro, and I know were running out of time. But when you see somebody you remember brother named Hilton West.
From absolutely Okay.
I remember when Hilton West got killed by a police officer. I seen him, maybe I was with him fifteen minutes before he got killed. That was my first time seeing somebody lifeless right after I saw him alive. And it was a daunting experience for me. Right, So, to see somebody dead right after you saw them alive, that's a shock. But to see somebody go from abject to poverty and just watched them over the years go through the vicissitudes in life, and you know, you see them become you
know who they become talking about you? Hey, brother, that right there gives you faith and belief that it can happen for anybody. When the brother Jay Prince put out his book, I went to his book signing in Houston because I had to go and support him. And you know, we all from the same neighborhood. This was a couple of years ago. I'm in there, brother, and I'm seeing so many brothers who went to jail in the nineties, got thirty years and just coming home. I'm like, whoa
I'm talking about? These are all childhood friends. And a voice kept, you know, playing in the back of my head. You know this could have been you, right.
E Jesus easy, Well, thank god it was you, man, and thank god we got you. And thank God that you've been using your body, your time, your influence, your wisdom to you know, to help all these other youngsters out here man that might be going through the same thing. Ladies and gentlemen. The Great, the Honorable Derek Muhammad, the homie, what's up baby?
I love you, my brother, Peace, love.
You back man. No mo talk, No more talk. This episode was produced by a King and brought to you by the Black Effect Podcast Network at I Heart Radio.