Dear White People... Feat. Van Lathan

Welcome back to Good Mom's Bad Choices.

I'm Erica and I'm Nyla.

Happy Wednesday, Happy hump Day, Happy Hemp Day.

How are you? I'm okay, it's been quite a week.

It's a lot going on.

How's your week?

Then? How are you?

I'm not feeling great, honestly, like I've had the g yesterday. I was feeling a little better today. I'm like, I don't know, I just feel I don't want to say helpless, but I do in some ways. I don't not like obviously, I know, like there's a lot going on and then we're empowering ourselves.

But I'm just I don't know. I guess I'm just worried about the future.

But I'm definitely worried about that.

Yeah, I'm very worried about the future.

Twenty twenty is relentless. Huh.

Yeah, it doesn't let up.

But you know, with everything going on, with George Floyd's death and so many just so many deaths at this point, you know, I think.

Our people are at a they're done. I'm done. I'm tired.

I'm tired too, and like you know, as women like what kids, except it's exhausting.

It is exhausted.

I don't even know my daughter's vib I don't even know how to have these conversations with her right now. I haven't really, but I don't know.

I wanted to when me and really we're talking about this this week's episode. I know you guys have probably been listening to a lot of podcasts talking about what's happening and for us, like for me, my but my big concern like what I just can't stop thinking about, and all the people that I've been hitting up are like the black men in my life, like are you okay?

You good?

I love you, I appreciate you, you know, and like for this week's episode, I really wanted to have on someone who I respect and who I think you know, is well versed in talking about many many topics including you know, what's happening right now.

So I'm really excited to have you on.

Van.

Hi, Van, we have a van. This is Van Lathan.

You guys know Van if you've been listening to our podcast. He was on our podcast last year, we were on his this year.

He's a friend of good Mom's. Uh so, welcome.

What's up? Why are you always appreciate that?

Glad you guys are doing well and appreciate the transparency about the conflicted feelings of of uh, you know, your headspace in terms of what's going on right now.

I feel like everyone feels the same way.

Yeah.

I mean I FaceTime Van today and I think my phone died in mid of, like mid of my despair.

I was like, Van, I'm helpless. He's like, listen, click. I was like, okay, so much that He's like, you should not feel helpless.

I'm like, I know, it does feel helpless. It does feel it feels like what the fuck I'm honestly, I'm just tired, Like I'm exhausted. Being a parent is exhausting being a parent to a black child, Like to think that you let them out into the world or even to expose them to understand the concepts of this life that just don't make any fucking sense at all. You know, like that is a very hard lesson to teach. That's a heartbreaking lesson to have.

To teach a child too.

So and then like, you know, me and Erica are from the valley. I would say the majority of our friends are not.

Black, And what no, not yourself. My majority of my friends are not white. I don't really have white friends.

You do have white friends.

I have like two white friends. I'm not and I love them. I'm just saying, like, speak for yourself.

I do have black friends, but here, like in in the valley, in LA, most of my friends are not black.

No, I can't.

I can't say most of my friends are black and here in this state, in the city, but like across the spread of the nation. Yes, I have a lot of black friends, but like my closest friends here outside of you are not black. And honestly, like I I'm just I don't want to talk about this topic.

I'm letting you know the next BT Instagram Live takeover.

I need more ship, you say my face. Man, I'm like, you don't let me finish.

I'm like, you're on your own island, bitch.

You better not leave me on this island, the San Fernando Valley island.

Bitch.

You know what it is. First of all, honestly, the point is, yeah.

Make the point.

I have felt that I don't. I don't really have a lot.

Of patience to discuss these topics with certain people I don't like at this point, like just right now, in the like these last couple of days, Like, I know people want to be active and want to have their input and people care, but like if you say the wrong shit to me, I can't be delicate with your feelings.

This week, like I've found myself ignoring a lot of.

Comments just because I don't I can't explain them all.

You know, I don't want to talk about the.

Small businesses that are getting like looted and how sad that is.

I don't. I can't. I don't have enough. I don't have energy for it.

So I'm not saying I don't have a lot of black friends. The majority of my friends are black, Erica and Van okay, but here in the valley the people I've grown up closest to, and Erica, I don't know what the fuck she's talking about her twelve black friends.

I don't know a lot of them.

Cause I don't have friends the three that I have, and I.

Don't know if and I know other people not only with like the people close to me, but like big brands that I'm like some brands that are not saying shit that maybe I shop at or just people on it's my social you know, who are you know pressing those baby hairs down all week, but I ain't said, you know, love, love all the hip hop culture, love all the black daddies, no words, crickets. It's bothering me.

Off my chest.

Now I get it.

Like what I'd say, first of all, a couple of things. There's a reason why people are their fuses are so much shorter in terms of things right now. And one reason is that, like, you know, let's say, like we're in the game now, this is the game, Like we're on the biggest stage as a society, as a culture, as a group of people, Like we're this is the game.

This is the.

Olympics of social discourse right now. This is as serious as it's going to get, or maybe.

Not maybe maybe not.

Hopefully as serious as it's going to get in our lifetime. So anyone who hasn't really put the work in and hasn't practiced and done the work to get to where we are now, you don't want to have to explain it to them now because we don't have any time to explain it to them now.

Because we got to be active and we need the action.

Really, as far as any of the fake activism, I gotta be honest with you. Of course, there's some of that out there. Almost anything that you see from a corporation is fake. A corporation does not tell you how much they love you by posting something on Instagram. A corporation tells you how much they love you with a checkbook. A corporation is a soulless entity that exists in order to make money. Everything that corporation does is around money.

Somewhere.

I think I saw a peloton maybe it was the bike company. Half a million bucks. That's what you demand from a corporation. An Instagram posts. They could have an intern do that in thirty seconds. That does not matter. But other than that, like the fake activism, it doesn't really bother me that much because there's too much else on our plate to be concentrating on it. It's annoying, it definitely is annoying. I'm definitely with you, on that it's annoying.

I think it's more.

So like if you want to educate yourself, there's a lot of information out there, Like they're so like I was sitting here with my friend this morning and one of his you know, his white homeboys, called him and said, I'm on your side. My family is I'm trying to explain shit to them. How do I explain shit to them? What do I say? How do I say it so that it makes sense? And I was sitting here watching him try and explain it, and I was increasingly getting

To sit back and we have to be like, okay, if.

We want asking for help, they're asking for help, they want to learn, Okay, like this is all this is what we all we could ask for, right.

But at the same time, I'm like you, this just been going on.

First of all, like now because black people and all people are looking at you with our arms crossed like nigga, hello, hi, are you gonna say something or not?

Again?

You know, I think this time it feels more it's very like individual aggressive, you know, Like I've had people, some friends call me that I'm like, this is weird, like me asking them, I'm a hey, like I get it, I appreciate it, but I'm just like, what is it about right now?

That was different than all the other times?

Besides that businesses are getting looted and protested, you know what I mean. Obviously, I know that we've were at a breaking point obviously, but like I just don't I don't know. I don't feel like it's my job to educate you on why this is fucked up and how to explain it to your white.

Friends, especially when I'm I'm experiencing this like firsthand. These are these are like, these are things that I've experienced for I'm exposed to my whole life, and now that you come in and you want my explanation, I don't want to be your token black friend that has to explain like basic shit, don't call me.

Yeah, it's up to everybody.

It's up to everyone in that situation to determine how much they want to take on.

Have you gotten those calls and like how are you dealing with them? Because I feel like every black person has gotten that call. Do you want to go this time around. I've never gotten these calls before, ever before, But this time I'm not getting I mean, we've had it on our platform, like like women reaching out who have black sons or you know, white women and black sons and stuff. How do we talk about race with our kids? But like not not not. My closest friends have.

Asked me, how do I discuss this?

You know?

So, how do you deal with that?

Oh, your closest friends, Yeah, I'm assuming are white.

Thereby proving my one friend, my one friend.

I was like, no, you have a white friend friend?

Yo?

Interesting?

Interesting, No, she said the majority. I said, I don't.

My majority of my friends are not white. They're not, she said, the majority.

I'm first of all, we look uh no, yeah, of course I've got those calls.

I think you know, it's on the case by case basis. Number one.

If there's somebody that I feel like this is fucking with me, then you know, getting and my energy, you know what I mean. But if it's somebody who actually has real substantive questions about what we see going on in our world, I don't feel like it's my duty to do that. I don't feel like I have to do it, but most of the time, like I'll let somebody bend my ear on it, just because I think it's important for people to have the information that comes from the right sources.

But listen, for.

Anybody that's tired of explaining shit, I get it, it's on you. I think the reason why a lot of people are asking questions now is because despite the fact that we've been going through this, what you have to understand is mainstream America looks at this as a significant degree of peril that they've never been in before. We've seen uprisings, we've seen marches, we've seen protests.

What we haven't seen is the entire country on fire.

At the same time, the very fabric of America kind of being threatened. Like, for example, right now, you can't really tell me or can't demonstrate to me the authority of the police right now, because what this moment has really demonstrated more than anything else is that ninety percent of the authority that police have we give to them. Yeah, they're they're they're outnumbered by such a significant degree that if one day we were to say we're not listening

And if all we get is death? Then why should we listen?

And until society is able to answer that fundamental question, we're gonna see this continue in some form or fashion.

It's true, I agree, can I It's like, how do I add to this?

Burn this shit up? I don't like. I mean, I went out. I went out this weekend. I went out twice.

I went out in downtown and then I went out to the action.

In Beverly Hills on Melrose.

And You're absolutely true, there is nothing. Though they weren't doing shit. I had a grand ole time. There was a lot of community. I think when I was watching the news while Simu is simultaneously driving through the neighborhoods, pulling up, getting out. And I will tell you this, like, first of all, it wasn't just us. It wasn't just black people. There's a lot of Latinos there's a lot of like, I saw a mix of everyone. And when I say, there was just pure love, Like, yo, what's up?

Sure?

Fuck this shit up? And you know what?

And I had this conversation with one of my non black friends. It was brief because I don't have a lot of patience and it was you know about you know, the small businesses that you know, they may not be able to feed their families after this looting.

That could be true, that's a possibility. Probably not. If you have a business, especially a.

Brick and mortar, you likely have insurance for every item that's in that place. And unfortunately, I think a lot of those business owners and I saw some people of color, you know, owned businesses, you know, and when I'm sure it was placed there conveniently sometimes.

La, I mean.

The people whose smaller businesses got fucked up. This issue may not have been an issue to you at all had that not happened to your business, and you may not have a good taste in your mouth about it now.

But I give a fuck.

I don't this this, this this is happening only as a cause and effect of other shit happening. And like you said, Van, when we don't do anything, we've waited around for this. I'm not saying this is like to be the end all, be all, the fucking solution.

But I don't.

I don't have sympathy for anyone because no one has had sympathy for me and mine.

And every time this shit happens, this is.

The first time everybody's all up in arms because it's brought to your for your your fucking uh doorst door set. And I kept hearing repeatedly on the news, this bitch kept saying, Ah, these businesses, they haven't sold anything in three months, and now look at this. Yeah.

I was out there like.

I was screaming.

I was howling out the window like a fucking I was in it to win it, and I and I felt I felt good about it, and I felt community, and I felt like everybody was there on the same accord. We're angry. If you don't want to listen, do you hear me now? I saw a sign do you hear us now? And I was like, yeah, do you and and that and that, and there was police just literally standing around when people were taking shit and breaking shit and they could do nothing about it.

And it was it dawned on me that that's true. There's power and numbers.

But also the truth of the matter is, which scares me, because I'm a fucking conspiracy theorist, is what if they come and.

Bomb all this shit because they can too, Like.

They have the force and the means to kill a great a lot of people, and they've shown us time and time again they don't give a fuck. Morality is not their main their main squeeze, nor has it ever been humanity that doesn't matter.

So I mean, are there There's obviously been.

People planning stuff to like entite, you know, and fake looters and all this other shit that exists, and we have to be aware of that too. But in the meantime, I mean, I don't really feel any sympathy.

Oh go, I was gonna say.

I think historically it's been shown that unless you use force, shit doesn't change. I mean, being quiet, especially when you're black or a person of color, sitting back and waiting for the laws to do.

What they mut that they will has never worked.

I mean, we said we should do that too, but do it all?

I just mean like money talks and fucking up some shit. I inevitably, I hope, I pray, I hope it will. I hope it'll change something. But when I was saying today, like when I was called when I called Van today and he asked me how I was doing, and I told him I felt hopeless, it was more so because I felt like I support everything that's happening in the streets and the protesting and all those things. I'm just wondering, like after that, what then, how do we mobilize?

What?

How do we change the house we didn't build? You know what I mean? It has to be on them, like it just has.

To be burnt down to the ground and started over that.

But also that does they have enough money to rebuild that shit? Yeah, it's endless. So how do we how does it change? Is my question?

Yeah, so little quick hit, little quick history nugget here, Like let's say we go way back hundreds of years ago, right, you know you have like American colonists. You know, people come from Great Britain wherever they come, they settle here in America, right, fifteen sixteen hundreds they come here to sell in America. Well over a couple of generations. Something starts to happen. Right, the people that are here on the mainland of America, they become Americans, like they become

George or whomever.

That's who the king was when the rebellion started, but all the kings before then, they start to think different than them.

What they then.

Start to ask As their culture deviates away from the culture that governs them and dominates them, they start to ask for more representation for the specific way that they look at the world, the specific struggles that they're going through, and the specific things that happen in their lives. They want to be heard. No taxation without representation. That means, Hey, we don't want to just pay you and then not have a voice in what goes on with us. That

American the foundation of America.

It's literally the most American thing that could possibly exist, besides, of course, slavery. So in any of this stuff, this is nothing new. The question becomes, to your point, what it is that we want?

Well, the first thing that we.

Have to do is make sure that everybody is listening. So this is in steps. So now that everyone is listening, we have to have number one, a comprehensive review in policing in this country, whether or not we need to defund police Department where the money, Whether whether or not we need to separate police unions from political power in

Now, it doesn't matter to me, It wouldn't matter right now if.

Trump abolished the police. I'm not prepared to vote for him no matter what he does. However, the political power of not just black Americans, because it's not black people against white people here, it's everyone against racists. So the system that we've talked about, to Meela's point, can no longer stand.

It's untenable the way we've been living. It can't go on. It's like over now.

And if people don't really see that movement's being made in that direction, this will get worse. It's very important that Americans understand there's never been a nation that's lasted forever.

Never.

If we were having this conversation in nineteen eighty nine, the Soviet Union was the second most powerful nation in the entire world. There's never been a nation that's last forever. If you want America, you might have to be willing to watch it change and help it evolve.

And we'll see if the country's well ready to do that.

I think the scariest part, I don't know if we have leadership that it's willing to do that.

I don't.

I don't have faith in our election process. I don't have faith in the idea that Trump is not going to be We.

Can't have faith. That's when a system can't exist.

We can't have faith in a system that's been falsely presented as a democracy and it's clearly not. Just like I said, this country is birth and rebellion and then brought us as slaves and said make us strong and give us free labor for hundreds of years, and the second that you know, and then like, oh, but we gave you freedom, and now you're fine. Now you can get educated, Now you're fine. The fact of the matter is this is this country has been built on the

And then we're trying to.

Fix or upgrade a system. But the system needs to disappear. It has to start over. The problem is you're right, is their leadership is the leadership in the Black community not strongly, no, because the system has made it so that that to have.

I think there is leadership in the black community. I just think we are not united.

Really well, leadership won't There won't be successful leadership if there's not a united front, if there's not community. But they've done such a grand job at dismantling our community and love for one.

Another and love for ourselves.

That is really where the like it's hard to be cohesive, you know.

I think it's that also paired with just the time that we live in.

Like one of my biggest fears even when before this's happened with even with the pandemic or whatever, was that like nothing would change because we are a society that kind.

Of just like sheeople, where we just like it's we move on so quickly.

Once it's done, it's done, it's over with.

Just like just like all of the deaths that have happened in our community, they're so important for two weeks and then it's over with.

Like white people, get it out, get it out, get it out.

Do you make no mistake about it?

This right here would be different if there were other things to do right And I.

Think and I think, I think that being at home really has highlights. Really why because my question too for myself, and I was asking myself, why is this different? Why is this different? This isn't the this isn't the first time we've seen a black man murdered on camera by a police officer. You know, this is why is this different?

It's hard to be relentless because it's such heavy shit that we're we're exposed to and discussing in our community all the time, and for other people it's like it could be a season and then it's passed. We've let them get it out and let its pass. But for

Absolutely?

It does.

But do we have any other option but to continuously.

Like let people know the reality.

Because the truth of the matter is you even still have the option to watch the ship all the way.

To the end or not.

My other friend was like, yeah, I had to make my dad watch the video. I asked him had he seen it? He hadn't seen it yet, because they can people can assume they probably weren't compliant, because that's how they think of us, because but.

We all know that not to be true.

But you have to, like we have to continuously continuously go hard or else, and you know what else scares me. I don't know if you guys know that this was the actual like reunion or like it's fell on the same date as the Tulsa the Tulsa in Oklahoma where there was like black Wall Street, so it was like May thirty, first, first and seconds, like the same exact time period, which is very interesting because I think there's like a planet that's in the house that's closest to

Basically we were thriving, and obviously, for obvious reasons, they didn't like that.

They came and killed hundreds of people and bombed the city so that it would be hard like that. That is really the truth of the matter is is that community within like becoming cohesive that way is what is scaring them the most. And that's what scares me. The more cohesive become, the more we get allies, the more they're going to plot against us to do whatever they can to dismantle that. I know it, because we can't

So that's why I think it's that.

Important to have a dialogue completely outside of the media, completely outside of this structure, because it's failed us every time.

Yeah, what happened in places like Black Wall Street and then Tulsa, and even in Atlanta to a degree with the race riots that they had there. Black Wall Street was an extermination of an entire community, very intentional one done by people who weren't doing.

As well as what they were there was.

There are incidents like that that happened through violence. And then there are just other things ways that Americas maintained a status quo. Obviously, discrimination, redlining, all of that stuff, hiring practices, all of those things, and some of them are big, major things, and some of them are little bitty microaggressions that you can't quite put your finger on, Like we can't reach into people's hearts and change their minds about black people.

And I'm not interested in it.

If you don't, if you don't fuck with me, if you don't think that I'm great because I'm black, that's fine, that's your business. But what you can't do is deny me rights that are guaranteed to me, that my ancestors bled for and earned more than any other group, that

You gotta want it bad.

Like to a lot of the problems that happened is that for the last generation, we fail to be engaged citizens.

From the country.

Is more than a lot of people understand what I'm saying, more than a lot of people, because there are very few groups, no matter what they say, that can say that they built America, that they gave America an economic heads start to compete with the rest of the world. All of that's do to hundreds of years of free labor, and then even after that sharecropping, and then even after that,

True, and we got to do that. Now, we got to keep doing that.

I think that's true.

And I think that's the part that hurts the most because I think I can say I haven't done enough, especially for someone who's a mother, who has a child, who you know, like because it does feel helpless, It does feel like we're to start because like you said, there's all on so many levels. There's so many levels of this shit. You know, on the very you know, like there's people who pretend they're like they're not, but you know, I'm sure and the comfort of their white homes.

As we speak. It's just a global pandemic and it's been going on for a long time.

And I think that's why it even heightens, like just because coronavirus exists and now this exists and there's just like this heightened like thing. But for black people it's like I was, I was chirping off of Corona. I was, But I'm like, try being black right every day, it's you might die. It's Corona every day. So and then you add this stress and these levels, you know, and it's just an interesting it's very interesting, and I'm over

How do you, like? How are you doing? Man?

Like?

I cause, like you know, I said, like I checked, I've been checking in on like the black men in my life.

I'm like, how do you feel?

How do you how are you? What's your mind? What's your mental state? What's your mind?

Like you know, it's you know what the crazy thing is is that I'm well, like this is familiar. The disease fucked me up just because I was like, yo, like you know, I just didn't handle it well.

Like I started watching World War Ze.

Yeah I did that, you know what I'm saying.

And I'm like, I'm tripping with washing. I was washing.

I washed my hands so much to a point to where my skin was cracking, you know what I mean. Like I was checking my temperature fifteen times a day, the whole nine.

So that didn't this though, this is familiar, This is the.

Reality that I already knew that I lived inside of. These are contructs that I was already these are walls that I was familiar with. And also this was something that there was no way wasn't going to happen. This is inevitability. So what I think my function is right now is to make sure that people remember it's okay, we're going to get through this, but we gotta be ready to see this through to the end. And that's

There are things that me and some of my friends are doing in order.

To make sure that people that need help and relief to rebuild after all of this is over will get that help. In that relief, private funds, different things, money that you can come to. I'll come out there and I'll help you paint over graffiti. I'll do the work to undo the unrest that just happened. But I'm not gonna act like what's happening on the streets. America shouldn't have been able to see coming, and America shouldn't have

But we have to lean on each other right now.

Yeah, I took time out because I realized, I think as black people, we go through shit so regularly, especially in this in this space where it's just a part of life that we you know, we're dealing with trauma that we're not even aware of. And it dawned in me, like I did have like a therapy thing happened for like two months.

Like like a year ago, and I was just like, I took the.

Time to go and use better help, go and sign up for a therapist, go through the thing like even And I liked it because it gives you the option to be like, do you want a woman, someone of color or LGBTQ issues matter. Are you religious? Are you spiritual?

It bleeds into all the aspects of your life. Yeah, it starts to bleed into it. I mean all the trauma.

Like it's so much anxiety. There's so much anxiety. Like even thinking about the conversation I'm gonna have to have with Luna and like asking her do you want to go protest?

And she's like what is that? And like, you know, protests fight for our rights.

She's just looking at me like I'm fucking crazy and shit, but it's just it saddens me, you know, and I'm gonna I have to talk to someone to have the conversation to figure this shit out, and like you said, it takes leaning in and using the resources and really first admitting that this shit hurts and it's not it should not be a part of life.

This is not normal. It's not normal. It's not no.

And I think I think, you know, we we've I've always been an advocate for therapy, and I think unfortunately in our community, I feel like it doesn't feel like an option, it doesn't feel like it's affordable, it doesn't feel like we're supposed to be talking about our business. But there's a lot to mean to unpack aside from just daily life shit. The trauma of like seeing people die daily. Are people die daily? That's for nothing, it's traumatic.

And then read comments how people have the privilege you're saying, oh, they weren't being they weren't being compliant.

Mm hmm.

That's traumatic for me.

The fact that you responded this way, that there are people that are seeing what i'm seeing, watching the same ship that I'm seeing, and you have the fucking audacity and privilege to say some.

Ship that it is just not there. That is what really fucking scares me.

Yeah, well remember now everyone take breaks, Yeah, take breaks.

Well, I don't watch It's not like you're not you're not.

You have to take breaks. I'm not.

I mean, look, I watch.

George Floyd video just because, can you guys hear me? Yeah, yeah, I said, I watched George Floyd video after a watch, just because it just kept it was just pounding me boom boom.

I tried to not watch at first. I can't. I can't.

I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it. I already know I know how it ends. But then I just I had I had to.

I had to.

Yeah, yeah, I had to. I had to see it, and I wish it never happened. But as far as the video, I needed to see it. I needed to see it to understand, to to to really be engaged. But you know, Sean Sean, what Sean is doing is is uh and what other people that put the videos out and stuff like that, what they're doing is valuable work for a lot of people. I know that there are a lot of different opinions on on on Sean himself, but he he, there's valuable work, valuable stuff that people

I can't do it. I'll freak out.

Y'all saw I fucking freaked out on the people last year, so like like I'll like like.

I'll freak out. I can't, Like I can't do it.

It's like it's not mentally, I don't have the restraint and I don't have the Uh really, my my bowl isn't that big. I gotta empty stuff out of my head sometimes. But look, all of this shit should like you guys are mothers, and you guys are very proud, and you guys are so it's just fun to watch people be loving parents. Like it's always fun to watch people love it because at first you get annoyed when you don't have kids.

You're like, hey, on the reil, stop it with the kiddie bullshit.

Like it's like it's like whatever, But after a while, just you do after a while, seeing someone pour so much of their self and their existence into somebody else's happiness and somebody else's growth and somebody else's evolution and protection.

You can't help but be enamored with it.

You can't help but be drawn to people who care that much about somebody else. And that's why it's important for people to really do the work to make a better world, because as crazy as it sounds, we've all failed. If in twenty years it's still hashtags floating around like this, this could either be a time in America that we looked back on, or this could be it and it's up to us.

And I you know, people always say, you know when your parent, like you want to leave your kid to a better world, or you worry about the world that you're leaving them too, And that has that I feel like, has been the source of so much anxiety for me, Like I'm really scared about that. It's not like oh, girls are wearing like thongs on the street, or like what kind of world am I leaving her too? Like people are torking on the camera. It's more like I'm like, is there gonna be a world?

Like?

Am I cool leaving you here?

You might have to come.

I feel guilty you might have to come, And yeah, do I need any more kids, Like I want to see how this plays out first, Like it's just it's a scary, scary world, and like yeah, like my anxiety has been bigger more than ever, which is why I take mushrooms now.

Yeah, honestly, mushrooms have help. You should try them. I try them then, for really you.

Should telling me about that. How do you do the mushrooms? Like what do you I've never I've never taken that before, Like what do.

You do well them? You can do differently.

You could just crush them up a little and put them in like some yogurt with granola. That's the best way because I taste not good. Or you can get them in chocolate form, or you can get them in little capsules. But however way you get them.

I don't know.

I've just had to kind of like depart from my reality, from my reality here, and it's like not that I'm like when I take them.

I'm like I'm somewhere else. That's not what it is.

It's or so like I don't know I'm able to separate them from my anxiety and still be like Okay, this, I'm present, this is what's happening. This is not what's happening. This is not important. My anxiety is not me and like that, but that idea that leaving my child into this world of like not knowing, like are you gonna It's like.

I don't know, Like I don't even know.

We have to raise soldiers, but then we have to be your soldier in or to raise a soldier, And that's where we need to start, because nothing will change, nothing will change unless we start, and then they won't even understand what that means until we start, you know.

There, we just have to do better.

I mean no, I mean no, I mean we gotta do us. They gotta do better. We just gotta do us. And when I say do us, I mean listen, man, I know that there's a lot of penny bickering that goes on between black Americans sometimes, and a lot of it has to do with sort of how things have been.

You know, there's not a lot of slots. We fight for the.

Same slots, you know what I mean, if it's you walk into a room like I never forget when I was at TMZ, there was actually a point where you know, I had made my sort of identity as the black guy on the show.

And so because I was the black guy on the show. I never forget.

This is one of the moments that I really caught myself because I had made like my first year two there being a big deal on a TV show or whatever. I have made my identity as a black guy show. So whenever another black dude walked into TMZ, I'll be like, oh shit, Yo, is this nigga better looking? Is he gonna be smarter? Is he gonna be like?

I don't know.

There's not enough room for both.

Yeah, there's not enough room. And do you know the way I dealt with that.

I dealt with that by fiercely combating that and trying to prop up as much as I could anybody black that walked into that office because I could not allow myself. I was around thirty one or thirty two, then thirty two, around forty now, I couldn't allow myself to become the nigga that tries to dominate the space wherever he is so that no other.

Black people can get in. I had to exercise that out of.

Me, because that feeling happens because you don't know if somebody's gonna come in and kick you to the bet because they're not enough voices, they're not enough people.

But we have to get rid of some of that.

As far as us, what we do together and how we view each other together, as far as some of this other structural stuff, it's on them.

It's on them.

It's on the white American power structure to decide whether or not they want a country or not, whether or not they want workers, whether or not they want businesses, whether they want a copaestic flow and a sharing of American wealth if they don't want that, I.

Do agree with you, But I also think, and I know you say, like we have our own mental like things like like what you what you shared with your you know your dynamic when you see him and saw another black man walk into you know, your your workplace.

I feel like.

Black people though, like we kind of like we've been so taught that we need white things, Like we don't buy black generally. We don't even when we're told this is what can help uplift us, even when we see white people killing us, we don't do it. It's like a habit. And I don't know how you unbreak that habit.

I don't know. So the white people.

Are always gonna get our money, I mean not always, I hope not, but like I don't I don't know how that changes.

They have endless money.

We have to educate ourselves to recognize how that they're economics like there they have to like that's where.

The power lies.

And if we make excuses to not buy from one another, oh you know, you know so and So's customer service is poor, this is slow, this is the technology is low. So I'm gonna have to go with this major brand, this major brand, this major brand. It does it takes for us to educate, you know, to be educated in those places. And and I honestly think this all times for it to be it could work.

It should work.

We are excelling at such like black women specifically business owners, you know, like just black in corporate America, and the and the rate at which we graduate from college. We are blooming even despite clear traps to do otherwise. You know, So I think now's the time if anybody. I think it's I think you're right. There has to be we at some point we have to make decisions because economically is where the shit matters.

Those they care about their pockets, that's all. They give a fuck about pockets.

I mean, because I would love like I mean and to your point, like we are blooming in spite of you know what I mean. So just imagine if there was none of that, the like.

Well, that's what's scary for them, And that's what that's what scary for me, is that as they see as blooming, best believe they are working up an antidote, like they are trying to fight against that blooming.

Because it's power.

It's powerful, my friend.

Okay, this is another thing, the black friends that are saying dumb shit. I think that might be even worse. That is really the worst of all. I had a friend post some shit. I have not called her since I don't know where to begin. I am appalled and shocked and annoyed.

What is she saying?

I don't something to the effects of, like, if we want other races to respect us, we have to like respect each other.

Blah blah blah blah blah.

I hate the conversation about like black on black crime in amongst the conversation on like police brutality, and like that shit irritates me. That shit irritates me, And like even though that's true, they have there are limited places and spaces for you know, there's always been like five black actors as long as we've grown up. Maybe there's ten now been in the same type of movies.

And now we're.

Seeing us in different spaces in different ways, and we're weird and we could be there's it's just now giving letting us have this these spaces. But I just I feel like, really though black people genetically are community loving people. Hey, sister, what's up you want? You know, like if I go to the hood, I'm happy to walk into this. You know, even if someone's like you little skinny ass, you want some get her some call of greens?

Yes please.

You know, Jamilla can bring home a white boy like you know you brought him that that white boy last week.

Still he's getting a plate.

No one's disowning niggas for bringing home white people like we are despite everything we've been through, I guarant I I just feel like we got a lot of love to give regardless, and that's crazy that we can even exist and thrive and love and feel happy despite but like that is really our superpower and like you can't take that away from us, and you can per you can try, but like that, I don't. I don't believe in that. I refuse to believe in that.

Yeah, I mean, look, we we come from a place originally where there's more land than our people, and where those people understood how their relationship with the land uh was important to their existence, and therefore how their relationship with each other was important to their existence.

You know what I mean.

So you come from a celebratory culture, a culture that was advanced in so many different ways in terms of science and art, mathematics, but a culture that celebrated life.

And so even throughout.

Everything that happened to us when we got here in some wilderness where we didn't understand it, We don't know nothing about the types of lakes and rivers they got, the types of trees, they got, the types of animals they got.

We have no clue. We don't know where we are.

Our diet as.

Soon as we got settled, diet, same thing, as soon as we got settled.

The first thing that we started.

To do was try to find a way to give thanks for being who we are.

It's one of the things that we do.

When somebody looks at you and they say that, they're saying, thank you for being black, thank you for your beauty, thank you for what everything that you're doing. They appreciate that that has to be translated into the actual foremotion that we need to change some of those things. Like you were talking earlier about the designer stuff and all of that stuff, all of that's American. All of that worship of excess and all of that worship of luxury brands.

And all of that prestige.

That's us trying to in some way show people that us similarly to.

The American dream. Yeah, that's all American.

Like the cultures that we came from in Africa were much more about sharing. Obviously you had some ridiculously rich people, but there are much more about sharing. They were much more about each one, teach one, and the village itself way more. All of this this peak capitalism, this vicious gangster version of it, that's all stuff we learned here, all of it. And so the reality is that what we have to do as a coaches figure out whether or not that works for us, or whether or not

My dad has a friend over.

There, exactly.

So I always worry about that.

But you know, maybe that follows that following.

That's why I'm looking at my wife friends like Okay, okay, bitch, I'll see you. I'm glad you're going go do that, write that fight. But how let's see how long you're gonna fight this fight? When shit gets real and we really need you and we need to we need to call Grandpa and we need to call you know, you know your granddaddy that has this and that and then you know, like access usual. I want you to really

So I don't know what's up. That's how I feel about it. Like that's why I'm just like people tell you.

That that's my biggest issue with like all lives matter, we're all on human race.

When I see pull up.

When I see people put the posting pull up and Instagram and shit, and I've seen it multiple times. I don't mean just pull up to the fucking protests. I just want to be clear about that because I.

Feel like that's what that's that's what I'm concerned about.

Like people, these white people or whatever, non black people show up to the protests, feel like they did their due diligence.

They did what they were supposed to do, and that's it.

And then outside of that, now, you know, I support you.

You know there's gonna be a lot of that.

I mean, it's convenient, ship if you got your blinders on. If I'm living my happy white life, ship, fuck if I'm gonna be over here stressing myself out, you know, I'm over here with Daddy's Daddy's money chilling. I mean, it's just it's it's hard being black in America. It's even hard being black in America in the valley.

But remember though, like it's gonna be up to us to do the work for ourselves. Anything else is just a bonus. So if you have somebody else that like, uh, you know, it's gonna it's gonna come with you, help you and support you.

That's great, but like you know what you're gonna have to do.

It's like people that get a trainer and think that the trainer is gonna lose weight for them. The trainer is someone that helped guide you. It's it's a it's a it's a it's basically an accessory.

In this it's still gonna be your effort.

Your mobilization and a change in your mindset is gonna get you where you're trying to go. It's good to have allies. It's important to have allies. I would even say it's necessary to have allies. But you gotta be willing to go it alone too, you know what I'm saying.

Yeah, absolutely, Anyway, all I have to say is vote in November.

I know, like you know.

That idea that that's really blended in our community that your vote doesn't matter that you know, like you said Van, like, oh, it just it's just nothing matters. You just kind of like go to the wind.

No, this is how it's always and look it's not.

We don't have great options. Let's be real.

We don't have great options, but we have an option, okay, and that's when we have to take because it's I really like it doesn't just start there at the top. It does, but like it trickles down, but like that needs that. I don't feel like much progress can be made as long as Donald Trump as our president.

Oh god, he's the worst shit ever. Did you see him posing with the Bible? Oh my god, it's so First of all, he tear gassed peaceful protesters so he can get to the church that was burned to take several photographs in front of it with.

The Bible, and he was.

Like, is this today?

It was so.

I don't really watch that.

He used it as like a prop in a set to be like, and then he used force to move the people to take the pictures.

Well, he's a white supremacist, that's it. Like he's white supremist, that's it.

He's just very dumb.

He's that. But he's also a white supremist, for sure.

He's dumb. I'm surprised Jesus didn't say, Okay, that's enough. I got to get back to earth.

In the moment, In the moment that Donald Trump was holding up it was such.

A I have to see this photo.

God, it's crazy.

But you know what, more than Donald Trump is just whack. Man, that picture's wack.

He's embarrassing. It's such an embarrassment.

Yeah, but look man, we're gonna stay courage.

Were out here on the streets about to get out here in a second.

Yeah, thank you so much.

Appreciate you as happy to have you. Was that.

I can't stand either one of you, honestly, No, but I'll call you later.

Hit me up. Not ladies, stay safe, staying courage and say.

You guys are the fan of Van Lathan at Van Lathan duh, bye bye bye.

Well that was Van. That was great.

Yeah, he always adds you know, he's just he's smart, a lot.

Of perspective to the conversation. And I appreciate his perspective.

And I don't know, like I I feel like I don't sound very optimistic on this episode. I don't mean to sound that way. I just feel like today I just feel conflicted about where we are in this whole process.

I definitely feel conflicted.

I definitely I didn't even want to speak too soon.

I mean, I'm just so tired of talking about this.

It makes me exhausted, Like it really makes me exhausted, and it makes me sad, and it makes me feel like I'm never doing enough, and.

So I guess we have to talk about it. We have to do it. It's necessary.

But I feel your hopelessness, but I just don't. We can't feel hopeless because that.

Gets I think.

It's just today I don't really feel like I necessarily feel overall like hopeless. I'm you know, I'm generally like I can see the bright side on and things, and I know that everything.

I truly do believe that.

Sometimes not sometimes historically you have to burn shit down to the ground. And that doesn't necessarily mean like actually, but sometimes it really fucking means that way, Like shit has got to just you need us to do over and you can't erase slavery and you can't delete what's been what's happened, but like there has to be a change.

We can't. We're we're like this.

Like, well, you made a really good point over the weekend.

I don't know, you weren't talking to me.

I don't know. It's just we were having a general conversation, which even it's interesting like some even I'm even such in a sensitive place where like when we had that conversation, like obviously we were amongst.

Friends but like I just wasn't.

I was just like, please don't want say anything too stupid, and I know I can't go into conversations that way, but I'm just like, please don't say anything that I'm gonna have to curse somebody out. And that's not just like that's just for everybody, because I've like I've had even friends that are black say some stuff and I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna have to step you know.

What, though for me, I'm like, please say something so i can curse your ass out, because then I'll know you don't you don't really you don't really fuck with me.

Right, That's or it's like I'm just like cringing.

Hoping, or like if I love you because the people everyone that I loved was there, so I would I would have, like, you know how, Brand said, it's a case by case situation, and I.

Agree with that.

I'm not like white people, but I feel like if like one of my friends said some dumb shit and I just felt like, damn, you really just need to educate yourself. I give them an opportunity to listen, to listen and learn and let's talk about it. But there's all but then at the end of it, at the end of it all though, like there's are certain things that like if we're not in line, you gotta go, you gotta go. Like that's it, You're right.

But you said, but you said something about America, something about Americans and like rebellion and that like, actually, America is amongst the most docile of the countries. We don't like, there's so much fuckery happening in the White House, within government, with legislation, with fucking lobbyists and insurance companies and bullshit, so much in moral and ethical ship that is obvious and blatant.

And in media and and and.

It's we are just cool with it, you know everything. Everybody's cool with it. And then when we turn up, Oh no, we're we're being animals, we're being louders, we're being like, no, Actually, in other countries, the government, people overthrow it, overthrow it, they overthrow.

The bitch, and then they kill the president sometimes or they exile his ass or he goes to jail. It's like we put we put these laws in place that the president can't even go.

To jail, so the laws don't exist.

Slavery hasn't ended it's just been substituted people with with fucking mass incarceration. It still exists.

It's absolutely They put some special words over and try to fucking seed it in, but bitch, it exists.

So you don't give a fuck. The ship has to go.

It has to And honestly, like I was listening to Wheezy's new podcast, and you guys should check out Wheezy's new podcast, What's it called Again? For facts sake? For fact's sake, And she was talking about how her mom, her mom's seventy and she's like her mom, my mom had to drink, was from a separate you know, I had to go to separate bathrooms.

Had seventy.

Yeah.

Yo, I'm just saying to what I'm trying to say is the ship it was not that long ago. It's crazy because people think that it's like another lifetime ago or a century ago.

It's not was not one hundred years ago.

There's a meme and it shows like a part like some of the protests, like during Martin Luther King and they put under they're in color and in black and white, the same photos, and they said, can you believe they put this shit in history books?

In black and white to make it seem as though.

It was farther, further away, because because the mind has this precise perception.

Of things of when when black went to color, And it's just like, I just feel those people.

Are still alive.

They're just they're they're police officers, they're politicians, they're the ones, they're they're they're the president of the insurance company, they're you know what I'm saying, Like they are still among us. Racism has never died. And like I keep I kept saying this meme go around.

That said, like.

Racists, like, racism didn't die, it's just now it's being televised or something, or now.

It's being filmed, and it's so true.

It's like it's never it's never been dead.

But that's why I don't want to hear that lives matter. Shit, I don't want to hear that. Fucking I don't want to hear it. That doesn't like race does matter, race does exist, or else we wouldn't be having this conversation. It's very fucking it's historically mattered. And for you to fucking under suggest that it doesn't exist because that benefits your comfortability, fuck.

You, absolutely, I agree.

Fuck power.

Uh anyway, Wow, But I will say the first night I went downtown, it was a little chaotic. Maybe everybody didn't have the same I didn't feel the same amount of that much as community as I did when I went the second night, when I went.

Up up but to have the looting go for you, I wasn't looting, but we were on the front lines, were on the sidelines of.

The front lines, and we were first of all, I felt like it was almost intentional. Literally, we were coming back from the beach, and it's they're showing that in the intersections with like from the helicopter, but putting the intersections in like white writing to so exactly where the actions is. Then they're like the governor gets on, we

Oh shit.

So literally, I was like, we go straight to the action.

And then when I get out there and I see it's mostly kids, girl as teenagers.

It's like everybody's dressed in black. There's signs, they're spray painting, saying you know, fuck fuck, like fuck pig cops.

It was just, you know, and kids were just literally stealing furniture from furniture stores, pulling them in the middle of the street, posting up honking. There's kids going to the liquor store. Running in the liquor store. You see like five car cop cars, sirens rush by, they go by, and then nobody stops.

They like all spurs from the liquor store and they just run back in like little roaches. It was hilarious. It was great. And I'm like, give me one of else bottles. Somebody hand me a bottle of bourbon.

You know, it's just we got them jumped out the car at one point talking asking the kids, hey, where are you guys. Finding a lot of them from Compton, from East you know, just different parts of LA.

But all people just saying like.

Black Lives Matter, and like it was just it seemed not I mean, it just it wasn't violent.

It didn't seem violent.

Besides obviously the vandalism that was happening, it seemed like kids trying to go and get theirs. Honestly, you know, we like post them in front of the mouth.

I mean, I mean, besides the fact that we're in a pandemic where they're sending people twelve hundred dollars for for money, this would be like I just feel like, of course the ships, the people are gonna lose shit.

People need ship right now more than ever.

Two.

We're in a bad place.

People need ship right now. Oh you, oh so you're not? Oh you, oh so you're not.

So You're gonna give me hundred dollars for unemployment and a six hundred dollars check and I'm just to be able to catch up and pay six months left.

No, I'm gonna go to the I'm gonna go to the liquor store of the f store.

I'm gonna go cops and ship and I'm gonna resell it.

It's not Gucci for sure.

I mean, honestly, I head less if I didn't, if I didn't feel like maybe someone on TV like that's Jamilla. I.

I was fully encouraging me get everything.

She called me and I was like.

You better really think about what you want, bitch.

What do you need? What do we need right now?

Okay?

So we did. We got off the phone. She really hyped me up.

Someone had handed me a hard drive from like they just handed it to me from outside of the Star.

I was like, yes, I didn't do anything, but I'm benefitting. Then I got on the phone the Airic.

I'm all Drew said I had a shot te quila from some some friends that we met on the corners, Like, oh yeah, man, I just got this cool.

I was like, he just popped it open, so it.

Was no corona.

I was like, yes, I know. I was like sure.

I was like uh huh uh huh.

He gave us a shot.

So we Erica gets on the line. Really I called one friend. She's like, get out of there, go home. I got on the phone the Airic and she's like, think about everything we need.

Well.

I was like, oh my god.

I was like a murderer.

I was like, what do we need? We need electronics and we need what else? Like a sound equipment and my fake. As I was in the streets, I was like, yeah, let me think about it.

Where can we go next?

Completely as if I was just about to be about that life, popping down some shit so we would drive his trashity lingerie.

I'm like.

When you have a photo shoot, but people had just started like popping this shit open, and I'm like, oh, we go trashy lunderin and I go inside, I pick up the mannequin and I'm.

Like, I put it down.

I'm like gotta get out of here.

I'm not going to chail for laundry, but I'm not gonna do it.

Just walk out. I'm just not good.

Like literally, my fangs had come out, just like I've.

Been riding around in the street like screaming out in the window, and I was just like following all the kids and then my fangs came out, but I'd likely I put it down. I gained adult control and I left that joint without anything. So no, I wasn't looting.

I was.

I was out there.

I'm hanging with my with adventure Bay, who's super about responsible fun, and he we were like with like tally get along with some kids that we didn't know.

I'm sure they're like, why are these people following us?

And at one point one of the kids shouted like, I don't know how you to breaking some glass glass in.

His hand and he's like I can see my bone. I was like, oh no, I can't look.

He's so my adventure Bay was like do you need first aid?

Do you have first aid?

In my head like, nigga, you know they don't have no first aid, only you have first date.

Hold on, pull over to the health. These kids that we've been following that we don't know, but we think we're a part of their.

Posse because we're just like, yeah, yeah. He goes in the.

Back of the tront gets the first daid out, like giving him gaze and helping him, asking like where do.

You guys turn.

Drive.

Honestly, it was pretty exciting.

I felt like I was. I mean, it sounds like good night to remember it was.

I felt it was a part of history.

I was.

I just it was good to be there.

I had the opportunity to not be home on my.

Couch listening to that bitch on ABC talk about the people doing the ship saying how violent it was and how this it was and how, And when I was there, I realized it was just really about rebellion and about the anger and the anguish and the sadness and that together they were just saying, this is where a community and whatever.

It wasn't like it wasn't it wasn't. I it's the thing that the news portrays. It's like this all out of salt on police office. And then and then they're not here to police officers.

And then I noticed they kept repeating this, like the same stores like Gucci Gucci that.

Seems very urban and black to keep.

Saying Gucci got locked and Gucchi, Like niggas love Gucci, we get it, Okay, we get it. But also the surf shop on fucking in Santa Monica got fucking looted, all non blacks peeling out.

Of there with full surfboards.

Okay, So it's like nobody wanted to cover that ship.

So it was just interesting to be there and then to we were honestly watching it at the same time and just see, you know, how they're trying to portray the situation when it's not that.

And bitch Beverly Hills room data was locked down.

Those niggas were out there just chilling on their cars, just posted because that's really what they give to talk about. Fucking bel air the right off of Laura Canyon. They hired private security, they've they've banned it off of cars because they're they're trying to make it like you know, and truth you told people are gon probably try and run into somehow.

Is because if your criminal, now is a good time to be an extra criminal.

Right, If I'm criminally i'm now. But that's not all that's happening. It's not all criminal, you know.

It's just.

Be careful of the news that you consume in high and how often turn that shit off because it's not true.

And you just have to be conscious of how you're getting fed information.

These the government owns fucking the radio and major television and everything else that we consume.

So use your fucking intuition and your witch shit in your brain and go on that right. Sorry, that was a Ryan got high.

No, it's fine, it was good.

Well, I am excited because we are gonna have ray on so you guys, I don't know if you guys remember we interviewed Sean King this year actually god, no was it year? And we interviewed him and his wife, Ray King, and they actually started their own podcast, and you know, it's all about her.

Marriage to the movement.

Yeah, to the movement.

She's yeah, she imagine being the wife of the biggest activists, black activists pretty much, I would say, in the world. And she just has a lot of perspective. She's so so so smart as an educator. And we're having her on because I don't know, I feel like it is a good time to talk about race and talk about how are we talking about how are we having these conversations with our kids, because.

Ultimately they're the future.

They are Like I think about Irene and I talked about that fear of like what I'm leaving her too, but also like what am I arming her with? And like even white kids, what are we arming white kids with? What are white parents? How are white parents how much conversation with their kids? Because that is so funny. You guys have such a responsibility, you really do. And you can drop the ball very easily or you can just pick it up right now and make those changes now, because.

It fucking matters, It really fucking matters, And so.

I am I mean, And there's a lot of non black parents with black children, and that's.

A whole thing.

And that's the whole thing too. You don't get to miss out on that either. And I care if you think he's passing.

It's vital that you don't think that your kid is passing, and that you don't have to have these conversations, and that you keep telling your kids that you know race doesn't matter, because what will happen is going to be this rude, fucking awakening one day and it's not gonna feel nice. It doesn't feel good to realize suddenly in a jolting way that somebody sees you differently than someone else is solely because of it.

So yeah, I mean, it's it's they're hard, they're different conversations. But I'm excited because Ray's coming on. We can ask I have a lot of questions. I want to ask her too, because she has more, she has more experiences than anyone. She has to talk to her kids about race constantly because of the work that her and her husband do, and.

She's a diversity educator.

She's she's both like, she's the person we should.

So tell all your mommy friends, tell your wife friends, go tell your wife friends to join a conversation. They need to be in this talk more and more than anyone honestly. I mean we do too, obviously. But yeah, and that's gonna be on Friday.

At five pm Pacific and in eight pm East Term time.

Yeah, so if.

You want to join that zoom zoom, make sure you sign up for our Patreon. We're going to be sending out a zoom link to all of our patrons.

This is a patron only.

Event, so if you are a patron, you're already invited it and so we will sign out those zoom liek. We'll have more information on our Instagram this week.

And be love you guys, Thanks for tuning in.

We'll catch you guys next week. Be safe out there, fight the good fight.

Lad laves night bles how