Call zone media. I actually think I remember this vividly now. Memory is a weird thing, obviously, well not obviously, but it's a weird thing. Sometimes our brains kind of fill in areas that are murky, and we just kind of like connect dots that weren't there. But I do know that a very significant chunk of my rearing was my father being very intentional in me and my sister understanding
our blackness. We would back when the library would rent movies and they would be on VHS, and some of them, I feel like, would be probably wildly inappropriate for our age, others right on task, and sometimes they looked a little dated, you know, because they were older films, and you'd have to sort of suspend youry. It would be like if you showed your kids now the first Star Wars film, to where it's like, Okay, I know this isn't the quality of film you're used to, but just stay with us.
So we would watch these different black films, the autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman. We'd watch Woman called Moses and that's a movie about Harriet Tubman. We watched Tutsie, we watched the Blaxploitation films, you know, the ones that again were relatively appropriate for five to eight year old. We watched Sounder, We watched just movies about slavery, freedom. I remember us sitting down and watching Roots, just things about blackness. We went to parades and every Sunday for a long time,
we would hit an area called Lamert Park. Now y'all have heard me talk about Lamert Park. I even gave an episode called Every City Needs a Lamert Park. And it's just about this like neutral zone where we get to be black people really get to be full of theirselves in the Myrt Park. It's a great place in La Crenshaw District. But on Sunday they do drum circles.
You know.
My father used to take us there and you'd see that sort of African diaspora, you know. They would do these drum circles and my father would take me there, and eventually when I became a teenager, you know, there was a thing called Project Blow that I talked about. There was jazz clubs there, anything if you wanted to go get some dope, jewelry, some incense.
Shade, butter products, whatever the case may be.
Blackness, the Myrt Park and then where I, you know, cut my teeth, learning how to freestyle, rap and battle and stuff like that, because it was just the center of in a lot of ways, the center of Los Angeles black arts. But also it would be the Juneteenth celebration. So I remember going to the parades, I remember participating. I remember buying licorice root you know you could do your googles, and walking around with my father seeing all the red, black and green flags, and I just knew
this was a day of blackness. But I don't think I really knew what it was because again, it wasn't a national holiday.
This felt like a holiday just for black folks.
Like you didn't see nobody else there, and I didn't necessarily know. I had a June teenth T shirt. I knew it had something to do with being free in America. I also knew it had to do with the celebration of blackness. But I participated in June teenth long before I understood Juneteenth. And unfortunately, there's a lot of black kids out here who feel the same way that because it wasn't again, it wasn't a day nobody taught us in school. Nobody we learned about Martin Luther King, we
didn't learn our history. So even all this, like, I mean, y'all figured it out now like white people ain't complaining about critical race theory no more.
They'dne moved on the DEI work.
But the point is for y'all to actually think we was learning anything about ourselves in school is laughable because I'm like, you went to you.
Went to school with us.
What made you think we knew anything about ourselves. Everything we knew about ourselves and our experience was taught outside of our schools. So I didn't really know what your kids was. I had to find out on my own. So now you're gonna learn what.
It is hood politics. So welcome.
Before I teach you all some things, let's talk about what's going on currently.
Bull look is like this, BULLUK is like this, all right, this week's it's like this.
So Hunter Biden is officially guilty and the takes have been kind of strange to me. I listen, the worst thing in the world to me is when you are in a situation where somebody's takes be so bad it got you defending lanes. You understand how many times I've had to say this is by no means a defense of the Biden family, Are they crime bosses?
Come on, gee, you telling me that, You're telling me that.
That large cheese pizza ass family is a crime like okay, No, they basic run of the mill rich kids. Homie got caught because rich kids be thinking they invincible. Homie had a terrible tragedy and like everybody else, ain't know how to cope. So he turned to the turned to the drugs, to the kokayina right, crack is cheap, you feel me, and tried to get himself a gun and his girl was like, nigga, hell now and got rid of it because she, like you ain't right, and he got caught.
I mean, it is what it is like this. Granted, none of this stuff would be in the news if he wasn't a press son. But you know what, nigga, you are the president's son. It is what it is you. Yes, bro, you was guilty like I like nobody you have. I have no pushback on that. The pushback I got is the twenty five years. Come on, gee, for for lying on twenty five years is a lot now granted again,
first time offender with the drug problem. Now another thing that got me like, man, don't make me defend This is the way that the left, I mean not the left. I'm gonna call this the okay, the left news. So the CNNs of the world are like, oh, man, we just see you know, you know, the Biden family just coming in and supporting your family, and you know, if you've ever dealt with addiction, and you know, like this
is really a tragedy. Man, Okay, y'all Okay, Now, with y'all saying that when it was when it was somebody black, when it was somebody around getting railroaded over there over addiction, y'all wasn't saying that with that, y'all got nice when it was an opioid epidemic.
That's when y'all got nice.
So like, no, no, bring that same energy, you know what I'm saying, actually the energy that should have never been brought in the first place. Let me keep it real, but like, let me be on my hating right now, Like, don't like y'all being too nice to this man.
Now.
Granted it's the niceness that we should have all been getting. I'm gonna keep keep coming back to that, but like, don't make me defend this boy.
Guys twenty five years wow.
Also, what's going on right now is this parliament, this European parliament election thing that I really don't understand. I'm sorry, y'all, let me keep it a buck. I need to learn a lot more or about whatever this voting process is and how they're saying it's turning to the right, when it seemed like the more I read they getting little more centered than anything. I was more worried about, you feel me when Lapin in them was on some like we need to leave the we need to leave Brexit
and all that. Either way, I don't understand it. Anyway that's going on right now. So y'all hearing me tell you what my homework's finna because I don't understand. I don't understand their parliament at all. I got a parliament show coming up, but it's about the Kinnesset in.
Israel to explain that.
And then lastly, in what's going on, it's like this is choop of capital. Bro DJ Quick and problem got a record together and it's hard. All right, back to business. So what you may or may not have learned is about the Emancipation Proclamation. Right that President Abraham Lincoln, in a stroke of political genius, And I'll explain to you why this was political. Genius declared freedom to all of
the slaves in the Confederate States. Now, if they had already seceeded, then America don't have no jurisdiction over those states because they rebel states.
Does that make sense?
So it wasn't what like you're the deck deloration was a type of political maneuvering that allowed I don't know why I'm talking so slowly like this because I'm putting on my teacher hat here, but it allowed Linking to at least present a moral high ground. There is obviously no internet happening, so it's not like nor is there any television.
It's not like.
He could just call the press conference and let all of the country know this's what he doing. The word gotta spread much slower, right, So you do you make the magic pacent proclamation? Yea, Remember like the war's happening right now. People jump insides if you are if you're an African slave, and a Union army pull up and they like, you can fight for us, nigga, you are you gonna stay on that plantation?
No? You were like, why would anyone do this?
I think that it's important to remember, Like I'm getting ahead of myself, but I need you to remember like that emancipation wasn't like understand this, It wasn't just given to black people. We fought hard on the ground, shooting actual guns in the Union military while still not having the same rights and privileges of white Union soldiers. At least we wasn't slaves over here being promised our freedom
if we fought in this war. It was like if there was any moment to put it all on the line and the risk at all, it would be for this. This was your shot. Like we like, what do we get to lose? I'm gonna die on this plantation or I'm a die fighting for our freedom. That was on
one tier. On the other tier, you have somebody like Frederick Douglass, which we should do a whole story on Frederick Douglas going from slavery to freedom, teaching himself how to read and write, and please, if you get a chance, go look at his Fourth of July speech in him explaining like y'all calling this y'all's day of freedom, but you definitely not talking about us.
How why would you expect any.
Of us to celebrate the fourth of July. This ain't a day for us. We still slaves, right. Frederick Douglas's role in moving Abraham Lincoln from trying to save the Union to full abolitionist, it's Frederick Douglass. It's their friendship. It's him coming to the White House, being one of the first African American freemen to be in the White House, to explaining to him the moral conundrum that he is
putting himself in by trying to threadn impossible needle. It was Frederick Douglas that was explaining to Lincoln that you are in your only solution is full abolition because you're dealing with people. You can't play cake. This is impossible
to play cake. There is no ways for you to playcate this now at this point, you have heard the Thomas Jefferson episodes where the episodes that are on Behind the Bastards, where Jefferson worked very hard and turning himself into a pretzel and being able to articulately explain that what we are doing is in fact, morally beyond a shadow of a doubt evil, saying things like, yo, if God is as just as we say he is, then a day of reckoning is coming and God is not
going to be on our side. We are wrong, turning himself into a pretzel and then trying at least can we stop importing new slaves like you like, knowing enough cognitively to know what he's doing is wrong, but can't get himself in actuality because the comforts that slavery gives you was too much for him to let go of. Plus he really like, he really liked that black pudding and all that. To say, the build up before we
even got to war. I think it's something that has been flattened where there are stories of Lincoln trying to appeal to the moral compass, then he tried to appeal to the practical compass of the white population. Then he tried to appeal to the financial like, trying his best to make I don't know what to tell y'all to say that you need to stop doing this. And some of it was political theater, some of it was maneuvering that may not have necessarily done something. The Emancipation Proclamation
was one of those strange things. Now, remember the thirteenth Amendment is what ended slavery, okay, which is not the emancipation Proclamation. However, having said that on January first, eighteen sixty three, the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, it was a document for which declared that quote, all persons held as slave within the rebellious States are and henceforth shall be free. So he just made this, he made
this statement. Now, since even though they call themselves in rebellion, they are still a part of the Mountain, You still part of United That's still your president. You could pick jo Jefferson Davis as much as you won't. At the end of the day, this proclamation again was a much more political than it actually was practical. The practical one was the thirteenth Amendment. Now with that, the freedom that
we actually got was much more complicated. Now, even this particular proclamation, now before you get excited about it, like really understand what was happening. Okay, this proclamation didn't emancipate people in parts of Louisiana, in states of Maryland, Missouri, Tennessee, West Virginia, even though each of those states they are
already about slavery before the war was ended. They've already said we got to stop do this, stop doing that, even before the war was before the whole surrender before all that happened. Now, remember this is eighteen sixty three. The Civil War ain't over till eighteen sixty five. They still fighting for it. So remember this emancipation Proclamation. It's important, but it's a maneuver. But either way, at this point, according to the proclamation of the President, they done gave
us free. Right. But like I said, ain't no internet. So how fast do you think this word traveled? And even before you think about how the word traveled, if you are a slave owning man, let's just let's just say, and you way out west and you get a telegram that says, hey, homie, the President said, you got to set everybody free. Now, Remember, ain't nobody on your campus can read, Nobody on this plantation can read, and you the only one with the mail. It's kind of like
if you get your report card. They used to mail report cards when we was kids. If you get a letter home from school and they say to the parents of and you get the mail first, let's say it's on a Friday, is you really.
Finna hand them that letter?
At least wait till the weekend over, Like, I'm not gonna tell them, I'm failing all my classes if I could stop them from knowing, Like, why would you tell? Of course, I'm not gonna tell y'all until I absolutely have to. My sister used to like again back when they used to mail report on my sister hit her report card all the time, Why the hell would I show you this? Absolutely not I'm not finna show you, right, So, the news didn't actually reach all of the Western States
until much later. As a matter of fact, it was two years later. Matter of fact, they didn't even know the war was over. The war ended April nineteenth and nineteen sixty five, but again, that was way over there
in Virginia. That's where Robert Elite surrendered. How long you think it take word to go, especially a word that you don't want to get out mant to pace a proclamation in eighteen sixty three, we were supposed to be free, But it wasn't until June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five, that Union troops under the commander of Major General Gordon Granger actually arrived in Galveston, Texas.
That was the final city on June nineteen.
When he got there and looked around and was like, what are y'all doing that? Can you imagine that? Can you imagine finding out till two years later you were supposed to be free, Like wait, wait, the war over? You still hoping and praying and calling all Jesus, hoping at this thing in and it's like, oh no, nigga's been done. What oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the war been done. Y'all could have left two years ago, nigga.
What So?
June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five marks the last plantation where the last slave was notified.
That they was actually free.
That is why we call it June teenth. And I don't know why it's not called June nineteenth, but probably some sort of Southern something. But June nineteenth is the day that eighteen sixty five is the day that we celebrate. We don't celebrate the Emancipation Proclamation. Hell, will't really even celebrate the thirteenth Amendment. We celebrate June nineteenth. It's when the last of us was able to leave that plantation.
There's even stories of Lincoln going up and down the coast trying to tell everybody.
Like, hey, it's over ya, y'all free? What? Yeah?
Nik can go home now? Now again, let's just say I'm just trying to humanize the moment. Let's just be I think there was a Dave Chappelle skit. Let's just say somebody walks up to your plantation while you are actively beating the snot out of some man and.
Says, hey, uh, hey they free.
Now you know you can't this outlawed, You can't do this no more?
Like wait, what.
While you gotta whip in your hand and everybody watching you beat the snot out of this man, wouldn't you be terrified? Like, Oh, I just I wonder what that last moment was, Like, uh, what what do we?
What do we?
Uh?
What do we?
What do we? What do we? Really? Sorry about that?
Bro?
No, man, you're gonna you're gonna try to fight it. You're trying to be like you know, you're gonna like still try to exert your power because what they honestly believe was if we let let them free, a race war will start. They are going to do to us what we did to them, and you know they lucky.
Black people love Jesus And this is biperia.
You have to remember, and I'm going to reiterate this a little later, that the spiritual foundation of black people in this time is a big reason why there wasn't a slaughter. Now, remember Nat Turner was a pastor, and the slaughter that you know, white people were so worried about is not ununderstandable. But I'm gonna argue was bridled. He believed he was on a mission from God. That man was in his mind obeying Jesus and demanding the freedom from him of his people and tossing off the
shackles of his oppressors. He's looking at the same Bible you're looking at and being like, I don't think y'all supposed to do this to us. But the next step, some of you may already know, after Juneteenth, after the end of slavery, was supposed to be reconstruction. And reconstruction is a much longer conversation, but it was the process
of trying to put the world back together. Now, if you could go back to the Lost Cause Myths episodes, that'll tell you a lot more about how reconstruction worked, as far as like if there had to be martial law down there, because again, everybody terrified that we're finna light the world up right, how do you integrate these people into a system that was already designed to hold
them back, figured out ways, we started voting. We started electing just hundreds and hundreds of black people to office, and then that's when the Black Code started. But I'm moving on too far into the future. Let's go back to this moment in eighteen sixty five. So Granger and his men went from street to street and they were just yelling out, Hey, the people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with the proclamation from the Executive of the
United States, all slaves are free. Just going just yelling, like since there ain't no internet, they just going door to door, like, hey day free, y'all can't do this no more. Now, there's a lot of great, great, great, great places where you can look up and again, I'm gonna give you.
I'm gonna hit you to a documentary.
That I was a part of a little later, but the Jack Miller Center, the African American History Museum in DC. Like, there's so many places you could see all this stuff. But according to the Jack Miller Center dot org, I'm gonna read this to you. Between nineteen thirty six and nineteen thirty eight, the Federal Writers Project So Interesting conducted interviews with twenty three hundred former slaves who were still living.
This included a number of them who lived in Texas when they received word of the proclamation in June nineteenth, nineteen six or eighteen sixty five. Since that was the day that the last of the ex slaves learned of the poclaation, June nineteenth was chosen to be celebrated as June teenth. The emancipation had left an inevitable mark on all those former slaves who were interviewed by the Federal
Writers Project. For example, please remember this name purely. Coleman was freed on June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five, and shared his first experience of freedom when he was interviewed on June nineteenth, nineteen thirty seven. He remembered his owner telling him and the other enslaved men working on the field that you're all as free as I am, and the
men began shouting and singing in celebration. Now, although many African Americans have rejoiced that the first June tenth, they also experienced a lot of uncertainty of what that freedom meant.
Margaret Nilman, she was also interviewed in this thing. Now. She was out in Fourth Worth.
She talked about how the freedom brought an absolute explosion of violence against African Americans, a lot of them who were shot, tortured, and lynched by the hands of the Klan because the clan immediately was formed right after we got set free, right, And then it led to the question of like, dog, is this what freedom is? Is this what like if we just get enslaved, did we just get freed from being enslaved to just being hunted right after? Are we even really free? It's a weird
way to exist. And nonetheless, none of that takes away from the beauty of that last day, where that last black face was able to walk away from an institution that America has yet to fully reckon with.
And now we had.
Parades and as of June of twenty twenty one, it was finally recognized as a national holiday.
But it's also a.
Very complicated one because we're still talking about reparations. There were wrongs that were never made right, whether we're talking about, yeah, the Homestead Act, and like I said, like I mentioned earlier, you know, redlining and mass incarceration.
These things that.
The experience of the African American as That's why I say it's complicated, as no parts of me would ever want to live in any other era as a black man in America.
Like, let me not be foolish. There's still some wrongs that have not been made right. The you know, the.
And of course, like changed behavior is important, you know, but the repairing of the breach, which is what reparations is about, Like you're repairing the things that were taken, and rather than seeing that sort of repair for what we went through, we just continue to see an.
Evolving version.
Of the type of oppression that we experienced in So this is why I say complicated. Yes, the institution discourage of slavery has been removed from our laws, but the discussion among black people is like, yo, are we truly free in the sense that was this wrong made right? The reason why we can say that is because you still needed a civil rights movement, you still needed a Black Panther movement, you still needed a Black Lives Matter movement.
You know, they're there. These things still needed to happen. And of course, you know, people don't change overnight. But my god, that was eighteen sixty five, y'all, like come on, So yeah, So that's what also what makes this holiday complicated is that it just kind of doesn't feel complete in to the extent that it could be. And of course I don't have to tell you.
That I am not.
Saying I am not grateful for the completion of of Juneteenth. But again, I don't know if I've said this already or I'm going to say it later on.
In this thing, like.
All the rights we have as black people, we fought for, like they were not given. We had to force them out of the hands of the clenched fists of the nation.
We to pry our liberties out of their hands.
So just I don't know, I still celebrate Juneteenth because I mean, you're right, slavery's over. Some tips I would like to give you one of which may seem like it's a little far fetched, but I need you to understand this. It's can any of y'all say the word nigga that's.
Nice even or not.
The realities of what it meant to be a slave descendant in this country as a black person in a lot of ways still sits in our bones because of reconstruction, because of mass incarceration, redlining, all types of ways for which the country attempted to keep us as deeply as they as much as they possibly can disenfranchised, and how every step of freedom and liberty we had was not
given to us. We fought for it, and the ways for which we were able to sort of judo our oppression, sometimes into beauty, making treasure out of trash, empowering ourselves, taking things that were meant for evil to use Bible, you know, God turned around for good, one of which is nigga, which might be a bigger discussion later. I guess it's all tied to Juneteenth. Is again a lot of times we're in places where black people are being free to be themselves, which means we gonna say nigga
a lot among each other. And the question that some of y'all may ask is when is it appropriate for a non black person to say nigga? I mean, the short answer is never, But obviously it's more nuanced than that, because, first of all, we don't even agree among ourselves whether it is or is not appropriate, or when is the time? And in front of what company, won't even agree on.
Who's black Like. There's so much nuance there.
And I think that if you go back again to the discussion with culture and who wasn't a side like why we said we didn't want to hear Drake not we didn't want to hear Drake say nigga no more obvious.
Well maybe not obviously. It has nothing to do with colorism. It's not that. It's culture.
The history and the baggage of what it meant to be hard are nigga like. It sits in our bones and it's something that we know even currently, were we be transfixed to a different time, what it would mean. So there's this understanding that when I look at this person and this black man is black woman across from me, I know the ways for which they would have suffered because I would have suffered the same way were we
in the environment that our ancestors were in. Because again j Cole is Justice light skin, red men, light skin, Meth method Man's light skin. They're all very fair skinned men, Clay Steph, there's no question about their blackness because there's a cultural understanding of who and what and how. That is a little more like we said that the boundaries are more gray than we would like to admit. But again, it's not his color that is keeping us away from that.
It's an understanding of our experience. Let me give you an example as somebody who's actually black, you know, and I say that, of course with big air quotes, like there's never any question.
Like sometimes I know a.
Lot of Puerto Rican people that have to like prove they're like no, seriously, like I'm black. Look at this nose. Let me show you a picture of my auntie. Let me show your picture my grandfather. Let me show your picture of this. I'm like, okay, if you have to go out of your way, now, this is my opinion, you have to go out of your way to prove to me that you are as black as you say you are. That should give you pause as to how freely you speak, because it's not necessarily about the right
or privilege to use a certain term. It's about an shared experience. In my view, the reality is there are in every hood in America, there's a white family who grew up right alongside us. Who you from the black part of town. Your parents just like worked at the right factory and they made friends with this family. Some
of y'all grew up with us. I know down South there's men that go y'all, little boys, y'all go mudding y'all learned that that was the thing and the whole time in your truck, you banging three six mafia, it's gonna rub off. You're gonna start talking the way your friends and your rappers talk. Now again, like I said, the jury is still out among black people how often when we should say nigga and if it's appropriate, But
we say it among ourselves because we understand that nuance. Now, maybe in your circle of friends, offline, among each other, you've been given a pass. But to me, and here's my advice if you are one of those, to me, it is not something that you should fight to defend if you truly understand our experience.
What am I saying by that?
Like I have some friends of mine who are certified be Fellon crips gang members, hold low riding driving de Cambodian. You would only know if you saw them they are black as hell. The way they carry themselves. You wouldn't have no idea. You would be like, oh, and I'm some pretty strange some brown niggas over there, you know
what I'm saying? Like that's what you would think because they black as hell, and even them in my presence, who they say nigga among each other, and I know they do, but they understand the black experience well enough to know that, like, out of respect for you and what you've gone through, I'm not going to talk to you that. I'm not going to assume that I can speak that freely now among theyhood among They said, that's different.
That's something that they need to discuss. And probably them niggas that put them on gave them that particular pass. But that's not They understand our experience well enough to know that even though they from the field, they put in more work than I did, still they understand that I am, in fact they black men and they are not.
They are Asian men, and they understand that. And that respect is to me the reason why they have a card, and the fact that they understand that I should lay that card down.
It's not. It's actually the more I understand about your experience, the more I know that just doesn't really have it has no business coming out of my mouth because I didn't as much as as much as I've been around y'all, as much as the odd is just how I talk, I understand I personally grew.
Up, you guys know, in a Latino community. I speak a lot of better Spanish than a lot of my Latino friends. I know there are some things that, even though I may have a better understanding in them, it's not my place because it's not my experience. So to me, if you feel like you have the right to defend, if you're not black, and you feel like you have the right to defend or the need to defend your right to say to say nigga, I feel like you missing a point and you really don't understand us.
I feel like that is proof that you shouldn't.
In my mind, among homies, people give each other passes, and who am I to talk about your friendship because.
Listen, among my homies, there are a lot of non.
Black people say nigg and they say it to me, but we are talking among ourselves. They all know better than to talk like that to my brother, or to my sister, or to my cousins, or like they know better because they understand that this is very relational. And I understand y'all's experience well enough. So when you get that close, that much proximity, you don't you understand, is what I'm trying to get at. So should white people say nigga. Like again, I mean, you should black people
say nigga. I'm just saying, the more you truly understand us, the more you'll be able to answer that question yourself. Now, having said all that, New York is an entirely different planet, like I have no idea what to do.
They done already made their decisions.
Anyway, that the Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, they have all the rights and privileges of black people. At least the New Eurekans are like the Dominican Americans because a lot of times the Dominicans be black as hell, look black as me. But when they're immigrant, when they're like first gin, they're like, I know black, I ain't know black, Like they don't want to be black because they understand that, like to be black in America is to be at the bottom of the wrongs.
So but they were like, nigga, you black as hell?
You know.
But anyway, that's a whole other discussion that I'm not equipped to talk about, because New York's a whole different planet. If you ain't one of them, you should consider the things I'm telling you.
Now.
For this last part, I want to answer some questions or a question I get from the collection of the diaspora of the boiled chicken people, the people that don't season air food or wash their legs.
I love y'all.
I know a lot of you do season your chicken and wash your legs, but that's probably because you met us start using wash cloth. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, this is unfair. I'm just popping off because it's Juneteenth and blackness. Anyway, the questions you guys often ask me, and I think it's very genuine. How do you celebrate Juneteenth? What is the most appropriate thing to do?
Now?
I understand this question for a number of reasons, probably because all the stuff we just went through in what is Juneteenth, and that the fact that it's only been a national holiday for two years now, right, it's a holiday that wasn't official, but it was.
It was kind of a holiday.
It's like a holiday light We had parades, you know, Black people celebrated it in certain ways where we went and just did really black stuff. But yeah, you know, I get it. Your issue is let me first reflect the issue. Let me catch everybody up to like the issue that they're probably coming at this as it's at least white Americans, because this is obviously a uniquely American celebration.
America tends to suck all the meaning out of their holidays, like and especially ones that have to do with somebody else's culture, Like do you really understand Cinco Demayo? Do you know that this is not Mexican independence, like that this had to do with the war against the Friend.
Do you understand that?
Do you understand that in Mexico this is like this Sinkle de Mayo barely is a blip on the calendar. The independence is in September. That's that's when they go off. And if your idea of celebrating it is cosplay, y'all be putting on some breros and and making incredibly nasty nachos, you know, and your little and your little taco bars. For some reason, somebody told y'all ground beef belongs in a taco. Like it's just just everything's wrong. You called
it sinko, They drinko. You're just gonna go get drunk, which is in your defense what you do for Saint Patrick's Day, Like, y'all just you just don't know how to suprate. You just suck all the meaning out of holidays Easter is like, I mean, it's supposed to be a religious one, but what are you doing Easter? You just you just watch sports and just like Thanksgiving is Turkey Day, you just eat and watch college football, Like there's the meaning is always secondary to you.
Church, what's the fourth version? Quadr? I don't know.
They just don't have Chrispin doesn't mean any what's the true spirit of Christ? Every movie you watch about the truth, none of it has to do Like Halloween is just spooky day, like you just you just dress up like that's what y'all do, Like your holidays have no meaning, and you, for some reason think it's okay to cosplay stuff that comes from other cultures like that, you just and the problem is if you cosplay black stuff, it's blackface. You look like a menstrual show. You can't you cannot win.
And then sometimes black people really just be like we just want a day where we ain't got what's called a white gaze. Do y'all know what the white it's Listen, if you a female, you understand the white gaze because it's the same as the male gaze. Like y'all just can't do nothing without eyes on you.
You understand.
I'm sure you understand that ladies just at the club just trying to dance with their homegirls, and y'all just and a lot of time women just are some Some women just be comfortable in their body and they dance because they can dance.
And you just enjoying yourselves.
You don't want an arbitrary penis just leaned up against you, you know what I'm saying, Like, I get it, Like you dancing to be sexy because you dancing to be sexy, not because you need eyes on you. I understand that. I throw parties. I understand this. Sometimes sometimes you want attention, sometimes you don't. And it's up to us to understand us as in cisgendered men, to understand which is which you dancing with your girls, you dancing with your girls.
I get it, that's what y'all need sometimes. Like and I know I'm a male, I'm a little different, you know what I'm saying.
I don't look at the homies and be like we need to just go.
Dance like I just that just that just don't that's not something that happens. Like I'm just saying, like that's not natural to me. Yeah, it's not that unless we like going to see some like break dancers like on some B boy stuff, or it's just like, yo, we're trying to kill a cipher. That's different. But I'm not going to the club dance in a circle with my homeboys. I'd be I'm a married man now, so it's different.
But like most of the time, it was to try to catch a glimpse of some nicely shaped females, like that was the goal. Anyway, you don't want the male gaze, is the point, just like sometimes we don't want the white gays. Sometimes we just want times but we just don't want to explain ourselves. And then other times we be telling y'all, man, learn something, go learn about our culture. Don't be looking at us explain. So you like, okay, well guess I'll pull up to come understand what's happening.
So I'm at the Quanta celebration. You the only white girl. You got your Nigerian you know, head wrap on, and now we're judging you for like I get it, you can't win. It seemed like y'all don't know how to just enjoy stuff without like you be in your head. Sometimes that's why I feel like while y'all y'all just don't dance that well. Now I'm just saying is again these are gross generalities. It's because y'all just be in
y'all head. And I understand sometimes you in your head because you got such history of messing up.
I get it.
Now here's some suggestions I know that every year. I'm gonna give you an example. We live in a part of town very close to Asian communities. I live in an area called Boyle Heights. To the west of me is downtown right like right across like eight minutes away and connected to downtown is Chinatown, a little Tokyo. The other direction you got East LA. But the north side of East La is a city called Monterey Park. Now, if you've seen The Brother's Son, it took place over there.
So it's a largely Asian, specifically Chinese space. So every year for Chinese New Year, they have a parade, and you know what we do, We just go and watch. I don't wear no costume, I don't have my kids dress up, don't. We don't throw themed parties at the house. I'm not mixing culture like where there's like geishas here, like you know, like, it's pretty simple. They pass out the little envelopes for the kids, got like twenty dollars in I let my baby go get one of those.
You know.
They usually have like little shrines or exhibits set up. We walk through, we look at the exhibits, we read the things, get some dim sum, and go home. It's not that hard. I don't have to put together. What I'm saying is get out your head. It's not hard. I'm pretty sure there's a parade somewhere. I'm pretty sure there's a music festival. Crenshaw in LA does the you know, the La Mirt Park Rising during June teen. There's usually an MLK parade out here too, which is in January.
Of course, a different thing, which I'm usually telling you don't go to that because at least in La, it almost always gets shot up, so don't do that. But now, the Lamurt Park Rising is a music fest, and of course, like sometimes that might be a little two turned for you.
I get it. But if you're in the hip hop.
Yeah, just go down there, get some jerk chicken. You can visit a museum, barbecue, stay home. In Oklahoma they do a June teeth on the East. It's a festival I performed at many times. There's a whole lot of vendors, whole lot of blackness. It's not that you're not welcome. Of course, you're welcome. Go see the show on the Juneteenth on the East they got a booth with cigars. They do a car show. There's like motorcycles. Everybody we loud and black and you just we're just enjoying ourselves.
We're being ourselves. We're being It's not that you're not welcome, but don't come in a day shiki Like, That's what I'm trying to say, Like, you can participate in something without cose playing it if you want to go learn. I'm pretty sure leading up to that, like, I'm pretty sure in every city there is some sort of Afro studies department that you know what I'm saying, I'm pretty sure there's some sort of documentaries you can watch. Matter of fact, I am going to link in this show
a documentary that I'm a part of. I'm not in it, but I did a part of the soundtrack. It's about Juneteenth. It's called June teenth, Faith and Freedom. It's on YouTube, you can look it up. It's about an hour long.
A lot of my friends worked on it. Now it's put together by this thing called Voices, which is a partnership of this extremely Christian organization called The Daily Now, before that turns you off or maybe turns you on, I don't know, but before you draw any conclusions about the fact that this is definitely faith based, it's because abolition was.
It's because the Civil Rights movement was.
If some of y'all got evangelical baggage, and I totally understand it, that you have that Black church with all of its problems and we got them is very different. The Black Church, for most of the time that this has been a country, has been the moral compass. It's been the conscious of the country. It's been Black church.
That's where we've organized, where we've strategized, has caused movements, the civil rights movement, you know, and even if it's not even and sometimes like it just church period, you know, like even if we're talking about like the Nation of Islam or or you know, Muslim communities, we're talking the Hebrew Israelites, which is a sect of sort of a black version of a type of anyway, we'd be a
whole other conversation about the Hebrew's lights. But either way, faith spaces has been where black people have organized the whole entire time. So you cannot from the civil rights movement. You cannot extract the Baptist Church from the civil rights movement. And it's the same with Juneteenth. You cannot extract the role the church played, specifically the Black church, from the abolition of slavery.
It's just impossible.
So the people to tell this story in its totality are these people. I understand that, like the lines between sacred and secular for other cultures might not be as blurry as are, but for us, it's like you couldn't because we face such such such deep oppression in the nation.
It was impossible to exist in this nation without some sort of spiritual foundation, and that out of that spiritual foundation, out of that tradition of Moses and the children of Israel being freed from Egyptian slavery and like that, it was hard for us to not see ourselves in that, and that be a part of the way for which we understand our existence in this country.
Now.
Of course, obviously every black person ain't no Christian, you know what I'm saying. Or come from that. But what I'm saying is that faith is in some way. That's why I mentioned Nation of Islam was you know, and five percenters Hebrew is Arelite. Just the church, mosque, temple, synagogue has always been a place where we've organized.
So anyway, look at the doc. Teach your kids. Go gets a barbecue.
Like some of y'all weirdos have gone down to Gettysburg before.
Well, go to Galveston.
Now, if there's no parade, there's probably some sort of like community like flea market or street fair somewhere in the black neighborhood in your town. And if you ain't got one in your town, go find one. I'm pretty sure in the rural list of areas, if you drive a little bit further, you're gonna find some black people, right and just go visit again.
You don't have to overdo it. You don't have to.
Don't corner no old black dude. You know, you gonna find some You're gonna find some hoteps. You're gonna find some brother omar's that umar that feel like you ain't got no right to be there, And that's cool. Don't worry about that. You know, every black community got the overwoke. You know, sometimes you got to be able to read the room and respect the place. Like there has been
times that I've had to read the room listen. I have two daughters, and one of the one of the oddest moments is if each of my daughters have a friend over and then some of my wife's friends come over. There's ten women in my house, and sometimes my teenage daughter, when she was younger, she would have, you know, girls spend the night. And I don't know if you know how Now again, these are grossy and I'm just saying this is my experience between my sisters and my daughters
and my wife. Like girls just they y'all just be like in y'all draws and just going to the bathroom and y'all shower while you talking and having conversations and just it's the I'm like, I don't it's like y'all treat the house like a locker room. Like y'all just well, y'all that comfy with each other. I just I you know, they my daughter are homegirl, they share bed. I'm like, I just don't.
We didn't. I we just don't do that.
So at that point I'd be like, I know I live here, I know I have a right to be here, but I should probably Sometimes when the older ones and my wife has friends over and they're discussing, they're teaching the little ones, you know, things to do about their menstrual cycle, how to prepare for this. So that means my wife's professional, unbelievably attractive homegirl who I've never thought about as anything other than just my wife's homegirl, are
now talking about their period. It's probably time for me to go. They didn't have to tell me. I'm just like this, all this seems I should probably walk away. I'm just saying you, Jo Antennas, there are probably times white people when you can understand that, like the conversation is probably not for me, and if not, it maybe take some black people with you to be like, yeah, you should probably should probably walk away from this. Just ask me the questions, just read the room. That's that's
my advice. But all in all, guys, listen, it's a great thing to celebrate. It's a moment where our country got it right. There's probably a parade you could participate without cause playing and just enjoy the day, barbecue and celebrate with us.
I hope that helps. And please, please, please, I'm speaking specifically to the white women. Don't try to learn no African dances. Don't go get your hair braided. Just I'm begging you. Don't go get your hair braided. Please, do not try to learn no African I'm begging you. Just go watch the sisters.
And maybe if one of them want to pull you to the side and show you how to do something that's different, let them lead the way.
Okay, just I'm begging you. Hood politics.
All right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You better listen to these credits. I need you to finish this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay, so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded in East Lost Boyle Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You can go there dot com and use promo code hood
get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed, edited and mastered by your boy Mat Alsowski killing the beat Softly. Check out his website Matdowsowski dot com.
I'm a spelling for you. Because I know M A T. T O.
S O W s Ki dot com Matdowsowski dot com.
He got more music and stuff like that on there, so gonna check out The heat.
Politics is a member of cool Zone Media, Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme music and scoring is also by the one and overly Mattowsowski. Still killing the beat softly, so listen. Don't let nobody lie to you. If you understand urban living, you understand politics.
These people is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.