Free Game: Fish Aren't A Thing

dealing with. Sophie. You Sophie white his head. Now she black his hair in a lot of ways. But Sophie, that's a white girl. Robert's a white boy. Like I'm on cool Zone media, these as white folks. So I am saying this as one who has a very pluralistic circle. Okay, So don't don't come with me, you know what I'm saying on some on some bullshit, you feel me. I'm I look, I need you to be a little self

aware right now, good god man. And we're left kind of like scrambling because now white culture has redefined something that came from us, and and we have to like go back and be like, wait, wait, wait minute, now is that what we meant? And then sometimes it becomes because it's so dominant. Because you're the dominant culture, you

get to define stuff. It's funny to watch this happen, not just with just white people in general, but obviously with white people in general, but specifically in this like

outrage across the country about critical race theory. You I'm out of obscure law theory from the sixties, you know what I'm saying that, Like, Okay, all of a sudden, eighty years later, this is a new thought that's the scourge of our like, and I'm positive all of the stuff that you're calling critical race theory maybe know, yeah, it's not critical race theory. That's just normal history. And normal history ain't critical race. That they're not the same.

It's a lens for which to understand how the system where I don't even need to explain it. To the point is, y'all don't know what the hell you're talking about when you're talking about critical race theory because you're actually not talking about critical race theory. Your dances like you just you turn them into TikTok challenges, and they that's not what is y'all doing. I want to talk to you all about and sold and canceled culture and

isn't even a thing her politics, y'all. Right now, little politics, y'all, little politics. All right, I'm gonna give another silly example. Uh. I started noticing my um white. I'm sorry, I'm covered at y'all like this. When they started saying, oh, that's my jam. I remember being so confused because jam is about music. A jam is a song. Do you know someone foods are like, hey, hey, you want to go

get tacos? Oh? Yeah, tacos are my jam. I would be like, wait, what, Like you've totally redefined the jam, you know? Uh, jam is a song or it could be an event maybe like you know, we're going to the jam, but come on, guys, pump up the jam. Pump it up? Right. So usually I am a huge

proponent of the cultural exchanges that make things flourish and redefine. Uh. In a civil civilization that isn't um stratified in a way that oppresses one group or is um using one group as a source material for all of your other financial Shenanigans than cultural creations are up for everybody their gift to the world. You know, like black music, it's we're talking to us. We're talking about our situations, our experiences because we can only speak from our own lens.

But no, there's no like law that says anyone else kane enjoy this. That's not you know. And if you notice anything about Black culture, if somebody comes in that's not black. Uh, respects the elders, respects the way it's things have been made, and gives honor where honor is due. And got the chops. If you got the chops, if you could actually do it, welcome you in. Use this arms are wide open. That's what's interesting, is like, that's what y'all understand about Black Like listen, we are much

more welcoming than we get credit for. You know, if you go to the basketball court, you go to the you go whooping, and it's a white boy out here and he drained it. It is a complete meritocracy within our culture. If you can hoop, you can hoop done nobody Like listen, I don't care what you asian, that don't matter to us. If you can hoop, that's all that matters. Get on there and who just keep it real.

Like one thing that I always say, like if you, let's say, you know you're a white person and you want to work communities of color for like advocacy or in youth programs like and there are things that you absolutely cannot relate to. That's true, right, but what we have always always valued is authenticity. Just keep it real. Just be true to yourself, true about your shortcomings, and come with it. Listen, Robin Thick, go back to that. That's because Homie can sing. Now, of course he didn't.

He got his problems with the marvit gay stuff. I can't know me, I can't call that. But what I'm saying is that the music still the man could sing. You know what I'm saying. He called his ice. That's why we respected it. It's look Bruno mars He Colde

like which the average white band. We'll go back to all that createds clear Water Revival cold like Yo saying if you if you code, that's all it is unless you larry bird because then you the you the Laker killer and they build you as like hell of rights and say nothing we can do about that. But the point is we're very we very welcome me. We're like yo, white boy could saying yo adele and you're like, all

what you want me to say? Girl could saying y'all saying, we actually very welcome me because these people not only come in, but they respect the culture. Now, Elvis, that's a different story. Now. Sometimes it may not even be that white boy's fault where they become the gentrifires and I don't And a lot of times, you know what I'm saying, when we're talking about something gentrifying and and changing, it's it's it's definitions. Sometimes it would be happening innocently.

Sometimes it'd be happening out of y'all silence, Like y'all think Elvis is a great example. It is Elvis. He liked black music, and he liked black dancing, and he became the king of rock and roll. But he show ain't correct nobody when they was when he was like, oh, now I'm I'm doing black music. I'm just the white boy doing black music. I don't think. I don't know if he was, you know, aware in the world enough to understand the ways for which his reputation is actually

damaging to the very people. Uh that was his source material. Now I'm not an expert on Elvis. Some of y'all, mate, DM ME was all kind of stories of regaling him, attempting to uh protecting honor black voices. I look, you might be right. I'm just saying, as far as we concerned, Elvis is a different story. He ain't because he wasn't part of our culture. He just used what we had. That you you understand. I'm trying to say, there's a difference.

I want to talk to you about two things today, well mainly one thing, but as a as also an example of how white people everything. When y'all started saying woke, you just you you've bent the me meaning, it just stretched it so far and it's so corny. Now you

just weaponizes are slang. And like my daddy used to say, why my my dad from the seventies, you like you gotta stay woke, young brother, Like yes, all sudden, all sudden, y'all, like forty years later, you know what I mean now, But then it changed the meaning to me more than it's supposed to mean. And now it's a weapon. Anytime you're just you're you're just being the woke left like, man, shut the you don't know what it means, and the meaning you've given it is now the beating stick for anybody.

I like to say something like this, So let me let me give y'all some game. The game is, don't let nobody change the meaning on you and then use it to weaponize and use that new meaning to beat you up on some stuff that's not that's not that's not the business. So today I want to talk specifically about the term cancel culture, and to get into this conversation, I wanted to introduce you'all to a book, uh called white Fish Don't Exist, is booked by Lulu Miller. I'll

tell you about it after this break. I yo, So Lulu Miller, I listened to this. I'm an audiobook kind of guy. I don't read as much as I seem like I do. I just listened very intently. Brilliant lady. She's the host of Radio lab um W NYC Studios. This is a apparently I'm plugging a whole other podcast, but you can listen to on my podcast, you know

what I mean. It's a difference anyway. Um. She wrote a book about her personal journey of a breakup reimagining her world and what is actually possible versus what she thought was possible, And in some ways it was a little bit of some of the sort of research and inspiration in part for my book terraform I. I read this book before or I listened to this book before or while I was writing mine. One for just to know what I was talking about, and two because I

just I think she's brilliant. Anyway, the title comes from something that's really going on in the taxonomy world. Remember that taxonomy is something that like we discovered. It's just a way to organize for our understanding the living things on our planet. They aren't they don't necessarily have to, you know, kingdom filing, class order, genus, species like okay, that's a system that we put on the animals like they they didn't organize themselves that way. Just the biodiversity.

And for us to understand the biodiversity, we use these phrases. You you you following, I'm stick with me, dog, I'm I'm still talking, let me land this plane, I'm still talking canceled culture. So anyway, she gives an example in this book that if you were to take a salmon a lungfish and a cow, and I were to ask you a very simple question like, uh, which one of these two animals are more closely related to each other? Well, duds, there's two fish on the on the table, and one's

a cow. So the salmon and the lungfish. Obviously that's not the answer, because this wouldn't be an interesting book if that was the answer, Because turns out, once you get into the actual organs of these creatures, the lungfish and the cow are much more related when you look at the parts they have inside of them. They share more parts with each other than the lungfish does with the salmon. And it turns out you can do this

with almost every other species of fish in ocean. As a matter of fact, none of the fish are actually fish as we know it, and not think about it for a second. Uh, A catfish, a shrimp, octopus, jellyfish. You mean to tell me them the same animal? Them? Is? Not? Them are very different animals right When the whales are mammals. Whales have lungs. They don't have guilts, they have lungs like,

so what they're saying is like everything in the crustaceans. Uh, you know shellfish and stuff like, they're all other things. It's it's as bonkers. The only thing that they share is the fact that they all in the ocean. The only thing they share is their location. That would be like you going to a mountain. Go look at the mountain wherever you are, if you're in the flat land, and think about a mountain, and think about every animal in that mountain and all of us deciding they're the

same animal. That's we just all called everything in the ocean fish. We just and then we just said, we're just gonna all call everything on the on the mountain the same. We're gonna call it mantas. I don't know everything that live in the mountain is a manta. Sounds absurd, right, I mean, but that's what we did, right, So we call them fish because somebody decided they were that, And then we just kind of like and then the word just kept stretching to the point of where now it

don't mean nothing because the fish really don't exist. They're all something else. And there's a push within the scientific field to stop using the word fish because it's deceptive. There's nothing, there's there's nothing that is it. It doesn't mean what it's supposed to mean or what we think it means. But yeah, it does because you know what I mean when I say fish, and in your head you know that the octopus is I mean, you're like, well, an octopus is an octopus, it's not a fish fish?

Well is it seafood? Well yeah, okay, so it's of the sea, like we know. But we're still using these terms that really don't work because if you understand anything about the elasticity of language, I'm getting real nerdy on y'all. If you stretch your definition far enough, it ceases to mean anything. Right. If you stretch it too far, it stops meaning. It loses its meaning because it has no distinctions. It can't be everything and what it is at the

same time. Like it can't it there's no defining right, that's how So once it gets too far it stops meaning something. Then you have to use context clues, right tonalities. It talks to Black people who were in just the words you good can all mean something else based on their tone and where they are in the sentence and who we talk it to. Yo, you're good? Are you good? Are you good? Now? You're good? They all need something else.

Right what they to say words, and all my urban folks and listened to this knew exactly what I meant on all four of them things. So listen back to my point here. Nothing in that category of fish are actually fish. They're all something else. But we use this term because we don't know what else to call them all, and we got enough words for that. Apparently. I think that's cancel culture. It's a lot of different things that are all something else that we've just umbrella as cancel culture.

So then when somebody says, what do you think of cancel culture, you gotta be like it's stupid or I get it, and it's like, well, you can't. Really, it's not that simple because they're not all that. Now let me do some let me do some uh some black Twitter history. I am absolutely positive the term canceled came from black women. That's first p why And that was something they used for themselves when they was talking about particular men that they was done with. Oh he canceled,

you know. And like everything else that comes from black women, once it hits the rest of the world and go from black women. A lot of people say, go from black queer women. I don't I don't you can you can fight that, or gay men to black women, or black women too, black gay men to black twitter to the world, you know whatever. That's an in house debate. I'm not here to fight all that because I don't want to smoke with any of these groups. Uh, but

I will say first, people are used term cancelers. Black women, they used it for very specific things. You know, when you was when they was basically when they was done. R Kelly like from what I understand, Look, man, we gotta cancel the snake, like, uh, this this is kate.

We can't be a thing. But anyway, as it ballooned into a sort of phenomenon within our zaygeist, and then the white people got a hold of it, and I'm gonna say the white liberals got a hold of it first, and they was using it as a nice little beaten stick for uh, you know me too movements and such, and don't get me wrong, a lot of these foods

deserved uh. But then it capt evolving and then right got ahold of it, and it was like theyre they chose this as their one of their biggest culture war points is just to cancel culture on the woke left. You know that that us buying into this is um the problem with society, right uh, is that you know, us dealing with issues of like looking in the past and problematic nguage and Dr Seuss or Mr potato Head deciding to just be potato head. I don't look, that's

a toy. I don't care, but that this is another strike of cancel culture. Right Uh. That's a new meaning, right of what what we meant by cancel Now. I think there are a lot of things that fall into the definition to stretch the definition of cancel culture, one of which is just really as simple as like, look, I just I don't mess with that phone no more.

Like I don't work with him no more. You had a person that you like that you rocked with for a while, found out some things was going on that you didn't know what was going on the whole time, and now you're like, I think I'm cool on that dude, Like that's just you being cool on that dude. Like I'm just I don't know, man, Like I don't need to be, you know, retweeting and following around. I'm kind of cool on that dude. I don't. You don't really like I found out he was moving in a certain

way that I just don't vibe with. So I just don't rock with him, no more. Right, that's just you not I just don't. I don't think what this dude? No more. There's other stuff that like you. You you find politicians something about who losing their elections talking about I guess I just got cancer. Oh no, nigga, you just lost the election. You put up your best arguments. We chose the other guy. That's not canceled, Nigga. That's an election, right, is a woke left and the cancer.

They don't like what I'm saying. Yeah, that's how voting works. You say what you go say, and if we don't like it, we don't choose you. Like that's I'll be. That's not canceled. That's campaigning, and you just lost the campaign. That's not that's you just lost the campaign. Then there's stuff that's just like financial boycotts. To you are a red blooded American citizen. You have a right to spend your money however you want to spend your money. And if you decide and I don't want to put my

money into this carp that's called a boycott. We've been doing that for centuries. Are you canceled? I guess, I mean, I guess that's it. That's just a boycott. Remember that the Montgomery bus boycott, like was were canceling transportation? I mean, I guess, or it was like no, we have to figure out that. Like I'm I'm voting with my money. I'm not gonna keep paying y'all to treat me unfairly. Or even if you're not treating me unfairly, I'm watching

you treat somebody else unfairly. And I think since I don't have access, I am not in condoed, no power over you. My only power I got is my dollars. So I'm just choosing to not spend my dollar at your cry. I have a right to spend my money wherever I want to spend, and if I'm doing it out of a protest, that's what I'm doing, or just cat well, I guess that's boycotting. We've been boycotting forever. You decide you're not fucking with somebody, that's you're not

finking with somebody. You decide you'll want to spend your money or spend your time, let's say with an artists. If you like, now, I really don't vibe with how they are off stage, so like it's hard for me to enjoy what they are on stage. If that's you, that's you kind of find out this nigga off stage, you know, beating the ship out of people, you know, treating their employees every which a way, and they don't

feel no kind of way about it. You're like, yo, I'm a stand in solidarity for these people all stage that helping this food have a career, and be like, I'm not trying to like, I'm not gonna I feel like I'm enabling you by just I mean, if that's the way you rock, that's the way you rock. That's just you exercising your rights. You could spend your time and your money, however you won't. None, I don't in my opinion, none of them things is canceling. That's just

they're all something else. You follow me, It's like the fish, they all something else. Now, having said that, I in an argument for the fact that, well, I mean something in there. I mean, we know what we mean when we say fish. There are some things about the entirety

of canceling that you know, it's absolutely problematic. In my mind is the it's to me, it's the pylon effect, like the idea that like you don't even know why you're not rocking with this person no more, it's just it's just the wave now, it's just in style to this this person. You know what I'm saying. You gotta ask around, Hey, is this guy canceled? Am I not allowed a listener this? No more? Like Okay, that's lame to me, Like that's corny, Like if you don't even know,

like you just you just following the trend. The trend is to like dog pile on a person. To me, that is trash. And I think that's what you mean when you say canceled. Is this like cultural swell of this pilon about this person to the point to where you flatten them in the sense that they are not dynamic, they can't learn from their mistakes, They couldn't have had a hard time at some point and are now different or working their ways out of it, and that it's permanent.

That's what you probably mean by canceling, in which case, yes, that is absolutely unfair and and not right. They're also, especially as a public figure, has to be some sort of means for which those that are not in power to hold accountable those that are. Because we can't count on the justicis um you know that much right? The only thing we could count on is the one thing that they value, which is their pockets, is the popularity.

So if I decide, yo, you know what I'm saying, like this person ain't gonna listen to nobody telling them that's why they've been able to do this stuff for so long, then yo, okay, well maybe we can. And it is in hopes that they will feel that pressure, see the error in their ways, and hopefully change and that society could be better for it. That's the hope. I also think something that might be problematic in my opinion, and again, this is game, and you can take it

for what it is. It is when um, now this person off stage, their behavior sort of colors the excellency of their work. Let me tell you why R Kelly and Kanye West lasted so long. It's because when you press play, I don't know what to tell you, the song slaps like I just you look. It's like it's like you having the toxic nous of the most toxic boyfriend girlfriend you could possibly imagine. Just toxic. You notice ain't no good. You know you're trying to break up,

But let me tell you something that box homie. Look, look, look that man. That man can. Let let me tell you something. That man know how to please me. You know what I'm saying, like, Oh, that's I'm telling you boy, when you get in, when you put it in like, it's just there's just I can't deny the excellency of the experience with this toxic person. I understand that you need to end this relationship, but don't act like it

wasn't glorious you You understand I'm saying. That's to me, that's like, let me not let me not take this away from you, like Nick is an incredible artist. And then also the thing that I think brings me to my third point that is problematic is the idea of mental health is that you know, people go through manic episodes and they make horrible decisions, and that's something that one must consider. Now. Having said that, that doesn't mean

I need to keep spending my money on them. That doesn't mean I need to keep retweeting and reposting everything they do. I don't have to go to every concert like you this this person is a real person, and you can get help. Hopefully you've got people in your life and your real life that actually love you and are and care and are gonna like walk you through that. But like, I don't, as the public man, owe you nothing. I don't have to keep buying your music. You know,

you're just falling to the cancel. Or what if I just don't rock with you no more? What if I've made my own decision and I'm like, yeah, I don't like those moves and at the same time understand that you're going through an episode. They they both can't be there. I think we should be more gracious to each other. I think we should build second chances. But I also think you can't weaponize my freedoms to decide who I rock with and don't rock with and just call that

cancel culture. Now, listen, at the end of the day, don't let nobody else define something for you that you already know the answer to and then weapon eyes it. I mean, that's politics. That's called a straw man. In a lot of ways, I'm gonna build up something, You're gonna say something. I'm gonna build it up, redefine it. Right, you know who else did this very well Trump? You know what, he did it with fake news, because fake news means it is actually fake, like it's not true.

He said it to mean anything that disagreed with him, you're fake news. So anytime you said something that was like, well, yo, I don't think that that's fake news, Okay, yeah you didn't. You didn't. You didn't change the definition, and now I can't. Now we can't have a conversation. Continue the change. Now I'm going, well, I'm defending the phrase fake news. Now, well, no that's not that's not fake it's this. So now you didn't you you want a whole other trajectory. Man,

can't let nobody do that to you. Why am I giving you all this stuff again? Because this is an election year. We're in the mid terms. You need this game. We need to think about these things. Listen, if you don't rock with somebody, you don't rock with him. I have a fiducia arey duty in the sense that I am a public figure to maintain a certain level of integrity, and you are my stakeholders. I understand that you have the right to call me on some stuff to the

extent that you're referring to the product I'm giving you. Now, y'all don't know me. A lot of y'all, A lot of y'all do know me, but lot y'all don't know me, and so there's information you don't have. But should you decide you don't mess with problem no more? I mean, I'm sad. Should this happen to me, maybe this would be a different story, Maybe I would be like the whole different podcasts. Should Bob be the victim of this? But let me give you a little bit of vulnerability

for myself. I have been the victim of I've been on the canceling block. It was just before we called it canceled, and it was in my invent evangelical days is when I started talking about racist. And the crazy part is I was never not talking about racist In the church I grew up in, we talked about it all the time. But I got I got marked as a liberal leftist Marxist socialists, and they stopped inviting me

to their churches. Was I canceled? I mean, I guess, but I knew what the hell I was talking about. I know, to feel like to stop getting the emails. But if you're gonna stop getting the emails. Get it for the right reasons. Do it because you stood up for something that you knew was right. And if they cancel you, they cancel. But I'm pretty sure most of the time people talking about canceling, they don't really mean canceling.

They mean accountability. We should hold people accountable for their words. Her politics, y'all. Yeah, that's here. Thing was recorded by ME Propaganda in East Lows, boil Heights, Los Angeles, California. This smug was mixed, edited, mastered, and scored by Matt Osowski. I can totally say his name, guys, it was it was a stick. He's going by Matt now again because he got into some legal situations with the name Headlights. Y'all know, comment used to be called conference. You know

tip t I was Tipped Sometimes Happened. Executive produced by the one and only Sophie Lectorman for Cool Zone Media and the theme music by the one and only Gold Tips Gold Tips d J Shawn p. So y'all just remember listen every time you check in. If you understand city living, you understand politics. We'll see 'all next week.