Happy Holidays! Please Don't Make Me Talk to Uncle Mark

you alreadyknew what to do. Like I had to tell you that, you know, so we were just having a little fun time, you know, like for example, if you listen in by yourself and you colored, melanated, or you with somebody that is, I'm gonna ask you a question, and I'm just gonna prove to y'all who I don't. Obviously, I'm recording this in my own home. I don't know where you are, but we're about to have this moment me, me and the colored person I'm talking to right now.

If you were gonna go into a black house for holidays, should you bring a dish nobody necessarily asked you to bring. Should you volunteer a food item for the meal and just bring it? That's the correct answer. The correct answer is absolutely not. You absolutely do not volunteer food. You're assigned food. We take it very seriously. You don't walk in here with your mama's casserole recipe. In side note,

I just learned something about casserole. I don't know what took me so long to realize this, but casserole is just white people struggle food. I get it now. It's like you just take whatever's in the cabinet. There's probably some ritz crackers and some creama mushroom and some green beans, throw some cheese on it and put in the oven and it'll feed you for weeks. I get it now, it's your struggle meal. I totally get it. I can't believe I didn't understand it now. Obviously I don't want

any but I understand it now. I was like, I don't understand why y'all like casserole so much. People would say, well, isn't it antie lotta casserole? No, antie lottas are purposeful, and there's one way to make them. Well, there's two, either with meat or without. That's different. When you say casserole,

you talk about anything. I totally understand now. And you know what, respect, I don't know what it is about when you see a person and a poor version that just makes me a limo empathetic to them where you see the poor version of them. I just it's hard to explain it, especially now. Listen y'all. Obviously poor people could come in all different colored, sizes and shapes, obviously, but when you from them where I'm from, you know, maybe two poor white people because they just that there's

the white family that lives in your hood. That that's that's really all you know. Every white person you know, a flu you never met any poor white people because it's you from the you know what I'm saying, We don't make it out to him or a spirit. It won't make it out there yet. It's when you start traveling and then you're like, oh, there is such thing as poor white people, and then it all makes sense. You just like, oh, okay, anyway.

in America. You got a conspiracy theorist in your family, you got somebody who you got Alex Joan, You gotta you it's somebody. It is a vast number of people. Sometimes it might be your own mama and daddy. It's a vast number of people in your family who has had their brain baked. Now, don't mean now, I'm not talking about somebody who you just disagree with. Okay, that's different,

although I am going to get to that too. I'm talking about somebody who's just out of here, okay, Because listen, dude, you can people's experiences and their views on how to solve the things in the world. They can vary, you know, and that's listen, that's normal. That variation is going to make you a better person, okay, and it makes the nation better if we can find a way to talk about these things. But I'm talking about y'all who's like, oh that fam. I can't even I like, what the

hell happened to cousin Jeff? Like what I just we can't even we can't even talk. And from what I understand now, Babe, this is a TV trope. But the way y'all fight, y'all be yelling at each other at the table, like we'll fight like that, like we fight different we go outside and fight now again, maybe po White people is different. But the way y'all be yelling at your uh, at your elders and ship, that's that just don't be happening with us. We don't yell at

our elders. It just it just don't happen. We yell at each other. But you you keep that you you don't bring that energy to your elders, So your experience might get crazy. So what I want to do is, on a serious note, give y'all some best practices. This is serious as to how to deal with Uncle Mark. So this is the hood politics. Will prop search for common ground guide to dealing with Uncle Mark Hood politics.

Y'all all right now some of you may or may not know, And I'm gonna talk more about this later. I'm actually gonna have a CEO on the show this year, especially because of what's going on with polarization and divisiveness in this election year. But search for Comic Ground Peace Building Org. I'm a part of. We have these things called these best practices cards, and I'm just gonna give you a taste of this. I'm gonna put a link in the show notes for y'all to be able to

have us for yourself. Now again, These are just suggestions. These are ways to sort of help in a lot of different areas when it comes to engaging in social media talking to somebody who had they brain baked with conspiracy theories. When you just like somebody just trafficking and hate, it's just a very difficult person. And the person that I am making this in your family is your uncle Mark.

Now you may not have an uncle Mark. Maybe it's an uncle Dave, or maybe it's your aunt Sally, or may it's grandma, Grandma just scrolling you know, conservative TikTok now and just she's her favorite thing is libs of TikTok. And I don't know, whatever the case may be, it's just it's all bad. Now, how do you deal with this situation? Now? The first thing that really sucks is the fact that at and I resent this often, is that I always have to be the bigger person. And

there are times that I'm not going to be. There are, don't get me wrong, there are times I'm not fit to be the bigger person. You understand them saying, like I'm on the listen, You've heard me say this before. I'm not a pacifist, Like there are times that somebody need to taste slapped out of their mouth. I understand there are times for that to happen. But in austinary know we talk about peacebuilding, get trust building and common ground works on this idea is this idea that like

peace moves at the speed of trust. Right, you don't get nowhere with somebody that don't trust you, right. So that's one thing. Another thing I would say, just overall, and this is like, this is really like even even whether it's this situation, this is just relationship advice. And not that I'm an expert, but I can say this because I've I've failed at it so many times. Most of the time, people just want to be heard. They

just want to know that you heard them. Not that you listen to them so that you can shut them down or so that you can rebut what they said, but that they just know they were heard. You follow me, Which sucks because that means you're gonna have to sit through sometimes some of the wildest shit just to hear

what they really saying. And that's the strength, honestly of little politics is like I think that's why y'all like tap in with my show is like I'm telling you oftentimes what these people is really saying, you know, and they're saying a lot of words, but this is what they're saying. And a lot of times, you know, a lot of the stuff that the other cool zone media shows deal with, like especially we talk about like in cells and stuff like that, like these fools are lonely

and they just long for belonging. And a lot of times that's how like a lot of these little radical for our right white boys get radicalized because they're just looking for belonging. I just I need a squad, you feel me. You find those in all types of different communities. A lot of times you find them online or in gaming communities. Then they get you know, radicalized through those circles. But at the end of the day, people want to be heard. And it might have started off from like

an honest to goodness, legitimate grievance. And that's the skill we're gonna talk about right now. Now keep in mind again I'm not writing theology for y'all. Like I'm talking about like the two days you have to spend with your uncle. You're not gonna convert him, all right now, let's just say which I'm pretty sure this is how it would go because you just don't feel like it.

You probably on your fourth cocktail. But Uncle Mark is ready to like send you some stuff, and he talking real wild about things, and now he wants to debate you. Uncle Mark is all kind of tough topics all over the news whatever, or he just freaking freely, you know, in a way that like it feels like if I don't say anything, I'm agreeing with him, and I don't want you poison in the brains of my nieces and nephew. But most people's common practice is to like just be like, yo,

can we not talk about that? Like I'm just trying to have a nice time, like just chill, you know, you try to shut it down all kind of racial slurs, they like dead naming, just making fun of trance, just all of it. Obviously, if somebody talking like that, like it don't deserve respects. And that's another thing that's hard about. It's like, okle Mark, don't deserve it, especially the way you talk about everybody like this. But now you got to be the bigger person while at the same time

not standford this bullshit. You feel me, So the game gets real weird. Now you have to show a respect that's not being reflected or earned. And I don't know Mark as well as you do, but I know I have to be like, hey, man, I'm really interested in what you have to say, but these slurs are like that's a hindrance to me. And I mean, you gotta have your opinion. But I'm saying like, at least for this conversation, br like, just don't talk to me that way you feel me like, and then that it makes

it more personal, like, hey, I would appreciate. I'm not correcting you specifically, I'm just saying like, hey, I'm really I'm really trying to figure out where you're going with this, but like, hey, I could do it out all the all the extra, but like, but tell me what you think, just like look, man, like, just don't talk to me that way, Like I'm not trying to hear that, just like I wouldn't that nobody talk to you and call you anything ocal Mark out your name. You know what

I'm saying. I'm oftentimes it's like Mark ain't never met no trans person, so it's like you don't even know these people. So I'm like, well I know them, you feel me, and like I wouldn't let them talk to you that way? So please, This is you know, you approach a topic respectfully, right, and you try to understand

where this person is coming from. Now, the best way to do that, especially in that scenario, is to just ask questions about what they're saying, whatever the topic is, just to be like, you know, hey, so like one is like, okay, where did you get that information? All right? And what do you hope what happened to see in the world? Okay, why do you think that that's better?

And just be curious about what they're saying, right and what you're doing, and genuinely listen because when you genuinely listen to some of the stuff they say, you could actually hear or what they worried about even with all the racis shit. Now listening, of course doesn't mean you change in your mind, right, And I'm pretty sure in there you could find a lot of times you can

find a shared goal. You're like most of the time, like I found again, people just want to matter, like you want to know that your work matters, that people see your pain and they see your suffering, whether your suffering is is imagined or not. Because again I'm talking about a family member here, right, this is this person you related to this person. This I'm not talking about

some blowhard on the street. So there's a shared value here, Like i mean, as crazy as your uncle Mark is, I'm hoping like there was at one time that you and Uncle Mark were great, but he got his brain cooked, right, So there is a shared value, you know, and you could understand like nobody wants their stories erased or their

stories ignored. You can understand that, right. Also, I think a big practice is like have a non anxious approach, like try your best, as annoying as Uncle might be, to just kind of keep your heart, maintain a non anxious you don't have to be combative. Just wait and what I find, and of course this isn't These are just practices, These are not rules. What I find is once you can mirror back their actual fear and grievance, you can start talking about ways to address that, which

sometimes isn't even a topic that they brought up. And I'm assuming if you would listen to my show, that you understand that solutions are nuanced and they come into all different sizes and shapes. And I'm hoping you got receipts about what you're gonna say, and then you could start saying, hey, actually, I think we all feel that way. Now keep in mind, I'm saying this as someone who doesn't have an uncle Mark like y'all do, so I can empathize with the frustration you might feel with an

uncle Mark. I just don't have one. But I do think these things can help because I have definitely had very difficult conversations. So like a good like practice is like, all right, so ogle Mark, when you said, you know, Blase Black WOOPI woop. That really got me thinking, hey, can I ask you about YadA YadA? Like okay, so you say this, and I was thinking, like how you feel about boom boom boom?

to understand where you're coming from. And I found that that is super disarming with people sometimes like what don't

you agree with? And then a lot of times I'm like, well, we could get to that, but I just want I want to understand what you're saying first cause and then I say, maybe I don't disagree, I just I want to understand what you're saying, you know, and that curiosity helps, right, And then you could go to the common areas like I said, like, nobody wants their story race, nobody wants their suffering to be minimized, Like I totally understand that

you have a voice. You want your voice to be heard, right, And then I would approach like oftentimes I go with the like, well, but I surely don't want my voice to be heard at the price of somebody else's. I don't want to put somebody else through what I'm complaining about, because that's not right either. And now guess what I'm talking about, justice boom, Yeah, I'd be like, I philosophically believe that, and especially somebody who's like mad at the government,

I'm like, there's enough money to go around. My success doesn't have to come at the cost of other poor people. There's plenty of money to go around, so just because I would like more for my community doesn't mean I want less for yours. That's a brain breaker for these people.

including myself, are not trained journalists like I don't. I'm a college grad, so I know how to double check sources. I know how to read footnotes, I know how to look for dissenting voices. I know how to understand that biases come from different ways in different areas. And I know what I'm reading has a lens, and that's fine, because even the lens tells me something. It tells me

what these people actually value. What usually happens is when somebody brings up a news story, the other person brings up another news story that says the opposite, and then they'll finally start being like mainstream media, mainstream media, mainstream media, right, and then that you can't trust the system, you know, and then and then usually the conversation stops because there's

nowhere to go after that. What I usually do, or what I think a good practice to do is in this scenario, that's like, if we're not just talking about your own practices of like just doing a quick Google search on if a story is true or what other news reports reported on it, who reported on it, why they reported on it, and are there other stories on that story? Right? That's just a quick Google will let

you do that I found in person. When someone brings up a story, since all of us have all the information in the world on our phones, I'll be like, yo, tell me about it, what was the name, and then pull on my phone and Google it and just like it with them, be like oh word. So then I'll be like, yeah, I'm reading it, and then say, hey, but there's this other page here, and then hey, but

there's this other page here. Hey but there's this other page here, and then just kind of challenge the idea that like, no, like I'm not just I'm not just telling you the story's false. I'm like, I'm this is in real time. This is what I do when stories come across my page. I just kind of like look it up, you know. But all that leads to the final part, which is probably your biggest scenario, which is the conspiracy theories, especially going into twenty twenty four, mostly

the big lie. Let's talk about it after this, all right, we're back before I get into conspiracy theories. It's the thought crossed my mind that your family probably calls you woke and they mean it in like a pejorative way. Here's the way I have found to approach that. Now, again, that don't happen in my house because we're black. But it's not like black people subjectives anyway. I would be like, hey, what do you think woke means? And just ask like

what do you mean by that? And then not a combatter way, just like Yo, what do you mean by that? And like okay, and then turn it like this, Hey, So, so you think it's important to be like aware of the ways that you know the government treats us and hides the truth and allocates resources and the ways for which your rights are being undermined. Is that is that important. Is it important to like be informed about stuff like that?

They'd be like absolutely, And you're like, well, that's you're woke too, because that's because that's really what it means. It just means to stay awake of the ways that you're being oppressed and just kind of leave it like that, this is what it means, and like it means. Woke is past sense of awake, and that's I mean, that's what it means. Long pause. Here are the things you have to remember about conspiracy theories and people who are

like in that rabbit hole. First of all, understand that all of us at one time in our life believed one, some more serious than the others. There you probably believe in one now you just don't know it's a conspiracy theory. Like it's because there's just so much information out there and so much time has passed in the world that there's most likely there's a conspiracy theory that you believe

it whether you know it or not, right, So there's that. Secondly, really understanding how someone how and why someone falls for this makes these conversations much better. And the practice is this, most people tend to believe stories that match their views and are reported by sources that I already agree with. I guess that's just how most of us work. But the practice of even interrogating that, searching for verification for

those stories, and then sharing them with caution. Right, But oftentimes when you're talking about conspiracy theories, you're not talking logic, right, do you guys remember the birds aren't Real thing? A dude did an amazing ted talk that started the birds aren't real or he made it up and then created this character when he saw that it was going viral. He was at a protest in Memphis and he saw all those signs and then just kind of for a joke, just wrote on a sign real quick, birds aren't real,

and then it started showing up. So at that point he started to, you know, reverse engineer a mythology around birds not being real, and then he created this character. He said it was an organization founded that's been around for forty years, not longer than that, sixty years, founded in the seventies because in the nineteen seventies the government murdered eight billion pigeons, killed him on and replace them with drones so they could spy on us. Like that's

the story and the evidence is all around us. Where do pigeons? Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? No, they come out the factory full. He was like, where do you always see pigeons? They're on power lines. It's

because they're charging there, and I'm a pigeon truther. And then he even started staging events where they would go and demand justice for the pigeons, just playing this character almost like just to see how far as go, and then people was like really in and then finally like he called up CNN and he was just like, hey, guys, I made that up. But here's the experience of what I learned. He said, people would while he was out doing being the character doing the protest, would come at

him being like you are a fucking idiot. You're destroying the world, like you're so stupid, and one would think he would respond these are his words, He was like, well, I'm paraphrasing. You would think that he would respond as himself, like his real life self, and be like, oh my god, this full fell for the bit.

but that's what was happening to him. He felt more emboldened to lean into the character and to just defend it because how dare you talk to me that way? So sometimes when we try to do the splash of water on our uncle Martin, that's fully into the conspiracy series. It drives them further in. So now you as niece or nephew to Uncle Mark, who's kind of all the way in in whatever ways you know the telltale marks

of a conspiracy. Usually it may have started as a nugget of truth and then it spirals into this whole other world, and that whole other world oftentimes is communicating a fear that these people have. And then the hard part about conspiracies is that some of them did happen, like the Smedley Butler situation, which was like there was a fascist plot to overthrow the American government, like that

did actually happen. You know, technically Trump's Rico case is a conspiracy like, but it's a true one like these happened. But one of the tell tale marks for a conspiracy theorists that are like ridiculous is the amount of people that would have to sign on. They're huge, like, and the amount of people you'd have to pay to keep silent for this to be viable is ridiculous. And here's what I know. People talk. There's not enough money in the world to keep people shutting up. So those are

two signs. There's a lack of a loss of control, and conspiracy theories give us a sense of control that there are strings being pulled that explain what I feel is out of my reach. So there's an underlying fear and a mistrust there and a desire to make sense of a world that does not make sense to them.

So there's an insecurity here. But also that draws you into a community of people, right, So when you're trying to like break somebody out of a conspiracy theory, you're actually asking them to leave their family and friends because they're so far into this community and what they have as their unifying mark is this belief that John F. Kennedy Junior is still alive or whatever it is. Right, they have this thing that unifies them all. It's just

like asking somebody to not gangbang. It's like, we grew up together. This is my family. I can't just walk away that point. Everything they see proves it. That's your confirmation bias. That's happening right there, and they're in and the more you fight them, the more that they get entrenched. My practice usually is to just like, like you said, like everybody else is just be like, all right, I'm gonna go get another drink, all right, Uncle Mark. That's crazy.

Usually that's that's what we'd be like, Oh, that's crazy because the conspiracy theorist person will talk your ear off if you let them, and it's exhausting because it's a never ending rabbit hole. I get it, and I think it's important to remember that you at your Christmas dinner, your Christmas Eve party, you not gonna change Uncle Mark's mind. But I go back to the square one thing, the like what are you really saying? And what they're oftentimes really saying is they feel out of control and a

lack of trust. If the evidence is circumstantial. It's like, I personally am not even engaging in all that because I'll pull up a million examples of the fact that we went to the moon. But that's because I'm a sheepull, right, So facts don't really change the mind until they ready to accept them. That's not what you're here to do. And again, we're just at dinner. What I'm here to do is to say is to suggest to uncle Mark, Hey, man, I love you. You already have family. See weird that is?

I just cut right through it. Amy, you should come over, bro. And then if they're into that, like I would suggest books, Hey have you read and so on? And so I'll have you read. And again, a lot of that stuff can happen by just while he talking googling, just like okay, how to debunked blah blah blah blah, just google it and just be like, hey, have you read so and so? Yeah, what's it about? I mean, it's about this thing. It's just here are some dissenting voices. And then you tell me,

and then that's the other thing. I'll be like, you tell me, like, here's some a I found some people that disagree. They're from this this is Harvard law. You know what I'm saying, and just be like, oh whatever and be like yeah, eye roll, But like, hey, have you read this though? Like maybe I don't know, maybe it'll give you a not even an opposite perspective, but

just like, hey, read this. Let me know what you think. Man, Like what they're tripping and now you've now planted a seed in something like you may have put a little pinhole into their situation. Now, lastly, please understand I am not an expert in diffusing all this stuff and this is just a thirty minute podcast on Christmas. I just want you to be able to enjoy your yams and not fight. I don't want your blood pressure to shoot

up to the sky. So I'm trying to give you these best practices to keep your blood rush it down because Mark gonna be Mark. You're not gonna change his mind. Maybe you could save your nephew, but you ain't gonna change his mind, at least not today. Now, final words, which I probably should have said in the beginning, Listen, if you're having like us, like if this is causing like severe trauma or like mental crisis issues, food, ignore it all. Like you don't have to have conversations with

Uncle Mark like peace out. It's fine, Like leave, take care of yourself. You don't have to be the moral compass of your family. Now, if y'all was fighting over sweet potato pie or pumpkin pie, that's a whole different story. Hood politics, y'all. You know, I don't know why I thought of this before, but you know you could use promo code hood for percent off on terraform coolbrew dot com. Like I forgot I own that company and this is my pod. Y'all, go ahead and punch it from a

cold hood. If you in the cold Brew, get you some cold brew, gonna get you some coffee. Yeah, Like I can't believe, I ain't think of it. This still right.

this thing pushed up in the algorithm and listen. I just want to remind you these people is not smarter than you. If you understand city living, you understand politics, We'll see you next week.