Bet on Black

We hosted First Black Hollywood, and I think I touched on the last episode about black history about these events, but the one block bet Oh Black, that's right, bet on Black. That was an explosive event. And that's my episode for the sixty of each You know when you're fifth, the sixth, here seventy and when I hit one d I got to do a milestone episode. But this it's the sixtieth episode and it was lit at the event.

So that's gonna be my sixty episode because it's called back on Black, The Good News about Being Black in America Today. That was the subject matter because that's the title of the book by Ebony Kate Williams, and that is the event that I hosted this last Wednesday on a Wednesday night. People came out. It was a beautiful

discussion on book signing. We had a moderator by the name of Devin Bakewell, who's author, who's the Rights novels and also a managing editor of the Los Angeles sinal in Los Angele West Time watch time, so hey, we put on in a wonder When I do events like this and if and and the people come out, I really feel high. I feel good. I feel on top of the world because you know, Malik's bookshelf, Malik's books

and everything that we do, it's all about community. And my goal is always to bring people together, even in difficult times, on different and different subject matters. This event was bet on Black, the Good News about being Black in America. My episode is gonna be called just the short version better on Black, you know, And like I said, I was born black, I'm gonna die black, and I'm unapologetically black. And events like this is why Emlik Books exists.

You know, it's certain things in this in this world, then you gotta bet on and not yourself. And that's when I read the book and when I hosted the event, back on yourself. If you're a black person. You got to bet on yourself. You got to stop man looking at other directions. And you know, it's okay to collaborate with others, it's okay to work with others, but when it comes down to it, it's you gotta it gotta be from within and whatever you are and whoever you are,

you got to bet on yourself. You understand and in whatever group you're part of, you got to bet on that group. You know, I'm a black man. And what's what I'm saying is we as black people gotta stick together and do for self. It's the differences that make us great. So hey, we gotta come together as black people, build together, love each other, do for self. We gotta do all that. So this episode number sixty is beat Ol Black with guests Ebony K. Williams. Yeah, I was

born black. I'm gonna black, but I'm unapologetically black. That's what boys, Boys, We've been signed for too long. We gotta step up of our course. We are America. We make this country great. And milk scores like leek books tell the story because we have a wealth of books. Then talk about so many subjects from history into now and the day we're gonna talk about that black man. I con said talking for this, you bit thatck owned black.

Welcome everybody. We're excited today. This is the county event I love to do because this is social, is cultural, is education, and its most importantly, it brings a generation of changes. So hey, thank you for coming out on a Wednesday night. My name is Malik Mohammed Maybe. I'm the founder and co owner of Malik Books women Circling Community since nineteen ninety Give it a black boys. We have two locations. We have one right here if you turn around, Malie Books is right there and it's boss

of nineteen ninety four. Ninons mall and me open up my second location at the Westville Coast anymore a k K Fox Hills all if we don't do any nativity. So when you visit Milli Books, it's the total African American experience of Pride of Jordan where we give voice to the voices. So I invite you to follow us on our social media in post today as well as

our Instagram with Milague Books. And also I want to give a round of applause for the Pan African field festas because making this mastabat, I mean they've been on Hounson for thirty points ago. When they started. They see anything, we turn it up. Thursday night Chaz at Molique Books in West vild Mall. So come on through six to nine. All right, we have an incredible Rory uh In a graphic novelist. Uh Rodney van Barns coming up in February seven pm. He got a graphic novel call for Lack

of Love. So that's at the Westfield Wall. Let me introduce you to the moderator for this evening. He's managing editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel as well as the Los Angeles Watch Times, and she's graduating from Howard University. I have about expect right, so I thought him know, no other person I thought was a good fit to moderate every Will to Day. Then Devin Bathwell, now she's a knowledge. She got some books out to Greater Love and Greater Life. They both out and you normally books

got it. You know you didn't sign him with devil, so hey support the support her. She's a young author of young journalist and she likes to work with children and women and so she gets forwards. Uh, it didn't doing that, and so she's got my rank to day. So I want you to give a round of the club for Devin bite Willy. How you do it? Are you gonna introduce your store? Yes? Okay, you just checking the link. That's you, guys. I don't know. Yes, well as you guys know, this is ms Ebony K. Williams

on Someone's to Much. She can bet. She was a reality TV. She was a game her woman. She's a little news, she's a little radio. And did I listen to me? Anced you have a bunch of a compidence. It's coming soon to a syndicated network. Hear you? Equal justice the judge of Okay, willis to stay talk about the great job. Well, thank you. Well, first, let me tell you I love this book. I loved it, and I you know, I'm a fiction author and I don't read a lot of nonfiction. I'm gonna be honest with you.

So I was a little nervous, but I read this book in a day. Yeah, I absorbed it. I loved it. And so I just wanna for say congratulations. I'm proud that you're really this message out and I'm happy to be here. Thank you, Denner. And at the interest of time, and I really wanted first and foremost thank for the the leak uh and everybody at the League Books because a little bit it's a family event. I'm in a beautiful white into this lovely children, my publishers goblists with

their hearts. Uh. They originally scheduled this event to me at another bookstore in Los Angeles, um, but it wasn't black home, so it wasn't the right place for this event. Um So I reached out to brother be League and he graciously offered this opportunity, So thank you. I also want to thank the Pay African Film Festival. Thank you very very much for supporting this book. And it's it's a little odd to celebrate this moment with all of you.

And I'm gonna think I'm for coming down on a Wednesday night because not enough that we could all be home right now watching Mary at First Sight. And that's exactly where I'm will be, but for this event. Um So I want to thank you. I can be anywhere in the world would you do with me? And I appreciate that. Um So with that, that's what we're gonna do. Death and you're gonna ask, and we'll let you ask

five questions. Uh. Then I'm gonna open it up to Q and A. We're gonna do that, you're not, I'm gonna produce it next time you're do I'm anna producer that. I'm gonna Then I'm gonna let you all ask six. That's a nice round number. And then we're gonna sive someone. We're gonna take some photos and they're not going to eat. Okay, thank you, all right, Or we're gonna get started with first. Can you tell the audio why you signs right the foot? Absolutely? So,

what do I know for sure? It's through my live experience and my academic experiences. As I told about or Florida. I do have a degree actually my studies. And then is that the single most misunderstood experience in America is that a blackness. People talk about black people a lot, even black people talk about black people a lot, but most everybody really does not have an innate understanding of the actuality of blackness. So I started this both chapter

one called actuality. You have to understand the actualness of blackness. Part of that is, as Baldwin says, he had to spend most of his life throwing up everything that he was told and talked about. Being a black man in America and a black queer man, and that in his case, this book is a tool to help regurgitate all the lives, all the filth, all the malarkey, all the mythology that we have all been culturally fed, some of us even

within our own homes. I'm gonna say that part again, some of us even within our own homes about who we are. Blackness is a treasure. For blackness is canage. Blackness is obviously beauty, but blackness is my superpower. And I wrote this book, Devin, because I invited to be yours as well. Yes, And in the book you discussed that if you use the term black and not African American over but African American, can you talk about why you're holding back to be important? I want to be

clear on this. I am not the black terminology police. I feel the way about blackness frankly, as I do around the N word. I choose not to use it, but I will who am I to police other black people's usage of a term may name or may not identified with. That said, for me, African American doesn't cut it because I know the history of which it evolved. So we've been called a lot of things m globally and here in this land called a bear cut, as

asvlidated people. We've been Negro, we have been colored, we have been of color, we have been black, and we have been African American. And I would say we are somewhere between African American and black again today. How we have all historically from African American to black hat about

in roughly seventies, nineteen eighties, early nineties. And I submit it was a response to a white discomfort with the potency of the full throttle usage of the term black, because black when it was in its hating of colloquial usage, it was really a derivative of the black power movement. A black is beautiful, say it loud. I'm black in my pro I am proud energy right, those vibes felt discomforted to some some of us even so African American

feels a little diluted for me. I also think it does not fully capture the odor African diaspa, which I think is very important, which is why I can shout out to pay African Film Festival here. Well, I defined blackness very intentionally because it's very important that I addressed what blackness is to be Blackness is simply the Africa

in you. That's what it is. So however you choose to shape and identify your relationship with the Africa and you there in Lajah blackness and when did you think you came to these ideas about you know, we're using your term black or African America. A lot of this evolution for me dead into the place. And I'm so happy to see some of my classmates and the audience tonight during my blessed tenure at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I'm matriculated as an undergraduate,

my studied Black Studies. Actually the school still to this day my degree says African American and African diaspha Studies. Um I pointed, a Black Studies degree and a lot of my evolution that you will read in this world from my uh toy with back to Africa, movements of Garvey and the light. Um I talk about Perry Hall, I talk about Dr Madison, I talk about my introduction to black feminist power allah Alain Brown shout out to

the West Coast. So absolutely so my introduction to the death of blackness and my relationship with mine and the cultures broadly really takes a deep dive during my collegic experience, which if to affect it real personal when the scantists had the audacity to suggest that it is anything other than the most elite of academic pursuit to know from which you come from and which so much of this nation derives. I don't think I could have studied anything.

I could not have studied anything get U n C. That would have been prepared me for the work of my life. Then that blacks used to break. It's awesome and you're talking. You've got two more questions that come on? All right, you're talking about to people that's inspired to um in college, and you mentioned a lot of different writers. You mentioned a lot of inspirations who you went to, Malcolm X, the boys who are some leaders in the

black community that inspired you. You mentioned settled them two boys of course of Malcolm accident unless to have had one of his daughters. So Yansa read this book previous to its publication, and she she really to meet maybe the highest compliment when she talked about how she feels that her father and Malcolm would have wouldn't put his hand in blessing on this on this work. Um, that's the compliment of my career so far, others that I'm

in deep relationship with James Baldo. I don't exist without brother Baldwood. And that's another reason I gotta speak on us, especially to our community. I will not allow a moment that it is looking to eradicate no and act in erature of black queer identity uh in an effort to so called advance uh the isolation of blackness. See. I will not participate in the extraction of black queerness from blackness because as long as they've been black people, that

have been black queer people, Okay. And I don't want to hear anybody open their mouth to talk about their black studies if it doesn't center Baldwin Linkston, Hughes Sorrow, mal Perston by r Ruston, how how can you teach it? How can you even pretend to care about it if you don't include the inextricably linked experience of our black queer kinfolks. So that is very important to me. Probably

my greatest mentor of them all is Douglas. Frederick Douglas and the Genius of Douglas Open Chapter two, which is entitled Optics with with my example of how Douglass is my greatest teacher on the power of optics. So most of you know, started my career practicing law, started in the criminal space, and uh did some litigation work, but

ultimately I took a career charting and broadcast journalism. And I actually started my juglast career right down the street at p F I am six forty uh and enganngerally Ne matriculated to cable news and reality and you know the rest is history. But why while I've been such a brilliant legal mind like mine cheese, You've never thinking about these little subs choose to leave the courtroom for television,

right or migrapher. It is because of douglass teaching that the power of optics is a unique and powerful form of protests. Frederick Douglas is the single most photographed individual of the nineteenth century. He's not the most photographed black person, and he's not the most photographed band. He's the most photographed individual of the entire nineteenth century. There's more pictures

of Friendwick Douglas than Abraham Lincoln. Why is that? It's because Douglass understood better than most even at that time done it that it is the power of visibility. You could say and think, the best ship ever if no one sees it, if no one hears it, it is for not So I understood that I can have all these great teachings that have been poured into me and thoughts and intellectualisms and and and and and hoodsbok right, But if I am not platformed and broadcast globally, I've

missed an opportunity. Um and and Douglas also understood optics. To be very specific, we saw Douglas in a very particular format. Douglas was always in type of addressed Douglas is the original pretty power. Actually, Douglas always had you know that that figure a situation quiet, okay, Douglas. Douglas is a beautiful black man. Douglas wasn't ever smiling during his photos because wasn't ship funny? Okay. And he's bathing the American consciousness of that time to say, who are

you too shallow? A beautiful human spirit like me. That is the power of optics, and that is the power of Douglas A talking the last question, both work no pressure. I got you talked about your platform and you know you have this new book where you're calling people. I actually so you know, I find what people want people to do after reading this book. Great perfect to Saint. This is a very audacious book to write in a climate where brilliant black minds, uh and I'm black minds

are writing really powerful pieces about hipstad America. So I take this work and this show French very seriously. I want people to do one thing and one thing only. I want my people to stand ti toes down in your blackness everywhere you choose to bring it. Now, that doesn't mean you have to be as black as rather malig hey and bred belie. You're real black. Where are

you gonnas? Now, that's a black blackness. I with it, um, I say that it just but you don't necessarily have to do it like a league or like me right, or like whoever you see on television. But whatever it is for you, whatever your authentic spirit moves you to show up in in all the spaces that you occupy. My invitation through this book, Devon is to not shrink from it. Don't accommodate like comfort, don't even accommodate the

very tempting collective black approval. Yes, there would be something look just like you and I who do not approve of your methodil lergy, of the way in which you show up and choose to bring all of who you are to everything you do. I am asking that in this moment today we get to do it different because

of what they've all gone through for us. And I am simply submitting if this is a fine opportunity for us to stand tinktotes down in our blackness, however we so choose to do no more psychick energy, nor more accommodating, nor more shrinking for white days or combination. Okay, it's made character energy over period. And if you can't get with it, I think what today is showing you is that you will actually be the one displaced. I think

y'all all got a subtext. So I'm leaving right there, but you better make space for blackness in America today or you will find yourself displaced. There. You got to y'all owner, and so thank you all right? Can the beating, brotherly? How are we going to do the mic situation? I do want to ask six people to be able to share from the audience their questions with black people want to invest the camp of the own this country. You know what you're taking reparations and if you support it,

there what avenue you think would be the best. I'll come to repair which obfuscation. So I speak directly to what Justin is is leading us to here. In chapter I think it's odd, it's hard left fag and I opened that chapter with a very basic reality. It's very hard to be free when you don't own anything. It's really hard to be free to all when you don't own anything. So I make a very specific prescription around black ownership, whether it's black entrepreneurship, like whether the leak here,

whether it is black real estate holding. Now, one of the said shoots South America today for black folks is that we actually hope less real estate all in America today than we did pre the Anti Discrimination Housing Act of n We hovered it around forty two percent, then we hovered right around the same today. It's a tragedy. We actually can't afford it. So I'm talking in this

book specifically about black home ownership. I know some of us live in UH these elite spaces like Los Angeles, d C, l A, San Diego, UH, San Francisco, Chicago. That make it far. We gotta start talking about what

co op situations look like. We gotta start talking about what it is to buy property someone you don't live, because at least the asset is appreciated and you have access to that equity so that you can do a small business loan or set your next generation of school or whatever you choose to invest that equity in it. So I speak very prescriptively and specific and just said over I need well build an asset portion of black deliberation. We cannot be serious about meeting free of this country

if we are not talking about ownership and asset though. Well, I gotta give my question because I'm hosting this second I said, I'm gonna first, wouldn't it need right right right right where you've been dropping bombs all day now? Historically we've been calling a lot of names. Yes, behind they roll so called they roll after American, Afro American Black? Why is black so more important? Because I personally think that it has a different political, social, cultural media than

it does. I forget American because in the sixties James Brown said I'm black, you know I'm proper right sixty seventies and didn't it move to African America. Now we get back to the word black. So can you speak on why there's word black in the difference between you identifying as a black bird, Because I personally think everybody can be called any nony, but not everybody can call on black. I love that a man. If not everybody gets to be black, not everybody gets to be black.

We've been if you if you have a spiritual belief system like I do, I know I was chosen to be black, and I know I was chosen to me black in my teen andy three to take my spiritual gifts and and and apply that to this particular moment in American trajectory. Blackness for me is about the potency mo week. It's a it's a particularly potent capture. And again I was I'll reiterate the point of its broadness of scope. I think when you start talking about African American,

you started talking about people of color. I think it's started to limit the power of who gets to be black. Um. Specifically, I'll say that my experience living in New York City has where the talk being educated beyond this term. But you go to New York of you don't just get to be black. You've got to be a specific of a you Caribbean black and a Gerian black fatures of cynical East. Well, you know it's very specific like that,

and that's I get it. But but I I I challenge my New York community to never forget and and Safel Wilkerson speaks to this very powerfully in her boodcast. Sometimes white proximity and aligning oneselves to white proximity and approval will have those of us who are black over emphasized categorizations where we want to say, well, I'm black and not that compla and we think that we are doing that in some kind of virtue signaling to white presumptions,

incorrect presumptions. By the way, in Blackness again started beginning a bat I'm black because the news about being black in America, and you'll learn the actuality of being black. And now you're not proactified with the stinguishing yourself foam your black pim folk. So it's black for me. It will always be black for me because I'll understand the power in the poet scene of blackness. Amen, give it up. I went that very next. Okay, thank you so much,

for being here today. You sha' you? Um my question about the Real Housewives of New York. I'm sorry, Uma, that was one of the one of this one show that I never did watch, but when I saw you, I began to watch. And what I would like to know is white lesson. What was the longest, most important lesson that she learned from being on that show that you've taken away with you that you can go ahead and share with us. Love it? So I speak specifically about the Real Housewives of New York or the romi

of it all in chapter three entitled Disruption. I took a lot of lessons, but the biggest one I took was I'm saying it's ultimately you watch the ship's fall, play the long game. So I went to Rony unclear as to the landscape of reality from an outsider perspective, Um, you know only knew it as a as a warrior. Now.

I came on the show with a black college degree, with a low degree, with a career that it centered blackness, and a very black name of any key on a week it's got to be when in the blackness as in television, And for some reason, my cast fades even probably the executives to some level. We're startled and confused when I chose to continue the work of centering blackness. Um, I think if anything, I was probably and I know that someone even my folks, felt I was doing too much.

It was too strong, it was too potent. IM tell you true, sis. The only thing I would do differently is the seat of that fabulous, laborous Harlan langdon oh it took them be just a Brooklyn game and what's spice to be? Or it totally kissed my black ass. That's the only thing I would have gonna get to kill my line because they should have appreciate a beaut your blackness. Thank you for me and here appreciated thank you.

I just want to ask this question. I'm gonna tech them a little bit earlier, UM, but what is your advice for black women specifically that are showing up in spaces where they are the only black person. You talk about it a little bit. You've been doing throughout your career. You have you shown up in spaces where you have no black person. So what is your advice, UM, for

black women who are intrigulated through their career? Um, and specifically for young girls who are in college, who are at HBCUs, who are about to step out of those spaces they move into. I'm you're very glad you mentioned that last part, So um sore, I'm just gonna answer.

Portia is my sorority sister in Alpha Kappa Alpha Solarty Incorporated. UM. She is also one of my dearest friends at the world and we uh for over two years now have shared in bonding over experiences of us sending in professional spaces as educated black women. And what's interesting is sometimes we compare and can trust our experiences. I went to a renominatly white institution at NUNC chaper Hill, and Pusha

had the great privilege of attending Clark Atlanta University. And I started this book tour in Baltimore, and I had a lot of students courtship from Morgan State University show up and they asked a similar question. I said, my advice to you is to bottle up the truth and actuality of blackness that you are receiving on this elite

college campus. Because once students that come out of HBCUs and there is some truth to the fact that you will been to confront the reality of white gaze and white expectation differently because you're not matriculating in that at the undergraduate level. But I still think there is a swag, There is a nate confidence, There is anate sense of knowing one's qualification and one's earnestness when you come from a black school and or however else that is instilled

in you. Whether for me it was Lauria, for me, it was the books. For me, it was knowing a Baldwin and Phillis Wheetley and Eldrid's Clever and all of that stuff before I even got to college. But if if not that, I think those HBCU kids for should need to bottle it up. The normalization of Dr So and sol Dr So and sold Professor so and so all looking like you, because when you get out of that Petri dish of black academic excellence, you will be hard pressed to find anything in the outside world that

amplifies that. But that is who we are, that isn't not look black awesomeness because I'm over black excellence. Excellence is innately black, so that it's repetitive to me, um, But that actual awesomeness of who we are is not isolated to the academic black HBC you experienced, and people would have me believe that. So I'll just think bottled up.

Soak it up, put that battery in your back, because you're going to need it when you get into these workplaces that these board rooms, these classrooms that are not HBC used, these hospitals, these finance institutions, these newsrooms, and they will try to tell you everything you are, but then you are not. So I think just trying to feed off of that as much as you can and trust that once you experienced those four years on that campus is who you are. All right, Welcome to l A,

I think all right. So I watched Deaf and Devour your book within twenty four hours, and it brought up the conversation of nationalism, white nationalism, black nationalists, yes, um, and so when we think of white nationalism we think of racism. But reading the book, it came up then you were you could possibly a black nationalists. Do you consider yourself one? And if so? Was the difference? At one time? I absolutely was a black nationalist. Um. I

write about this in the book as well. There's a chapter where I talk about again my toy with the guard me of it all and saying you know what, and then I'll frame it before you the web during the book. Let's start with some basic facts. The basic factist there was never a plan for melonated people of African descent to be fully liberated free people on this

particular stone wand that's a fact. So even um a leading originally and it was a common theory at the time that we should really just put these up black people back on Dent's and then back to Africa. That was an old rottle faith ship didn't work out, so hearing which we've remained and so I had a real tension. This has talked about, y'all in the title that I am called entitled where I talk about what ultimately becomes

an arc of progression. Where I find myself today, which is that I think similar to what Paul Robeson suggests, which is, yeah, we we we could go back to Africa.

That's fine, be like legitimately, that's that's an opportunity now in an in a choice, but by no means when we be ran off our land essentially right, he says, we have good it in too much, we have put too much blood and tears and breast milk into the soil of this here land stolen from our indigenous kinfolks, that we must boldly proclaim our inmate entitled right to be here if we so choose, and we don't have to concede to being here in a secondary, subsidiary way.

That's what the whole book is about. So it's not so much about black nationalism, is that it as much as it is about a seismic shift in position of what it is to be black in America. We will I will love lover, and I want to hold our folks to come with me. Be a second position, I will only be in the first. Physician must leading to the brow repol in returning brow up. I gotta give a real more question. Then okay, well more question and

then we read. I love it, thinking, um, and you what you did say that black people are wants misunderstood people in America. I want to know what do you want non black people to understand? First of all, I wanna I want non black people to know when I know this is truely because I have living witnesses in my life. Belovedly, you don't even have to be black to bound black. You don't even have to be black

to bed online. That's some vidius a man man. I want them to know that we are not as tethered to their grueful as they made think or have been led to believe. I want, I want them to understand that the centeredness of likeness, it's not necessarily their fault as white people matriculating on this today, right, but it is a by product of a global system of colonialism and white supremacy that is rooted in a notion of scarcity.

It's rooted in a notion that says there's not enough filling the blank food seats at good schools, jobs, men. And if you replace it with the actuality, at least, my God tells me there's plinty. My God tells me there is abundance. And if you believe in the abundance, you do not have to be tethered to the white methodology of scarcity, which is the root cause of all the annihilation, of all the colonialism, of all the blood shed around white supremacy, on all the years, of all

the places. So I want non black people to not be afraid to compete. None if you buck, but no, because the most beautiful and successful white people I know are not tethered to their innate whiteness as their superpower. The don't white people I know happen to be white. They don't need to be white, and that's a difference. Um. So I just want us to all relish in that actuality. And that's a part of the reframing that the book is rooted in. Thank you, Thank You. I wanted to.

I don't want to be a one person question regiquation. You were up Hi Hi a sorceerraise. Do you missus here in l An I do. I don't miss much else, but I miss y'all definitely. My question. My question, Um, there is a reperation movement in California. I'm aware, and uh, my question is what would be your call to action? Where are the residents and the allies if you were still here in the gray stand California. So it's a

great question, sorceriies. She's also a fellow attorney. I covered this on my INTOLACP Image Award nominated podcast, Holding Court when she Drops Everywhere, And I and I actually use y'all's governor Gavin Newsom as an example. Perfect. He is not, but on this issue, he is a great opportunity for those of us who don't believe reparations is the right

thing to do, is the just and moral thing to do. Okay, when you talk about reparations, you're not talking at least I'm not talking about the Ultimately my legal lens is a period which I see this story right, I'm not talking about being on the right side of history. I'm talking about paying your bills. I'm talking about settling your debts. I'm talking about the restoration of it all, the restitution of it all, making one hope from which you've already drive.

So Gavin Newsom and what he's doing on reparations, now folk can get to me distracted in the why he's doing it. He wants to learn cool. They'm a politician that y'all know, black, white, or other who is not setting policy with the overall admission of their career tragetory. I don't really give a damn about that. What I do know is the guy that Newsom in the state of California is modeling at at the biggest level that you've got pockets, You've got St. Louis doing a task

for us. You've got play Vingston. I think Illinois has done some things sometimes. And that's all very important too, because we know that this is to be successful, y'all nationally, the black folks to get rescue. I would said, well it is. I would start calling restitution and reparations. It has had a critical mass component. So I'll tell you when I'm doing in New York, I'm saying, yo, Eric Adders, you lay you laying at and chump you like that?

Play no, but seriously, right like you, you have got to look at those in national conversations around Paul, let's see as it relates to this issue. And you have to start using the advances of one to point out the deficiencies of another. Why Why in what world is New York City, in New York State not at the vanguard of this issue. You let the West coast play you like that? You know, So that's kind of part

of what I'm doing. And I would say for those and you here in Los Angeles and in broader California, push harder. It's gonna be the young parents call a positive reinforcement. Seriously acknowledge the celebration of what And you know, the only thing I'll say too, closeries is the the thing about politics, It's a negotiation. You were negotiating our

vote on behalf of you your job security. What we have got to stop doing, which we're getting better, but we've still got a long ways to go, is negotiating on the back end. Right, any anybody in business, and certainly any more, you will tell you the time to negotiate the terms of your conditioning is not after the paperwork is okay, that's that's that's not We have got to start negotiating and demand. I say this in the book, is like to say a great place to close this

and go onto pictures and signing. One of the things Douglass Is taught me. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Black folks, we have got to be more demanding, not asking, not permissive, not waiting, not even on this one negotiating. We got to be more demanding than all My book The Last posa okay got you up to me? Yep off um for the people. I be in a thirty eight years, one month in five days, recently released my ten months ago.

I was riding down the stream and I saw two suster to sit here, and I protass I need to be an energy and so I got your kind of land yesterday. But mass incarceration, I don't know if that topic came up. But a voice as powerful as yours, it's even more powerful because I've listened to you over the years, I didn't know what was the strongest said up I've seen tonight policy, But what would we do a voice it's a potent or powerful and that's strong

or whatever. Well, how would you address of mass in carceerracing and keeping it in the face of somebody like Kathie Newton who has such control over he had as in carceerraction in their lives. So many people such as myself, thank you to that question, But so you probably not like used to practice from the defense work that was my grand mother for many years. So when I sat mass and conserration again, y'all proteins issues very differently than

most public intellectual or activist types. You will see I don't comment these issues from the motion, and I don't comment them from a place of field good. I don't even really care about doing the quote right thing. I have to dissect the issue to get to the nucleus and why it's an issue to begin with Black mass incarceration, it is predominantly blacks that are being mass incarcerated. Of course it's anti blackness, but we have got to d

incentivize the prison complex system on its face. As long as goods and services are really coming through the door of multimillions sometimes billion dollar corporations known as prisons, there's literally products and goods and services coming out of these institutions. So there is a little incentive for judges on a bench to not only wrongfully convict that's one problem, but it overly sentence that's another problem. So you've got a

bifurcated dub and sentence to fuel a financial industry. So until there's you know, more statutory regulation, more restrictions, more regulations or prohibitions that say we're actually not going to allow for a profit machine to exist inside of a penitentiary that supposedly is designed for rehabilitation. Around and around we go, thank you, thank you for your question. You were gonna put it happy? What he really paying over

pile talking to you? Happy? What? Thank you? Thank Heaven right where We're gonna take a pull while right here with Ali book. Thanks for listening to Malik's bookshelf where topics on the shelf, our books, culture and communities. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a read you check out my Instagram at Malik Books. See you next time.