Native Lampid is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reisent Choice Media.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome. I'm gonna tell you right here, when you put a poster over her face, that's why what brought she used to own the spot right over there. We're not fucking around. Don't come into this mother fucking neighborhood. Cover it up, icons, get this mother fucking shit out of here. Don't do it. When you see a black face here, don't put a mother fucking thing on it. God damn it. Well, you caused
a mother fucking problem, and don't do it again. Don't put a fucking thing on you. It parks in this neighborhood.
Welcome home, y'all. I'm your host, Angela Ry. This is the solo pod for Native lampod. And uh, what you just heard is from a very good friend of mine, good brother Omari Salisbury, who runs Converge Media. And what you saw happening there something that is all too familiar to many of us all throughout this country. When gentrification
invades your neighborhood. These are the kinds of reactions you may have that and it may be an outburst and maybe something that you hold, but it is something that made me want to put on my soft girl era sweater on the last day of Black not Black History Months. I wish it was still Black History Months Women's History Month because I needed to find some softness in this moment. But I'm going to bring in my good brother Omri so we could talk about this and how he was feeling. Omar, how are.
You, Angela. I'm good. I'm getting a little.
More calm today.
Yeah, you know, under every day, I'm a corner reserve guy.
You know the background.
Yeah, And so it surprised people, but it was just triggering, and I think I know now how people feel when they're like, man, I was triggered, and that was just years of just seeing us being really wallpapered over in our own community.
There was just a real triggering moment right there.
Well, let's back into it a little bit. So we saw what happened. And when you confronted him, tell me what was happening? When was this? Where were you in the city?
So, I mean, here's the thing is. And I was really in a great move.
This was Saturday and I was leaving Juggins playfield and it was the Little League Chamboree. They had all the black teams, team names, the steal Heads and the Owls and the crow Birds and everything. And I'm sitting there taking pictures, you know what I'm saying. So you know, I'm a big baseball guy. So this was great Little League Jamboree. And I just go four blocks. I get the twentieth in Jackson, I'm in a red light, and to be honest with you, I'm sitting there chilling them.
I'm oblivious.
Somebody drives Western Jackson basically crosses the intersection. He's yelling out the window and pointing over to the box, which is to the left of me. He's like, man, don't do that. And I'm like, well, what's going on? And so then I look right there, and what's not on the video was that the box was already papered over. You see what I'm saying. And so you know we should have been there. I'm from the turf. We're in the CD ced or see me. I just pulled my
car right there. I end up blocking traffic, you know what I'm saying. So that's when I get out the car and I'm yelling at him out the window. I'm like, hold up, what are you doing? And that's when it starts removing everything. And that's when I start the video. And you know what I'm saying, I think you just got to let people know because oftentimes we be too quiet. We keep this what my mom calls architectural trauma that we experience in our neighborhood. We internalize it and everything else.
But like, man, that day, at that time, and like I said, I was coming from a very happy space and people know me, I'm a real quiet person out in public, and yeah, but you know, it just needed to be said. You know, I still got apologized to my parents, to our elders and everything that for that, for that outburst. But you know, it's Angela. You from here, it's town business. It's we only fifty thousand strong in this city, you know what I'm saying. And so, man,
we ain't waving a white flag. We ain't give it up on nothing, and we used to having to fight for everything that we get, and so you know, it's a little bit of fight that came out on Saturday.
Well, and that's the thing you're talking about. Fifty thousand strong. It ain't always been that way. See this, which is this central district of course was majority black, the south end was majority black. Nine eight one one eight historically has been the most diverse zip code in the entire country, not just the state. And so when you see something like that, I also don't want to erase the sister
you're talking about. So you mentioned I want to talk about who was Rawa to especially it's women's history, wen. So I think it's a good time to let people know about our local heroes.
Yeah, so, I mean Rawa sheep man.
She owned the spot there when I was pointing across the street in the video called man the hid Moh.
But even more than that, it was it was all about you know, it's.
Community space, things that we really be missing these days, really into the arts, arts scene, to the music scene, to just young creatives, right, And I mean she meant a lot to a lot of people in our community. And you know, one of the one of the reasons that she lost the hib mah, you know, the hipmo clothes, was because of these shifting demographics or gentrification displacement however we want to call it, you know, And she had died a few years after that, and so this wasn't
because there are some icons. If you go to twenty thirty Union, there's there's Earl Is on a box, Earl Is still with us.
You know, he's living.
He's mad an icon as well, and you know he's on one of those boxes. But you know, she's someone very beloved in so many different communities, and it really struck a nerve. There's so many different types of people that have hit me, you know, regularly just just black women. There's the artist, there's immigrant community, there's there's man, there's so many different people because she touched so many different people's lives. And man, you know, Malcolm X said, it's real.
The black woman is the most disrespected person on earth. Man, Come on, man, you know what I'm saying. We can't just sit there. It's a small thing. It isn't the whole whatever. But man, it's just not okay. And what people should know is real real quick is like because of gentrification and displacement, neighborhood and here in Seattle, that's the same neighborhood that Jimmy Hendrix is from. That's the same neighborhood that Quincy Jones met Ray Charles on twenty
thirty Jackson and the rest is history. You know a lot of people don't understand the black history in Seattle, and because of this just gentrification displacement right.
Now, man, some of us.
All we got left is these power boxes that have murals to pass icons.
So it's serious business for us.
Yeah, I think that what struck me one, I've never heard you that loud. So I was like, oh, I got to watch to see what happened. And what did strike me was I remember Omari And I haven't told you this, but I was sitting down when I you know it, just like firmly planning back home. I was
sitting down talking to our former mayor, Bruce Harrow. We're sitting there, like right across the street from Seattle, you where I went to law school where I mean again, he's also a hometown hero, legend, played football, you dubbed, like all of that grew up with, you know, my family. And so Bruce is sitting there, some random white guy is riding by on a bike and screams f you at him, and I'm like, I jump up, like I'm
what I'm Bruce has a whole security detail. I jump up and Bruce's like, Nah, it's okay, that's just how people feel. But that's not how we came up. Like, you don't yell out expletives at our elders, you know, no, I don't care who you are. And so it's what is jarring about what you displayed on that video is how blatant the disrespect is. And I think the reason why it's gotten so many reposts and so much traction OMRI is because people have continued to witness this and
they haven't let out that rage. And it's not just happening in our city.
Come on, man, like, so people should know, right Seattle, there's probably more, but like officially, Seattle has a civil rights assassination.
And that was Edwin T. Pratt.
He was the former head of the NAACP and everything else, right, and he was he was a few months I think after doctor King. And that's like Seattle's civil rights assassination. Like standing it was kind of almost like how Mega Evers got killed. Evert Practice was there in the crib. He got murdered in front of his family. There's a
building there in our neighborhood. There's a pract building and this apartment building pract you know, I go over there, bro, and the people in the building is looking at me like I ain't supposed to be there. It's named after this civil rights icon this you know what I'm saying, and so like that, that's how crazy it is. And you know, in our neighborhood right now, and it's a lot of stuff that you know, it's people in the Central District. We grin and we bury it and we
try to figure it out everything else. But there is a collective yell. There is a like a frustration to it there. There there is you know, I mean, man, it hurts to be displaced, it hurts to be erased, It hurts to be papered over and still have to pick yourself up every day. You know what I'm saying.
We have a strong cultural history and here to the Central District of Seattle, on the south end of Seattle, and those ties are being cut and they're not being cut even with care, They're being cut with disregard.
Yeah, And that's just that's exactly it. To the point. You know, we were raised with the elders who made sure that we can never forget our history. That's not everybody's story. So the question really is for the folks who are coming in here and don't know our history. What obligation, what collective obligation do they have, not just
black transplants, but also white folks who come in. What is their obligation to know our history, to know the responsibility they hold to not paper over us, to not erase us.
Yeah, you know, as somebody who's who's been a migrant worker, almost a majority of my career, I spent like twenty years overseas. I've been in sixty five countries, launched TV and radio stations all over the world. Launched a TV station and the UAE and radio and all kinds of stuff in East Africa, Tanzania, Rwanda. Man, whenever I was in a new country or a new place, first thing I really did was learn the customs overall generally and
especially in my neighborhood. You feel me like, I mean, it ain't hard to really go and some things are definitely universal.
When you see art, and.
Especially art of a person, of the description of a human being, you're not supposed to like deface that anywhere. Like we shouldn't have to go to remedial school for that. But like I'll just let people know first, sure, and be very clear here on your podcast that man, when you're coming to the Central District of Seattle. Man, it's great, you know, we welcome here or whatever. It's all good, But man, you need to move with some regard and some care for the people.
Understand. I'll throw this in here real quick, an over run out of time.
What's unique about our neighborhood is it's one hundred and forty years old. It's older than the state of Washington. William Gross about that land from Henry Yesler over one hundred and forty years ago on what's now twenty third Union.
And Henry Gross was a baller. We didn't come out here begging.
We came out here buying, you know, a a long long time ago. And you know, and our history here, black folks history precedes the State of Washington as buyers and owners and land owners.
And people just need to respect that.
Yeah, they do well. I respect exactly how you responded to getting papered over o Maria. I bet you he won't do it again. And in the meantime, what I hope we can do, good brother, is really fine. Time to hold these conversations in public spaces so that black folks know we see each other, and then we figure out what our collective response is going forward, so that we feel safe in a city that we helped to build.
Man anytime, Agela, I'm here for it.
Thank you, O. Marie, take care all right, y'all. Well, I wanted you all to hear what's happening in my town. And I really appreciate Omri's response because so many people look at these things. We scream, we gas, our mouths drop open. But the erasure is real and it doesn't just happen in Seattle right now. It is also happening in the state of Kentucky. There is an HBCU Kentucky State University, which I believe was established in eighteen sixty six.
The state legislature, Senate Bill one eight five, I believe is working to change the mission of that institution. So I asked one of my good friends who is in Kentucky. He is moving all over the state right now. He's also running for the United States Senate. His name is Charles Booker. Asked him to join us today to talk about what is going on, what's the collective response in what black people all over the country can do to ensure that we push back against this.
Hello Charles, Hey Angela, it's good to be with you.
Good to be with you too. Your fight looks a little different than on Maris, but it's important. Nonetheless, whatever our means are, as long as our goal, our end goal is the same, that's what we got to do. So talk to us a little bit about what's happening with Kentucky State.
Well, what we're seeing with K State University is an attack on not just an institution, but on identity, on culture, on community, and it's something we're seeing across the country with the underfunding and undermining of HBCU. So K State is, like you said, an esteemed institution, and this legislation now is essentially going to put it under state control and completely restructure it, essentially turned it into a trade school.
They're calling it a polytechnic school. And not only would it erase the sense of community, substantially reduce enrollment, substantially reduced the number of courses and options available for students, but also for Greek organizations, which of course I'm a member of Cap Alphacib Fraternity Incorporated, would force them to
essentially have to reapply for their charter. It's completely eroding the sense of community and place that has been a staple for so many across Kentucky and across the count and beyond. I have folks on my campaign staff who are from k State University and everybody who has been blindsided, and they're afraid of not only what's happening to us, but this broader picture of the erasure and just the trampling on the identity of so many people who help build this country.
I got to ask you, what you think the reason for this is, Like, it's not new for HBCUs to be collapsed into traditionally white institutions. I used to work at NAFIO, and it was a battle we would have all the time, SUNO and UNO, Southern University of New Orleans, University of New Orleans. There was a constant battle the closure of the schools. What do you think is the reason that the Senate, in particular in the state of Kentucky wants to do this now.
Well, this conversation has been years in the making. When I was a state legislator, we actually had a lot of battles around protecting Kentucky State University as our HBCU and of course we have Simmons College as a private HBCU here in Louisville. But a lot of the argument had really revolved around the necessity of having Case State
as an HBCU. There are folks in the legislature, in political power who do not see the importance of institutions that center the black experience, black community, our culture, and account for the brave injustice in our country. And so year after year, Case State has not received the funding that it is needed and that it has been deserved. And we know that's true across the country. A lot
of our HBCUs have been grossly underfunded. We've seen studies showing the Case State was underfunded to the tune of nearly two hundred million dollars over the last three decades. And so to essentially claw the funding back and then say, Okay, since you're struggling with the crumbs, let me punish you by taking more funding away. Okay, now you're struggling with that,
let's just get rid of you all together. That is very part and parcels to the experience that my ancestors have facing this country that we certainly face today, and it's why I'm running for that is why I'm standing up. We have to fight back.
What do you think your response would be? Certainly? The one thing I appreciate about your charles too, is you don't wait to be an elected office to make a difference, to weigh in to advocate. So I know what your position is right now, But what do you think would be different if you were in the United States Senate with this issue on the table? How would you respond?
Well, you know, my main argument for why we need to not just argue in the streets, which we got to do. We gotta make noise in the streets, but we have to also go into this places where decisions and policies are made, is because we need leaders in
those positions who see our humanity. So having a United States Senator that understands the value of black institutions, that understands the importance of equity, that understands the importance of diversity, because right now there is a very widespread campaign to essentially say that diversity is easy. The people that I'm running against petition on the Republican side are putting out ads saying that it's Unamerican, it's evil, it's an attack
on cre ristianity. I mean, they're saying all the things to essentially erase us, and we know the Senate has an important role in not only securing funding and infrastructure resources for our HBCUs, but being an advocate and using that bully pullpit. Right now, we can't be silent. This is not just about HBCUs. We're seeing the rature of our history in real time. We're seeing the undermining and
the attacks on humanity from every angle. People are struggling to find a way to just put food on the table, and we know that education is a part of the key forward. So when they're attacking education, they're letting us know, hey, we don't value your life. And what I know and what I'm hopeful about, is that so many voices, not just the lum student leaders, faculty people are speaking up, the NAACP, they're speaking up to call out the fact that this is not going to happen on our watch.
Because they're trying to rush this bill through. They were hoping no one would notice, but we did notice. And even as a candidate, I'm working with our colleagues out in the States to help raise the noise and make sure that we're taking direct action to make sure if they're going to run us over, they want to look us in the eyes. And at the federal level, we need leadership that will fight for working people, that will fight for the hard task, for the critical task of
pulling up the roots of racism and white supremacy. And we need our black institutions to do that.
Absolutely. You brought up the students. I know students were marching today on the Capitol, but also there is a student response that we have to a local news station there, So let's run that clip.
We want to get across through the message.
A small group of leaders meet in the student Activity Center to strategize.
So I feel like we're washing everything. And again we're just going to do the same thing with Kentucky State University.
They're concerned cenerfl one eight five will have deep negative impacts on the historic black university established in eighteen eighty six.
We cannot sit back and say it's okay.
It's not okay.
We need to say it.
The word polytech new vision for the school from the state legislature has the student bodies attention.
If it changed the polytech that mean that all liberal arts majors will go online and we would lose a sense of community that we have as black students here.
The small group then met with a larger group inside Bradford Hall to discuss proposed amendments to the bill. They hope to have their voices heard by more lawmakers Tuesday, and.
We're demanding to keep our identity. And we are also demanding that they support more than a thousand students on campus. And the bill it actually states that they would only support at least a thousand students, So we actually want to have more students on campus.
You know, the main point here, Charles, is that students are activating. We are often under you know, the mistaken assumption that it takes a huge number of people to make a difference. You saw that auditorium. It was not full. I wish that it was. It would be for a concert, it might be for you know, a good basketball team or a good football team. I just wish that we could ensure not just our young people, but all of
us were more actively engaged. What are some of the things that you are doing in Kentucky tonsure broader engagement with our folks.
Well, you nailed it. A lot of coming from the struggle I come from the Hood West and a little but I mean, we're so used to being screwed over and disregarded and seeing our resources taken away that you almost just prepare for it. And a lot of what I'm doing now, even in running for Centate, but also in my organization, Hood to the Holler, is giving people permission to use their voice, to know that if we speak up, if we locker rooms together, we can change things.
And Good to the Holler is so important to me because standing up for this institution is not just a fight for Black Kentuckians. A strong KSU is a strong Kentucky and we know that in order for us to heal our deepest wounds as a society, we have to protect and invest in the culture and community for all people. And this is why reparations are needed. And so using my platform to lift up story telling to help support
direct actions, they help cause good trouble. We show up in the streets, we show up in the halls where those decisions are made, and so a lot of people know that my campaign and candidacy for Senate is a testament to that work. And that's why I'm excited about these young people stepping up to say, wait a minute, we know our voices matter, we know our lives matter, we know this institution matters, and we know you've been underfunding it and you're not going to use that as
a reason to take it away. So I'm proud of them, and I really appreciate you having us to shine this light because we suffer in silence all too often and we can't allow that now.
Absolutely Well, my good friend Charles Booker's running for Senate in Kentucky and also fighting a good fight to ensure that Kentucky State University's mission does not change. For more information on Booker for Senate, where can they find you, Charles?
They go to Charles Booker dot org. We'll be lifting up not only this issue about Kentucky State University, but the fight for humanity for our whole country.
Amazing. Thank you so much for joining us today. Always all right, well, y'all, this has been an amazing show. I hope that when you get home at your kitchen table, you continue to talk about these issues. It's not all bad. There are some good things happening to. Brandy got a star on the Walk of Fame in California and There's a really dope speech that Isa Ray did at her ceremony, and so I wanted to share that. As we end this,
I keep wanting to say Black History Month, y'all. I'm black every month, okay, but Women's History Month, because it's such an incredible thing to see two young black women lifting each other up. Lisa talks about all the many ways in which Brandy inspired her in her career. So I want to roll that clip and that is how we'll go home. So welcome home, y'all.
Everyone. Hi Randy. Nice to be true. I'm so so honored to be year. I've never said yes faster to a text from my publicist who asked me to be here on behalf of Brandy to speak to Brandy. I talk about Brandy and in all of my interviews, and they told me I have two minutes to talk about her. So i'mna I'm gonna get to it. I wasn't gonna use the two minutes to just sing, have you ever loved somebody so much? And makes you cry? But I won't. I won't do that in front of you or to
you guys. The first time I saw Brandy, I had no idea how much I needed to see Brandy. I was in fourth grade when I Want to Be Down came out, and that single was the first tape I ever bought with my own allowance money, which was two dollars a week from Sam Goodie. And when the Broken Hearted remix came out, I was singing my heart out like I had. I had suffered the.
Deepest pain.
On the school bus. I was so excited when it came on in the race video, Rinda came on the radio and I was singing it and I was sitting next to my crush and he was like, who sings this song? And I was like Brandy proudly, and he was like, then let her sing it. So that was my first heartbreak. Thank you, Brandy, and so much for that. Brandy is a star for so many reasons, but her transition to acting was a game changer. While her first official role was as Stia's daughter and Thea, it was
really Moesha that made me understand what was possible. It was the first show that I'd ever seen told from an ordinary black teenage girl's point of view. Said in La, the same city I was born in, and we moved back to that same year it premiered, Brandy made Mosha someone I wanted to befriend, the girl I wanted to be. At a time when beauty standards on television looked nothing like us, Brandy was the standard. The smile, the eyes, the braids, the way she carried herself. She was cool
without trying and beautiful without apology. Mosha gave me confidence over confidence. In some cases, you guys will never see those pictures, they will never see the light of day, but they're all because of her, and she made it all look effortless because she was put in so much work, honestly, and you didn't know that from behind the scenes. But the most inspirational part of her career is just how
she had no lanes. As her career progressed, so did her ambitions movies, the first Black Cinderella, as you guys heard Broadway producing, she didn't need to stay in one lane. To me, Brandy was and is the blueprint. Without Brandy as Moesha, there's no Parkers, there's no girlfriends, there's no insecure, and honestly, without Mosha, there's no me as a Because at eleven years old, that show gave me the confidence to write my very first TV sitcom, which was so, so,
so bad, but thank god I got better. Bradie. I just want to thank you so much for your impact. Thank you for showing a little girl from LA that her story was worth telling. And this star has always been yours. I love you so much, Thank you for all you do.
Native Lampard is a production of iHeart Radio and partnership with Reising Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.