Natively and pot is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.
Nobody knows the troubles I've seen.
Welcome Home to That was pretty terrible. I had dreams coming out to an audience he's a hater, and that was not what I expected. I wanted people standing up, walk off stage real quick, Andrew, I got a court walk off stage.
No, no, no, this is the compromise.
We're actually going to bring on a third special host tonight and maybe y'all give that person a little more love. But let me let me just say before we get too far into this one, it is a complete pleasure, joy privileged to be in the great state of Georgia.
Uh.
My mother lives in Georgia, was born in Georgia. Down in South Georgia. Valdosta is where she's at. Uh, but raised in this area called Clydesville. I actually don't know if it's Clyettesville, the Clydesville.
You know they're not in here.
Yeah, But the point is is that they are watching Bacari, which a rude ass. Anyway, I just wanted to say we are down one of our co hosts today, Angela Raie and she wanted to be here with everything in her But the day before yesterday, her father had to go to the emergency room and they discovered some issues that required her him going into surgery today. And so she's back in Seattle with her family, tending to her parents.
But right now and touch.
And agree, we will simply invoke God have your way, and we know what will be perfect.
Man man, amen, amen, amen. I love that. So one of the things that.
We remember about Angela most importantly is that she actually thought that Florida and M University.
Isn't that what it's called.
No, sir, you wouldn't know.
And Morehouse College had a rivalry, and what I kept telling me, we didn't have a rivalry there.
Val I do want.
Anyway, So I want everyone who's in the room who actually went to an HBC, you just to clap really quickly so people know that you all are in here.
Thank you.
And for everybody else who didn't go to an HBC. You will go to the next topic, which is to bring on. What we want to do is make sure that everybody knows that we have a host who uh was She actually was here before I was.
She sure was a four hundred episodes.
For a four hundred episodes, and there is a little thing on Wikipedia right now this says she left because I came. So I'm glad that we are going to be able to address that today. But she was phenomenal in MSNBC. She's a New York Times best selling author. She has another book out right now, none other than Tiffany Kraus.
Welcome Home to the Natives.
Leaning on the podcast, face everybody.
Did you can we get a thank you for all the priming we did for your standing ovation in the room.
I know they ain't even clap for us.
I mean after Bacari kicked me off the podcast, that you can do.
There's that.
I just told everybody I was Beyonce and that we had a pharaoh, and we realized who Pharaoh was as soon as she left the group.
I didn't even know.
Who Pharaoh was.
Hey, I'm gonna say this is the d I'm gonna just give a little brief lesson on the dangers of AI because on my last show I said this being silly, I was like, well, when Bakari joined, he said, he's Beyonce and there can only be one Beyonce in this group, and so he put it in his contract that I had to leave when he came. Because AI cannot detect sarcasm when you google dwhy did Tiffany leave native Land? That was the answer that came up.
Yes, it came up.
People wouldn't see me out and they were like, gird, can't believe Bakari, And I was like me either, me either.
So I have haters I didn't even know.
But know the good news is you had haters before, but now they have a reason, Bakari to hate all you think. No serious note, I also know that we have some maybe less famous people to you to the audience here, but very famous to me. My dad's sister, my aunt Patricia Gilham Sam's is here with my cousin La Laura and Blake and Sage and missus Sam. So I just want to thank them because I am because you are.
So can I give a quick shout out? You must please A dear, dear, dear friend of mine who is now mister popular in Atlanta. But Joelan Martin is a representative with Remy Martin and he I've known him my entire life. He is my family.
Oh I mean remy family.
Oh Remy Martin Gartree roomy for everybody. He is here somewhere, I think somewhere in the back table. But he has known me my whole life since I was fifteen. So when you see him doing promoting events out for Remy Martin, show him some love. Thank you, Joelan, wherever you are.
We are nothing without all of you all.
Absolutely amazing thing is when when black folks try to do things in black spaces, it becomes really really interesting sometimes. And so on a It's what night, Tuesday, on a Tuesday night for all of you all to be here, I just want to say that with ay tickets. My mom and dad would always tell me the two most important words in the English language are the words thank you,
and they're not nearly said enough. And so before we begin tonight's pod, I just want to simply say thank you, thank you for your time, and thank you for your treasure. And in the words of the great American poet Dwayne Carter also known as Lil Wayne, we ain't shit without y'all, and so thank you so much.
For all like you all being here.
Y'all have a seat, so we actually one of the things we want to talk about first is and one of the things since Tiffany is here is the first I called it the five and a half year point and Andrew and I got into a fight in the car on the way over here because it fam they don't know how to do math, but you're a joke.
Five and a half years.
Of Donald Trump, and I wanted to hear because many people don't realize like that, that's been five and a half years of consistently, every single day just being beat down and put upon by the news that's coming.
Before you go. I want to defend my math. First of all, it hasn't been a five consistent years. Oh my god, it was broken up by four years of Biden. But really, the thought I had was Donald Trump one point zero has turned out to be He's got all the awfulness that was there the first time, but now
he has the mechanisms, the levers of the government. The people who are willing to be sick aphantic committed simply to him and not to the Constitution, not to their olds, not to the country on its two hundred and fiftieth birthday.
And so I think two point oh.
Trump is exceptionally more dangerous because he's he is I think there is a mental situation that that needs to be worked out. I think there is some issue of aging just ohd. But more importantly, now it's not just old, it's old and henre and more than that, dangerous when you're so hateful and at his court, he's hateful and so now that he doesn't have to care about public opinion anymore, I think the next two years, Donald Trump now a deer in the headlights, with Democrats hopefully winning
back control. Dictators before they die, do their most extreme work, their most dangerous work, their most terrifying work. And so I just think we ought to prepare ourselves for what's still to come, because if Democrats flipped the House and the Senate, y'all, we got another thing coming up with this president, he's gonna he's going to take action and ask questions later.
So thank you for showing us how you did math and narrator, he did not show up.
I did do math five.
But what I would what I wanted to do is ask Tiffany, like over the last year and a half, I mean, we My dad always says the difference between Donald Trump and Richard Nixon is that Richard Nixon had shame and Donald Trump has none, all right, And so what over the last what are the highlights and low lights over the last year and a half, because we both of y'all, that's what I want to know. What have you seen that has shocked the conscience? What have
you seen that's been like hmmm? And what do you look forward to over the next year and a half before we get to the elections or half a year before we get into the next election cycle.
So I think the highlight has been the unmasking. I think there's not a lot of surprise to us. We've always known and this is not anything new to the country. I hate when I hear people say this is not who we are, this is not America. It's actually pretty consistent. Even a modest student of American history understands how consistent it is. The challenge, though I have kind of putting this in the highlight, is it has tapped into our imagination in a lot of ways because I hear you
Andrew like, oh, let the Democrats take control again. And I don't know if I'm on that anymore. You know, I am not too keen to save something that never really served us in the first place.
And that's not what It's not.
The Democratic Party, but it is democracy itself because Donald Trump was elected through a democratic system. When Roe was overturned, that happened through a democratic system. So when you're navigating this space with people whose beliefs are rooted in your oppression and destruction, I don't know how we coexist with those people in a democratic society. Now, obviously this means we have to go out and fight on every front. So, yes, we have to go out and vote, Yes we have
to go out in canvas. Yes we got to write a check when we can. But I wonder, okay, so if Democrats get control, then what we gonna do with it? Because you see now never Trumpers, well named never Trumpers, posting things like abolish ice. Now, there was a wing of the Democratic Party when that was happening. They didn't like that. And so now when you see never Trumper's this, and certain people in the Democratic Party, it is appalling.
I am pissed off about it because you're like, oh, so it wasn't such a radical idea, It wasn't so bad when we were out there screaming this on the streets. I think in the Democratic Party, you still see the suppression of black women and other black voices when it comes to who's getting a contract to help you reach community, community validators, when it comes to who's getting backed, when it comes to who they think is a viable candidate. And as Black women, I have to say, we are
so tired of that shit. Right now. It feels like we are still begging to be heard, begging to lead in a space that routinely mutes our voices and dismisses us. So looking at all the lows of Donald Trump, it has pierced for me something in my spirit. Where I look at what's happening, nothing is a surprise because we already saw it's really to correct both, y'all, math it's been ten years, because he came on the scene in
sixteen and has been a terror ever since. And so when I look at there's no surprise, and I look at this isn't I'm not a Kamala Harris Sika fan. But she was a well qualified candidate, the most qualified candidate. And when I look at you saw this half witted idiot and said I would rather vote for him than her, it makes me question, y'all really hate us, You really
hate us, So I'm a little disheartened and heartbroken. So I don't really have highlights other than like, I don't know y'all in this room, but I know every single last one of y'all in this room, and so I'm blessed to be part of a community because where I see y'all, I feel safe, and I think this environment has highlighted that for me more than anything.
I don't applause to that because I don't know that I have a point of disagreement about your analysis on where the country has failed. But in two hundred and fifty years, a country, to quote angela ride that was built by us for free, is not one that we should just let folks gallivant around and celebrate and take no part in appreciating the role that black folks have contributed to bending the arc of justice a little more our way. And while it's not perfect, it's absolutely not perfect.
It'd be hard to wake up doing this work, working every day in a system that yes, rejects you, doesn't like you, figures out ways to create quicksand for every step that we take. But there are wrinkles in this thing where we've seen moments where we have been able to thrive.
Where we can think long enough to just take a.
Deep breath and say, who, I'm so glad that this isn't yesterday, but I'm still hopeful that tomorrow will be better.
I know that I rejoice in.
The fact that coming from where I came from, with the my mother and my father and the way they had to work, and the way I in which I saw their lifestyles rejected, and then to have a son go on and be the first of their kids to graduate from high school and then go on to college and compete for the highest office in the land in Florida.
I know that there are steps.
We didn't get there, but there's steps, and there's cracks, and their folks will come by and us and do better. What I'm hopeful for about twenty twenty six is that I'm not being a cheerleader for the Democrats. But what I do want is somebody who's going to put handcuffs on the Trump administration based off of the lawlessness that.
They exhibited over these last four years.
Every candidate who is running for office, we have to ask them, because Democrats are terribly afraid of saying, oh, we're gonna impeach and oh, we're going to investigate because they're afraid they'll lose Republicans if they say we're going to hold them accountable. But you cannot get my vote, I will show up at a poland I will vote at blank ballot if I can't hear from you that you believe one hundredth one thousand percent in account of and these next two years must be committed to holding
these people accountable. If we don't do it, y'all, if they don't in Congress, lock some people up, and there are a lot of them to be locked up.
If they don't claw back some.
Of the money, they'll monuments called clause where the president has taken just the grift. His family's getting richer and richer by the billions. Well, everything that we have to go and pay for in a grocery store costs more money. They're over there, his son don't even work for the government, is negotiating a peace treaty on the behalf of who
And we wonder why the peace treaties keep failing. Then the president comes out and makes a positive statement and the markets go crazy and they get another winfall of money. So I'm just saying if folks don't go to jail, that's how I could be. I'm not a Democrat and two twenty eight, but as if we don't lock some people up.
I hear you, and I think that I'm a little bit more firm than both of you guys in my stands, not saying that you're wrong, because I would just footnote both of the things that you all say.
But elections are about choices. I don't I don't.
I don't think people fully grasp but that when you go to that ballot box and most elections you have an A or a B. Right, And I know that the weariness that we have is that black folk in this room, regardless of where we come from or our plot in life, are usually voting to mitigate harm. Of course, that's that is how we vote, That's how we approach voting, right,
I mean, And that's an unfortunate stance. One of one of the things that I've always told people is that one of one of my goals in life is to make sure that black folks can get out of out of.
Saying the word survive and begin to say the word thrive.
Like that's where I want us to be and I recognize the difficulty because Tiffany articulated that, like I don't have and I call names and because I don't care, but I don't have the utmost faith in the King Jefferies, right, I just he doesn't for me. It doesn't when I take a shower at night and I'm in this singing Joe Deasy to show to after party in the hotel, like I'm.
Not thinking about how y'all don't know that album next next.
Okay, anyway, so I'm not thinking about how King Jefferies is going to take me to the Promised Land.
Like that's not that's not my my goal.
On line, I don't think we should be by the way b I think we make a mistake when we keep casting individuals but are safe.
But see, my goal is different. But my goal is different.
I don't I don't have a Messiah complex, which is what a lot of black folks have. And I'm talking to us, like a lot of us have this complex where we're waiting on the next great We're waiting on Barack Obama like democrats, Black folk, we had this thing where we're waiting on Barack Obama, waiting on JFK. Worriiting on this person like a codal personality. I'm not waiting
on that. My goal is very simple because I firmly believe that every ounce of change we've ever had in this country has been because of black blood that flowed through the streets. And when I say that, I'm talking about like sixty four to sixty five Voting Rice Act is because white people were able to see us get beat on the Edmon Pettus Bridge.
Right.
The sixty eight Fair Housing Act is all because LBJ had to do something with black folk because they saw King get assassinated. In South Carolina, we didn't have a conversation about the Confederate flag until nine people, including my friend Clym, were killed in a church.
Right.
You don't have a conversation about criminal justice reform unless you have Danella Fraser, black woman seventeen years old, takes her camera out and sees George Floyd with a knee in the back of his neck for over nine minutes. So I'm very cognizant of the fact that the price for change for black people in this country is really,
really high. And what I'm trying to do with my life is dry that cost down and so that's how I kind of look at the political spectrum, like what is going to make Sadie and Stokely have to not pay what Abraham Lincoln call kind of the the the ultimate price of our angels in order to have the change that they deserve. And so I'm just trying to cost drive the cost of change for black folk down.
And I think that that is why I see it more clear eyed in terms of the alternatives we have at the ballot box while trying to hold Democrats accountable. For me, it's a very easy choice under most circumstances.
For a lot of people, is not an easy choice when they compare that My life was in heale before, it's been inhale through Democrats, and I'm not sure what's going to change after them.
And for the.
First time, I'm prepared to lean a little bit in into that reality that a lot of folks lives, they don't don't experience tangible at home changes in their lives, meaning it didn't get radically better.
No, no, no, let me just finish this one.
It didn't get radically better when Democrats were in charge of the House, Senate and the presidency. We still were mitigating against harm because the political climate didn't create room.
For we webs because you didn't get a single payer system. No still have you still have people who you still have for example, you still have rural health care systems that are able to thrive. You still have to get it. Who are able to be on their healthcare to their
the age of twenty six, I get it. There are women in this room that had C sections and those were considered to be pre existing conditions and they were excluded from getting health care that now can get health care because of what we now call Obamacare, they call the Affordable Care Act.
Right, but the a lot of things that we often give them from Washington is not what they are actually asking for. So we've got We've seen people who send millions or billions from down from the federal government, and the folks say.
I didn't need a check, I needed a job. I wanted the opportunity.
I needed you simply to take your foot off my neck and open the door and I can go in and do the work. Most black men I was talking to during these elections, including mine.
Was like Gillowians, and you for no handout. We ain't never got no handout.
They were putting their shoulder to the wheel day after day, understanding that they had to put sweat, equity, body, ancestral equity into getting just a thing out of it. I'm prepared this election to simply say, you mentioned you will vote, that there's a time and a season for everything, and I think this may not, in twenty six be the season where we hear Democrats cast incredible visions for what they're going to do over the next two years for the country.
Because they can't do it.
Donald Trump will still be president and he can steal veto I don't need that from them for twenty six. I want you to reconcile the terra that has been wrought on all of us over these last several years of this administration, hold people accountable, slow this man down and the damage that he is causing. And in twenty twenty eight, if you're running for president, vision cast tell me what your your hope's highest ambitions and dreams are.
I just think that's such.
A I hear you. I appreciate the point. I don't disagree. I just think it's for both of you all. It feels like such a low bar for all that we have done, and.
Bar is in hell right now.
That's what I'm saying. Hey, that's what I'm saying. And I'm just done with that low bar. Like you're saying, like, oh, can we have a society where we don't have to make a blood sacrifice for change? And you're saying, you know, can.
All you can do is be breathing?
And I got you right, But like you're saying, can they lock up some of the Trump people? And that seems like the most basic shit of all.
That's what It's going to be the hardest thing they.
Do, even if it's the hardest thing they do, though, Like my politics are not Democrat, my politics are Black, and I'm really exhausted with trying to convince a party that we disproportionately uphold of our humanity. And you talked about Abraham Lincoln. Another thing Abraham Lincoln said is after enslavement, he was like, you know what, maybe we can't live together like we we y'all ain't never gonna forgive what we did to y'all, and y'all not gonna ever forgive
us for what we did. And I'm starting to let me. I'll just give you two seconds. See what I can't get into minutes.
To finish my point.
The point is he's like, maybe we can't live together. And so I have been bearing witness for my entire forty seven years. Y'all supposed to gat a good girl.
I've never I have never say the number I got thirty years, last.
One of these forty seven years, and my entire forty seven years. And I know it's people older than me who have forgot more than I know, seeing terror, seeing our blood spill, and I just have not seeing a space where we can coexist peacefully. Like I'm not. I'm out of the business of trying to change hearts and minds. You know I don't. And you know, Bakari, like when I'm the times I'm at CNN, don't make fucking small talk with me. Don't turn to me during the commercial break.
I don't give a damn where you're oldest, think about going to college, or where y'all going on summer vacation. You here advocating for some bullshit that's rooted in people shooting a mom in the face and a nurse in the back. Don't say shit to me. That's how I feel, And so I'm angry right now. Don't tell me you an ally show me. We'll let you know if you
an ally show me what you're doing. So I'm not so aligned to say, oh, let's get out there and elect more Democrats, because a lot of times what they say is I can win those Trump voters. I can reach across the aisle, my good friend. Don't tell me that. Tell me how you're gonna dance with the one who brung you. Tell me how you gonna keep me inspired
to get out. And every single time they walk in the middle of the road on APAX, they walk in the middle of the road, on the genocide, they walk in the middle of the road on they are deplorable people. They are racist, vile people who uphold this man under the guise of Christianity. And I'm just exhausted with it. So I'm not saying don't vote. Yeah, we're gonna go out and vote and do everything. If mid terms happen, we will go out and show up there. But no, no, no,
because I think this is an important point. You say they gonna happen.
They are everybody.
Seems to be waiting for some invisible line to be crossed with Donald Trump, because it is totally behind us. So the idea that we're taking for granted that midterms will happen, Maybe some form of midterms will happen. Will it be free and fair elections? I don't know, Or could it be that there's some sort of thing that happens, a terrorist attack. It's too dangerous for us to have mid terms. So he's gonna say, Nope, ain't no voting.
The more that we go along under the naivete of this is what we've always known, then that's.
More dangerous for us.
We have to be wise that some shit is gonna go.
We need to be prepared.
Folk have always been under the guys in the reality that some shit is going to go down. I mean, we come from a people where our grandparents in this room literally had to count the number of jellybeans in a jar in order to be able to cast a ballot.
When I ran for office the first time in two thousand and six, this wasn't a long time ago, but in two thousand and six, we had white folk to get out and they actually cranked a salt off shotgun in front of the on three twenty one in Denmark, South Carolina and got out the car because I had a line of voters outside and they walked around their truck the entire day. So I am not Yeah, I
believe that all the things you're saying are true. However, I also believe that there's nothing that we haven't overcome and should we have to is a totally different conversation because we all agree that the answer is we should not. I as like a random acide. I think, I don't know how many millennials are in the room, but you're not going to cheer to this, But I do think.
I do think millennials are the first generation. Black Millennials are the first generation in American history to actually leave the country worse uh than the one that we inherit it.
They haven't begun to make their mark in complete total.
I don't know that well, I mean, unless we get on our horse right now, I think, I mean, how much more.
First of all, we're forty.
Yeah, yeah, I'm glad.
You know there there are generations before us. I mean every twenty six, but I mean every I mean every movement for change was led by young people. And all I'm saying is my analysis of where we are right now is pretty pretty desperate.
Let me let's I actually.
Think a lot of young people have been the ones holding Democrats accountable to your.
Point on the general No, no, no, no, millennials gen.
Z ors owe us a whole lot and we're and I'm part of the very tail end.
So so let me let me ask you, but let me tell let the question so you can respond real quick. So what you're what you're I am saying that in our time frame of adulthood, like we've gone backwards.
Yeah, but you're saying that millennials.
No, I didn't tell you. That wasn't what you said. We have absolutely no, that's like fundamentally what I said.
Yes, but millennials are not responsible for the transgression, is what I'm saying. We as a country have absolutely gone back. So, first of all, Barack Obama was president of the United States when Mitch McConnell.
Decided to steal two US.
Supreme Court seats that put a Supreme Court in place that, for the first time in American history, took rights away from people instead of giving them.
Donald Trump became President of the United States, where many of our same friends were talking about. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were the lesser of two evils.
And many forty four to sixty five year old black men were voting the wrong way at that time and in marginal ways.
We lost ground in very pivotal stume, not because of it, on you were blaming.
What all I'm saying.
Is is that we are literally like in heroically like objectively.
It's literally, it's it's an objective fact. We are the first generation. If you look at if.
We are the first generation where we've lost rights. Correct, that's correct. My point is is that.
This is this is the bigger point, which is this is the bigger point I'd like to go to. I agree with you on that. Maybe I got confused the tequila is showing up.
I don't know the one drinking the tequila is showing up. That's my point.
But but what what I think I get your point. If elections happen, if this happens, if that happens. The reason I don't think the analysis was complete, which is they stole ballats. They came down here with a Sippia and took ballats out of Georgia. They attempted to do the same thing in Arizona. The president has already lit
what we like to call trial balloons. That is, you put an idea out there and see how much pushback you get to that idea before you come forward and say this is the policy I'm gonna pu or it is not. He has floated several trial balloons and has been swatted back by people taking actions saying you cannot
go there, mister President. And I got to tell you, I hate to acknowledge them, but many of those people who have done the swatting back have been Republicans that have said, if you go that far, you will not have my support. In fact, I'll be on the other side of that. They don't get no credit. But the fact is still the fact. And right now he ain't listening to Democrats. He doesn't care for Democrats, and they have the majority of the Senate and the majority of
the House. And until the Speaker of the House decides to put a check on the president, he's going to keep running roughshod. So will the elections happen? And am I gong ho about them? I'm gung ho about getting the man out of office, putting a check on him, and trying to rescue us from the bowels of hell that he's driven us to.
I agree with that, and then.
We can build on dreams and aspirations beyond him.
And see they don't they just bully me.
No, you say wrong things.
See actually I think I had anyway, So uh one of the we anticipated to have a fully political discussion with you guys for the entire hour of our discussion, right and talk about Donald Trump, in which we did. But we have a special guest that's joining us as well. I want you to bring her out first, and then I want a table set for discussion that I think that black men and black women need to have in a room such as this, because if we can't have that discussion in this room, my fear is where can.
We have it?
And nobody knows.
So time to reset the gender balance on this stage. I want to bring to this stage doctor key Hallman, if she can make her way to this stage. She is a fixture here in Atlanta. She has a shop just across in the Ponts Market. She's an investor, a businesswoman, and she does a lot of civic work in the community. But she can tell you more specifically what she does as soon as her microphone starts working. She's coming right now, come on out.
We thank you, thank you so uh.
Andrew and I we were having a discussion, and the reason we were is as we were preparing for today. I just felt it wasn't just and I think that the four of us would agree for us to have a conversation without talking about the cultural happenstances of the day, and happenstances probably is not the word that describes the weight of it. However, on Monday morning, I believe it was. I can't recall the exact date I woke up and sent a Senate Was it Monday? I can't even recall
my days or running together. I sent a text to our group chat because one of my friends and I don't I would. I'm gonna let Andrew describe him as he was just Fairfax actually, And the crazy part about it was I had been talking to Justin a few times over the past year, and I was I would expect the message to be that Justin had killed himself, and that probably is a troublesome reality for a lot
of people in the room. However, the text message read that Justin had not only killed himself, but he killed his wife first.
And then the.
Text message got a little bit worse that his son was actually the person who called nine one one, as both his children were in the home. I mean then, we just saw recently in Shreveport where a gentleman who had kind of called out for help on social media had then gone back and killed eight young people. And we've seen his kids like ages. I don't know the ages, but I know the youngest one was one one through nine.
I believe is right, but I'm not sure, and I don't want to misquote it because I want to make sure that we actually give this portion of the conversation the gravity that it deserves. And so I wanted to be able to have to This is my level set. And y'all can cuss me out and say I'm wrong, and I've been wrong before.
I just want to evoke Mayor made her from a graduate of FAM you who was the vice mayor of a city down in Florida.
She worked for my campaign for governor.
A beautiful spirit, two years married, and was killed by her husband, who repeatedly reported to his family that he saw after committing the heinous murder, that he just couldn't take it anymore. He just couldn't take it anymore. And we don't have We don't have the full picture of what that is. But something is going on.
So I wanted a space and this is where I can be completely wrong, but I don't care about jumping off a ledge with you all. I wanted space, particularly with Tiffany here, who hoes me accountable on everything, and this is our first converse. I know you've been on
the show, but our first conversation together. I wanted a space where we could have a conversation about ensuring that we hold individuals accountable for their actions, assuring ourselves that we're lifting up Serena Fairfax, for example, who's been left out of a lot of the conversations, and not butt.
I don't want to say butt because it negates everything before it, but and also having a space for black men to be able to call out when they have issues of mental health or issues that they're going through, and making sure that their screams are not in vain, because I feel like both of those things are happening and we're missing the pulset on both of them. And until we actually have a conversation such as this, where we're sitting in a room such as this, where we
can chastise a little, hold accountable, but also breathe. I don't think that we can fix this problem unless we have real conversations about what's going on in our community. And so that's how I open it up.
Tiffany, thank you so honoring that Justin was your friend, and I'm honoring you all for allowing this safe space. And we want this to be an interactive conversation, so we will open the mic because we want to hear from you all too. You know, I'll just focus on Justin for now because I think that was the tipping point for this conversation. So when this first happened, I
was absorbing it all. I knew Justin as well. What started to transpire after that, This wasn't when people started posting pictures and making remarks about him and this is my frat brother, and you know, almost like celebratory of him. These were not trumpers, These weren't in cells, they hadn't been red pilled, you know, like these were dudes we know, we rock with, we love and I think it's black women. We had to sit back and look at that, like
are you fucking kidding me? Like this man murdered his wife and was his children in the house and knew that they would find him as a scene, thinking, feeling person. I did have empathy. I remember talking to you about it in our chat when you you know, kind of framed it and I was like, yeah, there was a part of me that didn't want white run media to get a hold of this narrative and you know, do
what they do with our stories. But my empathy and I had this space to work this out with you all privately and now publicly because I was asking, you know, my my empathy first went to the wife. She's the biggest victim in all of this. And I did wonder, how did Justin get to that point? How did that darkness usurp him? And I asked our friend Aaron Haynes, president of n ABJ, wonderful journalist with the nineteenth You know, I'm not wrong for having wondered what happened with Justin?
You're now you're sitting where we're.
Sitting like well, I asked, probably what we.
What do we not do? What do we not see?
But that was a different question because I was asking, am I wrong for thinking in this moment? You know, gosh, what happened with justin and Aaron responded in a way that I just kind of had to hold and she said, your empathy for him ended the moment he shot his wife in the head and left his kids to find her. I know this is your friend, Bakari. So I say
this with love and sympathy. But it did feel hurtful to see how black men couched this conversation after all, like we are just it feels like it's not who's suffering more. It feels like we are the face of the enemy right now. Shit feels like it's a black.
Women don't answer, chime in, but I want you to know.
I want doctor key.
Yeah, but I said in silence as well. So I literally made no public statement, no public remark other than to lift up the kids, which may actually be the public remark that is necessary during this time because.
I I don't know. I just didn't know. I don't I still don't know. I don't know how to grapple with it.
And I don't know if this is a mental health conversation either.
Well I think so it is.
It this is Let me just say why, Because there are men who I know who struggle with depression. I struggle you sitting in between what I want to say, I don't want to say, but I know that the people on this state struggle with depression, including myself. I never thought I'm gonna go home and shoot my loved one in the head.
I agree, I agree to if I so, Aaron asked you your empathy and stated pretty firmly, your empathy should have been did it when he did what he did? And maybe the empathy is one part of it, but should your curiosity, your wonder of how we got here? And I don't think that should end because I knew someone who was upstanding, who broke barriers, who when we talked, talked a bunch about his family and his kids. And I think it's one of those spaces that more than one thing can be true.
At a time I was abhoard.
I mean, maccary was the one who told me about Justin and then all the messages came in. We campaigned together, he came down to Florida and we spent a good deal of time together. And in the years since, but since sexual alleged sexual misconductor and assault allegations came down, you saw a man who went from being Lieutenant governor of the state, the second in command, a former Confederate
headquarters state to someone who couldn't be employed. And I'm sure huge breakdowns on the household, the family, and then you're like, man, my wife and I haven't been on the best at know certain points. I have not had suicidal aviation or the thought of killing anybody. But mostly it's because I could never. One I wouldn't touch a woman like that, but two, I could never orphan my children. I could, I just don't. It feels me as most
selfish thing anybody could consider. And if you were in that moment, it's like, nah, that's my kid's mother, if nothing else, and you hate her guts because you're going through a process. She's got people depending on her, your people spawn of you depending on her, and I don't know how you scar them for life in that way,
and a whole bunch of other reasons. But I do think if we don't, if we if we can only say one of his one is bad and the other one's good, and that's how the story goes down, and nobody deserve to be killed, right the action should never have taken place, But I don't think it should begin and end with That's the monster, and here's the victim, and stay away from monsters from here too. Fourth, because I think we lose a lot in the thread, we lose a lot in the nuance.
Doctor.
Yeah, I want you to try. Sure.
So I do think there's time for curiosity. But what was saddening to me is that before we could get to curiosity, we neglected mourning. We neglected that a black woman, a human being, was murdered and there is no point in her children lifetime. Could we ever imagine what they would carry inside of them? And if we can go deeper, I don't know if they've lost people in their lives, but these two children saw their bodies of their parents
handed down by their father. So before we started to post about our our brother, our friend, a dignitary, can we take a moment and pause for the trauma, the neglect to take care of yourself so you don't kill and decimate young people's future because they're going to carry that. So I'm like Tiff, I think there's a time for conversation on mental illness. But we also should question the character of those who want to post a picture for a proximity and affiliation and privilege before we.
Take a moment.
To more in the life of a loss that was callously killed because a person did not take care of themselves.
I agree with you in Tiffany.
To a point, like I agree on all the stuff that happened after this, and like that's some bs, that's just not we did we black men, we did some of us, because I hate the generalization, did not carry ourselves appropriately. But like, and now we get to a point where we're gonna have a few moments for questions and answers, and I'll tell you about those in a second. But when when when you all say, and not to pick on you all, because I've heard it a.
Lot, but.
Now is the time for morning before curiosity or now is the time for grieving? And I think there are a lot of black men, and maybe I'm alone in this, that say, before this happened, there wasn't space for conversation about mental health with us, Like we're not talking about the conversation we're having I think after because the black men that I know are like Andrew, Gillian and myself,
we find it to be a born. But what we're talking about is before it happens, is there space for black men to be to try to be the head of their household and also talk to you about their anxiety.
What would that have looked like because they were already separated. So I'm just curious, you know, I don't you mean in the home there wasn't space for that kid.
No, No, And I'm not because I don't know enough about now. I took it out to a fifty thousand foot view and talking culturally, I'm not talking about sena.
Culturally, what does it look like for us? I have a conversation before somebody shoots their wife.
And then and that asks a question as well. And see, this is why both of us at the same time.
Please, I'm like out here just trying to say that, like niggas got problems and we are like I'm just My only point is that like we are out here trying to deal with our household and go outside and deal with the eels of the world.
We're trying.
We are too.
No, this is and we are too Yeah, this is not. This is not the oppressional limp. I'm not saying.
I am not saying that black women are not that is that is with this every time.
So listen, don't don't go I know where you're going. It is.
But what I'm saying is every time, every time a.
Man can have an issue without it being approximate to what a woman is going.
Like every time it's on this merit.
Every time I tell you that I am struggling, it does not mean reflexively that you were not.
That's like, thank you for some help in orders, Jesus, do we have commercials I need? I try.
I try to let you off the balcony by saying that the easy way you want to keep going.
You've got a question.
But I just want to define in my mind mental health, because a lot of people think you must be diagnosed and be on some medication for years and be getting therapy and counseling and.
That kind of thing. And that is a form of it.
But there is also the psychosis, which means in this moment, at this state of time, the argument we happen to be in right now. This is why the legal system separates different types of murder first, second, third degree.
It matters that the thing you just told me was so piercing. I couldn't see a thing.
I saw red and as a footnel.
Real quick before you can fill you let me and we should have said no one is excusing the act. There is literally no one, and I don't want anyone to leave this room thinking that we are downplaying or excusing the act. All I'm trying to find space for is men to not get to that point and have space before the act, before the breaking point, before whatever, however, the psychoe, whatever the term is. I want there to be a space for black men to be able to breathe.
Not saying that y'all ain't suffocating, Tiffany, but what I'm saying is for black men to be able to breathe and articulate the issues there.
And I think what happened here is that y'all many people could not breathe. Yeah, many people couldn't breathe after learning the news, and we're very upset that before we could understand the story of those who were victims and people we had already gone on to sounded like excusing.
What to Lo Loys Tiffany talks. Lol.
I know that I was just about to say, where's Lolo? Can we get mikel and.
So so like questions have question marks, will answer anything you all have. We have about seventeen minutes you go first, and Lolo is gonna bring the mic out wherever she is and give round of.
Applause to Loo. We cannot survive with that's.
Not Lo lost in for Lolo stepping.
In for Lo Lo.
Lolo was drinking tequila too, So it's okay, there's wave your hand, all right.
So, yes, we have a question over here, but let let us have hers, and then we'll come to you.
Who cares about truth in the last more than.
Say it, just tell us your name if you don't mind, all right, one.
Second, go ahead, it's sure. So I think it's important to note here that we're not neglecting the mental health and the empathy for black men. So to say that we should not bypass morning, it's not neglecting another systemic issue around mental health. And this is not a conversation against black women and black men. I think we have
to be careful with the narratives that we lead with. Yes, this conversation is about how it was handled, and so how it was handled, we rushed to proximity to talk about status and all those things, and we bypass Serena's name. I think we do need to take a moment and pause for that. And I also think when you all asked the question around when do black men heal, I say this, with love, create spaces so you all can heal and breathe.
Yeah, I.
Hear that, and I don't disregard it, and I do my best. But the problem is that many of us find those spaces in Tequila, you know. We find those spaces at Platinum twenty one. I mean, we find those spaces because you can't walk outside in this world and be a black man and think it's gonna be easy. And I'm not saying that it's easy for anyone.
Else, but it is.
I'm not saying that you're Let me just respond really quickly and then we'll go to the question. But it feels like you're saying black women heal us, and we are also trying to your point there we should translate itself.
And I'm not saying that at all. No, no, no, no, no, no space. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not asking for I'm not asking for help, per se.
Yeah you are.
I'm just we are. We are, But it's the space too. It's however, what does look.
Like much of much of what we are suffering from both you and I First of all, my father, if you were living, would have me bent overtaking a whooping if I talked about therapy and sitting down with a talking about our problems outside of the household.
And whose business is? What business? We all have?
Inherited people who didn't know how, couldn't do it better, but didn't know how to, and then they created this model of what we're then supposed to live up to, how we comport ourselves, how we are burdened in this way, in that way, and then we're teaching the same, yeah, damn broken thing to those who come after. I'm not and you're not. But that's because I don't know who
did it for you. But it was my wife who told me, if you don't get shown to somebody and talk, don't think about coming back in this house, not with me, and not with these kids, and not with this. Is that the third And so it took somebody saying it was okay. There was there was an invitation to go.
And I just don't want black women to feel like we're asking for more of a load on your plate. I'm just trying to ask for just space to breathe. Yes, Hello, my.
Name is Joshua Ricardo mckett says, and I just want to say, like, I love you guys. You guys inspired me. I watched your show. You guys are amazing, incredible. I mean, especially Tiffany Crass. You're like You're one of my biggest inspirations. Like, I love you. And I just have to say this, is it okay for black men to show their emotions all the time? Because I don't want to take this the wrong way. I mean it's like with black women, I don't know this easier hard, but you guys can
do that. But when it comes to black men, it's like we have to be the strong ones.
But there are times.
Where we should be able to cry and show emotions, like can there be a space for that in a way where we just show.
So why are people like shaking their heads? Like why why are people like not like he yes, the answer is yes, yes, Oh I'm with you. Yeah, it's it's the answer is yes, And you should be able to do that. And it doesn't mean that you're weaker, and it doesn't mean that you're less than It means that you actually go outside every day and touch grass.
But you have to give yourself the permission. I think that's that's what's beneath it is. The society we live in doesn't seem to make way for it, and so we internalize that that's what everybody's demanding of us. When when you stay to need, anybody who loves and cares about you will say go get the thing you need. They should say get what you need.
Yeah, just know whoever.
I don't even know, Hello, Hello, Hello, You all are my favorite podcasts in the world, favorite in the whole.
And she has her own. So that's saying something.
So I'm going to date myself a little bit. I think what we will say culturally is that's not what we do right as a people. So I don't know if it happened in the past. We didn't have social media, so we didn't know, but that would be the first comment.
I think.
My comment to you guys, especially Andrew and Bacari, you guys have a platform. I think I would like to see more mentorship from black men to black men, and you two, being the stellar men that you are, to say it's okay to be emotional. I've seen you, Andrew, and seen the podcast when you were vulnerable. I think it's important that our men. You're not my father, your grandfather, so it's okay to be emotional and Bacari, you said something. I thought the text I would get would be that
he did something to himself. I think we've all had friends or family that something's off. I know something's off. We need to create space. It's all incumbent upon all of us. But I think mentorship matters, and I think when we have a mic, a platform, such as all of us do in different spaces, we need to use it and we need to help one another because we're
living in times like maybe not before. And that's coming from a mother of two young men that are not quite millennials, but they're living in this space in these times.
Thank you, thank you. I think we have a peer.
Yeah, they doing manav Songwhere are you you?
Men?
Said trauma early doctor about the trauma that this father has done to his children.
So I have a question here.
Has trauma become so normalized in our community that we no longer recognize when we're passing it to others.
Huge all own children, of course, but trauma's not the act.
I think a lot of people and I'm not a psychologist or a psychiatrist. I've been to enough sessions though to be dangerous.
Shout out.
My doctor says, don't confuse your google with.
I hate when people come to my laws and they be like chet GPT. But trauma's not the act. A lot of people think that trauma's when you get punched in the face, and that's not trauma. Trauma's the reaction to getting punched in the face, and trauma's how we
deal with it, right. And so a lot of these conversations, for example, we've never had in settings like this because of some shame, and I don't know how people are going to receive it, but I think that one way we can break the cycle, and I love to hear my friends up here, is by allowing us to have conversations in space like this, even by you showing up and being here and going out and saying without fucking judgment, like just sitting in it, and allowing people to have
different opinions and different thoughts about the way that they feel and about the way that they process trauma.
I think it's so important.
Good evening. My name is Jessica. I first want to just hold space for you, Baccari of just watching you do what black people do every day of holding in the trauma while being at work. I can see the tension of what you're trying to manage it. I just want you to know I see you. But my question is really for black men, because I think for several of us as women, whether it's our friends, our partners, we have asked, we have sent the therapist, asked, would
would you come to this? Would you do that? What is it that you all need or want that would make the invitation so that you go through the door, And whether the invitation has to come from us from somewhere else, because at this point, it's not even we need y'all to be okay, and we know that you're not. And the more y'all are not okay, the more we're not okay because we can't lean on you to protect us, because now we're like, do we need to be protecting ourselves from you?
And that's the and that's the goal.
Of the system, right to keep us pulled apart. That's what happened in slavery. And so while I don't have the capacity to hold anyone else, I'm still trying because I love my brother, I love my father, I love y'all. So what do y'all need and.
How do you need it?
That's a that's a beautiful question, and I appreciate your curiosity, and it's the story to how do you get to is as important as getting to and then going.
My wife asked me for.
You twelve years You're married, going, going, going, going, going, And I'm a city commissioner and I'm a mayor of a city, and who were going to talk to that's not going to run out in the street and tell everything that we say. I don't trust you know, I don't trust my business. And in their in their mouths, in their ears, which I assumed then.
Comes out their mouths to other people.
I think my parents were part of of it in the sense that we were taught. I mean, we were disciplined. If you spoke outside, spoke about what happened in this house. And so no, So let me tell you the.
Lead up to it is that there are a lot of no's.
There are a lot of instances where you're going to think we are not listening, are summarily dismissing you having heard you once, even though it's your thousandth time we've heard you.
A thousand times, and we still feel like.
We still feel like there's not real permission because when something goes wrong in the house and this thing is needed, you're still going to look at me. And I don't want you to look at me and think I can't do it, because I shared with you that it's real hard for me right now.
It's real hard for me to deal with that.
So I thank God for my Unpat who called me every single day. At my lowest point, I hadn't answer the phone most any of those days, but she kept calling the next day and the next day, and one day I picked up and she said, thank you God, And I just want to know that you're doing okay. I want to hear your voice. And I'm so thankful that there were people who weren't judging me and saying he's just disrespectf We want to ask the phone, da da,
Dad dad. They had nothing to do with anybody other than myself, And I was thankful that there was enough love there by people to keep going, keep asking.
So what I would say is keep asking.
I never know when that trickle, when that thing switches over and you say I need it and I'm ready, but you can't get in a person more ready than they can get themselves.
Your constant reminder is.
The primer, and I think we have to keep doing that until the jump is ready.
How do we? How do we get there before? Though?
And I don't want to infer your question, but how do we get there before we hit rock bottom? Yeah?
Like, how do we? Yeah? How do we? That's your prayer? Right, how do we?
I'm sure Serena had the same prayer, right, So how do you get there?
And I think admittedly most people are going to have to fall flat face before it's like you realize, Man, I'm losing this.
I've lost this. I've lost this.
If I lose anything else, my house and home, my everything will be gone, my children might be gone.
And then that's when I.
Think people, if it gets desperate enough, people will look for help.
Two more We got about four more minutes or two more questions, but doctor Keith.
Went the way in and then we'll come to you in the back.
If i'll share a brief story about an experience that I had with my dad, And this is probably eight months after my mother passed away. She passed away at fifty years old, and my parents were married for thirty years, but they had their complications, and when my mother passed, they were in a complicated season, and so as the children. We were mad at our dad for so many things. And in one conversation with my dad again this was eight months later, I stopped being mad at him and
I said, well, Daddy, how do you feel? And he took a moment and he exhaled. He said, I think I just started to breathe again, and that I have been so depressed for the last eight months. I didn't even know my father knew the word depression because he's
a Mississippi man. I've only seen him strong. So for all the daughters in the audience who are close to their fathers, I was able to take my father's walls down and in a moment, and now we talk about his emotions and we talk about his feelings about everything. And after that conversation and after all our conversations, and I was like that I always thought that you were
a superman, and now you're even more invincible. Because he was able to show me the softness in him and a human in him, and I think that gave him the invitation to be that more vulnerable with me. It's not that I was less mad at him, but I was more empathetic that we all carry things, and so I think black men need the invitation. And if you're a daughter, maybe you can take the wall down of your father and learn more about the things that black men carry.
Thank you, doctor Keith.
We got our last question in the back.
Okay, thank you. My name is Phoenix. First thing I want to say is, and it took me a long time to say this, I have a mental disability, illness, whatever you want to call it.
I've had it for a long time. My question is simple.
Now, we had some people while you were talking disagree with some of the things that you were saying.
I believe Wakari.
I'm used to that, and it's okay, it's okay. My question is this and that I'm.
Gonna be real.
I'm trying to be real.
Brief with the story. On my job, I take something called modern mobility. Should most of y'all don't know what that is, but that's for people who have disabilities. When they found out, the people I work with found out, I was thinking a big bus, they sit there, pointed at the bus, pointed at me.
The whole crew laughed in my face.
Now, I know a lot of y'all say, well, you know, and I'm not excusing the gentleman that killed his wife or that killed his children.
That's insane.
But when you have this.
Type of dishonor that's the best way I can put it. Going on with our people, how how do you expect people to to behave? How you expect them to give? I go to counseling three times a week. I do everything I need to do to be a better person. But still it's a nightmare and it's so much shame. Wait a minute, I'm a I'm a black man, I have a job, I make money. But you can't have a mental disability because something's wrong with you.
Old that nigga crazy? Oh this is and all this stuff.
So I ask everyone in here and the people on stage, what did you do with that?
Thank you?
Thank you for that, Andrew, I.
Just I simply gonna say that it those people, it's a greater reflection on their herb than it is on your psycheoasis, your state of affairs. People have a way of really projecting onto others the insecurities that they feel with themselves. I told I shared this on the last week's show, where you know, after the race, and I was at my lowest low.
People would you know, would say really cruel and very.
Cutting and biting things, things that you don't think you could muster for a person if you didn't know them intimately. And I had to come to and I told my wife this because she was very upset about a celebrity who had said something about her. And I said, Jay that Letty don't know you from Tom Adams cat and the fact that she wrote to you a long inbox email cussing you from left to right about your life decisions isn't because she's so concerned with your life decisions.
It's because something about our situation has triggered likely in experience that she's had in her life, and that was slight differences here and there, but she couldn't say to that person what needed to be said, and so she's projecting it and she's saying it to us, and it's now our job to say that's none of my business. None of that is my business. So if you got heat for me, that is what it is. But I'm not the cause of the pain that you're experiencing right now.
So I just I think you ought to know that because it helps to It helps in those situations to be able to clearly see these haters, the folks who are distracting the name called and all that stuff. They are screaming for help, screaming for it, terrified with what it means if they get it, so they keep abusing hurt people, hurt people.
That saying is real.
I think that at the end of the day, you know, we have this, We have a trauma that has not been dealt with for a very long period of time, and we keep persevering. Every generation perseveres that much more than the next. I want to give this young lady to my far left stand up a round of applause, players paring up here and sharing. We didn't I don't think that she anticipated this conversation with us. I'm glad
you all beared with us for this conversation. I before we uh, before we end, I do want us to remember in your gospel music singing or your prayers at night. I don't know if y'all still say your now. I laim he's down in the big city of Atlanta where all eat lamb chops and have ivy walls every Sunday for breakfast. I want you to all to remember Papa Ray and Angela Ray's father the Devil, that the Gospel doesn't teach us that they should not have a weapon.
He just says that the weapons shall not prosper. So let that be our prayer. And then Tiffany. We're gonna let Tiffany take us out because she is our blessing. And as you see, Tiffany has fans everywhere, so go ahead.
Thank you, thank you. I just want to say, really quickly to the king in the back who shared his story, that the people who are small enough to make fun of you would never have the courage to stand up in a room like this and share what you shared. So I want to honor you, brother, I want to honor your vulnerability, and I want to thank you for having the trust in us to receive your story with care and grace. And the next time that happens, I hope you can remember Andrew's words. It is more about
them than it is about you. And I see you, and we see you for the king who you are, so thank you for that. I want to thank everybody for coming out. I will give a shameless plug if you guys don't mind a lot of the conversations that we had tonight. I have a new book coming out May fifth, thank you. It is Love Me, a Letter to Black Women in a toxic country, career and relationship. It's available everywhere books are sold today, but you'll get it on mayfe I'll be joining Native Land Pod. The
episode will drop April thirtieth. Yeah, so we'll be back together again and truly this space. It's so touching to hear everybody say this is your favorite podcast and you all listen. I just thank you that y'all still pity them and listen. After I left, shit.
It got better.
I miss her every day.
I miss these guys, but I'm blessed to still talk to them all the time. But it just means so much to us that you all the things that y'all could be doing, that you would show up here with us tonight and these spaces for this type of conversation. I feel safe with you all because us loving each other has always been the key to our survival. So whatever you took from tonight, I hope you leave here tonight with a little more love and care for each
other's feelings. And emotions and carry each other with delicateness because that's what we need right now.
Welcome home, Welcome home home, y'all, Thank you guys.
Make sure you tip your waitresses. Good night, Drive home safe.
Welcome home to the Native landing on the podcast face.
That's a for greatness.
Sixty minutes is so hit, not too long for the great shit, high level combo politics in a way that you could taste it then digest it. Politics touches you even.
If you don't touch it. So get invested.
Across the t's and doctor I kill them, got them as sellers, staying on business or why you could have.
Been anywhere but you truse us.
Native Lampod is a brand that you can trusty.
Native Lampod is a production of iHeart Radio and partnership with Resent Choice Media. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shout