#10 - Shaun King

episode is coming out this Monday. Exclusive interview with Conway the Machine today's episode, though, we're gonna get to that in a second. First, though, let's shout out to sponsors one time. Shout out to odd Socks. Man. Salute to them for being our latest sponsor, latest partner. Man. First, I'm a fan of odd socks, so it's just dope to be able to work with them and have them put their their you know, their brand up with our brand and uh, you know, let me tell you something.

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new music came out. Just want to shout out to Drake for putting out a hell of a record. And I'm not a big Drake fan, but I really enjoy this song. He just dropped tonight with a with a little Dirk. The video was crazy. It was like a really long ass Nike commercial. I'm not gonna lie fire ass video nas just dropped out a new record with hit Boy and announced he's coming out with a new album next Friday. Holy shit, I've known about this for a while, but holy shit excited that the rest of

the world knows about it. Hit Boy will be on the podcast soon. Shout out to Nasty Nas. What else came out? I think you know? Shout out to Davies that Karma Three's out, a lot of dope hip hop out. My Phoenix Suns got their hearts broken. For my basketball fans, you already know we went eight to no in the bubble, did not make the playoffs, but nonetheless, uh, you know, next season all right, But I appreciate everybody for rocking with the podcast. Make sure you hit me on Instagram, Twitter,

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He's somebody who has really dedicated most of his life's work to helping people and to spreading awareness to a lot of the injustices that happen not only to black and brown people, but just to everybody. And so I think Sean King is a man. It's someone I really admire. I've actually been dming him for like four years trying to get an interview with him, and he actually hit me like last week, and you know, so I had been dming him for like four or five years, and

you know, we set this up. So shout out to Sean King, somebody who, like I said, is a very very dope human being, anybody who puts as much effort as he does into helping people and into spreading awareness of injustices. Like hell of a dude. Man. He's got a new book called Make Change that's out and I really really suggest everybody go support it. And for people who are about to listen to this podcast, you will.

It's political heavy, so that's something that if you're not into you might want to just like not listen to this podcast. But specifically if you're I don't know what kind of shit you're on, but if you're li like into that Trump shit, probably not going to be this episode for you, bud. But yeah, there's a lot of political talk in this podcast, a lot of defining what needs to happen, how people can actually make change. I know that's the name of his book, but that was

not on purpose. But yeah, let's get into it. Sean King, legendary guy. Man. Super proud to have this guy on the podcast and hope to have more conversations like this in the future. Also a little side note, my audio does sound like absolute shit. It was just my computer audio, my mic and my interface was left at my studio and I forgot to go pick it up. So this interview Sean King sounds amazing. My audio sounds I mean, listen, it's good enough, but it sounds like as cheeks. But

let's get into it. Hey, man, how are you good? Good to see you face to face. Man, Yes, sir, how are you feeling? I'm good, man, I you know, just I've just had a crazy week. Oh yeah, me too, bro, me too. I can imagine. I've seen you doing like the virtual book tour. Yeah yeah, yeah, that's going pretty well. Man. I did a I'm doing two or three events every evening, which is which on paper looks like one thing. But

it's hard. Man, it's a grind, I can imagine. I mean, we had planned on before the pandemic, we had planned on having a tour all over the country. That's a real grind. And so this is not nearly as hard as it would have been to be actually going to all of those cities, right right right? Yeah, well see, I appreciate you tapping in, man, I've been a big fan. I'm a big Bernie guy too. Yeah. I miss Bernie's man. I take every I take every loss like super personally,

not because of like wins and losses. But I know the people that I'm fighting for actually are fighting for everyday people. And I know that when Bernie loses, or when somebody else that I'm fighting for loses, people suffer as a result of that. And so he to me, if you went into a lab and made a candidate designed for a pandemic, Bernie would come out of that like he was made for this moment. Like I so desperately wish he was president, man, and I think he

would have mopped the floor with Trump. Man. Yeah, it's interesting. I guess we'll just dive right into it because, like I'm I'm very passionate about Bernie, and I was when he lost in twenty sixteen, and there was that moment at the at the convention where his brother was crying that shit, oh yeah, killing me. Well, you know, his brother loves him, man, and and what people, you know,

I worked with Bernie on this for this campaign. You know, Bernie, Bernie was deeply hesitant to tell his own origin story and what his brother knew in that moment. Man, they grew up rough man, Like his family narrowly escaped the Holocaust.

Most of Bernie's family died in a Holocaust, and they grew up dirt poor in the middle of Brooklyn, in a community of really of Holocaust survivors, and they both of his parents, his mother and his father died when he was in college, and it it changed Bernie in a huge way. Man. And when his parents died is when he threw himself into the civil rights movement. And his brother knows all of that better than me or you or anybody. And so to see, uh, to see

him his brother was was deeply touched. It was a it was a special moment for Bernie, who who doesn't show a lot of his emotions on his sleeve. You're right, he doesn't, Yeah, And to see him do that, I was it was deep. Man. I'm curious, like, obviously we are in a weird situation. You and I as people who rode very hard for Bernie Sanders and and and the ideals that he stood up for, and obviously was very frustrating two times in a row to kind of see the DNC like, uh, it seemed like they really

worked against him. You know, Bernie, he wrote the Bernie wrote the forward to my book, and when he wrote it, he was still running and change, which is out right now. Yeah, yeah, And he says something in his forward and he was thinking about something else when he said this. But what we have to come to understand is as much as the Democratic establishment two different times conspired against Bernie, it's on us to make a survey of who is for us and who was against us, and we have to

out maneuver and out smart and outorganize them. And in a lot of ways in retrospect, after Bernie was was crushing it in the primaries basically, and then South Carolina happened, and yeah, well it was not you know, he lost South Carolina, but literally two days before that, Bernie won at in a landslide and state, right it was a caucas state. But then you know, Bernie won California, and

typically the candidate that wins California wins the nomination. And having one and compete it in all of the places, Bernie was always in first or second, and and the Democratic Party basically said, listen, we need all of you to drop out, we need all of you to get behind Joe Biden, and we like need you to do it tomorrow. And so you saw Amy Klobash, Ar Mayor p Betto and others all said, okay, and it was

too much to overcome. But but here's what Bernie talks about in his forward, man, is that instead of focusing on how they walloped us, in the future, we have to think how might something like that happen? And how could we outflank an out maneuver, how could we out organized something like that? And in a way, I don't think this is on Bernie, but I think that move kind of caught the campaign flat footed. And you know,

it's it's the media, it's a lot of things. But at the end of the day, it's on us, man. You know, if you lose an election, it's on you. You lost. And I just now in retrospect, there are twenty things I wish we had done differently to help

his campaign. Yeah. I just hope that you know, he sparks the next great you know politician, because his ideas obviously are are and just his authenticity, yeah, and his you know, like you said, if you were to just go into the lab and find like a presidential candidate that would fit what's going on right now. But just in general, just like somebody who is really a unicorn in the sense that like they've never really switched up on what they believe in. Man, you can cut and

paste that dude from any generation and he's Bernie. He's fighting for universal health care, he's fighting for poor and marginalized people, he's fighting for equality and access, and he's fighting against war. And you can see him doing it in every generation, relentlessly, no matter what it cost him. You can see him calling out, you know, wealthy, special interest, and it can be a speech from nineteen seventy nine or two thousand and nine. And it's not that it's

repetitive each time. He's saying it with passion zeal. He means it every time. But I think there's a lot to learn from that. I think a lot of up and coming politicians and leaders that he loves, like he loves AOC. He loves Corey Bush and Jamal Bowman who just won their primaries in Missouri and New York. He loves Jamila Jayapaul, Promila Jyapaul, other in Seattle, UH and a lot of others. There's some people coming up who are you know, he loves. He loves the Squad and

they were all members who supported him. And so there's some people coming up that I think have that level of authenticity and courage. You know, he'll continue. I think he's the type of person that will will continue leading on the issues, and I think he'll be around, you know, still for maybe even another generation. Basically, what we need is you and Killer Mike to run for office somewhere

right right. You know, I think Killer Mike could Killer Mike and I Killer Mike is born or raised in Atlanta, and I lived in Atlanta for almost twenty years. Somebody like him could run for Congress or mayor. And he knows, he knows that it's got to happen. I've talked to him definitely about it, and he knows that, yeah, not

ready yet. But uh, I feel the same way, you know, I. You know, I think there are a lot of things that he and I both would have to change about the businesses that we run, the tours that we do, the way that our lives go. When when you are a serious elected official, most of that has to come to a complete stop. And uh, I have so many other responsibilities for me. I tell people all the time, like I would love to run for something local, even

in New York, like a city council position. What happens is people put on Mike or me or others that like, you should run for mayor or president and there's a place for that, but you know it is not the place yea. Yeah, yeah, And so I tell people it's like no, like I actually, if I'm going to do something, I want to do it well first. Yeah. Yeah, and and and I think that's that shows respect for the position and the office. I don't see that in my

future anytime soon. And I think Mike is probably still a ways away from it. But he and I both are always trying to figure out how can we lead with the influence and position that we have. Now, Well, look we got Sean King. It's the blueleg Head podcast. We haven't eve done an official introduction. We went on a Bernie tangry right away. Man, that's my guy, Man, make change. The book is out while we're talking politics. I was very very annoyed for you over this past

few days. Yeah, it's okay. It's funny because, like you said, like I feel like once every five or six weeks you trend on Twitter. Yeah, and for me it was frustrating because people were putting a tweet that you had up. I don't know during the primaries up. It was even

before the primaries. It was I wrote a tweet in twenty eighteen, before the Democratic primaries even started, before Bernie had even announced, and I hadn't actually endorsed Bernie yet, and sincerely I was open to endorsing someone other than Bernie.

And I said that to Bernie and others that I wanted to see who all was going to wow, And uh, I just said, I know two candidates that I won't be endorsing for the Democratic nomination, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, because of their role in mass and in helping build mass incarceration. Uh. It wasn't that I would never support them in life or never support their policies, but yeah, they were and not even I wasn't even talking about for president. It was the tweet was actually in a

tweet thread. People were going to say the one tweet that they tried to use against you from this week was was like the last tweet of like four or five Yeah, I wrote, I wrote, so that's what they do. So I wrote a tweet thread that was also still very critical of of Kamala And just like I have a friend Jamal truelove and Jamal was wrongly convicted of murder in San Francisco, a murder he didn't commit, spent eight years in prison, and he was convicted by Kamala Harris.

It ruined his life. Wow, and the city of San Francisco had to pay ten million dollars in that wrongful conviction suit, and it changed Jamal in immeasurable ways. So like as district attorney, she was deeply problematic. All I wanted people to say, and then people start saying stupid stuff like is Sean paid by the DNC. I was never paid by Bernie. I never worked for Bernie. It was always a volunteer. I've never been paid by a politician the day of my life. And I've studied Kamala's record.

I have no desire to be buddies or friends with her or with her campaign. She's gotten significantly better and she's improved on issues like she now stands against qualified immunity for police. She's one of the few senators who does so. She now stands for the full decriminalization and legalization of marijuana, which Joe Biden doesn't. And she was a co sponsor of a bill with Corey Booker, which was probably the best bill ever on expunging people's records

who were ever convicted in the War on drugs. And she was a co sponsor of that bill. And so listen, I know that she and Joe Biden, they're not my dream come true. They weren't in my neither were in my top ten. And yet Joe, Yeah, especially Joe. And because here's the thing. I can't say for Joe what I can say for Kamala. She has evolved and improved, and if people don't want to give her credit for that,

that's more says something about them. But Joe hasn't. And Joe basically still won't acknowledge his role in building mass incarceration. He still won't stand for the most basic policies that are actually popular among Democrats, uoting universal health care, including basic criminal justice, re foreign policies and so. And it's not because of his age. I don't I don't accept that it's him. I saw Bernie. He lacks a lot of humility. Joe Biden doesn't have a lot of humility.

Oh he doesn't, man, and he he couches it in some other things. But no, no, he's uh you know, he's always been that way. And you know, I also gave, probably for the first time in two years, I gave Joe Biden a compliment in that tweet thread to say that I was surprised that he picked Kamala because she was the only person that ran against him, that walloped him. She later she went in on him during the the UH. I watched every debate and yeah, she she really held

him over the fire. We couldn't, Bernie. It's not in his it's not his style to hit people like that, right, And all of us who were in his corner wanted him to throw knockout punches against everybody. And it's just he's just a good, good guy. And Kamala was a former prosecutor what we were just talking about, and she hammered Joe Biden on the crime bill. She hammered him on his role of between integration and segregation, and they were they were probably two of the low moments for

Joe Biden in the whole debate. And so I said, I thought it took some level of guts for him to pick the candidate who hammered him the hardest one could argue to remember, I mean there was a point in time during the primary where it seemed like he was done. There was no money coming in, and I mean he was a South Carolina saved his ass, you know, and I have I have some beef with how that happened.

You almost aren't allowed to criticize how South Carolina saved him because it seems anti black or racist, and sometimes it can venture into that, right. I just think that like Bernie won Nevada with a huge majority of the Latino vote in the same way that Joe won South Carolina, except Bernie got no credit for it, and I felt like both win. I thought the win in South Carolina mattered. I'm not saying it doesn't. I don't think it settled

the campaign. The guy was dead in the water and he literally never even campaigned in I think forty four states have any money. Like for a while there, he just didn't have money, no man. I swear he probably was doing like or doing like budget rental cars. Man, like they were struggling. And I you know, I did an interview with Michael Moore recently, and I thought about

the campaign a lot. I think in retrospect, Joe Biden was clearly more formidable then we gave him credit for his role as Barack Obama's vice president is deeply meaningful and underestimated. I'm sure at the time it was. And for even in my own house, like in most black households, there's there's you know, I'm looking at my screen. Here there's God. Here, there's Michelle. Obama was a little less in God, and Barack is just a little less than Michelle.

And then there's everybody else. And for most black voters, particularly black voters over forty, the fact that Joe Biden faithfully served as Barack's wing man for eight years, dude didn't matter to them, man, And I just think we didn't give that enough credit. I think Bernie struggle in the South in twenty sixteen, but in this time, we

actually fought hard in South Carolina. What I didn't understand was once we're kind of wonky right now, but once once Congressman Clyburn endorsed Biden, South Carolina was pretty much over. And what I didn't know, I don't live in South Carolina. I didn't know he had juice like that. I didn't

I knew he had a lot of influence. Exit polls showed that sixty of voters chose their candidate in the final two or three days, which is when he endorsed, and so you know, Clyburn had everything to do with that. I don't think it's dirty. I don't think it's like listen, that's Clyburn used his juice. And we have to think like that and figure out how do we win and what are the path the paths the victory, you know. And I'm not sour grapes over it at all. I'm

proud of how we did. And I campaigned hard in California. I did nearly fifty events up and down California. Bernie won there. I campaigned in New Hampshire and you know, and we won there. So you know, and Bernie never sold out, and I just I wish there was still this enthusiasm. I have two daughters who are eighteen and twenty, and this is the first presidential election they get to vote in. And Joe Biden was pretty much the least liked candidate among young people for all the candidates, So

young people are having to learn how old are you? Man, I'm thirty three, so I'm forty. And the older you get, sometimes you vote for people you just half like, And that's how politics can be. You don't always get to vote for somebody that just blow owes you away, right, You don't even always get to vote for people you love. Sometimes you have to be super practical about it and say, this guy, Donald Trump is a monster and he has

to be defeated. And even though I'm not enthusiastic about Joe Biden have all of these criticisms for me this year, I'm really voting to defeat Donald Trump. Yeah, I do think that that is kind of the weird because I've been super critical of Joe Biden on social media, especially during the primaries, and I feel like that is the position that people like you and I are in that have platforms that people for whatever reason. Obviously yours a lot bigger than mine, but people like look to us

for whatever reason. It's kind of a weird, you know, situation to be in because it's like, hey, you know, had maybe this not been Donald Trump that Joe Biden was running against, like maybe you might ride in a third party candidate or something, but now is the time. No, I don't. Yeah, guess what another four years of Trump might just the world might be gone as we know it. You know what I'm saying. Here's the thing, man, You and I have a certain level of success and privilege

and security. But Donald Trump is a dire threat to very particular communities in this country. And we owe it. We owe it to immigrants in this country, we owe it to Muslims in this country, and to many other communities to make sure that he doesn't have another day in office. He even his gross Smiths management of particularly his gross smith management of the of the pandemic, I think will go down in presidential history as one of the greatest failures in American leadership. Yeah. Man, it's not

the greatest, it's one of them. Well, here's the thing. You know, we are celebrating now in other countries that have gone one hundred days without a single case, and our country just crossed five million. Now I saw you post you know the rankings of all the countries, and it's it's crazy when you look at the countries that

are getting that are growing in the pandemic. It is it's all developing countries and the United States and now we don't like to think of ourselves as a developing nation, but we have to ask ourselves, why are we not only on this list, but we're leading the list. And I just think the United States, it's even it even gets to our healthcare systems, it gets into racism and discrimination and how inequity is built into our nation. There's a reason why we're failing. And almost every other developed

nation in the world has already flattened the curve. They're already pasted it, and there's almost no I don't see any end in sight for us right now. Yeah, it's rough. Man.

I wanted to talk to you because I feel like you've kind of become one of one of the leaders in this country kind of by by default when it comes to just spreading awareness to what's going on, like and you've you've I mean I've been following you probably for five or six years now, and you know, I feel like what you do is that's why I get so irked when I see people trying to come at you.

I'm like, like, this guy's like because you've been around, you see more context and uh, and you also see kind of the manipulation of how people will extract one quote and extract words from another quote and say, look at this guy, he's a hypocrite and for me, I tell you what. I tell you what did it for me? I was the I was the senior justice right had I moved my whole family to New York. We moved to Brooklyn, and and I was the senior justice writer

for the New York Daily News. And I wrote hundreds and hundreds of articles for the paper, even articles that were on the front page, articles that were the most shared articles in the for the entire paper. And then I would walk around the streets of New York, this is before the pandemic, and people would come up to me and they wouldn't tell me they read my articles. They would say something like this to me. They would say, Sean, everything I know about the news I get from your Instagram.

And at first when people told me that, I freaked out a little bit because Instagram's not really built for that. It wasn't designed to be a news source. And I wasn't running my page to be a news source. And so I continue to write my articles, continue to push, you know, push forward as a journalist, and everywhere I would go, people would say, listen, if you don't post it on Instagram, I don't see it. And eventually, instead

of rejecting that. I just leaned into it and said, for better or for worse, people are using this community in this source, that's how they learn about police brutality, about racism and bigotry, and I have to find smart, useful ways to curate this thing better to be responsible for it. I'm still frustrated that we don't have better new sources for people to lean into where they can get current, up to date information on these types of issues.

But in the absence of it, I just leaned into it and just said, okay, let me, let me try to do better and share as many stories as I can. So that's me. I don't have any help. That's me, you know, posting them, writing them. I don't have any special apps on my phone, chugging along, trying to trying to keep people as informed as I can, and just

holding people accountable on your page. You know, I think the fact that like I mean, look as a white guy in America who has made his entire living as a grown up off of the back of black culture, Like I've been involved in hip hop my entire life, and that's how I feed my family. You know, I got a biracial son and you know, like, I like, your page is really something that like, you know, me and my wife or even my son who's fourteen, he

follows you. It's like we'll see. I get that everywhere, man, everywhere. That changed me too, Like when someone like you tells me that you have a child who fought everywhere I go. I get parents who say, hey, my kids turned me on to your page, or I get school teachers who tell me elementary, middle school, high school teachers say we use your social media as a primary source for how we study these issues. And it just caused me to say, like, okay, this is is uh. You know, social media was kind

of designed for like laughs and giggles. It was designed for cat pictures, you know, it was designed for for you know, for models. I mean yeah. But then at the same time, it's it's also you know, it's it's awareness. Yeah, And so I tried to lean into it, man. And and so when somebody tells me like, so, I don't take that lightly. You know, when when people's children or students or teachers or professors are using this as a source,

I put a lot of effort into it. And uh, and so I see, as weird as it is, I never imagine it would be this way. Like I see the community that I have, particularly on Instagram, as being my primary way to inform the world of injustice, and I try to give people. I try not to just tell bad stories. I try to point us to solutions actions that we can pay. Yeah, so it's you know, you use what you have, you know, and I'm trying, man,

what the book make change? I do feel like there is a we got like and I feel like you do a good job of this with grassroots law. But I you know, it's easy to post something on Instagram, right,

It's easy to spread stuff socially online. But I don't think that's enough if you're truly you know, obviously it helps with spreading awareness, but like a perfect example, like you know, a blackout Tuesday when everyone posted a black square, It's like, okay, like everyone posted that not necessarily just because it was the thing to do. Like you look like an asshole if you didn't post a black square,

you know what I mean. But what I'm curious, like, what would be advice you would give somebody who might just share stuff on social media who doesn't necessarily like know how to really you know, their put their money where their mouth is and or take further steps to try to make change. I know, you know, you can write politicians, you can call you know, I call police departments and left voice fails and send emails. But like what is kind of just some some bare bones advice

I got you. That's why I wrote the book, keV. You know, when I've traveled now, from the beginning of the Black Lives Matter movement until right before the pandemic, I've traveled to forty seven states. I've been to not just the sixty five largest cities, but I've been into North and South Dakota. I've been deep into Alaska, into the Mississippi Delta, all over Texas and Florida, South Carolina, Alabama, and everywhere in between. And everywhere I would go, people

would ask me one question. They some version of this question. They would say, Sean, I am I'm frustrated about injustice or racism or bigotry or police brutality, but please tell me what I can actually do about it. They would always ask me some version of that, Sean, what decisions do I need to make? What actions do I need to take to actually change this thing? And it was to answer that question that I wrote the book. I've answered that question in little sound bites and in little

clips to thousands of people. But in the book I took two hundred and seventy two pages to say, actually, let me spell out for you how you can use your life to make a substantive, measurable difference. I'll say two things, man. One is that most of what we do fighting back against an injustice builds awareness. But in this and that's good, you you have very little change without awareness. But this country, if it's taught me anything, it's that it's fully willing to be aware of its

worst problems and about them. Yeah, and say we see it. Yeah, and it's not and that's not just a Trump thing. That's Democrats and Republicans. Yeah, it's a and it's not just police brutality and mass incarceration. It's school shootings, it's climate change, it's our it's our our horrible immigration system. We know these systems are failing. We are fully aware. But being aware is not enough. And and my book starts after awareness. So let's let's assume you are aware.

Here's the first decision that you have to make. And I literally spend a few chapters walking people through how to make this decision. You have to choose a cause, and until you choose, until you say, listen, I'm going to fight on this issue, this very particular issue. Mine is police brutality and mass incarceration. That's the decision I made.

I'm here, I'm here at my now. My wife she chose childhood literacy, and she's been fighting and working and hustling to teach children to read for nearly twenty years now. But whatever your issue is, you have to really plant your feet down and say I'm literally not moving until I change this. Now. What I say to people is it's not enough for you to be able to tell me, well, here's my issue. Here's how I kind of prove whether

or not you've actually chosen a cause. It's if I ask your friends and family, Hey, do you know, does keV have a cause that he's chosen. It's when I ask your neighbors, when I ask your coworkers and colleagues. When you've chosen a cause to devote your life to, everybody around you knows this, you won't leave them alone about it. You are constantly trying to recruit them to it.

You'd be hard pressed to find a single person, not just in my family, but anybody who knows me who couldn't say yes, Sean is the guy that fights back against police brutality. It's not just because I'm well known. It's because I'm relentless with it. And the same is true for the most effective people in the world. And listen, the truth is, it's true for anybody who's effective at

what they do, not just fighting for change. It's true for lebron with with sports and even getting into entertainment. It's true anybody who's chosen their thing. You know it, It's unmistakably clear. And you know those people standing like almost to a point, that's how I am. You know, Like I'm around a lot of younger you know, I work in the music industry, so i own a recording studio, so I'm always around a lot of younger, younger people, and I'm always beating them over the head about shit,

and it's like, I'm sure it annoys them at times. See, most people, though, most people are frustrated, they're frustrated with the world. That's a start, but most people haven't made a choice. You know what, this is my thing. I'm fighting for the rights of girls and women. I'm fighting against climate change. I'm fighting Most people see problems and they're angered by them, they're aware of them. But change begins with making a hardcore decision. And when you make

that decision, you start to see the world. It's almost as if when you own a car, you now see that model of that car everywhere. When you make a decision to change the world in a very particular way, you then develop a new lens to see opportunities, to see how to solve that problem. What I have found, as basic as what I just said, is most people haven't made that decision, and it's why. It's part of why we see a whole lot of awareness but very

little change. Not enough people have decided. Okay, I fought for awareness, but now I'm dedicating my life to changing this issue, and it's a serious decision, A issue I wanted to talk to you about because I do feel like there is two factions of the defund the police conversation, right, I think that, you know, my mom and my dad got into a huge argument, and my parents are older

white people. My mom's super hippie. She's like, she's really on her fuck the police shit, and my head is a little less like you're crazy, right, But I think that, you know, I think that that, at least where I stand on it is a I think San Francisco just started. Like are you You had posted about it again, getting a lot of my news from you. Yeah, they start situations. You don't need military. You know, you don't need armed

police to show up for certain situations. If a kid gets caught shoplifting a candy bar at a liquor store, there should not be a you know, three cop cars to show up. And you, I mean, at least you know where I grew up. I didn't grow up in great area, so I know better than anything, no matter how small or insignificant, the call is, it's always three cop cars to show up, no matter what. Yeah, billy badass sometimes guns out and they're gonna make an arrest.

It's not gonna be it's not gonna be pleasant. And it could literally be over a candy bar or a can of soda or somebody just having a bad day at the bus stop and someone drives by and see like yo, this guy's acting crazy at the bus stop.

But what I was gonna say was I do think that it's important that we reform the police departments that we have because there's so much bureaucracy involved, and it's less about doing the right thing and more about all of the bureaucracy that comes with a police department and

the unions and all that. And I think that at least where I stand on defund the police is reallocate a lot of the sources in the same way that our military is overfunded, like grossly, so insanely, right, Yeah, like those more than the next ten countries combined, you know, right, and hundreds of billions of dollars are just wasted. And then the same thing with our police departments. A lot of these police departments have equipment that they'll never use,

you know what I mean. But I feel like I'm against just getting rid of the police, but I am four reallocating funds into the community from the police and reforming the idea of what police are. Yeah, let me talk, let me let me say something about it. First, your dad and most Americans are taught that police keep communities safe. And I've done studies on this, man, If you go to America's safest cities, if you go to America's safest neighborhoods.

You can hardly find a police officer in any of them. They're safe. But where do you live right now? I live in Burbank. Yeah, if you go to the safest neighborhoods in all of Los Angeles, they're not swarming with police. You don't see police precincts, you don't see jails. They are safe because everybody there is employed. Everybody there has jobs, health care, education, everybody there has resources. They are clean,

they are well cared for. There's access to there are no food deserts, there are wonderful grocery stores, there is no lack. The things that make America's safest neighborhoods in cities safe aren't or police. And that's widely known. If you literally go to the ten safest areas of Los Angeles, you could hardly find the police here. And so that's number one that the safest communities in America, they're safe

for very particular reasons. And what we're saying is we want to duplicate that safety, that kind of safety in other communities. But secondly, in Los Angeles is probably the most important illustration here right now. The LAPD takes up over fifty percent of the general fund of all of Los Angeles, over fifty percent of the budget. If you go to other mega cities around the country, it tends to be between one and four percent. In Los Angeles

it's fifty one percent. It's so much, it's so bloated that that there's then not funding for homelessness, there's not funding for substance abuse. And so what they do is in Los Angeles and other cities around the country, police are just expected to handle everything. It doesn't matter if it's substance abuse or homelessness, it doesn't matter if it's school truancy. In most cities now police are even the

office handling pet problems and missing cats and dogs. And it's like, listen, let's remove as much of this as police from police as we can. Number one. And then another study showed, and this blew my mind, even as somebody who studies policing. This was in the AP just recently that in the average major police department in America, less than one percent of all of their time is

spent on violent crime. The other ninety nine percent is spent on traffic tickets, is spent on unarmed, nonviolent disputes, it's spent on substance abuse issues, it's spent on homelessness. And what we're saying is when we talk about defunding the police, we're saying, hey, let's use money smartly on

substance abuse, homelessness and all of these other issues. And if they're only actually spending one percent of their time on violent crime, let's find a way for them to make that basically their major thing that they do, and let's put everything else and assign that to social workers, to doctors, to nurses and other civic groups that can handle it without shooting and killing somebody. In some cities right now, nearly sixty percent of all people who are

killed by police are having a mental health crisis. You know, many people are having either a version of a substance abuse and a mental health crisis. And it's like, listen, we have problems. Los Angeles has problems. I live in New York has problems. They're hard, they're complicated, and traditionally police showing up to the scene with guns doesn't help any of these problems. I want us to solve them.

I'm just saying the NYPD and the LAPD don't have a quality track record on solving the problems of substance abuse and homelessness. They've been at that stuff for generations and it's still here. Let's actually tackle our hardest problems, but do it in a way that's bigger than a gun and a badge. And so when we say defund the police, we're saying, if cities say that black lives matter, if cities say that children matter, just make your budget say that. And right now, most city budgets don't show

the priorities they say they have. And we're saying, we got to reconsider how this works. Yeah, I think. I mean, you used La as a great example. Like, we're in a city where really, no matter what area you're in, the homeless problem is. It's crazy. It's literally it's a real crisis and way, but like La San Francisco specifically, right, it's a real and And my thing is to say that when you criminalize poverty, which is basically what police do,

it's like, okay, you're homeless, we're arresting you. You can't Yeah, you can't criminalize substance abuse, you can't criminalize mental health problems, you can't criminalize poverty. We have to actually treat these problems. Here's the thing. These problems are expensive, they're complicated, and they're not easy solutions. What we know is that police

are horrible at solving those three problems. And if they, if they knew how to solve those problems, Los Angeles would have nobody who was homeless because again, fifty of the general fund in Los Angeles goes to the LAPD. Yeah,

and so it's not what they do. Man, Homelessness is I worked at a homeless shelter in Atlanta, and I learned quickly that it is about the intersection of poverty, of mental health, of substance abuse, of poor health, of unemployment, and then you mash all of those things together in one human body and then have somebody that's homeless for a year, or two years, or ten years. As I lived in Los Angeles before, too, I would meet men

and women who have been homeless forever. But they're struggling with not only deep, deep poverty, they're struggling with mental health problems. They're struggling with substance abuse and addiction. Many of them now have chronic health problems that even deteriorate their body and their mental acuity. Man doesn't solve Sending those people to jail is cruel and unusual when they go there. That makes sense, Yeah, why would you put someone in jail for using a substance. Well, it's not

only that. When you send them to jail, they are abused, they are neglected, they are not jail. Jails were not built to house people with those challenges and problems. And the biggest myth is jail like it's not there's no rehabilitation that oh no, no, no. It generally exacerbates your worst problems. And most people obviously you see success stories from time to time, but if you go through the Los Angeles jail system, you often come out much worse than you were when you got in. And it's uh,

it chows people up and spits them out. It's an unhealthy environment. I feel like what you were saying, like if the police quote unquote just focused on violent crimes, right, like, hey, someone broke into my house or there's a guy with a gun that's trying to get into my front door or whatever. If if you know, like you said, it's one percent of what they actually do is probably violent crimes. The rest of it is a bunch of bullshit. Imagine if you if you actually extended the hiring process, the

training process, you know. I feel like that's another part of defunding the police is also just rethinking, how do we make someone a cop? They should be the hot the best of us, the best of society should be police officers. They should not the guys who you know, couldn't get you know that. I feel like a lot of cops And this is a blanket statement. I guess I won't make it, but I just feel like, in general, no, there are a lot of man it a lot of bad people end up becoming cops they do, and honest

people in the profession. I'm friends with several brilliant, kind, compass and souls who are currently working on the NYPD. One of one of my friends, named Edwin Raymond, is a lieutenant inside the NYPD. He would tell you some of the worst people in all of New York work on that force. They are now he has, He has men and women in there that he reveres and loves, but it attracts a certain brand of asshole and then you then empower that person, yeah, to arrest people and

give them a badge and a gun. It's a. It's a dangerous you know, quotient of factors coming together. And and so you know, the problems in Los Angeles, the problems in California, the problems here in New York. Both both of our states are super expensive, and and these states are our states are complicated in general. We pay a lot of taxes, and but most of that is going to things that don't actually solve our problem. And what Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles is saying is no, no,

we want to solve the same problems. We also want to be safe. We just want to go about it in a very different way. And I also think that it's a perfect example to where it's not necessarily a partisan problem because we are a democratically ran city and a democratically ran state and as top the bottom as

is New York. Yep. And it's you know, I think, you know, growing up when I was like eighteen nineteen, it's like, yo, just Democrat, Democrat, you know, it's like it, you know, you kind of get because I grew up in a Democratic household. My grandma loved Bill Clinton, you know what I mean? My mother and my mother loved Bill Clinton as well. A long time for me to realize, like the Clintons are kind of shit, kind of yah,

But I feel like the same thing. Like we look at a city like Los Angeles where Garcetti is a Democrat, Gavin Newsom, and I think Gavin Newsom is a good dude, Like I feel like he has good intentions, but like, yeah, he's one of the better. He's one of the better governors of all the governors. I agree he's I think he's handled the pandemic well, We've been overly cautious. But I do feel like, you know, it's not a partisan thing. It's like, at the end of the day, governing is

a hard job. But you know, I think la New York City, there's married Deblasi, there's Mary Garcetti, and not just that in in New York and California. In New York City and Los Angeles, our city council is completely controlled by Democrats. Yours is too. Our state legislature is completely controlled by Democrats. Yours is too. And so in these states, whatever problems we have, you can't blame Trump, you can't blame Republicans, Like these are our problems and

we and my thing is, let's let's own them. Let's figure out the hard work that may take the rest of our lifetime. Let's figure out the hard work to solve these problems. But it's on us. And in these states that are completely controlled by Democrats, there are no scapegoats, they're no they're no boogeymen. It's it's democrats that control it. And so we have to own these problems. I wanted to I wanted to ask you this in the same way that police brutality has always been around, except for

now we have phones that can record it as it happens. Right, It's not like this is a new thing. This is something that's always existed. It's just easier to see what's actually happening. I feel like a lot of Trump becoming president embolden a lot of people who were already racist to just be more outward with their racism. Yeah. I would almost argue though, that that started when Obama became president.

Yeah it's not his it's not Obama's fault. But I just feel like when when the black man became president, that's when, Yeah, people started to lose their fucking mind and really show their true colors. Unequivocally. Absolutely, But here's the thing. Though there's so I get that question all the time. People will ask me, Sean, is police brutality actually worse or is it just social media and technology?

And the answer is, well, both. Every study shows that police brutality actually is worse, and we're now able to film it, document it, share it, tell those stories. But we have more cases of police brutality year over year over year. We have more hate crimes in America now than we did five years ago and ten years ago. So hate is rising, police brutality is rising, and we have the tools to share and talk about it. So it's not it's a bit of a misnomer. And I

hear that I heard. I heard Will Smith say something very similar to what you said. keV was saying, like, listen, we've always had these problems. That's see. That is true, but the problems actually are getting worse. It's not just that we're seeing it more. Every metric in every study I've ever seen shows that these problems are getting substantively worse, and we now have the tools to be able to

tell it and share it. So it's kind of both, and in that sense that it does feel like it's getting worse because it is but it also feels like it's getting worse because we're now inundated with information about it every single day. Where do you see our country going, Sean, I know that, you know, all the polls are saying that Biden and Kamala. I mean, the Post said Hillary was gonna win. Obviously, you never know what kind of

tricks Trump should they should, you would hope. But what I wanted to ask is like, obviously, assuming that they win, the country is extremely divided. I don't think that any time soon, No, not at all. I do feel like a leader like Bernie was, someone who could talk to both extremes of the aisle yeah and say, hey, look, you know, because at the end of the day, there are people who voted for Trump that voted for him because maybe they felt like they were left out, you know,

not necessarily Trump. Trump sold to millions of Americans. I don't care what anybody says. Millions of Americans felt, millions of white Americans felt abandoned by the Democratic Party. And he came in and said, listen, I love you, and not only do I love you, but I'm gonna stand with you. I like you. I want you to rock with me and it was for the first time for communities of white Americans that often voted Democratic in states like Kentucky where I was born and raised, and others

in Wisconsin and Michigan. Listen, he appealed to a level of racism and bigotry and messie no questions asked. But Democrats have to own the reality that they abandoned millions of working class people, not just working class whites, but just working class people all together. And those people have become disaffected, they've become frustrated, and and Joe Biden, I think a younger version of Joe Biden, tried to engage

that community of people in a way. But I don't think Democrats should take for granted that they're going to win. Also that none of us should take for granted the bs that Trump might pull. I see all day to day and stuff he's trying to do, trying to postpone the I mean, you know, Bill Mars been saying this for a long time that like he feels like he's not gonna leave. He's a he is a He's one of the worst human beings ever elected to office in this country. And that says a lot, because there's any

human beings that have been elected KKK members have been elected. Yeah, and he's up there, man, he's just here. He's he's he's so unethical and so immoral consistently, and that I still to this day am having a hard time imagining him leaving. I just I'm not seeing it. Man, you posted today that you were taking your Instagram page private. I know that you've obviously had a lot of death threats, even I think a few of the cops here in Long Beach were, right, Yeah, several current and former Long

Beach police officers. There was a group of on Facebook, right, thirteen different police officers throughout California had posted death threats inside their private Facebook group. But why take your IG page private? Oh man, it's I'm I'm so glad that I did. Actually, now there are some drawbacks that I hate. It makes it hard to share what I what I post,

and I'm okay with that. It makes it hard. So if you're not already following me, it makes it very difficult for me to add new people every day on my page. Thousands of times a day, my page was being spammed with really three pieces of content, like full on spammers who were selling products who were actually targeting and kind of praying even on some of the people in my community, saying like do you need us to pay a bill? Follow me and I'll help you. Scammers,

do you need help with the coronavirus? Follow me? Or people selling cryptocurrency stuff like that. So spam now all of that is gone. I hardly see any of it now that I've made my page private. Secondly, my page was being flooded with people who were there deliberately posting misinformation and lies about me every single day. Well, what we discovered was that the majority of the people would post that, sometimes with fake accounts, sometimes with accounts that

looked real but really weren't. They never followed me, and when you make your page private, they now no longer have access to that. And the third is we saw different white supremacist groups and others frequently planning like everybody flood this post, flood this thing that Sean just said with rebuttals and things like that, and just to flood my page with misinformation. Now that it's private, nobody can

do that. Now. The drawback is now it's a closed ecosystem, and I hate that, But at least for the time being it is virtually spam free, there'll still be some of it, but my estimate is that probably ninety five to ninety six percent of it has already disappeared just with a click of a button. Instagram has a real problem with spam. Man, you do even like, you know, every time I post something that's get your page verified? Or do you need a cartoon draw? Oh yeah, yeah,

the cartoon in its consistent. Man, they always get me like sign cartoons. Yeah yeah, yeah. And so no, man, if you go to my post, now, nobody's selling cartoons, nobody's asking and it just it just limited all of it. So whatever algorithms these people are using, they never thought to actually follow people. And and so now I've kind of closed the bubble at least at least for now. We'll see how it goes on the lighthearted side. You know, typically we have a lot of hip hop people on

the podcast. I know you're a hip hop guy. What are your like, top three, four or five albums of all time? Sean King? Oh? Man, man, I would have to you know, I was a huge Nipsey fan, and I keep Nipsey's last album on. It's literally maybe the only thing that I listened to consistently. Yeah, so I just so I continue to listen to it. Sometimes the only thing I do to mix it up is like sometimes I put it on shuffle, you know, to mix

the order, to mix the order of it up. Then I would have to go back, man, I would have to go I still listen to the stuff that I grew up on. You know, I grew up on Tupac, I grew up on Biggie. I've tried to teach and share some of that with my kids, like the uh the edited versions, but edited old school hip hop. They didn't edit as well. It was like reverse words. It's like what was going on anyway? Yeah, so the edits

aren't nearly as clean. Man. You know, I love the good kid mass City from Kendrick, and I still think that might be my favorite Kendrick album of all time. Yeah, I mean, you know what's crazy with that? With that album? Everyone revers that as like his classic, like his like Illmatic if you will, yeah, in a way, right, if you go back and listen to like to Pimple Butterfly, Yeah, yeah, he so well with what's going on in the world. No, no, it is so relevant for now and then man, I

would have to I would have to go back. Man, I have a hilarious uh story about some West Coast rappers I would I'm gonna have to come back on and tell you this story. But I grew up listening to uh like West Coast rappers like Sea Bowl, who was up in Brother Lynch all that Yeah, all of that brother. I listened to Brother Lynch all of that stuff, man, and uh, I still go back and listen to some of some of my old I feel horrible when I

listened to it becausere's there's nothing redema Brother Lynch. Now, I don't go back and listen to Brother Lynch. When I was a kid and I heard Brother Lynch, I thought he was really out here doing all that ship and I was like, I was really freaked out. It was scary, man, it was on something different, like what reason.

When I was a kid, we were told that he was dead and that because he was dead on the on the album cover and we were all like, you know, there was no social media and so like rumors like that could spread and last for a long time. And then his friend X rated was in jail, like it was, Yeah, it's so funny. Man, never would have taken you as a brother Lynch got no, man, we love that, you

know as kids. Now, when Brother Lynz first came out, I was like fourteen or fifteen years old, and so, man, you know, we were just badass kids, man, so and so all of that stuff. You know. I loved E forty and the click and ce Bowl and all of that. I wrote a whole chapter about a story I have with ce Bow that that's not in this book, but it'll have to be in maybe my next book. I got to share it with you one day. Man. That's fair. Man, Well listen the book make changes out. I think you're

a national treasure man, and I appreciate. I appreciate everything you do. And I also appreciate the way you navigate a lot of the negativity that comes your way. Thank you, man. I think there's a lot that could be learned from the way you handle a lot. Hey, when did you see the Andrew Schultz thing he did about you? Oh? Yeah, man, I you know I hated that because, you know, like guys like Andrew, like I like Andrew, and it's like,

why why do that? Like I've never had and Andrew and I have several mutual friends, and it's just like it's sometimes it's an outer body experience. Man, it's almost like being featured on SNL low key. But I do feel like there was just so you know, there's a thin line between it being comedy and it being like, yo, you're forming, like he forms a lot of people's opinions. What those vits he's been doing? Yeah, And it is

what it is, man. You know, I see part of it as because I'm so public at this point, it's gonna it's gonna mean that I'm subject to misinformation, to comedy, to whatever. So I don't take it personally. I just but I do hate it because it's like, damn, dude, you could have literally reached out out to me, Yeah, gotten better information. But his job is his job is to kind of be a comedic asshole. Like I mean that,

not even as an insult, that's kind. And his stick is to to push the envelope and to kind of be a hilarious asshole. And he's great at what he does. It just sucks when you're on the receiving end of it. But I don't I can't generally speaking, I can't dwell on it. For long. I see it, think about it, and I got to keep it moving. You got the uh the Bulls poster behind you? Oh no, no, this is that's Boys in the Hood. Oh it looks like it's all blurry. That looks like the chicog you know what?

In fact, when okay, I see what you see? Uh looks like right there, that looks like a Bulls logo right there? You know what that is? That is it that says that's this poster is like an original poster. It says it said, it's a weird logo that says share the dream with Coca Cola. Right, I see what you see. It looks like the old Bulls logo. But this is a this as Boys in the Hood. Like there's I see I see the font that it could be. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Sean.

I appreciate you, man, and keep fighting the good fight and make sure you go get the book make change Amazon. Did you the audible version you read that like like you had? Oh? Yeah, man, the audible version is great. Man. I narrated Bernie's on there. We have twelve different guest voices, including Buster Rhymes. Chuck Dia is on there. We have five original songs that are on there. It's a lot of fun, man, Like I don't think there's ever been

an audiobook like Chucky and Bust. The rhymes on the audiobook, yeah on the audio book, and uh and and others. Man. We have I think thirteen different guest voices that are on there. We have original music that's all about make change. So it's it's a ton of fun. Man. That's man amazing. Go support the book, and you know, go get the I'm gonna I ordered the book on Amazon, but I feel like now I got to get the audio version.

Get it on audible. Man, No, you'll love it. It's a different We got it for people who don't normally do audiobooks, you know. So I think you'll enjoy it one hundred percent. Man. Well, look, I appreciate you and keep finding a good fight. I'll be in contact with you. So man, thanks for checking in body. Take care, man,