Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's the j n V.
Just hilarious, charlamage the guy. We are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests in the building. We have the Mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott.
Welcome.
But also we have Eerica Bridgeford, who is from the Baltimore Peace Movement. Welcome. Now, I do have to ask a question before you start. I have to make sure that you guys are really from Baltimore. So I want you to read this.
I do it.
I'm fine. Earn earn and iron earned.
There you go. I don't know what that sounds like.
It was Darren earned and iron earned.
Always it's not.
Earned.
Why did he have to earn and iron earn?
I don't understand that's the same murd Did you just have four times?
Right?
All right? Tell you all from Baltimore.
I heard a just asked to agree.
To do it.
Wow, we want to start right out like that.
That's yes's right, but welcome guys.
How you feel good? Were good?
Brother?
It's on your second term.
Sir, Thank you, thank you, thank you, long time coming. Just you know, the last time we had a two term mayor in Baltimore. I was a sophomore in college twenty years ago. It's been twenty years since we had it. So it's a big deal in the honor for me to have the have the city say like, no, we want to keep moving in this direction, especially from someone that grew up there when we grew up there and understand everything that has been happening.
So what made you want to become a mayor of Baltimore?
So this is a real easy thing, man. So I grew up in Park Heights, right, It's a place in northwest Baltimore. It's the best neighborhood.
Sorry, Joe, don't even.
Start that about West.
I don't know what you let you finish.
So imagine envy living in the neighborhood literally so that the horse race Preakness is in my neighborhood. Imagine living in a neighborhood that's the center of the world every third Saturday and they then every other day of the year. You're not treated as human where we wouldn't even go outside on Friday night before Preakness because they would do what we call Preakness sweeps. If he was outside looked
like us, you could be gone. But the next day somebody who don't look like us could be peeing in the Miller Street and no one blinks. But before I was even seven years old, I saw someone get shot outside playing basketball and no one care. And literally I just start pestering my parents, my uncles, my grandparents of all why no one care? And one day my mom just said, look, if you wanted to change, you gotta
change yourself. No one's coming to save us. And having my family be involved in the community, my uncle dragging me with him to political fundraisers when people were trying to get my family's business to donate. I had the understanding of what people should have been doing and who wasn't doing it. So I said then that that's what I wanted to.
Be at a very young age.
You already already knew because I was. I was about to ask you what made you not go the other way? You know what I'm saying, because while I'm going to give credit it to your hood why Park Heights is one of the best hoods in West Baltimore City, it is still also one of the most dangerous.
Yeah, you know what made you not go?
It's a little different now, I tell the young like y'all. Y'all have no idea. Y'all don't know the Old Park Heights. But for me, it's about it's a couple of things. It's my family, right like so, I am a first generation Baltimore and my mom's family is from rural Virginia, right outside Richmond. My grandparents moved to Baltimore. Ironically, people
don't know this. They gonna know now to East Baltimore with three hundred dollars to their name, where them my great grandmother, my great aunts, all my older cousins lived in this one house right behind North Avenue, the school headquarters. And then my dad's family. My dad followed, my uncles and my older cousins who moved here from rural North Carolina, where my grandparents ran a pig farm until they died, right, which is why I don't eat pork, because I used
to feed them myself. But when you come from things like that, you have a different setting. I was set in a world where like, you don't have to accept things as they are. You can work harder, you can.
Be greater, and you have a.
Responsibility to us and those who put you in this position to take us all in your community and a further place. But I also had the community itself, growing up running track as an athlete and playing sports. Ironically, it was also the people that were deciding who live or die or what the beef was in the neighborhood who said, like, you have to be better than us. We want you to be better. Do not let us hear about you getting into any trouble or things like that.
And if even some of my family members who work for them were putting me in danger, they would check them.
Right.
It was just a different time. So I would say I had the entirety of this city that really pushed me to make sure that I became a better version of myself and working to be the best version.
Now what can a maya actually really do?
Right?
We look at you know, res I ask is you know people to say the vice president is the vice president, but what can she do? You know the president can do certain things, but she has to get things signed off on. So what can a mayor actually?
Do?
You control? Funding? Do you control?
I do so as the mayor of Baltimore, So I do. And I think what people have to understand is the mayor is an.
Executive of a city.
Essentially, every mayor, especially if they're a strong mayor form of government like Baltimore is. Actually Baltimore is the strongest former mayor of government in the country, So technically I'm the strongest mayor in the country. We do get to direct that funding, right, and it's about and no disrespect.
I love my Vice president to death. I love my president to death, But the President would tell you that mayors have the toughest job in America because people can see us and touch us every day, and decisions that we make every day are going to impact people, and they're going to hold you accountable, even for stuff that you're not responsible for. But when you think about the basic things that people Essentially, I'm the CEO of a three billion dollar, full billion dollar entity known as the
City of Baltimore. Right, everything that people do. When they turn that water on in the morning and they want to be hot and clean, it's my responsibility. When they want they trash picked up, it's my responsibility. When they want their rec center and open up, it's my responsibility.
When they call nine one and have the have a fire truck come, it's my responsibility to make sure that that stuff happens, but at a deeper level, it also is important to make sure that when is someone like me who has that lived experience that just Erica and I have, that we bring that to that job and understand and that things we're talking about. Our city literally is the birthplace of racial redlining in Baltimore and everything that we all grew up through as a result of that.
So when you think about things that I've just been able to do in my first term and what's really been like the focal point of this documentary, the body Politic, it's about reimagining what public safety means because for all of our life, they just said reducing crime is the sole responsibility the police. But I want people to understand how that was never true, right, And you take Baltimore City that's roughly six hundred thousand people. At its height,
our police department had three thousand cops. Three thousand people. Can't keep six hundred thousand people safe, especially when they all don't work at the same time. So we have to do the investments in changing that. And we can do that. The mayor sets the tone for how the city works. So I came in and said, no longer we're going to just say, hey, it's all the police responsibility. Every part of the city government has to be a
part of this. We passed the law that we have to have a comprehensive approach that's led by a health commissioner and then direct the funding to go to other places.
So when you look at the fact that we're now funding our community violence intervention work at the highest level that we've ever had, people that used to be in the streets, whether it's safe streets or the brothers that we are, us and all these other folks who go out and intercede in violence, and we're investing in them and allow them to do that.
Deciding that we.
Weren't going to just continue down this path for just like oh if they black and outside, were just gonna lie come up for anything. No, we're gonna stand up what we call our group violence production strategy, which is the epicenter really of the movie, and say we know who the people are who will most likely be the victim of perpetrator of violence. It's much like any other disease. Right, Since my granddad had prostate cancer, when I go to
the doctor, what did he test me for? So we identify those people, and we're gonna give them a chance.
First, they actually get a letter directly.
From me that says, look in Baltimore terms, just yo, I know who you are, I know what you're doing. This is your chance. I know where you live, I know everything about what you do. I'm telling you this is your chance to change your life. If you need housing, if you need to finish school, if you need you know, mental health, whatever you need, we'll give it to you.
But don't try to call my bluff because if you call my bluff, then them boys coming and you won't be able to say no. One tried to help me, and it's working and we've been able to. Last year we had the largest reduction in homicide that Baltimore's ever had in twenty percent, and we're beating that this year with twenty four mayors. Make the difference on the ground. When you think about what we're investing in. I decided that we were going to put historic amounts of money
into our rec centers. When we were growing up, they were closing them left and right right. So imagine me going into the doors of Tawanda Direct Center in nineteen eighty nine, when I was in pre k and then becoming mayor in twenty twenty and going there early twenty
twenty one, and it literally was the same building. Nothing had changed, the same weight, equipment, and the building was closed, right, and then being able to reopen that right, renovated, and now we had five more that we're building across the city. And that's only because the mayor decided that's the focus, right, And that's what we have to do in every city is have people in those positions that will do was, as I always say, the right thing, not the popular one.
Because there are a lot of things that I did that people were like, I can't believe you didn't do that. For example, they said I should join on to the state's lawsuit around opah yours, the state wassuing all these drug companies. I said, no, we're gonna do our own because we were impacting more. People called me everything but my name, and then lo and behold. Now we're like receiving four hundred plus million dollars from these companies from
doing it our way. Leadership doesn't mean being like It means doing what's the best thing for the people.
And when you wrote that letter, we'll get you in the second Aerica.
That's fine.
When you wrote that letter, where did you get that idea from writing a letter?
So yeah, so this is this is about knowing the work right. So GBRS Group Violence Production Strategy will focus return. It's a model that's been around for a long time and it works in cities. It worked in Oakland and all these places. They tried it twice in Baltimore before. And me so this I'm forty now. I came to city hall when I was twenty three, so I literally grew up there and seeing the last attempt fail and why I knew that I wanted to go deeper into
the work. But also that the number one reason why great ideas and programs and things that fail in cities, it's because they don't have the executive leadership and buy in. Because if it comes from me, if this is the mayor's strategy, everybody else that works for city government knows that they got to do it or they ask got to get another job. Right, That's the reality, and that's why. And we have to do the notifications because if not,
it's no different than us just showing up. And we use what we call credible messagers to go and deliver that message and say, look, yo, if they want to give you a chance, and people change their life, and I think.
Who you're giving chances to is it?
Is it shooters, It is everybody, everybody.
So you look at you like, look, you did this turn your life around.
You're doing this stuff right now. We know that you're involved in activities that might end up having you lose your life or take someone else's life. This is your chance. Like your group of people that you're with, chances are y'all ain't gonna be here or you're gonna be locked up.
That's the reality.
We gotta we gotta tell people a real deal. And if they don't like take that heat, they are people that took it right. There was a young man. It almost brought me to tears. We just had a little graduation for some folks through YAP on Saturday. And you can see a lot of this work in the Body Politics, which is airing on next Monday night. We'll get to you, but you can see what happens.
Right.
This young man literally said that he one young man had been out on the street since he was twelve, and no one ever asked him what he wanted to do. Or how he can do things different until our folks showed up. Now he works for the convention center. Saturday, a young man had told us he had been out of school since elementary school and out there doing what folks do. Right now, we got him on the right track.
People are working for the city, People are.
Starting their own businesses and being able to reconnect with their family. So just simply having a house right like that stuff changes people's lives. And then there's some folks who just tell me, as we would say, Jess rocks, and then I'm like okay, And then that's when they got to deal with the boys. And you can't say that we didn't try to tell you that there's or
show that there's another way. There are people out there delivering that message every day, Like yo, we can do something different because we also have to understand, like, look, we all know our people don't own boats, right, we don't own gun companies. We have to understand what's really happening in that cycle that we're allowing ourselves to be put in, and we're trying to pull people out of
that as much as possible. But we can't just have people shooting and killing people's grandmothers and babies and kids and wives and all the other craziness. We just simply can't have that absolutely, Erica.
How did you get involved with the Baltimore peace movement?
Well, it used to be called Baltimore Ceasefire because there was this guy named Ogon. So first there was a three hundred in march movement. That's how Brandon and I met. Brandon and Muniahbaha were leaders in that movement, and I got very much involved because my son got involved in the very first march. They did a march from east, took from west to East Hilton all the way to me, all the way across North Avenue, and my son did that much and got very much involved.
And I got so involved.
That Munia said, oh, you should be a spokesperson, and so I became on the leadership team.
So during that movement.
Somebody named ooh Derek Jones in Baltimore.
He was a big leader, educator.
He passed away suddenly, so a lot of the men in his life and women got involved in three hundred.
And in November of twenty fifteen, after Freddie Gray was killed, there were over three hundred people got like we hit three hundred murders in November that year, and so the three hundred mid March movement called a state of emergency for the city of community meeting and a lot of Ooh's people showed up there, and one of them was this guy named o'goon who had this idea about calling a ceasefire because he just, you know, he watching the news and he sees what's happening in Israel and Occupied
Palestine and keeps hearing the word cease fire, and he's like, that's the only thing that made him pay attention to the news is because he heard that word. So he wanted Baltimore to have that same kind of like introspection but also eyes on it from the outside. So he had this idea that they would just be one day when everybody agreed in Baltimore, it's gonna be a cease fire. He took the idea to different men who was like, Yo,
that shit dumb. It's not gonna work, I mean, And so he brought it to me at that meet and he was like, I heard a lot about you.
I see how you move. I feel like you the person I should be talking to.
This About two years later, in twenty seventeen, the city had more murders than it had ever had in its history, which pissed me off because I had been out doing work all day long, the mediation Son. You know, I've been doing that work forever, and so I'm mad, like, how the fuck is this? What was happening when we're doing this much work and day like pointing the people who say they got connection to the gangs, Why don't they tell niggas to stop shooting? Because if they say
it's gonna happen. The next day, when I woke up still that mad about it, I realized that I was day I'm mad about what people not doing, and I had n't followed through on this man's I did from two years ago. So I called him up and was like, what you say you wanted to do? Because God put it on my heart, it shouldn't just be one day, it should be three days. And violence is a language. So if we take in violence, we gotta replace it
with something. Let's tell people yo do stuff to celebrate life, because if nobody deserved to celebrate life, Baltimore does so. Just create events that's fun, that's celebrating life. Friday through Sunday call. Brandon was one of the first people I called to say, this is what we think about doing all you gonna Before I could finish the sentence, he was like, Oh, yeah, we're doing it what you need. So we at first we were just calling it a
Life over Death Weekend. And to Brandon's point about the last program that was the GVRS, it had been called a cease fire, and all the sh reachs knew it to be was the police come and lock you up. So when we held this community meeting to ask what do we name this Life Over Death Weekend, people were like, well, if you call it Baltimore ceasefire, people know what that
what that means. And we put a sister component of the peace Challenge because there's going to be a lot of people being like, I wasn't gonna shoot nobody this weekend anyway, so they're not talking to me, right, but that's how people next week.
But that's when we get out anyway, I wouldn't you know.
And so we wanted people to know the fact that you're saying that shit is violent, like violence is not just about shooters, it's about who you being pettied with in your own family, who you dragging on social media like can you be peaceful.
For three days as a challenge to yourself.
But we were worried that because it would be called ceasefire, it would get confused with the previous city program that people and so we were like, but Baltimore is smart.
If somebody say, oh, that's that ship where the police, we were like, no, that was that. This is this and people gonna understand.
And they did it and it so at the time the ceasefire started in May of twenty seventeen, people were being killed every nineteen hours in Baltimore. So we had that first weekend in August of twenty seventeen, the city went forty one hours that weekend without anybody getting killed.
And although people be like, well that ain't nothing, you say that shit to you get the phone call, you know, right, So when we hit twenty four hours, we was like, wait a minute, bitch, we might have did so right, you know, forty one hours.
But also when the first person got.
Killed, we went showed up at the space, We blessed the space where the murder happened. We found his family, his family, got money and resources, and the Kingdom Life Church showed up and gave his mother the funeral, and she literally said, if her son was going to be killed, she was glad it happened during the ceasefire weekend. And that's some wold shit to say, but that's really what she met because she was like, if he got killed last weekend or next weekend, nobody would have.
Cared about my son publicized, right.
So everybody that was like, weller's stupid, it's not going to work. We was like, Okay, we're gonna do it every every three every three months though, so we started doing it every three months. We started blessing murder spaces all year round. In twenty twenty two, it occurred to me that the way creation actually works is whatever you focus on your attention on with intense emotion, that's where you're gonna manifest physically.
So we're calling it cease.
Fire, and we're paying so much attention to what we're against, we are not.
Putting that energy on what we're for. Because when you redirect.
Your focus to what you're for, you don't give a fuck about what you're against.
You like, this about what I'm for, what I'm standing on.
So we said, we asked Baltimore, what do you know already exists here?
What are you for? What do you want for yourself?
And from different places the ideas came it should be Baltimore Piece Movement, So we changed the name. The focus more on what we want, what we are for, what we know we can uplift in the city. And this work is important to me because since I'm fifty two years old, that's when.
Y'all go, girl right, thank you very much.
So I started seeing people get killed when I was twelve years old. My brother was one of my brothers was killed in two thousand and seven. My cousins have like just countless people. And that kind of pain and trauma is either gonna swallow you up whole, or it's gonna push you forward into your purpose so that other people don't have.
To experience what you experienced.
And so the pain of my life and understanding that they are now ancestors fighting with me on the other side, whispering moving pieces for me on the other side, like when I did not follow my call and I was suicidal and tried to kill myself. And so I'm aware like I gotta do what my soul tells me to do or else I'm gonna end up back on the psych board, and I'm not gonna make it because I shouldn't have made it this far, and survivor's remorse can
become a real thing. Right when I've heard bullets flying past my ear. I shouldn't be here for a lot of reasons. But my parents had me on purpose, you know. They said, oh, let's have a boy who's gonna change the world. So I came out a girl, kind of acting like.
A get there.
Other things, but they knew, so they were gonna name me Malcolm Patrece had I been born a boy, but they named me Aca after Ka Huggins.
And my middle name is Angela after Angela Davis. So it's not you.
That's about my name, y'all. Huggins only has one R in her name. He thought it was too So I was reading the autobiography of Angela Davis in my twenties and she mentions Araka Huggins. I'm like, that's about's name from and I'm like, no, you.
You spoke my neighbor.
He said, oh, well, and you was born with let's fingers and more that you special because this also he was like that, and.
Because that's what they a couple of.
Everything.
We ain't no football having up here. Tell us.
I want you to tell us about the Body Politic documentary. It's so important why people should go check it out?
Which hold up?
Which I actually did watch and I love it because uh you know he of course, Brandon said to me, I love it because it speaks to people in Baltimore of all ages, like my son.
That's something that I can watch with my son. Even how it comes on.
It's like we have the most always say we got the most authentic mayor. And I've met a lot of mayors and traveling and you know, I've been on it by certain mayors and and different cities and stuff, but we had Baltimore. We have like one of the most authentic mayors. The way he speaks, the way he talks, the way he loves his city, and how he actually went through ship. And it's not just a Polish because
you think of a Polish person. It's like, oh, this person is perfect and this person, like no, Brandon is literally the most you know what I'm saying, like brand absolutely, yes, I say that when I look this nigga at my section and my birthday party.
Why you got your own section.
I know you and my section ship and he's like, no, they told me your birthday party and I had to come. I was like, all right, party, but he it wasn't my father wasn't going on.
That wasn't me.
First it was it was a building.
It was it was the it was that's Dave fault, that's Dave counsel fault.
Wasn't no. And I got that.
They looking at me like can you call it? I'm like, what the hell I'm gonna do.
They blame him, the mayor, like this the man fall Jess party.
I ain't had no m I'm like building.
I'm like this, come on, y'all.
But like I'm saying, yo, he's he's actually somebody that actually can touch the people, can actually you know, say, I've walked that walk and I know why. You know, things are like this and things are like and you know,
making the city a better place. But I love that the doc is something that my whole family can watch because you know, when you think about, like, oh shit, the mayor just dropped the documentary, you looking to not understand it because I'm a person that's not really into polity either.
You know what I'm saying, but the fact that.
I understood the whole thing, you know, me, my son, my man, we watched it, you know my mom, I saent. Of course I said it to her as well, and it is amazing And it's not out yet. It is, it is going to be out, but it actually shows you things. It comes out Monday, right, yes, but it actually twenty since it actually shows you things that you don't even know about your city. Like I didn't even know that twenty what was it twenty nineteen?
Was I word?
She had twenty seven?
What was it?
Seventeen?
Was not worst?
Yeah, you know so I certain things like that, like you know, so it's definitely informative. It's informational and I even if you're not from there, it's definitely an inspiration to have a mayor like you to come out to drop a dot about your city like this.
Well, I think for me, I think it's important for me for multiple reasons. One, like, I think it's important this is something that yes it's about Baltimore, but really this is also about like inner city America, right, I think because you could replace me with whatever mayor across like may Wood from in Birmingham, and all these other folks that are doing this great work in their city's mayor Jones, my favorite mayor in Saint Louis, right, who
are from those cities and doing this work. But I think what happens is, like you said, Jess, and look, you know, we love you. We're very proud of you. Got to say that every time. But people look at their elected officials and they don't really see them as human, right, like they see us as these robots that have to
do this stuff over and over and over. Right. I always say, like people Erica last when I see this, people think that, like my job can be described by my Instagram feed, they have no idea, right the stuff that has to happen. And I think, for me, the reason why this is the second documentary that I've done, I was in another one called charm City when I
was a council person. But I did this because I wanted people to see raw and uncut what it's really like, because people have no idea what it's like to be the person that has to call someone and tell them that they love one never coming home, or be the person that someone's calling and saying, my baby's not gonna walk again or have to make that decision that you know is going to impact people in a way that
people aren't gonna be happy about. And what you see in this movie also is that Baltimore obased sprinkle grit that we have and that despite all the stuff that we hear all these TV shows, there are so many
people that love our city. When you see Erica and when you see all of the folks, Dante and everyone out there doing that work, right, you see something that you won't get to see because most people aren't going to be out there with violence intervention workers, a safety's workers and saying like, hey, yo, you got to do you don't need to do this right. Most people are not going to be out there blessing a space after
someone gets murdered. Right. Most people aren't going to be sitting there getting those phone calls like I did, or happen to fight to even start this program.
Right.
It's like you say, V I couldn't just do this on my own because agencies from the state, right, and we had a different governor. We didn't have Wes Moore when this movie was being famed, Like I had to convince our former governor to agree to do this. I had to convince our federal partners at the congressional.
Level to agree to help us do this.
People don't get to see that, and they also don't get to see like my raw emotion, like when things happened. And this is one that's captured in the film that you don't see from my standpoint as much as you do from Ericas. But our brother Tata Boxton was murdered doing the filming.
Of this movie.
And people will see me that day on the news talking, but they don't know, Like most people don't know how close Tata and I are. They're gonna know now in this video in this movie when they see me and him walking around these neighborhoods together. They don't know that. Like it took a lot for me to even go out and talk to the press that day because I had to not be in that moment. I couldn't grieve, I couldn't do any of the stuff that you do
when someone that close to you is murdered. Because now I got to go and show a strong, strong standpoint for the city, and people will be able to see that and also see that there's a different approach to dealing with violence that's working, and we have to spread it across. I think the thing that I've been most proud of with the film is that two months ago President Biden and Vice President Harris had a executive order sign it at the White House and after that Maya's
from around the country stay to watch the film. Never in my wildest dream that I think little Brandon from Parkston and Cole Spring would be at the White House first right there, more time than I ever thought I could imagine in the last four years, but two that they will be watching a movie about me and about Baltimore and it be something positive. But that's what this story is about. It's about hope, determination and what is possible when people work together.
Yeah, and I think it's really important.
I was really excited to come here, specifically because PBS is not a place where our people gonna go and know what the fuck is on PBS on Monday at nine ten o'clock and I was like, so, the viewership, the audience of the Breakfast Club, these are our people impacted by violence live in this in even the people doing the work around violence. That's the people that watch that that followed us. And I was like, and we got way till just come back from eternity.
Baltimore in the buildings.
Today, sleep come better.
To me.
It's just it's important for people to feel seen in their pain, like those of us who do the work on the ground. There are people like us all over this country because America is a place that believes in power over instead of power with. It is a it teaches that violence is the way you get power. And so all cities like Baltimore are dealing with the same problem, and they have people like us doing healing work, doing
intervention work, doing mediation work. But they people still look at us and say what we should be doing, and how come y'all not doing because.
They don't really see on it.
They only see us on TV or happen to maybe see us in the street, but they don't even if with my pain in grief was public around Tata different from what Brandon did. I was all over the national news crying about it. But people still will circle back and go, well, then y'all should be doing this, that and the third. But you not really doing nothing except being whatever you are, which.
Be in the comment.
Some people just cheerleaders, some people just hey, does the
remind me who I want to be. That's fine too, but people, it's important for people to see what it is like, what you actually as a human go through when you decide I'm going to have an intimate relationship with violence and murder because I'm working to heal it in the world and people need to be seen about that work and about their trauma and about how they lost people and it's not just them that's going through it, and that people really love them and people really want
Baltimore to win. That's something I have learned. We've traveled around the world with this film. It premiered in London, as you know.
They're like, oh, that's why.
Make it to London.
That's a whole different conversation. But the news lite about what he was doing and why he didn't make it. But that's a different conversation. But we've been to the Netherlands, We've been like this film has literally been saying around the world in Africa, like it's been seen everywhere, and just like you're saying that things that people in Baltimore are gonna watch it and.
Go yo, I didn't even know that about us.
Beautiful things people around the world got to say that about us, and which made me say to them that means it's neighborhoods right here where you live that you're judging the fuck out of and you're saying it's something wrong with them instead of asking what happened to them and how do you benefit off of the systems that's
doing whatever it is doing to them. So, yeah, support our work in Baltimore, absolutely, but it's probably stuff happening right here where you live that you need to be looking at differently, and you need to be supporting the word getting done right here where you live, and.
You check it out on Yes, yeah, I'm about to say, but I want to remind people check it out Monday on PBS. What time Monday.
It's coming on ten pm on Monday, But you can stream it on PBS right right during and whatever, and then it'll come to some stringing.
Streaming and people should check their local listens because you know pbsd Yeah.
Depending.
The film has the instagram is at the Body Politic film.
Yes, definitely go check it out. I just have one last question. You know you were talking about you said that you know you were meeting with Biden and Kamala Harris. You will know So now that Trump will be in office in January.
I'm gonna just move back from the how have you had conversations with his administration as yet or even spoken to him yet?
And how do you plan on, you know, focusing on that, because I mean, I don't think Trump is really going to care about the NCA these too much, you know, areas like Baltimore.
Detroit, Baltimore. He's mad, He's made it.
No, it's gonna be a lot more difficult to get funding and to make sure that you got the budget. You need to make sure that your city is clean and clear and good. So how do.
You Yeah, we were buckling down right, and I think that this is the reality, and this was the message that I was delivering all over the country to folks right because I was in that first meeting Envy with the President and Vice president where.
We talked to them before Oprah hit the street about.
We need to be able to use this stuff to help community violence intervention and focusing as oncome violence as a public health issue. We didn't think in our wildest dreams that the President would go out and say it right then and there, but he did and then allowed us to do that work. We put fifty million dollars of our offer money into community violence intervention. Now we don't know, none of us know what the Trump administration
is going to look like for our cities. But if they are going to care carry out the things that they said, we know it doesn't look good for us. So we have already been working because we know that offering these other stuff we're going to end to how do we now institutionalize these things within city government working with our state government. We're blessed in Maryland to have
a governor Wes Moore. We're now blessed. We're going to continue to have the best congressional delegation with the now with the addition of Senator Angela also Brooks.
So if folks of black people.
In particular are living in a in a city or a state and they feel like their rights are being in friends, come to Maryland, aka come to death row Right. If you don't want your governor telling you what books you can't read, and if you don't want to you want to live in a state where women's bodies can be protected, come to Maryland. If you want to come to.
A place where black people will be respected.
Come to Maryland. But that aside, I think that what we're going to do is we're gonna knuckle down. We're going to be working with our philanthropic partners, and that's the key on how we set this up. It wasn't just a city funding it. It wasn't just a fa It's funding. It wasn't just the state. We had our philanthropic partners, all of us together, and now we just
have to wait and see. My hope is that the new administration sees like, oh, this city has been having tremendous reductions in violence, right, why would they come and disrupt that. We hope that that can can continue. We hope that our congressional delegation is still like they are today, being able to make choices about what things they get funded in their local districts, and if not, we're just going to have to work around it and do it ourselves.
Right, That's what we have to do, because.
This work has to continue not just in Baltimore, but in Newark, in Saint Louis and Chicago, everywhere else in the country because we know that violence is going down and our inner city. So we just have to do that work and buckle down.
I got one more thing to say.
So after the election branding, you said, this country does not deserve black woks.
It doesn't, Okay, I want.
You to to what do you think that we need? I want you to expand on that, like.
Well, we can be here all day. I think when I said that and people are like, oh, that's a great speech, I was like, well, my staff will tell you that they had no idea without what I was going to say when I went out there. It was just the response. But I think there's a couple of things. Right when we think about and people can say what they want, right when we think about the election that
we just went through. We went through election with the most qualified person to ever run for this position, was the most disrespect that Canada ever ran the best campaign that I've ever seen. And I've been around a lot of campaigns, right, and yes that and yes that includes President Obama's and that we love him forever. You know,
I love your president. But this, when you look at that and you look at the focus and the things that people focused on, it's very clear that this country still has a big problem with black people and with women, and unfortunately my vice president, your vice president, it was both of them, because this wasn't for many people about policy right. Folks voted against their best interest, which is insane,
but it happens all the time. We have to have real and honest conversations about what it means to allow people to be treated the way they should be treated you and not be disrespected the way they should be disrespected.
And I always say this up to people like me in my position, like I said that day to call things says they are right, and people are like, oh, you're putting yourself at risk, You're making yourself a target, Like I'm already a target any I'm already at risk, And what are they going to do to me that
they didn't do to my ancestors. The reality is too many people that look like me fought and died for me to be even able to sniff a position like this, for me to sit by and allow someone who was as qualified as talked about, but also who personally did so much for me in my city to just be treated like that and not say it right. I think that I owe that to her as a black man, as a son and grandson of black women, but as the husband to a Belasian wife just like she's a
Blazian Ablasian American as well. I owe that to them, but I also owe that to my ancestors and for me to continue to stand on what we know it's right and call it out. And we know that right, we can if you just look at what they say about her every time she opens the mouth, and then other folks can just say stuff you be like really really, I mean, look y'all, Linda McMahon is about the leader Department of Education, right, and we're talking about she wasn't
qualified for the job. Come on though, Like, we know what it is, and folks have to call it out and stop being scared to do so, because that's how these folks get so comfortable and continuing these things because people are like, oh, yo, they're gonna take away my money. They gonna yeah, money is fine, your position is fine, that is fine, but like, what principles do you have? What kind of world do you want to live in where you can literally see that happen to this woman.
And also, look, let's be honest, the data doesn't align right. We have to remember and this is in particular, I take this person too, because I also came into office during the middle of the pandemic. Right when they came into office, no one knew what the next week was going to look like, let alone the next four years. And when you think about it, in particular to black folks and folks that listen and watch The Breakfast Club, You've never seen more investment in the HBCUs, You've never
seen more small black business career. You've never seen a lower level of black unemployment in this country. What else do you want? Like this stuff takes time. She's not going to just be there in four years during the height of a pandemic and then like, oh, all these things are the list that have existed in this country since they brought the first one of us over here.
It's gonna go away. We have to stop holding ourselves to this extreme high regard and taking Joe whatever the rag man from other folks.
I love that.
Definitely check out the documentary this Monday ten PM. Check your local listing on PBS.
And we appreciate you for joining us anytime.
I wanted to ask you, who is the guy next to you. He's a wise man in.
My opinion, who said it takes the village to raise a child.
Uncle the village is.
Shout out to Uncle Tim. He got in trouble.
I'm like, no, nah, when he said that, Brandon knew he fucked. Like he says, envy, this was a whole press conference. It takes the village the raise a child.
What if the village is.
Retarded, guest, I knew what he meant.
Just know what he meant he meant.
That's not the point.
Even you can see. I'm like, damn, you know.
Yes. So we had another event a couple of weeks ago, and Uncle teas about to ask quest. I said, Uncle T, before you asked this question, he did, man, he had talking points.
I said, if we asked the question.
The last time you asked me dad question, you got me a lot and everybody just busted.
That's my man.
I love uncles a lot of work.
Saves a lot.
Of young people in East Baltimore. We love him very uncle.
He's forty plus forty.
You know, look them old black people, they're gonna say what they mean what they said.
He got because he whipped the young people over every single day helping us.
But I'll tell you something about Uncle T though.
This is this is how you know when and you'll remember this. Remember this summer, we had this incident where this young lady was shot and killed inside of the house. Right uncle called me before the police commissioner called me and him in the community. When I got there, they were like, Brandon, this is who it is. So I delivered the message to our folks. And then if you watch the interview and Eric, everyone was online like your brain is sitting the message and others don't know what
he's saying. I literally go out there and say, the entire city is looking for you. Your best bet is to turn yourself in.
He knew they.
Knew what I was saying. But that's the kind of person And that's really what's happening with these communities, because people ain't just gonna let somebody go in the house and kill a little baby, and you think you just going like, we'll go off about your business like na, yo. They like people who are looking for you. And they were able to say, I'm like, look y'all, chill, we'll find him. Tell us who they told us, And we were able to get him and put him where he belonged.
But I think that shows you the character of people who know, like, no, we got to set a code that like, no, whatever you got going on ain't got none.
To do with this little baby.
And that's the kind of thing that we have to have and stop allowing. Like the thing that pisces me off the most is if I go on the Internet and see somebody that shot somebody mother or daughter or somebody, and they be.
Like free free him. What Yeah, are you crazy?
Like yo, he killed somebody's child, right Like, I ain't had nothing to do with their little city silly petty beef because I think envy. One of the things and just that people don't realize is that this ain't the nineties people dying or regular beef thing dying whole amounts of money like yeah, yo, disrespecting me or every other day like dump Yeah I did say that one time, damn the TV I did. Thanks Jess for reminding me. Uh yo sent my yo, sent my girl a message
on Instagram? Like did she respond it?
Nature girl?
Bro?
Like like that's just how we go right Like, And we got to get our folk, got to understand that we gotta be better with each other in understanding how to resolve conflict because we're gonna have conflict.
That's the human way.
I think the biggest thing is is I know we gotta go, but I think the biggest thing is social media. I'm gonna tell you why, right, because before, if that was a situation, you send my girl a note, it's just between me, you and my girl. Everybody, the embarrassment is not there.
I can just walk away.
Now I'm embarrassed because now everybody, everybody feels like I need my ego. The same thing as if you if we get into a fist fight, right, yep, you beat me up on and you know it's a couple of people that see it. I go home.
It's people at the next block don't know social media, and I know I can't beat you. So the next time, I gotta bring the blak.
Correct, that's what Now it's all in the commed.
So now I got to prove myself from New York.
I understands, right, you got new.
Balances on these weatpants. You know.
I just want to say, because you brought up like conflict in general, right, it really is a trap to make us.
It is.
I think that we there's no other choices like the thing I have to do now because people don't understand, right, they don't understand the brain science of it is. It's just a moment in your brain telling your body run, fight, freeze. You chose fight, But if you take that pause and calm down, it's.
A lot of other options to you.
But you are being socialized to think these are the only options because your humanity ain't worth shit, so these you gotta act like an animal because you are an animal and this is all you can do, when really you got all of these other options, and we don't get taught conflict management skills like conflict management didn't get it doesn't get addressed, like the coronavirus.
I think also because we're just learning as it's going on. You know what I'm saying, you know because and anybody will be a liar if they say it doesn't affect them. The first time you read a negative comment about yourself, it could have been one hundred positive comments, but that one negative comment, those two negative common stuck with you, and it's hard to feel like I'm gonna let it go.
It takes time to learn, and that's why Conversation car.
And there are all over this country organizations that teach conflict management skills. We do that at the community Mediation Center in Baltimore that teach mediation. So there's a safe space to take all right, me and you say that ship to my face in a confidential space so we
can really work it out right. And there are organizations doing that work all over, but they have to be uplifted as much as to keep that same energy shit is to recognize that it is intentionally trying to make our demise just a real And.
The last thing I'll say, I say to see the kids all the time too, right, and we have to understand like who's programming. I got to ask this by a kid in a school last year. It's like, mister man, every time I go on Instagram or TikTok, it's trying to show me fight videos. I don't watch fight videos. I said, yeah, but people in your class other people do, and they think that people like you algis are a real thing.
Perfect example, this is a true story. A young lady that works for me one of it set up a TikTok account, Like I'm not downloading TikTok. You can do what you want, but she was like, well, we want the algorithm to be right. So you sit here while I picked the things She's like, what are you interested now? Like sports, babies, politics, weather, nature, right cities. Assuming she goes in there because it puts in my age right
and all my information and where I live. All they wanted to show me was ass videos.
She's looking at it like, what.
We have to understand that and really figure out ways to unplug ourselves from that. But thank you all for having me.
Thank you both and Scott Erica.
Make sure you check out the documentary this Monday, ten o'clock on People.
Yes so much, Thank you.
It's The Breakfast Club. Good Morning Wakes Up in the Morning, Breakfast Club