A DOG VS. A BLACK MAN

People are definitely feeling a lot of weight. You've got the president who's been impeached in there is you know, obviously a trial going on right now. A lot happening with that. You know, I try not to watch it because it's a lot of trauma. Um. But there is a real impeachment situation happening in our country and that has a lot of implications. UM. You know, there's a virus that's spreading across the world. We were talking earlier

about this virus that's coming out of China. It's now in the US, UM and you know, just trying to learn more about it. I think it's the Corona virus is the appropriate name. UM. So that's a lot then we see no, that's it's just way serious. Like it's way serious I mean, it's it's spreading and serious now and people are dying, particularly in Asian countries and here.

Uh you know, like I said, it's here now. So there are people in the United States that actually have the virus and they've been quarantined, and there's a lot happening there. And then you know, sex trafficking. I talked about it on all of our shows and we will

continue to talk about it. We're actually working on some things throughout organization Until Freedom just to help educate people on missing women and girls, particularly black, Latino and Native American people don't often talk about the fact that a lot of Native American women go missing from reservations and there you know, not a lot of focus on it. So we're doing some work to try to really bring a spotlight to that. Uh, there are cases of police

brutality happening across the country. You know, I've been watching, Like we've been so busy working on other things with Until Freedom, but I still try to keep up with Attorney Lee Merritt, obviously, Shaun King and his platform, uh, you know, Benjamin Crump and just attorneys across the country, and every single day they're posting about people who are being killed. So it's not on the news like it was. And I think, honestly, you know, I'm into some conspiracy theories.

I'm almost certain that like, at some point the energy with Black Lives Matter was so big and so hot that the media decided to stop playing so many stories

of people who have been killed. And so now you don't see it as much, but it's still happening, um, you know, and of course there's a lot of It's like you have all of that happened, and I guess just a black experience, like we have all those things happening, and then black excellence is popping, like you see so much beauty and so many black folks doing great, amazing things. I know at some point we're gonna talk about the Grammys and the whole weekend, the Rock Nation Brunch, and

so there's a lot happening. But I will say that, you know, in the Bible, when you read people who actually study and not, you know, it doesn't matter what you believe in and who you call God. But you know, if you really look at the Bible, it shows where there would be these types of situations where you would see earthquakes. Look at what's happening in Puerto Rico. It is so sad to see that they keep getting hit by very serious, serious weather conditions in these earthquakes, and

that's happening all over the world. But that's again Puerto Rico is right here in the US. There are earthquakes, and I know that when you walk outside in New York and other places around the country, one day it's fifty degrees one day it's eleven degrees one. Climate change is a real serious thing. So there's so much that again is going on, and I know people are feeling

very weight like heavy right. But at the same time, we see a lot of beauty coming out of our communities too, And we're just resilient people for real, to go through all of that and still look good. I don't know how we're doing it, but we are. It is, so we'll try to cover some of it today. UM. And you know, I was talking about the trauma, and obviously Kobe Bryant is what has happened, his death and his daughter's death, and the deaths of all the other

individuals who were on that flight. Um, yesterday. It's traumatic, Like it is heartbreaking, so heartbreaking, and you have to ask yourself, like, how do we just deal with so much trauma in our lives every day, especially with people who we don't even know, Like, you know, we're experiencing trauma with people we don't even know. I just think, um um sleeping peace to Kobe Bryant. Man. I was in the movie theater with my sons and we went to see it, you know, we went to see um

Dr Doolittle. So and they were enjoying the movie, and I got a call saying that, you know, Kobe Bryant had died, and I'm like what. I grant out the movie and started making some calls and you know, to actually found out that it was true, and I just was so confused. And it's so crazy that Lebron just passed his scoring you know, he just passed him and

scoring the night before, you know. And so when the people who like me, who don't understand a lot about sports and basketball, that means that Kobe Bryant had one scoring record, right, he was he was because he was more points, he got more points. He had passed him in amount of points collectively throughout his career and Lebron had just passed him on the list. And when you when you understand how much of a competitive Kobe is, it's just like crazy that the minute somebody passes him

and beats him, he would lose his life. Like his

his spirit was competitive, you know. And when I think when I sat there and I thought about that, then I thought about when I found out that he was on his plane with his daughter, just understanding the type of man that he is, and understanding that I find so much simililarities in the way that we compete and the drive that we have, and just imagining what he was probably going through on that helicopter when his daughter he couldn't save his daughter just because he probably wasn't

thinking about it. So I wouldn't have been thinking about myself going through that, and here my daughter cried and met everything in me would be trying to figure out how do I save my daughter. I'll give my life forget me, for my daughter needs to be saved. So I thought about all of those things at one time, and it made me emotional. Started texting people, calling friends, telling him I love him, getting Texas from people. I think it made you really just reflect on your life

and what life means. And that's the thing like today. I mean, obviously it was happening all night, but today, when I woke up and started going through my social media feed, I saw so many people talking about hugging your loved ones and telling your loved ones that you care about them. And you know, you always have to ask yourself, is it that just in these moments we start doing that, and then we get back to regular life and we forget about the little things, just the

little conversations. I read something on Felicia Butterfield Jones, my our good friend, on her social media page where she said, um, that people, and I'm not going to quote it exactly, but that somebody who was on that flight had a plan for today or the next day and they but they say God is the only planner. That's right. You want to make God laugh? Then you're telling you But I do want to make sure I didn't mean to cut you up, but I do want to make sure

that we mentioned that again. There were other families there, and there was a mother and father with their daughter, and then a mother with her daughter. The pilot. So many people lost their lives yeah, man, So we just want to send out our condolences to them, to Vanessa Nasa, her husband, and her daughter. You know, so I couldn't even imagine what she's going through right now, I think, and anybody in her circumference was able, you know, to lift her, to hold on to her, to hug her,

because she's definitely going through a lot right now. So I'm gonna findest thing while you're talking that someone wrote on Facebook that I thought was so powerful in such an example of as women what we experience, and it talks about strength, the strength of a woman, and of course it doesn't want to pull up at this moment, but basically it starts out by saying that this today, Vanessa learned about a strength that she didn't know she

had yesterday. You know that we go through things and you say I could never deal with that until it happens to you, and then there's a strength that you draw from that you never know you had. We constantly see women like that, when Trayvonn's mother, you know, Lucia Macbeth Jordan, people that we've seen walk into their own own mothers who have walked into their greatness after the biggest tragedies that they've had exactly deal with. Man. But I also I don't want to. I don't. I don't

want to even bring this up. I really don't. But you have to bring this up, you know, because somehow racism always sense. It's like, you can't, we can't just be centered in a conversation. Something else has to happen that just gets people off the point and on to a racist issue. Because I didn't even I didn't even want to bring it up. You know, it was all over my timeline. A bunch of people were tweeting it,

and it was this combinator. Commentator is that combinator? You know what I'm saying common haater, That's that's common kind of like what it means anyway. But there was a comment you just did the same thing that she is being accused. But no, but listen when you can hear the words I said. Because I said what I said, commentator, I ain't saying I said something different, you know. So, but there's definitely there's a there's a balance. Some people

believe that she didn't. But when I listened to it over a hundred times, you know, and said that she the commentator was she was reported on the death of Kobe Bryant, and the context of the sentence didn't even really make sense to me. That's like the kind of star that was perfectly cast on the Los Angeles Niggers, Los Angeles, like if I could ask you to stay with us for gonna you know, she said, Kobe Bryant was perfectly cast it on the l a Niggers mhm,

and just said I mean Lakers. And when you listen, why was he perfectly casted? Like what made him perfectly sit on the thing? This is a black man, told what made him perfectly casting on this team that never existed? She says that she was she was saying she was trying to say Lakers and thinking of Nix at the same time, and that why would be New Yorker. I don't know who she is, even if you're a New Yorker, right, you know that Kobe Bryant never played for the Nick.

The Knicks weren't playing, but she might not be a sports person. Here's the thing. But I listened to it, and it sounds to me like she said nigger. That's what I heard. And almost everyone that I know that's black, and particularly black people who actually use the word, and by the way, on social media, even white folks who probably use it and don't want nobody to know they use it. They said they heard n that's what I heard. I'm not ready to join the cancel culture on her though,

I'm not ready? Why do why this is what I wanted? Why are we constantly being asked not to join cancel culture when we can do things we can be They can say we said or did things that nobody ever heard and cancel us. But we can literally see and hear things with our own is, in our own eyes, and we shouldn't join the cancelase. At what point do

we say that certain things have to be respected? When they called Martin Luther king, mort Luther coon and these things, they say, we made a mistake, Like why does it always? Why don't we make mistakes and say something about the cracker or why don't why don't we accidentally say honky or things like that that are derogative? Why do we never you never see that happen? Well, some people deliberately say, but that's what we and they deliberately say it, and

you know that it's being said deliberately. But why don't we ever make that mistake with other words? Why why do when we speaking about other people these words. I'm just saying, I don't know about words, but I know we make mistakes, right, We make mistakes, and and that really kind of leads us into another conversation about Kobe. But we do make mistakes in life, and there should be some rooms, some grace um given to every individual. Racism is a little bit different. We have to be

able to challenge that. And I particularly don't appreciate somebody telling me that they didn't say something when I I believe that they did. But you know, again, I'm not an expert. And my good friend Tony Lindsay argued me down that he heard nakers and he actually does audio and he's like, he's in the film industry, right, so he's a producer, and he said this is what he heard. So us, there are different people coming from different perspectives.

I don't think that we can be like them. The they, the they that is constantly challenging us, judging us, and trying to condemn us. I think that the beauty and maybe you'll say that's probably our issue. That's probably one of the things about black folks in particular. That's problematic. We always forget we want to hug the cop that killed both of them exact, And that's the problem for me. It's like we we sit here and we take abuse, We see things that are blatant, and we figure out

ways to to shure them and ignore the facts. And and for me, you know, I don't. I'm not a show of anything when it comes to that situation. But I know what I heard. I know what I heard. If somebody else heard something different and they have the ability to make that decision and that determination based on what they heard, then cool. But I know what I heard. I know. I mean, I feel like I heard the same thing. But again, I'm not ready to join the

cancel culture that says that's it forever. I think that if in fact, she did say it, your racism real, it is dirty head, and you better like figure out how not to allow that to happen again. But that's

another day. It's a lot of debate around that. But talking about mistakes and evolving, um, you know there there there is another debate online and it seems like this happens all the time, when that's because there's no such thing as a perfect individual right, where people are talking about where people are talking about Kobe's past, right and

in discretions, things that happen, you know, extramarital affairs. And particularly the major concern or issue that I've seen a lot of people basically women speaking about, is the woman who accused him of rape. Right, Um, people want to talk about that right now, in the midst of and and and Do I think that yesterday was the right

day to talk about that. I'm not sure. I'm not I'm not comfortable with us having to go directly to the negatives on folks when some one blows up in a plane with their child, That to me is a little out of place. But I do have to reconcile the fact that women, specifically women who have been sexually assaulted, it is triggering for them when they see someone who they believe, they believe to be a perpetrator of sexual violence being celebrated in such a way. Well, I have

I have two different points of views. First of all, you know, I definitely don't think yesterday was the day of bringing it up, because we have it with a conversation. How long ago was it that these allegations came up? I don't know, but it's been a long quite a long time, and they haven't came up since then. And and and we actually we asked ourselves, at what point does allegations that have been the charges have been dismissed.

At what point does does hit the allegations not have the same level of validity or do we just completely somebody who's been exonerated of charges. Are we going to completely continue to condemn him and call him these names and call him a rapists and things like that. We at what point do you say, Okay, the charges will dropped.

Like I want everybody to understand, I wanted to be very clear, I am not a rape apologist anyone who's raped a woman, anyone who has done something to a woman that is against her will when she said no, whether whatever it is. I believe that you need to

deal with the consequences of or acts. But I also want to know where is the line drawing If a person has been accused or something and those accusations have been deemed not valid or they have been dismissed, when do we give that persons back their reality, give them back their humanity. Because once you've been accused of that is it hasn't been any You know, no one has

dropped the charge. Once you've been accused and you guilty of you lost your humanity as a man, right, I mean when when, if those charges have been dismissed, do we give that person back his humanity? Yeah? I mean, but then also there are some people who would argue, what about the humanity of a person who may have

filed claims? And because of the way in which the world just operated at one point, and particularly during the time when Kobe was accused of this, the athlete, the star athlete, the celebrity, those types of individuals really were they weren't They were like slapped on the wrist. That's just the truth. We're in the meto era now, where there's been a shift in terms of accountability for sexual

assault and sexual violence. This is a new day that we're living in this moment, living in in this moment. How do you think that someone like a Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein and R. Kelly and the list goes on and on, the Jeff Epstein's of the world, how were they able to get away with all that has happened? How did that? How did that continue? How did they continue to be able to abuse individuals. But even like you see, I believe wholeheartedly that everything that R. Kelly

has been accused of, that he is responsible for. That's what I believe. That's my position right. And he was doing that at a time when he kept getting slapped on the wrist. But today under this new me too movement where women are really coming forward and feeling powerful and organized and fighting. Shout out to my sister Toronno Burke, who started the me too movement about twelve or thirteen

years ago. And again she started at twelve or thirteen years ago, and it took this long for her to get the type of a tension and and and to be able to have the success with her campaign that she has now. So we're living in two different eras and now our Kelly is finally in prison, which we know he should have been in jail, or at least I know. I'm not going to speak for you. I think that we agree, we've talked about it, but are

Kelly he should have been in prison? Then he should have been in prison for peeing on a fourteen year old girl. He should have been in prison for what you know, a lot of things that happened, but he's just there now. So I just think that we don't know, and Kobe Bryant is no longer with us, and I don't want to relive or relitigate something that, as you said, it was thrown out. We haven't heard from this woman in a long time. You know. If if what she says did happen to her, then I hope that you

know she her healing process continues. I really do. But at the end of the day, I'm not I am not personally prepared to discuss anything. I mean, I'm talking about when you know, the dog walking, whatever may have gone wrong in your life, when you and your daughter blow up in a plane, I think that has to

be some humanity has to be. Humanity is that when a person dies, like when we just think about Michael Jackson, you know, and then somebody coming out with these allegations in the whole movie, when a man is passed, like I think for me, it's like some some your death should be sacred, you know, if if your situation, whatever you were dealing with in your life. See it's hard to say, because life should be My life should have been sacred. So if in fact, you abuse me, that's

sacred as well. I mean, I think that it's hard for us because at this point I can't argue back for me when I'm no longer here, and you make an accusation and you you bet, you gather evidence, and you grather all your people that's against me. I I don't have an opportunity to fight for myself. So what you're doing now, you you you were or you didn't. You didn't come make these claims, so well, no claims. I'm saying you were not able to validate these claims

during my life. So you utilize my death to validate your claims and you destroy my legacy, and you and and you, but then my life has been destroyed. I mean, I think we could argue this all day, and we got to move on because you know, it's a sticky situation. I think the best way for us to be able to do, because we can't tell victims how to address being victimized. I think what we have to be able to do, though, is draw some lines around a box and say a man and his daughter blow up in

a plane. Let us have twenty four hours forty eight hours before we began to go back and dig up everything that a person and then the wife who's also a husband, and her daughters. Now you so do you it? Do you care about what she understand that because she's a victim. But my argument, no, no, no, I'm not victimizing her. Your husband or whomever it is may have victimized all of us, well, but everybody, but everybody's experienced. You can't tell me to be silent in my pain. Pain.

I'm just saying that, here's a deal. It's like this, this is what there's a level. There has to be a level of statu your libertations or something. Statue when you're making up words. Statute, statue, statue, no statue. I don't believe it's okay, Well we're gonna look it up. I think you might be right. You know i'd be wrong, So go ahead on and I'm listening to you anyway.

The bottom line is, I think when you die, and you can't be charged for the crime, because you can't charge me for a crime in my death, it is impossible for you to do it like you're not. There's nothing that you can receive. You can't because I can't be tried, I can't be held accountable. I hear. So if I can't be held accountable for a crime while I'm dead, then you should not be able to bring forth. But no, it's not about it's not about bring it first of all. But but my son. First of all,

we haven't heard anything from the woman. So no, no, we haven't heard anything from her. So don't say you can't try to destroy my legacy because she didn't say anything. Thing. This is, this is, and I want us to move on. But here's the deal. When you die, people not gonna make up a new story. They're gonna talk about who you were, and that includes everything about you. That little dash between the day you were born and the day

you die is all that people will know. So if you want that dash to look a certain way, you gotta live a certain And if you and I'm not saying I'm not well because well, because if you just come out the blue, or you don't come out the blue, if you just decide that something happened, and you decide today when I'm but don't say, don't who is the you because again the victim did not speak on But what I'm saying is that when when the news is reporting,

unfortunately I will live to Mika Mallory will always have to deal with the issue of anti Semitism that was waged against me. When I die, people are gonna say nicely and not so nicely, during her life, this happened. That's just the reality. No one is saying today. What the bottom line is. I hear what you're saying. They can say doing your life, this happened. But the bottom line is the validity of what they're saying. But that's what I'm talking about. Okay, so that's but that's neither

had so. But that's all we were talking about. That people want to bring it up now, people want to bring it up. No, but but that's out what we're talking about, because there's no way to further validify or not or solidify or whatever words you want to use. And I think I'm making up words. There's no way to be able to do that, Like you said, when there's not two people able you know, that are able

to discuss the issue. However, I still think that we should be able to allow death to be deaf and let death to take its course, and then all people are gonna do is talk about who you are, what you did, and what your story may or may not have been. That's just the reality. But we should move on. Okay, So listen, we can just agree to this. I agree with someone you said some of it. I don't. That's fine, we always do. But we can still move because we

have to. This is a serious topic, very serious time. But I just want everybody to see that there's different points of view. They are there are. As much as I gravitate and identify what my black women struggle with all women struggle, I just want you to kind of undergo. But still so, Mrs Sippy, we just came back from Mississippi. Yeah, we had a major rally, protests against what's going on and part in prisons, the whole nboc um. It was

a lot. Yeah, it's a lot going on there. And I mean even today I received reports of a man who may or may not have hung himself yesterday or hanging himself yesterday. I don't I don't even know, Like you're not sure if everybody's committing suicide, you don't really know what's going on that you know, the state is responsible for the world being of those persons, absolutely, and that's what I think. That's what it is. I think

people get it so misconstrued something more. The people who are out there with us, they get that when you listen to the governor statements, either governor, you listen to the new governor or the old one. They've seem to put all the owners on the prison. They and to me, it's kind of crazy that you put onners on prisoners that are housing the facility in which you run. You have officers who are put in there to run the facility. Awarding exactly. You have Awarding who has officers who run

these different houses. Me me being formally in cars, ready to understand how it goes. You know, understand that we don't run the prison. We don't make the rules like there are people put in place to enforce the rules. So when the rules are not being carried out properly, when the facility is not up to standard of human living, you know, those things you can't put on the people who are under the you know, under the the How should I say, who are the people who are inside

the facility? People are running they have to take that level they do. And you know, there was there was a video and we talked about it. UM. Actually I did an interview UM on when we were there the last not just this time that passed on this week, but there was another time when we went there. The first time we went to Mississippi for this particular issue, UM and I did an interview with the family who their their child's video had gone viral because he was

hanging in the cell. Man, they have one moment, they have one moment. Who will look about about clad hunger? And I say child because that's important to know. It was his aunt and his mother and other family members who were trying to find someone to help them because their loved one was on a video. That's how they saw him. Go check out that video on Until Freedom. You can go to Until Freedom's instagram and you will

see it. And the warden is literally standing at the bottom of the steps while other prisoners are wrapping up his body and then carrying him down. There's no personnel. She's not helping, she's standing there. This is a woman who I believe to be a warden. The other the families have said it's the warden. The person who put the video out says it's the warden, So you know, they say it's the warden. I believe it's the warden.

She's standing there watching them doing the work of wrapping up a body and then bringing it out, and this and the sheet, and this is after he had been hanging for they say, somewhere between eight to twelve hours. So you see different videos of different time periods where he's hanging in the cell. That to me is it's it's a humanitarian crime, it's a crime. It's negligent. It's negligence,

and I think it is. And the governor's position is that cell phones, contrabands, cell phones are the problem in the jail, and my position is the countrymant cell phones are the only reason that we know that these things that happened right, the cell phones aided the whistle blowers inside the prison. As was said at the rally that we held in Mississippi on on Friday, I want to

shout up before you go. I want to shout out people like Big Cred who came out, friends, brothers who are in the hip hop community, utilize their voices, who want to uplift the local Yeah, Yandy for freedom. Friends. I mean, it was so many people that came from across the country to be a part of to be a part of supporting the local folks, and that's why we should do a show on how people should engage

when they want to help a local community with an issue. Absolutely, Team Rock Rock Nations Philanthropic arm they were the ones to help fund and support the rally, and so they're doing a lot of work trying to figure out how to bring legislation and protests and all of the different things that we need together in order to support the movement. So shout out to them for that work. Um, But you know, we didn't just parachute into Mississippi and say

we're taking over. We went into Mississippi to find out what do the local organizers need and then to help uplift them and really sort of bring their voices to the forefront. But people are dying every day. The numbers that we have that are official numbers coming out are twelve deaths, right, whether that be suicide or gang violence as they say, or some other way because people have infections. There's a lot of things were happening there. There's nobody

speaking about the amount of injuries. We have videos where we see um prisoners who have shots from these rubber bullets that the officers shoot with jail jail, right, they're literally shot with holes and their torsos in their backs

where they're bleeding. There's no one given them the proper medical infections, Like it's just it's just so crazy when you really look at this situation to understand that this is actually happened, you don't believe because I try to tell people being formally incarcerated, there's so many things that go on that a person who has never been in those situations don't even actually like, there's no way that that happens when you're able to see these things on

these videos. There's another one we've seen you actually witness a violence with a fight, you know someone That one was really to see a video um where you know, where you see a man stabbing another man and they're running around the jail the prison and there's no guards, like where are the guards? Mike's sperience. I've actually literally

seen situations like that. I've been on tears with certain guards allow things like that to happen because they don't like one of the prisoners, or they with the other prisoner and they feel like some they leave someone sell open on purpose or they leave them well obviously because these two guys are running around the prison. You can hear other people are inside their cells locked up, so it's like, how are they out? What is the protocol? I mean, it's just the whole situations out of control.

And also, while I was looking at my phone, you're right, it's statute, So I was wrong. But I think it's important for us to tell people what they can do, because everybody's like, what can what can they do? I think one you've got to go to the Color of Change website. Go to the Color of Change website that's color of Change dot org and look for a shutdown parchment, shut down parchment, color of Change dot org shut down parchment shirt. I'm like you, I was about to get nervous,

like what happened here? Oh you have your closed parchment T shirts? George Jesus look at his closed parchment. But I'm here. So for those of you are listening, I just showed my closed parchment T shirts. So you know you can go to I Woman TV and see my closed parchment T shirt again, shout out to Team Rocks

those T shirts. And we're not we gotta do a whole conversation about jay Z because I'm sure there's people are gonna be like, oh, now Jay Z is helping with this, but then what about Colin Kaepernick in the NFL? But we should talk about it another day. But I just want to acknowledge so that folks who are listening don't feel like we don't understand that there's a lot of complications in this work, this movement. I tell people all the time, it's very very complex, very calm, so

many different entry points. And you know, if you look at historically, Yeah, if you look at historically, there's a few between milcol Me Martin know and how they viewed each other, and how Martin Malcolm called Martin certain things, and but we know how instrumental both of them. Yeah, I mean one of the things about one of the things that I think is important, and I've watched this,

you know. I worked for a National Action Network National Action Network, which is an organist, a civil rights organization that's been around for over twenty five years. And while sometimes the n DOUBLE, a CP, the Urban League and NAN had different positions about different issues, but when it came to things that was important, we all found a

way to come together to address them. And I think we've got to figure that out that We're not gonna always be on the same page, and it's going to be some issues that we don't necessarily work on together. But there's gonna be other things that we need the force of the entire unit, the entire family, to come together on. And I feel like parchment is one of those issues. You know, I wrote on my Facebook page, I want to know where the rabbis and to eat my ms and all the pastors and the pink pussy

hat folks and the women's march which we built. That it's supposed to be an intersectional movement. Um that's what we left. That's the legacy that Lenda, Carmen and Bob and I left behind, that this is an intersectional movement that is supposed to care about all people and particularly folks who are at literally in the most vulnerable places in our society. Parchment is that you've got people locked up that can't just leave the situation. They're locked up

and they're literally dying. And it's not just parchment. Parchment is everywhere. Since we've been going through this everywhere, I mean basically, we started out with m d C the first part, and then we've been getting Alabama. No. My d m s are overflowing with pictures, with text messages, with just you know, just drawing out situations that people are in prisons that mirror what's going on in partiment that we realize that partiments everywhere. I think that's that's

going to be done. So we talked about the petition. That's really important, but also again supporting the local folks. On Facebook, you can follow Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition. That's Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition all the details about their demands because there, you know, folks like to make us feel like these movements is just folks yelling and we're just protesting and we don't really have substantial demands and a real,

real movement that is based upon solutions. Well, there are demands. Number one, the governor has the ability to commute sentences of people who are in prison for non violent offenses, or folks who have been in prison for thirty forty years there elderly and perhaps they did commit a crime at one point that we would see as you know, violent crime or something like that, but they they they're

older and compassionate release. He has the ability to do that. Also, there are at least five thousand people because parchment is overcrowded and there are at least five thousand people who are eligible for parole. Again, low level offenses where folks are in prison. I mean, we don't have time to talk about Mississippi sentencing law. That's a whole another thing.

Where people are being locked up for right, small marijuana next thing, you know, somehow they got twenty thirty years in prison, and people are like, you know, why should we care. That's that's what they're saying because they look at the situations and in many cases, people believe that everyone in prison is one of the most violent, vile people that you can see, and it's not everybody's situation.

Even those who are violent, they still deserve to be treated like human beings because the reality situation is we there has to be level of humanity, you know what I'm saying, because that's what the statue quote, that's what rehabilitation is about. And even if you if you put them inside this because some of them aren't coming home. So the real the reality of rehabilitation is not factual and it's not actual. But the bottom line is there's a statute and there is a certain level of humanity

that the facility demands that you. So you have to uphold that for everyone that is incarcerated within that facility, right because people are like these folks are animals, Why should we care about them? But someone like you who went to prison for a crime you didn't commit and spent seven years there, I mean, and I understand. And there's a lot of people just like that, you know.

I know people who have been convicted of twenty five years for the same for similar situations, for mistaken identity, for low level crimes that they classified as violence. Someone supposedly stole a pocketbook from a woman who had one dollar in the pocketbook, and they said he had on robbery. He never had anything, but they never court him with anything, but the man ended up doing twenty years or a good friend one of my mentors and used to sit there and tell me that he thought it was a

joke when he was going to trials. Him and his friends laugh as this elderly white lady said there and said, oh she had in Hawaii was one dollar and he supposedly took it, and he's like, why would I do that? And they thought it was a joke until they sentence him to twenty years of life and he just came home last year. You know, one of the most brilliant individuals I know. He's created his own nonprofit. He's he's

mentoring young boys. So these situations happened deadly is there are a bunch of people inside prison that don't even supposed to be there. A different situations've been classified as violence. So you look and you and you put this stigma on people because they're in this situation and you don't know what everybody's going through. You don't know with their reality. That's right. It has to be one standard of humane

treatment for prisons. And also we as taxpayers, we spend our money, like we literally are paying for these prisons

as some people are coming out of there. So would you prefer to have someone come out of the prison who has been living like an animal inside and now they're in society with the rest of us, or do you want them to be in there getting the proper treatment so that they can mentally and physically and emotionally into society just like you and I. You know, so I just feel like it creates I'll tell you all the time, it creates a mind state of savagery because

when you when you're surrounded by feces and you're surrounded by sub level these people are using the bath, living in plastic bags feed that they're using, they're doing a number two in plastic bags that don't get picked up immediately, hid it up, sitting in corners and waiting for someone

to come get it. That the mind saying that that has to be Just think about it, Like I can tell you situations where inside solitary confinement where people have put feces in their mouths just to get somebody fitted on it. Like the mind state that you have to have to do that. So this is what create this,

This is what these situations have created. And you know, I just think that when we look at this parchment is everywhere, is everywhere, But you know, you gotta you know, I'm looking right here right now at this story that just literally broke around Nicki Minaj's brother receiving twenty five years for repeatedly raping his stepdaughter who was eleven years old. And so you gotta be able to talk to people

and help them understand because it's hard to reconcile. Why I should go and protests and fight for someone who committed this type of heinous act against the child. My thing is this, I'm not even gonna lie to you. You know, I think the worst crimes in the world that you can commit is rape in pedophile like to me, I don't believe, I personally don't believe that you deserve to live. That's just my personal thing, because that's all.

It's a whole difference, that's a whole another thing, conversation, so many topics, topics. But what I say is, if there is a statue and there is a common ground for a prison, and you are housing that prison, then that's what has to happen. So now you're just gonna use statute for the rest of the people. Since I messed it up and thought I knew something that I do that don't even frame. That's what good yoused to like, somebody created these works, right, so we got to create

new language. But but you know, I mean, I understand how folks feel like these are violent folks. But I just think that if you have one standard, then it captures all people. Because you have too many folks who are being exonerated. They're coming home from prison doing thirty years, twenty years, forty years with d n A is exonerating them.

And look at the Central Park five. So that means that the Central Park five would be in the Saint the exonerated five would be in the same prison with someone who it may be, you know, Nick Nicki Minaj's brother. And then it's okay for them to have six rats on the on the rat trap in their room that's in their cell. It's water browner than me, and they have to drink the water, bathe in the water if

they get a bath. People in Parchment are saying they haven't had a bath in h thirty days, and and I think we could just you know, move on from this as well. But just to make sure people understand the magnitude of what's happening that parchment. Parchment is literally

sitting on a former plantation, a slave plantation. So at the end of slavery, whatever that means, but at the end of quote unquote end of slavery, the recognized slavery, recorded slavery, they closed the plantation and opened a prison. So I don't even know if you can have a fixed parchment, because the history is it's too deep. You know, there's a possibility to be fixed. I think the facility, the history, everything makes it say that we just need

to start something else. You gotta go it down, you gotta shut it down, shut it down, dot org, shut down, period point blank. Now, I mean it's like this is our experience. We could be talking about hell over here and then be like man and then the Grammys happened in the rock Nation, Branches was all fly. Beyonce is the baddest thing that ever happened. Her level of grace and beauty and just class is just unmatched. Just to me, like, don't she didn't try anything, but it's such kids. How

many kids? She asked? Her three kids, just three kids and her husband. You gotta try a little bit. Maybe she got to try, but I swear guard it just looks so natural and just comes across so flow. And shout out to Alicia Keys, who had a birthday last week and was the host for the Grammys, and she did an amazing job of navigating between Kobe Bryant and Nipsey Hustle and the tributes there, but then also keeping people's spirits up and reminding them that we got to

be another class. And her energy, her energy and her optimism it's all in her face. Like even when she you could tell her she might be angry, she just looks like it's something positive. It doesn't even in her anger. The positivity just exude from her. So, you know, I definitely want to salute those black women. He did. He stole the show from me, puff sole the show for me. You know what I'm saying. He was honored at Clyde Davis is event that he does in the night before.

That's the same night that Whitney died. Man many years, it's just you had to bring that up. I know what I'm saying. You when you every time you hear that night you liked him Whitney died. But um, yeah, So he honored, He gave him a Lifetime Achievement award and the performance looked dope. I had I had. I didn't really get to see it, but they had a big tribute to him, seeing May's come out there just because I got a lot of a lot of my

friends were there. And when he accepted award, his you know, his statement was that basically saying that, you know, I'm glad to receive this award, but we know that historically this institution has not respected our music, has respected our artistry, has not celebrated us probably believe you know. And we basically created most of everything within this culture, within this John and we are able to capitalize off it, and you utilize us, but you don't celebrate us properly, you know,

And we know that. And he said, and he literally said that stops today. He said, because everybody who has the power is in this room to change that. And then you've seen jay Z and you've seen all of these big stars stand up. He said, We're gonna change that today, he said. You know, we're not going for it no more. You got three hundred sixty five days to get this right. I don't know who, how do you wannder, but I'm willing to help. We gotta figure

out some diversity. You know, we're gonna have to figure this out. But you know, it's a bunch of us in here that are willing to sit down with you and figure out what we need to do to make it right. But somebody got to make it right. It's the same thing with the oscars just happened, you know, the same thing with the Oscar so white like we

we hear it all the time. You know. But when he made that statement, I wrote on my page, you mother, right, you know what I'm saying, right, And of course come on, you know ain't know him on my tongue, man, I say how I feel because I realized that none they know curving my vertebrate straight up. Okay, you know what I'm sayin no curving mother. But the bottom line is when you look at because for me, when jay Z got nominated that, I think that that hurts me more

than anything. Jay Z was nominated for eight awards for four or four or four and that was him celebrating and talking about himself, just like Beyonce, you know when she was nominated and she didn't get awards when he was talking about our culture, when it was talking about she didn't get anything for um, what's the what was it called the film? What's the film called? Look, they're people here, just so y'all know that can help us. No, not Leimond, just her HBCUs and home comments like how

could that be? Because entertainment to celebrate our coaches. See, you know they don't do it as Just like another person who said Tyler created Tyler created one award in a genre that he didn't feel that he even supposed to be in you know, he won the award for a rap in hip hop and he was like, but the song it wasn't hip hop. I bend in the gendre we we did something different, and you know, and

and once again it's classified as urban. Every time that somebody that looks like me does anything, it's urban and it's put into the rap category. And he's fed and he said, basically the term urban to him, which is actually a fact. It is cold for the N word. And he doesn't he doesn't even want to be classified as that. He said, so why can't we be classified as pop? Because that's what the music is. It's it's something that goes out with the old town he had.

They said that can't be country until he got Bill Cyrus. You know, the same'm saying toil. You get people that look like them. What's his name? Little little you know him? And Nas just got a new song called Rodeo. I was kind of I didn't hear it, but I'm like that Nas and not, which I was hating on it when it first came out, You jole, what's the other guy's name? It's not hating. I don't listen to me. The thing is this, it's a song that doesn't it

doesn't fit into what is conventional for hip hop for us. Well, but let me know. But that's that's okay. Let's not get into that exactly right, because evolving sometimes means our people get excluded, and there is rich history of hip hop that we must put. Evolution to me means getting better. So that is so there are different perspectives different definitely the perspectives in different viewpoints. We we didn't talk about

the Nation Brunch alone. Just every time I watched the Rock Nation Runch and I get little clips, I go to Diddy's page and we happen to be in Mississippi, but we weren't at the brunch. But when I look at these things and I see all of these powerful people in one room, and every every year you see them growing and them being making being more intentional about building our own every time you see them make a bigger stand, you see them grow, and then you know

their platforms grow. It just really makes me feel good. It inspires me. I wake up the next day like yes, because I do great, but I think it is great. It's beautiful to see. But I just wonder when someone says they have three hundred and sixty five days to fix it, what does that mean? What are we prepared

to do? Because your boy Kirk Franklin, when he felt that his that all of the statements around sort of black lives matter issues were being removed from one of those big gospel shows that he was he was being he was being honored or or performing one of these big gospel shows, and he felt that the parts that really expressed black pain and black culture and other issues that we deal with and and just how our world in general, he felt it was being somehow removed or

being edited out of the footage by the time he saw the show. So he's like, yeah, I'm not doing it anymore until that gets fixed. And so that's the type of stand that you have to be willing to make. So that brings me to my little final, my little knowing. It brings me to my little segment, and it's called I don't get it. I just don't get it. This is so you know, I don't get it. No, I don't really don't get it. Y'all don't understand how many times this man calls me and says, I don't get it.

I don't because I really just don't get it. He thinks it's stupid. No it's not. I know it's stupid. You know what I'm saying. Or I'm so confused and I need somebody to explain to me because I don't know everything, but I know what I know. So what I'm saying is when we look at all these situations. We look at the Grandmates, we look at the Oscars, we look at Kirk Frank's Frankly situation. We literally were here Tyler the Creator. We see they don't celebrate homecoming.

We see jay Z get eight nomination for four or four four and never went any We see these things constantly happen. We hear somebody go up there and say, we need to do this every year. Why do we constantly and continuously look for validation from organizations and institutions who have never celebrated us. Why don't we create our own institutions, our own situations where we are celebrated. Why do we constantly keep looking for people to love us

that don't love us? Why are we looking for it because they maybe they just don't get it, and it's okay because they we get it. We don't get some of the stuff you're talking about. So why do we do? You know what I'm saying. Why is it that it's taken us so long to build our own? Why do we keep looking for bad? Why do we need the Grand mus to tell us that were great? Why do we need the oscars to tell us that we're great? No?

We when we when you look at these movies, when you hear this music, we see how it's touched the culture, how it how it shifts the mind state, how it's able to shift the world, How we dictate what you wear, what you say, how you say it, all these things. When are we gonna come together and say we need to create our own We're not and and and scary.

I think that we would have to have uh psychiatrists, psychiologists, black historians like This type of show will require us having people who understand the mental psyche of four hundred years of enslavement that our people experience and then all

that has happened to date. I think you would have to have people here that understand what if it's what it's like to be oppressed and to deal with that oppression every day and to always and to never just be able to reach the above the ceiling, not even the ceiling. But we've we constantly here and we watch when you look at these people. That's after Rock Nation bro right, you could create, You could create your because

these people have fifty sixty seventy million followers. Like you, you pretty much have the world following you, just like with j D jay Z decided, you know, I don't want to do YouTube, I don't want to do Spotify. I'm just gonna create. And that's and and I think that I think we gotta we gotta go because folks probably are like, wow, this is good, but it's I gotta get to my kids. I gotta do something else. Um, I think that you're right. But they are challenges with

starting your own But that's what the thing is. And no, it's not about it's not it's not about the fear. It's not about the fear. It's that, I mean a lot of people. I guess the fear could be on one side that a lot of people have started things and they lost a lot trying to do that and not getting the support of our people. See, we have to work on all different fronts. You and I think our work is gonna out there, just like we organize

people for rallies and other things. We have to have the we also, which we do have, and we've been talking about and working on an economic development plan that helps us understand our one point for trillion spending power that we can take and begin to support these things. Because what you're not gonna have if you start your own show, right, your own Grammy type of show. Puff knows because we see what he does with the Revoke Music Conference when he has had you know, shows honoring

people and all of that. The advertising is not there. So when the advertising dollars, meaning that these big corporations are not purchasing tables and tickets and putting ads in your journals and putting branding your stuff, when they're not spending those big hundred thousand plus checks, you can't pay your staff, you can't pay for the dinners, you can't pay.

So therefore, if that is in fact the case where you know, you're not going to get the advertising dollars, because they are going to do everything that they can to try to shut down on your ability to celebrate black excellence and challenge white supremacy, because that's the thing puffy challenging white supremacy. At the same time, you can celebrate black excellence and sambo your way across the stage. But once you start talking about systemic racism that becomes

an issue. That's when you lose your advertising dollars. So that means that we as a people have got to begin to understand it. If we want our people to be independent, we want our activist to be independent. We want our own media, we want our own shows. We gotta fund it, and we have the money. We have one dollar when you said that, because everything else you

said made a lot of sense. But when you look when I look at Rock Nation Runs and you see Kevin Hard and you see jay Z, you see pub Daddy, and you see Callin, and you see all of these people who are mega millionaires, he's not little. What would it take for all of y'all to sit there. You're saying, we were leveling up, y'all every year out here were leaving up, and I see you moving a level up

and you're talking about the issues. But the level of now is to create entities that are separate and and and separated from what they're doing, you know, so that we don't have to continue to say, yo, you're not doing us right. We keep asking the people that are pressing us to help us, to help us. Why and until freedom, we said, unless it's a very special situation, we're not trying to take corporate money, right, And then we didn't do it at the Women's March. We didn't

want corporations to control our message. You can't have a big banner from some brand on top of your head and then be talking stuff about you know whatever. You got to be careful. But imagine if we took our power in our hands. Imagine if what Puff said, listen, you've got three hundred and sixty five days to challenge this, and during this time we work on getting our building our own and getting people, because then it's not going to do it is this, and it's like anything. It's

like Marta Luther kingson pulling yourself like own bootstraps. And he said, it's it's crazy to say that to him, man who has no boots, right, joke to a man said I believe you should, he said, is a funny, it's a sad joke. Joke. So the reality situation is, while we into while we're building and enforcing them to

technology us. We should still be building ours and slowly and then we exactly we just switched to a back you know, and and and just thinking about you know, she probably doesn't want me to say, but my good sister Cat Trig, who is the great leader of our Woman TV, you know, the producer of this Grand Street

Politicians podcast. She was saying earlier when we were talking, like, you know, imagine if Kobe played for HBCU rather than you know what, she didn't play for a white institution, but that probably dejectory, but still imagine if he played.

Would imagine right now if if the top five players in the NBA started to advocate for HPCU, if they say, yo, we need you have to go to these and they utilize their platform and they showcased them and they said, look, boom boom, these are the top five players coming out. And they utilized and they created their own because people coming to you for basketball, they want to know who's hot through you. So you utilize your platform and you start showcasing these players and then you said, yo, we're

gonna be at the HCU. We want you to come see them play. And they're beating people at fifty points. You can't ignore them. They can't they I don't care how much. Then the resources would be going to school to more House and uh, you know North Carolina Central. Then we have to go to schools have been historically Campton. I can't say how without saying Hampton, can't say you know, more House without saying spell man. So let me not

get myself in trouble and stop right now. What I want to say is before we leave, is that the history of of these schools that are the top schools in D one divisions are historically racist schools that man with your station use after school. Still you can't get in. You can pay for your way in, but you can't have a brilliant mind as a you, as a white student, your parents can pay for you to get an education, and then when they get caught, they get twelve and

fourteen days in jail and whatever in jail. But you, as a brilliant mind, a black child whose parents bust there behind to put you through school, can't even get in. Can't even get in. So when we understand that and we see those situations, then we have to we have to make real concrete lines in the sand and say. You look, I don't know how far it's gonna get, but I'm willing to sacrifice to see to create the change I might lose, you know what I'm saying. And

that's what Marta Luther King said. I might sacrifice my life. I might have to give my life, but I'm willing to give that because i want to see something different, right, that's right every time. I mean, imagine if Dr King saw a Barack Obama, what would that meeting have been like? Listen, thank you all for being with us. Yeah, man, it was a good show episode, you know what I'm saying. Talked about a lot of topics, a little debate, a little different on this, but for the most part, all right,

we got some stuff. We gotta keep working. You know, we're working through this is listen. We love what we do, man, and we do it with passion, learning together. And if you have anything that you want to discuss, if any topics you want to hear us talk about, anything that's in your mind, or some topic that you definitely want to hear about on Street Politicians, you can follow us

on all social media. Street Politicians d m S. Send us a message, let us know what you think, give us critiques, tell us you hate the show, tell us you love the show, whatever we open for, because the reality situation is, we don't always agree. We're not always gonna be right, and we're not always gonna be wrong, but we're always going to be authentic. That's how we own it.