That's what's up. Family. It's your girl, Tamika D.
Mallory, and it's your boy, my son and general, and we are.
Your host of street politicians the place, the streets and politics.
Me, it's so funny. You just eat bunny.
Sometimes you are fink. Let me tell you so.
I just saw a friend of mine a few moments ago, and she went to is it called Pouquette. I think it's pouquette. People be saying fuck it, but I think it's we call it fuck it, it's pouquet. And like all of these places that she went to, Bali and when she left, like me, she was struggling with love handles. You know, we always talk about how we feel like we got these little love handles we can't get rid of. And then three weeks later when she gets back, she's massive, small,
like her stomach has gone down. The love handles are almost completely gone. And I'm like, what happened to your no? The food with yo? I just said the other day, these rats in New York City, they are so big, and the rats eat the same food that we eat because basically they eat garbage. So if the rats are growing big like that, and you can clearly see that she left town.
And got smaller. Well, she was still eating she says, she still ate rice.
They were still eating seasoned food all the time. They were still eating much of the same things, especially dishes, Asian style dishes over there and here, the same food. In fact, she said that the other night she had a taste for something that, you know, some Asian dish that she ordered from somewhere, and she felt sick after eating it, but she was just eating it there and
it was fine. So that just tells me that what we're putting, what we're consuming, the preservatives and additives and the spray and the treatment of the meat and whatever else we're eating, it's really not healthy.
They've been saying.
They've been saying that most of the year USDA food would never pass inspection in.
Most of the other countries.
Like we have the lowest, lowest grade of meat, We have the lowest grade of most of the stuff. If you eating trash, you're eating triple trash. And if you're eating good, then you eating bottom level good. So the best thing you can do is eat good, Like that's the best thing you can do. Like I just eat I eat green. I don't even eat rice no more. Only eat green vegetables. Maybe some cart sometimes hame some corn,
but for the most part, it's green vegetables. And my I do a little bit of poultry because you know, I mix it up with my with my seafood. But that's pretty much it for me. Man, I try not to eat a lot of condiments. I try not to do bread.
You know.
I'm trying to be a lot more intentional about my health, trying to flush, you know, because I normal drink me a little bit ain't now and then, So I try to drink water, either alcohol or water. You might drink a little ginger ale here and there.
But for the ginger is water.
Yeah, so pretty much that's that's all. That's what it is. So it's like we were not We ain't no spring chickens.
We gotta be a lot more intentional about our health, man, because if you got to take care of your body, so when you get older, your body take care of you.
In fact, my father always said that you take care of your teeth, they'll take care of you. If you take care of your body, it'll take care of you. My father, as.
You know, is a man of few words.
When he's, you know, just wants to drop a gym.
He always said, some they're good.
We're back and forth between Kentucky and run home, try to make sure you take care of your children and do the things you need to do for your family stuff. And then over here work and gotta get your hair done and your haircut, and boom back on the plane back to Kentucky with our entire team. You know, I want to say that two things about Kentucky.
The first thing is that.
The most traumatizing part of being out there registering voters.
We were just in the mall the other day.
Of course, it's traumatizing when people say ignorant things like, oh, I don't do politics, because politics one hundred percent?
Do you?
And if you saying you don't do politics, and yet you living halfway on the edge, living in certain communities, living certain you know how people, some of them live certain ways of you know, we got our different things.
You know, some of us might be living in extremely you know, I don't want to say extremely wealthy, because I know that's a very small percentage, but living middle class, living pretty well, even that, even though you may think you sort of separated from it, the politics control whether how it's maintained. Like everything we do, politics do us. So that's of course very you know, concerning, but it's the amount of folks who said, I can't vote because
I'm a felon. When I tell you that every maybe every four black men, if I saw ten to twelve black men in one area or just in the course of registering people throughout the day, two of them could register.
The rest could not.
Lot Man and I want to give a shout out to David Ayala, you know who we did a.
Press conference and we actually partnering with in our campaign.
He is the executive director of Formerly Incarcerated, Convicted People and Families Movement and they have a campaign called Free to Vote in which, you know, they have been working on restoring the rights formally incarcerated, system impacted and justice impacted individuals as they call it, and they've done a lot of work and actually about two hundred thousand people have gotten their voting rights restored, and a lot of
people don't even know that. So when we have that conversation, you know, and they say that, and a lot of times were able to look up and say, oh, yeah, you actually can vote. You know, ve shot them out for that. They had a ceremony in which they unveiled a new billboard that's going to be in low vote and it's going to be on the buses in Loco and we partner with them, so you know, it's going to show that we're working with them and we're doing
a lot of work. Hopefully, you know, we'll be able to get people out to vote because it is a very very very important election. You know, we need the people that's free to vote to go vote for Brianna.
They already not vote for Brianna. On November fourth, will be there marching folks to the polls and then November seventh is election day, so November second, November two. November two is the beginning of early voting where you don't need an excuse.
You can just go.
Because if you have an excuse like you're going to be traveling or you have a disability, there is a list of things if.
You go to go vote dot Kentucky dot.
Com, you can go on there and find a list of things that would give you an excuse to vote early than November two. So there's an earlier vote in October where people who have an excuse, who have a reason to vote early, early can go and vote, They can cast their vote. But the November second date is the date we're focused on. When it's early voting, whether you have an excuse or not, just everybody, lotty dotting and everybody can.
Go to the polls.
We want to make sure that we turn folks out beginning November second, so you're not even worried about standing on the line on November seventh and all day and whatever the inconveniences are, you can get out there on November two. On November fourth, which is a Saturday, we will be organizing folks to show up to go to the polls. So that's the deal. We're gonna march with folks. We're gonna have food, we're gonna have all the things that people need to get involved.
So we want to make sure that folks are aware of that.
And the speaking of police brutality and Breonna Taylor, I just posted and we are now you know, have now entered the support for Steve Perkins family. This is a young man in Alabama, Mobile, Alabama to stay with my mother. Was born and raised the state where I spent most of my summers my family members live in Mobile right now. Shakisha Clemens is from Mobile, Alabama. Who's another person that was abused by police there in in in Mobile or
the little town neighboring town of Mobile. And you know, we've spent a lot of time there, so we know a lot about the difficulties of the relationship between police and community. Obviously as it relates to Steve Perkins, there's much work to be done. I just want to tell so I can just tell you the story off the top of my head for folks who are listening, and you should absolutely do your research and shout out to our brother, attorney Lee Merritt, who is the attorney for
the family. So Steve Perkins is in his house sleeping. He heard some noise out in his yard, a loud noise, so he ran out to see what was going on with his weapon in tow which is it is It is legal. He had a legally registered weapon and he went out to see what was going on.
There was a tow truck attempting to take his vehicle. He went out.
He said to the tow truck driver, Hey, hey, don't touch my vehicle. It is no longer in repossession. State or whatever. I'm you know, don't you can't, don't take my car. I already has been straightened out. The tow truck driver left or put the car down or whatever.
I might be wrong about that, but I know the tow truck driver, Steve went back into the house and thought the situation was resolved, and the tow truck driver called the police, told the police that Steve Perkins pointed a weapon at him, and at which time the police set up sort of you know, sort of like the same thing they did with the Tatiana Jefferson where they were hiding in the dark, and they allowed the man to go back and begin to tow the car again. So he when Steve came back out, he had a
gun with a flashlight on it. He came out, He's pointing the gun and the flashlight, which again is on his property. He's already told this man tow truck company to leave, and he had he does not see police officers. The police, like you said, they ambushed him. They shot and they killed this man, this father, husband, son, you know, upstanding citizen and a licensed person who had a license to carrying, a license to have his weapon in his home.
On his property.
He wasn't down the street, he wasn't at the store, he wasn't across the street. Then, wasn't in his car, He didn't sneak nobody. He was at his own home, and he told the toe truck driver to leave, and he didn't.
There are many other details in terms of the.
Many of the details in terms of this ship that was said, the ways in which the cops have behaved.
And now hopefully by the time that folks see.
This show or hear this show, they would have released all the videotapes, the body cameras of the officers who were there, and furthermore, those offices will be arrested and charged with the murder of Steve Perkins.
It's just so mind boggling how we keep having the same shit over, like they keep too much as training shit and this and that, I don't understand what human being goes to somebody's house, right, and you're just interested in trying to shoot and kill them and the thing is for me. And they keep saying it's not racially motivated. They keep saying that, you know, it's it's the law and it's not racial. It's just and it's like they find a way not to.
Kill white people.
You know, somebody they sent me a video yesterday where a white lady is banging on the precinct doing with the gun window woomb and boom, bangings and and she starts shooting the window.
Nobody shoots the white lady. She leaves.
She they they arrest her without incident. And it's like, I.
Just did the video of the white man who drove his truck into the police station, jumped out doing some crazy stuff. They got him, they put their hands, put them on a handcuffs so the wall, and arrested. They didn't just come out like because I'm gonna be honest with you, but yo.
I would have been that's wing. I could sit there and say, damn, I don't know what this man might do. But the thing is they see white people as humans. They see him as they identify them as hut. They see that they might be sitting wrong with them. They immediately have been trained. Even black officers have been trained to view black men and women as a threat. They just view us as a threat. They feel out your life is always engaged you when it's a black person, you know, and it's crazy.
Folks should look out for more from until Freedom on the Steve Perkins situation because it's just it's just, it's just that. But in this topic I want to talk about, it's supposed to be a topic, but because we have our guests coming on, I'm going to merge it with my thought of the day. Why don't people read? Like really read? And I wonder if people know that headlines rarely match the exact sentiment of a story.
The headline is to make you pay attention to the story. You know, what they said this or what they said, so that you can actually go read the story. So if you make an assessment just being through the headline, then you might be completely awful about what you're coming in on.
Further More, a headline is very short, so there's no way for its capture unless you are extremely thoughtful. There is almost no way for it to capture exactly what you are attempting to say.
And so with that being said, it brings me.
To for just Carly Russell's situation that I've been talking about, and I'm going to continue to what I'm saying is one thousand percent right. I know there's nobody that can convince me of anything different. Nobody that's going to tell me that the point that I'm raising is not an important point.
In this moment.
Using Carly Russell as an example, I wrote in my post on my page the first line that Carly Russell has received swift justice. I didn't say injustice. I didn't say I said swift justice, which means that at this point she's already been to court now hurt. Between her, the lawyers and the judge, they're working on whatever ruling that's necessary, probably to limit the amount of time that she would have to do, but keeping it keeping her from having to go through a long trial and doing
all that stuff. They are trying to move things along, and the judge has already given his recommendations as to what he feels should be done, and now it is up to them to solidify it and move forward. Okay, so this is what has happened. So what I said was Carly Russell has received swift justice, moved through the system.
She was found to do something dumb and dangerous.
I said that dumb because it was definitely dumb and it was dangerous, and she absolutely must face the consequences of her actions.
I said.
At the same time, Shan'tquella Robinson's murderers are still free. It hasn't it's gone unaddressed, I said. Brianna Taylor's mother is still waiting for justice for her child.
And there are a number of other.
Cases just like they said, well, Carly created anxiety because she lied and she did all of this. Cops lie still and kill on a daily basis, and sometimes we're waiting five, six years and even more for there to be any accountability in those cases. I said, So everybody can carry on to talk about Carly because folks celebrating deaths, right, she deserved it. And some people said, well, I'm not
celebrating it. I'm not sure that everybody reads what they're writing and may and I'm sure there's some people that are not celebrating it. But if you read some of the comments they like, that's right, that's right. She deserved that. She needs more time. So while folks cheer on the process for working quickly to make sure that she's accountable, I know I understand that this system will often move quick to find justice and accountability and to demonize us
when we do anything. From still a py anything, what was his name?
Khalie Browner.
They say he had a book bag that he stole from somebody, right, he had a book bag that they never even they were never even able to confirm he had the book bag.
The next thing you know, he ended up in Rikers.
Island as a minor. He was being beaten and raped in prison. So they can gay can they can go from a book bag to a robbery to a kidnap, a fake kidnapping, and lies quick about us. And we will make sure we aid in that, we will stand by. We would say that's throw the book at them. They wrong that this that we would we will join in the choir of making sure there's accountability when we feel that something someone has done inconvenience does hurt us, have impacted us.
All of those things are true around Carly.
But when it comes to a constant determination to push back on the fact that for whatever reason, their own that when when when when the system is responsible, responsible for correcting itself and for holding itself accountable, then all of a sudden, it's complicated. It's more complicated, okay. And I said they got to get somebody else to do it. I refuse to participate in it. It doesn't mean that
I don't understand. I'm not out here going to court with the young lady or saying that she shouldn't receive time.
You have a different perspective. I don't even share you.
I mean, I've been in the streets for my whole life, right and I know dudes that got gun chargers. I know dudes that got assault chargers that didn't get a year in jail, they got probation, they got six months, that did all types of shit. So you know, as much as I think what she did is dumb, and she definitely needs some accountability. Giving that lady a whole year in prison like a regular working lady, like it just to me, it's just stupid.
Nobody was harmed, you know that. I don't.
I don't see I don't even see the lodger, but I see what they're trying to do. They want to make some level of example. But it's just like, I think that's a poor example. I think that making a pay man, even if you put up on house arrest and make it I have to do community service where she got to go deal with women who were batter you know, have to go to shelters and deal with women who actually have been abducted, and you know, and listen to their story, like those are the lessons you teach.
Just sending somebody to jail, will you take a year their life away? You know, it's gonna be hard for to find a job. She's gonna have to leave, you know, her apartment or whatever. Don't know if it's gonna be able to sustain, to live somewhere like it's it's it's prison is one of the biggest inconvenience and just it's a reset for life. And sometimes everybody don't need the reset, you know what I'm saying. Everybody don't need like a research.
And sometimes people need accountability. They need to see the errors in their ways. You know, you charge her some money, you make her do community service in certain places, you know, you send her to certain programs. To me, I think she dealing with mental health. I don't think you know, I think that.
They don't say that because, honey, that's because it is.
Because health everything is not.
But the thing is, if you just decide that you're gonna call, say somebody kidnap you, like, I don't.
I don't see somebody who's a solid mind saying no shit like that.
Someone made the point that the reason.
Why she may be the way that she is is just being spoiled, you know, just plain old being spoiled. And I'm not going to disagree. I'm not gonna disagree. But what I do know is that even privilege can cause you to have mental health challenges that need to be addressed. Privilege can do that to you because you can be you can really be so caught up.
In needing to win, or needing.
To be liked or whatever, or feeling like you haven't been liked, you haven't been treated properly. So even though you have money, you don't have status, or you don't you ain't cool, or whatever the case may be, to the point where your mind tells you that the way to get attention, attention seeking is absolutely something in the mind that needs to be dress because somewhere, there's a whole something is telling you that you are not enough,
even though you may have privilege. So, you know, perhaps, but I don't even want to get into the argument of whether or not she has mental health.
I'm saying different from you.
You're saying you don't think you've been to jail, and you sat in prison for a long period of time, and you know that prison is not the only recourse to.
Go ahead, you can speak.
I mean, it's definitely it's not the only recourse to just to criminal activity, especially when it doesn't involve violence, it doesn't involve malice, It doesn't involve malice.
It does. She did do something that I don't know.
I don't know if it was made because if you saying malice, the malice was on her own.
She was looking for a level of attention, right, she didn't.
She never It wasn't like she gave she pointed somebody out and said this person abducted her. Right, It's not like she didn't do any of those things. Those are things that we assume she never even said. And when she came home she said that she didn't even know what it looked like, and then she ultimately just admitted that she lied. You know, I think she she bit off more than she chew. I think she was trying
to get her boyfriend to care about her. Whatever it is, it's stupid nobody and she needed to be held accountable. But I think a year in jail is obsessive. I just I just don't see where a year in jail helps her do anything, and I just don't wish. I think it just it traumatizes her more.
And I appreciate your sensitivity for her. You said it traumatizes her more. Most people do not care about whether or not it traumatizes her more because she caused trauma on others.
So trying to trying to compare the it's not one thing is this when you say you cause trauma on others.
These are civilians who looked at her life and decided that they felt a way about it, right. These are people that were watching and seeing on social media that felt the.
Way about it.
I don't think any one of her family members will say, yeah, she needs to go to jail. The people who directly that were impacted, the people who who felt the worst of it, the people who couldn't sleep and was trying to go. I don't think any one of them will say, you know what, I think they are real victims, right. I don't think that they will say, yo, I want her to go to jail for a year, So we know that though they so I'm saying I might, but I don't. I don't believe that.
Well, I don't know that.
I don't there's no way that a family member mindset did that. I'd be like, nah, she needs to go to jail for a year.
Well no, but it's not just the family member of hers, of course not but the mother who and I forget her daughter's name. God blessed me for forgetting her name. But the mother who was out there day and night for her and with her family whose daughter died, the daughter was abducted and found dead, and she was out
there and I and heard from her. I don't know what she feels, but it would be it would not be a far fetched for her to say, after I thought, I was out here fighting for you to come back, believing that if I could save you, at least it with.
Feel a little bit of the whole of my own daughter.
And you put me through all of that, And yeah, you should serve time. I'm saying, you and I are both agreed. Let me just spend my point and then you go. You and I both agree, and we I know that prison we want.
We are abolitionists.
We don't even want there to be prisons at all that exists.
I'm still I.
Guess I'm not one hundred percent of abolitionist yet, because I'm still at the point of if you rape children.
Or if you murder people, murder you know.
Children specifically children, then I don't I need you to be somewhere. And if you're a white supremacist who is out here shooting people at the Times supermarket, I need you to be locked away, right. So I do believe in it from that perspective, But I am not a person who believes that prison should be for somebody who stole.
Something or fake the kidnapping or whatever. I get that.
I'm saying for the purpose of this situation, understanding that the system is what it is and we live within it unfortunately. And I'm going after you finish saying if she's in prison, if she has to go to prison for a year, which it won't be a year, or if she has house to rest, that's fine with me.
She did something wrong, it was.
Wrong, It hurt people, folks were invested, and it's terrible. And I understand people who don't have the sensitivity that you are speaking of right now, for this young lady, I get it well.
For me, is this right? Because there's so many different.
Things, like like I think women who foresee accused men of battering and rape should be charged. Battery or rape should be charged. There's no charge. They just dismissed it. Oh it was you did wrong.
Like so that's not one hundred percent true.
It is not overwhelmingly the case that women who lie get charged. But there are women who have been charged and convicted of a crime. I don't know if they actually went to prison.
I have yet to hear of a woman went to prison for law I've never heard.
I don't think I ever and I'm gonna look it up.
Maybe I am lying to law enforcement in general is a crime surgery if and there are people who have been charged with lying to law enforcement. However, to your point, it is not overwhelmingly the case, and so it is very much so an inequity if you are unequal situation.
Yeah, so that's what I'm saying, Like if we ain't if that, because that that damnage is a person's life, a person's reputation for the rest of their life. Men got even when even after you say you was lying or you you you you get found line. Men gotta live with a stigma. So, like I think, if we're gonna if we're gonna start advocating for people to go to jail.
Those are people that need to go to jail, not.
A woman who and her family trying to get some attention from her family. You know that it isn't falsely accusing any individual that ain't got nobody if somebody had got locked up, if she has said this person did.
This to me and did try to say the orange taired man.
Yeah, she tried to create us. What the thing is?
Ultimately she was never identified.
Of course we're not. The problem is it's just like.
Because what if they would have started arresting orange taired men with the woman in the car just while you know, trying But you don't.
Know how many people hold over?
How many What.
About the police officers the time that it took for them to sit down and try to run orange hair men.
That's been in the money they get for free police officers. Man, Please, they all here getting test place.
But you're saying, but I still I still feel like I get the point of her having to receive some measure of constantly for our actions. What I'm saying is that to me is cool. And people said, well we can we can do both things at once. We could be outraged about both things at once, and I'm saying that, yeah, that's a wonderful statement, it's a great snap back. But the problem is that only one side of those is
really working. So you're outraged even though you're saying you could be outraged about two things at once a lot, only one side is working well, which is the outrage that you have for things like the Carly Russell and the accountability of black and brown people for anything we do, any action that we make, from bubblegum stealing all the way to whatever other murders and everything else. So you know, it's only working on one side for the most part.
So I just want to make sure that people understand that what I'm raising is not a point about what you can and cannot be outraged about and how you should and should not feel. I'm talking about this system and for us to recognize that oftentimes we got a lot of smoke for our own people and we don't necessarily have the same level of venom and anger.
We always want to find some.
Excuse about why, Just like right now, I posted about Steve Perkins being killed by the police, right and some person is in my comments like, well, tell the whole story. He was behind on his payments, but it wasn't in repos status. And the fact and then you know he came out with the gun, this and that and the third wasn't in repost status. Is a fall sentence boom. It was not in repost status. So do you know what was supposed to happen at the point that it
wasn't in repost status. The cop was supposed to take his ass to the front door and knock on it and say, hello, sir, hello human being, Hello person with some civil fucking rights, Can I ask you a question about what's going on here?
That's what was supposed to happen.
That's right, that I mean, they wasn't supposed to ambush a man to sit in the bushes and wave for him to come out, already knowing he's angry at the person, because they already got the call from the person and they said he waved the gun or whatever. So you anticipated you just lwered him into a trap. You didn't come as you know, it's just very strange.
What are you talking about? So with so it's right. So then to get back to the point, you could come over here and make the excuse and the reason for why, well, it's George Floyd, it was this, and so and so was dad and Brianna's boyfriend was in the house. And then shanmquela might have did this, and this, that and the third. But I'm telling you that let you commit one crime, you do one thing wrong, they will put your ass up under the jail.
But if somebody murders you, blows you.
Up, put eight bullets in your body or whatever, we're gonna have to fight because it's more difficult and it takes longer to decipher, and it's more details, and it's this, that and the third. And meanwhile, you don't have no freaking rights, no rights. But I bet you one thing, don't you inconvenience no white people and make them have to go do paperwork and shit for you missing and they wasting and you they wasting their time.
On you because you going to jail, in jail, You going to jail, and.
You're gonna pay twenty five thousand dollars a restitution.
And we're gonna make sure of it. But over here, the inconvenience of the whole community having to watch people being shot dead, having to see all the blood that is spilled on the streets of this America with black people.
Oh well, it's complicated, very.
Strange, very complicated. We can talk about this all day because this is the reality. But we have our guests that it's about.
To show up. You know.
Friend, friend of the family is one of my guys. Man love him to death. I can't wait to interview to death. I love him to life, my fault. I love him to life. He's one of the best photographers hip hop photographers that you will ever meet.
He's a connector.
He's so much more than a noteworthy award winning photographer. I would, you know more so give him the title of documentarian, someone who is capturing so many of our moments. I mean when you think back to the struggles, and not just the struggles, but the moments, the historic moments of a previous time. Often when we're living through it, we don't see the value and or understand the importance of the story that will be told to our children and what will be the historic value of our lives.
Just everything we did, the fashion, the entertainment, the moments that the rooms that we were in, when we were friends, when we were not Who.
Was together, who wasn't together?
You know when we were fighting for the rights of our people, I mean all those things.
At one point or another, it will become the.
Only thing left right to tell the stories to our children. And so I think that all the flowers that Johnny Nunez has been receiving as of shout out to our sister Belisia Butterfield Jones for being one of those to really ensure that Johnny receives as flowers has really been fitting.
Thank you so much. That means a lot to me. Miko.
I really feel like, you know, it's an honor to be a witness to what you've not only achieved but will continue to achieve for the cause of not only our race, but our culture. And you guys are the hidden figures that give a voice to the voiceless. My camera lends an eye to those atrocities and beautiful moments, you know. So I'm just excited that I was able to be invited to be, you know, able to capture a moment and emotion suspended in time for eternity.
Yes, man, like shout out to you, Johnny Man. I always tell you, man, how much I love you and I love what you do. You always did with that camera flashing. You know, I tell a story all the time. How my first video, I mean photo shoot when I was signing death g and violated that Johnny did it in front of the legendary tunnel, like nobody even knows.
Like I think about that all the time, and just to see that both of us are here, you know, thirty years later, damn there, you know, after after all of that, I just want to know, like, Johnny, what made you start doing photos and what was the inspiration?
You know?
In my other you know, interviews, I was going to school for radiation therapy on college and I don't want to get anybody. I see the name of the hospital. I don't get nobody in trouble. But there was a hospital that was known for racism. And just as I was getting ready to graduate in three months as a radiation therapy technician. For those on the show that don't know, I was thinking I was entering a program to take X rays of people with broken arms and broken legs.
I wound up entering a program to tweet people with cancer. But in my application, out of four hundred and twenty interviews, I was one of the lucky twenty two that they chose because at the time, I fed the homeless, I worked and donated my time to a lot of organizations to help children. I was adopting myself and foster care, so I wanted to, like not wanting to, but always had it in my DNA to give back. So I
chose radiation therapy on Collogy. I started it, go through with it, and I got kicked out of the program Sadly. Three months before graduating, I witnessed an atrocious racist attack and I went back to my roommate who I was staying at his house with his wife, and I told them what I witnessed, and I couldn't believe my eyes. They said, Johnny, you do what's in your heart. I'm like, well,
what should I do? They said, tell the professors what you saw, And I did, and the next thing I know, I went to North Show University Hospital to the department and they came up to me, motherfucker, nigger, you spick bastard. My husband's a police officer and he'll shoot you in the fucking face. That's what they told me. I could curse on this show.
Yeah.
I was mortified.
And my professor said, you're Johnny for us to make a complaint about this radiation therapy on college department, you have to produce some kind of evidence. We can't just speculate, and you have to have hard evidence. So I told my professors go to Rose, who was an orderly that would bring the patients to the treatment center of the
department for cancer treatment. And one time she went to go take a lunch break and I said, whoa, you know, I can't leave, and she's like, well, I'm going to my lunch break, I'm very tired.
When I come back out, I'll bring more patients.
These technicians wanted to take a break longer, and that's why they wanted to take her out of her own time to accommodate themselves. So when she refused, they said, you know, you know, Rosa, if the massill catch you, he gonna give you a good whooper and they started to chuck and drive dancing, and she said, I'm gonna report you. So that was my evidence because the professors went and told her, well, unfortunately, my son, that's what started it. I was immediately kicked out.
Of the program. An accident occurred.
They blamed it on me, and here I am thinking, I'm gonna be a radiation therapist.
Now I'm living homeless in my masa three two three.
The apartment that I had, the landlord wanted to rent it to another senate for more money, so I lost that. I asked if I could take their room. They said somebody else was going to take that for more money. So I packed my stuff up and embarrassed, and I put my stuff in storage. Because my family adopted me, the family that adopted me raised me to be a certain way, and I could not return back to my dad with nothing or to tell him and thrown out as a program.
So that wasn't an option.
So I went back to delivering pizza and chicken and being a home healthy for elderly people. The girl I was dating what I was unmarried. I wound up telling them, hey, I got kicked out. I got kicked out of the program, but don't worry. I'm gonna figure this out. She was like, Janny, I met somebody at Sonybrook University, and I've been meaning to tell you.
I think it's time we just become friends.
So I lost my girl, I lost my apartment, I lost my career that I thought, and I resorted back to what I did to get through college, which was deliver a pizza pizza hut.
So I was out and this is how I became a photographer.
As I went to deliver one delivery an individual who sold street pharmaceuticals. I got to his beautiful house and he said, who knows, Wait, mane, ain't you in medicine. I'm like, yeah, but here's your pizza. He's like, oh, you're probably doing this to finish paying off your medical loans and stuff like that. Right, I'm like, correct, he said, reach down in my pocket, and I'm like what, He's like, reach in my pocket.
I can't.
I got the pizza, got soda, and I pulled out a knot of hundreds. I said, so and so I just started my shift. I don't have change. He goes, just peel wanted them out. Peel one of them out, filled out one hundred dollars bill. This is like nineteen ninety six.
You know. He's like, keep that. I'm like, keep that. You sure? He's like, go ahead, stop playing. Sorry. I left, and when I got to my car or should I say my.
Living room, started to punk the horn and disrelief that in a manner of one complaint on racism. I'm now kicked out of the program and now have to live in the car. So myke's girlfriend's mother still loved me so much. A lot of mix girlfriend's moms. I was the best ex girlfriend's son in law to be. And the next day after that delivery, my manager called and said, Johnny, I don't know what you did. You gotta come here right now to the pizza side. I said, it's not
my day to work. There's a guy inside the shop. Just went back outside. He said he's not leaving until he speaks with you. And by the way, when you come to the pizza hut, not come to the front, come through the back. I'm driving through the pizza hut area and I see nothing.
But would look like a car show.
Porsches, convertible, BMW's bens. It looked literally like a car show. By the time I came to the back, I said to my general manager Tony, what's going on? That dude right there he wants you to he want to talk to He won't leave me, and he told me to call you. So I don't know what you did. Bro, you better go out there and take care of it. I go outside and it's same homeboy. I'll call him Defer.
Now.
I'm like, Yo, d what's going on. He's like, Yo, Johnny Man heard what happened?
Bro?
I said hey. He's like, I want you to come work for me. I said, you opening up a pizza rea too. He's like, no, I want you to come help selld me. That help comes out so that white girl, I'm my white girl. It was work, nigga. I'm like, wait a minute, Danny, if you're saying what I think you're saying, I changed my life. Now it's about pizza and I'm not doing medicine no more. And I definitely can't play with blood money. He goes, he ain't fucking
play money. I need you, Jay, because I remember in high school and in junior high school, he was a quick connected You was always networking. He was introducing people to people. I need that on my team. I said, WHOA, I don't know, Dan. He goes, give me your hand. I held out my hand and he put paper in my hand and then he rolled my hand into a fist and he squeezed it. He said, Johnny, if you decide you don't want to work for me, keep that.
It doesn't matter. But if you decide that you want to work for me, just plenty more where that came from. And then he balanced. I couldn't wait to see what was in my hand, and it was a thousand dollars in cash. That time, my ex girlfriend's mom called me and said, Johnny, I made your favorite dish, Haitian turkey wings and rice and beans.
I'm like, oh boy, I'm coming over, you know. And I went over there.
To get the food. And my ex girlfriend was away in college. I go over there and she converted one of the rooms into a makeshift. Ever, she said, Johnny still got closed from when he was dating my daughter. I don't know what you're going through, but tonight this is your room. You know where the shower is at and oh, by the way, here's your favorite dish. So when she closed the door, I began to cry. You know,
I'm a man, I ain't you know. I started crying, and I said, God, I don't know what's going on. You have me about to be in the medical world, and then now you lowered me now to where I'm living in my car. Now I'm getting offered this kind of a business lane. All I wanted to do is help people. I wanted to be. I wanted to be a priest too. I wanted to join the Peace Corps. I wanted to go to Africa and built hunts and houses. I was all about that, But now I want to
murder some people. Murder was never on my mind. I wanted to literally kill certain people, and on top of that, get into a lane of destruction with drug dealing.
And I said, God, if you.
Don't give me an when I wake up tomorrow morning, I'm gonna go sell drugs and I'm gonna get my vengeance in Jesus's name.
That's how down I was.
That I was angry at God, and I could not believe where I was. I was embarrassed. I could not understand what was going on. The next morning, you guys don't have to believe me. I woke up in the morning and I saw a camera. It was in the air, and I rubbed my eyes to me like this, man, I'm really tired.
I looking there.
It was like a spaceship or a helicopter hovering and I was like, for my.
Hands and grab it. I went.
I went to grab a camera and my hands went through the camera and it dissolved, and I said me, I am really tired, maybe because I've been sleeping in that car. Who and then boom it popped up again, and I said, okay, God, no more jokes.
I asked for an idea, and I see a camera.
God, if this is what you want me to become a photographer, give me one more sign, and I swear I won't bother you for a while. Just give me one more sign. In my faith, they call it the Holy Spirit. And out of nowhere, a supernatural energy entered my body and I went to some of my friend's houses where I know we took showers, and I told them as they were playing Mortal Kombat, Yo, fellas, I know what I'm gonna be. And they were like, Johnny, what are you gonna be? I said, i'mna be a photographer?
And as they were playing Mortal Kombat. I still remember my boy Pat, another Asian brother, he was like, Johnny, you live in a car, you got kicked out of a medical radiation therapy program, and you come over our place to eat off food or our refrigerator and not replace it and take showers in our bathroom. What makes you think you're gonna be a photographer who told you you're gonna be a photographer.
I said, God did? He said what I said? God did?
Okay, now you're a bugging Johnny did the Readia she never hit your head? I said, no pact, Johnny. You don't even own a camera. Bro, you're living in the call what money? I said, I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it. So long story short. There was a book I was reading called Unlimited Power like Anthony Robbins that was actually given in me by a group of my friends who we got into a very racial political argument when I got kicked
out of that medical program. Not only were they racists, I was warned by a white woman how racist they were and how they were quick.
To kick out people of color.
And I just thought, I'm such a people person, but they're gonna love me until I saw what they did to this poor black woman. They actually physically harmed her, and I refused to help them transport her body into a different position unless someone aided her head, because she had just had a tracheotomy and when she's freemed with pain, she was making sound that sounded like this, like a and these white technicians all started laughing, cracking up in her presence. There was a man who had age just
like her, but they gave him so much respect. They held him, they protected him, They gave a conversation with this black woman.
They refused to talk to her.
They wore face mask, they wore gloves, so that in humane feeling of feeling like.
You're not there, you're trash, that's what they did to her.
So that's why I told them that I wasn't going to help transport her body until someone supported her head. By that, by the time I got out of the room to the console to deliver the radiation, these same group of people were cursing me out racially and telling me you're finished.
And that's when I went in age complaints.
But that was the greatest, greatest blessing to get kicked out of a medical racist school program. Why because I wouldn't have had this opportunity to complain to God and then God direct me. So when I was reading that book Unlimited Power, it said in one chapter, whatever you're doing right now, stop what you're doing and see where you want to be in three years. So of course I'm working this sweat job it is horrible factory. I'm still living in a car, and I'm illegally reading a
book I'm supposed to be working. I then turned the page and said, stop what you're doing. If you didn't stop and see what you're doing in like the next three to five years, go back to the page before and look and visualize where you want to be. So I stopped the conveyor belt. I heard the general manager
of the building screaming, who stopped the fucking bell? So I looked at this wall, y'all don't have to believe me, and I saw myself shooting Jay Z, shooting Sean Combs, shooting nail Me Campbell, being in the private jet traveling the world, doing all kinds of cool shit, and being a bore us and meeting Russell Simmons, all these kind of like yeah, right.
And then the manager came up.
To me said, if you ever fucking pressed that conveyor belt, I will kick your ass and I will personally kick you out of this factory. Why the fuck did you stop the machine? I said, I thought I saw something, so I wanted to stop it. Here was turner machine back home. So the moral of the story is by the end of nineteen ninety seven, I would have made ninety eight thousand dollars. No longer living in the car.
I wind up being a personal photographer to Jay Z, personal photographer to Sean Colmes Titty, personal photographer to NAS, personal photographer to Russell Simmons, eventually the personal photographer Michael Jordan, personal photographer Lebron James, Michelle.
Obama, Barack Obama.
Obama traveled the world as an ambassador representing the United States of America under the Obama administrative administration. Wind up being the first black Latino Grammy Recording Academy of Photographer, Music photographer, Now a VMA photographer and an MTV photographer. I wound up raising money for the Blind. I now shoot for Tamika Mallory. I got to shoot the first cover of my son's Rap Problem. I can go on for days talking about over Winfree, Gil.
King, Johnny.
Usually by now we would have cut it to James. But the way that you tell that story, and the heart and soul, the pain, the triumph, the when you keep saying you don't have to believe me. First of all, I've known you twenty years, and I've never known you to tell one lie ever in your life, never ever, never, never never.
And I believe you.
I might not have had something to pop up in the in the sky, but I know what that existential feeling is that comes over you, that lets you know it is something bigger than human nature. Like it's not, it's something of a life that you you are you, You only hope to be able to receive a message from God in that way. And I and it, and it inspires me so much that I want people to hear it just like that, like the whole story, you know, And I want to say that.
Each Even when I think.
About when you were speaking, the tears in my eyes began to come, not even for you, but more so for my son, because I was thinking about seven years in prison, believing that you were going to be one thing, going in the door and coming out something totally different, and how you could be mad at God, ten white men and some other people and instead figuring out what could you do to make good of instead of bad with whatever has your experiences been.
And I begin to get.
Emotional because I know that it's not easy to have dreamed of something your whole life, or believed something your whole life and then in the blink of an eye a shift happened, and we're not.
Always ready for that shift.
So I just wanted to say that I just it's just it's shit.
But you know, I do have one question.
Thank you talked.
About all of those people.
Trust must clearly be a thing I have never seen Johnny Newness post or be the center of a gotcha moment. And I'm one hundred percent sure that you've been in spaces and places where people got the white stuff still on their.
Nose and they don't know it's there, and you know they. I know you've seen relationships.
That ain't supposed to be people with people coming from places doing things, But you have never ever been in a person as far as I know that, Uh, you know, meddled in mess.
So talk about trust back.
Ha TMZ things talking about that trust factor and that was that a business decision?
Or is just you all?
You know?
Mh.
You know one thing about me, you know, having the opportunity to be adopted by a Portican family that didn't have much themselves but gave me everything. They were able to show me the value of of of neighborhoods and respect. I would go up through neighborhoods in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, where I was raised and I was born in Brooklyn, I would be called nigga, I would be called speck. I
couldn't walk down certain blocks. I was constantly being chased by dogs because certain white men and white women would let their dogs loose just to see me run. And so for the white that lived on my block, I try my best to, like, you know, let these motherfuckers get away with a lot of shit, you know, But I just wanted to be cool so that no one would refuse me being in their circle. You know, be calm, chill,
you know they're going to crack them jokes. So what does that have to do with your to your point is that I always know that respecting people and helping them, whether they're the number one on the top charts or just opening up act, give them the respect. The low the lowest level tiers, give them the respect as if they was the top tier. And when they do become the top tier, they're going to remember those people that came to them to their performance at SOBS.
They're going to remember you. Was that at Maria.
Davis's showcase, one of the photographers showing them when they didn't even have a label deal or or.
A hit song. So for me, it's actually.
An opportunity where I get your help and I feel great that I could be apart one brick in that home that helped build this artist's career. So to your point, I cannot put anything that would jeopardize them because it would only shoot myself in the foot when they do blow up, you know, and some people want to get that fast buck. Catch a picture of two people come out of a hotel, catch a picture of a person
in a car with somebody, or a fight breakout. If I had one thousand dollars every horrific photo, whether it be with violence, sex, crime, robbery, you name it, I probably have at least two to three million dollars on me. But the blessing is that I'm not in it to lift myself up by just throwing your career. I'm in this to raise our babies so that we have knowledge of self, so that our children and their children would only sulfer lie upon themselves and their own race, not
trying to segregate from the same. We don't need anybody. We built this country. America is our Ancestress Foundation. They built this for us and we are the descendants of a dream of kidnapped Africans and genocided or I don't think that's words that were sacrificed so that we have this opportunity to be where we are today.
It's called integritive, called and you have a lot of and I think that's the reason why you've lasted so long.
And everyone sees Johnny.
Whenever you see Johnny as a happy moment like you, I don't care what artists superstar. Every time I see you and you get them on camera, they look at you, they're, oh, it's Johnny.
Like you know what I'm saying. It's like it's like cheers, you like norm coming to Cheers.
Man to where you are man, because because you created this, you know this atmosphere of trust and and just love and you always connecting people like you said that the god the guy says, you know that you're connected, and you know how to do this. You walk and you're not only taking pictures. And if anybody knows that, Johnny will put you next to somebody that you never met.
And like, I want you guys to take a picture.
When then introduce you to the guy and said, boom, this is such and such and it's such, and you guys need to me he does this, and he does this, and she does this and this, and you know in the way that you do it is so effortlessly.
It's effortless, and it it helps a lot.
Of artists, right, new people because a lot of people walk into spaces and they're around big artists, you know, and they don't really know these artists, but you know them, so you know that the connection needs to be made.
You know, they wanted they need to be comfortable in certain spaces.
And I watch you navigat and do that so well, man, you know, it's amazing. It's a tribute to the person you are. But I never knew that you were adopted.
Yeah.
So I'm Black, Chinese and Venezuelan from the island of Trinidad. But I was blessed enough to go find my biological family and I met my real family and and I realized why God blessed me with my adoptive family. No pun intended, but I just thank God that, you know, he brought.
Me into this remarkable family that.
If I had to do it over again, I would not change the thing because I had a remarkable upbringing of a family that took me under their wing as if I was their own, and you know, raised me to be with these values. Help people, love everyone, do your best to help people, you know, and don't get it twisted. I'm very, very radically militant with black and land history. I'm very much about a matter of factness.
You know.
I just used my lens in a way that could help lift and push the narrative of our culture through the lens, you know.
And I would say, I'm one of those people that when I started, I remember you, Rachel nord Link invited you to the first event where I became executive director of National Action Network and Victoria what's the name Victoria Web and Carell God bless his soul. They were the co hosts for the event. It was my first little like celebrity thing. And I mean this is years ago now, and you're a photographer, and ever since then, you've always done exactly what my son says, depending on you know,
whatever room. You know, I'm not the person that's going to be asking people for pictures and you're like, no.
No, no, you gotta you know, Tamika Mallory.
You know while you're taking pictures, you've always done that and you're one hundred percent right. You've been there with me from in someone else's shadows all the way to standing on my own. So I say name for that, but I will say my last thing. If you have a very no chill way of taking pictures. So if you're not ready when Johnny snaps the camera, that's just your problem.
Johnny's in the room. You gotta be ready when he say yo, yo yo, you gotta be ready. So what is that?
Because I know people tell you that all the time, like Johnny, wait a minute, give me a minute. But your are you trying to get people in their natural habitat? Is it just rushing or do you want people to prepare? Like what is the mindset behind how quick you move.
In a room? So, you know, I don't know if I was never diagnosed with add you know what I'm saying, But I've always been like make the moves now. My wife actually sometimes tells me, yeah, you need to chill, man. You know what I'm saying. You gotta you like to you like to kick your gys and questions later when you should be thinking about what you want to do first.
That does get me in trouble sometimes.
But to answer your question, I like to actually say this quote and maybe it'll stick to you both. And that is history repeats itself. Opportunity does not. You have to be ready. And I say all that to say that when I'm shooting a photographer, when they sell photos or when they show their work, they're actually not showing
the subject in the photo. I mean, technically you are if I shoot you guys with jay Z inside the forty forty private room like we did for the eleventh anniversary of the forty forty, which is not there no more. It's being relocated. I believe that moment is in all your glory, right, But it's also the opportunity for the
photographer to show the viewer what they see. So like a painter with its paint brush and it's different colors and it's different palettes, different color than the palette, and it's in the canvas and the strokes of their their their their.
Paint brush.
Or an artist with his words written on his paper from his pen making a song, or of someone in politics or in social equality, that's writing and preparing a speech so that they can get the word out. That's the same caliber of energy that the photographer wishes to show the people that look at his photos. It's not what's in the photo, it's what they see. And they want you to see what they see. So when I'm shooting me cute, Oh you're always I would never want
to put you in a bad light. You know, you you bless, you know you're hot. You know, I'm just keeping them one hundred. So yeah, So for me, I just like, there's no time to get ready ready now right here? You know what to get ready. There's four or five other photo set opportunities. Gail King just gave Oprah. You know, there's there's Michael Jordan laughing with whole like and and this firstone right here wants me to say, hold on, hold on, we get ready.
You know, you get ready.
We're about to let you go, Johnny.
But before you go, right, I just want to give you your flowers because you deserve them.
Man, you you you want the great one of.
The greatest who've ever done it? Man Like, you talk about the people you you've worked with, and then I've seen the pictures that you've taken and this pictures you've taken of us, like you just talked about that picture with Hope, like I got that one.
Yes, I got it blown up in my room right now, Sean. Sean came over. Yep, you know what I'm saying. And it's an amazing picture.
Like you, you've just been doing this so long, and everybody who, everybody who, somebody knows who Johnny is, and right then respect you and they love what you do.
I just want you to what do you want?
What do you want your legacy to be? When it's all, when it's all, what do you want you?
I want to be able to And just is real quick within that answer. When I look back now and I see him myself. Wow, look where God has brought me. Like I was in Beckingham Palace when Queen Elizabeth alive, I was on the phone with el Chapel when he was nine jail. I used to shoot from kings and queens to masterminds of crime. You know, as a personal photographer. How the hell you trust someone who never even went
to school for this, you know. But then I look back and I realized when I was a child, I'm sure both of y'all used to sell candy for your school. And they wouldn't give you no money, but they give you this like this name you of items, So this much candy, you can buy this watch or this water gun.
You remember that, y'all.
Yeah, No matter how many points I was trying to go for how many cookies or candies, I was always trying to get a camera. So that to me shows that God already had implanted it from when I was three or four years old, in kindergarten, five years old, to just like planting that seat and saying, you're gonna go through some rough patches, not gonna lie and be covered in dirt and be in the dark. I'm gonna sign some light on you. You're gonna grow like like
a flower through the cracks. You're gonna survive. They don't wanna let you blossom. And you're gonna have in your phone book. You're gonna have in your phone book. I can't even lie Spike Leave's phone number. You know what I'm saying. You're gonna have Naza's phone number. You're gonna have Pat Joe's phone number in your book. You're gonna
have Rich Paul's number in your book. You're gonna be well taken care of, and you're gonna be a cop, a founding contributor to the largest photo agency in the world called Geddy Images.
Can't even make that up. People think I work for getty.
I'm a grandfather contributor aka my partner.
You feel me.
So I say that to say, that's how God, That's how good God is. It's amazing He could take you, whether you had to go to jail or you lost a loved one that was so did you that it just shifted your life to then now you wake up, you're in the rich hotel in Paris, a balcony looking towards Canon and the film festivals at Canone. I mean,
I have stories to tell you. The legacy is to leave an opportunity for our young brothers and sisters of color and others to be able to photograph and be business men and women of their own, so that they don't have to work for a company. They could start a company. I pray that what I leave behind is But Gordon Park started, and Jamal Shabbaz, then the and then you have Ricky Powell and God bless the dead.
Ricky Powell and.
Chimo Doom they started companies, but they were never able to pass on how to do it. I want to be able to teach the babies how to start their own company and be self sufficient, so they didn't have their own company. Right now, both my son and daughter both know how to do photography. And now the next step is how do we market them? How do we brand them? I got my daughter, you know, Michael Jordan
Nike campaign. I got my son in a morning side gallery for Faces of Harlem exhibit which ends in November. You know, I'm trying to leave, but not just for my children, all the children especially that were affected by the demonic colonizing of American history. So that means we got work to do to teach the children, not just photography, videography, rap, songwriting, music, political.
What's the word being a social apple?
To get for justice, we have to bring them with us so and show them from my own hands and our own minds.
Johnny Neonaz, thank you so much, brother. We love you, we admire you, we respect you. I appreciate your understanding of history. You really truly are a gem. Your wife is a gym, your family everywhere you all are beautiful, never changing, you never act funny when you see people that, oh, today we in the room with Diana Ross. So therefore, to Meeking Mallory is not important.
You like Diana Ross. Do you know to meek A Mallory you should know? Yeah, number exactly.
So God bless you, We love you on your journey, keep telling your story.
Thank you.
Want to see my lemonade, Mighty Joyful Lemonade, It's available on my website Mighty Joyful dot com. It's the first of a lemonade that was inspired by hip hop and it's inspired by Mama Wan so go by can telephone and telephone mighty mighty joyful her Yeah, Mighty joyful lemonade.
Mighty Joyful lemonade joy Yeah.
And he love lemonade too, I like can't.
Has a different each man has a different element of hip hop. Is a graffiti artist. That's my son and daughter back to back in the b Boys stand. The next one is uh the DJ, which is my daughter scratching, the MC which is my son with the microphone. And then last one not least the bee Boy breakdancing, and that's me doing a windmill.
So you can collect all four.
Okay, Well, make sure you go out support Johnny Noona. Tell them where they can find you again, Johnny.
Go to my Instagram or go to the website Mighty joyful dot com or my excuse me, mighty Joyful lemonade dot com.
What's your Instagram?
Johnny Noona is j O h n n y nunyas is and you and easy.
We love you, Johnny, keep it up, but I love you. That's how we owned.
Shout out to Johnny neonan is Man our brother the gym. He's YO since I was a teenager. He took me the first photo shoot in front of the tunnel.
Man.
Amazing just to watch him, you know, grow and get the accolades he deserves. And just hearing that story, Like you said, we couldn't even stop him, Like usually we don't let nobody just talk for fifteen twenty minutes, but we couldn't stop that story. It was just so felling and heartfelt and real and I just want the audience to hear it exactly how he told it.
So shout out to him. Man, that brings me to my I don't get it.
We talk about pictures and were talking about you know, recording history, and we talk about these things. If everybody knows unless you're under rock, you just blond of death. We know what's happening, you know, in Israel and Palestine right now, and we've seen, you know, the loss of life.
We've seen bombing.
It's war, you know, we've seen that there's war, and you know, and I think for me, what I don't get. You know, First, we want to we always want to acknowledge that we do not condone violence, murder, killing, kidnapping at all, and we vehemently you know, denounce that, you know, but we want that we need that the media properly
report what's going on. You know, the media. The media is so dangerous and you know, when you when we look at what happened to this israelly people who are actually at a party, you know, and we see how you know, they were invaded, were kidnapped, the lives were lost, and it was it was a horrible thing, and nobody
could condone that. Nobody, even the Palestinians don't condone, you know, they are Palestinians that all of our friends here said that that is the worst thing and they would not condone it.
They don't celebrate it.
They don't think it's okay, but when you look at the media and how they cover one side or something, you know, and unfortunately we have to go to social media where there are certain people who are accurately reporting what's actually happened with the Palestinians, you know, and their lives being lost every day, their babies, they have account for over one hundred babies that have been dead. They have videos of this happened, and they have all of
these things. And when you look at the news and you look at how they report at one side, and they talk about how Israel has the right to defend themselves and and they're saying babies were dead and women are killed, and they're not saying that that's happening in Palestine.
You know.
They're not saying that they cut off all the water and those people are over there. They're not saying that they even American citizens who are locked in guys on the strip that they won't allowed to leave. That I've seen, you know, reports and I've seen people on calls and videos talking about they pretty much just waiting to die.
They haven't had water, they haven't.
Had food, and you know, and so when these things aren't reported and is reported, one way I want. I want people to understand that these things are done for a reason, whatever reason it is, you just have to use discernment. You know, I've been around and I've watched media, being inside of this industry and being part of the social justice movement, I've watched the media lie. I've watched the media create narratives that aren't true. I watched the
media term tell one side of narratives. And this is what's happening here, man, And you know, we we we we're not gonna allow that.
We're gonna utilize our voices to tell the truth. All time.
Were people who actually went to Palestine, and we know what's happened there. We know the history of what's happened there, you know, And as much as we do not condone what happened to the israelis what happened what Hamas has done, and we do not condone that, we will not allow there to be a one sided story to act like Palaestinians haven't been dying and aren't still dying as we
speak right now. So you know, I just wanted to send out my regard, my prayers to all the people who lost that their loved ones all the ones who die. You know, this is war and it's not okay. You know, we were looking for a peaceful resolution. But if you do not acknowledge that peace only comes when there's justice. You know, peace only comes when there's freedom. There's no people who are pressed, who are going to continue to be oppressed, who are going to die without any level
of fight, you know. And I think any person of good nature and moral conduct wouldn't even want people to be oppressed.
Well, here's the thing I would say that one not all Palestinians. You said, Palestinians don't even want the killing to continue. And I want to make sure to be careful about that, because while we certainly absolutely unequivocally believe that the killing of innocent people, children or otherwise, women, men, anyone that is innocent that is not at the forefront of or you know, or leading the charge to murder
and oppress others, we don't agree with that. I use the example that I don't believe people should kill cops, even though I know cops unjustly kill us all the time, and even though they say, well it's one bad apple, but if the rest of you stand by and watch it, then we could sit here and say that all of you are complicit, and therefore someone retaliated against an entire precinct and blew it up and killed all the police officers.
There's some people that can make a justification for that, because hey, if you didn't, if you're not joining us to turn in to report, to condemn other officers who are doing wrong, you are just as complicit. And there are some people who have that mindset but still as a righteous people that have been for far too long, for all of my life and the lifetime of even those who came before us, who walk through while being holes down with the fire hoses, watermelon, throne at them.
Spit on, beat on, and still they.
Talked about loving their enemies. They talked about, you know, turning the other cheek. They talked and some said it was passive. Others said it was a form of being able to maintain your personal righteousness while fighting systems and
not people. I mean, there's been many different theological breakdowns and explanations for why violence does not beget violence right, and we choose to walk in alignment with the idea that we are never to spray the park and shoot up everybody and let the grandmother get shot and the chot the children get shot on the playground when is in.
The middle of the war between men.
We have always said that, so we don't nobody's going to trap us into a cycle of conversation. But I will say that I don't want to speak on behalf of all Palestinians, because different Palastinians have different feelings.
I know the people that I know, the ones that I.
That we know, the ones that we know, and I'm not even going to put language in their mouth. I'm not going to put the word denounce in their mouth, because you know, I don't.
I've never been.
One anybody I denounced the violence. I've never one who.
Wants to use that word.
But I will say that I know everybody that I know that is Palastinian, that is close to this issue does not want to see children die or people die at all. And as a result, what they are calling for for is the best way to solve the problem, which is to deal with justice and to not allow one group or any particular person or any government to rule and reign over the lives and the freedom for self determination of another group. So we're saying that You're right,
nobody should be dying. Anybody who feels that way, You're never going to get us to disagree. We support that one hundred percent. We support the fact that Israeli children, women, families are to be safe. We support that, and we
know that the path towards it. It's for every single person. Again, going back to the police references, for the cops to say, hey, if we're going into communities throwing people up against the wall, treating them like shit, hurting them, harming them, disrespecting them, dehumanizing them, then you know what, I'm going over there as an officer by myself into the community late at night, thinking that somebody might not try to retaliate against me when they can get the one.
Up on me.
So therefore I'm going to walk with respect. My father was a correction officer for more than twenty years. He never had a problem with the UH incarcerated individuals, especially in the last jail that he was in in the Bronx House. Never had a problem. I have met formally incarcerated people who told me I hated that jail. I hated those officers. But Mallory, Stan Mallory, I've never had a problem with him. And you know why, because he
treated every man with respect. He understood that just because you're in this situation, it's not all of you, and he got their stories even when they were right wrong or he was not to all be there be the judge, the person who could the what do you call it, no, no, no, no, no, whatever, the exactly the judge and the jury.
But I was trying to say something else. That was not his role. It was not his role to judge.
His role was to ensure the safety of the officers and the incarcerated people. In order to do that, he felt respect of everybody was the best way. So that's what we're saying. And therefore, when folks said, why is Sean King only showing the images of the Palestinians, Well, who else gonna do it?
Because the show ain't on the TV.
The TV at the news station is telling you about one side of a story. Somebody has got to use a major platform to provide some balance. And the last thing I want to say is the big ass lie that they have been telling that they now have had to retract of saying that the children's head that they had pictures of and the president saw pictures. Our president saw pictures of children beheaded.
Why is that so important?
Because some people will say, well, people still died, so regardless of whether it was beheading or not, children's people still die.
Well, let me tell you why that's important.
Because in every comment section that I've read, folks are using that as an egregious like the atrocity is so big. They're using that to say, I can't even hear the Palestinian struggle because as whatever whoever I am, black, white, Jewish, whatever I am, I'm so outraged over the beheading of children that I can't get past that. But then that
actually didn't happen. So now what you're gonna say? Because the President said, oh, I saw the pictures, then the White House secretary or whomever was the White House immediately said, I actually didn't.
It was from a report that came from net and Yahoo. Who we know who he.
Is and the acts of terrorism that he has been inflicted upon even his own damn people, as far as I'm concerned. That So then they say, oh, event now even the Israeli government has had to come forward to say that there's no, there's actually not proof of such, which means it was a lie because at the time, it was all about sensationalism. It was all about making people. Because if this one thing that you cannot explain to me, I don't give a damn what happens in the world.
You could.
You could come in my house right now. You can shoot my mama, my daddy, my son. You could kill every single one of us, and for whatever reason, I might be able to rationalize it because of some shit we did. Maybe my brother killed somebody, or my cousin hurt somebody, and therefore war's war. Retaliation is retaliation. I might try to understand what I'm saying. I never would,
but I'm just using a super duper extreme example. But if you behead my grandchild, if you cut off my one year old granddaughter's head, Lord God bless you, me and the rest of this world, that.
Is you're the devil.
That's it, demonic you you you you're not even human. It's it's no way I can humanize you. And that's what that's what this is meant to do. It's meant to be humanized because once somebody says that, because I don't give for how angry I am if I'm in war, this and that there's no way that I even want to harm a baby. So for me to sit there and grab a baby and decide I'm gonna cut a baby's head off or any individual, this is that's that
is the devil reincarnated. That is pure evil, you know, And that's why those stories are being told to our people to to take away your empathy for and your humanization of those individuals.
So we're not gonna allow that. We're gonna always speak truthful.
Because because to lend a Sorces point, the story is bad enough. We don't need no extra The people were killed, that is bad enough. But when you start talking about beheading children, you know what you're doing. You're creating an additional level of trauma.
Because you know that you know what you're doing, because you know that there's a there's a story that can say that we were people are dying over here too, and people were killed, right, so they know they know that. When they say that, and they just say, well they kill people, and then we can say, well they kill people here, it pretty much is like, well, y'all need to fix this, right, But once you and the baby, then it's all no, no, ain't nothing, worse than that.
So this is this out.
But I can tell you right now, wipe them out. If you do it.
To wipe them out, every every man woman is nothing, nothing. We've scrubbed the bottom and I know that's why they presented that, and now it has to be walked back because there's actually no evidence of it. Oh so now let's now let's go back to having a conversation on equal playing field. And it's still not equal playing for we know that because we understand. But I'm just saying,
let's go backwards now and start having it. And then once we get on this equal playing field, now we got to start telling some truths about what has happened and the history and the foundation, and then that's when things start going to rye because people don't like to have that conversation. I want to give Julianne Read some credit because Wow, she certainly you know, wants to make sure that she presents the truth and it's provided some
fair and balanced coverage of these things. I know it's not easy for her to be able to do that, So I give Joy a lot of credit for making sure that her show is not used to just talk about one side It's a shame that black people who are on TV are sitting here and won't even call a Palestinian's name.
That's disgusting, But anyway, gotta go.
I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika Di. Marriage is not gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and I mean always, always, always be authentic and speak truth to power peace.
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