Ep. 415 "Racism In The Healthcare System "

today is no different. It's like when we got into the issue around medical kidnapping, which is a new term that I'm just learning about, UM, and also just the unjust removal of children from their homes and from their families for a variety of reasons. I now we start to learn about all these other issues and it's like you open up a can of ones. And I think the same thing happens in the police accountability movement when you start talking about police saying, then mental health issues

come up, people start asking questions about gun violence. Um, the issues around guns come up, issues around driving while black. I mean, there's so many windows and and and rooms in the building, and I think that's what we're experiencing right now as we sort of focus on racism within the healthcare industry, because it's racism everywhere, and these particular systems. Uh, they have some real horrible ways that they treat black and brown folks, particularly black women, Uh, that we're learning

so much about. So today's show it's pretty it's deepened. For me, it's haunting because, UM, you know, I know all about what it is to be a black woman whose voice is not listened to. Um, you sound like you've got a little that. I've been doing a lot of talking m the last few weeks actually, um, and so I have lost my voice. But you know, I know all about what it is as a as a black woman to be um, misunderstood, to be mistreated, UM, to be ignored, to have my feelings and and and

other things ignored, And it is painful. So listening to these stories what somebody think is a small thing or you're being ignored or nobody, but it translates into so many places in our lives. And so today's show is

gonna focus on that. Yeah. And also we also have a male black man who who speaks on the same thing on how his voice is ignored and how his even place, you know, as his story is crazy as a father's it's pretty much you know, So there's so much going on, man, I didn't even never really focused on the you know, the the medical mortality and things

of that nature, even though I've heard about it. But just you know, just looking at these two individuals who we have here and just listening to these stories is really deep. So you know, I'm definitely interested and can't wait to get into these topics and just inform you know, our viewers and our listeners on what's going on. That's a and that's the thing I love about what we're

trying to do with street politicians. It's different. You know, there are a lot of people who focus on the entertainers. Maybe they talk about some issues, but their focus is very different from ours. And we watch those shows, right, we love those shows, funny, um, you know, entertaining. But on this show, while we do you know, we cut up, we talk stuff, but we are trying to focus on serious issues but breaking it down in a way that can be translated to the every day person. And you know,

it's a it takes us. It's a skill set that is required to be able to translate these big words. Like today we're learning about the help syndrome, which is h G L l P. Obviously, the accre and um you know, means helping women and listening to their voices. But h G l l P is a longer word that describes a particular syndrome and condition and women go through when their blood pressure and other issues happen during the latter part of their pregnancy, and you can die

from it. We've learned about uh pre sklenia. Oh lord, I gotta get that right. Hold clan, it's clamp women, and hold on. We need we need, we need our production team to tell us how. I'm gonna tell you how to say it. Pre et clamps here there we go there and make sure y'all don't take that out. Keep that in there, and yeah, we need that in there. That's that's Janice right there, pre claims here her name

is Janet. But pre eclamps fia, that's a new you keep saying one more time, Genie said one more time for pre eclamps See, yeah, that's what I said. That's exactly so. Um, you know, so that's a new term a medical condition that we are We're now learning that women are dying and or their babies are dying, um, and they're experiencing a lot of of of unfortunate circumstances during uh the birth period. So there's it's just there's

so much to learn. And to your point, not just learning it, but now that we know, we got to do something with it. Go takes me back to Dick Gregory when he said, once you put those glasses on, it's like glasses that help you see things that everybody

else can see. Um and. So as we are learning more and more about UH racism and in the health care system, um and and and not just racism, but as you said something on Lash show, classism because they're white women who are uh, you know, most of them don't have means, who are experiencing similar situations, particularly around the separation of children from their fans, out from their from their families. So it's it's a deep dark hole trafficking, sex, trafficking.

We talk with Tony last week, Tony Rivera, it's a deep dark hole. Yeah, it definitely is. Man just hearing these stories that That's one thing I love about this, you know, our podcast, that it informs me. I learned every day, like I'm learning from different individuals. I'm learned about things that pretty much a common in our society, especially in the black community. That I haven't even been privy too. So I know a lot of people, and I pride myself on trying to inform myself and reading

up and being knowledgeable and understand what's going on. So I know a lot about people aren't giving getting this information prior to even hear an about it. So you know, that's I'm proud of that. You know we're actually doing

a little something good here. Number one ship, number one ship, right, we definitely are so my thought of the day because I've been thinking because as we've been in this new space, learning more about particularly the Child Protective Services, because that's what I've been I've been, I mean really, I've been doing a lot of reading and engaging myself in a real study practice around CPS. And not to demonize all

CPS workers. We've been saying that every week, right, because we know that they're child protective workers out there who are doing a damn good job and they have little resources to none. In fact, my cousin Raven, who loves you dearly, um, she worked for Child Protective Services for a while and in the state of Georgia, and then the stories you know of the things that she went through and she is not able to tell you everything

that's how happening. But you could see the burden on her when she would come home from work and she would just be like, you know, there's so much happening, There's so many problems. And I know CPS workers just like police officers, just like teachers, just like everybody. They out there trying their best, trying to damn this to save lives. But the systems are so corrupt, the actual system, to foundation of the way that they're told to do

their jobs is so corrupt at the core. And as a result of that, UM, we're seeing a situation where families are being and people are being harm and so, you know, just recently we got tagged, I know, I've been being tagged to the story of a woman that a woman is telling about an incident that happened in the Costco. Um. In the Costco she happened to see a family basically for a white people with children, and there was a young girl, a young black girl with them.

UM who told this woman this is what the this is the woman's account of this story. She told the woman that the people that she was with, this white family that she's been placed with that they were sexually assaulting her, the wife and the husband, and that the husband held her against her will. And uh, now when you when you look at the imagery and even the video that the woman is taking this advocate, the woman who's speaking up for this young girl. You look at

the video, it's clear that sounds wrong. So this family, they're not feeding their adoptive child. She's crying. They're being racist towards her daughter. You guys need to we need to expose these people, this family. Look at her, she looks hungry and they're making her say that she's not hungry. And these people are just owning her and they're probably using her as a slave like they were back in the day. So, yes, the sheriffs are on the way.

I called the cause because yes, I'm a Catholice as person and I'm not about to watch this go by. That is very rude and very disgusting of these people. Maybe maybe to them it's not, but maybe they don't even know. Let's just say that they are not actually engaged in um any type of uh you know, negligence

or or even worse than that criminal activity. Right, Let's just say they're not, but they might not know that to have their their children, the white children look, you know, pretty decent, clean up with their clothes on, and then to have this young girl with her hair matted and her clothes look like mammy. That's exactly how she was dressed, like a little mammy, dressed like something from imagery from the nineteen sixties. That's how she's dressed with this family.

The wife looks like she's suffering with some type of mental issue herself. And of course while this video was going on, they're standing around and they look to me like they know somebody sees them, right, So of course the woman can't stop them from taking the child. But she gets to the police. She tells the police about the situation, and they go to investigate, and of course their report is they found no wrong doing, everything is fine,

and this young girl is off with this family. Someone tagged me yesterday to something saying that the family has now moved from where they were and they went to

another state. And this happens often, and so there were many people who wanted us to get involved to deal with this situation, and it would just so happen that I mentioned this in the last and our last week's show where we talked with Tony Rivera and we happen to mention that this was happening, it was a developing situation, and when she said she was dealing with it and

would get back to me. So my thought of the day is, as I look at many people who have reached out, even some of them are advocates themselves, and they are helping with this situation, why do people feel like the right way to address me or us and other leaders is to try to either shame us and disrespect us in order to make us pay attention to an issue. So people are tagging me in the comments. Are your trash because you're not helping this girl? You

haven't done your job? Where are you? How dare you? You only get involved in cases when something you know benefits you, which, by the way, that's the biggest line has ever been told. Because most of the people that come to us for support are people who have no name. No one really knows what's going on. Maybe their child was killed or some incident happened, and maybe there's some

talk online, but there's no organization around them. They don't have really the resources, the financial resources which we have to often raise and bring to the families and beyond that they have no international name the way that we ultimately did for Brianna Taylor. And I've been involved in many cases for my career. Over my career twenty five plus years, I have been helping to take cases and families from one space to the next. We got involved

in Trayvon Martin, same thing. Trayvon had been dead. People were kind of talking about it. But when we got there and we put that extra work on and Traybonn became an international name. His mother Sabrina folks who will tell him that, okay. And again, like I said, same thing with Brianna Taylor. So I'm trying to figure out why people feel like they need to shame you and talk down on you to make you get involved in something when they don't know who you're talking to, they

don't know what's happening behind the scenes. And also they don't understand the process that it takes before people like us can go and get involved in certain situations. And I think, and I'll let you respond. Then one of the problems that folks deal with is not understanding that they're they're the fact that they have five hundred followers

or two thousand followers, and even five thousand followers. They don't understand that when they go out and say something, the risk is not the same as someone like me and like us who have a million plus people and major platforms, because guess what, we will get sued if we have not done the due diligence of having our

attorneys get involved in these situations. Imagine us going out there and calling this family rapists, kidnappers, all kinds of words that we need to We would be using or at least implying in order to bring attention to a situation without giving our legal team the ability to look at the law and what we can say and what we can't say. And also, the woman that's telling the story,

we don't know her. I believe she's doing the right thing, and I want to support her, but we don't know her, so we can't say a hundred percent that what she's telling us is absolutely true. All of this has to be dealt with, and there are people out there in the world who don't seem to know understand that there is a process that we have to go through before we get involved. It doesn't mean that we won't take on situations. That's difficult because guess what they told us.

Brianna Taylor's boyfriend was a drug deal Our ex boyfriend was a drug dealer. They told us, Oh, Kenny Walker, he might have something over here. Brianna's actual boyfriend. They told us, well, uh, what's his name? Eric Garner? He was selling Lucy's cigarettes. Nicole Bell's man. They tried to put off the sparaged up with all types of things that Joe Guselan Trump benefield their arrest records from the past. Every case we get involved in, Mike Brown, Oh, he

attacked the man at the store. Every case we get involved with, there's a story. There's always a back story. I got a backstory. There's some ship. You can come right now and say you're gonna help Tamika and it's gonna be some ship. Right. Everybody got a story. But it takes a process so that you can know what your risks are and how you intend to approach a situation. So my thought the day is like, what the hell

a y'all talking about? And why do people who have never been in our positions have so much to say about things that they don't have to assume the risk for well, my assessment of the situation is that there are two types of people. Then people who actually just don't know, right. And then there's the type of people who just want to hate, right. They just want to do anything to to make you look negative and vilify you. Right. So the people who don't know, they make statements and

why are you hiring doing anything? And why don't you doing this? And what's going on with this? And they don't understand exactly high works. And then there are people who have unrealistic expectations. Right. They expect you to talk

about everything that's going on in the world. There's so many different things that people were able to see our d m s and our emails and see how they're flooded with so many different individuals who have an issue, right, and and and they will understand that we don't have the capacity as organization, let alone individuals, to bring to light every issue, every situation that somebody brings to us. And everybody feels in the situation that they think is important,

it's equally as important. There's nobody who doesn't think that the boy who was running down the block and he got hit with somebody threw a rocket at him, doesn't think that's more important than the police that shot him, or that the kid that show. Everybody thinks that their issue is paramount to everything else. So they're gonna come

at you. So that's that's why I've taken that. But then there's just those people who are actually agent provocateurs, right, they sent to try to you know, to defame you and make it seem like you're not doing your world. They have a little bit more followers. They utilize social media, and it's in a in a different plat or a different way in which they utilize it to it the message that they have is spread all over the place, so starts to become a recurrent theme, theme and the

narrative that people grab onto. So those are two things. So what I say is this, we have to continue to just do the work right. And I understand how it can be demoralizing, and I understand why, like before I seeple, like you don't understand why a lot of celebrities just don't step up, like you've got a platform you to do this and they're vilified, right, and this is not their everyday work. Some of them step up and just want to say, you know what, I don't

I don't agree with what happened. Man, let me say something about it, and people start tearing them down. Oh you don't do this, what are you doing this for? Or you you should have been did this? Or nobody cares what you're saying. Just shut up and dribble or shut up and and wrap or whatever it is. So it is it is. You know this, this work that

we do is an everyday process. It has to be God's purpose for you because it is very painful, especially when you have you know, when you care about your name, you care about how you are portrayed, when your reputation is like because for me, my reputation is all I ever had, you know, prior to getting involved in this in the I mean this work doing a client to wrap or anything, I was a respected individual because the way I carried myself, in the way that I I

dealt with integrity. And that's that's one thing throughout my history of my life that people were always able to say about me. And this was the first time, even in hip hop music whatever, my integrity was never in question, right, it was my talent, my skill level or did he wassh up or nobody kids, and I went through all of that, but this space people started to attack my integrity as a man and calling you scammers and stealers and liars and cloud chases and and all of these names.

So it takes a lot, and it really takes a lot. This has to be your caller, you know, so we and we we deal with it very well. You know, I know that a lot of people, there are a lot of UM leaders who passed in present who just said, fuck it. You know, I'm not doing this, but I'm just gonna I'm not saying nothing will let them deal with it. They some of them have quote unquote sold out because of that, because they said, you know what, I'm doing all this fighting for people, and people don't

give a funk about what I'm doing. They call them me all types of names, and I'm not. I haven't benefited anywhere, so let me stop benefit. I don't care what nobody thinks now because I've lost so much, and they attack my own people that I'm trying to say, I'm trying to help and I'm trying to do all these things for are the ones attacking me. So it's just so much that goes in that that you know, that question that you know your thought of the day

is very thought provoking. I just asked people, man, just to take the time before you write something, before you to say something, before you attack somebody for your accused somebody solf like somebody wrote today to say you're a scammer, And I said, just prove it, show me one person I have a scamed or you have to do. Don't just don't just go on the internet and just write something, you know, just throw something into the atmosphere that you

have no cluefro you have no knowledge of. You just heard a narrative and you grabbed onto it and then you're spreading it and you're putting it on people you know. And I just asked you know, as individuals, as people, as black people, as people in our communities, before you attack people that are doing work that you've never done and it never will do and don't even understand the capacity of which it needs to be done. Just ask yourself, do I know what I'm saying? Am I sure about

what I'm saying? Am I clear? And I it doesn't make sense that I do my due diligence, that I research that I do all of this. Don't understand what it takes to do what this individual is doing. You know, just just do that, you know, because we were still humans, you know, we're we're human beings just like you. We just happened to have a different calling on our lives and we move into different space. So you know, I just ask people, please, man, before you write someone the internet,

before you attack somebody, before you call somebody. And you know what, many times brothers have called me names and just said names. I'm like, brother, why did you have to say that? And I and I said, hey, well this what's going on on my fault what I mean? But you didn't even take the time out to know what you meant. You just got so caught up in the Internet and and the you know, the moment and

attacking somebody and disrespecting the individual. Luckily for you, I'm the type of individ you who understand where you're coming from, understand that you come from a place of ignorance and not understand it. So I'm not trying to meet you with the same energy. But imagine if I was. Imagine, you know, and this is how misunderstands and everything starts.

So I just say people just need to take the time out, do some research, do some your due diligence and research, and this don't attack people, and you don't even know what the hell you're talking about. And that brings us today's show Man. We have some really special guests who have endured so much, you know, and I didn't, like I said, I'd even understand what was going on in what they called the medical mortality situation, and I didn't know about it. I've heard situations, I've heard a

few things. I've known people who lost their life, but just to hear this in this, you know, the facest in which they described it and just talked about, I've read it up on them and I've heard this story and they're really compelling. And both of them are two people that I'm definitely are gonna give us some insight and be tech as well. Yeah, and what we're talking about specifically today is focusing on racism within the healthcare industry. UM.

And again, we know racism exists everywhere everywhere. Anywhere you go, anything you're involved in, you can find the signs of where racism UH readers its ugly head, even in spaces where people are attempting. White folks too are attempting there there there with all their heart and mind, and there might they're attempting to uh provide equitable space, they're still going to be issued just because of how our systems operate.

And so today, uh, the individuals that we're hearing from, uh, these are two people who experience the unthinkable, real painful. Trudy Russell, our first guest, she lost her baby and I don't want to preempt her by telling too much of her story, but she's teaching us about these new terms the help syndrome, as I mentioned, and also, uh, how do we say it again? Look it just clins via pre e clintens via. I just said it and lost it already. But she's teaching us about these new terms.

And her baby died as a result of it, and and and and it just didn't just happen. There was serious neglect that got her to this point. And so we're gonna hear from Trudy Russell and then Bruce McIntyre. So would you all are gonna hear is his story which we've read up on, um and that's why we had him here today. Um. You know his wife was also diagnosed with this syndrome, and so he's dealing with

a lot and we want to support him. Or he started an organization UH named after his wife UH and I am just to know that he's out there in the world raising this baby without a woman that could have been helped. Is it's it's heart wrenching, but it's also scary. It's scary, and so we're gonna learn a lot today and we're gonna be educating on these issues for the next few weeks. So let's get to our guests.

First up, Trudy Russell. We are so we're as we mentioned, we've been joined by an advocate for women UM, Miss Trudy Russell, whose story is truly truly heart wrenching. What she has gone through we want to hear more about today.

But as with so many of the guests that come on to UH this platform and that our guests on street politicians, she's taken her pain and turned it into a passion of helping women, supporting the community UM and specifically dealing with women who are challenged with the help syndrome. That's a new term. We've been learning a lot about it today and pre ecleinspia. That is also a new term that I'm learning more about today. And so here to tell us about these issues is Trudy Russell. Hi,

Trudy with us. Hi, how are you? Thank you for having me so in I was pregnant. I became pregnant for the first time, and I was very excited about it. Uh, when you are pregnant for the first time, you don't know what to expect. There's so many things going on. What happened with me was in my sixth month of pregnancy, I started getting these very unusual symptoms. UM Bloating is normal in pregnancy, but I had bloating and a swelling, particularly from my knees to my feet, that were just

almost like I couldn't walk. I looked like you could if you put a pin in me, I would deflate. There was something clearly wrong own um, and a girlfriend of mine told me, truly, I think you need to go to the doctor. Aside from that. Aside from that symptom, I'm sorry. There was also um vomiting vomiting and my sixth uh month of pregnancy that was unusual. I had an excruciating headache that would not leave all of these were symptoms of what's called pre clincia and help syndrome.

I go to my doctor under the suggestion, under the suggestion of my girlfriend. My doctor is out, I see a midwife. I'm from Los Angeles, so I was on my way to travel to l a h for the Thanksgiving weekend. And I tell her all that's going on with me, that I have this nausea. I had a headache that was excruciating that just would not leave, and I have the swellingness all through my body. She looks at me and she tells me that this is normal.

She doesn't say much about the headache uh or the nausea that I was experiencing, and she cleared me to go to Los Angeles. I once to Los Angeles. I was there for Thanksgiving, and the following day tragedy struck. My blood pressure spiked up to about two thirty I was about to have a stroke. Um when the paramedics came, they couldn't believe how high my blood pressure was. They thought that there that their machines were wrong. That's how high the blood pressure was, and I could have had

a stroke at any moment. They rushed me to the hospital. And I still did not understand what was going on. I thought, Okay, my baby's coming early. I don't feel well, but my baby's coming early. I get to the hospital. I only find out that, oh my god, this is something serious when I see the staff running and circling around me. So we ran through the hospital on a gurney. Right. I knew it was even more serious when they all circled around me and prayed, Oh my gosh, the nurses

and the doctors. The nurses and the doctors were around me on the gurney, praying. I had no clue of what was happening. Okay. I remember going into the operating room and the anesthesiologists saying, say Hawaii. I said, ho what? And I was out. When I came to, I was in a dark I see you room where my mother was there. My my family had come, and a nurse and doctor had come to explain to me what had happened. I had no idea what happened to me. They told

me you had help syndrome. They told me that your baby did not make it. Her name is Journey, and that I was also on the brink of death. So now to tell me, Well, first, of all, let's just stop for a second in that. Um, you know, God rests the soul of journey. Obviously, Journey is living through you.

I'm so sorry about what you've been through. It. As I'm listening to you speak, I'm first of all thinking about the many reasons why I've never had children, But one of them is because of how bad the treatment was. I was very young pregnant, you know, I was eighteen years old. So it's even worse at that age when they just shuttle you and shuff shuffle you replaced the

place no one cares about your issues, your concerns. Um. You know, it just was a traumatic experience that we won't go into too much right now, but I know what you're talking about. It is so you mean you never had any more children because you have you do have a sup Sorry, The reason why I never had any right a second child, I have more exactly excuse me, why I didn't have any more children is because of how I had been treated. And so this this, this

the idea of that the help syndrome. It's so like it's so real to me. Yes, so the so the help syndrome is an even more exaggerated form of pre clempsia what pre clemson is, and many women experienced. Beyonce experienced it in her pregnancy with the twins. Um Mariah Carey has experienced it. I think j Lo as well. What happens is later on in your pregnancy, there's a condition that comes on, right, there is no sign of it. It just comes on in the pregnancy where your blood

pressure spikes up. Right. When that happens, they have to test you for different things, They have to see if protein is in your urine. They have to follow you because what can happen is you can end up dying on the birthing table. Right, So what was Once I processed everything that had happened to me, and it took a while, right, I had to go to therapy. It

was extremely traumatic. One of the questions that I was left with and I'm still left with, is why was I cleared to get on a plane and go across the country. I told a medical provider about my experience and my symptoms, and immediately she should have known what to do, but she cleared me right. I have since had another child, her name is Mahogany. The care that I got through Columbia doctors. Because of my medical history,

I was high risk. These people monitored me from the time I let them know that I was pregnant up until delivery. But the care that I got was so it was vastly different than what I had previously experienced in in my second pregnancy, I had a lot of trauma in particularly in the six months, because I didn't know if it was gonna come on again. Um. I had to do things like keep stress levels down. UM, I was on bid rest for particular time. UM, if there was any symptoms of a headache of anything, I

had to let them know immediately. I mean they were on me like white on rice. So I have there was a there's a juxtaposition between the care that I got in and the care that I got in extremely different. The midwife that I had, it's very it's very very involved in black issues with black women. She's not black herself, But what made me trust her with me was her awareness, her understanding what I went through. Actually, question, I've I've heard of this, you know, Um, I have two younger children,

have three actually children. But and I've actually heard women who have been on bed rest for months like they couldn't do anything. Literally, for two to three of the last months of their pregnancy, they weren't allowed to even get out of bed understaid they were that high risk. How common is this? Okay? So here's the thing. What I've been told is it's very common in women of color,

particularly the Black community. Mm hmm. So why I have become such an advocate of my community for birthing women, it's because a lot of us do not know about this. Right from my understanding, You're gonna have a guest coming up after me. Now the story that you're going to hear from him. His girlfriend died from what I had, so we went through the exact same thing. But I am living and she is not. So it is very very serious. So what so what exactly do you do?

What you do? You know, I see what you I see where the motivation comes from, you know. And once again, I just want to send my condolencence for the lawsuit of your daughter. But like like Tamka says, and we always say, we usually find our purpose through our pain and our tragedy. You know. So your your daughter inspired and motivated you to help hundreds of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people along the way. So what

exactly is the service that you provide? So the service that I provide, I have teamed up with organizations like the pre Clincia Foundation. Year after this happened, I've teamed up to with them. UM. I have also teamed up with the March for Mom's organization. This is a new organization that was brought to my attention more recently where they wanted me to lend my voice and my story to their platform and calling on UH policymakers to change, Um,

the the what is the word I'm looking for? They want they basically want to change the treatment for women of color within the health care system. So so they're called so they were calling on Congress to see what they could do and see if there are any policies that can be made so that families can keep their

dignity in the midst of such tragedy. Right, UM, so that women can can can walk away feeling like, you know, they did get the best health care that they could, that they weren't just ignored you know all these Um, the narrative is that black women can can take more,

that we have a higher tolerance for pain. Uh. Okay, So this is what's happened, but you'll be okay, right, And so at that time, I wasn't aware of all of this, But now that I have the knowledge, I understand that that's what I experienced, That's what happened to me. I told them, this is what's happening, and I was brushed off and I could have died. What are we

doing about younger women? Again, I was eighteen years old, So you know the organizations that you work with, the pre Eclipsia Foundation and others, are they focused on young girls and particularly young girls of color and making sure that they get the information. Because you mentioned that Columbia did a different you know, did it did it differently for you? Right? They did a better job of caring for you. But I have to make sure that you

always acknowledge that you were more educated. So while they may have been better, you also were coming to them with mahogany in your stomach, knowing what you had gone through and being not able to ask the right questions. But so many of our young girls we get pregnant and we don't even know about pre native vitamins exactly, exactly, absolutely, so I think that so with these organizations, I don't

know that there's so much geared towards younger women. I think that the idea is just pregnant women, birthing women, UM midwife or even even people who are helping birth and women right getting the education that that they need to support people in my position. Right, Um. I also

think that education is key. Aware, this is key. I went into my pregnancy with Journey not knowing anything, just like you said to me, because we don't even know about you know, prenatal vitamins right let alone, you can die from giving birth just being pregnant. No one talks about that. It's very tabooed, right, So I think that you know me lending my story and my voice and my passion towards this, um, whether it's young woman, middle and age or older, it's something that is necessary and

it's real, especially in our community. We can act you one more thing, um, you you just you broke that down so eloquently. Can you give us like some warning signs because some people might not And after you give us like some warning signs, can you just give it? Do you have like a website where can you know certain places that young girls or women in general who are experiencing this and just want to know some more

information about can they go to Absolutely so. Like I said, in my experience, some of the warning signs with pre clumsia that can even lead to help syndrome is if you have a headache, say something that is the first thing. Okay, you have a headache later in your pregnancy, you speak up. You go to your health provider and you say this is happening and I need you to do something about it.

Monitor me, okay. UM. If you have swelling that seems not normal right to the point where if you feel uncomfortable, if you're feeling tight, right, you go to your medical provider. You tell them what's happening. UM. If you are vomiting in your six months of pregnancy that is not normal, go to them and tell them this is what's happening. In terms of research, UM, if you want to do more research on this, go to the Precumcy Foundation. They have all the symptoms and everything, um that you can

find with regard to this. And if you're on the opposite side of it, if you are an expecting mother or someone who has been in my position but did not survive this, or a loved one did not survive it. Go to the March from moms uh dot org foundation it is they are the advocates who are going to fight for you and go to Congress to make sure that something can be done, that this is not swept under under the rug and that we don't matter. We do absolutely. How can people help you? Give us some

information for how they can donate support you. So I would say you can donate to um the March for mom March from moms dot org. You can even donate to the pre clumsy of Foundation. UM. My social my social media is at journeys dot mother Jo. You are in e y s dot mother. UH. That's that is my Instagram. I have also written an article with surrounding this UH for Women's Health magazine, so you can find that in my bio on my Instagram and please just

just make yourself aware. Thank you, Thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Your energy is amazing, your story is amazing. Just seeing how you're able to persevere and utilize tragedy and just find a purpose and continue to help other people and you know and inform people, it's just a blessing. So we want to say thank you for me thank you, thank you, And I just want to say one last thing. When I lost Journey, I wanted to leave this earth, right. It was so traumatic,

so much happened to me, right. I never thought, and this is for somebody out there. I never thought that what I went through would be my platform to help someone else. So if you are going through something and you feel like you cannot make it to that next level, you will. You know why because I'm here and I'm here telling it Trudy Russell. Folks, make sure that you all follow her journeys dot mother on Instagram and keep

up with her work and less support. Trudy, thank you so much for your certain thank you, thank you, bye bye. Before we go to the next segment and have our special guests joint, we're gonna take a quick break for our sponsors. That's how we are. So just listening to Trudy's story, you know, and seeing that she still has this energy man losing the door, I couldn't even imagine what she was feeling. But seeing how that pain, you know, pushed her to a passion to try to save and

help others and inform others, It's something that's definitely commendable. Yeah, I want to drill down with her and others on

how we really help young girls. I know what she said, you know, when I asked her what do we what do we do to help get this information to young girls, particularly young Black and brown girls who are having children, she said that the organizations that she works with they deal with women in general, and and I totally understand that, but I think that folks don't don't know how important it is to drill down on particularly in communities, and

young girls need a specific way that they reached. Which means that some of our celebrities, who we only hear Beyonce talking about this all the time, you know, I'm sure you know, it's truly mentioned that Beyonce experienced a similar situation. Well other artists, even people who have children, people who don't. They need to be out there talking about it. Influencers need to be talking about the fact that young girls need to turn to these organizations and

get help and also be educated. And the other thing is I think that the Black Duela movement, the Black Duelers, these are these are women, midwives and women who are helping people to have children. They can Adula can be with you in the hospital and or they can set up a home birth right UM, and that we need to invest in that because you need an advocate when you go to the hospital for any reason, not just for having a child. If you go because your toe

is stuff. If you don't have the right information, if you don't have the right help, you can end up losing your foot. So you need an advocate. You need people that can help us speak for you. So I guess that brings us to our next guest. So you heard Trudy I mentioned this next young man. We talked about him earlier, UM and his story another heart wrenching story that unfortunately is something we have to learn more about. UM. We are getting into a lot of things within the

health care system. We've been talking about medical kidnapping, We're we've been talking about trafficking and how much of that is happening straight from the hospital. And now today we're covering this issue of maternal death UM and maternal issues, maternal health and the racism that exists within the health care system. And right now we're gonna hear from Bruce McIntyre. He's gonna tell us more about his story and what happened to Um the mother of his child. Unfortunately she's

not with us anymore. And the story, the journey that Bruce has been through has truly been one that we should be paying attention to and learning from. He's also the founder of Savor Rose Foundation and certainly we want to support him. So welcome Bruce. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you all for having we So Bruce, how are you doing today? Man? Hanging in there, my brother hanging in there. But I'm I'm always working, I'm always moving and trying to do his

best for the community and my people. So amen. A fellow Bronx native actually from my hood, all the Hybrid section into the Bronx Um. I know your father, I know a lot of your family members. We've talked, we met before, and I'm just to see this work that you're doing. You know, it's phenomenal and you know, unfortunately, like you know, we just had another guest on them on this Truty who work was inspired by you know,

pain and trauma. You know, unfortunately we have to go through something like that's pretty much the story of my life. My my incarceration, you know, and falsely imprisonment led me to be an advocate against such. So you know, give give us uh synopsis of your story and and tell

us what led you to the Sable Roles Foundation. So what let me too finding saver Rose was I lost my my wife, my my life partner, my soul made ambirose Isaac on April twenty one, two thousand twenty and due to medical negligence while she was giving birth, she actually passed away while giving birth to my son um, so she never even got to meet my son, hold my son. Ah. You know, this wasn't something that was

that happened out of the blue. It was a pregnancy that we planned for back in August two thousand nineteen. We found out we were expecting in September two thousand nineteen. Very excited for both of us. We were both doing great things. I had just uh secured a position in Wall Street. I was a financial loan advisor before the pandemic hit. And she was she actually had earned her her bachelor's in psychology. She wanted to teach art therapy

to the youth as a way of self expression. Um and then she became on to becoming a an early life educator. She was a school teacher. She was the head school teacher. UM took care of the youth and and was really concerned for the youth in their future. UM. She while she was pregnant, she was also earning her

master's degree in business development. She didn't like the way that the schools were operating in Harlem, and she wanted to make those changes and she wanted to UM she wanted to have programs for these children's with you know, extracurricular activities and um you know things and such, so these these children can you know, be prepared for their futures. So she really wrapped her whole career around the children. She believed that by saving the children is how we

save our future. And UM she was she was a firm believer in that. And she was actually expected to graduate May two thousand twenty, but she passed away a from two thousand twenty. And uh, you know, during this whole time while she's pregnant, UM able to be by her side. My my job is lenient enough for me to go to these um you know, her appointments and drive her to her appointments and all that stuff. UM. So I was there with her every step of the way,

as I should be as a bother. And uh, you know, I didn't feel comfortable with our first visit with the O b g y N because you know, the O b g y N was more concerned with us having a child and our marital status because we weren't married. We were having a child and we weren't we weren't married, and we were feeling judged immediately. Well, see what they actually what was the what was the conversation like about it?

How did it even come into She was actually Amber's O b g y n since uh, since two thousand fourteen, probably a little earlier before then, So she's known Amber for a long time. Um, and she knew that Amber didn't have any children, and she asked me if I had children. So I did have children from a previous engagement down south, and you know I told her that I have children, uh, and she kind of just give

me the gave me the screw face. And Um, that made me feel really uncomfortable, and that made me feel like I was being judged as a black man. And basically the O b g Yan was unprofessional. She had got her personal feelings involved in the profession that she should have been doing her job as a o b g y N and she wanted to have her personal feelings and world, how you having a kid and she doesn't.

All these things got involved exactly and we felt like then, Um, she wasn't being as attensive to Hamper and it was kind of just passing Amber um along to two other O b's and um, you know, just not really caring for Amper. And you know, skip fast forward, we're coming into her second trimester and you know she's feeling and

she's feeling ill. She you know, her her body and her conditioning is weakening, and you know where bringing these concerns up to her O B g y N and her O B g y and just kept brush her all people more, Um wasn't really answering her questions, was kind of just giving her the runaround, having her do extra things that she didn't necessarily have to do. Um, just because I guess they didn't want to fill out paperwork or they were just being lazy. I don't know

what the case was. Um. She Uh, it's it's tough to have to relive these things, and but it's it's very much necessary because it's it's it's something that does need to be told. Uh, you know where we're transitioning from the second trimesses to the third. Uh, COVID is right around the corner. And I do want to add this in there and make sure that it's highlighted. Amber's

platelet levels actually started deteriorating December two thousand nineteen. COVID wasn't announced until late February, and then it wasn't implemented in the city until March two thousand twenty. So they're trying to use COVID. Is this excuse to why Amber was being neglected when she was neglected well before COVID was even they had an excuse for her being neglected. They said, because of COVID, she didn't receive Wow. Yes, the stock market had crashed three times in the span

of three weeks. That's the first time that this has ever happened since the Great Depression. And um, you know, my job is preparing me and telling me to get everything ready, and um, you know, because we don't know how this whole thing is about the playout. So I'm letting Amber know. You know, we need to get our from l A papers ready. We need to get everything ready for this pregnancy. You need to get everything ready

from from your job. Um, and so she's trying to get you know, fm L a job security disability, things like that while she's going to be out of work during the pregnancy. And you know, she she brings these concerns to her O. B g y N because they're they're getting ready to to uh to put us in um what was it, uh telehealth. They were getting ready to set up telehealth. This is the first time they've done telethealth where they're gonna do everything from home and

all this stuff while her platelets a hard deteriorating. But we we don't even know this that at this time because our O B g y N is not making us aware of her conditions. And you know, we we end up going in February, late February to get some blood work done to see what's going on with Amber's body while she's not feeling well. Um, and we don't hear anything from the doctors. We don't hear anything from

the hospital. Uh. You know, they put us on telehealth and and all throughout March asked her platelet levels are deteriorating, and she her body and you know, her body's weakening. They're telling her, oh, here take these iron pills and go buy your own blood pressure monitor and keep up with your blood pressure. Let us know how you feel next week's but not to go to the hospital. But not to go to the hospital. You know, she's letting them know. They're they're not they're not you know, they're

not doing anything about it. They're just telling her, oh, take take your pills and follow back up with us next week. And it was the same thing continuously. It was just it was such a perpetuated cycle. And uh, we're trying to get everything secure for her fm l A. We go to the O. B. G. Y n Um Ambers, you know, expressing her concerns because she does work with students and she's working around children. There are parents who are bringing their their children to school without um. We're

in the pandemic. There's there's people who are bringing their children to school with no doctor's notes, which is not allowed. Uh, you know the schools accepting this. There are children coughing, sneezing, being saliva all over Amber. Um, she's you know, in her second trimester, transitioning to her third. When she goes to grab children, um, they're kicking her in the stomach for um. You know, her her her health was deteriorating, so it was very hard for her to breathe as well.

But she's compantly having to carry and pick up kids up and downstairs um with you know, with no help. And she's expressingly to her her O b g y M because we're we're do May thirty, two thousand twenty, that's how duty. And instead of leaving in May, her her due month, she's trying to leave for April instead because of how she's feeling. And you know, the O b g y N is telling her, you know, well, there are other pregnant women who are working in this

office right now. Why shouldn't you be able to work? Why should you have to get off early? Her health is deteriorating still at this time, rapidly, and we're still kunaware of it. And so rolls Rolls goes into labor and she passes away. And what does the O b g y N say at this point? Does she ever even look you in the face and say, damn, I should listen. She's ducking in dodger right now. She's ducking in dodging right now. And I'm still dealing with the system.

But the thing is also is you know, she has people, we have family members that are working in this medical system as well. And there are white women who whom are due after Amber, who are healthy, getting early fim A, early em A, getting early disability. But yeah, Amber's health is actually deteriorating and she doesn't get granted such options. So that's O B G I and a white woman. She was actually an Indian woman, actually an Indian woman. But there there were some some some white people within

the within the system that I've done us wrong as well. Um, you know, her mother actually worked at Monseifia as well,

she worked at a different Monts of Fire facility. We actually received the same treatment from two different Months of Fire facilities, which makes me believe that this is systemic, uh, because we we ended up leaving the first Monseifia that we were at due to the negligence, and we ended up going to Montfire Einstein, where her mother has worked for twenty five years out of Amber's twenty six years of life. And you still weren't able to get the

right treatment, not at all. So did she now? Trudy Russell told us that pre eclem pre eclemsia um is was her health issue. Is that the same thing that Rolls had or does she have something different? So Amber had help syndrome, which gets mistaken for proclemsia, and I'm sorry Amber Rose, Amber Rose, yes, just road but but but I think I think Trudy had health syndrome also too. She said first that knows and then they said she

had helped him. Yeah, but they didn't know what what Amber had until until the day that they induced her labor. So they had all this time to figure it out. But they decided that they were gonna wait, and they didn't. They didn't find what she had until the day that she that they induced her labor. UM. We actually went um in April. In April UM, we decided that we were going to uh. We were facing so much negligence

from the hospitals. We decided that we're going to hire midwives and doulas and we sent our information over to a midwife. After finally getting our my child updated, which took months to to to complete. UM, we sent that stuff over to our midwife and our midwife was the one that protected it and she, you know, she told us that she couldn't take Amber on as a client because Amber was too high risk at that point, so she couldn't be seen by uh, you know, a midwife,

or she couldn't go to a birthing center. We had to go to a hospital. We had no other choice. Uh. And she was telling us to like, she doesn't understand why Amber is not being seen weekly, you know. And she was the one that caught it and really explained what was going on to us because the O G y N wasn't educating us on anything that was going on. She was barely even telling us anything that was going

on with Amber's body. Uh, you know. And uh, two weeks later, Amber makes it sweet wanting to write and tell all about the incompetence and the negligence that she had been facing during her pregnancy, her entire pregnancy, and then a few days after that she passed away. So can I can of actual question, can you kind of you know, I know it's kind of traumatized, but I just want you to, like the date of her pregnancy, like,

what what actually happened? What was you know, how did when they got to the doctor they diagnosed it, what happened when she actually had the baby? So when when actually when when when we went to the hospital because she had to get blood work done three times um within the span of a month, and they still weren't really paying attense to her. They were, you know, mixing up her her blood work, not finding her blood work, not finding her paperwork, um, just misplacing things and having

us do all these runarounds. So they called us on on April eighteen. They called us the day after she she got some more blood work done. The day after that, she did she wrote her last tweet that went viral um. The day after they called us like a thirty in the morning and said that, hey, Amber needs to come in for treatment immediately for treatment. So you know, we're uh,

you know, packing up, getting ready to head out. Amber's mother was staying with us at the time because she was gonna stay with us, um, you know, to help care for Amber while she was pregnant, while I was taking care of you know, the household. Uh. So you know, we all rolled out to the hospital together and you know, as soon as we get there, I'm speaking to the receptionist about what's been going on. And and you know, because because of COVID regulations, they're not trying to allow me,

as her partner, come up with her. They're not trying to allow her mother to come up with her. Even though her mother has worked here for twenty five years, has the proper ppe and has access to the hospital, They're still not allowing her to come up. They're not allowing us to call our midwife to come or anything. They they needed to be alone with Amber by themselves, and which is something that she was scared up because she was aware of the statistics of of of black

women in these hospitals. Um So, I'm speaking to the reception that's about everything that's going on and how they need to make some sort of exception considering the fact that this is no mistake of our own. This is a mistake clearly that they've made this whole time. Um So, security walks up to me and tells me, okay, Mr baby Daddy, you need to calm down, go sit in the lobby. A matter of fact, we don't want you in the lobby. You need to wait outside. So they

made me wait outside. Um and you know, Amber is giving me updates, texting me, calling me, and uh, you know, she's very nervous and very scared because you know, she may have to stay overnight and Amber's. Amber is one of the most healthiest people I've ever known in my entire life, Pasbyterian, and and held a strict vegan diet while she was pregnant. So it was just really confusing.

And she's never had to stay in a hospital overnight, so she was scared, and UM, you know, She's trying to make sure that I'm gonna be there for her and with her, and they end up telling her that she has to stay for the whole weekend because they don't know what she has. You know, this whole time they're testing her for COVID. They tested her for COVID twice, came back negative, and they wanted to test her a

third time. UM. And you know the high risk doctor that never even showed up for Amber was you know, Um, they passed Hamber down to a much younger doctor. I don't even know if that doctor was was a resident, was an undergrad because they were allowing residents and undergrads to operate UM during those times. And UM, you know

that was very nerve wracking for us. UM. And they told her, even though you don't have COVID, we're still going to treat you as as if you were a COVID patient and hearing that, you're you're hearing all of this on the phone, yes, from her because at this point because my my mom Um, she had a stroke during the same time on March tenth of two thousand and twenty, and we also were in Monte Theory and at some point we unfortunately had to leave the building

and it was the same thing. And by the way, my mother at that time wasn't in her right mind right she she was had been in a coma for a while, and now she's out of the coma, so she's unable to use the phone. She's had she's partially paralyzed, and we're trying to communicate and understand what's going on. So you're learning all of this on the phone, yes, yes, And then um, you know, they're they're telling her she's gonna they're gonna treat heads if she's a COVID patient.

And when I first heard that, I'm thinking to myself, I'm trying not to think negative. So I'm thinking, Okay, maybe they're gonna wear extra ppe, which is something that they should be wearing for a pregnant woman who doesn't have COVID and um, but what did it mean, What did it ultimately mean? After she passed. I'm starting to believe otherwise. Um, because you know, on the twenty on April, she called me in the morning and said that she had Hope syndrome, sent me a Google review of what

it was. I had to study what help syndrome was before I got to the hospital. They were finally gonna allow me to come to the hospital to be with her during delivery. Um. After I passed my COVID tests. I passed my COVID tests, went straight over there. Um, you know, they wouldn't even let me buy her though. They I had to sit in a chair in a corner. Um. I couldn't hold her hand. I couldn't you know, I couldn't talk to her. I couldn't speak you know, positive,

positive affirmations to her. Um. You know, I'm really just trying to prepare her. And uh, you know, the nurses are telling us, m oh, yeah, you can't be close to her because we don't know who has COVID. We don't even know if we have COVID. We've never been tested, so that the nurses at Montifie weren't being tested, which is very unsettling. To us, considering the fact that we took all of the proper precautions to say, to stay

safe and to keep our baby safe. Um, you know, we did all the right things and and so now this is the day that they're inducing her and she passes and you're there, um, and this happens, and then you now have your baby. Thank you. No, they didn't give me my baby, um, which is something that that

fathers have to go through. So after she passed away, Uh, there were you know, black nurses who were telling me, um, you know, for me to get on my my son's birth certificate things, I had to go through this process because Amber was no longer alive to attest that I was the father, even though that was the only while they allowed me to be inside of the hospital is because I was the father. So because she was no longer alive to attest that I was the father, I

have spoke to this whole process. So I have a team of black nurses telling me to fill out this paperwork and give it to the head nurse, which is a white woman. Yeah. Yes, So I fill out the paperwork, I bring it to the head nurse. The head nurse tells me, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you don't have to do this here. Um, just whenever you get home, send it to this address. Um. You know. So I did that, and they couldn't release the baby to me. They actually had to release the baby to Amber's mother.

They couldn't. They couldn't release my child to me. Uh, this is crazy. Gratefully though, Amber's mother was already staying with me, so he was coming home anyways. Um. But even till this day, this is something that I'm still fighting because I'm still not on my son's birth certificate. A year over a year later, he turned He turned one in April on April. He turned one on April twenty and so they tell me to fill out this

paperwork send it to this address. I get a decline letter four months later, um, saying that they need more more information. So I go to Sarah surrogate's court, and the representative being a black woman, she says to me because she she's very familiar with my story and my advocacy work at this time, and she's telling me, hey, Bruce, how does Elias have your last name McIntire. Well, that's because that's something that Amber and I agreed on and

that's where Amber put down on the paperwork. Um, you know Elias Backe's hire. She tells me, well, Bruce, your son has your last name. I don't understand why they're why they're making you go through all of this. So they're making me go through this process for no reason. So so now you have you have just lost your soul mate. You have a new child that you have to take care of. You have to deal with the trauma of that, and now you have to deal with all of the red tape and all these things just

to be acknowledged as the father of your child. How much how traumaful is that? How much pain? Like what is going through your mind? It's a lot of It's a lot of trauma because I I thought, you know, at least after Amber passing, there would be some sort of safety net for me, some sort of help. There's not. There's nothing for us that's going to help us. They've they've been trying to really um cover up what happened

to Amber. They've really been trying to, uh, you know, hurt me as well, because because since I'm not all my son's birth certificate, I don't get you know, social Security for my son. I don't get that that extra relief that they're sending parents. I don't get those, you know. And and not to mention, I lost my job during the pandemic, so having to take care of a household, I'm having to help with with Amber's mother, I'm having to help, you know, help with my sign and take

care of all these things. Um. But which is another reasons why I'm just going so hard at this system, because they won't make any changes until you're taking money out there pocket, which is exactly what I've been doing. Um. You know, they after Amber's passing, I'm looking at her her death certificate, and I'm noticing some red flags. I'm noticing under partner or father of child. They left my name blank, even though they knew who I was and

I was there. They left Amber the section for the mother, Amber's mother. They knew who Amber's mother was, She's been working there for twenty five years. I left her name blank as if she was just another black woman, no family. And uh, and I'm starting to notice that they're also even though she does not have COVID, they are still trying to send her body to Heart Island, where they're

dumping COVID bodies and homes and mask graves. So they're they're getting ready to try to put her in the back of an ice truck to send her to that island. And I'm also noticing that the depth certificate was never signed off by a medical examiner, but it was signed off an optopsy was performed by the head surgeon that was supposed to care for Amber but never showed up, so he could kind of just write whatever he felt

like writing. And that's very that's very problematic. Um. Luckily, somebody has seen my advocacy where it at a funeral home, and he decided that he wanted to help us, and he picked up Amber and and held Amber for us until we got her a proper grave site ready, which is something that I was great before because I could lean on my community to help me with that. UM. But there there was just so many, so many red flags.

And then after Amber's passing, Cuomo jumps on TV and he's in a he's in a council meeting and he's saying, you know, he's talking about our situation, and UM, how heartbreaking our situation is. And and because of our situation, now they're starting to allow midwives to be in the hospitals again. UM. And you know Cuomo's on TV stating that his Maternal Task Force is going to take care of it. They've done nothing for us. And in fact, after getting into this advocacy work and partnering with with

birth workers. UM. You know, Cuomos, Cuomo's Maternal Task Force was was very problematic as well, and haven't done anything for the past eleven years. Um. But Cuomo right turns around and creates an executive order trying to block families like mine from taking legal action um, and trying to protect the doctors over at Montifire granting them medical malpractice community um to where we can't take legal action up

against them. This is just a whole clusterified here. Like it's just like this is a real deep rabbit hole. You know, we we can have a whole episode on this alone. You know, unfortunately, have to go and move on. I know you have a lot to do. I know you're dealing a single father, just dealing with that man. I just want to say, as a father, you know, as a black father, I just want to say that we appreciate the work that you're doing. You just the

information that you've just given me is so vital. You know, I've I've had three different children and and you know, fortunately I've been able to be there for all three of them. And there have been a lot of just different discrepancies that I also had to deal with as a black father. You know, nothing nothing as severe as what you you dealt with. But you know, just seeing how you're taking this, you know, have inspired you to

start to Save a Rhodes Foundation. How its inspired to you to just educate yourself and others on what's going on with you know, our black families and immortality and the rate that goes on in the maternal you know area with our families. You know, it's something that's commendable. Man, I'm just gonna say, Yo, we thank you. We appreciate what you're doing. You know, how how is it can we help your foundation? Could you give us some information

on how to help the foundation? Um? Yeah, while always supporting. You can follow me at Bismack the Third on I g um B I Z M A C the Third and UH or you can follow us at Save a Roads Foundation on on Instagram or Facebook. We post a lot of updates on there. UM We also have a go fund me up as well, because I'm still waiting on some stuff to clear through the I r S

because that's something else that's been prolonged as well. UM, So we're just waiting on our website and stuff like that to pop. But you know, during the meantime, I am educating. I just got back from Boston last month. I was teaching a racial bias class to Harvard Medical students. Um you know talk classes at Yale and and Columbia New York School of Men. I've done you know, trainings

for midwives and doulas and things of that nature. So I've been I've been really working, uh working on a on a mental health app as well with my brother, with Mark Bishop. He's done he was a programmer for things like Black People Meet dot com, Match dot Com, things like that. So we're working on a on a mental health app that's getting ready to drop called Joyfully that should be out next month. So we're really trying to help, you know, dedicate our time towards the people

you know doing this work. Especially in the BRONX. I've noticed that you know, over sixty of these women don't need C sections, and over sixty percent of these women are are dying, and you know it's it's preventable. UM and a lot of these privately owned hospitals are being so substantially underfunded in our communities, so this is a way for them to make up for their budget cuts is through c sections because they're you know this, this

turns into a surgical issue. So every time that they cut a black woman open there, they're earning an extra eight thousand dollars versus what they would have made for a natural birth. So they're clearly putting copit over people. And I'm just highlighting the highlighting all that stuff that

they're doing. So I appreciate y'all letting me use our platform, and I appreciate the work that y'all do, especially you know, seeing you come from the same background as me, and come from the same places as me, and and really out here doing things for people. So that's that's amazing to speak to see and it inspires me truly, So thank you, well, thank you man. I'm truly inspired by the work that you're doing. Unfortunately, to Maka had to

drop off to do press. We're doing um A rally for the much on Washington rally that we're doing in d C. So she had to drop off and handle a lot of that. But she says she she wants you to say she had apologizes that she couldn't stay along with your Your story is so compelling. We actually choosed to only do this interview for like ten or

fifteen minutes, but I was like, we can't. We can't stop you from saying because this is very important, you know, just hearing your insight, hearing your experience and just understanding this is important. So we wasn't even able to finish the thing because we're supposed to finish earlier. But she just wants to say that she's with you, we support you, and um, whatever we can do, we're here. Thank you

Bruce McIntyre for coming on our show. You know, um, what what's your what is your You have a son, Yeah, my Sonny liars, liars and liars. Mcintime man, blessings to him. I know that you're gonna turn him and give him all of the energy and jews that he needs to be a strong man. So we appreciate you once again thanks to coming on the show. Follow um, save the Roads, support Stave Roads Foundation. He has to go from me

as all of those things. Man, thank you. We definitely need to support people like you that really doing work that's unseen that people don't even realize because I had absolutely no idea all these things that happen, and even being my father, So I appreciate everything. Everything was going viral to we were we were really going viral around

the world. Um and then uh, you know, George Floyd passed away right after and and you know the focus need more towards George Floyd versus in the hospitals to black women. So hopefully we could get it viral again and people start paying attention. Man, we appreciate you. So I appreciate you. Thank you that shout out to Bruce Man, Like I said, he's a fellow Bronx native actually from Highbridge, Agin. I know his father. You know, we were familiar with

a lot of people, actually met Bruce before. And just hearing story, you know, when Yandy had posted it, it was heart felt. It was heartfelt, and just knowing that he's from the same community, just hearing him, he seems like it's a lot that he's them, a whole lot. You know, I'm losing your your woman didn't actually having to be a father and didn't having to go through all of these issues just a single father exactly has

to be a single father. Didn't have to go to the issue just to have your name putting your son's birth certificate. Man, still hasn't been accomplished. Still hasn't been accomplished. So you know, I just want to send shouts out to him and make sure that you support his foundation, Saver Rhodes Foundation, and all the work that he's doing. Man, it's just a lot. This is a very heavy show, very heavy show, you know, and kind of brings me to my I don't get this is a little off topic.

You know, it's kind of a lot off topic. It brings me because last week when we was talking to um Tony, she was explaining to us how she was here working as an expert for our Kelly's tribe. Y is she's well known for her work around sex traffic. Yes, sex traffic. Watch that. If you haven't watched that episode,

go back and watch. Very informative. Tony is so dope, just how she utilized her pain and her passion and her skill level to you know, understanding the intricacies of what goes on in traffic and utilize it to save you know, and rescue quote unquote rescue some of these sex workers. Um it brings me to miew. I don't get it. Actually they're not. This is different. Sex workers are different, but sex different well those being sex traffic. Okay, right, listen,

you know I'm learning. I'm learning it's different because sex work is working, sex working. You supports us, okay, I supports sexual We all supported. No, we don't know. I mean, well, this show streaked politicians, we support sex workers, so um, but but we don't support is our county. And I don't understand for the life of me. What I don't get is why it's R. Kelly going to trial? Like who is the judge, the lawyer? That's our Kelly. We're gonna need you to go on to trial. Man, take

this to travel. You got a chance to win in this case, Like as a like someone a smart person will sit there and saying, man, what they trying to give you? Man, you got all of this against you got videos, you got accusations, you got everything in the world. Like if if you talk about the deck being stacked, there's no more deck stacked against anybody. He doesn't give

people be um venereal disease. It's it's so much ship against all Kelly, that I could not even fathom me saying to myself, I'm going to trial, Like I really just don't get it, Like, what is what is the mind state behind some money that's decides to go to trial for this? That's what narcissists do. Someone said that to me the other day, that that's what narcissism looks like.

And also what he is facing in terms of time, he could receive life in prison in so many different places that he really doesn't have any other option, you know, but to kind of throw it at the wall and fight and see if they can knock down a few situations, a few scenarios where they might be able to get a little less time. So instead of him having triple life, he might just get, you know, fifty years or something like that. That's the goal at this point. But that's

what I'm trying to say, to go to go. If you go to trial, you leave it on the mercy of So if you're trying to get fifty years, right, if you're trying to get fifty years, what you do is try to negotiate prior I don't give. Let me tell you what I Well, well, there's there's two things to that. First of all, I don't know who's trying to negotiate, but so much with him. But the second thing is that every detail of everybody's story is not gonna be true, and it's also not going to be proven.

They're not going to be able to prove even stuff that is true. So that's what gives them some ability to say, you were not able to prove that I did X, Y Z and or att. You know, during the trial it came out that this person is not credible, or she lied because she wasn't even in the place

at the time, whatever, you do understand I'm saying. So that's what they're banking on, is to use that as leverage to be able to kind of get him in a better situation than what he's in right now, because based upon where he's sitting today, it's nothing that I can see. But that's what I was trying to say, Like the negotiation process would be that, like your lawyer would say, look, dear, we we we were looking and say these two cases, these ain't gonna the credibility of

his witnesses. Look at these situations. All right, y'all might have these these right here. It's gonna be hard for us to prove. And we're willing to make a deal. Let's make a deal. You know, my client doesn't need life, he doesn't need this. We want to, we want to. He definitely realized that he's if you listen to testimony, he's dealing with his own abuse. You know, he's that he had been abused. So the mentality that he has come from somewhere. He's obviously sick. Let's work on getting

him programs, just put him in a hospital. Let's work on all of those things, and let's try to limit the amount of jail timp like that. Those are things that you negotiate. The dealing with narcissism, you're dealing with stupidism. Well,

what do you want to call it? Narcissist? Narcissism and stupidism can run together, they can be parallel, and and you're dealing with that because in his mind, he thinks that as he's been able to get away with it before, he might be able to get away with it again. That's what he thinks. He honestly believes in his mind. Hey, you never know and guess why when you talk about negotiations. Oh,

Jay's ass was going to jail. They didn't know that the moment was gonna come up at some point where Johnny Cochrane had sat in his he there was one that they had to prove his word over and listen to what I'm saying. He was going to jail based upon a lot of things, including whether or not they could prove it or whatever. But he was going to jail, right. I'm saying that there was never really no proof that there was just always it was. It was all circumstances.

But this is the thing, But this is my point. What was the turning of the tie in ol J's situation was if it doesn't fit it, you must SI quit. Period. That was a moment that happened within the trial. The Johnny Cochrane probably stayed up all day and all night thinking about them closing remarks or whatever whatever time he said that ship because that ship was good, okay, And when he said it, it struck the nerves of all the jewels and the court in general to say, we

really it didn't fit. It didn't fit. But if you did, if you take out if you remove Johnny Cochrane's point, they were skinned of ship. That entire defense table was afraid. They thought O. J Was going to jail, even whether he was guilty or not. They thought he was going to jail because two white people have been killed and he was a nigger, and that's what they thought, right. I don't know if they're gonna run nigger, so they might make us say he was a negro, Kay, that's

it right? So what that's what they're waiting on, are telling them waiting on if it doesn't, they're waiting on a moment that might hit and strike at the right time. To be able to get is nasty, sick self off because I've been first of all, after I've watched saving what was this surviving? R Kelly, those two I know you you couldn't watch you well, actually I got you to watch like five minutes. I called you. I said,

got to see you. Guy said you started watching? You said, and you called me back and you said, listen, I can't. I can't even do this. I understand. R. Kelly. It's situation. He's done and that's that I cannot. I can't. I just can't. And there's a lot of people that said, if my mother said she couldn't do it, she couldn't do it for many different reasons, and probably her own traumling things she's thinking about from her hometown and her childhood.

She couldn't do it. But I sat and I watched it because so many people that I know was trying to fight me for R. Kelly, and I said, well, me, let me go educate and inform myself because maybe I don't know everything. Now. I know the people who put the documentary together, and so from what I know about their credibility, I don't think that they would have gotten that deep into something that they know was just a both faced lie. But nonetheless put that to the side.

I wanted to see for myself. I sat myself and I watched every night. In fact, I was live tweeting during the show, right ship the stories his wife, his ex wife, and all these other people parents, the stories that they would tell me. Nah, I can't tell you every person was telling the truth, because there's no such thing. There's no such things. You get a hundred people that say you did something, somebody in the one hundred is not telling the full story. You're not telling the truth,

it's been enhanced. They heard somebody else say some stuff. They stole a little bit of that and put a little stink on their story. That's always gonna be the case. But the crux of the map, like the like, the meat of it, right, is that this man is sick and he should have been stopped a long time ago. And there's a lot of other people. There are people who work for him. There's families and a lot of folks who were around who knew about this stuff, and

they let their children be around him. They let other children get harmed by him, They let other women be harmed by him because of money and other things that folks wanted that was more important than the lives of those women. Now, women who were impacted by this men. Even the way he grew up and the things that happened to him as a child, somebody should have paid

for that. So there's a whole lot of blame. But nonetheless it's a grown ass man and he's gonna have to pay the piper for the ship that he has done, and he needs to to be clear. Well, well, that said, that brings us to another end and of the show. You know, there's another informative show, a dope show, you know. Shout out to all of our guests, Bruce McIntyre, Trudy Russell, who I'm king here and gave us a out of information and share their own personal stories. And I hope

their information their stories can help somebody else. You know. Number one show Man, I tell you we got the number one show in the world. It's no there's no show like Street Politicians Man on Show on our hearts alright, sha Share Share Share, Share telling Share, Let us know about any of the topics you wanted to hear about. Give us some questions. Put your questions on YouTube. We'll try to get to a question every week to you know, just to make sure that we're taking our fans serious

and understanding what they have questions about. And we're gonna be here. Man, number one show in the world, in our hearts and on the charts. As as she said, it's in our hearts, but I'm saying it's in our hearts and on the charts. No, you can't tell people it's number one on the charts because they might not do the work. They gotta go do work to make us number one on the est. Thanks for joining the street politicians once again. We might not always be right,

Tamika might not always be wrong. We will both always and I mean always, be a them. So that's how we own it.