Leveling Out the System

lot of stuff happening as always. But I do think that unfortunately we have to I don't think we should ever return to a time where people have to work every day outside of their homes. I do not think that that is um productive. I think we have I don't know if that's really I just I think there has to be a balanced of anything. That's what I'm saying. I said, that's what I said every day, Well, because

I love that you had. Right, you can't sweep. You can't sweep the floors from your house, you know what I'm saying. You can't. You can't manage the steward's a block from your home. But what you can do, though, is set it up where people have a work schedule that allows coverage of individuals so that one person is not sweeping the floors for you know, forty hours a week, but instead they get a certain amount of hours a pay increase, so they're still making the same amount of money.

But that don't really don't really how you getting You want somebody getting paid, let's work. No, No, that means first of all, because first of all, people should be allowed time to be able to take a class, learn some other. If we're if America is going to at any point ever in life, in my lifetime, in your lifetime, accomplish what it said us and and rise to its greatest place, then we would give people tools that they need so that they can make more money and be

more successful. Right, but if you're a person who's working all day, maybe two and three jobs, you might not have time to take a class. Also while you're trying to take care of your kids so you can get that promotion or what happened. The whole problem is that people who are sweeping floors are getting paid below the wage that it is required for them to be able to take care of their families. So if you're making eight dollars an hour. That should not be a thing

anymore in our society. People the minimum wage increase at fifteen dollars should be the norm, and fifteen dollars ain't ship. So the thing about this, Let's say I got a little mom and pop stool, right, I'm paying five dollars a month for the rent. I'm paying each employee dolls. I need about five or six employees, and I don't make the amount of money to pay none of these people.

So those those things are realistic. So if if you have, if you're saying that people have to have a minimum amount of things, then there's less employees that I have. So if it's less employees that I've had able to pay fifteen hours, and it's less people that's able to work throughout forty our day. So if I only got if I got to pay everybody fifteen hours, I've only got two people I could pay, right, because I can't afford to pay nobody else. I'm not making enough money.

That the rent is too high, especially when you look at inflation, the rent and every the rent is too damn how everything is going all the way up. So to be able to do what you're talking about, it's very hard. I have to say two points on this.

The first thing is that our government should be given better subsidies to small businesses, right, so that these small businesses can access capital to keep them afloat where they have two pools of money, the money that they're bringing in from their products and services and the money that the government is supposed to give and does give to some some businesses. Right. Because if you are an m wbe in New York, and I don't know about other cities.

I know that there are mw b E programs other places, but certainly in New York State, which is a minority woman owned business, right, and you apply for all of this stuff that takes. Of course, it's like it's like it's it's almost like laying yourself on a slab and telling somebody to stab you a thousand times in order for you to actually get the certification. But if you're able to get it one, you get in the pipeline

for more contracts. And that's everything from food services, cleaning services, so that's the little sweeping the floor jobs you're talking about, all the way up to you know, big contracts for the airport, the build things and what have you. You're supposed to be in line and sometimes front of the line to be able to put r FPS into get

those programs. But then there are also subsidies that come down from the state that should go to these small businesses so that you can stay afloat, so that you can especially in times of like you've got COVID and you have other things that happen that will help you to be able to pay your bills. The problem is that m w b s black folks try to apply for you know how difficult it is for us with application processes. But what they say is women owned businesses.

So guess what happens. White women go get the licenses and the certification and then they become the owner of the businesses that their white husbands are running. So again every area there is, don't at me, I use the system, used the system as it currently stands. But then the second thing is it's corporate greed, right, because a part of being able to level out things in our society is that corporations are taking so much. They have employees

that are not being paid properly. Uh, they are not giving the appropriate benefits, and they're not paying their do share of taxes and other things to our society. And so therefore we're living in an unbalanced network, if you will, or reality, and that's one of our biggest challenges. So everything that I'm talking about, Yeah, that's like vision for the future that's hoping once they will find a president. One day, there will be a president that will come

forward that will have Donald Trump's balls. But excuse me, I don't know if I'm supposed to say that, Hey, I said Donald Trump's um testicular fortitude, but testicular fortitude. But but but but the more our old standing of someone who actually wants to do right by society, where they will say, I don't care if I don't get elected for another four years, but this is the ship that I'm gonna put in place, and I'm going to hold to my word regardless of whether people like me

or not. I don't know when that's ever gonna happen, because everybody is out here so much for elections, but I would hope that, yeah, that's that's going I don't see that really happening. I don't see. But just understanding the justice system, in the legal system and all of

this system and government. Now I just understand that it's it's it's all a game, and so the game, so we just got to figure out how we could play the best we can and how do we exist within it and build structures small structures that we can build

infrastructures within this that eventually take over. That's the only thing I guess when you really think about it, it's certain businesses, essentral businesses that definitely and to my point, if those people have to go to work for forty albums a week, they damn sure should be being paid

essential wage right um. But at the same time, I feel like people who work from home, or or excuse me, people who have jobs that are able to be conducted from home, they should be able to be on a schedule that provides opportunity for them to be with their kids, for them to uh, you know, go to a class, take care of themselves, and still be able to work.

But then, yes, I think we all should absolutely be outside around other individuals, talking, networking and connecting with people because there is there is one hundred percent a problem with folks sitting at home and really starting to suffer from mental health issues, you know, as a result of them not being around other people. So I agree with you about that speak people being at home. Can we talk about what's happening with public safety in schools? I mean,

you've been getting calls every day from interview. It's unbelievable. Like, you know, first of all, there's always somebody getting shot man or repeat to the four kids that just got killed in tend people got shot another vigilante is like, how does how does that continue? That? You know, Like I really just I'm not saying vigilante. I wanted to say school shooting, not vigilante because it wasn't virginated. But how does it constantly? Are these kids able to walk

into schools with guns and kill people? It's just to me, it just makes no sense. You know, But y is walking into school with a gun too, But I'm not saying he's not. But and I'm saying, how is he doing it right? How is it? You want more metal detectives, what you want? What I want is more not metal detectives. I want more school probing. I want more school being

attentive to the children. And and maybe I don't know if it's metal detectives per se, but I think that there has to be something set up to what kids aren't able to walk in the school. Guys, you know, like the only thing is mine. That means law enforcement. So we have to And I'm glad we're having this conversation because we really do need to talk through what is the next level? Right we there is law enforcement

is what people can people immediately go towards. Now, we could say, well, we need to put more anti violence experts in the school, right brothers like Shan Duke mcvada and others who A C. Mitchell and and I mean, I could get in trouble because the list is so long of those people who do that work. And we

can say let's put them in the school. But then if something happens and they are not accredited or have some type of specific certificate from the state or the city, they put themselves in danger that if something happens, it's is blamed or placed at the feet of the anti violence expert. But then you have law enforcements in the in the school, and clearly with metal detectives and everything else, that's not working. So I don't know, I think I

think there has to be assistance center. I just think that at this point I think that definitely needs to be different gun lawers. Um. I think there should be some systems set up. I don't know if it's metal detectives per se, but I think schools should have some type of structure, which do you just not allowed in school guns? Like I just think there should be similar and you're not allowed in school with guns now, but they're constantly getting in there with and killing people, So

there has to be something, you know. I don't I'm all against over policing, but I do think in these kids, our kids should be able to go to school and be safe, like kids should not have to you know, like you said that the bullying and the way the kids are being the lack of real protection in school for kids is detrimental, Like you you're, We're I've literally watched, you know. I even think about when I was in school. They were kids able to come to school from different

schools and just walk in and jump people. And you know, back in the days, we had um um gangs called the Deceptic Comes who used to literally get on trains and come to schools and jump people, slash them, robbed them, like do all these things, and that was happening back in the nineties, you know, in in the late eighties, so that was happening in our high school. They was able to get into school and roll people, you know,

at gun point, at night point. So I think there has to be a more robust strategy to protect kids, especially when you start getting high school. Like bullying in high school and not as much as junior but high school is a big thing. You know, there's a it's a real big thing. And I have friends, we both have friends who are reaching out saying that they're having issues.

I remember my son was going to school in in um Washington Heights and he's like, kids were trying to jump on Like I literally had to go to school. It was kids. It was all out bras. I remember we used to have bras and people brought guns to school.

And it's like, there has to be a strategy to which, oh you have people, like you said, violence interruptors who are in those streets and you know, in those communities, in those schools who probably kids who graduated from school and still have some notoriety in the schools, they just don't want to go to college whatever. Then they have

a job and they're like monitors. We remember we had whole monitors back in the days, like we should have advanced whole monitors, who who go to the schools, who in the school yards, who had lunch rooms, hearing such such because it's always a gossip on such such as defense. They're gonna they're gonna fight after school and we're gonna jump through like and they are able to get in front of those things because it's a serious thing, like

it's not like little kids fighting in the school. At that point it turns to with guns and knobs, and people are losing their lives in schools. Yeah no, I mean, listen, you're not gonna get a debate out of me. Something has to be done, I know, and and and and I think it starts with the top because the administration in many of these schools is not doing enough, either because they don't want to touch it or they don't want their schools ranked as being violent, um you know

on there in the stats. Also because privacy and protection becomes a thing, especially when you have ignorant parents, like the parents of the young man who just killed those folks in whatever state that was in the white parents that told his uh you know, that told him don't get caught next time in the text messages. You either have ignorant parents like that like Kyle Rittenhouse's mother who was an evil criminal that took her son somewhere with

guns that she knew he wasn't supposed to have. Or you have ignorant parents like Titia or you know Lisa in our community, who is talking about leave my son alone. Don't say shipped to my son, you know, or my daughter. Whatever outcome of thing, do x y Z and that's right, it's on. So like you, on all sides, you've got parents that become a big part of the problem, a big part. And we don't like to talk about that.

We love to sit by and watch a racist white person do something crazy and then we talked about them. We love to sit by and watch you know, uh, somebody who is you know, a serial killer that we can identify all the things that happened, and how the parents with no good and this and that the third. But we don't like to also sit down and talk to regular folks that look like me and you in our communities and say this, cut it out. We need to be involved too. You do, you definitely do, so.

I don't you know, I don't know. I don't know how you stop a person from bringing guns and me, we just saw that a kid in New York a couple of weeks ago had a gun. He got caught with a gun and thirty thou dollars, and then once they did more investigation, there were more guns in the school. Whether or not they were connected to him. I didn't follow the story enough to find out, but I know that there were guns in that school. So we know

that this is a problem that's happening. And to your point, it's got to be dealt with because people history has shown when we don't address it as an institution, the school, the parents, people die, people commit suicide, people drop out of school. You want to know why your kid isn't paying attention, Probably because they're depressed. They might be being bullied, they may just be tied in the bullshit. Can't even

focus in class. I know when I was in school sometimes I could not focus in class for all the outbursts and the yelling and screaming that went on. We're all types of kids, So you can't say, well, let's go to the white schools because you've got kids that's showing up. They are piste off about whatever their problems are, out of their parents basement, shooting up the building. You can't say, okay, well let's go to the school with the Latino kids because guess what, they slice your face.

You can't say let's go to the school with the black kids. Because there's game wars everywhere. Are people turned. Everywhere we turn, there's problems and discrimination and ways that you could try to escape the system, and you can't. You cannot can't system. This system is is well, is well designed for failure. And when you get out. That's why I celebrate anybody that gets out of the system, man,

because it's set up. Like I tell people all the time, when I look at the school system and the structure and being incarcerated, it's pretty much the same thing. It pretty much mirrors the average school, pretty much mirrors the way that the prison is designed in the coloring, the way it looks all of these mess hall looks like the lunch room. The gym looks like the same gym. Like the only thing that's not in the classrooms is there The only thing that the classrooms imitate the sales.

Because the way it's lined up door to door. The only thing that the schools don't have it sales. So you know, when you think about it, man, I don't know. Man, we want more metal sectors or some kind of way. I do because that's the way that they protect you in the jails, right, because you gotta walk through metal detectives. So a lot of times they catch you when you got a knife. That person they're gonna bring a knife to certain places, or they figured out how to do

it because they know that metal tectre go off. Right, it's a lot more safer and unfortunately we we I don't know if it's metal texas the answer, like I said, but I know there has to be something that makes it impossible, you know, or highly unlikely or or hardest hell for you to get in school with a gun and kill somebody. Well, I'm sure there are some people and at Anti violence Space that would say no more. You know, it's not about police surveillance, not about metal detectives.

I guess that's what they would say. I don't know. I'm with you, we don't know, but we're gonna find out