What's up, family, it's your girl to Mika d. Mallory, finish your boy.
My son a general and.
We are your host of street politicians, the place where the streets and politics. Me. What you've been doing, my son, other than being on the internet edge of mccayton.
I'm just gonna leave it there for now.
I mean, you know, sometimes people need to be educated.
Man. I tell people I'm Malcolm. I'm not mar you know, I'm a war I got a warrior spirit. It's different for me, not saying it's different type of warriors. I'm not to turn the other cheap warrior. I'm the one that's gonna you know, you put your hands on me, you're gonna lose it. So anyway, but my weekend was filled with educating. Actually, you know, shout out to Patterson, New Jersey. They had their second annual mental health what would you call it? It was a mental health conference
and concert. You know, this is the second time that I've been invited there. It's always a good time. They bring all the kids from you know, from different schools in Patterson and different areas in Patterson, and they come out shout out to the young boy. D's Sturdy Roddy Rebel. DJ Bobby Trenz was there. It was a dope event.
Man.
They had panels and they broke him up into men and women, and they had mental health panels, three different mental health panels where I learned a lot, you know. Then I had my own segment and where I talked about gun violence and trauma to the young boys.
You know.
I felt like it resonated with a lot of them, you know, So it was really dope. It was a really dope event. Shout out to my young boy Robbert, who was with me. Who's my young men tea right now. I've been dealing with him and he's he's coming up, young, small young kid. Him and my youngest son, Keston. He was holding Keston down. Keston gets hungry every five seconds, you know, and he was like, Dad, when't we leaving? He wanted to go play video games? But they wolf
enjoyed themself. So that's what my weekend was for.
So you had your mentee with you at your event or was he a part of the event.
He was just with me. He came, he rode out with me. You know, he likes he knows about the Philly Golds. He's dester. He knows about all them, so he's hype.
But it's funny that young people do have their own underground thing going on because they be knowing each other, like they know before there was you know, before people knew Lola what's the name Lola Brooks and certain ones my makeup artists who may.
Not be that young. She's younger than me.
She was like, oh, you gotta know your Lola Brooks and this, and then I was like, who is Lola Brooks? And then Lola Brooks appeared, so you know, they know one another. They follow the underground. So let me see what have I been doing boxing? That's my thing. You know I've been telling you. We talking about it all the time. And you know what, my boxing coach said something to me that like really it clicked for me, like this is where I'm supposed to be. He said
that I was. So I was having this problem with my finger. It was hurting every time. It still hurts, actually, so I think it was like right before being jammed, like almost there but not really. So it's been hurting on one side. So he tells me to tell him about my h and shout out to coach Eddie. He tells me to tell him when things bother me, so he knows, like maybe the raps are too tight, maybe
they're not tight enough, maybe different things. But never do we really deal with the things that I said hurt. It's like he hears me.
He's like, okay, cool.
So anyway, I told him about my finger and he's kind of like, you got a punch, right, like that's what it is. So when we were punching again after I've told him about the finger, I kind of like pick and move back too quick instead of like pushing all the way through a punch.
And so he looked at me and he's like, you can't.
You can't hit your problem or your obstacle and be afraid and snap back like you gotta go all the way through the problem, like all the way, punch all the way through it. And I was like, damn, okay, these are the life skills that have absolutely nothing to do with boxing, but it has to do with your approach to life.
And I see how.
And it's been like five or six other things that he said to me, like you know, when I'm doing my situps and it's the work, Oh my god. The worst thing ever, and he's like, ain't nothing free, Like you just ain't gonna get it free. You might as well love the pain because the pain is everywhere. It's at every turn. It's nothing you do in this gym or out there in your life that's just gonna feel free and easy if you want it to have results.
And I'm like, damn, I see the connection. So I really really loved my boxing lessons and this boxing journey that I'm on.
Boxing is a thing. It's like it's a full body workout. It's mine is b soul is everything. Shout out to my boxing coach, who hasn't seen me in life three weeks since I, you know, sprained my shoulder. But you know, my man g a Ka gave Briel Vargus. You know, he's my coach and now he changed. He trains the boys and they love they love boxing. So boxing is always been one of those things. I actually started doing
boxing when I was young. My father used to train me, and then when I went to prison, I was doing boxing. So it's it's always like you said, your fingers, like you break fingers. Most of the people who box, they break fingers, they break knuckles, like that's that's a common thing, so get used to it. It's gonna get as as you do it. It's gonna make your hand stronger, so it's not gonna really hurt as much.
And so many young kids in the gym, wow, like they've got.
We need the kids in the gym. You know, boxing teaches you level or discipline. They teach you level of humility. You know, it teaches you how to to target and sent to anger, not to be overwhelmed by anger. So you know, that's one of the things that I want to I want to focus. I want to start like a boxing program for the kids.
It's I think it's also like.
It's kind of it really teaches you to think and move or think and stay where sometimes people are just like just moving without purpose or direction. But boxing slows you down just enough to be able to think about your next step. But you still got to move your feet, like you constantly have to be in movement and still enough mentally to see what's coming and what's all around you and that and that's something that a lot of people don't know. Like as soon as there's danger, people
get they get frazzled. They can't think, you know, and that's that's a lot of while people make bad decisions like going to get a gun or running, you know, being afraid in the movement, you know, because once the danger comes, it's like, oh, I hear police sirens. So now we're about to get arrested. It's time to run off the protest line, you know. And it's a lot. So I'm with it. But sports seems to be the thing of the weekend because I'm not allowed to talk to my father. I can't talk to my son. I
can't talk to nobody. No man in my life can I even communicate with. Can't call you can't call nobody.
It's playoffs, man, you can't you can't call nobody doing the playoff.
This is a this is a good week. The Knicks, you know, they made it to the playoffs. They lost, I mean the second round. They lost the first game to Miami, but it was a good game.
You know.
I'm still rooting for the Knicks. You know, we we need we need y'all, come on now, get get us out this second round, man, come on, nixt and me and Chef Curry, though, I still put.
So much faith and I mean the next and I'm a Knicks fan.
I don't even like best. I mean, well, I'm not that. I'm let me, let me go backwards, let me go backwards. I cannot say I don't like basketball, because actually I love basketball. But I am not a sports officionado. I don't know all the things, but I do like the next it's my home team.
I get it. But y'all be swimming. They gonna do something every time that.
But they look like they can do something, you know what I'm saying. Jimmy Buckets was him and cal Lowry was tough yesterday, but they still look like, you know, hopefully we get Julius Randall back. You know, Brunton is playing at a high level. You know, they playing. They just need they just need to be a little bit more focused.
You know.
I think Jimmy Butler wants to win more than they do at this point, so that has to change. Like I was about to say, Steph Curry yesterday in the game seven game against Sacramento was just phenomenal. I wasn't even able to watch the game because I was a soccer dad yesterday, so I was at the soccer game and I had my kid's soccer game. Mind you is porn raining porn like this.
She was just unbelievable.
I don't even know why they New York.
Yeah, I don't even know why they had these kids out there playing soccer. But it got to the point where the field got so flooded they had to stop it. But I still had my headphones on, just listening to the game in my pocket and just listening to Steph Curry just keep scoring. Was just hearing it. I wasn't even watching the game. And they was like, and Steph
scores again, and it hits another three. And it went from the Sacramento being up five to next you know, you know, Golda State was up by twenty for a quarter and I was like wow, and then he and then look he finished.
With fifty points. It was just like, so, shout out to them.
So they played the Lakers favorite team.
Yes, okay, good because godless, I'll be feeling wait.
I know he's I know he was probably probably bet money everything. He can't wait. And I told him the text because usually he'll say he'll be like, yeah, you're talking about my team. He'll text me randomly and just say some shit about his team. So, but shout out to them. And they did good.
And now they played the Lakers in round two.
And I was gonna say I called my mom during the game because she ain't she liked me.
She ain't watching it.
She's just sitting up there, just trying to be smile when asked. And I can hear my father yelling at somebody, and I'm like, Mom, who's that some of your son?
Your son and your father's.
Don't be here going back and forth about whatever they're doing on that basketball and and I figured he was winning and losing.
His tree.
He was winning. They had a big win yesterday.
So now they play the Lakers in the second round, which is probably gonna be one of the most view series because everybody want to see the Brown against Curry. That's like Monumentals. So that starts on Tuesday, so that's gonna be a dope. So we probably first game will be over by the time we watched this.
Well, I hate to bring bad, a bad overtone to this good conversation, but I heard you say that the gold that Golden State was playing the Sacramento Kings.
Now some news on that.
It's just it is so in line with this tragedy of last week where miles cars grow.
The officer who.
Has gone the FBI believes that his bullets actually killed Brionna Taylor, and we know that in that case. Attorney Daniel Cameron, Attorney General of Kentucky, did not present evidence to the grand jury for the murder of Brionna Taylor. He presented evidence for the bullets that went.
Through the wall.
The jurors themselves were angry about it because they were never presented with information or with a case that would have allowed them to indict or not the officers. They were never It's never done, and that is a regular thing that district attorneys do.
This is not.
Was just that's the going line.
So don't get it twisted.
They do this where they have made a prejudicial decision that I don't you know, we're not looking to charge or to get you know, these officers or these people indicted. And therefore they present the case that is very narrow that people do not have the opportunity to say, well, wait a minute, what about this?
And so the jervors came forward.
To say it so so I so anyway, because I get so excited about this, I got to stick with my point.
So he was.
Fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department because of our work until freedom, the Kentucky Alliance, all the groups, the organizers, the people who slept outside, the people who protested, the Urban League of Louisville, Sadiqua Rentals attorney, Lennida Baker, Attorney, Ben Crump, Attorney, Sam Agyard, Breonna Taylor's family, the list goes on.
You know Bianca and of course her mother.
Everybody fighting every single day, the Breaway, the streets fought every day, and that's the reason why the officers were fired.
Miles Cosgrove was fired.
Now a sheriff's department in another part of Kentucky an our so away has hired him. It is disgusting. So here we go back to the Sacramento Kings. The officer responsible for shooting Stefan Clark. If you all have don't know this case, you should look into it. He was trying to get into his grandmother's house, jumped over a gate in the backyard, which is not an unusual thing. Police officers came. They claim he had a gun, which
later on they found out he didn't. They shot him to death in his grandmother's yard.
Okay, now that.
Officer who killed him is working the games as a security person, maybe even a police officer, because he wasn't fired, wasn't even charged. He is now working the games for the Sacramento Kings in their stadium, and it's not working no more games.
He ain't. First of all, those games is over.
So well the games.
I was about to say, it is possible that he will now be shifted over to concerts and whatever else.
They have going on during the you know, the off season. So he but he's the.
Point is he's still employed and now he's moving on to other things. And my thing is that, listen, we are not safe. We are not safe when a violent person who's a shooter, who has access to a weapon, and actually what is it called free reign, you know, where it is sanctioned, is in open public space with black and brown people, has already demonstrated that they have the ability to kill one and make really bad choices, you know, not gonna say mistakes, choices and decisions.
Now somewhere else.
So people just need to know when you're going to the stadium what is whatever it's called where the Sacramento Kings play, there's an officer in that particular stadium who is dangerous.
So that's and and and and again.
Tying it together with what happened to now Brionna's family, another slap in the face. And that's why legislation is so desperately needed now. People ship all day. The Democrats ain't no good. No, the Democrats have mad issues.
I agree. I call them out all the time. I see it. Some of them don't deal with me. I get it. So you're not gonna you can't.
Are you what the Democrats should be doing and aren't doing more than me? Because I could get in that argument and go But I know one thing. The Republicans are the ones blocking the ability to pass legislation. And
it's not just let me go back. The Republicans are overwhelmingly blocking our ability to pass legislation that would stop these officers from being in getting fired from one place, or being involved in the shooting of an unarmed individual or some other egregious act and then going to a different county and working in another place. That is something that we want to see pass. And currently there's no
legislation even on the books. The overwhelming majority of Democrats in the Senate and in the House support legislation that would fix some of the police and issues.
That we currently face.
Is there more that needs to be done, Absolutely, but still you have to call a spade so we can go and and and I know some people say, we don't care about that. Oh, So what you're saying is you're cool with the fact that the officer who you who killed Breonna Taylor now works in your county somewhere else and has the potential to shoot and kill you two.
You so uninvolved in politics that you okay with the shift of power going in that direction where your children playing in the yard, or your children who are doing whatever, going to school, driving back and forth, or even you as a grown person, you're unpop political ass where you could actually die because this same officer is running wild and hasn't been stopped.
No, you can't.
It doesn't mean it changes policing entirely, but certainly we have to have some guardrails and we don't even have that at this time.
So that's all I'm saying.
I just think for me, and I'm gonna say this real quick, that this whole thing is doesn't change policing, and guns kill people, not I mean people can your people not gun those things. These narratives are just so false because we can we can point out in different countries where policing is done differently. We can point out different countries where with lack of access or less access to guns to people who don't deserve or even qualify to have them results and less depths.
So we can point these things out.
So when people keep saying there's no universal thing that makes you think that police aren't gonna change or this and that, and they are gonna change when legislation makes them change, you know, there's consequences for poor acts. You know, people are gonna stop shooting people when they can't get
a gun. When you're angry and you can't get a gun because you don't qualify to get a gun because you haven't passed the mental health part, or you don't meet the criterias to get a gun, or somebody who has a gun who's doing monthly check ins and doing mental health you know.
Whatever, or by them, especially if you have certain certain guns.
I think you should be going to get a test every other month because people deal.
With message auditions, but you should definitely have criteria.
No, yeah, it should fifteen I got an AAR fifteen in this house, and I'm dealing with shit all the time, and nobody's checking on me to see if I'm all right.
And I walk outside one day and be like.
Fuck, I'm gonna take my life because people kill theyself every day and a lot of what's happening in these killings is killing suicide, right, so they plan on I'm already looking. I'm ready to take me out now. I got this AAR fifteen. I could take about fifteen twenty more people out with me. And that's what's happening.
Well, we're about to, you know, by the time our show airs, hopefully we will find out whether or not the Texas shooting that happened. I think it was Cleveland, Texas, where just this past weekend we saw a family go next door to a man's house and ask him to stop shooting in the yard because their child was sleeping, and he ended up shooting and killing five people of the ten individuals that was in the house. I saw
the father speaking on the news earlier this morning. It is so painful, and you know, we don't know we did him. He's at large. The killer is at large. They say he threw his cell phone down, took his clothes off, left all his stuff somewhere in a wooded area, and they didn't know.
Where he is.
So hopefully by the time I show airs, we will learn whether or not it is killer suicide, whether he's killed himself or done some other things. Some people said he may have made it to Mexico, but it's thirteen hours away from where he was, so I don't know how you get there unless my friend, our friend Jamie, said, well, you know, they think all of us look alike because he looks like he's a brown person.
You know, he's not white.
He looks like he's Latino, right or something like that, something of the Hispanic descent. So yes, I don't know if they just assume because he's got a cap on and he's moving around looking normal, and let him bust bus bus bus bus to Mexico. But I don't think so. Usually when they put that app out on you, baby, they catch your ass, so.
Might be dead. Somebody gonna get you.
Well, it's Mental Health Awareness month. These are the first few days. And you know you said you spent the weekend in a space dealing with young people on mental health, and you know we can't focus on health and wellness is the biggest topic of a lifetime. Finance is important, social justice is important, civil rights is important. But we just came from talking about you can't even go to the neighbor's house and say, yo, could you please, you know,
keep it down. You're shooting in your yard because we you know, we got a baby in here sleep.
You can't even do that because you can be.
Murdered.
I mean, a massacre can happen to you.
So many people are dealing with mental health challenges, and by the way, I'm not saying they still should not be held accountable for their actions. It's not an excuse, but it certainly is a reason the whole country has gone stark, raving mad. People are out of control, and I'm seeing it every day, every single day.
Every day, every day I hear that somebody is dealing with mental health issues. I'm watching young young kids are dealing with mental health at rise and rate, or maybe they've always, but I just think it's different my awareness and me just paying attention and hearing you know what, stories, stories and seeing what they're dealing with and just understanding how these things are impacting them and how serious. They're
taking certain shit that I've never taken it serious before. Like, I realize there are a lot of mental health things going on in society right now. And I'm saying spiritual. I think it's spiritual warfare, you know what I'm saying. Because the mental health and a lot of these things
are it's like they have demonic twists to them. You know a lot of the things that when you when you listen to what is controlling the minds of our kids, what they don't have, fine clothing and this and that, and being better than people, these things are mentally.
Impacting these babies. Man.
It's just like, yo, when I want to listen to them and I see what they did with I'm like, yo, you can't put that much stress on yourself like you got you have to. You gotta give yourself some level of grades. You gotta calm down. You a kid, You can't. You can't think that you're gonna own the world today. Like there's a process to these things. And I just you know, I'm praying for these kids.
I hear you me too. Well, let's get into mental health. Our guest today is a mental health expert, and I'm looking forward to what she has to say. Doctor Laurene Josephs is joining us today.
She is a social behavioral scientist black women.
This is like so big, and she's also the CEO of Visionary Vanguard Group, which is a concerting a consulting firm that that does research and evaluations on the outcomes of under resource communities. So that's a big, powerful, powerful title. And when we're talking about mental health, it seems to me like even when a community is under resource, if you're doing your research, you got to be finding out that there's some mental health challenges that.
Come with that.
And so we're excited to have doctor Lauren Joseph to join us on Street Politicians today.
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Well, thank you for being doctor Joseph.
So on this first week of mental you know, mental Health Awareness Month, like I'm I'm obviously I was just having this conversation with Anika. I've experienced that I will use are dealing with mental health at rates that I didn't even know existing.
You know, according to the statistics, is it worse than it was? Is it better? Like statistically, what do you think is happening. Is it worse or better?
Actually, the statistics have been similar over time. One in five percent, one in five individuals experiences a mental health concern over the period of a year. What has happened, though, is with the COVID pandemic, with social isolation, with children not being in school for a period of time, and just different ways of socialization being interrupted.
That has caused some concerns.
We don't really know the statistical impact of that yet because the data typically is three to five years behind, So what we're experiencing now we won't know.
We won't have the.
Accurate statistics to say this is a shift, but what we feel and what we see in our practices suggests.
That there is.
So basically, what we're dealing with right now is a result of things that happened three or four years ago. So we ain't even really the data hasn't even come out for the last couple of two years.
So wow, no.
No, there's preliminary information, but we don't have the whole picture.
Well, that is very very important what you just said, and I don't want it to go over people's heads because you picked up on it too, Masan immediately. What you are saying is that every three to four years, scientists and analysis or analysts rather do work to you know, sort of examine what's been happening in a time period and they come out with studies that provides data that you people use for medicine or whatever, for even policy
all of that. And at this point, the pandemic doesn't even fall into the time period where we know the full extent of what damage has been done to people mentally.
Absolutely, because we take retrospective looks, meaning that we look back. It's very rare that we can prospectively examine concerns.
That are being addressed.
And what that just what that means in research talk is that we're not looking from today forward. We're looking and examining what has occurred.
So you're exactly right.
So how long have you been doing this work?
I have been a licensed psychotherapist for twenty three years and I have been a behavioral scientist since two thousand and five, so that's probably eighteen years if my math is correct.
So for a long.
Time, what was the driving force for you to get into this type of work?
Like?
What was your background in your personal life like that led you to this work?
You know I'm from Jamaica if you hear an accent, and so being raised in Jamaica there, I didn't have the framework or the language of mental health. It's it's emerging in treatment in Jamaica at this time, but there wasn't a really solid foundation. When we saw people on the streets who I now know were experiencing mental illness, we would say it's a mad man or a mado man.
Right.
So I knew that I had a deep interest in impacting change for for people who look like me, especially come into the United States and very quickly learning what it meant to be black in America. So I started my career as a psychotherapist, working with youth who were involved with the juvenile justice system and doing home visits, and all of that led me to start making the connections between the children who were incarcerated and were the ones who I was seen and have learned since were
predominantly members of racial and ethnic minority groups. And so I wanted to work more broadly to impact change in societal outcomes. And so I returned to school to become a researcher and social and behavioral scientists, and so I was able to delve more deeply in the cross sections of challenges that that certain segments of our population phase. So's it just was my desire to impact change.
That's amazing. And what is the process? What is the school in process? How many years did you have?
Yeah, there's a lot of times.
So I went to the University of Florida as an undergraduate student, So that's four years. That doesn't count for anything. You do that before you go to graduate school. So I went to graduate school and earned a master's and specialist degree also at University of Florida, and then I attended the University of Central Florida to obtain my doctoral degree in public Affairs, which is an interdisciplinary program that helped to prepare me to address social problems.
So overall, it's four and three steps. Like a lot of years out of my life, more than probably ten to twelve years.
Did your family members think you were crazy?
Like?
What did they say that? They're like too.
Much schooling or you come from you come from a Caribbean background, a Jamaican family, so I would assume that there were some people pushing you along. But it seems like when we're studying mental health, sometimes our family members feel I don't know, it's like this, it's like it. They don't know it, so they feel a little nervous about are you trying to say?
We crazy?
Right?
You know, And so you're exactly right, you know, I'm Jamaican, like Jamaican Jamaica, which comes with a lot of things, and and you're exactly right. But my family has always been supportive. They I knew that education was not an option. It wouldn't have been an option if we stayed in Jamaica, and it certainly wasn't an option when we came here. But what I had to do was to educate my family and bring them along.
You know.
It's like, you know, sharing terminology the way we we we we talk about people who are experiencing mental health concerns so that we're not ostracizing them and authorizing them and so and so, because that's a that's a whole for those who are close to me, that there there was a fair share of work that had to be done done.
And still content say like you can't go out people retarded? Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah.
Yeah, so I did. I want to This is kind of a serious question.
We're dealing with a lot of mental health, and we're dealing with a lot of suicide and actual homicide.
Have you dealt with anyone.
Who's either lost their life but taken a life or taken a life that you would particularly dealing with one of your patients, None.
That completed that.
Many who had suicidal ideation, meaning that they had considered it, considered it. And you know, there's a whole host of other people who are not actively seeking means to end their lives, but they what what what comes across and what has come across in therapy is that I wouldn't mind if I got hit by a bus.
I just wouldn't go through that.
So there's there are people who have suicidal ideation, There's there are people who have attempted suicide and people who have died by suicide.
And then there's a whole host of.
Other people who just wouldn't mind if a brick fell on their head and ended their life.
And and it's very sad. So it's and it's it's not. Sometimes what I see.
Is that people think that individuals who are experiencing that level of sadness or disconnect or sense of hopelessness are remarkably different from us.
The one, but but that's not the case. We What what I found.
Is that we all have a certain capacity, right and we we oftentimes don't have the appropriate outlets to address the difficult emotions that we're having.
And you know, it's it come, it compounds over time.
And what there was a study that that came out a few years ago which which showed that, you know, because in years past we used to think that people who ended their lives were depressed for a long period of time, and then it led to that what there's there's bodies of research that also showed that people in the moment of something specific happening, that they make a choice that ends up being a final choice. So that it just is a whole host of.
Factors that we have to be mindful of.
It's not just the one look of a person, one set of experiences.
It's very broad.
When you say that, it makes me think of Twitch, the guy who was the dancer sort of the hype man on the Ellen DeGeneres Show.
How they show you.
Pictures of him and his family the day before, like dancing, his you know, family members. They didn't really have an idea of him being suicidal, and then boom, this just happens, and it's and I get your point that sometimes in the moment, I've seen this actually with young girls who are either choice trying to show the boyfriend how angry they are, or they're so upset about a breakup or something.
And even I guess it happens with men, but I'm saying my personal experience then with young women that in the moment, they're like, I'm gonna, you know, slit my wrists so he knows how much he hurt me, or I'm gonna do it, and then boom, they could either be dead or they could be really close to death. That's just and it's something that some of us can't fathom.
But when I simplify it like that and talk about young women that I have seen in those situations, I'm sure that there are other women that's like, damn, I remember when I was sixteen and I was so angry that he left me or I caught him with another girl that I thought about doing something to get attention.
Absolutely absolutely, And you know the thing, when we hear about suicide, we see a lot of men complete suicide.
And so I'm glad you brought up the topic of women.
And girls, because it's not that women and girls are attempting less it's that less lethal methods are used in the attempt So with with men, there are more firearms that are used, which is more deadly. With with with girls, like you were talking about teenage girls, you'll see, you know, you'll you'll see less lethal methods, so like trying to overdose and things of that nature. So that is one reason for the discrepancy in the or the disparity in
the numbers of suicide depths between genders. It's the lethality of the method that's used in the in the attempts.
So you know what, you know what, I was sitting here thinking, we do a lot of work and we deal with a lot of trauma, Like we deal with families, and we take on trauma daily. We see death, we see pain all the time, and it's a lot for us. Yeah, So do you have a therapist and how is it that you do you take on the trauma of your patients. Do you feel like you personalize it and you take it home sometime and you have to find ways to release.
That's an excellent question.
There's this phenomenon called vicarious trauma and it's you get vicarious trauma by being in situations where you are where there's a lot of trauma that's present in others. So there's death, there's so the work you do, right, it's it's the same in therapists that are working with highly traumatic cases. Not all therapy is about addressing trauma. There are a situational and adjustment things that happen in people
like that they also seek therapy for. But it's important to know that when we think about trauma, we think about death, we think about you know, all those you know, we think about rape, we think about all of those things that are classified as trauma. What's important to note is that those toxic, toxic levels of stress compounded over time impacts our brains in the same way that major trauma does.
So we're we're so for.
For for you or people therapists who are working with with individuals who are living through traumatic experiences and and are don't don't process that well, that's one side.
Of the burden.
The other side of the weight is the toxic level of stress. So it's like from from both sides, from both from both sides. So you asked the question about do I have a therapist. What I have is when you're when you are a mental health practitioner, you have a cadre of individuals who are mental health practitioners who you you have the benefit of debriefing and and and addressing concerns in a in a way even when you have large caseloads. I don't anymore. A lot of the
work that I do is in in research. But when you have caseloads, you you you there's a part of the process that requires you to consult with other mental health practitioners to so that you're not absorbing all of all of that because if you don't have a way to address that that's coming in, like I said, we have a threshold and you know, we can end up collapsing under the pressure.
Wow.
I mean it's so deep that it's like a pause. It's a cause for a.
Pause just to think through.
As you said, it's a stressful thing to even hear the stories constantly and to take to bed with you. How do I advise this person or what more can I do? Or am I showing up the right way? It's true, you know I experience it and it took me to a very dark place between the years of trauma that I've been taking on by dealing with families and working with people who have been through unthinkable pain or who are experiencing unthinkable pain, and then also having my own trauma all sort of colliding.
It's a lot, and you know, I think therapy.
Is probably one of the most helpful things that I do now.
And then there are some people who need their medication.
Like I know Wes say, we don't want to take medication, try natural remedies.
I get that. I support that.
I try my best if something is wrong with me, not to go straight to a pill or whatever, a cold, you know, any of those things. But some people need to be on prescribed medication that is under a doctor's kid to keep their levels together. Talk about that, because there is a stigma that if you get on medicine.
You are you know, you just are out, You're just insane, and there's a the stigma.
Is embarrassing, right right, People don't want you to know that they are on medication.
Yeah, you know, And if you really think about it, there has been an evolution over time of what illnesses have stigma attached to them. Decades ago, people didn't want to say that they had cancer. You know, I remember people it's like being and this was when I was very little, of there's a family member. Nobody wanted to say cancer. Now, when we think about it in twenty
twenty three, that sounds like wild, right. But medication is an important part of treating mental illness, particularly persistent and pervasive mental health disorders. It's important, though, to know that the research shows that medication and therapy works best for those who require medication, because while the medication can you know, as you said, you know, just let's just say colloquially balance your levels out or whatever, it doesn't teach you
how to deal with your mental health disorder. It doesn't teach you how to deal with the difficult emotion, It doesn't teach you how to cope. And so it needs to be a too promped approach for individuals who who need medicines. We wouldn't say, you know, there's no shame if somebody has to take medicine because they have high cholesterol or heart disease or you know a host of
other chronic conditions. For individuals with persistent and pervasive mental health disorders that are chronic, it should be no more shame than addressing our physical health needs, because it's, if you want to think about it, it's.
A brain based disord. So it is you know, we're treating.
The basis of that when we use when prescriptions are involved.
But do you believe in lifetime medicine or are you the type of behavioral scientists who believes that it's possible for people to move off of it, Because I think that is one of the concerns of our people, of black folks, that once you're put on medicine, especially by white doctors, it's like they're upping the dose, right they're telling you. Because I was being told when I was having my mental health issues that I needed to be on Ridlin.
And a couple other like psychees. I don't know how to.
Do psychotropic medications exactly, psychotropic medications when in fact I take something now twice a day that is not that it literally helps me just not be excited and nervous. It helps me with things and I'm doing I mean, I think my son knows from knowing my struggle and watching me over all these years.
Don't do that, my son, but watching.
Me over all these years, he knows if I'm not if I have not taken my medicine. It is very clear to him and other people around that, hey, you all right, you know you strang do you need to you know, did you get your medicine today or whatever? And that accountability helps me. And I know I'm talking a lot, but this is important because this is a
big topic for me. It actually makes me very emotional because there are times when I am mad at everybody, including God, that I have to take medicine twice a day, and so sometimes because of the fact that for the initial hour, so it can make me tired, right like, I feel like I need to maybe rest, so I have to take my medicine before I get moving, so I can, you know, get that part off of me.
It's not always convenient. I don't always want to deal with it, you know.
If I don't want to go to sleep yet tonight, you know what I'm saying, And so sometimes I fight it, but then the next day it is so clear that I didn't take my medicine.
I'm anxious and whatever.
So do you believe in helping people to work towards getting off of it or do you think that once you're on something, you should just stay there until.
Yeah.
Well, anyone who says that when you're on something you should stay there forever is not informed.
I cannot speak to.
You know, as a licensed practitioner, I cannot speak to a specific issue if I'm not the person who's providing the intervention for that person. What I will say is that in many cases, depending on the diagnosis, it might be situational, right, and so it's important to be under the care of a mental health practitioner to so so that the symptoms can be addressed and the medication modified
over time with the treating physician. So and I'll also say with respect to children, and you mentioned rittilin, which is is one of the older classes medicines that that that were used for ADHD. Good physicians will tell parents that there are certain times when the child is not to take the medicine for a couple of days on a weekend or so or so, to see what the symptoms are like, because that's how you recognize.
If there change is being made.
The brain is very malleable, and particularly in younger children, the brain is trying to work itself out, and so there are opportunities given for children who are on various medication to to make adjustments and ultimate ultimately stop taking medications if the symptoms resolve itself. For adults, the same is also true because not in all cases is the underlying cause of the mental health concern which is the basis of the medication. In In not all cases is
it chronic. It can be something acute based on factors that have popped up over the past six months or a year, and which can be resolved with a.
Plan that's developed by those.
Who are participating in the treatment plan development process.
So do you do you have children?
I have one son. He is in third grade.
He's doing well, and so yeah, you know you asked about medicines. He's had to take medication and so you know, I've seen where he has been weaned off medicine. So I know that not only us from the role of the the.
Therapists and as a person who's who's.
Participated in the development of treatment blends, but the one who as a parent of a child who's had to take medicine. Specifically in this case for ADHD is one of his his concern, not his special need, but that's he's also ADHD.
The ADHD. They didn't have ADHD. That's what I had. We all like, I had.
ADHD and it was undiagnosed. And by the way, or half of my cousins have it too. And I say had because we still today have issues where people suffer from hypertension or hyper whatever activity and not being able to focus and all of that. But they've never And if you would have tried to tell our parents that we had something called ADHD, they would have said, I'm on ADHD, your ass, that's what I'm going yep, yep, yep, you know, and they would not have even tried to learn.
You had to come out.
Yeah, you had to come You had to be born and lived with something that was so far on the spectrum, like you had to have a you couldn't talk or you looked a certain way that it was clear that there was an issue for them to actually engage in trying to figure out a mental health plan or any kind of plan, a medical plan. But to for you to just tell a parent of our time that the kid had ADHD and they were functioning and could sing, knew.
The songs, could you do all this stuff?
They were like, man, I don't yeah, yeah, yeah, you know.
And the thing is what happens because and it's still happening today when when children are not diagnosed, what you see is that they're mislabeled as problem children. You know they're they're you know they're because it interferes with how you learn. And so you see children who are being classified as having learning disorders, or you see children who
are misclassified as emotional behavioral disorder, which it takes. It's a it's a pipeline in a lot of senses to to the juvenile justice system in many schools, and so it's really important for us to be open to having our children assessed. If we if we if if if someone has approached us with what they see from their professional lens and so not just to cut them off, then you're right.
There was a there was.
A point in time, and it's still persists today, particularly in some segments of our population where some parents are not trying to hear it. And then there's a whole other side of the population that wants to get their kids what's called a crazy check.
So you know, it's it's there's a dichotomy.
My son, I didn't mean to cut you because I know you had a point, but doctor Joseph as a Caribbean woman, would you say that in the Caribbean community specifically, there are those issues where there are people who don't want to hear it. Absolutely, absolutely, But j Maican came out all the way.
It's it's true.
It's none wrong.
No, no, my dumb son, It's like, yeah, it's like.
Well, I'm deal, but it's it's it's so true, and it's it's it's a problem.
You want to ask two questions because I know we have to go so the two things that won't ask. Do you think because what it seems to me is what I've been hearing is that there are mainly black boys being diagnosed with ADHD. A lot of I think, are we over diagnosed with it? Is it proper or every are they just over using just the term? And two the stigma that's around mental health with.
Just black men period. Yeah.
No, do you have like any advice how do we get black men to just want to open up, want to just talk about the things that they're dealing with because a lot of us, like as a young man, I was taught that we were supposed to just deal with what we had to deal with, you know, Nobody wants to hear you crying.
Nobody wants all of that. So what is it?
I think, And I'll start with that question first. I think that it's.
Up to us, those who are in the process of raising black boys, to this is where prospectively, we can do something where we're not.
We can choose today to.
Allow our children, particularly and it's for girls too. But you ask a question about black males, but for black boys to be able to articulate how they're feeling without censoring. A lot of times we are expected to be robotic, like we are only expected to only a small range
of emotions is viewed as acceptable. Anything outside of that is we And what we're doing is setting up our children to become men who, first of all, don't have the language to communicate what they're experiencing, because that's half of it.
We don't have the emotional.
Vocabulary to talk about what we're feeling. And I think it starts there to help our children to identify what is it this, This is anger and to recognize anger is not there's nothing wrong with anger, it's how we respond to that anger and.
That we we don't we don't do.
Well with with helping our children to recognize and process the difficult emotions they're feeling, and so as children we grow up into adulthood with the absence of that emotional intelligence.
The other question on over.
Diagnosing, I don't necessarily think that that's a broad problem. What has happened is that there's more awareness. Whenever you see more awareness, you think that there is that it's happening more right. You can some people talk about that, you know, in terms of there seems to be a lot of violence against like police violence.
And so on.
Was it not happening before? Are or do we are we now?
Do we now have an awareness of what has been happening.
So the same is true.
With with the diagnostic process with the absence of data. You know, I'm a scientist, so you know, questions like that, which feels simple, tend to be hard for me to understanding the absence of data. I don't necessarily think that there's an overdiagnosis. I think there's an increased awareness of what the challenges are and now there's a now people know what to do in more cases, although we have a waste to go.
So why do you think black males seem to experience it more based off.
The perceive in she says she don't have the day she wants you to tell her.
Where there is a finding.
That says that that's difference because I'm going to tell you something. This is my personal belief, and doctor Joseph, we want to let you go, but here's my personal belief. I don't think that there's a difference. I think that it's on both sides. The issue of ADHD, right, I think it's on both sides. I do think that people don't necessarily take their children or themselves to the doctor
to figure these things out. And when you're dealing with boys, it can get to be so out of control with the school and the calling and the fighting and the whatever, that after a while they're forced to go somewhere to figure it out and then they tell you it's ADHD. Whereas the girls, just because of the nature of us, we can kind of control it, like not control it.
But it's just different.
The way that it is expressed is not always the fighting and the whatever. We might have other things going on that don't show up until later, like hypersexuality. We haven't, you know, doing things like that, And I think it's just that even in the professional field, we just haven't wrapped or maybe it's like in a mental health profession, you.
Haven't wrapped your arms.
The community hasn't wrapped his arms around how to talk about the differences and how these things show up.
That's what I think is.
And also it's important to know that sometimes what we see as these angry outbursts that are viewed as hyperactive are also symptoms of depression and children because it's manifested differently. So some of these things. What I would do if I were a parent with a child who was experiencing some of these challenges in schools would be to speak to a professional to get them assessed, not just draw the conclusion off the ADHD, but to rule out other factors as well.
Listen, let me just tell you something.
Listening to you, your vocabulary.
The way that you speak.
At ease about these issues, and it's almost like poetry. You are truly an incredible, incredible intellectual scientists doctor professional.
I have been I am intrigued by.
This conversation and I have been thoroughly educated from you.
I felt comfortable and you just.
Have you have a skill set that is lacking in your field, even for people who are at the highest levels, they are not as graceful and powerful as what you have presented to us today.
My god, you're definitely a jewel.
We appreciate you. We gotta have you on. You might have to be my therapist because on the way that you make me feel so comfortable.
Man, So that's that's one of the things.
You don't feel comfortable, you can't really express things, So I definitely might have to listen.
So much that that really warmed by heart. I'm brought to her to my eyes, I'm truly grateful. If I can ever be of support, please let me know. I really admire your work.
Both of you.
Get people data on him that we need the data on my son Lennon that he's got the nerve to do this about me. The data is on you you if you want to get the data so that you can know what's going on in the minds of some people. Thank you, doctor Laurence. Doctor Lauren Joseph's a social and behavioral scientist. Give black women their credit and their flowers. I appreciate you so much for joining us today. Follow her, check her out, Listen to the jewels that this woman is dropping on us.
Uh.
It's mental health awareness monk, y'all. It's an important month. It's a time not to fix all of your issues, not to know it all, but to get in touch and in tune with what's going on within and figure out a plan for where and how to go forward.
Thank you, doctor Joseph.
Thank you my pleasure.
Oh man, Doctor Joseph is amazing. You know, like you said, she is eloquent, she is learned. She is an expert, and you can tell that she you know, she is very well versed in her field. She's taking the time, and she just has the energy and demeanor that's necessary to be a psychotherapist.
Mm hmmm, Yes, she has it.
Anybody don't. She just makes you feel comfortable. She just has an energy you know, doesn't feel judgmental. It's it feels welcoming, you know, and.
It's don't she's a serious Jamaican woman.
Mine. Yes, you can tell she has a good and she got a void, you know what I'm saying.
She's a little cute to that ding. You know, you gotta you gotta have all the things you need the thing. You gotta have the thing.
Go ahead on, doctor Joseph.
Man so my I don't get it is completely off the record. I've been dealing with a lot of different things.
You know. I take my criticism. I deal with certain things. You know. I'm a person that comes have a certain background. So look, I.
Come from the streets, you know, and I'm a rapper. I started out as a hip hop artist. I'm competitive, I played basketball, I am a warrior.
I box.
So this is the nature that I come to spirit, that I come to this space with. You know, when I entered into the space of activism and civil rights is because I wanted the voice of people like me to be heard. I didn't see what it is that I represented in this movement. I didn't see somebody who had an edge from hip hop, who had an edge from the streets, who was in tune, was formerly incarcerated, who had so many different elements that I didn't feel
was represented in this movement. So when I got into it at first, I didn't feel welcomed. You know, I didn't feel like it was even a place for me because I wasn't I didn't have the language that people had. I wasn't learned in certain areas, and I didn't look the same you know. So throughout the years, I believe that I've created my own space here, you know, I've created my space where the people that I represent field represented.
There's people that's from the hood that you would never I don't like to say the hood no more the neighborhood, because we took the neighbor out of the hoood and that's where the disconnect came. Some people from the neighborhood who you never would have seen in the movement or never even thought about it, say that I've brought them
to the movement. And they have voices, and they in hip hop, and they in the strip clubs, and you know, and they're still evolving, you know, some of them haven't evolved all the way to where they're all the way righteous, but they're moving into that realm, you know. And so I speak on things in the culture of the streets, you know, and and it seems to bother people. And what I don't get is me speaking on issues you know that like especially snitching. Snitching for me, like I
said all the time, it's something about integrity. It's not about a street thing, it's not about criminality. It's about a man being able to deal with the accountability of his own actions, a man making decisions, whether they're right or wrong, and being able to deal with those consequences. So, you know, over the last week or probably two, there's been you know, I've been going, I've had.
A situation and which I've chose the address.
Normally, I've been ignoring it because for years there's been this you know, this individual, Roland Collins, who's been attacking me and saying things about me, and and the history of it goes I'm not gonna get into the history of it, but you know where the history comes.
From, you know, years ago. But now it's resurface.
He's finally went to court and you know, he's testified at the trial, which I have no issue with. All I wanted, what I made a statement about was the lack of being willing to deal with accountability. You know, I wanted people to understand that in the streets there are consequences. And the people saying, you can't say that you boycomm black murder, but you against snitcher, and I'm like, well I can because what happens is in snitching, there
are two people who are guilty of crimes. Right, That's the street element means when you snitch that you are more people that are guilty of crimes, sometimes just you, right, So what happens is the person who is the snitch is also guilty of crimes and have committed crimes, but since they don't want to be held accountable for what it is they've done, they tell on someone else so
that they're held accountable. So my thing is who tells on the stitch, and the stitch is the most low level individual, because the snitch not only tells on an individual to get out of the crimes, they also go back to the communities and repeat those same crimes and influence people to continue on the crimes. So you're not really saving the community. You're not stopping anything from happening when you glorify the snitch, like for example, sam Me
the Bull told on John Gotti. Sam Me the Bull was actually more of a dangerous person than John Gotty was. John Gotty was divorced, but sad me to good. Bull actually took more lives in his time than John Gotti did, but he was able to go and live his life after John Gotti died in prison and come back out to society and commit more crimes and engage in more crimes and get more people to do more crimes. And
so you not stopping crimes by supporting snitching. If we acknowledge that the snitch, if we stop rewarding snitches for being weak and they still had to deal with their consequences, then you will see less crimes.
Right.
You will see that if the snitch understood I can't get away from this by telling on somebody else, I should I just shouldn't do it. I'm not gonna be involved in the streets because I'm gonna want to do forty or fifty years.
There's no escape route for me.
Right, you will see a lot less people engaging when when there's real accountability in something, then you would see more people saying I don't want to deal with those consequences and whatever I tell people all the time. I'm not saying that crime is good, right, I'm not saying that I'm for a crime. But I respect a man who's made a mistake and made a decision. Some of us in the streets, you've made decisions and you've committed crimes out of desperation. You made you know, you felt
like you didn't have anywhere out. You might have been defending yourself and you had to deal with those consequences. And when you sat down and you did your time as a man, you thought about it, you came home and you informed yourself, and you moved on.
Those are honorable individuals. To me. Some people think that.
If you ever committed a crime that you know you lost, you lost your honor and can't be honorable.
I don't believe that, you know, I just don't.
I don't believe that narrative and I will never believe that narrative. So I am so confused and why people think that there's an issue for me, as an activist and someone who is a hip hop artist to confront things that I believe is detrimental to this culture.
In a hip hop form or even speaking on it.
I don't glorify negativity, but at the end of the day, I'm a warrior.
I'm a competitive spirit, so I don't want violence for nobody.
I'm not going to get into no physical altercation Roller.
I don't want to see that man dead.
But I know you can't outrap me, and I know the message that you spread in this detrimental to these babies.
So I'm going to dispute your message. I'm going to.
Refute it, and I'm going to outrap you on it, and I'm going to bring people to the cause and show them what just looks like.
What righteousness looks like, what real looks like.
So if people have I don't understand why people have a problem with that.
I really don't.
I never let me sit finish when I've never portrayed myself to be Martin Luther King. I'm not Malcolm X. But I know that Malcolm X called out a lot of leaders he by name. He called them fake, this, this, and that y'all leading our people. He literally said that, I've watched a lot of these leaders that you talk about. They have called out other leaders because they felt that the message that they had was detrimental to our people.
That we've had debates with the biggest scholars, have sat on stages and disputed against other scholars who who were just as you know, and they were positive people. When I think that something that's detrimental or negative, I believe that it is my duty, as a worry of God to speak up against that. I believe that's my purpose, that's my calling. It's not everybody's calling. Everybody's not gonna get it, just like I don't get everybody else's calling.
I don't get why people.
Talk about certain shit that I don't care about or I think doesn't make sense. But every individual has his own road to travel. And every time that I feel that something is detrimental to the kids and the communities that I come from, or somebody is perpetuated a lifestyle or narrative a reality that's detrimental to them, I'm going to speak up.
So I don't have much to say on that, because I think it's good that you made this point, because there are a lot of people who, which is my point, don't understand. Sometimes I don't understand until we have conversations. In this situation, I do understand. And by the way, I also am a child of hip hop, and I know how hip hop is supposed to work. You are supposed to have and sometimes and I guess since I come from a family, I was just with my family recently when my cousin died, you know, and.
One of the things, like, even in the middle of a.
Traumatic situation, we were snapping on each other, like you walk right in, like don't even come in here with that crime because you know, you know you pitif your nose to snotty?
What's wrong with your stomach? You too fat.
My cousin is wilch Bound, the one who passed away his brother who many people who've been to my birthdays and seen pictures of me. That's one of my closest cousins. He's wheelchair bound since he was a child forty something years old, never been able to use anything from his neck down, and we still be asking him like, so what.
You're gonna do.
You're gonna get up, like you're gonna fight us, like what are you gonna do? Right?
Which he actually will bite you, so you gotta be careful and his kick is no joke. But I come from a snapping culture, and the shit it don't feel good. Sometimes it kind of normalized things to make you not feel so bad about it because you got hit by your own which meant that later on when people said the things to you outside and didn't feel as bad. And sometimes it was things that might have hurt your feelings, it made you want to fight, like you just be mad.
So I guess because I come from that, I don't see the battle of rappers or entertainers or the competence as such a bad thing.
So I don't get as.
Sensitive about those things because you know, when I don't like something, I'm on you like mice.
I don't think you need to be doing this, this and the third.
And we all need people that's in our corner to pull our coattel when we're.
Traveling too far down one road to the other.
The only thing that I have said to you is that because there are so people that they don't come from those backgrounds either, they don't understand. They hear snitching and they think about violence that's going on, and they want the killers, the murderers to you know, be caught or be exposed. When what you're saying is very different. It's a point that has to be constantly reinforced that if people believe I can go out rob a bank, rob.
People, shoe kill, scam.
Do whatever, and all I have to do is tell on somebody else or give up a bigger or more or a criminal that is more of a person of interest or whatever in order to reduce my time. It does not make it does not deter me from doing the negative action. That is something that is very clear. So it is not to say, you know, if you if you're out there and you doing dirt, then just keep your dirty yourself and let another man walk free or whatever or however you want to say. It's not
a glorification of violence. But it is to say, which I hear you say all the time. Crime does not pay, and we cannot create a lane of just telling on somebody else, which makes it the crime that you committed. Either go away or be lessened so you feel more comfortable participating in such crime.
I get it. So I just want it to be clear because people who have called me and like, yo, what is my doing?
I can't believe in you gotta da da da da da da da and they and sometimes they get a rise on of me.
Sometimes I call them.
I've called you many times, like you gotta call your brother because I can't talk to him. He's not listening to me, and da da da da dah. Sometimes he's like I'm with him on this one. Sometimes he's like, now, okay, I might say something, so either way, right, we need a kitchen cabinet of people that provide guardrails.
For when we are so deeply.
Engaged in something we believe in that we start losing the message. Let me put that out there, so folks already know in this situation we wanted to I'm with you. Some of it was funny, some of it was necessary. All of it has been educational on one way or
the other. The question becomes what's next and what is the evolution from the point where we are, because sometimes the people we're leading don't understand that it needs to stay in the place where it started, and they've become engaged in something that travels beyond what we're actually looking to do.
So that's the question that we all have to ask ourselves.
It's not something we get to answer today or tomorrow, but it is something that goes on.
I never forget one after I told you.
About a member of an elected official who had done
something to me, pissed me off, whatever. So the elected official comes in the room to speak in front of an event and you lean over to me and go like it make us stay m not even gonna say what you said about this elected official, but I was kind of like over it, but to mere fact that I had told you about it, and you know, the shit she did with some bullshit that you reminded me again in the moment, and I laugh to myself that when you tell your people who love you how you
feel about something and they see that it hurt you or to upset you, or even they take it personal, you.
Don't even care.
Right, they can take things to a place that their emotions are not where yours are.
So that's the question.
I think for me, is that I understand that right, And that's why I respond in a man that I do.
I don't. I don't respond with.
Disrespecting your family, you calling me names and talking about my mother who's passed away, and saying my whole family can do this, and that. I don't respond with those things. I don't because that's I don't. I don't do that. What I do is deal with the facts, and I want to educate you, and I want you to know every time that you're not my enemy.
I want you to know that I'm not trying to kill you.
I'm not beefing with you. I'm not gonna shoot you. You know, I'm none of those things is there. But I'm not going to allow you to spread a message or send a narrative that's not real.
And I'm and I'm willing to stand on that. You understand I'm saying.
So when I respond that way, it gives it takes some of the pressure because what happens is now the people who love me see, okay, my fighting back. We don't gotta fight for mice, right. Mice is strategically fighting back. He's just not fighting the way they fight because he's bigger than that. I'm not gonna fight that. So the next DAYE for me. It's my book, Raising Kings, the twelve Principles of Manhood. It shows what manhood is, it shows how what de escalated this is. This is a
master class. And we can have debates, we can have disagreements. I still don't want to kill you, right, And we cannot like each other. We cannot even want to be around each other. We don't have to all get along and we can disagree, but we ain't got to kill each other.
I don't want to kill you.
I could really, I can actually not like you and don't want you dead. That's what I want you to move me. I literally just don't. I don't agree with nothing about the man. I really don't like him, but I don't want to see nothing happen to I don't want him to get nobody else hurt though, right because he came back out of here and he's continuing the same cycle, and he's grabbing friends that I know, people that I love who not as far removed from the
streets as I am. You understand saying, and I know how this can end up. So me, I have to talk to them. I have to have conversations with them and talk them out of things of that nature. I have to talk my friends and family like, NA, we're not doing that. We're bigger than that, but we're not gonna let this message go.
We're not scared, no smoke when it comes to this rap.
But that's but that is why it is also important to recognize that you know, the thing, the thing, my son, that I've learned in life, which is a painful lesson. And it's not just a painful lesson, but it's been the conflict of my my entire existence, uh doing this thing or being labeled as a leader, which is a high honor to me. It's a high honor and sometimes a tall order. And the thing that I have recognized is that oftentimes what I want.
To do and even what I think is.
The right thing to do has to be adjusted because I'm now in a position where I'm speaking to the whole and not the feure. And so as a leader, my only advice to you, right in front of the the the world of street politicians that listen to me, is that everything we do as humans has a least a little bit of ego driven ness to it. Yeah, and so and and and ego is important because ego is the thing. Right when people try to say ego
is all bad, it's not. My old boss, Reverend Sharpton, used to tell me that ego sometimes is the thing that helps you get up and be courageous enough and bold enough to speak out when you're when you're shaking in your boots. But your ego says, oh, so and so ain't gonna speak better than me, or you know, they not gonna try to look like I don't know the issues and can't step to the mic. But that same ego has to be examined on the other side.
So you just have to always walk that line. And so and to your point, you said, the most powerful thing. Every man and woman has to walk their own path and their own journey.
So that's it.
That's it.
You know what I'm saying. Look, I ain't got nothing else to say. Man, We done say it all. Integrity over income. We outside man. Thank y'all Street Politicians for supporting us. Shout out to Lauren Joseph for being here. Doctor, Doctor Lauren Joseph, the immaculate Yes psychotherapists that was here with us today. She is amazing. Look her up, follow her.
She's amazing. Shout out to the Street politicians. Family will continue to support us, you know, for letting us know that you love us, letting us know what you don't like. Continue to do that his story Politicians, give us some ideas. Who you want to see on the show, what you want to see us talk about number one show in the whirlwind.
We appreciate y'all for making us some more.
We're keeping us some more again. I'm not gonna always be right, but I was right today, Tamiga d Malories. I can always be wrong. We will both always and I mean always, be authentic.
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