Reparations and Historical Injustice

Speaks to the planning. I'll go by the name of Charlamagne of God and guess what, I can't wait to see y'all at the third annual Black Effect Podcast Festival. That's right, We're coming back to Atlanta, Georgia, Saturday, April twenty six at Poeman Yards and it's hosted by none other than Decisions Decisions, Mandy B and Weezy. Okay, we got the R and B Money podcast, were taking Jay Valentine. We got the Woman of All Podcasts with Sarah Jake Roberts.

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I'm Tamika D. Mallory and the Shit Boy my Son a General.

We are your host of TMI.

Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and Inspiration.

New name new energy. Say what's going on my son, Lennon?

Ay much? Tamika? Do you Marry? How you feeling good?

Doing good?

I mean you know I've had obviously, we have had a major blow in the last few days with the loss of my godmother, my movement mother, my friend, my big sister, my link sister, so many things, mentor all

I don't know anyone who lived as.

Long as she lived who made such an incredible impact on our society. My Dukes was on the board of the NAACP, I'm sure for more than thirty years. She is a grassroots organizer from Harlem and her community of Hall. Doesn't that that she could be on the national board to NAACP. She could be over here in another country helping with humanitarian efforts. Baby that Harlem, that local community. She was hard pressed about ensuring that the people of

Did all of that with people from Harlem.

She was a go to for elected officials to be able to get her her. She was one that you had to kiss the ring, because not because she was ostentatious and or egotistical, but because she was such an important and formidable force within the community that if you didn't kiss the ring and people didn't see her with you, they want to know what's wrong with you that she was.

You know that she didn't support you.

And I tell you even with my dukes, where we sometimes wouldn't agree politically. So I'd be with one candidate and she'd be with somebody else, and I'll be saying, Ma, you know, I don't know why you supporting that person. She said, Baby, you live to see a day when you put yourself in a position that no matter who win, they got to talk to you. So it don't really matter like you might be caught up in Well, you and I got to be on the same side.

We don't.

We don't agree on the same issue.

She used to tell me you and I have different perspectives. I come from a perspective where, yes, I care about my youth. I want to see programming for the youth. I want to see violence decreased. I want to see all that. But I'm also an elder, so senior care is important to me, and workers, civil servants, those types of things you might your interests might be focused on police accountability, which she cared about, but that might not

So she would.

Donate even to my person, who she may not have been supporting, because she was that strategic that she knew how to deal with the entire board, not just be so caught up in one thing that you can can't see, as she says, the forest from the trees. And so I learned a lot of my organizing from her. And another thing she used to tell me was don't do everything I do. Do your own thing. Listen to me wisdom, but don't do everything I do. You do your thing

So she knew I needed a lot of a lot of protection.

I think would think she's seen her a bit of herself in you. You know, when I when I listen to you and I'm listening to her, there's this spice and there's this vigor that y'all both have.

And I think she's seen. She's like a little bit of hunt you so.

But I think she could find a little bit of.

Her in all her everybody, all children, a little bit a little bougie, a little you know, organizer from like an organizational perspective, you know, because us we're kind of like decentralized, you know, we believe in having organization and things happening all over, and that's kind of that's something that she knows how to do because she worked within an organization that has you know, units everywhere, chapters moving

Oh look at so and so. Good fundraiser.

She could see herself in every one of us in different ways. But with me, I think she always knew that I was the one to say the thing and get myself in trouble, and so she felt like I needed protection. Every child probably need something different from her, and I was the one who she needed to protect. Marvin bing our brother. She knew she had to always

You knew it was coming because we could see it.

You walk in the door, You're like, damn, you know her time is winding down. But it's just nothing like that last moment when the eyes are closed and the story is over.

So it's a tough thing.

We've in peace to the Queen, Hazel and dukes Man. We missed you already.

Well anyway, here we are at the end of the first season of the Team my podcast, but not the first season of us doing a podcast together. New energy, the same old us, and as we rebrand, we rebranded this season we became the Tamika Mason Information Podcast. But I think we now have moved to being a show and not so much a podcast, although I still love

I watch it.

I you know, I see y'all all the time. I love what you're doing, and so I'm I love that. I love that about the fact that this this vehicle gives us a way to touch people that we don't even get to see until you happen to be in West Bubblehell and there goes somebody that's like, oh man, I remember that episode when y'all was talking about song. So I was so mad because I wanted to get my thing in there, and what about me? Because I got, you know, my product needs to be on your show too.

You know.

I hear that all the time, and it lets us know that we got so much ground to cover. Our people are spread out all over this country, all over the world, with so much to contribute to the fight to information, to fact finding, to truth finding. And I am very committed to what we look at feel like we change so much about our visuals. We had so many great shows during the season, and some of y'all stuck with us, and we've got more work to do.

Folks. We love and appreciate every.

Single supporter of the team my show, and we appreciate those people who send feedback to help us be better at what it is that we're doing.

We truly appreciate y'all, man, keep supporting us. We are going to keep giving y'all all content and all the best interviews that we can give you, and we're going to try to make sure that everything we give you is fact you and that you are definitely in love with this podcast because we need about twenty more seasons. Man.

Yes, absolutely, we're gonna We're gonna be on TV one day.

That's the goal.

We're gonna have our own channel.

So for today, we.

Did not want to do a show with one guest because we couldn't figure out which guests to bring on and what exactly to talk about.

So we said, bring them all on. Let's do a panel, bring bring them out, rather than all.

Of the different segments that you're used to hearing, which we're fine tuning in.

Those as well.

We see what works, what y'all love, We see what has actually sparked conversation on our social media. Uh, And so we're gonna we're gonna lean more in the next season into those things and just try to revise some of the other things we want to tell y'all the greatest music and all of that. But sometimes y'all don't be paying us no attention and we be thinking it's hot, and then they don't.

I don't know.

We gotta, well, we gotta find a way to what y'all said. What did you tell me? Uh that Lauryn Hill said you got to add a motherfucker to So y'all put a little bit of strawberry and.

Catch up. You gotta get a little you gotta get you edible, you know what.

God, Sorry, No, you don't have you. Okay, all right, Okay.

You do it.

They are puffect.

So we're gonna find tune that stuff as well. But on for today, we wanted to have a panel discussion, and uh, I think that this is a good way for us to wrap up the season because we have individuals who will be here to talk about some of the stuff that we've been working on, especially during this critical time.

And so I'm really excited to introduce a panel of powerful, powerful.

Individuals to you and we will see you in the next season after this interview. So we have an entire panel of friends today. As I mentioned to you all, we at the end of our season of TMI, our newly branded podcast, our show. We've been calling it the TMI Show. We're no longer the TMI podcast. We're moving up in the world. And you know, at the as we come to the end of this season, which has been one of our best seasons, we put a lot

I mean, I'm always ready. Man.

We happen to be aligned with some of the most brilliant political and just minds in this world, so and it happened to be our friends.

So it's good that we have the ability to.

Get people on the line that can speak truth to power, that can break things down eloquently and with facts, because that's all I'm about.

I ain't with the rest giving me the facts.

Y'all can have the you know, your opinions, and you can have all the rest of the stuff. I just want the facts, or the closest thing to the facts. And if you don't know, then don't tell me, you know.

So, first of all, I want to introduce who someone I consider to be my leader in many ways, as Pastor Michael McBride. So yes, absolutely, I don't know why you're looking like you confuse every day, I talked to Pastor Mike to just get a little bit more fine.

Tuning in how I approach the world.

Pastor McBride is a co founder of the Black Church Pack and also executive director of Live Free.

He'll tell us a little bit more about what both of those.

Entities do, but I can tell y'all, of all the people that's doing anything, Pastor Mike is really doing it. Let's just put it that way. And then we have my two sisters, Teslain Figureo. Y'all know her as the Hood Whisperer. She is a Revolt News correspondent. That's her newest role, and I'm so excited that Revolt understood that they needed you there, tas as well as the host of Straight Shot No Chaser, a podcast on the Black Effect podcast network, my podcast sibling.

As they say.

And then Nina Turner, the honorable Nina Turner. Make sure y'all never ever forget to add the honorable. She is the founder of We Are Somebody and also leading the efforts around Strike for All, And in this particular moment, I would say, I would say that Nina Turner is one of the most important political minds in our time right like they're gonna be history books later to talk about how Nina Turner knew to educate us in a

Everybody's talking. One of the problems that I think we have.

I wish the Internet would just cut off sometimes because we have so many.

People who believe that they are an expert.

And I do believe to some degree, y'all that folks, they're Our lived experience does make us an expert at what we experience, what we're going through, what's happening in our local communities and with the people that we talk to. But sometimes the information that we hear is wrapped in stuff that's not factual, and that's something that we want to TMI is really, really, very very careful about that, and I try to be careful about it in my

People who never thought about politics, don't care none about politics.

They're all paying attention in this moment, and this is a time where we can use that energy to build our own. We agree one hundred percent that we cannot come out on the other side of this doing the same things that we've been doing for the last unpteen years, and we don't have new systems, new mechanisms and things that we control our own. We've had a lot and we lost a lot Black media. We're down to barely anything in terms of networks and magazines and newspapers that

So on and so forth.

But we also understand that when people say build your own, it takes time to stand up a hospital in every community that people can get to in five minutes from their home, no matter where they live.

It takes time to build grocery stores and.

All the things things that we know the federal government is responsible for federal and local government because our tax dollars not handouts. We ain't asking for handouts for our tax dollars are responsible for how some of those things are built and maintained and the jobs that go into keeping those things going and tesling. Lately, I've been hearing

Thank you, Tamika. I am. There's a lot of things that I've organized for throughout my career, like many of us, but this one particular thing, to Mika is literally disturbing me on a personal level. As you mentioned, we are entrepreneurs. You know, we build our own if you will. I've won several awards for having a business a Minority Entrepreneur of the Year from US Department of Commerce last year, Women Who Mean Business, Orlando, Florida, forty under forty NAACP.

Care insurance for eighteen years.

Build your own means. There has been times one, two, three years at a time where I haven't made an income. Build your own means, And since an eternity can attestify to this, when I was applying.

At Kroger to.

Carry bags out, while I was building my own, when I was ubering in two thousand and eight, while I was building my own, while I was selling shoes at dealers, building my own, while I was selling mobile phones at T Mobile, building my own. So in this moment, if we're going to educate folks on what it means to build your own, I want you to build your own, but I also want to be truthful about what it takes.

She also was a notary.

She also was a real estate agent. She saw herbal life. She was never on welfare. She did it all to build your own. But she also still had a job and the one thing my mother said before she passed away, tesling, If I could just get this government job, If I could just get this government job to get the benefits that I need to be able to take care of myself, Tesldan, if you just get a government job, you'll be safe. I watched my mother to making you know this in

After the two thousand and eight financial crisis.

Can I tell you that my mother said that I feel worthless because nobody wants me.

What have I done?

Why can nobody take my skill set and the one job that gave her the opportunity like many federal jobs and state jobs have done. We know this on record for black people was the Department of Oklahoma, the Faith based Initiative. My mother finally got a job to Meeker

See she didn't live to tell the story, But have the.

Health care not been there, which was still inadequate by the way Medicare for all. This is what allowed my mother to be able to have the treatments so that I was able to still see my mother while she died. These are the things when that people are not understanding that the federal government was all that was willing to give her an opportunity. So when I hear people say, don't worry about it, that's what they get. They gotta

Her half getting lung cancer?

It is in critically important that we have conversations about black business, but we must talk about what is happening with these workers. Where do they transfer these skills, Where do they go into the private sector, What jobs do they get? Who will hire them? Because everybody can't be a podcaster, Everybody can't do or don't want to be in the digital space. So I feel that i'll shut up now that there's not enough conversation. Pastor Brian said it on the call the other day. You may have

Who in here know?

Is that type of micro organizing that people need right now before we get the forty six million on board and build your own and have these conversations, we need twenty five people in the room, thirty people in the room that can have a rent party, that can help people have a place to stay. We are in building time like now more than ever before. And this is not a scare tactic. Everybody doesn't have a try to make I don't have my parents. I've lost twenty five

Everybody in the movement don't have it right, all of us don't.

Have you talked about it in your book? I told you two three weeks ago. I was like, girl, I wanted to come, but I couldn't afford the ticket. I'm trying to buckle down. We got to start having these real conversations on this Bill Jones concept that we're talking about because it's hard out here and people will need our support.

That was long winded, but I.

Know it was.

It was needed.

It was it was it was all the things that we've been talking about. You know, me and Test get on the text thread and we be pissed off and we go back and forth, and it's real, and I just want to say that I love you. You know what I'm saying, And whatever we gotta build, I'm gonna build with you. And you know, I understand. I'm just hear the pain in your voice. But it's it's real.

It's like telling everybody you can be Lebron James. That's not the fact. If everybody could be Lebron James, then we wouldn't be calling him remarkable. Right.

Everybody is not gonna be the best player in the NBA. Everybody ain't gonna be Michael jan So they are gonna be role players.

And we and us asked if we the Lebron James.

We're supposed to make sure that the role players have a seat at the table, that they have places to play, and when we diminish them and act as if we don't, if you just want a job, then there's something wrong with that.

If you're going to school every day and you've studied.

Because you want this career and you wanted to be in government, and there's something wrong with that. We're not having real conversations and we're not speaking to the needs and the realities of our people. So I just want to say thank you Taz for expressing it that way, because I don't think nobody else could have said it that way. I want to go to you now, Pastor Michael Brodd, and I just want you to speak about this whole Build your Own and how the Black Church

No, it's not that easy. And I think you know. I also want to just honor your story since the test.

I hadn't heard that story before, and I appreciate you being vulnerable to share that. I pastor a bunch of black folks who have that story, and I think there's there's too much cavalier throwing around about what people should do and not enough proximity to the people who are every day trying to just make their ends meet. They don't want to be a billionaire. They want three meals to feed their children, a safe neighborhood, and a roof over the head.

That's all they want. They're not trying to be billionaires.

And I think some of what is happening is our people are buying the propaganda of this kind of demonizing of government as if it has not been one of the important ladders out of exclusionary poverty that we as a people. I mean, these are the fights our ancestors literally died for to have access to the wealth of this country that are housed largely in the federal reserve, the federal budget, our tax dollars. Every day we're paying into these pots of money, and every federal job is

You Pa, I appreciate that that's true that a lot of black churches they hire people as well as as you said, you got the minister of music. That's where they get their extra money for the daycare or.

For their family to have a little.

Bit of enjoyment on the week weekends. You know, the person who cleans the church. You know the people who answer the phone on Sundays get a little fifty seventy five dollars.

Like you said, it all makes up a pot. That is what people are sustaining themselves on.

And I think we need all of those things. A Senator Turner, I want you to talk about some of the things that we're doing and some of the I want to say solutions, and will break down what I mean by that in the moment. But before we get there, in the build your own conversation, what we're now talking about is.

People who would be at home.

Right because they don't have a job their tax dollars. At that point, I guess I don't know. I mean, obviously you're gonna still pay taxes. I don't care if it comes from Medicaid and your check and matter of fact, elon must you can't have a welfare check as what do they call public assistance because you're parasite.

So I'm not sure.

But let's just say a person is working at a job and their taxes is they're coming out every month, and then you're still telling them.

Go and build your own. The question I have for you is can they stop paying their taxes?

You don't only want to hear that it was an elected official test were you ever elected?

No, so you are elected official here? Can you just stop paying your taxes?

Because they tell me that in the comments section every day that I need to stop paying taxes.

I need to go and be something else.

I guess I'm more or whatever some other thing, and I could stop paying my taxes. And then, because I'm just trying to understand, if I'm paying my taxes, how am my ware I'm supposed to get the money from to do the building my own? Do I need to strip at night? Like I'm serious too, I'm not even joking, so I could build my own. So I just want to know from you, what's the formula here to get into what these people are talking about.

Well, it's certainly not paying your taxes. Uncle Sam getting his one way or the other. He will come for you eventually. It might not be overnight, but they will get you. So no, that's not an option. And just to be with this old gust panel today does my heart so much joy to be with true freedom fighters.

And to my sister FIGUREO.

I mean, we were on the campaign trail of Senator Bernie Sanders when she lost her mom and she didn't miss a beat. You know, I am in the lost your mama club as well. And it's a hard thing. It doesn't matter how young you are, how seasoned you are, Mama's mean a whole lot in this world.

And when I.

Tell you she did not miss a beat, you're talking about a true soldier. You wouldn't have never known that she lost her mom, and certainly similar what you're going through now, TDM with the loss of Mama Dukes. But I just want to lift her up because she told the absolute truth.

There.

Work for government jobs used to be a virtue, and we let these clowns come in here and make it something that is not.

Virtuous any longer. Federal workers are public servants.

They just not elected public servants, but they are the public servants. The people who work at the Veterans Affairs Administration, the people who work at that Social Security Office, you name it, the person who.

Works at the Post Office, and so on and so forth those.

Departments, they are public servants. And Eli must need to have several seats because he's on the government dole.

He receives corporate wearfare. He is a warfare.

Recipient, and we need to let the world know the difference between him and Big Mama and Big Papa, who may be receiving some assistance.

Because of tax dollars.

It's called a social contract that we put money in a pot But the full fledge attack that Figaro is talking about is primarily on black folks, but there will be a ripple effect for everybody else because when this nation come for black folks, contrary to popular understanding.

And belief, poorer and working class people and barely making it.

Middle class folks get hit too, of all backgrounds, So they need to always watch what's happening to black people. But that is how we got into the middle class, not just on the federal level, but the state level, the local level, and the regional levels of government, because our ancestors fought to make sure that that government at

In defense industry. So black folks got higher.

See, this has been a long journey since they brought a shift our behinds over here to fight for a type of equality and liberation. So we cannot allow an elon musk a President Donald J. Trump or any others of those folks to diminish.

It is not normal for.

Us to look at our sisters and brothers and family and friends who work for government on any level and tell them get a real job or welcome to the private sector.

Why we lowering standards. We need to.

Raise the private sector jobs up to the government level jobs. Black people would not be as cemented in the middle class had it not been for government jobs. And the reason why we're cemented is not by happenstance.

It is because freedom fighters who came.

Before us ensured that at least in one place, we weren't gonna be discriminated against. It's the place where we pay our taxes. Y'all gonna hire some black folks up in here. That is so real, So anyway that you know.

It's two hundred percent right, and it's so unfortunate that our people have been brainwashed by this. They figured out a way to utilize this social media to keep telling us the same thing and make us believe that it's something wrong with us, for one, in what we deserve, what we naturally deserve. And it's such a confused thing, you.

Know, passing.

I want to ask you this question because I do this anti violence work.

I do get violence interruption.

And when we talk about these federal cuts and we talk about all these things that are going to be dismissed, you know, the Safer Communities Act, which had distributed hundreds of millions to anti violence work in the communities, has been cut.

Now, how is that going to affect us?

I mean, it's it's brutal. I mean, you know, we should appreciate that. All the way back in two thousand, Man was a new town. Twenty twelve, a number of US led the largest group of black directly impacted folks the gun violence inside the White House under Obama was asking for six billion dollar commitment to fund community violence intervention or urban gun violence, and Obama didn't even move on it. Biden said he wasn't going to do it. And it took us about ten years just to get

Shot can asen. I want to bring you.

I want you to come in and talk, but I would just want to ask you if you could speak to are we begging? I know y'all already covered it, but I'm asking you directly. Do you feel like what you just heard Past and Mike say sounds like he's begging the government to come and do something to save us what that we could do for ourselves.

You know, we're accessing what we've already paid into. You know a lot of these folks who are talking about stop begging also be asking for cash apps. A lot of these folks who'll be saying stop begging also were making money off use. You know a lot of these folks who are saying stop begging, we are circulating the dollar. And it is called a private public partnership. And if you give a damn about what's happening to the least, we just got to just start naming this for what

Just a quick story.

When after I got done building my own in Orlando with my three hundred employees, and we lost our contract in the volatile private sector, guess who hired me?

In Oklahoma, I went for one year. I was a.

Disability adjudicator at the Department of Oklahoma at the Social Security Administration. Tammy, my very best friend of thirty years, was able to give me a referral to get on that job. Tammy has been suffering. I'm saying this because it is so important to me. Come again, I'm tying in your book with the anxiety and depression people who have been suffering that for a very long time. My best friend can't even stand up for long periods of

My friend is suffering physically.

She was doing an at home job, still doing the best that she could. When we talk about how this is affecting people, to the disabled, to people who were discriminated against my mother being hired at sixty years old, nobody thought she was worthy enough to meka. She wasn't that she didn't want to work. It wasn't that she didn't want to pull herself about the bootstraps. It wasn't that she didn't want to do for self, and it's

Five China's way ahead of us with education. So because of the cuts.

Now with education, we got our teachers who are now working four days a week. What is her recommendation for build her own go start a new school where that takes capital. We got doctor Steve Perry starting schools. But who gonna give them the Capital's right? It requires a government partnership. This ain't begging.

This is about the reality of what it takes to start a hospital.

To start everybody else is doing and everybody this nation are utilizing. Look, it's a pubblic good bro. It's like we ask the black people to do something that no other group of people are being asked to do.

It's ridiculous and that.

And people can't say we don't have businesses because I always say we got to get.

Straight on what we're putting out in the world.

On one hand, we're telling folks that we don't have businesses, we can't get capital, all of that, and then on the next hand we say you gotta shop at Target because my businesses is there.

Either we have the businesses all we don't. It's one thing or the other.

But sit of a turn that when we talk about solutions, we know that there's no one hit that can strike all these things down at one time. There's a there are pieces we've got to build on it. But when we talk about not begging, and you hear Tesling saying that DEI is not just dee I, but it's diversity, the equity, inclusion, and the disability. People have put the A on the end, which is accessibility. So it's covering

Not even debate, because I didn't even see a debate. I just saw Elon Musk, President Musk and co President Trump say diversity, equity, and inclusion out and the companies just start dropping their draws one by one by one by one.

And so I want to hear you talk about the target fast because I know what happens. I've been told that a Caucasian fellow who probably had all the right reasons, put out the one day nobody buy anything.

We didn't put that out.

Also, there's another schedule of boycott Amazon for two weeks, and this for two weeks, and that for two weeks.

We want people to enter the struggle, however they get there.

But we have been very focused that we're taking in one company and looking at the impact that we can have there as a part of how we intend to use our consumer dollars to push back against all of this stuff.

Why don't you.

Talk about that really quickly after this, you know, maybe another question or two, one question for everybody, but please talk about that. Let us know why the target boycott and what can we look for and expect to come of it as we go forward.

There's definitely power in our purchase. So people need to really understand that before I go there. Sister t just got amen, everything that was said ahead of time. When it comes to black people, this country always sacrifices us, and we know this. The original class class the original class clash was chattle slavery, all right, So for those folks who care about class over race or cast shall I say, then, they need to understand in the United States of America, the original.

Class clash was chattel slavery.

So when we think about the Capitol and what is old to black people and why we are not.

On a level playing.

Field, it is by design, it is on purpose. Policy is not immutable. So if this country really wanted to level the plan field and honor social contracts. It would have given us absolutely what it owed us, which was the forty acres and the mule, and it still can give us. They would talk a lot about the debt what is old. Well, the number one debt old in this country is reparations to those who are descendants of enslaved people. That is the number one debt that this

And we built this place. So I want to put that right. If anybody talking about we need to pull ourselves up, and.

We done pulled up the whole joint and still got a beg y'all to do right by us. You know, the great Bayard Rusting One said that this country never has a never will do anything.

Solely for the negro. That is true when he.

Said those words, and it's true today and once we as black people understand that we're.

Gonna maneuver this thing.

There's a book I want to recommend called Faces at the Bottom of the Well written by a great constitutional attorney, by Derek Bell, who just laid it out that this country always gonna be like this. But he didn't say we should not resist. And that's what this is about. It's about setting the record straight and resistant. Part of

He said that specifically, and not just.

Associates and stores, but also people who provide contracts. For example, you can retrofit a Target store that kind of thing two billion dollars over five years, and he said he was going to increase the internal workforce of black people inside those Target stores. He did that, and that was the right thing to do and the right thing to say. I happen to believe that you can do well and

You wouldn't be.

So quickly uncommitted if you were, in fact committed to the fact that diversity, equity and inclusion means something.

It doesn't even benefit black folks the most.

Hello, somebody, it benefits white women more than any other group.

However, it's a path.

So as we we are somebody until freedom of pastor Jamal Brian is involved in this. So many others are like setting the stage for this boycott of target.

We got.

Boycotts have to be specific and they came in until we get what we want. So why I salute the folks who went on the twenty four hour boycott.

The thing is.

I want we want people to get involved, come in where you fit in. We also want them to join this because if I'm doing a twenty four hour boycott, hell, I'm gonna buy my stuff either before or after. What is the long term impact to do these businesses so that they know we not playing games. If we can't move politicians because they answer to their owner donors, then

And then you got, well I was gonna call them mofos.

You got people who don't even have enough intestinal fortitude.

To just just just don't go to Tark.

But we pushing, were pushing. Nevertheless, we're gonna make an example.

I want to.

I want to say this just for the Dude for the Self community, because I I it would be disingenuous if I did not mention this. I did have a conversation, you know, one of our brothers that is leads this Dude for Self, you.

Know, conversation.

I won't say his nagas he's not here to you know, give his own retort, but I will say that we did have a very robust conversation, and I think more conversations like this needs to happen to me because he did explain to me his position that he was not against the things that we're talking about, and I did

Local politics, and so I just told him, you know, I would.

Appreciate if you maybe figure out a way to include it in your conversation, because it's being taken as if you know, you're not considering those things. And he said, you know, those are not the things that I that I'm an expert on, and I said, and I respect that, But he did say he was talking about a long term plan to do for self.

Community talks about a long term plan, and I said, I get that.

I respect that, but I'm talking about what's going on April first, literally April first. So I think I know that this conversation is helpful. I think we need more of it. I've invited him to come to my platform to continue it with, whether it's Instagram, live platform, no platform, you know, whatever it is.

I think these.

Conversations are important because those of us who really are committed to this the right way, I think it's going to show up. We're gonna see in this moment who really about black people and who's really not. So I do want to take leadership to me because I tapped into her leadership because you know, normally I ain't got nothing on it, but I tapped into Tumika's leadership this week, and I did hold the space to at least try

And I think it feeds into this capitalist mondste right that separates us. When you do for self, it doesn't mean you're doing for us right, because I don't want it like as a leader, as someone who wants to see better for my community, better for all of us. I don't want to do for self. I do for self. I never had a problem doing for self. But when I look at the majority of my people and understand that they're not gonna be in rooms, They're not gonna

But it's say, when they tell you what you just need to tell everybody to just step it up.

They should want more. What is your answer?

My answer to that is that, like I said about everything, everybody is not gonna be Lebron James, everybody ain't gonna be Kobe Bryant, right, And the understanding that we were on a team, and if I know that I'm a leader, if I know that the skill set and the reality of my situation is not everybody's, then I have to play a team team ball with them. I gotta make sure that I provide a shot for the two guard

I just can I just quickly say to you know, the insidious part of this whole conversation about do it for yourself being like injected as a delegitimizing of the effort to stay federal jobs, to me, has to be called out as a co intel protactic. I know that it may not be the intent of some folk, but we who know history have to acknowledge that black folk have always been attempting to do for ourselves, and they're.

We built stuff.

We built.

Look, whenever we built Black Wall Street, whenever we built anything that was black wealth centered, the US government literally burned to the ground, bombed, sent white vigilantes and mobs.

So so the idea that you can just create something that's that's just by black people for black people. If we don't have federal civil rights protections at work to protect us from the violence of white vigilantes, doing for yourself is not enough without the protection that we all our ancestors fought for to make sure that when we do do for ourselves, we are not redline, we are not victims of predatory lending and capital and all these other kind of things. And so the conversation has to

The do it yourself?

No, no, no, no, pastor Mike.

And the reason why, I'm just gonna go ahead and name it like I get it as a counter pro tech. But some of this is just bottom line jealousy. Let's just name it for what it is. And I'm just talking about the miserable people in the comments. I'm not talking about the grand scheme of things. Yeah, you know, the bigger thing, I just because I try to That's why I say I'm the hood with I try to talk to every lane and what to be honest, with.

You, pastor Mike.

The people in the comments that are saying, uh, yep, come back down here with us. Some of the oh yeah, the bou leg oh yeah, they just said all those kind of Some of these people again in the comments, are just simply jealous that that cousin went and got a degree, went and got a job, went and made more, and was able to leave a level of poverty, never look back. Maybe they didn't give a cousin two hundred dollars five out, whatever it is. And some of this

Baby. So if these people are.

Coming down where you are, guess what's gonna happen to you. You're gonna go further. See the high argument. You're gonna go further down. We are in a race to the bottom. So if the qualified multiple.

Degree, master's degree, have him.

Self, whoever it is, they got the government job, that now they got to come to the warehouse where they gonna be the supervisor. And that means whatever supervisor job you want it because again, at the end of the day, is still based on skilled education, experience.

All of that.

We are in a hierarchy system. Now you're gonna be pushed out of your job, sirs and ma'ams, and you're gonna be in a lower position. So there is this conversation pastor might between the have and the have nots. The town's are tenth in this the bulet that you can look at my comments when I put it in and say, oh, that's right, the bulet all the people crying about these federal jobs. Is the bulet too bad? They're gonna have to figure it out. They gotta come

I like to be I like the private sector.

But for many people, people are j us that people have had those opportunities past the mike, and they just don't want to see people do well. That's just the honest true. These are the same people that celebrate any time somebody take a loss. They're the first ones pointing now out of booboo because they're they're they're they're thriving off of resentment, and they have folks that follow them that thrive and feed off of that same type of red meat.

Yeah, I agree with you.

When I say cortel pro I'm meaning the tactic to divide us, to ensure that we can't get the momentum necessary to win over the long haul. I'm not suggesting that somebody sitting in the federal government like yeah, but it's just the tactic to divide.

They're more sophisticated.

They don't have to, but they don't need it anymore because we're doing it to ourselves. You know, the box that being my comments, it's amazing, Like I know, I know that they send them there to my comments. It don't even make no sense because it's no reason for you to be here because me and y'all don't think nothing alike.

So it's no need for y'all to have one hundred comments or something. What's ironic to me?

If you have a job and you're solidly in a black middle class, would you not have more liquid income to buy from a to it for yourself?

That's what most people do me all man. My best friend started his store. He started, you know, he started selling clothes out his trunk. He started selling hats. He opened the store, and he worked for the transit every night. He get his benefits. He put his money into the store, and he about to open another restaurant, but he said, I'm gonna keep this job.

Though.

We're making the assumption, yeah, we're making the assumption that some of these people really want people to do for themselves. You know, like when you say, well, wouldn't that we have more access to buy more product? These people A lot of these people are talking they don't have no products to sell.

They want to sit. You know what I'm saying, We acting like that's the real motivation. I'm talking to that group. Now, we all talking to different groups. I'm talking to.

The bottom line, jealous bottom line. They don't have no business to sell. They're not trying to free up no capital, so perp. They just spoken.

That's it. They just bottom lie.

Everybody's gonna sell T shirts, everybody's not gonna sell hats, and everybody's gonna start no damn podcast.

And that's why we and that's why we need our brothers who are not that to understand that they feeding that. That's why we love y'all and y'all can't feed that because they can't wait. They just want they want to see us drown anyway. So when you say that, they utilize that as ways to tear us down and to feed into the negativity. So that's why I just having a conversation. I'm like, brother, we don't kind of agree

I'm especially with you because me and you are not my equal.

You know, I debate with my equals everybody else I teach, and I don't even feel like I want to teach you because you don't want to be taught. You just want to be you know, control oppositions. I just want our brothers to understand don't let them use you.

But I want to call time. I thank y'all so much for coming.

In because we be here O day. I'm just.

Now.

I want I want to I want y'all to come back the next time we invite y'all.

But I do want to say that, you.

Know, I hear you test and I appreciate and I've had many conversations with many of our brothers and Sistern, who said, well, you know, I'm not necessarily well versed in that area. And also, that's not what I'm saying. And so if people took it that way, that's on them, because that's not what I'm saying.

Right.

One of the things that I learned is, you know, when I made the statement about Kamala Harris, I was by TMZ, do you think that Kamla Harris can become president? This is once she was the nominee or once they were elected Biden Harris, and they said. The TMZ person asked me, well, do you believe that she will become president? Because most vice presidents ascend to the president to seat, or at least they tried.

And I said, well, I don't know.

I said, you know, racism is terrible, I said, but sexism can be worse. And when I said that, it went out that Tamika Mallory has said sexism is worse than racism. And I don't know, maybe my words was a little different or whatever, but that was my point. Sexism is worse. And I was speaking because I knew I was talking about a black woman. So it's not like I'm saying white women, the sexism for white women is worse than the racism for all black people.

My point was that as.

A black person, you already got some sahi t you gotta deal with, and then when you add on top of it that she's a woman, now, that creates a whole other another layer of disrespect, so on and so forth challenges. But I noticed that a lot of people heard that what I said, they heard it a certain way, and so I have to take responsibility for the fact that I need to be real clear very much. So what I learned from U test I hear you talk, you break down all the points. You don't really let

You do it.

That's what you do.

And because I didn't do that, I left it open that even people who respect me and love me were contacting me like yo, what you were saying here because I didn't get it.

So we are responsible for what we put in the universe.

And if you see that your words is creat are are creating a certain type of response.

You got to do better. In the way in which you communicate. So if you don't know that what you're doing is making it seem like institutions are the elder institutions have been diminished, or you are diminishing their value. If you don't realize that that's what you're doing, you have to fix that. But I believe that people are real clear on what they're doing, and what is happening is that the rest of us are seeing it and

They have influence online, podcaster, this, that, and the third.

They continuously say things that is a dig.

At the institutions and the organizations and the efforts of our people of the past. And I just want to say for this, for today, nothing that anybody is talking about is a new strategy or a new idea.

Build your own. We already did that.

Invest in community, we did that Montgomery bus boycott. They had Uber before Uber was created. Because how you think they got bull of them. People shuffled back and across the think across the city. Meanwhile, they didn't even have cell phones to be able to do it. We've done all of this stuff before. What I think would be would benefit us best is that every time we get an opportunity in a platform to speak, rather than calling

It's because we built it. I mean Senator Turner already said that we built this entire thing. So to say that we got.

Lazy or we dropped the ball, no, we wouldn't even be sitting here talking about any of this if it were not for the hard work of people who came before us. And I just say, Mama Dukes in her honor.

So rest in peace to her.

And I ain't never heard my ever walk around downing what anyone else has done. She only just took the time to focus on building what she was doing. But we also, to me, we got to add an extra slice of an extra challenge up what's the plan in

Me what we've just do on April.

First, Let's narrow this scope a little bit, because when we ask what's the plan the answer usually is twenty thirty years.

We gotta do this, we gotta do that, we gotta get forty six men on board together.

Let's let's challenge it a little bit and let's talk about what you're gonna do the next thirty days. The next thirty days, I already know, like you said, nothing's new. We already know do this, build on infrastructure, circulate the dollar we need to be No, just tell me what are we gonna do, because I can tell you what I'm doing March thirtieth. I tell what I'm doing April first, I tell what I got on April fifteenth.

Let's just talk about what we're gonna do right now.

And you'll notice that when you ask that, not just what's your plan in the next thirty days, homie, what you're doing the next third day, you'll notice there's no answer.

There's absolutely no answer.

So let's let's let's step it up a little bit and ask for the next ninety day plan, and then let's circle back in ninety days and let's do a review and let's see where everybody's staying with it, because this is how we have to start moving moving forward. We just got to start doing report cards, cards, moving forward, soul.

And let's put im table.

I love y'all so much. Thank you. This has been a wealth of knowledge.

This episode being at the end of our season gets us kicked off for the next season the right way because this graduation.

Y'all winning y'all dope season two.

Congratulations, Congratulations to you guys. Shout out to Black Effect Podcast Network. Charlemagne had the vision to build your own five years in the game, all of us we started right at the beginning of the tooth. I don't mean take over there, but I got a shout out. We got to shout out Charlemagne, who had the ideal when they said, oh, well, why you partner with our heart? Well, many of those people that said you should just build joe own one hundred percent, guess what, they started networks

So shout out to you.

Congratulations guys for being my podcast siblings on the Black and Fed podcast.

I Love you, Love you Pasting night. Thank you so too.

That was an excellent panel, you know, and I knew it would be because the brilliant minds and people who just have perspectives that are elite, you know.

And and Tessant really touched me.

You know.

I speak to Testant all the time.

Tessnan't and me are in chat messages and text messages all the time, and whenever something goes on, she will send me a screenshot. But like look, and then we go back and forth, and then we go in the in and it because we don't just we don't just be talking to each other. We take we take our gripes to the internet.

You know.

She'll tell me when she got a gripe with the situation, she go right on the internet and then she'll send me something that piss me off. And the next thing I know, I do them posted about it, so you know, that's my sister right there.

So with just hearing her passion and just understanding.

The severity of where you know, this federal situation is, and her speaking that passionately about it, like you always hear her speak passion, but I never seen her get teary eyed, you know, speaking about a situation that was that personal for us. So you know, I just want to send our love for her for being that transparent and and choosing our platform to even have that conversation.

I love it.

I appreciate it as well. And I was say that Teslin, as she said, she built her own right, and we built our own from nothing. We started this podcast. We didn't have a Black Effect deal when we started. We made it to Black Effect because they saw what we were doing by.

Ourselves with nothing. Shout out to Patrick.

Had to give her a lot of respect because she's one that noticed us and you know, believed in us and gave us the space. But we've been producing our own podcast even before we joined Black Effect, which God thanked God they came and bless them, and my Lord.

Thank you Jesus.

It was hard to do on our own and it's still a struggle. It's still a struggle. But also, you know, we have businesses I haven't worked for, and I've never really worked for white folks.

I've never I always worked for somebody that built their own.

Law firm, supermarket was the Latino community built their own that I haven't worked yet. The supermarket that was the Latinos, they built their own.

I worked for Macy's in nineteen ninety four. That was the last time I had a job that we didn't build their own.

Yeah.

The law firm that I worked for, Michael Hardy, Shert Wiggan Hardy.

They built their own. Okay.

Then I went to Nan National Action Network built its own.

So I don't know. That's all I know.

But my parents who gave me an opportunity. Both of them collected a check from school servants, and they the ones that put me in a position to be able to build my own.

So this all makes perfect sense to me.

And I'm not you know, I'm not gonna let anybody make us think we're crazy.

But we oh, we ain't crazy.

Man, speaking to thinking own, this is pretty much my I don't get it of the day. You know, I wanted to and It's something I heard a couple of weeks ago, you know, and I hear this a lot, you know, Shout out to doctor Umar's who's somebody I actually respect.

I think he's a brilliant man.

Sometimes he says things that throws me off, and then sometimes he says things but I feel like he hits it.

On the mark.

But this one right here was something that I had to speak of because these are two situations that I personally were involved in. You know, he was talking about gatekeeper. Shout out to my Sarah. Sarah, the kid who is from the Bronx and he's a rapper and he has a podcast, and he was talking to Doctor Umar, and Doctor Umar was talking about black gatekeepers, and you know, he mentioned a lot of names, and all of them I couldn't, you know, speak up because I don't really

And that's just my p Well.

You and I have debated this many times. We've debated it many times. I I feel like, yes, Colin may have reached the settlement with the NFL, but there was still a lot of energy in the fight because it got bigger than that. People started talking about domestic violence issues and lack of ownership with black folks of the different teams, like it grew beyond that. What happened, in my opinion, was that Colin in many ways kind of stepped away to do his own thing. He was really quiet.

Unfortunately, the way that people operate in.

Movements is that most people want the person who is the family of the victim or the person who was harmed or whatever they want to see them. They feel like they could get behind messaging that's coming from that person. You said that it was because after the settlement, Colin kind of had no choice but to accept the agreement and whatever the terms was. I don't know, perhaps it was, but what I noticed from behind the scenes was that and maybe.

That was the beginning of it, is.

That there were a lot of changes happening and a lot of energy or lack of energy.

That was unsaid to the public.

So it's a lot of things that people do not even know what's happening. And I witnessed some of it. You witnessed some of it. A lot of us witness different things. So I don't think that Jay was being a gatekeeper, but I do think that people had the right to question and feel a way when they were in the middle of being like the NFL is canceled and then all of a sudden, j comes out with a deal with the NFL.

What I have been saying is that the.

Resources that they received are part of the deal that they made. Absolutely went to grassroots efforts around the country.

I know it for sure. We saw the numbers.

We know whether it was Parchment Prison or if it was Kansas City, Kansas, other things.

That we've done. Breonna Taylor.

They invested the folks, our people, the Crutcher Foundation and the family there had resources that they were able to get to do work in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

And the list goes on.

A Carmen President in the Gathering for Justice, The list goes on and on and on. The ACLU working on some of the cases of people who have been vindicated and freed they took money from the NFL and applied it and put it towards grassroots groups and other groups that are doing things that we all claim we care about.

But I think for me, I think what I'm saying is this and I'm not saying it doesn't seem what I'm saying is my personal just based off what I ain't know about the situation. Jay Z was not involved to silence the voice of account of Cappin. Jay Z didn't get involved in silence because that's what gatekeepers didn't, Okay, So that's what I'm trying to say. Jay Z got involved with Kala Kaepernick, and he took a knee with him, he wore his jersey, he said that we don't need

I said that I wasn't doing all these things. And I think that after.

Whatever the settlement was with Kalan Kaepernick, a lot of us were left confused.

Now, I don't know if that was jay Z's situation.

Maybe he had a different situation, but I know a lot of us on the front line were frustrated because we didn't know what was going on. All we heard was that there was a settlement, and then whatever direction that Kinen decided to.

Go in, it wasn't.

It wasn't on the same course that we were moving on, and we were sacrificing. I was literally sacrificing things that I didn't even have the sacrifice. So at that point, when he said that jay Z gate Keep and count of Kapniy didn't get to get his job, I said to myself, if I sue my job right and I come with a settlement in a non disclosure, they're not going to let me work there. Again, that's just not how this works. That's just not how it works.

Different.

That's that I agree with you about that, and that's my whole situation.

I kind of feel like history is going to have to tell this story.

I mean, history would have to tell me I'm just I'm telling my story just based off somebody who was out there advocating, who was a starch advocate for Klean Kaepernick. I was everything Klen Kapepernick, and I've seen how it unfolded, and I just want I personally will not allow people to say something that I think is false without me giving my perspective from being in there. I do not

To get to that.

He talked about Ben Crump being Crump is somebody that I know personally who works with these families, who puts so much into it. I've never seen get Bankrump Gate keep anything. I watched Bankrupt's sacrifice. He does the best business or. He is a civil lawyer.

He does not.

Defense attorneys, not a prosecutor. He can't prosecute these cases. Only thing he can do is take the cases and make sure these people are paid for them being the civil injustice that they get.

That's the only thing he can do.

So when he speaks about Ben Trump saying how can he gate keep anything, I've never watched gate bank.

Trump quiet anybody. I watched Ben Crump.

Go out there and speak for the families and say, this is the worst thing we've ever seen. These people need to be compensated. The person needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. So those are two people that he made a statement on that I just wanted to say that I didn't understand it.

I didn't get it, and I didn't believe that.

It was it was warranted that he made those statements about those two individuals.

Okay, I mean I I you know how I feel about Ben's so I don't know. I would love to hear more about what he thinks Ben has done to be a gatekeeper. I mean, Ben's politics is not always the same as doctor Umar's, right, so they, you know, do operate in two different worlds. But from what I have always seen of been, he you know, he always empowers the local community to do whatever they got to do.

In fact, I have literally witnessed.

The White House or and or you know, somebody in the federal government or in Congress calling him like Ben, like you're killing us. Why are you how he is suing us for the farmers, Like you're supposed to be our guy. We invited you to the picnic, and now

I think it's just a narrative, right, just like it's a narrative that Ben loses cases all the time, right, And that's just so crazy because he's not the prosecutor, he's not the defense attorney. So when they say he loses cases, and then you actually look at if you actually look at his documentary and see the amount of cases he's won, I don't really know too many cases that he's actually lost that he's litigated.

It's not too many of them, you know.

So those are these are narratives that are out there because you stand by black people because when the situation happens, right, you're the most prominent face in the most dominant voice, because they know when they see you, they need to

Those individuals, then you don't know.

But I think it be remiss if I didn't speak on behalf of people that situation. I mean, I think I would be if I didn't speak on behalf of individuals that I know and I work with all the time, and I know situations.

So I just wanted to speak to that because I really just didn't get it.

Okay, Okay, So with that said, we at the end of another episode and the end of another season of the TMI Podcast. We appreciate y'all for supporting us and making us the number one podcast in the world. We're just gonna get better and better and better. Thank you to all of the guests who are on this season. We had an amazing season. Shout out to Podcast Central Armine Do for supporting us. Shout out to our fans.

We love you. We're gonna see you next season. We're gonna be bigger and better and make sure.

That you understand that we do have power, and we do love you. And I'm not gonna always be right, Tamika d. Marriage is not gonna always be wrong, but we will both always and always I mean always be authentic, So Louke