Licensed to Ill

forget Chris Quobo helping his brother out pro bo. No. So understand when you see in my face, it's like the trouble on the speaker, see Evaperate when it comes to Rob Muffucker. Seeing op Grate make white boys say, why I gotta be about race? He happening? What's popping? My good people? What my name's dope? Night and we are waiting on reparations. We are back. I had to take a little little load off for Thanksgiving. How was

your Thanksgiving? Happy thanks Giving? Happy Thanksgiving? Happy belated thanks Giving? Um, it was it was good. It was RESTful. I went up to my aunt's house. M My family lives on this compound in the middle of nowhere in North Carolina to my auntie's house. My other auntie lives on the other side of my grandma. Other auntie and cousin live right down the street. And so UM went out there held some babies. UM got very full, UM, and very high. UM.

And it's it was interesting to me. This is the first These are the first years in which I'm reflecting on how fucked up of a holiday. Thanksgiving it like deep, you know, deeply and big graining awareness about like the the new observance of the National Day of Mourning for Indigenous folks on that day. UM, and my family is actually Afro Indigenous. Um, I've known my whole life, but have not really like researched or or at all attempted

to learn about our customs or heritage or history. And so with the passage of a Gigenous People's Day as the first Monday in October, I guess, you know Columbus Day earlier this year, I started thinking about, Um, just like Indigenous life ways and knowledge and how that could be incorporated into you know, policymaking, but also just like what does it mean to try to recover your lost

heritage that it has been erased? UM. And so I sometimes on Wikipedia, uh, just reading about our tribe, the hallowel Sa pony tribe that my family still lives on, like the tribal lands. UM. And yeah, I learned a lot of interesting history. For example, under Jim Crow, Indigenous people were treated the same as black people, disenfranchised from voting, harassed and terrorized in all these ways. UM, there's this

resistance for for the indigenous folks. They wanted I guess we we wanted our own schools, We wanted separate stuff from black people because we didn't want to get lumped in with black people because black people were treated like shit. But even down to like the the birth certificate records and things like that, UM, in this area, like you were either black or white. They didn't even have like

a checkbox for if you were Native American. And so like all these ways that you know, I just assumed I grew up and they just didn't teach me my history. But before that, there's like very systematic erasure of UM our all of our past. Like you couldn't even yeah, you couldn't even check the box to say I am a Native American on a lot of official documents, UM, which is partially why you know, I grew up thinking myself black, and I am black. I'm very black, proud

of my black heritage. But like you know, the the Indians ship got like just totally bulldozed since you rolled generations before I even came along. So anyway, that was a day of reflection on all that stuff for me, and um, I'm looking forward to seeing where I don't know what my study is and like reflection on that take me policy wise and just like personally, it's like peeling back an onion way, Yeah, turned it all over

all the stones. You know, It's like I don't I'm not quite sure what the like just regular Liberian like holiday or festivity is, or even if it even as a holiday. It's just Thanksgiving has always been something that we've celebrated, but never really like the we never really paid any emphasis to like the I guess story of Thanksgiving. It's always just been kind of an excuse and in my household was right family to get together exactly exactly exactly to give it and to give thanks and to

do all that sort of thing. But I don't know that the whole you know, Pilgrims and Indians and the turkey, and it was that was less of an important thing and or less of a thing when I was growing up.

And then I do remember, like, you know, being a kid in the Iced Tea albums, there were a couple of Iced Tea albums where he makes like an explicit reference to Thanksgiving and how he doesn't celebrate it because black people were in chains when they created it and ship and that always stuck with me in the back of my head when I was a kid and just growing up, So like I just always had that sort of feeling that there's something wasn't right about Thanksgiving, so

that by the time I got old enough to you know, learn learn the things, it wasn't really like a shock to me. It was more like, yeah, I knew this

holiday was some bullshit. Yeah, taking turkey was good though. Yeah, speaking of like shocking things, UM in sort of considering what like UM returned to, like Native American stewardship or like incorporation of their practices and like knowledges into governance, looks like I've been learning a lot about the people who used to live in the lands that we now

called Athens, Georgia, where I live. And it turns out that the Muskogee Creek people who have since relocated to Arkansas were a slave owning tribe, were slave owning and Asian. So yeah, they actually, um, they actually owned slaves or like you know, had people that were um yeah, captives that they forced to work. Um, And so either like a warrior based thing or where they like chattel slavey

ote um. This is something we should perhaps do a future episode on because I'm still learning more about what that meant, because I imagine with their different conception of property than you know, the eurocentric white supremacist framing of what property rights are. But it's probably a little bit different than like chattel slavery as we have generally learned

about or conceive of it. I just thought about, like you said, like okay, so it's just okay, So whenever anyone, you know, when you're having like these conversations, right, and obviously it's always you gotta have the caveat of you know, I guess looking at things in the past with the

lens of today and that sort of ship. But like whatever, like motherfucker's you're talking about, Like like if you're talking with somebody who is maybe like a conservative or or Republican or racist or whatever, and they're like, oh, well, you know, this group of people had slaves too, and

that group of people had slaves too. And it's like the explanation that you give when you're arguing with these people is it's like, yeah, but it's not like it's wrong when that person did it, because you know, it wasn't race based and ship and then like you stopped for a second, you think it's like, damn, but it was slavery. It was slavery and it was very wrong

that they did that. And so what does that mean for like when we talk about reparations we talked about when there's you know, increasing discussion of reparations for both

Indigenous and African descendants of slaves. But like, you know, so it you know, that knowledge of that history, it does complicate those conversations and a way that I do hope that folks can like productive work through, because yeah, we gotta you know, we're never gonna well, I don't want think never, it's not it's not something that's gonna

get resolved you know shortly. Well, part of the whole you know, I think part of the most important step to the project of reparations, I guess would be having as many people be informed of the past. Does it really happen? Yeah, you know what I mean, so that you can get that sort of you know, just general social understanding that you know, these wrongs are committed, need to be righted, and all that sort of stuff. You'd be shocked at how many people will that. You probably

wouldn't be shocked. You're and educator. Motherfucker's don't know a lot of stuff like like the you know what the Jimmy Kimmel does the thing where they ask people the questions and ship. Yeah, like that's that's just like indicative of lot more than we would want to would want to think. Yeah, Unfortunately, I'm supposed to be going on in the news today. I got a couple of stories pulled up. You got anything? Um, I'm excited to talk about the things that you, um, you pulled Yeah, things

that have also been on my mind. But yeah, what's on yours? Okay? Well, going from the most important to the least important, I guess, so the two things I got So there has been a new kid on the block in terms of COVID strains. The how do you pronounce O Macron. I feel like I gotta say, I don't know, I just do it in a robot. Yeah, the new Adventurous movie the O Macron strain that the white man is saying started in South now know that, Yeah,

this is such fuckery and ridiculousness. Then then out of confirmation that it originated in Europe or it was in Europe way before they realized they was just identified in South Africa and South the whole of the South African portion of the continent had to suffer as a result, um diaction. Unsurprising, but why I'm surprised that they didn't like just straight up try some ship like that from the very beginning, Like yeah, they were probably like jumping

and waving their hands and waving flags and smoke sigles. Like, bro, we're not saying it came from here. We're just the fucking as well. As I had mentioned in our interview to this coming up, we're just the best epidemiologists in the world because of the HIV AIDS epidemic. Um like, we just happened to have found this first because we're sucking sick with it with our scientific skills. But no, and literally often but nah, man. Yeah, I mean I feel like the like Western media was, it was always

eager to jump on. You know, it's funny that Trump got so bland basket for that like ship whole country comment. He was just saying, well, a lot of people were thinking, you know what I means, excuse me? You know what I mean, like in policy like policymaking, they might not say it out loud, but it's like indicating a similar orientation towards this whole fucking continent. Yeah. I think I think that's like the that is like the brand of the Republicans. Now you heard about that ship with Lauren

Bobert and the is homophobic. Yeah, so yeah, I mean it's like ship like that, Like it doesn't matter what punishment that they do to her or whatever as far as in the RAI because ters and they're like, oh, the Liberals are trying to silence me. Can you give five dollars today? If you if you watch that tape, like people in the room, we're laughing, you know what I'm saying. And first it was like nervously so, but then once they look around, it's like oh yeah, no, yeah,

we're all yeah, we're all pieces of ship. In here, Okay, it's safe, and then the voters, her voters are with that. Ship. Republican voters are with that. So you're absolutely right when when Trump says something like ship the whole countries, it's not some gasping thing like I can't believe he said that, because, in honesty, fucking at least seventy billion people in America think that way too. And what to me, um, conjurs, is that if that's what they're willing to say in public,

what are they saying in private? Like it's deeply concerning, Like that scares the ship out of me, Like I didn't imagine what their private conversations are, Like, Uh, why do you think Trump doesn't want them to get the records? I know, I know, I know people think it's for the January six ship, but I think it's more than that. I think if they get the White House records of the Trump years, more and words than the new two Chains album. Yeah yeah, who dark Times, Dark Times? But

rays of Sunshine? What happened to Chris Plomo? Oh word? Okay, so yeah that was the in the unimportant half, I guess um. Chris Como was suspended indefinitely by CN for trying to help his brother in the midst of his sexual harassment allegations now, which I just feel like I'm gonna keep it real with you, folks. I don't know exactly how he helped his brother in doing this. He like when he was getting like sources for news stories, he was like letting his brother know, like yo, this

person and said this and it was out in sources. Yeah, yeah, like about you and stuff like that. Yeah. And then also the other way around, like coordinating I believe, like spin like, hey, you like trying to like what we knew what was going on, and the whole time to be frank, because like he was covering for him, and there's stuff that you would expect, you know what I'm saying, Like, I mean, there was a natural like at least for me.

I mean I don't really watch Chris Homo or follow it, but just knowing that their brothers and one a journalists and one was a politician, for me, there's just like you know, there's like a built in amount of corruption, automatic corruption. So it's like for me, it's just like a big Okay, dude's probably gonna help his brother show for brother, and you know, seeing and knew that and so what's happening. Probably should have suspended them immediately without malice.

But yeah, they probably should have at least taken him

off the air until taken them off. Yeah whatever. Anyway, It's like, I mean, you could pick any journalists you want, but like I know and Anderson Cooper's uh families, like you know, they're they're they're rich and famous and ship and it's like, yeah, if like something happened with Anderson Cooper's family, you would just expect that the dudes coverage would now be compromise, even even if he's got the integrity to be like, no, I'm not gonna help my family.

I'm not gonna blah blah. I'm gonna call it down the middle. As the employer, you've got to make that executive decision to be like all right, like why don't you just let you sit back until this ship is done, go collect your check, and we're just gonna take They make the decision to hold these people accountable when they get when they get caught, it's being put complicit in

the corruption by like this is probably going on. We're not gonna say anything because you know, people love people love this anchor, but that's expect it's probably going on. I was like, what's the daisy. We got caught not censoring them or not like holding them accountable, So now we got to you to cover our own guts. Yeah.

But I mean even even with that though, I mean, it's like that's outing sources and ship is not what I'm talking What I'm talking about, I'm talking about more like underhanded ship, you know what I mean, Like give favorable coverage or I'll cover the story in this way.

That's the sort of ship that I would expect. But if motherfucker's is like yo, such as such as writing this about you, yo, such and such as came to the CNN office, is to drop it, Like if you're out in the sources and ship, that's a step away from mafia ship. Yeah, like you know what I mean, if the Trump administration was doing that, I would be

all over them. So fun these dudes. But I did call it a little way of sunshine because at least something, at least there's some accountability because generally when there's just media moufie, since nothing happens, no one should never be able to get another journalism job. If that's the case. Motherfucker's gonna start a sub stack and get a bunch of subscribers who love his chiseled jaw. And yeah he's

gonna only fans, isn't ship Like yeah, okay, legit. I would probably subscribe to that because it's not that it's not you know. But yeah, now you shouldn't do journalism anymore. All right, So what do we got going on today? So we opened talking about omicron um and this continuing crisis of public health that we are still facing, as well as public policy and reaction to public health challenges, you know, with the travel ban on South African countries, etcetera.

So I thought it was appropriate this week to speak with a public health practitioner. So we're gonna talk a little bit about what public health is, UM, how it manifests in like practice, in local um, local contexts UM, and a little bit of just like hip hop obviously because you tune in a way, no reparations. So let's get on into it. This is demontem. We'll be right

back with that after the job, all right. So today I I'm here with this Monte Dismute, host of a Dope public health podcast, which I had the pleasure of joining UM a couple of weeks ago this Monte. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. How are you? I've been fabulous except for you know, having a slight little code UM today. But UM, speaking

of you know, being sick, I feel like UM. With the coronavirus pandemic, which I don't think I've a rona, but you know, thinking about UM things like viruses and things like that. You know, the pandemic has brought public health into mainstream conversation in a way that I don't think has ever been true before in our lifetimes. But still, folks may have a limited scope of understanding about what public health can mean. So I wondered if you could tell us what public health is to you and describe

your own public health practice. Sure? Absolutely so, like to me, like in a nutshell public health. The way I described it to people is like, okay, well, just think about you as an individual and all the things that make you you, so whether that be uh, your physical health, um, your environment, all those things. So basically, so if we start from an individual, then we go up in the air like in the drone. Then we get to looking at society as a whole. So, now it's hot, how

are all of these people doing? And how do these behaviors dictate how we're moving throughout society? And do we need to encourage certain things to help people make healthier decisions or or do we need to you know, you know, encourage certain type of behavior. So, in a nutshell, basically public health is just that overall, how are we doing as a people? Yeah? So I think that gives us a good h foundation for what public health can mean. But could you talk a little about your own practice

as a public health practitioner? Sure? Absolutely, So what I do um for a living in addition to my podcast as I oversee a program for youth ages eighteen two twenty one that age at a foster care So you're like, okay, um, my program runs off of what we call five pillars of stability. The organization that I work for is UH Well Point Care Network UH formerly known as Saint A. So essentially our five pillars of stability are housing, education, employment,

caring connections, and health. If all of those things are addressed with the youth that we serve, then they have a more optimal opportunity to live in healthier life and because they age out the faults or care system. UM. You know, this program exists to allow folks to just trying to level that playing field. So there's just certain things like UM tuition UM scholarships that are available. That's

something we call a Brighter Star scholarship. And folks can get UM five thou dollars towards their education, housing assistance up to three a month. So we are literally hearing all of those different things, and the five pillars of stability pretty much mirror UM, you know, the World Health Organization Social Determinants of Health. Yeah, that's what I got thinking about UM when we talk about like a healthy future.

I think that particularly well for me and other folks UM that have become who who have had their consciousness raised through last Summer's uprising, starting to think about and and the pandemic as well, started to think about health in a in a broader way. Like you brought up housing and your housing, and we have heard the refrain a lot of housing is healthcare because you can't shelter in place if you don't have a place to go, and things like that. So I wonder, I wonder when

you talk about a healthier future. Are you looking specifically at like physical health indices or or does that extend to like behavioral or is it a is it a absolutely even broader than that and thinking about just like

health like healthier life outcomes in terms of self actualization. Yes, it's it's actually yes, the big picture of just healthier life outcomes and in that kind of like you know, you look at you know, sometimes we collaborate with other countries and we try to do things like alleviating UM diseases. So like, if you think about it, certain things that we have, um, you know that we're popular when we were younger are just no longer a thing due to

the advances of medicine. So um. But then broadening that scope to make sure that okay, well can we make a healthier planet? So you know, but it's all broken down to you know who members in leadership in that particular location. Mm hmmm. And so what has your interaction been with I guess the leaders in your location around

issues of public health. Do you find that, um, your representatives at the state of local level are being responsive to what your understanding and your UM what the needs that you've identified through your work about how we can approach public health both in like a physical health um understanding, but a broader understanding as well. Yeah so, and that's a great question. And I think I just so happened to be in the right place after you're you're in Milwaukee, correct, Yeah, yeah, yeah,

I'm located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. And you know, so I collaborated the Department of Children and Families, which is more like a governmental issue, I mean entity, but you know, and that's how I'm able to to oversee my program.

But then we have you know, county supervisor, you know, like David Crowley who yeah, yeah, so yeah, So I facilitated a public health panel back in August, and it was so cool having him on the panel because when he's talking, he literally within the first sixty seconds he mentioned social determinants health. So having amazing leaders like him um leading the charge, I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time because he hears what,

you know, what what's needed in the community. That's good to hear because as in my role wasn't elected official here on the local level. When I bring up as we spoke about on your podcast, I believe the fact that like the c DC is now identified gun violence as a as a public health UH crisis, a public health issue, or when I bring up UM, you know, youth development then as an avenue to improve UM public

health outcomes by ending gun violence. So some of my peers is particularly like older folks prep more moderate folks. It's it can sound like, well, you're just twisting UM, you know, science or whatever to like to match your beliefs, when really it sounds like like in the world of public health as well, you know, as I understand it as someone that doesn't practice but does interpret UM public

health understandings and findings to inform my work. UM, this is actually more like you know, the state of the state of UM the field at this point of understand looking at these social determinants of health and so UM we definitely as a country and then many localities have face struggles with mashing what we understand from science and what we understand from experts to our actual UM practice

as in governance. It's all I'm happy to hear that UM, in your setting, you found UM a lot of help, a lot of UM positive interactions with the folks that are making those decisions for the community. Yeah, and I mean,

and we have an uphill battle. I mean, and I'm doing everything that I can, so I want to which is why I wanted to start my podcast, but it's also to Um, you know, there's a lot of different things going on in for example, in the city of Milwaukee, that we need to address these things on the public health level. And like you know, I'm sure you've heard, you know, with your practice, Like there's this push not in just wiscontent, but throughout the country evidence based policy.

So it's like, you know, like you said, folks can say you're twisting it, but if you look at the data and look at the research, it's it's evidence based. Yeah, And it's so hard to get people, it's surprisingly difficult to get people to like consider evidence based practices. Like there's so many, so many practices that are just um ingrained in us, either the media or just what we

grew up with. And so that's what you know, what we expect and what we put push forward, this continuation of stuff that just like doesn't have any sort of scientific backing. Um. I definitely, I think I think it's true of many many kinds of government, both local and

even at the federal level. UM. That people really struggle, you know, even even you know democrats sometimes say like, oh, we believe in science, but like what science, like y'all you know, and how is that actually impacting um, the decisions you make UM at times not not everybody is always like up with it or just like you know,

engaging with like the data and like wow. And that's such a great point because when you think about, you know, the last roughly two years now was what we've been going through with this pandemic, you can so different governments are making different decisions in regards to you know, lockdown and this or that, and when you look at it from a public health lends, it's like those leaders are making decisions based on evidence as opposed to based on

emotion on economy. And it's really interesting when you can just take a step back and look, oh, wow, they made that decision and they were able to you know, alleviate this, you know, the severity of the virus in that area versus this group is really like, well, to hell with it, We're gonna do our things. So it's just very very interesting, and that that's literally all public health because we're trying to push towards you know, a

healthier community so we can all truly go back outside. Yeah, and so this actually makes me think of like what's going on right now with like the omicron Um coronavirus that been posed this this lockdown, this travel band from all these South African countries, despite the fact that the variants been found in Israel and Belgium and Ireland and

many uh, white Western countries. And so in the name of public health, you know, we're making we're making decisions that perhaps aren't actually are actually more informed by emotion or even some racial animists more so than um facts about like you know, what is actually a threat to

to the health of our communities at times? Absolutely, and you know, like like you know, the information that I've been able to get my hands on this far, it's so new that it's just like well, everybody's learning and you know, but some of the things that like this the scientists are saying already is just that this probably is everywhere already and now we've identified it, right, it was identified in South Africa because they have the best

epidemiologists in the world, because of the AIDS in HIV epidemic, it's my understanding, and so they were able to track it down even though it's probably everywhere already. Yeah, and it's just like you said, it's it's some people are making decisions based on emotion, others are making it based on science. Yeah. We talked a lot about I'm sorry,

go for it. And the last thing I'll add it is like when you think about certain things, it's just it makes you kind of think like, well, there's a lot of other things that we're deciding and we're you know, doing because of our personal interests as well. So it's like, yeah, it's a it's a tough tough spot. Yeah, for sure.

We talked a lot about the science of public health, but the World Health Organization also defines public health as the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society. So um, I have been increasingly, like you know, looking at the data, looking at evidence based practices, trying to inform my governance and policymaking. But I'm interested in this idea of public health being in art. Do you see that in your

practice at all or your understanding of public health? And if so, aware and how I see it as an art because I don't think that there's um, you know, it's just so tough as far as perfection, Like, you know, we could come to solutions a lot of different ways, and like kind of having that artists background is like just getting people to understand it's more like it's trying

to convey that information. And I just truly believe that that that's that's an art form, you know, just trying to inform and help, you know, shape and mold behaviors with honesty and like, you know, truly with the people's best interests. I think that that's in art form for sure.

I mean it makes sense to me that if a part of the effort is promoting health, that then is it is an act of communication, of communicating to people you know, what will keep them healthy and will keep them safe, which you know, language is an art form, you know, communicating effectively is an art form um to a certain extent. So that makes that makes a lot of sense to me. But I'm glad that we kind of shifted to talking about the arts because you have

somewhat of an artistic background as well. Is that right? Absolutely? Yeah, I talked us a little bit about that, so I really am a student of and I even tell my kids, I'm like, I am the I'm part of the first generation of hip hop. I wear that. I wear that proudly. UM. And hip hop has influenced everything that I do. UM, how I lead, how I um? You know, a fellowship. It's it's all in this, you know, under this umbrella of hip hop. And I just think about the power

of hip hop. You know, there are other entities and organizations that have done some amazing things and creating social change, but hip hop is up there as well. Yeah, So talk to me about the role you see hip hop playing and making systemic change. Yeah. I think it's um. Maybe because I was born into it, it seems like it's always been there. I think what we're seeing lesson less of is maybe folks in the mainstream talking about things.

But then we have you know, people like Kendrick Bamar who are very you know, they're informing, as is J Cole. And but I go back to like groups like Boogie Dawn Productions because he's like cares one Common and you know so many public enemy where they they have this um. They were conveying the stories of their their neighborhood, which basically is conveying the stories of the conditions in which they live in. That's public health. That's public health all day.

So and I think that's where I think look at it as an art form for sure. Yeah, there's that consciousness raising aspect to it that I think is an important precursor. Yeah, and I think, you know, I don't think it's every artist's responsibility to do that, um, but I always feel that there's always the right ones that are doing it that can help. Galvani has changed, So it just seems like it's just this responsibility that you know, every ten plus years or so, MC's past that torch

and and it's always woven in within hip hop. Are you talking about being born into hip hop, particularly being in the first generation, because now we've had several you know, there's there's um, you know, the second generation. I guess probably on third or fourth at this point. Hip hops around for what fifty years? Um, So what do you think? So what to you does being born into hip hop as like a first generation hip hoper mean? And what

was that for you? To me, it's everything because growing up African American, like I don't, you know, I can do the twenty three and me, and it says like, oh wow, like you're thirty something present Nigerian. But it's like, but I don't have that direct connection to my Nigerian Andrew and Scestry, so like, and then I can look at other folks and you can see, oh wow, that's um.

You can see that culture. Hip hop was the first culture I was able to see and be a part of, and it's actually mine, not one that was like that we had to assimilate to. Mm hmm. Yeah, that's powerful. That's powerful. Um. In watching successive generations who are themselves also born into hip hop, but maybe taking it up in new ways, what has that been like for you? I think it's been amazing because some of the things that I've been saying with some of the younger artists

have been blowing my mind. And and I mean that in a great way. Um. And what I say by that is um um. So for example, an artist like Uh Corday or also when you think about um essence, just Uh had like multiple covers Uh of Moan Biles and and Naomi and he was there calling it radical self care into me. I'm like, they not only do they get it, they're they're so open with their expression of of being their best selves. So I find it

to be amazing with with the newer artists today. Yeah, I definitely think we're UM becoming a more conclusive community though by you know, steps forward and steps back with the kinds of truths that people are able to express in their music UM, whereas previous generations UM may have had, you know, struggles with coherently tackling and deeply tackling things like depression or homosexuality and things like that. UM for sure.

But it's interesting you bring up self care. It would be really interested to hear your perspective as a public health practitioner about UM. Self care is becoming increasingly mainstream and I think at times opted by UM corporate like corporate forces, just like, oh, self care is buying this bath bomb, or you have to take this expensive ski

trip to Aspen, UM and things like that. So where do you see self care fitting into your practice or you know, what you try to instill in your UM in the populations you work with, and what do you think some of the barriers that people face UM that you work with as well. UM. I would say I think it's it's so important in it. And like I was facilitating my first first conference, Um, I think back in September, and I went around the room and I asked people about self care, and one person gave the

most honest answer. She was like, I'm still trying to figure it out and get it. I don't really understand it yet, I know what I'm supposed to say. And to me, that was just so powerful because I'm like, it has been become this cliche thing, so I'm trying to take the cliche away from it. It's one of the things that we discussed in our meetings all the time, and and and now I just say with my team, are you doing what you said you were going to do to take care of yourself? So that's kind of like,

you know, how how I go about leading. In the second part of your question again, um, I think the second part of barriers that people face, I think you started to touch on that where you counter clients or populations you work with that people just don't even know how to begin to confront that question of what they

need and how they get get there. And and I agree with that because when you um the barriers for like the youth that I serve would be you know, internet connectivity could help self care, but I don't live in an area that has WiFi, nor can I afford it, So we say these self care things. But music is my thing. So this is how I felt sooth I listened to music. Well, these are some of the barriers and folks that you know, young youth, did I serve their their face with when they tell me demante this

is they give me the reel. So that allows me to do what we can to try to help, like you know, not for example, I think it was recently released, like Oprah donated, um, I forget the exact dollar, and I think twenty dollars or something to our organization just to make sure you've had access to things like WiFi

throughout the pandemic. Yeah. Wow, I mean that's so interesting the ways that we think about, particularly the issue of internet access that's impacting education, ability for people and get jobs.

But I didn't even think about the fact that, like I probably probably know about self care because of the Internet of seeing tweets about it or seeing something on Instagram, let alone like being able to get on Spotify and listen to my favorite music on a walk or something like that as a way to um to undertake self care and the ways that that could serve as a as a barrier. Also absolutely, because there's all these meditation

apps and things. Yeah. Yeah, I listened to like bird sounds when I go to sleep at night because I have wife thought in the house. You know, stuff like that for sure. Um. So getting back to you know,

public health, particularly the WHO definition we discussed earlier. Talking about public health, it's the organized efforts of society, which to me, it sounds like they're talking about collaboration in the sense and if you think, for example, um um, an example that I think is readily accessible to all of us. During the pandemic we talked about early on flattening the curve by wearing masks, social distancing and the like.

They were meant to be collaborative efforts like I protect you and you protect me, but we seem to struggle with that as a society. So can you talk to us about the power of collaboration both in public health and in community service more broadly? Yeah, because into me, they go hand in hand. That's a you know, when we're talking about different communities making different decisions for their society, which helped, you know, help them flatten the curve faster

than a country such as the United States. Meanwhile, there was a lot of back and forth with you know a lot of people that made big decisions about how do we collaborate. So, you know, I just think it's it's just so important that like collaboration is everything because we have like we were talking about evidence space practices, right, but if you're not really working with communities that need these things met, how evidence space is that research? So

to help society get better. You know, I understand that researchers make the big books, and you know, other folks that fall under this epidemiologist and all and things like that. However, the people in the communities in which we are trying to serve are also just as important. So if we don't collaborate, then we'll continue to have this power struggle and this authoritative view on public health. And it's like, yeah, I understand, you're smart, but let me teach you how

my people roll. For example, I mean, being black and so many things that I ate growing up that like and now, like I eat a primary primarily plant based diet, and it's like that was a cultural shift for my family. So I feel like collaboration is like the number one

thing that will help really advance this this field. Yeah, and I I love that you brought up, you know, collaboration with communities, between scientists and researchers and like the folks living in you know, like living the impacts of public policy and the impacts of organized efforts of society to advanced health um particularly resonates in my own experience as a scholar that you know, I'm out here as community organizer and workingmmunity center, phone cook apps, all this stuff.

And as a pH d student, I have a lot of my colleagues that want to do community based research but just don't have the connections. So they come to be like, oh, how do we get in, Like how do we recruit people to do this or that study?

But there's such resistance, particularly in you know, African American communities, because of the way that science has been sort of like harvested from these communities without anything given back, like oh, we got this data or you know, you look at even an example like the story of like Henrietta Lacks, where like ourselves were just taken and use for research

and you know, without her permission, etcetera, etcetera. All all this history of science sort of being a very extractive and exploitative People don't trust you when you show up to say, hey, we you know, we're trying to we're trying to do the study or that study. Um, do you think the field of public health is reckoning with this adequately at this point in time? Honestly, I feel like it's too early to to say. I know, like back in you know, Wisconsin, you know here the Public

Health Association day declared racism of public health crisis. Um. You know, however, it just seems it's so tough to say because it's like, well, we need more public health practitioners that look like us. So I think, um, you know, I think the jury is out on that because you know, through you know, throughout the last two years, how many times have we heard folks response just they just say to ski. But I'm like, I'm like, yeah, but I

know people that look like us and that are researchers. Now, yeah, I've heard oftentimes that like the visibility of scientists that are doing this this work could be helpful in in spashing some of that stigma. Um, but the jury is still loud. I think those relationships take a really long time to form, and those and that history takes a

long time to absolve, um, or to be absolved. So hopefully, hopefully we'll see you know, if these changes are happening and not in this in this particular field that I think holds a lot of power. Um. I should have asked you this at the beginning, but perhaps I will now ask you this to close out. Um, how did you get into public health in the first place. I think I just kind of fell into it. Um, you know my mental health guy love mental health. Excuse me,

but um. But then I was like I was working with youth, working with mental health, and but then it was like there was a disconnect. And part of the disconnect was therapist didn't look like the kids that we served. And as I got promoted the young men that I work with, I started to see less and less of an impact. But I thought, well, if I can get promoted, I can help more young men that look like me. So long story short, I ended up saying that you know,

it's out to be something bigger. So I ended up I've taken like I'm my degrees on hold right now.

But I'm I've taken like six seven MPH classes and essentially that's that's what our society needs and not just so happened to be overseeing this program where I got a promotion and I now oversee this program for you to age out, And I just feel like it was like a destiny kind of thing because you know, these social determinative health I work with them every day with one of the most vulnerable populations, you know, in my

in my city. M hm. Um. Earlier, you said something I thought was interesting, you love mental health, which I think is like sort of I mean makes sense who who was? Mental health is way important? But how did you get to that point of loving mental health? Um?

I think it became with UM. So, like one of the things that I experienced is I was going to UM school for Human Resources and I was working as a recruiter and I talked about this on like one of my first podcast, but like, I didn't like how I was being treated by cops when I was driving out to the suburb. So I literally switched my major

from human resources to human services management. And and when I started when I got my degree, I got my first drop as a care coordinator for an entity call to wrap around Milwaukee, and it was just like I was able to help young people make better outcomes and normalize these different feelings in these different emotions. You know. Now it's kind of like it's more publicly acceptable, But back when I started in like two thousand and eight, not many black men in the community we're talking, we're

even talking about mental health. So I think that's what made me fall in love with it because I'm like, well, if I can be one of the people in my city talking about this and trying to do right by my community, like I mean, it's it resonated with me because I feel like I'm one of those people that you know, I try to normalize, like things like therapy.

Mm hmm. We had a recent episode on mental health and how it's addressed in hip hop, and we discussed some of the structural barriers to accessing mental health support. You know, our system of insurance and shortage of doctors, you know, therapists most up color, but just in the field for broadly because of it's just not the most lucrative kind of doctor you can be. For um, where do you think some of the other what do you think are some of the other barriers to accessing mental

health support, including cultural stigmas in the community. Where does all that come from? Yeah, I think it's a lot of a lot of the issue with the barriers is just because you know, again, can I trust this person who's so supposedly an expert. Yeah, that's something I don't think we got to but yeah, just trusting is like really so you know, and I think, you know, if you look at the stats, like the last time I looked, African American people seek therapy like maybe like one third

of the amount of folks that are white. And it's just because culturally we've just been raised to tough it out or pray pray through it, not not knowing that there could have been some some schizophrenia and play, which is why Uncle so and so behave that way. So I think it's really really opening up the eyes to uh, you know us as an African American community, so we can be kind too, take that healing another step for sure. Yeah, that trust is really important and like hard to build,

um for sure. And it's in the distrust is warranted again based on just the history of of health and science and black people in this country. Um, and yeah, I guess, yeah, we do have this culture and this something we also somehow didn't touch on in that episode. If it's like being hard, it's value. It's being really tough and being able to weather it all um is is val valorized. And I think that's that also extends

to broader culture as well. I mean, I think just like a capitalist society, you're supposed to just work and work and expend yourself limitlessly, um just because that's what we're expected to do, but particularly so in black communities, that then gives rise I guess to you know, gun violence, organized crime, interpersonal you know, in domestic violence, things like that,

which themselves are additional um public health issues. People aren't showing up at the yard with gunshot wounds or you know, dealing with toxic stress from living in a in an abusive household, things like that. Yeah, And I think it's it's some of those. It's one of those things that like part of my you know, one of my roles is I used to have to go to court because I work with young men that were judy kid. You know,

something happened and they got charged. But then convincing the judges that we're making decisions that keep feeding this pipeline to prison was an uphill battle because going in front of the judge saying no, it's actually because of this diagnosis, these are some behaviors that aligned with that. However, with the support of services, we can help this young black man as in like instead of you sending him away

exactly exactly, Well, it's all the questions I had. Is there anything else that we didn't touch on that you want to talk about? No, I just I just really appreciate um the collaboration, just in in in the spirit of it, I mean, being able to kind of catch you doing your thing when you presented, you know, at a someone on poverty in Milwaukee. You know that right there, just saying I'm like, wow it is It's a good feeling to see that there are other people fighting this

good fight. So, you know, just I I appreciate you and extending that hand in collaboration because if we can continue in form each other, we can help our communities even more. Amen. Amen to that. Well, thank you so much for being here. Dsmante. Where can we find you and learn more about your work in their and their media? Absolutely so you can find me. Just adult public health podcast. Um, pretty much on all social media platforms. That's where you can learn about what I'm doing and how I want

to amplify the voices of public health practitioners. So you can definitely find me there. Um you can actually you know, listen to the podcast and and provide feedback and you know, let's just keep this thing going and helping our communities become better and better. Amazing. Thank you so much, man, No problem. Hey, we are back. We are back, and we are closing it out today with a little preview of things to come. Next week, we're gonna be talking

about Dick Gregory mac who's the Greig Gury. I I know him because he was like a vegetarian activist, but I didn't realize he had a very storied history otherwise. Oh yeah, Dick Gregory is a famous African American comedian, political activists. He even ran for office a couple of times. I think he ran for president, like I think back in the sixties and shop like that. So we're talking a little bit about that. Yeah, we're we're chat about him.

Uh don't we have an interview coming up with Yeah, so um soon we're gonna have on my esteemed tell me Aaron Thorpe Um, who was a brilliant writer and political thinker. UM, gonna talk to us about retroism and the sense of futurelessness that drives this like nostalgia, UM trend with media, with fashion, etcetera. The sense that like millennials and gen z feel like we don't have a

fucking future. So we reached back in time to like, you know, kick the nineteen eighties looking T shirt or like watch Stranger Things and things like that, because we don't believe there's anything ahead of us. So we're gonna talk a little bit about that and it's and what it means for hip hop UM as well coming out

very excited for that. So I checked Twitter and found that across the state of Georgia, progressive swept conservative incumbents out there seats in mass and so, in preparation for discussing that next week, I've got to break it off a little some right now. That motherfucker's thought that Georgia was Virginia Dania. And that is why I've never cared for your opinion in the way, since we'd be winning

when the people who have held the power lookout. But the Renchester are reaching themselves and selved in our communities. But who would think that we let them renew the seas instead of the electrics and fresh seat out the junior League. If you believe in, but in organize and do what dutifully, then you can leave. That's the lesson from Tuesday Leaves. I'm Lingua, frank Gun. We are waiting

on reparations. Listen to Waiting on Reparations on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts