An Army of Normal Folks - Antong Lucky: If You Lead for Evil, Imagine What You Could Do For Good (Pt 2)

Episode Date: September 17, 2024

As a teenager, Antong founded the Dallas Blood gang and ran the city’s roughest streets. This inevitably landed Antong in prison, where a man told him that if he could lead for evil, imagine what he could do for good. He now leads Urban Specialists, which has transformed the lives of 819 OGs like himself. Support the show: https://www.normalfolks.us/premiumSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks and we continue now with part two of our conversation with Anton Lucky right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors. We're just days away from our 2024 iHeartio Music Festival, presented by Capital One. The biggest headliners in live music will be taking over T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas. Plus some special surprises and moments you are not going to want to miss. Stream only on Hulu. The iHeartRadio Music Festival.

And listen on iHeartRadio. The most anticipated live music event of the year. This Friday and Saturday, starting at 10.30 p.m. Eastern, 7.30 Pacific. The most anticipated live music event of the year. This Friday and Saturday, starting at 10.30 PM Eastern, 7.30 Pacific. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer

Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful self-made businessperson in America. I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called the coiffure a la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin.

But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this.

Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. Its tradition is culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12 episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre.

And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar. Santos. Santos. Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks?

And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star

Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play a family man former NFL player devout Christian now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest I am Going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite I got swept up in Kabir's journey But this was only the beginning

in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, voila, you got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible.

Listen to Spiral on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm going to tee this up for you, but I'm going to say to you what I've heard before. When the police put the blue lights on you in your car and you pull over and you don't do anything wrong and you don't have any drugs and you don't have a gun on you and you ain't got a warrant, you got nothing to worry about. You're going to get a ticket. But when you run, you should expect to get your kicked. Right. It's a surprise.

I want you to understand. I'm playing devil's advocate here. Okay. I get where you're going. Likewise, there's no justification for the officers our tax dollars pay for to protect and serve our communities to lie and trump up charges against somebody that don't exist. There's no, no, there's no excusing that. But that stuff would have never happened to you

had you not been in that life anyway. I understand that. So, so, so. So I'm teeing it up for you. Yeah, yeah. Devil's advocate. I got you. But I'm gonna tell you something.

There's a whole lot of folks that are sitting there listening to us right now, they're doing this, nodding their head going, you tell them Bill, cause that's real. I'm telling you, there's a whole lot of folks that think what I just think. I do get, now Bill, I do get that a lot of the choices I made put me in that position, but I still don't, I digress that is there's still not justification for an officer to break the

law, to enforce the law. I tell you listeners that they can, you can, it's no justification. If you catch a person did wrong, right. And they broke the law, that person has to, that person has to own up for that and be accountable for that. But under no point, I don't care who the person is, what's their background is. Nobody should, anytime I text out a pay for an officer to break the law, to enforce the law. Wouldn't you agree on that?

Or do you think at some points it's justifiable to break the law, to enforce the law? I 100% agree with you. Okay. But I think it's important that we take a minute to talk about those notions because they're real. Yeah, they are. All right. And I'm gonna tell you something else. In a society where the news cycle continues to show us hordes of people rushing Nordstroms and running out with with racks of clothes. We see Walgreens shutting down in parts of Oakland and other parts because they can't even operate from the crime.

We see repeated pictures of car thefts and car jackings and all that's going on in the world. and carjackings and all that's going on in the world, there is a snapback pendulum effect in a certain segment of our society that unrighteously will sometimes justify those actions as a means of quote, getting control. I'm telling you, I don't agree with that. Right. But there's people on listen to us right now that might, and I want you to tell them why we can't succumb to that.

Right, right. I totally divert on that and I totally, you know, my thought is this, right? The eroding trust that exists during and against with community and law enforcement is because when we succumb to those types of notions where we suspend the law in the interest of our subjectivity or whatever we think it is. Our quote safety. Our safety, right? Yeah, that's the, that's the term. That's not right. That's at no point, Bill, should somebody say, man, this cause that's Bill and man, maybe he does a podcast.

He says some stuff on that podcast that I don't like that I'm a, why he's sitting in here, I'm going to put some drugs in his car. And then when he go down the street, you know, my friend as a police officer gonna pull him over and now we gonna, we gonna stick him. That's not right. Now, if, now, if, now, if Bill, if, if Bill pull off from here and Bill have his own drugs in the car, illegal drugs in the car, that he did, whatever you do with it, and they catch you dirty,

then Bill got to deal with that. But I will be the first one to defend bill if that's it the former situation happened. I'd be saying that's not right and I'd be on the front lines saying that it's not right because we can't never suspend that. We can't suspend law and order in the interest of public safety. Law and order is what promotes public safety, is what ensures public safety, not the other way around. One minute, Alex, here's my keys. Would you go watch my car for me? That just freaked

me out a little bit. All right. Just kidding. No, John, just- So what I want to say to you is, it also, in my opinion, if there's any inkling and an opportunity to rehabilitate those that are breaking the law, if they know in their mind and hearts of hearts that the very law that's got them locked up is corrupt, why even try to rehabilitate? Yes. So we actually, through those actions,

we actually are a partied to perpetuation of chronic lawlessness. Man, man, man, man. You hit that on a note. of chronic lawlessness. Man, man, man, man. You hit that on the nose. You hit that right on the nose. We are party to the perpetuation of lawlessness. When we do stuff like that.

When we do stuff like that. If justice, if true justice law and order in its most pure sense is not promoted because I think, I think crime is an issue that we all care about and we all want to see out of our society, et cetera, et cetera. Even those who probably been convicted of crime, the downtime for crime, those who live in communities full of crime, we all, that's something that's a, that's don't discriminate against people, race,

whatever. I think we all want that. And I think what makes us safer, what is when we have a legal system that is no discriminant discrimination of people and law that law law stands on his own. Right. And so we have to always promote that. We got to always push that, you know, and sometimes it don't feel good because again, we see these images that we see on the nightly news, day in and day out,

we never stop to think what, what do those images does to our subconscious? How does it influence us to think? We don't never think about how the algorithms influence us to think, because if I click on a video and it shows me something, I only have to define it. The algorithm is going to continue to show me that from all over the country.

And then we never stopped to think about how do that purge you our perception. And I think our job as American citizens is to always, you know, do a background check on what goes into our minds. We're going to pick up chronologically for your story to get where we're going. You said you were going to get us back. We're going there. And we're going to pick up where your daughter was born

and you in jail, which irony of irony is no different than you when you were infant and your dad went to jail. So we're gonna get to that because I think that's a great place, but I got to say one more thing. Okay. Because we've already talked about two societal conversations that people struggle with.

And I want you to hear me, I genuinely think people on all sides, now you got your 10% on one side, your 10% on the other side that are just ridiculous. I ain't got time for either of them. But the 80% in the middle may be on two different sides of a conversation, but I genuinely think they're all looking

for the same outcome. It's just trying to get there. I agree. All right. And we've talked about two of them. The third one I wanna talk about is, were those officers white or black? They were black.

I did not know that. I know you probably assumed that they were white, but they were black. No. Yeah. I'm gonna tell you something what I used to assume. Yeah. I think a lot of people would have that they were white, but they were... No. I'm going to tell you something what I used to assume. I think a lot of people would have assumed they're white, especially in Dallas. But I think the reforms that our society has got to get its arms around in terms of police and the work you're doing now, which is a quick spoiler, but we're going to get to it. All of that. I think there was

a time that by and large they were seen as racial. By and large, they were seen as black and brown people being kept down by a largely white police force. Right, right. But I'm gonna tell you something. One of the worst things to happen in this city about a year and a half ago happened to Tyree Nichols. I followed that case.

Okay, Tyree Nichols ran from the police, got pulled over, ran from the police. Tyree Nichols was into skateboarding and photography. Had a family that loved him. He didn't have some long criminal record. He wasn't a banger, he wasn't none of that. Why in the hell he got pulled over and ran from the police, I don't know.

But he did. I probably can't know. But he did. I probably can surmise why he did. He was scared. He was scared. I understand all that. It's the algorithm, it's the- I get it, I understand, but he ran for the police. It's that.

Well, they caught him, and they beat the hell out of him till he died. And then the paramedic showed up and kinda flopped his body around and said, here man, have some water. You need to sit up and breathe. You're going to be all right. And the man and the young man died. They killed him. Every officer was African-American. And I will tell you,

we're into a cultural issue that surpasses what used to be considered a racial issue. Do you agree with that? Yep, I do. That's a black gang banger talking that. Yeah, no, I do. I do. I would, I would, uh, I was the first, uh, when I, when I was following that case, uh, I was,

I was one of the first hollering for, um, a full accountability for that, you know, because I'm, you know, I'm just about furnace. So full accountability for that, you know, and that was before I even knew the nationality of the officer, that was full accountability. When I heard this story, when I, when the story broke, I didn't know what color anybody was.

Before I even knew the nationality, I was saying full accountability, just based on the facts. And because,, going back to what we said earlier, that at least what I'm saying is, he ran, he was scared for whatever reasons, whatever reason, whatever happened. And he should have got, he should have got cuffed for running and then respectfully taken care of. Yeah, but not a death sentence.

No, hell no. He shouldn't be taken care of. Yeah, but not a death sentence. No, hell no. He shouldn't be careful. He should even got one knuckle bump. Look, coming from the streets and the hood, I knew, right, it's intuitive. We know this, like, you run for the police, you gonna get your butt kicked, you'll get your ass kicked.

That's expected. Look, you know how many times I got roughed up by the police? Can I tell you something for real? You know how many times I got roughed up by the police? Can I be real with you? How many men are gonna turn the fair about that? Let me be real with you though? I ain't never gonna turn around about that. Let me be real with you. Because I accepted that.

I'm white as white is. Yeah. All right, when I was a kid, where I grew up, if I run from police, I was gonna get my butt kicked. We knew that. We knew that. But what I'm saying is that ain't a black thing. That's just so you run from the police,

you're gonna get your ass kicked. Yeah, yeah, that's that. That's that. But you don't deserve to die. Yeah, you don't deserve to die. But you get roughed up a little bit and that's okay. You know, but I'd have been roughed up. But it didn't make me, because I see it.

I just think it's interesting to understand that dynamic than only a couple of decades. Urban police departments are now predominantly or not predominantly, they have a greater percentage of black and brown officers than they do white. And this stuff keeps going on. Yeah, it's culture. It's cultural.

It's culture, no doubt about it. And we got to get past being defensive of one side or the other because of the color they are. We need to start recognizing this is a cultural ill. It's a cultural thing. Bill, look, I do police training, right? So imagine me- You ain't supposed to be talking about that. And look, look, look, I do police training to your point, right? And it's interesting, right? Because I have my assistant go in and on a power, on a projector, she will put, it's a picture of me and my white prison white suit. And then they got my bio next to it, right? And I would,

I would do this intentionally. I have her to go in, set it up, and I sit outside for five minutes. By the time I walk in the room, cause it's about addressing implicit biases, right? The class. So by the time I walk in the room, all the white officers, they ready that Ole Miss on your shirt, right? Before I even talk, I can feel the tension.

Like who in the hell let this guy in? Right? Because the assumption is that it's gonna be antagonistic, it's gonna be a black line, Madden is gonna be against the police, except that's the assumption going in. Halfway through, I can feel the tension doing this as I'm talking.

Because it's not antagonistic, it's not no agenda against police. It don't, you know, it's none of that. It's none of the stuff that they think is going to be, but I'm making sense to them. I'm telling the same thing I'm telling you. We got to check the information going out here. We got to understand the algorithms and blah, blah, blah.

That is not, it's not racial stuff. It's all this stuff is increased fear. That's been fed to us by looking at it over and over and over and over again. So by time the end of the end of the, uh, the class all these officers who were looking at me with some cold stirs, right? And face red as mug is coming up to me and tear a sand, man, we got to work together. See,

that's the whole point I'm trying to get to with all this stuff. And we're going to pick up next where you left off. But it is so obvious to me the last 20 years of my life and the work that I've done that when we drop the preconceived notions that race is driving all this and start to understand it's a cultural race is driving all this and start to understand it's a cultural and societal thing is when we start to have chances to change. We're on the same page with that. We own the same page. I have a, uh,

I have this turn called redemptive activism, right? Where it's where it's basically saying that we have to be able to see the good. We have to be able to give people, we have to understand redemption, right? Person, place, or thing. We can't have a condemnation mindset. Most of the time in this society, it's a condemnation mindset.

I look at you and I condemn you based off whatever. I was in Vegas speaking at the sheriff there and they had the sheriff come in. He the head sheriff now, Kevin Mcmahon. That's my guy, my guy, a hundred grand. But when I first met him, right, he walked in, he had this, you know, Vegas got them Brown Polis two songs and I looked at him, he got the Sandy Brown hair. And before he said a word, I said, man, that dude, that racist as hell.

I know. I say, I said, I don't want that races his head. I know. I see. This is about two or three years ago. Not about four years ago. I said, that dude races his head. I can just look at him and tell you that's my mind thinking. Right. And when he, when he taught, when he spoke, right, I was like those offices. I was just telling you about, right.

And I had went up to him and I said, I said, I said, I said, I said, Kevin, sir, I gotta apologize. So he looked at me. I said, man, before you said a word, I said you were probably the most racist mother. Yeah. I said, I apologize, man. And me and him, me and him been locked in every sense, man. But that's how we do, you know.

You've been interviewed from a white boy from the South with an Ole Miss shirt on, so you better watch yourself. All right. So now, yeah, but we do that as Herman beings. We judge and we condemn just based off preconceived notion. We got to get past it. We'll be right back. Going to want to miss. Stream only on Hulu. The iHeartRadio Music Festival. And listen on iHeartRadio.

The most anticipated live music event of the year. This Friday and Saturday, starting at 10 30 p.m. Eastern, 7 30 Pacific. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate

to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America. I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called the coiffure à la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin.

But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre.

It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. Its tradition is culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12 episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar.

Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up.

In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite.

I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila, you got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiral on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains

so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more, because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts, or and you got a baby. Yeah. Go from there.

All right. I had made a commitment to myself that I wasn't going to leave my, I didn't want my daughter to feel what I felt because my father's way that didn't feel good. And I felt like I lost that. I lost that when I got sentenced. But I went to jail being very self-introspective. Because when the judge sentenced me, he said I was a minister of society, right? And I didn't understand that. In my mind, I said, In my mind I said, how did you go from a talented and gifted student to your life speeding out ahead and speeding out to a judge saying you're a minister of society? How did that happen?

I really wanted to know the answer to that. I was led back to the hold and said, when I looked at my mother and seen the disgust that she had in her face, because she felt like she failed me, that was on my mind. My daughter was on my mind. My daughter was like, I was like, man, she's gonna feel what I felt and how I felt. And I wouldn't wish that on no kid. So I got to prison with that in my mind. Early in my sentence, man, I was coming out to chat hall, thinking about

having these thoughts because when I got to prison, all of the inmates were looking to me, they were cheering when I came in because they said I'm from the, I'm from the, I'm from the run everything, you know, I'm from the lead. They was, they wanted me to be your OG blood. So we started this and now it didn't grew and then grown. So here I'm coming in as I'm like a celebration, but they don't know that I'm thinking about my daughter. I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm introspective right now. I'm, I'm doing a whole bunch of thinking. And so luckily for me, I was coming out the child hall. Uh,

I remember it was August of 1997. It was hot too. It was like 115 degrees when I was coming out. This older inmate walked- Spring Dallas day. Ooh, it was hot. 115. 115, so it was 130 in the dorms. This brother walked up to me, he was older than me,

and he said, this was the exact conversation. He said, hey little brother, I need to holler at you. And in prison, when somebody said, hey little brother, I want to holler at you, you know, you got to figure out what that means. Cause that's normal. That could mean a lot of different things. That could mean a whole bunch of stuff, right?

So I got, immediately I got on the defense and he said, now, now he said, little brother, let me, let me just talk to you. He said, he said, man, I've been paying attention. I've been watching you. He said, all these men in this prison, they paying homage to you. They falling out of place.

They do whatever you ask them to do. I've been watching you. He said, look, little brother, cause I was probably, I was 19, 20. He had to be 30. He said, if you have the ability to lead these guys to do wrong, he said, little brother, you got the ability to lead them to do right.

He said, you're a leader. And when he said that, you got to understand my mindset at 19, 20 years old. And this guy, I'm in first time in prison. I ain't been here long and what I'm dealing with. And he say that to me. He said, he'd been watching me and this and that. Then he said, you're a leader. And when he said that it resonated with me, right?

It resonated because my grandfather had once told me that. My grandfather had once told me that I didn't understand, but it resonated for some reason with what my grandfather said many, many, many years early, early on. And when he said that, it kind of opened my eyes. And then he began to, you know, that relationship, he started to mentor me.

He started to give me books to read. You know, he started me on this quest to read. What books? He gave me a lot of books. And I read Victor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, Nathan McCall, Malcolm X, Struck, I read everything under the sun. I read every-

That's interesting, because Malcolm X, Yeah, I read everything under the sun. I read every- That's interesting, cause Malcolm X, Yeah, I look- The prison thing. The whole prison thing, Malcolm changed his name, Detroit Reddy changed his whole situation, blah, blah, blah, hold on y'all. So I was, I was, I was inspired by that. So I started reading.

And so look, I started reading so much, they had this volunteer, not a chaplain, but a librarian. I'll never forget it. She was a little bitty, short white lady that was a volunteer. She wanted to stay an employee. I came to the library so much, me and her became good friends, right?

We would just talk about life. We just talked. She saw something in me, right? And she was encouraging me, she was encouraging me, she motivated me. Now I'm in prison doing this. So much so that whenever the prison got new books, she would send for me first,

allow me to get first dibs, pick out what I want, before she put it out for the rest of the prison. That's how close we got, uh, in those conversations, man. And I read like probably over 14, 1500 books the whole time I was in prison. How many years? I did four years. Four. Yeah.

I made, so from the time I'm, I met Willie Ray Fleming, August of 1997, until I got, until I got released. What was your charge? That charge that that officer sent me in for possession with the intent, possession with the intent to deliver that charge. What was your sentence? Oh, they gave me seven years. And you got out in four.

I got out in four. Yeah. But I may. So you had four years to read and reflect. That's all I did. That's all I did. I, from the day I met Willie prison became college for me. I cannot believe you're saying that we interviewed ironically enough from Las Vegas. Yeah. A guy named John Ponder. That's my guy. I know John. I'm on his board. Okay. Well it's funny because the guy that you thought was a racist probably is

close to John. Okay. Well, they, yeah, I made a new job. Small world. Army and normal folks, man. It's just anyway, he, he said that, uh, that, that, that federal penitentiary was, was his Bible college. Man. And the penitentiary for you was college. Look, I would be literally, anybody who's locked up with me during that time,

they'll bear witness to this. I would have five, six, seven, eight books at the table. The brothers would have to come pull me from the table and say, man, you're gonna bust your brain. You gotta give it a break. And I wait all day, all I do in the street. Big head. Big head.

All I'm doing in the street. But look, I'm gonna tell you, look. Look, in prison, and I'm not kidding you now, Bill, I was in prison. This is the birth of this work, right? I was in prison. As I was educating myself, I realized a lot of stuff that I didn't know.

So I had this insatiable cure to go find it out. I didn't want to not know something. So that led me down a lot of paths. It led me reading everything under the sun. And as I started to educate myself, I started to see differently, right? And then I started seeing the similarity of the brothers in here.

You know, a lot of everybody in here, they dropped out of school, they had these same kind of situations in their life. Except I started seeing that stuff, right? And so the prison is segregated. It's very, you know, Blacks, white, Mexican, segregated. You can't mix. And I used to say to myself like, this is crazy.

We can change this, right? So look, I was fortunate enough to have some money on my books. This is the birth of this work. I was fortunate enough to have some money on my books. This, this the birth of this work. I fortunate enough as I started reading, I started realizing all the stuff I was wrong. I started being accountable for everything I've done. Just like you said, I wasn't mad that the police put the drugs on me. I had to accept the fact that I put myself in that situation that caused me,

I accepted all that. Right. And so I started saying, man, I got to educate these other brothers. Right. And so I had money on my books. So at night when I spread, that's when we had a big bucket of food, we ain't eating at the child house because nobody liked the child food. It was customary for you to throw it away, right?

You just eat with the people you with. And I didn't like that. I didn't understand that. You know, because I'm different now. So when we would finish our food, we got a whole bucket. I will take the food, make bowls and go around the dorm to the people who were unfortunate enough to make stoke. Hey, and ain't nobody turn down the food, not no spread that you made.

So I would just feed people. I would just feed people. That was against prison norms, right? But it's my stuff. I can do it. I want to do it. And so through that, was against prison norms, right? But it's my stuff, I can do what I want to do. And so through that, I started meeting people, right? And namely, I talk about this in my book, which I think is perfect for this podcast,

is I met this guy who was the, he was a high ranking member of the Aryan Nation. Oh, the Aryan Nation. Right. So now look. Y'all ain't even supposed to be looking at me. You ain't supposed to be talking, right? We'll be right back. by Capital One. The biggest headliners in live music will be taking over T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas.

Plus, some special surprises and moments you are not going to want to miss. Stream only on Hulu. The iHeartRadio Music Festival. And listen on iHeartRadio. The most anticipated live music event of the year. This Friday and Saturday, starting at 10.30 p.m. Eastern, 7.30 Pacific.

We think of Franklin as the dodging dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful self-made business person in America. I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person.

He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called the coiffure a la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it. Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast, Inner Cosmos, which recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does

your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more because the more we know about what's running under the hood Better we can steer our lives Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions Listen to inner cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts It was December 2019 when the story blew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

It was December 2019 when the story blew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith

and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiral'd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance. Its tradition is culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12 episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre.

And I'm your host Santos Escobar, the emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind

the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my cultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Ain't nobody going to, if you ain't got money on your books, you not turning down no food, not no food you just seeing somebody make that they come from a store, commissary. So I do this. I would do this to everybody. Hey man, hey, hey, hey, get different people, you know, Crips getting them food and it just started the conversation. Cause the first thing was kind of they were skeptical.

But then after a while they saw like they was watching me and saying that that was my heart. So I started talking to the A-Ring guy, right? Take his name was Jeff and his brother had bald head, skin head, tattoos from he had all of his head, skin head, tattoos from, he had all of his head, all of his face, he had swastikas, lightning bolts, all that good stuff. But I'm educated now, so I don't judge him based off what I see on him, cause now I know differently now,

so I don't judge him off that. So we used to have conversation, right? We sit in the back of the day room, I remember cause my people that knew me from my neighborhood and all that, I remember the eyes, how they used to look at us when we used to be in a corner. We'd be in full conversation, talking, da da da.

This is my friend now. And they would be looking at me like, what the hell, Anton? What the hell are you doing back there talking to me? What with other white dudes looking at you too? Vice versa. But we had me- There goes the neighborhood.

Yeah. Yeah. You know some people can't get over that. Some people, he got lightning bolts on him. He got swastika. I said, I don't mean that. I don't mean that. But what I learned from those conversations, right,

was just like I was saying earlier, man, when I was a kid and I had to put on these layers, see when I had to become a gang member and all that stuff in my mind as a kid, I felt like I was protecting the little boy inside of me from a very, very, very harsh environment. So I had to be, I had to amputate my personality, be what it said. I'll go inside of me just like when the judge said you're a menace in my mind I was saying, but judge you understand that's not really who I am. I'm really a

good person. I just had to do that to survive in my neighborhood. That was going on in my head because in my mind that's the duality I'm talking about. That's not really who we are. How many people in jail today? Do you think deal with that same duality? I think it's a lot of people deal with that. They just not articulated enough to articulate that, but they all deal with it. Right. They all deal with the exact same thing. That's what I found out talking to my Aaron brother. When I, when we started having a conversation, I feel like I understood that we cared

about the same stuff that we want no different. And I realized that he put all those tattoos on him cause he was trying to protect the little boy inside of him. He didn't hate black people. He just had the, this is what he had to do to protect him so he can get his stuff back out to his family. And that was some, that information, right? That opened my eyes to a lot of stuff. So I stopped looking at people based off of these preconceived notions that we

were just talking about. I started looking at people, I started looking deeper into people. So when I started doing it, that the Crip dude who I was probably shooting at, he's probably shooting at me now. Look at him the same. I don't look at him based on his moniker, his label. I'm, now I'm looking for the little boy that's inside of him and I'm connecting with that person. See, cause you can't hide that person. We all got that. We all put on these titles. We all put on these monikas. We all put on this stuff cause we just trying to protect the little boy inside

of us. But if somebody connect with the little boy and say, it's okay to come on out. It's okay. I understand. Do you see different? Do you see the humanity in people. You can begin to see the humanity in all people when you can look, like you just said, you look past the preconceived notions. We all have been conditioned to look at people through the eyes of those preconceived notions. We constantly look at the news every night and you constantly see black people on the news doing this, or you constantly seeing some Trump stuff stuff and that becomes who we become. We become that.

But deep down in beside that's not who we are. That's just some stuff we packed on to be accepted into whatever we is no different than me trying to be accepted into the gang or to the neighborhood. Then people being accepted into these ideologies and these ideas is not who we are as human beings. It's really not. And we have to pull back from that. We got to come back from down that path and start getting in touch with humanity. When we get in touch with humanity, then we not judging, we not condemning, we not doing that.

We trying to look for ways to understand redemption and transformation, understand people hard and we see in past what the media and what people have projected for us to see. I hear the man talking to me right now and I have a hard time. I'm having a difficult time in my mind. Minds I see in an 18 year old banging. I know you got in the scrapes where you beat the hell out of somebody or they beat the hell out of you in prison or the hell out of you. In prison?

Or before prison, when you're in the street. I have, I've been in a situation like that, but in prison, I was fortunate enough, I didn't have that problem. I'm talking about before. Before? Yeah. I mean, if you had friends getting shot

and people shooting at each other and everything else. But I'm gonna tell you, when that stuff was happening, my conscious was still intact. See, I can remember, I can remember times that I, that I prevented people from getting killed. Like literally I did because only because my conscious was intact. I had my, I never see for me, I just put the clothes on, but the clothes never became me.

I have some friends who, who put the clothes on and it became who they are. They lost theyself. They never regained back. Can you regain that back once that's happened? I guess you can. You can. You can regain that. You can regain it.

I never lost conscious. I was just, in my mind, I was just wearing this suit. Other than full on sociopaths. Other than full on sociopaths. Other than full on sociopaths different. I'm saying forget that. There's full on sociopaths are just evil. Right. We ain't talking about them.

Again, that's the 10%. We talking about the 80%. I'm talking about the 80% of the ones. We talking about the 80% of the others. That are in jail right now. You honestly believe with everything in regards to what they done and how hardened the streets have been that that little boy is still inside everybody. Man, listen, I go into the prison right today as we speak.

I was just in the prison May 21st taking a prosecutor down there to speak to some brothers, something that ain't never been done. And it dawned on me. I said brothers, May 21st, 1997, I got sentenced by a prosecutor. 24 years later, here I got sentenced by a prosecutor. 24 years later, here I am standing with a prosecutor just done done me to deliver y'all a message of change. Right? I talked to a lot of brothers in prison. I do.

My daughter, she go with me. I talk to those brothers and I can see the little boy in them. You feel me? I can cut through the BS and get to the boy. And I see that, see, they just hadn't been, nobody has been brave enough to say the stuff that I say I'm brave enough to say it. I was, I denounced my gang while I was in prison.

That's something you just don't, I wouldn't advise nobody that looking back in hindsight, but I denounced my gang while I was in prison because I said to myself, and that's it. I said to myself, if I was crazy enough to represent this and it could have took my life, then I'm going to be just as crazy representing this, even if it has to take my life. I'm doing something right. I denounced my gang in prison. I'm just brave enough to say this stuff, right?

But I believe, I really believe it's a lot of brothers it's a lot of sisters who are incarcerated who are not as articulate but they that's not who they are they just need somebody to say to the little boy and little girl and them come on it's okay. What's the name of the place you did time? BDO 1, George BDO 1, Maximum Security Unit. BDO 1? BDO 1. So you graduate from the University of BDO 1,, George BDO1 unit, maximum security unit. BDO1. BDO1. So you graduate from the University of BDO1,

the four year degree. Yes indeed, in psychology with a mind in philosophy. I got it. Yeah. And then tell me how you got from that to urban specialists. Man, I started to work in prison right before I got out of the prison. I had this idea that I said I want to go back to my neighborhood with this new information. It was kind of like Plato in the Republic. We talked

about the cave and he said the one dude who escaped and come back to the cave and he trying to convince the people who never left. Hey man, these things that we got proficient in naming, I understand a real form. I understand they're, you know, the real, that's me. I'm that guy. I'm that guy. He said, imagine if you, just for point of order, you evoked Plato in this conversation. Well done, sir. I'm that guy. I went, I went back into the cave. So my, my, I looked at myself as going back into the cave to those people that's bound and saying,

look, what we got proficient at, that ain't what it is. I'm talking about the streets. I'm talking about this. You got good at the streets. We got good at the streets. Yeah, but it's like hitting you up and killing you. This is not mainstream society. It's bad information.

It don't lead to any destruction and death. Let me take you to mainstream society. Let me show you how to be a asset and a productive and a tax paying citizen. Let me, let me show you what they look like because they told us wrong. They gave us some wrong information. I'm here to tell you here. You I'm Paul Rivera. Hey, y'all got the wrong information.

I'm trying to wake you up right now. The British coming. So listen, so that's me right now. That's me to the neighborhoods right now. So I'm waking people up saying, Hey, listen, listen, it's okay to come on this side, right? And so to your question, so I said to myself, I'm gonna go back to my neighborhood

and make sure young people don't choose or have that duality, uh, be able to articulate that in a way that people understand it and represent and stand up for these individuals, redemption and transformation. And so I was released and I never forget when I was released, the brothers told me, they said, man, you're going to go back to the neighborhood. It's, it's in the numbers. You're going to go back. You're going to receive, you're going to come back to prison probably two years because you're

going to have an X on your back. You're not going to pay to get it. 83% of people leave prison do in our country. Right. They say you're going to accept in Las Vegas because of John Ponder. Yes. They say you're going to come back. You're going to, you're going to blah, blah, blah. Cause you got an X on your back. And I looked them dudes in the eyes without blinking. I said, man, if the X is what get me out of opportunities, I'm going to spend the rest of my life making the X be what get me opportunities.

And I left prison and I never looked back. I connected with, uh, Omar Jawa. We did the first gang peace treaty in my neighborhood, Frazier courts. And from that we began to work in the schools. We worked in a juvenile department. We worked in every facet of community that you can think of hiring, getting people hired, working with baby mama, baby dad. We did everything right to fast forward to now. Well, hang on. Okay.

Omar founded Urban Specialists. Yes. And then he passed. Yes. And then you became the president. Yes. One of the most smartest, uh, impact, tell me about him, son, uh, perceptive in the old mom was only three years older than me. And when I met him, he had so much wisdom. And how did you meet him? I met him because, um, I was in a day room and he came on in the day room when I was in prison in my

neighborhood, Frazier courts. I was in the day room and he came on in the day room when I was in prison in my neighbor, Frasier Court. And he was with two of my cousins who was in the gang with me, who started the gang with me. And he was talking about gang intervention. The sound of his voice and what he was saying was in tune with what was happening to me in prison, right? I identified the sound. And so I wrote my cousin and said, man,

whoever that guy that y'all with on the news, connect me to him. Whoever that guy is. Whoever he is, connect, cause he in the right vein. But see, I didn't know at the time they were telling him, hey, if you want to do anything in this neighborhood, you got to get with our cousin.

They were talking about me in prison. And they didn't know I was going to come out. They didn't know what I was doing in prison because I had shut down the outside world and was really focusing on my transformation. They didn't know I was doing this stuff. And so when me and Omar met, he was telling me about what he planned to do

and his ideas and all that good stuff. And it was the same cadence. And I gave him some I typed up in prison and he read it. I remember he did just like this. He looked over at me, read some more and he looked over at me. I didn't know him, he didn't know me. We used the exact same words to describe

what we were doing, identical. And he looked at me and he said, he said, ain't no need to recreate no where, let's go to work. He taught me, he was the first person, he was the second person who believed in me as a person, right? Regardless to what I had been through.

The first one was the man that met you in the child hall. Exactly, he was the first one to say, you have value regardless of what you've been through, your past. Omar was the free world edition of the guy that I met at the child hall who said to me, you have value regardless of what you've been through. And that was different, right?

And he really believed that he really, it was just that touch. It was that information. It was that wisdom that he had. That in the lessons that I learned riding with him, 21 years shotgun and us talking every single day about how to better our community. Our conversations for 21 years about how to build a community, how to better people,

how to increase relations, et cetera, et cetera. So in short, at the beginning, urban specialists is really about gang intervention. Gang intervention. To get young men to think about things a different way. Right. Using people with lived experience, using the OGs. Using the OGs. Using the OGs.

We were training OGs to say, look, you got influence. If you get yourself together, you can change a generation of young people. You guys- Because they're following you. You guys even negotiated a truce between the blood and the Crips, right? Yeah, we did. We had over 200, well, 270 young people who signed a gang peace treaty, who was at war with each other. We'll be right back. We're just days away from our 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival, presided by Capital One. We'll be right back. on Hulu. The iHeartRadio Music Festival. And listen on iHeartRadio. The most anticipated

live music event of the year. This Friday and Saturday starting at 10 30 p.m. Eastern, 7 30 Pacific. We think of Franklin as the doddering dude flying a kite in the rain, but those experiments are the most important scientific discoveries of the time. I'm Evan Ratliff. Last season, we tackled the ingenuity of Elon Musk with biographer Walter Isaacson. This time, we're diving into the story of Benjamin Franklin, another genius who's desperate to be dusted off from history. His media empire makes him the most successful

self-made business person in America. I mean, he was never early to bed and early to rise type person. He's enormously famous. Women start wearing their hair in what was called the coiffure a la Franklin. And who's more relevant now than ever. The only other person who could have possibly been the first president would have been Benjamin Franklin. But he's too old and wants Washington to do it.

Listen to On Benjamin Franklin with Walter Isaacson on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packer star Kabir Vajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. Hey, GB, explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play.

A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest. I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning in a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron

and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church and a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked, voila, you got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that we liked. Voila, you got straight away. I felt like I was living in North Korea, but worse, if that's possible. Listen to Spiral'd on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

Its tradition is culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12 episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history

behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Kultura podcast network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman from the podcast Inner Cosmos, which

recently hit the number one science podcast in America. I'm a neuroscientist at Stanford, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. We're looking at a whole new series of episodes this season to understand why and how our lives look the way they do. Why does your memory drift so much? Why is it so hard to keep a secret? When should you not trust your intuition? Why do brains so easily fall for magic tricks? And why do they love conspiracy theories? I'm hitting these questions and hundreds more,

because the more we know about what's running under the hood, the better we can steer our lives. Join me weekly to explore the relationship between your brain and your life by digging into unexpected questions. Listen to Inner Cosmos with David Eagleman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So Omar passes. You call him Bishop Omar. Is his name Bishop or is it Bishop of title?

Yeah, Bishop of title. He was Omar when I first met him. But as he started growing in the ministry, he's because he was a path. He was a you pastor. I came a pastor and then came a bishop. All right. Yeah. So you took over. Mm hmm. Still kept doing these things, but then,

what I think is phenomenal, you met Eddie Garcia. Oh yeah. And to me, this is the magic of all of it. Man, Eddie Garcia, Chief Eddie Garcia, let me put some respect on his name. He is the man, man. He's one of the best police chiefs in the country right now. He's the police chief in Dallas.

He's the police chief in Dallas. When he came to Dallas, he came to Dallas right when Omar passed. And so I didn't ever meet him. Um, he had went around and met a lot of organizations who were doing the work, who they told them doing the work. But when, when Omar passed, I kind of took a sabbatical. I was kind of, I was grieving. So I was off the scene dealing with that, right? Cause that was really tough on me. And so when I finally came back up for error, me and chief chief Eddie Garcia, we met and we met, it was good.

It was good conversation. Um, and, and, and he told some friends, city leaders, he don't think I know, but he told some people, he said, why y'all never told me about Anton Gluck and Urban Special. Like, why y'all keep that from me, right? Here's a quote from him. Yeah. When he was trying to figure you out.

Yeah. You said, "'Lawlessness, no matter where it's found, "'cannot be tolerated. "'Whether it's an officer with a gun and a badge "'or a gang member with a gun and a rag, "'we have to hold them all accountable.' "'From there, I was all ears to what he had to say,'

says Chief Garcia." Can you tell me about that day? Oh yeah, that was, cause I was telling Chief Mann that at the end of the day, it's about accountability for everybody. Because I think all too often when community members connect with law enforcement, they come from a slanted anti-police perspective,

and they can also be seen as covering and condoning for the people who commit crimes, break the law in our neighborhood. I want to be emphatic with Chief that I'm on the side of safety, of law and order, public safety, that I don't make no excuses and I don't cover for people who break the law. They must be held accountable. And that has to transcend across the board with officers that will. And I said, well, when you do that,

when you have a standard that says, we hold everybody accountable if they break the law. Going back to what I just told you about my story, we hold anybody accountable that breaks the law. We gotta hold them accountable. It sets a procedure and it sets a standard that wins you trust between all the people who want to do right on this side of the aisle and all the people that want to do right on

this side of that. Because it's people, contrary to popular belief, in neighborhoods who want criminals and people who commit crime prosecuted just as much as the people on this side. Oftentimes, their voices don't get heard. And so it's my job to represent them because at the height of George Floyd, my neighborhood did surveys in four neighborhoods. We did over 2000 surveys asking particular questions

about law enforcement and police. And 93% of the respondents said that they wanted more police in their neighborhood, that they love the police. That neighborhood, that they had, they, they love the police. That was contradictory to what the talking heads on CNN and MSN and all of them, that news stations were saying. So I got to represent those people in communities who saying, now we don't hate the police. We mad at the police. Regardless of all of the stuff that was happening in the national news,

the Tyrese Nichols and the out and Ahmad Aubrey and Brianna Taylor, regardless of that, they were still saying, no, we not, we not saying defund the police or do away with the police. We saying increase the police. And so it was my job to represent those people. And then the second thing is I told chief Garcia that when we first met that, I understand that some people in my neighborhood chief, they need a prison ministry to get right.

And I asked all I had to say, he understood what I was saying. I said, he needed a prison ministry to get right. So we, so I'm not protecting people. Some people got to go to prison to change. And I understand that. And I'm not protecting those people. And I think that was that, that solidified our relationship and the fact that, you know, I, you know, one of the things I always say is that in order to get public safety, you got to have a relationship between law enforcement community. And that's a bit real relationship and that relationship can exist and,

and thrive in this climate right here. We just got to drown out the voices that put us against each other. Cause again, it's people in the neighborhood, it's great police officers. I deal with them all the time who gets swept in by the narrative. Imagine a black police officer in this narrative and that narrative, George Floyd narrative, uh, who, who became a police officer to protect their community and read their community criminals. But then when they come to their community,

they get met with hostility because it's a narrative that's saying all police is bad. Who talking for that officer? It's my job to speak for that office. Who's talking for the person in the community who's saying, no, I'm not saying do you find the police? I'm saying I need police, because I know police in my neighborhood gonna keep me safe. That's gonna hit me up. So I gotta speak for that. I gotta speak for that.

So ultimately you're a bridge. Yes, I gotta bridge that gap. So in being that bridge, you said something that is really interesting. I've talked to a lot, Memphis has a lot of conversation about growing our police department and also, you know, all of the same thing every city does. Right.

I think the people on the quote, defund the police side of things did themselves a really, really, really injustice because their marketing and their phraseology sucked. It did. Defund the police. I could almost understand. Re-imagine the police. Yes.

Retrain the police. You got to defund the police. Reach out to the police. It's like a knee jerk reaction. It is. It just bad-cutting. But it's funny, though, because I think the police, theyrain the police. You gotta defund the police. Reach out to the police. It's like a knee jerk reaction. It is. But it's funny what you said

because I've heard that over and over again. That look, the truth is where my neighborhood is, you know, I ain't dealing with what kids and families are doing, where the projects are. They're the last people that don't want law and order. I mean, they're the ones that are truly the victims of the greatest amount of crime. It's some decent people in these neighborhoods.

I just visited some neighborhoods here in Memphis. It's decent people in these neighborhoods that exist. I'm just saying it on the way here, they exist everywhere. Oftentimes they voices don't get put in the equation. It's always narrative driven on one side or another, but the people who are decent people who want a honest living, who want to be protected and feel safe,

they are often overlooked because of these talking heads who say, I speak for them. And we gotta pump them up. So urban specialists basically started with trying to go into gang rid neighborhoods and give gang members an idea and a different way of looking at themselves and reach that little boy, which you still do,

but now it is morphed into you are partnering with the police to bridge the gap between law enforcement and communities that have, in some cases, righteous fear of law enforcement, but get one another to see each other as human beings first, rather than the badge and the neighborhood they're from, and basically have all of them unlock their little boys and girls.

Man, that's exactly what we're doing. That's exactly what Urban Specialists does That's exactly what urban specialist does. Um, it's, it's, it's, it's reminiscent of Omar and I, we went to Russia, uh, we summoned over to Russia to have Russia with their gangs a couple years ago. And, um, we had a, we had this guy who was out of the interpreter. His name was Sasha. Sasha was a great interpreter. When I was talking to my Russian counterparts, it's almost like I was talking directly to them on how Sasha was interpreting the feelings, the emotions, et cetera, et cetera, right?

Urban specialists exist to be those interpreters for these conversations. Oftentimes you need people who can say, who can interpret in a way to the other side that they say, man, I feel that I understand that without judgment, right? And so Urban Specialty exists to do that. And so we work with Chief Garcia, we work on our focus. We do a lot of stuff with DPD, namely the focus deterrence,

which is that's targeting individuals who are by the metrics are most likely to commit crime, to reoffend, right? Who best to talk to that group of people, then somebody like me, a former gang, former OG, somebody been to prison, who best to talk to that gang, to that individual. So, so Relatability. Relatability. And you got credibility.

And credibility. And we hiring those individuals and we giving them services. So we got that. We got our entrepreneur. We teaching urban entrepreneurship to young people and not just young people, older people as well, getting them their business together. We have our USC3 community collaborative change maker meeting where we bring in law enforcement, business,

social entrepreneurs, nonprofits, OGs. We got them all in the room cause we believe it's magic when you bring people together in proximity. It's easy for me to judge you Bill from my safe space. It's easy to do that. But when I get to know you up close, personal, we talking, having conversations

and I know you and you know me. See, it ain't easy for somebody to say, man, Bill ain't no, you can't say that. Be my friend. I know Bill and be a good people, but that's the proximity. Our capability is bringing people together because we believe when we bring people together, magic happen and we believe everybody has something to contribute. Can you give me some measurables? Oh yeah. What's your effect? Man, we look, we done helped.

We didn't help over 20,000 people since we've been in existence. And that's all that information on our website. Uh, we've catalyzed over 1200 OGs in the last two years. Do what? Catalyze. Well, we- 1200. 1200 OGs all over Dallas two years. Do what? Catalyze. 1,200. 1,200 OGs all over Dallas.

We just did a class Tuesday night where we had, oh, we do this class, we bring them into our network. My understanding is Dallas' crime rate is one of the few large urban cities that the crime rate has actually dropped. Right. As a result of what you and Chief Garcia are doing. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

That's phenomenal. And we hope we can duplicate that around. That's my question. Is it not scalable? Yes, it is definitely scalable. But again, is, is having conversations, is having conversations with community and law enforcement in a way that they ain't seen these conversations. A lot of times the conversations can't be in platitudes. It can't be in these relationships. It's not real. We got to be able to sit down like how me

and you did this podcast. And when you say, man, I'm finna tell you something. See, I want you to tell me something because if you can't tell me nothing, if you can't be honest with me and give it to me, how you feel it without editing, then you ain't being my friend. But if you say, Anton, man,

I'm finna shoot something at you, man. I'm finna see how you gonna handle this and this how it's coming out. Then you my friend because I know. Well, I guess you were you and our friends because you handled it beautifully. Somebody wants to support, I mean, gosh, there's 19,000 things

somebody might wanna do, but if they wanna support urban specialists, if they wanna get in touch with you and say, hey man, this needs to happen in Memphis, if they wanna to get in touch with you and say, Hey man, this needs to happen to Memphis. If they want to grow it, where do they find Anton and urban specialists? Okay. I'm going to give out my personal, my personal, uh, social media handles Anton speaks. That's A-N-T-O-N-G speaks.

S-P-E-A-K-S that's on our social media. All the organization is at the T H E urban specialist on our social media. All the organization is at the T H E urban specialist on our social media or www.urban specialist with an S at the end of specialist.org. All you have to do is reach out. If you reach out, I promise we're going to connect. And then lastly, I got to say this. I know you probably have something else,

but you got to go get the book, a redemptive path, anywhere they sell books. I promise you, if you got somebody incarcerated, if you got somebody that's doing community work, I promise them once they read their book, they gonna understand, that's the blueprint. A Redemptive Path Forward, the subtitle, From a Cart Incarceration to a Life of Activism,

and Tom Lucky, looking clean on the front of this thing. That's why I grew by her. Yeah, I don't know. I think your publisher had you clean up. But now you Paul Revere with dreads. Man, let me sign it. This your book. Oh, that's my book. Sign that book for me. I appreciate you, man. I appreciate you, man.

I studied you on social media, so I already knew how this interview was. And Tom Lucky, everybody, urban specialist, changing lives in Dallas from a smart little boy who got sucked up into the streets and became the OG now, not just a gang member, but leading a gang for years in prison, now running, now running an organization called Urban Specialists that have changed lives so far. 20,000 people in Dallas have gotten 1200 former OGs into legitimate lifestyle has built a relationship with the Dallas Police Department

and Chief Garcia is changing lives in one of the few urban cities where crime is actually dropping as a result of this. If that is not the story of what a normal human being can do when he employs his discipline and his abilities where his passion is to change the world. A normal guy doing extraordinary stuff. Man, we just all be a normal guy, man.

Man, thanks for coming from Dallas and telling me your story. Thanks for being with me. It is phenomenal. And I am not at all surprised that you and John Ponder are tight because y'all cut from the same cloth. That's my guy. That's my guy. That's your guy. Man, well you're my guy and I appreciate you being here, bro. Thank you, man. I appreciate you. Thank you for what you do.

I enjoyed it. Yes, you did. And thank you for joining us this week. If Anton Lucky or other guests have inspired you in general, or better yet, to take action by donating to urban specialists, bringing Anton to your community to help empower local changemakers there, or something else entirely, please let me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can write me anytime at bill at normal folks dot us And I promise I will respond if you enjoyed this episode Y'all, please share it with friends and on social subscribe to the podcast rate and review it Join the army at normal folks dot us consider becoming a premium member there At normalfolks.us, consider becoming a premium member there. All of these things that will help us grow. An army of normal folks.

Thanks to our producer, Ironlight Labs, I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week. We're just days away from our 2024 iHeart Radio Music Festival We're just days away from our 2024 iHeartRadio Music Festival, presented by Capital One. The biggest headliners in live music will be taking over T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas. Plus some special surprises and moments you are not going to want to miss. Stream only on Hulu.

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