Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - A Regular, Black Conversation About Guns With Jason “Jah” Lee

Episode Date: April 14, 2023

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discuss Tennessee representative Justin Pearson’s return to the state legislature, and Tucker Carlson’s take on Justin Pearson’s voice (17:31), before discussing Stephen A. Smith saying Trump isn’t racist (41:18). Then, Bossip editor and firearms instructor Jason “Jah” Lee joins to discuss gun control (52:28). Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Jason “Jah” Lee Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Howe learning is on. Is Ivan Lathie Jr. And it's me, Rachel Lynn, Lindsay. You got Brownie with you? Yeah, he's super needed today. He came to the nail shop with me.

So on Thursday, copper goes to daycare. So he gets really lonely. So Brownie is lonely because copper goes to daycare. Why can't Brownie go to daycare? He's been scared to daycare lately. We took three months off when copper had pneumonia And now he doesn't want to go back So he just kicks in with me

I take him to work take him everywhere It's pocket size Look at him Look at Bronnie Look at Brony I got your baby Rachel How are things going with you

How's your rest been? I'm tired Working on something Late nights I'm so tired What you mean you know I am You like Drake I'm up in the studio

Late night every night. Remember that's all? Yes. Donnie, you remember that shit? I am. In the studio, late night, every night, 40 in the, I don't want to make him sick. That's my nigga.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Remember that shit? I'm fired. I'm going to leave here. I got another eight hours to go. After this? Yes. God damn, nigga.

My call time is at 8. The call time is at 8 o'clock. And then you got to go and do that. But this is what, this is what, this is the sacrifice, Rach. What is my sacrifice? This is the sacrifice. This is the sacrifice. This is the sacrifice.

You sacrifice all kinds of things to go get what you want. We all know. It's the sacrifice. Yeah, it's worth it at the end of the day. But I'll be lied if I didn't tell you I'm not tired. You don't like it. I'm so tired. You want, what's Rachel's ideal life?

Like, how would your life go? I don't know. I don't know. I think it would be boring to plan out my ideal life. I like surprises. Like what I'm working on right now, that's a surprise. If I had planned my life, this wouldn't be in it. So I don't want to plan it.

No five-year plan, no, 10 year plan. But I will tell you a plan I have this weekend. Okay, tell me. I am finally going to see Usher. Oh. Like, so you're going to see Usher. You're going to see Usher in Vegas?

In Vegas. 24 hours. 24 hours flying down dinner, concert home. Flying down dinner concert home. All right. So you're going to see Usher. Maybe five songs Usher has to do. you. Oh my gosh.

Okay, I'll go. You don't have to call. He has to do. Can you help me? You just name me five songs. I'm really thinking about this. Like, go for it. I want bedtime. Okay. I want, I like you don't have to call. I want, um, I want, yeah.

Okay. He actually doesn't have to do yeah for me, but I get it. I want, yeah, it just reminds me of a certain time. Like Usher reminds me of memories. Confessions. But I want one and two. And I want bad girl. I'm a bad girl.

So no throwback for you? I did. Oh, no. I thought it was like, I was like, I was like, I'm not really into that song. That's what I'm excited about. I love throwback. He got it

Gritty! You got to missing my baby. Because I'm picturing which song is going to have me out of my seat. I probably be out of my seat

the whole time. Dancing. It's like what's going to make me feel something? Those are it. But I mean like every usher song

except for the one you just named is pretty much on my list. I bet I could look up the set list too. But you know he brings the skating

to it. I'm just, I'm very excited. Just to think. I like, songs that other Usher songs or other people don't I like that song Climax

You remember that song? Climax wasn't bad It's not my favorite Okay I looked up the set list Climax was on there Oh really? Throwback is not If this is oh love in the club

Absolutely how could I forget that That I absolutely one has to be there for me I could go out here in that shoot I'm not going to bullshit You know what I could go without my boo And that's on here I can go without my boo It doesn't suck

I don't care about it You remind me You remind me a good one and it's not it's not oh it is not here y'all hate

y'all hate on 8701 8701 is usher's best album did we talk about this it's not the best out we did I don't care we talked about this we'll have to do it again but y'all y'all hate on 8701

801 I'm looking at 8701 8701 right now it's so many goddamn joints on 8701 look at Brian Michael Cox going crazy

everywhere shout out to B. Cox going nuts everywhere. He did do U-turn though. So that's a ding for you, Brian Michael Cox. But shout out to B. Cox, one of the greatest of all time, one of the best ever.

But yeah, I love 87.01. I'm happy you're going to see Usher. You're excited. I'm very excited. I'm very excited. What about my way? What about my way? You like that? I'd do anything everything to want to. And, oh, this is such a fun

time. I'm going to be 16 again. Right, right. Are you going to go backstage? No, can you hook that up? Probably. Let me ask you a question. If you, if Usher invited you backstage,

would you, I mean, you're a married woman. Would you go? Why would I not go backstage? I'm going to be with three other girls. It's not for me. What if he just said? If he invited me by myself? What if he just said?

So Usher just said, Usher just skates over to you. He skates backwards. Usher skates over to you. He skates backwards. He invites you backstage. Do you go backstage? Not by myself.

Not by yourself. For what? For what? Maybe he just wants to talk. Now, if he invites me on stage, like, he does sometimes, I'm going. If Usher invites you on stage and he gives you like a lap dance, Is that kosher? I believe it is.

It's a performance. It's a performance. Like the girl that was mad about or the guy that was mad because his girl got a dance from Chris Brown. He was bugging, right? Like if Janet Jackson pulled Brian up on stage, I would be recording. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Brian probably at this point deserves that.

Don't get him started. Oh, speaking of something, I want to call something out because I don't know what's going on over on already. I don't. I haven't been there. I promised myself that I wouldn't go on over there. But I had somebody reach out to me and they wanted me to put something on Donnie's radar.

Donnie, could you please pop in so people can see you, by the way? Can you please pop in so people can see Donnie? Okay, that's Donnie right now, guys. All right. Okay, that's Donnie. Five part beats Donnie. He was making fun of my. I was laughing.

Well, I don't want to say it. I don't want to say it because I also know. I wasn't planning on being on camera. But I also know your hair. And Van did this on purpose. I also know your hairstyle. So it makes sense exactly why your hair is wrapped up like that. I too had my hair wrapped up like that last night.

I wish I had. You got to have a condition. Yeah, Van did it. I'm jealous. I don't have. It's on skin. God what, Donnie? Wait, what did she say?

You said it's all skins. All skin. That's right, Donnie. Fuck, fuck that shit. Go real. Okay, so there's a guy that hit me up on the Reddit. And he's, I don't know if he's a troll or not, but he wants to have a conversation. I want to have this.

I want to ask Rachel about this real quick. He says, I know you've seen I upset for Reddit. Now they want to block me. They want group things. I wasn't even being disrespectful. I defended my point. Now the lightning thief, who is one of the mods, I think, on the Reddit. They want to silence me.

That's lame. I came back and I was like, nah, catch me up. L.O.L. What happened? I'm just a messy bitch, is the problem. And he goes, he defended Kevin Samuels and Andrew Tate. I said their arguments are balanced. Sir, where are we supposed to go from? this.

He said, I simply said, their arguments are valid. You see he wrote you and not me. He went to a man, a misogynist. And he said, and I got attacked. And I just replied LMAO because that's hilarious. He goes, I know, it's cool, though.

I just don't think I should be blocked for. I would appreciate if Donnie or somebody could pass that along to the mind. Donnie, the reason why I asked you to the pop in is because, like, doesn't he have a point? I mean, these opinions sound like

they're fucking steaming hot trash. but I didn't see the exchange so I don't know if he called people out of their names or whatever but should somebody be banned on the Reddit simply for having an opinion that people don't like that's not right right that's not thought warriory

I feel like you should be able to post your steamy hot trash and for it to be flamed is he a repeat offender I don't know much about him he that would be my only question I do see how he has continued to cut women out of the picture

you're defending two people, which I'm open for conversation as well. Like obviously we're all in a great, I don't even know what his stance was, but the fact that you said Andrew Tate and Kevin Samuels that can only go downhill from there. But I'm not opposed to him having the opportunity to talk, but if he's harassing people

or if he's done this time and time again to the group, which is what I would like to think. And that's why the mod silenced him. Why did you, why are you thinking that? Why are you thinking? Well, because that's why I, would do it. If he continued to do it, I'm assuming, but if he continued to do it, that's what I would say. Or, you know, you're on suspension. Maybe there's a rule. So we, so we went from, so we're assuming now that this, this gentleman right here, uh, is, is, is, is actually harassing people or a repeat offender. We're making a lot of leaps here. I'm just saying, I don't give a fuck what happens, but we're making a lot of leaps here. Oh, you're asking the question. I ask. I ask. I ask. I ask. That's what I would think was fair.

I guess it's my point. If he's continued to do this, then it would be fair. But it's suspension. Because we don't want to get in a habit of kicking people out. Continue to do what, though. If he continued to. I don't know what he said that offended people so much. I didn't see it.

Do you know? I just posted in the chat. Yeah. I don't know if you guys can pull it up. You see what he said? You did? What chat? Okay, let's see.

Oh, there you are. Sorry. Let's see what he said. Let's look at it. one thing, this is what it was posted. One thing, the villains, and by the way, we are not here to police the Reddit. It's not our Reddit. It's you guys just Reddit, and I don't want to fucking be a part of it, so you guys can have it.

But I think this is an interesting thought exercise here. One thing the villains of the thought warrior community have in common is the shock, drop, trait. And in a clout attention-driven economy, it's a necessary evil. But I think some of their main messages are solid, and it is intellectually dishonest, blind to dismiss them out of hand. Kevin Samuels promoted black families and traditional values, not misogyny. Andrew Tate promotes fewer male losers and combating suicide rates among young men. More and more black women go to college and make more money, only to find more PlayStation 5 players looking for surrogate mothers than black male business owners.

And the men that do go to college end up with a white woman. To crap on Kevin Samuels and to boil down tape to a single soundbite is ideological capture. Biden is a status quo course. Trump represents a disruption to the status quo because the status quo isn't working. That's fucking bullshit. But whatever. He's transactional, but transactional can be fair. Between the CIA proliferating crack,

the war on drugs, mandatory minimums, and the war on poverty that incentivized black single motherhood, bullshit. The black family is really capitalized to be. I think some of you need to get out of your bubble, and know that you want to agree with everything people like at Trump, Tate, or Samuels, or even Jordan Peterson say,

but there is merit to their argument, and to say that there is none, is a lack of intellectual honesty. Is this the posting question? This is the post of question. There is absolutely zero reason to ban him for that post. Like when I say zero, now almost, like, let me make my opinion.

I think that's pseudo, I think that pseudo intellectual bumble jumble and garbled garbage from somebody that truly believes. I don't agree with any of them. I don't think any of those things are linear. I've listened to way more tape. in just one sound bite.

There's very little of it. There's zero of it that's useful to me. Donald Trump represents the status quo as much as any other political figure in American history. He, in a way, was an orthodox politician in terms of the way he communicated. But in terms of who Donald Trump is,

status quo all the way. And to get to that point, you kind of got to be status quo. So all of that's bullshit. However, that post right there, if that's the post that got you banned, that's kind of what I'm talking about. That guy is wrong, but I didn't see anything disrespectful or out of the box about that piece of communication right there. I don't. I just, I really don't. I agree.

I feel like people hopping in the comments and actually participating in the discourse is what posts like this are for. And then if it is overwhelmingly like skewed one way, which it seems like this one is, he gets labeled a weenie or a weenious maximus, which is what it is at the top. And I feel like that's a good way to handle it and like unlock these comments so that people can post and participate in the flaming. Look, you guys, it's- I don't think he should be banned. Unless I don't, I don't, I don't think that from one post, he should be banned.

I really, really don't. I would like to think, and I'm hoping that something else happened, and that's why the mods took such an extreme, because I think it's extreme, took such an extreme measure. Because this is extreme, y'all. If you listen to anything about the podcast, you know it's an open dialogue. We don't shut people down who come on with crazy takes. We challenge it. You know what I mean? We go at it. But we don't say, have we banned anybody from the podcast? Yeah, you banned act last, you banned act last. Jack? Yeah.

Did we ban jack? You just banned act. You just banned, I'm just, I'm just joking. But no, nobody's banned from Ireland. Yeah. Nobody's banned from Ireland. Yeah. Okay.

That was fun. You guys do whatever you want, which you're ready. It's just I really don't think that some of y'all thought words. I don't. I don't think that some of you guys have thought words. Let me say this. I think I personally think that in order to call yourself that, that you have to be willing to accept your perspective being challenged.

Now, there's a limit that everybody has. I personally don't believe that that is the limit. But Rachel, would it change your mind if, well, what I was going to say is, I want to first say, I know we go at the Reddit a lot. But I appreciate the people who created it, that you created a community. for people to go back and forth. And so, because he's mad at the mods. So I at least want to give the mods a shout out

because you created this space. It's, you know, it's a space that's growing where people can reflect and comment whether positive or negative and have this discourse about what we discuss on this podcast. And I'm sure that that's not an easy job for you to be able to moderate and do all that. So first I want to say thank you for that.

But this is extreme. love to hear from a mod. I'd love to, unless you want to remain nameless. Have a, faceless. Love to have a mod.

You can remain faceless. Am I want to be faceless? But I would love to hear from a mod. Yeah, yeah. I would love to hear. Okay. That was it. We have an interview.

It's kind of long. It's a back and forth on the gun debate. It's with Jason Jop Lee of Bossip. Guys, I'm sorry. He's one of my friends. I hate it. You guys hate everything. He's like this guy I know.

Very talented writer and a licensed firearm instructor who wants to talk the entire conversation of gun coach. We'll get some later. But first, we're going to get to some politics. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

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prediction markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable buyer seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Okay. Justin Pearson has been sent back to the house after his expulsion. Local officials unanimously voted on Wednesday to send Justin Jay Pearson back to the seat in the state legislature.

The unanimous vote by seven Democrats allows Mr. Pearson to be sworn in to seat as early as Thursday, which did that happen already? I'm not sure. The board's Laura Polkins, he's already been sworn in where absent did not vote. Both Jones and Pearson

have bowed to run for their seats later this year in special elections and I cannot imagine them not winning. Rachel, your thoughts? Well, my thoughts on him getting back his seat,

I expected that to happen. I know we talked a little bit about it last time and I am glad, let me say this, because when we first heard this, it was how does the state legislature have this type of power where they can do this to an elected member of their legislature? So I love that there is a checks and balance to where it's like, oh, you want to do that?

Well, we can do this and go right back in. And I also love it because it makes them look like idiots. And it brought even more attention to it. And it gave, I didn't see Justin Jones, when he came back, but I did see Justin Peterson's speech, and it gave him a platform and an opportunity to say, you thought you won, you didn't, we're not going anywhere. He had a very passionate speech,

and he talked about, you can try to expel this and this, but you won't expel this fight. And I loved it. And he had the whole audience inside and outside riled up. So, yeah, it was a great thing to sing. I just love it. They're so embarrassed. They got, like, their tail between their legs.

They got me so embarrassed by this. It was a great thing to see. And it's also proof positive that, you know, for everyone that talks about the noise that's created on social media or different places, that that doesn't matter. Sure. It can be like some of the reactions on Twitter can be traconian. Things can be overhyped.

They can be overzealous. They can be way too cool. But also what people think and the ability for people to meet minds from all different parts of this country, country, it's important. And people saw a great, great, great injustice happening in Tennessee. And I think in terms of a political injustice, I'm not talking about the same way of somebody being killed or hurt, but I thought it was a political injustice. And I think a lot of the critical eye that's been kind of turned on Tennessee has resulted in this slight, slight kicking of the nuts

of Cameron Sexton and the rest of the people in the house. But it's also exciting. You know, we talked about, you know, you gave your, we talked about your opinion on Justin Jones and how he had told the guy who had the office next to him to vote against him

and what that means and what that represents. So it's exciting to see too young. I mean, I don't know how Justin Jones is. I know they're the two youngest currently there, but I know Justin Peterson's 12. So to see a 28-year-old stepping out and doing it like this, it's exciting. And especially going into a national, we're about to have a national election, that I think is something that we should be talking about as well.

Because these aren't two individuals who just popped up on the scene and took advantage of a moment because it was hot right now. These two young brothers have been working in the community, been dedicating their life to this. And so I'm excited to see what happens from here on out. And maybe it, maybe somebody young watching this is like, I want to be just like the two justins.

I want to do that. That's what's cool about this. Because we don't see that like this this often, particularly where it makes national media. Not saying it's not happening on a local or regional level, but this is, everybody's talking about this. Both justins, the two justins down there,

I implore you. I implore you. to smooth out your policy, to be unimpeachable in terms of what your vision and what your goals are in terms of being public servants are right now. The scrutiny that you're about to receive is going to be different than anything that you've received before. And that's not just going to be coming from white people. We've already seen these brothers scrutinized by black people.

And a lot of you might have problems with that, but I'll tell you this. But as black Americans, there is a, some of us I won't speak for everyone, there is a reflex to wonder who the next agent is. So when somebody pops up and people start digging through their shit, they're trying to find out whether or not these people are, these people can be trusted. It's not something that I think is necessarily positive or nutritious that we do. It's not something like that. It's not something great. But it is something that happens. And the place that it comes from is from her insecurity.

Now, Tucker Carlson is not black. However, he had some things to say about Justin Pearson. Now, there's been a video going around about Justin Pearson when he was in college. And, you know, he was talking about running for a student body there. And he sounded different than he sounds now. It's facts. Yeah, he does. He sounded different.

He sounded different. Donnie, do we have side by side? audio? I do. Okay. So play. Play what he sounded like then. Play what he sounded like now. Let's just talk about it. It's a stupid thing, but let's discuss it. Okay. One has to do with representation. How can we represent all voices in a conversation? I want to bring together different voices, dissenting voices, voices that may be more liberal

or more conservative, in order that we can reach a point of sort of the radical middle where conversation and dialogue happens and growth happens. Join the People's Pearson campaign. And let's charge. ourselves to a better future. All hope seemed to be lost. Representatives were thrown out of the state house democracy seemed to be at its end. Seemed like the NRA and gun lobbyists might win.

But oh, that was good news for us. I don't know how long this Saturday in the state of Tennessee might last. But oh, we have good news, folks. We've got good news that Sunday always comes. I'm sorry, man. Okay. All right.

All right. Donnie, play what Tucker said. Okay. Justin Pearson has a dream that one day on the Red Hills of Georgia, everyone will do exactly what he wants or else face indictment but the Department of Justice.

Justin Pearson has changed quite dramatically, as you can see. He transitioned from a crypto-white kid into the modern incarnation of Martin Luther King Jr. himself. It's remarkable, really. But he's not alone in that. You see this all the time. Everybody in the Democratic Party wants to be Martin Luther King at this point. Even Joe Biden, who during the famous March on Washington was enjoying the many benefits of life as a college student in a racially segregated state. Now, he's MLK. They all are. But you've got to ask yourself,

as long as we're mimicking civil rights leaders who died almost 60 years ago, why not some variety? You never see politicians transition into, say, Malcolm X. Why is that? maybe because Malcolm X didn't talk like a sharecropper. He spoke dignified standard English. He wasn't running a shakedown racket to fleece guilty white liberals. Malcolm X had self-respect, so he despised guilty white liberals, and he said so. He believed in self-improvement. He knew who the enemy was.

So wait, he's saying Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. Martin, Dr. Martin, Martin, Luther King, Jr. sounds like a sharecropper. Yeah, I mean, yeah. I mean, yeah. Do you know what I... Okay. This is one of those brilliant pieces of media that Tucker Carlson has ever put out.

Please keep going. Okay. So Tucker Carlson just did something and it's imperative that people understand. Number one, he accomplished three things. One, he dog whistled to the base that watches Tucker Carlson. The age-old trope. that if you enunciate your voice in a certain way,

and that if you talk in a certain way, that you are speaking and acting white. The video of Justin Pearson, when he's walking around his campus at his college, and he's communicating, represents someone at the beginning of their political career, who probably thinks that there's a certain way that they have to be.

He's talking about the radical middle thing. There are certain realities about things that might have not even appeared to Justin Pearson yet, right? We all understand and know, Nobody is fully formed at 21. We get that. 20, whatever it is. We understand that.

So to compare somebody who's into their political career to someone who's in college is stupid. Unless you're telling America that there's this cartoonish nigger version of him that he's putting forth right now. And there is a version of him that was white, which means he's buttoned up in a suit. And he's enunciated his, enunciating in the King's English. That's number one. Number two, Tucker Carlson also, in this same sort of video, he big up to Malcolm X, which a lot of people aren't going to be able to see past.

There are going to be people that say, hey, what Tucker Carlson just did wasn't a diss of black culture. it was a compliment to one of the most intelligent thinkers and orators in the history of Black Americans and an absolute cultural rebel. And there are going to be people that go, fuck, goddamn, Justin Pearson does look like an agent. And Malcolm X is the truth. The third thing that he did was he completely disrespected and dis, not only the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but Southern Blacks, period. And he never even had to say, nigger.

He never even had to say it. When I watched this, I was like, huh, this is both the most, one of the, most disgusting segments of the, of Tucker Carlson show that I've ever seen. but it also shows why we need to understand both politically and socially and culturally who the fuck we're dealing with because I can guarantee you right now

guarantee you right now that that video in a certain part of Black America is doing fucking numbers is doing numbers as of what we just talked about and it's also doing numbers because of the way that they wrapped it up. Anyone with anyone who's been mildly paying attention shouldn't be moved, but I know that some people are. Moved because of his compliment towards Malcolm X.

Moved because of the whole thing. Moved because it looks like it, on his face, right? And I saw bad people post that video of the side by side. On its face, it looks like this guy is fake. Now, let's be honest. the video of him talking in the state house, that's OD. If I was right there, I'd have been tugging on this shit, like, calm it down a little bit, my G.

But, you know, the reality is that people have influences. People see people who they want to talk like. I study Malcolm X all the time to try to talk like him, and I just can't fucking do it. He's too smart, and he never lets his emotions get the best of it. But to me, that doesn't signify anything. But the difference there is so stark. that you can feed that to people.

And what they give you back is fake, fake, fake, plant, plant. While also making a point about Southern blacks, the way we talk and about the differences between Dr. King and Malcolm X. Like, these motherfuckers ain't plain. And y'all better do the reading. Because I guarantee you it's going to be something that fall for it.

Guarantee. I, when I saw the video of Justin Pearson in 2016, it made me laugh. And I thought, there's probably a video of me out there like that. Not that I ran for president. You were going to make her way. Oh, Donna, you got to find you. No, I don't, I mean, I didn't run for student body president. in college. But I guess the point that I'm making is it's something that you pointed to.

People not change their intention, their values, their morals, but they're affected by things that happened to them in life. And so that's 2016. It's 2023. You don't know what kind of journey that Justin Pearson has been on where maybe he was code switching, which I could care less if that's what he was doing in 2016 in a majority white college and he was doing what he needed to do because when you listen to what he's saying with this message, he still is talking about being for the people. So if he was code switching, I don't care. If he wasn't code switching and that's really who he was, but still had a message and an intention of fighting for the people that since then has either studied someone. Let's not forget that his father is a preacher.

His parents are very involved. We're activists. I mean, when he was in high school, They were talking to the school board about the inadequacy of the schools that they were attending and the books that they had in the facilities. So he grew up in this. You a preacher's kid, he could very well just be imitating his father. You have no idea what the basis is. And if people are getting distracted by the things that Tucker Carlson said, which I don't disagree with you, I'm sure they are, this is the problem of not doing the research to understand how Justin Pearson got to the place that he is. it's not a fad.

He's not just pretending to be Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Or somebody else. This is a man who's passionate about what he does. He ran for government in college as a black man at a predominantly white school. He fought, wasn't in 2020, he got that pipeline removed from the area

based on things that he had seen his own family members being affected by community from cancer. And so wanted to make sure that that pipeline did not go through and affect black people in the community of Memphis or just people in Memphis in general. This is a man who is dedicated to activism, to people.

And so to get caught up in the way he's saying it is a red herring. And the reason I make the joke about me is because you don't even have to go as far to college. You could probably find footage. And go ahead, Donnie, of me as the Bachelorette from 2017. No, no, but this is important. 2017 to 2018,

before I, while I was under contract and before I specifically started pointing out to things to call out the issues that I was seeing within that master franchise, you could probably find footage, and I sound maybe a little bit different than I do on higher learning. Matter of fact, my sorority sisters were like, I like you on higher learning. For a while, we thought we lost you. God.

Flat out. Look, and it is what it is. But it didn't change who I was or what. I believe in or my intention. And so that's what I want people to realize about Justin Pearson. This is a distraction from Tucker Carlson. It's definitely a distraction. And let's not also forget that he put up a picture when he was talking about Justin Pearson.

He had a picture of Rachel Dolazzo. Yeah. And he was talking about it's so, that's blackface what she's doing. That's black face. So also just guys, just remember the litany of things that have happened in the world since this man was in college. Charlottetton. Yeah. Trump. All of these things.

Whatever. Okay. Tim Scott, going to be the president. He's running for president. This is Tim Scott. He's a former exploratory committee to look into running for president. Whenever they do this, they're probably going to run. Rachel, your thoughts?

First off, I didn't... What kind of video was this? I had never seen that before. It looked like he was ready for president. president, but what was it called? I don't know what you're talking about. Like a video cycle. Wait, no. Video for him.

But it wasn't. But it wasn't. Wait. Okay, wait. Either cut this out, Donnie, or let me look at it. Let me look it up. It wasn't, it was a presidential exploratory. He launches a presidential exploratory committee.

Does that mean he's announcing that he's running? No. This is what they always do. What is the presidential. I've never seen that. Oh, you've never seen. They, they, what they do is they say, hey, I've launched an exploratory. committee to look into running for president.

And then they'll do that. And then it's just like a formality almost. It's like, oh, after this, I'm going to run for president. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, it technically, it allows you to start raising money. And then if you do decide to run, you can use that money to run. Right. So he announced that and then announced presidency?

He hasn't announced that he's officially. What the hell is going on right now? It's like, you're like, if you knew the, if you knew the, amount of sleep that I was going on. It's a miracle. It's a miracle. It's a miracle that I've done what I've done at this point. Right.

But wait. Did he did he officially announce that he's running for president? No, but this means that he probably is. Okay. They sometimes they announce these exploratory committees and then they don't run. But most of the time when they do

from my memory, they go, hey, I'm looking into this and then they write. because they're raising money like Donnie said to run. So this is probably, for the most part, Tim Scott's soft opening of his presidential campaign. Okay. When I saw the video, I thought that he was running. Okay.

Just to be clear. To me, and that's what confused me because then I saw the title and I was like, wait a second, is he running or is he not running? So he's running. Let's just put it like that. What do I think about this? I mean, I think that Tim Scott doesn't have any friends. I feel like nobody is telling Tim Scott that this is not the direction that you should be going.

I found certain parts of the video extremely interesting, specifically him starting out the video talking about 1861 in the Civil War, but never mentions slavery. He never mentions being black. He never mentions black people. He talks about every, I thought I was listening to Will Farrell in the campaign at some points. If you've never seen. No, it was everything, God, faith, family, freedom. I found it interesting that he called America She, but then talked about how he was pro-life. You know, so, you know, calling it a she, but you don't seem to be standing with women when it comes to protecting their rights.

I just find the whole thing interesting. I thought it was interesting that he, I'm not surprised. Just my interest is piqued. I think this is a bad move. I don't think it's going to go anywhere. I think he's got an uphill battle. There's a lot of people throwing their names. There are a lot of people throwing their names in the hats for president,

for running for president on the Republican side. I don't think they really stand a chance. I think it's interesting that in the video he also called out that people say that he's a token. You are. You are. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. And I mean, you've posted a picture of him and called him pretty much that and worse. But I think that the issue with Tim Scott is you're a token because of what you represent with the Republican Party, but also the lack of you representing yourself as a black man with power in the Senate.

And I don't expect you to do to change that as you're running for the presidency. You know what I want to do? I looked into Tim Scott's voting record. I looked into it 538. They have everybody's working record.

At times that he voted with against Trump. Tim Scott is no friend of Black America and I don't think he's hold on. It's not that Tim Scott isn't a friend of Black American.

Is that Tim Scott has impeded Black American. So let's understand that. I'm not saying that Tim Scott isn't a good black man. I don't know anything about it. What I'm saying is, he's impeded things that I think black Americans

need. Right? What was interested about his voting records are the times that he didn't vote with Trump. Because he votes with him 93% of the time, but the times that he didn't to me represent, I think, a change

in who Tim Scott thought he was early on, and who he ended up, who he ended up becoming. Okay. And it's interesting. We don't have time to get to it today. But. I'm like, I want to know.

Oh, look, Tim Scott, look, we don't have, I'm going to make a little bit more robust. Tim Scott is as bad as we think he is. But in my, in my opinion, but when I looked at his voting record, the times that he didn't vote with Trump were super interesting to me. All of that's on. 538 right now. It's up right now. It's 538.com Congress dash Trump dash score backslash Tim Scott.

You can go see that right now or you can just like fucking Google it. But it was interesting to me the things that he broke with him. We'll talk about it in greater detail on another show, probably like maybe next week, maybe next Thursday we can do that if you guys are into that. If not, who fucking cares? Nobody

that listens to us is voted to Tim Scott. He's a terrible candidate. He's not going to win. And in my opinion, he's one of the biggest political disappointments and one of the major, major, major, major impediments between black people and rights if they're so desperately. Let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. It keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.

based support, millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Cream. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think Green Goddess chicken, garlic aoli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa, 40 grams of protein.

Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order. Sweetgreen.com. All right, we're going to stay real quick on politics, but politics and entertainment. Stephen A. Smith. Stephen A. Smith,

somebody who we had here on the podcast, had a very refreshing back and forth with Stephen A. Smith. He was speaking at the semaphore, Media Summit, and he spoke about his relationship with former president Donald Trump. Donnie, give me the argument. I knew Trump before you. Yeah, you used to talk to him.

You ever talk to him anymore? No, I don't. I knew Trump before he ran for the presidency. I thoroughly enjoyed talking to him. He was a huge sports fan. He used to throw a lot of events at, you know, at his casinos and stuff like that. And I genuinely liked him. didn't know who this guy was running for president.

I think he's changed, but I will tell you this. I think when people call him racist and stuff like that, I've never thought of Trump that way. It's not against black people. He's against all things not named Trump. There's a difference. Oh, listen, two things that he says in there. I knew him before, as if to know,

just because you knew him and you were friendly with him, and you had a conversation with him that you understood all aspects of Trump. And if you knew him before, then you would know his long history of racism prior to him running for the presidency. You don't know him. You have just been in circles with him.

And even if you did know him, that doesn't excuse the fact that he's a racist. I hate when people do that. Also, he says, he's against, he's not, Trump is not a racist. He's against anything that's not Trump. Okay, I am tired of people not calling racism what it is.

I am tired of people being afraid to label somebody as a racist. Trump is a racist. You don't have to be running around shouting the N-word, but if you have this history, your policies, certain things that you've said, because Civet Smith says it's not black people, he's just against everybody or that's not him. Yes, he's offended and said racist things against a number of groups outside of black people.

Trump is a racist. And what I would encourage Stephen A. Smith or anybody who gets on a stage and says, oh, Trump, I knew Trump before or Trump is different now. He's not different. He just has a bigger platform, more power, and a louder microphone. He's the same person. He's been doing racist things since the 70s, whether it be in business, whether it be taking an ad out against, in the, in the,

whatever the publication is. What is the publication in New York? I don't say the wrong thing. I think it was New York Times. Okay, fine. It was the Times or the Daily News or the Post, one of them. Taking an ad out in New York, whatever it is, getting on the mic and saying highly racist things

about various groups of people. Trump is a racist. And I don't understand, as much as I like Stephen A. Smith, I don't understand why you would take the opportunity to low-key giving an opportunity. giving an opportunity to defend him, almost make excuses for him. No, you didn't outright do it. Yeah, you made the audience laugh when you said he's just against anybody who's not Trump, but it's dangerous to not specifically call out exactly the problem with Trump, especially as he's gearing up to run for election. And another thing, if you don't want to call Trump racist,

at the very least you can say he emboldens a racist, racist, audience. They're racist. They do racist things. And those are the people who are his fans and are following him to the end. Those are the people who are voting for him. At the very least you can call that out. So a couple of things. Just a racial laid out the case for Trump being a racist very well. Obviously, there's birtherism, which was a racist trope about Barack Obama not being born here in the United States and Trump was at the forefront

of that. He called COVID-Cung flu. Trump's racism has been a part of his life that people didn't see until the magnifying glass

on him was a little bit closer and also until he started to let it out a little bit more. But Donald Trump's associations, in terms of who he protects, in terms of who as the president of the United States,

he refused to disavowal. He pretended like he didn't know who David Duke was. And the only reason why he did that was because he did not want to disavile David Duke's support because he didn't want to turn off people that might be supporting him. There's more than enough evidence

that Donald Trump is a racist. He's sown racial division. Hate crimes were up almost 20% under the leadership of Donald Trump when he was the president. Racists think Donald Trump is a racist. Okay?

Donald Trump is not funny, but... Okay. All right. So here's the deal. Stephen A. Smith. is a Republican. He's a conservative Republican.

And that's okay for Stephen A. Smith. What, and we didn't get a chance to talk about this because I didn't get to double back with the Hannity question. I very much enjoyed

my conversation with Stephen A. Smith and we was on the podcast. What I don't like or what I kind of don't appreciate is I think that in this particular situation, Stephen A is

he's underestimating how much, how insulting, I mean, I know he doesn't care, but how insulting, or just kind of how disappointed it is to hear him, like, politically con people. You know, like, everybody is wondering where Stephen A's politics are. And there was a photograph with Stephen A and what was the guy from Milwaukee, Sheriff Clark, or whoever that was. Back in the day, people were like, huh,

Stephen A. said you really know who he was. No, Stephen A's Hannity, school with Hannity, he's on the things, doing all of that stuff. So for me, I think more to the point,

now he says he's open to voting Republican, big deal, and that Donald Trump isn't a racist. And in this book, he said that Sean Hannity is right about more things

than the black community would like to admit. Not that people would like to admit. Did the black community would like to admit? What is he right about? Why is it Trump a racist? Just what's the deal? You don't normally double talk us.

Like, I don't normally hear a bunch of double talk for me. But you're double talking us on this, which makes it seem shadier and more sinister than it is. Sure, you're aware that you're that you're, that your popularity might take a hit from some because you're a Trump supporter which he says he's not, I'll take him as a word there,

or because you're a conservative Republican or for whatever reason, or that you lean, right, you lean conservative, whatever. It's fine. Like, it makes it feel like there's something more to it. Just fucking be you. It's pretty obvious now. Donald Trump doesn't need one black man in America to take up for him.

That is completely unnecessary. So it's just when I saw it out, I'm like, huh, okay. I mean, I feel like I know what the score is, but I'm starting to wonder if, like, there's a bigger game being played. Are we going to pop up a year from now and see the Stephen A. Smith show, the late night show, on Fox right after Gutfield like what's going on

so it God I hope not I mean and by the way his politics are his politics are that's his life

but at least like out with it I feel like especially after the Hannity situation I don't know who does not think

that Stephen A. Smith is conservative I'm not shocked that he's conservative My issue is be conservative. If you want to be conservative, fine. If those are your beliefs, but don't also compliment do things that put up people who are racist.

Sean Hannity. Trump, stop making excuses. I don't care that you knew him before. That doesn't give him a past. That's what he was doing. Stop trying to convince us to Sean Hannity is a good guy or if he's an ally. That's the kind of stuff I have.

have a problem with. You want to be conservative, go be conservative. But don't also boost them up at the same time, which is what I feel like he's doing. I believe him if he says he's not voting for Trump. But he also gave, he also complimented Trump. 1991, just let people know, John O'Donnell, former president of Trump Fassah Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City quoted Trump's criticism of a black accountant. This is what Trump has. Black guys cut in my money. I hate. The only kind of people I don't. I want counting my money or short guys that wear yarmulcus every day. And I think that guy is lazy.

It's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in black. Blacks. It really is, I believe that. It's not anything that they can control. In 1997, Playboy interview, Trump said, the stuff that O'Donnell wrote about me is probably true. All right. So guys?

Buckle up, buckle in. A little bit of an extra long podcast here. We have a healthy debate on the gun issue with Jason Jolly, who is a certified firearms instructor and a writer for Bossip. Now that I know very well. On the other side of this break. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfaira Radio.com. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then, you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer.

You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Okay. A friend of mine is on the show. I know you guys love when that happens. We do love that. J. Jada, they don't love it, but that's okay. My friends are apparently the most problematic bunch in all of the world,

and we're about to add to that now. Jason Jolly is on higher learning right now. Now, he has been a Bossip editor since 2011. So those hilarious headlines that you see on Bossip, a lot of that comes from this man's brain, but not just that. He is a very talented and accomplished writer. He's worked on television shows.

He worked on The God's Honest Truth. He's done a lot in this industry. And he is also a certified firearms instructor. Somebody who recently, or not recently, over the last couple of years, kind of got into firearms. And you know what? Before we kind of get into this discussion, why don't you tell us, Jason, thank you for joining us on higher learning.

Yeah, man. Sort of your journey with sort of being in the firearms community. So I don't have any, like, I didn't grow up with guns. Like, I think my dad had a shotgun or something like that back in the day when I was little. But it wasn't the thing we ever saw. I just knew he had it. Yeah. Growing up, I don't have any, I wasn't an armed professional.

I wasn't a cop. I wasn't in the military. So my interactions with firearms were pretty much what I see on TV and movies. And my head uncle, not a head uncle, I have an uncle who worked security for Brinks a long time ago. So I would see him, when we go over their house, I would see him in the basement, you know, taking his guns apart, cleaning him, that kind of thing. He took their shooting one time when I was little. And short of that, that's about it. Around the time I turned 30, I told myself I should buy a gun.

just because I just felt like grown men should have at least a pistol or something. But I also just kind of bullshit because I'm not a type of person that finds themselves in bad situations. I never really had a need for a gun. I never had any violent confrontation. So I was kind of just passive about it. And in 2020, like estimated 8 million other people, as COVID lockdown started, as, you know, the summer of protests kicked off, it was kind of like, all right, I bullshit it long enough. Like, let me get right.

And it's what I call the Noykegee awakening that I had that I think a lot of other black people had. Noyxie is basically an acronym amongst gun people. There's a saying that no one is coming to saving. And I think that's kind of the realization that I had a lot of other people had during that time is that if everything goes left, you know, what would you do right now if things really, really got out of control? And I'm not, you know, a conspiracy theorist, but I was just putting my safety at the top of the list at that point. You know, I spent most of the pandemic with my parents, so they're older people. And I know that they don't really have a capacity to necessarily defend themselves in that same kind of way.

And I just wasn't going to sit around and just let things happen to us. Your motivation for getting involved with really heavily involved with guns is based off of 2020. So you could almost say it was racially motivated, right? To some degree, I mean, like, I wasn't buying guns because a lot of people bought guns because they were scared of a protest in, like, the civil unrest. I wasn't worried about civil unrest. A, I'm in the suburbs of Atlanta. The civil unrest can happen anywhere. I'm not going to be that glib about it. But at the same time, like, I knew we were good from that standpoint. They weren't going to protest in Dunwoody, Georgia. But the reaction to the protest was somewhat disconcerting because it was in the middle of, you know, election cycle. And it was like, there was an obvious pushback. against what was going on with Black Lives Matter and, you know, the back to blue and all that kind of thing. I just wasn't going to just take it a chance that conservative white folks who really felt away about what was going on might not try something. So, like, you know, I guess you can take that as it is, but I mean, that's, that was more my reason for than worried about

protesters and that kind of thing. What, when I, when you and I talked and we talked a couple of weeks ago. We talked about sort of what you feel like are people basically talking past each other on the gun debate. What you feel like doesn't get said when there are conversations about the place of firearms in American culture or, quite frankly, the issue of gun violence in America. You feel like people are getting the conversation a little bit wrong. wrong. Like, tell me a little bit more. Tell us all a little bit more about how you feel about that. Well, I mean, I think the bottom line is, is that the conversation is very polarized at this point. And I'll say, let me start this by saying this. I think that most of the people, honestly, on

both sides, are arguing in good faith, most of them. I'm not going to say all of them, obviously, because there are people who, you know, take advantage or just, you know, grandstanding or what have. But I think most people honestly feel how they feel about it, and it's not an attempt to convince or to treat people as if they don't know what they're talking about. Or it's not a scam. I don't think it's just as easy as saying we're just sticking to our blue and red teams and just saying, you know, walking the party line. But I think the thing that is missing is like a real, a real conversation about what is going on and why people feel, how they feel. From the, I would say from the left side of things, I think the politically untenable thing position to take is that, you know, banning guns. Like the idea of banning guns, I don't think any Democratic candidate would come out and say, I want to ban guns.

The fact, when you watch most of the interviews, whether it's the president or anyone else, they say, you know, I don't want to ban guns. I believe in the Second Amendment, but, and then they run down their, you know, reasons for why they feel what they feel. I think on the right side of things, the part that's missing is, like, empathy. Like, you know, I get that on the right side, on the conservative side, it's distrust of the government. And I'm not, honestly, from the left side, too, to some degree, I mean, black people have a reason not to trust the government. or the police. But this idea that gun control is just government tyranny and politics. It's as simple as government trying to control your lives. Well, the real fact of the matter is that people are scared. People have watched children die in schools. They have all the right in the world to feel how they feel about it, whether we totally agree on what the solution to that is or not is another conversation. But they have a right to how they feel. It's not a scam. It's not just something to say, well, I want to take away your freedom. People don't want to see their children die. And as people who are in

gun culture, people who are avid about shooting, if we're willing to drop a body for the people that we love and protect them, then people who aren't into guns will definitely just cast a vote for the person that they support as a politician to, you know, fix this problem. So I don't think that it's, I don't think that it's people arguing in bad space of people who are against the Constitution or against freedom or whatever hyperbole talking points come up in the conversation

I just think people don't have the empathy for people who actually truly are traumatized and want to fix the problem and it's nuance. It's not just as easy as saying either you're four guns and you hate kids and you don't care about kids or you're anti-guns and

you are the most caring and empathetic individual in the world. And just to kind of set the stage, because I want to be clear, too, because Van has mentioned that he, you know, has friends that he's a gun owner. He has friends that are gun owners. Where do you stand in regards to what you think about? I guess as far as are you four stricter policies or in laws in regards to gun control? Are you fine with the way that things are right now? I mean, I know it's different from state to state. say, where do you stand when it comes to, you know, your two Second Amendment rights? I believe that if you are not, way, there's a lot of gun control laws that are already on the books that are supposed to address these things. Like prior to the rise of mass shootings and, you know, the media coverage surrounding them, like the gun laws that existed, there wasn't such talk about the gun laws aren't worth. Even in years when crime was up or things like that, you know, when you're going to, you know, when you. you fill out, when you go to buy a gun from a gun store, you have to fill out in 44-73.

It asks you a lot of questions about your mental capacity and things of that nature. So I believe there are already a lot of gun laws on the books that should probably just be in force if people are sliding through the cracks. But if you're not a violent felon, if you're not a sexual abuser, if you're not a predator of children, if you don't have a history of violence or criminal activity, I believe you should be able to buy what you want to. to buy. I think this you show, I mean, I don't know what other standard we have to show that this person is a forthright person. So I believe you should be able to buy, you know, whatever pistol or whatever rifle that you want to buy to exercise your rights. I don't think that it really makes that much of a difference. But there obviously were loopholes in the situation like, you know,

the boyfriend loophole where certain, you know, if you weren't a spouse or you weren't married to a person, but you abuse them in some kind of way that you could still get a gun. There aren't background checks for private sales in certain places. Gun shows is mainly what the national conversation surrounds, is closing the loopholes for

gun shows and things like that. But I think 99% of the people who purchase guns aren't criminals or mass murderers, and the system that we have in place right now as it stands, if it's in force and enforced fairly, it should be fine.

When you say buy guns, that includes the AR-15 platform. Correct. Okay, explain to me what you think the usefulness of that platform is for an average American citizen. The usefulness. Well, I mean, it's a gun just like a pistol as a gun. I mean, if you're trying to defend yourself, you're not going to really walk around public with an AR-15. It's not a weapon that you can really conceal in that kind of way. It's mostly a home defense type of weapon.

Some people travel with rifles in their trucks, they would call a truck gun, and they'll have a rifle, an AR-15, you know, maybe in a bed of their truck or a lockbox in their truck or things of that nature. But as far as usefulness, it's a gun like every other gun is. To me, when it comes to guns, I think that, if I pull out a chart of guns and say, show me which gun you would rather be shot with.

My answer would be none of them. So for me, it's not really that much of a difference between an AR-15 and a pistol. However, I will say from the political side of it, from the marketing side of it, it's easy to use the AR-15 as kind of a straw man as the platform that people should fear because it's big, it's scary, it looks like a machine gun. And most people think it's an automatic weapon. You know, most people just don't have gun knowledge. But the AR-15 is a pretty standard weapon,

a pretty standard firearm that it works just the same as a pistol mechanically. But it's the civilian version of the M-16 rifle, is it not? Correct. It's a semi-automatic version of the M-16 or M-4 carbine that would be, or M-4 carbine that would be used in military, which is an automatic way, which means you pull the trigger and it fires until you release the trigger, as opposed to semi-automatic, pull the trigger one time you get one round, and for each time you pull the trigger, you get one round.

That's a civilian. So what I would say, and I'm asking you as a gun enthusiast and an expert, the AR-15 is a version of a gun that was made specifically for war. when we're talking about the M-16, that was the sidearm, excuse me, that was the rifle for a Marine. I think it came into being in the 50s or whatever, maybe even before then. The M-16 is a rifle that the United States military used

for purposes of war, and the AR-15 is, I guess, the consumer version of that weapon. This is what I would say. This is what I would say. All guns are meant to shoot something, kill it, right? but in my opinion the way that the gun kills depends on how many people

you want to kill with the gun right if you if you want to kill somebody with a shotgun there is a scope that that weapon can affect if you want to kill somebody with a pistol there's a scope of damage that that weapon

can affect now if you get John Wick or somebody like maybe yourself who I've seen your videos on Instagram with a bang, pink, pink, pink, pin, all of that, then, you know, mileage may vary. But in terms of this gun, what we've seen is that people

with not a high degree of firearms training, they're in no way, we're not talking about necessarily ex-military, they're able to buy that gun and operate it like a lethal iPhone. When you pick your iPhone up, the iPhone is so intuitive that it tells you how to,

use it. The AR-15 is such a simple killing machine that you can almost grab one, insert yourself into a situation, and then be such a threat that the cops won't fuck with you. Which is what happened in Yuvaldi.

Well, those cops are cowards. I don't think that even, I mean, and I hear I haven't to offend the police, but like, that's Yuvaldi cops. And the reason that was such a big deal is because most cops, we've never seen that before, where cops just don't engage. You have the same weapons they do. it happened in parking.

Studies have shown that having somebody actually there with a gun to defend you is not sufficient because in a lot of these situations like the cops are outgunned. Now, I think these cops are cowards, but at the same time,

the big scary rifle that you're talking about, they see it too. And they know what it could do. And they're not trying to fuck with you what they go out. They're getting out. The rant is, did studies. There have been studies

about whether or not armed security actually deter somebody from a mass shooting and it really doesn't. And in the case when there's a long rifle, they get scared and they run away. The guns are weapon of war.

Well, I mean, the cops just used the same AR-15 to kill the guy they robbed the bank in Louisville yesterday. The cops, there's a viral video that circulated crazy of a cop. I don't even know where this was, but He was responding to a shooting. He put his coffee down in his cup, got out his truck, grabbed his rifle, and sent one shot, put the shooter down.

So, I mean, the cops are, there's a lot of cops who are using these same rifles to put down a lot of criminal threats. So, I mean, granted, there are plenty of outliers for every condition we can come up with. But the cops are using these weapons to put down criminals in all kinds of places. Would you like to see school resource officers on campuses with AR-15s? Personally, I don't know that I don't want school resource officers necessarily walking the halls of schools. But I think I don't have any problem with getting too bad ass motherfuckers in two trucks to just be on rolling around the campus. Like, I don't know if school resource officers are always the same level of training or the same level of qualification as, you know, other types of armed professionals who may be more apt based on experience and training to really deal with some real bad shit.

But I don't understand why there shouldn't be armed security at schools at this point. And I'm not saying that's the end-all be-all answer of it, but what would be, I don't know about arming teachers necessarily because I think that introduces a lot of other potential problems. but real security officers, I don't see what the issue would be. But I mean, I'm open to hear like pushback from that. I want to go back to something you said about on the Republican side, they need to have empathy. I think that they need to have more than empathy. And for you to say that they have to have empathy, I'm wondering what is it that that looks like? Because when I listen to you talk about some of the laws that are in place for gun control or policies for gun control.

people seem to be slipping through the cracks when it comes to mental health. They seem to be able to get guns, even though they have a history of mental health. Not every state has the red flag laws. Criminal background checks aren't sufficient in several states. And so it seems that the laws that are in place aren't, because when you talk about having a gun, you're talking about being a responsible gun owner. But what we're seeing over and over again is that people are having these type of weapons and are not responsible gun owners.

So when it comes to the Republicans who seem to be so anti-more gun control laws, you're saying they need to have empathy. What does that mean and what does that even look like? Well, what it looks like is probably not going to be, I don't think that you're going to get Republicans to change their position on legislature based off empathy. I don't see that happening from their side.

And like, I don't really relate to conservative politics. I think a lot of it is bullshit, but they stand for what they stand for. I don't see anything about that changing. What I say empathy, though, I think it's just the way they talk about these things and the way they talk about people who are anti-gunned people or things.

It's just, you know, to me, there's hypocrisy behind it because they'll talk about in one hand how, you know, the mainstream media is dividing people and they're tearing apart the country with the mainstream media narratives and things, like that. But like a lot of times it's not the mainstream media. It's you. It's them. It's people saying things and talking about situations in a way that doesn't really reflect humanity of others. And I don't think that when it comes to solving the issue, if both parties are going to have

to agree on something, I don't think that such a, I guess like a crude or a rude or a disrespectful view of the conversation is going to lead anybody in it. It'll just be more stalemates forever. So you said something earlier that I'm going to come back to and making the point that I'm going to make and I'll see what you feel about this. You said that you feel like both sides

are arguing in good faith. I'd like to believe that, but I don't think that it's true. And I'll tell you what I mean by that. So there is being anti-gun. as an emotional and political mindset. And then there's being anti-problem, which is analyzing real life

and what the safety of the average American citizen is. Okay. So if you're anti-gun, you're a pacifist, you don't believe in weapons, they scare you, you see the carnage that they do, you go, I'm anti-gun, don't want to have anything to do. If you're anti-gun,

then what you're anti-problem, you say is, hey, gun violence in America is a problem. How do we solve? How do we solve it? And it's a problem just as team pregnancy was a problem back in the day. Team pregnancy was a problem, right? It's a big deal. It's not a big deal anymore in America. Team pregnancy was a big deal. Talks about it, discussing all of this stuff. It's not a big deal because they solved it or is it not a big deal because it's just not the hot button issue that it was at one point? It's not a big deal because the percentages have gone way down. Okay. Okay. So, so, so.

and there's a reason. There's a reason why the percentages have gone way down. And that reason is because people were like, you know, we should do, we should talk to kids about this and put condoms in the school. And everybody was like, oh, my God, how can we talk about sex and give condoms to kids?

Like, how can we do that? Like, how can that happen? You know what? Despite their cultural sort of protesting, despite the fact that that was, a change that made their sort of their morals

or whatever that injured them a little bit, it worked. Despite what they felt is what I'm trying to say. Despite how you feel there's an answer to a question or to a problem, a solution to a problem, should I say. And in this one right here,

we're, this is not about guns. This is about gun violence. And it's not just about the gun violence that affects people in mass shootings, those are the big posters. Those are the singles. I'm talking about the deep cuts, just guns everywhere. And so when you say that there's a side that's arguing and both sides are arguing in good faith, I don't see how we could put, I don't see how we could believe that now when their bodies being stacked up everywhere, when people are getting killed all over the

place, and there is absolutely, from my perspective, zero initiative, zero want by one side to solve it at all. They say, shall not be infringed in the Constitution, in perpetuity, don't matter what, touch my gun, I blow your head off. Of all the things that aren't, that are the answer, we know that. that that's not it. We know that we have to do something. So when I'm looking at a group of people and they don't want to do anything, my question is, how could they possibly be acting in good faith? Well, I'll be more clear. The people who I think are arguing good faith are more probably the citizens than the politicians. So I think that's two sides of it as well, too, right? Like most of

the people, like when Beto O'Rourke says, yes, I'm hell yeah, I'm coming for your AR-15. Hell yeah, I'm coming for your AK-47. He's talking to people who aren't violent felons. He's talking to people who haven't committed the crimes. He's talking to people who haven't done harm to people with their guns. And so I understand the idea that that is probably going to make someone defensive when that's the conversation. I get it.

Because as a black person who owns guns, my question would be, well, okay, if these, when you say gun owner, you know, the avatar is like some country white guy in a flannel shirt who has 10 million guns. Well, as someone who's been involved in gun culture for a little while and kind of met people and talk people that I probably normally wouldn't kick it with in that kind of way, I'm more concerned about the aggrieved, 27. something year old who just bought an AR-15 six months ago than the guy who has 50 AR-15s and 10,000 rounds of ammo at his house. So what do you do about that guy? The guy who just bought an AR-15- The guy who just bought the gun. I mean, you're right.

I'm scared of that guy too. So what do you do about? Well, that leads me to the part where it gets complicated. And I don't really have a definitive answer for you as far as like what to do. But what I'll say is this. Do we, when we start getting into the realm of playing. minority report about who is going to be the next shooter and what kind of person is going to be the next shooter and basically trying to cut them off at the pads and say, you know, we're going

to use, you know, if you have, obviously, if you have like a serious mental health problem, when you have self-harm ideation or you said things about violently hurting other people, then yeah, like someone needs to come get you and needs to put you somewhere and separate you from your weapons so that you don't hurt people. That's what you're saying out loud. But I guess my question would be a lot of these people, in the last few shootings, every single one of them may say, the shooter bought this gun legally, the shooter bought this gun legally, the shooter bought this done legally. So I guess my question is like, how was you, and not to answer a question with the question, but how would you go about picking out who's going to be the next top bad guy?

I don't have the answer for that. I don't know what that answer looks like in a realistic sense. But I think that that's the issue. The shooter bought the gun legally. Why should the shooter, especially if there's, because in some of the most recent interviews, it's been a mental health issue. Why is that person allowed to? Should they go through a proper training to have a certain type of assault rifle?

Should there be more strict backgrounds? Because my thought is, in the same way that we've seen technology advanced and specifically even social media. And there are constantly these lawsuits or things that come up in the court system where the law has not caught up with the way that we're progressing with technology. There's not an answer for it. Would you say that same thing for guns? Because gun culture, I would say, is increasing and is the policy up to date with the current gun culture?

Well, I would say that there's, for me, I think there's a very, very huge difference between gun culture and mass shooter violent criminals. And I think part of the issue is that we've pretty much lumped everybody together. Like there's no separation between a person who is a law-abiding citizen like myself, who isn't violating anybody, and gun culture. And what that means to when you say that word in the narrative of the public scope. Because gun culture to most people means like, here's a group of people that can't wait to murder somebody. They can't wait to shoot somebody. They're so hyped to shoot people and kill people.

And I just don't think that's the case. I think most of the people that own guns who shoot guns who are shooters who go train, they don't want any trouble. Normally the people who we find doing these things aren't the people who are part of quote-unquote gun culture or the gun nuts. Because my question is what I guess the question also would be, what does that make me as a black person who owns guns? Am I the next gangster? Am I the next animal? Am I the next super predator?

because I own certain types of guns. I just think, like, I'm just saying, like, it's, I know people don't want to hear this, and this is going to piss off some people on the left and the right, but, like, I don't know what the answer to that is. So this is what I would tell you. I don't think that it's society at large or even the left that's lumping you guys all in

with the crazy murderers and the people like that. You don't think so? Nope, I think it's. I don't think so. Okay. I think it's, you guys. or the gun culture people. Not too much. No, no, I know what you're saying.

Yeah, but I think it's the gun culture people. Let me tell you why. It's because when we talk about the specific issue, when we say, hey, perhaps not this gun. Or perhaps this should be a standard to own this. Or perhaps we should have this law. It's the gun culture community, the two-way community, whatever, that circles the wagons and they say no.

They actually put themselves in a very close proximity to dangerous, disgusting things that happen. Because the inability to actually meet the moment and have a conversation about stuff makes it seem like everybody is together. It makes it seem like you can't separate yourself from the people who are doing these things. And let me tell you what I mean. Let me go a little bit further here.

What you just said earlier, somebody who doesn't say these things out loud, somebody who doesn't espouse that they want to hurt or kill somebody. Somebody that doesn't do that, right? You're describing in great detail, essentially red flag loss. And you're describing the society's ability to say, hey, this person right here is presenting. themselves as a danger to society, and there should be some sort of societal or judicial mechanism to determine whether or not this person is capable of having this gun right now. So we've got to go in, remove that person from their weapon. That to me seems completely logical.

It seems completely logical that if somebody says, you know what, I'm going to go to the mall today and start killing this. That's what I'm going to do. It seems completely logical to go and say, hey, Maybe that person doesn't need have a gun right now. Take the gun, have the hearing, the whole deal. You can't even get the gun culture slash two-way slash whatever community to agree that that's a good idea. They won't give at all.

They won't give on the weapon because what we're talking about right now, we can talk about as many different scenarios as we want. We can. Schools have been here. Molls have been here. festival's been hit shopping markets have been hit everything has been hit

and everything has been hit the only common denominator in the entire situation are the guns so until we have a real conversation from a standpoint of wanting to solve a problem about that we will get nowhere and what we'll do is this

we'll say you know what this is a part of who we are like every once in a while you're going to turn on your TV and 15 going to be dead and to me look I get it

I understand but to me that's fucking insane no it's got right no it's insane as hell but let me let me back up to one thing though

like I don't know I don't really like the idea that people in gun culture are putting themselves in proximity to the evil based off of what they're saying about the guns. Like, to me, that feels unfair because what I was just saying was that people are all being lumped together.

And you're saying, well, it's the people who aren't doing anything that are basically contributing to their own demise of being integrated with evil. And I don't think they're the same thing. I think that when you are a part of gun culture, the people are, I don't think people are going to, I mean, you said you don't think the people are being lumped together. I don't see it that way because I don't hear the conversation be nuanced in any way, shape, or form. I just hear, here are people who are for guns, here are people who are against guns. And when a shooting happens, someone has to say something or someone has to basically agree that they should be stripped of whatever, process they need to have to have their guns or have their guns taken away from them because

someone did something evil. And that's, I think that's a tough, I think that's a tough ask. I mean, because it would be like that with anything. I think if, and I know people don't like comparisons, I don't want to make a comparison of one tragedy to another tragedy. But if there was some other situation, whether it's alcohol or whatever it is, that was, that's killing people and someone said, well, you are not responsible enough to have that many Chardonnades and every car needs to have a breathalyzer. We need to do this because we just don't trust the society anymore. You all have run amuck with drinking and everyone's drinking and driving. I don't know that that is the answer really to the problem. I mean, the low estimate is that

there's 425 million guns in America, and that's probably really low. Most of those guns aren't AR-15s. Most of the killings that happen don't happen with AR-15. But we're talking about trying to remove AR-15s from society. Okay, great. So after you do that, when Dylan Roof walked in Mother Emmanuel Church and killed nine people, he did it with a Glock pistol. Joe Biden wants pistols to be limited to 10 rounds. Well, if pistols limited to 10 rounds and someone goes and kills six people, seven people, no one's going to get on news the next day and stay. Our gun control is working because 10 people could have died. And instead, that it was only seven. That's just not going to happen. And realistically, again, I know this is

something that people don't want to hear and it's politically untenable for any politician or candidate to say. But really, what are you going to do about the guns that are already in society that you would be worried about people using to do harm? The ATF only has but so many officers. The local police officer only have but so many officers. They're not going to knock on doors and take all of these guns from people. And to be honest with you, even the attempt of that would cause a huge, huge problem, maybe even on a scale that is bigger than the problem we already had. If you try to trust, like with Justice Trudeau did in Canada where there's no, you can't buy a pistol, you cannot possess a rifle, you cannot ship parts, you cannot do anything. All guns and all gun

parts and the whole thing is locked down in Canada. I'm not going to be one of those people. It's going to be what it is, but that would be a very huge problem. And politicians, know that. The way they talk about gun control is very triangulated because they know what they can say and what they can't say and what would be a problem and what wouldn't be a problem. They know that. A couple of things to what you just said.

I think that if one, I think that you talk about it moving forward and not necessarily stripping people from the guns that they already have. Two, I don't think that anybody who is saying that we need to have more strict laws is saying that there won't be people who still

commit mass shootings. The hope is to reduce it by making having more laws in place that will either prevent people or make people not want to go out and commit that. But I think something that Van was saying is that people do lump themselves in with what happens with the rights, not the rights, but what happens with these mass shootings because what happens is the shooting happens and then they're like, well, you can't take our guns away as if they are affected by what happened with the mass shooting. And my question to you is, what, how much would it infringe on your rights if they said no assault rifles? You'd still be able to have guns.

You'd still be able to use it for whatever purpose you retain guns in the first place. How much would that infringe on your Second Amendment right to be told you can't have this type of gun or you have to have this law in place? if you're a responsible gun owner, you're a responsible gun owner. So you shouldn't care if you have to have five background checks or have to have five courses of training or whatever it may be. If the purpose is to be a responsible gun owner and possess them, how is that infringing on your Second Amendment rights? And that seems to be the pushback from responsible gun owners, from people who aren't doing anything, and putting themselves with the people who are committing those huge mass shootings. Well, I think one of the issues is that people generally don't trust the government. And that's just a thing that, you know, whether you're left or right or whatever the case is, I think people feel like that type of power will be abused. I mean, as a black person, like, honestly, my question would be, like, I think, you're example. H.R. 127 was a bill that was sponsored by, I don't know why I'm blanking on this sister's name.

Fazi Bear. No, the senator from Kentucky. She was a Jackson League. That's what I'm sorry. Sheila Jackson League. Now, the HR 127 wanted mandatory insurance, mandatory 24 hours of training, mandatory psychoval, and the ability of the psychovaluate value. to question yours any spouse you have now or ex-spouse anyone who lives in your home and two or

three people you know friends or close people to the family to interview to basically get all these people to vouch for you now i guess in theory that sounds to most people like okay fine it's no big deal and i don't think personally i would have a problem passing that because i don't think that i have any skeletons in my closet or any type of abuse but i guess the question would be the purpose of the law isn't to, the purpose of the law is to keep people from buying guns. Like, I don't, I can't pretend that it's only there to kind of weed out the baddies. Like, again, if you tried to ban the Second Amendment or you tried to say, we're going to, you know, ban pistols.

And they're my AR-15. We're going to ban handguns because these are the guns that kill the most amount of people, which to me is logically the thing that you would really want to be doing. If that's what the goal is to really minimize the amount of shootings, they would say ban handguns. They can't say ban handguns because they know to a lot of people that would sound crazy. But people don't trust it that's going to be a thing. People don't trust it that's going to happen equally and fairly. Who's going to get to deny?

Jamar and Jerome? Who's going to get the guns? Ethan and Eric? Like, it's black people. Like, seriously, the war against the war on drugs. Who did that shit on? The war terrorism. How many Muslim people were violated and assaulted because of the war on terrorism?

Because people were scared of it for. who's going to do what and who's going to be what. I'm really only talking about this, honestly, from a black person's perspective. Like, I'm not going to beat you over the head with the Constitution. Like, the Second Amendment is the thing that allows me to own the guns I own and get on this beloved platform and say the things that I'm saying right now. But that piece of paper was written by crackers who owned slaves,

who wasn't thinking about my black ass when they wrote it. Or they were, let me take it back. They were thinking about my black ass when they wrote it because they said I was only three-fifths of a person. They said I couldn't have guns because they didn't. because they were afraid that slaves were going to uprise and take them over. Like, I'll be honest with you. Like, I understand that when we're talking about this, we're talking about it from the

standpoint of stopping these mass shootings and things. And I think that's the righteous thing. Like, you're not my enemy. Anyone who has an opposing view is not my enemy. But as a black person, I have a righteous historical legacy to stand on when it comes to not trusting the government, not believing the police can save me from any type of violent attack. And just the standpoint that we're not that far removed from,

we're not removed at all really, but we're not that far removed from a time when people like us were endangered. It killed Martin Luther King in 1968. That ain't really that long ago. Like, if you're a marginalized person in America right now, I would personally, like, my little brother is gay. We've talked about this conversation.

He lives in L.A., and I'm telling him, like, I know California isn't a gun-friendly state, but, like, do what you have to do to get your license and get a pistol. because there's no way in hell. I'll be walking around at 2023 as a trans person and not have a firearm. I see how these people talk about these people. And I would not feel comfortable at all

that someone isn't going to try to do something to me because God told them that I can't exist or God told that I'm going to hell or anything. And with some of these laws that are being proposed, specifically with the HR 127, by the time you pay for 24 hours of training, most firearms classes are two to three hours, $150, $200. They want 24 hours mandatory.

To get the ammo and take the classes alone is going to cost you $2,000. Then you have to buy a pistol. Then you have to buy a safe. And you have to buy a holster. So to buy a pistol in America for a black man, a black woman, a marginalized person is going to cost $4,000. I understand the problem, but I don't feel that that's a fair thing. You can't price people out of that.

I just don't feel like it's right. Ja, that was one of the most well-stated and eloquent straw men that I have ever heard before in my life. Let's go back to a couple of things here. Okay. Number one, we talked about alcohol. You can't walk around with an open container. You can't drink until you're 21 unless you're in Vegas.

Some places you can, but. But most places, you can't walk around with the opium container. You can't drink until you're 21. You can't drink while you have an open container while you're in your car. There's a certain level of alcohol that you can't have. You can't be publicly intoxicated in a lot of places. That, my friend, is a crime. Alcohol is something that people do for fun.

But entities all over the country recognize that is unchecked. It has the potential to be dangerous in myriad ways. You cannot have sex with a woman if she is drunk because she has lost her mental capacity to consent. Alcohol is something that people do all over the country, all over the world, but it is something that has the potential to be destructive. Therefore, there needs to be rules. But there are any rules on alcohol? I just gave you a bunch of them. I go to bars every single weekend.

And when I go to bars, you know what I see outside of bars? Parking lots. And you know what's in parking lot? Cars. And everyone in that parking lot is going to drive home. I'm not saying what you just described two different things. What you just said is that people break rules. I didn't say that people don't break rules.

People are going to break rules no matter how they, what form are they come in. I said that there are rules, right? That there are rules. There definitely rules to something that people think can be dangerous. A car is not inherently dangerous. Correct. But there's a process you have to get through to make sure that you're qualified to drive it, a plane, whatever. The only difference in all of these things is that none of them are expressly written in the Constitution as a right.

There are other things that are that you have to, that you have to register for like voting, okay, which is something that is expressly in the Constitution as a right. And yet you still must register to do it. But I'm just letting you know, I digress. tell you what I'm the the real uh point of what I'm saying. There's a lot of stuff that you that you said and I understand your perspective and I get it. I respect you. You got one of the biggest brains that I know. But a lot of stuff that you said prior to that existed in the hypothetical. What will happen if? What will happen if we ban this gun? What will happen if this happens? What will happen if that happens? A, well, how far can we go?

How far are they going to go? What is the government going to do? Right. I did not. I did not see the two-way community defend Philando Castile. Very, very little in all. That was a legal gun owner that was killed by the state in a situation to where if it was really all about going to war with the government,

a bunch of people should have went up there and banged it out with the cops. They didn't do that. They're not going to do it. Because that's not what this is about. All right? That's not what this is about. Something else. There's data on this. Harkmore facts. In 1994,

there was an assault weapons ban. Mm-hmm. Right. Gun mass shootings went down. 40%. And then they increased when that assault weapons ban was lifted. But let's be clear about something.

So just, I mean, like the things, the things that we're discussing here, it's not the answers that people don't like. It's the questions. And so, look, I, like, I'm a black man that was raised

in gun culture, a part of it for real. Dog, I get it. When my dad died, I went into a room and I looked up it was 35 guns. All kinds. Exotic shit. Zero count, like

fucking zero gauges. Big fucking elephant guns. The whole nine. We got a problem and we got to figure it out. And it's going to take give on both sides. It's going to take understand. what the framers meant when they put into the Constitution that they wanted people to be able to have well-relegated militias.

It also is going to take us understanding that not even the framers could see a time, these guys were shooting muskets at each other, not even the framers could see a time where you could stand in one place with a carbine-powered weapon of war and kill 30 people. They never heard of a bump stop. They don't know what they're talking about.

Ain't none of these two-way people going to war with the government. That's bullshit. I don't believe any of that. Do I believe that these laws would be unfairly applied? Sure, what laws aren't. But that can't be a reason good enough to stop us from acting here. I'll let you have the last word. Well, what I'll say is this.

You can call it hypotheticals if you want to, but I think that part of how both of us have made our money is looking at society from a broad perspective and kind of reading the wrong, right? And from my personal perspective, I'm not even going to attempt this. I'm not speaking for a community. I'm just talking about me here.

From my personal perspective, ban AR-15s if you want to, but when the gun problem doesn't solve itself because the AR-15 is now banned, and now the only thing left is pistols and shotguns and hunting rifles. A, like, I don't know if you've seen the calibers of hunting rifles. What hunting rifles can do to a person, it can be significantly worse than what an AR-15 can do to a person.

Not as quick. I don't know about that, bro. Like, there's a 308, a 308 hunting rifle that holds six rounds or five rounds in a little magazine. Like, you can do very bad damage. But that's not the point. That's not really the point. The point is that ban whatever you want to ban, do whatever you want to do.

But my question is, in my estimation, none of that is one to work. To me, the toothpaste is out of the tube already. And I get it that people have the right to feel that we can really change this thing. And the whole thing is like, you know, if you can just save one life, then it's all worth it. And that's fine. I'm not poo-pooing that. I'm not even looking at that in a sarcastic way. What I'm saying is that when the numbers,

aren't really effective because mass shootings aren't happening because of AR-15s. In 1994, America was a very different country. We're very sick. We're very, very sick right now. And I'm not talking about beyond guns. I'm talking about mentality. I'm talking about the way we treatings are like America's a very stick country. And the argument, the train that usually arrives about this time is all these other

countries have problems too. They have mental health problems and things like that, 100%. But America is a very sick country. and beyond these banning these specific little things and trying to make a dent and trying to make people feel safe, I don't think that's really going to change anything. And when it doesn't, then what's next?

All right. Doesn't mean they can't try. Jason, that's it. It's over. We're not talking about this no more. It's only hip-hop and rap and everything else that Jai has going on. Well, hold on. Jason, tell them what you up to and what they can find.

Let me just say this one quick thing, too, because why you said that, I do want to mention this real quick. I do, like, myself, all of my friends own guns, I'm the only shooter. Beyond all the political talk and all this, should we or shouldn't we, I really, really, really want black people who own guns to get education. Get a trainer. It doesn't have to be me. It can be anybody. There's lots of great people out here. My chalet.

My cherey, my homegirl TIG from my sister's keeper defense. There's lots and lots of black women who are interested in. Redstone firearms. My guy Ken from Prefector's Group, KD, from no other choice. There's a lot of black firearms instructors out here. Please just get the education. Don't just have a gun and think that you're going to turn into John Wick when you're having an emergency. You do not have the skills. I promise you you don't. It's not as easy as just shoot them in the knee. It's not going to happen like that. So just please get some education. Please get a class. Please do something to educate yourself on the firearm that you may own already. Right. Just always know that you're safe.

for running away. If you can run away. Under the something that you can't run away. Right, right. But you can find me on the Twitter at Hip Hop Obama. You can find me on Instagram. The company that I've started that I'll be teaching under that I'll be doing content and kind of educational services is called Good Reps.

You can find me on Instagram, brother Good Rep, if you want to find out more stuff about what I'm doing as far as the firearm space. But I'm a regular black person. I'm a regular black person. I am not. He is a regular black person. He's a regular black person. He's a regular black person.

I appreciate you for joining us. No problem, but thank you for joining us. Thank you. I appreciate you. I love you all. Y'all. Y'all be good. Cardi B.

I'm so interested in your take on this. I'm so interested in your take on this, because, man. This is, okay, so Cardi B called the Dalai Lama a predator. She was very direct. and very adamant. He's a predator. Dander was up.

Cardi B, this is a predator. We have to do better and educate our kids. Great message. Cardi B then got swacked up on Twitter. People were like, how can you call somebody a predator when you've admitted in the past to drugging and rape

not drugging and raping? No, let me say that again. So you admitted. in the past to drugging and robbing men. Cardi B it was a dancer for a while and while she danced she says that she would wait till after the club

or be approached after the club by guys who wanted to use her skills as a sex worker, then whatever she went somewhere with them, she would drug them and then rob them. All right. A lot of people were saying you can't say anything about people

being a predator because of your past. This is Cardi B's response to the critics. So I put the tweet up, right? I put the tweet up and now people want to come at me like, oh, bitch, you're the wrong messenger. You're the wrong messenger. Then you robbing drug man. And it's like, listen, listen, listen.

Y'all not going to keep doing this because when it comes to fucking weird-ass predators and rapists and pedophiles and shit, I'm really like, I'm really like, I don't play that shit. I really don't fucking play that shit. And for y'all are like trying to say that I'm like some predator or I'm some weird bitch because niggas wanted to buy pussy from me. And a lot of y'all be like, oh, these were vulnerable men, you took advantage of. These were no, no fucking vulnerable, man.

These are some freak-ass niggas. They like to go to the strip club. They like to get drunk. And after you go, after the fucking club is closed, they're trying to fucking take advantage of bitches and trying to bargain. No, nigger. I'm going to go through them fucking pockets. And then I'd be like, you're drug and robbed them. Did I touch their body?

Did I touch their penis? Did I touch their eyes? Did I touch them? Did I put my lips on them? No. No type of fucking touching. Don't confuse. And even if you claim, oh, you robbed them.

What's robbing and rapiness? Two different types of shit. Don't fucking call me no rapists. Don't call me no fucking predator. Don't fucking play with my name like that because I don't play that shit. And because of that tweet, people talking about like, oh, but you're the wrong messenger. How am I the wrong message?

bitch, I'm the right messenger because I'm a fucking mom. I don't know why you're so interested in my opinion on this. To me, this is so straightforward. When I saw this, I was like, is it a slow day on the internet? Are people bored? I'm not condoning anything that Cardi B. has done in the past. I'm not condoning the fact that she admittedly drugs people and robs them, okay?

like straight out of the movie Hustlers. I'm not, I'm not excusing that. But that doesn't mean that she can't have an opinion about what the Dalai Lama did. I'm sorry. Y'all got to let it go. Everything Cardi B said is absolutely correct in regards to that. She can have her opinion.

She can come at him. So she's supposed to stay silent because she herself has drugged and raw people, which is not the same thing to being a sexual Well, predator. And I'm not saying one thing is greater or more serious than the other. Both are problematic, but it doesn't excuse her from being able to say, hey, you guys have to watch out there for predators. Be careful who you trust your children with. Her message is correct. Whether she's a mother or whether she is not, you can't just excuse people as deities or as being perfect just because

of whatever their faith is, whatever their title is. You have to watch out for people. Her message is right. y'all need to get off cardi. I also just feel like people just always want to come at Cardi. Do you not agree? No. Not in the least. So Cardi B can't have an opinion. That's not what I'm saying.

Cardi B definitely can have an opinion and her opinion is valid. As are the opinions of people who say, maybe it's not, maybe it's best that you don't broach this. And by the way, we do this. We do this all the time. When I say we do this all the time, like right now, if Ray Rice came out and said,

hey, let me tell you guys about how to treat your Black Queen. The message probably would be fine, but the fact that Ray Rice is somebody who has been abusive before wouldn't be received well. By the way, saying that somebody can't talk about a specific thing

because they've done something in the past, are we really going to act like that's not what people do? The reality is this. And in the time that Cardi B was doing what she was doing, she was praying on the men that she was drugging.

That is a fact. Now, she's been very very, very forthright about it. It's something that's in her past. I don't think that there's any reason to hold Cardi B to account for the rest of her life for something that she did then. But God damn it. To come on the thing and be like,

yo, these people either deserve to get drugged or it's not. Or it's not that bad because I didn't touch their bodies. Or come on, man. Like, it's like what I'm saying is, come on, man. Like we, I get how we do it. And I understand all of the stuff. And that I understand they're acceptable double standards everywhere.

Everywhere. And I understand it. I don't even call them double standards. I think they are standards, right? But her indignation over people bringing this up is wild to me. Like she spent a time in her life for whatever reason as a predator. And to be honest with you, there are sex workers all over the world who do sex work who probably don't like the fact that she's so boastful about the fact that she used to do this

because it's their job and they do it what I like honestly. You know what I mean? So it's like to me. It's a whole movie about it too. Well, so what does that mean? I'm just saying, not that it was glorified, but I'm just saying there was a whole movie about it. I'm not defending Cardi.

I'm just saying you can't just put that just on Cardi. There's also a movie hustlers that also puts that type of similar behavior out there. It's not just Cardi. But what does that have to do with anything? Well, what you said was is that Cardi said this and it affects sex workers is what you're saying. And I'm like, but there's also a movie out about it. So doesn't that affect sex workers as well? So?

Okay. Anyways. Hold on. There are multiple men that have drugged and raped women. So what difference does it? Like, it's like, I'm saying don't just put that.

I'm saying you can't just solely put that on party. What kind of wild shit are we doing? No. She admitted that she drugged men and then robbed them. It's wrong. I'm not, I never said it was right. I'm just saying you're putting it off.

You're saying what Cardi said affects people's works. I'm like, yeah, but there are also other forms of media out there that have done the same thing. I'm just saying don't solely put it on Cardi. I'm not defending Cardi. I've said she's wrong. I'm getting lost to it.

I've said Cardi's wrong. I do not condone that type of behavior. But I do think you comparing the Ray Rice situation is more of an apples to apples than what Cardi's speaking out and what Cardi did. That's not apples to apples. Like, yes, Cardi drug people,

yes, that is predatory behavior. But what the Dalai Lama did or what she's not what specifically what he did, what she's speaking out on is about crimes against children. I don't think that it's almost, I don't think it's the same level. I don't think that people can come after her the same way just because she has a past and did criminal behavior

and admitted to the things that she did. I don't think it's apples to apples. Ray Rice talking about women. And after what he did, that's a different situation. The reason why I put them together is because people said, or she said, that the Dalai Lama was a predator. And people are saying, hey, you have a predatory past too.

Now let me tell you, I love Cardi B. Love her to death. Love Cardi B. Everything about her, her story, the music, her personality, all of it. In her response, there was an opportunity to say something like, you know what, I did do that back in the day. These are the reasons why. And it was wrong then.

And what she didn't do that. Has she never set, has she never in the past said though? What she did was wrong. I'm talking about right now. She doubled down. And when we're talking about something like this, this serious,

it's like, all right, okay. I get it. And I'm just, all right. All right now. Okay. Shit. Love Cardi B.

But come on, man. Drugging people. It's so wrong. Catch your question. Seriously. I want you to answer honestly. All right. Is this really about,

because a lot of people have to depend on Cardi. Is this really about the notion or the thought somewhere that drugging men who are waiting to pay for sex in a strip club is not as bad? It's not that bad.

No. It's bad. I'm not, I don't think anybody deserves that. Well, those type of men didn't deserve that. Maybe. I mean, some of them were probably predators too. A lot of them. They might have been. But her intention without knowing that or I'm assuming she didn't know that, her goal was to drug and rob them. And it is, and she prayed on them, right? She picked out the man, she drugged the man. She robbed the man. Right. So, no. All right. Did you see the video of the hairstylist? Yeah.

There's a woman I posted it on my Instagram. I wonder what Rachel gets breaks. And her name is her name is So I would like to say that the video that's posted on my Instagram She didn't do that. Like there's Kintech cloth on the side of it

And they're playing like an Afro beat song And she didn't do She didn't do that. She didn't do that. She didn't do that. Her name is by Rachel Lauren. I thought it was Amber, and I thought that this guy that was on Instagram that was saying that he was her boyfriend, was her real boyfriend. But she's braiding up black ladies.

And the Twitter caption was we need to talk about, we talk a lot about African hair being sacred. Not only is this disrespectful, but it. it's economical suicide. A lot of black women make their money by braiding other black women's hair, SMH. You're taking money right out of those black women's pocket by supporting this type of behavior. Racial, do you think that there's anything culturally off-code by a white woman braiding black lady's hair? I'm sorry. I don't.

I don't. I was, I mean, I am going to go to somebody who's black because I just figure that, That's who understands my hair. And that's where I figure I can get the best quality of service. I'm not going to go to a white woman, even though I'm not going to lie. These box braids look fantastic. Now, they do. And you're lying if you say not.

And she knew to put the oil in, to soothe it. She knew to put the foam at the top like you do. I'm impressed. I don't think that this is economically, suicide or what was the phrase that they use? Economical suicide.

That's a reach. I don't think that's that. But if you do have an issue with it, if you're offended by it, then don't go to a white breeder. It's just that simple for me. It would be hard for me to even find this white braid. I feel like we just gave this woman

way more attention than she probably had before. Oh yeah. We want to talk about this? About what I just said? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you're right. Yeah. Yeah.

Like you just gave this woman so much business by putting her out there. I would have never found this woman. I wouldn't have even known that there was a white braider. I wouldn't trust it. You could have an Instagram full of a head of braids. I wouldn't believe that you did it. I'm just not in the business of going to white people to do my hair. And I think most people would say that.

So I think this is a reach. But more power to Rachel, that's her name. More power to Rachel, you know, she wants to do this. And the girl who's letting her do her head, it wouldn't be me. So I just want to point something out. You're right. It is a lot of free publicity. And because of that, I want to point out some other black hair braiders that are in the Houston area where Rachel is.

New style African hair braiding and weaving. It's in Houston, Texas. They've been, they have five plus years in business. Amina hair braiding, African hair braiding shop that's also in Houston, Texas. Five plus years in business. She's been my only braider for the past year. And I'll keep coming back. One of the review says, Aisha, African-African,

hairbrain. On time, at least two braiders on assist at all time. These are all black ladies. African hair braiding by Mina provides box braids. Lady says, I love my braids. I got them done a month ago. Kaua African hair braiding salon. Three plus years in business. The previous braider used too much hair. And then in my head feel very heavy. But they get you right at Kauai. Hair braiding in Houston, braids, twists, locks, and more. Wow. African hair braiding salon. Ten plus years in business. These hair braiders know how to grow and treat your hair.

They're black. Sore braiding. African hair braiding braids shop Houston. My braided did an amazing job on my style. The last one, Katie African hair braiding and weaving. This is all down there in Texas. I must say these braiders are truly talented.

So I will make sure that everybody else gets a little shine to. This is what I'll say about this. Obviously, I don't really have an issue. with somebody braiding up the hair. It's not that big of the thing. I will say this, though. I've realized something

about black people and it's something that as black people, we should all kind of realize. We are fair. Like, we're fair. Like, black people are a fair people. And I think that sometimes

we get suffocated by fairness. Like, we're fair. Okay. If you look at the comments, of course there are people, the people that don't like it. But the majority of people, black women and black men, are saying, hey, if she's good at her job and she's on time and she knows how to break, she hasn't had any crazy rules, most of those people are saying, hey, I'll let her break my hair. And that makes a lot of sense. That's fair. That's a fair way to look at.

Okay. We live in a country that's not fair. Correct. We live in a place where everybody else isn't fair with their culture. They're not. And this is just a reality. They're not fair with their culture. They're not fair with their access to jobs.

They're not fair with their access to the beauty standard. They're not fair with their access to food to any of that stuff. They're not fair about it. And they don't give a fuck how you feel. They don't. They really don't give a shit. what happens is Rachel, who I'm sure is a

dynamite person, she came on in the comments of the Twitter video, of the Instagram video that I posted, told me who she really was and that that story that was on Twitter about her was a lie. And so I fixed it. There's nothing against her, but the same people that are saying,

hey, this is not a big deal, understand that if there is a magazine Braite Tech America and then they didn't take Rachel and put her on the cover of the magazine and make her the box braider of Houston

that won't be the first time that happened that won't be the second time that happened that won't be the third time that happened not the fourth not the fifth not the sixth not the seventh not the eighth not the ninth not the 10 never never do people remember the originators

of the dances, the cultural styles, the slang, any other stuff. We're fair, them. Honest, good work. Even when we in the streets, they try to create a system of moral around them. We're fair.

They're not fair with us. They're not. They're not. And the question that I ask is for all of the fairness and damn let them into like what have we gotten for that? Like we always lose it. Like we all it.

Absolutely. TikTok. TikTok, rock and roll. Like Kim Kardashian had been the box braids, right? And that were Vogue magazine said or something like that. Like we always lose. So for the people that are saying, hey, I want to gate keep my culture and it doesn't matter how much work she put in.

It doesn't matter what she does. It doesn't matter how she is. For the people that are saying that, I'm fucking with that. But I mean, I'm not going to, like, there are bigger problems than her brain people up in Houston, but, like, I'm, I get it. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, I, it's like, all right. I was looking through the comments of what people were saying, and I was shocked at the black women who were like, well, if she's good at what she does, that's fine. But that doesn't mean that this is now me talking.

That's fine. Great. She knows how to do box sprays. But that doesn't mean that we have to be employing that. I saw somebody else say, oh, when I go on set, it's nice because I've been on sets before where white people don't know how to do my hair. So it would be nice to have a white person

who could handle black hair. Do you realize what you're really saying? Why does that a black person that can handle black hair? Exactly. That's the issue. You should be demanding that somebody black can do your black hair. The problem is that we aren't in these positions, not that they learn how to do what we do

so they can keep us out of the jobs. That's a huge issue. And anybody who's also saying that, you ain't going to go to this white lady to let her do your box break. Stop. If she's going up now. You're not doing it.

Hey, go back and run back to other people. Much love to everybody. But I just let y'all know, y'all don't get no prize but not gatekeeping your culture. Like your culture is something that's supposed to be gate kept. There's no reward for being fair with white people.

I'm just being for real with you. I don't mean to sound like a dick when I say that. No, even with white people. You're only as good as the last thing you do. There's no reward for it. And I'm going to, there's no reward for it. Anyway, all right, mailback. Mailback time.

Time to read your letters and then we'll reply to them. Oh, it's mailback time. us with your queries and we'll chime in. All right. The first mailback question isn't a question. Amanda Bake asks or says, no questions, just want to wish,

man, a happy early birthday. Oh, that's really sweet. Don't you want to say thank you? Yeah. I mean, yeah. We pause for you to respond. Gave it the space. I said, oh.

Right, Donnie? Thank you very much. She gave it the space. All right, cool. The next one is from caregiver. Caregiver asks, how would Bozeman describe Van and how would Copper describe Rachel? If Bozeman and Copper were talking about y'all during a puppy play date.

Rachel, what do you think? Oh, my gosh. That I'm an angel. He would describe me as the love of his life. Really? Yes. We say, she's so amazing. That's my best friend.

She saved me I love her so much And he would also let everybody know he came first Because sometimes he's super protective Of me even with Brian You know what I feel like Bosman would say Bosman would be like Now let me tell you something

I got this motherfucker wrapped around my motherfucker fucking finger man No Like he sits down and he eats All I got to do is walk over there And look at it like nigga what's up And I know the food's coming my way no matter what it is. It could be from Astros.

It could be from McDonald's. He's breaking it off with me. Right, this is so easy. He would be talking to copper. He'd be like, bro, let me tell you how to get. We tell you how to get this. This is so easy. He wakes up in the morning.

I go jump in the bed. A couple of licks. A snuggle. When he comes home, I go crazy. And this motherfucker buys me whatever I want. Bro, I'm living in the lap of luxury. I'm the dog. I'm the dog.

And you could be too, copper. I see your parents. your parents even got it more than my parents do. You could be getting more. You could be hustling out here. That's Bozeman talking to coppers. When I open the door, Bozeman's going to be sitting right outside the door.

And that's because he knows that that's what he got to do to get his shit off. All right. Last one is from my balloon. They ask, you wake up and the two of you have switched places. Van, what's the first thing you do is Rachel? Rachel, what's the first thing you do? It's Van.

Oh, my God. I know what I'm doing. What? This is going to sound so stupid. I'm going to call soup kitchen. That's the first thing you're going to do in the morning. First act. I wake up.

Oh, shit, I'm Rachel. Okay, cool. You know, I put on three or four layers of clothing and not trying to see your body. And so then I called, then I call soup kitchen. I'm like, yo, what's up? How are you doing? You want to go to lunch? And he's like, wow, Rachel, this is.

is so amazing. Like, yeah, I've been waiting to really get some, yeah, let's go to lunch. Let's go. Come on. Let's go to Tokomadera. Oh, is that we're going? You got you and soup kitchen at Toka Madera. I'll go to Tokyo Madeira. Well, maybe, maybe I'll meet you at Tokomadera with Harvey Levin. Because that's who I'm going to wake up and call. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. That's who I'm waiting. So you, so, and then we all at Tokomadera, right?

We all, and then we just fucking switch back. And it's like, who's like, yo, man, what the fuck is this. And you're like, ha-ha. And you're like, look, it's hard. I'm like, I had soup kitchen. And then I just fucking put the table over. And we just, and we laugh. We skip down third street. Laughing and singing. That's the, that's the end. Of the podcast.

Take the de-keps off. Do not stop learning. I am Van Lacey and Junior. Rachel, get a back. I'm Rachel Lynn Lindsay. Bye, bye, guys.