Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Angela and the Academy, Plus Sam Pollard on Documentary Filmmaking

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

Van and Rachel discuss the 2023 Oscars, the reaction to Angela Bassett’s disappointment (22:43), and ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ making history (56:35). Then, they discuss President Biden addressing the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (1:02:32), and filmmaker Sam Pollard joins to talk about his latest documentary, ‘Bill Russell: Legend’ (1:28:46). Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Sam Pollard Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What it's up? Higher learning was on. It is I, Van Lathen, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, how was you? Um, it's funny. I knew you were going to ask me that,

and I was thinking about that earlier. I'm like, what did I do this weekend? Um, it was good? Why is that you could never remember what you did during the weekend? Oh, okay. Friday. I went to work, and I think I've talked about this before him podcast, but the dogs are giving me hell.

Every month, it's either copper or brownie, copper or brownie. Poor copper hasn't been able to control his bowels for three days. And I come home and just completely destroyed the house. Poor guy. Can't be mad. He's sick. Finally took him to the vet. All the tests came back.

normal, but he's dehydrated, obviously. So got him checked out, got some meds. He was fine. Went to dinner with some of Ryan's friends, but one of their friends came. The chat? The thread. No, no, no, no.

This is a friend that he met here, a doctor. Shout out the Dr. Sandra and his wife, Cindy. They're expecting. And then he met his other friend. art, but their their, um,

their, um, art's black. I feel like the way what, the way he said it. I had to, I felt like I had to say.

It was art. That's the way he said. I'm sure. Anyways, um, one of their friends was in town for the baby shower and turns out she was my sister's friend

at Spelman and I remember her because 15, you know, like I'm all wide-eyed and everybody is just so impressive to me. I mean, she still really is. But anyways, saw her again, met her husband. That was cool. Went to their baby shower on Saturday. And really just chilled.

Yes, I did the Oscars, but not like I normally do. I wasn't on the carpet with arrivals. I did a fashion recap after it was over. The fashion recap after it was over. So you weren't on the carpet with the arrivals. I was on the carpet after everybody left and they were packing up. And they were packing up. Why did it change?

Why weren't you on the carpet? I don't know, Van. You don't know. I don't know, Van. Guess they wanted to change it up this year. We'll leave it there. What did you do this weekend? Not a particularly good weekend for me.

I'm sorry. Yeah. David Ellis, who is my uncle, my mother's brother, he died on Saturday. My mother's, one of my mother's brothers, my mother's brothers, my uncle David, my uncle had had cancer.

And he passed away. And it was, it's interesting. He taught me how to swim, right? And him and I had spoken a couple of times since he had been sick. He had gone. to hospice care.

And the way he was talking and the way that some of the conversation was going, I don't know why I felt like he was going to be okay. But if I really been thinking about it, my mother and my grandmother were spending an increasing amount of time at his side and trying to make him comfortable. So he became an ancestor on Saturday. And it's difficult. It's hard for my mom and it's hard for my grandmother.

My grandmother's birthday is on the day of this podcast release. It's so happy birthday, Momo, on the 14th. It's hard because it's difficult to see somebody that was so, like, full of life, which he was. He lived very hard as men and my family as southern men tend to do. He liked to have himself a drink. you know he had had some i guess you'd say run-ins with the law throughout his life but he was my uncle this big

tall beautiful slender black man i posted a picture of him he had his his his his locks out he looked like what you would consider to be black jesus you know looked like And so, you know, my mom is obviously going through a lot of stuff and my grandmother's going through a lot of stuff losing a child, my grandfather as well. But all of these conversations that you have in the midst of somebody's transition, just really refocus like what you want your life to be and what I want my mother's life to be. Mm-hmm. You know, the men and my family on both sides

come into the world and like just bite chunks of it off. You know, they do everything. They live hard. They womanized. They do the things that they do. And then the women outlived them. You know, my uncle David died in his 60s. My dad died in his 60s.

My uncle Charles died. some years ago in the 60s. My uncle Mark, my dad's brother died. He was 55. These are hard living southern men that come in there and they bounce around. And they are, then they're gone. And the women of the family, my mother, my grandmother, my sister, my aunt, Gavin's mom, Gigi, my, you know, my youngest brother's mother, all day.

outlive these guys. And so for the rest of their lives, they have to have conversations with ghosts and kind of re-litigate these men's entire lives. While the entire time they were here,

they held their secrets and they, you know, they built them out of jail and they visited them in prison. It's just I talked to my mother even with some people that are still around

it's just a non-stop life of emotional sacrifice and it extends beyond the grave. So it's interesting and it's also interesting watching this generation of people move on into eternity because it represents like

a dying of a certain portion of your life. you know, it's like the 80s are dying, almost. And, you know, the further we move along, the 80s will, you know, but it's like the 80s are dying. Like all of these guys who were around me during that time, they're gone. So I really need to, in a big way, focus on my mother and my grandmother and my sister in terms of the experiences that they still have left,

that they can still have. My mom has so much living to do. My grandma has so much living to do. But I want to make sure it's on their terms because they're always fretting about somebody else, you know. But my uncle David, he wouldn't have wanted me to lie about him. That's not how he did it. I remember one time we were watching Mike Tyson fight.

and Mike Tyson had lost to Vanderholyfield and the whole house was shocked. We were still holding on to hope that Mike was in some way invisible. And the whole house, oh my God, Van Goghville just whooped this shit out of Mike Tyson. Uncle David goes, all right,

you're going to kill him in the rematch. Okay, so the rematch comes. He comes back over to the house. And Vanders beating Mike ass again and Mike bites him, right? And then David goes, well, Tyson's a bum. Then he looks at his girl.

He goes, he goes, woman, grab me a butwise. The king of beers, because I am the king of my castle. And all my friends, we started laughing. He was drunk and going up. He was just, you know, he was drunk. He came in, we was listening to No Limit. He turned it off. And he was like, I'm about to put on some confunction.

Some parliament, funkadelic, some P-Funk. You know, my Uncle David was the first way that I realized that women sometimes cheat on their husbands. True story. Me and my father in Dallas, Texas, we were staying with my grandmother. And me and my dad went, but one of my mom's friends, she was having some work done in the house. And me and my dad went to go do the work. And we went, we poured some concrete in the front. We made, my dad told me, my dad taught me how to like,

expose the concrete. So if you want the concrete where you can see all the rocks and all of that stuff, you pour the concrete, then you run the holes over and you can see all the pebbles. It looks cool or whatever. So we're doing a little exposed walkway up to their house, a little quick job. And my mom's friend is there. I meet her husband and her husband and talking about all kinds of stuff.

Oh, you're like he, man, huh? You know, blah, blah, blah. He's being a nice guy. So I see her. Like a week later, I walk in the house and she's curled up with Uncle David on the couch. Oh. Maybe like eight, seven, eight, something like that.

And I'm like, huh, how does that work? And then I'm trying to listen to a Stevie Wonder tape. Well, pop to Stevie Wonder tape and then I've, I hear a tape that Uncle David, a mixtape that he's made for her where he's saying her name. This song is for you, baby. No. No, no, man. I swear.

80's music. I, I don't. Donnie bleep that name. He's like, this song is for you. I'm like, huh. I asked my, how's my dad? I was like, dad. What's, what's with Uncle David and my mom, my friend?

He was like, you know what's going on? He's right. If you got to ask, you know. He's like, you know what's going on. Unk didn't care. Next time I saw him, I was looking at him through a through a glass prison.

Prison wall. They got in trouble some kind of way up in California. You would visit them. And that's how I saw a lot of those guys, man. Where out, they were raised in hell. And when they weren't raising hell, they were inside of hell. So it's a, it's, um,

And it's interesting. Just, you know, a lot of, a lot of scars, man. In these deep southern families, a lot of scars. But, you know, he'll rest well. He didn't, he didn't leave anything. He ate all his food. So rest in peace, my uncle David. And I have to some way tell the story, the women in my family.

They just, me and my mom had a conversation earlier. And it's just so nuts what they've been, what they've had to go through. It's crazy. It's really insane, you know? So, I don't know. Black women handle a lot. I may sacrifice a lot.

And I imagine that's what you're talking about. Yeah. Like she, mom broke down some stuff. And I'm always learning new shit. It's, it's, it sometimes. Isn't that crazy when you get older? and you're able to have these conversations with your family. For me, I know exactly what you're talking about because I'm like, my, despite my dad's

family is very conservative and very, very private. Like, it's too private. My mom's side is very open, but despite how in open they are, they keep a lot of secrets. And as I get older stuff slips out where I guess they, just get comfortable and they don't necessarily mean to, but then, you know, I'm older. I'm in a different place in my life. So they will talk to me about certain things. And I don't know about you, but I'm like, man, if you had told me that, do you know how that could have helped me when I was younger? If I could have know, I'm not saying you got to tell family business,

but it could have let me know that I can make mistakes too, that everybody's not perfect. Like, I felt like my elders were put up to be almost like a deity and to know that they were out here, out here in certain ways. I'm just saying, I'm not saying you got to tell everything, but also the shame or maybe like the guilt that you may feel about doing certain things. You know, I agree. I think I see in families like mine, especially more so. And families like mine,

they're always looking for somebody that's going to ascend, right? And kind of drag people along with them in whatever way. I think sometimes that's why talent is so difficult for us to turn our back on in the black community. Like, if you can really seem,

if you can really move, if you can really run that football, we accept some of the bullshit that might come with it, if you can really dance because it's like, talent is the one thing that has the opportunity to break these generational curses. Like you might bring a whole bunch of people with you to L.A.

or you might change the family or whatever. And they try to, at least from my experience, they try to keep those things quiet so that they don't cast extra spells. They don't want to talk about that stuff because they're too busy trying to make you believe that your existence in some way is going to be the one that's going to change everything. They don't want you to know how people fucked up in the past because they don't want you to think it's okay to make those same mistakes. They want to pretend like the mistakes never happen.

And it's like this generational secret keeping that everyone thinks is in some way beneficial. to not talk about this stuff. And if we don't talk about it, it'll go away and then you won't do it. And if you don't do it, then somehow we'll all be better off. But what ends up happening is is certain people have to live

with the secrets. Because a lot of these secrets they were talking about, they aren't, there's your garden variety family secret, right? Your, hey, you know, I'm just seriously, you know that's not really a cousin, right? And I've had that one a bunch of times old. Like my grandpa, yeah, my grandfather, my Uncle David's dad is not biologically related to me.

Like, my grandmother had had my mom and then she married him. I didn't learn that for years and years and years. Like literally, years and years, I did not know that. And then, you know, my mom finds her dad. He was, I think I've told you guys, he was like a, just described as a guitar player. and something like that he's played the guitar

and then all of a sudden he played the guitar and all of a sudden baby pops out, whatever. So finds that guy and in 2000

whereabouts that he comes we meet him, we meet all of his children they look exactly she looks just like him with all his people and we're all going to be one happy family, they fucking

disappeared. Never seen again. At least not me, mom might have gone. You know. And the guy who's my grandfather's like, that's the grandfather that I know. The thing about it though is that you know, some of the secrets are just like that. And then

some of the secrets are abuse. Yeah. And some of the secrets are rape. Some of the secrets are incest. Some of the secrets are, financial usury. Some of the secrets are always $20,000 for the house, never seen them again.

You know, some of the secrets are really, really tough, tough stuff. Yeah. And you learn it. And, you know, and like I said, it's been a rough couple of years like losing these people, losing my dad, losing my uncle, but it's also, man. But it doesn't change how you see them, right?

Because you grew up looking at, at them a certain way, and that's how you see them. At least that's how it's been for me, certain things that I've learned, you know, whether they're with us now or they're not, I guess they'll forever be a certain way in my mind. It's family. It depends what it is. No, some of this stuff hasn't changed for me. And I can almost relate to almost every single thing that you said with family.

It changed it for me. I told my mom this morning I was talking to mom we were having a conversation I'm like like why do you do this and why do you like how could you do this

like how it's not even protected it is she is it can't be possible for someone to be that how can I say it it's impossible for somebody

to just fucking take that many body blows it's just like it's just from everyone you ever love just like a left hook, a right hook, a body shot, a boom. And then they die

without ever like having, they'll even give you no ice. You know how like a boxer when they're in the corner? Yeah. They got the inswell. And you would expect that if somebody was beating you like that emotionally,

that at least they come to put the inswell shit on you. They put the Vaseline on you. They try to, nah, they die. You're left there where all of the stuff trying to figure out how to, how to, how to, like, heal your own wounds. And it's like, it didn't start with my dad. She learned how to do that way before.

Like, she learned how to do that. It was almost like you had to learn how to take punishment to be like a lady in my family. Like, you had to learn how to take punishment. It's nuts. It's nuts, man. But rest well. with David. As far as he is concerned,

I love him. He was just the coolest guy in the world. He was just super cool. You know? He could, it was so funny when he would get like his standard up, but he would really get into a conversation.

It was very reminiscent of me. I think people, I'm very reminiscent of him. I think when people see how, like, I get into something and I start, didn't really into it. That's because what I would see is these guys having these conversations about what I watch him get into a argument with somebody

about what a hostro in Los Angeles was. It's on the job site because my Uncle David has some issues. Michael David wants here to do it with a hammer in the head with a job site costs my family 50,000. You know, you got into it on the job site. my Uncle David worked for my dad. He picked up the hammer. Boom.

Hit the nigga in the head. Dude sued us. Suved the place we were working for. Really hurt my father's business. Like seriously. Like hurt our family, but it was like, that's how he was. Pick up a nigga hitting him head with a hammer. It's David Ellis.

But I was on one job where they was arguing about where the host role was in L.A. And it was talking about, nah, man, you go to Figueroa. Nah, man. You go to Imperial. Nah, man. You go here. You go there. And I'm like, who fucking cares?

And then I became that guy. All right. I'm like, then I became the guy who could endlessly argue about something. You would absolutely have that conversation. Big deal of the day, don't really have one. Mm-mm. Mm-mm. some big issues to talk about, we'll get to them.

But on the side of this, we're going to give you some Oscars talk. Started with something like that. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimphaya, gusalcumab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy and for

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18 plus. Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer Section tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fanduil.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Okay. Did you watch the Oscars? Did you get a chance to watch the show? I watched the Oscars. I've been talking about it all day.

What did you like? What did you like? Jimmy Kimmel. Jimmy was good. I thought Jimmy was great. I really did. And obviously, you know, like they work on material before, but I felt like he was also saying jokes based on literally what was

happening in the moment. So I don't know. He just seemed to be quick with it. Everything was, it landed right. There wasn't any moment where I was like, ooh, no, no. It was a, I really enjoyed him hosting it. You know, listen, I do award

season from January to now. Oscars the last ceremony. But the time you get to the Oscars, I'm like, let's go. Let's let this be over with. It's a long ceremony. It's three and a half hours. It's a lot of, we forgot, right?

Because what happened last year? You forgot how long it is, how you watch these awards with awards with editing and sound where that aren't as sexy as the big awards. But it was cool. Some moments were shocking. Some of the winners were a little shocking. And I will say, you know, before we get it, all into it, typically you can look at who's winning, who wins the globes, the critics choice,

the sags, who's getting that clean sweep to determine who's going to win that big award at the Oscars. But this year, it seemed to be all over the place. You know, call it great individual performances, call it great movies, whatever it may be, people who were well overdue for their moment. But I don't think anybody really knew who, except for Kee He Guan, I don't think anybody just really knew who was going to take home those big awards. So it was shocking when some of the announcements were made. I think that people thought that everything, everywhere, all at once would do well early on. But the movie came out like such a long time ago that there have been performances that came

out after, particularly Angela Bass's performance performance in Wakanda Forever. Kate Blanchett's performance and Tarr. And you'd see some of these performances and you'd be like, okay, well, these people are going to catch up to what we saw with everything, everywhere all at once because it had been a while this movie had come out. And then, you know, people had their favorites. I enjoyed this Oscar ceremony more than others because I did. Because they had.

Well, I thought that it was. a little bit less stuffy. You know, cocaine bear was out there. You know, stuff like that is kind of wow. A donkey. A donkey. Like, it's kind of, it wasn't stuff. What I don't get, what I don't like sometimes about the ceremony is how serious everything is.

You know, it's the, you know, you win the Oscar. I even make fun of Trayvon about his speech when we won. We get up there and it's kind of like, please see us. Hey, the award. Come to the party. We're waiting for you. We got the champagne on ice. And we were.

And we were. We got the champagne on ice. Remember our Oscar party and how joyous it was and all of that? It's a really great time. So I like the fact that the awards were a little bit more fun. There's always going to be some controversy. Not like last year, no matter what happens. It's always going to be some controversy.

But I enjoyed it for the most part. Angela Bassett did not win. She did not. For Wakanda forever, she lost to Jamie Lee Curtis from the movie that swept everything. I mean, we're talking about best actress, best picture, best director, best original screenplay, editing. The movie won all of the above the line Oscars for performance and all of that stuff. It won everything that it was nominated. And of course, it had no best actor submission,

but it won everything that it was nominated for pretty much. So it, the people were pissed. Angela Bassett did win. And when the camera was on them, when they were in their boxes, and that J-Sound came out, Angela Bassett made absolutely zero percent effort in hiding her disarmes. with the fact that she did not win the award.

I think you're exaggerating, but keep going. How could I be exaggerating? You could watch. Zero percent effort and how disappointed she was. For sure. Okay, keep going. Wait, hold on. Let's stay here.

I know she was disappointed. I guess I'm hearing how you're saying it. And I think to me, it plays into the media frenzy that has just captured, like, taken this moment and ran with it. And it's just so disappointing to me. When I look, obviously she's disappointed, right? For me, I'm like, forget this PC stuff. This is a woman who we know deserved an Oscar years ago for her performance.

She comes back with this opportunity. For what? What's love got to do with it? Okay. Do me a favor real quick. So you think she deserved the Oscar for that? You're ready to say deserve. I think she deserved an Oscar for what's love got to do that.

of it. All right. Who were the other people she was up against that? Don't remember. So then how can you say that? Well, why does it matter? If I saw, if I, okay, let me look, let me look it up. I'm not going to change my opinion.

I can already tell you what they are. Okay, tell me. But it's a, it's a, it's a competition. She was up against Holly Hunter for the piano. She was up against Emma Thompson. She was up against Deborah Ringer, Debrer Winger and Shadowlands. She was up. So, and I think maybe.

I'm not saying that she. she wasn't up against a stiff competition that doesn't take away from my opinion that I believe she should, she deserved to win for that performance. But she has to win over somebody. Yeah, man.

What are you doing? What I'm doing is this. What I'm saying is when we talk about the awards, it can't be a, there's this sort of nebulous idea of deserve, right? Like, it is a performance deserving of an, accolade. Well, it depends

in a competition where you're judging performances against other performances. You would have to say that she was better than all of those people, which means that you would have had to have seen all of those movies, and you'd at least have to know,

and that's kind of, I think, how we set ourselves up for disappointment. And we set ourselves up for disappointment by saying, oh, she deserved this. Well, if you If you're going to say that, then you have to say, you have to say why, right? Well, here's my thing. Did I see every single movie in that category?

Absolutely not. It's me. We know that at this point. However, I'm giving my opinion, right? So maybe, yeah, maybe my opinion isn't correct to you because I haven't seen every single one. But I could have seen that movie and I could have said, I think that she deserves it. I could have seen every movie and been like, I don't think that her performance was based on it because I didn't like the way. I'll use the category that's at issue with this current Oscar.

I've got to have seen every single movie, right? And it's just been like, I didn't like the way Jamie Lee acted when she had those long fingers in the movie. And it's not based on anything that's profound or anything. It's just my opinion. So I don't think that that can change the fact that I think that she did so outstanding. I think it's very hard to play somebody else. I think that that was an incredible role for her.

And I think she should have won. Fine. like I'm not you I'm not the movie critic you can say that I'm not doing things the way I'm not into movies that you my only criticism of what you're saying is that it's

but I would have probably watched all those movies I probably wouldn't have liked them the same and I still would have said I feel like I could have said I feel like she deserves to win it because she's black it could be my opinion can be rooted in whatever I want I liked her wigs in the movie I was just saying

it didn't have to watch it So your opinion can be rooted. It's just an opinion. Your opinion can be rooted in whatever you want. It doesn't have to be rooted in any discernible fact or any sort of actual. So you can just, for whatever reason, you can just think something. I just wanted her. I felt like she was deserving of it.

I liked the movie. I loved her performance. This is, it is what it is. It's not, I mean, it's, I get what you're doing. But great. Great. I didn't see all the movies. My opinion doesn't mean.

The only reason why I'm doing it is because sometimes. I think this has to do specifically with the way that the Oscars work and to a different situation. Because remember we had this same conversation with Beyonce. But I didn't say to you, did you listen to all these albums, even though you felt like Beyonce should have. But here was the thing that I was saying with Beyonce. What I was saying with Beyonce is, number one,

I did think that Beyonce's album was buried in Harry's house. But you didn't listen. to every album. I didn't. But the only reason why I was listening to, I was talking about that with Beyonce was that if you didn't ask me why, I'd say,

I thought that at this particular point, her having been nominated for album of the year this many times. And I didn't, I don't think that Beyonce deserved it. I wanted her to win it. I don't think that she deserved. You felt like Beyonce should have won.

I felt like it was her. time, right? I felt like it was her time. That's a dessert. It's like some, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's close. But this is, this is what I'll say. And, and to be honest with you, you, you in ways persuaded me after that. You persuade, well, I was like, well, you know what? It's a bad bunny.

Yeah, because of bad bunny. Like, you persuaded me. I was like, okay, cool. So, but, but when I, and I think in this situation with. her, which by the way, she didn't clap. She didn't clap. Can I also, can I ask you what you're basing her not clapping on? Because what I saw was, we saw the box. We saw the announcement. Of course, her co-star, Stephanie's going to be super excited for her.

We saw the other women clap, but it was like for three seconds. Do we know if Angela clapped after that? Do we know, was a camera on her the whole time? I'm just saying. Okay. everybody else clapped. And at that time, yes,

they did. Yes, they did. If she didn't clap right away, which it's customary to do, it's probably because she was disappointed. What's so controversial about that? No,

it was how you were like, she was extremely disappointed. It just, it looked like, it looked like she was extremely disappointed. I agree that she was disappointed and who wouldn't. To me,

you know what didn't bother me? Because I just feel like, it didn't bother me. Well, okay, I guess I just, for me, good for Angela for being disappointed and saying, I'm not going to clap. Or from what we saw, I'm not going to clap. From what we saw, I'm not going to stand up.

Wow, I thought I was going to get it. For the three seconds that it was on me, I'm thinking about, damn, I thought I had a chance. And then they switch the camera back to Jamie and she goes up and accepts her speech. Good for Angela for being human in the moment and not focusing on what I need to do right now is clap because of cameras on me. I'm actually allowing myself to feel whatever I'm feeling because I thought I was going to win and I didn't. Do you think that it's a criticism of her that she was disappointed? You think that's a criticism? No.

So if I say she was obviously disappointed, then you say she wasn't disappointed. It just, it was the way you were saying it. I guess I'm super sensitive about it. She was definitely disappointed. Extremely. And I guess I've just all day, I've just been listening to people talk, whether it's on social media, online or at work of like Angela Bassett and, you know, how dare she respond in that way and just looking for a moment. And I'm not saying you were doing that.

I guess it just triggered me. You didn't do that. It just triggered me. So here's the thing. It's like I don't give a, I don't, I don't give a shit about what people's opinion of her being disappointed is. Not only did we think she was disappointed, but her. they were consoling her from the stage. You know, like going up there, hey, you know what I mean?

People thought that she- You think that Michael B. Jordan and Jonathan Major saw her reaction or they just saw the fact that she didn't win? I think that they knew and they assumed that... Of course, that she's upset. Okay, so let's talk about this. Angela Bassett, if... And I'm not trying to be...

Because it really doesn't matter in the long run, right? It matters. Actually, it does to me. But keep going. I'll tell you. No, no, no, no, no, go. The way that people look for an opportunity to criticize a black woman who literally, I'm serious. I'm serious.

Did you see the article in the New York Coast? Why didn't you have this same, why didn't you feel the same way about Beyonce? Why did you give Beyonce? Because she fucking made history by winning. Why did you give Beyonce? Why did you not feel any sort of sympathy for Beyonce who was a black woman as, She made history. It'd be different.

You know what? My speech would have been the same if they would have stopped Beyonce from getting the Grammys to make the history and she didn't win album of the year. Then I would have had a lot to say. But I don't want to take away from the fact that she made history. I guess she didn't get the Grammy that everybody wanted her to get and she herself to take her over to the top and make history. But I'm not going to take.

She also made history. Period. So that's why I'm not coming in with that same passion. there are levels to this. Album of the year is a recognition of singular excellence above everyone else across all genres of music, right? It's the Grammys are so much more specific than the Oscars. It's best R&B sung duo. So you're up against your peers of your peers of your peers.

We know that Beyonce is the best. in what she does, right? But is Beyonce the best total? Overall, are we, Outcast wins album of the year. Outcast is the, put out the best musical product of the year, period.

And that's a different level of prestige than all of the other stuff. I think Beyonce would probably give back five, ten. Okay. of her other grandmas to have album of the year. You're assuming that because she does have a title,

and she does have a title. Let's not take that away from her. But I don't want to relitigate the Beyonce thing. What I'm saying is, no, seriously, I'm telling you, if she had not won that night when she was so close, I would have had a lot to say. Anyways, Angela Bassett here, the way that people are talking about her plays are automatic.

I just feel like people, non-black people look for an excuse to stereotype. specifically black women. And that is what I saw happening to Angela Bassett. Do you think Angela Bassett is the first person to not clap in her category when she didn't win? I don't think so. But they're making such a big deal about it. Angela Bassett does almost everything right.

She is so classy, so sophisticated, doesn't ruffle any feathers. Says, like, she's, she's good. So she's great at what she does. And the first opportunity that she does something that's a little bit off that line, people are ripping her apart. And that's why it offends me. And that's what I have a problem with. The moment that you don't do something exactly like you're supposed to, to be a good black woman, they rip you apart. And to me, they were just waiting for an opportunity to do that.

And that's what I don't like to see with Angela Bassett. If who else was in that category? If Carrie Condon didn't clap, I don't think it would be as big of a deal. Let me tell you something right now. If Angela Bassett would have won that award and Jamie Lee Curtis would have not clapped for her and looked in a way that showed outward disappointment, we would have torn her mother fucking ass up. And that is

one million percent facts. If Angela Bassett, if they call Angela Bassett, Wakanda forever, and then she goes up on the stage to win. And Jamie Fox and the Jamie Fox and Jamie

Lee Curtis, Jamie Fox had, and Jamie Lee Curtis had, by the way, I just want to make sure if you know this. I don't think anything about Angela Bassett being disappointed. It's cool. I have no problem with it. She was definitely disappointed, though. I have no problem with it. I don't think it means anything about Angela Bassett.

I don't think it means anything about Angela Bassett. I don't think, none of that. But I'm just saying. Why would Black people have done that? Why would Black people have come after Jamie? They would have come after her because they would have felt like Jamie Lee Curtis was not being congratulatory enough to Angela Bassett because she won that it was Angela Bassett's moment. Do you think race would have had anything to do with it? certainly and race has something to do with it now so what so but what race has something to do with

angela not clapping for jamie no race has something to do with the way people are reacting to it but when i'm saying it like when race has not it has nothing to race has something that you just said that race has something to do with the way people are reacting to it right to me look in the whether or not she did it or not it just kind of is what it is but people are going oh if you're saying hey it's It's right. People are expected, black people are more expected to act on their best behavior when they're at a place like the Oscars. Eddie Murphy lost years ago. I think it was Alan Alda that he lost to Little Miss Sunshine.

I can't maybe Alan Arkin, maybe one of those guys. Can't remember who it was. He lost for Dreamgirls. Eddie clapped. When he lost, he clapped. The camera was right there on him. People thought that this was going to be the moment that Eddie Murphy was going to win his Oscar. It was going to be the whole deal.

And he clapped. but after that Eddie got up and he left out he left the ceremony. I remember. I remember that. Like he he did not win. I'm getting the fuck out of here. Eddie left the ceremony, right? And people were mad about that. People were like, oh, my God, is sore a loser, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think there's something else that we have to remember.

As black performers, they know that their opportunity to win Oscars and to be minted in this way is, it's a lot more scant than some of their contemporaries. And so it probably, like most other things, I mean, I don't want to say this, maybe it means more. Maybe it's a, it's a bigger. Yeah, it's been 29 years. I can, yes, yes, yes. Well, Jamie has never been nominated and she was never going to be nominated because most of the movies that she, that she has done over the course of her career, weren't close to anything that was going to get her into the nominations. And she's an older actress as well.

I don't potentially think I don't really think that either of them was the best supporting actor for the year I was rooting for Angela Bassett to win and wanted her to win strictly off tribalism say whatever you are strictly

Who does you think should have won? I actually thought Did you see all the movies? Yeah, I actually thought that either the young lady that played Jobu Tupacchi and everything,

everywhere all at once who played the other role because Jamie and Curtis Stephanie. Yeah, she had more of a Yeah, she was like I guess I don't want to get away

but I don't know if it does because it's so trippy. Yeah, but the daughter. The daughter, I thought she should have won or the young lady from the well and the hung chow.

Hung chow from the well. she was fantastic in that. She was really good in that. And the whale was a very tough movie to watch. I know. I couldn't do it. The whale was a very tough movie to watch. But yeah, it's like,

what, did Angela bring it in Wakanda forever? Yeah. Like, what I have loved to have seen her win? Yeah, but she didn't win and she was mad. Not mad. Let me not say mad. She didn't win. And she was disappointed.

You know? Which I think, can we just start the trend of reserving space for people to be disappointed they didn't win? Because that is a natural reaction. I don't believe your claps or you standing up. You're upset. Just know that that's fine. But when if the La La Land people wouldn't a clap for moonlight, y'all not going for that? I mean, I'm just being for real.

I know. But the whole like Angela Shady. and Angela is a bitch. And we all, you know, like, we knew she was like this. It's like, come on, y'all. But that's what happens. That's the, you immediately start putting all those stereotypes on to black women. And having a field day with it.

So, yes, I do take it a little personal. You feel like you take very person. You feel like she, but I do also think that we have to kind of start looking at, um, kind of what these awards mean. You know, like, This is what I mean about this. When I watched Angela Bassett not win last night, you know who I thought about? I thought about Went to Brunson.

She does Abedella Elementary. And she puts Shirley Ralph in. And all of a sudden, in a way that most people hadn't been before, the entire world is, the entire world gets a firsthand look at what a fantastic performer Shirley Ralph is, which we already knew. We know. And I think about the fact that one thing that separates Angela Bassett and Shirley Ralph from, say, Kate Glanchette or Merrill Street or Francis McDormant

or any of the other women that are perpetually nominated, for these awards are the amount of times that they are given the opportunity to display their craft at a level that merits this type of consideration. And that's a larger cultural issue

to me. It's the first time Angela Bassett got nominated for an Academy Award, she was playing Tina Turner in, you know, one of the most moving biopics ever. All those years later, all those years later, it happens that there is a movie and a filmmaker like Ryan Kubler that gives her the opportunity to flex her muscles in that same way. Meanwhile, if it's Nomad Land, if it's women talking, you know, if it's tar, if it's. all of the time.

If it's Mamma Mia, if it's the devil wears Prada, if it's all of these movies, these women get so many opportunities to continuously show how good they are. And that's specific to black female performers, is that we still don't have

the type of filmmaking apparatus, in my opinion, where the roles are necessarily there, where the stories are either being recognized for how transcendent they are or whether or not they're digging deep enough into different issues and different types of black stories to where

they're given the chance to go after it over and over again. And there are a lot of reasons why that's true. There's a couple of reasons is we took a hole in black filmmaking. We took a whole 10-year Tyler Perry detour and that's not a diss. It's just a fucking.

fact. And now we're to a point to where we need to kind of understand that we have as many talented performers out there, but we need to give them substance and subject material so they can go out there and show that. But do you also think that they're not, there's some way that the Academy isn't recognizing these performances when they are in movies like this? Movies that got recognition where we didn't see these women nominated, Viola Davis and the Woman King,

Danielle Deadweiler, and Till, these were great performances that weren't even really in talks. They weren't even really working this award season. They weren't even on the short list. Maybe the movies were it for other reasons, but it was the same people that you saw nominated at this award ceremony. So there are sometimes where these movies are there, and these women still aren't getting honored, nominated.

I don't think the woman came. You don't think her performance was there? Okay. It was good, but it was, Viola Davis could be nominated every year. She's like a commercial. It's going to also be hard for people. It's also going to be hard for people to really pick

at Viola Davis being nominated because they give Viola Davis love, right? They give her the love. She gets the love. I'm just saying there was a movie that was in talks. I mean, you already said that she didn't think Angela was. for Black Panther. She was good. It was good.

But like it wasn't, was it a, was it a type of- Then Viola could have gotten it for Woman King. What I'm saying is, was it the type of performance that was so incredible that you're mad if she loses? No. Viola could have been nominated for Woman King. What were you about to ask me if I saw what? I mean, like, did you see Till? I saw some of it.

It's a little too rough for me. I'm sorry. But I, but I didn't take away from what I saw of her performance. It's just, that's hard for me sometimes to watch those movies. Angela Bassett is... I said I was going to circle back. She's as good as an actress as there is on the planet. Angela Bassett needs creators of all kinds

to make sure that the roles are there for her to be able to flex that. She's her career, in my opinion, has been criminally underserved by the roles that Hollywood has to offer, you know? Sure. But look. Maybe this will get people talking. And acting. So, but the Jamie Lee Curtis thing is like, you know, I was surprised.

I was too. I really thought, I thought, okay, they gave Jamie, because Angela won't glow. I thought they gave Jamie sad because Angela was going to win it. The Oscars. You know, also though, is like the Oscars have been quietly rebelling against what they're supposed to do. even at our ceremony, if you remember that night, Chadwood Bozeman did not win for My Randy's Black Bottom. Right, right, right, right.

They've been quietly rebelling from what they're supposed to do and who they're supposed to give it to at the time that they're supposed to get it. You know, there are a couple of different ones where it happened. Brad Pitt and, you know, a couple of different ones, but they're quietly, I don't know. I would have thought that this would have been a time. that they would have kind of rewarded her for her entire career.

But they didn't do it. The way that they've been getting around that is by giving people honorary Oscars. Now, they've always done that. But I'm saying, Evangela Bassett, if she, I hope this is not the case, but if she never has an opportunity

to come back as a nominee, they'll give her an honorary Oscar. That's their way of making up for it. I'm just pointing that out. I know it happens every year. I'm just saying that's the way I feel like that they feel like making up for it.

I'm not saying it's right. Everybody knows that don't mean nothing though. Yeah. I'm saying correct. I'm saying that's just what I think they do. Remember, this has happened before. Samuel Jackson has never won an Oscar before. And he has an honorary.

Spike Lee just won his first Oscar, what was it, four or five years ago? And that seems insane. That seems crazy. Don Cheadle, never won an Oscar before. You know, they gave Will, Will won an Oscar. Right. Just won an Oscar in a movie where his performance love Will Smith to death. It's a cartoonish performance to me.

What would you say about the one Denzel won for? Training Day. But Denzel won before then as well. That was his second Oscar. Yeah, well, best actor. Right. Okay. Same thing.

Because people were saying he should have won for Malcolm X. He should have. Sorry, deserved. Should have won for Malcolm X. Then he gets a portraying day. Whenever somebody says you should have won, you have to go back and look at what else was there. Right?

You just have to. But I will tell you this. So Denzel won for glory, right? I know this is about supporting. Yeah. He won for glory. So I notice this about slave movies and movies. And that's why I kind of like the,

Woman King was, was, was, was probably wasn't going to get rewarded by the Academy. They only really reward slave movies where white people are in some way the hero. That's facts. I'm not denying it. They only, so in the Woman King, the black woman is the hero, they fuck up the slaver, beat us shit, you know what I mean, even though you know the homie were slaves as well. The black woman is the hero, boom, whatever.

In 12 years of slave, they reward that movie, but if you remember in that movie, Brad Pitt ended up being a dude that passed a letter along. And glory, Matthew Broderick, was this general who was against racism. Amistam, white people doing good. Even Django.

They reward slave movies, but they really only reward slave movies that in some way make white people look good. If it's a movie just about niggas getting fucked over where there are no good white people, like birth of a nation,

like however you guys feel about Nate, that movie was never going to get nominated for anything because there really wasn't a white savior. You see what I'm saying? I think that's, I think to me that is something that it's there, but people don't even see it. I was going back. I looked at the woman king. I'm like, well, there are no, all the heroes in the woman king are black. There are no good white people. The white guy that you see is a bitch. And then they got that nigga that looked like Serunus in it. And he's not really about shit. But so they don't really do that. So if you want to make a movie,

a slave movie where it gets rewarded, you have to stick a good white person in or else they're not going to give you the award. It's just the fact. They want everybody to know, hey, there were some of us who were against it. There were some of us. There were some of us.

But Angela Bassett must win. She looked amazing. Before we get off the Oscars, oh, we have to talk about everything everywhere all at once. It was a huge moment. it was a huge moment huge moment and you knew that

not just from the wind but from the speeches from Khi Kwan and Michelle Yo I mean if you Key is like can I just call him Kee?

I just did I mean he's like America's sweetheart right now just his story how he almost gave up he talked about living the American dream couldn't believe that he was here and then Michelle Yo

two things she talked about representation, and this was for little boys and little girls who look like her. But then she also said, don't let anyone tell you you're past your prime. And I love that. She's also representing for women, but an older generation of women who are still out here doing their thing and getting recognized for it. But the whole, you already named off multiple Oscars that they won. But it was just, it was a big night for Asian representation. and Michelle Yo made history.

Did he make history? What? Did Qie Kuan make history? Make history in what way? Like as far as winning as an Asian man? Yeah. He made history and being awesome. He made history.

He's the first actor to win for portraying a Mandarin, Chinese, and Cantonese-speaking character. There you go. There you go. He made history too. I appreciate two specific stories here. three really.

I was blown away by the fact that Michelle Yo has never had any formal training in martial arts, which they talked about when she got up on this. That blew my fucking mind. The story of Michelle Yo and just how much she's meant to Hollywood and her winning this and having the opportunity,

once again, what you saw in everything, everywhere, all at once was an older woman, get the opportunity to kick ass and be mom. The role itself was revolutionary. That's why it produced revolutionary results. And creators have to think outside the box and the stories that they tell

if they want all of these artists to be able to flex their muscles. Her, Brendan Fraser and Keith, man, look, what this industry put Brendan Fraser through, a guy who I spent my entire childhood with, a guy that went from heartthrob, to comedy guy, to action star, to gone, to come back and get the opportunity to stand on that stage

and survive Hollywood and be at the top of it. It's fantastic. Couldn't be happier for Friedrich. And man, when you watch the movie, there's so much coming from the portrayal of the husband's character in it. And when I'm sitting there looking, And I didn't know it first.

I'm like, Jesus Christ, man. Is that data? You know what I mean? Like, it is, I'm like, what the fuck? And to see him back after all of these years and to know that he left and he thought it was gone. It's just incredibly inspiring, you know? Yeah.

The only way the night would have been perfect is if Angela would have won. But I'm serious. But I can't even be mad. I can't even be mad like, you know, Jamie Lee Curtis has been a staple as well. I just, you know, I'm just, I'm a tribalist. I wanted to see Angela Bassett win. She did. We all, we did.

We all did. Okay, Rachel, have you, have you, oh, Donnie, what did you put in the chat? Hold on for a second. What is this? Samuel Jackson? Yeah, when he was nominated in 95, he's on camera when he loses and he's like, shit. Let me see. And the Oscar goes to.

Martin Landau and Ed Wood. It's very funny. Also didn't clap. See? I'm looking at it right now. Like Martin Landown, Ed Wood. Did you know what? Everybody would have said that was funny.

Because it's Samuel L. Jackson. So you're saying that they treated them in a different way? I think everybody would have said it was Samuel. Donnie, Ashley, do you think people would have said that was funny if Samuel did that? Impressed. Is it Samuel L? Are you saying it's because it's Samuel L, I think. It's just it's Samuel L.

But are you, so you're not saying it's like a black woman thing, though, right? Is it black woman? No, no, no, no. It's because, no. Oh, yeah, no, it's because it's him. And he, and by the way, I felt like that performance deserved to win. What was he nominated? What performance was he nominated for?

God damn, man. 95? What was that? Spofitch, Doug. come on. Oh, Pulp Fiction, Pulp Fiction. Smack yourself, man. Who are you saying deserve to win? Samuel or Martin? Samuel, I think it was him.

Well, right there, Gary Senese, Martin Landau, all of those performances were good, but Charles Pomeranty, I think that was Bullets over Broadway. But if I remember, but yeah, I thought Samuel Jackson gave a culture-altering performance. But that's back when if you was going to win it as a black guy or a black woman, you had to be motherfucking you had to go nuts back in dim days

remember boys in the hood didn't win shit you know what I'm saying you have to go nuts Don Cheetah was not nominated for portraying mouse in devil in a blue dress I still can't get over that one

just crazy anyway all right look President Joe Biden is letting all you guys know that your money is safe your money is safe you're not States of America. This is Joe this morning talking about the banking system, which people are

very, very tense about. Hey, thanks to the quick action of my administration over the past few days, Americans can have confidence that the banking system is safe. Your deposits will be there when you need them. Small businesses across the country, the deposit accounts that these banks can breathe easier and knowing they'll be able to pay their workers and pay their bills. And their hardworking employees can breathe easier as well. Last week, when we learned of the problems of the banks and the impact they could have on jobs of small businesses and banking system overall, I instructed my team to act quickly to protect these interests. They've done that. They've done

that. On Friday, the government regulator in charge, the FDIC, took control of Silicon Valley Bank's assets. And over the weekend, it took control of signature banks assets. Secretary Yellen and the team of banking regulators have taken action immediate action and here are the highlights first all customers who had deposits in these banks can rest assured i want to have rest assured they'll be protected and they'll have access to their money as of today that includes small businesses across the country the bank there and need to make payroll pay their bills and stay open for business no losses will and i'm on this is an important point no losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Let me repeat that. No losses will be borne by the taxpayers. Instead,

the money will come from the fees that banks pay into the deposit insurance fund. Because of the actions that our regulators have already taken, every American should feel confident that their deposits will be there if and when they need them. Rachel, have you heard about what happened to Silicon Valley Bank? And do you have thoughts? I mean, yes, I've heard about it. a lot of it, to be very honest with you, and I'm sure most people feel this way, it goes over my head.

I don't understand banking. I don't understand the way that banks make their money. My understanding is that, you know, there was a mismatch on the assets and the liabilities and because interest rates went up, it made the bank became insolvent. I don't even know if I'm saying that right, but I think that is correct.

I think Joe Biden, for me, even though without knowing much about banking, my fear was, okay, is this another bailout situation where the government gets involved? And then the other thing was, is this going to cost us money? Which he's saying it's not going to cost the taxpayers money. And I'm like, okay. But then I, you know, I was reading an article that was talking about the people that were affected because obviously when this happened, there were certain businesses that could not, they were worried about how they were going to pay their workers. They were worried about how they were going to survive. And I was reading this article that was talking about black female founders and that less than

one percent of tech sector investment capital goes to black female founders and that they're underrepresented in this community. And they were grossly impacted by this because they don't have those large assets to draw on because they don't get the same funding as, you know, those who look like the Mark Zuckerbergs of this world. So it just made me think of what's going to happen to these black-owned businesses, these female-led businesses who don't get the same type of funding. And are you going to bail them out?

And, like, how is this going to be divvied up? Are you just going to give it to everybody? Is it going to trickle down? Are you going to, you know, specify who needs the bailout the most? Who needs help the most? Anyways, it's really all my knowledge on this. I think that what they're,

I think that well eventually happened. I think that most people will be made whole in this situation. what essentially happened here to the best of my knowledge is that Silicon Valley Bank, which is a decent-sized bank, was a 20th largest bank in the country or something like that. They finance a lot of startups. A lot of startups.

They, around 2020, late 2020 or whatever, after the pandemic, a lot of those startups had like a lot of money. money, a lot of money. And because they were depositing the money in the bank, Silicon Valley Bank was like, okay, cool. Well, in order to make use of all this extra cash that we're getting, what we're going to do is invest it safely. We're going to invest it in some government bonds, right? So we're investing some bonds. The bonds are pretty solid. They're normally slower returns, but a less risky sort of way to ensure that your money is safe.

Unless interest rates go up. If interest rates go up, which I guess they didn't see because the Fed, interest rates went up because of inflation, those bonds then aren't so attractive. Changes the way that the money is kind of being made. Also, something else happened. A lot of the start, there weren't as many start. that were flush with cash anymore because the economy had changed.

So they're not getting cash infusions from startups anymore. And the interest rates have gone up, which means that the people that are banking with them, they want to get their money out. They're like, ah, man, I'm not feeling great. Rather than have this money tied up and stuff, I want my money because I'm not so sure that the bank in the long run is going to be able to meet my needs. Well, that's a run on the bank. They then have to sell off some of their assets,

$2 billion worth of assets because more people are pulling money out because of different stuff, right? That causes a run on the bank. And when there is a run on the bank, they don't have enough cash on hand to meet the demand of everybody that's pulling the money out. Remember, they took some of the money. They put it in bonds and stuff like that.

So the bank fails. In this situation, there are two things that the government's probably going to guard against. Number one, this is another massive L for capitalism for the sort of unregulated, decentralized capitalism that certain political factions are in favor of. There was the Dodd-Frake Act that President Biden and President Biden said this and President Obama got passed, which caused banks to have to be a little bit more,

how can I put it? There was this thing called, you know, stress tests that the bank would have to go through to prove and solvency and all that stuff. And under Dodd-Frank, there was a lot more regulation to that. You had to submit to stress tests more often. It was better regulated.

But of course, Trump comes in and he peels back all of the regulations. So banks are kind of playing hard and fast and loose with the way that they're making their money, right? And that causes them to dive head first into the market and if something changes, they lose.

And when they lose, you lose. What's interesting about this to me is that the United States seems like and, you know, whether it's a cash infusion or whether it's a takeover or whether not the government gets involved, to help a buyer

what they don't want, to help find a buyer what they don't want to do is they don't want to see this catch on. There's something called financial contagion to where this can spread

and then all of a sudden you have all kinds of different problems with banks all over the place. Now I will tell people this. A Silicon Valley Bank is a big bank and there are other banks that are around that size. But their assets

where I think around $200 billion or something like that, $250 billion. Where you talk about bigger banks failing. You're talking about JPMorgan Chase and banks like that, like $3 trillion that the banks would have. So you're probably not going to have as much of a problem

in an instance like that with a bank like this. But these things become murky when crypto gets involved. These things become murky when you have these sort of mid-sized banks who are maybe a little less risk averse. They want to play it a little bit more closer to the further away. from the chest. And when there's not sufficient regulation or oversight,

the people that always get hurt are the people that have their money in these institutions. Or no one gets hurt because what saves the day is socialism. What saves the day is a government involvement in regulated,

excuse me, government involvement in fixing capitalism. And the question that I have is, when are we going to get to the point to where we understand that the type of imaginary money, the type of capitalism that we have now, flowing from place to place,

is always going to lead to a situation to where people are put in harm's way where the money that they've earned or made or raised is not available to them because of decisions by some financial institution or something else. There's going to be a cycle. I'm surprised that this didn't happen before then, before now, to be honest with you. And I think that despite our best laid plans, if there is no sort of a real attention

paid to what it is that we're doing, we're looking at this happening and again pretty soon, you know, like in my opinion, you know. But do they, when it comes to the regulations, regulation of these banks, which you already pointed out, they're not doing. Do they even, when it comes to Congress and voting on the type of regulations that would prevent this type of thing from happening, is that ever even going to happen? They did. What would have?

It was under. They did it. Right. I'm talking about where we are right now. They did it after 2008. Yeah. I'm talking about where we are right now. Like, is that, is that even going to happen?

What would have, what would it take another failure? I mean, if the government's going to continue to keep bailing them out and then taxpayers aren't impacted by it, is this going to be the vicious cycle that we continue it? Yeah. Who knows? Maybe we'll bring Mark back on to talk about this. Everybody loves him so much.

Maybe we'll find somebody else. But yeah, the Treasury, the Fed, and the FDIC are all getting together, putting their big national, central government heads together to make sure that all the deposits from Silicon Valley Bank, both insured and unsure, will be paid in full because, remember, they only insure your shit up to $250,000. So that means that nine-tenths of the people

that had their money in this bank were fucked. It's not funny. Also, yeah, unsecured. unsecured. It's not funny. Of course, the left is blaming it on the woke. I mean,

the right is blaming it on the woke politics when literally it's their legislation, their sort of political and fiscal direction that caused this. But people don't care. No one gives a fuck. No one gives the fuck about the actual problem, you know? No.

Fix the bank. I'll tell you what. Blaine game. Clearly. It's the same. In this country, they allow. It's sink or swim for everyone except for them. It is.

It's sink or swim. The rest of you guys, hey, get your asses out there and fucking make it. Get your shit together. Get off the government's teat. Get off the government's teat. And I'm sorry because I don't want to make it seem like I'm railing against anyone that was doing business with Silicon Valley Bank because I'm sure that those people were doing it

in good faith. But all of these banks that fail, all of these industries that fail, the first thing they do is stick out their mouths for the teeth of the government. But try to feed a six-year-old. And watch what they say.

Trump's people were all over Silicon Valley. bank, by the way. Sure. Boxing news, you trust them? I mean, I think at this point, no. And I don't know if I ever did. No, I don't trust them. So new documents that were released last week, so I guess that kind of.

Tucker Carlson texted a colleague saying that he hates Trump passionately. So, Dominion is closing in all. Say when he texted that. Oh, I don't see it. Oh, oh, you tell, you tell me. Give it to me. He texted him. First, he texted January 4th about, can't wait for the date.

January 4th, 2021, right? Can't wait for the date and he can ignore Trump. Then he said he hated him passionately. And then days later, January 6th, 2021, he said that Trump, was a demonic force and a destroyer. So Tucker Carlson. Day of the riots. So obviously this doesn't reflect the coverage of Donald Trump

that you get on Tucker Carlson show because Fox News has made the conscious decision to not even attempt to be a journalistic organization and to be the mouthpiece for the far right. actually not even mouthpiece for the fraud right they've made a decision to chase cash at whatever cost now i don't want to holier than now this situation because at this particular point i'm not sure if there are networks that aren't chasing cash can i just say you're right obviously it's about the them making money and you know who's advertising on their networks but it's got to be ethical

Right? Can we just say it's ethical journalism, right? It's striving to give information that's true and that's accurate and fair and that's thorough and well-research, not just opinionated to satisfy your audience because you're afraid of losing ratings and you're afraid of losing viewers to another network. That can't be what it's about. So you're right. I just think, am I frozen or is Van Frozen? Okay. You were frozen. Okay. I don't know what you heard.

but it can't be it can't just be about those things it's got to be about I don't even remember what I was saying I don't even remember what the last two said oh I was saying I was saying no I was saying it can't be about satisfying your viewers for ratings and for clicks and for possibly losing them to another network the ethics is what's at issue but you know I want you to continue what you were saying

the lack thereof I should say the lack thereof Well, you know, when I think about ethics and journalism, I think about my old shop. Your old shop. Yeah, my old shop, my old shop, my old shop, TMZ. Oh, oh, okay. And a lot of people would accuse TMZ of being unethical because of what ethics and journalism meant to those people. Meaning, paying for video was a murky sort of ethical question for a lot of people. What does it mean if you buy video?

What does it mean if you pay for an interview? Is that ethical? Is it ethical to give money for the truth? Mm-hmm. Does that change people's sort of reasons for talking to you, their motivation? for speaking of things that changed things. And that's something that you have to think about, right? You know, Harvey was very open about the fact that he pays for video,

pays big money from video, you know, depending on what it is. Fox is, and there were also ethical questions, other ethical questions at teams. There were ethical questions about the slant on certain things. There were ethical questions about the truth of, certain things. There were ethical questions about whether or not you should or should not be reporting on certain things. And when I say the truth about certain things, let me give you guys a little, a little breakdown here, breakdown here just of something that happened. TMZ is often accused of lying about the death of Little Wayne of having killed Little Wayne

prior to Little Wayne prior to what people thought was like a real death. Like TMZ killed Little Wayne, Will Wayne didn't really die. People think TMZ lied on Little Wayne. Explain something to people real quick in the kids they don't know. The story was 100% true. The story never said that Little Wayne was going to die. What the story said was

that, and I didn't work this story. I was during the tour at this time. But what the story said was is that Little Wayne was gravely ill and that someone was reading him his last rights or something to that effect. It was 10 years ago now, but I remember that to be the thing.

There was a source very close to Little Wayne that told somebody in our office that, that, hey, it doesn't look good, right? It doesn't. The sources say it's almost out of here. You know what I'm saying? Before Prince died, there was a source that told us on a plane or told TMZ on a plane that he had to be administered a Narcan shot. Like they had to give him a shot of Narcan.

And it was hard for people to believe. It was like, why would Prince need Narcan? Prince didn't seem like the type of guy to have like a substance abuse problem, right? Anyhow, when you have a source, if you source it and the source is good, the story is true. So if Brian tells me right now that you can. can't stop eating. That Rachel has turned a corner and all you want to do is eat sweets all day long. It comes from Brian.

If I'm a reporter and your husband says that, I can report. Source close to Rachel Lindsay says that she's eating everything in the motherfucking house. She can't stop eating. And even if you come out and say, hey, that's not true. The story is real because Brian really said that. So when I say a source says this, it's facts. I mean, it's facts that the source. source said it. It's not facts. Or if a source said that

somebody was going to get, if Brian told me, if your mom told me that you and Brian were separated, never going to happen, never going to happen, okay, but it's a good source. So these are all the type of ethical things that you can get into in the water and whether or not you should report that. What type of material you should source, what type of material you shouldn't source, whether or not you should pay for video, even whether or not something is slanted the way you cook a headline. is it just clickbait?

All of those things are actual things that are ethical that you can interrogate. Actually saying things that you do not believe is a completely different ball of wax. And from the perspective of somebody that worked in a place that a lot of people that always was fighting to be respected as actual journalism, What I can tell you is that that never happened. There was never anything that went up there that was not thought to be real at the time that it happened. Now, even if TMZ did do Donald Trump's dirty work, and they did, but they were reporting stories on behalf of somebody

that Harvey thought that they were real stories, they would just help Trump. That's a fact. But it's not like they didn't think that the stories were real. what Fox is doing right here as far as my estimation of having looked at this is unprecedented is it's

this should be the biggest story in the world but the more telling story is that people don't care that is so insane that people don't care that this

is all real that Fox is a make-believe machine and that it won't affect in any way how people view Fox News. It's wild to me because it's two-sided, right? Either people don't care because they're like, that's just Tucker Carlson, that's just Fox News, that's what they do, or they don't care because they're not listening to people like us talk. They're not listening to the other side of it. They're just watching what they've been told, I mean, what they like to watch and what they've been watching forever.

So they're not even privy to this type of information because Fox News isn't reporting it. And they're not seeking out that information because they're going to the network that's giving them the information of exactly what they want to hear. That's what's wild to me. But how can you, from the side of not caring and saying, oh, that's just Tucker Carlson and that's just Fox News, how can you say that when January 6th happened? we've seen people act on the lives of Fox News before that's what I don't understand

how can you be so flippant about what Tucker Carlson and the Sean Hannity's and the other people who are the face of this network are doing when others have acted on it and you can't say that it won't happen and for example

the video that's being shown that's an issue right Tucker Carlson got all this 44,000 hours of video footage from Kevin McCarthy, and he puts together his own montage in this package of showing the peaceful side, and I use that with quotations, of that day on January 6th, to show that there was an exaggeration.

These people were actually peaceful as they were walking through the Capitol that day. It wasn't a riot. That video is now being used by one of the five proud boys who's on trial right now for seditious conspiracy and connection with the riot is using this video, his lawyer filed something in court to use this video as evidence for their case to show that they were peaceful on that day.

This is how problematic this is. It's expanding past what Tucker Carlson is saying and it's being used in the courtroom as evidence when we know it's a bold face lie. Hmm. Yeah, more people should be talking about this. We didn't even talk. We talked about the Oscars for like a hour

before we even talked about. It's a big deal. Russell Brand was on was on Bill Maher. He compared it to MSNBC. Look, MSNBC, everybody gets things wrong at the wrong at times, especially when we talk about science. But Fox News is

purposefully lied to the American public for money. Yeah. The type of capture that Donald Trump has been able to accomplish over such a large portion of the American psyche if it weren't so scary would be impressive like Trump never

ever creates a winner everybody next to him like loses but they just can't stop and now Fox News you know defamation is hard to prove but Fox News is in trouble here. They might actually have to pay up of the, I want to point six, I bet.

You know, you don't, it looks back. It has to happen. It has to happen. For reasons we said on a previous podcast, it just has to. The state of journalism is almost on trial as well here. It's got to happen.

That it's a free for all. Before we get out of here, we have a fantastic interview with a guy who directed one of my top favorite documentaries of all time. His name is Sam Pollard. He directed MLK FBI. also has a brand new documentary out on the life of Bill Russell. San Paul is going to join us on the other side of this break.

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You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a 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. All right, you guys, we have a very important piece of the culture, very important person

in the culture, a very important person culturally on the podcast today. He is a creator of one of my favorite documentaries. I've told you guys in this podcast before how many times I've watched. watched MLK FBI. I watched it probably a half dozen times. And every time I watch it, I am floored by the insight and the bravery that it took to make it. And the bravery of some of the people that worked with Martin Luther King Jr. and, you know, the way that they talked very openly. But also four little girls with Spike Lee, Sammy Davis Jr. documentary. And upcoming, he is doing a documentary on Bill Russell,

the late Great Celtics legend who recently passed away. This gentleman's name is Sam Pollard, and he joins us today on Higher Learning. How are you doing, Sam? I'm pretty good, man. Are you? I'm doing fantastic. My first question is you.

I'm going to ask you about MLK FBI a little bit later because I do have some questions about that because I love it so much. But Bill Russell, you have the last interview with Bill Russell. Yes, we do. My question to you is, why is it important for people, particularly younger people, right now, to care about Bill Russell? Well, I think it's important because if you look back on the history of the NBA,

Bill Russell, along with Chamber, and merely set the template for what is today's NBA, the National Basketball Association. I mean, they brought along with other people like Elgin Bill and Oscar Robertson, as Nelson George says, they brought the black cultural aesthetic to the NBA, you know, which had before those two, those guys came into the game, an all white game, you know. So they changed the whole dimension of the game. And we've seen that with the African-American experience in football and music, in language, in clothing, everything, you know, our imprint is.

strong. And that's why I think it's important. The other reason is important that people know about Bill Russell's because he was an athlete, an African-American athlete who took very strong social and political stances, which was something that athletes didn't do, white or black back then. So when you see a gentleman like Bill Russell, like the march on Washington, when you see him go down to Jackson, Mississippi to support Charles Evers, when you see him involved in the Boston and busing issues. When you see him along with, you know, the legendary Jim Brown,

Grim Abdul-Jabbar, and Muhammad Ali at the Cleveland Summit, you know this was a man who put his money where his mouth was, you know. So it's just a special, special, complicated human being. I don't know if this is just the way that I feel, and I'm obviously curious to your thoughts,

but why do you think that people don't talk about the activist, as much about Bill Russell as they do with some of these other athlete activists? Well, I think it's generational. I think because it happened so long ago, you know, when you look at history and most Americans don't have a real sense of history, you know, they sort of are focused on today, you know, that's why he's sort of, you know, been marginalized. And that's one of the important aspects of wanting to do these documentary films,

to reacquaint, you know, America and the world with how important Bill Russell was. Not only as an athlete, but as an actor, it's off the court. And I think we did our job. I mean, he was a special human being, very special man. You know, Bill Russell is from my same home state. I'm from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He's from up in North Louisiana, Louis, Monroe, Monroe, I think. Monroe.

And it's funny because people would ask or have conversations with people, and they would say, I wonder how much of Bill Russell's activism was based upon the fact that he was in Boston at the time. And obviously, Boston has a reputation if not being a place that was incredibly progressive when it comes to civil rights or to black people. And I was like, man, you know, Bill from West Monroe, there was nothing that he saw in Boston that he didn't get back at the crib. For you having spoken to him, what, it's not like he was here that he moved out to California or he moved out to Chicago or someplace where there was this liberal bastion. Do you feel the continuing specter of racism that was seemingly ever present around him was the thing that pushed him to be such an activist? Are we going to learn why he thought it was so important to be that during his playing time? Yeah.

You do. I mean, you're right. He's from Louisiana. you know, a bastion of racial segregation and terrorism. He goes to Oakland, which is also, you know, de facto racism and segregation. I mean, he was all around him. I mean, the thing that he had that was a very strong positive was he had a father and a grandfather who were very strong men who made him aware of what was going on and how he had to deal with it,

you know, as a young man and then as an athlete. So he, you know, it was, the racism was everywhere. You know, he couldn't escape it. I mean, you and I know, even in the 21st century, we can't escape it. You know, so he knew it was always there. And he knew that instead of sort of putting his head in the sand, he had to react to it. And that's, you know, that's pretty special. I mean, you know, and I know a lot of athletes today don't want to step out there, you know.

And he was one of the first to do that. You know, if you compare him to another great player, Will Chamberlain. I was about to say, you know, yeah, great basketball player. But, and he came to. social activism. That wasn't Wilts style at all. That wasn't his approach, you know. And that was,

it was very different from Bill, you know. You know, so you've seen it, you see it today with the athletes who supported Colin Kaepernick or those who support LeBron, those who don't say anything. I mean, one of our greatest athletes, and I'll say his name Michael Jordan, not a political bone in his body.

Mm. You know. What? Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. You go ahead, Rich. Ben. I was going to say in doing this documentary,

and I'm assuming you grew up watching, you know, Bill Russell and you're a fan. What did you learn about him that either took you by surprise, shocked you, that she didn't know before? Well, the biggest takeaway for me, because I did grow up in the 60s, so I was very aware Bill Russell growing up, you know, and my neighborhood, people would compare who is the better center. Was it Bill or was it Wilt, you know? And I always went on the side of Bill Chamber.

I mean, Bill Russell. But what I did learn, you know, in doing the research and prepping for this film and doing interviews, was, you know, from reading his memoirs, this guy was a very thoughtful, complicated man, you know. And that comes through when you're listening to Jeffrey Wright read these excerpts from his books and from his articles. And they think about one of the things that was really fascinating was here's a guy at the top of the food chain. He wins 11th Tamp. He wins his 11 championship against the Los Angeles. Sanchez Lake was in 1969. And instead of basking in the glory of that triumphant win was Bill Russell do.

He decides to quit the Celtics. He decides to quit Boston. And he decides to walk out on his family and give him his Lamborghini and drive all the way west, you know, to Los Angeles, California. That's pretty amazing, you know. And it had to cause a lot of conflict and tension on all levels, both personal and professional. And I didn't know that about them. So I got into itself. So that was an eye opener, Rachel, and I opened.

He also was a trailblazer as a coach. Yeah. Which many people don't know or don't talk about. It's one thing to be a guy out there grabbing 22 rebounds a game as a black player. Running and jumping has never been something that they didn't realize we could do. But in terms of coaching the team and being as successful as what he was as a coach calling the plays, being a leader of men, that was trobe blazing in its own right. Talk a little bit about that and what it meant for people to see. a black head coach in the city of Boston?

Well, imagine this. Here's a guy who becomes the head coach of the Boston Celtics in the town of Boston where black people aren't exactly loved. And here's the time when you're being a player coach where you got not only play your position, but you've got to also deal with your other players, the other teammates as the coach now, not just as the player, but that's a coach, not just at the center.

You know, and they didn't have these kinds of assistant coaches that they have in today's NBA. Bill had to do all of this stuff. I mean, it had to be tremendously, a tremendous amount of pressure on him. And you saw that, you know, the three years he was the coach of the Celtics, he lost the first season.

He didn't make into championships, but then he was able to rebound and win the next two. And he went on to be a coach at Seattle and also Sacramento. So, listen, there's a certain level of intelligence that Bill Russell had that made him not only a great center who made him a great coach. But he had the deal, you know, as the film says,

even when he started to lead the Celtics to championships, you know, many of the Boston fans, up until he retired, thought of Bob Coosie as the greatest Celtic of all time. But Bob Coosie says in the film, you know, very clearly, I was the man before Bill Russell came, but when he came and led us down that road to glory, he became the man. Bob Bo Coosie did who the man was.

even as the fans didn't, you know. So, you know, most people think of athletes, you know, they used to think of athletes as just dumb jocks. But you know and I know, to be an athlete, you've got to be thinking. Absolutely. You've got to have a certain level of intellectual, an intellectual capacity to deal with plays and opposing teams and how to position yourself, position your players.

So imagine he understood how to do that as a center. Then he had to understand to do it, understand how to do it, not only as a center, but as a coach. That's amazing. That's pretty amazing. Jeff Curry says in the film, you know, he couldn't do that. I mean, he couldn't be a coach. He can't be a coach.

You know, he understands how complicated this to be a player coach. You don't see any player coaches anymore in the league. You mentioned Steph Curry. How much fun did you have getting to do all these interviews and talking to, you know, past and current players, talking to family members as well? and putting this together. Rachel, all I can tell you, you could almost,

this was like, I'll say this. You could have, I could have done this for free. It was so much fun. Don't say that's too loud, Sam. I know. That's why I'm saying.

Think about it. The first interviews we did was with Satch Sanders and Bob Coozy. Then we did Bill Bradley. We did Isaiah Thomas. Then we flew out west. We did Bill Walton. We did Jerry West.

We did, we went Harry Edwards. And we did Bill Walton. We did Bill Walton. Then we did Magic Johnson, Larry Burr. Then I went to Florida and did Oscar Robertson. Then I came out West in San Francisco. I did Steph Curry. Then I flew down to L.A. and did Chris Paul.

Man, okay. This is like, you know, it's not work, man. This is, this is fun. This was like, wow, what a great job. Amazing. So I want to ask you about something, man. When you watch, I've talked about MLK FBI on this podcast so many times, right? And to the point to where when they said, hey, we're having San Polin on, I'm like, Rachel, Rachel, remember my, I was like, yes, absolutely.

It is, to me, an essential watch. if you want to get a deeper understanding of Dr. King and if you want to understand, if you want a deeper understanding of Cointelpro and the specific efforts made to destabilize King's message and the civil rights movement as a whole. Okay.

2027 is coming up in four years. 2027 is the year that the FBI, that the FBI, that the tapes will be released. The FBI will unseal all of the things that were talked about in the MLK FBI documentary. I do not want to ruin this document for anyone who hasn't seen it, but it is essentially about the FBI's efforts to end Dr. King

and about the intelligence that they collected on Dr. King while he was trying to change the world. For someone that has, that did the documentary, How worried are you about the unsealing of the information in 2027? The only thing I would say, man, is that if the FBI will do their job, from my perspective, in the right way, they won't edit what they're going to release. They will release everything. So we have an opportunity to hear all those conversations that Dr. King had to do, not just the one that's supposed to be litigious, you know, the ones that are supposed to be between him and another woman or other women or whatever. What I'm curious about is the conversations that he had with Fred Shuttle Swir, or Ralph Abernathy, or Jesse Jackson, about strategy, about what they were going to do on certain places like in Georgia or like this place or that place or Memphis.

I want to hear the strategies. I think that's what will be eye-opener. Now, some people are concerned, will it, you know, delegitimize who Dr. King was? No way. Dr. King's reputation is cemented, man. He will go down as one of the greatest global figures in world history. It will never change. You know and I know, a lot of people's lives are dug into and opened up and re-investigated.

And people say, oh, see this thing about JFK? Ooh, look at this about LBJ. Oh, look at this about Dr. King. It will not change who he is in his reputation. It is cemented in stone, cemented at stone. And the thing that, one of the things that I always find fast statement we were doing MLK FBI, and you talked about, you mentioned Cointel Pro. Now, when I was a younger man, I used to think Cointel Pro, they were after Angela.

They were after Malcolm. They were after Fred Hampton, you know, they were after the Black Panthers. But think about it this way. William Sullivan, Jagger, 1956, 57, they were starting to try to figure out who Dr. King was because This minister, you know, from Montgomery, Alabama, who was, who became ahead of, you know, the Montgomery bus boycott was looked upon by these guys in the FBI as the most dangerous Negro in America. A gentleman who was a pacifist. He was a pacifist. And they even irrationaled it up after the march of Washington.

They thought he was going to break open the gates, which he was. You know, and this goes to show you. how deeply rooted in America was back then and even today in this notion about what it means to being American. You know, how dare Dr. King want to integrate, you know, restaurants, you know, public schools. How dare you know? How could, this is outrageous. This is criminal. You know, this man is a, he's got a major problem.

We hear this time and time again in America. If you say defund the police, if you say black, black lives matter, all of a sudden these become, you know, oh oh oh these people are trying to destroy america they're communists you know they're leftist they're the deep state i mean if we learned any if i've learned anything in my 70-something years in america is that you know listening to people like trump he's his systemic racism is alive and well in america absolutely um rich you have anything else um I thought you had a follow-up. I'm curious.

You've done so many, you know, documentaries and Van laid it out at the top of this on who you've done films on. Is there someone that you're interested in doing a film on documentary that you feel like you don't know that much about, but you're really eager for you to learn more about and then for us to learn about it? Is there someone that you have in mind that you really want to go after? There's a man named George Washington Williams, who was around in the knee. in the 19th century, in late 1800s, who was one of the first African-Americans to go to the Congo and to challenge what King Leopold was doing there and destroying white people's lives.

Yeah. You know, it's a book that my wife and I found that was written by John Hope Franklin. And this guy, you got it. And there was another black man after him, William Shepard, who also went there, you know, from America, to really make America, make the world aware, at what the, what King Leopold was doing in the Congo.

Guys, I'm glad he dropped that name. King Leopold of Belgium, I need you guys all to read up on him and give him his historical credit for being the, right there, give him his historical credit for being the historical credit for being the madman that he was. Okay. So King Leopold of Belgium, everybody, make sure you read up on him. You know, I'm obsessed right now with Granville Woods. Oh, yeah.

I'm obsessed with the life of Granville Woods. I'm obsessed with the life of an inventor that sued Thomas Edison twice and won. That's right. That's right. A seven foot tall black inventor. He's lazy. The black Edison. I'm obsessed.

So if you ever get around the Granville Woods, I will love to see that. If not, my company will just go ahead and. We'll make a narrative movie with him, Jonathan Majors. Grimba Woods, I love to. Oh, look, I need you guys to do the work. Bill Russell Legend premiered on Netflix back in February. Everyone, go check it out. It is amazing.

Bill's last interview, 11-time champion as a player, two-time champion as a coach, Trailblazer, activist, all of that. Please go watch that. But watch it in tandem. Just go watch everything, Sam, every day, okay? Watch MLK FBI. All right. Watch it.

I've told you guys several times to watch it. Please watch it. And of course, four little girls. Yo, if my mom was on here right now, my mom will tell you the story of the first time back in when four little girls dropped that we watched it together. Just amazing work that you and Spike did. Just like amazing work, Sam.

All those. man, I got this before you guys drop off, I got another film that's premiering this Sunday at South by Southwest. Give it to us. It's called Max Roach, the drum also was. Oh!

You know, one of the greatest drummers, activists also. Mm-hmm. They ever grace the music. Now, I got to say something here that's going to be a little bit controversial.

Yeah, what's that? Do you know who I learned who Max Roach was? It was the Cosby show. It was the Cosby show. That's true. He was on the Cosby Show. It was the Cosby Show. We're not going to get into the whole thing.

Demon, crazy guy, bad, all of that. And he was on the Cosby Show. Culturally, for what happened. I was a kid. Max Roach was on the Cosby Show. I'm like, who is that? My mom was like, that's the greatest drummer that ever lived. It's Max Roach.

That's how I learned who Max Roach was. I've never watched it. I don't know as much about him, but I learned about him because he, because he was on the Cosby Show. All right. That's right. He was.

Absolutely. So I can't wait to see that. I can't wait to see that. Sam, thank you for always, always. I'm pleasure you guys. Giving flowers to the people that we really,

really need to have insight on. So that's Sam Pollard. The documentaries are Bill Russell Legend, MLK FBI. Sammy Davis Jr. Doc, I haven't seen, brother. What's the name of that one? I've got to be me.

David Jr. I've got to be me. Sam and Davis Jr., I've got to be me. And Max Roach, which is premiered. The drum also waltzes. That's Waltz. Waltz is tough for me. That's all that's coming. This week, but they'll be able to probably see that like when do you think. Probably it'll be on American Masters in the fall. In the fall. Okay. Sam Paula, thank you for joining us on higher learning. I'm excited. Take care of us. Take it easy. Bye. Bye. 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.

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I don't even think it's worth talking about. No, that's so wrong. What, what, what, what, what, what was he supposed to be doing in the strip club? Right. It's so inappropriate, though, that his privacy is violated. Why else, why, why all snapping pictures? That's not, God to. And that young woman.

Okay? And that young woman, not just jaw. Sorry. She probably, she probably not sure. Say, hey, don't assume that. Don't assume that. They should have put her Instagram one. Stop.

Don't assume that. Not everybody who's a stripper wants that type of attention. I'm not saying that they want some type of attention. Or they just want, are they just trying to provide? You've no idea. Each person's individual situations. I'm not saying, look,

I'm not saying it's bad to want attention, but I mean. You saw the players club? What about it? You think that Diamond would have had? Diamond was out there. You think Diamond would have wanted her Instagram photo up there? No, Diamond was trying to make a way out.

The Players Club. Obviously, she's okay. You're going to make away. I know. So why. No matter why she do. Obviously, she's okay. That's for people inside the club paying for that.

You can't get this out here for free. But what if, but let's go back to this. If you, what if Diamond, it got out that she was a big deal and if everybody wanted to come to the players club and spend money on Diamond,

I'm sure she'd be okay with that. I wish they need to talk about it. Yeah. Let's. Let's have a stripper on to see whether or not. I'm sure she'd have been like, Hey, man. tag me.

Some may have, some may, some may not. Report came out about Colin Kaepernick. I mean, do we really need to get into this? I wasn't sending this to you as a topic of conversation. I was sending it to you of, oh, look at this. Colin Kaepernick absolutely wants to play. He contacts all 32 NFL teams each year. And the interview with Adriana Diaz of CBS morning, he says he absolutely still wants to play professional football and trains regularly.

And then gave them nothing else in the interview. Gave them what, what do you mean? Give them nothing else. Then she went on to say, well, you have this workout where the NFL, you know, had put together for you where you were going to come. And then you chose to have your own workout. Why did you do that? And he said, you got to see the documentary. And then, yeah, his documentary coming out.

I don't know when, but he's a documentary. And then there was another question that was asked about his response to what was going on in 2020, seeing how everybody was reacting to it. I'm assuming her question was particular to those athletes, those in sports. And he said, you got to watch the documentary. Which is why this is hard to talk about because, I mean, I didn't know that he contacted them all 32 teams every year. That was interesting to me. Well, that would be in the 32.

I find that I think that's interesting, but like, there's not really a lot to go from here. I'd love to watch the documentary and talk about it from there. I'm very curious as to what he is to say. What did you think about people getting on him because he said that his parents had some racism in them, even though they adopted him and he was a black child and he had to deal with some racism from them? I think he's probably right. He's obviously right, you know? And like, he grew up in that family.

So if he would know better than anybody that his parents, whether it was over racism or covert, I know they had some biases. Like, they're not black. So it's only natural for them to have that. Absolutely, I believe him. You ever feel like the judge had some biases because he was like towards you. Towards y'all because he was the police. My dad is not the police. He definitely the police.

In a way. He's not the police. Your dad is law enforcement. do you consider him that because he's a judge or because a lawyer or both? Well, so he's a lawyer. He's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's the feds. He's the feds.

He's the feds. He's the feds. So what? Like your dad, your dad knows some shit. I want to talk to me. You keep talking like that. He ain't going to talk to you. Wait, whoa.

That's bad to say. It's bad to say that he's law enforcement. What was the question? No, what was the question you asked me by dad having his bias? Do you feel like he has any biases? Like, we haven't talked about the judge in a while. We haven't. And it's, and you feel like there was any biases, because I know my dad had biases.

My, I think, my dad, I think, I'm going to be honest with you. I think sometimes my dad had biases against black people. I'm going to be real with you. My dad was super pro black, but there was certain shit I couldn't do. Like, I couldn't wear my hat backwards. I couldn't sad my pants. Yeah, I think it's generational. I would say that's generational with, with black.

parents. No, no, no, no. It is anti-black, but I think that that's a generational thing, but maybe that was, that trickles down from what their, their parents did to them or, you know, I don't know if my dad feels that way about it or not. You have to ask him. Did he ever drug test y'all? No. Never not one time? No. I can see the happen. He never, I swear to God, he never drug tested. He never was like, let me smell your breath if there's alcohol. But honestly, I, didn't do that in high school. I really didn't.

I had freedom to go out and do my thing and But no, I was never trying to Do you think that he would have ever dro tested job? That would be so funny. He comes in there He comes in there humming

like a like a gospel with a cup. Here you go, Rach. What is this, dad? Going there and produce fluids. No. Does he always make himself like somebody? Somebody from the 1800s.

Because he was very, he was, he's a judge and he's religion. So he speaks. It's making me question. I'm like, why? He never did. I guess we never gave them any inclination that we were on anything else. They never asked us. My parents weren't ever even asking me if I was having sex.

Maybe they just didn't want to know. Probably didn't. They probably didn't. They probably didn't. Like, who wants it? I feel like, I feel like, that's a, do parents, actually jump on real quick? Ask, yes.

Do parents ask young women that about, did your parents ask you or you out here with guys yet to they ask you that type of stuff? Um, yeah, you know, to keep me in check to make sure that I, like, and my mom tries to make sure that I'm always doing what she wants me to do. So. What does that mean? Like, now. they ask you or back in like in high school were they asking you about?

I mean, it wasn't like she was like too detailed about like what she wanted to hear, but she was just making sure that I wasn't like getting too crazy. Getting too crazy. Like she's like what is, I mean, Ashley, spit it out. We're like, what is it? What is it? What is it what's getting too crazy mean? Well, you know, she's just trying to make sure I'm a good Christian.

teenager growing up. Oh, so she's like, what was the name of your boyfriend in high school? What was his name? Brock. I dated a guy for a bit, his name was Jeremiah. Oh, no.

Hell no. Biblical. Biblical. Nah. Nah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She was definitely trying to see

because those be the ones that be up. They're always looking out for the Marcuses, right? And the Jalens. But it'd be the Jeremiah's that be trying to. and knocked down the walls of Jericho. You know what I'm saying?

They always, it always been, did you, and so your mom, did your mom meet him? Did you, was she friends with him? Absolutely not. No, she did not meet this, this boy. Why? Because he was annoying, and I knew she was not going to like him very much. So if she didn't like him, then I was like, that's not going to happen. If he was annoying, why did you date?

Was he white? No, he's black. He was a basketball player. That's why I dated him. He was super tall, and my friends liked him a lot. Gosh, he had to be almost like, at least like close to seven foot. I don't know exactly. Wait, what?

Yeah, he was tall. He was tall. Jeremiah was his last name. I wonder where he went. Stop. He's not a basketball player anymore. Well, then he must be, we got to get Jeremiah on here because if this nigga was like a footer, Dyer, jump on.

If this nigga was like a legit footer, he has not be able to walk in a, straight line. He was so tall. It was so weird. He wasn't good at basketball either. I've had one of those. I remember I was saying this guy in high school and I went to go see him play and I was shocked.

He sucked. I had, now he wasn't, he was probably like six, four. I couldn't believe it. I had never seen. He was discombobulated in a way that I just can't even explain. I could have gone. out there and played better than him. That's how I felt about Jeremiah.

It was weird. It was because our whole basketball team, the guys were very, very bad at basketball. And so it just was like, they barely knew how to dribble a ball. And it's just, we're watching them. We're like, we're against our rival team. And you guys make us want to go to the other team

and cheer them on. I would have gone to the other team. Yeah, I was like, oh, man. Just imagine having to feed somebody that's seven feet tall and they don't know how to play. Like get out the house, go feed yourself. I wonder what he's doing in life. I wonder what he's doing.

He probably has a tough life. I'll have to check Facebook. If he's that tall and he can't hoop at all, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait until he's this nigga in the G-E or something. He really is. Last I checked, he was, like, going to college to, like, I think he studied English or something.

I don't know. It was something completely out of box. that I didn't even know. This is so funny. It's like, yeah. Like he's like NBA player. What made you pick up the ball again? Well, you know, I had this girlfriend and she was just real, real mean about my name.

And so this summer I got with Akeem Elijah one. Okay, anyway, bye, Ashley. Bye. All right. Time for is this fucked up. We have two. We can either do Tim's. Tim's is Oscar Vail.

Now, you've got to do the second one. Or 25 employees walk out after Pennsylvania restaurant owner names drinks the Negro and the Caucasian. According to the Gettysburg Times, at least 24 employees left when Donald Thomas owner of Meala Kitchen at Jack's Hard Cider decided to serve oddly named cocktails in the theater that operates out of the same site. Many employees who expressed their frustration

said that Hoffman employed them to serve drinks with names, such as the Caucasian and the Negro. Myself and most of my coworkers walked out on Friday due to the owner and Hans production and Jack Sider, push you for some racist cocktail names for Emily K. K. Hessler on Facebook, an ally. Despite the days of effort from upper management, I halt this cocktail on your name.

Friday comes. and it's time to reveal the weekend special. I made a formal complaint to our management notified them there. The name is it changed. The staff is walking out. An email was sent to Donald explaining him of our plan, and his reaction was explosive.

Many of the other outraged employees made similar complaints on Facebook. There's issues with the owner. Jesus Christ, sexually harassing employees and wanted us to serve cocktails under racially insensitive names such as Caucasian, redneck, and Negro. All right. Russian and Negro, Caucasian, Redneck, Russian, and Negro.

This is so funny to me. It's not what it is. Can you imagine you come up and say, I'll take two Negroes. Two Negroes. A slavery shit. Donnie, question. Are you there? Right here.

What do you think goes in a Negro? I was contemplating this. That's your question. That's a good question. I mean, there's got to be some kind of, I would say, a Hennessy or a Crown Royal,

maybe Crown Royal. Okay. and I don't know what the garnish would be. I don't know. I'm not a mixologist. I don't know exactly what would make a good drink. But Crown has to be, I think, some kind of cognac or Crown or Hennessy as the base liquor.

What would be in a Caucasian? Oh, shit. It's vodka. So this is, these are my two. This is the Negro and a Caucasian to me. The Caucasian is vodka. milk. What kind of drink is this?

That's what it is. This is Caucasian. Vaca, whole milk. All right. You garnish it. Just a little bit of chicken boiled on the glass. You don't put nothing on it. And you need something else in there. That's it for the Caucasian. This is what's in the Negro. This is a great drink.

You got it. Hennessy mixed with red Kool-Aid. Okay. That sounds good. It sounds good. Think about it. Hennessy mixed with red Kool-Aid.

You garnish it. With a watermelon. Boom. Hennessy, red Kool-Aid, garnish it with the watermelon. We got to come back to this Caucasian. What else could be in it? Vaca and milk.

Got to have whole milk in it because white people are only ones that are still keeping the whole milk industry alive. Some kind of pumpkin spice. Okay, cool. Oh, you do pumpkin spice milk. All right? You put your dudes pumpkin spice milk in the Caucasian.

Keep going. What else do white people like? What do they like? They like to put raisins and weird stuff. Oh! Sprinkle some raisins in there. Okay. All right.

Like, keep it going. Rachel, what do all your friends like to drink? Stop. What are like, what are they? I mean, doesn't this drink have enough at this point? Nah, they just like to throw shit in. Put something around the rim. Something going to go around the rim.

I don't know. Like what I think. What do you put around the rim? Like a little noose? Maybe we put like a cotton candy. Oh. But shouldn't that be in the, wait, we're getting confused. Whatever.

So does the cotton candy go in the Negro or the Caucasian? Maybe it goes in it. No, no. See, which one would you put, see what I'm saying? Oh, shit. Well, this is a cotton candy because they don't know nothing about no motherfucking cotton. We moved it back to the Negro.

Mm-hmm. Back to, we're going to put cotton in the Negro. Okay, we're going for it. Fuck it. We put, we put cotton in there and fucking, cotton candy on there. See, that's better. That's the garnish.

A little cotton candy on a Negro. Right? Emphasis on the cotton. Okay, we got raisins, milk. I mean, I know this sounds disgusting but maybe what you put around the edge if we're going with milk, a little mayo.

Oh, that's it. So this is what we do. This is what the Caucasian is. It's a mayo milk. See, when we come together, guys, it's a mayo milk and pumpkin spice infused vodka drink. You forgot the raisins.

With the raisins. Put the raisins in there. Garnished, like the raisins just, you know, sprinkled on top. And for all of you guys, wondering, that drink tastes just like we felt having to deal with the bullshit. All right. You know, it's over.

By the way, I would like to announce something. Van's very serious question of the week is done. It's no more. Just say, we came up with a question. What would you put in? How would you make your needs? girl. How did you make your Caucasian?

Yeah, but it's got to it's got to die. Like we're going to take a hard look at segments and we'll make a decision about them. And we need, I think we need some new segments. I think we need one segment

we can do is an Ashley's story. Because Ashley's story was great about the seven foot nigga who came down. And people want to get to know Ashley. I like that. People love Ashley. You know what I'm saying? People think Ashley's great.

I'd like to. They do? Oh, sorry. Keep going. Yes, Ashley, people like you. Yeah, you're a mystery. You know what I'm saying? You're a mystery right now to a lot of people because they feel like they want to know more about you.

But at the same time, they're bored by you. Yeah, that's fair. All right, I like to say, I like to dedicate this episode of higher learning to my Uncle David to his memory. You know, I also want to tell my mother and my grandmother to be strong and that I love you guys. And that part of what I'll do and what I'll endeavor to do, despite my earlier comments on Angela Bassett and the Oscars, is to. Make a world where you don't have to absorb so many body blows. All right. So rest and peace, Uncle David.

Take your thing caps off. We do not stop learning. I'm Van Lathen, Jr. And I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.