Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Are Americans Cool With Chaos? Plus, Kayla and Pastor Tim Johnson on ‘Fatherless No More’

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

Van and Rachel give an update on the fallout from Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, before filmmaker Kayla Johnson and Pastor Tim Johnson join to discuss their documentary, ‘Fatherless No More’. (0:00) Intro (:31) Age guidelines in dating (7:00) Rachel’s skunk story (18:35) Remembering Sly Stone (20:53) Remembering Ananda Lewis (29:09) BET Awards (33:26) The Me Too Movement (50:01) Claressa Shields snubbed? (51:31) Update on the anti-ICE protests (1:14:42) Reactions to Sen. Alex Padilla removal  (1:18:12) Kayla and Tim Johnson join the show (1:44:55) A review of Tyler Perry’s ’Straw’ Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Kayla Johnson and Pastor Tim Johnson Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? The new look, high learning is on is I'm at Lathan Jr. It's me, Rachel and Lindsay. When you said new look, I thought you were talking about that hat. Because that's a choice. What's wrong with it? It's the style.

What's the style of the hat that? You don't like it? What does it say? I knew you were wearing it last time, but I never read it. Okay. It's a pro-dog hat. It's a style. It's different.

Is it like too young? you know, I don't believe in that. What you mean? Like, things being too young for us. I feel like we can do whatever we want. No, it's just like, it's like a throwback to a different style. You know, I'm just used to sing people where either like this or like a snapback or. So you don't believe that things are too young?

Do you leave, so the age gap stuff with these people dating, you don't care about that either? I'm over it. Interesting. Makes sense. Who cares, right? Who cares? Who cares? We were having a conversation on the Midnight Boys.

Charles Charles Holmes, Chuck Wagon. He's starting to, he's dating. Charles is out here. I was about to say, you don't remember the birthday last year? It's so many of you had this business out there. But he was a wild animal at the birthday party last year. A wild animal going nuts out there confronting people. But the question for Charles is, I think Charles is 31 or 32.

Okay. So the question is, what's too young for Charles to date? I wouldn't do teens So teens Is like 19 18 Like they're legal But they're legal

So I don't know what Charles likes But Jomey and Steve say that Like 22, 23 No Boyina up How old is Jome? Jomey's 28 And how old is Steve?

Steve is like 35 Oh Steve is such a baby face Yeah I think 21 and up 21 and up There's no problem with Charles dating like a 23-year-old girl to you though. None.

Is he trying to have fun? Or is he trying to settle down? The... If it's serious, then yes. If he's just... Then no, I don't care. I'm convinced that a lot of the loneliness epidemic that exists,

particularly and it's because of a lot of arbitrary lines that social media for sure. Has thrust upon people. Absolutely. you meet, it's like you're 31, you're 32, you meet a 24, a 23 year old girl. She's out of college. She started working.

She's in the workforce, right? You meet her. Maybe you go, she's a little young, a little younger than it. But you find out what it is that you guys like together, right? Yeah. It's seven, eight years. I said 21. Right?

And so it's the thing. But now it's like, oh, no, that's weird. It's weird. That's what Jomey says. Jomi is very... Did Jomi explain why? So what's appropriate for Jomi? Jomi's 28.

So how young would he go? Well, Jomi's 28 and Jomi wouldn't date a girl that's 32, he said. Too old? Too old. And what's too young? He said 23's too young, so... Too young for Jomi's 28. Too young for Jomey is 21, 22.

These distinctions don't make any sense. No, they don't. Jomey, unless he can come... Tell Jomey to bring a whiteboard and explain why he has developed 32 is too big, I mean too big, too old. And 21 is too young. He needs to explain why. I need like a hot, crazy matrix type diet, a diagram for him to tell me the reason why.

So not only would Jomi bring a white board, he would probably be a white woman. I didn't know that's what he was into. Everybody. So it's a joke that he, Jomi is a milkman. We call Jomi the Midnight Boys. It's a joke that he's the milkman. But, no, he's a big Haley-at-Wil fan. Okay.

He's a big Haley-Stefell fan. So? He's, so he likes the milk. He likes the milk-it-up. That's Jomey. Have you ever seen, Joe Me, a nice guy and a roared? Have you ever seen Jomey date a white woman? No, but there's a very funny picture of after the Midnight Boys live show, we went to this place called All Seasons.

It's a, have you know this place? Mm-mm. It's on, I think it's on like La Brea and Wilshire. And it's an old Firestone tire shop that they've turned into like a beer garden of some sort. Oh. And so we went there. And some of the people that were at the, it was not a Midnight Boys live show. It was a Ring of a Live show.

So our ladies, the bad babies from House of Ar were there. The Middiction was there. Everybody was there. We're all together. Bad babies. Bad babies? Our ladies from the House of Arr, that's the house of our ladies from House of Ar, that's their fan base, the bad babies.

So we go back to all seasons, and we're all doing our thing, you know, ski ball, whatever the fuck they got over there, drinking the beer. And then I turn around, and it's Jomey, because I was with, you know, Kerm and a shout out to Kerm. Shout out to Kerm. Shout out to Kerm.

Shout out to Kerm. Shout out to Kerm. I love you, Kerm. I love you, my boy. It's me and you for life, Kerm. Shout out to Kerm. And we turn around. and Jomey's talking to two white women.

White. Isn't that majority of your ring of verse audience? Is white? Is the majority of the ringerverse audience white? I've seen pictures of the live show. I don't think you had to think too hard on this one. I don't know, though, because the Midnight Boys is a distinctly black show. Black presenting.

I don't think your listeners are. Just like our listeners aren't, I don't, I'd say it might be half and half. of the higher learning listeners? When you're out and about in these streets, I get more white people that come up to me and say, and say, and say, what's up? I probably say it's equal,

but I get a lot of white people. Interesting. But you know what? I think in the beginning, I think we had more white, and I think it's starting to change. That might have been the bachelor overflow, though. Yeah, probably.

Because it was a lot of batch. The batch fans, held us down early on. They're still there. They're still around. Yeah, a lot of batch overflow. But I'll say that it better not be a bunch of white people on that Reddit. Well, you sometimes don't say, I'm a white person and this.

And then, I don't know. I bet it is a lot of white people on the Reddit. So we can see what the makeup is of our audience. I bet it is a lot of white people on the Reddit. I bet they are white because they move with such entitlement over there. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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Let the dogs out. It was like midnight. I let the dogs out in the yard. They're barking like they usually do. You know, you've been over there. And it gets quiet, but it gets like, it's like a weird quiet. Like I kind of hear some noise, but it's not the same. So like I'll go around the corner.

I'm outside. I go around the corner. And all I see is a skunk standing on its legs, hind legs. His hands are up and he's like, it's the most terrifying thing. And I see Brownie, and you know how Brownie rolls. You think Brownie was on the attack. Cowering in the corner, and Copper is beating his face. So immediately I'm like, oh, my gosh, copper got sprayed.

So I scream. Skulk runs away. Copper's just slobbering, slobbering, saliv. Like, it's bad. So I don't know. I've never experienced this. I'm like, is he poisoned? Is he going to be blind?

How much should he get sprayed? And so like a dummy, I open the house because I have to open the back door because I have to go run and get my phone. Copper follows me, smells all in the house, right? Immediately, I'm like, he definitely got sprayed. All over the house, I'm like nervously looking up what the symptoms are. Like, do I need to take them to the urgent care? I panic. I throw us all in the car.

We go to the urgent care. I walk in and they're like, what's the problem? And I'm like, my dog just got sprayed. And they look at me and they're like, you need to step outside. You're upsetting the customers. you're upsetting the other animals. Standing outside, he's like, yeah, it's definitely a skunk. I can smell it.

I'm like, yeah, no shit. I just told you. I saw the skunk. And he's like, it's actually not as bad as it could be. Normally, you can smell it from like a block away. But he was like, there's nothing we can do. He's like, really, I'm telling you, your smell isn't as bad. I smell it, but it could be worse.

And he's like, you just got to go home, get some skunk off. But I'm like, my dog is beating his face. He's rubbing his face against the ground. He's still sloboring. And by the time we got home, he calmed down. I hosed him down before we left, too. Anyways, house smells. I smell me.

You said I don't smell. We kind of smell. Rachel? I asked them already. I told them to be honest. I knew you would tell me. How smells, dog smells. I took copper to get washed.

He's all smiles now. Stop it. Stop it. It's like, I have to go out of town. I'm just like afraid everything is going to smell like skunk. But anyways, It was really traumatizing for me. And I got to be honest with you, when everything settled, it made me sad.

Why? Because I was like, I had to do this all alone. So what does that mean? There was no guy? I just guess. I was. Oh, shit. Wait, I really cried, but I'm laughing at the same time because I really was like, I'm not okay.

This is so sad. It's a good. I'm sorry. It's okay. I was like, it's midnight. The house smells. These dogs smell. I'm sitting in my bed just funky.

And I'm like, I had to do this all by myself. Like I was like running around the house frantic. Like coppers. Like I didn't know if he was poisoned. The man, and then like the rejection of the man be like, ma'am, can you just step outside? Can you just step outside? No, you can't.

There's nothing we can do. for you, just go home. And I just go home with the music playing. Windows are all open. It just was this, it was a sad this is for your book. Because this is funny.

This is a sad scene. But the moment I said to you, I looked at you and I go, you know what? I just, I knew I was going to cry. I didn't even cry last night. There's the thing, I didn't even cry last night,

but now I'm crying. You just need to talk to your big brother. It's just sad. Yeah, you just need to talk to your big brother. Because I could see it. And there's such worst problems. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was just like, nope, nope, nope.

It was just like a sad moment. And I'm like really crying. Hold on. She's like, the tears are flowing. Let's name this moment. They're not worse problems. Don't do that. But this is not about the skunk.

This is not about the trip. Are you going to say it? This is about the feeling of being overwhelmed. Well, yeah. And being solo and being the one that has to look after yourself. that has to look after your family, that has to look after brownie, that has to look after copper.

And there are times when we are overwhelmed, when we would just love, love to have one person in the foxhole with us. And that makes you human. It's not a small problem. The feeling of being, even momentarily, absent of companionship or backup, is a distinctly human thing.

So we don't want to So we sit in the moment So I was already on edge Crossman Redme for filth Who? Dr. Crosbynman Oh, see? So it's already in a vulnerable state, you know what I mean?

But it was just like Yeah Yeah, I get it I get it It was Rachel's straw day Very strong I don't have my headphones on What did Donnie say?

Oh shit He said it was your straw day Taraja P. Henson Strong. Don't talk about that later on. Don't talk about that later on. Right. Yeah. We'll talk about that later on, man.

And no, like, no, that was a no good, horrible, very bad day for her. You didn't go through it like she did. Are you okay, though? I'm okay. Maybe I didn't, I literally didn't even cry last night. I turned on the TV and watch straw.

Yeah. You watched Straw after that? I felt asleep watching it, and I finished it this morning. But I just, like, didn't really sleep. You know what I mean? Like, that was till almost like two in the morning. I probably woke up at 5, 5.30 this morning. I just...

The skunk is a symbol for everyone. That skunk is. It is true. Your skunk is coming. There is going to be a day where a skunk is going to piss on you. And the question is... Is that what it is? It's like, it's a skunk pee, whatever.

It's like... Oh, my God. So there's going to be a day where a skunk is going to piss on you. And then the question is, who's going to stink with you? who's going to help you clean it up. Everybody has that situation. That's why we need community. That's why we need family.

It's completely okay to feel like, goddamn, I wish somebody was here to smell this and just, or even, you know what happens sometimes? Do you know the power of just telling somebody? Somebody who really cares about you, who is there, which you have plenty of people like that in your life, I know. But the power of being like, yo, do you know what the fuck just happened to me?

Yeah, I'm not good at that. You're not? I'm very much so. Figure it out, Rachel. You'll be fine. Like when I had the aunt situation, I wasn't alone. There were like four people in my house.

I probably would have, like the ants would have gotten me to. But the skunk late at night, you're right. It's symbolic of a lot of stuff. But I'm very bad at, because I do what I just did to you. It's so many people are going so much.

You know, like we got protests going down the street. We have people who are being separated from their families. That's how I literally, That's how I think. And then I'm like, you idiot, why are you crying? It's somebody's having, which they say in the movie strong, as bad as you think it is, somebody has it worse. That's a bunch of bullshit.

I know it is, but that is how I think. And I literally just did it with you. Somebody has it worse. And so I just don't allow myself to feel a lot of things. I am overwhelmed. I'm very overwhelmed because I'm still trying to like recover from the divorce, having to, I still have to pay him. He's still demanding money. I'm

working, taking every fucking job like crazy to be able to pay him off and survive. And so like, yeah, like that's an everyday struggle. Like, that's overwhelming. And so one little thing, one little skunk can totally just like set off the entire thing. Yeah.

You know? Well, last thing I'll say about this before we move on. Sorry. Like, we are so starting this off in a way. Like, What I'll say about this before we move on is for me personally, and this is, sounds very selfish. But I had to become an expert and taking care of myself. So sometimes I just go in to the room and put on MLB-25 to show the video game and just fail at it. Okay. The game is hard.

Okay. And I can't figure it out. But I just get in the moment, like boxing. I'll go box. I just need things to be able to do that are in the moment. That's how you pull apart the feeling of being overwhelmed. Yeah. And if you are the type of person that compartmentalizes very easy

and continuously looks at people's situations and what can be worse, that makes you two things. One, compassionate, but it also makes you prone to being overwhelmed. because by the time all of the little cuts have like sort of they've built up, a small one then happens and you wonder, why am I bleeding so much? Very true. And you go, like, that was not that big of a deal. And you go, like, why am I, why does this hurt this much?

Like, why am I bleeding so much? Because it's not just that thing. It is the accumulation of all these things that you didn't know were, eroding your armor. So sometimes I get super mad about something or super upset about something and I've matched the ability not to cheat myself. I'm pissed about something dumb, stupid, crazy, whatever. I give it to myself. I let myself be wrong. I let myself feel stupid. I let myself be immature. And right now, because of everything that you're going through, it's okay to sit in the fact that these things don't have to be world tragedies for them to feel important.

Yeah. You know what happens? You just get exhausted. And thank you for saying all that. You just get exhausted. Like, I don't want to feel like this anymore. I don't want to, you know, so you just try to move on. Now, having said that, we're about to start the show with two things that. that are actually, you know, pretty sad in culture. Donnie, quick hitters start off with two in memoriums. Yeah, Icon, music legend, Slice Stone passed away this week. He was 82 and was battling lung disease. His family made a statement.

They said, while we mourn his absence, we take solace and knowing that his extraordinary musical legacy will continue to resonate and aspire for generations to come. Yeah. Not much to say about Sly other than the fact that he was a visionary virtuoso musically. Also, the type of figure that

had he been around in this day would have inspired endless curiosity out of people. Just a taught cool, walked cool. If you saw him in interviews, was cool. There's an interview with him and Richard Pryor, I think on the I can't never the Dick Cavett show and him and Richard

are bombed out of their minds and it's just cool to watch him I think one of the coolest things is like yeah you can talk about how he would have been like the influence he would have on artists today but when you look at the list of artists that he influenced

it's the reason that our music is so great I mean when you look at Stevie Wonder Prince Michael Jackson Outcast all the way to jazz musicians like Herbie Hancock and Miles Davis. It's like his spirit or his artistry transcended, you know, through multiple genres. And it just shows how, what a genius he was when he did.

And remained a character that inspired people's curiosity, you know, up to the end of his life. There were some stories that we covered surrounding him when I was at TMZ and, you know, his life and the quality of his life and all that. People always wanted to know what was up with slide. But the reality. is that he was an unbelievably talented musician and a cool cat, you know,

not a life perfectly lived, but a life well lived nonetheless. This second one hurts, hurts, bad. Everybody up and down the timeline yesterday was shocked and saddened. Yeah. Donnie?

Yeah. Ananda Lewis passed away. Former BET hosts and MTV Vijay. She had breast cancer. The news was broken by her sister, Lakshmi Emery, who posted on Facebook that she's free. And in his heavenly arms, Lord rest her soul. A career that I watched from the beginning to its apex starts out on Teen Summit. You look at her at Teen Summit and you're my age.

You go, who is that gorgeous, brilliant, articulate black lady that is. that is talking to and relating to kids our age, Teen Summit. Then she goes on the MTV and becomes really one of the biggest VJs and one of the standard bearers for Black Beauty of that time, one of the defining Black beauties, black video journalists as well of that time. And, you know, I know she had been sit for, I had talked to her a couple years about coming on the podcast. Oh, really?

We just didn't get a chance to do it. I know she had been kind of bowed. and back and forth. But yeah, I thought that she was, we, actually, we, you know, heard the stories about her and her breast cancer diagnosis and some medical decision she had made. But the last I'd heard is that she was feeling better or doing better. This news was shocking.

I thought she was kind of past it. I thought she had beat it or that she was in some sort of remission or I I never heard she was cancer-free, but it felt like she talked about it. She came out and she had said that maybe she was doing a little bit better, and her health was okay. Ananda was the girl, like being a young black woman, was the girl you looked at TV and you wanted to be.

You know, like, yeah, there's other people that you named that you looked up to, but it wasn't just that she was on TV. It was what she represented and the way she carried herself and how relatable she was. Like you felt. like you knew Ananda. Like if I had, I'd never met her, but if I had run into her, I would roll up to her like I grew up with her because that's how she made you feel.

And you did grow up with her, whether you were watching her on Team Summit or then watching her on MTV's TRL, you just watched her. And I didn't know I was going to have a career in television, but I always looked up to her for what she represented and what she represented in such a positive, beautiful way. And as you saw all the dedications that have come out, As people are remembering her and telling their own stories, you see how many people's lives she impacted and what she meant to so many people. You know, like it's rare you hear people say, I never hear anybody say a bad thing about that person. But that's what you hear about Ananda.

Like you don't hear anybody say anything bad. She just appeared to be such a beautiful soul. And I think that, you know, and I know she's touched on this a little bit before, like I think about this is, I just turned 40 and I just had my own first mammogram. And I had a lot of friends as I'm talking to my friends, you know, and I'm like, hey, I just had my mammogram. You know, I turned 40 and trying to be proactive about it. I have a lot of girlfriends, several of them who are in their 40s who are like, you're better than me. You know, I'm scared to do it.

And I know that when Anana has talked about her journey, she talked about her aversion and her fear for it. And I think it's just a reminder. And I know that she used her platform to eventually come out and speak about what was happening her as a reminder to tell people. And I'm saying this is I just got my own of go out and get your mammograms. Make sure you do check, um, yourselves. You don't have to wait till 40. I waited till 40, not just because it was recommended, but because I don't really have a family history of it. But if you do have a family history of it, I know, um, Katie Thurston, she's a bachelorette after me, 34 years old, stage three breast cancer. And, um, you know, she's been very vocal about it. You

You can go and follow her journey. She's trying to educate people as well to use her platform. So I'm saying that as a reminder of it's never too early to go get checked out. And as women, you know, it is scary. Even if 40 for me, it was scary to go. We need to make sure that we check on ourselves, encourage our friends to do the same and make sure that we're taking care of ourselves. What happens during the mammogram?

Why are people aversy getting? It's. Is it a radiation scan? No. Well, yes, it's radiation. But I don't think that's why. I think it's just a daunting thing to know, as I imagine, getting screening for colonoscopy. Yeah, I had one last year.

It's just a little daunting. And I feel like more and more you're hearing of people younger and younger being diagnosed, particularly black men with colon cancer, women with breast cancer. And there are all these things like you go in, you're on the machine. I will also say a lot of women, this is something that I've learned, have dense breast. And so a regular mammogram, the way you were doing it, isn't as, it doesn't, it's not as intense. Like you need to get a 3D mammogram or even an ultrasound, if you have a really dense breast, to really see some of the smaller masses. But if I hadn't talked with people, there are things I would know because you go in,

it takes less than five minutes for them to, you know, examine your breast and to do the 3D exam. But then if they see something, they'll immediately tell you, hey, have a seat. If they don't, they'll send you home. But if it's your first one, they may call you. And you get this call and you're like, panicked. I was prepared because I had friends tell me. But they call you because they may not have any other X-ray to compare it to. And so they might need to do more just to make sure that everything is okay.

But when you get your results, based on your family history, your age, the density of your breast, they give you your percentage of the likelihood of you developing breast cancer, which is also kind of shocking as well. Like my number was higher than I thought. And I know that I've read, excuse me for being ignorant about this subject,

but I've read that there are women who have a very direct family history of it that sometimes opt for the mastectomy. Yeah. Even before like Angelina Jolie, I think. Yeah. When it's that close, I believe, her mother. Yeah.

And maybe if it's a grandmother and you see that or some people get tested for a gene, I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then they'll go ahead and, you know, like, be proactive and do that. Or maybe, like, you get your percentage back and it's higher. Like 20% or higher makes you high risk. There's only one person in my family history, and it's on my paternal side that had it. and my number was closer to 20 than I thought. So you just don't know.

And that's, like I said, age, family history, and the density and other factors as well. So I say this as, you know, not to take a way of talking about Anana, but she did use her platform to spread awareness and talked about her regrets and not getting a screening earlier. And I think she did that so other women would be proactive in ways that she wasn't. And so I think we need to continue to encourage women the early. the earlier, the better. Yeah, we also need to understand that there are

myriad ways to affect your health. And there are advances in medical science and in oncology and all of these things. And when you're talking about your life and your health that just hope

that you are taking advantage of every single avenue to address that. Anando was amazing. And by the way, didn't take no shit either. I don't think you can make it that far and not be that way. I remember seeing some of the battles that she fought on MTV and how she used her voice and the things that she said, she didn't take no shit either.

Huge, huge loss. Man. All right, Donnie. Petting this now. All right. Let's get into the Petty. This will be in relation to the BET Awards, which was Monday night, same night that we recorded our previous episodes.

We didn't get to recap or talk about it. it or anything. Did you guys, first of all, have any impressions of the show? See it, watch it, thoughts about it in general. I got through about two hours of it. I thought it was incredible. It's the best one they've done in a long time. It was, and maybe we're biased because it really touched to the millennial aspect of, you know, it was 25 years of the awards, I think 45 years, maybe of BET. And the way they started it off with 106 and Park took me back to, you know, it's to when it started 25 years ago, which I didn't even realize that.

When 106 and Parks started? It was 25 years ago, yeah? It was 2000. And it was so cool the way they rolled it out, the time that they dedicated to it, seeing the host come back, seeing all the big memories of, you know, our millennial time of who was big,

who really was the king and queen of 106 and park. I loved, loved every bit of that. I loved who they honored. I loved watching Jamie Fox be so moved. by the tributes to him, Jamie Fox continues to be so grateful and acknowledge what, not like what had happened,

what has happened to him, but how he wants to be better for it. Yeah. And, yeah, it was just, it was so good. Now, there were parts. There were parts, and there were questions. I had. Well, like, all right, we'll start with 106 in part.

Okay. Well, first off, did you like it? I loved it. Loved it. 106 apart. Where was AJ? AJ wasn't there. Roxy wasn't there.

Why wasn't AJ there? You know, unclear? AJ wasn't there because of the, I'm going to say accusations because I don't know what was the final come out of the allegations of sexual. Oh. Harassment.

I don't know if it was assault as well. That's why he wasn't there? I believe so. Somebody wrote an article that when it was announced, I guess, that maybe they were going to do this. And there was the possibility or maybe they did say he was going to,

AJ was going to be there. There were some people who spoke out about that or wrote out about that. So do you think it was a decision that because now that you mention it, I am aware of some of the things that were surrounding with him, but I wasn't aware that there was an outcry

from anyone that he was going to be on that. Do you think that that was a decision that BET made? I do. I think it was a decision that BET made because he posted a picture of him sitting on a plane and made it seem like he couldn't make it. Because there was a discrepancy in child. I'm not a betting woman, but I bet that was an old picture.

Well, no, it was a, wasn't it a picture in a video or? I saw a picture, but maybe it was a video. Yeah, you know, look, I don't know. So, oh, this is interesting. So you think that there was a decision made from on high? I do. I have him there because I do remember that there was a picture of him and Stephen Hill. and the entire 106 and Park roster.

And maybe that was the part. That was before the awards, right? Am I making this up, Donnie? Try to find that picture. There was a picture of Stephen Hill in the entire roster that was before. Here's the article. It was written on Puck News,

and it says, The Me Too movement creeps, creep back. As it celebrates the beloved music video show, 106 in Park at its annual BET. The Cable Network is also honor a former host who several women have accused

of sexual assault. As the Me Too move, as the Me Too backlash gained steam, how many alleged creeps will be allowed to keep to come back? That was right before

the awards came out. So that could be in response to, and I think they might have had a response to that. To that. And so they responded

to that and they decided no, AJ. But Roxy not being there is kind of unclear as to why she wasn't there. I guess she says, she had a job or some big announcement that's coming out, which I mean, I wouldn't, I would have wanted, if I had a job, I would have gone to.

Right. I think there's an interesting conversation about the Me Too movement and the veterans of it at this point. How durable the movement has been. How much of this stuff has actually stuck to some of the people that were not like outright. canceled. Because when I say outright canceled, I mean, if you are a Weinstein or a Cosby or some of the other guys, it seems like there were a couple

of guys from the movement that actually had their careers ended. But then there were some that for some reason they were able to duck and dodge it and not really be affected by it. Do you think it's because you had the Harvey's, the Cosby's, so egregious, span decades, so many women come out, still people come out and are telling their stories, that those people flew under the radar because it was like, well, they're not Harvey.

And I'm just speculating here. Well, they're not Cosby. Well, I mean, you look, and there are guys like Charlie Rose, they're guys like Matt Lauer. There are a lot of guys that had to run for the hills that never really came back. and Spacey. He's had some court victories and he's still, this person on Nangrata here in Hollywood.

So it's just there's this mixture of things. Some guys went underground. You know, Les Munevez was the head of CBS. He no longer has that job, but he is still working. Then there are guys like Brett Ratner who were doing stuff

and lost the big shiny things that they were doing, but still get the opportunity to maybe move and maneuver around the city. Some of them, you get the feeling that they're just laying low until it blows over, and they'll do a bunch of interviews and kind of come back. Then you have guys that have many comebacks like Lewis C.K., who didn't get back to the person that he was in terms of his ability to, like, you know, sell out movies and have big shows and all that. But as a touring comedian, he's definitely rebounded.

And also as like, I think he was nominated for Emmy for his comedy special. And then you got, you have guys like Jared Leto who just was accused of all of this stuff. Rumors flying around town about him for years. And people just don't seem to really fucking care. Yeah. It's just an interesting. This has nothing to do with, with AJ. If BET made that decision, it was probably in their best interest to, you know, not make

everything that happened with him, the center of the story from the 106 and Park tribute. But it's interesting, we haven't gone back and relitigated how the Me Too movement affected different individuals and whether or not the movement in it of itself was successful. Was it successful in a hope? I mean, we had Toronto come on. Maybe we have her come back and talk about it. Yeah, yeah, just like when the reason why I say it wasn't successful. I do think it's successful, obviously, because people,

were talking about it, people were held accountable. But yes, I wonder, but it's not done. Let's say it didn't. I mean, it was successful. I don't know that it was. See, I would argue that it's successful because it took down, it gave women the courage and men, because Kevin Spacey's not, it's a man who made it. men and women who had been wronged, some of them, the courage to speak out. Yeah. And we were talking about industries and people and situations in ways we never had before.

There's success in that. Now, it might not be as successful at, well, it's definitely not as successful as it should be, right? If people can be, you know, I'll just use the term uncanceled or fly under the radar or not held accountable in certain situations. You know, we still haven't changed the mindset of certain people.

So it's not as successful as it should be, but you can't take away some of the successes that it has had. Certainly. And I don't mean to do that. This is what I think I'm attempting to say. So the Me Too movement is it's alongside a re-familiarization. I can never say that word, the militarization of America

with grassroots black political activism that also was happening in the 2010s with a lot of different new voices coming out of that movement. Black Lives Matters coming out of that movement, but it's not just Black Lives Matter. It's guys like Philip Agnew from Black Men Build,

with shout out to Phil and black men building everything that they're doing in his new role and what he's, has been able to build there. It's, you know, Tiffany Lofton from the NAACP. It's all different types of people at that time that are affiliated with the larger idea of Black Lives Matter, but also when you talk about DeRay and NETA

and all of these people at that time that are rising to the forefront of a movement centered around American people, policing, but also that was more curious into asking the question of what black people have actually, what progress black people have actually been able to make since the civil rights era. And there was this reexamination of what contemporary black life was. That really was very interesting to me because a lot of people say that, you know, there was a time when we thought racism was over.

And when you're living life as a black person in America, you go, we never really felt that way. However, I remember America inching close to adopting the Obama administration as an example of a post-racial American. Now, if you're from where I'm from, it's very difficult to see the country in those terms, because you see so many disparities between black people and white people, and they're right in your face. But culturally, maybe there was a time when we were feeling like,

maybe we've gotten someplace that we haven't gotten before. Then you have movements across social media and across the country that remind you that that's just not the case. And you have a deeper examination into all of these disparities and policing and voting rights and environmental justice. You have the Flint water crisis. You have police killings everywhere. You have people going, how well are we actually doing?

And so then you have movement behind that. And then it actually culminates with George Floyd. And all of that stuff is happening around Me Too. At the same time, you have movement in LGBT circles and you have intersectionality between a lot of these movements. You have a lot of women and queer leaders in all of these spaces and they're connecting all of these things together. And America says no.

Like America says no. We get to an inflection point with really all of these movements. And the country gets to a point where they bend, bend, bend, and then they snap back. And there is the vilification of the word woke. There is the vilification. of the trans movement. There is the vilification and backlash from the movements that come out immediately

after the George Ford protests. There's an embrace of DEI as a way to remedy some of the things, the unfairness that we see in corporate hiring practices. And then there is a rebuke of that. There is an embrace of CRT, and deep historical study into the racial history of America. And then there's a rebuke of that.

There's an embrace, at least culturally, it feels like, of women resetting the reality of their lives inside of corporate spaces and in their communities. And then there's a rebuke of that. And not just a rebuke, but I mean a rebuke that exists inside of all those communities. there's a black rebuke of the word woke. There's a woman rebuke of the Me Too movement. For sure.

Because there's something very inconvenient about the Me Too movement that sometimes we don't talk about is a lot of women that are, how do I say this? Because I don't mean to generalize. But if you really believe,

not if you really believe, because I think, think that people really do believe. There's a warm blanket that the white male power structure provides a lot of people. And it's kind of what Trump represents. There's a warm blanket there because it means that you don't have to get uncomfortable. Who doesn't have to get uncomfortable? You, the person that's seeking to change the definition of that power structure. There's a lot of people that are simply too lazy. to challenge the white male power structure.

Sure. A lot of people, right? But there's a specific uncomfortability that exists around the Me Too movement is because you're not just realigning in that movement the behavior of Gargamel, of Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby and them. You're realigning the behavior of your uncles

and your sons and your fathers. and guys that you love and your friends and your people. And there are some people that if it's between a woman's safety and their son or their brother or their friend or the important men in their life, they're going to choose the men in their life. You got to read Anna Tubbs book. I'm telling you, she addresses this full on erase.

about the patriarchy. And what's so fascinating about her book is it's not just her giving her thoughts and the pains which she does, but she gives specific examples in history as to why things exist the way they do, the white male power structure, patriarchy, and how certain groups of people have contributed to that as to why it continues to exist. She does this excellent breakdown of the conservatives that are sitting on the Supreme Court and how, Each one of their stories where people helped them,

whether it was a woman, whether it was a society, whether, whatever it may be, a race helped further that person along the way to keep the patriarchy intact. It's so good. And it just made me think of that. It made me think of the story. It made me think of Brock Turner, the Stanford athlete and how he was protected. Clarence Thomas.

Brett Kavanaugh. Brett Kavanaugh. All the Supreme Court, conservative ones, all of them. But these are men that if they fall, so many people who are invested in their success have to kind of fall with them or realign. And there's just,

the Me Too movement was the most, one of the most important movements I can remember because it imposed consequence. on something that we had accepted, which was men's right to abuse women. Yeah, yeah. Just the right to abuse women. And this goes way back.

Way back, right, on just men's ability. Because women aren't valued, historically valued. Right. And men are so overvalued that it was like, oh man, what about his career? What about this? What about that? And I get it and I understand it.

But when it came down, When push came to show, everyone seemed to collude to destroy these movements. Everyone seemed to collude everything that happened around Black Lives Matter and the house, right? And all of that stuff. It is completely prudent to investigate all of that stuff, right? All of that stuff, right? But we also have to remember that the ones that endeavor to injure those movements, that was coming from like the New York Post.

Those were conservative talking points that were holding up that stuff to our face and going, look how fucked up your people are. None of this is actually real. And I'm not saying anybody was hoodwink or bamboozled or that it was, it wasn't right to go, okay, well, all of this money was made off of the death of a Tamir Rice,

off the death of a George Floyd, off of the death of a Sandra Blan. All this money was donated. As a community, we're owed accountability in that. But there's a certain, there was a, a, like a cultural codification of an idea of the fact that all of these people were grifters. And nothing that happened in the last 10 or 15 years actually mattered that was allowed to go mainstream. And not only was allowed to go mainstream, it was allowed to exist unchallenged in a way. You couldn't even say, well.

Yeah, yeah. You couldn't even say, well, maybe it wasn't this, maybe it was that. Like, nah, them people, all of that's a scam. All of this is that. And we kind of just moved on. And it really, really did a lot of damage to what was actually trying to be accomplished during that time, which was a deepening of the understanding of what we should be expecting from the societies and the spaces that we live in. And what we should be expecting from the police, what we should, the water we should be drinking. and the places we should be able to occupy

and the votes we should be able to cast and just how we're supposed to be safe. Like, the actual question is, not about where money is going and not about what's happening here, but the actual question is, should you be allowed to walk in your father's neighborhood with a hoodie on in the rain

without having a deranged white supremacists provoke you. Yeah. And then that ended up in your death. That's the question that we were, and we asked so many other questions that were tangential to that, like after the movement.

And I do feel like a lot of the questions and a lot of the scrutiny came from within the black community and a lot of the scrutiny for the Me Too movement came from, to me, I hear a lot of women sometimes going, hey, well, I know a lot of people,

and women do be lying and all of that stuff like that. There's, it just, it seemed like there was an attempt to actually shift the status quo. And culture just said no. Like, did you just like, no, the re-election of Trump is just everybody going, all of that stuff. There it is. That's exactly what it is. No, you're right. You're right.

We went long on that. Well, it was a good conversation. Yeah. Yeah, that was good. Oh, yeah. Well, we wanted to talk about Clarissa Shields saying that, you know, that was petty. I know. I don't want to get too into her

because I don't want her coming after me. You don't want to smoke? It's like it just didn't make, no, I don't want her. I do not want to smoke from her. But it just also didn't make sense. Like, you said you weren't happy that you lost the BET Award for Athlete. What was it, Athlete of the Year?

Sportswoman of the Year. Sportswoman of the Year being the Year being the key word. Yeah. Like, year. Angel Reese won it. I'm not saying that Clarissa Shields is not super talented, super awarded, like a trailblazer for sure in what she has done over the span of her career. But we're talking about sports boom of the year. You could, like, Simone Biles had a better argument than she did in this one.

Like, so you are being petty and you know it. But I feel like she does this. She does stuff like this. Boxer. Boxer, you know, she's got a, everything's promo. But I want no smoke. I want no smoke. You want to fight Clarissa Shield?

Fight. It wouldn't be a fight. She would. What? That wouldn't be a fight. If. She wouldn't have to try hard. Yeah. I want to interview her at Papoos.

I want them to come on higher learning. Great. Bring her. But yeah, petty. It seems like now Twitter is just for pettiness now. Or for people to get people talking about you. Right. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech.

Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need weather. WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping, then you'd want a cargo liner or road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. 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 to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. All right, Donnie, let's go to the ICE protests. Yeah, let's do that. Mayor Karen Bass, on Tuesday, instituted a curfew that said it would go on as long as it needed to. It seems like things have calmed down a little bit.

But nationwide protests have sprung up in several different cities and states. So things haven't necessarily calmed down overall. It seems like people are still fired up about these ice raids. I want to say something real quick. Go ahead. I lived through Hurricane Katrina. I was in Baton Rouge. Wasn't in New Orleans, but I was in Baton Rouge.

the entire region was affected the whole region you look around is the army on the streets remember one day I came to we were shooting the reaping at that time starring Idris Elba and Hillary Swink

I come to the we had taken a Walmart and we made that Walmart into a sound stage the Walmart on Perkins Road What was your role? I was the stage manager I was the stage manager

I was feeling good about myself I would get there early in the morning I would unlock the soundstage early, I'd talking about six in the morning. I would check everybody in. I thought I was directing the fucking movie. I was the man. You were directing in a sense.

Everybody in that sound stage, you had transportation there, you had set dressing there, you had makeup there, and then we were building out stages inside there. So I was in charge of all of this stuff. We, we, we. One day I get there in the morning,

and I can't go to my job because there are, the Army is all in the Army National Guard. They've taken over. They've commandeered. This is Baton Rouge. This is Baton Rouge. They've commandeered the parking lot because they're using it to, you know, coordinate what they're doing and how they're getting to New Orleans.

Everywhere you went, there was a curfew in Baton Rouge. There was no fucking food in the shelves. There was all kinds of stuff going on. Gas prices went through the roof. All of this stuff is effective. in South Louisiana. You know what's where that's not happening here right now? That's not happening here.

That's not how things are. Like I've been in a place where the shit has hit the fan and shit has gone wrong and everybody, every way of life is fucked up. That's not what's happening right here. Well, we are currently filming right now in downtown Los Angeles. In downtown live. Like we are here. You drove in fine.

I drove in fine. This is not in any way to depower. the ice protests or what's happening, I don't mean to do that. But what I am saying is Monday night, me and Tommy Alter went to dinner. Okay? Tuesday night we went to dinner.

Okay? Things are okay. It's fine. These protests are very meaningful, but the idea that Los Angeles is on fire is a lot. Yeah. Well, I think that's what's been, I don't know if the.

word is interesting, but has been something to note as to how the rest of the country is responding. Like Washington Post did a poll. They asked a thousand Americans about the L.A. protest. And it's actually concerning and alarming how many people are, think that just what you said, that the city is under fire. They are against the protest. They are okay with the fact that Trump has sent the National Guard and Marines here. They are okay with deporting. They support these things. They're really like neck and neck.

Even if it's not in the favor, it's like a 5% difference. And it's alarming. And I mean, we live here. And actually, like the poll says that Californians, when they break it down about who's saying what are on the same page that we're on. But based on what people are seeing. and so like it's a media thing I don't actually

there's actually a poll that says the people who understand what's happening right now in L.A. are informed people. So the people who are voting in this poll who are saying that they agree with what Trump's doing and they are against the protest

and therefore the deporting and in the way that it's being done aren't informed people. How scary? is that. The people who are watching the news understand what's going on, right? So I know some people are blaming the media and saying the media are exaggerating what's happening, but

based on this poll, and it's only a thousand people, the people who are informed, get it. The people who are uninformed. So it's like, uninformed how? Like, are you listening to, you know, Twitter? Are you listening? Or any social media website? Are you listening to your friends?

Is it your subconscious feelings or preconceived notions you have about immigrants or the situation like where is this coming from either way it is so alarming that so many people are okay with what is happening and i'm not talking about the protest i'm talking the way people the way the administration is handling the protest majority peaceful protest when you say informed what was the metric that they used to determine whether somebody was informed or not whether somebody was watching the news,

whether somebody had studied anything, what was the metric they were using? Do you remember? I'm looking it up now and I'm trying to search and I can't find it. But it was, I thought it was people watching the news. Because this is my, this is, I think, Fox News viewers in polls are routinely

the most misinformed. Right. They're getting information, but it's misinformation. It's low information stuff that's going on. So I'm wondering if the siloing of American information right now, I'm not wondering, I know that that's probably affecting people's perception of this, right? I'm sure it is. It's probably affecting people's perception whether or not you believe that undocumented immigrants

have taken over Los Angeles and are burning the city down and that the city is on fire, it's not. You have had peaceful protest and of course in any small to medium gathering of people you're going to see some civic unrest that evolves into

violence or vandalism. It's a part of it, right? It's going to happen. We've seen it happen before. But if you're talking about billions of dollars worth of damage. We're talking about a contagion in terms of protests or vandalism that spreads across the 502 square miles of Los Angeles.

None of that's happening. None of that's happening. Now, I will say that protests and demonstrations are extending across the country. Donnie, I want you to read the truth social post that Donald Trump made earlier today. And I want to know what Rachel thinks. this truth social post means. Okay, before you read that, it's that most, it says,

tuned in Americans tend to oppose sending the National Guard and Marines to L.A. They didn't define tuned in, but it says the more people who are paying attention to the protest, the more likely there to oppose Trump and sending the National Guard and Marines to the protest.

And it says this is partly due because, well, it says Democrats follow the protests more closely, although independents who are paying more attention and more critical. It doesn't say exactly, exactly where it just says tuned in

is how the statistic is okay. So I guess that means that if you're just kind of flippantly asked a question, hey, do you think that the National Guard should go in to quell protesters? And you might go, yeah. But if you know

exactly why this is happening, how this is happening, you're less likely to agree with that. You're reading a headline. Like, when I was at the grocery store yesterday, there was a man on the aisle behind me checking out and he was screaming, like I could hear him. He was talking. He was talking.

to the cashier who was a Latina woman and he was talking about how he was like, it's crazy that they're burning down their neighborhoods because what they're going to do is they're going to come over the hill and now they have to buy our groceries because they're burning everything down. And it took everything in me not to turn around

because he was talking loud enough. So now I'm like, I'm offended by what you're saying. It's like you're so uninformed and she was just listening and it's like that's what people believe. Nobody's burning down the neighborhood. That's literally not happening? All right, read the Trump. The Trump thing.

All right, Trump said, our great farmers and people in the hotel and leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long-time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace. In many cases, the criminals allowed into our country by the very stupid Biden-open borders policy are applying for those jobs. This is not good. We must protect our farmers, but get criminals out of the USA, changes are coming. Changes are coming. Fucking fascinating.

So he's saying, we're getting rid of the criminals. Is he backtracking? Yeah. Because it sounds like, okay, but if he backtracks and they can't meet the quota. So it sounds like some industries that are important to him.

I don't know if they're donating to the administration. Somehow, industries that are important to him are being impacted. and he wants to make sure they're okay. So it sounds like he's backtracking where he's just going after criminals again

in order to sustain their workforce to keep these industries happy and to keep them profitable. He didn't say that, but he just said changes are coming. Or... Because right now they're going out to everybody. He never intended to do it in the first place.

Never intended to do what? To deport 10 million people. Who said 10 million people? They said 10 million people. Okay. So it was all smoking mirrors. So listen, there was an obvious problem with American immigration policy. And that problem to me had to do, it was structural.

Trump's goal was to sell American immigration as a cultural problem. Meaning that the Democrats were looking to replace American voters with immigrants from Latin countries so that they could brown America and change the American power structure and ensure the Democrats would win for, you know, untold years of elections. And because he said it himself,

I would think that these people hated America, but they can't hate America because they're too good at rigging elections. So they got, well, no, excuse me, that's not what he said. He said, I would think these people were dumb, but they can't be dumb. Yeah. because they rigged an election.

So you can't be done in rigging election. Then I would think they just hate our country. I don't think that they hate our country. So it must be another reason that they're doing that, which is him dog whistling that immigration was part of the great replacement theory, that was bringing a lot of brown immigrants and change the American power structure, drown out white influence, white male influence over America, and ensure that the Democrats would then win for,

you know, in perpetuity, which is interesting when the fact that the Democrats actually lost with a large swath of Latino voters and, you know, Latino men and all of that stuff. So maybe that doesn't even make any sense when you crunch the numbers. That's one thing. That's making this a cultural problem where you assign what's going on or the failures at the border to a boogeyman and to a conspiracy theory, right? But then if you look at the issue as a structural problem, then you say, okay, where we have this many millions of people trying to come in and some of them are coming in for different reasons. Some of them are claiming asylum. We have 735 or 800 immigration judges, which creates a backlog of people. You might come in and see a judge or need to see a judge, and you might not get a chance to see that judge until two or three years from then.

By that point, you're here, you're working, you're doing all of this stuff. These things are increasingly complicated by parts of the system that are not working. And what do we need? We need 10,000 immigration judges, right? We need to be able to process people really quickly and determine their asylum status really quickly and deal with the problem of increasing amounts of people that want to come to the United States following COVID and political turmoil in other places that we also have a hand in. and we need to be able to do this

and decide where these people are going to go. So there's an immigration bill that they want to pass. There's ways to do this, right? So there's two different ways of looking at it. Well, if you're going to run on the fact that the Democrats want America to be taken over and overrun,

you're not going to run on the pragmatic reasons why we need to overhaul immigration. You're not going to run on that. You're going to run on the fact that the Browns are trying to take over the world. Even if you don't think that that's true, you're going to run on it. Running on the dysfunction is one thing. That's what politics is. It's running on the dysfunction that the side is part and parcel to. Running on the intention is the way that you whip people up. Now,

you get into office, and either you have an immediate realization that this is not going to happen or the political price that you're going to pay for six or seven American cities being on fire is too high. Or you were never going to sell out the farmers and the corporate class that need the labor that these migrants provide in the first place. You were never going to do that. So now you're going to step back and you're going to say, oh, well, I was going to deport 10 million people. but I heard from Middle America. And Middle America says they don't want to deport 10 million people. So because they don't want to deport 10 million people,

now what we're going to do is be laser focused on criminals, on criminals. We all know intellectually that there weren't 10 million criminals coming into our country from other places that they were going to be able to deport. They fucking knew it too. So when I saw him here, I'm like, it doesn't matter if he changes his mind. Nobody will care.

His crowd is religiously devoted to him. But, I mean, I think we know we knew that what he was, no, I don't think we knew. We knew that what he was saying wasn't true. But I do think that there was a part of me that thought that he believed it. Or, I mean, I will say this. And what you're saying I agree with,

I think that that probably is the case. but also this is Trump and you just don't know. This could just be a tweet that means nothing. And he really is just saying that to make a side happy that is dedicated to him. He literally could just be saying this because he's like, well, people are upset. Let me say something that eases their minds a little bit.

And he'll go back on it in the next week. Like, this is Trump at the end of the day. But I'm more so just saying that for argument's sake, like you just don't know. Next week, we could have a whole other thing. But the way that you just said it, I'm like, yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense. It makes a lot of sense.

It shows how stupid I am. Also, you know, the fact that this, you can argue whether or not this is going poorly for the administration or not. Obviously, the weaponization of some of the... It's not. You don't think it's going poorly? For the administration? Yeah. In what way?

Like, they're able, because nobody's checking them. They're able, literally everything that they've been. wanted to do, they're doing. And Trump's not, I mean, the way things are set right now, he's not getting another term. They're literally carrying out things that are going to be impacting us for decades and decades and decades. It's June. We have had six months of Trump. In what ways are they unsuccessful? They're literally doing everything that they want to do. Our outrage doesn't affect them, doesn't care, doesn't impact them. hasn't stopped them in any way or diverted them from doing anything they wanted to do.

It only emboldens them. So I ask the question again. All right. I'll try to play both sides of it. Okay. The argument that it's working for them is if you're looking at them as, you know, prognosticators of political unrest and say,

I told you that these people were this particular way and that if we tried to enforce the law, they would burn down their own city. Then that to a lot of people is a very delicious political nugget that they can throw out there. Hey, we told you we were right. Look at what's going on. Look at this picture of a foreign national standing on top of a burned out car. Maybe you whip your base up even more, right? But then there's something else.

If that's just Los Angeles is one thing. But if you get nationwide protests because of what's going on, I don't know if Americans have the stomach for that much unrest. I don't know if that turns people off. I don't. Even in a little poll that I just read that they did, people are okay with the way Trump is responding to L.A. And it's not just L.A.

It's in Texas and New York. And I don't know the other states that are involved. But right now, people seem to be okay with it. Which people? Well, the people that they've pulled here. And it's small, but I'm just saying. I'm a dad of God. I understand it.

I think that nation protests in one specific city, you can make it an L.A. problem. Protests in L.A. in Houston. you can make it an L.A. and Houston problem. The more cities that have protests,

any types of protests, right? It starts to look like Americans just don't want this. It starts to look like this is an issue that the Trump administration had really thought through.

I think local protests in one place, you can say, hey, it's the crazy liberals. But when those protests go to places that are particularly in blue states, oh, excuse me,

red states, When they're in red states, it starts to look like, okay, it's not just the crazy L.A. liberals that are having problems with this. This is an issue that is very complex and affecting people in a lot of different places, right? That plus whatever conversations he's happened having with the farmers lobby or whatever, along with tariffs, tariffs which are very divisive amongst the economic and political brass of America. You know, pain in the bomb market makes people go, I don't know if we want tariffs. And then at the same time, like, I was about to buy this, because I buy whatever Instagram asked me to buy. I was about to buy this vagal nerve simulator that you put on your neck to help your vagus nerve

calm down. And then I'm looking at this ad that the Pulsetto, it's called POSETO, if you guys want to send me one for free. But I'm looking at this ad that they put up and they go, hey, just to let you know, we're sorry, but the prices on the POSETO are going to go up. the tariffs mean that we have to charge you more for this. And this ad was just, there was an app for the thing. And then the next was the ad for the fact that the prices are going up.

I think people look at that type of thing and they go, wait a minute. When do we start to see the benefits of tariffs and all of that type of stuff? And then the, what, the polsetto? Are you going to wear this in private or like in public? I just need my Vegas. I put up a picture of the polsetto device, please, so people can get it. I just wanted a visual. I needed to see it.

I couldn't keep listening to what you were saying until I saw what this is because my mind was fixated on this. But see? That's why I don't break down crying over this skunk pissing on me because I got the fucking posto. Maybe I need the posset.

We'll take two. But yeah, so I wonder, you know, it seems as if things are going well for him. It seems as if, I mean, he seems to be, I don't think that they necessarily. are, though. I think that there's a little bit more. I hope you're right. Yeah. I do. I listen to Rand Paul talk about the fact that he got disinvited from the White House. But how many times have they bitched about like something that's happened to him or taken a stand?

Only when election time comes around, they all rally together to come together to further their party and their party's interests. Like that's, it's like everything they do was with a grain of salt. And as you said earlier, there's literally nothing Trump can do to like turn the base away. I remember specifically we were talking about, but it's like they're so dedicated to him. There's literally nothing that that can be done. Well, they believe in the religion of it. I do think that there's a group of people who just don't want to see their lives get harder. Look, when I say that, don't think that I am in any way providing cover for a Trump vote. Let me put that in a different way. I think there's a group of people that if they see their lives get harder, and they see too much bullshit

will go, I'm not fucking with this when the midterms come around. Now that also presumes that the Democrats get their shit together and provide actual narrative clarity to the American people

which it does not seem like they are capable of doing save a few bright spots like the guy that's starting to take over the fucking race in New York City Cuomo might be on the run. Was his name Madani? I don't know his name.

Oh, Donny. You know about Madani? Don't. I'm sorry. I'm distracted. Donnie's distracted by what he just sent to the group chat. Donnie, what's going on? Yeah.

Senator Alex Padilla was just arrested and brought to the ground at this press conference that's being held by the head of ICE and Department of Homeland Security. I think they're having a press conference right now. It's happening live, and he tried to interrupt it by asking a few questions about the National Guard and Marines being stationed in L.A. And he's been taken out, and then they just resumed the press conference. Let me see the video. Oh, by the way, the guy's name is Zoran Mamdani. And I'm enjoying him.

He's got ideas, and he's starting a fucking, huh? Zoro? Zoron. Zoro. If Zorro was the man, that was a joke. But he's got ideas about transportation. He's got ideas about, they asked him straight up at the mayoral debate. I guess they were asking everybody like what the first trip they would take overseas was. And everybody up there with, oh, we're going to go to Israel. We're going to go to Israel. We're going to Israel. And he was like, I'm not going anywhere.

I'm going to stay right here and deal with New York. And then they asked him further about it on another interview that I saw, Mondani, and he just kind of kept a real about his thoughts about what's going on over there. He is gaining ground against Cuomo. I don't know if he can finish, but... But he's getting some attention. Okay.

Some attention. I want to see this. I want to see this. Let me see. This is what happened to. Let me see. Yeah, I said arrested. It's more like removed.

Oh, look at them. Okay. a sitting American U.S. Senator. So what's the update? I know this is a breaking story, Doni, but so wait, Christy Noam was doing a press conference and he was asking her questions. And did she demand, does she call for his removal?

No. From what I've seen, she was speaking, he spoke up and then the camera pans to him being removed by security and ICE agents. Not ICE agents. Ice agents, yeah. Why are they there? Oh, he's in L.A. He's in L.A.

He's in L.A. I mean, ISIS speaking as well as Kristyno. So there's a bunch of ICE agents all over the place. When you see that imagery, who does that work for, Rach? I mean, that works for them. It works for the ICE agents, you think? Not for the Trump administration. To put hands on an American senator and kick him out of the thing?

You know what they see a Democrat? They see him as a Democrat. They see him as a disruptor. They see him as somebody who's not a white man. Yeah. And they look at this and they say, well, he was causing a problem. The Homeland Security Secretary was trying to have a press conference. He was being disruptive. He is messing up the order of business.

And so they removed him. They love this. This will be on T-shirts. Probably so. You're probably right. I think it's one of those things where each side is going to claim victory, like look at the Gestapo tactics being used by eyes that kicking people out that have any dissenter questions. And then the other side's going to go, hey, we're here to get down. to business and we'll kick you out. Yeah.

Yeah. Stuff. Look at breaking news, Donnie right there. Did you know about one and 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

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Forty grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New Sweet Green wraps hit different. Order now at order.sweetgreen.com. All right, joining us now on higher learning. We have a father-daughter duo, maybe the first that we've ever had here on higher learning in our five years. So it's quite a treat here.

We have Kayla Johnson. We have Pastor Tim Johnson here to talk about their new documentary, Fatherless No More. Thank you so much for joining us on Higher Learning. Happy to have you here. Thank you for having us. Let's get right into it. A line that stands out to me at the very beginning, maybe like first 10 minutes into the film, you state the young men that you're working with are not afraid to die. They are afraid to live.

And I was like, whoa, okay, how do you even approach this mentality when you're in that? I'm probably jumping ahead because maybe I should just talk about what, you know, what it is the initiative that you do. But this was just something that stood out so much to me. How do you go into the work that you're doing and approach that mentality that you're facing? I think it goes back to understanding why we're in the first place. So if you don't know the purpose of something, abuse is inevitable. You'll abuse your iPhone if you think it's a coffee maker or a coffee stirer. I mean, there's all kinds of examples, but primarily human.

human beings don't start with who they are. They don't start with understanding why I exist. And so we rush into the activity of trying to find ourselves. And that's the scariest question. Who are you? Because if you don't know who you are, you don't really know how to live. So I knew the reckless nature of that because I was that in my younger life. I didn't have guns and all that kind of stuff. I played football. And so I know what it was like to feel reckless and actually have a hole in your soul. So I wasn't looking at all the things they did, the things that they were indicted for,

the things that they were accused of, the violence and all that. I didn't look at where they were. I was really wanting to plan a sea for where they could go if they knew they were loved. What we all really want is someone to see us, someone to rest us,

treat us human for a few minutes, without having to perform. So my agenda was very simple. It was a divine calling for me to even go there. I live in Florida. And because it came out of prayer, I sought the wisdom that the Father put in my heart to know how to love them.

My agenda was to learn how to love them. The documentary is incredibly powerful. We're going to come to the specific filmmaking of that in the second. I want to start with you, Tim. and get some background on how you were called to do what it is that you do now. Because when I saw the documentary, I was like, that's a big man. And I was, it was the first thing I always see. I see him saying next to the boys.

I'm like, that's a big man. He must have been moving people around at some point. And then that's what you did. You were a football player, a very successful career. And then we go to your church down in Orlando, and we see that you've had another call. You're competing on a different field, and that's the field of souls and hearts.

Why? How did it start? Why were you called to do this? Before the documentary starts, why did your career to change lives start? I think it started with my wonderful question, by the way, both of those questions are pretty straight to the point. But it started with my life being changed when I did.

never thought there was any other way to live than the way I was living. It was absolutely clueless. So in January 29th, 1965 at about 231 in the morning, I came into this world. And as I came into this world, just like you, I had a birth certificate. And on my birth certificate, there's two places for the person's responsible for me, you, and everybody coming here, whether they're married or whatever. In my case, they weren't. But in the top part where it says,

Mother and my mama name there. And the second part was his father, there's no name there. I know what it's like to walk around with a hole in your soul in the shape of your dad and make all kinds of mistakes. So I felt like one. I was the problem I was trying to solve. I had to figure out how to be me. I had to figure out how to live this life without a blueprint from a man

that can tell me who I was supposed to be. went off to college. My outlet wasn't to try to, you know, be the wealthiest man in the world and all that. My outlet was football. And from football, I actually got good at something and felt like I would belong somewhere. Long story short, I get a scholarship to Penn State. That was the place I go to far away from everybody where I couldn't answer my own, I tried to figure out

to answer my own questions and someone shared the gospel with me. And when I said yes to Jesus, I began my life of learning how to live a new one which comes through prayer, the word and all that. So fast forward now to March

12th, 2020, I'm praying, like I do, not because I'm a pastor, but because I love Jesus. And I hear two words This is stunning to me because I live in Florida and I begin to figure out what does this have to do with me found out about Rikers how notorious and violent it was

and I paused to find out through that quiet moment what next and it was to go there. So I was literally divinely initiated to go to Rikers Island and that's where it all began. And once you went there, what was that process like? How did you decide what exactly you were going to do with these young men and how you were going to work with them? And if you can, tell us about what the fatherless No More initiative mean.

Well, first off, the fatherless no more a message that gives people a chance to know who they are when they know who the father is. And it's to give people an introduction into a freedom through a relationship with the Heavenly Father through faith in Jesus Christ that you can't find anywhere else. So how I got there, and I'm not just using hyperbole, a whole bunch of miracles happened along the way. And when we landed on Rikers Island, there was a lot had to happen, including me talking to my wife. for my kids, to me talking to church, just submitting this to everyone and along the way not having any barriers that said, don't do it. And so this was a request that I submitted to the New York City Department of Corrections, the then commissioner and all these different people.

They kept telling me, yes. I'm kind of waiting for a no. Somebody just say, hey, man, you're crazy. Because what my request was, can I live on the island? I actually requested to live on the island, and they kept saying yes. Back at home, I have two instructional designers at my church that I pastor, very intelligent men, and I knew the call wasn't to go in and just start a Bible study. The call was to go in there to respond to the needs that we all have, and there are three basic needs,

amidst all the others, and that's the need to know to whom do you belong, what to believe, how to behave. My goal wasn't to affect their behavior or to try to change their belief. It was to love them into believing and trusting that they belonged to me while I was there in the room. Some of these young men never had a man that looked like me or you then. Come visit them. So by being consistent, I would spend 10 plus hours a day. day in the jail, doing all kinds of stuff. The instructional designers built a curriculum for a five-month runway that would actually allow us to dignify their humanity, engage them in that way.

So as they begin to build trust through activities and eating together in physical fitness and games, like all kinds of just lived there, there came a place in a time where they actually now wanted to know what to believe. And when I shared within the things that have been shared with me that took me from a fatherless little boy, being fatherless no more, at the time my book was being written, which is now completed.

It was year four of six to actually finish the book. So I was on year four, and your father put it in my heart, go put, and I'm paraphrasing, go put in action on, Rockers Island, what's you writing in this book, pretty much. Put it to the test with those who were called the pens, pins are persons in need. These were the savages, the demon children, those who should

have never been in the same room because of what's happening with the beef in the streets. But the most improbable, unlikely group of individuals, even corrections officers on Rikers Island, would look at us walking down the hall like, do y'all know what you're doing? Do you know who you have? And obviously, we have two Kenneth White and Donnell Cummings are pioneers. They're remarkable corrections officers. You need to have them on your show sometime. It would be a whole movie listening to these guys because they live on the inside. So we knew who we had.

They just could not believe it. And instead of a bloodbath, they became brothers. And in that first group, we ended up with about 14 or so. We started 16. Some of guys had to go out to state to prison and some of them weren't ready.

But I baptized 11 out of about 14 or so that stuck. Caleb, we're going to come to the documentary now. I want to talk to you. First of all, I want to compliment the filmmaking. Because in the first couple of shots that you see, you get close-ups of the actual scars. And it's a very subtle but devastating tactic

because these faces are so young. I'm 45. I'm looking on the faces of these young men. They got puffy cheeks. They're kids. They're so young, but these faces are scarred. And you see not just the, emotional scars that come out through the tears, but the actual physical scars, you can tell

that they've been through some stuff. But I'm going to ask you this, because I know a lot of pastors kids in my life, and they don't be wanting no part of it. Okay. What made you decide to get deeper into your father's mission and ministry and capture it through the documentary? Why did you want to be closer? That is a hilarious question, because I feel like when you your P-K is one end of the spectrum. Either you're a big weirdo or you're all. And I think it's interesting. This goes along with me and my siblings.

I feel like my parents instilled in us, obviously in the way that you should go, but really encourage us to know Jesus for yourself. And there was a period in my life. I would say around 2012, I was a senior in college. And I went to my dad and I was like, I don't know if I believe in this Jesus stuff and this God stuff. Like, you know, you go to college, your mind opens up and you're learning the world and all this. And he didn't freak out.

He wasn't like, no, you should do this. He simply just, hey, can I give you a book to read or can I show you this? And more than a carpenter, forgot who the author was, but I read more than a carpenter. And that changed my whole perspective just to answer your question about just being a PK, being a PK and wanting to, you know, learn more about who God is, who Jesus is. And so that kind of radically shaped my life in a way that, okay, I want to know Jesus for myself. And in that, this ministry that we've built has really become like a family thing. And so when my dad came to us with, hey, God called me to Rikers, it wasn't. a shock to any of us because he's done a lot of nutty things in my mind.

Like he's walked the state of Florida and he started this, I guess it's an initiative called he got up where he basically gathered all of the homeless people or unhoused people in central Florida to give them services from showers to haircuts to legal services. He gathered them at Camping World Stadium downtown, bust them all in just so. So, you know, they can feel human again. That's a trend with him. So when he sat us down and was like, hey, you know, God called me to Rikers. I think he was expecting us to be like, and we're like, all right, okay, when do you leave?

Like, yeah. And I do remember the day that he called me about the prayer. He was like, hey, you know, I got this word. He didn't tell me what it was, but he was like, I want you to pray and just see if it aligns. And so when I prayed, I heard documentary, but that's, I mean, it's not kind of like out of the scope. I had been, you know, filmmaking. And so when he told us, I was like, okay, that could be interesting. But when he first went in, they didn't bring any cameras because he wanted to really trust.

He wanted to earn the trust of the young men. Bringing cameras in, that's what they expect. You come in, you do your little show, and then you leave. But he really wanted to build trust. trust with them and not, you know, alter that in any way. So a year and a half into it, another production company actually approached him about doing something. And my mom, shout out to her, was like, Kayla needs to be doing that.

Like, why is anybody else? Keeping them family. Shout out with Shell Johnson. But I was like, me and my dad will have, and sorry, this is a long winded dancer, but me and my dad were laying on the floor. We have these talks, daddy-daughter talks, who are just like laying, both looking at the ceiling, laying on the floor.

And I was like, Dad, so what's up with that documentary? Should we just start doing it? He's like, yeah, let's see if we could get the clearance. So one thing led to another. The doors flung wide open for us to bring some cameras in. So it was Ashley Robinson, who's the DP, and a young filmmaker, Victoria Martinez, who goes to our church,

we would go up there and film. And we were just starting to, we started with the original, like, project of making a trailer. And then the more we interviewed, the more we got to know the guys, we were like, oh, this is a film. And that's how it came to be.

You know, it's, you say that you weren't surprised that your dad had this idea because you're just used to him doing things. I would imagine that once you guys started working together and it became even bigger than what you thought, I'm close with my dad too. And I've actually thought about working with my dad and maybe not this way, but in another way, maybe like writing a book. And it just makes me wonder, like, what did you learn about your dad maybe that you didn't know? There were certain things that you expected.

But as you went along this journey with him, what are maybe some things that you learned about your dad as you were directing him in this film? Yeah. Also a great question. I feel like I learned just more about his humanity and just his love for people. Like obviously growing up with my dad, you know, I know he loves people, but I didn't understand the depth of it until I saw him with those guys. And I feel like a lot of people think it's like he puts on, because some people will be skeptical like, yo daddy ain't really like this. I'm like, yes, he is. Almost to the part where we're like, man, are you real? Like, what is going? on, but I just got to see a deeper, like, under, I got a deeper understanding of who he is as a lover of Jesus, but really just his heart for people, no matter where they are in life. And then also his story, like I've heard stories of him growing up and not having a dad and you get kind of the gist, but reading his book, I'm like, oh my gosh, do I know this man? reading his book was really a wild experience for me just knowing that he had a life before being my dad it makes my heart soft softened towards him and makes me better understand why he is the way that he is

so it was a beautiful experience to just get to know him on that level and I tell people all the time I'm like, I feel like we became like real best friends because we're going to these prisons. We're in these jails. And we're talking about, hey, okay, are you going to Corey's court date today? And okay, what's going on with this dude? And it's just, I don't know, I feel like we can relate on a whole new level now. But it was very interesting but very fun experience. So my last question is for both of you guys.

Fathers No More is the name of the documentary. And it's very powerful. But I want to ask you something directly. about the young men. It's going to be a long-winded question. And you can give long-winded questions and answers. This is a podcast. We can do, you know.

So you get the stories of all of these different brothers. Like I said, they look so young, you know. And I think of tales and people that I've heard of in Rikers before this. I think about if you would have been around for Khalif Browder. I think about other things and other people that I know that I've personally, been to Rikers and the Gladiator Academy that Rikers is known as and actually is, the reputation that it has, and for there to be any type of softness or spirituality or outlet inside of there, what a blessing that is for those young men. But there's one part at the beginning,

and they're walking in and you're grabbing them by their faces and you're talking to them. And I'm not going to lie. Even I was like, whoa. You know, I was like, whoa. And I thought that these were the guys. These were your five, six-year dudes or however long. I know they ain't been that long. Guys only been a riker through four years that you had known.

And there's one dude who's like, yo, they're talking like, you know, they're from Crown Heights, Brooklyn. They're like, yo, you know, B, I never had nobody grab my face like that before. And I'm like, yeah, neither have I. But there is, you guys have to see the documentary and see what I'm talking about. There is such power and connection there. And you can tell that the young men have never been approached in that type of way before. And it's almost like this spiritual icebreaker that brings everything else in and makes it something that you can build on and build on.

around. Have you ever had anyone that you, that simply wasn't ready for the type of love and the type of connection that you were ready to offer? Has there ever been anyone that was like, and they, they rebelled against it because they're not used to displaying that type of vulnerability. Yes and no. Yes, all of them were not ready or none of them were ready. but none of them rebelled. In fact, the guys who've known me for a bit of time now, they won't even tell the new guys

because we're constantly getting new guys as guys are released to home or a sentence to prison. It's just continued. This is our third year, June 13th. So they don't even tell them. When they come in, and I look them in their eyes and I grabbed their face, they have no idea what to do.

They are those guys, you feel the pullback because it's so outrageously disruptive but all of them look forward to it once they have that encounter. So you've got to think about this, Van and Rachel.

This is what you are created for. And I'll tell you why. In Genesis chapter 1, when all of us in Adam, the federal head of all of humanity were a piece of dirt called the dust of the earth, how did we even come alive? Except the father grab Adam's face and breathe into his nostrils, the breath of life. So all we do is live until we have life from the giver of life. And he is love. God is love. So I feel like I can represent the closest version expressing love without performance, without having to meet conditions, qualifications.

Adam did, no, he was just lay on the ground. And most of the time, we want to perform for hours. We want to have the applause and the YouTube and the TikTok. We want to have all the IG like. We want to have all of these measures of who we are by the affirmations and acceptance of people. I don't know them. They don't know me. Never met before.

When I grab them, I tell them. I say their name because their names are usually associated with condemnation, convictions, allegations, you know, damnation. Unfortunately. So I say their name. And then I say, I love you. I see you. I say, the Father loves you. The Father sees you.

Because I'm not there to focus on where they've been. I'm there to focus on where they can go. They're not a problem to be solved. They're persons to be loved. So if the Father wants me to do extreme things like that, because metaphorically he did it to me when Jesus snatched me up. in college. I'll never forget. I can't even believe I'm saying. But it's been 40 years and I'm still here and he's never left off of that. I'm so glad that you decided not to be a judge and to do this.

I saw that that was what originally that's what you thought you were going to do. And my dad's judge, not shading judges. I'm just saying what you're doing and the work you're doing is amazing. It's beautiful. I'm so excited for everybody to see this film. Can you tell everybody where they can catch the film, how they can support what you're doing, and just tell us what's next with the initiative. Yeah, as far as the film goes, we're on our film festival circuit.

So Thursday, June 12th, we will be at the American Black Film Festival, which is really exciting at Oce Cinema Theater at 415. So if this comes out before then, get to tickets, link in bio, at Fatherless No More Film, Instagram. And then we actually just got selected to be into the Summer League Film Festival

hosted by Kevin Garnett. So that'll be exciting. We'll be posting updates on those and then a few other screenings in Chicago and Nashville. So we're just on our tour right now trying to get picked up. But there are some public screenings happening in the next couple months that you can stay up to date

on fatherless, no more film.com. Oh, yes. Thank you guys. Kayla, let's talk after. Maybe we can do some business. Hey, Van. I'm with you already told me. I know, you know, Dad,

Van is an Oscar winner. Oh, wow. The man is legit. Or in order. Yeah, a couple of years ago, yeah, about four years ago. Yeah, so you guys talk maybe after this, you know, I thought, honestly,

I thought you guys had distribution now, you know. We need it. Let's do some business. But we, um, I was delighted to watch it. It is a high quality piece of media and I'm just glad

that you guys exist. I'm so pleased. My spirit was pleased knowing that you guys are out there. So thank you, Tim. Thank you, Caleb, for joining us on Highland. Thank you guys. Thank you all so much.

All right, you know what? Let's get into Straw the movie. Okay. Straw premiered on Netflix on Friday. This is the latest from Tyler. Perry and it's the latest collaboration between Tyler Perry and Trajee Pete Henson. Seems like a little bit of a

John Q-ish movies. Got them vibes. You guys just watched it. It's fresh on your minds. What were your thoughts? So, Donnie, you brought this to our attention because you were saying the people were talking about this. There's been a lot of discourse about this movie.

Did you watch it? I did. I did. Over the weekend. All right. So you're in on this as well. I got to tell you, and maybe it's because of my last 12 hours and you saying I had my own straw moment, I was expecting it to be worse than it was. Okay. It definitely was typical Tyler Perry where it feels like you're watching more of a play than a movie. I always get that feeling.

It always gives that. but I thought the twist at the end, I didn't see it. Now, I am a particular, when I watch movies, I've completely immersed myself, so I'm not trying to figure anything out. So they got me. And it broke me. I didn't cry, but I was just like, wow, oh, wow, that's what's happening. Oh, I did not catch that.

So to me, that was good. Now, I can poke holes in it, and I definitely have issues with a lot of things in the movie. But I will say plot-wise, I was like, wow, wasn't expecting that. Okay. So, okay, so, you know, I got to say something. I am part of the production team of two distant strangers, right? We made two distant strangers.

And if you guys haven't seen the movie that we made and won the Academy of War for, it is a black man reliving a police encounter over and over and over and over again. And he essentially gets killed by the police in every single way that we saw people get killed. He gets killed from a no knock warrant. He gets choked down on the ground. It's shot. The whole nine, right? The movie was made after the George Floyd protests or during, like right after,

to where we felt like we were living in a loop of this every single day. For sure. So I am not about to get on a high horse about portrayals of black trauma on screen. I'm in no place to do that, right? Because I've made one. And the reasons we made the movie is because we felt like, particularly Trayvon, our writer and director. Trayvon and Martin Desmeros.

They want to tell a story about how it felt being in the groundhogs day loop of police killings in different ways. It's very powerful. It's pretty powerful. So I'm not going to tell anybody that watched this movie that felt like this mirrors their life or how hard it is to be a black lady in America that they're doing too much. But this fucking movie is doing too much, man.

As Tyler Perry movies, too. It is. I'm not going to tell, look, I get it. Because a lot of times it feels like too much. What was the final straw for you where you were like, all right, now that is too much? So I live tweeted the movie as I watched it yesterday. Oh, no. Okay.

All the way to the end, spoilers included. look at the tweets if you don't want to spoil the movie. You have to understand that in the first 11 minutes of the movie, like legitimately, the first 11 minutes, she loses her daughter.

All right, despite what we figure out, she loses her job. That was not 11 minutes. Shit. Really? So, like, wait a, so maybe not 11 minutes with the job, but she loses the daughter,

the police. All of this stuff is happening one by one by one. Then she comes back. She gets evicted. Her shit is thrown on the motherfucking wrong. It's raining. It's raining. Her daughter's medicine is thrown all out. The daughter's sick. The daughter's sick. Everybody treats her like shit except for one person. Everybody treats her like shit. I'm watching the movie and I'm trying to figure out, yo, what the fuck is happening right now? Like what's going on? And it seemed like we were stacking trauma like Jenga and trying to see...

Yeah, I think that was his point. What was going to make the Jenga thing fall over? The final straw. But the final straw was actually the first straw. By the time I get to the end and just to spoil the movie, you figure out that the kid has actually died and she's having a prolonged psychotic break throughout the entire film. I guess my question, and once again, coming from...

from the purview of having made one of these and had it being rewarded and all of that stuff, I guess my question is, we had a direct point. And our point was, we're so determined that we're going to figure this to fuck out. The last thing you see is a smiling, Joey badass looking into the camera saying,

you know what, I'm going to get home to my fucking dog. That the last thing you see in our film, I have to personalize it because I don't want to be a hypocrite. Is that character alive, alive, and going, we're going to figure this to fuck out. That was a part of the movie that Puff didn't like, by the way. Puff didn't like that.

He wanted him to die. Man, Puff came on two distant strangers and tried to change everything. Well, doesn't that sound like him? He tried to recut the trailer. He tried to. He was like, nah, man, we can't end with the coming home to the dog. We can't end with that. We've got to do something different than that.

I'm like, the movie's shot. He's like, yeah, but you know, it's like coming home to the dog. Like what, what you mean? We're coming home to the dog. I'm like, yeah. So Trayvon wrote the movie and we did the movie and the movie's done. We just need your money. We just need you to get out here and give us the money and go sell the money and all of that stuff.

Like the movie's done. You can't change the movie. Yeah, but man, for me, it's the dog. Hey, the movie's done. It was the last line is powerful. He didn't get it. So, but in films like this, it films like Queen and Slim, in other movies, it seems like the trauma is the lesson. That's what I think people have a problem with.

It, it does, man. You think that the trauma was the lesson here? Yeah. It seems like with this movie that the, the, the trauma is the lesson. the lesson is just looked how fucked up everything is. Because if not, then what's the lesson? See, that's not the lesson I got. I got the lesson was similar to something we saw in magazine dreams.

Go see it if you have not seen it. There's a lot of talk about being invisible and about in this movie. They don't use the word invisible, but it was nobody sees me. Nobody understands what I'm going through. People see the decisions that I'm making, but they don't know the choice that I've, or the choices that I'm left with because of what's, you know, what's happened. So to me as I watch this movie, this is a woman who, and Simbad's character, right? Like, he's talking about how she sees him despite all the things that she's going through. She can't

feed her daughter at times or doesn't have money. Lunch money is a big thing in this, but she gives him food or she gives him her last change, but she can't pay for her rent. She sees him, but nobody sees her struggle or sees what she's going through or tries to take the time to see her to understand her. That was the lesson, one of the lessons I feel like that I got. Yeah, there's trauma in it and to your point, it stacks and stacks and stacks. And it's like, okay, like you're literally throwing everything possibly in here.

Particularly I felt that way when she tells the story of giving birth. It was like then it became a black maternal health, highlighting that as well. And I was like, okay, we're throwing everything in here, which is unnecessary to me to get the message out. But the message to me was,

we need to take the time to see and understand people because you never know what decisions people have to make because, or what choices people are left because of decisions or things that have happened to him.

That is what I took from it. And I literally just finished it in my car. So maybe it's fresh, but that's what. what I got in it. And I typically, I watched a lot of Tyler Perry movies because I just can't turn away from them.

But, and I'm typically critical as to how it rolls out. Again, I always say it feels like a play. There's a lot of overacting and exaggerations to me. But I understood the message a lot more in this one than I have in other Tyler Perry movies. So I understand what the term see me means in terms of,

you know, societally. But I would have a, argue that they did see her because everyone was trying to crush her at every turn. Like you have to see an insect before you step on it. Now, unless I have no understanding of black culture and black community, this portrayal seemed unbelievable. And let me tell you what I mean, I'm from South Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I lived of GSRI in Gardier in South Baton Rouge in the Froggymore Projects Um Froggy Moe everybody going to be like Froggy More projects in the fucking

um in in Garier and Hermit to subdivision all of this stuff I can't think of a time because all of these people

in this movie that are shitting on her are black her boss is black the teacher at the school is black Yeah, I think that's part of the point. I don't believe that. Except for the cops. Except for the cops.

Well, one of the cops is white, but then two of the cops are white, then the other ones are black. See, honestly, having a full beat as a cop. Like, she was beat down. Like, she could walk right. Like, walk a red carpet. She had a full beat as a cop. And maybe things have changed now, right? I'm unfamiliar with the part of the black community.

that sees somebody struggling like that, like that sees somebody struggling if they're the landlord, by the way, landlords not portrayed really well in this one. That sees somebody struggling if they're the landlord, that sees somebody struggling if they're the boss, that sees somebody struggling if they're the black people at the bank, that sees somebody struggling if they,

that sees somebody struggling like that and just treats them like fucking hammered shit the entire time. That's the point. It was half and half because you can point out other people, the friend who worked with her, Sherry Shepard's character, the old woman who's sitting in the bank, Tiana Taylor, the police chief. It was half black people I would argue that weren't supporting and being understanding and half that were. And I do think that that is a reality.

But to me, all of those people that you're talking about, I get it. Those aren't the people that she shared her community with. those are people that came in when she was already imperiled. And we're like, look at how bad this situation is. I'm talking about the people. And look, I could be wrong. I'm talking about the people. Man, how I grew up and how I came up and I don't know how it is.

It was like, hey, go to, when you get home, I'm not going to be home. Right. Go to Linda house. Right. Linda got something to eat for you. Like, then my mama would fry up donuts for Ms. Linda. Give them to Ms. Linda. Like, we relied on each other.

And we helped each other. Actually, we were the only group of people that saw each other. We were the only group of people that cared that there was a single mother down the street and that her son didn't have no clothes. Her baby didn't have no shoes. Nobody else cared except for us. We were the only ones that cared. And to watch this movie where this woman's entire community,

because we say that they didn't see her, but they did see her. They wanted to fuck over her. They thought she was a piece of shit. They sent the girl to school. She didn't fell down. And the woman want to take this kid from the lady rather than not to help out. I don't know. I'm not from that.

When I say that sometimes these caricatures of black people and us in community with one another, like you can say what you want to say about our movie. And I accept all the criticism about it. because it is a lot of trauma that we're giving. But there's black people in love in our movie. It starts off with people coming together. It starts off with understanding how the police actually disrupt the love and expression of black people and how we communicate and deal with that. Right.

But like, I'm looking at this movie and I'm like, I don't recognize the black community that I see with every. I don't recognize that. We'll agree to disagree because there were moments. I think yours maybe had a bigger role, but there were moments just as how Taraji was able to connect with Tiana Taylor's character because they had a shared experience. She was able to understand her in a way that the white FBI guy couldn't do that. There were certain moments like that, like Sherry Shepherd, you know, understanding her, you know, because she'd seen her come into the bank or her talking to,

Sherry Shepherd about why you took this job and how you wanted to make a difference in the community. You have key moments. The black woman, older black woman saying, you know, speaking life into her. There are moments in there. I understand what you're saying, but I still saw more of what you didn't see as far as, like, community with black people. But, you know, agree to disagree. This is one of the better movies I've seen from Tyler Perry in a while. is better than divorce in the black. Okay. I watched the movie and I'm going to be honest with you. Call me a hypocrite and I will be one.

I was fucking appalled. Is this what your tweets say? I did not. Let's go through some of what your tweets were. I lied to the entire thing. Go to my, I live tweeted the entire thing. I was fucking appalled by the sheer density of pain

that was able to be packed into this movie. No one to help this sister until she became a convict. Then you have a, she became the face of a movement. And then like the whole thing, it just, the ante kept being up to the point to where I just wanted to throw my fucking cars in. The movie broke me. I fold it. I fold it. Wow, you really were.

You were posting pictures. Yeah. I laughed at the whole movie. I don't even know where to start. It's too much. Okay, here we go. Here we go. First suite.

They took her daughter. Her boss threatened her job. She got cursed out at work. I'm 11 minutes in. 11 minutes in. She got ran off the road by the police. Cop threatened her life. She lost her car.

She lost her job. 17 minutes in. The boss refuses to give her last check. She came home. Spoiler alert. Her murdering the boss was a bit much. Yeah. She killed two people.

Okay, you got so. One self-defense. One self-defense. She killed two people. But the other one, she killed cold-blooded. She just executed her boss. Because he snitched. Because he had.

He was trying to tell. But like, I love me some Glenn Termin. But that was rough. That was a rough watch. Yeah. He was vicious. All right. She killed her boss after killing her robber.

She's two bodies in. She's Queen Vaughn now. Queen Vaughn. She killed two people in the movie. Tessa, just cash the fucking check. Tessa, cash the check. Cash a check. Just cash and check.

Then we get to the point. By the time I got to the end and the baby had been gone, you guys, I'm just spoiling the movie. I, like he, they broke me. It was too much trauma. She somehow went live.

It was the incompetence of the police chief. It was the incompetence of the police chief for me. And he wondered why the FBI had to step in. It was like, he couldn't understand it. He was like, hey, hey, how we get that feed inside? Clearly they're on somebody's live. He was like, wait, wait, what's going out? Who's the cop?

What's happening? I don't understand. Tiana Taylor had more knowledge, police experience, than the police chief. He was incompetent. That was getting on my nerves. So I guess my thing is this. We have these broad conversations of black trauma and film. Trauma is a part of movie going.

Trauma is a part of movie making. The bomb. The bomb was not a bomb. See, that's where it gets into the play stuff. The bomb was not a bomb. It was a science project. Somehow her kid made a science project. that look exactly like a fucking bomb.

And everybody in the bank thought that it was a bomb. A grassroots protest movement has begun outside of the bank. Led by Sinbad. It has. That's what happened in the movie. Led by Sidbad is a grassroots. You gotta see who Sinbad is in the movie. A grassroots protest movement starts happening outside of the bank.

People come down to the bank because you went live. This is the same movie I was talking about before, by the way. I'm just saying. It's so dense with pain. It's one of the more dense pain movies that I've seen, right? Okay, we got to cover the next. We got to do a live thing with the next Tyler Perry movie. I'm into it.

We got to do it because this is funny. Well acted. Taraji's in her bag, but I get it. We have to put trauma. I'm not trying to be the trauma police. But it's got to be for a reason. So when this movie ends and it just, goes off. I mean, what else could it do? There was nowhere else to go.

That's kind of masturbatory. That's a little bit like, that's kind of masturbatory. There's no other way for it to end. I mean, there are ways, but like, maybe they're setting it up for a part too. Straw two? She breaks out of jail. Now, that's the time. There's some. The last bar. Straw two. Straw two, the last bar. She gets out. Or maybe. Imprisoned in black, you know, because he's doing all of that stuff. Beauty in black, divorce in the black,

in prison in the black. I got to know what happens to her. Look, to be honest with you, I'm invested. By the time the movie was over, I'm like, and then Sherry Shepard knew that the kid was.

People were upset about that. People were mad that Sherry promised to take care of her daughter but knew her daughter was dead. Because it doesn't make any fucking sense. Well, what was she supposed to do? She was supposed to. Honey, she's that she would have lost it.

She had a psychotic break. Do you know what Sherry could have done? What? She could have let her go to the front of the line to cash the check. What she actually don't matter? You saw how mean those people were. It actually don't matter because Tesla wasn't going to cash it. No, it don't matter.

That doesn't even matter because the kid was already dead. You're right. None of that matters. Nothing even matters. Nothing even mattered because nothing could happen because the kid was already dead. Come on. Catch it. The kid was already dead so it really don't even fucking matter whatever they could have done.

No one. could have helped her. She was fucked from the beginning. The movie should have been five minutes. There was nothing she could have done. So everybody that was being mean to her,

that was all for no reason. Y'all got to see the movie. Higher learning homework. It's number one right now on Netflix. So people are into it. We're talking about it. It's been out for three days. Tyler Perry does it again.

Tyler Perry strikes again. Y'all on the Reddit, y'all can talk about everything else. need a long Reddit thread on strike. Everybody is higher learning homework. Everybody go watch the movie, go support the movie. Fuck it. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm

wrong. Because as a black woman, you felt seen from the movie. That's what you go through. I didn't say that. I'm telling you what the lesson was. It wasn't black trauma. The lesson was that. Did I feel seen? In no way could I relate, despite the troubles that I talked about at the top. In no way could I

relate to Taraji. All right, we're about to get out of here. I do want to say one thing before we leave. Except somebody wanted money for me. I'll say something before we leave. And this goes out to my G. Copper, brownie over there. Copper, I fuck with you. Copper to dog, I fuck with you.

I got to tell you something, though. You picked the wrong fight. So we was at Louisiana Tech back today. To me, Ryan, and this is this little guy we called the cricket. chimney. I forgot why we called him the cricket. But so freshman year at Tech, we'd all just hang out and do whatever.

But then sophomore year at Tech, we had people that wanted to be down with us. And the cricket was one of Ryan's, Ryan had these little niggas that really looked up to him. Okay, that's nice. And the cricket was one of them that just took a liking to Ryan and would just be around. So at first the cricket was cool.

You know, he's from New Orleans. He come around and you hang out, whatever, whatever. Then the relationship between the cricket and Ryan started to get fraught. Okay. Because the cricket couldn't really keep up. Ryan was doing his thing attack. He was a social butterfly. And if you couldn't really keep up, if girls didn't really like you, whatever, whatever,

maybe people start to dish you. You couldn't play basketball. Like these are all the things that mattered Sophomore Year Tech. Could you hoop? There's girls around all that stuff. And the cricket starts to go bad. And I remember one time we were all together

and the cricket and Ryan were getting into it and the cricket said it was very funny because it came out of nowhere as a little guy. And he was like, you know what? Hose that talk shit get the issue. Get the what issue? You say the issue. You never heard the term get your issue? Mm-mm.

You get your issue when you're playing with me, you understand? Oh, is that how he says, man. When juvenile says you get your issue, that means you get fucked up. In Louisiana, we say, get you issue, you get your issue. But that boy got his issue, right? So he said, Terran, he said, hoars that talk shit, they get the issue. We laughed because we like, nigga, what you're going to, you know what I'm saying? We laughed, but the cricket was mad.

That's what happened to copper. Hose that talk shit get the issue. So that's what the skunk said to. That's what the skunk said. I don't like that. That's what happened. Copper, if you go attack the skunk, remember the skunk is on his own.

Nobody takes care of the skunk. So the skunk don't get no kibble. The skunk don't get no type of shelter. The skunk is out there wild. So the skunk is ready. Bozeman would have never approached that skunk. He would have been on the other side of the yard. But copper took his ass over there and talked shit.

And you know what happened? Say it. That's what I was. I hear my clothes my eyes. I see that. So, copper, man. I know you get a lot of credit for being, you know, more of the street of a dog than Wozily Wabbit and some of the other dogs, Godiva.

Shout out Godiva. You get more credit, but that's amongst domesticated dogs. We don't want you attacking no fucking coyote, no skunk. Yeah, he's been domesticated. I've seen him run after a raccoon too. I opened my door, one back door one time and there's a raccoon right there.

I didn't even see it. Copper took off and I was shocked because I know raccoons fight back. I was more shocked at this one. At the smarts this one had. He was nowhere near it. He said, but you know how he is.

He's all talk. He said, I know better. Because you know, both my dogs come from the streets. My daddy used to say, Copper's been inside too long. My daddy used to look at a guy and be like, yeah, he's tough when it's time to be. But nobody wanted to be tough

when it ain't time to be tough. When they ain't time to be tough. When it ain't time to be tough, that's when you're supposed to be. That nigger tough when it's time to be. Puff up like that, get puffed up, all of that. But when it ain't time to be tough when it's time to handle business, we'll see who's really tough. Copper, know your role, but.

Okay, all right, enough, enough. Take a thing. But do not stop learning our band-l lincoln. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys. Did you know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees? Get ahead of summer with custom window treatments like solar roller shades from blinds.com and save up to 45% off during the Memorial Day early access sale. Whether you want to

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