Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Breaking Down Trump’s Executive Order and the J. Cole–Noname Rap Beef

Episode Date: June 19, 2020

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay break down President Trump’s executive order on police reform (6:49), Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben being removed from their respective food items for racial insensitivity (29:28), the rap beef between J. Cole and Noname (38:17), and Mike Gundy’s racist T-shirt (1:07:52) before presenting the Unexpected Allies of the Week (1:17:29). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Yo, Thought Warriors. Time to put your thinking caps on. It is higher learning. I am Van Lathen.

And I am Rachel Lindsay. A big smile on your face. Well, I just want to address something, Van, because, you know, we're co-host. Sure. We're close. We do this show twice a week. And I saw a really, really troubling tweet that I would like to bring to our attention to the Thought Warriors' attention. Sure.

I saw this tweet and it said, and I quote, I can really rap and no one cares, end quote. That's a quote by Van Lathan. That's me. I want you to feel included. I want you to know that I care. So I would like to give you the space at the moment to rap, freestyle. If this is something you feel like, you know, nobody gives you the chance to do.

You got the mic in front of you. You got an audience. Right. Go for it. Cash at me. I don't rap for free. Okay. I mean, I really, I mean.

You get a taste? How do I? I got to know how much. Whoa, can we get a taste? Tiger over here. Like, you know what I'm saying? Can we get a taste? No, there ain't no taste.

Like, if I was out here slang and dope and I had the best cocaine in the city, would I give you a taste? I'd ask for a little taste. Or I'd ask, you know what? I would ask for references. I would ask for references. Is there somebody I can talk to? Yeah.

Here's the deal. There's people you can talk to, but I'm not going to rap for free. Jay Z don't rap for free. I don't wrap for free. Oh, so we're on that level. This is okay. We're on that level of talent as far as what we're talking about. I got you.

You know what? Here's a deal. Okay. I was going to ask you to compare yourself to somebody. Like if you, because obviously you're one of a kind, right? Your rap is one of a kind. But if you had to say who were you most similar to, I was going to ask you that. But apparently we just shoot for the stars.

It's Jay-Z. I'll tell you. I tell you, this is who I am as far as a rapper and a personality. I'm a mix between JZ and Caratop. See what I'm saying? He wraps. Caratop does everything. Yeah, I'm a mixed, but it's more like a mental carrotop thing.

You feel what I'm saying? Because it's like, it's Jay Z with all, but then it's Caratop because I get a little whimsical with my shit. You never know what props I might bring out or what creative ideas I have going through my head as far as the similes and metaphors and what have you. You feel what I'm saying? Oh, wow.

I'm even more intrigued. I might have you now. Of course you are. Like, like, if you want to hear me rap, cash at my shit. Like, this is another thing. I had, I actually called a friend of mine. I've talked about it before. I called a friend of mine, young, smart person.

And I was asking her about something we're going to talk about later on the whole Jake Cole versus no-name thing. We're going to talk about that later on. She said, I'm tired of explaining this shit to men and I'm tired of explaining it for free. And I was like, you know what? that's what the fuck I'm talking about. If you can do something like the Joker said. If you can do something, well, why do it for free?

And I wouldn't do it free. But I have a bone to pick with you. Well, well, first of all, because you give everyone your cash app name. Because maybe if we raise enough money, we might be able to hear your first time. Cash app, a dollar sign, Van Lathen. It's very easy. Okay. If you want to hear the raps, if you really want to hear what I got, cash at me.

And I'm going to send that shit to. some charitable organization and never wrap one bar. Y'all not going to have you look on here looking fucking stupid. So we're not confident in our town. Yeah, I'm not, no, it's the whole thing that's something I say to make myself feel better. I have a bone to pick with you, though. I don't know why. Before we even get into what we're talking about, since we're talking about supporting,

see, this is the problem I have with people. We're talking about supporting people about the things that they choose to support you about. I needed support, and you weren't there for me. I'm sorry for what? Okay. So yesterday, I'm in here by myself. Okay. Okay.

I'm going to cook. I bought some salmon. I already know where you're going. I bought some salmon. I got this brand new seasoning, the We-Dat Creole seasoning. Okay? I'm like, I'm about to do this shit because I'm on my, I'm back on my shit. You know, I'm back on my health kick.

I had fallen off for a while, but I'm back on it. Ran four miles today. Feeling good. Ran four miles yesterday. Did abs. feel like a baby, my whole inside turk. Yeah, I'm doing my thing. I'm doing my thing. I'm going to make a healthy dinner.

Salmon, little kingwa rice. You know what I say to you? Oh, come on, Southern Louisiana. You know what I'm saying? And I make this meal and then I take a picture, a picture that for the video people, we can actually put up and see if you think this plate looks bombed. I put this picture up on Instagram.

And I'm getting love. People are like, yummy, yummy, yummy. All of the Bachelor fans that are on the Instagram now, like, yums, yums, they talk in a different way. And the only thing Rachel is, the salmon was blackened. The only thing Rachel says is, burn. That's the message. That's the message. Burn.

I'm like, like, that's like just trolling her co-host. Well, come on, man. At least I didn't do it publicly. It was just, it was low-key, just between the two of us. I wanted you to know that it wasn't Instagram ready. But here's a thing, though. Because you kept it between the two of us, I know you meant it. That hurts even more.

I personally like my fish a little burnt. A little bit where you can scrape off the burnt part. It looked great. I probably should have said that too. Was it delicious? Was it delicious? It tasted amazing. As a matter of fact, she just had something.

And Kalika just had something. And she said it was fucking amazing. So it's fantastic. I believe that because it was leftovers and it was still good. I know it was good. Get out of here. So, yes, big week in a lot of things. We talked, I say big week, but we did the podcast earlier this week, obviously.

But even the news is moving so fast. We knew that this week was going to be sort of a very important week in terms of on Capitol Hill with the Justice of Police, Policing Act. that was going to be sort of talked about and volleyed around by the Democrats there on Capitol Hill. But President Trump took the opportunity this week to pass an executive order.

That is obviously centered around police reform. He did this, what, a couple of days ago now? I think it was. What did you think about President Trump's executive order, which I am going to get the name of right now? Like, I didn't even know it had a name. And that's based off the speech. It has, they have numbers, right?

Mm-hmm. So I don't know that if it has a name, but I do know that you have a very discerning legal eye and kind of parsing through these things is your job or was your job. So what did you think about the executive order? Did it meet the mark for you in terms of policing reform? Well, I didn't do this, right? Like I didn't work in drafting bills or looking over them and all that kind of stuff. But I watched it.

I don't normally get to catch that kind of stuff. It was in the middle of the day. I sat down and I watched him give his whole speech surrounding the executive order. There was very little about the executive order in the speech. I was tweeting. I was live tweeting during this because he started off talking about the families that he met with. And I thought, wow, okay, I didn't really know this was all happening. And it seemed to be sincere.

but that lasted all about 30 seconds to one minute. Then he started praising the police. So in my mind, I thought, my gosh, imagine being one of these families who came to the White House to talk to President Trump about the injustices and the death that they suffered or their family members suffered at the hands of the police, only to sit there and hear him praise the police. Because that's what it was. I mean, the moment he started talking about 9-11, I was like, okay, he's talking to his fan base. He's talking to the people who are big on patriotism and nationalism, and he's playing into that notion that, you know, all cops aren't all bad. Most cops are good. What was the comment he made?

Only a tiny, tiny, tiny amount of cops are bad. He kept saying the word tiny. I was, I hated it all. I felt like it was a lot of smoke and mirrors. I tweeted that as well. I didn't feel like there was any depth to the executive order. I mean, even when he mentioned choke holes, he still gave a. loophole were chokehold. He didn't ban them. He still said choke holes can be used if you feel like

your life is at risk, which I would think that most police officers who did use a chokehold and that person suffered to their death, they would say that they were at, they felt that their life was at risk. And it's just, it should be something that's banned. But then he used that time to talk about to criticize Obama, to criticize Biden. And he tells, he did what he does best. He tells lies. He said that by maybe he has taken steps that president obama did not take but he said that president obama has done nothing in regards to police reform that's a lie and if you're a morning joe watcher they had a great piece that started off their show showing how president obama has done things in regards to police reform maybe not at the level that trump just did with the database and everything that he's

trying to create but president obama has done something the other thing that i hated is that he seem to be incentivizing police departments for what they're supposed to do, not punishing them for the wrong that they do, for the tiny ones that are bad, as he would say, for the rotten apples. I just felt like that I was shocked that he was doing an executive order. So I guess my hopes were high that he was actually going to say something that had some weight to it. And at the end of the day, it just turned into a Trump rally where he then started talking about the coronavirus vaccine and the stock markets. and basically boosting himself up for the audience who may potentially vote for him.

You ever had headlights before? No. You've never had it? Never. Have you? No, but I knew a kid that had it. Was he black? No, he wasn't.

Okay, the reason I only say that and the reason I hesitated is because I was always told that because of what black people use in their hair and the heat, that it's harder for us to get lice. That's why I'm pausing and saying that. So that's the upside. The reason why I say that is because I knew a kid in middle school who got head lice. He went to a summer camp. We had told him not to go to the camp.

I don't know why. I just felt like a bad idea. He went to the summer camp and he laid down in a bed and he got headlights, right? Now, they had to cut his hair off. He had to cut all of his hair off. It was going to grow back. But they cut all of his hair off. Apparently he had a pretty bad case because there's, I guess, a shampoo that you could use or whatever.

But in order to get his hair back and make it healthy, he had to cut it off. Okay. What I'm saying is that if you have an infestation that is very severe and something that has laid up and laid eggs and been there undetected for a long time, there are two ways that you can go about it. One, you can try to braze your hair and treat it the way that it is and hope that that works. Or two, you cut the hair off and let it grow again. What America is asking for is a shearing of the police force. They're asking to cut the police force down and let it grow again healthy.

No one is saying they don't want to appreciate cops. No one is saying that they don't want to give cops what they need to patrol neighborhoods and make them safe and make American citizens safe. What we're saying is that the eggs that have grown inside of the police department, the bugs that have that have sucked the blood out of the community. Rotten eggs, yeah. The rotten eggs, right? That they've been there so long undetected that you can't just pour some shampoo on it,

wash it away, and think that it's going to go away. It's not. It just hasn't worked. And what we need are politicians in Washington and at the state and local level who are willing to take a hard look at policing and make the necessary reform. And the reason why that's hard to do is because a lot of times for Americans, when they look at policing, they're looking at themselves. They're looking at a structure that protects them, that reaffirms who they are. And it's hard to say that there's a problem with that and break that down because they might actually feel vulnerable, as vulnerable as the rest of us feel sometimes.

Now, if we look at this executive order, which I have it here, I just want people to be able to. to know exactly what's in it. Okay. I got my old trusty, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, screen's latehance. Is it, it, it, independent credentialing and proper training in. We talked about this, man. Yeah.

Um, discretionary DOG grants to state and local law enforcement agents will, agencies will not be conditioned on whether or not police departments have obtained or are in the process of obtaining. Very important. Credentials certifying that they meet certain training standards. Okay. That really doesn't mean anything.

Nothing. Smoke and mirrors, man. Smoke and mirrors. In that situation right away, you're asking police departments to police themselves to verify whether or not they've met certain standards to whether or not they're doing what it takes.

To me, I think the one thing that all of this has shown is that without outside oversight, without actual stiff penalties that policing in America won't get better. This one is a little bit different and a little bit more helpful. A misconduct database. The second major provision of the order states that the Justice Department will create a national database to track misconduct by police officers and that discretionary funding will be available only to those law enforcement agencies that provide the requested information.

Additionally, the DOJ will regularly and periodically make available to the public aggregated and anonymized data from the database. It's kind of like almost what the Democrats have in the justice and policing bill, but kind of vague on what this actually does. Well, read the part again about that they provide the requested information. So that's again leaving it up to them. If they provide this information, then it goes towards the database. What happens if they don't?

First of all, what happens what they don't? And let's say what does the database then provide? Like if we're, does this executive order in any way, which I know that it doesn't, penalize a department from hiring a police officer that has been decertified? Are you allowed to hire a police officer that has been decertified? There are police officers, their police departments that are encouraging officers who have been fired for misconduct to come to them. police departments and work.

So that's recycling bad cops. Does this provision in the president's executive order, does that, does that outlaw that? It sounds like if you do number one, if you go through that, then you don't have to worry about number two. Do you see what I'm saying?

Like if you go through that training, which you already should have, which is these are the things that you do. You protect and serve, you take this oath, you go through all this training. Why are we, like, It's the same thing.

It's the same thing. Right. This one also is a little fascinating to me. Social services. The executive order also calls for the DOJ and the Health and Human Services Department to work together to create guidelines for co-responder programs, which would see social workers respond to issues related to mental health, homelessness, or drug addiction, along with law enforcement officers. That stops short. A law enforcement officer, in my opinion, doesn't need to be on a call dealing with mental health. especially a law enforcement officer from a police force that hasn't shown the expertise at de-escalating a situation.

So I think one thing when we talk about defunding police departments, we're talking about increasing funding so that we can properly train people to respond to calls like that so that we're using the right tool for the right job. That's actually too much of a burden on cops. cops get to a situation that has to do with homelessness or mental illness, they don't really know what to do. And a lot of times those situations turn into these me or them binary actions where they feel like they must use force. So here's my issue with that. Social workers. Everybody knows social workers are overworked and their caseload is too high. So now you're not going to provide funding to have more social workers to decrease their workload.

you're adding to it. You're creating guidelines. So now that there's this program where they have the co-responder program, that to me defeats the purpose. That's the whole point in defunding the police. So you reallocate that money so you can have these type of programs. So you can have more workers. So these workers aren't overworked and their cases aren't overloading them.

I hated this one. I thought this one was the worst one. This defeats everything. I did. I really did. I think it's interesting to start the conversation on that. feel like it does anything. So the last one is congressional action. Lastly, the order lays out some of the White House's legislative priorities, which will reportedly be proposed by Congress

to Congress by the DOJ and the Office of Management Budget. Priorities include assistance for local police departments and implementing the reforms and training programs outlined in executive order, among other things. That makes me feel like that is going to come with a lot of money to police Department. Trump said during his speech that there was going to be basically no limit on the purse strings here that they were going to spend as much money as possible.

Guys, seriously, the problems that exist with policing in America have to do with more things than train of cops. They have to do with more things than high crime neighborhoods. They have to do with a history and a system of institutional racism in this country.

Cops have to relearn how to connect with the black community. We're the citizens and not just the black community, but the American community. We're the citizens. You guys have to invoke your power. These politicians work for you. These police officers work for you. I just, I was been watching V for V for Deda.

non-stop, I don't know why. What you were watching? Yeah, I was watching V for Vendetta. And V, played by Hugo Weaving, never shows his face in the movie, said something amazing. He says, you know, people shouldn't be afraid of governments.

Governments should be afraid of people. That's a fact. We're supposed to hold the power in this society. And if the cops are failing us, then we've got to deal with that in a serious, real way that holds them accountable and punishes them. for what we have been seen.

I'm add to that. This was an executive order that was supposed to be on police reform. The definition of reform to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses. Nothing in this executive order

tackles the latter part of removing false or abuses. And that's what people need to understand. That's why I say smoke and mirrors. There's no depth to this executive order. there's no meat to it and it doesn't tackle the problem. You're not listening to what people are in the streets marching and protesting for. Talk your shit, Big Reich.

They are asking for reform. They are asking for change. They are asking to not be brutalized by the police. And none of this tackles it. I don't need to hear what happened at 9-11, 19 years ago. We all recognize what the police force did during that moment. Nobody wants to take away from that. But that has nothing to do when you jump to 2020 at what is happening right now.

to people of color at the hands of the police. And I was so upset when I was watching it. And then I was watching commentary after his speech. And Van Jones was talking as if he was like, oh, my gosh, this executive order. It really, it really is. Because, you know, he's supposed to be the voice of black people because that's how it is. You got your black representation. He's representing for black people.

That's no, no, no, that's, I didn't say he was. I'm saying that that's how people take it. I want you to know right now. First of all, just tell me right now, who takes Van Jones as the voice for Black people? Van, not you or me, but we look at things in a different way. If you're a casual watcher and you're watching CNN, there are a lot of people who say, oh, just like they do when they send us Candace Owens videos, oh, well, this black person thinks that. That is why Van Jones is on CNN to talk.

When I listen to him talk about the speech, he said the speech wasn't that great, but did you listen to the executive order? Van Jones, did you listen to the executive order? It was all fluff and there was no depth. And that's why I hope everybody who's listening to our podcast understands how we are dissecting this executive order. It gave us nothing. And that's why you still, if it really gave us something, you wouldn't have the House Democrats and the Democrats in the Senate still trying to pass legislation. If the executive order did what it needed to do, we'd be done.

Well, the legislation is going to always be able to go much, much further than what the president can do unilaterally. Yeah. Well, the executive order would. But I mean, look, like, really to be honest with you, it goes against sort of the, I guess the ethos of the Republican Party to have the president get involved. That they used to land-based Obama for, I guess what they called circumventing the Constitution and passing executive orders, like such as DACA and things like that. But what Van Jones was saying, and I think he said it not in artfully, but impotently, because I think he said what he meant to say,

but it just doesn't have a lot of power behind it. What he said was that he feels like the president even addressing this is a step in the right direction. Listen, guys, we got to get over this booty of the bread type thing. I'll tell you what Okay Go ahead

You know the last piece of bread It's my favorite piece The The It's my favorite piece Oh my God You don't eat the booty I don't eat

Oh ha ha Ha ha Damn You eat So you eat the booty of the bread It's my favorite piece I'm not even gonna lie I like to burn it

And then it gets crispy Oh, it's so good. Like your salmon. Yeah. Get the fuck out of here with my salmon. My salmon was delicious. Can I make my analogy about the booty of the bread, please? Yes, booty of the bread, go.

So this booty of the bread thinking is that, which doesn't work now because you like the booty of the bread, is that we'll just eat any sandwich. Is that we, is that we don't deserve the premium middle piece, the piece that's the, that's, that's, that's a, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, the most moist that is the best piece of the bread. We don't deserve that because really the booty of the bread sucks too, but really three pieces in, it's not A1. That's true. It's not A1 because it's a little, it's the booty and then it's part booty. And then it's, you know what I mean?

And we don't feel like we deserve the premium bread, the best tasting sandwich. We're supposed to just eat anything. So while everybody else, this is akin to slavery. I mean, this has been kind of taught. about, but a lot of reasons why we eat sort of the diet that we eat down south is because if you take Chitlin's, for example, the guts of the hawk, when slavery was kicking in the southern part of America, the pork chops and the bacon and all of that stuff, that went up to the

big house. What black Americans had to live on were the guts of the pig, the parts that nobody wanted. And then you're saying, well, at least we're giving you some nutrition. At least we're feeding you. So if we're feeding you, you get to eat the guts. Well, in this particular case, like, our appetites have changed. We need nutritious legislation. We need nutritious action as black Americans, as citizens of this country.

We don't just need photo ops and people trying to make sure they don't use the votes to the police unions. That's not going to stop what we see going on in the streets. the only thing that will stop is feeding these people with real solutions. Yeah. With real answers. And I think Van Jones is missing that. If he's talking about the, like Bacari said, that the legislative process is slow.

And it is. Yeah. But that's why there has to be more transparency and communication between the politicians on Capitol Hill and the average America than ever before. Tell us what's happening. So we know that we're not going to wait. up tomorrow with the perfect bill in the perfect position and the perfect set of answers. I just don't like people who say things to make people feel comfortable, right?

Van Jones is not a politician. We see a lot of politicians that do that. I felt like his response was to make people feel comfortable. And I really, I was so upset that that was the first person I was hearing from when they were giving their opinion on the speech. You don't like them. Not a fan. I'll be honest with you, Big Rache. As we do this podcast.

I've named three people. We've done like five podcasts. Like you're surly. You really like you've been on here calling motherfuckers out. That's what I'm talking about. I mean, I'm just saying, I mean, we're podcasting here. We're having a conversation. It's as if we're at the dining room table talking.

I'm just not a fan at his delivery and trying to make people feel comfortable. I just just say what you mean. It's not a step in the right direction. No steps were taken. He just gave a speech. It was a rally. He couldn't do it on Juneteenth. He said, you know what?

I'm going to do it on June 16th instead. That's what that was. Speaking of Juneeteenth, what you got going on for Juneteenth tomorrow? If you've been listening to Higher Learning, we've told you guys what Juneteenth is tomorrow is Juneteenth. What are you doing on Juneteenth? I don't have any plans yet, Van. I don't have any plans. Do you have plans?

I'm going to speak to a group of young black graduates about their future in this country. Yeah. I'm making the most of it. Well, I wasn't invited to do anything. Had I been at it. If I was on your level, Van Lathen, I would, yeah. I mean, I would definitely, I wish somebody would ask me to come and speak, but nobody did for Juneteenth. So, yeah, it's just, I'm sure Andy Cohen didn't have something going on.

You, so what all of this going on, you're telling me you feel comfortable just spending tomorrow Juneteenth, the celebration of blackness in America just inside your house. Like, what are you doing? But have you, do you celebrate Juneteenth every year? Yeah, of course. I feel like I just usually hang out with my friends. There's a barbecue or something, but I'm in Miami.

I don't really have any friends here. I got to be honest with you. I don't really celebrate Juneteenth every year. Nobody does. No, but we do a barbecue usually. We do a barbecue. Like what happens is I say happy Juneteenth. But like here in LA,

I haven't plugged into the Juneteenth situation. I say happy Juneteenth. I make a post. I acknowledge Juneteenth. But back in Baton Rouge? Oh my God, man. Texas. Out at City Park, we was getting it.

Out at City Park, we was getting it for Juneteenth. It's block parties, because you know Juneteenth. It's based on the state of Texas. That's why the whole thing started, just in case you didn't catch that from our other episode. Texas is the reason Juneteenth, we even have a Juneteen. So it definitely goes down in Texas, but I live in Florida now, so, you know, it's a little different.

No Juneteenth celebrations for you tomorrow. Somebody else is not going to be celebrating Juneteenth. I want to talk to you about this. These people obviously don't exist. But Aunt Jemama and Uncle Ben. Listen. Wait, do you say aunt or ain't? I'm sorry.

I got to say, I got to say, this is the thing. I say ain't your mama. You say Aunt Jemama. I say Aunt Jemama. Okay. I say Aunt Jemama. But you know, I'm going to be honest with you. I never really use Unjimama Serb though.

We didn't either. What you used. Mrs. Butterworth. The butda, but, but, buttersworth. Okay. we use Burr Rabbit. What the fuck is Burr Rabbit? It's a step above molasses.

Oh, wait. Is that that really crazy tasting super strong? You can't, you fucking up your pancakes, dog. That's what, well, first of all, okay, here I go. I don't eat, I don't use syrup. I don't really eat pancakes. But in my house, Burr rabbit is all that was used. It's what my dad likes.

That's what my mom bought. That's what everybody ate. Right. Burr rabbit. But yeah, ain't your mama. Ain't your mama and Uncle Ben. And in case you guys didn't know, by the way, I didn't know that that U.Jama and Uncle Ben were married.

Did you know that? Who said that? I think I saw that they're married. Hold on. Who said that? I saw that on Twitter. I saw that on Twitter. Had they ever been pictured together?

I saw that on Twitter. Let me double check this. If you saw it on Twitter, I definitely don't believe it. Angel Mama, Uncle Ben, marriage. When did they get married? What year? 18 what? Hold on.

Angel Mama and Uncle Ben. like, wait a second. I'm looking it up right now. By the way, if this is wrong, keep this in real time. Because I saw something that said on Twitter yesterday that they were married and there's bullshit. They are, in fact, not married.

Yeah, I don't even know why you would believe for a great story, I guess. I thought they were married. I wish I hadn't questioned you. I should have just let it ride. But yo, but look, though, if they were married, it might not be as offensive.

That's even worse. No, it wouldn't be because look, I'll tell you why, if Unjimam and Uncle Ben were married, then it's not as bad because then they're like a black couple that started Food Empire together. They didn't start anything. No, I don't want them to have a story.

That makes it even worse. The fact that we created a whole story around two figures that are using in such a racist way. Wait, that shows you how much we're supposed to. searching for meaning the fact that we invented our urban legend to make Unjamama and Uncle Ben okay. We invented an urban legend that they were married to one with the house.

You did. Don't you say we? No, I saw that shit on Twitter. So just in case you guys know, Unjimama, Uncle Ben, done for. Uncle Ben is a kindly old magical Negro that is on the front of rice boxes. Aunt Jamima is really playing into the stereotype, the Mamie stereotype, from the southern part of the United States, a old black lady who would take care of your kids, who you could abuse, who never had a life of her own,

who was a slave. That is where these images come from. They have now been discontinued. It is the year 2020. It fucking shocks me that it took this long for us not to see how problematic as a society, how problematic that Uncle Ben and Aunt Jamama are. Like you guys would have to understand the plague that slavery is on African Americans.

It is very easy to look and say these things happened so long ago. Really, they weren't that long ago. But secondly, the fundamental way our identity in this country, we've never had the opportunity as we should have to forge our own identity based upon our intellectual accomplishments. based upon, like, our aspirational wants, we've always had these things placed upon us. Caretaker, athlete, criminal, musician. We've never really had a chance to figure out

what it is that we want to be for ourselves. And a lot of what this generation, a lot of what this movement is about, is African-American autonomy, our ability to say, this is how we see ourselves in this country. and we don't like the roles that society is casting us in. That seems like a deep dive to go on when you're talking about a face on the front of a box.

No, it's not. But that's what's real. Like, that's a thing. And I think you bring up a good point because you said something about why has it taken this long? And I think it goes to show that we all know it's wrong. I mean, I'll go down the grocery aisle. I don't use Uncle Ben either. I'll go down the grocery out.

I'll see Anche Maima. I'll see Uncle Ben and I just kind of shake my head. I recognize it. But what are we going to do? You know, it's more of, it's a bigger problem of we just tolerate it. We know what's wrong. Maybe you call yourself doing something by not buying it. But we just tolerate it, which just goes to a bigger thing in society.

We have learned, and not just us as black people, people have just learned to accept certain things to tolerate it and say, you know what? I'm not that person. I'm not contributing to it because I don't actually purchase and give money to that brand. But it's a problem. You walk past it and you see every day. It's offensive. I hate Aunt Jemima smiling at me as I walk down the grocery aisle. Totally Mamie from Gone with the Win.

It's, I mean, it depicts that obedience, subservient, like black figure that was, that was that way to white people. That lives her life to serve you. To serve you. And it almost, I hate it when I see it. it too, it reminds me, it's like nostalgic for white people who grew up during that time. Because it doesn't, you don't even have to go back to like slavery. Just go back to having Mammy in the household, you know, taking care of you feeding you meals. It's like a nostalgic presence for these people. And that's why she's still there. And what's even worse is that I was

reading this in 1989, they rebranded to the Mamie figure that you see now as Aunt Jamima and people questioned it. And it was just kind of accepted that this is what it is. And I, more so for the brand, how are you just now taking a hard look at the problem? It's almost as if they recognized it. They knew that it was a racial stereotype, but they just decided not to do anything about it until 2020. And this is what gets me so frustrated about this movement is that people are waking up in 2020 and acting like racism just popped up this year. When you've been perpetuating these racial stereotypes for years. centuries in this case because Aunt Jamama dates back to 1889.

Yeah. Do you know who portrayed Aunt Jamima from 1925 to 1947? Wait, what do you mean? portrayed. In what? Like, like Post, wasn't Mammy from Gone with the Wind? No, it was Lillian Richard who's from Texas. Just saying.

You know what, Van. Shout out to Texas. What? You know what? No. No, I'm just saying. I'm just saying, you know, it's just shout out to Texas. somebody I would know.

No, shout out to the sister. But I can't even be mad at that sister. But I can't even be mad at that sister because. I bet Uncle Ben's from Louisiana. He probably is. Like, I can't, I can't say anything about, but, listen, identity is a very important thing. You know, we have the annual conversation with white people about blackface. It's just important to remember that, you know, black Americans gave their lives for these situations.

Like these images dehumanize you and they make your life disposable. Like you become sort of a caricature of a human being instead of being one. So to me, I was actually happy, happy to see us sort of finally put some of this stuff to bed. And one of the things that's going to be positive about this moment that we're in is the exorcism of a lot of these ghosts of America. and hopefully we can get to that point. Now, this episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission.

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We talked about rap earlier. Okay. Major, major, major rap news. We haven't really had big rap news. I know. Let me pull this up. We haven't really had big rap news in a while. And, you know, besides my own rap career, there are rappers that are bigger, I got to say.

One of those guys is Jay Cole. Now, I'm going to run this down for the people who might not be familiar. with what happened here. It's fascinating because it's not, it doesn't just have to do with hip hop. It has to do with two sides of an argument and two sides of an intra-sociital struggle that it's about fucking time we talked about.

Jay Cole, I'm sure if you're listening to this right now, you're familiar with Jay Cole. Jay Cole has been one of the top five rappers in the game for about the last 10 years, got on with Rock Nation, Hove put them on, fantastic lyricists. and someone that most rap fans would consider to be a conscious rapper. Correct. Would you say, you would say that Jay Cole interweaves into his raps,

his observations about capitalism and society, about what it's like to be a black man and all those things. You would say that that's a fair assessment of HuckleCold, right? Of course. And he's been doing that kind of since the beginning. As a matter of fact, the first song I've ever heard from him, lights please was about the struggle between him just wanting to actually when you think about that that song is a little bit you think about that that song's got a little bit little misogyny in it but the song was about how j cole

wanted to do so many more things in life and talk about so many things but when it came down to him being with his girl it was just cut out the lights and let's have sex uh i never looked at that way before maybe lights please It's not Likes please is a dope-ass song But he's like Yo, I want to save the world But for the night please She's just say Lice Please

And I'm like shit Okay, so maybe Huh I just had a A mini epiphany there Anyhow There might be more songs like that Anyhow

I love J-Cole. I'm a big J-Cole fan Despite what happened this week So Jay Cole made a song And I think the song It's called Snow in the Bluff Shout out to Curtis Snow in the Bluff, great movie.

And in this song, he talks about his feelings, and let's be real, about a rapper named No Name. No Name is not just a rapper. She is one of the most precise socio-political thinkers that I've ever heard. She is an activist, and she is a very loud voice on Twitter and in her music for the plight of black people and specifically black women. No name, I guess, have been critical of some of hip hop's response to the uprisons and protests that we have seen, wondering why specific rappers or why some of the industry wasn't doing enough or saying enough. Jay Cole apparently took that as a shot at him and in this song, basically the gist of it is this.

The gist of it is I'm not as intelligent as you. I'm not as well read on these things as you. I am learning and I would appreciate if you watched your tone in the way that you address me because I'm trying to help. I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to get better. And you shouldn't be trying to make me feel like you're better

than me. He actually says that. And you shouldn't be trying to make me feel like you're more awoke than me. If you want to help the community, what you should be doing is trying to help me understand what it is that you know. All right. As soon as he said this, they kicked him dead in his balls. And rightfully so. They kicked him in his balls to where they probably kicked him with the ankle part and then the tip probably went up the butt. So, like, they kicked him, like, they kicked him in his balls and in his ass at the same time. Okay, okay. So it was a full force.

Like, they didn't hold back. Bam! Right there. Ball and ass kick. You say that you agree with that. Tell me why. So I don't know if this is the saying, and I might be paraphrasing this, but it's, if you probably think this is about you, then it is. She wasn't Don Lemon.

she didn't call out people by name. She was just speaking in general. And Jay Cole took offense to that, which means he probably felt like that specifically applied to him. There are a number of rappers. There are a number of celebrities out here, but you felt like for some reason she was specifically taking aim at you. And what was bothersome about it is that within what he wrote,

it was like he was making excuses for his behavior, which to me is wrong in itself. You do need to go in more depth about what people are saying and what's going on because you're not listening to the bigger picture. A lot of what is being said is that black women aren't being valued and aren't being, well, just aren't being valued in society. And specifically, we talked a little bit about this about black men. And then you go put out a song that directly embodies that. You go after her instead of, you know what, saying, you know what, what you're saying is right? and I need to do better and I will do better.

I'm not like you. You know, maybe I could learn from you or other people out there. Instead, you put out a whole song about it. You haven't done anything but put out a whole song about it. It plays right into that. It's totally disrespectful. This is a woman who, as you beautifully described her, has been a voice, has used her platform. She is an activist.

And this is what you go and do. Yeah. I lost a little bit of respect for J. Cole because of that. I would have, if you had named 10. rappers. I never want to pick Jay Cole as the one to do this. Right. So let me tell you, let me give you the honest, my honest response.

So I'll be honest with you. I don't know, you're smiling. I don't know. I'm afraid of what you're going to say. Well, my first response was why they're doing cold like this. And I'll tell you why. My first response was

my response is I saw a devil on my shoulder. My first response was why they're doing Cole like this. And I thought this was the reason why. I thought that Cole in the song came and admitted that he knew less than her, admitted that he was less evolved than her, admitted that he was trying and just wanted some help, right? And he was asking for a little charity and a little mercy and a little bit of latitude

to not completely be on the same wavelength as someone who's dedicated their life to these issues, right? Like we're all, he says it in the song, he says, you kind of look at the movement as a forest that you plant and it takes a while for the seeds to kind of grow. I thought about that and I said on that and I had a couple of conversations and those conversations didn't sway me off that, but then I thought about something. I thought about an episode of Real Time with Bill Maher that I watched. And I was watching Bill Maher and Bill Maher was talking to someone. And he was talking about the Me Too movement and sort of Black Lives Matter and the culture on Twitter when you make a mistake.

And I remember he said out of his mouth, he said, yeah, I get that it's, you know, people's time and that there's been a lot of hurt and we need to address things. But as we're addressing them, how about a little charity? How about a little mercy? He said those words verbatim. And my knee-jerk response was fucking white guy. Why do we need to show you charity and mercy? And why do we need to coddle you in these issues when they've been killing us and fucking over us

for hundreds of years in this country? Why do you deserve our patience now? Well, what we're asking you is be active and engaged in stopping the system. that victimizes us. And when I thought about that, I wondered why I did not have the exact same knee-jerk response

to the cold thing. Why? It should have been, it's, I'm telling you, and I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why, because as it relates to sisters sometimes,

we act like white guys. We, like, privilege is a wholly intoxicating thing. it's not something that privilege demands that you take yourself out of yourself and look at yourself in the mirror and go, are you willing to share society? Are you willing to depower so that someone else can be empowered? And no one is good at that. And you have to see the value in it, not for you. you have to see the value in it for somebody else and for society as a whole. And it's difficult to do.

And the one thing that you do when you have privilege or you have power, you seek to identify and sort of protect people who share the same privilege and power that you have. And that's your knee jerk. And that is the problem. Yeah, it's human nature. It's human nature. That's why it has to be a heart issue for you to actually take action and want to change. that. You have to work at that. That doesn't come

naturally. That's just not who we are as humans. Yeah. And it's like, so, like when you're, you know, you, you try to elevate the voices of sisters. You try to, so there's a difference between when you're talking to somebody. Like, a lot of times

my white friends, they like, they like intellectually masturbate with me. What they do is like, so you call me and you ask me, you know, what could I do? Like, where is this going? Like, tell me about this. And what that, the reason why that's masturbation is because it's a solo act for you to make yourself feel better and you're

using me as the stimuli. It's no different than turning on porn hub, watching porn hub, and then sitting in front of your computer by yourself. It's stimuli and you, you feel better. The girl in the video gets really nothing out of it. Maybe she gets an extra view, but that probably goes to the company. it's something for yourself that you're using somebody else to do. Now, if you actually did the work yourself and you went and read about the plight of black Americans and you went and put the time and the effort in to understand what we were going through

and then you fucking got active, that would be sex. That would be you get something, I get something, and we all have a big societal orgasm at the end. Yeah. Okay. We're better for it at the end of the day. I got you.

We're better forward at the end of the day. What black women are asking for, from men right now is not even understanding. They're asking for action. They're saying get your hands dirty and changing this, even if the dirt is on your own skin. Like, breathe brave enough to like wipe it off. And that's what Cole, that's what Cole miss. Cole, she did like, women like no name. aren't asking Cole to be willing to listen to them.

They're asking Cole to be willing to listen to the society and the whole situation that is like killed and destroyed them. And the way that you're going to hear that is to read about it, is to know about it, and to be active about it. And anything short of that doesn't help out. When she spoke out, though, she didn't specify between men or women, did she? She just spoke out. And what my immediate question was, why is Jay Cole?

taking so much offense to this. And the only thing that I can reason is because you know that it fits you. You know you're wrong. You know you could do better and you haven't. And just because you aren't well read or educated on the issue is not an excuse. At the end of the day, you're black. And I think that's why I would have rather his response have been like, you know what, let me self-check and how can I do better?

Instead, you put up an entire song on it and missed the point and play into the very problem that is wrong within our black community. It's so wrong. You haven't spoken out and there's so many things that you could speak out on and instead you go at our black queens.

That's what you decide to do. Yeah, well look, here's the thing. I don't, I'm not throwing coal away. I love coal. I'm not saying that. And I know, I know, but I'm not, but to be honest with you, I'm not throwing them away,

but I'm not cutting any slight. It's going to be up to us in a way to hold each other accountable what we're doing. And, you know, empowering black women means empowering their voices, of course. But it also means,

and this is going to be the toughest part, it's going to mean self-policing the misogyny and the culture that raised us. I can't tell you enough about the fact that I was raised by misogyny. I was raised by rape culture. Yeah, man.

And in South Baton Rouge, in South Baton Rouge, where I come from, like, I don't even think there is the knowledge of, like, how to appreciate on it. I don't think that exists. Like, I've, like, because things that are incredibly, that are dripping with misogyny, like, my dad probably wouldn't, he probably looked at you crazy if you went,

you know, that's, you're like, that's, you know, like what you're doing is wrong. He'd be like, what you mean? I ain't never hit nobody. Right. So what if I tell you to be back in my house at 4.30? I ain't hit you. I never call you out your name.

That goddamn dinner better be ready. Right. I told you what you better do, though. And when I want some, you better give me something. So essentially you have a partner that's really akin to an indentured servant. And all of those things. No, I'm saying. And all of those things, right?

And like, so, you know, but, and it's going to take a little bit of work. And we're asking for everybody else to work. But when you ask us to lift some water bottles or carry them down the beach for this whole production, it seems like niggas don't want to do it. No, they don't. Do you think, do you think Jay Cole will respond to the backlash? Or has you? Did I miss that?

He did. He said, he said, he stands by every word in the song. Okay. Well, then that's not that. No, no. But listen, this is what he said. You said, he said he stands by every word in the song. And he can't say whether it was right or wrong or not.

But he can say that was honest. And I'll tell you this. He also said that he doesn't read. Brothers, we got to get y'all here reading. Yeah. Like, don't be promoting that. Yeah, I mean, he said he doesn't read. We got to get y'all reading.

But listen. Like, if I'm his wife, because he's married, if I'm his wife, I'm side-eyeing the shit out of him. Like, what did you just say? say? And even you, and then you double down on it. You don't even say, you know what? Everything I said I meant, okay, fine. But I also recognize that I'm not, that there's, we need to be saying their names, you know, which is no name's response to all of this. We need to be acknowledging, you're married to a black woman. How do you, how do you make these type of lyrics and then roll over in the bed and sleep next to a black woman? Because he doesn't think he's wrong.

That's, and that, that's a bigger problem. That's the thing he doesn't think he's wrong. And just, and your initial reaction is probably a lot of black man's reaction. And so the fact that he can't acknowledge and accept that he, fine, you said what you said when you said it. So you don't want to take that back. But can you acknowledge that you can do better? You can build on what you said and recognize the error in your ways. Maybe open a book, maybe open up an article and read something.

Right. And I do want to give a lot of a lot of because I'm not going to paint. paint all black man with the same brush right now. I want to give a big shout out to a lot of brothers out there who right away, guys like guys, Matthew Cherry out there who right away, who aren't like even me, who like right away understood how wrong what Cole said was, who it didn't take them doing any soul searching to understand it. And a lot of thing is, a lot of it is all it has to do with ego.

If you convince yourself that you're one of the good ones, you'll stop working to be better. So the irony. I mean, she's calling you out for not using your platform in a positive way. And then you take your platform and you criticize black women. It's just so, it's so wrong. It's just, I'm side-eyeing J. Cole right now. I don't, I don't, we've talked about cancel culture. That's not what I'm saying.

I just think this is an opportunity for him to. to step up and be better and recognize it. Maybe he can respond to no names. Is it a song or just lyrics, poetry that she put out? Because that's what it looks like. It looks like straight poetry. Whatever it is, is beautiful. It's on point.

I hope Jay Cole reads it. And I hope he has a different response than what he's had so far. The reason why this entire thing was positive is because now there's no gray area. You know what's expected of you. You should have known before. Maybe you didn't. what you know is that black women, a lot of them, at least the portion of black women that no name is speaking for, are sick and tired holding your hand through this and making you feel like it's okay and you ain't that bad. What they want you to do is exactly what I asked the politicians on Capitol Hill to do earlier.

I say that if you've fucked up with this system, work and do what needs to be done to distinguish. destroy it. And blackfellers, my guys, my brothers, we are being asked to do the work to destroy the system that is hurting and killing our sisters. And also just the fact that Jay Cole dropped that song in the same week that that young activist was killed,

brother. Tone death. Tone death just doesn't get it. I'm off Jay Cole. Next. No, what I'm saying, what I'm saying, it's going to be up to us as brothers to really have these conversations and hold each other accountable. And I'm, I am ridiculously optimistic, but it's going to be a long process. And I cannot speak for J. Cole, but I will tell you this, that I will be better.

I will. I'm glad. I'm glad to hear. At least we got one. We got to one. Hey! All right. First of all, do you have coronavirus?

Do you have COVID-19? I've never been tested. Have you? Yeah, I got tested. Really? Yeah, because I'm a responsible American. Well, I've never exhibited any symptoms, and I've been quarantining pretty much the whole time. Bullshit.

I'm sorry? We did a podcast before, and you said you were feeling under the weather. It was my stomach. Why are you going to call me out here and put me out there like that? I had stomach issues. The stomach is. One of the systems. I ate something bad.

That was it. I checked my temperature. I didn't have any fever. I've never had a dry cough. Listen. The stomach is a symptom. You just said. I'm more than 14 days removed from the protest.

I'm fine. But I've also really been, I stepped out the other day and had lunch with my sister-in-law. Where? When? When was this? It was yesterday. In coconut growth. Big rage.

Patient Zero. Watch there's a spike. Stop. I'm telling you, stop it. There's going to be a spike in patient zero. Spike and Coconut Grove. Coconut Grove is nice, by the way. It's my first time there.

So I really wanted to go. I went with my sister-in-law. We had a great lunch. I was very, very disturbed at how many people I saw not wearing masks. Because that's the thing. I might not have been tested because I haven't exhibited any symptoms, but I also have been pretty much coming at home. And I sanitize everything.

And I wear a mask, right? except when I'm eating, I can't. I am disturbed with the lack of, at the people who just have a lack of concern as to what's happening, as if they're not watching the news or they think that it's all politicized and they just don't care.

Yeah, well, we're seeing some spikes, man. A lot of spikes. There's spike. The rona is spiky. It's a spiky disease because it's got the spikes on it, and it's spiky in its behavior. It's funny, because you're,

Your governor of Texas blamed the irresponsible, Governor Abbott, blamed the irresponsibility of the young people in Texas for the spikes in COVID-19, conveniently omitting the fact that he opened the state. Exactly. Way too earlier. Yeah. Everything. Everything. We were one of the first to open up. Everything.

It was like a month ago. I saw like pictures. It was niggas in Texas. Like, oh shit, man. The club is lit. It's popping. I'm like, yo. Like, obviously there were going to be spikes in coronavirus.

If you opened that early and you open those types of venues, how can you blame young people for being young if there are places for them to go and act fucking stupid? And he's refusing to do anything even in a response to the spikes that are happening in the state. They're having record numbers by the day. nine mayors of Texas, nine mayors of Texas cities met with him to try to get him to do a mask

to implement mandatory mask for the state. Won't do it. So you're part of the problem at this point. Okay, you want to blame it on the young people, fine. But you won't do anything to respond to the outbreak

that's currently happening in your state. California just made a ban. Not a ban, but made it mandatory to wear a mask. Yeah, you got to wear a mask. Yeah, you got to wear a mask.

I went jogging the day. I didn't wear a mask. That's a little different. Yeah, like I feel like I went on the three, like you jog, you can't, you know, you don't wear the mask. I went, I went straight home. I didn't wear the mask. But I wear the mask. It's crazy.

I keep the mask on me at all times. And sometimes I don't, I don't, sometimes I don't put the mask all the way on. I just put the mask on my face as I'm passing by somebody. It's like, hey, I see you COVID mask time. No, no, no, I'm the same way. I'm the same way. But it's just insane to me how people are just so flippant about this disease. And partly because you have a press.

who is saying that it's all going to fade away. Oh, no, no, no, it'll fade away. You have the vice president who is over the coronavirus task force who is saying there won't be a second wave. I do not understand why we have experts and scientists in place if you're going to totally disregard everything that they're telling you. Fauci says there might not be a second wave, though. I didn't see that. He did. Fauci said we're in the, Fouchi said we're still in the first wave.

I know, but Fauci said he doesn't think that a second wave. second wave is inevitable. I got a fact check you now because you thought Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben were married. That's true. That is true. By the way. At least on this podcast. By the way, I got to be honest with you.

It's no way that they weren't at least fucking. Because think about it, it's not too many prominent black food people in the imaginary. Do you remember that movie Cool World with Brad Pitt and Jennifer, Jennifer, uh, Kim Basinger? You never saw Cool World? No, we've had the movie discussion. There's a lot of movies I haven't seen. Well, in Cool World, all these cartoons were, they came alive and they lived in this cartoon world. And it was Cool World.

And I bet you that in Cool World, in Cool World, Aunt Jemama and Uncle Ben were fucking. I know you want to be right on this one, but you got to let this one go. They don't know each other. They don't know each other. Was I right about Fauci? There is an article that is titled. Boom! That is titled.

Fauci says second wave of COVID-19 cases is not inevitable. That's like verbatim what Van said. Van loves The Bachelor. Ha. It's like verbatim what Van say. But he says that it's the precautions that we take that will prevent a second wave. And the way we're headed right now, we're like smooth sailing right into a second wave. Because with protesting and clubs being.

open like Arizona, they have had like a 200% increase in cases because all their clubs are open. Austin, hot spot, clubs are open. I saw friends that were clubbing in Austin this weekend. Yeah. I got to be real with you. So this past, uh, there's a, you too?

No, I didn't. Oh my God. I just assumed you just went bass fishing again. No, no, I didn't go bass fishing. This past weekend, Sunday is a place out here in L.A. called Penthouse. Pinhouse is a very popular day party. It goes down on Sundays here. in L.A.

There's one at Pinnhouse. There's one of Beauty in Essex. I prefer to one at beauty in Essex. Is this invite only? What do you mean? The party. Is it invite only? No, it's not invite only.

I mean, but it's L.A., so it's like, if you don't know someone, it's probably not going to, it's probably going to seem like it's invite only. I'm moving to L.A., so I'm just like, I'm just, you know, I'm just asking. You could pull up. Oh, I could be your plus one? I could be your plus one?

No, no, not with you. I think that I think when you get there, it's going to be people that, They're like, oh, that's big rage from higher learning. You're going to be straight. You know what I'm saying? But no, they moved it to, I mean, they moved it from, I guess it was over in West Hollywood to on sunset this past Sunday. And as I was driving down sunset coming back home.

And I saw all the cars outside, you know, all the Rose Royces and all of that stuff like that because it's going and I saw something I haven't seen in a very long time, which was a crowd of people at a door waiting to get inside of an L.A. club. And for one moment, I was like, damn, it would be lit to be in there. Like, see, like, damn, it would be lit, bro. It would be lit to be in there. But then I looked at the crowd of people waiting and not very many people had masks on. Yeah.

So I'm like, I'm not about to, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not. I'm not giving up my lung function for a bottle of Don Perry on. Like, I'm not giving up my lung function to listen to the latest DJ spinning the hits, you know. I guess I'm confused. I didn't realize California was in that stage yet. Now, Florida, you know, we never stopped. But. No, Pan House is open.

Like, we open. It's lit. Huh. I wonder if our clubs are open. Down there in Miami? I wonder if they are. I don't know. But here's the thing.

Did you hear about the woman who tested positive twice? That to me makes me want to sit for Corona. That to me makes me want to stay exactly where I am in my apartment. It lets me know that we don't know this virus. We don't know what we think we know about it. We've been told so many things. Don't wear a mask. Oh, it lives this long on this surface.

Oh, actually, no, it doesn't. Oh, if you're asymptomatic, you can't really transmit it. And now people are catching it twice, which means there are multiple strands of it. Well, I mean, they don't even know about that, though, because when she caught it twice, was she sick the second time? Because what people are saying is something different. Well, sometimes people will say that there's like that there could be dead in active cell inside of you that triggers a positive case even after the active cell inside of you making you sick has evacuated your body. No. See, and she donated her plasma.

I don't want hers. Not if you caught it twice. Oh, Jesus Christ, man. Not if you caught it twice. That's not for me. Oh, my God. Any specific things racism-wise that bothered you this week? Did you have a, oh, that's racist moment this week?

Oh, great question. I'm looking. Oh, well, yes, I do. I'm so glad you asked. Yeah. my, oh my gosh, that's racist moment. Or I don't know if it was outright racist, which I think is what the bigger problem is. It was covert racism.

The head coach for Oklahoma State. Wow. Yes. Mike Gundy, head coach of Oklahoma State football. He's been there for a long time, had a long tenure with him, was recently pictured with, maybe he was with his sons. I'm not sure who he's with. He was going fishing and he was wearing a T-shirt. that had the letters O-A-N on them.

Now, I didn't know what O-A-N was, but several people did. It stands for one American Network, or American Network, I'm not sure. And one of his star, possible Heisman, he's a Heisman candidate running back. His name is flipping my mind at the moment. Chuba Hubbard.

Chuba Hubbard took offense to it, wrote a tweet about it, and basically was standing up for himself. He was offended by what his coach, his coach was wearing that shirt and what it stands for and what it means. Long story short, they did a video where the coach acknowledged, didn't apologize, but acknowledged that he was wearing the shirt, said that they're making changes in the program, said that they want to do better and they're going to be better. Meanwhile, Chuba apologized in that video and people were very critical about that because he took the bigger step of apologizing while Mike Gundy just acknowledged with. did and said as a program they're going to do better rather than taking responsibility for his actions, which are the ones that offended his star player. Then he subsequently after that

apologized, but more so talked about it in the sense that what he did was dumb and he was just wearing this dumbass t-shirt as he said it. Not realizing what the network represents. Now, VAN, the network, for those of you don't know, it is a far right network. It appeals to a pro-Trump audience and it has done things like talk bad about the Black Lives Matter movement. It has talked about Antifa and it puts through those like the theory that Trump is saying that 75 year old man that was pushed down the police officers was an Antifa member. It puts out stories like that. It's very far right. And the fact that it's a network that talks negatively about the Black Lives Matter movement is also going to be something that will hurt your players, your black players specifically.

Van, do you have T-shirts? in your closet or in your drawer, wherever you keep them, of things that you don't know what they represent? Aren't you fully aware of every t-shirt that you put on, or is this a man thing? You wear T-shirts, so you don't know what they mean. I'm not saying that I do. I'm saying that people send me a lot of merch,

and sometimes they go, hey, wear this on television, and I'll have to do a little bit of work to know what it means. Okay. So I can see, but in the case of Mike Gundy, that's not even true, and I'll tell you why. Mike Gundy is on record, on record praising the network. He said this a little while ago before this even came out, that it's the only place that he'd ever watched that just reports the news,

straight up and down. He loves them. So he had, prior even to this, it's not an accident that Mike Gundy had the shirt on. Mike Gundy knows exactly what kind of content they have. He knows exactly what it is that they do because he has said before that he likes what he sees on there. So there you have it. Mistakes aside, Mike Gundy knew exactly what he was doing. And then on top of that, a story resurfaced from years ago where Mike Gundy, while he was

a quarterback at Oklahoma State, I believe, he had a game against Colorado and they were kicking Colorado's ass. One of the players off the Colorado team says that Mike Gundy called him the N-word. And by the way, that didn't just resurface after all of that time. That player was asked during a post-game interview why things got so heated between him and Mike Gundy. And in that post-game interview, he said, because Mike Gundy called me the N-word. So he said it then.

And there wasn't much reason for in the lie. Colorado was kicking the hell out of Oklahoma State. The question now for Oklahoma State fans and potential Oklahoma State recruits and Chuba Hubbard and anyone else is, is your coach a racist? and I think that that's going to be a fair question for them to ask, or is there work that Mike Gundy needs to do to sort of address some things that are going on with him?

But is he willing to do that? Because at this point, I did not know the fact that he's on record saying that he watches this network and he... Said that he had seen it before. Yeah. So if you... And I'm also not of the belief that you don't know what you're putting on your body, right? Like this isn't a Freddie Kitchens, Cleveland.

Browns, I'm wearing a t-shirt that says Pittsburgh started it. Like, you're not dumb. You know what you're doing. You know what it represents. It's because you got called out on it while you're trying to take steps back or re-nig, as I like to say. Right. Renig.

Right. So if I'm a parent, I'm not sending my child to Oklahoma State, right? Like, it's up to the university if you want to keep him and you want to stand for this, but you know what you're getting with Mike Gundy at this point. This man has a history of it. when you bring up what happened to him as a student. As a grown man, he's still supporting a network that, okay, fine, you're far right, whatever.

But the fact that you are critically talking about the Black Lives Matter movement and what it stands for, yet probably majority of your players are black, it's too big of a problem at this point. I'm upset with Oklahoma State University that they haven't actually stepped up and said something. if I'm a player on that team, I'm trying to figure out what the next step is

because I would not feel comfortable with this person as my head coach at this point. I don't know how I have any respect for him at this point. So here's the thing, and I think people get this twisted sometimes. Mike Gundy has the right to watch whatever he wants to watch. Everyone does. Sure.

Of course, everybody can think whatever it is that they want to think. But I assure you guys that free speech is a two-way street. It's actually not a two-way street. It's a three-way street. It's a four-way street. Free speech is a super highway. So my very simple rule about free speech is this.

If it's fuck me, then it's fuck you. That's it. All right. So if you say it's my right to watch and put on my chest, whatever I want. It's my right to tell my kids, you can't go play for him. It's my right to not want to play for you. It's a right for other people not to want to work with you.

I'll be honest. I give you something controversial. If NFL owners decided that they wanted to do what they did to Colin Kaepernick, sure, they could do it. But the fact of the matter is, it was wrong. and the collusion part of it, actually, not I think about it, is something that they can't do. Yeah, like, they're not allowed to do.

Yeah, I was just trying to, I was just trying to, you know, be pithy. That's okay. You're trying to get your flow together. I know. You should get them bars together. That's actually something that they, actually something that they couldn't have done. But like, I'm not upset with anyone.

I completely agree with Cap and they thought what Cap did was essential. I'm not upset with anyone that has a problem with that. What I'm upset with is the unwelcome. willingness of people to have a conversation surrounding it. And people who would try to, the people that say, yo, I don't want you to come to my party because you like President Obama, that's fucking fine. People that say, that's fucking fine.

Like, all of that stuff is fine. But, like, for a guy like Mike Gundy, you can't throw a brick and hide your hand. If that's what the fuck you want to do, then that's what the fuck you want to do. You're not free of consequence. That's what I'm trying to say. My thing is, is the playing dumb part. don't play dumb. You're not dumb. It's one, like you said, you can be a part of whatever political affiliation you want to.

You can watch whatever it is you want. But the moment you put on a T-shirt and you're representative of it, then you have to be, realize that there are consequences that come with that. And I don't like the fact that he's pretending, like now that you've brought to my attention, that he is on a record saying that he supports this network and he listens to this network, that he acts like he doesn't know what they stand for. And if I'm Oklahoma State University, you need to give the players the right to transfer if they want to.

Because I don't know how you, yeah, I think that you need to, if they want to transfer, you should allow them to because I would not be comfortable playing under a coach who has those type of beliefs. We are in a different world right now. Black Lives Matter. There's a whole movement behind us at this point. And if you are affiliated with networks and brands and people that don't support that, then you have to deal with the consequences.

of that. Those players should be allowed to leave. I agree. I hadn't thought about that, but I agree. They don't want to play for the guidance. It's a, it's a, it's, they give a lot to a coach. And it would be tough to give a lot to a coach if you didn't believe that in his heart, he was on your side and thought that you fighting for your life was a worthy cause. Now, it's time for something. I know that the ringer loves that we do this. The ringer loves this. This is what, this is the favorite. This next segment is the favorite segment of the ringer.

Unexpected ally of the week. But we intentionally say something nice about somebody who is normally white. Who was the first unexpected ally of the? Oh, it was Mitt Romney. Yeah, that's the only one I think we've had at this point, right? That was the inaugural. Yeah, Mitt Romney, should we call this the Mitt Romney Award or is that too much? No, I actually really like that because Mitt Romney's having a hard time.

His party's turned on him. you know, he's marching with Black Lives Matter at this point. Mitt Romney. Let's name it. Let's name it the Romney. The Romney Award for Unexpected Ally of the Week. It's funny, Romney knows what it would have been like had he brought like a black girl home. You know what I mean?

This is what it is. Like, get the fuck out of here, Mitt. This is what it is. Where do white people, where do white people, you know, it's funny. I got to be honest with you. Like, our names, black people's names get rammed. through the ringer a lot. They do.

They talk about the Lakeisha's and the La Mairas and the LaDonalds and all of that stuff like that. But we really let white people off the hook for their names. What the fuck is Mitt? I assumed it was a nickname. So I don't care.

You don't like Mint? It could be a nickname, but the reality is that a lot of times in the white languages, the nicknames become the name. So it's like Mitt, you have his real name? Well, his first, yes, Mitt is his real

middle name. Okay. His first name is Willard. And now we know why he goes by Mint. By Mitt. Mitt. Just mid. It's better than Willard. It's catchy. It's catchy. So, I mean, I get it. Mitt. And white people like, they like names with ER. They like active names. Like Archer. You know what I mean? Like, I knew a kid

name Archer growing up. Archer. Okay. Archer. Active names. I knew a Archer. Asher. You know what I mean? Asher.

Asher's a popular one. Asher's like, there's like, there's, there's, there's names with ER at the end of them. We're very popular in Vanilla Village. I can't think of it. By the way, this is Vans, this is Vance time to stereotype. Like, I can get time to just stereotype real quick. I guess I'm pausing because my dog has an ER name and I'm just thinking about it. What is it?

Copper. Copper. Oh, that's right. It fits, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There you go.

So two people that are up for unexpected ally of the week. One is Reed Hastings. He is the billionaire CEO of, I guess, Netflix. Yes. And he gave $120 million to HBCU's Reed Hastings did. You go ahead, read Hastings. If you've ever been to an HBCU, which is a historically black college or university, I went to one, Southern University, down there in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

I see this lovely picture of Reed Hastings where he's wearing a blue scarf. Hey, did you see this picture? If you guys Google Reed Hastings, you'll see him in his. So not only is he down with helping Black colleges, he's creeping. Shout out to, like, shout out to Rehases, man. Rehase is around here throwing up. This man out here creeping. Shout out to read.

Yes. He donated 120. million dollars to the United Negro College Fund, Spellman College, and Morehouse College. It is the largest individual gift to support scholarships at historically backed colleges and universities. Okay. That is a fantastic thing. I want you guys to go watch United Negro College Fund commercials from the 80s.

From the 90s? From the 80s? From the 80s. The United Negro College Fund commercials from the 80s were the best thing. Do you remember them? No. Do you remember them? No.

I mean, I was born in 85. Can I go through one of the commercials, which you just quickly quick before we go to the other one? I'm sorry. Don't spare us. So it's a commercial where it's a black dude, right? And he's looking at his son. His son is in the crib. And he's talking to his son and he's going, son, you are going to become the best thing ever.

I cannot wait. You're going to be an astronaut. You're going to be a lawyer. You're going to be a president. I cannot wait for you to have everything I never had, son. then all of a sudden it flashes forward. And that same guy is talking to his son who now has a son. And that, no, no, that guy walks into his son who's now had a son talking to his son.

And he sees his son giving him the same speech that he gave his son. But when he looks at his boy, he says, all right, put the boy down now. It's time to go to work. So nothing had changed. And then it says going to college can help you out. A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So what they were saying was that, so this is what happens. The dude was looking at his son,

but he ended up doing the same thing that his father did because he never went to college. Okay, I was going to say, what did he become? They let that part of them. They were probably like, you know, of course, in the 80s when Wall Street was popping, the working American was the dredge of society. So they probably had very nice. jobs working at a steel mill or something. But that was at the point where people were saying you had to go to Wall Street or

going to be a lawyer to be a good American, which is bullshit. But I just remember that commercial thinking, damn, I don't want to be talking to my son's crib. I got to fucking go to college, doc. Now, they gave it to United Negro College Fund, Morales and Spellman. I will say this. If I am nitpicking about this, this is what I will nitpick. Oh, go ahead.

I will say that I think I think 100. $120 million divided up amongst a larger group of HBCUs would have been way better than $120, $120 million for Morehouse, Spellman, and Niagara-N-Ego College Fund. I would imagine, I have not done the numbers, but that Morehouse and Spellman have endowments that are probably, like the Southern University, I'm just going to look up the Southern University endowment right now. the endowment at Southern University right now. That's what's really the issue is that your school wasn't named. Well, no, it's not that. It's not, but I'm serious, though. When we're talking about what black colleges deal with.

Because of the alumni that come from a Spellman in a Morehouse and a Howard, usually money goes, and even at Hampton, money goes to them first than it does for the other HBCUs. That's true. That's true. I understand that. So the endowment at Southern University, is $9 million. That's the entire endowment

at Southern University. The endowment at Morehouse, Moorhouse is a fantastic university. It's $145 million. So Morehouse is funded. Mm-hmm. Okay? I would imagine, I'm not sure about Spelman,

but I would imagine Spelman is, these are the Blue Blood Ivy Leagues. These other schools are having problems functioning. And I'm not saying this to come down on Reed Hastings because what he did was fantastic. But what I'm saying is, what Reed Hastings probably did was gave money to the only

HBCUs that he could name. No, I don't know. He's probably given, you know, Spellman Morehouse, they had to give that Cosby money back probably. So they probably are in need a some money. I'm not shitting on it. But what I'm saying is that when we're helping,

it will be dope to be intentional about the help that we're giving and make sure that is getting to the places that really needed. I will say when I saw it, I was a little shocked that he just didn't give it in general to HBCUs. and that there were specific ones that were named. But what turned me back around is that he was trying to set an example

and hope that other people in his position would follow, which is what I appreciated, because he said that he hoped his contribution would lead up other wealthy individuals to give. And he specifically said, quote, generally white capital flows to predominantly white institutions. So to me, I said, okay. Spelman Endowment. Spellman got that fucking cheese.

They got that cost me money. Spellman's endowment. is $390 million. That's a shit ton of money. Now, when you talk to Harvard, which has got like billions and billions of dollars, it's not before a black school, that's a hell of a lot of money.

I mean, yeah. Spell was a fantastic school. Yes, as we talked about previously on this podcast, my sister went there. I was going to go there. I chose not to. You're too many black people for you. No, because I didn't fit in in that.

I just didn't fit in it. Not because of the black people. I didn't fit in. Spelman has a reputation of being, like, I'm very rough around the edges. I'm a tomboy, and I just remember being on the yard, and everyone was dressed up in hills and everything. And I thought, oh, you know, like, this isn't really for me. And I didn't want to be known as my, in my sister's shadow for the rest of my life. That's really what it was, too.

Don't put, don't put words into my mouth. I'm not. You said it. You didn't fit in at Spelman. I applied to Howard and Spelman, actually. You went to UT and you fit in perfectly. That's something. You said it, not me. All right.

But my pick for unexpected allies of the week. As vice president of the African American Culture Committee, I just want to put that out there. Vice president. My cousin was president. Yeah, right. They had to get somebody woker than you to lead the organization. She listens to this too. She's going to love that.

No, but I think my unexpected ally of the week is actually one that is really unexpected. And it's even hard to say. It's Neil Gorsuch. who Neil Gorses is a Supreme Court justice whose vote, I guess this week. Yes. This week on a very, very, you're the lawyer. Why don't you run it down exactly what they were voted on this week?

So we had a historic, actually two, which I'll get into, but I want to talk about your unexpected ally of the week. Neil Gorsuch, help me out. Supreme Court Justice, Nill Gorsuch. Is your unexpected ally of the week. And the reason that he is the unexpected ally is because he was the first Supreme Court judge that President Trump nominated to the bench. And typically, presidents take pride in nominating a Supreme Court justice because it means that they nominate someone who is affiliated in the same way that they are politically. So that means that when it comes to decisions that are made in the court, they will vote either conservative.

conservative or liberal. So the goal is you want to be able to put people on the Supreme Court that would vote your way and can pass your legislation or the way you believe through. Your agenda. Yeah. Your agenda. There you go. So Neil Gorsuch is who President Trump first nominated then Kavanaugh, and we all know how that all about that. So Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion in this historic case where the Supreme Court says that gay and transgender workers are protected by federal law, prohibiting discrimination under Title VII. Oh! The vote was six, three, which means there are four liberals that are on the Supreme Court, nine total. So the liberals are underrepresented. Two conservatives voted in favor of this and said that gay and transgender workers are

protected. That is a liberal agenda. And so it's important that, you know, that Chief Justice Roberts, who can be a moderate, but it's considered conservative. And Neil Gorsuch, and the reason it's so big is because Neil Gorsuch is expected to vote conservative

and he still voted on this side of things. So it was completely unexpected. Go ahead, Van. I'll let you continue taking away because he's your unexpected ally of the week. I just think that it's, listen, I'm not going to fucking blow Gorsuch for doing a right thing.

But what I will say is, because, you know, it's such a low standard for the status quo. We get sometimes overly happy, when they do anything other than kick us in the ass. But what I will say is that it was refreshing to see that the highest court in the land at some point could put politics aside

and put the betterment of the lives of Americans first. And you'd hope that they would do that. You hope that you never see a court that wants to reverse Roe v. Wade. You hope that you see a court that really cares about the quality of life of Americans and puts politics

and even religious dogma, like aside, and really helps be a part of the governance of an equitable society. You know what I mean? So the only time I'll give Gorsuch's credit for that. He's probably got a million other fucked up votes, but I'll give him credit for that. Well, there's some big cases that are sitting with the Supreme Court right now. And the fact that he even decides to write the majority opinion,

even more so shows how much he believed in protecting these rights for gay and transgender, which was even more a blow for President Trump who has, I think for this one, he pretty much just accepted it. It is what it is. But then also this week, if we're going to say another unexpected ally is Chief Justice John Roberts, who sided with the liberals in regards to DACA, which stands for deferred action for childhood arrivals, which means that that protects, it started under the Obama administration,

it protects people that are brought to the United States as children by shielding them from deportation and letting them work. Now, it's not a path for citizenship or anything like that, but it protects you. If you're born in this country, you came over here because your parents came over illegally. You've never been to the country that you were originally from. Maybe you don't even speak that language. It protects you to be able to be here and to work here.

And there are some restrictions that are placed on it. They don't just let anybody a part of this. Like, you can't be a felon, can't have a serious misdemeanor. There are restrictions within this. But we saw Chief Justice Roberts side on the side of liberals. And this is something that's been big on the Trump agenda because we know how he feels about immigration.

So this is another win for liberals. So Chief Justice Roberts is another ally, unexpected ally every week. It's a win for people. Yep. All right. Big Rache, I want you to have a good weekend. That is so nice. Juneteenth.

We should. I hope you have a good weekend too. I'll have a great Juneteenth weekend. It would be fantastic. I actually just saw that now we talked about earlier that I wasn't doing anything for Gene Tini? No, I'm doing that with the kids tomorrow night, but I'm also saw that there's a Juneteenth block party. And guess what? Oh, there's nothing like in L.A. In L.A. And guess what? I'm not going to hell with it. No, I'm going to be at the crib. Even when I go to talk to

these kids, I'm going to go. I'm going to stand way back far away from them and I'm going to yell at them. Hey, be the best you can be. Little homies, don't breathe on me. So if you got nothing. else from this podcast, you got the fact that Van would rather go to the penthouse than go to a block party to celebrate the emancipation of his people. I didn't go to the penthouse, though. But you can't say that because I didn't go to the penthouse. But you wanted to. I didn't go though.

Like I didn't, I actually saw the penthouse. It was completely antithetical. So what happened? Shut up. All right, thought warriors. We out of here. Take your thinking caps off. But do not stop thinking.

Higher learning. We will be back. Next week, have a fantastic weekend. Have a good one. Bye.