Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Fade in the Water and Jamie Foxx’s Apology With Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay welcome Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm to discuss the fallout and discourse following Jamie Foxx’s deleted Instagram post and ensuing apology (6:17). Then, they react to the Montgomery Riverboat Uprising of 2023 (1:05:46). Plus, support for Joe Biden from Black men comes into question (1:24:22), and they discuss the tragic, fatal stabbing of O’Shae Sibley for voguing at a gas station (1:47:53). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamm 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? Howe learning is on and is I Van Lathen, Jr.? And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, I had the weirdest conversation with Chloe in there a second ago. It's so weird. So everybody, all of the kids in the control room,

they have a Tesla. They are their children. And they drive Tesla. What are you guys as ages in there? Everybody introduce yourself and tell people your age. I'm Gehahua and I'm 29. Mm-hmm. I'm Leia and I'm 25, almost 26.

Almost 26. I don't know they're young. Almost 26. I'm 25 and a half. And then Chloe is 23. So they all have Teslas and I was deriding them about that. When we got into Chloe's... Alea's upset.

She does not have a Tesla. I, for the record, do not have a Tesla. And I just want everyone to know that. The Leia was on our side. I support people of color. Just saying. O'lea, I didn't know you had it in you. Olaia is going nuts.

So look, we are. Here's the thing. I was talking to Chloe. Chloe just got a Tesla, Chloe the alien. And we got into Chloe's backstory. Chloe, jump on mic real quick. Chloe's in a meeting.

Chloe ran away. So she ran. Let me tell you, Chloe is half Vietnamese, half black, blasian. And her parents met when her dad was working for a call center,

called her mom. No. And heard her mom's voice and then asked her out. Wow. And she said yes. And she, not only did she say yes, they had two children. I don't like that. There's something awful about it.

What? Explains a lot. Don't disrespect the way they met. I think that's a sweet love story. All right, look, we got a big show today. We'll have time for very many pleasantries. Rachel, how was your weekend at the place? I mean, I think we all know at this time that if my voice sounds like this,

It's a sign of a good time. I was out at a ranch, which I told you guys last time. It was an amazing time connecting to nature, being very present. I was away from everything, not on my phone, no TV, just for days, no internet. So you're not prepared for the podcast is what you're trying to tell people. That's not true. I came back Sunday and I got right to work. But I was very detached.

I do want to bring on someone who was there, LeMourne, because. Child to Lamar. We, you know, there were a big group of us weren't many black, and there was a miscalculation of how many of us there were. And I would like Lamorne to come on and tell that story.

He has agreed to come on the podcast. Lemooran rides horses. I like Lamarne. We didn't ride any horses. It was too hot. But yes, he's going to come on and talk and tell a story. And we're just going to talk to Lamorne

because he's cool people. Yeah, maybe. Here's a deal. No, he's great. All right. So there's a lot stuff that happened. We're going to get to all of it. And even though this has now been overshadow,

we're going to start with the big deal of the day, which is the Jamie Fox situation, because here's the situation with this. It's not just about, and by the way, I had a fantastic weekend. Thank you for asking Rachel. Kaleika and I hung out. We went out with Trey

and his wife, Toya, on Saturday night. We went to the club. Is Trey your friend from back home? My friend from back home, player-proof group. We went to... The club? Bro, we went to the club. We went to Sardoff.

Kaleek and I went to Greek restaurant, had great Greek foods, okay? After Greek restaurant, we went to Wally's. Oh, okay. We were hanging out Wazzo. Wollies was kind of Wazzo. Real Hollywood spot. And then after this, we went to

Abutsi Bellows. Really? Yeah, we saw a girl that was dancing in Bousie Bellows. I know she was on cocaine. I felt so, like, going into the club and being there at like 43 years old, I wanted to save the children.

Was it a crowd? It was crowded. It was a bootsie bellow. Shout out to Made Entertainment. Shout out to Devereign and Mill, Sean Dickerson. Sean Dickerson, a white ghost. Shout out to Mark Tong, Vic. Shout out to everyone. El Hefe, Vic. Shout out to everyone. You know what I mean? And then we hung out again with Sean and his friend Trace, Trace Winningham from Temptation Island. She's a model around the town. Do you know her? I don't watch Temptation Island. Yeah, well, she didn't know who you were either. And so we went to Dave and Busters And then we went out to Hideaway and we ate Was that your first time in Hideaway? I never been Hideaway before. It's good, right? I like Hideaway.

Yeah, it's good. Wow, you had a real L.A. weekend. Going up. Going up. Me and Bowson were hanging out. Opposite ends of the spectrum this weekend. Yeah, whatever. So look, we got to get to the whole Jamie Fox,

Jennifer Aniston's situation. I wanted to say Nicole Aniston. That's a different if you Google that. you'll find a different person. We want to go through the whole situation, but we want to do this with representation

from our Jewish brothers and sisters. So Rachel doesn't go like full school ties on the podcast today. How dare you drop this before we bring on the rabbi? And we have one of our brothers

and a friend of the podcast that's going to join us on the other side of this break. It's Rabbi Dr. Ari Lamb. And he is a great man. He's host of the top-ranked weekly podcast on the Bible and society. It's called Good Faith Effort. I've been on there before and talk to Dr. Ari.

Dr. R. and I just had like a robust two-hour conversation. We don't agree on everything, but we do agree that is always best when we have conversations about these things and try to get to a better place. Also, this is interesting. We'll talk to my other side of the break, but the Jerusalem Post ranked him. 38 on his list of world's 50 most influential Jews. So I want people to know something that we don't talk to the regular people here on higher learning. We get top 50 Jews on the podcast. Top 50 people, top 100 people, top one people.

All right, lamb on the other side is break. Jennifer Anderson, Jamie Fox, the fallout. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Tramphaya, guselcomab, taken by injection, is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections or pills or phototherapy, and for adults with active psoriotic arthritis.

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Before we get into anything, everything, we have Ari with us. I do want to do a quick rundown of what happened, but I want to say hello to Ari. Ari, how are you doing, my brother? How you doing? people don't think that we actually just talk for two hours. Did we actually just talk for two hours? Oh, that's not a joke. I clocked it.

It's two hours. The two hour conversation I had with Rabbi Lamb. And are you okay? Oh, I mean, I'm awesome. I just was worried about Van. I thought he was like, I felt like I had to take a nap afterwards. Welcome to me twice a week. So look, if you did not see,

Jamie Fox posted a message on his Instagram. Rachel, you saw this when you came back. I did when I came back. Jeez, I missed a lot. Jamie Fox posted a message on his Instagram. The post has not been deleted. The post was about fake friends. The post was like this verbatim.

They killed this dude named Jesus. What do you think they'll do to you? Three question marks, exclamation point. Hashtag fake friends. Hashtag fake love. Now, after this, this was interpreted as some as him repeating an anti-Semitic trope.

You guys are not aware of the trope. Jewish people are referred to as Christ killers. They are blamed for the death of Christ. And that trope has been used, the crucification of Christ, that trope has been used for a very long time to subject them to violence. In a Christian nation, being somebody who killed Jesus Christ,

is, let's say, not an advantage. Okay? and apparently Jennifer Aniston, who had liked the post, although she says that she didn't, got wind of this, and then went on her Instagram stories and blew this entire thing into the stratosphere. She said, this really makes me sick. I did not like this post on purpose or by accident. More importantly, I want to be clear to my friends and anyone hurt by this showing up in their feed. I do not support any type of anti-Semitism. and I truly don't tolerate hate of any kind, period.

After that, Jamie Fox went on his Instagram and said, I want to apologize to the Jewish community and everyone who was offended by my post. I now, I now know my choice of words have caused offense, and I'm sorry. That was never my intent. Okay. After this happens, a lot of black people are mad, and I was one of them. I want to be honest with you. I was one of them because the way I felt about this was that Jamie's,

statement that killed his new name Jesus. It's such a commonly held colloquialism in black talk. Hey, you know they hated Jesus. They'll hate you too. My mother told me that when I was in the sixth grade. Sometimes it's not Jesus. Sometimes it's Dr. King.

Sometimes it's anyone who we think should have been widely beloved. But we use that to discuss like how the world would treat you. It was not taken that way by a lot of members of the Jewish community.

And I felt that Jamie apologizing for this was essentially him apologizing for people not understanding us culturally, not knowing how we communicate. And sometimes for me, I get upset that people who do not pour into us with curiosity or with interaction, then get the opportunity to come back and police the way that we talk when I felt like it was obvious here

what Jamie Foss was talking about. Now we have Dr. Lamm on right now. We have Ari on, me and him had a long conversation. It went a whole bunch of different ways. But I wanted to know what you thought about this entire situation because it went from Jamie, Jennifer Aniston,

and about the post themselves, Rachel, as you could imagine, to actually being the source of a little animus or some back and forth between the black and Jewish community. Did you see any of that, Dr. Lamb? And what is your entire response to everything that's going on, including some people who felt like I did? The first thing I want to say is, just so the listeners know,

Van, seriously, wasn't kidding about that conversation. Van's the kind of person who truly wants to get to the bottom of any question because he's a curious mind. And for your, and I know, and Rachel, I know you're the same way, for your audience to have the two you, for your audience to have the two of you as guides on this journey with the Thought Warriors is extraordinary. So I hope you all appreciate what you have here.

On this particular thing, so I want to make a couple points. One is about the actual substance of the comment itself. I personally have heard that expression. They kill Jesus. What are they going to do to you? Blah, blah, blah. Like 900 million times.

And if you've watched, the movie, you've heard that phrase. So I feel like anyone who's even like slightly attuned to culture would know that that phrase is not about Jews. And so this whole controversy kind of started over nothing in that respect. And it's right for people to know, hey, this is not about, this is not about Jews. And it would be like a phrase that was really common, you know, when I was growing up, like I heard my grandparents say things like, if they could put a man on the moon, you know, they can't fix your air conditioner and it's like, oh, why you blame the Kennedy administration for not being able to fix my air conditioner, right? Like, what are the Kennedys ever do to you? It's the same thing here. It's

not they, the specific day, it's the generic thing. So I get that. I want to say two things that may be intention with each other, but both need to be said. One is to explain why some people in the community, in the Jewish community, heard this in a way that was so non-intuitive to other people. and then I actually want to talk a little bit about which people in the Jewish community were getting up in arms in this and why that's significant and specifically which people were not getting up in arms about it and why that's significant.

So first of all, I grew up in a community where literally every single person I know has at least one relative, if not multiple relatives, who were killed for being Christkillers, whether that was the specific denunciation that God has killed, or whether that was the general context of a pogrom or animus or anything like that. And that's been true.

I mean, I could go back literally hundreds of years, and in every generation you'd find multiple horror stories like that. So much so that the Jewish community's ritual calendar actually gets shaped around this stuff. So there are, there's one night on the Jewish calendar, for example, that's it's really observed only in the Orthodox community. But for people who are like, you know, living Jewishly on a regular basis, on a daily basis, when we have whole occasions on the calendar where we stay inside the whole night studying Torah. Why?

To commemorate the generations and generations and generations where on that night we were forced to stay inside because, you know, the passion plays in the local town had just finished and everybody was rampaging trying to find, you know, Jews that they could tear apart. Pregnant women whose bellies they could rip open. I mean, really gruesome things like that. So this is one of the true, just historically traumatic memories that the community has. And so there's real antennas up, there's real sensitivity. It's oftentimes just instinctive.

It's kind of like when you see an animal that's just been trillions. treated horribly and they just have that left brain reaction like where it's fight or flight. That's kind of what this is. Now, that's point one. That's why people hear it the way they did. And that's why I think, you know, people, voices in the Jewish community that just weren't attuned to what that phrase means or hadn't heard it before, like immediately jumped on it. Now, the other important thing to note is this entire controversy from literally beginning to literally the end. took place over the Sabbath, what I would call Shabbas.

Like, it took place over Shabbas. Now, on Shabbas, people in my community, which is the observant community, which, demographically speaking, that's going to be the majority of the community just within a couple of years. Explain to people what that means, Dr. Lamb. Okay, great question. So within the community, there are a lot of different terms for it, orthodox, observant, Frum is what I would call it.

But within the community of people who keep Shabbas in the traditional way, one of the things we can't do is we can't use electronics. So we're not allowed to go what that means is can't turn on lights, can't turn on stoves. And that's from Friday night

until Sunday. From Friday night until from sundown on Friday until after the stars come out on Saturday night. So what that means is for that entire stretch of period, that entire stretch of time, can't use our phones. That's one of the things we can't do. So it kind of led to a trope like during the, like during the last

presidential administration where it would be like, like, what fresh hell are we going to find when we turn on our phones after Shabbas? Like what craziness has erupted and be like American body politic. It was all, it became like a thing like, oh, should we just not turn our phones on until Sunday morning? But this entire thing, like from the beginning of this controversy till the end of this Jamie Fox controversy happened on Shabbas, which meant that the people who were getting exercised over this, the people who were calling him out and the people who were raising hell about this, were specifically not observing Shabbas. And that, now again, no, I mean, no judgment in kind of like a civic sense, you know, in a religious sense, maybe there is judgment, but in a civic sense,

absolutely no judgment, and I love all of the fellow members of my community, but it does tell you a little bit about the demographic of people who were raising hell about this. And that kind of leads me to a downstream piece of this, which is, I think one of the real challenges that the Jewish community has is kind of twofold. One of it, I think, is very real and dangerous that we have to be vigilant against, and one of it is something that we have to kind of take care of internally. The real thing we got to be vigilant against is when I turned on my phone after Shabbas,

and I kind of saw this whole thing unfold and start and then go through a middle and go through an end and have a three-act structure. So on the one hand, I thought the whole thing started from nonsense. On the other hand, you know, you look on Instagram, you look on Twitter, and you look on all the social media channels where people are commenting on this and you see true, true, like frightening anti-Semitic stuff. Now, to be clear, I actually don't think that's on Jamie Fox. Jamie Fox is an incredibly good dude who stood up for the Jewish community.

He has specifically stood up for the Jewish community. And not only that, very, very close personal friend of mine is also a personal friend of Jamie Fox is, and I know this to be true about other Jewish friends he had. He literally spent Shabbis calling people in the Jewish community like friends of his. just to send them like a reassuring brotherly message. So I literally had friends. I had a friend who turned on his phone after Shabbas got this really heartfelt, meaningful message from Jamie Fox.

And, you know, essentially like, you know, it's sort of like, did I get butt dialed by Jamie Fox? Why am I getting this message? I don't even know what this is about. And Jamie Fox is, I mean, hasn't been telling people about that. He's just a good person. So to be clear, you're not, I don't think public figures need to be held accountable

for every rando who comments on their feed. but as someone in a community that, you know, cares about anti-Semitism, it definitely was frightening to see some of the stuff in those comment sections. It was a lot of people. But on the other hand, the challenge of fighting anti-Semitism,

and this goes all the way back to like the Kyrie incident, which is when I first started to think and talk about this publicly, is that the kind of people that Americans, like the majority of Americans, Americans, and I imagine that includes the majority of people in the black community, associate with fighting anti-Semitism, are like these big organizations that end up getting treated like and actively, and they for their parts, actively promote the idea that they're kind of like the representatives of the Jewish community, like the official representatives

of the Jewish community, or like the, like, the ADL acts like the Jewish Pope sometimes. and they are not only, not even remotely represented of the Jewish community, like at all, but members of my community, particularly in the observant community, the traditional community, we actually have real problems with those organizations.

We don't think they represent this well. And moreover, I would say the larger problem with the kind of organized combating anti-Semitism, you know, like groups that are supposed to be fighting anti-Semitism that are well-known in the public eye like organizations like that, a lot of them comprise either in majority or entirely people for whom their Jewishness has no actual daily content. So like, you need to go to those organizations and say, hey, can you name me one person? one person from the Babylonian Talmud.

Just for context, by the way, for your listeners, the Babylonian Talmud is like the central text of Jewish thought, intellectual tradition, and daily life for 1,500 years at least. So if you can't name one person from that text, that means you have zero daily connection to this at all, to this culture, to this peoplehood, to this brotherhood. Now, the vast majority of people whom the majority of Americans associate with the fight against anti-Semitism,

could not name one person from that, from that book, from that work. And what that tells me is that we're in a situation now where most Americans, the only time they ever encounter Jewishness in public is when punishment is being meted out for bigotry, real or perceived. And so I think the problem is the majority of Americans just think that that's all Jewishness is. It's just fighting bigotry, or it's just fighting specifically anti-Semitism. And that, to me, is by far the biggest tragedy of the entire last, like, year and change of this whole cycle. Because if I go back, for example, to the Kyrie Irving phenomenon, you had, on the one

hand, these big, kind of huge Jewish organizations that represent nobody who are busy making these just, like, obnoxious demands of Kyrie. Irving, apologize and donate money to us and, like, really just deranged stuff. Whereas, if you ask the rank and file, if you ask the vast majority of people, like the vast, vast majority of people for whom Jewishness is a daily lived phenomenon, what do you think, what do you think, how do you think we should respond to Kyrie Irving? I think the vast majority would tell you, he should come to my house for Shabbas. Because that, because first of all, he seems like a curious guy. He probably just doesn't know where, he,

certainly doesn't know what we're about. Let him come and see my family. Let him come and hear my, hear our singing. Let him come and taste our food and understand our traditions and see what we're about. And I bet if he had that experience, he would not only have the benefit of asking questions, he'd have the benefit of answering questions that we have. I think we'd all grow and learn from that. And he would see what Jewishness really is on a daily basis. Instead, all he saw and all Jamie Fox probably sees right now is a Jewish community that has no content to it, no Jewish content to it other than fighting anti-semitism.

And that means there is no, there's no positive way to engage with us. Like you can't engage with the Jewish community other than apologizing to it. And that to me is a failure of parts of the Jewish community, but I don't want to put it all on us. It's also a failure, even though it's not a conscious, malicious failure at all. I want to be clear on that.

It's also a failure of people who just don't have any thick interactions, like any real thick interactions with people who make Jewishness a daily part of their lives. And I think the lesson, therefore, from all of this is whether it's in my community or whether it's in your guys' community or whether it's in other communities who are bystanders to this, our first instincts should not be to accuse to cast the gate and to cast aspersions. It should be to take a breath and ask questions. I want to kind of piggyback on the last part of what you said because, you know, this started, Jennifer Anderson did repost another post and that's what blew this whole thing up.

There was this newsletter, a wider frame that took the screenshot of Jamie Fox's post, and that's where people saw that Jennifer Aniston had liked the post. And then they called this, I just want to make sure I get the quote right. I think it was, they said it was horrible, horrifically anti-Semitic is what they said. And then that's what Jennifer Aniston reposted out there. And to echo Van's sentiments, I think what was hard, you know, for me and for our community, was that Jennifer Aniston, who's allegedly a friend of Jamie Fox, was so quick to throw him under the bus to say, herself, which we are also familiar with. When you talk about ignorance or being versus being

malicious, the fact that that post is still up on a wider frames Instagram page. What does that say to it? And is this a post that they should take down to try to show? Because as you spoke about, we've had you come on here and talk about Kyrie and the strained relation between Jewish people and black people to have that post still up. Now with so much conversation out there saying that this is something that black people say within their community, other people outside of the community are familiar with this, isn't it harmful to still have that up? And can you say now, that's not necessarily ignorance. That's a little intentional that you're still keeping that up. Of course. I mean, listen, the way I look at this is the problem actually is worse than that.

Like Jennifer Aniston being the main story here, that's like a drive-by cultural shooting. Like she has nothing to do with either of our communities. So she's not a member of your community. She's not a member of my community. The fact that she's the star of this show says something about the toxic way in which our communities have been taught to interact with each other. And I think that when you look at the trajectory of relations between our communities, everyone always goes back to the same thing,

which is, well, you know, we fought, you know, we marched together in civil rights. And that is really important. Don't get me wrong. That is important. Actually, and this is important to me as a piece of family history. My grandfather, by my Norman Lamb,

was the present in the University for 25 years. He's the greatest American Jewish orator, like in American history. He's an amazing man of my teacher. One of the things that he, that he innovated in that discourse was he was the first American, Jew to refer to racism as idolatry.

He called it American idolatry. And he developed this amazing, really intricate, complex theory around it in any event. But when our relationship, the relationship between our two communities gets reduced to that or gets built, constructed entirely upon that, what it essentially means is that the only thing that binds our two communities together is that we face hatred, external hatreds together. Now, think about any relationship that you have with a person, like an individual relationship

that you have with a person. Think about the people that you consider true friends, real genuine friends who would drop anything to come and help you by the side of the road. How many of those people have you built friendships on exclusively where it's based on a negative? The answer is probably zero because normal people build true friendships upon shared values, upon shared loves, upon shared aspirations. And I think the challenge is that because our communities have been essentially forced together by external forces, you could call that white supremacy, you called it anti-Semitism, you could call it, whatever you could call it, you know, American history for 150 years,

whatever you want to call it, because we've been forced together by other people, and our relationship has been channeled exclusively towards focusing on shared, negative concerns. What that means is that we actually haven't had a chance to build a true friendship with each other as a community. It's not rooted in shared positive, affirmative loves and values. And so it's almost like a natural conclusion for our community to end up where we are now when the only thing binding us together is fighting against bigotries. Eventually the bigotries become our own bigotries and now all of a sudden we're fighting each other. Now, it's important, I think for my community to hear

and for your community and your listeners to hear whatever background they're coming from, that serves an interest. It serves the interest of certain segments of our society for our communities to actually be kept on shaky ground like this.

And it's pretty easy to see why our two communities are very culturally potent. People, you know, Van and I had a chance to talk about earlier, people buy our cultures. People are attracted to them. People are intrigued by them. And therefore, we're disproportionately represented in culture, both of our communities. Now,

sometimes we've been forced into those opportunities or into those circumstances, but it nevertheless remains the case. We actually are able to move culture. We have, we're at major disadvantages in so many other ways, political and otherwise, but we're actually able to move culture. So imagine if those two communities, imagine if black community and the Jewish community actually had a flourishing relationship with each other that was actually built on shared values and unshakable commitments, that would be an extremely potent force in American life, maybe the potent force in American life. So who's served by our communities being kept apart? I obviously don't think the answer to that is Jennifer Anniston. Like she didn't invent that

problem. But when you look at the fact that the star of this story is someone who has nothing to do with either of our communities, you can see the problem right there. Yeah. I think a big problem I had with this, it was twofold. One was just the exhaustion from, like I said earlier, from continuously apologizing to a country where the only penalty for black people is, death. Kill your career, kill your actual body. If you run off, if you're, if you're anything other than a willing participant in the servant class, or if you are not a cultural or mental servant, then you got to go.

And Jamie did nothing, in my opinion, he did nothing. But yet he was still made to apologize. And I asked a friend of mine, I was like, because a lot of people that I know, and a lot of people have great conversations with Jewish friends of mine were like, well, it's not a big deal. He did the right thing. He apologized and he clarified.

And my question was, what if he just clarified? What if Jamie would have come on there and went, hey, for anybody wondering, I wasn't referring to that? That means in my community, but we say that, blah, blah, blah. maybe he made a funny video, put up three or four examples of people saying it. Like, we're not talking about it. Hope everybody has a great weekend. What if he doesn't have to grovel?

What if he doesn't have to come? And I'm not, you know, Jamie's a nice guy. And I'm sure he did what he was moved to do. But what if we don't have to say, hey, blah, blah, blah. Then is a clarification of our culture and us standing in strength of who we are. Is that enough? Is that enough for people to, to know that, right? And I wondered. I wondered if it would be. And that made me wonder if in this

situation, the people who are really upset here, and I'm not going to miss any words, the Jewish people that were upset here, if they were unable to see where we were coming from because of their proximity to whiteness, because of their proximity to something that we're supposed to both be fighting against or something that threatens us both, that we as black people can never access but that they can and do. If that made it impossible to see that we just sick of saying sorry when we didn't do nothing. Now, there's one thing if we talk about Yeh or Kyrie, we talked about those things in this situation.

There were definitely reasons, not even just those, Dr. Lamb, other situations. to where we're like, hey, y'all need to do better. But this one, I was just like, really? I was like, for real? I was like, come on, man. And it just feels like black people are always first in line for the American nut kicking conversation. And I'm sick of it.

What would you say to somebody that had those sentiments? You can take that entire diatribe in any way that you want, Dr. Lamb. What would you say to people that felt like that? it's a really good question. I want to take a couple of things. One, I think if Jamie Fox had done exactly what you said

and just clarified and said, hey, here's what this was, have a great day. I can't tell you how people would have reacted, but I'll tell you morally, I would have had no problem with it

because it was true. But I also believe that then Jamie Fox wouldn't be Jamie Fox. by all accounts, everything I know about him both from his public persona and from people who know him well, he's just an extraordinary person.

And I think the fact that he, and again, I don't think he should have had to apologize as if he said something anti-Semitic and now felt bad about it. To the extent that he apologized, I think, and I hope that his framework was, I said something that was totally innocuous and innocent, but I did not know about, you know, I had no idea that you heard it the way you

would hear it, and I'm sorry for, you know, I'm sorry for any hurt that you felt from this, even though it was absolutely not intended. I think the fact that he said that, even though I don't think morally that was necessarily required, that's the kind of spirit of magnanimity that will get us closer to goodness rather than further away from it. But that has to do with Jamie Fox. When it comes to the actual, like, real anti-Semitism that anyone who cares to look can see on all those posts and all that kind of stuff, like there's real bad stuff there. That actually thing needs to be reckoned with. But that's not on, again, that's not on Jamie Fox. I want to talk then about the point that you made at the end there, which is about proximity to

whiteness. This is where I think making that distinction. between the people who raised hell about this specific issue, Jamie Fox, and the people who did not and could not raise hell about it, is actually really, really important. When you describe Jews, like, Judaism or American Jewry as being proximate to whiteness, so you're describing a very specific and very culturally salient type of person. You're describing somebody who can basically be a chameleon,

like someone who can dress however they want, you know, wear whatever they want. They don't have to, they don't, you know, can have a beard, have not have a beard, can not go to synagogue ever, doesn't ever observe the Sabbath, eats whatever they want, can eat at any restaurant, all the things that I can't do and no one in my family can do and no one in my community can do. I mean, it's really easy to be Jewishly invisible in this country. and if you do that, if you take advantage of that, and you also have skin that looks like mine,

then you can. You can truly get all of the advantages of whiteness with very few the downsides. Not that there are no downsides, but a lot of those downsides kind of existed once upon a time are not as salient now. You know, we couldn't get into medical schools, law schools.

We were barred from all sorts of, I mean, you know, there are these really infamous, like, no Jews need apply signs on buildings and all that kind of stuff. But nowadays, much less salient, you can be, you can camouflage yourself if you want to. But that kind of very culturally powerful segment of the Jewish community is dying out. And the people who are kind of the, at least, again, just demographic future of the Jewish community, don't have that cultural salience at all. We can't camouflage.

We look a certain way. We eat a certain way. We observe a certain way. We live every single day, really every single minute and every single hour a certain way. We can't get out of those things. I mean, we could choose to rebel against those things. But, I mean, if you think about the world the way we do, we can't escape those things any more than a leper can change its spots. So we're bound to those things.

Now, Jews who look very, very visibly Jewish don't get any of those privileges that you're describing or that I'm describing. They just don't. It's just a fact. So you can get beat up. You don't get, you know, you're not invited to the Oscars. You don't get, you know, reservations at fancy places. You don't get all of these, you know, fancy hookups in L.A. or in New York or whatever it is. You're just very visibly Jewish.

People think you're really weird. They don't want us to sit next to you on the bus. And they talk about us like we're some characters out of the Handmaid's Tale. And so what ends up happening, and this is kind of an internal Jewish dynamic, but it's one that I really wish Americans understood, like real, mainstream Americans understood. What happens internally in the Jewish community is something horrible will happen to

the visibly Jewish community, whether it's a violent attack, whether it's murder, literal, whether it's like a killing, or whether it's just discrimination or just people being nasty to us on the street, which happens all the time, or whether it's me taking my kids to camp

and having someone come up to me in front of my kids and being like, hey, I just want to make sure you people aren't moving in here. And when all of those things happen, what we get told by the camouflageable Jewish community is don't complain about this because look at all the privilege you have. And they're really describing themselves, but they're taking their own privilege and blaming us for it. So we get told, first of all, that we, that, well, we're getting, like, you get victimized twice in that way. You get all of the disadvantages of being very visibly Jewish in a way that you can't change. And then you get told that you can't complain about it because all the people who don't have that burden and responsibility don't have to deal with it.

So now the fact that they're proximate to white privilege is now our problem. So I guess what I would say is when people treat the Jewish community like a monolith that has one representative and that representative is the collective voice that is kind of. constantly literally complaining about anti-Semitism and trying to punish people for it and doing absolutely nothing else Jewish during their daily lives, when people assume that that's the entire Jewish community, that's where a lot of hate and harm comes into play. And when I think about it in the context of our specific communities, I actually think that's one of the biggest barriers to us not just getting, you know, getting on to get along, but actually potentially even thriving together.

What I would hope would come out of an incident like this, which I'll say it again, I think was based on nothing. What I hope comes out of it is not only my community kind of learning a lesson about asking questions, but I think also, I think also mainstream Americans, and I hope people in your community learning to ask kind of. just deeper and more sophisticated questions about us because the more we do that, the more we'll learn, the more we'll learn that actually a lot of the issues we face are very different, but we can learn from each other. And I think the more will, we'll be able to see that the kind

of civic forces that benefit from us being pulled apart all the time will become more and more frustrated. And that will only be a good thing for America. You really just took exactly what I was about to ask you because I was going to say, what do we take from this? You know, I listened to the way you described Jamie Fox and the person that, you know, you see him publicly and also what you know from behind the scenes. And maybe I missed this, but I didn't see anyone from the Jewish community come out and say the things that you're saying. Or to come out and say, hey, this is what this really means. you know, we shouldn't jump. You know, this is a dangerous road to go down.

You know, this is what happens with somebody who doesn't understand. Either community speaks out, you know, in regards to Jennifer Aniston. I didn't see any of that. I mean, even the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, you know, thanked him for his apology and said, you know, thanks for the clarification with nothing else there. And so that is what I would say for both sides. You know, we're having a beautiful conversation. I don't know how other, how many others there are out.

there. But what do we take from this? So first of all, that's such a good question. First of all, the ADL is not the king of the Jews. And I realize in the context of Christ killers, no, it's just in the context of Christ killers, that was an opportunity for make a good New Testament. Gospel pun.

But in all seriousness, like the, I think it's, it's understandable why people think the ADL just represents us. Like, I actually get why people would feel that way because they do a lot to promote that perception. They don't represent us.

They increasingly just don't represent where the community is going. So first of all, just that's important to say. Second of all, I think that there should be more voices in both communities

who should see it as their not just like responsibility, but as an amazing opportunity for kindness and magnanimity to say, hey, this is actually, this is actually a chance for asking questions,

so let's do that in good faith. I'll actually name check a specific friend of mine, and I encourage people to follow him. His name is Israel Schechter. He actually is one of the people that Jamie Fox reached out to. He wrote a beautiful post on Instagram, just really sticking up for Jamie Fox,

calling out the anti-Semitism of those people in the comments that needs to be called out, but sticking up for his friend and doing it in the context of, hey, how do we improve these kinds of conversations? It was a great Instagram post. And you have voices like that.

I'm hoping that I can be one of them. But the larger thing that needs to happen here is our communities, I think, need to realize that sometimes when you have a house and it's built on a foundation of rotting wood, you can make as many renovations in your kitchen as you want. But the end of the day, what you really need to do is just tear the whole thing down, get the wood out there, and build a foundation on concrete. we have that relationship in our communities right now.

It's built on a foundation of rotting wood because it's built ultimately on a completely value-negative assault on external pressures and fighting prejudices and bigotries. It's not built on shared values, but it could be built on shared values. Here's what I'll tell you about the future of our communities. The black community, and this is just, I mean, I feel like this is not.

common knowledge in the in in u.s but if you look at the demographics disproportionately a community of a community of faith and takes its faith seriously it's a community that i mean has never confused is able to recognize the levers of power and how they can be used for good but also for deep evil you look at the jewish community and increasingly even though again this is not the public like the mainstream public perception of the Jewish community you get from Hollywood or the movies or whatever it is. It's not like the Jewish community is all Woody Allen's with a couple of weirdos with long beards here and there sprinkled in.

The future of the Jewish community, like the demographic future of the Jewish community, is faithful, takes our traditions and our peoplehood and our history seriously. And as a consequence, even though there's some real deep divisions between our two communities, I actually think if we did the hard work of speaking through a lot of those things,

what could emerge in its place is a true friendship between communities that are built on positive values like justice, mercy, kindness, loyalty, and care for the people who care for the needy and empathy for the powerless. and therefore, when we go out and fight bigotries together, those bigotries would not be because what we have to do it because we all marched at Selma. It would actually emerge from those positive values. We would fight each other's bigotries because we share dreams together,

not because we have to because someone made a movie about it. I think if we can do that, this episode will actually have positive consequences. Now, it doesn't mean, and, you know, Van and I having like a two-hour conversation is proof positive to this. It doesn't mean the conversations are simple. They're

complex, they're nuanced, and they will be difficult, but they're eminently worth having. Eminently worth having. Right. We appreciate your time. I'm going to let you go. Before I do, I want to,

I do want to say one thing here. I think it's important to say. And we talked about this a little bit when we were on the phone. And this is why I feel like these conversations have to be hard and we have to make them hard. You have to make them hard. You looked at what was under Jamie Fox's comment. You saw a lot of his apology and stuff. You saw a lot of things you didn't like.

A lot of angry people that were saying things that were, I'm sure, were disgusting, right? and disgusting and low-hanging fruit and he'll find that in my community too the other way for sure. Right. So yeah, and I want to kind of discuss a couple of things. This is the way I feel.

And maybe I'm wrong to feel this way, but this is the way I feel. I don't feel like there is equal accountability here. I'll tell you what I mean. I'll give you a couple of examples. We talked about one on the phone. When I was working at TMZ, the guys there would speak in Yiddish. They would speak in Yiddish.

And every once in a while, not all the time. Everybody's going to be like, we don't want to run the audience, around the office speaking Yiddish and stuff like that. But I would hear certain terms. I'd be like, what's going on? What's happening there? And so I asked a girl that worked there named Carly,

always Steinberg. She just got married. I was like, what are they're talking or what they're saying? And she taught me some Yiddish words. She taught me a word, goy, which is, I guess, when you're not a Jew, you're outside of it. She taught me, there was a couple of other words that she taught me. Then she taught me one word, the word was Schwarza. And she was like, if you ever hear yourself referred to as a Schwarza, that's bad.

And I was like, why is that bad? And she was like, well, that's like the N-word in Yiddish. That's like a Yiddish word that means that's a slur to black people. My question back to her was, why is there a slur in Yiddish to black people? And she's like, I don't know. She's like, it's like it's not something that I say, but like my grandparents or other people like that, you would hear them say. It's like, well, why would that word exist? And the reason why I bring that up is because I think that what we have to confront in both of our communities is the

pernicious elements of it. And I don't want to leave this conversation without the without discussing that I do think that there is an anti-black sentiment that led to the way Jamie Fox was dealt with here. And I've seen

it before. This is not to bring anybody else into this argument. Cyril Silverman very famously, very famously did a sketching blackface. She very famously did an entire sketch in blackface.

She's blackface, the whole nine, blah, blah, blah, made her a big deal. And whenever she's asked to reconcile that,

it's always in the context of cancel culture. She talked about a role that she lost. She talked about, she talks about and out of context,

it looks totally racist, out of context, in context. it's not as racist as it looked. She's able to walk through society without having to get on her knees and go, please, please, please black people,

forgive me for doing something that is so easily and demonstrably racist and dehumanizing. She just doesn't have the same burden. And I see that all the time. And we as black people, like, we see that. We see that Jamie Fox or whomever else, I mean, Nick Cannon, for all of the actually dangerous things

that were said on that podcast, had to do an entire circuit of education, of going places to make sure everyone knew that anything that, you might think was burning in the embers of his mind was not there. And Ari, I'm going to be a ally of yours and a worker of yours. And a worker with you, shall I say, an ally of yours, and I'm going to work with you to foster better relationships between the black and Jewish community and build a relationship.

but I want everyone to hear me. Like, there's no other way to say this, but like, we're not stupid. And I know you don't think that. But it doesn't seem like it's the same. And I would be like lying if I didn't say that the first conversation that needs to be had and not on a podcast between me and you for another three hours where we get way off track and we do all of that stuff. and we start talking about all kinds of shit

that didn't have nothing to do with what we was talking about and then you start cutting me off and I start cutting you off and we did the whole nine and I really do consider you to be a friend and one of the wisest people I know in my life but there also has to be a conversation in there about how black people are treated

and how they have been treated here in America and any community that's been involved in that we have to excise that before we can get to a place where we can build. And I'm willing to do the work on my side, but I have got to know that people in the Jewish community

are willing to do the work on their side as well. As long as I know that, it's gravy. That's such a rich piece that you gave there. Okay. I want to say two things. One is without getting into the question of Yiddish linguistics. Which I'm an expert on, by the way. obviously. I took that for granted, but just in case Rachel's not.

It's definitely not the equivalent of the N-word. Like, just historically, linguistically, like, you have people who literally came over here, like, couldn't speak English. There's no way, like, just historically, there's just no possible way for that to be the case. Is that, that may be how, like, you know, assimilated Jews, like, the kind of chameleon type that I described earlier use it because that's kind of their way to escape all of the censorship around the actual N-word. Is that possible, even probable?

That's how it was used by people that you interacted with? Definitely. And that's a problem. But it's actually really important to distinguish between, and this is why it's really important to distinguish between different types of Jews. For example, if you look at how, again, visibly Orthodox Jews, not once upon a time,

not back in the early days of Sarah Silverman's career, but like now, like literally today you go on Netflix, how they and we, but especially like in the Hasidish community, for example, are still now portrayed. I mean, there's some pretty sickening stuff. I remember there was one that went around Twitter like last year where there was like some really popular medical show,

like on NBC or something, where the literal plot of the episode revolved around some, I don't even want to say it, but some actor cosplaying as a Hasidic Jew wearing, I mean, just looking absolutely

like a weird, like, anti-Semitic pageant where the whole plot of the episode was that a person, that the patient was going to die because she didn't want to accept the transplant from like,

I think the phrase was dead guayem leg. Again, like some just total weirdo conspiracy, blood libelie nonsense. And, you know, that trope because, you know,

you know, we try to have a sense of humor when we can because we know nothing else really works. You know, Dead Goyim Leg became like a trope on, you know, like Jewish and from Twitter. But I think this is why it's really, really important to distinguish between different types of communities. Like, yes, there are bigotries, just like they're bigotries in your community against the Jewish community,

there are bigotries in the Jewish community against the black. community. And depending on the community, those bigotries actually have very different flavors. And it's important to distinguish them so you can combat them. And we both need to do that. But what I will say is, and I think this is a more important point, or at least it's a point that I feel like we couldn't end the conversation without making it. We could go back and forth for literal hours and hours and days and days tallying up all the culturally specific grievances that we have

and we have them and they're all real. I don't want to minimize them. Like they truly are real. And neither of us, at least in the short term, I think in the long term, we actually could make progress on them and get past them. But in the short term,

neither rest are going to feel satisfied by that conversation. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't have that conversation. We should. like, Van, I'm glad you raised this because it wouldn't have been an honest conversation if you didn't. I also feel at the very same time that this actually is the temptation

that you can find in the Bible and you can find it in secular culture this very day. And it's the temptation of idolatry, whether, again, you think about that in a biblical sense or in a kind of a, you know, postmodern sense. But the tentations, is to say, well, how could you believe in, you know, a cosmic benevolent sovereign if they're suffering in the world and you haven't worked out why there's starvation in this country and why

that country's so messed up and why there's inequity and injustice in this society? How could you believe in something big and good and true and larger and long term if we can't solve all those immediate problems? And that's where kind of, you know, paganism, literal or metaphorical comes in and says, well, that's true. You know, we can't solve all the problems right away all we're left with their questions. And so really the only thing that's real in your life is power. So worship the storm god, worship the god of the sea, worship the god of fire, worship the god of fertility. Because at the end of the day, all that matters is power. And all that matters is that you have it and the other person doesn't or they have it and you don't. The actual courageous move

that has been hallowed by history, and I think we have a choice whether or not we want to seize it, is to say, okay, I cannot solve all of the problems right now. I can't figure out how to explain why children in this country are suffering. I can't. But I also know that if I just give in and say it's all about power and basically just refuse to answer the question, refuse to even try to answer the questions, we're all just going to be fighting forever.

So in this case, I cannot tell you, and I wouldn't be honest if I told you, that there are no bigotries in my community and you wouldn't be honest if you told me there are no bigotries in your community. And we could agree or disagree about which one has more or which one has less or maybe they're just incommensable

and you can't compare them. But I think what we can do at the same time as we're acknowledging those things is say aspiration is possible. Our communities, there is a world, there is a world, a possible world in which our communities

are friends in the truest sense. We have loyalty towards each other. We show kindness towards each other. We fight for each other's justice and for our own justice and all of those fights emerge out of a shared ethic of dreaming and of hope. And the question therefore we have to ask ourselves

is kind of the question that Esther gets asked by Mordecai in the book of Esther, which is, listen, I don't know why you got here. I can't explain it. But who knows if the reason you came to this kingshipers for a moment such as this. I mean, we're all here. I can't explain why we're here and I can't frankly explain to you the genesis of all the bigotries that we both respectively possess. But I can tell you that you and I, that the two of us, that the two of

you and I are talking for a reason. I can tell you that Jamie Fox and Israel Shecht are friends for a reason. I can tell you that these conversations are happening now in the age of Twitter and Instagram and TikTok and Snapchat and YouTube, like the age of influence where actually we all can talk to each other at scale. These episodes are all happening now for a reason. We have an opportunity to have conversations with each other, real conversations, not Twitter dunking. We have the opportunity to have real conversations with each other that we never had before. And we can either choose to use that to dunk on each other at a scale we've never seen in human history, or we can use those conversations to work towards a redemptive future. And to me, I know the latter is much

harder, much harder, but it's also the only one that holds out any hope for flourishing for us. So I hope we choose it. And Van and Rachel, I'm with you guys if you're on that path. And I know you'll be with me if I'm on it too. It's Dr. Ari Lam, Rabbi Dr. Ari Lam, right there, you guys, the podcast is Good Faith podcast. On 30, number 38, he might go up after this. Yeah, I was like, you guys, I mean, you couldn't even get top 20. You could, you could move up. You could move up after this.

this. Like you might move up after this. Look, man, I really do appreciate you. We enjoyed having you today. We're actually better off for it. And we'll talk. We'll talk very soon. Thank you for joining us on Higher Learning. Are you? Thank you guys for having me. I really, really, really appreciate it. True. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping, then you'd want a cargo liner or 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

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That was Arielyan. What did you think? I always learn so much from Mari. Always. Like better for everything on. Smart, compassionate, good human being. My gosh, I know. Me and him argued so much on the phone.

You didn't hear it. But like, are you respectful? Yeah, of a goddamn holy man. He did curse in front of him. Yeah, I cursed in front of people. He's a holy man. I know. I know.

I know. No, I just, you just feel his spirit through the podcast. I do. I really enjoy him. And I am going to do his podcasts. Do you worship him or something? Like, what's going on with this? How do we jump to that?

Are you just like, you're talking about you feel? his spirit. Like how genuine he is. Like, I thought you meant like maybe you caught the Holy Ghost of Ari Lamb. Like what you, if you started a cult, would you be in it? Chloe's back. Chloe, jump on the mic real quick before we talk about one of the most important moments in Black history. What's up? Chloe, I was telling Rachel when you were in the meeting about your parents in their telemarketing love affair. Right. So tell Rachel, I love it. Your dad was what now, he was who? He was working in sales on the phone, and I guess my mom had answer was on the phone, and

I don't know, I guess he just sounded nice or something, because from there, asked her on a date, and then the rest is history. Boom. It's crazy. That's beautiful. Yeah. Your mom is a risk taker. Right?

Like, in this day and age, like, it could never happen. Yeah. Well, in this day and age, they would have met. Do they still have telemarketers? I guess they do. That's what I'm saying. Like social media, like it's different. You can see their faces and whatnot, but.

We also don't pick up the phone. That's facts. Are your parents still together? Yeah. 26 years. We got to have a call in. We got to hear the voice. We have to.

What if her mom talks all? Did she talk all sultry? What was he on? Your dad was on some weird shit, huh? Yeah, definitely. She said it. He was on some weird shit. What's his name again?

Trent. Trent. That's a fuck boy name. I'm not going to lie. Trent is the type of like Trent. Where do you go to school? He went to C-Sung. Damn, Trent from C-sun.

Hey, bro. Hey, dog, bro, bro. Look, dog, I was up, you know, I was at that little gig I got. You know what I'm saying? I was at that little gig. And I called this chick on the phone, bro. Her voice was just kind of crazy, man. Nah, Trent, you tripping.

You tripping. No, man. She sounds She sounds like she Exotic, bro Like she's on some exotic shit, man You know, Corey's mom is Asian She's on some exa

I got a foreign dog I ain't coming to the To the fish fry tonight Ah, dog, I'm going to see What's your mom's name? I'm going to see tea That's what happened Chloe you're going to learn

That you cannot give him Anything I'm going to see tea, bro You can't give him anything He will take it What? Where's your dad from? Pasadena, which I was going to add that makes, that makes like justifies why.

I feel like people from Pasadena are a different breed. And I can say that because I told you to stop, Chloe. What the fuck are you talking about? I told you to stop. That's not even never. People from Pasadena. What do you mean? I'm not from here.

So what does that mean? They just. The boy from Pasadena. Shout out to Hipoy and Big Hit. What does that mean? They just act a bit different. Like. In a good way.

And it could be. It could be. if the kids are related in anyway. But that's what I think. You know, there's been a whole Reddit post on that. Hold, like. Welcome, Chloe.

Welcome, Chloe. Chloe the alien. Trent. It is like a frat boy day. He's probably involved in gangs, gang violence. Wow. And that saved his life. You know what I'm saying?

T saved his life. T and Trent. What? It's T and Trent. It's a love. story. All right, let's fucking talk about it. You guys are really going to think that I'm overreacting,

but one of the most important moments in recent black history happened. Saturday evening, Montgomery Riverfront Park. The riverboat is the Harriet 2. Also, okay. Harriet. Bro, how much fucking symbolism do you need? Oh, I got a whole list of it. You got a list of the symbolism?

Okay. Let's get through the story first. Let's get to the story. You know what? We don't even have to do a whole long thing. Everybody knows about the fade in the water. Who titled it? The fade to water happened between a group of thuggish, bloodthirsty whites

who thought that today was the day that they were going to roll black the clocks and lynch a black man. they got the years wrong. They thought it was 1923. They might have thought it was 1953. They might have thought it was 1963. But it's 20, 23.

And we ain't fucking having it. Descended onto this family and put the fucking beats on them. Hallelujah. Pass the potato salad. Rachel. I felt so great about this moment. This is one of the best moments in my life. This is one of the best things I've ever seen happen.

How many times did you watch it? I can't even count. Can't even count, right? I watched it. I watched it all the remixes. From every angle. Every angle. Every meme.

And what was beautiful about it is not only did, was it happen and recorded properly. I would like to say that. People were like, we need context, we need context. We saw from the beginning. We saw the initial punch. We saw how it. escalated. We saw how it ended. We got left, right, front, we got everything. It was perfect. And then we took that and brought it to social and just had a field day uniting with it.

Now, Van Mentioned symbolism. There are a few things that are representative of Montgomery, of where this all happened. You pointed out on social, people credit Montgomery is the birthplace of the civil rights movement. That's one. There's a history on that risk. the Alabama River that was on, it was a major center for domestic slave trade in the South. And slave people were transported on this river, unloaded on the dock, and then sold in the square on an auction block. So a lot of history in that place. Also, Harriet, Harriet, too. We know what Harriet One did.

This is Harriet Two. And last but not least, the folding chair was invented by a black man. What? The folding chair, as we know today, was invented by a black man. Let me get the name. We fashioned our own weapon. It's so much. If you guys didn't see the video.

John Cram. John Cram gave that motherfucker a cram sandwich. I want to say a couple of things about the video. First of all, why it means so much to me. A lot of narratives were dispelled in this video. A lot of commonly held narratives about black people are dispelled in one video. Okay. One, black people can't swim.

Not true. Not true. C-Mirder. S-E-A. Michael B. Phelps. Aquilad. These are all the things. You don't know what I mean?

They're calling this man. He got a lot of different names. Donnie, what's the best name that you heard for our 16-year-old hero? I want to say that this young man is still a minor. And we are not going to go around searching for him. There have been some people that have come out on his behalf and spoke for him. But the names were going up. Some of the best of Scuba Gooding Jr.

Black woman. Black woman? Like, so this is my deal. Secondly, is that black people don't show up for each other. And that's a very important narrative to combat. What moves me about this is that there was an injustice being done. There was a black man in peril. By the way, he didn't.

not seem fearful. The black man. No. He threw his hat off. He had authority there. He had told these people to move their whack-ass pontoon boat so that the Harriet two could dock. And somehow we get from there to them trying to hurt him. And at these moments, this is when we need to say no.

This is when we need to say it's worth going there. In this video, there was self-defense. Absolutely. Self-defense. But there was also a line that was drawn. There was a line that was drawn that said, hey, there are consequences for doing what you did to him. That we will hurt you back. And guys, I swear to God.

that sometimes it seems like I'm some sort of radical. No, what fucking I am? What am I talking about? I'm not going to couch it for y'all. I believe is slapping the shit out of people back. And I absolutely don't believe that in this particular world, you get anything from not doing that. I don't.

What I believe is that that gets you into heaven. And that's what you should do. But I believe that what you have to do is, show someone that there are penalties for hurting you. It's a kid telling my dad, I told my dad, I don't know if I ever told you guys some story before. Maybe I have, probably have. I told my dad, I said, Dad, I'm going to have a fight tomorrow. You announced it?

I told him. I knew it had to happen. Okay. I'm saying? You never, that never happened? I didn't announce a fight. And I had to tell my father that's like, Dad, I wanted to talk to him. I was like, Dad, I'm going to have a fight tomorrow.

Okay. I knew that this guy at school, it wasn't nowhere around it. Tomorrow I was fighting him. I knew that. My dad goes, can you whoop him? And I was like, I don't know. The answer was really no. He was like, can you whoop him?

I was like, I don't know. The answer was really no. And my dad goes, well, the good thing about that is you don't have to whoop. And I was like, what do you mean? He's like, the important thing is not winning the fight. The important thing is that you fight. Show up. And he said, defending yourself is sometimes just letting the other person know that you can hurt them.

He was like, son, when you're fighting tomorrow, do something. Stand up there and stand your ground and try to win the fight. But make it not worth anybody's time to fight you. Rip his shirt, bite him, bloody his nose. If you got two black eyes, give him one. Just do something. Make him feel you. Make him feel that is not worth it.

to fuck with you. And for a long time, I feel like what we've been trying to make people feel is that they shouldn't fuck with us, right? Is that it's wrong to fuck with us. Yeah. Not that we will fuck with them

back. Yeah. Right? It's wrong to do me like this. Not if you do me like this, I'm gonna fucking do you too. And I swear to God, we didn't try to everything else. And I'm not talking about always in a violent sense.

I'm talking about in a political sense, I'm talking about in a social sense, in an intellectual sense, there have to be consequences for injuring and putting in peril black safety. Yeah.

That's what the fuck happened here. We rip your boat off. We take you out the boat. We rip you right out of, we whip you right out of your fucking crocks. now there's a downside. Everybody got arrested. Yeah. What do you think about that? I mean, I'm not shocked

that everybody got arrested, but it's a small price to pay for what that moment represented. Are you telling me that should they have been arrested? I think if I'm speaking in terms of a bigger sense, you arrest everybody until you figure out what happens and you can sort it out from there. But even if they got arrested,

Look at what this meant to so many people. It's a small price to pay, in my opinion, for what it meant. Like, look how you came on this podcast. Look at what I'm talking about. Before I get into it, what happened the next day as a fight? What, what did you finish the story? You were going to fight? What happened the next day?

Oh, okay. But I will tell you this. I mean, like, he was like, I think, maybe I was like nine. I think he was like 11. You know what I mean? And he tried to, because what's what happened. So we had all got chips for, like, half the class got chips. Got a little chip party because they got grades.

And I got a chip party. And he asked me for one of my chips. And I was too scared to say no. And I gave him a chip. And when I gave him the chip, the teacher saw it. And the teacher saw it and she threw my chips away. Because I was supposed to give chips to somebody who couldn't get the grades with his dumb ass, right? I felt like such a hoe.

That's the last time it ever happened. I felt like such a hole. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to fight this nigga. That's why you decided to fight him. He was kind of a bully type. I was like, I'm going to fight this nigga. I'm going to fight him.

Tomorrow I'm going to fight him. It wasn't even no real thing. I was like, I'm going to fight him tomorrow. Like, I'm going to fight him tomorrow. I don't want to feel like I have to give my chips to somebody. I just don't, I'm not, that's not me to feel that way. I might have been younger than this. I might have been, what was his third grade?

what age are you in the third grade? Nine? Like something like that? Yeah. So I was like, I don't want to feel like like I have to get my chips with them. So tomorrow I'm just going to fight them,

get the fuck overweight. And so I remember I hit him in the face while we were singing the national anthem. We were singing the national anthem and I did like this and I slapped him in the face on purpose and then that's how we got it popping. Like I started to fight. I had to fight them.

Okay. And so. Okay. Nah, he definitely dogged me, but you know what I did? I bust his nose. And I remember, I never forget.

My home boy Jane was like, shit van bust him. buses, no, he was bleeding. And after that, guess what happened? Me and he became friends. Try to give me to play Dutges and Dragons. I'm not playing that devil shit. When we watched Batman and all of that stuff, I had to fight him to get him off my ass.

And to gain respect, he also started it. And also, this was not the reason for a fight. I did not start it. He was trying to exert his dominance over me. And I had to fight him. He asked for a chip. Nah, he didn't really ask. He kind of was like, made it seem like it was going to be

Story changing. He made it seem like it was going to be consequences and repercussions if I didn't give him a chip. I said that before.

But you didn't say that's why you were scared. You said, you didn't say I was scared because I was scared to nine.

He made it seem like I didn't want to have a nigger getting my chips. They're my chips. And I felt so played. It was like in slow motion

when the chips fell off of the napkin. She took the chips and she threw it out in front of me. She took the chips out. There was on a little

napkin and she went, like, I said, don't share your chips with nobody. You got the good grace. Now look at them. I look down there in the mud. I saw them chips down there. It was in the dirt.

The first thing in my mind was like, you could probably still get the one on the top. But I saw them chips down there in the dirt. I'm like, I was pissed. I go back in there, I see this nigga laughing. I'm like, nah, fuck all that. What kind of chips? They were just the regular lace.

Okay. But I'm like, I'm like, nah, fuck all that. So I'm home the whole night. I'm stewing. Daddy get home. Like, yo, I'm going to have a fight tomorrow. I can't have the chip feeling. And being a black man, sometimes being a black person, he was white.

No, he wasn't white. This nigga is South Bad Ruse. Like, it's like, she went to white school later. I was later, I went to a, I didn't, I never went to a white school. I never went to a predominantly white school. Oh, I thought you were, oh, I thought you did.

I went into the, I was in the gifted program. So the classes were white, but it was always in South Bad Roots. So it was McKinley. McKinley High, whatever, McKinley Millimanide, whatever. But as a black man sometimes, a black person, it always feel like somebody taking your chips and throwing them away in front of your face. And then we just say, hey, it's

really bad when you throw our chips away. But we never, we don't enough, should I say, say, hey, we about to fight. So it's important though, I'll say this real quick. It is important that they don't have to pay a price.

And what I mean by this is, these people who are involved in this. I know that some of them have been identified, okay? Yes. And I get that there might be a situation to where some of these people that are involved, some of these brothers and sisters, don't want people to know who they are. I get that and I have a lot of space for that. I'm letting them know right now. That's cool. Your anonymity and who you are, if you don't want to be a big thing, that's amazing. However, if you need help, I'm letting anyone that was involved in what happened in Montgomery know that if you need help, there are conversations being had amongst a network of people.

And we are totally prepared to help you guys in whatever you need. So how can they find you? I'm telling you right now. Like DM, whatever, there is a network of people that is all. come together that is looking and trying to make sure that anyone who needs something that was involved in the situation has with any. Yeah. That's good to know.

This is what I'll say. This happened like a day, maybe two days after Trump was in Montgomery. So Trump comes to Montgomery, which already just feels wrong because of what Montgomery represents, you know, to black people. So to have Trump there, you know, all the things that he was saying was inciting these people and white, the white people who support him. Black people do too, but you know what I mean. Um, inciting them, making them feel big and powerful and they're coming off this trump high. So then for a couple of days later, for this

happened, for this to happen also meant something. I think to me, it shows that we've had enough. To me, it also shows what happens when we can come together. Um, and stand up for ourselves. people are attacking us like you. I am not advocating for violence, but I do think this showcases in any means I'm advocating for violence where by any means necessary. You say what?

Advocating for violence where it calls for it. That's what I mean. I'm not saying I'm just, my natural thing is to say be violent, but by any means necessary, this called for violence. Yeah, when somebody is beating your ass, you don't have to pray it away.

I'm just letting everybody know. You have permission to smack the shit of somebody who's trying to hurt you or kick him in the shin. You don't have to pray it away with somebody is trying to fucking beat your shit up. And that's what I'm trying to say.

I think it's very important to say by any means necessary. That's why it was so important to have the beginning of that video because people were saying, oh no, he was attacked, he was attacked. But you know how it goes for us? You got to see it first

and you can see it clear as day that that man did not put his hands on that white man. That white man did. And then they jumped him and were beating him down. But then also, kind of what you were saying too, when we come together, whether it be by in that type of situation or just history shows us when we can come together, what powerful things we can do, we need, that needs to be an example of, hey, when we stick up for each other, when we support each other, when we have each other's back, if we put that energy into other areas when it comes to like what they did with the black power movement, what they did, you know, with racial pride, economic power, creating political. and cultural institutions.

I mean, you have that with history of BLM, how we came together after the murder of George Floyd. I mean, even in a positive way with the Harlem Renaissance, reconstruction, civil rights movement, all of it. And so I hope that, like, this energy is fueled into other areas. And I say that, too, because of another topic we're going to talk about later. Yeah. They sprinted to his defense.

Sprinted to his. I could have fucking cried when I saw it, man. Look, there's a lot of fun being had about this. But the reality is, if nobody else cares about black people, we have to care. Sure. And as much as I would love for it to be intersectional, everyone kumbaya situation, I want everybody to understand what the big deal is. I want everybody to understand the systemic and structural things

that have led black people to be so unsafe in America. I want everybody to understand it. I want everybody to be curious enough to jump in to what has made America as unequal as it is. I want that. I do. I want all of that. I want all the hugs.

I want all the love. I want all the togetherness. But what I want more than anything is for people to know, if you fuck with us, we will fuck you back. Fuck around and find out. Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling?

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Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Biden. Losing some support from black men. We're doing the same story again. We're doing the same story again. Recent polls are coming out,

showing that Joe Biden, who is the president of the United States. Did you know that? I did. That there seems to be an erosion. of support for Biden, once again, black men. Okay, let's make sure that we are, use a scalpel here and not a chainsaw.

The overwhelming support of black men still support Joe Biden, but at the margins that these elections are being decided now, if the support changes from 10% to 12%, you know what I mean, in terms of people who are not voting for, a particular candidate or voting for a particular candidate, then that could swing an election. A lot of black voters out there expected, from what people are saying, expected Biden and the Democrats

to push harder to protect voting rights. They expected more on police and criminal justice reform, student loan debt relief and economic empowerment. Some of these things are easier than others. Like, I think the numbers are something like raising the federal minimum wage would affect like 30% of black America. These are things that you could point to and say, hey, whatever. Those are things they're not doing.

Of course, we know that the Republicans have been being obstructionists in terms of getting some of this other stuff done. And so it's not a unilateral problem with the Democrats in the current administration, but it is one that they ran on. And, excuse me, some of this stuff, shall I say,

there are things that they ran on that they have not been able to do. Some of the polls are saying that black voter turnout has dipped, and we're talking about from 51.7% in the 2018 midterm elections all the way to 42% in 2022. White voter turnout has slipped

by only 1.5 points during that time. So look, Trump has 12% of the black vote in 2020. It was 4% of its points higher than it was in 2016. And we're saying right now, according to a rude to spoil, that 18% of black Americans would pick Trump over Biden in a hypothetical matchup compared to 46% who favored Biden, including about one in four black men compared to about one in seven black women. Black men were more likely to say that they would back a presidential candidate. that supported abortion restrictions and increased police funding to fight crime. That's when compared to black women.

All right. Listen, Rachel. What's wrong with y'all? Well, I'll, that's the question. The question is, on those issues, I don't know what to say. A lot of black men are more conservative than people. Well, the black community is a lot more conservative than people give it credit for. Yes, especially older.

Yeah. But look, is this just inevitable? which part of the of the the rightward shift of black voters particularly black men because this by the way this is not just happening with black men this is happening with Latino men this is happening to other place is a rightward shift in the black voting block just inevitable I don't know if it's because Biden's losing voters and I think part of it is it's not just that they're moving to the right it's that they're just disengate they don't even want to vote And so I think that's what's happening.

You didn't see them show up to the polls in the midterms. And the way they did in 2018 is not how they showed up in 2022. And that's what the statistics are showing. Somebody put it like this. It's like you have to give people something to, you can't just give people something to vote against, which is kind of how we felt in the last election. We just didn't want to see Trump there. You have to give people something to vote for.

and I think a lot of it comes to economics and economic issues. I think that, okay, you laid it out. Criminal justice reform, police reform, voting laws. We're seeing those things are not happening. A lot of the blame is on the fact that the Republicans in Congress are voting against the issues that Biden and the Democrats are trying to push through. and so they can't pass certain laws that would benefit us in what we're looking for and what was promised to us in the election.

But what they're also not seeing are their lives improved economically. And I think that if that happened, if there was, you talked about bringing up the minimum wage, if people started to see that, I think that would shift people back because there's been this promise over years and years and being made that your lives will be better off if you vote. in the Democratic, as a Democrat. Democrats protect, you know, those who don't have as much. They protect minorities. Like, that's what has been told to us. And in ways that's true, it would be worse if Trump was president. Trump already wants to get rid of certain institutions. You know, white nationalist seems to think that he's one of them. Racist thinks that he's one of them.

He incites this behavior. There are benefits to not having someone like him in office. But black people want to better their lives. And based on what the Democrats have shown, their lives are not being enriched as far as wealth is concerned. And I think if you could fix that, if that could help out just a little bit, it would close that gap. That's my opinion. So there's a robust document that I wish that everybody would read.

It's on the White House's website. and they talk about some of the things that the Biden-Harris administration has done for black Americans. Okay, it's a very specific document. Now, a couple of things here. I will say that this was from back in February. So some of the recent economic good news might not be reflected in that. Wherever there's going to be economic good news, it's going to be good for everybody, for black people. So, you know, we're probably not going to feel the effects from the economy turning around a little bit.

And it's not a seismic shift, but things are incrementally getting better. We're probably not going to fill that until sometime after the numbers. But, I mean, there are things here. Maybe we've talked about them before. Maybe we haven't. Economic opportunity for black families and communities. Joe Biden signed the American Rescue Plan or a rescue plan. We'll know that by the Paris and Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act

that created 12 million jobs and created new economic jobs. opportunities for African Americans, including black owned businesses, and made long overdue investments in black communities. The president's economic agenda has led to historical, historically low unemployment, including among black Americans. Okay. So let's take that as an example. That's true, right? That's true that all that stuff happened. It's true that black people will probably feel that. I think sometimes what we're talking about when we're dealing with specific voters is two things. One, I'll be honest, that at times there is a political ignorance that certain people have

that allows them to be manipulated. For sure. Okay. And I'll be very honest about it. It's the kind of person who would have any sort of allegiance to Donald Trump or say anything good about Donald Trump. because he took a picture with Lil Wayne or because they like the cut of his jit or because he's funny or because he doesn't take any shit

from anyone. People that Trump's personality and his overall aura and charisma resonates with him to a point. Well, I like Trump. Or they would look at the economy under Trump and go, hey, Trump was good. Trump, we had money under Trump or whatever and not factor in COVID or not

factor in any of the other things that didn't really have anything specifically to do with Donald Trump's policies and not really look at how much tax cuts raise the deficit and how that affects all of those other things. Those things might be a little too nuanced for parts of who we're talking about. And I'll be honest with you.

And there's a brain drain that goes into that as well. And I'll just be real. The fact that there might be some lagging educational factors that go into that. Well, sisters might be a little bit more educated. They might be paying a little bit better attention. Those are facts, okay? But they are small facts compared to what's really going on.

What's really going on is that people are starting to understand and not just black men. They're starting to understand that their vote is actually currency, that you are actually supposed to get something for your vote. and you're not supposed to get what they give you, you're supposed to get what you ask for. I often use the restaurant scenario when I'm talking about voting because that's how transactional

like that it's supposed to be. You go into a restaurant, you have a waiter. The politician is your waiter. The politician says, hey, what do you want? These are the prices. Your vote is. in this situation is the price that you're paying. And they go, okay, I'm going to go back here,

work with all of these people, and get what you want and bring it back out here. And you go, cool, nice, this works. You go into the restaurant and you say, hey, I want this, this, and that. Now, the waiter has two things that they can do. One, they can say, do you really want that? Because let me tell you the specials

and I have something better. And that's okay. So if there's a politician right now or any of, when we say, hey, we want police reform, we want voting rights protections, we want all of this. And they go, let me show you how my plan is going to address all of that, even if we can't get that specific legislation through. Meaning this economic thing makes it easier for you to do this, this or that. Maybe I can't get voting rights done, but what I can do is allocate money for you to do this and this and have this person pick this person up and bring you to the department. polls, have somebody wait, have somebody locally changed the hours, all of this.

There are things that I can do. Even if I can't do that thing that you think I need to do, right? And that's also part of the job of the waiter. The waiter is like, hey, I come in there. I really feel like I want steak. Hey, steak's going to be tough right now because, but let me tell you something about the lamb chops that we have. You're going to feel the exact same way, blah, blah, blah, whatever, whatever.

But if they tell you that they're going to give you a steak and then they go back, and bring out the Brandzino, you have a right to be like, hey, I'm sure this is good, but it's not what I asked for. Even if it is better for you, even if it does taste great, you have a right to be like,

I didn't ask you for the Branzino. What I asked you specifically was this. And even if they bring you a whole bunch of other stuff that's good that you didn't ask for, they can't say that they're going to do very specific things. and then fail on them in such a loud way without more communication about what's going on. I love that now.

And the administration is responsible for that. They're responsible not just for what they deliver. They're responsible for what we think we're going to get. And so I'm definitely willing to do the work on making everybody more politically literally literally, it so they can see wins in places those wins might have not been quite evident before and they can also understand

what a win is in a better way. Definitely down to do that. But it's been a long time with the Democrats. It's been a long time with them. And it's getting tiresome. So to your analogy,

let me just say this. I love that and all of that makes sense when you talk about the waiter being the politician and that politician or that waiter has to go back to the kitchen and tell them speak to, you said he has to go back and work with everybody. So he's working with the staff in the back and he's working with the chef and all of that to work together to bring you what it is that you pay for, what you desire, what you're demanding. In your analogy, they're all working together to make that happen.

Somebody, like the way the staff or the chef or whatever isn't always working together to bring that out. It's not. always that simple, which is where I think it comes in of what I talked about at the beginning, 2018 or 2022 to 2018, there's a huge difference in who showed up to those midterms to vote. The people that you're voting for is that staff in the back that's working to get you what you want. The waiter cannot do that by himself. He needs help from other people.

And that's where some of that stuff isn't happening. Well, then he's got to communicate. You're right. He's got to communicate. And even if he does say, hey, I know you want the steak, I'm going to give you the lamb chop because it's better. You are not better, but it'll give you the same thing that you want, even though it's not exactly what you want. Understand that. Still, sometimes that waiter can't do that or the waiter can't do any of that without the help of that staff. The reality is all the things that haven't gone right that we want it, I'll be honest with you.

Some of this stuff, this stuff is all very important, right? All very important. Police reform is important. Voting rights are important. All that stuff is important. Although I will say this, though, they could be making it more important than what it really is. And also we could be making it more important than what it is.

Voting rights are insanely, insanely central to being an American citizen. They are. They are. But essentially, and I heard Breonna, Joy Gray say this on rising. Essentially, voting rights and the taking of voting rights

has been a carrot dangled in front of black people in order to get them to the polls for very, very long time. During that time, other material changes that could affect the economic outcomes of black businesses, black neighborhoods, and affect the black family seem to

not have been pushed as hard as what they should be pushed. There's a lot of restorative work that has to be done, and there are resources that need to be allocated in order for that work to be done. Now, I want all of the things that we ask for, but I also want there to be conversation between political operatives, political campaigns, and political waiters, about their vision for the black community, not band-aids and not protections

that stop us from being slaves. I'm talking about a vision for growth and viability, right? And what does that look like? Sure, I don't want them to take this from you. Cool, they're voting. Don't tell me about what somebody's going to take. Tell me about what we're going to grow and cultivate. and like have a real conversation about it

so that our expectations are better informed. Now, while all of that's true, it's also up to people like us and other people to really have conversations with brothers and sisters and people in our community to let them know what exactly the stakes are, to let them know what exactly you do stand to lose. Because the Republicans are so stupid.

They are one. again showing an inability to read the cultural tea leaves. There's actually more opportunity for them to make inroads with black Americans. There's more opportunities. Don't tell them how. Black Americans have never been more willing to listen to an alternative since they've been aligned with the Democratic Party than they are now. And Republicans are hamstrung by the same thing that always hamstrings them,

which is the allegiance to the most putrid and racist parts of their base. That if you watch somebody like Vivi Ramoswamy, right, Vivek, excuse me, let me pronounce his name, Vivek Ramoswamy, right? He comes across as intelligent, charismatic, polished. You might listen to him, even though his policies are super fucking wacky and crazy. crazy right. But you might look at him and be like, there's a smart guy. There's a guy that seems like he is at least trying in some way to appeal to the better nature of people. I would never in a million years vote for him. I've watched a lot of his stuff recently for reasons that we might talk about pretty soon. And I could see why people on that side like him. Right.

Now, when you start talking about making people take a civics take. to earn the right to vote or raising the voting age to 25 or making people take a... It's all of that stuff. It's like a lot of wacky shit that's going on. But then you also delve into the crazy wokeism,

anti-Dei, identity politics that he says that he's fighting against, that really he's upholding by how extreme they are. The Republicans are giving black Americans no other choice but to view them as an enemy. So they're stupid.

One side doesn't seem like they understand how much we're actually, we actually need and are asking for. And they're saying, look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this, look at this. And there's not a real political relationship, it seems like there's a lot of, there's the illusion of a political relationship, but not one in any real way. And the other side is just hell bent on being so extreme and being so far right, so right, so racist and sexist and homophobic that you could not possibly ever envision yourself, not just voting for them, but voting for anyone who stands in the same room with them. Not only do I not want to vote for Trump,

I never want to vote for anyone that he's ever shaking hands with since he's been the Trump of the political era that we know. I'm sure there's some picture of him back in the day, shaking hands with Barack Obama or some dumb shit. But I don't want to interrupt you. No, I'm done. Okay. What I will give them credit for, you're right, and everything that you say,

but what they are good at doing is one, you spoke to, black voters are looking for alternatives more than they ever have. I think so, and that messaging comes from the right, talking about the things that Biden isn't doing, talking about the narrative. I hear black people say more than ever that the Democratic Party doesn't do anything for them.

That's a narrative that comes from the Republicans, but what I think they're even better at is disenfranchising us, coming up with policies that make it harder for us to vote, stacking the Supreme Court a certain way that makes us not even feel like this country, even more than we thought before, was not for us. They're great at that.

to the point where black people don't even want to vote, which in essence, they know how powerful the black vote is. So if black people don't show up to 2024 election, they win. So it's either bring them over to us or make them not even feel like their vote matters. And the latter is what they're doing. I guess, I mean, you're right. And I also think it's interesting that rather than try to go get black votes, that the answer is to make sure that black votes,

people can't vote. That tells you right now that somebody doesn't really want a caucus with you, right? They don't really want you a part of their thing. But it has to be educated on those things to know what's happening. Yes, in other states. I guess what I want to know is this. I'm going to have a lot of these conversations and maybe we should have another live event or something like that. For the black fellas, the black men specifically, my brothers that are listening to this and don't really have. a handle on what their political identity is, right? And I'm not saying you have to vote for anyone. Like, if you don't want to vote for Joe Biden, don't vote for Joe Biden.

I think it's important for people to understand what a vote for the other side means and kind of where they're taking their party and where they want to take America, right? I want to know from these people, this group of brothers out here, I want to know from them, what are the issues that their vote can be won on? I'm really interested to know that. It just an open and honest way. And when you say, when you say, man, more money and development into the, I get that. How, what does it look like to you?

Right. And if you need somebody to help you formulate that, that's cool. But I'm willing to bet that most of the brothers that are, like really engaged and say, this is why I'm going to vote for Donald Trump or this is why I'm voting for the Republican in my state, or not even specifically a character or a politician. This is why I'm moving to the right.

I bet they know specifically what they need. I know that they know specifically what they need. I'm not trying to pander or talk down to my brothers because I talk to them a lot. I know that they know what they need. I want to know what those things are. I want to have a conversation with some brothers that are that are leaning more.

right word. What could your vote be run on? And if it's on abortion or something like that, we got to have a conversation, my brother. Yeah. We got to talk. Okay. Um, this next was probably going to piss some people off. Okay. So we have all been celebrating black people showing up for one another. All of us. We've been celebrating this. And it's important to celebrate when black people show up for each other. It's important to remind America and the world at large that black people are willing

to do and always have shown up for each other. It's also important in my opinion to highlight when we don't. And there is a place right now in a situation right now

where I do not feel the community is showing up in the proper way. And that is in the death of O'Shea Sible. The stabbing death of O'Shea Sible. 28-year-old O'Shea Sibley stabbed outside of a mobile gas station

in Brooklyn. Shea Sibley was a dancer. It's a beautiful dancer. A person that everybody loved. Yeah. A person that everybody took inspiration from. They were dancing at the mobile gas station.

Story goes that someone told them to stop dance. He was mad that they were dancing. They were boeing, apparently. Directed some comments at him that sparked an argument that left O'Shea dead.

He was part of the ballroom community. He was with a group of friends. They were just coming back from a birthday celebration before they headed to the gas station. Now, a 17-year-old has been arrested in connection with Sibley's death. He's not being identified because he's a minor, but this stuff is on video.

See the stuff. See the knife in his hand. Or you can see him run over there. It's been charged with murder as a hate crime. We have not covered this story the way we need to. We haven't. Here on higher learning, we haven't covered this story the way we need to. That's true.

We haven't. The reason why we haven't covered this story the way we've needed to is because the reality is, I'm going to speak for myself. Okay. Not for Rachel. the reality is there is still something that doesn't knee-jerk like it should when someone is killed for being gay. There is still this internal thing that computes within the mind of people, myself included, that doesn't scream horrible, horrible, horrible injustice.

someone from your community needs help. Be that you're the black community, be it the human community, be it people that you want to see healthy and thriving and happy. There's still an otherness that every time we have an opportunity to fix and cure,

a lot of times we fall short. we've seen situations like this happen where they're racially based where it's specifically about black kids specifically about black people the response is different and I'm just being honest and as I take accountability

for me and a platform that I am on I also have to not lie about the fact that that's what I see out there. I see people who go, that's so sad. What else is on? And to me,

the fact that in order to deal with it in myself, I have to kind of understand where that comes from and what that's about, there's a moment there for us to all ask the question, is like why haven't we made this man who was killed for expressing himself for moving his body in the way that he was born to do it

by what looks to be non-black which is always the flashpoint for us to really get involved in something right? Because like if you have a group of black people that are into it with each other, we go, they're into it. But whenever there's another race that's involved, and I've seen the video,

I'm not sure this gentleman was a Muslim, so I'm not sure whether or not these were white Muslims or black Muslims. On the video, these looked like white people. I could be wrong. I don't know where they're from. They could be North African or whatever. I really don't know that part.

I'm talking about my ignorance. But even the optics of it, it seems like something that we should form like the Avengers in the same way that we did for the man on the river boat who we on the river dock who we're so happy that he didn't lose his life it seems like we should have that same type of energy and more so outrage to bring justice to this situation and even more than justice to make sure that we are so upset and incensed about this that the LGBTQ plus community knows that we care about their lives and that will be willing to

protect their lives before somebody is killed. And I got to be real, I haven't seen the response. I've seen a lot of the people who respond about every single time something like this happens. I haven't really seen them beyond this one. I've seen a lot of different people who are normally large voices on this not be as loud. and I am one of them. And so as I take accountability for what goes on with me

and what happens here, I'm asking the question, why does it seem like people, oh, too bad, so sad it, the death of this man who was out there just living his life and having fun. Why does it feel like that? Am I wrong for feeling like that?

you're not wrong for feeling like that is I mean that's how you what I mean you're not wrong for feeling like people aren't responding if that's the feeling that's not the other one um I did see a lot of people post on social which is how I became educated I saw it on social from several people before I saw it um read any article about it or media coverage on it I haven't really seen media coverage on television I'm mostly in print um you know, we definitely should hold ourselves accountable for dropping the ball in regards to not covering the situation, murder, what am I saying, for not covering the murder. I didn't take it as we're not covering it because we didn't have a knee-jerk reaction to it. I took it, and this is just as bad as we don't cover every single killing of our people. We don't cover every single injustice. sometimes it's fatigue, sometimes emotionally draining. And it happens so often. We just, we started our podcast doing that. And I remember when we were like, it's a lot.

That doesn't excuse the fact that we didn't cover O'Shea. And that's where we're wrong and we should. And specifically, if it's not being, you know, brought to the attention or black people aren't behind this murder in the way that they would be of, someone who was straight. So that's where we, you're right, we should have, we should have done better. It's not that

I had a reaction to it. I wasn't like it's so sad too bad, but I did not use my platform in a way that I'd sometimes do with others. I don't do it with everybody, but this should have been an example of doing that. And you're right. And you're right. And you're right.

So, you know, I just we're actively failing in this situation. And you know, I gotta be real, man. I really have a lot of work to do with this. And I think some of the issues surrounding it is that I didn't think that I did.

But I look at myself sometimes as like enlightened. and I really genuinely do want the best for everyone. And I understand historically and in the contemporary sense just how much the gay community has meant to black justice, always at the forefront of the movement. But even that, when I say that, it feels transactional. It feels like I should show up for them because they show up for me.

That others them. that makes them as something different than black. And I'm being for real, I don't feel like parts of the community, I'm not speaking for everyone, because I can only speak for, let me speak for me. Sometimes it doesn't feel like as much as we say that it's true,

it doesn't feel like we view them as us. I'm just being for real, I'm telling you right now, man, if a young man would have been out there dancing at a mobile station with his friends, and some dudes would have come along and killed some black kids for dancing and they would not have been gay.

They would have just been out there doing whatever and handing there's no gay. This is different. This is everywhere. We're doing the whole thing. It was muted for some reason. I saw it too. I saw a lot of people on social media.

I saw Ben Crump. I saw Melanie moves. I saw a bunch of other people. I've seen it. I'm not saying I have it. I'm not saying I haven't seen it, but I know it's not the same. There's not an outrage. It's almost like what I was talking about with Ari.

Like, I know it's not the same. Well, because, and we've touched on it a little bit, there is an existence of homophobia in the black community, whether people want to say it, say that's not the truth or not. I mean, especially in older generations. And so that sometimes trickles down to why certain people, don't view it in the same way, parts of the community as you're saying. I also think that, and I'm not saying this is what I believe, when you say people other

them in the black community, I think there are people, parts of the community, and this is problematic, who think I'm discriminated against because I'm black. You're discriminated against, yeah, because you're black, but also for other things that I am not. And I do think people other themselves. And I do think people separate the issues, which is wrong. And the reason we should have covered this, and we are covering it now, yes, but we're covering it in a response to the lack of coverage, right? There's a rising violence in the United States against the LGBTQ plus community, especially as people are more comfortable as they should be being themselves. And you're seeing a response. What happened, O'Shea? That could have been anybody. Just have.

hanging out at the gas station, listening and the music, dancing with your friends, coming back from a party, celebrating, you know, doing what you do to show joy and have fun, and a 17-year-old murders you for being you. That is happening more than ever in the United States,

and we should be talking about it. If he's not gay, he's a lot. If an argument pops off because they don't like the way he's dancing, And then that argument leads to somebody dead. We come back to the central truth of the entire thing. If he's not saddled with what society still feels like, is this uncurable and thinkable curse of life, which they still feel that way.

I don't care what anyone says. They grit their teeth and they try to be tolerant of it. They try to understand it. there's anything that you can't find the beauty in it, you're just tolerating it. They don't. Anything that you can't look at it and find the beauty in it, you're tolerating it.

Like when you eat fucking broccoli, right? Sometimes broccoli could be good, right? But you eat it because you know you have to. That's different than things that you do because they make you feel better. And as human beings, love makes us feel better. Togetherness makes us feel better, except for people that we don't feel like we should be loving and should be together with us. And until we really have a discussion about not just tolerating and not just accepting,

but like actually celebrating. You know what else adds to that? Like the people who are tolerating it and think that they're, you know, I don't know if they would call themselves an ally or not, but think they're okay with it because they're tolerating it or they're not hating against it. They also don't integrate themselves into the community. They're not attached to it. And that's also the problem. You're not going to be able to celebrate or understand anything unless you involve yourself. All right. I want to play a couple of... Let's do you pray for you next time. You want to do it next time? Donnie, what do you think? We're like two hours and 15 minutes.

and I feel like this could be long. Yeah, this is heavy. And with the clips and the talk around the clips, it might end up going probably 25, 30. I just, yeah. On the next show, the big deal of the day is Prager, you and how they're trying to educate the kids. Shout out to everybody over there

and what they got going on in Florida. It's really incredible. The bullshit that's happening. We can give them a teaser of what to expect. Why don't you play a clip? Yeah. Play a little bit of all Frederick Douglass. Yeah, play for, okay, this is, this is, we're going to talk about this in the next podcast.

This is some education that's going on from Prager You. This is what they're getting in Florida. This is real, guys. This is real. So let's play something from Frederick Douglass here for you guys to sink your teeth into until we do the next podcast. Frederick, talk to the kids. Children, our founding fathers knew that sluble. slavery was evil and wrong, and they knew that it would do terrible harm to the nation.

They wanted it to end, but their first priority was getting all 13 colonies to unite as one country. The southern colonies were dependent on slave labor, and they wouldn't have joined a union that had banned it. Are you okay with that? I'm certainly not okay with slavery, but the founding fathers made a compromise to achieve something great. Cut it, Donnie. In making of the United States. Cut it, Donnie. Freddie!

What is Frederick doing? He's been reborn. Freddie, no. I'm almost positive. Freddy's white. Freddy's definitely right. This country. This country.

We had millions of niggas in slavery, but it was okay. Freddie, God damn. You've changed. Freddie changed. Did you know what he didn't change? His hair.

They still got the hair. He said, they said, I like your hair. Yeah, see? They're coming through. But I like it. There's more videos. There's more videos. Prager You is approved by the Florida Education Department for public school use.

You guys, they're talking about, fuck it, never mind. That's the big deal of the day on the next higher learning. We gave you a robust episode. Thank you to Ari Lam. Thank you for Rachel for toughen it out with her COVID-filled-filled voice. Take your thin caps off, but do not stop learning. I am Van Lathin Jr. I am Rachel and Lindsay.

Donnie, take us out on that Gemini, Ramon, the OG. Not in my hood. Not in my hood. I wish you racist motherfuckers would. Not in my hood. Not in my hood. I wish you racist motherfuckers would. Try to come fuck with me and my...