Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Is Joe Rogan Racist? And the Consequences of “No-Knock” Warrants

Episode Date: February 8, 2022

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay introduce a new segment, The Big Deal, just in time to discuss the controversy surrounding Joe Rogan and his ensuing apology (5:10). Also, Awkwafina issues a statement via Twitter (50:23), and a reaction to Amir Locke’s unnecessary death and the concept of “no-knock warrants” (1:15:43).  Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producers: Trudy Joseph and Donnie Beacham Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Highland, it's on. It is I, Van Lathan. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, we got to get into some serious shit. But before we do, dispensing with the pleasantries today, no pleasantries. No pleasantries.

No pleasantries. I do want to say one thing now. Okay. Before this podcast, I was shooting the shit with Trudy. Mm-hmm. And I think I found out more about Trudy. in one mini combo than we have in all of these podcasts and everything else. Trudy, jump on real quick. What did Trudy say?

Ivan. Trudy, what team did you say you grew up being a lifelong fan of? I am a Duke Blue Devil's basketball stand. Trudy, do me a favor. Get off the fucking podcast. Who, what black Negro that didn't go to Duke? How in the world can you look at Duke as a nigger from Boston? I'm from Springfield.

Wherever. Stand up. Shout out 413. How could you look at Duke and be a Duke fan? I can't say if you went to Duke. They're all camera crazy. How? Why Duke?

So this is the real story. Growing up, you know, like typical black families, I went to a Baptist church. And my pastor was super, super young. I think he was like 25 when he started. And he was a graduate of Duke. So in fourth grade, you know how you have little state projects? Yeah. So I ended up getting North Carolina.

A big part of my fair was about UNC versus Duke. In that year, Duke actually won. So just from there, I've been a thing. Makes sense. Makes sense, Trudy? Thanks. Makes fucking zero sense. I don't respect it.

Look, I'll be host to you. You don't one of the greatest sports moments in my life is. Shout out to this guy because I know him now. He's a great guy. He's a great guy. But shout out to this other guy, too, because he's my cousin, Glenn Davis, played for the LSU fighting tigers. They met Duke in the Sweet 16. I think it was 2005, maybe, maybe 2006.

I can't remember. probably 2006. It's definitely 2006. They meet Duke in the Sweet 16. Garrett Temple, my little homie, big friends with his brother, Kyle's, is on JJ Redick and just fucking love you, JJ.

Love you. Love you. That's my guy, JJ. Just took JJ out of the fucking game. Just LSU, you know what it was? It was big black, South Louisiana brothers. We go up there,

And we kicked Duke in the ass. And we march on into the final four. But then we got kicked in our asses. But the reality is that. Say that far louder. I couldn't just, I loved it. It's like Temple, Davis, up against Reddick. We just destroyed him.

It was one of the favorites. We just made them cry. Fuck Duke. Like, I can't believe that you're a Duke fan. That's it. You're as toxic as they come true. Oh, my gosh. On a lighter note, I would just like to point out

that a dream has been realized and will be realized tomorrow. I, yours truly, will be on QVC. Oh! QVC, Rache will be live! I got a thank you, Van. You nickname me that. It's coming. It's happening.

I'll be promoting the book live on QVC. This is going to be so, by the way, look, this is what we're going to do, Donnie. Donnie. Donnie, you there? Listen, yeah. Clips. Donnie, this is what we're going to do. You need clips.

Got to have clips. Got to have clips. I know it. Got to have clips, Donna. We got to have clips. We got to have clips. QVC, Rache, that's going full of QVC. Has this ever happened before where somebody's nickname is didn't come true?

I don't know. What the fuck? It's happening. Rache, I'm not going to lie. You're having a moment right now. Am I having a moment? Yeah. Your face was.

used to represent all of Negro life on Amazon. They put your face. For a quick second. Now you're on QVC. Okay. And on top of that, you saw what I posted about the Cowboys being able to have every Super Bowl in Dallas. You know what?

I said I wanted to change things to a lighter. You know who sent me that post? Who? Brian. Brian doesn't love me. Brian said me. I would never see it. Brian is the man.

That's why. Okay. So look, this is why we dispensed with the pleasure trees. You guys, we're going to change up the format of higher learning a little bit. And one way we're going to do this is we're going to start giving you guys a little bit more segments. And one segment we're going to start giving you guys is called the big deal. And basically where we go into the big deal of the day to make sure we give you guys enough meat on the things that people are talking about and the things that matter. Now, we are a Spotify podcast.

I know you guys know what's coming. We are a Spotify podcast. Yes, we are. We work for Spotify. We do. Okay. There's another Spotify podcast right now that everybody is talking about. Rach.

Rach, what podcast am I talking about, Rachel? The Joe Rogan experience. The Joe Rogan experience. Actually, that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about Dreamscapes, the little podcast that you put on when you go to sleep. I love that. You ever listen to Dreamscapes? No.

Dreamscapes is crazy. Yo, I don't know. Like, just to make that joke, just to make that joke, I shout out dreamscapes, but you guys, dream scapes is crazy. Check out. So we're going to talk about the Joe Rogan podcast and the N-word, but the N-word we're going to try to use is nuance. Now, when I say nuance, I don't mean nuance and explain it away anything that this motherfucker has said. I mean, I think we owe it to ourselves and to the listeners to do as deep of a doubt.

dive into this whole Joe Rogan thing as we possibly can. So if we spend more time on this topic than we normally do, it is for good reason. Okay? So I want you guys to hold on for a second. Take a little break. All right. Get your ears already. All right.

Get yourself already. Rachel is yawning. She's ready to go. We're ready to go. We're ready to go. All right. On the other side of this break, we're going to dive into the big deal of the day, which is, of course, the Spotify,

Joe Rogue and controversy. We'll be right back. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, gusalcumab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adults with moderate to severe plaques

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Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. All right. Rachel, did you see everything that happened with Joe Rogan? I saw it all. It's like it came trickling down.

You know what I mean? It's like something would come out. Then you'd hear something else. Then someone would make this comment. Then this article came out. Then this person had a rest. It just kept. It wouldn't stop.

Snowball. Snowball. Snowball. Snowball. Snowball. Remember back in the cartoons how snowball would start. And then it would turn into like a big snowball. Does that really happen?

Well, it happened with this. It did. But is that, I want somebody to tell me, is that real? like a snowball and then it turns into a big snowball. I don't think so. I mean, unless you're talking about an avalanche. No,

that's different. It's like a lot of snow. I'm talking about one ball roll and then it turns to a big ball. How do you know? You don't know. I lived in Wisconsin. I lived in Wisconsin.

That's true. That's true. Are there mountains there, though? I don't know if they're mountains. Does it have to be a mountain? It needs to be a mountain because think about how long we're getting sidetracked. Spoken from somebody. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, okay, snowballing. This is what we're going to. So this is what we're going to. This is what we're going to do. This is what we're going to do. We're going to take this from the beginning. We're not going to talk about the parts of this that you guys already know, which is the fact that Joe Rogan had already been under fire for what people say is vaccine misinformation.

That's not what people say is vaccine information. It is vaccine information. Misinformation. And so there was already people out there that were talking about what a problematic podcast Joe Rogan experience was. We had seen a couple of different music artists. I think it was N.I.R.E. N. Neil Young. Joni Mitchell.

I'm forgetting. Joni Mitchell. I was like, Joni Mitchell. Joolie Mitchell pulled their music off of Spotify even before the racist videos of him resurfaced. Okay. All right. That was in and of itself enough to warn the conversation. But for our purposes and what we're talking about, we are going to talk about specifically the question that everyone wants an answer to, which is, is.

Joe Rogan are racist is his podcast a breeding ground for racist and white supremacist ideas. I think those are the questions that people are asking. So in order to do this, we're going to now give you a lot of sound. The first thing we're going to do is give you some of the sound and question that got us here. The first video that started to trend around, that trickle around to places, it was a mashup of Joe Rogan and all the times of his podcast that he has said the N-word. Donnie, could you roll that for me right now? Like, you know, the nigger thing. Saying the word nigger.

I've already said nigger. Or D is just like nigger. She's calling you a nigger. It's like this. Boy, that he's a nigger, but starts calling them niggers. Word nigger. There should be a word like nigger, especially like the word nigger. That's our nigger.

About niggers. He says nigger. Guy a nigger. And then our niggers starts saying nigger. I'll use the word nigger. Without the word nigger, see nigger. Say nigger and he couldn't say nigger. And it's nigger.

Huh. nigger. Okay. Okay. It's tough to listen to. Keep, go ahead. It's tough. Well, wait, let's talk about it. That's tough for you to listen to. And I've heard it. I've heard it. But just hearing it again, I, just the compilation of it all, like, I cringe. I like almost have chills or goosebumps. Just, and it's the way he's saying it and how he's saying it and the tone behind it all, but keep going, keep going. Okay.

Okay, so those are not the only clips in question that got Joe Rogan into trouble in terms of people asking whether or not Joe Rogan is racist. There were more. One clip in which Joe Rogan described an experience where he accidentally ended up in a Philadelphia movie theater for a screening of Planet of the Apes. I'm not going to describe to you what happened in a clip.

I'm going to let you hear. It's yourself and you tell me whether or not you think this is all fucked up. We can't go to there. So I go, you got to go to one where there's Planet of the Apes, man. We're going to go see Planet of the Apes. So I look on the iPhone app and it says, okay, take me to this one. And the guy goes, okay, is that in a good neighborhood? He's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guy barely speaks English. He texts us there. We get out and we're giggling, oh, we're going to see Plano the Apes. We walk into Planet of the Apes. We walked into Africa, dude. We walked in the door And there was no white people There was no white people

Plano the Yves didn't take place in Africa I was a racist thing for this sake But you see what I'm saying What I'm saying is Flies automatically stuck to your head Yeah we would have Jesus Okay

All right I didn't even hear the last part before Yeah it's tough It's definitely tough So that is obviously a clip Where it seems as if At least initially Uh

Joe Rogan said, let's be real. What just happened was that Joe Rogan said that he got dropped off in a black neighborhood to see Planned the Apes and he was in Planned the Apes. There's no other fucking way to be around the bush. There's not, he acknowledges it. He acknowledged it. He said it was racist.

He said it was racist. Came back. Either way, either context that you use, that's racist. We're going to talk about that a little bit more when we get to his apology. But before we move on, there's yet another video. Okay.

I don't know who this guy is on Joe Rogan's podcast. Donnie, do you know who this gentleman is on the podcast? I don't. I don't. Okay. Okay. Oh, wait, wait. Freddie Lockhart.

I believe it's Freddie Lockhart. If I'm wrong, I made him that out. Freddie Lockhart. I love Freddie Lockhart. Don't know who that is. But he was on Joe Rogan's podcast. He mentions to Joe Rogan that he is biracial, half black, half white. This is Joe Rogan's.

response. What are you yet? Dad's black, mom's white. Standard issue pretty much. Powerful, powerful combination genetic-wise, right? You get the body of the black man and then you get the mind of the white man altogether and some strange combination. That doesn't, by the way, mean that black people don't have brains. It's a different brain. Don't get me wrong. Okay, black people have a different brain. All right. So I want you to take all of those things into consideration right now. This is the leaping off point for the conversation that we're about to have. I now want to play for you, Joe Rogan's apology. Obviously, those videos, a combination of those videos, started going around.

And there are a lot of people, particularly in the black community. Now, Rachel, I would ask you a question real quick. Joe Rogan has the biggest podcast in the history of podcasts. By far, it's not even close. I want to explain to people how ridiculous it is. Okay. When you are starting a podcast, you don't even shoot, you don't even aspire to be Joe Rogan. It's an anomaly. The fact that he, it's that popular, it just doesn't happen. You can have the most popular of popular popular popular podcast. Joe Rogan is double, triple three times how popular they are. He might just be heard more than any other singular voice in this country right now. And I don't think that's hyperbole at all. Having said that, do you? know a lot of black people who listen to the Joe Rogan experience. I don't. And therein, I think I don't know if any of my friends do. So I listen to it from time to time. I've listened to it

depending on who we would have on there. Therefore, I think lies the interesting situation here. You have a podcast that is incredibly popular that I'm sure there has to be a lot of black people that listen to it, just for raw numbers, a lot meaning there's some point. But it doesn't have a real a real standing within black culture. Absolutely. Right. So because of that, for a lot of people, this might have been the first time they ever heard Joe Rogan.

As crazy as that is to say, they might have known who he was and that he had a podcast, but they didn't know this kind of stuff was going on there, which made, I think, to be honest with you, the response to this because that video had come out before, but in this particular time, I think it made it a lot more insane. subsidiary than it normally has been because you had a lot of black people in the media,

higher parts of the media, right, you're raising your hand. Yeah, self-included. No idea. That had no clue. No idea that he had used the N-word before. No idea that he had made reference to black people as apes. No idea that he said our brain is different from white folks. I had no.

So it's jarring. It's shocking to me. This is my first time going through this. Never really been a huge fan more so because. because of the misinformation that he puts out there. I don't gravitate to his podcast or what he does on it. It's just not for me. But I never had it.

But it wasn't because of this. Right. Now I know him in a different way. Right. Absolutely. And I think that was the experience of a lot of people. So, okay, that goes around. All right.

Becomes a big deal. Everybody's talking about it. And then Joe Rogan apologizes. We are going to play Joe Rogan's apology in its totality. That's not the last sound that we're going to give to you from Joe Rogan. But we just want to make sure that we lay this case out there completely. We're going to give you this. So buckle up.

I'm sure you've heard the apology before. We're going to give it to you again right now in its totality so that we can have a conversation about this. Go ahead, Donnie. There's a video that's out that's a compilation of me saying the N-word. It's a video that's made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast. And it's all smushed together. and it looks fucking horrible even to me. Now, I know that to most people,

there is no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast. And I agree with that now. I haven't said it in years. But for a long time, when I would bring that word up, like if it would come up in conversation,

instead of saying the N word, I would just say the word. I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing. Like that context was part of the clip we were talking about Red Fox, how Red Fox said that word on television in the 1970s,

and how times have changed so much since then. Or about how Richard Pryor used it as one of the titles of one of his albums. Or I was quoting a Lenny Bruce bit, or I was quoting a Paul Mooney bid, or I was talking about how Quentin Tarantino used it repeatedly in Pulp Fiction. Or I was talking about

how a Netflix executive ironically used it because he was trying to compare it to another offensive word and he said it out loud and they fired him, not calling anybody or just saying the word out loud. I was also talking about how there's not another word like it in the entire English language because it's a word where only one group of people is allowed to use it and they can use it in so many different ways. Like if a white person says that word, it's racist and toxic, but a black person can use it and it could be a punchline, it could be a term of endearment, it could be lyrics to a rap song, it could be a positive affirmation. It's a very unusual word, but it's not my word to use. I'm well aware of that now, but for years I used it in that manner. I never used it to be racist

because I'm not racist. But whenever you're in a situation where you have to say, I'm not racist, you fucked up. And I clearly have fucked up. Okay. All right.

Your thoughts on the apology. The only part of that apology that I'm willing to take is he said, by the time you have to start saying that you fucked up, you already fucked up. I can't accept anything else that he says.

and the reason I can't is because there are too many disclaimers in there that try to paint him as a victim that aren't lost on me. He continues to say that there is, it's a compilation. He emphasizes that, meaning it's not something I said all the time. They compiled this together. He continues to say that it was taken out of context, meaning that that's not really what he meant to say. If you heard it all together, you would have understood why I was using it. You would have understood the purpose behind it. That's another excuse. He then says that it was taken over 12 years, again emphasizing the fact that he didn't say it all the time. Over 12 years, all these things were put together, and he hasn't said it in years. I can't accept that.

Everything to me that he is saying at that point, except for the part that I just said at the end, is making an excuse for his behavior. That's not an apology. He's explaining why he did it. Then you don't understand the problem in what you did. You don't understand how it devalues, how it's disrespectful, how it's racist. You performed racist actions. That makes you racist. I'm sorry.

And there's too many things as we've talked about when you compile all these things together that you can't say it's a one-off. You can't say this happened over 12 years. You can't say it was taken out of context. It is what it is. It's very hard for me to accept an apology after the fact. You did it for years. you were comfortable.

And it sounds like even as he's explaining in this apology, he is still making, he's still explaining why he said those things. So that's not an apology. You think that you have the right to do it because there was a certain purpose behind it. I'm not, like, this meant nothing to me. Huh.

I'm sorry. Okay. You said it's very hard to accept an apology after the fact. Well, you can only apologize after the fact, right? No, you can pre-apologize. Okay, okay, sorry. Oh, you know, Rachel, I'll tell you right now. Sorry. Thank you because you know you're going to do something fucked up. But you're right. It's an

I said an apology after the fact, but I should say an apology after you were called out and got caught. That's what I should say. Right. Right. Okay. You knew you said this. You knew you said it. And it's not until you've been publicly reprimanded in this way. Because according to you, this has come up before in some ways, maybe not on this grand scale as it is right now or this large stage. But in this way, so you have to apologize now. Okay, that's very true. Okay, so look, when I listen to the apology, I hear what you hear in almost anybody's apology, right?

You hear someone saying, hey, I apologize, but this was the frame of mine I was in when I made my mistake. That's what I hear. I hear somebody going, a lot of times people apologize and they apologize and they go, okay, but let me tell you why I fucked up. So that's what I hear. And I hear him doing that very clubsily. This is what we're going to do.

We're going to do Joe Rogan in favor right now. Here on the higher learning podcast, this is how magnanimous we are. Don't put me in this yet. Us, Rachel Lindsay and Van Lathen. We're going to do Joe Rogan a favor right here. Joe Rogan said that in that compilation of N-words, that it was taken out of context, the uses of the N-word. What we're going to do is take one of the times that Joe Rogan said the N-word

and not clip it, but leave the N-word. Okay. And not clip it, but leave the context in it. Okay. This clip is from about three years ago. Three years. Three years. Okay.

Three years ago. This clip is from about three years ago. It's Joe Rogan talking to somebody about the new climate of what you can and cannot say. Office culture, white privilege, the entire thing. We're going to run this clip for you. So you can hear the inward usage in context. Donnie give it to it. Whenever people can't express themselves freely,

there's going to be some sort of suppression. And if there's some sort of suppression, there's a resentment of that suppression. And then there's just like this anxiety and this tension. You know, it's like when it's essentially what we're saying is when you think about people in business meetings, how they're forced to communicate, how they're forced to dress,

how they're forced to communicate. They go into this very professional building. All the women are dressed professional. All the men are dressed professional. They all get together in these conference tables, and everyone is agreeing. Even though these are sexual beings who may be like cocaine, you know, and they've been to fucking, you know, they've been to music festivals and they've maybe been to Burning Man. But they're contained. They're contained in this room.

and they're talking about statistics, they're talking about probabilities, and then someone brings up diversity. Yes, diversity, very important. And everyone is behaving in this super weird world where you can't move outside the box even remotely. If you move outside the box even a little, if you say, you know about the guy from Netflix that got fired

because he used the N-word in a descriptive, he was talking about Tom Seguer special, where Tom Seguer was talking about changes in language. He was talking about some words you can't say anymore. And he says, like, you can't say retarded. He says this. Just because he said that. Just because he said that, people were getting angry at him and protesting and groups were trying to boycott Netflix.

I remember. Right. So this guy, I don't remember his name, but he was one of the big wigs at Netflix. And he said he was like, it's like saying the word nigger to an African American person. that's what it's like to say retarded to a family where someone has someone who's down since. So he was defending. He was talking about how offensive that word is to people. So it's like this is the issue that we're dealing with.

So he's just talking about it in a very matter of fact way. They report him for saying the word and he gets fired. And apparently he did this twice. That's what I read. In the same kind of context? Yes, the same exact context. So he's repeating this thought. He's basically having.

They're doing an intellectual exercise. Like, is it the same to you? And he's saying it around African-American people. But in saying it around African-American people, just the fact that he said the word and uttered it, like abracadabra, just saying it was enough for him to lose. It was a very high-profile job at Netflix. He was apparently well-liked. Okay. That's the full context of what Joe Rogan was trying to say in his inward usage.

in one instance of it. Now, we are, we're bending over backwards for Rogan right now, all right? Because remember now, we have Rogan already on record saying that black people, black brains and white brains are different. Okay? All right. We have the planet of the apes thing.

But if we talk specifically about N-word, in context, I want to get everybody on the podcast, Trudy and Donnie, together and ask the question, starting with Rach, does that change anything about Joe Rogan's apology to you? No. It doesn't. I mean, if you listen to the context of that conversation that we just played, he clearly already knows it's wrong to say the N-word. And he starts off saying inward. Then he goes on to say the actual word. after, as he's telling a story of an executive that got fired for saying the word because it offended people. So you're talking about how this word is offensive to black people and yet you say it.

That doesn't give you permission to say it just because somebody else said it when you know that this word is offensive and it's wrong. Right. It doesn't change how I feel about his apology. Yeah. I'll be honest with you. Well, just real quick. Trudy Donnie, what do you guys think? I agree with Rachel, what she just said.

Like he, in that conversation, he's like putting his foot down, I feel like on that topic. Ah, there you go. Nothing stopping him from saying the N-word. But, and he's talking about it having consequences against somebody else. He talks about it's being a powerful person and having a high position. And then he puts his foot down and you let you know where he stands on that whole topic by saying nigger instead of the end-law. word. Trudy?

I mean, y'all said it best. Honestly, when I heard this clip in its entirety, my inner Timmy Roman came out. I felt like I was

in the real world reunion, Stephen, and she was like, you don't say that. You just literally don't say that. So I'm looking at him with a cigarette hanging out my mouth,

pointing my finger like, like, Tickie Robo with me. Word up. Okay. So Donnie said something that I think is absolutely correct. he says the N word because he realizes this is my opinion all right

you say the N word because you realize that you can't say nigger right you can't say the word for whatever reason as you continue to tell a story about somebody who you feel like was treated unfairly because they said the word in a context that you don't feel as racist you rebel see I want to make sure that like this is like seen in a 360 view. Okay. So in his apology,

Joe Rogan is talking about the fact that the N-word is a really interesting word. There's no other word like it in the English language. He's right about that. He's right about that because of the origins of the word, because of how the word is used today, and because of what the word means from one group to another. It's a flashpoint word to black. to black people when used by white people,

that means death, destruction, humiliation, exploitation, right? That's what it means. The issue is, and this is the thing that I can't really understand as we continue to litigate this with white people who are seemingly intelligent for years and years and years and years

is that the part about this that he doesn't get, the part about this that's weird is that the word itself is emblematic of the distrust that black people have for white people. See, we're not to the point yet in American society where you can say nigger in front of me and I don't feel away about it. Right.

We haven't made it there. Okay? See, with my people, with my people, just being who I am, when someone's, oh, yo, nigger this, nigger that, nigger that. The chances that they want to lynch me, cut my dick off, stuffing into my mouth, Make sure I don't vote.

They're pretty low. See, I trust and love black people. I trust and love black people because over the course of my life, the 41 years I've lived, soon to be 42, black people have shown me love. They've cared for me. They've nurtured me. They've been there to protect me.

Not all of them. Not all of them. We're not a monolith. Obviously, we heard each other. Obviously, we exploit each other. obviously all that happens, but where I'm from in my community, we loved and looked out for one another. See, white people just never done that, right? And I'm not saying it's their job too. But what I'm saying is there are other things that they have done.

There are other things that have gone on. There are other things that have taken place both historically and here in the contemporary society that we live in in terms of relations between black and white people. So when the word comes out of your mouth, it comes out with all the history and all the energy and all the intent that it meant to me in 1870. And I'll tell you why, because it doesn't matter what you mean by the word. I know that you meant to say it. Right. See what I'm saying? So it doesn't mean, it doesn't matter what you mean by the word. I know you meant to say it.

You fixed your mouth to say it in front of me. And what we're trying to do, one of the ways that we can move to a point to maybe we do feel more comfortable around each other is respect each other's boundaries. Respect the boundaries. Society is made up of these really small little treaties, right? Like, hey, like your neighbor, right? If your neighbor says, hey, stay off my lawn. You know, stay off my lawn.

Don't let your dog shit on my lawn. What if you look at your neighbor and you say, hey, fuck that. My dog shit's wherever he wants to shit. Your neighbors ask you to do a very small thing to make sure that you guys can look at each other and get along and live on the same block. What if you look at your neighbor and like, fuck you? The dog's a dog. It's like he doesn't mean anything by it. He's just shitting on you.

He doesn't mean to shit on you. He's just doing it. You're taking his shit out of context. Right? I just, white people understand everything else. in the world except for blackface and the N-word. Like we have to keep reminding people like Joe Rogan that, yo, it's not about what you have in your heart.

I can give a fuck less what you have in your heart. What I'm asking you to do is respect the fact that we don't appreciate you talking to us like that or talking using that word. It's simple. So I listen to your example about the dog shitting on the yard. A neighbor who allows their dog to do that and makes excuses for it and knows it's wrong but doesn't care and doesn't respect your boundaries, what is that neighbor really saying? What is that neighbor really doing?

Oh, precisely. They're saying they don't, so here's the, so absolutely. So what you're, what you're doing is you're saying, I don't give a fuck what you. Correct. This block is mine. This street is mine. I am the person like, my dog could do whatever he wants. I can do whatever I want.

Here is the problem. This is a psychological issue with white people. They live in their own country. America is theirs. Like they, they, they, they, they, they, the entitlement. It's the privilege. And that's what I wanted you to point out with your, with your example. No, it's so true.

They know that America's their country, right? So to me, and I've dealt with this anytime I've ever dealt with white people. They was, why can I say it? They're not used to being told. Exactly. No to anything. They, we get told no all the time. We get told, we get told, don't drive in certain areas.

We get told don't look at certain people. Like, there's been time. we're saying hello to a white woman in America could get your motherfucking dick cut off. So we've definitely understand the cultural boundaries and lines that we can't cross. As a matter of fact, we're still trying to learn the cultural lines that we can cross.

We're trying to learn how to be more disruptive, more disruptive to lines that are arbitrary and don't make any sense. This would know is something that you're asking the people that you share your society with. You're asking them to do it. so that we could get to a point where shit like this won't be a big fucking deal. And I don't fucking believe that he doesn't get this.

I don't. Of course he gets it. I'm not, I'm not speaking on anybody's heart. I can't. It's impossible. I just don't believe that people don't understand this. We talked about three years ago, how long have we been fucking going through this, man? This is, this is.

Van, it's not that he doesn't get it. it's that he is basically trying to make an excuse as to why he did it. Oh, because I didn't do it like that, right? If I would have done it another way, it would have been different. See, the way I did it is totally acceptable. If you can make that distinction, you get it. He gets it. He knows exactly what it is he's doing.

Can I ask you a question? Ask me. Do you think he's racist? I don't know, but I don't think that it matters. Huh. So, so, so, so, so, so here's the deal. I don't think that it matters. Now, since then, I know a lot of people who know Joe Rogan.

So let, let me, full disclosure about this. Well, you sound like. What? Somebody else. Andrew Gang. Andrew, you know, a lot of people who know. So just, just listen. Hear me out.

And I'm asking this because this is a question that has been brought up in a lot of circles. So, so this is my thing. Let me, let me amend my answer totally. it doesn't matter. Okay. It really doesn't matter. Okay.

Now, Joe Rogan had Jason Wilson on this podcast. Jason Wilson is the head of the Cave of Adelam, which is the Transitional Training Institute for Young Black Boys up in Detroit. Jason Wilson is my mentor and a very, very important man to me. And what he is doing in Detroit for young black boys cannot be supported enough. after Jason went on Joe Rogan's podcast, followers for the cave went through the roof, followers for Jason went through the roof. It brought a lot of money, a lot of notoriety to the cave itself. Okay. Obviously, Donnell Rawlings, we've had here on our podcast.

Have we? No, I had Donnell on the Ring ofverse. Donnell is a great friend of mine. He's very tight with Joe Rogan, whatever. I don't know whether or not Joe Rogan is a racist. Joe Rogan has what I understand to be, if I'm being, what I didn't know, this yesterday, he adopted a young black lady. He adopted a black girl.

He adopted his wife's daughter. Right. Yeah. Like his stepdaughter is black, right? So I don't know whether or not Joe Rogan is a racist. And I think to me, getting caught up on that deflex us from what it is that we're actually talking about. I don't fucking need him to be a racist.

I don't need him to not be a racist, right? All I need for him to do For me to be fucked up with him Is to have a platform Where racist ideas And the normalization Of them Is heard

By millions and millions and millions of millions of white Frat boys So I don't need you to actually look at a nigger And go, I want to kill him I don't need you to be like I don't want black people living on my block. The racism doesn't even have to be that cartoonish and baked in for you to be a problem. It doesn't matter what's in your heart. All that really matters is what you do.

LBJ was a fucking gigantic racist, right? But his political legacy lives in the fact that he worked with Martin Luther King Jr. to enact civil rights legislation on behalf of black people for mostly political reasons, but still. So for me personally, I'm not a hearts and minds guy. I'm a, are you hurting us guy? And the reality to me is when I look at that,

I'm like, fighting the war of being able to say nigger on your podcast hurts black people, makes it harder to be black. So the reality is, fuck the context. The apology was bad.

The context doesn't matter. There's no context. Don't explain it away. Don't tell us about what's really in your heart. Do the same thing that everybody has to do in an apology. Tell us what you learned. So I think you have to identify it as racism, and I think you have to identify him as racist.

So I'm going to use deductive reasoning here, and I don't care what's in his heart or his mind either. I'm going to take statements and things that you've done, and I'm going to reach a logical conclusion that that's racism. And I think the reason that you have to say that is exactly because of the audience that you just described that listens to him. If you don't label it as that, then I think you have an excuse to say what he is not. And if you look, like everybody, not everybody, but that type of audience wants to say,

oh, he's not racist because he has a black daughter. Oh, he's not racist because he had this person on his podcast. Oh, he's not racist because he has black friends. There are levels to racism. And the clips that we play, and I'm sure there are other things that we don't know, but if you just take the statements, the constant use of a word, that is hateful, the way that you don't even think that we are on the same level thinking wise as white people, you have to label that as racism.

And you have to say it. I'll be honest with you. The different brain sting. That's wild. That's textbook, guys. I mean, come on. That's textbook. But, man, we just talked about last week how he doesn't want to honor the word black.

And he doesn't, it doesn't understand it. Just totally disregards what that term means to black people. I'm sorry. You have to label it as something because then you get to excuse it. And the things, in totality, what he has said is racist. So let me tell you something. You guys, look, white ignorance is an atom bomb. It's just like an atom bomb.

Like, y'all don't understand. Like white people. Y'all don't get sick of this. Like seriously, man. No, they're sick of us complaining about it. That's what they get sick of. How? How? How? How? How? How? How? How? That's what? Let me tell you something. Let me tell you something.

You can't find a million different clips of him saying words to disparage other groups, can you? Can you find a million clips of him saying the K words, talk about my Jewish brothers and sisters? And you don't want to call him racist. Well, well, here's a deal, though. Once again, for me to, it's not about not calling him racist as much as I have any problem calling him racist. It's not a big deal. When I'm trying to move past it, if you were to ask me whether it guns in my head,

whether or not Joe Rogan's a racist, I'd have to say sure, right? Well, yeah, okay, it's pretty, to me personally, though, I'm going to be honest with you. I think that that, I think that that in a way, I think we should move past that. We should move past because I'm not a hearts and minds guy. I'm not an Acho's brother.

I don't think that's what that is. What? I'm not. We ain't taking digs right now. We ain't taking digs. I'm not an Acho's brother. I'm not a hearts of minds guy. We're not doing it.

I'm not a heart of minds guy. We're not doing it. His name is Sam and we are. Sam Acho. I'm not Sam Acho. I'm not a heart to minds guy. I don't care. It really doesn't.

I don't really care. The only thing I care about, the only thing I care about is functionality. That's the only thing I care about. I don't care if, like, I don't care if in your heart you don't want me to move in your neighborhood. All I care is, you don't make it tough to live for me to live there when I do. I don't care if, if I don't care if you begrudgingly give me all my rights because you know

I'm going to fuck you up if you don't. I don't care about that. To me, I don't, I don't envision or look for a society where we are able to root out all of these things because I got to be honest with you, Rachel, I don't think it's possible. It's not possible. So what I, but what I do think is possible, though, is to kick people in their fucking nuts

when they cross you. I think personally, and this is a difference between you and I, that sometimes we get so caught up and whether or not people actually like us that we forget that it's actually not, we shouldn't actually care whether or not they like us or not.

We should care if they take from us. And you can actually have a society where people live with you don't like you and they still afraid to fuck with you. And they still don't want to fuck over you. And they still understand that society works better if you're not being depowered. And that only happens when you have power. I believe that. I'm just going to say, where does that happen?

Yes. If we had power, sure, sure. So let's take another movement. Let's take the Me Too movement. Okay. Do you think that men learned in the Me Too movement to respect and honor women's bodies? I think that I think they've always known that they should. It's just a matter of whether or not they did.

Wrong. You're like, no, like, to me personally. No, I think that people know the difference between right or wrong. They just chose not to. No. That's what I'm saying. They like, well. So putting your hands on a woman, you don't know that that's wrong without being asked.

Yes, they do, Van. They just don't give a fuck. Well, this is the question. The right or the wrong. First of all, I'm going to be honest with you. There are guys out here that the patriarchy is so baked into them. They think they own her. They don't see it as different than touching your dog.

I'm going to be honest with you, all right? So secondly, once again, it doesn't matter to me whether or not the Me Too movement may men come to some sort of understanding about how they should treat women. What was important to me is that it laid out clear consequences if they act up. That is the only way for, I've said this before, if I'm in a fight with you and I know I can beat you up. and I look at you and I know I can beat you up. The only thing that's stopping me from fucking over you is my altruism. The only thing that's stopping me from beating the shit out of you as bad as I can

is how much pain I want to inflict on you. The reality is the way human beings are, if you're in that situation and you have more power than somebody and somebody else has to rely on you being a good person or you being morally right not to fuck over them, you're going to lose in humanity more often than you're going to win. So why can't be both? Well, it can be, but one is severely less important than the other to me.

To me, see, I don't think severely less important, but go ahead. To me, once you know that the person that you're fighting, that they can hurt you, and that's what men really had to do, like women, like empowering someone to me, is giving them the ability to impose consequence on you. Sure. Right. And so that's why I say when I want women empowered. I don't want women empowered. I don't I want women in power.

I want women to be able to fuck over men that cross them. I want women to have the power in boardrooms and places and socially to be like, that's a bad actor. Give them the fuck out. I want them with actual power. Okay. But I also want the other side of it as well because if you're talking about raising another generation, it's not just about keeping the women in power. It's also about creating a mindset that teaches them. what's right and what's wrong.

So I do think that it goes deeper than that. But I don't know. Well, to me, well, this is why I'll say that. To me, if you have a situation where people understand

what the lines are, then like, they will get it because they'll be more open, honest discussion for it. So to me, to me, gun on my head is Joe Rogan of racist.

The niggas said that black people had different brains than white people, probably racist. But the reality of, Powerful combination. I can't get over that. But the reality of the situation is it really, to me, is less important.

All right. What matters, I don't care how he feels about me. I just care how you treat me. I don't, I don't fuck. I don't give a fuck like what white people think. If they think I'm smarter, attractive or not. My mama say I'm handsome. I don't care about that either, but we can agree to disagree.

I think you have to. call things what they are. Sure, sure, of course. All right, uh, that is a big deal for today. That is the Joe Rogan situation. You've heard it here. Look, a lot of you guys are they going to talk about this because we're on Spotify? Let me tell you. Never shod away from a subject. Let me tell you got something. Let me tell you got something. For all of you motherfuckers out there that think like that, that think different Spotify situations and all that, whatever. Okay, look, you guys should not be holding any black podcasters that are on, Spotify, not me, not academics, not Jamel Hill, not anybody that are on Spotify, fucking

responsible for what that white dude did. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Like, seriously, if you're going to love and support, black people love and support. Van, what are you going to say, Van? You're on Spotify as if I sat down in the room with them and was like, yo, man, yo, this roguer situation is crazy. I'm not going to say nothing. I can continue to pay me and I can go buy fucking limited edition. Marvel comics and shit like that. Toys for Bozeman.

I've just bought some new toys this weekend. He's excited about it. So just if you love. If we, if they can keep Joe Biden, Joe Biden, wow. Him too. Him too. Talk about it, right?

If they can keep Joe Rogan on, on Spotify and he can pretty much say whatever he wants because we're going to protect freedom of speech, then we can say whatever the fuck we want to as well. Yeah. Get off all nuts. Let's take a break. This episode is brought to you by

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Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. All right. Aquafida! Okay. I don't know what to name this segment.

Donnie, what should the name of this Aquafina segment be? What is this full? What is this? We're looking for names of these segments, guys. What should this fall on? They can help us. Oh, this is great.

They can help us. Help us name the segments. What would Aquafina be categorized? Would this be entertainment corner? No, it's got to be in like something. Like she didn't give us anything, right? So it's got to be the top. Something along those.

lines, right? Yeah. A whole lot of nothing. This is a whole lot of nothing. Oh, a whole nothing. That's good. That's good. Temporarily whole, that's what we're going to call this, this segment.

A whole lot of nothing. Okay, let's look at this. Donnie, put Aquafina's apology in the chat real quick. Put it in the chat. So my iPad's going crazy. Oh, here it is. Here it is. No, here it is.

Aquafina, if you guys don't know Aquafina, I don't know how you couldn't. She's very talented. Very talented. She's very talented. She's funny. She is talented. Sorry, I was looking at something else. She's talented.

Very talented Asian-American performer. She was recently in Shang-She. She played Katie. She was good in Shang-she. I did have a problem at the end of the movie with her being able to take a dragon out. Spoiler alert. When she had only been using a bow for one day. The other way around.

Spoiler alert. Then you spoil it. Right. Whatever. Okay. But she's also been. criticized for using a black scent. You know what I'm saying?

Nigger talk. You know, you see Aquafina. You expect her maybe to just have your regular American accent. All of a sudden, she's like, yo, yo, yo, yo, my G, let's go down to the goddamn bodega and get a quarter water. It's me, Aquafina. You know what I'm saying? B.

Come, like New York got so many different names for people. Be, son, God. I love it. They call you everything except for your name. I love it. No nigga from New York has ever called me Van, ever. V-A-B, son, God,

all of that stuff like that. So that's how Aquafina talks. She talks like she's from the Wu-Tang Clan. So people have been getting on her ass about that. Blackson. And Afa-Fa-Fian had enough of it. She's left Twitter. But before leaving Twitter, she fired off a salvo. Of course, is what Aquafina said.

She acknowledges that African-Americans have historical and routinely seen their culture stolen, exploited, and appropriated by the dominant culture from monetary gain without acknowledgement nor respect for where those roots come from, and that black Americans have been disproportionately affected by institutionalized policies and law enforcement policies. So we don't have to say that the problem continues to this day that things like the internet TikTok slain generation that liberally uses hip-hop and linguistic

acculturation all accumulate to play a factor in the fine line between offensive and pop culture. But as a non-black person of color, I stand by the fact that I will always listen and work tirelessly to understand the history and context of AVE. African American, what does that mean, vernacular English? Correct. What is deemed appropriate or backwards towards the progress of any and every marginalized group. But I must emphasize to mock, belittle, or to be unkind

in any way possible at the expense of others is simply not my nature. Never has, and it never was. With that, Aquafina is seemingly off of Twitter, which is a toxic place. I'm not going to lie. And she's going to continue to keep up with everyone on

places that are nice to hang out like Instagram and, you know, other places I I guess you're Snapchat, TikTok, Tick-Tock, Triller, Triller, you don't stop. You know what I mean? All of that stuff. Your thoughts, Rach. Well, as the segment is titled, she really gave us a whole lot of nothing.

I'm going to need, while she's trying to understand all these things, I'm going to need her to understand how to apologize. And that starts with acknowledging what you did wrong. That was a statement, not an apology. She never acknowledged what she did. And furthermore, towards the end, I don't know if she said it in that statement or she comes back later, but she says,

I apologize if I ever fell short in anything I did. If, meaning I don't know if I did, but just in case, sure, you're not apologizing to anything specifically. You're not saying, you're not acknowledging what people are saying offended them. You're basically just saying you stand by the black community and you in no way have done something to mock,

be little, or be unkind in any way. That is you giving us nothing. You're not understanding why people are upset. That's how I took that whole thing. So you might as well have not said anything. So let me talk about this. So you ever met anyone that just talks like this, that you know, from the neighborhood or whatever?

You ever met anybody? That's not black? Yeah. No. Everybody's black in my neighborhood. Everybody in your neighborhood was black. That was dope. For example, let me ask you a question.

Would you say that Fat Joe is guilty of this? Is he guilty? Does he talk like he? Yes. Yeah. Bad Joe, not a black guy. He's not Afro Latino? No.

Okay. He's not Afro Latino. News to me. News to me. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't fall under the Afro Latino car. Thought he was Afro Latino. Now remember when Jennifer Lopez came out and said her music wasn't of

African origin, Fat Joe doesn't come. So I'm asking a question about, I'm literally looking at this. So I'm saying is that like Fat Joe, would you say that Fat Joe was a part of this? Would you say like a fat Joe? Well, I mean, again, I thought he was Afro Latino. Right.

So I'm a little, I need to. some time. I need some time to process it. If you saw Fadjo on the street, you wouldn't think there goes a black guy. Would you?

No, Fat Joe. I might think, I would definitely think he has some, I would think that he was Latino, but if you told me he was Afro Latino, I'd be like, okay, I can see that. And so I guess I'm putting together because of how he talks, because of his whole, you know,

demeanor and the way he carries himself, Maybe that's why I slapped that on there. But I don't know if I was walking down the street. I don't know. He could be light skin. He's of Puerto Rican and Cuban descent. Okay. Again, I need some time to process this.

But what I'm saying is, if you go to Puerto Rico or Cuba, right, two places, not everybody on those islands are Afro-Latinos, right? Not everyone on the islands are. No, no, no. Correct. Right. So if you're Cuban, you look at the Cuban, you look at Philadelphia, Castro, not really an Afro-Latino, but there are tons and tons of black Cubans, right?

So the only reason why I ask that question is because what would be the difference in that situation between an Aquafina and a fat Joe? Like, what would be the difference? And there is a difference. But do you know what that difference? Come on. Cultural acceptance. Cultural acceptance.

I'm serious. That's the difference. The difference is that for whatever reason, in the South Bronx, what Fat Joe is from, the black people and the Puerto Rican people, okay, people that they're together. They live, you know what I mean? They share a little bit more. So there is a cultural acceptance of that, right? That's really all any of this matters.

Whether or not you can trace your roots back to Africa is less important than whether or not we say you are right. And so my thing is, like, I've been around people before that this is just how they are. They grew up around us. They were with us. And this is how they are. And that's how he's always spoken. Right. That is not her, though, because she doesn't talk like that anymore.

Right. So she was pretending to be something that she wasn't. This is my point. I don't know how she used to talk about. in the day. Well, she don't talk like, she don't talk like that anymore. That's what people said. She changed her whole, she has a black scent.

Well, she might have toned it down, or she might have purposely changed it. But I'm not, I'm not defending Aquafina. What I'm saying is, like what I'm saying is this, though. Once again, in this situation, Aquafina is not understanding what people actually want for her. No, she's not. What people actually want from Aquafina is to talk about this. is to discuss this. And by the way, if Aquafina goes,

yo, fat Joe used the N-word. Nigger, nigger. Like I said. Fat Joe, nigger shit. As I said, I thought he was one of us. I need some time. Big pun, nigger. Nigger, nigger, nigger in these rhymes.

Rest in peace, big pun. One of the illest ever, right? What Aquafina needs, like, like, she didn't. do the one thing that people really wanted her to do. See, they want to do everything except for talk to us about it, right? Yes. They want to do everything except for actually do us.

When you talk about treating people, treating people good and treating people like humans and all of that touchy-feely shit that people want to get from people, how about sit down and have a conversation about it? How about to actually talk about it? How about actually address it? And yo, if the situation is, yo, I grew up in Queens and this is where I'm from, you know, and I'm in the Shaolin because I'm one of Wu-Tang members or whatever and all of that stuff. If that's your answer, if that's your thing, you're fucking ride with it and be who the fuck you're going to be. But the reality is this statement seems condescending.

It seems a little bit like this was a, you ain't got to tell us what we've been through. Nigel, we already know. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I can't do any more of these segments today. You can't tell us we already know what we've been through.

We're hoping that you'll understand. So I think that she missed an opportunity to actually confront this issue head on, talk about it in a way that actually might have been something that was a little bit more enlightening to people. Because she's right. Like, you know, there's a part of this that's right. She's like, she's like, internet slang generation, right? So sometimes, sometimes like, you know, I'll listen to a white person that'll be like, man, that is so ghetto. And I'd be like, fuck you know about the ghetto.

Mm-hmm. You've been in the ghetto? Let's go check it out. I was like, you want to tell me what's ghetto? I'll be like, what does that mean? Like, yeah. What do you mean my ghetto? Yeah, what do you know about the ghetto?

Tell me what you know about the ghetto. But the reality of the situation is that as we continue to sell our culture, I'm going to be honest with you, as we continue to sell our culture and continue to sell our culture and continue to to really not sell it, but rent it out. Rent out our culture. As we continue to put it out there for public consumption, part of this is going to become an issue where we're going to have to fight to define and redefine where the blackness of this really exists.

I think that point that she made is actually a salient point to where there is going to be a limit. Because remember now, our number one way to get rich is to sell culture. And since when you sell culture, right, we're going to have to draw lines like the N-word is a line. Like the N-word is a line. The N-word is absolutely a line. That's a line that 90% of us understand.

The only people who will tell you that the N-word is not aligned is the fucking rappers because really they don't give a fuck who buys their shit to most of them, right? But the N-word is a line. But other than that, we have to continue to have conversations about what things we're comfortable with and what things we are comfortable with. But the people like Aquafina, they don't have to sit down and have those conversations with them. They can't take their ball and go home.

Right. Crazy. If anything, she should have put a whole rap album out. She used to rap. I think she's still rap. Does she be rapping? I think she used to rap too. Yeah.

She used to rap. Yeah. Alternative hip hop. Aquafina. Her first song to All My Niggas. Listen. When she comes back, come correct. You know what I mean? When you come back, don't, don't, don't,

make a statement and then disappear off social media like Hannah Browns did. You know what I mean? Like stand by what you had to say. Whoa. So you say that sounds, I mean, she since come back in a podcast. You all know the story, but I'm just saying that's what it did.

That's what happened. So you're saying, I can't throw those, those strays at Sam Acho, but Hannah B could just catch these strays? That's actually factual. What happened? What happened with Sam Acho? No, no.

We will bring Sam on. We just didn't have enough. I can't handle it today. We just don't have. the space to do it today. Atro brothers. Acho brothers looking like some. No.

No. No. We will talk. We will in another time. But see? But see. That's that change in hearts and mind shit. Nigger do some racist shit.

You're going to take them to the African American Museum. Fuck that. I don't give him. That guy didn't do something racist. But like, you know, you know what you should do? Know what you should have done? Fuck taking him to the African American Museum so he can cry over here. It's a jointman and should join the.

You walk in the office and you go, yo, if you have a fuck up, we're going to kick you in your ass. How about that? I bet that'll make him stay in line. I guarantee you this. I guarantee you you see more black coaches get hired now. At least in the,

at least right now, they was about to give Lovey Smith a job. Ain't nobody thought about Lovey Smith. I know. That's what we're digging to. We're going to go find Loving. We don't have anybody else. Mike McKeown.

Daniel. Might mean that he black, right? He black? Yes, his grandmother is. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. Let's take a break.

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if Joe Rogan asked you to come on to discuss this, would you? I don't know now, man. I don't know, sorry. Just a thought. Just a thought. I don't know now. Now it would seem like.

I wouldn't want to. Now it would seem like some step and fetched nigger shit. If it was like a bunch of people maybe, like where we can actually have. Like all of us, like all of us from Spotify come together. Well, like it was, if it was a situation where I thought there would be some, if really, if anything, I don't know. See, that's the line, right? How do you know when you're just sucking on the tent of cloud? Oh, you would be, no, we would be being used because the thing is it wouldn't do anything at the end of the day.

That's why I wouldn't want to do it. So then what's the point? So let me ask you a question. I just thought about it. I was like, so what's the point about we got to have conversations then? So then we don't have to have conversations. No, no, no, no. It's not that we don't have to have conversations.

I just think the point is lost on Joe Rogan after hearing his apology, after knowing the fact that they're not even going to suspend him, nothing. There's absolutely no accountability other than this being a conversation. And this is probably going to have more people listen to him anyway after all of this. Watch. Right. Watch.

Oh, yeah, because the I stand with Rogan thing is blowing up now. It's whatever. Yeah. All right. Sports. Your man, Stephen A. Smith, is hating on niggas again. Jesus Christ. Sports Corner.

Sports Corner. We talk about bouncing balls. Yeah. Sports Corner. We don't work on these names, y'all. We're going to work on names. So Stephen Smy Smith said an NBA countdown Saturday night that Durant fails to deliver a championship with the Nets. While the Warriors went without him, he'll eventually be known more for leaving Golden State than anything else.

Durant. my guy KD took the Twitter to shoot back Steve since you decide to use your ESPN since you decide

to use ESPN to push your personal agendas I'm sure your minions will run with this story for you but if you believe this is what my career is defined by you're just a flat out hater

it's going to be hard to box the God in and then Stephen A. Smith came back telling Kevin Durant to stop the BS since he's not rooting for the Durant narrative

he says could happen, but he's calling it like he sees it. Let me ask you a question. Straight up question. What? Is Stephen A. Smith a fucking hater? Like, why are we talking about hypotheticals to kick a man back in and all of that shit like that hypothetical situation?

Because it's doing exactly what he wants you to do. It's starting a conversation. It's starting like he's getting people to talk about it. He's having a hot take. You know, like that is what he's in the business of doing is having a hot take. and hopefully being polarizing in this industry that he's in, which we know he is, whether you liked his opinion or not, people go to hear what Stephen A. Smith has to say. And here he goes again, he's got his topics, right?

Kevin Durant is one of them because this isn't the first time that he's gone after Kevin Durant in the decision that he's made. And he's done it over, like the same subject over and over and over again. And Kevin responded, his mother responded, you're giving him what he wants. Like, everybody knows this is actually... What? So what you're saying is hating is okay? No, I didn't say that.

I said, what Stephen A. Smith does is push, pushes people's buttons. And he knows that when he has a hot take on Kevin Durant, he's going to push people's buttons, particularly Kevin Durant's. Because it's obviously ridiculous. Obviously, Kevin is not going to be defined. If he doesn't bring a championship to the Nets, that does not defining his career. That is not all people are going to remember about his career. He has a long list of accomplishments. Does he now?

Interesting. So, you know when people say something and you hear it? And then it just settles in and settles in. And I'm like, damn, man. Okay. So I don't know, man. I don't like shit like this, man. This is what he does.

He's too old. for this shit, man. I'm not going to lie. This is literally his career. He's hot takes. I know, but it's like, at some point, I'm going to be real with you, man. It was cool before, but I watched Stephen A. Smith, not Stephen A. Smith. I watched Skip Bayless. Mm-hmm.

Up there looking like fucking skeletor, like an angry hate demon. Just getting on there. Like, he looked like, they look like they have to, at this point, it looks. looks like they have to so skip Bayless his clothes on his body. He's just sitting up there, like, you know what I'm saying? Like every single, like a, like he's in the melting snowman phase of his career, just up there hating. And I watch this guy, stinging up against my Dallas Cowboys.

I'm like, you don't want to, you don't want to just stop dick riding and hating. Like, it's one thing if it was a real issue. but Stephen A just sometimes just finds a reason to hate on motherfuckers to me So who side do you take these are two people that you know These are your two best friends in the industry Stop Who you're right? I think that they both responded in Stephen A. Smith, this is what he does in his career

Kevin Durant has the right to respond and call him out on how ridiculous it was Is it a ridiculous take? It really is So I guess I'm with Kevin You're with Kevin. Now look, Stephen A. Smith's going to say something about you. What if Stephen A. Smith every day would have been like talking shit about you when you're on The Bachelorette? It's been done by other people. That's what Kevin Fraser did to me every day on a show. We talk about this all the time.

Kevin Frazier? Mm-hmm. What did Kevin Fraser do? What did he do? What did he do? Like, what did he, Kevin Fraser cross you? Oh, marshmallow head-ass, niggins. Okay.

We're cool. I like Kevin Frasier, but I'm just saying he talked mad shit about me when I was on The Bachelorette. What kind of shit? What kind of shit? Just like, he didn't know why I was doing this. I was faking it.

I wasn't doing this for money and fame. I wasn't really going to fall in love. I wasn't going to find love. And so then he was like, oh, shit, I had to eat my words. Like, yeah. Eat his words. Like, it's all, like, it's all cool. I have no problems with Kevin.

He's doing what he does. It's his job. Like, people eat marshmallows. You ever, like, you ever. Milk darts. So, like, look, I want you guys to look at Kevin Frazier right now. Stop. Google him and then look at the images and then,

this is a nigga gets, this thing he got a marshmallow here. Nichelle, his own co-host calls him Milk Dud all the time. Yeah, milk-dud is probably good, too, Nichelle cool, too. Kevin Frazier cool. I just, I can't believe that Kevin Frazier. Uh-oh. Oh, uh-oh, I see Kevin Frazier in a picture with Stephen A. Smith, the hater duo. Now look, now I'm hating.

Shout out to Kevin Frasier, man. I don't know why you was hating on my sister. You hate on them, you hate on Skip. Right. Fuck, Skip. I don't give a fuck about Skip, man. Fuck. Skip.

Like, I used to like Skip, but have I ever told you about dickhead momentum? Have I ever told you about that? Mm-mm. I don't think so. Dickhead momentum is when you know you're wrong in an argument. argument, but you just keep arguing because you can't. Okay. Very familiar with it.

Skip Bayless is the fucking king of dickhead momentum. Brough, you were wrong about LeBron, bro. It's like, I get it. For a long time, I'm not the biggest LeBron James fan. For a long time, it was like, LeBron James is a four-time champion. I think he's got four or five MVPs. He's going to finish probably unless injury strikes.

With the all-time scoring record, you were wrong about LeBron James. Get off his fucking nutsack. Like, I get it, bro. It's got to keep going. I don't like it. Do you think that there's a point where people like Skip or maybe Stephen A, it's like time to hang it up because you've done it for so long.

It just gets to the point where now you're just hating. Now you're just saying something to say. Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah. So you feel like Stephen A Smith and like Skip should retire. Not Stephen A. He's got a couple of more years. was he 54, something like that.

He's got a couple more years of hating in him. But once you get to be like 60 and like your job is to go on TV and just hate on a motherfucker all day long, like after a while, man, that shit, you got to stop just hating on a nigga every day of your life. That's like I'm just like, he's 54, he looks great. He makes a lot of bread. I'm proud of him. And he, by the way, he is such a sharp bass.

basketball mind. Like he is such a sharp basketball mind. But he really ran a follow of me when he was hating on Colin Kaepernick for no reason. Just hate, I know. We know, we know, move on. We ain't going down the country train. We're not doing it.

We're not doing it. Hate, hate. I'll say this else about Stephen A. Smith. I saw him on TV today talking about the fact that the NFL is shameful for its treatment of black coaches and black guys. how the fuck could Stephen A. Smith say that? We're not doing it. When he sided with the NFL

over the black man that the NFL took his job. Hey, all right, we have not yet talked about the story of Amir Locke. Yes, guys, unfortunately, we are back here again. The Minneapolis mayor

has imposed a moratorium on no-knock warrants. Two days after a SWAT team entered a downtown apartment and killed Amir Locke. Amir-Lock is a 22-year-old black man. I believe he was from 10. Texas.

His parents say he was executed. This is what happened. Amir Locke was in an apartment sleeping. He had a gun on him. Amir Alok was registered to carry this firearm. Registered to carry this firearm.

A no-knock warrant was executed on this home, this apartment. Police kicked in the door. They would come running through the door. Amir-lock grabs his gun. The police shoot Amir-Lak. He was not on the same. suspect list for the people that the cops were looking for.

At first they said that he might have been. He wasn't. The cops also said that he pointed the gun at them. The body cam video has been released. It is unclear if the gun was, he certainly reached for it. Sure. Yeah, I do not think the gun was on him.

I don't have any understanding. We actually looked for a police officer to be on the show today. I don't understand why. we would still be no knocking at this time. There are other states that have gotten rid of no knocks. Florida, Oregon, Virginia, they don't have it. And if you were following, we talked about Breonna Taylor a lot on this podcast. And you know that they enacted Brianna's law in Louisville, Kentucky.

Like, in light of all the awareness that's been brought about no knocks, I saw this statistic that said back in the 80s, there were 1,500 annually, no knock warrants. Now there's 60 to 70,000. And in light two of Castle Law and Stand Your Ground Law, they contradict or conflict with no knock warrants. You know what I'm saying? So this is just something that should just be completely eliminated.

And let's not also forget that to have a no knock warrant, it has to be a judge that issues it. Again, elected officials. Elected officials. It goes back to elections. Who are you putting up? What do they stand for? Think about that.

Donnie, I would like the legal eagle. Oh, wait. I should also, wait. I should also say that it's every state is different. Not most states, it's with a judge that has to, but it's not always before somebody comes at it. Do you, can you explain to people what Castle Doctrine is? Like with Castle law, it's standing your ground law.

That's just basically things that make it easier for you to shoot somebody when they come in your crib, right? wait for castle or it's staying your ground castle saying your ground is basically any time you're being attacked and the castle doctrine is you be able to defend you be able to defend your home so think about that and by the way I want to talk about a couple of people here

I talked to a guy earlier today via text his name is Colleon Noir he used to be a guy I know he's a two-way guy used to do videos for the NRA somebody I had on a podcast in the past him and I don't agree with things but we've been able to have good conversations. I think that the silence

from the black 2A community on this particular killing is particularly interesting. Okay, so if you guys aren't familiar with the 2A community, what they are basically saying is that the Second Amendment is the most fundamental freemen

for our freedom in all of the Constitution. It provides you with the right to protect yourself and be a sovereign away from persecution by the state and by the government, right? You should be able to have your gun. You should be able to have 10 guns. You should be able to carry your gun wherever you want.

Should be a carrier gun in the space, carrier gun on an airplane, carry a gun in the submarine, carry a gun in the Disneyland. Wherever you want to carry your gun, the 2A community believes you should be able to carry your gun. There should be people in schools with guns. They believe that that would stop school shootings.

Guns everywhere. It's many guns. as you can possibly have. Okay. Amir Locke has a gun, a legal gun. Mm-hmm. He is sleeping. The state itself comes into the apartment.

He is startled by what he might think are intruders coming into the apartment. He grabs him going to kill him. If that's not the state killing someone who is with, who is a legal, law-abiding gun owner, if that's not farther for the NRA and for the Coelion, the Wars, who he told me he was going to make a video about it tonight, if that's not fonder for

all of these people to jump behind this issue and talk about how no-knock warrants actually put gun owners at risk or put American citizens at risk against the state that they claim is trying to look over our shoulders and take everything that we have. I don't know what is.

I don't know what, like I hit him earlier today. I said, your silence is really interesting on this. He said, I'm going to make a video tonight. I'm like, what's taking so long? Like, your, like, your, your silence on this issue is really, really interesting. Go ahead. Who is it that's going to make the video again?

Coleon DeWore. He used to do videos. He's a two-way advocate, black two-eighth advocates from Texas. He used to do videos for the NRA. Remember he was the guy that, remember when Kilamite got in trouble for going on, the podcast, he was talking with the NRA guy. Colion was the guy he was talking to. Okay.

Yeah, you said it, Van. I don't have anything else to say in regard to that. Yeah, no, no, no. I'm just saying, like, I would, I, I wasn't as familiar with the two-A group. I was looking at it up because I thought I saw I read something that I thought I read something that a two-A group said something in regards to this specific incident, but now I can't find it anymore. They might have, but what I'm saying is between this and Philando Castile, who is another legal gun owner, it seems to me that when legal gun. Gun owners are black, it doesn't fucking matter whether or not the cops kill them. It seems like they only care about guns and the 2A shit when they're taking away guns from white people.

When they're fucking over the laws of black guys that are 2A all the way and that have gun licenses and all that stuff. Nobody, these guys, where's the NRA on this? They say anything, whatever, man. Yeah, fuck it. Who cares? Let's run the video. Tom for is this fucked up? is this fucked up

is the same way we're going to talk about whether something's actually wrong okay today's is this fucked up stars mayor of New York

Eric Adams who I am thrilled to have as the mayor of New York there hasn't been more comedy from a politician

in years Trump wasn't funny to me you guys thought that shit was funny I don't think it's funny he's up there with the Toronto mayor Rob Ford. This guy's hilarious.

Play the sound of Eric Adams and what he had to apologize for. Every day in the police department, I kicked those crackers ass, man. I was unbelievable in the police department when he just went on to black and a courtman.

Hey, Miss Sergeant, a lieutenant, and the captain, you know the story. Who was he talking to? It's talking to a group of people. That's all I will tell you. Eric Adams had to come back and apologize for, you know, using the term Cracker. Okay. Donnie, I want you to drop.

Donnie, I want you to drop in the quote in the chat right now. The etymology of the word Cracker. I want you to drop and find it and drop it in a quote. And then I'm going to read it. But before I do, Rachel wasn't fucked up that he used that term. I mean, I don't know the history of the word cracker. I know white people do find it. Is that it?

That's it. That's it. So listen, so listen. So we're going to talk about this. So, no, I don't find it. Okay. So we're going to talk about this. But before I saw, I saw a peak of the definition.

Okay. I did not know where this word originated. But the only reason I was going to say that is I know white people find it offensive. but when I have a problem with it, when they start comparing it to the N-word, because there's absolutely no equivalent for it. And there's no word that is offensive as the N-word is to us that is to you.

So, I mean, do I go around using the word? No. Right, right. Okay. So, just case people that know, it's been suggested that white slave foreman in the antebellum south were called crackers, owing to their practice of cracking the whip

to drive and punish slaves. Whips were also cracked over pack animals, so Cracker may have referred to whip cracking itself. They crack a whip to get you to work. Now, let me go ahead and get into this. Is it fucked up? No. Should you be saying it?

Not really. And here's the difference between the Joe Rogan thing and this, because we're due to be called hypocrites here. But let me tell you something. And I'm going to be honest with you. This is like the opposite of the Joe Rogan situation. I'll tell you why. In the Joe Rogan situation,

any white dude that wants to say the word, nigger, I look at it in a certain way. Any white dude that thinks black people, white people have different brains, I look at a certain way. Any white dude that would say the planet apseye, I look at it a certain way. as fucked up as this might be,

the way I look at it, if you kind of don't think that white people in a way like deserve this name, not white people whiteness. I kind of look at you in a certain way. Like, I don't want to bring it up again. But like, you know,

the achos. Okay. You know, I like, I don't want to bring it up again. But I would say this. I understand it. I'm not ever going, you know, I'm not ever going to be out here on anything like calling white people crackers.

Because I just don't think it's like what's the point. Remember what I said? I said, we all got to live together. They don't call people crackers. It wasn't appropriate, especially coming from the mayor. It's back. But I can't say it's not fucked up. I can't say it's fucked up.

Because like, come on, man. White people, y'all got to get, y'all at least get these jokes. I mean, like, look, look, like, you. I'm saying like look man it's like look we didn't we didn't see here's the thing man we didn't have to give it up like we gave up bodies and bodies and blood

and we don't let us move in the neighborhood the fucking don't let us we can't direct Star Wars think about all this shit that they take like you can't direct Star Wars you can't live in the neighborhood like you can't come to the same church same school they lent you take your house all of that stuff

at least y'all got to get these jokes, man. At least they got to, we got to be allowed some fucking name calling. Sure. Sure. I understand. I understand. I think most people don't know the origin of the word. I do want to say that. So I think this will be enlightening to a lot of people.

I did not. Also, but also something else is real quick. This is the same reason why you can't, why men can't call women sexes. Some women probably are, but it just doesn't make any sense to call them that. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, great point. All right, you have a serious question?

Vaz very serious question of the week. Greatest male singers of all time. Oh, we're doing this. Wait, last time you gave me three to choose from. Are you not going to do that again? I'm going to give you three this time. Yeah. Okay. Okay.

I'm ranking. This is just on voice. Just on voice. Are you doing that because last time I said it's just who they represent as, okay, fine, just on voice. It's just voice. It's just voice. Just on voice.

Just voice. It's just voice. Okay. Sam Cook. Okay. Does Sam cook he could sing? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Luther Vandros. Mm-hmm. You got Sam Cook, Luther Vandross. Trying to think who the last guy should be. I can make it tough for you. Give me one. Teddy P. Wow.

Those are the three. Because I can't choose. I knew if you throw Teddy P in there, that's really tough for me. Sam Cook, Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, ranked them from one to three. Okay, okay. Luther's number three for me. I'm going to start there.

You out your fucking mind. Hey, hey, it's my ranking. Luther's three. Luther's three. Luther Vandross? Luther's three. But let me just say something. Sam Cook is my all-time favorite singer.

I think I've said that on the podcast. I'm like, but, and I want to put him number one. But there is something about Teddy that moves me, moves me. You told me voice alone. Voice alone. No, I feel every word, note song when Teddy sings. And this goes back to Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes. Okay?

Not just as his solo career. You got to go back to Harold Melvin. He was a drummer. They pulled him up. Harold Melvin got, Harold Melvin got jealous. That's what Teddy, Teddy had to go. Teddy had to do his own thing.

It's got to be Teddy. There is something about Teddy. Y'all got to. Teddy, Sam, Luther. So I go, Luther, Sam, Teddy. You put Teddy last? Yeah, Luther Vandross.

Best voice I've ever heard. No, no. No, no, no. Nobody sings Bertha of Luther Vandross. You know, it took me a while to warm up to Luther. What the fuck we all doing over there?

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's not that I wasn't taught him. It took me personally a while. And then once I did, I just couldn't stop. Yeah, you know what you? It's never too much. Never too much. Never too much.

It's Teddy Pink. That's Luther Vadros. Okay, look, you guys, high learning's done It's a long episode Long episode But we don't give a fuck Don't tell us what we give a fuck about

We're gonna we gonna come back We go come back We did not get to Thandie Newton And her apology We definitely want to talk about that Do we? You don't want to talk about That was like the one topic on the loose list

That I was like, no Okay that's up to you Like she wasn't apologizing to me She was apologizing to you Do you accept her apology? I didn't need it. You're so weird about apologies. I didn't need it.

I didn't need her to apologize for being light skin. Rachel, let me ask you a question. Just real quick. What was the last public apology that you accepted? Chris Harrison's. Oh, soup kitchen. I did. You accepted soup kitchen's apology?

Soup kitchen is way more racist than anybody else. Soup kitchen Like soup kitchen is Soup kitchen is safe still I'm not going to Well I usually say And I just did this podcast So call me a hypocrite

I usually say I'm not going to judge your apology That's what I usually say Aquafina didn't apologize Tandies It's like why Joe Rogan bullshit

I'm judging you We gotta go Bye All right All right Stop Learning. I am Van Latelythe Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay.

We out. Bye guys.