Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Jada Pinkett and Will Smith's Bizarre Red Table Talk

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay dive into the Red Table Talk between Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith (9:48), Chance the Rapper’s tweets about Kanye West’s presidential bid (34:04), the Washington NFL team changing their name (46:24), President Trump finally wearing a mask (58:47), and the myth of "Black-on-Black crime" (1:10:50). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I am Rachel Lindsay. Wow. That was very upbeat. You're feeling good today. I thought about it because you're usually like, okay, well, that was an enthusiastic welcome greeting. So I was like, okay, let me put some thought and energy into this. I'm always happy to do higher learning, though.

I know you are, but sometimes we can't tell because sometimes it's like, I'm Van Lathen and you're like, Rachel Lindsay or something like that. I have never said my name like that for the record. That's how you say it. That's how we hear it. That's how we hear it. We hear it when you say it like that.

How was your weekend? Super chill. I had the most lazy weekend that I've had in a while and I'm thankful for it. I've started training, one-on-one training, so my body's still getting used to it and I'm changing the way that I'm eating. So I've been real lethargic because I'm, you know, I'm trying to build this much. muscle and my body's just not used to all of this.

So I just took time off this weekend and it was nice. I was chilling. What you do? Before we talk about me, let's talk about you a little bit more. What are we training? Like, what are we working on? What are we, like, what's our? Let's talk about our short, learn, me and turn, short, long, me and turn goals.

You know what I'm saying? Like, what are we working on? Like, what are we doing? Like, what's up? I don't really have all those. Like, I'm not a person who goes into the gym and says, I want to lose weight or I want to look like this person. Yeah.

I'm just feeling a little soft and I'm used to being more muscular. and that's quarantine, just sitting around. I mean, I've done my Peloton, but I need to get on the weights. And I also need somebody, my schedule's getting crazy. So I need someone to push me and hold me accountable. That's why I get a one-on-one trainer. That's a special here. Are you an athlete?

Did you ever, we never talked about this. Did you do sports? I don't want to answer this question because I feel like the jokes are going to start coming. What? I'm not. You're on the edge of your seat, ready to hear what I'm about to say. Yes, I was an athlete. What sports?

did Rachel Lindsay play? What did you do? Well, Big Rach, but play basketball. And I ran track. I ran summer track, too. Oh! I felt like that really ups your... When you say you ran summer track, it's another level. I was running since I was six. Right.

Okay. Oh, wow. See, yeah, when you even said that, it sounded a little bit more authentic. Yo, I've been running since I was six. Yeah, pre-bantam. Because, you know, that's how that's pre-bantam, ban them, midget, juniors. It's like their names to it. Y'all, all I'm a track folks, some of track folks know what I'm talking about.

Did you just say that? M word? It was what they called it back then. Wow. It was an age group. Not referring to any particular group of people. It was an age group what they called it. Now I realize how problematic that was, but that was like, 93.

We need to call down there. It might be changed now. But back in the day, back in 94, this is what they called it. So your training went well, though. It was good. It was good. He pushes me. And my body.

doesn't have that recovery like he used to. That's what I'm noticing too. I don't like trainers like that. I got to be honest with you. What do you mean? I don't like trainers. I don't like trainers, man. First of all, first of all, a couple of things about trainers that I don't like. Shout out to all our trainers that listen to the show. I don't like you guys. Like, I don't like you guys. Like, first of all, you know I can't do that. So let's start with something. It's like, I can't do it. I like I first I run extensively I box all the time but sometimes you get trainers and they're like okay this is what I want you to do easy I'm gonna put two 45 pound plates on your feet you're gonna stand on your head and I just want you to nod back and forth I'm like I'm not like and they want to and then we're gonna put it on the gram and I want you to tag big swole 95 training I've never experienced this you've never so your trainers that you train with they don't ask you to take the training that you do with them and then put it on a gram so everyone can see.

So I personally like to do that because I like to show people what I'm doing. I'm all big on. Yeah, sure. No, I show myself on the Peloton. I show myself doing in-home workouts. I like to show the self-care of what I do because people ask questions.

Right. So I like to show them. You ladies, you ladies put your workout videos up there. It's not to make nobody work out. You guys like the way that you look. You're beautiful women. you want to show people how you look in your lulu lemons. It's cool.

I don't look cute. I have like a scarf on my head. I'm like draped it. I'm not even sleeveless. When I'm lifting weights, I mean, I'm clothed down from the neck down to the ankle. I'm not cute with it. Sometimes I am, but not all the time. Anyways, what you do this weekend?

Oh, true. For me, I watch Game of Thrones all day long on Saturday, all day. long. Did you finish a season? How far did you get? I think I got, because right now on the rewatch, I'm in season three. I think on- Wow, you got far. Yeah, I think on Saturday I was able to knock out out of seven of them. I got up that morning and I put, because I wear like the big sweat bag when I go train, right? You wear the trash bag? You run around the trash bag? Yeah. So I would love to see you running around in the trash bag. It's disgusting. You come back in, you come home and you just like, So I did that.

And then I came back in the house, chilled, and watched Game of Thrones. I watched Game of Thrones and I got some, I got delivery from three stacks kitchen, fantastic food here in L.A. And I ate some seafood. That was it. That was it. But why? Why did you decide?

Because I'm assuming you've seen Game of Thrones before. What made you say, you know what? This is the weekend. I want to do a rewatch. Well, it wasn't. I've been rewatching the whole thing. is I've reached the edge of the universe with new things that I want to consume.

I'm to the edge of the content universe. As a matter of fact, now, when people suggest shows for me to watch, it annoys me. Why? Just because it's like, I don't know. I don't need another show. I need the world to go back to the way it was.

There are no more shows. It's like, oh, at the beginning, everything, it was like, oh, let's watch Tiger King. We watch Tiger King. Everyone, like, we do all of this stuff now. You can't, a show is not going to make me feel better now. I need people to be healthy and to be able to like, you know, and so I don't want to more shows.

You want to go back to what was. Do you feel like it's taking you back to another time when you watch Game of Thrones? It absolutely is a time where we would all watch the show and then all go someplace the next day and discuss the show to where we could get together. Staples Center was open. I could go to Disneyland if I wanted to. a movie theater, whatever. I want my life back, Rachel.

Sounds like you need to move to Florida. Oh. That's popping. Disney World's opening up. But you guys explain this to me. By the way, we're going to get into the podcast for a second. This is a little bit of a longer preamble. But I want to do this. This is not on the topic

list. But as a Floridian. Whoa. I'm still a Texan. Excuse me. I'm just temporarily displaced. As a resident. Floridian, I'll say. What the fuck, man? Like, what's going on?

We've never been, I feel like, in a true lockdown. That's the problem. I mean, when you're watching TV and they're showing your governor saying back in April, well, they keep telling us and telling us this is going to happen. Well, hell, we're eight weeks in and nothing's happened. That's the clip that's gone viral that they're playing over and over again. And now look at us. We're the epicenter.

We're setting single day records every single day now at this point. We're passing New York with the number of cases that we have. We're up to 15,300 plus cases a day. You walk these streets fan. That's what I told you when I was in L.A. two weeks ago, it looks, I know your cases are going up, but ours are double years. Ours are double yours. No mask. People are out and about.

South Beach. You can see people like headed towards the beach. I'm like, but the beach is closed. Where are you going? Where are people going to? people are vacationing here. The city hasn't shut down. It hasn't. And it starts from the top.

Our leadership from the top, our mayors are arguing and fighting with one another about how the city should be shut down. It's a mess. Yeah. Yeah. You feel safe there right now? No. But I never have in Florida. You've never felt safe in Florida.

There's just something about Florida that gives me the creeps. Shout out to all our Floridians. They listen to the show. I don't know. I've just never felt at home. I'm a Texan through and through. Even though my next stop will be LA after this, I still consider myself a Texan.

I still have a Texan license plate and driver's license. You don't feel comfortable in Florida. I'll tell you why. That's because there's no headline that could come out of Florida at this point to where we would be shocked by. It literally could be like a headline that says 19 foot King Cobra jumps off top. of building wraps around man man dies then gives birth to baby giraffe like it could like it could like from the Orlando Sun Sentinel and we would be like oh shit happened to Orlando. Oh that's that's

believable. So like you you you never know. All right. I am going to do something that we've never gotten the chance to do on higher learning yet. I'm going to deliver on a tease. I told you guys, I told you guys that some sauciness, a little, a little genesee qua, you know what I said to you. I told you that a little that was going to get spicy this weekend, and it did. Got spicy on Friday. Now, we normally start off with our most hard-hitting discussion at the top of the podcast, but right now we're going to start with the bullshit. Um, Jada Pinkett Smith took herself to the red table like she promised. Not just herself. She was on the red table talk at the red table with her husband.

Wait, can I just ask you a question really quickly? Did we know Will was coming? I didn't know. Okay, I didn't either. I just want to be clear. I thought, did I miss something? Okay. So she surprised us.

I was with her husband, Will Smith, formerly. If not now, but definitely formally, definitely not now. The biggest fucking movie star on planet Earth, Will Smith was for a very long time. And they talked openly about their relationship. It turns out everything Og, everything that Aug said when he was speaking to Angela. I was literally wrote out of my notes.

Oh. Everything that Aug said was true. Oh, shit. Everybody out there that was thinking that August Alcena was making something up, y'all were wrong. Jada went all into it. She says that she met Aug. They got into what she calls an entanglement. Will look like he was going through it.

He was entangled in emotion. But it was about 15 minutes long. They got it all out. Major points is that I guess the storyline goes, Augusta Alcina, going through something. Jaden brings him home. they meet, at some point, they started sexual relationship. At the same time, Will & Jada were estranged from each other. Will & Jada decide to fix it?

When they decided to fix it, all freaked out, jumped out of the picture, and apparently all of this was some years ago. Okay. So to hear you tee it up, you make it seem like you felt like we got something from those 15 minutes. I felt not that way. Did you, I mean, I sat here and I thought, okay, I feel like we got a whole lot of nothing. Other than the fact that Jada and Will came to the table, wasn't expecting Will, he was more the interviewer.

And I think even at one point he said, I'm in your role. Like, I'm interviewing you. So that was his purpose. Probably questions that were already put together prior to the interview. It seemed, I mean, granted, she admitted they had a relationship, which was the big. deal. We didn't know if she was going to come to the table and said that. The relationship was also referred to as an entanglement you said. And by one point at will, it was referred to as an interaction. This whole conversation made me feel extremely uncomfortable. They kept laughing

and joking. And I was like, I kept that as myself, is something funny? Did I miss something? At one point, I even rewounded to see if I missed the punchline. And then I realized there wasn't one. They were laughing because it was uncomfortable and it was weird. And I guess my main issue and the reason I feel like we got just a whole lot of jibber jabber and talking around the issue, then really diving in. Because if you're going to build this up, tell us you're bringing yourself to the table. Create a whole picture of you versus yourself. I'm expecting you to go deep. And instead, all I took from it was, and I feel like women are going to come at me because you know how it is. It's like, oh, you didn't have the woman's side. I'm mad at Jada when I watch.

this because I thought Jada said, Aug, which is what I heard to. Did you notice that she went from August? August and then she got real comfortable and she was like, Aug. And I was like, oh, okay, she's just, she's just letting it all out at this point. He has a nickname. So, Aug came to them broken and was mentally

pretty much unstable. They didn't use that term, but he was really going through some things mentally and he needed to be fixed. Also, also physically, though, because when he was sick, August, August Elsinah also has some physical illness, but yeah, go ahead. That's right. So he comes to you to the Smith family or Jada for support to try to work through some of these issues.

And I felt like it was Jada's responsibility to give that to him. That's what she said, right? She said, he's coming to me because he needs to be fixed. And you took advantage of his vulnerability. At the time, he was 23. She was about 44. If he is so hurt and broken, then why would you take advantage of that? If he's coming to you for one thing, why are you going to give him something else?

I just feel like I'm not knocking her for having a relationship if they were already broken up, which is another thing that came out. I'm not knocking her because he was younger. I'm not even going to speak on the status of whatever type of relationship that Will and Jada have. I'm going to knock her for taking advantage of a situation to benefit herself under the guise that she was actually trying to help out a friend is what she said. That is my issue. I feel like he was extremely selfish. and she even says at one point in the video that she just wanted to make herself feel better.

Well, wait a second, Jada. What happened to being there for him because he was going through some stuff? You just saw this as an opportunity I felt like from watching all this. You saw this as an opportunity to selfishly act on something to give yourself, whatever it was you were lacking in your relationship with Will or in life or searching for your happiness. You tried to find that in August. I feel like in a way she used him. and when she and Will decided to mend their relationship,

if that's what we want to call it, I have my thoughts about that as well, then you kind of pushed August to the side, and he was left broken in all of this. And so it's like, you got yourself together, you and Will fixed it, but what about August,

which is the person who came to this whole situation to be fixed in the first place? I didn't like it. Okay. Well, a couple of things. Number one, I thought the coolest part about it was the fact that they were laughing. I'll tell you why.

I thought the coolest part about it, it was part that they were laughing. That was the, because these are relationship issues that they've put in their past. They're uncomfortable to discuss. Yes. But they're not uncomfortable emotionally for them to parse through. So you see, like, you see them, like they've been through the fire of it, right? They've been through it. They've talked about these things and dealt with these things.

And so when you see them laughing back and forth, they're almost giggling. and they're giggling because they're looking back on something that they can actually smile about now, but having to expose it to the whole world. She even said this was years ago. So they're looking back and forth flight. And even when she's talking, and he's like, yeah, I got into entanglement. And Will's like, you've gotten to a relationship. And even though his eyes were all, you know, red and stuff like that,

it seemed as if they were discussing something that, whatever reason they had already discussed. They had been through it. And it was embarrassing to have to discuss it with everybody else. Secondly, I'm going to put it to like this with the Aug thing. Okay. So I agree with you in theory about Jada's relationship with August Alcena. But this is what I will say.

Okay. If you are August Alcina, at least at the outset, and you're coming into the house, you're friends with Jaden, you know, you've seen her, you've seen Jada Pekin Smith, you know the legend, okay? Gorgeous.

Gorgeous, right? There is a best case scenario in your mind. Okay, like, I'll just, so he went in thinking that she was Mrs. Robinson. No, that's not what he was thinking. I'm not saying that he was thinking that. What I'm saying is, is at some point you're at the house and you're probably thinking,

you know what, it would be dope if. And then one day, that if comes into your bedroom in some Vicky Vicky Vicky Secrets, there is no way you're not elated when that starts to happen. It's Jada Pinkett. There's no way you're not elated. Of course. Of course. Now, if we're saying that Jada Pinkett Smith in that situation should have been the bigger person, the wiser, older person, I get it.

But I am happy she didn't because I'm happy that we can now have a conversation about the fact that women can be just as toxic as us guys. Boom. Women, Jada, like Jada, Jada, Jada looked at it. Jada was like, you know what? Yeah, sure, it's a wounded bird. Let me see if I can fix those wounds with my thing-thang. I'm going to throw some thing-thang on this boy and see what happens. And after a while, it always goes the same way it always does.

At first, the thing-thing takes over. And everybody's doing whatever they're doing. And it's all about that. And then after a while, you know, you're finished and the other person gets up to leave and then you go, where are you going? I put my clothes on, I'm about to go back on the other. I was like, you don't want to finish watching a Chappelle show? And the moment they stay and finish watching the Chappelle show, you're in a relationship. That's how it happens.

Dang, thing, thank, thank, thank, thank, Chappelle show. That's the way that it happens. So at that particular point, that was the moment. That was the moment. the moment that things got a little bit more serious, where there needed to be communication between August Alcena and Jada Pinkett to where somebody needed to say, hey,

I'm not divorced, I'm estranged, and I don't see myself living a life in the future without my husband. And that's where she didn't do it. She let it go till she did that other part, and then just left this guy who's been through so much August Alcena kind of to pick up the pieces on his own. That's what it seems like happened.

Well, that's what she said. She says that. And I think that my issue with Jada is, if you would have rather just said from, don't say, oh, he came to us and I just thought he needed to be fit. No, just say, you were going through some things. You wanted some attention. I saw him that he was filling me. I'd rather that.

Stop trying to make it seem like it was something that it wasn't. Like what she said? But that's what she said, though. She said he came over. and at first, but then they got the... They became such good friends. We became such good friends. And then we got into an entanglement.

We got into an entanglement. We got to shit out of each other. I can't. And with Will, embarrassing is the perfect word to use. I did not think that they were giggling through it. I thought that they were laughing through the fact that it was very uncomfortable. I don't think Will's okay. We've talked about Mel Pride on this show and the fact that this 20,

year old, your son's friend comes into your home and you're helping him and then come to find out he's helping your wife in more ways than one. I can't say he's laughing through that at this point. I don't think you would be okay with that. I thought he was extremely, I thought he was extremely uncomfortable. And I think that their relationship now is not of this unconditional love. It's just more of, it's easier to stay together type situation. I don't think that that's true at all. I think that they've been through some things and they, it's just easier to ride for each other at this point than it is to just be apart. I'll be honest with you. I feel like it's almost the ideal relationship in a lot of ways. Wow. Well, please speak on it. Because it's,

it seems like a relationship of brutal and almost reckless honesty. And you're assuming you're believing what they're giving us. Because see, I don't believe that. I don't believe everything they're Well, if you don't believe that, then of course, then it looks completely dysfunctional and trashed. But if you believe them, if you take them at face value and with what they're sharing, it looks like between them, they have a version of honesty

that isn't just aspirational. It's almost like, it's not something you would even inspire to because it's not something you would even want. It's undesirable to have that much honesty, it would seem like. Because it seems like Will Will could turn around to Jada and be like, yo, I was on set today

doing this movie called Focus with Margo Robbie. I don't know if you saw Wolf of Wall Street. I'm going to do this movie, but she's bad as shit in person. And I think I want to swim through her vanilla village. I'll be honest with you. I want to have sex with her. I can't stop. And that's something that it seems like he could say to her.

Are you saying that is something? Are you, because see, that's what I'm trying not to talk about in all of this. Is this rumored that they have this, this, this rumor they have this open relationship? Because they have not come out and set that themselves. I don't know whether or not their relationship is actually open, but I feel like he could express his desire for someone else. It doesn't seem like there's anything at this point that Will and Jada would be able, that Will and Jada would hide from one another.

And that's kind of cool. I guess I just don't believe that. I mean, even him saying, well, I'm going to get. get you back type thing and she's like, no, you're not. It just, we're missing something. And not even that we are, we should be able to have whatever it is that we're missing. That's their business. And I think that we wouldn't even know this if August had not come out, right?

He had an album to promote in a documentary. And because there was no need for him to tell all of this. And Jada took advantage of it by breaking records on Facebook with the amount of views that watched this red table talk. Oh, she had to. Yeah. They weren't going to let her do another. red table talk until she addressed

what was going on. She had to. She had to and I'm glad she did. But I still feel like there's something missing and we're not privy to this information and we shouldn't be. But we're not getting the full story with Jada and Will and I don't know. The whole thing made me feel extremely uncomfortable. I wasn't... Not me.

I liked it. You just wanted to see. You just were like... No, it's not. No, it's like... Yes. Yes. But you know what? But here's the thing, no. It's a case of a family that didn't split up. Like, there's still together. Like, it's like, it's a family that didn't split up.

But can't you argue it's more harmful sometimes to stay. Well, the kids are grown at this point. So that doesn't even matter. But it can be more harmful to stay together sometimes than to not. I don't know. I just feel like it's a very business relationship. Oh, how? But there's no way for you to know that, though.

And what Will has said, has come out and said that divorce is the ultimate failure for him. And he doesn't want to do that. Yeah. So he's a person who will do whatever to stay. Not even, not necessarily that it's right. It's just that to him, divorce is the ultimate. ultimate failure. And so I don't really watch Red Table Talk, but I watched the video before with the Father's Day of him talking with Jaden. I really got some more insight to how Will is.

He's very type A and he doesn't like to fail at anything. And that's where I saw him say that. So I'm like for him to, for this to fail would be very detrimental to him for how he functions and lives his, what he lives his life by him. But he already divorced one lady. And you know what that's in my notes. That's in my notes. Where is Cherie? where is Cherie? Go back to Sheree. Wait me where's Sheree? Go back to Sheree.

Go back to Sheree. By the way, shout out to Sheree. Shout out to Sheree. That's what my notes say. I had Sheree on my other podcast. I like her. I had Sheree on my other podcast and the Red Piel podcast. We did an interview.

She's fantastic, amazing, beautiful, brilliant lady. And we talked to her about the fact because around that time, that's when Jada had said that they're in an unromantic thruple. Do you remember that? Jada had said that they were in an unromantic thruple. And she was like, I don't like the term thruple because it makes it seem as if somebody's getting fucked. And so, and so like I understood what she was saying. But even in that situation, when you look at the relationship between her and Jada and Will and Tray, they're doing their best to not have their interpersonal relationships dictated by pain and strife.

And for a family, that's really all you can ask. I love that. That's all you can ask for family. That's what I'm saying. That part. I love the dynamic, the way that they're able to coexist together. But look, man,

shout out to the Smiths, man. Everybody was all in their business. I thought they handled it with bravery and grace. And, you know, sometimes when you, ask a different question. Let's say you want to be married to Brian forever, right? Of course, the plan. I want to be married forever.

That's the plan, right? What if? How long y'all been married? I don't like this. I don't like, I don't like, I don't like where it's going. I'm just asking you. I've been married for a year, right? A year in August.

Let's say it a year in August. Oh, in August. Excuse me, a year in August. A year in August. Wow. I wonder if Jada spent a whole year on August. Anyway, um, so let me see. What if like in 15 or 20 years, 15 years, like each of you guys was

feeling like you need a little pit stop. You know what I mean? Like if that meant that you would stay together forever, forever and be together forever, is the actual physical monogamy more important? Or is the long-term relationship more important? There's so many layers to that, though, because... How? Do you want to stay in a relationship, like knowing that you took a pit stop?

Do you want to stay in a relationship with me? knowing that it might change my whole mindset and how I now navigate this relationship knowing that you took this pit stop and who you took this pit stop with. Like there's, I don't, my mindset, like, I don't know if you've ever been cheated on, but I've been cheated on before.

And it changed the dynamic of the whole relationship. I'm looking at you differently when you walk into another room, when you look at your phone, when you say you're going with the boys, it changes everything. No, but what if it's open? What if it's open, though?

What if it's like, what if you guys come together? If you guys do it. If I want to have an open relationship, I've already mentally checked out. No, what I'm saying is what if you guys decide, okay, just for one second, just for one moment in time, we're going to each go get a little thing thing, and then we can come back and finish doing this to the end of time. But see, am I saying, do we get to talk about who it was with?

So basically a hall pass. Are we talking about who it was with? Brutal honesty. Brutal honesty. I don't think, I know me, I could not handle that. Interesting. I was cheated on. I was cheated on once.

Do you want to hear the story? Yes, please. Okay. So I was in Baton Rouge living. My then-girlfriend had gone to, gone to, she had graduated college and then gone back to school up in Michigan. Or gone to live back where the people up in Michigan.

And she hit me. on a text one time and she goes, D, you're trying to go to the movies? And I was like, huh? And she was like, and she texted again. I don't know what was going on. She's like, D, you trying to go to the movies?

And I was like, uh, it's V. And I was like, it's V. And I'm down here in Baton Rouge. Are you home? Have you come back? Are you in town? I know. knew she wasn't in town.

She goes, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I wasn't to you. That was to a family friend of ours. Like a friend of my dad's, a family friend of my, I was like, okay, cool, no problem. So I tried to, like, deal with it. And then a couple of days after that, I hit her brother. And this was kind of messed up because he was only, I think, like 13 or 14 at the time. And I just started, like, digging.

digging around, asking, hey, whoa, blah, blah, how you been? You're still on the Madden Dog. You're still doing what you're doing, blah, blah, blah. And after a while, he basically said, yeah, yeah, he's over here all the time. Like, they hang out, they kick it, they watch movies, they be on the thing together, blah, blah, blah, yeah. He's like, whatever, whatever. And I'm going through it the entire deal until a point to where I just, I just ask her straight up, like, you know, like it seems like this is more than a family friend

like what's going on and before I can even finish she goes, we only fuck once. Wow! And you know what I realized at that point? I realized something about myself. Like, I don't know if at that point in life I had been beaten down by my insecurity or whatever because I was like much bigger guy.

I was like at that point I was, like, at that point I was, like she was really attractive and I was at that point I think around 350 or 360 like I felt happy for her. Man this is twisted. Why? Because there was a part of security. Yeah, there was a part of me that always felt like there was something she was giving up by being with such a bigger guy. Was D big? We don't know what D looked like.

I don't know what D looked like. I don't know what Dee looks like. You might have been a big guy too. I doubt that she cheated on her fat boyfriend with an even fatter one. Like, I doubt, she was probably, she was probably doing it. So I remember thinking to myself and I remember thinking, you know what's going to happen? It's going to be okay. I'm going to work out.

I'm going to lose weight and I'll never be in this situation again. I took her thing and made it completely about me. It's like, of course she did that. Like I'll never, ever. I was like, of course she did that. Of course she did. That's because it's something that had to do with you. And that, and that's why now when, like, when people tell me stories about people going through relationships and getting over stuff and dealing with stuff and how one person can make it all their fault, I get it. Like, I get how people, I get how people can do that. I get that, but you didn't stay with her. Oh, and I didn't break up with her then. I did, of course. I didn't break up with her. Then I waited until I lost all the way. Then I broke up with her. But what I'm saying is it wasn't forever.

Love that, by the way. I'm just saying it wasn't forever. I think that, yeah, like, we all take things from different relationships and you go from them. I dated a guy who had a whole family that I didn't know about. Shout out to him. Ghosted me. To go end up being with that family. What a Rachel do now works for a TV show called Ghosted.

Thanks for being my motivation. You're coping. You're coping. Coping. Now, we just kind of shared our souls right there. Somebody else who shared their soul, two weeks in a row, we have to talk about celebrities making off-brand political comments on the Twitter sphere, the Instagram, the social media.

We're not talking about Chance to rapper. Chance the rapper. Oh. Sorry. Oh, you thought we were going somewhere else. We're talking to record somewhere else. No, we're talking about Chance the rapper. We're talking about Chance the rapper,

fantastically talented young man from up there in Chicago, makes great music, the last album, not good. However, Chance is ridiculously ill. Super, it wasn't. Not good music, but that's okay. Like, line up 10 people, 10 artists, put 10 albums. Somebody got a whack album. I didn't like the last album.

Chance is ill. Ill as shit. Talented shit. Great. Chance! decided to ask everyone on Twitter whether or not they were more pro-Biden or anti-Ka-West. He is, I guess, was beating the drum of Kanye West as president on Twitter. They are very close.

Chance asks his question, he goes, are you guys more pro-Biden or anti-Ye and why? I get that you want to reply that you're just trying to get Trump out. But in this hypothetical scenario where you're replacing Trump, can someone explain why Joe Biden would be better? And when we say Joe Biden be better, we're talking about Joe Biden be better than Kanye West. The reaction was fucking swift. They told this boy's ass up. And in true celebrity fashion, he is since, crawfished away from this opinion and is now trying to change the perception he is sprinting

down the hill he says he was going to die on. But Chance did before that though, spend a lot of time explaining his position on that. Did you see the tweets that he put out there? Do you have any thoughts on it? Now this one hurts because I'm a huge chance the rapper fan. I'm talking 10-day acid rap, coloring book. maybe not so much the big day. I'm not going to say it's terrible, but I'm a big, big fan of him. I understand you have a close relationship with Kanye West,

but if you truly have a relationship with him, you need to be concerned for his mental health and his well-being. It is odd to me that he decided to tweet these things, knowing that it has since come out that people close to Kanye West are concerned about him and that he is currently having an episode. Even Elon Musk, who originally supported him and his wanting to be the president has retracted that support.

So it's odd to me that you're trying to die on this hill and say, oh, you know, you want Biden over yay? It's like, do you understand what you're saying? Oh, he's the lesser of two evils, but isn't Yeh better than Biden? That's not the point. You're obviously not paying attention to what's happening in our country right now and what's going on with Trump. We don't need to be supporting Yeh.

We need to be supporting him in that he's taking care of himself. and that's where it ends. I just expect more from Chance. The fact that you have a personal relationship with someone and you know them shouldn't be the reason, the only reason that you're backing them, when you understand that Kanye West knows nothing about foreign policy, maybe Chance is supporting pro-life on pro-choice.

Maybe that doesn't bother him. The anti-vaccination that he's against, the fact that he knows nothing else in regards to running a presidency other than the fact that he feels he could do a better, job than the current to presidential candidates. I just don't understand what we're doing here. And again, it saddens me because I love Chance the rapper. The problem with everything that happened today with Chance and everything that happens every time we discuss this can all be traced back to one sentence that you just say.

One sentence. You said, I expected more. And that's what we all have to analyze and come to terms with now. If somebody walked into my room right now in my house, you're looking around this room, it's all white, right? And they painted a beautiful mural on the wall, right? They painted a beautiful mural on the wall that was so unbelievably expressive and amazing and detailed. and it was a picture of gameplay from Madden football,

the game that's currently on my TV screen right now. They played a Madden mural. Now, it's amazing. Okay. I believe you. I want you to take some time and go play the game. And just relax a little bit. So they played a beautiful mural,

a beautiful artistic representation of Madden football on this wall right here. Hey, it's a big thing. I'm like, boom. Then we sit down and I hand them to the controller and I say, let's play. it would be silly for me to be disappointed if they couldn't play the game. Because drawing the game in an artistic way, all right, talking about the game in a very, like expressing yourself artistically about the game

is different than playing. It's not the same. In order to play the game, you have to know how the game works. You have to know about the engine. You have to know about the plays. You have to be educated on how to be successful on it. I think that we've gotten into something with artists and musicians, athletes to a degree, even people like ourselves, podcasters or content creators, where we think that they've played

more of these games than they actually have. We think that because they're able to express themselves artistically about a subject, that they're an expert on it. And because chance comes off, not to comes off, chance is. is a rapper that's more introspective, that's more sort of engaged. Yeah. That seems to care more, right? We somehow think that that insulates him from being able to say dumb shit.

Right. And it doesn't. And what he said was dumb. Dumb. And what that means is that we have to be intentional about lifting up and creating voices and making famous and empowering the people who know what they're talking about. We talked about this last week. So everyone's going off on Chance right now because they expect more from him.

And I think that we're going to continuously disappoint ourselves if we expect more from people who haven't first shown us more. And I'm not saying that Chance is stupid or anything like that because I don't think that he is. and I don't think he's incapable of understanding these things, but not just this. If you look at some other things that he's said in the past, I don't think he's tried this chance. I don't think he's made an effort to.

And you guys, we live in an effort era. You got to make effort to understand defunding. You got to make effort to understand Black Lives Matter. You got to make effort. Like stop asking somebody else to explain this shit to you. That's also the era we live in. We live in an era. where people do not research things for themselves.

They read headlines. They take what's given to them and they keep it moving. That's the problem. These things are too complex now. I agree. And they're too nuanced. So Chance got to be Chance the reader. All right.

I'm just saying like seriously, chance got to be, you know, chance to thinker. Chance the researcher. Chance the researcher. I had some other thews to it. But it's not going to be. going to work like it is. Now, that's like, that was crazy, weird shit. No, but no.

There's no way to, there's no reason. No. Blanket, no. No reason to consider a Kanye West as a viable alternative to Joe Biden. No reason. No. But like, what were you trying to accomplish? Chance. What, that's what I, that was my first, well, my first thought was like, chance, no, like, come back. Second thought was, but what are you trying to accomplish? Are you trying to start a debate on Twitter? Are you trying to generate conversation? It just didn't make any sense to me, especially when the reports have come out about Kanye and his

mental state at this point. So what were we doing here at this moment? I don't know. You like him still? Yeah, I do. Yeah, I like him still too. He retracted.

He retracted. He retracted. It just like, I like it. He retracted it, but that almost makes me more pissed off. That he retracted. That's what I'm saying. What were you doing this for? What was the purpose of this?

It seems like it was to garner some type of attention. Because he backtracked pretty quickly. Yeah, he did. And when people backtrack as quickly, we're going to talk about this with somebody else. When people eventually, I look at there's, there's something I call dumb damage. Dumb damage is all the damage.

you do in the middle before you come to eventually the right conclusion. Okay? Smart people do the least amount of dumb damage possible. So smart people like dumb people, ignorant people, they do a lot of dumb damage. And so that's what he did. He like, it was a small, a small little portion, but he just did some dumb damage just just to come by, just to come back at the end of it and be like, whatever. It's like I get that people,

I just don't know why people are so ready to put their silly shit on front street now. Like have this conversation with some of your homies first and then workshop your shit and then take it to the, take it to the rest of us and discuss it. Because now, unfortunately, we're silly enough to have wasted a bunch of hours talking about something that doesn't make any fucking sense whatsoever. And it's necessary, and I agree with everything you're saying, but it's necessary to talk about it because he has a platform. He's very influential. He is regarded as a conscious rapper.

So for him to make these type of statements, it's like, oh, but Chance said this. Maybe Chance has a point. Where is Chance coming from? And it's just, it's a conversation that doesn't need to be had because it takes away from the bigger discussion of what we need to be talking about moving forward into this election. I'm so sick of these platforms too. Somebody, some of y'all need to jump off these platforms. I'm so sick and he's like,

does everybody got a platform? I get it. No, I don't think anybody should shut up and make music. Anybody should shut up and dribble. Anybody should shut up. But I'm just saying, man, when we come to these discussions,

let's come to these discussions with some type of intellectual authority. That's all I'm saying. Chance of good dude, man. Hopefully. Right. When you're going to make, when you're going to make comments about things like this, right? It's not like what's your favorite color? Right.

And he said, and there was one thing, and I love this, by the way, there was one thing that I think was the final straw for. Because in his latest tweet, he goes, I understand the probability of yay winning the 46th president's receipt. And I understand that everyone voting for Biden isn't necessarily doing so enthusiasm. I am for black, lower case B, work on that chance. I am for black liberation and do not accept my recent endorsement from Terry Cruz.

So it was the endorsement of Terry Cruz. I saw that tweet. And I was like, did Terry endorse him after these round of tweets? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, um. You're like, I do not want to talk about Terry Cruz.

I get it. No. Keep a movement. Okay. We're going to change the topic to somebody changing the name. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast.

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actually satisfies. Sweet Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients, zero shortcuts, everything you love in one hand. Think green goddess chicken, garlic aoli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa, 40 grams of protein made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. To the world of sports, the Washington Redskins are now going to change the name of the team. We don't have. have any sort of inkling to what they're going to change their name to yet. Right. They have not said.

But reports are that owner Daniel Snyder, who we should say, has been not just hesitant, has been defiant in the past of changing the name of the team. Defiant in the face of so many outcries from the native population and the indigenous of the population here in the United States. He has finally relented. Reports are they are going to change the name of the Washington Redskins.

Do you care? I care because this has been a fight long for Native Americans that this isn't just something that's come about. Please understand this. This isn't something that's come about with the Black Lives Matter movement and fighting for justice,

racial justice. This is something that the Native Americans have been fighting for for a very long time. I think, in fact, it was 1992 that they fought against the name Redskins. And it went all the way to the Supreme Court. And it wasn't until 2017 that the Supreme Court said even a name like the Redskins is protected under the First Amendment. They have been fighting this fight. It just hasn't gotten the attention.

And for those of you who are like, oh, the Redskins, it's history. It's been the team name for this amount of time. If you look up what the term Redskins means, it's defined. as offensive and disparaging and insulting or even taboo. It's a racial slur towards the Native American population. And I think when people, you kind of dismiss it because you've heard it for so long, so it's become a part of your vocabulary to the point where maybe it's watered down a bit. But just imagine if it was the black skins, right?

Doesn't sound good. Not a good thing. My whole takeaway from this, though, is, yes, I care. This has been something that has been fought for a long time. Daniel Snyder, the owner of the Washington, formerly known as Redskins, has adamantly said he is never changing the name. But then what happens? Money talks. Your investors and your sponsors say, you know what? We're going to pull our money away. So let's also just be honest for a second. Washington Redskins aren't changing their name because they feel like it's right. And this is something they feel that should be done because they want to,

they know that it is offensive to the Native American population. They are doing this because they were going to lose money and sponsors, period. Nike, FedEx, PepsiCo, all of them, their investors wrote letters to them saying that they will pull their money away if you don't change the name. That's it. So I'm not going to give them a pat on the back, as I love to say, I'm not going to congratulate a fish for swimming. I'm not going to give you a pat on the back for doing something that you should have done. It's offensive and it's wrong. And the only reason you're changing this is because you are about to lose money.

It's a business decision. It's not a social justice or racial equality decision. But I'm happy they're changing it. Right. Every decision that a corporation ever makes is a business decision. A corporation never really makes decisions for the interests of, they exist to make money. So that's definitely true. I care in that, I care that somewhere a group of people are,

going to feel more whole and they're going to feel happy that they got what they wanted and that they don't have to look at merch and look at games on Sunday and see their culture belittled every single time they see that right now by the way old Redskins gear is now going to become a symbol of rebellion it's going to become they're still going to make shirts they're still going to make hats People are going to rebel. People are going to use that to signal something. So let's hope that those voices stay as quiet as possible. The thing that bothers me about it is that I just wonder where FedEx and Pepsi Cola and all of those people were when Native Americans were protesting,

when they were signing petitions, when they were talking about this. Because this is something that I covered in my previous incarnation of TMZ Sports. this was a serious big thing. Yeah. Like on TMZ sports, I had referred to Washington as the Washington Pro Football franchise. Max Kellerman had been doing this. It's going on for a couple of years now that they had made to that point, you know. So I'm wondering why they didn't hear those voices then.

And I know that that's crazy. I know that that frustrates some people where people go, well, progress is progress. And you should always, you know, welcome it and put your arms around it. And that's true. But you always also want to know what the tipping point is. is. And I know that we're in a moment where everyone is afraid to be exposed and everyone is afraid to lose face and lose, you know, I guess public love for the racist shit that they've done in the past or are doing now. But it just makes me think that we're going to get to a place

after this where that this moment can't live forever that we're going to get to a place after this where everyone has other things to be concerned about and they're going to be less concerned with

how Americans, especially Native Americans, who gave their lives unintentionally who bled involuntarily involuntarily, should I say, for this country. And can't

can't even get a conversation going amongst corporate America about why they shouldn't have their balls kicked in every Sunday and every time they see somebody wearing a hat or a sweater. It saddens me that they just relented right now because it was trendy to. It makes me think that we're, it's progress, but it feels disingenuous. And this is, and I get it. And I don't know if I'm articulating myself quite right. But what I'm saying is there's somebody somewhere listening to this going, Jesus, Van, will anything make you happy?

I get it. I understand what you're saying. But what I'm saying is that I don't need the Redskins to just change the name. The Redskins as an organization need to take action and make this right in some way. And I'm not sure what that would be. in some sort of way the Redskins organization and we keep saying it over and over and over again

but I just want to let you know that that's a racial slur and I'm going to keep saying it to drive at home because that's what it must feel like every single time somebody hears it but they need to make it right with Native Americans

and I don't know what it is they have to do but this can't be enough just to change the name. I don't think you're wrong and for pointing this out because personally, I feel like we're already on the downward end of the trend of Black Lives Matter and just fighting for racial against racial injustice. I feel like we're already there. You've seen these posts and tweets saying Rihanna Taylor's name isn't trending anymore.

Are people still calling and protesting the same way that they were before? And I'm not saying that's the only way that you have to do it to fight it. But I'm just saying the trend is already changing. in a bit. It's dying down. I shouldn't say it's changing. It's just more so dying down. And I think that it's important to focus on what you were saying because it's easy to do it when everybody's talking about it, but then when they're not talking about it, what are you doing? And the reason it's important to keep reminding people of that is because when it does die down, you need to recognize the fact that it has died down, but the injustice has not been fixed. Just because the trend

died down doesn't mean injustice has died down as well. It hasn't. And this was an argument that was made on first take today with Charles Barkley. And he was saying how it's turning a bit into a, it's turning into a bit of a circus with the NBA with wanting to paint Black Lives Matter on the court and the names on the back of jerseys, which they've already said LeBron James and Anthony Davis are not going to put slogans on the back of their jersey. It's like, okay, it's very performative, but what are you actually doing to help make change? And that's what I think the point that you're making is, okay, great, you're changing the names. We've been fighting for this for decades and decades since the existence of the name Redskins, which is a racial slur.

But what are you actually doing to help the people that you are offending? That's what needs to be done. I do have a question for you. So Redskins isn't the only offensive name that's out there. Do you think that other names should be changed as well? You've got the Blackhawks. You've got the Indians. You've got the Chiefs.

Do we need to see this happen in every single form of it? do you think people will change it or will it stop with the Redskins? Because I do feel like the Redskins has been the biggest fight for them. Maybe the Cleveland Indians as well. Chiefs and Blackhawks, not as much as Redskins and the Indians.

It's a difficult question for me to answer just because I'd like to know. And I'll see that. I'd like to know from a native person what the line is. And there's got to be, I mean, I'm sure they have line, you know, because what I'm saying is like, so Florida State, their mascot is the Seminoles.

Now, the Seminoles are an Indian tribe, or excuse me, a Native American tribe that existed in that part of Florida for a very, very long time. When I'm from in Louisiana, we had a Tittamachi Indians, we had the Choctaw Indians, we had all types of different Native American tribes that lived down there. Would it be inappropriate to name a team after a group of people that actually, actually live there, right? So that would be interesting to see, because remember, Redskins itself is a racist term. Yeah. Indians is a historically inaccurate term.

I'm not sure how offensive it is, but it's definitely historically inaccurate. But once again, I don't know. I think with Cleveland, the more offensive, and I think that they've retired him, I'm not sure, the more offensive part of that was Chief Wahoo himself. They did last year. They got rid of him. So Chief Wahoo himself, which was, you know, a caricature of a Native American and people hated that. So I think that was offensive.

And with the Atlanta Braves and the Kansas City Chiefs and the Florida State Seminoles, and if they're offensive aspects of the culture of fandom, like the Tomahawk Chop, that they do at games when they do the, and they do a national. Native American chant, you know, those things go had in hand with those team names. So I would be interested to know if it's just time to get rid of that, period, because I do know other people that had names like, you know, redskins or Indians. And they change their name to Red Hawks or something like that. So it seems to be less, less offensive. But I really don't know.

I think you bring up a good point, though, too. too because it's like you can't be the Florida State Seminoles and have a white man dressed up as an Indian doing some type of dance, which I don't know if is even a real dance that's towards the culture or not. It's just a mockery of it. Right. Very interesting. Yeah, it's super interesting. But once again, I would love, and if you're listening to the podcast and you are of Native descent, I would love to have this conversation with you, hit me up and we will discuss it. But, you know, that's a question that I. It seems inappropriate to me, but then again, like, black dude. So who knows? Trump, your president, who you support it. Trump has finally, speaking of like dumb damage, this is the ultimate dumb damage. Trump has finally dawned the mass.

So I just want to say something to you right now. Okay. If you are one of these people over the last month and a half, two months, three months even, who has been running to State House doors, flipping out in Trader Joe's, and all of that, because you feel like you don't want to wear a mask

because it infringes upon your freedom and you're following the lead of your president and his administration by not wearing a mask. Don't you feel like a fucking ignoramus now? No. You fucking sure. should. And I'll tell you why.

You should. You should. But I'll tell you why. Because now I'm putting myself in the position of trumpets. That's what we call him. And Trump had an explanation as to why he was wearing a mask. He didn't, he's not, and let's also note that he was not wearing the mask in the proper way. He decided to put on a mask.

His nose was not covered. He only covered his mouth. If you're going to wear a mask, you must cover your nose in your mouth. Anyways, Trump. has an excuse as to why he was wearing a mask. He said this, I think it was on Sean Hannity show, that he said this. But he said, I think when you're going in a hospital, especially in a particular setting, when you're talking to a lot of soldiers and people that in some cases just got off the operating table,

I think it's great to wear a mask. And then he goes on to say that he's never been against wearing masks, but he does believe that they have a time and a place. So if I'm a trumpet, I'm thinking the only reason he was wearing that mask, he already said it, is because he was in the hospital and he didn't want to put other people at risk. Not that that's a great analogy, not that that's a great comparison. But that is what trumpets will say, oh, well, he was just in a hospital. So he wanted to make sure that he took extreme measures. Well, you have to be stupid to believe that because either the virus can kill you or it can't, right?

But can't you just say that that's just the theme for Trump? I know, but it's upsetting because if the virus is something that we don't have to worry about that it doesn't affect us, then why is it dangerous all of a sudden inside of a hospital? If it's not dangerous, it's not dangerous in a hospital. It is not dangerous in a tree. It is not dangerous anywhere. So like, come on, Dr. Seuss. I was about to go there. I was about to go there.

But, and so, but, you know, and let's be honest, if you go back far enough, you know, if you go back far enough, you can find enough evidence to where no one knew how effective masks were. No one knew. There was even, even Dr. Fauci at one point said that, you know, he didn't feel like masks were super effective or an effective strategy to fight the coronavirus, right? To fight COVID-19.

The virus is novel. It's novel, right? It's new. It's something we've never dealt before. Debt with before. No one, no one should be upset at anybody for having the wrong information about the virus in March. But we are constantly gathering data on this state.

Constantly. And as the data changes, the practices will change. The mask wearing has been a recommendation going on for weeks and months now. So for the president to have fought that data until we are at code red critical crisis stage of the American response to the COVID-19 pandemic, basically just he sentenced a lot of people to death for nothing. Yeah. Because if masks are reducing transmission,

transmission is reducing complication, and the reducing complication reduces death. And so the entire time that you're not going, going by best practices here. People are dying because of it. I just never seen a more reckless person with that much power. It's so scary. It's so scary.

And I just want to clarify when you say that in March, there was so much we didn't know. When you're referring to that, you're talking about like the scientists and the doctors, not statements that were made about it magically disappearing and this being a hoax by the Democrats. Those aren't, that's not in regard to people not knowing because they didn't know that that's the kind of thing that they were saying. no, this disease, this virus was alive and well and it was out here. It's just that it's been mutating. It's novel.

There's so much we don't know about it as far as wearing a mask, wearing gloves, how long it sits in the air and on certain surfaces. All those. There was a case where it used to be to where I would go out, come back in and immediately throw my clothes in a hamper. You know what I mean? And like immediately throw my clothes and take a shower. Yeah. You know what I mean? And like we now know that we don't really have to do that. Doesn't hurt, but we don't really have to do it. You guys just don't fight science, man. We just like don't fight science. You know, it's just if you don't fight the science, maybe we have a chance to mitigate this until there are better treatments or maybe even a vaccine.

But if we act dumb, we die dumb. It's crazy. It's crazy because it's becoming a political issue and it's all. it's just about public health. And I think that's the most frustrating thing. You have people who have been fighting diseases and infection and viruses for decades. And all of a sudden, when no other administration has fought against it, you decide, you know what? They're the problem. I'm not going to believe them. Let's just keep our businesses open. Keep our schools open. Let's just be happy. And, you know, we're America and we're a great country. Literally, that's really the reasoning out of all of this. And I think that's what's frustrating. The common denominator, the problem in all of this is the person who is leading our country at this point, or at least has the title for it.

There was news that broke today, and I'm not sure if you saw it. This was not on the topic, so I'm just going to go to it. It looks like the body of Naya Rivera from Glee has been recovered. And I just wanted it. We haven't really talked about it and covered it here. If you guys aren't up in the story, Nia Rivera, very talented actress and singer from Glee it looks to have been the victim

of a swimming accident in a California lake she her son was found on a pontoon boat sleeping someone called someone called someone called someone and said there's a child sleeping on a boat by themselves officials came out they obviously found the child

they did not find Nair Rivera and she was present Zoom dead a while ago, and it looks like they have found a body after dragging, Pirate. This is a horrific, terrible, horrible, sad story. Yeah. It is just, listen, man, for anybody anywhere that's listening to us talk, I don't know how you're going to do it, and I don't know when you're going to do it,

find some time to give yourself a break. because I cannot remember a moment. Like, I can't remember any moment in my life having to be confronted with this much putrid, terrible soul-destroying news. And everybody that's listening to us, we appreciate you listening. You owe yourself a break. Mm-hmm. And, like, when you get stuff like this, I never met Nair Rivera.

I do not know Nair Rivera. All I know is that it is a horribly tragic situation to think of a child that loses their mother to an accident. Something so random just to happen and the life is gone, just with everything swirling around us. Kelly Preston, John Travolta's wife, passed away from breast cancer. I have no idea. I'm a spiritual man. I don't know what's what's trying to be told to us. I don't know what moment we're in.

But I do know that sometimes for me, I just gotta go someplace and look at some water. And just relax. Yeah. I have to like look at puppies to play around and bite each other. And like I have to like read James Baldwin or watch Harlem nights or just watch Game of Thrones all day. Yeah.

Like for you, like what goes, like what goes through your mind? Like, how are you, like, yeah. Well, it's, it's so true, sadly true what you're saying because I get to the point where I'm trying to break this habit, but I'm one of those people who when I wake up, the first thing I do is I turn over and I look at my phone. And first thing I looked at my phone today and saw it was about Kelly Preston. And I was like, my gosh, I didn't even know this. And then a few hours later, you hear about the body. discovered of Naya Rivera. And it's just, I am to the point where when an alert comes on my phone, I am terrified to open up and see what it is. It used to be, oh my gosh, what maybe gossip or tea

is it going to be. Now it's just tragedies. And it's so, and it's what you said, I don't know what it is, the message, what we're supposed to learn from this. I'm a person who believes in therapy. I honestly have not gone in a while. Do you know today I picked up the phone and I was like, because it's actually closed here. I said, we got to do a Zoom call or a Skype or something because I made an appointment this week because it's just too much and I need to process it and I need to filter it through my therapist at this point because there's just so much I don't understand. And not that the therapist can give that to you, but I just need to release. it. Right. Because what I'm doing isn't working. Right. Yeah, true. Like, just let everybody know,

grief is a team sport. Like, all of these things are team sports. Don't play ISO ball with this. Don't be in the gym getting shots up by yourself. It's a team sport. You need to pass. You need to receive. You need to spread these things out, discuss them and talk about them. But more than anything, uh, man, rest and peace and I, Rivera. And, wow. Just. really nowhere. It's like so unbelievably horrible and tragic and sad. And also, you guys, if you numb out, at a certain point, if you numb out, that's just your body trying to deal with it too and your mind trying to deal with that too. Don't be too hard on yourself if at some point you stop feeling for a little while. Just talk to somebody. Talk to somebody. Exactly. Don't handle

it all by yourself. You can't. Now, there's something that that we want to discuss here on the show. And it's something that I get asked a lot, and it's something that as the movement for Black Lives or Black Lives Matter or discussion of the safety and viability of black people, get some more eyes on it, we're going to have to discuss. So you've seen headlines pulled from places like

Atlanta that I've had seen recently extreme spikes in violence. Have you seen these headlines, Rachel? No. Like kids killed in Atlanta, this many kids killed. That was a young man hit by a, there was a couple of different places. And we'll get them. I guess Chicago is what I'll listen. Chicago, there was a real bad night in Atlanta not too long ago.

Yeah. I think there was a young man, a young man that was killed by a stray bullet in D.C. or Florida or something like that. There's a lot of senseless violence going on, which, to a degree, it picks up in the summer. I mean, I think that, you know, if you're from places like this, you know that during the summertime months, people are outside congregating, people are a little bit more edgy because of the heat and you start to see murder rates climb. But also, you know, there are issues inside of a lot of these communities that have to do with

violence and crime, of course, violent crime. and there's no one who is denying that. Having said that, there's something that's going around or there's a sentiment going around is if black people care more about black lives when a police officer takes those lives than they do when those lives are taken inside of our communities. Have you heard people say that, Rachel? All the time. When they say that, what's your response to that?

I feel like it's a distraction to what the issue is behind the whole Black Lives Matter movement. Just because you're talking to me about black on black crime doesn't take away from the fact that there is all this social injustice that is happening against black people or people of color that shouldn't get the attention. And I feel like it's a red herring to say, oh, but there's all this black on black crime though. And I don't see you fighting for that. Or how can you be all mad about black on black crime when or how can you be all mad about a black on black crime when or how can you be all mad about. police officers killing black people when you're not focused on black on black crime. And what bothers me the most, I will say about that argument is that just because you don't see it in the media or it doesn't make headline news doesn't mean that there aren't people fighting for or against black on black crime in their communities. That like that's always been something that that black people, whoever is crime against crime has always been fighting against that.

but it doesn't make headlines. It doesn't make it. But that doesn't mean that it's not happening. And that's why I think that it is so flawed to think that. Just because you don't see it, you think it's not happening. Yeah. No, it's true. And it also shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Mm-hmm. The Black Lives Matter movement is holistic. It's encompassing of all the systemic issues that face it. Black America. Now, you have two choices. You can believe that Black Americans are savages and that we love crime and violence. And no matter what our circumstances here in America are, is that we will be prone to hurting each other and to hurting other people. You can believe that. That's your choice to believe that. Or you can believe that there's been an intentional system of disenfranchisement, oppression, and subtraction of resources that have led to African Americans in America

growing up and existing in some of the worst conditions around the world. It's terrible, a lot of places. And when you depress places, what you get is people doing more sort of desperate things to survive. Lives change into a weird survival matrix where humanity is sometimes tough for this. see. And even in those communities, it's still a small percentage of the people who are engaged in those activities. The reason why I say all of that is because Black Lives Matter is not about, just about when a police officer kills a black person. It's not. The term matters, like we said before, is an all-encompassing term. That's why addressing systems that create these

inequalities will lead to better outcomes in those communities. So Black Lives Matter is an answer to the question of the violence that you see in all of these different places. And not just Black Lives Matter, but so many other people and so many different, other different organizations, there are an answer to that question. Let's talk about the police,

but also let's talk about when you talk about defunding the police, defunding the police, and then reinvesting into other organizations and other structures inside of communities that will lead to better outcomes and a better quality and standard of life for the people inside. inside of those communities. That's number one. Number two, what you just said is incredibly important.

If you ask me who's working on these problems, if you ask me about guys like Jason Wilson, the cave of Vodilum up there in Detroit, if you ask me about guys like Walter Gino McLaughlin down in Baton Rouge, who is dealing with issues in our community, guys like Gary Chambers down there who are dealing with those issues, organizations like 100 black men that have all sought to mentor and bring together young black men to give them tools to go out and navigate America. They work on this every day. There are people that work on this every day. There are people whose whole lives. There are people in churches and political groups that work on stuff like this every day. I'll give you another group that was working on this that America may have lied to you

about the Black Panthers. The Black Panthers up in Oakland were we're preaching and living under full self-sufficient breakfast programs for kids, protecting them from sort of dangerous aspects of the neighborhood, protecting them from the police, but also reading programs, literacy programs, all of those things. People are doing this work, and they're doing it every day. It's not that we aren't paying attention to them.

It's that you aren't paying attention to them. Yeah. And if you want to take the time, time to go educate yourself on the people in these communities that are doing this work, have at it. Go for it. But don't say I don't know what, like, what's happening and that I don't care and that we don't care when we lose little black babies and children and other people, because we do. Another part of it that you really don't want to talk about, the saddest part of it is some of this carnage. We've had to understand it. We've had to internalize. We've had to internalize.

it and learn how to survive with it and deal with it and cope with it in order to just exist in this country. We've had to sort of be able to move on. We had to have sort of been able to kind of, it's a coping and a survival mechanism. And you know why? Because nobody has cared about it the way that we have. It doesn't get the media attention unless it's super negative when it's this black on black. And I think that also something that you said earlier in the show was we live in the

effort error where you have to put in the effort to discover this. You could simply log on to Black Lives Matter.com and you can see all the things that they stand on. It's not one paragraph. It's paragraph after paragraph after paragraph which is beyond just police reform or defunding the police. It encompasses so many different things. And I also think people who make that comment about you don't care about black on black crime. It's because they expect the way that people are marching in the street with posters and all of that with the movement to look like the same fight against black on black crime. And you so eloquently laid that out when you talk about churches and community organizations or even a Boys and Girls Club that is all about

giving people a place to better themselves and to be around other people who are looking, I guess, for a better future is the way to say that. Yeah, without doubt. Yeah, and there's so much of that in the community. So it doesn't have to look like marching in the street and wearing t-shirts and trending on social media. This fight happens every single day in so many different community programs in inner cities. Right. And so many people that are risking their lives and not getting a million dollars or getting

rich doing it either. And by the way, I want to also say one last thing, black on black crime is a myth. It's not a real thing. It's just crime. The term black on black crime has become a loaded word to make black people look as if we are in some way, like crime, you guys, is about proximity. Okay. Unless you're on some day of jackal, the town type shit where you go out and you assassinate people from all the way out of for money or you go rob banks or something like that, if you're robbing and jacking people, people or if you're selling something, it's normally happening where you are. Most communities,

most communities experience way higher rates of crime against one another than they do outside of those communities, right? So when you look at an area, an area that's particularly depressed, you're normally going to see rising crime rates. And if you look at the history of black Americans in this country, we live in depressed areas, and that was intentionally done. It was intentionally done. When America sucked the life out of the middle class and the working man, nobody was hit harder than we were. No one. So look, you guys can choose to believe what it is that you want to believe. If you want to choose to believe that black people only care about black life when a white man takes a life, that's fine. It's a bunch of bullshit.

And what you're doing is you're settling into a part of this debate that makes the status quo feel more comfortable about the place of black people in this country. Yeah. Now, we're discussing it. And it is worth a discussion. Oh, do we care about this? Do we care about that? Do we care about this? It's worth a discussion.

But after we talk about it, choose up, pick a side. That's it. Right. Right. Yeah. All right. You got your trainer today? you're going to go get your training. Seven in the morning.

Seven in the morning every morning? What are you working in the morning? Four days a week. Four days a week. Try and get it in. Four days a week? Mm-hmm. I go every day.

Yeah, that's the way I get down. I'm going to have abs pretty soon, man. Shout out to Brian. All right. Heavier episode today. I get it. Once again, rest in peace to Naya Rivera. And I hope that you guys are taking care of yourself.

Take your thinking. caps off, but put your self-care hats on. Soak in a bubble bath. Read a good book. Turn all of this shit off and keep your boundaries recharged. I am Van Lathen. I'm Rachel Lindsay. We will see you next time on how I learn. Peace out.