Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Jemele Hill and the Jay-Z-Target Partnership: Is It a Big Deal?

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Van and Rachel discuss the results of the L.A. primary race, before reacting to the death of a one-year-old at the hands of police. Then Jemele Hill joins to talk boycotts amidst a deal between Target and Jay-Z. (0:00) Intro (13:43) L.A. mayoral primary race results (31:36) Mississippi police shoot and kill one-year-old (54:41) Jemele Hill joins the show (1:25:43) Tyra Banks sues Netflix (1:42:26) Knicks parade reactions (1:50:07) Twerking church mom Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Jemele Hill and Estelle Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producers: Bernard Moore Video Supervision: Chris Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, thought words. What is up? Higher Learning's on. Is I Van Lazy Jr.? And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay? Okay, we got Jamel Hill talking about Jay-Z and Target in a second.

It's a good conversation. It's a nuanced conversation, which I feel like it's necessary around this. Some people want to hear us go in on Rock Nation and Jay-Z. Some people want to hear me. They think we're obsessed. We try to have a good conversation.

We did. But back to what you were saying, I don't know many guys that I would want. I don't have a whole bunch of friends. Let me set this. Van said to me, he's been trying to get guys to date me, which makes me sound desperate.

That's not what I said. Okay, well, how did you say it? What I said was when there's a guy that I think is eligible that's like going to come on the podcast, I'll say, yeah, you should come on the podcast, and then you should also take Rachel out on the date. So I repeat, Van said, and back me up, Jade, Bernard, Jade is back guys.

She's taken, she's been gone for weeks. Jade's back. Well, y'all remember, Jade. I saw Jade yesterday. Welcome to back, Jay Dye. She's been doing a thing. Jade, did he not say I've been trying to get guys to date, Rachel? That's not what I said.

I didn't say that at all. I actually didn't say that for true. What I said was, maybe I did say that. You did. And I said, and I know you don't mean this, but I said, oh, my response was, oh, my response was, oh, that makes me sound desperate. And because you haven't brought anybody to me, I was like, does nobody want to date me? So this is the deal. I haven't been trying to get guys to date Rachel.

Plenty of guys reach out to me to date Rachel. But I haven't been trying to get guys to date, Rachel. What I'm saying is sometimes a guy will say, hey, I want to come on a podcast. If he's a nice guy, if he's successful, I think I'll go, hey, and when you come on a podcast, also take Rachel on a date. And by the way, there was somebody that actually, that we had an interview here not too long ago, that I was like, hey, it wouldn't be a bad idea if you went out on a date with that guy. You know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, yeah, you did so. Right. So, yeah, that's what I'm saying. But what you then asked me is you said, how many actual good guys do I know that are single? That you would really want to see me date. Right. And here's the thing.

This is my deal. Maybe if we were having this conversation, I know, not true. I don't know and hang around too many people that I wouldn't want you to date. I don't know all of these. I'm not with a lot of these niggas that people are with. You know, people like, you know how people have a homie? And it's like, yeah, my homie, he'd do a little heroin. Like, I'm not.

Well, I don't mean that because there's a difference. And you might not be privy to this, right? Because sometimes you don't know how your single friends are in relationships. But somebody can be a good person and a good friend, but they might be different in a relationship. Like, could I really see that person being a good partner for Rachel, I guess is what I'm saying because it's not how they're a friend to you

there's a difference. No, what I know is, but I've seen these guys around women. I don't know how they are in relationships but I also don't know how you are in a relationship. You know what's funny? And so like I'm so opposite what people think that I am. It's, it's, it might be slightly problematic

because I'm a tourist and I'm so loyal to a fault. Yeah. And so I think, people think I'm one way and I'm not going to say it's a persona because that is me but I'm totally different in a relationship

than I think people realize that I am. For example, all of my guys my guys in L.A. Who are my guys in L.A.? If you know. Bernard is my guy in L.A. Okay?

Bernard is my guy in L.A. Who are my guys in L.A.? Well, you got made entertainment. You got Milt. You got Mark. You got Sean. You got Dev. You got Franz if I ever see Franz again. You got all my people.

You got Cam. You got Arkey. You got all my homies I play basketball with. You got the Midnight Boys. These are my guys in L.A. These are good guys. These are my guys in L.A. You mean to tell me, do you think that I would hesitate in having you go on a date with Vick?

You ever meet Vick? Uh-uh. You never met Vick before? Best Dressed guy in L.A. Stylist. Hooper likes to shoot the ball. We're talking about Vic. Sometimes you might,

Vic is that guy that I was telling you about. Vic is the guy that like you're on the court. I don't know if I could take court with Vic and you go, okay, Vic going to get his shots up. Let's just shoot some screens, right? But Vic also will make the flashy pass. But Vic is my guy, a great guy, a genuine human being. Okay?

I just also think you know I'm just not ready for all of that. Vic. Do you think I would have a problem if you went out with Vic? Do you think I would have a problem if you went out with Sean Dicker's No, I think you would love that. I would love that. Who do I like more than Sean Dickerson in the world? I know. You love, you look.

Sean can get you out the house. Sean? That's how I know you love you some Sean. Oh, I got a story to tell about Sean. Okay, so look. Go ahead. Tell the story because I got a phone call. Where was I?

Turks interrupted my vacation. So me and Sean Dickerson are out on what's called the town. Me and Sean Dickerson. Now let me tell you what it's like when you're out on the town with Sean Dickerson. Dickerson. Sean Dickerson drives a Maybach. He does. We have all ridden. We've all ridden the Maybach, right? So I have a new car and I'm very proud of this new car.

It's a very nice car, but you pull up to Sean's crib, I pull up to Sean's crib and you look and in the front there's a Maybach. And you're like, oh shit, we're about to ride around. You don't think about the type of attention that you get when you're in a car like that. Until you get out. Because I know ridiculously wealthy people in Los Angeles. It's like super fucking rich. They don't own cars like that.

I think Anthony might have one, but they don't own cars like that. That's not a kind of car they have. Okay. So we get in the car and we pull up to this hotel. Because we're going to go check out this pool party. I think the pool party's called the Expresso Pool Party. You met the girl.

So shout out to her. She's getting her pool party. She had some people up there. It looked like a nice vibe in the whole nine. She's really cool. So she's a cool person. So shout out to her. Y'all check her pool party out if you're here.

I think it's at the Gawfrey Hotel. All right. So me and Sean, get there. We get there, you get in the Maybach, people look at you when you're getting there like, who's that? I'm about to get up a Maybach. And you know, Sean is used to the Maybach situation.

I'm not really used to it. So when you're a Maybach, nigga, this is how you do when you're a Maybach nigga. When you're a Maybach nigga, when I valet my car, my car is nice, but when I valet my car, I'm very, very sweet and, like, outgoing to the valet people.

Hey, how are you? Yeah, keys and stuff. Yeah, man. Cool. Appreciate you. Later on. Nice. Cool. When you have the May by, Sean just goes. You don't look anybody directly in the eye. You don't like, Sean just goes. Not the valet, not the people staring at you.

But with respect, though, he just goes, boom. And yeah, that is my key chain. Shut the fuck up. Like, it is. I just know. Just shut the fuck up, guys. How old are you? Shut up.

Okay, it's like I got my thing. I got my punching bag. I got the Mercedes big. I got the all of that stuff, but this is my key, Shane don't have that. Sean just got the made-back key. Just, hand on the key, appreciate you. All, like, whatever.

Everybody's looking at trying to see, who the fuck is that guy? And then it's, oh my God, it's Vans. Like, we know Vann ain't getting it like that. So that must be like Vans fucking handler or agent or something. So we go up, we go up to the pool party. We have a drink.

Say hello to everybody. Top of the golfery. We leave and come down the elevator of the pool party. We're talking about, Well, we're out. We have a day. What are we going to do now?

Me and Sean Dickerson. What would we do now? All right. Let's go hit Harry's have some drinks. Fraser Tharp from GQ comes out and meets us. We're out there. We're having a fun time. We're chilling.

When we get to the bottom floor of the pool party, the door opens. And I see Brian. That would be my ex. I see Brian. I see Rachel's ex-Brienne. Looks like you might. a groan an inch or two, honestly. So you're saying he's wearing lifts?

Whatever. I see Rachel's ex-Bryan. Sean looks and Sean goes, Van, what's that energy? Because when I see him, I just kind of give him the hat. I'm just just a little bit, you know what I'm saying?

You know, and Sean goes, van. Like we literally get to the door and Van goes, who is that? And I'm like, what you mean? He was like, who is that? He was like, man, I see you when you see people you know. He's like, bro, I saw you talk to a guy that used to work at Chick-fil-A. I actually saw a guy with Sean one time that used to work at Chick-fil-A that now has booked some acting stuff.

I was so happy for this guy. He used to serve me to Chick-fil-A all the time. Sometimes he'd me with a couple of extra nuggets to give him. He was like, yeah, he was like, who is that guy? And I was like, that's Rachel's an ex. and Sean was like, oh shit! So we in the Mayback. Me and Sean, Maybach, whatever the fuck it's called.

We into my box. We're driving. Wait, what was his reaction when he saw you? He just went. Yeah. He just went. I mean, he had sunglasses on, but his face, my face changed. He just went, hey, like, what's up?

Like, this was eventually going to happen. So then I'm, I don't want to say the niggas. was rather. I know. Like, so we walk out and, and Sean was like, should we go back and just like say stuff? You know, shout out to Sean. Sean was like, should we go back and just say stuff?

So, no. So we're driving in the Maybach and now I got a gossip. Because I'm an old hen. Okay. So now I got a gossip. I call Kalika. I call you. Rachel's in Turks.

I call Rachel. Like, I call Rachel, Rachel. Rachel, Rachel picks up the phone. I'm like, guess what just happened? Because it just happened. I just saw Brian. Then Rachel comes up with all kinds of nefarious things that we could have done and all that type of shit. But now, me and Sean Dickerson said we out on the street.

Sean said, Sean made a joke that was like very, very funny, but you probably wouldn't think that was that funny. What did you say? I don't think that we should do the joke. But you said. But you say, okay, because you made a joke. Oh, no, maybe I should take that. What did I say? Do you remember the joke that you made?

No. I was lit. I was drinking with my family. So Rachel was drinking. Rachel was drinking. And Rachel said that what we should have said was that when we saw him, you should have been like, yeah, yeah, dude. I'm going over to Rachel's house later on tonight.

Yeah, I did. Rachel said that you should have said that. And Sean was like, nah, you can't go like that. Like, you got to go harder than that if you wanted to get his attention. Sean said, what you should have said is, Sean, you're going to see Rachel last night and then later on tonight. And then I, and then I. I should say that, and then he should say, yeah, man, and the throat is glorious.

Okay, I'm glad he did not say it. Yikes, I'm going to tell you something offline. Okay. I can't tell you. But that's crazy. That's funny. But it's funny. But then we went to Harriet's.

Had a good time. Was it? Harriet's hit or miss. Was it popping? Harris is cool. But when me and Sean go, this is the thing about me and Sean Dickerson. By way, if you guys are out here in L.A., he does a party every week, every Wednesday is called Sadeek. So good.

It's a good party. They're not going to let you in. But get dressed up. You can get a table. Get dressed up and try to go. You might, you know, if you're at one of the main parties and you catch milk or Robbie, you might get some love. If Dev and if Dev is out there, if Adib is out there,

these are the, they shut your shit down. Shout out to my man, Adib, too. See, all of these guys are great guys. I would not hesitate to introduce a woman to any of these guys. Adib is a great man. That's a great guy. I believe you. When you say it, I believe you.

Yeah, he's a great dudes, right? But yeah, so, you know, we saw him, then we went and we talked to, oh, we sit down and we drink white wine spritzers with St. Germain and him. And just talk about movies. Just eat and talk about movies in life. I love that you had a night out or day out on the town. See, I like with Van's house. Come join us more outside. I feel like it messed up my week though.

You're such, because I get good sleep that night and then I didn't get good sleep the next night. It's worth it. Then you don't get good sleep because like I had to me, I had drinks. And they went to Poppy. Really? I'm gonna be honest. I ain't had good sleep in maybe three weeks. For real?

Truth- truthfully. Like that is the truth. And I feel fine. Not like, it's probably not good for me, but it's worth it. for an experience, like to have a good time. I'd rather just sacrifice my sleep. I'll make it up. I just need a day.

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For this price, moment. Old Navy's drapy denim wide leg. Get up later. All right. We have some semi-serious things to talk about on the podcast today, but before we get into those things, I want to ask you something. Did we ever do a post-mort on the L.A. mayoral race?

I don't think we talked about it. I think we did. Did we talk about it? Donnie? We didn't. Okay. We didn't. Yeah.

This happened to talk about other people. What did you say? Let's talk about it, though. You want to get into it? Last week, we don't. Oh, no, you're not talking to me. I'm talking to you, Donnie. Oh, what?

You got something to say? Yes. The race for mayor of L.A. is officially headed to a runoff election this November. After no candidate secured more than 50% of the vote in the June primary. So incumbent mayor Bass, we did talk about this, that she finished in first with roughly 34.3% of the vote. But when we did talk about it, Spencer Pratt was in second place. So what's happened since then, city council member Nithia Rahman secured second place. with about 29%

while Spencer Pratt came in third with 25.5% and he conceded. So Spencer Pratt has conceded. There was obviously a really flimsy

and pathetic attempt from the right to cast aspersions on the validity of this election. Yeah. Claiming voter fraud just because they didn't like the way the election was going. Well, how do they feel about Hilton then making it through.

I mean, that's a whole thing. Like people, people had to continuously do these mental gymnastics because it was like, well, Hilton got through. Steyer did not get through. Right. there is this voter fraud, but it's happening just in Los Angeles County. kind of doesn't make sense. has delays in its counting process.

Could you make arguments that reforms could be made to speed that up? Certainly. But it is a gigantic state that actually sort of promotes mail-in ballony. And so the count going to finish when the count going to finish. I got an email directly to my phone letting me know the moment my vote was counted. They know me exactly where I'm at, exactly the way I voted and all that. In person or mail? No, no.

And what do you mean? I took the ballot and dropped the ballot in the drop box. So on Tuesday, I dropped the ballot in the drop box. And then that Friday, I got a text saying, hey, your vote's been kind of. Oh, nice. Yeah. I didn't get, I went in person. That's a Robin vote, by the way.

I know. You said you were voting left to Bass. I voted for Bass. But I know that I went in person because I just love it. I love to go in person. I love to do it election day. I had to do it early this year. But I kept getting text messages, text messages that said I have.

had not voted, which I appreciated. And then when I voted, they stopped. Oh, they were telling, hey, you got. Yeah, they were like, we see you haven't voted yet. You haven't voted yet. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Did you think that Spencer Pratt was going to, you know, he started out when the votes came in at first and had a little bit of a lead over Nithia. Did you think that he was going to pull it out?

Or did you, were you always kind of pretty confident that it was going to be too Democrats moving forward? I would be lying if I said that I was confident because, like anyone else, I am. susceptible susceptible susceptible I'm susceptible to noise on the internet and so the noise on the internet at this particular and we should say why like when Trump was against Hillary in 2016 there were a lot of people that at even though the polling kept showing that Hillary was going to win there a lot of people that were saying have you paid attention to the size of Trump rallies have you paid attention to the amount of media coverage that Trump is getting there are people that told me that and

the race began to tighten even amongst the traditional polling towards the end of it. There were people that were saying hey, it's going to be a tight race and he's got a shot but I don't think anyone ever actually envisioned that that can happen. So in that particular case, the noise was actually served by the result of the election.

And there are all kinds of other things that were involved there that weren't involved here. But I remember talking to someone that assured me that Hillary's ground game was so good that Donald Trump could not beat her. and then he beat her. And she was a particularly weak candidate with people and particularly disliked candidate

to a degree that I don't think we even understood from a general sense. I was filming The Bachelor during that time. I missed all the lead up into it. And with Spencer Pratt, it just wasn't something that could be discounted. The math never worked for him, but everyone was talking about him.

He seemed to be at a point, the most consequential voice in the entire election, the only person that people were really listening to what they said. Yeah. We hope to have Councilwoman Rahman on. Sure.

But the reality is, at this point, nobody cares what she says. Like, she actually does herself a disservice almost whenever she opens her mouth, if we're being honest.

And I voted for it because of a collection of policies and how I believe she's actually run parts of the city. But she is not very good as an orator. But I think some of that is, she threw her name in at the very last,

second. So, and she had already kind of endorsed Mayor Bass. So it's just like how much thought and thinking did you have going into deciding do the race? I didn't think she ran a good campaign at all. Anytime that she was in a debate, at least the debate that I saw, I did not think that she represented herself well. She didn't come across as confident in her policy. She couldn't assert them in ways that the other candidates could. Like, I needed to know more. I, for me, for her, you had to really do your research because I just like, it wasn't coming across. And maybe will sitting down in podcast format, I'd be eager to hear her talk about like what her policies and all of that are and her belief and, you know, why she decided to run against Karen Bass

at the last minute and all of that. But to your point, yeah, like it just, so I wonder how much the vote that she got was for her or was it in protest of Spencer Pratt and was it a strategic move in order to advance two Democrats? I wonder that. But to your point, Spencer Pratt, The reason I got nervous is because so many people with big platforms and voices that did live, I know it was a lot outside L.A. noise, but they did live here, were in favor of him. He really did a good social media campaign of playing off, he ran a social media campaign of grievances, of playing off the grievances and the vulnerability of people who suffered a great tragedy when it came to the loss, when it came to the fires. And that really resonated with people.

And then there was because of that and other things, there's such a dislike for Karen Bass that he was spewing certain things out there, some true, some not true, that also allowed people to say, you know what, let me vote for him. Somebody, one person told me their vote for him was a protest against the system. I'm like, well, that's not the way to do. Well, I mean, look, here's a deal. There is, we talked about this when we discussed the difference between L.A. and New York and how. who I believe has cultural control of each city, right? New Yorkers control their culture, and they will rebel against anyone

who tries to control their culture and kick what is a New Yorker out of their city. They realize that billionaires have a gigantic part to play and what New York is. It's the financial hub of the entire world, but at the same time, New Yorkers want the parade today to define what is New York as much as anything else. If there's anything popping off from the parade,

us now. It was everybody in their mama out there. No, I know that part, but just if something newsy pops off. Yeah, but, you know, I might have underestimated Los Angeles in terms of the fact that they don't want Spencer Pratt to define Los Angeles. And I also think that there were a lot of people who were sort of offended by the idea that Spencer Pratt, who had what you, undoubtedly, undoubtedly, a competitive. start to his campaign.

Sure. A compelling start. Here's a person that has lost their home during the fires and has seen firsthand what the dysfunction of a major American city is and wants to run the change in it. I do think that there were people who felt like at the end that he thought that they were dumb because he didn't come with anything of substance. Nothing. To undergird what he was saying.

Right. There was like a really beautiful. book cover and then when you turn the pages empty empty right and they were like we're not disaffected enough with los angeles or this city or this state to vote for that and all over the country there are there are people who are there people who just vote for the thing on top and even if the stuff in the middle if there is stuff in the middle it doesn't work for them they vote for they vote off identity and stuff there's just not enough billy bushes and Doug ailens and Adam Carolla's in L.A. to make Spencer Pratt the mayor yet.

Say more. I will say this. Both Los Angeles and California as a whole are not being run well. Yeah. Okay. Both Los Angeles and California as a whole are not being run well. And if the Democrats who are the power in this state do not take the living standards of the average Angelino and Californian into consideration if they don't care about bringing production jobs back to this city and to this state, if they don't care about health care, if they don't care about standard of living. if they don't care about educational standard.

If they don't care about those things, they will lose to a charismatic Republican, not just statewide, but in L.A. County as well, because people can only take so much. And anybody that tells you that this city and this state are being run well right now, they're lying to you. I understand all of the challenges. Right.

And the years of building on that. Of course. I know you do. But what I am saying is, is right now, right now, I live here, right now, both in L.A. and statewide, we need to do a better job. Could not agree with you more. And glad you acknowledged the other parts of it as well. I think from this campaign in particular, well, and even looking at what's happening with the governor's race, I think it's of note. You know, Hilton, probably not going to win. Don't, Pratt's already been pushed out. But the fact,

that he had so much momentum, so much attention, so many people willing to look, put aside what he represents and who he is in order to use their vote as protest to the system. So what they don't like that's happening in the state, what are you laughing for the, what's happening with the city? I got to drop something on you after this. Okay. With the city, with the state, the fact that people are willing to vote against that shows that there is a growing sentiment within the city and within the state and really within

in this country. It's how we got Trump. So we can't just be like, oh, great, we survive this race. You need to, because this is how you got in trouble with Trump the first time in 2016. You need to pay attention to the sentiment of the people. Because to your point, I don't think that, because next time they won't run a Pratt, right? They'll run a Caruso type again. If Caruso had run, one, if Caruso had run, he probably would be, he definitely would be in the runoff. Caruso probably would have been in the runoff. Yeah, he definitely would have been the runoff. So what will happen is they will put a Caruso type up next or somebody like it or maybe in between a Spencer and a Caruso. And it might not be the same.

So to me it's like just pay attention to what the people are saying, what the people want. Go ahead. You got the sneaky face on. You're about to drop. What are you dropping? I'm going to ask about something. What? If things don't shape up in the next four years,

Where are you going? I'm going to run. We can talk about that later. Can I tell you something? I'm being one million percent serious. If things don't shape up in the next four years... Are we talking city or state? I'm talking about mayor of Los Angeles.

Okay. I'm talking about mayor of Los Angeles. I'm going to run. Okay. I don't doubt you. So guys, please step up. up to it because I not because I don't think you're capable

because it doesn't matter well you're capable than some of the candidates in the race because this is why I say please step up because if you run I have to be involved and not because like you're my brother city attorney you're my well they don't want me to do this city attorney

actually you know that's I come from those roots my dad was city attorney Dallas there's no way that I'm going to let my brother run and not be involved in your campaign and I don't want to be involved in politics. So we got about four years to shape. Get it together.

Get it together. Okay, well, moving forward, before you get into news of the day, we now have Bath, Bath, Bass versus Ramen. Karen Bass won the primary by about five percentage points. 3429. If you're nithia ramen. You have to think that if the votes that were cast for you were votes that were cast legitimately because people want you to be the mayor and not because people who won it Spencer Pratt not to be the mayor, then you have to believe you can win. Having said that, the most likely outcome here is that Karen Bass wins re-election.

I think it's going to be pretty easy. Unless some scandal comes out. Which you never know about. Well, Spencer's teasing it. Right. Like, you never know about it. He's saying he's going to drop something. You never know about it.

We should have done that before in the primary for you to give yourself a chance. So I'm doubting it. All the rich dicks that wanted to, that wanted their puppet in the mayor's office, the mayor's home over there in Hancock Park, not yet. But holding out hope. It ain't going to be me though. I can't wait to run, man. You have a slogan ready?

Huh? You have a slogan ready? Fuck with me, L.A. Fuck with your boy. That's a slogan. This is the dance. This is the Lath and Vermeer dance. You know what I'm saying?

Lathen for Mayor, 20-30. Fuck with me, L.A. Fuck with your boy. We bring it back. Let me tell you what my platform is. So we bring him back. We bring in 2012 back, man.

First platform, we bring it back Supper Club. We bring it back Graystone. We bring it back Emerson. Hey, if y'all want Hollywood back, Hollywood Nightlife, remember to go get them, boys. If y'all want that, if y'all want that shit back,

with me. Fuck with me if you want housing back. Fuck with me if you want medical. But fuck with me if you want fun back. If you want L.A. back. If you want that feeling back. You know what I'm saying? Fuck with me. I'm going to start a connection from here to the Bay. The Yada, I mean connection. What's good for L.A. is good for the Bay. What's good for the is good for L.A. We're going to start a man, look, I got a whole. Yeah, I can't wait. Listen, affordability. Affordability. Yeah. I want to hear it.

Yeah. Affordability. We're going to start doing all kinds of drastic affordability stuff. Trastic. I'm telling you, if your house is worth over, if you don't want to help with homelessness and your house is over $15 million, worth over $15 million, imminent domain, we're having some homeless people live with you. That is not imminent domain.

Straight by imminent domain. We're going to take the houses. We're going to take the houses. And then that ADU that you're written out, no, man, we're giving that to someone out. And we're going, you know, another thing I'm going to do, I have a thought here. This is the last part of my pitch.

Okay. In L.A. You will be able to ride with a cup of hot coffee. Are you not allowed to? You can't do it now because the roads are so bad. Oh. That if you put a cup of hot coffee in your cup holder, that the hot coffee is going to spill on you.

But I'm going to actually do something where I, in an ad, where I ride around Beverly Hills, which is a place where you ride around and you can ride with a cup of hot coffee in Beverly Hills, and that coffee will never spill on you. That's true. But as soon as you get outside of Beverly Hills, going north, southeast, or west,

can't really go north out of Beverly Hills. You're going over the hill. But as soon as you get out, the roads get so bad that that coffee going to spill all over yourself. I'm going to make it to where anywhere in L.A., you can ride with the hot coffee. I approve this message.

I'm one of those people who rides with a mug. Like I have a hot mug. I don't have the top on. I don't do all of that. I have a mug, open mug. The amount of times that I've spilled coffee on myself, I'm for it. I approve. All right.

All right. All right. The police is fucking up again. This is a tough story. Yeah. Yeah, this is really sad. A Mississippi police officer has been placed on administrative leave after fatally shooting one-year-old Cohen Wiley during a confrontation

outside of a Walmart. The incident began when officers responding. to a reported shoplifting call involving diapers. According to investigators, officers attempted to stop a vehicle leaving the scene. They say that the driver drove towards officers, nearly striking one, prompting an officer to open fire. However, witnesses and family members have disputed aspects of the account. A little bit of details about the account.

Owen was inside the vehicle when shots were fired. He was later pronounced dead at the hospital. Another occupant of the vehicle suffered critical injuries while Poean's mother. was not seriously injured. Who. I'm just going to say before you get into it, shout out to Ben Crump and all the attorneys, civil rights attorneys, who step in and help these families

and are their voices and are their counsel. And because I can only imagine, like it's hard to even talk about this as one. They are constantly in the fight. It's so heavy having to deal with it and feeling like it's something that happens again and again despite your efforts, whether you have a six, two steps forward. It feels like you have five steps back.

So shout out to these attorneys who continuously are in the fight and in the trenches at these senseless tragedies that continue to happen. I just, I feel like we don't acknowledge them enough. They really are out here doing the work. Yeah, I mean, you're right. I mean, we can have a conversation about when, you know, who shows up. I don't even want to do that. I want to make that comparison because I don't want to bring anybody.

into what I believe Ben Crump to be. What I believe being Crump to be is someone who deeply, deeply cares about his community and uses his legal expertise to get results for people. If we can't bring the system to bear, at least Brin Crump can use his legal expertise to shed light on things and get results for people. And also at this point, the national recognition it brings, when he steps into a situation, it becomes nationally recognized. And obviously he can't be there for every single situation, but the moment you hear his name or similarly situated civil rights attorneys and he's there, immediately you know that this is going to garner attention that these police departments, these state bureaus of investigations, these attorney generals do not want.

And that's something in itself as well. Shout to Bencrumbs team too. It takes a village. Like one of my, I got a homeboy on Bencrumbs team. the first first dude to ever take me to the bailouther hotel man had lunch over at the bailouther hotel i'm like this beautiful over here um okay beyond that though uh this situation is heartbreaking and it's you know we we call this violence senseless but it does make sense right i know what you mean i know what you mean like it it does make sense it makes sense uh in the framework

in which we are operating in. Like, if Superman fucked up this much as, like, the law enforcement of Metropolis, the people would be like, now I go back to Krypton. If Superman fucked up as much as the cops, everybody in Metropolis will want to have a little kryptonite on them. Everybody will want protection from Superman. I can't even explain to people how significant to fuck up

is, how danger, I don't even have the right words. When the police arrive on scene, that is supposed to be. And for you, if you don't believe this in America, this is the way that it's supposed to be. That's supposed to be safety arriving. Supposed to be safety arriving. The only problem is that the cops don't see themselves as such. The cops see themselves as two things.

One, imperiled. They see themselves as imperiled. How many conversations do we have about the danger that the cop is in? Like it's like the fireman doesn't blame the fire. The fireman is there to put the fire out. Because the fires are an inherent risk of the job, just like danger is an inherent risk of being a police officer. Right.

There are plenty of jobs where danger isn't a part of it. You walk into danger. You're trained for that. Right. You're trained for de-escalation. You're trained to preserve. and promote and protect human life. Lots of height.

And so many times this baby is dead. They don't do that because I honestly believe this and all of the police officers are out there that are going to get mad. I don't think that they have to. I don't think, particularly when that person is black, that the police officers consider the fact that it's their job to make sure nothing bad happens to them.

That's just not their edict. Their edict is to meet out punishment. We just going to talk about this to we blue in the face until there's another one until there's another one until there's another one. The details of this particular case will probably flood our

timelines over the next two weeks. But there is not one detail that would be produced in this case that will explain the death of a baby. There's no such thing as that detail.

It doesn't exist. The only thing that can explain the death of that, baby is a pulling of part of the inherent dysfunction of American policing, of the inherent dysfunction of American. That explains it. That explains why a kid, a child, a baby gets killed in this instance. And what do you have left? What recourse is there now?

Apologies, settlements, marches, there's nothing. Nothing can be done to bring that child back. The only thing that could have saved that child is the police being better. But we're not allowed to ask for that because if we ask for the police to be better, then we're an American, then we don't back the blue. If we ask for a different version of this, a different version of public safety, if we ask to take money from these cops who won't stop killing people, won't stop killing dogs, which we'll get to later, if we ask for that and ask for that, and ask, ask for a new imagination of it, then we don't support it. The Democrats won't fucking support that. Fuck the right.

The Democrats won't support that. We had Karen Bass in the seat and she was right here. She talked about how much she loves and needs the police. She wants more. She wants more. I guess you got to say that as the mayor, but what I would like to say to her and will say to her when she comes back is how do we, the police that you want to roam and patrol the streets.

Tell me how you know that these police. won't murder, burner, doodles, and babies. Is that too much to ask? Like, seriously, I'm not trying to go on another van rant. I know that I get hyper-emotional about this stuff. Well, you should. But like, in this particular situation,

the child is inside the vehicle when the shots were fired. According to the mother, she held up her baby, Cohen, to, in order to let them know there is a child in the car and they shot anyway. She was holding her baby when they shot her. I don't even know how you, so according to her testimony, because they're saying, well, I shot,

first off, I don't even know why you needed that many officers, more than one. So there's already, they're already coming in with this preconceived notion that she or the person with her are thieves because they were, somebody called in and said they were stealing diapers. So they're already coming in with that. then they're in the car.

I don't even know why you have your gun drawn. And they claim that she was driving towards her or towards this officer. I don't know if it's a man or a woman because they haven't released anything yet, nor have any charges been filed. They've just been placed on administrative leave. But she put the baby up to let them know, which means they probably already had their guns pulled out. Put the baby up.

I have a child in the car. They shot anyway. Total disregard for human life. And I think the most upsetting, there's too many upsetting things. But one of the things is, and it goes to your point, there are so many things to protect police officers, but not the citizens in these situations. There are so many things designed to make police officers feel like they can act recklessly or in disregard for human life because there are so many systems to protect them. Qualified immunity is so hard to prove. the fact that you put their word over the citizen that they felt endangered, right?

She was driving towards me. Move out of the way. Why is your gun even drawn? This person doesn't have a weapon. This is not a threat. And we're supposed to believe the officer over the citizen. Everything is tilted to the system. And you know with this particular police department and this Mississippi Bureau of Investigation doesn't have,

they do not have a centralized publicly searchable database of all. officer-involved shootings that are broken down by the department. The lack of transparency in itself is part of the problem. Even if you want to challenge certain things that are being done by this department specifically or the state of Mississippi, there is actually nowhere where you can go to find the data you need to show a pattern. Again, that is protection of the officer over the citizen when I am a sworn civil servant as an attorney, right?

I take an oath. There's a code of ethics. The same thing goes for police officers. You make an oath to serve and protect. And we're constantly seeing situations and systems put in place that actually don't allow you to do that for. Let me say this again. We're seeing systems and situations in place that don't allow you to do that for the people you take an oath to protect. It only seems like that oath is to protect you and your kind.

There was a case six weeks ago in Mississippi, extremely similar. Six weeks ago, an officer involved shooting. He killed Jamarcus Brown in DeSoto County in Mississippi, 16 years old. You know what the accusation was of why the officer shot him? The car was allegedly driving towards the officer. You know what happened in that case? Nothing. Nothing happened in that case.

the officer was cleared and the shooting was considered justified. So what do you think is probably going to happen to this one-year-old child who was shot at? You can't even fight. It almost feels like the fight is impossible because, and I'm getting redundant here, it just seems like everything is there to protect the police officers, the police department, and that system that is in place. and that is what is extremely frustrating. Even if you look at statistics that I can look up in Mississippi,

the AG's office has cleared officers use of force and declined to prosecute in a third of all cases between 2023 and 2024. Without even sending them to a grand jury, they are already clearing a third of the officers in officer-related shootings. You can go down, prosecutions are rare,

even if a grand jury doesn't indict, the prosecutions are extremely rare. Most of the time the grand jury decides not to indict. That is the system that you're going up against. So who protects us? Who protects us? Not the system. Not the police officers.

And when the people try to use their right and their voice to go protest, what happens in this case? Tear gas is thrown at them. Shut up and accept it. It's almost like, I'm trying to. not to get emotional. But this is, we, we'd say this all the time. We're doing a great job.

We will be here again. Well, I'll tell you why I will be here again. That was insanely well said, by the way. So many times I wonder, why is Rachel slumming it? What? Shouldn't it be like Senator Rach or something? No, I cannot do politics. Okay.

And, you know, I'm going to go big picture and sort of, people are going to you're not going to like it so look you said something earlier right the police were coming out there because the allegation was what what that she stole diapers she or the person stole diapers somebody sold diapers

okay now I'll say something to you guys and I know that you've endured decades upon decades of programming and I've endured that same programming we all have so it's sometimes hard, you know, have people directly challenge that.

But I'll say this, only in capitalism does the diaper matter more than the child? Only in capitalism, this type of American capitalism that is enslaving you, do the diapers matter more than the life of the baby? You don't want to hear that. The police are serving and protecting. They are. They're serving and protecting property. They're serving and protecting capitalism. They are showing and demonstrating whether it's because you pass a bad check,

whether it's because you're selling loose cigarettes, whether it's because you allegedly stole a diaper. They're showing. the consequences for running a file of the capitalist order. And we can march to we're blue in the face. We can talk to we're blue in the face. Those people that are blue in their uniforms are paid to protect property. They're paid to protect commerce.

They're paid to protect value. And your black ass is not. fucking valuable to them. Your black ass is the same fucking thing that you've been. You're valuable maybe as a dancer. You're valuable maybe as a fucking inmate.

But as a human being, you're not. And that is the conundrum that we find ourselves in. That is why we continue to ask why. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Even Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin walks around that that neighborhood at night as a threat to property. Nobody else was out there.

Like nobody else was out there in that they could say, oh my God, he was about to run up to these kids and catch a fate. No, he was a threat to the houses. He was a threat to the cars, to the things that don't have blood or their hearts don't beat,

but they're more valuable than his life is. And then after he dies, we have to go back to the entire, all of this stuff starts with some shit like that. The cops are coming out. They're protecting exactly what they're paid to protect. They're paid to protect the construct by which America operates on,

which is the value of everything that ain't black. The value of everything that ain't poor. The value that everything that ain't gay. So, like, to me, I look at all of this and I'm like, yo, I see the twisted irony of losing your kid over diapers. Diaper wears more than a kid. nuts. We are not about to...

It's a crazy statement. We are not about to like link these two stories. But in LA, a woman's dog was shot after... We're not going to compare the life of a black baby to a beautiful,

looks like very good boy. The segment is called Cops on. Right. We're not doing that. But in L.A., Jameson furry doodle or looks like he used a mix of some sort a doodle of some sort was killed by the police

because the police say that this is what happened guys the Knicks won the championship a noise complaint was filed the dog was barking came towards the police police shot the dog

police killed dogs things like 10,000 dogs a year okay look this goes back to what we're talking about you guys are going to laugh at me I would be I legitimately if this had happened to me

I wouldn't be here for a month I'll be honest with you I'm right there with you if this had happened to me you would not if this happened to me you wouldn't see me for a month no like you legitimately

nobody's gonna laugh at you for that if you I could not I couldn't promise I wouldn't open up on them cops if this happened to me I'm just be for I'm like I'm being for real

I'm that fucking crazy about the dog like I love the dog the dog that much. Well, he's not a dog. He is your child. Right. He is a part of you. So what I'm saying in this situation is these, these mistakes are life altering. That baby might have cured cancer, but they don't look at the baby. You don't have to do anything. I don't even know how to be articulate. You don't have to do anything to that. Listen, hold on. Catch me. What I just did was like, What I just did just now was part of the problem. That child doesn't have to produce anything to validate its right to life.

I want you guys through my programming. That child doesn't have to do anything to validate its right to life. It doesn't have to do anything more than live. It was given a divine edict, a right to live. It doesn't have to do anything. It's not a could have. It's a what actually happened. But we're going to keep coming back here because the structures that govern us have

put us in this situation. And until we're bold and brave enough, you okay? I'm just so upset. I'm just so upset. No, keep going. I'm just so upset. I'm riding a long time on a podcast. I know.

But you know what's good about you? I just think both of these stories are so heartbreaking. And again, I'm not comparing it, but it's just everything you're saying is so true. I think I'm just, it's just like a, it's just like stacking on each other. Just the last podcast when we're talking about how like, stand your crown doesn't apply to you because it's not your ground. You know, like there are laws in place, but they're not there to protect us. They're not there. They're not meaningful for you.

I think that's the kind of stuff that thank you. I think that's the kind of stuff that's just like, it's such a harsh reality and it's so true. But like, why can't people understand it? Like, what is the killing that's going to be enough? What is like the, I just, I don't know. I just think I just needed to cry a little bit. Yeah, you know. But again, it's like, it's just like piling.

on of what you keep saying of how much none of this is meant to consider us. Right. And it's just such an uphill battle and it's exhausting and it's emotional. And, you know, it's just a sad when it happens to an adult as it is to a one-year-old child or to a dog who is a family member. We both have dogs. I would be sick.

I'd be mad if that happened to me, to my child. or to my dog. I don't know. It's just, I knew it. Like, even when I was preparing for this, I'm just like, I'm just so tired of the constant realization.

And we're in the trenches. We cover this. You know, we've talked about... Where we're looking at the trenches. We're not in them motherfuck. No, no, no. I mean, like, sorry.

We're in the trenches in the sense that we talk about it, which is why we commend, like, Ben Crump, his team and all the other people. Tamika in the trenches. My son in the trenches. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, like, we talk about it, so we're aware of it. It's very top of mind. We use our platform. in this way. I'm saying it because there's so many people that just don't have to. And sometimes when I'm out having a good time, truly, I'll kind of like check myself in a moment because I'm like, I'm doing what I at times can't stand. I'm like, I'm enjoying life a certain way and there's so many people like struggling in certain things. I don't know. I'm going on a tangent.

I'm just, I'm sure to explain my tears and I can't. I'm just frustrated. I'm frustrated and frustrated. It works though because if you had a, if you crying on the pod worse because if you had an ugly cry face, it wouldn't work. I do have a pretty cry. You do have a pretty cry. That's why it works. If you had an ugly cry face, I'd be like, okay, we're going to stop down real quick. When we're just ready for making me laugh. Like we're going to come back.

But you don't. But look, here's the thing. Like, you know, these are symptoms. There's a whole narrative here. There's a whole, these are symptoms of a disease. And we just have to be brave in the moments between in analyzing and confronting that disease. These are symptoms of a disease.

But I'm telling you, man, whoo, these symptoms are debilitating. Yeah. And all of these people that we've empowered to go out, they ain't shit but Tylenol. They symptom maskers. The question is who is going to come and actually operate? And are we going to even realize

then when they're in front of our face? Because I might not eat it. Maybe I will ride. All right. We're going to take a break. And we're going to get to some entertainment on the other side of it. We're going to reset.

I saw Bernard over there. Bernard came over with the napkin, which, Bernard, that's not good for TV. We want them tears for social media. And then he tried to come over with some water that was too much. Oh, I do need water, actually. Oh. Yeah, I feel like she needs some water.

I feel like she needs some water. I'm Bernard. I'm the friend of the black woman. You know what I'm saying? I'm off that shit now, that Lebanese shit. Okay. Hey, y'all. It's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair.

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On the other end of this, we're going to talk a little entertainment. All right, Jay-Z has a deal with Target, or does he? Is this what every artist is doing and has done with Target, or is this a special partnership between Jay-Z and Target for a vinyl release of reasonable doubt? And if that is true, what does it mean, if anything? Okay. the point of this segment to me with the brilliant Jamel Hill who joins us right now on higher learning is to decipher and discuss decide should I say whether or not this is a deal or not a deal.

This is a big deal, small deal, a little deal, something we should watch or not. This is another fucking thing on social media for us to argue about. And what we're talking about is JZ releasing Reasonable Doubt as an exclusive vinyl with Target. Now, if you guys are not aware, Target had a longstanding relationship with the black community with lots of marginalized communities over the course of at least 30 years, promoting black brands, black businesses, promoting specifically LGBTQ plus initiatives. parts of this store, Target was a friend. It positioned itself as such to the community and not just in what they had on the shelves, but also in DEI on the forefront of it, diversity and inclusion practices. All that fell by the wayside when President Trump waged his war against DEI. Target capitulated, which led to a boycott of Target and financial strife for the company. We are here now

trying to litigate whether or not the black community, even from an intellectual standpoint, wants to have a relationship with Target. Is the boycott happening? Is the boycott not happening? Jamal Bryant tried to stop the boycott. Everybody was like, you don't tell us how to stop the boycott. All of that stuff is happening right now.

We didn't, that was a whole big deal. Now, JZ is releasing Reasonable Doubt, his first album, the album that made Jay Z into JZ for a lot of people. to Target, Target exclusive, Jamel, is this a big deal or not? So I think how we are viewing this depends on whether or not some important questions get answered, but I don't know that those questions have been answered. I'm not knee-deep in target business like that or knee-deep in the music industry like that, but I think what I was trying to determine is like, is this a special deal that Jay-Z actually cut?

Because at least, and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I was. under the impression he did not own the masters of reasonable doubt. I know he does for the rest of his music, but I think reasonable doubt may be the exception. So if that's the case, I think we're all trying to figure out who made this deal. Was this a deal made by the record company? Was this a deal made by, you know, whoever owns this? Was this actually something where Jay-Z sat down at a table across from somebody from Target and said, we're doing this or them pitching to him? And maybe the reason that people won't give him reasonable, you know, sort of like a level of, benefit of the doubt, not reasonable doubt, is because a lot of people saw how he moved with the

NFL, continues to move the NFL. If you talk to some residents of Brooklyn, black Brooklynites, they didn't appreciate how he used his influence to sort of get the community. And this may be fair or not. I'm not from Brooklyn. I'm just going by what was the conversation where people were accusing him of using his influence to sort of get people in on the deal. And they wound up being something where Barclays obviously displaced a lot of people who were a long-time residents, property went up, white people moved in, gentrification, same old story. So I think Jay-Z is like wearing this label, whether fair or not. Jay-Z comes in when we need to wrangle the Negroes and get them on board with something and maybe go against their own integrity because him as a

cultural tastemaker, as somebody who moves culture, who commands culture in many ways, is the person that we need to convince the rest of them to get on code. And so in a way, I think some of the criticism, it's like everything else, you know, Van and Rachel, everything is not black and white. We live in a capitalist society that constantly forces us to make these choices. Everybody's compromise. Everybody's dirty. None of our integrity can line up consistently.

And so we're having this sort of social media conversations. We're having 10 conversations at once. What is about Jay-Z? and his role as a billionaire in capitalism. Another is about consistency of which I'm like, that is impossible in today's America. You are more likely, you are more than likely going to boycott target

but also order from Amazon because that's the way this whole game is rigged. Like they make us dependent on them to the point where we honestly cannot live our lives in a way that remains consistent because we're going to use social media. We're going to do this. Like if you want to boycott anything,

well, how are you going to reach people? You got to use meta. How are you going to reach people? you got to use eggs. So like, we can't live in a hypocrisy-free environment because frankly, that's too damn hard. Like, I'm just going to keep it real. It's really hard to do that.

It's true. So I guess we can't, you know, with the information that you're providing, can't really say he intended to do this or not, but it's still there, right? His album exclusively, huge black celebrity, huge cultural influence, does it still take away from what it is that this, I mean, I don't know if Jamal Bryant took away from it because he confused people. I don't know. I still don't shop there personally because to your point, you pick your battles. I might not shop here,

but I might have to shop here, whatever it may be. But do you still think that this is, I don't want to say an indictment because we can't really put it on him. But, you know, you talked about eventually they would find the right black celebrity. And they're using, and Whether it's Jay-Z is behind it or not, they're using his name, his album to promote something at Target to kind of, I guess, put a damper on the boycott. Do you feel like it is having that kind of impact? I do think it is. And people have brought up the fact that other artists, I think it's like Kendrick, J. Cole, other artists have had similar type vinyl releases. But again, I'm not knee-deep in Target's business like that.

I don't recall any press release about any of those artists having maybe they did and I just missed it. But part of that, there's a lot of people who are just not finding that out. And part because of the boycott, a lot of us ain't even been up in Target to see it. And two, if this is something to your point, Rachel, that the company themselves decided to put out and say, hey, we all good now. We got Jay-Z. That's their strategy. That might not even be the way that Jay-Z wanted this known or, again, we don't even know. if he actually was the one who spearheaded this partnership or at least was personally involved in seeing this through, I don't have any idea of that. But it is reminiscent in shades of the

NFL. You know, I really disagreed with the way that Jay-Z operated in that moment. One, I thought he threw Colin Kaepernick clean under the bus with that whole We're Beyond kneeling thing. And what I also didn't like about it is understanding the NFL's intention. You know, this all came out during. in depositions in reporting that the NFL purposely sought Terry Pagula, the owner of the Buffalo Bill, set it on record. We need a black figurehead. Those were his words.

All right. They wanted somebody that would come in, stop the protesting, stop black fans from feeling uncomfortable about the NFL's brand. And they wanted to find someone, the example they use, who would have a similar positioning with how the NRA positioned Charlton Heston. When they brought him in to take the stink of what the NRA, you know, sort of had been involved with so that people, yeah, like that was the purpose.

And so they bring in Jay-Z, who obviously, he wants to see black artists highlighted. He wants to see cultures sort of take over the Super Bowl halftime show. But I just felt at that point, the NFL did not deserve to have access to black entertainment. They just didn't. A lot of black artists, some of the best,

the biggest in the world, we're like, we ain't messing with the NFL. And then Jay-Z came in and it was like, okay, well, now we all are. And so it just, that one rubbed me the right, wrong way. But I'll just say this in general, I think it's okay to still, we got to find some balance and some nuance. It's our right to criticize people whose art and entertainment, even personalities, and how they've moved in other ways. It's all right for us to say, you know what, I like that, I like that, I didn't like that

so much, but I'm okay with that. Like, everything doesn't have to be, we just fuck Jay-Z. Like, everything doesn't have to be that. You know what I mean? We got to have a little bit more nuance, and I can say, like, yeah, I love the fact of what he's done for social justice organizations,

this and other things that he's moved more silently about. I love that he's done that. But I don't like what he did with the NFL, and I don't particularly like how that impacted what Colin Kaepernick was trying to accomplish. And I think I'm allowed to feel that way and people are allowed to feel a little bit of

of consternation and to criticize and take a critical look and say, is this really the way we want to be moving right now? Rachel's a big fan of- So I can go to the concert. Rachel's a big fan. Rachel's a big fan of how to. Let me tell you all. Just let you know, Rachel likes how the NFL treated.

That's not true, Jebel is not true at all. See how you try to gas. Like you, look, along those same lines, you know what I've learned is like, I'm going to stop buying concert tickets because I'm clearly the kiss of death. So me and my girls, we all bought tickets to see Invo, TLC and Salt and Pepper. Literally days later, chili maga, I was like, damn. Yeah, stuff. Yeah, stuff. Case in point, my husband is like the biggest Jay-Z fan in the world. I'm like, you know what?

He was like, oh, we got to get in on his pre-sale. He's come. I'm in LA, blah, blah, blah. I was like, Beck, got you. I got the tickets, really, really good tickets. And I was like, this will be a great little date night. Bam, J.Z might be a sellout. I'm like, I'm going to stop buying concert tickets. I tell you, I'm going to wait to the last day until I know.

Well, I'm going to tell you who to buy them for. If that's how you roll and if that's the influence you have, we'll tell you who to buy them for and then you can influence their work. Yeah. The wrong of the enemy. So this is why I'll say about this, and this is kind of like, you know, We don't have to be that draconian about it. Like you, to me, all of the conversations that we have have to be conversations to where we're talking about a collection of ideas and how we want those ideas to be reflected in our communities, right?

What we want to stand for. Just so people know, just so we know about this, this is a specific partnership with Target in a way. this exclusive release is a unique vinyl color variant, previously unreleased versions of select tracks, specifically the white vinyl with commemorative packaging, collectible inserts, alternate presentation elements. This is a Target retail exclusive, and that begins June 26th.

So there had to have been some collaboration with the artist in having this home and target. So there is some connection there, right? I will, to the entire deal here is this. We can't help but be hypocrites. It's impossible. People say this to me all the time. They'd be like, Van, you're talking that shit.

You worked at TMZ. I'd be like, yeah, you're right. I worked at TMZ for a long time. We can't possibly be hypocrites. The point is, how much more does it matter when a movement is working? Yeah. Like when there's agreement and a movement is working. working. How much more, yeah, we might not be able to do Amazon, Walmart, the USPS,

whoever the fuck it is. Why would we be boycott in the post office? We might not be able to do all of those. But we were doing Target and it was working. We might not be able to do basketball and baseball and all of this stuff. But we were doing the NFL and it was working. Okay. So I think sometimes, and obviously nobody in this room would ever do this, I think sometimes a grander trick of white supremacy is to always be like, you're not defending yourselves consistently and well enough, so you don't get to defend yourselves at all. Look at this man who you put forth. This guy's got all of these fucking problems. He's not doing it good enough, so you can't get out of here. And I think in this position, if people are looking at a specific economic, targeted boycott,

targeted boycott that was working against Target and they want to maintain the even example of that, it's fair to be critical of people who might be subverting that in a way. And, and I think that's a great point because I have seen a lot of that, well, y'all didn't say this and it's selective outrage. It's not selective outrage because even during the times of the civil rights movement, which is arguably the greatest sort of movement period of our life. times is that they didn't cast a wide net. They were very specific. The Montgomery Boycott was really specific. It was strategized. It was planned. It was two years. And so what we kind of miss in that is that nobody at the time, hopefully, was saying, well,

y'all didn't boycott this bus system. Y'all them do this. So y'all can't do that. It's like, know, sometimes you have to make one example to create a feeling. And at the very least, I think where the boycott was successful, not only would drop stock prices, some lost revenue, is that it changed how we look at Target. That was the victory. Which we didn't know we could still do, by the way. Exactly.

I'm with you. We didn't know we could still do that and we did it. And so shout out to Jamal Bryant and the, you hate it. Well, okay. Shout out to Tamika. and my son and the ladies that started it and Jamal Bra and the women, but we didn't know not to jump in on you, but we didn't know we could still do that.

And that's very important. But to your point, Jamel, I think that that's where things get lost because the boycott, the Montgomery bus boycott did not end because it hurt people's pockets. It really didn't end until there was actual change in policy and law. And we're still waiting for Target to actually answer the demand. So it hasn't been one. Right.

But this is where it gets confusing. you have people like Jamal who pop in and say certain things. No, but I'm just saying it does confuse the messaging in it. This, what is happening, what we're talking about right now with Jay-Z, confuses the messaging. I have to bring it up, but Chrissy Teigen and her family going in Target shopping around with her new line on two aisles is confusing the messaging. And so I think that it's one thing to hurt their pockets,

which we are being very successful in doing to your point. But there's a bigger point where there's a list of demands. that Target still hasn't met. And the boycott to me isn't over until you satisfy that. Oh, I agree. Yeah. No, I'm just bringing it back to Jamel's point about the bus. But Rachel, to your point, though, here's the thing.

And this is where people should take a victory lap about the boycott. Did you see the comments under Chrissy Teague's post? I did. I did. They went in. And as we just all talked about, Target's brand has been permanently damaged. because now they're trying to hire these celebrities to try to rectify how people feel. And it's not changing how people feel because what you said hasn't happened.

There hasn't been an announcement by Target to say, you know what? We're going to publicly announce that we're meeting these demands. Guess what? We're going to double down on some DEI initiatives. Like none of that has happened yet. So people still feel away. Even Essence. Essence took a lot of heat because Target is their brand.

and sponsor. So the feelings of the people having changed and what I would say to people is aim it at the right target, pun intended, just don't buy that vinyl. Just don't buy it. Just stay on code with it and say, that way that sends a message to target

to say, I don't care what black celebrity that you signed do an exclusive deal with, we ain't coming. Now what? Right? And I want to make this small point because I've seen it so where so many places on social media,

like my book, which you see, lovely pictured back here, my book was in Target. I have no control over that. Like they keep trying to surface like, well, why is Colin Kaepernick's book up in here? I'm like, if you have a book, if you have products, you do not control the distribution. That is not, Colin Kaepernick does not have some exclusive deal with Target where they only release his book. It's just part of the general distribution model of retail is like, yeah, I would tell people in a minute, you see my book in Target?

Don't buy the shit. Buy it from a black bookstore. I've told them this before, don't buy it, right? It's fine. But regardless, I think that still the, I still think people are not actually confused by the message because I think the fact that we're even raising this as a discussion, like it says a lot about how successful that boycott actually was. I want to just mention something else and just piggybacks on something that you said earlier.

In the Epstein files, okay, there was an email. and the email was from a guy named Jess Stanley, and it was to Jeffrey Epstein. His email was dated February 3rd, 2014. And he said, do you know why we are not at Sao Paulo? Watch the TV ads on the Super Bowl. It's all about hip blacks and cars with white women.

The group that should be in the streets has been bought off by Jay-Z. Now, that, Jay-Z has nothing to do with this email. He has nothing to do with, from what I know,

Jess Stanley or Jeffrey Epstein or any of that stuff. But I will tell you that that's what they think, right? That's what they think. And what I wonder is how he feels

that that's what they think. They think that the reason why people, the people that they seek to lord over, they think that the reason why those people aren't more engaged is because there are people like Jay-Z who at inflection points in time pop up to pacify them. What the guy, what Pagula said earlier, what he said was that they needed that

person to appear and when that person appeared it was hove. So I'm not saying anything because people think that there's some kind of agenda. There's not. I'm just saying I would be curious if I were positioned in that way how I was viewed by these entities. They think that. They think it. And that's a, that's to me a really fair question to ask.

And despite all the hundreds of millions of dollars that the NFL was able to pour into various social media programs, some grassroots organizations. Social justice programs. Social justice programs, sorry, yes. They got a lot. I think it was like over $500 million, something, some crazy number through inspired change. Understand that that's money that is needed, necessary to continue to fight. But the voices matter too.

And to your point, Van, I know personally, if white people were looking at me like I'm the Negro whisperer, I would feel away. I would want to know what is the bat signal I'm giving off or what are my actions that they think they can come to me to communicate to my people. Hey, hey, we need to give them a break and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, people used to say, though not used in this regard, but like we went through that period of time where, you know, whenever white people messed up or they would just go running to Jesse Jackson and Al Scha. to be like, they're going to make it all right with the black people. You know what I'm saying? And so, like, I just think if you're Jay-Z is that you have built up so much cultural capital

that it really, regardless of what you may see the end game, but like, well, if I get these, you know, brilliant artists, a type of visibility and leverage that they don't have before, then I'm doing good. And I'm not saying that you're not, but I think that there is something to be weighed here about your perception. In general, guys, though, honestly, when it comes to celebrities and their efforts to fight or not fight or expectations we have of them, I'm exhausted. Like, I'm literally going to right now.

I'm out of doing. Yeah. I'm just like, hey, yo, like, don't listen to me. Don't, and I'm not listening to them either. Yeah. Do your dance, rap, like, twirl, dribble your basketball, throw your football, like, just do that. Like, that's all I'm going to expect from you. There's one caveat.

That's all I'm expecting for you. There's one caveat. I have one caveat to this. And I would say this to everyone. The activists in your community, I will say that Rock Nation has supported some of those activists. We got to say that. We have to say that a lot of activists have been walking and marching and places and going

places and making change. Those people have been supported by Rock Nation. I know everybody feels like, you have to say that. We have to give this entire thing. No, but that's being fair. Yeah, you're just being fair. You have to do that. I'll say this though, and this is why I'll say and I'll be for real.

I'm cool with that. I'm cool with us doing this except for one thing. You cannot leverage the community, the pain of the community. You can't operationalize the community for your needs. You can't say these liquor people not treat me fair because I'm a black man. You can't say these streaming people not treat me fair because I'm a black man. For sure. You can't say in my business, I'm not being treated fair to make the next billion dollars because I'm a black man.

Then on the backside, come back and just be too much of a celebrity for us to be quick. Once you do that, once you do that, once you say, hey, I'm not getting a fair shake in the way that I should because I'm black. Everything else is under scrutiny because you're operationalizing and deploying the pain and strife. of black people at your big net worth. And I'm not saying you don't stop being black. I'm saying you can't jump back and forth over that fence. So I have seen, and I'm not specifically talking about Jay here, but I have seen when it's a beef with Diageo,

black community helpers. When you need to sell a product, black community. Ain't nothing pro black about no liquor, period. Yeah. Period. If you want to support black people who have have liquor brands, I get it. I completely understand that. I get that totally. But don't use that pro-black shit to sell us no whiskey, to sell us no cognac. That's not black excellence.

Black excellence is literacy. For sure. Last thing I guess for me, I thought you brought up such a good point when you said, did you see the comments under Chrissy Teigen's post to show that people are not having it? They're not okay. I don't know if that's reflective in her sales. I don't know if that's made her change anything in that partnership, probably not. It's contractual. But if people, and I think there's a lesson to be learned from that, which is why I love that you brought that up. If people do go out and buy this vinyl, does that say anything about the boycott, or does that say anything, or is that just particular to Jay-Z? It might be particular to Jay-Z, but I will add that, listen, the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn't have

100% participation. No boycott that we've ever had. Everybody has been like, there's been stragglers. And as I said before, I've made this point before about this issue, is that there was a lot of black people when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X and all of those very noteworthy and brilliant civil rights leaders were trying to galvanize the people. There were black people who thought that they were in the wrong.

Now, how dare you, don't agitate these white people. Don't come down here, mess with us. We got a good relationship with them. Yeah. Exactly. There was plenty of black people who thought that way. And there was plenty of black people who just wanted to blow up the buses. Yes.

So it's like we've always had that intra-community struggle and these conversations. And so we've got to be careful as to not always mythologize the civil rights movement in the sense of thinking that there weren't critical conversations and discussions like these taking place because there were. And them same dudes and them same Negroes that were against the progress or against those leaders speaking out were also greatly enjoying the progress that their assassinations and the things they went through

afforded them to have. And so what I would say is that I don't expect everybody to be on cold because that just is unrealistic. But I think if you have enough participation to at the very least make people, look, the job is done. if you at least feel like I got to wear a mask when I go up in Target, so don't nobody see me by this, Jay-Z, then mission accomplice. Because that means if you're feeling a little bit of shame about it, then that means that

this has been successful. And as I said before, the Victory Lab really is that Target's identity has been permanently changed. Think about five years ago, black people were like, Target is this. I can't go up in the Target without dropping $400 and blah, blah, blah, blah. we was treating Target. We let Target into the cookout. And I know people like bring up Walmart and Amazon.

We never let them up in the cookout. Target got let up in the cookout. And then they betrayed the entire community and a lot of other marginalized groups. And now we just like, no, we can't feel the same about you. And so with Jay-Z, because some people have been like, oh, we just always got to pick on Jay-Z. Again, like you said, Van, it's about how you position yourself.

J-Z has been the one about ownership brand control, supporting black, buying black. I mean, that was his whole pitch with title, right? It's like the whole idea of title was we in on this black shit and we in solidarity and blah, blah, blah, blah. So, yeah, there's going to be more smoke for him than when Drake released a vinyl, a vinyl edition with Target. Drake ain't never really stood down like that.

His brand is not boycotting and standing up and doing all that. Like, that's not him. Jay-Z has a very specific cultural touchpoint that is different from 90% of the rappers. So we have higher expectations, fair or not, of him and by extension, also Beyonce. You know, guys, go to the concert, enjoy the concert, have fun, listen to the music. There's this thought, but we're just talking about cultural conversations around what's the best way to move. And we're not always going to agree. but you don't always have to know

if somebody's canceled. You couldn't cancel them if you wanted it to. Ain't nobody canceled. We're just talking about the situation. Jamel, tell them about Spolitics. So I do Spolitics live on YouTube three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Also, Kerry Champion and I,

we have a three times a week podcast as well called flagrant and funny. And I encourage people to check that out. I think the episode is out now. Naturally, we have some conversation about Garrett Moore's being put out there like a porn star. Woo.

That was, I didn't even see it at first. I didn't even see it. And then somebody said, look again. Yeah, I was like, boy, no wonder he got cast at Stan and Martin. All right. Garrett Morris, this Garrett Morris? You need to look at the picture with him and Taraji. You need to look at the photo there.

I'll show you. I'll show you. I'll show you. I'm going to show you right now in real time. we're going to show you. I cannot believe this. Taraji put it down. I think she took it down.

Do you see it? Hold on, man. Shout out to my dog, bro. Shout out to my dog, bro. Shout out to Taraji, man. Like, shout out to Taraji for inspiring that. I don't know. Shout out to my dog.

And you look, he looked like, man, shout out to him. That's what I'm talking about. Good for Garrett. You got a kind of respected and it's just like that man He had sexy red jumping in Taraji's comments talking about hey, unc. And this is the most attention to Gary Morris

that got in here. For sure. You're getting for this when you're his age. He deserves it. Remember Saturday Night Live, like Martin, all kinds of, he's been doing work for so long and apparently been doing a lot of other type of work for a long time too.

Shout out to Gary. Shout out to Taraji too. She looked good too. All right. Thank you, Jamel. Thank you for joining. Thank you, Jamel. Jamel, if you felt convicted and y'all, thank you.

And y'all sell them tickets. Come to me first. Oh, no, no, no. The TLC tickets, thankfully, I got insurance on those. So, like, those are going to be gone. Like, we probably not, we're not going to that. Okay, I don't want those. I'm talking about the Chase.

I'm going to sneak into the Jay Z concert now. I'm going. Bye, y'all. All right, let's talk about Tyra Banks. She sued Netflix last week for defamation, claiming her testimony was manipulated for the streamers recent America's Next Top Model DocuSeries called

Reality Check Inside America's Next Top Model. She's sewing Netflix, 89 blocks holdings, Ever Wonder Studio, Netflix music, and co-directors Moro Laosci

and Daniel Sivan for false light, defamation, by implication, breach of contract and false endorsement. Her lawyers claim that he gave a

three and a half hour interview only to have it cut down to about 16 minutes. And what was left, according to the suit, was reassembled, to support the false and defamatory narrative unrelated

to what she actually expressed. And it asked that the accountability that she took for the show's shortcomings were left on the cutting room floor. Did you watch this docu-series? I did. And when you walked away from it, did you think that, well, let me just ask in general, what was your perception of Tower Banks

from when you started to when it ended? It's interesting question because like, Growing up, Tyra Banks was one of them ones, right? Absolutely. Like, I, uh, I bought the Tyra Banks calendar. Oh. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, she had a calendar.

I have to go, what was the place in the mall where you had the calendars? It's a bookstore, right? No, I don't think it was. Oh, it was Spencer's. So Spencer's Gifts. Really? You remember Spencer's Gifts? Don't they have, like, freaky stuff, too?

They did, but they also had these calendars, and some of the calendars just had women in them. Okay. So you would go and they would be like a calendar. It would be like 12 months of butts. No, man. They did have that. I promise you, they had calendars like that and Spencer's. It would be like a tits all around the year, the new year.

And I'll be looking through them and stuff like that. And you know, you know. And then, but also they would have other people's calendars too. And I bought the Tyre Banks calendar. And man, I think I didn't flip past March because March was just cold. Right. And this was like, this might have been like 93 or 94. Like March.

The March, Tyra Banks, I think she was like a silver bathing suit. So she was one of them ones. So I followed Tyra, right? And you don't know the career of a model. Like what does a model do? Because like if models don't become actresses, then they kind of just like end up melding into the ether. Because they're like, they're like. Because there's a time limit usually on modeling.

They're athletes that aren't celebrated in the same way post career. But then what we started to see during the era of the supermodel They kind of started to be Models got like TV shows You had House of Style If you see Crawford was on that The different stuff they were done

Some models became like big time actresses A lot of them on the low Married insanely wealthy guys And that was kind of the thing that they would do You know at the end of the modeling career But Tyra Banks Will endured Tyra Banks

acting in Coyote Ugly And in High Learning High Learning and Fresh Prince And we went, okay, we're not doing that That's not going to happen. Is that what we said? Yes.

Okay. We saw her and we were like, No, probably not in that situation. She didn't also try to sing. She was on a song with Kobe. Oh, really? Oh, and then it was life size. It was Kobe featuring Tyra Banks

on the song. Wow. And we looked. And this is with all due respect. We looked at both Kobe and Tyra. From a music standpoint and went, no. You go back to the runway. You go do what you do, which is be one of the most devastating ISO scores of all time.

But this shall not pass. Then Tyra finds lightning in a bottle with America's next top model. And I'm looking at Tyra Banks as just, like a fucking unprecedented type of success story. Mogul. Didn't talk show Tyra. Tyra is gone. Tyra is out of here.

After watching that goddamn documentary, though, boy, did they take a chunk out of Tyra's ass. They fucking got Tyra. But you realize the reason the documentary even came out is because social media. So we watched America's Next Top Model in real time. and I didn't watch all, was it 15 cycles of it or something like that? Maybe like 24 cycles, 15 years. I didn't watch all of it, but I remember there being a lot of problematic episodes.

But what's happened is, is that's the song? What's happened is on TikTok and other social media platforms, they started to relitigate America's Next Top Model as, but this happens a lot as, thank you, 24 completed cycles. as like what the hell was she doing in the show? Because 20 years later, we're in a different place. They're looking at it at a different lens. You can't make the TV now that you used to make 15, 20 years ago.

So with that came this interest and this thirst of what happened behind the scenes. We want to hear from these people. We want to hear from Tyra. When I found out there was a docu-series and that Tyra was in it, I was like, whoa, she's been getting ridiculed. and people are not happy with her on social media. So I thought, oh, either she's producing this, created this, she didn't. And I thought, okay, she's going to answer for some of this. So then that's why reality checked, America's Next Top Model reality checked.

And then E did one separate that didn't even include her called Dirty Rotten Scandles. And that covered Dr. Phil. It covered Tyra Banks, I mean, with America's Next Top Model. and I can't remember the third one, but that has people that weren't on the one that Tyra was in, giving a completely, adding more to the story that wasn't covered in what we saw on Netflix.

Then at the end of the Netflix documentary, she kind of teased that we were going to get another cycle. Of America's Next Time model. Then this show, then this docu series comes out and it was not well received for Tyra. No, she looked crazy. So why was she in it, though?

Like she wanted to and this is according to her lawsuit as well She wanted to tell take accountability For things she felt she did wrong during those 24 cycles right And she feels like with the 16 hours of filming that she had No the three hours of filming that she had and they only showed 16 minutes and it told a narrative That wasn't the narrative she was telling which in reality TV People do that which people that's what people said this is ironic you were doing that as an executive producer to your contestants on reality TV.

But in a documentary, you can't change the narrative to fit what someone said to fit what you're trying to do. You have to put it out there. If they say, I knew this person and I was aware of this happened, that needs to be what is conveyed. You can't chop and screw it to fit your narrative. And that is what she's accusing them of doing. I'll say something.

I don't think Tyra should be suing. I don't either because we had moved on. So I'll tell you why I don't think Tyra should be suing. This is a blessing for Tyra. Which part? The whole thing. This is a blessing. This is something that Tyra needs to move forth and even do more America's next top model.

This is a blessing. Let me tell you why it's a blessing. I went through this with TMZ. So I was at TMZ from 2011 to 2019. And during that time, I watched, participated in, protested a lot of times. stories about famous people. I saw people put on the front page and I saw angles taken

and headlines written and all kinds of stuff. I wrote some of them, right? I wrote some of them about people and their peccadillos and all the stuff that they had done. I watched all of it play. Then the Kanye thing happened.

Then the Kanye thing happened and people were looking at me like some sort of a hero. Right? And so all of the stuff that I had done and been a party to at TMZ was washed under by the fact that I stood up in that moment. And if you watch TMZ, there's plenty of moments I stood up. Actually, it was kind of my function at TMZ to stand up. And I'll say this as well. They never, ever, ever cared about that.

The one place, the ringer as well, with the one place that I've been where I've never ever had someone say, don't say that. I've heard I've had people call me and say hey your criticism is like this but I've never had when I was at TMZ I never ever ever had anyone say don't you going too hard don't say that lay off sometimes they didn't like it but they dealt with it I can't say about the place is they wasn't trying to censor what the fuck you had going on not at all but once you said it they weren't going to defend you it was between you and the audience so I will say that But what ended up happened is when I left TMZ, got fired from TMZ, I was positioned on page six as if I choked a white boy. Yeah. As if I choked my friend, Michael Babcock, a conservative who I had been friends with the entire time.

This is why you don't have conservative friends because they always stab me about I'm fucking with you. Yeah, you have conservative friends. So, and I look around. I'm like, why is this happening? Why is this happen? Why is this happen? This is not true. Like, this thing is not true.

This is being spun partly by the office to make me look like I'm some kind of violent nigger. Right? And that's the way I look at that, right? It wasn't about Team Z. It was about me. That was a blessing from God. It was a blessing from God. And I've said this before for me to understand what the fuck it felt like to be on

the other side of one of them headlines so that I can then define for myself what kind of person I want to be, right? It was a blessing for me to have the nervousness to wonder what the fuck was going to be in my career, whether or not the people that wanted to work with me was still going to work with me. I had to call people around. I had to call all kinds of people being like, yo, y'all still fuck with me. Like, what's going on?

Do I have anything? I'm in a situation where I just lost my job. I got a little money, but I don't know what's coming. in the future. Will anyone that was fucking with me before still want to fuck with me because it is? Like I'll start to have like heart palpitations and all of that stuff like that.

Just very, very upset. And that's why I give so much love to Will and all of that stuff because Will came around during that point and put me back on TV like really soon. But I say all that to say... Will Packer. I say all that to say that that lesson was for me.

You don't get to just like escape and ride off as a hero after having been here, I'm not making a direct criticism of celebrity news in that way, but I'm saying there are some things you have to do there sometimes to sensationalize and build eyes

and get people to click your shit. Sometimes a video speaks for itself, but sometimes you got to judge a headline or take an angle to get people to watch that shit. And there's a human being on the other side of that, and that's something you got to live with, and God didn't want me to leave there thinking that everything that I had done

was completely, carmically, okay without feeling a little bit of that. And Tyra is the same thing. Yeah, how is it the same thing for Tyra. That documentary is a blessing for Tyra. It is something that to me will allow her if she does do another cycle of America's next top model to not be the same way she was. To understand that there's a way to do that show that doesn't, to me, get into the same

type of toxicity that the old show had. And that's the lesson to be taken. She's doubling down to me on being the old Tyra Banks by launching this lawsuit. I would say don't launch the lawsuit. We had all synced it. Learn the lesson and then go and do the show and make it something better than it was before. So that's what I was waiting for you to say because I feel like the lawsuit is more doubling down on it. I mean, listen, if she really did say things that they cut out, I understand you wanting to at least say,

I really tried to come in here and be somebody different and to recognize my wrongs, but I still don't feel like, because there's only a couple of things that she's making a direct, I guess, that she's asserting that where she was wrong, not the whole thing. And I do think the whole thing kind of came off

as a little detached, a little disconnected. I think she contradicted herself at some moments. And it made her look not just as like a bad, made it seem like she lost her way from her original intention when she created this show, it also made her look like a bad friend when you heard some of these stories from some of the other judges and the way that she handled things. I think she got caught up in the business of it all. And I was expecting a little bit more of that, of an apology of that in this documentary.

But I will say, what I think is that there was a show lined up and maybe not anymore. Because they took the show because of the documentary and maybe that's why she's like, okay well I was going to let this go and move on because we had moved on right this happened back in like February March and now it's like well I need to let people know that this wasn't actually how it was I that's what I thought maybe but you know who knows I say we've moved on if people are still coming at her and saying how dare you how could you she might be like that's actually not the truth I mean that is what she's saying in this lawsuit so maybe she's doing this for her I don't know But I did find it really interesting

that this is something that is still going on and I was a little surprised to hear her make these accusations. I would hope there's some truth in it because if you're Netflix, roll the tape. Yeah. If it's not there, all right. By the way, guys, we're aware that there was an Iran deal that was seemingly signed like an MOU.

We're going to wait to cover that on Monday because they're supposed to be signing it Friday, which is today we're recording Thursday, but Friday. And then we'll have more about the signing of it and all the fallout from it on Monday when we bring an expert guest on. Now, I will say this, Rachel Lindsay and myself, Van Lathen, are two of the world's foremost experts on geopolitics.

It's something that we've dedicated our lives to. Different institutes have hired us to come along there and get people right. I've declined on several opportunities to go talk to the American State Department about my distinct expertise in geopolitics and things that I know. But we're going to bring on another expert,

not because we don't know, because we do know this is a shocking loss for the Trump administration and we could completely talk about it but just to give somebody else a shot yeah because that's what we like to do on the podcast

yeah you know what I'm saying it's not just about us we like to help other people to help other people if we can right so just to give somebody a shot so you might see a Ryan Grimm come on this podcast because he needs it because Ryan needs him

you know what I mean like Ryan we look out for Ryan that's one of our guys Right. So you might see a Ryan Grimm, somebody like that coming in a pod to talk about that. You know, I know. Other niggas. What about Josh Carton? Shout to my man, Josh Carton, who used to work in the State Department.

I might have him on here. He's great. Good one. Okay. But these are people that I know more than is what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah. I know a lot more than those people. But we want to give him a chance.

We want to give him a shot. And we'll do that on my day. I will say also I'm glad we're waiting because as we've seen, there's a deal. There's a deal. Then somebody bombs someone. There's a deal and like somebody takes. Like, I would. I would rather...

No, no, no. Somebody doesn't bomb anything. Sorry. Israel bombs. Israel bombs. Southern Lebanon. Yes. Israel bombs.

Or between us and Iran. Yeah. But I think it's worth waiting a couple of days to see, one, if it even gets signed, to what's the final thing with it? Like, we can't even report immediately because it's flip-flopping so much so quickly. Okay. All right. So in lieu of that, we'll talk about what's going on at the Knicks parade right now.

There's a video Can we get this video on the screen here? There's a couple of videos What video I want to do I want to stand up for white people Okay, oh wait a minute Okay, this is the first one Oh, we're shaking ass

No, no, play it, play it We'll get to the, we'll get to stand up for one Okay, look Oh, we're twerking on top of the So, okay, so we're twerking on top of Is she white? I can't see I don't think she's white

This next video, she might be I know black eye Dominican Oh Oh, this white lady is trying to tell her to stop twerking. Put her hand in her face. Is that what's happening? It looked like it. This is at Trinity and whatever.

She's trying to twerk. She's not doing a good job of twerking on the thing. That's the same thing. It's kind of hard. She's up on over the crosswalk signs. She's over the crosswalk signs. But niggas be working out. Oh, shit.

Okay. What the fuck? What the fuck? Oh, okay. Whoa. Oh, now we get to see the ass. Oh, my God. And then she's going to twerk.

This is the whole the way it's saying. New York is not real, bro. This is not what I was expecting. Wait, wait a second, bro. Oh, she's pulling the whole shit now. Okay, if you were fitting by her dancing, why are you making her nude in the middle of it? Look at this.

They're playing this. And she didn't miss a beat. Oh, she's still beating up. This lady is dedicated to the ass shaking. Hold on, go run that shit again, dog. That's some of the most remarkable shit I ever seen before in my life. Yeah, because she didn't miss a beat despite. So look, so she up there, this is not really working.

this lady by being a Karen helped her she helped her out in this situation I just do not understand how this woman made of her business the fact that she felt like she had the power to ridicule this woman and tell her to stop this is one of the most New York things I've ever seen before my life and didn't think that anything was going to happen to her now she's getting down here

we'll go through this one more time she's getting down you might be asking yourself in this video what could happen that would make this video better than what it is right now because that was a struggle to her She didn't even get off a good twerk there. She grabs her by the collar, throws her to the ground. Oh, and by the way, she has an orange dog on. Kudos to her for still wearing the color.

She got the New York, bro. I'm fucking with you, New York. Orange stong. Look at the rippling ass trying to beat her up. Nothing will stop her celebration. Hey, make her a star. Make that woman a star. Make the woman with the orange fucking.

thong that would not stop celebrating. I've never seen anything like that. Even when, you know what, man? I gotta be real with you. That's kind of like a microcosm of the state of affairs in the country right now. Woman of color looked like she was I know black I Dominican. Woman of color. That's what she looked like.

Woman of color shakes ass. White woman tries to stop her. But down to her soul, she loved a Knicks so much. She won't stop shaking ass and ends up doing a better. job defeating white supremacy to shake ass for all of us. Did you notice that she only had one shoe on? She lost a shoe in the process of trying to to twerk on top of the crosswalk. Still with one shoe throws her down to the ground. One handed. Yeah. And what's funny is she wasn't twerking at first. When the woman started hitting her ass, she started to twerk. Well, she was twerking

when she was on top of the thing. No, I know. But when she came down, also note, she's standing on top of offense and doing this and drops the splits again. Does it again. The talent. I'll be honest with you. The focus.

Like, I got a dedication. Jimmy, Jimmy, I never mention you. I never mentioned you on this podcast. Jimmy. Kimmel, I'm telling you something right now. My man. Fallon has had all the Knicks on

and all of that stuff like that. It's a New York thing. I get it. Jimmy, find this lady and bring her on to the show and let her finish her celebration. Can't have this Karen stopping her from twerking ass? Even better.

What? Even better. They just announced that Guillermo is going to be on Dancing with the Stars. Bring this woman. Actually, she should sign up for it herself. They should sign her dancing with the Stars, but bring her to dance with Guillermo just to warm them up. To get ready as he's about to do dancing with Stars.

Make her his dancing partner. Let her teach him some of this stuff. This is why I fuck with New York, though. I fuck with New York because of shit. like that. That woman wasn't going to, that woman had an orange thong on. She had Jaylen Brunson

over her vagina. She had the Knicks colors over her butthole. That's deeply rooted. That's deep fandom that I love. I do love this. Nobody was going to be able to stop her. It's one thing to wear all of this shit.

But it's one thing to say, I love the fucking Knicks so much that my fucking asshole is covered up by the Knicks. I love that. Okay, there's another video from the parade we have to look at right here.

I have to stand up for white people right here. Okay. Do you know who that is right there? I can't see. Okay, so this is... That's somebody famous? This is discrimination. Yes, it is.

That's Tyler Colick. He plays for the Knicks. That guy? Yes, exactly. See? Because he's white. Well, he looks small. Because he's white.

Another thing that they say about white men, so you know what I'm saying? He's like he's white. Play it again. Because he's white. Look at him. He's six, too? He doesn't look like a jailing to the cops.

The cops said, hey, crazy fan, get off there. He was looking at them like, hey, I play for the Knicks. I play for the Knicks. They're like, we know what the Knicks looks like. And you don't play for the Knicks, my friend. He appeared in 62 games this season. 62 games this season. I didn't know that that's who that was.

And they profiled him and they tried to make him stop actually celebrating with his team. You know, that's two episodes in a row where you've taken up for the white man. What did I do before? Timothy Shalemy. Oh, that's tough. That's it, white people. I blew my load for the whole motherfucking. That's what y'all get.

June teeth tomorrow. Shout out Juneteeth is tomorrow. We're having a little Juneteenth thing at the house. If everybody wants to come get some barbecue. Just heard about it. I'm just letting you know right now. We're having a little Junetee thing with dogs. Just hamburgers, dogs.

I'm bringing my dogs. Yeah, hamburgers, dogs. I got to go get the meat. Pause. Pause, Bernard. Let me see if Kalika even knows about this. I admit that. that I shouldn't have said that

and I don't need you to like first of all there should be no pause and there's probably not down here man we're going crazy but yeah so the Knicks parade is like taking off I'll tell y'all something man I want you to consider what's going on God love Mondani man

God love Mondani the Knicks elected a socialist excuse me New York elected a socialist and the Nix win a championship right away God loves Mondani. Everybody that's like in New York that's anti-Mamandani, just go with it at this point, right?

The shit is already working out for you. They didn't win while what was the other nigga name? The ball hit? We had them on the show. Eric Davis. No, he played for the race. Oh, Eric Adams. Eric Adams. Shout out to ED, by the way. Eric Davis,

crazy. I hung out with Eric Davis and Bahamas. Is Eric Adams even live here anymore? Eric Adams. They didn't win while Eric Adams. They didn't win, you know, all of that stuff. And good. Yeah. Mom Donnie, man.

Mom Donnie. Happened when it needed to. Yeah. Okay. Before we get out of here, I saw a tweet. Rachel, I'm standing up for women. Okay. Go ahead.

I would like to, I would like a new lower third here. Okay. What is it? Pro-woman van. Okay. No, no, no, no. Go harder. Strike that out.

Feminist. Uh-uh. Van. Because I feel like I'm the true feminist here. Okay? Not... Which is one of the most anti-feminism things you could say. Hey, that's very true.

All right? I saw a tweet not too long ago and I took issue with this tweet. Okay. All right. Donnie, play the tweet. Play the video that goes along with the tweet too. And you guys don't clutch your pearls. Okay.

Oh, oh. Well, I tell you what. Okay, look. And then there is this same woman who is taking her son to church. If you guys aren't watching on audio, there's a woman. Her name is Zulu Doll 69. And there is a video of her shaking ass. Okay.

In a thong. And then a couple of videos later, she is taking her son to church. Rachel, do you see any problem? with this? I honestly don't. Okay. It seemed like people on Twitter I don't really don't.

I seem like people on Twitter had a problem with this. People was like, how could you in the same video shake ass? And then a couple of other videos take your son to church. Okay, I saw another video

with a woman and she was a Latina woman, a spicy Latina, right? And she was shaking ass. And then the person said that quote tweeted the video, they said, this is material for, I don't want to say exactly what they said.

They say, I'll tell you what they said. They said, this is suicide material when the kid gets older and sees this video of his mother shaking ass. I just have just one thing to say before we leave. And I hope that everyone understands this. I'll put my glasses on for this. Your mama shook ass. Your mom. Your mom.

Look at me. The guy with the glasses. Your mom shook ass. Let me tell you what happened. Your mom was shaking ass, right? Then your dad saw her. Your dad was like, yo, who's that? And this homeboy was like, oh shit, man, that's Cynthia.

You ain't saying Cynthia? He's like, yeah, man. In the background, you know, Roger Troutman and Zap is playing. You know what I'm saying? And he looks at it. It's like, I don't like that. She's a head, man. She ain't around from here, bro.

She ain't around here, man. She goes, want me to introduce you. Goes over there, sees her shaking ass. They talk. She looks at him. She's like, oh, my God, he smells good. Look at his neck. Look at his shoulders.

They looked at each other. Fairmoans, ass, neck, shoulders. Then what happened is that they fucked. Your mom and your dad are sexual beings. They fucked. Sometimes your mother and father fucked before they went to church. Sometimes they fucked after. Sometimes they was out all night on Saturday night,

doing whatever. Then they got up and they went to church. Because they're human beings who have sexual expression like anyone else. Your mom loves to fuck. She loved it. And she didn't just fuck your dad, by the way. She fucked some niggas. You don't even know.

She had some adventures. She had some vacations. She shook ass in foreign locales. And she fucked those guys. Foreign locale. She was all over the place. You don't even know. There might have been guys that you knew in your town or in your particular neighborhood that after your mom went, hey, say hello to Mr. Sanders.

Mr. Sanders watched your mom went away and went, God damn, I missed that. Because your mom is a human being. So yes, your mom both takes you to church and also fucks. And I don't know why this is so uncomfortable for everyone. The only reason why we ain't seeing your mama shake ass is because the technology wasn't available. But I tell you what, I went to the Kappa Beach Party.

I was there. I was there throughout the mid-90s to late 2000s, early 2000s, wasn't there in the mid-90s, I was in high school, and I saw a lot of y'all mamas. I know a lot of y'all mamas. And this is nothing to be ashamed of. stop shaming people with motherhood for having ass and shaking ass.

Motherhood is not a badge of shame or motherhood is not some sort of moral ladder that a woman has to jump over and surrender all of her sensuality, sexuality, or sometimes the fact that she wants to shake a little ass and show it. You as a child don't get to dictate how somebody acts in perpetuity because they're your Mama, is she providing you with nurturing and lessons and all of the stuff that our mother should do? Cool. Then let us take some ass.

Well, I guess my thing is, which part do these people have a problem with? The fact that she was shaking her ass on social media or the part that she went to church. Make it make sense. Because, like, what are you really saying? Okay, so a person who's on social media who shakes their ass can't go to church. Supposed to go to church. Like we, like, what, I'm trying to understand it. She's going to church.

Talk to Jesus. Find the problem in that. If it makes you uncomfortable, that's something you need to question yourself, ask yourself about. Would you do it? Maybe no. I wouldn't do it and that's fine. But the fact is church is supposed to be come as you are.

To me, I look at, I look at this as a woman who was out, because it looks dark, so it was at nighttime, went out at night, had a good time, still woke up and made it to church. church. Made it to church. On time it looked like as well. Didn't let shame and y'all niggas shaming her stopping her from going out.

I don't understand this. I don't understand this anti-mom sentiment that gets out here. So is it because she was a mom? Or because that's what they always say. They always say when a woman is out there, they go, oh my God, you're going to be a mother later. You're going to be a mother later.

Your mother was a woman before she was a mother. She was a person. But why can't you be both? You know, you can be both. You are both. That's why my infamous tweet from before about mothers and what they did with fathers, what I was trying to say in that tweet, that was one of my worst moments, what I was trying to say is that like, I told you what my mom said about my dad, right?

I'll tell you this. Keep going and I'll tell you why my mom said about my dad. I'm not going to get super serious and start talking about dad and all of this stuff like that. So I'm almost certainly I've said this. Certainly I've said this on the podcast. Okay. So my father passed away. I just did it right now.

And my dad died. And so I was relitigated his whole life and looking at it and stuff like that and whatever, whatever. And I would say, like, you know, my father died. My father died. My father died. My father died. My mother would say Van Lathen, Sr. died. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. She was like, Van Lathen, Sr. died. And not every decision that your dad made while he was on this planet after the 25 years before you got here was about you. And come to terms with that. come to terms with the fact that he did stuff that was for him. He did stuff that was for him that didn't have anything to do with you. He did stuff that was for him that didn't have anything to do with me. We obviously know that.

So what I'm saying is these are people who are also your parents. Yeah. And boy, do they like to fuck. Yeah. They love it. Like right now, like during the vacation in Turks. All right. Like, why?

Why do we have to do this? Why do we have to do this? I'm agreeing with you I understand I let you tell your story you've been holding on to this one for like a week now and then you're going to bring it back to the

Lindsay's get that out of here get that out of here come on take us out get us out of here Hey man get off your mama's backs get off your mama's back shout out to Zulu Dawes 69 man shout out to her

I bet she's a fantastic mom raising that boy in the church That's where he's supposed to be. Take 10 caps off and do not stop learning. I'm Van Lathen Jr. Stenner up for women. And I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Hi, guys.