Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Juneteenth: A Fundamentally American Holiday. Plus, the Tyler Perry Lawsuit

Episode Date: June 20, 2025

It’s Juneteenth, so we brought Dr. Peniel Joseph back to discuss his book, ‘Freedom Season,’ and the activist Robert F. Williams before podcaster Demetria Lucas joins to help break down the Tyler Perry lawsuit. And finally, The Ringer’s Chris Ryan joins to weigh in on the "face of The Ringer" debate. (0:00)  Intro (08:52)  Tucker Carlson & Ted Cruz (30:34)  Dr. Peniel Joseph joins the show (32:39)  ‘Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution (36:32)  The assault on history (47:26)  The life of Robert F. Williams  (58:14)  Demetria Lucas joins the show (59:29)  The Tyler Perry lawsuit (1:17:16)  The Diddy trial (1:21:17)  Chris Ryan & the face of the Ringer (1:35:35)  Thoughts on Juneteenth (1:45:38)  Pusha T disses Travis Scott Host: Van Lathan Jr. Guests: Peniel Joseph, Demetria Lucas, and Chris Ryan Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? High Learning is on. It is I Van Lathen, Jr. Rachel is again, not here. She's in France, and I want to let you guys know, she's having a great time in France.

Rachel's having a great time in France. She's having a French adventure. So good for her, okay? Donnie's here with me. Just me and Donnie again. It's just me and Donnie again. Ashley is also in Europe. But it's June.

And we really wanted to give you guys a Juneteenth episode because it was very important for tomorrow, which is, you know, today if you're listening to the podcast, for you guys to be able to listen to something. And we wanted to celebrate Juneteenth together. Me and Donnie as friends. We wanted to celebrate together. Donnie, what's up? Yeah, man. Happy Juneteenth. You went to the listeners.

Happy belated Juneteenth to the thought warriors. Yeah. So we got three guests on the show today. We have Dr. Penil Joseph, who's going to talk. to us a little bit about Juneteenth and orient that around black history and some of the things that are happening down at the University of Texas. We're also going to take the time to talk about one of my favorite figures from black history, Robert F. Williams, Negroes with guns. Donnie, did you know much about Robert F. Williams before Pinell and I had the conversation?

I really didn't. And he mentioned a book that actually sounds really interesting. And you responded to him mentioning that book. And I am going to, when I listen back, I think I'm going to look more into this because it really is a story that I feel like needs to be told and isn't as well versed. Like I really hadn't heard of them at all. The book is called Radio Free Dixie. That's the name of the books about the life of Robert F. Williams. If right now you guys are listening to me, if there was one story, well, let me not say that. If there were two stories that I can make right now into a biopic, two stories. One would be Granville Woods and one would be Robert F. Williams and then the other one would be Ella Baker. Those would be the three biopics.

picks that I would make. Granville Woods that's on this Juneteenth, I'll tell you guys Granville Woods is an inventor and is a black inventor guy was seven feet tall, inventing stuff. Sue Thomas Edison twice won.

You have Ella Baker, who was really one of the godmothers of the movement that doesn't get a lot of talk about her. And then you have Robert F. Williams, somebody who embodied to me the spirit of black self-defense and of a man who was willing to pick up his gun

and get his people armed in order to fight against the KKK there in Monroe, North Carolina. Love his story. Love the redemption story that comes along with it and everything that he fought. Me and Penilla are going to talk about that. That's fantastic. We also have Chris Ryan.

Now look, Chris Ryan is going to join us. We're bridging the two cultures. You guys got to give us some latitude here. So we're bringing Chris Ryan on because there's a very important discussion that's being had on Twitter right now. That discussion is who is the face of the ringer. Now, to the higher learning audience that's listening to this right now, I understand what you're saying.

We don't typically do ringer type crossover stuff, you know? We don't do that. You don't see us. We are the black culture podcast of the ringer, and let's face it, a lot of the stuff that we cover on this podcast. It's not exactly stuff that's going to be on the rewatchables or on the watch or any other stuff. But that's why we are the perfect podcast to ask the question, who is the face? of the ringer. And we're bringing on the incomparable Chris Ryan to sit down and talk with us about it because he's actually a finalist in this, Donnie. Donnie, do you know enough about the ringer

to think who's the face of the ringer? Do you know enough about it? Yeah, I do. I have an opinion on who I think is the face of the ringer, but I don't want to give it until we have like discussed it. But yeah, I mean, I do work on prestige TV podcast. I work with Joanna and Rob Mahoney. I have some other ringer things that I work on. video essays, watch those. We're not going to actually crown this until Rachel's back. Because it's a higher learning thing. We're going to do this every June 10th.

We're not going to crown it until Rachel's back. But we're going to talk to Chris Ryan about it. We also have Demetrioucass. Who's going to join us. She's a podcaster. She's an author. She's going to join us and talk about the lawsuit against Tyler Perry. Bombshell, $260 million lawsuit against Tyler Perry for sexual assault,

sexual harassment, misconduct, all kinds of stuff. We're going to get into that with Demetria, and we're going to try to break down whether or not this is what Tyler Perry says it is, which is a shakedown coming from some disgruntled employee, or whether or not the conduct of one of the most powerful men in Hollywood was such that he owes somebody hundreds of millions of dollars. We're also going to talk a little bit about the response to these allegations and the cultural response and whether or not black people are fatigued in reading every single week, every single day about a new prominent black male who is accused of sexual assault. Now, I'll have to say this. It doesn't

matter how fatigued people are with news like this. It only matters whether or not this happened or not. However, I do think that the response to some of this stuff is coming from an audience that is not sure what to make of these particular people. particular cases. One thing I'll say about that before we get into the podcast is when you hear something like that, you automatically think right things, particularly our audience. You automatically think things that are on the right side of history, which is prioritizing the victims, which is, you know, adjudicating these cases both in the courts and in the

court of public opinion to make sure that we remove some of this behavior. I want to make sure that we give the correct cultural context for some of this stuff, though and oftentimes we don't get the ability to. When I was growing up in South Louisiana, a common narrative was that the number way to depower a prominent black male was through an accusation of sexual assault, rape, or something like that. Particularly in these cases, we were talking about

the old trope of white women saying that black men had done stuff to them and that getting them killed or thrown in jail. Well, I do think that there's some durability in people's minds to that idea, to the idea that the easiest way to destroy a prominent black man is by accusing him of something. So I want to hold space for people that have been, culturally raised in the idea that black success is very fragile and that you have to look around every corner for whatever is going to come and try to take that away or divorce you from American achievement.

I want to hold space for that. But I also want to make sure that people understand that there are people being abused and taking advantage of all over this place and all over this culture. And either we're going to talk about it or we're not. And either we're going to subject another generation, two generations, three generations of people to having to trade their self-worth and their self-dignity in order to gain in Hollywood or to just survive in society or we're going to say no to it. And if we're going to say no, it's not going to be comfortable.

It's going to be an uncomfortable thing to do. And not only is it going to be uncomfortable because of who we're going to have to watch, it's going to be uncomfortable because of the proximity to the people that we have to watch. It's not just going to be something that's outside of your house that's outside of your friend group. It's going to be some people inside of your friend group. It's going to be some people that you like,

some people that you want to listen to, that you want to watch, do comedy, some people that are in your family. So I understand people going, oh, my God, not again, but we have to prioritize in this situation. So the Tyler Perry conversation is one that we're going to have, have. Todd Perry is very important to a lot of people.

I understand that, but you cannot skirt the issue here. There are some people that are still committed to making sure that people are safe in the workplace. And I hope that people listening to this podcast fall into that category. It doesn't mean that we know what happened here, but it does mean that we have to talk about it. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks.

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Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions applies. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash herms. I do want to start off with what's going on in Israel. and Iran. And I want to talk about it some updates, but I also want to talk about it

through the scope of the bafflingly entertaining Ted Cruz versus Tucker Carlson interview that I watched in full twice, Donnie. That's four hours. It's a lot.

I was laying in a hammock. Did you double time it, speed it up or all? I don't do that. I can't do that. I can't listen to stuff double time. When you listen to stuff double time, it don't feel like Alvin and the chipmunks are talking to you about Iran's nuclear program.

Like when I listen to stuff double time, it, I laugh because I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Yeah, double is too much. I'm really meant to say 1.5. 1.5 is like somebody is speaking. You can, it still sounds like Ted Cruz. Still sounds like Tucker Carlson, but it's just like they're speaking hurriedly. Like they're rushing through it. But it's not Alvin and the chipmuxie.

So just give you the framework of the latest here. Donald Trump is weighing on whether or not to have the United States of America directly involved in this conflict. Do not get it wrong. We are already involved in this conflict. But just so you guys know, the pretext of this entire thing was destroying Iran's nuclear capability. There are two sites particularly in Iran right now. We talked about this a little bit earlier this week that are inside of mountains. they're buried, very deep inside of mountains.

In order to get to those sites, you need two things. One, you need 30,000 pound bunker busting bombs, but you also need the bombers to carry those bombs to their target. They cannot be launched from any type of freestanding missile launch platform. They have to be dropped. They have to be dropped. And not only do they have to be dropped, You have to drop a couple of them.

You have to drop one to crater the site that you're trying to hit. And then you have to drop another one to actually hit the target. Now, we don't know what's going to happen once you hit the nuclear targets with these bunker busting bombs. There is a chance that there will be a radiation leak or something will happen, whatever. Experts are kind of vying that around. But the United States is the only country right now that – well, I wouldn't say the only country. I don't know that. But the United States is a country that has the technology.

I think we're the only country that has $30,000, 30,000 pound bunker busters. I'm not sure about that. But we definitely have them. We definitely could use them. We definitely can help Israel cripple the rest of the nuclear program of Iran. So essentially, why I'm repeating that is the question about whether or not Donald Trump will get involved in this war directly, meaning send American bombers,

because we're already involved directly, is actually a political question. it's a question for him and his administration about the political calculus involved in making that commitment, whether or not the MAGA America First Movement can actually handle the scrutiny that would come from him directly striking Iran. Because if it's strictly about helping Israel achieve its goals, then he would have to do it. because the only other way to do that would be for Israel to send commandos in to these two different sites and take them over. And by the way, you still might need commandos to go into these sites to make sure, to make certain that they are properly destroyed. Israel obviously is not going to put Iran is a gigantic country. They have a pretty sizable military. Israel is not going to invade them on ground, on foot, should I say.

And so the way to get this done is to have the Americans get involved. So if, in fact, what Israel is saying is true, then the Americans would have to get involved. So the question for Donald Trump, if he really means that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon, it's a question about whether or not he has the political capital with his base to make the decision. decision to bomb Iran directly. That's the question. It's not a question about whether or not, you know, that's the question. Okay.

That brings us to Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz. Donnie, did you see these clips when they were made available on the internet? I did. I saw the clips and I watched it in full like you did, not two times, but I watched it. You watched the whole interview? I did, yeah. Oh, what were your takeaways? Like conflicting.

It was like satisfying in a way. I enjoy watching contentious interviews. Yeah. Like where you like dig down and it's not puff pieces. But at the same time, it's frustrating the talking points that Ted Cruz would just give and Tucker Carlson would do the thing where he would like try to nail him. Like that kind of confrontation I enjoy. But at the same time, when it comes from a Tucker Carlson,

that enjoyment, I'm not able to fully enjoy the back and forth because it's just like this is too... No, no, I get what you're saying. I was actually just thinking about something. I was wondering if you could turn your camera on because people are asking about whether or not Donnie could have his camera on.

Are you camera ready right now? Oh, there you go. There you are. Yeah. Yeah, I see you right there. Yeah, let the people see you. Your collar for that shirt. Very loose. Now, is that, is that,

are supposed to be that way. I can't wear that type of common. Like it has to be tight. You know what I mean? For me, it has to be tight. I get it. I like showing off my, what do you call this bone?

Clavicle. Yeah, I don't mind that. Clavicle? You like that type of shit. Yeah, sexy shit. Okay. So let me tell you why I'm talking about this. I'm actually when I have a conversation with the thought words about this

because we have a lot of conversation on this very podcast about whether or not we should platform dissenting voices. And that's been something. People are like, hey, why would you platform? somebody that is going to just espouse all of these ideas and put these stuff out there and why are you going to do that how are you going to do that and i understand the conversation at first i didn't at first i was like oh you guys are being pussy i really felt that way i was like you guys just don't want to hear stuff that you don't like then i start to look around at a couple other

platforms and i'm like i do kind of see that some of this stuff is just empty calories with people kind of getting their propaganda off this interview is a good example of sometimes why you need to put people on the hot seat. So I want to go to two clips here. The first clip is I want to get into the Iranian hitman clip. Now, this is not one of the ones that you've been seeing floating around. This is one where they first talk about the allegation that the Iranian regime is trying to have Donald Trump assassinated. And what Tucker Carlson does here, by the way, fuck Tucker Carlson.

because even in this interview, when you listen to it, Tucker Carlson's politics and his worldview are clear. All right. So we're not, but we're talking about the fact that you have a sitting U.S. senator in front of you. And the contradictions that he displays in the interview are not surface level. They're profound. And we're going to get into a couple of them and talk about like why it's sometimes necessary to sit somebody in front of you so people can see how profound they're. contradictions are. Okay, let's go to Iranian hitmen first. Killing Osama bin Laden was a fantastic day for the world. But you don't really believe that they're trying to murder Trump or yes, I do. Yes, I do. Why aren't you calling for military action against Iran right now? Because they're not very effective. In terms of hitmen, their hitmen are not very effective. I'm not very effective. I'm not very effective. They're just, they're a weak kind, the efficient kind. What are you saying? They're just, they're a weak country who is on its knees. Then why are we so afraid of them? Why are they the biggest threat if they're a weak country that's on its knees? Because they're trying to keep track. They're trying to develop, be a a little less snarky. I know. You're right. That is a problem that I have. I'm sorry.

So that is what I was saying, what I was trying to say is that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's the snarkiness from Tucker. And I know where it's coming from. It's like, he's also being disingenuous. But he's also like, he's putting Ted Cruz on the hot seat and on the spot. And I enjoy seeing that. But it's the, it's the Tucker Carlsonness of it that I'm like, it doesn't feel as good as it normally would. A little slimy is what you're trying to say. A little slimy from Tucker. Okay. interesting contradiction there self-evident but i do want to play you a different clip and let me tell you what i did to this clip this is van lathen taking out the nugget that he cares about all right

so you've all seen the clip uh the one that went viral of ted cruz talking to to Tucker carlson where they discuss the population of iran and ted cruz does not know the population of iran he doesn't seem to know the ethnic makeup of Iran. He also doesn't seem to know or he seems to intimate that the United States is entered in some type of covert pact to already be a part of the bombing. He says, we are bombing. Just as Donald Trump has said, we are bombing. At the same time, the U.S.'s forward-facing policy is that this is an Israeli operation that we are somehow supported. importing them in with logistical or military equipment like any other operation that they

would have a lot of their military equipment comes from us. We send them $3 billion a year. Okay. So that normally starts with Tucker Carlson asking Ted Cruz how many people are in Iran. I want to start it a little bit before then. because if we started a little bit before then, I personally believe that the clip is more powerful. So, Donnie, run the one that I sent to you. I have not publicly called for killing the Ayatollah.

What I've called for is doing whatever is necessary to stop him from getting nuclear weapons. In the first Trump term, what that meant was maximum pressure. So in the first Trump term, I spent a lot of time urging the president to withdraw from the disastrous Iranian nuclear deal that Obama had. President Trump agreed with me. He did that. And then I urged him to end the oil waivers and to sanction the hell out of the country. And it ended up crippling their economy. So Iran at the time was selling two million barrels of oil a day.

I'm sorry, one million barrels of oil a day. When President Trump ended the oil waivers, it cut their sales to 300,000 barrels a day. At the end of the Trump term, the Iranian economy was in shambles. They had massive inflation. I think the regime was teetering. I think it might have fallen. And I would use economic sanctions and I would use moral suasion to try to effectuate. If you topple, okay, see, topple the regime and by whatever means.

Okay. So let me tell you why I pause it right there. I pause it right there because it's important to know what Ted Cruz was saying before he was asked what the population of Iran is. What Ted Cruz just did was take whoever is watching through a series of events that he believes would have led to the synagogue. of the Iranian regime, the fall of the regime. And he's acting as if he knows this. He's saying, hey, this is what we did to cripple their economy. This is what we did to push them decades back or to make sure that they didn't have the influence on the world stages they once did with their ability to sell millions of barrels of oil.

And not only this is what we did in the Trump administration at the end of the last Trump administration with sanctions or whatever, this is what I would have done to cripple the regime this is what I would have done I would have used moral suasion I would have done all this Ted Cruz is right now acting as if he knows what it would take

to bring the regime in Iran to an end he's positioning himself as someone who gets it then he gets hit with this question how many people live in Iran by the way

I don't know the population at all? No, I don't know the population. You don't know the population in the country you seek to topple? So the clip is positioned as a gotcha on social media, but it's actually not. It's not a gotcha. It's a follow-up to someone saying that they have an understanding of a geopolitical situation to the degree that they could have predicted the fall of a regime. Now, when you think about this in the context of prior international wars that we've gotten into, think about this in terms of Iraq or Afghanistan, both wars, the American public was sold on the idea that the people there hated their regime so much that when we went

in and destroyed the regimes there, that we would be greeted as liberators. It was ignorant then and it's ignorant now. And those decisions are being made by people who are fucking dumb, who don't know what they're talking about. They don't know how many people are in the country. They don't know the ethnic makeup of the country. Even if we were to agree that the Iranians don't like their regime, which I think is pretty fair to say,

there might be all kinds of reasons why regime change in Iran would lead to something that is markedly worse than what we have. have there right now. We've seen this in the past and we've been led to believe certain things by people who don't have an understanding about the facts on the ground. That is how you get rid of the Hussein regime and then you get ISIS. Or you get the Taliban coming back right after the United States gets out of Afghanistan. Or you get wars that last for a long time. And you get wars that last for a long time. because you don't understand how the insurgency that lives in these countries will respond to American invaders coming in and trying to control the way that they choose their leaders. So what Ted Cruz, who, by the way, is trained in communicating in a way that's good for Sunday shows, that's good for 10 minutes, but bad for long form interviews where he has to qualify.

his opinions and the things that he says with deep knowledge and scholarship on a region. He's not used to having to do that. So when he's asked that question, it feels like a gotcha that people go, oh, my God, why should he have to know how many people are in Iran? But he would have to know. If he's saying that he knows that the regime would have fallen, if he's saying that he knows how it would have happened, and if he's saying that he could have used, that we could have used,

moral suasion to make the regime fall, then the question is, moral suasion on whom? Like, who are the friendly voices that we have inside of the Iranian regime? How much moral suasion are we going to use? How many people do you think are there? Do you think that it's 20 million people that live there?

Do you think it's 30 million people that live there? Because 92 million people is a fucking gigantic country. And if you are going to execute regime change there, then what you need to be able to do is to demonstrate to people that you have enough knowledge and understanding about the inner workings of that country, that that regime will change, that that power vacuum won't lead to something worse,

and that it's in the best interests of America to do that, which, by the way, choosing leaders in other countries based upon our view is never something that's good. So there's nothing that you, they could have the Shah ready to go to come back and all of that. They could have a whole puppet regime ready and I still would be against it. But it was breathtaking to watch him on so many different things, just not know what the fuck he's talking about. To double talk, to avoid questions, to obfuscate, to sit there with a journalist and not have the requisite knowledge to come across, an authority on what people elected him to do.

But look, to the people listen to the podcast, I understand your concerns about platforming bad ideas. I get it. I get it. And this is maybe not quite that on a one-to-one because I guess whatever a sitting U.S. Senator has to say is relevant to a degree, right? However, when I'm thinking about, wow,

there is something in interview that you can get to that makes people understand just what type of position that they're in or how they need to arm themselves with knowledge or who they can trust. This was an example of that. Once again, you guys, if you listen to the whole interview, the bad ideas that are coming from Tucker Carlson

are breathtaking, right? And Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz agreed at the beginning of the interview that they agree on about 80% of this stuff. Then there are all kinds of other situations. Whose pocket is Tucker Carlson in. Is he in the Russians pocket. You know, who knows? They talk a little bit about that the entire deal.

Part of the conversation was interesting because they were going back and forth about who owns who. Well, the Israelis own you. Well, the Russians own you. You know, you know what I mean? So it would be great to have somebody that may be nobody owns. Whatever. But you were able to see, and I'm sorry to say it like this,

but Ted Cruz is fucking. dumb. He's advising the president on this by his own admission and he hasn't done the required reading. And so many of these people, we can move on after this to Dr. Joseph, but so many of these people that have these platforms that are now shocked and appalled at the bombing campaign that's going on in Iran or the genocide that is happening in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing that is that is happening in Gaza, so many of these people that I see on these podcasts, Theo Vaughn, Tim Dillon, all of these guys, Joe Rogan, all of these guys. I'm wondering if they're fucking dumb.

And the reason why I say that is because there is nothing that is happening now. that was off script. There's nothing that's happening now from what ICE is doing, from the foreign policy, there's nothing that should have been a surprise. This is all consistent with what Donald Trump has been saying, the people that he surrounded himself with, the people that he put in power,

Huckabee is a theocratic evangelist who is in charge of dealing with Israel. So the people that he chose laid out what his goals and aspirations were going to be in terms of dealing with that part of the world and domestically. And now everybody is so appalled. And I'm like, either everyone is dumb or not paying attention

or they just don't believe anything that Donald Trump says. It's interesting to see so many people stand up five or six months into the administration and go, I can't believe we're in a situation where we're now flirting with a foreign war. We have protests in every city here in America. We have people being sent to gulags in El Salvador. We have tariffs raising the price on goods. this is all the shit that he said he was going to do and you guys got dressed up and went to the inauguration and party

and laughed and had him on podcast and stroked his backside and did all kinds of stuff like that but now that the shit has hit the fan you don't want it blowing back on you odd penil joseph okay it is junezth and so we have to make sure that we do something to commemorate and talk about our ancestors and ourselves. That's why I have a hero of mine on the podcast right now. Poneil Joseph, scholar, teacher, public voice on race issues, especially the history of

the black power movement. He holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department, University of Texas at Austin, where I understand that some of those initiatives are under attack down there. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. So a year ago, over 60 UT employees were fired who were connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion. They passed SB Senate Bill 17 that outlawed diversity training system-wide, not just at UT Austin, but just all across the UT system. And they've just passed the Senate Bill 37 that was trying to curtail freedom to teach. about race and to teach about difference and to teach the true history in the United States and the histories of repression that are part of this country's history. How's that impacted what you got going on down there?

Well, it took away. I used to be associate dean of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and they took that that away. So that was an administrative post that ended. And, you know, my classes have remained the same. My center is still going on, and we're doing a Juneteenth event today. But it's cast a real chill on the ability to talk about the inequality and to imagine a world without this kind of racial injustice. And it's cast a chill on the ability to talk about immigration, you know, reproductive rights, queer folks, trans folks. But the center of it is definitely anti-black racism, which is how it's always been. So you have a new book, Freedom Season, How 19- It's out.

The book is out. The book is out. There it is right there. The book is Freedom Season by Pineal Joseph. How 1963 Transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution. There's the book. Now, we're going to talk about one of my favorite civil rights figures. And I wanted to do that this Juneteenth because I feel like this guy that we're going to discuss, Robert F. Williams is an unsung hero in the American civil rights and black power struggle.

You don't hear as much about him. But before we get into his life and talk a little bit about him, what is this latest book about? Yeah, this latest book is about the year 1963. And it makes an argument that 63 is the key to the 60s. So it looks at Birmingham, it looks at King, but it also looks at Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, and James Baldwin. And James Baldwin, Baldwin is the through line. Gloria Richardson, who's a radical black activist from Cambridge, Maryland, looks at Lorraine Hansberry, the playwright and radical feminist who wrote a Raisin in the Sun and was great friends with Baldwin. It looks at the Kennedy brothers and their evolution, including the summit with James Baldwin on May 24th. It looks at the Detroit Walk

for Freedom before the March on Washington. And it really, in a very specific way, looks at the children who were killed in Birmingham on September 15, 1963. So specifically, Carol Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley were all 14 years old, and Denise McNair was 11 years old. And the book continues to mention their names and their stories, their parent stories. And then there was two young black boys who were killed, Virgil Peanut Ware, who was 13 years old, riding a bicycle, and two white boys Boy Scouts shot him while he was riding a bicycle because they wanted to see what would happen. They faced no prison time. And in a 20-year-old black young man, Johnny Robinson, was murdered by police in Birmingham,

September 15th, shot in the back during the demonstrations in Birmingham after the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. So it really looks at the way in which people like James Baldwin become radical. and radicalized by the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing. So Baldwin has the bestselling fire next time. He wants people to come together and confront racism and slavery. But after that 16th Street Baptist Church bombing, it's no holds barred. He's preaching at Foley Square in New York City. Malcolm X is right there. We're listening to him. And we've got a great picture of Malcolm listening to Baldwin on September 22nd, 1963. And you can see the end of the year coming where Kennedy gets assassinated in November 22nd, but Baldwin is at Howard University preaching about radical self-determination,

and there has to be a political revolution to defeat racial terror and white supremacy. And in that way, you see the year is a year where America unravels and comes together, but it comes back together in a way where black people, start to talk about dignity and citizenship in a very, very powerful way that creates a new consensus for the next 50 years that provides us with the context for the Barack Obama's, for the Michelle Obama's. But the white folks, too, Bill and Hillary Clinton, nobody would have gotten the chances they got without 63 and what black people did. And that ends with the Shelby v. Holder decision with the decision to end the V. V. Rights Act,

basically and to end preclearance. And that's why we have voter ID laws and voter suppression is flourishing all throughout the United States. Much of your life and much of your work is contextualizing history and telling history. Juneteenth today is, to me, one of the most slam dunk American holidays. It's just, it's a fundamental American holiday. If slavery is the evil that America says that it is, then, celebrating the end of that evil in any way should be something that's a slam dunk. It should be easy.

It should be a layup from C. This is Shining Sea. However, Juneteenth as a holiday, we sort of had to fight to get recognized. And now we see the minimization of not just Juneteenth as a historical celebration of the end of slavery, but also of our history in the country, period. For someone who is dedicated so much of their life to exploring. very fundamental parts of black history. What does the assault on our history,

what does the assault on our identification? What does that signify to you? Well, I think it signifies a rollback more than just the backlash, but a return to, you know, the Confederacy, the neo-Confederacy, a white supremacist vision of American history that really takes shape and form after Reconstru. instruction, right? So we've got the Dunning School of History, we've got the sons and daughters of the Confederacy who write textbooks that say that black men were rapists, that lynching was good, that the White South was an honorable South just fighting for their individual rights and freedom. And we had to fight for more than a century to really correct that record. So there were people like Carter G. Woodson and Negro History Week, which became Black History Month in 1976.

There were people like Mary McLeod Bethune who started massive educational campaigns throughout the South. We think about Bethune-Cookman College. And we think about historically black colleges and universities. So we spent centuries trying to correct the record. And I think the reason why we have such a huge white backlash, 1776 Commission, Secretary of Defense, Pete Hagsworth and the racism, taking away Medgar Evers and taking away Medgar Evers and taking. taking away these battleships and these things that were named after civil rights leaders and putting them back to Confederate leaders is we were correcting the record. We were winning that narrative war. Nicole Hannah Jones in the 1619 project, Black History Month, Ibram

Kendi and the anti-racism discussion. We were winning. And so they pushed back against telling the full, complete story of American history. But for those of us who've been in the vineyards and laboring for decades in this, it is similar to how it was in certain ways before Barack Obama and before sort of this third reconstruction, where we were really able to talk about black history in very bold and powerful ways

for the first time in American history. And we were talking about it in ways that were even more sophisticated, than the 60s and 70s, where we had roots. And remember, over 100 million people watch roots in January of 1977, which was about racial slavery and Alex Haley's whole story. But by 2020, with the George Floyd, Breonna Taylor reckoning, we were able to really talk about slavery and wealth gaps

and capitalist exploitation of black people and how it continued in the music industry, in the entertainment industry, in athletics, in higher education in the State Department. People came up with all sorts of plans that this is what we need to do. People started to talk about reparations once more and black people were owed $16, $20, $25 trillion.

So all that was great. And we all thought it was gonna lead to something much more. But instead it has led to this reversal of fortunes where we find ourselves in now. Why? Well, I think it has to do with timing. I think 63 is better timing, 63 and 64, JFK and LBJ. It's better timing for us with the movement. Summer of 2020, if we had had a Democratic

president during that uprising, we would have gotten federal legislation, George Floyd Justice and Policing Act. We would have gotten the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act. We'd have gotten some things done that that summer, that revolutionary impulse, there was 20 million people out in the streets according to the New York Times that summer. Now, just the other day, for the protest, we had five to seven million people out in the streets. That's what the data is telling us with the no kings protest. That's a great number of people. The problem for us is that back in the day when you got massive numbers out, you had federal governments that you could mold and shape and get some consensus to pass legislation. Because that's how the 64 Civil Rights Act has passed and the 65 Voting Rights Act has passed. Because remember, if those things aren't passed, things are just going to get worse and worse, but it's still going to be the status quo and most black people aren't going to be able to vote. And there's going to be no way you can get access to public accommodations, restaurants, movie theaters, all that stuff is brand new for black people

getting relatively equal access to just the last 60 years. Now, when we do these big uprisings, the timing has not been great because Trump was president, Republican Congress, they didn't pass what needed to be passed the summer of 2020. By the time Biden got in there, you've already lost momentum. And then you've got those two senators, Kirsten Gillibrand. No, no. Kirsten Cinema. Cinema, excuse me, Kirsten Cinema. And our boy from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, who prevented all these things from happening. And it's really tough because those two were reminiscent of in the 19th century, Frederick Douglass wanted women to be included in the 15th Amendment, which provided voting rights, right? They didn't have the

votes, man. They did not have the vote. So unless you do a coup and say, look, we're going to give women voting rights in 1870. And people might say, yeah, they're down for that. You can only get it through sort of the democratic process, which is a very unfair process. That's the whole thing. So democracy, sometimes people want to say democracy is a fair process. It's not. It's a very unfair process, but it's the process that people argue is better than all the other processes we've come up with. Right. Well, last question about this before we move on to Robert F. Williams. You said that we didn't have the political will or we didn't have the allies that we needed in the federal government in the summer of 2020 to take advantage. But then we win, like you said,

the House and the Senate, and we have Joe Biden, and we can't get it done for the next four years. contextualize what type of opportunity missed that was. Will we have the opportunity to make sweeping change in voting rights, sweeping change in police reform, any of those things now that that moment has passed? I worry sometimes that our last best shot of having a racial reckoning, of having a nationwide conversation that puts into context, again, the historical and contemporary reality of black Americans is gone for a while.

I'm skeptical that we'll be able to get this conversation moving in the right way again when we had such a moment and it seemed to have been squashed by America's allegiance to white male orthodoxy. Yeah, I would say I half agree with that and half can offer some optimism. So the agreement is that in 2021, 2021, with having the House of Representatives, having the U.S. Senate, that was your best chance to get the George Ford Justice Policing Act, to get the John R. Lewis Act, to get the For the People Act, and just to get a host of things done. Absolutely. And the biggest thing was the build back better plan because that was going to impact black people. That was Joe Biden's 10 years. $3.5 trillion spending plan. That was going to impact black people because black women are the biggest home health care aides in the United States. And that put in a whole bunch of new money just for that group of people. And the home health aids are the people who are going to be taking care of all of us as we age. And there's a rapidly aging baby boomer population in United States, but there's going to be a rapidly aging Gen X population, which I'm a part of in the U.S.

and then a rapidly aging millennium generation is your part, right? Yeah. We're going to need those home health aid. So that bill not getting passed, and they passed a skinny version of it, really, really impacted us. And I think the positive is that if you change

the House of Representatives in 2026, and if you get Wes Moore, hypothetically as president starting in 2029 and you were to win reclaim the Senate, you can pass a whole lot even if you don't have 60 senators just through spending bills with 51. And technically you only need 50 and the vice president, right? So there's a lot we can do as long as Hakeem Jeffries is Speaker of the House and a Democratic president, again, for hypothetically a president, West Moore, has 50 senators. No, you can get a lot done.

And you have your moment to reclaim what we lost in 2021. But I do think the negative is so many Democrats are running away from racial justice. They are. So many people are running away from black history. So many people are running away from confronting racial privilege and injustice that that's hugely negative because you can see them cutting and running right now. Yeah. They seem to be moving towards the center right in order to court voters that they feel like they lost. They're never going to get those voters again.

They're gone. Those guys are gone. Those voters are gone. Now, let's talk about the life of Robert F. Williams, Negroes with guns. I love this guy. He is by far, by far. Well, not by far. But right now, I'm on a whole Robert F. Williams kick.

This man who is born in Monroe. North Carolina, goes to the Marines, comes home and brings sort of his militarized view of fighting for justice to the NAACP that was obviously trying to embrace nonviolence and legal ways. When I say legal, I mean, through the law, through litigation ways to bring about social change. He is an advocate for self-defense. He is an advocate for arming yourself. He is an advocate for going to Monroe, North Carolina, a town that had 7,000 clans members,

and standing up to them. And I feel like it's a story that's kind of untold when you look at all the different figures in the civil rights and black power movement. Let's talk a little bit about Robert F. Williams. Give the people the skinny. So Robert F. Williams is really one of the premier black international. of the 1950s and 1960s. So he's a civil rights activist, but he's also a black power activist. He's an anti-colonial activist. He's interested in third world internationalism and self-determination

for black people in United States in Africa and all across the world. And what makes him very, very interesting is that he's friends and has alliances with people like Malcolm X, Fidel Castro, Mao Zedong, but also Mae Mallory and grassroots activists who's a black woman from Harlem. So when we think about him, he's somebody that student activists who are going to become Black Panthers and revolutionaries are very inspired by as early as 1959. So he raises money in Harlem. He meets up with Malcolm X in Harlem. People like Julian Mayfield, who's a radical activist who eventually,

goes and lives in Ghana and host Malcolm X in Ghana, bring guns to Monroe, North Carolina and smuggle guns in there and food and ammunition to Williams. And so Williams really in certain ways is practicing Malcolm X's philosophy of self-defense. When a black woman is sexually assaulted and the perpetrator is allowed to be released, Williams tells. the media that black people have to defend themselves on the spot if they're attacked. And he's going to eventually be suspended from the NAACP for that. And Williams is eventually going to flee to Cuba after a white racist couple, the Stiegel's, are at a rally that is a pro-Williams rally, and Williams allows them to come into the house so that the crowd doesn't tear them to pieces.

and he saves their lives and then they accuse him of kidnapping them. And so that really forces William to initially flee to Cuba for about four or five years and then he's going to end up in China before coming back to the United States in 1969. And so he's a very, very fascinating figure because he's practicing this revolutionary self-defense and he's engaged in an armed conflict in Monroe, North Carolina, where he's defending the black community of Monroe against, like you said, you know, just thousands of, you know, clans members and people who are adjacent to the clan as well.

And adjacent to one of the things, one of the big groups that are formed in the 1950s is something called the White Citizens Council. And the White Citizens Council is basically the clan. It's the clan as business leaders. It's the clan as preachers and professors. It's the clan as people who are Boy Scout leaders. So that's what's so interesting about white supremacy in the South in the 1950s and the 1960s. A fascinating life.

You know, there's the kissing case that happened there in North Carolina where a young white girl kissed two black kids that she was playing with. and these young men were thrown into reform school and given 14-year sentences in reform school for being kissed by this white girl. He brings international attention to this case and eventually these young men are released. There's never an apology given. However, he stands up in all of these instances.

Gun in hand, arms other people, arms them mentally and emotionally, arms them physically. Do you think that there is a concerted effort by American culture to minimize men and women, because his wife was also a gigantic part of this, right? Yeah, Mabel. Men and women who took up the gun, who would refuse non-thews. violence as amazing and effective as nonviolence was, who would refuse to be run over, who wouldn't turn the other cheek.

Here in America, the mainstream American culture, do we minimize these people's place in the civil rights and black power movement in order to promote nonviolent resistance as a way to pacify black masses? Well, there's a complex yes to that. So I'll say that we do. We do. And not all of us do because I'm a scholar of Malcolm. Well, not you. I'm talking about it. Yeah, no, but yeah. But no, I think in pop culture we do. And I think the reason we do it is both for what you're saying, sort of this kind of pacification and this valorization of nonviolence, which I do think is more effective than violence. But I think self-defense can be a part of a nonviolent practice.

Say more. So when you think about self-defense, groups like the Deacons for Self-Defense and Justice in the South, in Louisiana, Bogalusa, New Orleans, and other places, there were also civil rights activists like Medgar Evers who carried a shotgun with him before his assassination. There were SNCC activists who would be in cars with local people in Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, and U.S. other places, where the local people were armed and the SNCC activists knew that they could not tell these local people to not arm themselves. So they said nothing. And the SNCC activists themselves were not armed, but the local people were. So there was a self-defense posture that was there in the South. And Charlie Cobb has a great memoir, civil rights activist, SNCC activist about this. There's also the Ake Njali Imoja, We Will Shoot Back Book about this.

There's great books about the Deacons for Defense and Justice, but also self-defense. Tim Tyson has the book, Radio Free Dixie, about AberdeF. Williams, which is a brilliant book. So there's a self-defense posture, which is in service of civil rights activists saying, we will not allow civil rights activists to be injured on our watch. So we are going to defend them and be armed. The greatest example of this is the Meredith March Against Fear. After James Meredith was shot with buckshot and birdshot and injured on June 5, 1966, there's a march on June 7th that starts, that features Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King, Jr.

But the deacons for defense and justice are armed, and we have the evidence. We have the documentary evidence where one of the leaders of the deacons is saying, we've got M16s, we're all veterans, and we're not going to start anything, But if there's any trouble, we're going to end it. Yeah, right. That's documented. So there is that. There is that self-defense in support of civil rights.

And then there's folks who were saying, hey, they were interested in revolutionary violence, like sort of bringing the war home, like parts of Weatherman or Weather Underground did. And this is Black Liberation Army. This is parts of the Black Panthers. So that's proactive revolutionary violence. So I think part of the reason why we don't talk about people like Robert F. Williams and why people are skittish about Malcolm X is that there's not a complexity of talking about black men and women who are willing to defend themselves and they had a constitutional right to defend themselves. Right. Anybody willing to defend themselves, both the journalism of that time and our own time calls them violent. Right. That's the problem. That's the problem.

So somebody who's willing to defend themselves is absolutely not violent, right? Anybody who's willing to have a self-defense of posture is just trying to preserve their human dignity and their citizenship. So when we think about somebody like Robert F. Williams, do I think he's a pro-violent activist? No, I don't think he's a pro-violent activist. I think he's a self-defense activist. I think once he goes to Cuba and when you hear Radio Free Dixie and he's got his crusader newsletter, he's certainly taught. talking about revolutionary violence at that point and the kind of acts of sabotage and things that could happen domestically to upend the status quo in the United States. Right.

Peneil, I know you got to get out of here. You got a Juneteenth thing to go do. We're all Juneteenth in it up. We appreciate your brother. The book is Freedom Season, how 1963 transformed America's civil rights revolution. He is Penil Joseph. A friend and a scholar, we're going to keep our eyes on Texas to make sure they don't, they don't mute your voice down there, brother.

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Seems like Groundhogs Day because there's yet another sexual assault lawsuit and impropriety harassment lawsuit against the prominent black male. This time, Tyler Perry has been sued for $260 million. Now, normally this would be a legal eagle situation and we would have Rachel here. Rachel is not here, though. So we brought in some backup. Demetri Lucas, author, journalist, fellow podcaster. Plug your podcast real quick. Talk about it.

My podcast is ratchet and respectable. It's every Wednesday plus a bunch of bonus episodes. It's everything women talk about in the girls chat. So politics, entertainment, dating relationships, film, whatever, whatever people are talking about. That's what we're talking about every Wednesday. What percentage of it is ratchet? What percentage of it is respectable? Oh, it depends on the week.

It's 50-50 sometimes. We do good black news and that's very respectable and everything else we talk about tends to be a little ratchet. Now, I saw you on the old Instagram and you've been covering the Diddy case so thoroughly and in depth. But you've also been covering all the legal news that's coming out and you've dug into this one too.

I've done the broad strokes here. I looked at the complaint. I looked at some other things. but what exactly is happening? Tell our audience what type of trouble Tyler is actually in. Yeah, Tyler Perry allegedly, you know, he's got some really big charges against him, the biggest of which in this complaint, it's 46 pages. The biggest charges, there's several, but it's sexual battery, sexual assault, and sexual harassment. The complaint includes several text messages, which is a lot of what's been circulating online, that seem to be, if they are in fact,

you know, not Photoshop, not generated, seem to be clear-cut sexual harassment. But I think more important, the thing that people are not talking about is the allegations of sexual battery and the allegations of sexual assault. Derek Dixon was an actor on Tyler Perry's show, two shows. The Oval was one of them. I can't remember the name of the other one. But he's an employee, essentially, of Tyler Perry. And he's alleging that on three separate occasions, his boss did some really inappropriate things,

one of which is climbing into his bed. another one he says Tyler Perry like yoked him up kind of like in a sexual manner he put his hand around his throat and in another time he says Tyler Perry pulled down his underwear and was you know groping on him groping at his butt on multiple occasions

so like this is really serious the other part of this is that because people are wondering like well how did he end up in his house and why was he around Tyler Perry if these things are happening again he's an employee he's on Tyler Perry's show Tyler Perry writes all his shows and he's telling this young man that

if he doesn't comply with his wishes, if he doesn't flirt with him, if he doesn't answer the phone, if he doesn't give into his sexual desires, then he's going to write him off the show. Another point, he buys a pilot from Mr. Dixon, and Tyler Perry says that if you want this pilot to move forward, then basically you have to like, you know, give into my sexual advances. You have to flirt with me. You have to talk with me. And when I come at you, I expect you to comply. That's the meat and potatoes of this lawsuit. People are, for some, reason overlooking and not really discussing. What is what has been the response of Tyler Perry to all this? Tyler Perry has you know categorically denied through his lawyer that any of this happens.

He says that it's a scam. His lawyer says Mr. Perry allowed this gentleman to get, you know, too close to him. They thought he thought it was like a friendship or son such. And this man took advantage. But, you know, it will be proven. It will come out in a court of law, something of that nature, that Tyler Perry did no such thing of what's been alleged thus far. The text messages I saw They look very flirty as if these guys had a relationship that was something other than just producer and actor. Is, do you anticipate Tyler Perry saying, hey, this guy was a friend of mine and we used to talk and play or do whatever? Like, the nature of the text messages is so sexually charged. It's, hey, look at this picture of me.

hey, I just masturbated so I could go to sleep. Hey, it's, I mean, that's what he says. Like, actually, Derek says that to Tyler Perry. So it seems as if there was some type of intimacy to their relationship that Tyler Perry's team is going to go, hey, look at the way they're talking to one another. And then Derek Dixon's team is going to go, I was only talking this way to him because he was my producer. I didn't actually know what to make of the text messages because I don't. have a background about their relationship. What was the nature of their relationship prior to him

working for Tyler Perry? Yeah, so that's not clear. So what we're getting so far is just, you know, Derek is saying I was working at an event place. I was working at the studio opening for Tyler Perry's big studio, the big fancy one back in 2019. He says, I met him there while he was like a server or some such. And then Tyler Perry followed up with him. He eventually hires him to work on the show. So from the very beginning, their relationship is, it's employer. employee. It's transactional to a degree. To a degree. Transactional. Yeah. It implies something. The most important part of it, though, is that Tyler Perry is his boss.

So it's an unequal relationship from the very beginning. So if it's either you're working for an event that I've hired you to do, I control your money in that way. And if I hire you, come work on my show. And then especially if I'm holding over, holding over your head, the possibility of you getting killed off the season, which affects your income, right? It's not a fair situation. The podcast, I'm sorry, the lawsuit repeatedly refers to it as quid pro quo. And it's like, well, if you do this for me, then you'll get to stay on the show. If you do this for me, then I'll move forward with your pilot. I'll pick it up and then I'll shop it and see if we can get it picked up somewhere else so that you'll get this big payday.

But it's sort of like keeping him on the hook very often. The thing that you ask specifically about their relationship, where it gets really weird, is again, Tyler Perry is not just the producer of the show. He owns the whole studio, right? So he's in charge of every aspect of this man's career. It's not like, you know, a producer says, well, I don't want this to happen. And it's got to go through a series of checks and balances that somebody else has to sign off for. Like Tyler Perry runs the whole studio and that's his employer. And the guy wants to keep his job.

He's gone from working as, you know, this talent situation where he's like a server at event to, I think the season he said that he left. He was making $400,000 per season. And you don't want to go from, you know, that back to minimum wage. $400,000 a season on the Oval with Tyler. God damn. Exactly. Whoever heard of Tyler Perry paying that much money? I don't know.

Okay. Also, you know, there's a part in, when you're reading the text messages, there's a part of it where they're talking about the show that he had, the name of the show was losing it. And Tyler Perry actually says to him in these text messages, allegedly, if this is Tyler Perry, all of this stuff, all of this stuff is allegations. He says, you know, I missed out on Schitt's Creek, which is obviously a very popular show. And I don't want to miss out on this too.

I want to make sure we do this the right way. I want to make sure this is done the right way. This pilot is then produced and I guess shopped in some sort of way. They produce it or they, they, he tries to sell it. And it doesn't sell. It seems as if Tau Perry's people are going to say, hey, if this pilot would have gone, there's no way that this lawsuit would have ever happened. Do you think that they have a leg to stand on to substantiate their shakedown claims

or their claims that this is just somebody who's mad that their show didn't go? Yeah, well, something else that comes up in the lawsuit is Tyler Perry was under a deal. I don't know if I don't remember the network it was, but he couldn't shop shows. So at the time that he bought this pilot and he shot this pilot and he was telling Dixon that I'm going to, I'm going to sell your pilot, I'm going to get all this stuff done for you. he was legally unable to because he was under contract with another network that wouldn't allow him to shop it. So that comes up. And then also when that whole thing falls apart, then Tyler Perry comes back to Dixon and says, hey, I can put you in the writer's room.

So it's just like a series of offers to keep him, I don't know, the carrot with the stick, I think is the best way to describe it. That's what he's describing in the lawsuit. It's like so every time that I get frustrated, every time he thinks that I'm about to say something or I'm on the brink, he offers. me a bigger role. He offers me more money for the same role. I'm threatened to be cut out the show, but he decides to extend. He gets me this pilot, and then when pilot doesn't work out, he

tries to find me something else. You know what's interesting? I think a lot of people look at situations like this, and this, you know, harkens back, once again, these are all allegations right now. But this harkens back to Harvey Weinstein where, you know, he would say, hey, to

a young actress, come read for me in my room. Yeah. It's very casting couch vibes, very much. Very casting couch vibes. And then there are so many people outside of the situation that go, well, if you don't want whatever's going to happen in that room, why would you go in that room? But they don't understand the allure of having someone who can snap their fingers and make

your entire career happen, put you in that type of situation. And I think for a lot of people, because of his public persona, it's difficult to imagine Tyler Perry as one of those guys. And the funny thing is, inside of these text messages, Tyler Perry alludes to Harvey Weinstein. He says, Derek Dixon says he'd be willing to do something for an Oscar. And then he says, JK., JK, JK. And Harvey Weinstein says, the only guy who could snap his fingers

and get you one of those is currently in jail right now. I'm interested to see how a jury or more to the point, the court of public opinion is going to look at the back and forth that's happening between these two guys and what they're going to make of it. From what you read in the case and from the text messages, do you see clear-cut harassment and coercion? I see clear-cut harassment for sure. There's no viable reason they're.

your boss should be texting you about wanting biscuits and blow jobs for his birthday. You know, there's no reason that your boss should be constantly telling you how thick you are or your boss telling you that, you know, whether he's a top or a bottom and hitting G spots. Like, you can't justify that, right? But I will say that in the court of public opinion, like, I think the court of public opinion is very clearly on Tyler Perry's side. Nobody wants to hear this about Tyler Perry. He's an icon. He's beloved. He does so much for the community. However you feel about the content he puts out, people recognize that he is black.

excellence. So nobody wants to hear this. I mean, there were two major black publications yesterday. You know, this lawsuit comes out. Keep saying podcast. This lawsuit comes out and two major black publications run like favorable post articles about Tyler Perry as if the whole lawsuit isn't happening. And I'm like, you're a journalist. Like, what are you doing? But, you know, it's Tyler Perry. There's two things that are leading to that to me, to me. One, just who Tyler Perry is and the success story that he represents a lot of people want that to be durable. And then two, there is a fatigue amongst black people in seeing prominent black men accused of sexual harassment, like legitimately sexual assault every other week.

Yeah. I going back and forth in my mind, whether or not that fatigue is fair or not, to me, I can understand it. But at the same time, living in this. and working in this industry, this stuff is pervasive. It's very prevalent. It exists.

It's a part of the thing. And if everybody from See the Shining were to tell their stories, there would be so many more stories about so many more people that you don't think are capable of something like this than there are even now. But I do get, A man, that every time a brother becomes successful, here comes somebody trying to tear them down. I understand emotionally where people are coming from. This on the hills of the Ditty trial, which you've also covered,

are you kind of seeing that with people going, not another one? Yeah, I mean, people are fatigued with Ditty as well. Like it's been, I think, 26 actual trial days at this point. People are over it. Like, you just can't hear, but so much trauma, so much awfulness. And then also people are kind of like, well, if all this, we go through all this, and then, you know, he gets pardoned. Like, why do we just sit through this again?

Yeah. Like it just doesn't seem, you know, like people just don't want to invest. And I think also you have to understand we're dealing with this in the context of everything else that's going on, right? We're on the possible brink of war. We've got, you know, all this crazy stuff going on with ICE and members of elected officials being either assassinated or detained, arrested, all of that. Like people are just on brink already.

And so now you add this again. So that's the ditty stuff. And now it's, oh, God, now Tyler Perry, too. Like, who do we have left? Do you see a settlement in this case? I have no idea. I can't call it on this stuff anymore because I imagine that this lawsuit didn't do. Actually, I know for a fact.

Derek Dixon, before he filed this lawsuit, he made a complaint to EEOC. So the lawsuit is not like the first line of defense. He tried to have it resolved because he wanted to stay on the show. He wanted to keep his job. He wanted to keep his $400,000 check and keep working. He says in the lawsuit that nothing came with the EEOC complaint, which is why he quit his job. he's depressed afterward. His money is messed up. He said that Tyler Perry Productions didn't pay him out. So that's why he's filing this lawsuit because of all the things that happened to him. And then also he was just pushed aside when he was like, all I was trying to do is my job. So I would think that after he's gone to EEOC and nothing is done before this lawsuit is filed, that one lawyer went to another lawyer. Derek Dixon's lawyer went to Tyler Perry's lawyer and said, hey, this is what we have and this is the amount of money that we want and, you know, make us a deal to make this go away. And Tyler Perry said, said no. I would imagine that Tyler Perry's first hearing of this lawsuit is not when it drops.

It's, it seems to me that if that were the case and Tyler Perry refused to settle it, that that would be monumentally stupid. We've seen it before. Diddy did the same thing with Cassie. Like she went to him and said, I want X, Y, Z amount of money. And Diddy was basically like, you know, go F yourself and no. And then she filed the lawsuit. He settles either later that day or the top of the morning the next day. Yeah. Yeah, it happens and that's kind of where hubris get you. The only reason why I say it here is because if there's in fact an EEOC complaint, then what you're doing there is laying the groundworks and laying the paper trail to say, hey, something's happening to me on my job and I need to kind of figure out what I'm going to do or how to protect myself. And if there

was no attempt to put that fire out, then by the time it gets to a lawsuit, you have to take it seriously, or you have to believe that your public reputation is durable enough to where no one is going to care about all the allegations that are both in this lawsuit and then demonstrated by the text messages. Mitch, it's kind of true. You believe that to be true. You think he was right in that calculation. I mean, look how it's playing out.

Like, if you look at the majority of commentary online about this lawsuit, people are like, I don't care. It's Tyler Perry. it's trying to bring another black man down, not trying to hear this, whatever. Like, these text messages are mild. There's nothing crazy in them on to the next. I'm not trying to hear this.

Like, I'm going to go watch this new Tyler Perry show on Netflix. People are rallying behind Tyler Perry. So is it a bad calculation? Do you think that, and this is a delicate question, and I almost want to have somebody on next week to discuss this? Do you think that the speculation that has run rampant about Tyler Perry's, sexuality because we have to be honest in both the Diddy case and Tyler Perry's case.

Part of what's going on here is a cultural question about how gay both guys are. I'm just going to be honest with you. It's just about the sexual proclivities of both guys and what they like. But the reality is there had always been talk about Diddy and there has always been talk about Tyler Perry. So it almost seems like something that people. have kind of culturally accepted. Therefore, there's not a lot of shock.

It seems like in past years that Tyler Perry might have settled with this just to put out or extinguish any talk about his sexuality. And now, since that's almost been something that's past eight to discuss, he kind of doesn't really care about that and might be willing to use his media arm. to kind of put this fire out in like a general and regular way. How much is the sexuality component in this case, do you think? I mean, the reactions I've seen, you've got your regular, de regular homophobes that pop up for everything.

Just like a general conversation, everybody was like, okay, we knew. Like it seems to almost be a non-factor that it's a man accusing him. Like people would expect if Tyler Perry, this sounds really bad. But I think if there was the expectation if there was ever going to be a sexual assault or a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tyler Perry, it would more than likely be from a man. And I'll be very honest with you. When I was scrolling and I saw the lawsuit,

I was like, wait, what? And I clicked on it. And I just expected it to be a woman because that's usually what we see. And when I saw it was a man, I was like, oh, let me take this seriously and give it a read because there may be something to this. But 10 years ago, very different reaction

than people would have about the homosexual nature of this lawsuit and Diddy's lawsuit as well. Now, I don't know people care as much. It's not like something we didn't all assume. Right away. the way, just to say here, we don't know what Tyler Perry's sexual orientation is. We do not know. It is it is unimportant what is sexual orientation is. What's

important is whether or not he's providing safe workplaces for people who work on his shows. The only thing is like this particular lawsuit is something that calls that into question. And it's also something else that people probably glom on to because of revelations about what Tyler Perry is into, but that's like anybody that's, you know, sort of into these types of suits. Let's touch on Ditty real quick before we get you out of here. Sure.

Where does that case stand right now? There's so much that comes out every single day. I actually got fatigued in trying to follow the case every single day. I have been, but it's difficult to know where the defense stands, where the prosecution stands, how the case is going, what the momentum is, because whomever you listen to, they tell you a different story. Some people say, hey, the defense is putting up a better case than they expected. The prosecution already has ditty on these counts in these cases. You've been following it every day. What sense do you get from what's happening? You know what? I can't call these

kind of things. I really can't. As of tomorrow, the prosecution is expected to rest. It's been literally 26 days of them on putting together their case or presenting their case. And then next week, the defense is supposed to start. And they said they only need five to six days. which I was like, excuse me? That's, you need like a week. That's it. Well, most of their case has been made in cross-examination. Yes.

So I don't know how many witnesses, yeah, how many witnesses they're going to be able to call if, in fact, Puff doesn't testify, which it doesn't look like he's going to. There's no way. There's no possible way because he's not going on to cross-examination. But I would say this, from looking at the grand jury indictment and then also looking at what's been presented by the prosecution so far, it does seem to be very much a RICO case. Like, there are some things that are really not up for conversation. So like, was there, I don't know, bribery? Like, that's many people have talked about that. Was there arson?

It seems to be so. Was there kidnapping? It seems to be so. Was there distribution and possession of narcotics? It very much seems to be so. Was there trafficking of prostitutes across state and international lines? It seems to be so. The only thing that seems to be up for question that may, you know, the jury may really

have to roll around is, was this sex trafficking? And I absolutely do believe that between the two women that have testified as victims, that it is. It is in fact sex trafficking. There is coercion. There is force. There is manipulation. There is fraud to some degree. There's there's all the elements of sex trafficking are present. So it's a matter of like what is a jury think about that. But everything else is pretty clear cut on the RICO aspect. And you don't need the sex trafficking to prove the RICO. How much of the discreet this is the last question for me. Thank you so much, Dimitri, for being so generous with your time. How much of the discovery in this case do you think will be made available to the public?

I think everything except the obvious the tapes for the freakoffs. I think everything else is going to be made public. I saw something today where I could, you know, send an email to whomever and they were sending it out to the press. So I'm definitely going to see how much I can get. But yeah, I expect that, you know, it'll come out. Why not the freakoff tapes? There are pornography essentially. and one of the people featured, at least is saying that it wasn't consensual.

So to put that out would be a crime, really. I agree. I do think that a lot of people are going to demand to see what was happening on the tapes. And a lot of news agencies are going to try to get them to. Well, so if you remember earlier in the trial, I think it was Jane. She testified that one of her tapes, one of the, I think the escorts or entertainers they were using, had a video of a freakoff and then sold it to a quote and unquote entertainment company. So there is a company that does possess the tapes and that came out via KK, the Diddy's Chief of Staff,

some of her text messages and also Jane's testimony. So there is an entertainment company that does have owns this tape. And I expect that it will drop any day now. Like I expect it literally every day. Disgusting. Discussed. Pretty much. Okay.

We'll bring you back. If you ever need us, let us know. I'll come on and do something with you or we'll bring you back to kind of sum up this trial force. This is some of the best analysis that we've had. We appreciate you joining us on higher learning. I would love that. Thank you very much.

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So you can. So if you're looking, if you're watching right now, somebody just walked in who is Ringer Royalty. This is a live stream? No, it's not a lot. It's not. All right. I just feel like you're addressing the crowd.

You're like chat. Chris Ryan is here. That's the voice of Chris Ryan, who is joining us on higher. learning. Now listen, we have some interesting history with Chris Ryan here on the show. Do you remember what happened? Well, I know that Rachel doesn't know who I am. That's my history.

That's crazy. What happened? Well, I mean, that's what I'm talking about. Like, how did you feel when you heard that? I mean, I've seen Rachel in person a bunch of times. Yeah. And I'm very curious, I think she's delightful. Uh-huh.

And I love this podcast. She's like awesome. So I'm just curious what she thinks of me slash what she thinks I do here. What do you think she thinks I do here? I'm not sure. I don't know. Has ever come up? No, no.

But see, this is something interesting. This is why we have you here today to talk about something that I promise we would talk about, which is who is the face of the ringer. Uh-huh. Okay. Higher learning is interesting in that the podcast is a ringer podcast, but kind of exists outside of the ringer culture. Yeah. C.R.

Why do you think that is? I don't know is it kind of like because you don't have a lot of ringer guests on I know what you want me to say I mean just what you can say it I think that the watch is in a similar spot in some ways you know Oh really? Yeah how's that? Well Andy doesn't work for the ringer true specifically We tend to just do the show the two of us

So it's not like a big group of people coming on Although we have we have fair amount of like appearances And yeah in some ways we are we are the white hire learning Caligo likes that one So we're the ringer's black culture podcast Yeah Okay And so since we're the Rieger's black culture podcast

It's not like a lot of reasons that you know We're gonna have Dob on or somebody like that So so I'm just I'm just saying So sometimes In the Ringer situation You don't see like higher learning into it Sure I found a way in for us

Okay. There's something that we can talk about here on higher learning that we are uniquely qualified to talk about because we're a little bit outside of agriculture. And that is the argument that's taken over Twitter. It hasn't really. You should check out some other parts of Twitter. It's taken over.

And that is the face of the ringer conversation. So this is what happened. CR is getting uncomfortable. All right, this is what happened. Bill Simmons, who runs the ringer. Yeah. you're familiar with it. Yeah.

Okay. So he said that he's sick of the face of the NBA conversation. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't like it. Yeah. You have thoughts on that? Bill having that opinion or the face of the NBA? Either one. It's not something I thought about before like 20, 24. I get it. Okay.

And then I asked him, okay, cool. This is on Twitter. If you don't want to have a conversation about the face of the NBA, who's the face of the winger? Did Bill engage with that? He did not. Yeah. He hasn't.

engage with it. No. He very rarely engages with anything that I tweet at him. Does he ever bring it up to you, like, at dinner because he has seen it? Or is it really, like, do you think he literally does not look at his mentions, no matter what? I think that he just throws stuff out there and then goes on a power wall. That's the, I don't think he's going back and forth with you on Twitter. But I thought about this. Who is the face of the ringer? Face of the ringer. Wow, you're going full Harry Enton, like, data guy. Who's the guy on MSNBC who's always like Conracky, who's got like all the data from the voting? Steve Cornacki is who you're talking about. Can we see this? Donnie, can we see this, this right here? Yeah, I got it. Okay, you got this.

So listen, we're talking about the face of the ringer conversation. These are the four finalists. Do you see who's up there? Bill Sean, Matt. and me. Bill, Sean, Mal, and you. Uh-huh. All right.

Before we get into my scientific evaluation of who the face of the ringer is, I got to tell you who the first four out are in terms of this conversation. Okay. The first four out are me. Did you put yourself in? Like, how do you know, how do you know that? How did this? How did you do this?

Did you have a poll? Well, I did it in a couple of ways. Okay. So the first thing I did was I just, Ask the people on Twitter. And then they gave me their thoughts. Okay. Face of the Ringer.

Face of the NBA, face of the Ringer. They gave me their thoughts. But then I really looked into it for me being an expert on Ringer culture. I really looked into it and made my own determinations as well. Okay. So this is you sought some advice and input, but ultimately this was a vote of one. Well, no. But yeah.

Okay. Okay. So these are the first four people out. Yeah. And I'm going to give NBA comps for these people. And it's you? I'm out. I'm the Anthony Edwards of the ringer.

Okay. I'm the Anthony Edwards of the ringer. I am. And let me tell you why. I'm the Anthony Edwards of the ringer because I have a lot of upside. Sure. But people are starting to wonder if I'm ever going to reach my potential. That's not my take.

I get it. Yeah. But I think that I'm polarizing. and people love me when I perform, but maybe some of the off-the-court stuff on social media probably makes people... You know what I mean? Yeah, sure.

I mean, I think your floor is really consistent. Right. One of the things people always say about you is that goddamn Van can podcast by anything. Right. And seemingly without any prompting, without any, like, suggestion prep that, like, we're going to do this.

If I said to you, hey, come do the watch with me in 10 minutes and let's talk about surfing. Yeah. I feel like you could probably give me. me like a good 20 minutes on surfing. Well, 10 would be a personal story. Yeah. But then...

About a teacher who did not teach surfing. Right. 10 would be a personal story. But the other 10 would be me referencing point break or talking about Laird Hamilton or Kelly Slater or just basic stuff. Yeah. So I feel like I'm the Anthony Edwards. Then there's Rosillo.

That's the second out. And let me tell you who Rosillo is. That's the Kauai Leonard of the ringer. Okay. Probably could be the face of the ringer if he wanted to. but just doesn't want it. Wants to hoop and go home. I'll say this though.

Rissillo, way more games played than Kauai. Way more games played. Like you can count on Rissillo. Right. He's going to start 82 games. Right. Tate Man gets paid.

And even when he's on vacation, it's for content. Yeah. He's into it. It's not the thing that he would want. All right. Okay. Then the other two out,

Dobb doesn't want it. Movie Mom does her own thing. Yeah. Then Joanna. Okay. It's somebody else. Joanna is also a fantastic podcaster. Yeah.

Who can play any position at the ringer. So then, if that's the case. No comps for Dobb and Joanna? Well, Joanna's the Kawha. The, uh, not the, um, Kyrie Irvin. I don't know if Joanna knows why that's funny, but that's funny. It's very funny. Joanna is the, the Kyrie of the ringer.

Yeah. She's got causes and all of that stuff. Uh-huh. Dobb is more like the Jason Tatum. Yeah, right. She's very proud of Deuce. Very proud of Deuce. Yeah.

A lot of stuff. Okay. Now we get into this. I've come up with this on the whiteboard. Face of the Ringer. Do you mean to help you hold that? Yeah. All right.

Please, because it's like not going to work. All right. So, Donnie, can we see this? I feel like I'm presenting my big beautiful Bill. So. Yeah, wouldn't you see it? All right. First, we got Bill.

And these are his attributes. So the founder of the ringer You know with the rest of you guys, I guess This is leaning up against the microphone I gotta know if this is the best Well we gotta I didn't think about this Okay So the founder of the ringer

He's a lightning rod And then what does this say right here? He's a basketball head head Yeah So that's his those are his attributes Then we go to Sean Sean to me is the intellectual center of the ringer This is also for us to give the higher learning

audience a lesson on all the Ringer talent here. Yeah. Because I don't know if they know. Sure. Okay, we'll see what the race says. You think Rachel's watching? So she gives me. Then, you know, he's kind of like the head of culture at the Ringer. He's head of content, yeah. Yeah. And so then, you know, the big pick is his deal. Then we got

Mao. What's all the stuff at the bottom? These are how we're going to rate these people. Okay. Then we got Mal who is the, she's the leader of the Ringerverse. Huge deal. Yeah. Very successful launch here. A draft. She is. Draft expert.

And we do a lot of drafts. So the fact that she... Oh, yeah. I thought you met NFL draft expert. I was like, she is very well versed in college football and it knows... She's... All drafts. All of that stuff.

Yeah, she's a cutthroat drafter. Right. And then she is, to me, the deep diver of the ringer. Yeah. Resident deep diver. All of that stuff is very important to the ringer. And then lastly, we got CR. Me.

Five tool player. Okay, television head of the ringer, like all of that. And kind of like the head of ringer culture. Uh-huh. All right. Ringer internal like vibe culture or culture like coverage? The ringer vibe God. Okay.

Is this making you uncomfortable? Yeah, definitely. I mean, like I had an idea that maybe I would try to barstool this up and like be really like confrontational and controversial. But you can't do it. I can't do it. But see, this is another reason why. All right. So this is, so I have all of these different.

I got to read this because I'm really not sure if the audio is coming through. RV CV, NV, so this is, what's our value? So RV is a ringer visibility. Okay. Then we have cultural visibility. Okay. Then we have entertainment value. Yeah.

All right. And those are scored on a five point must system. And then we're going to do all of those scores. I'm going to do all of these scores. Right now? No. Okay. I'm going to do all of these scores and then I'm going to come back on Monday's show.

Okay. And give the people the actual. And will Rachel be here then? Rachel will be here then. We'll give the people the actual tally. The data. The data. The data of who is the face of the ringer.

This one down here. Influence. Influence, influence. So it's five categories. It's four categories, five points, and then we're going to get to the best score, and then we're going to crown the face of the ringer. Okay. Okay.

So is it still up for debate? I have to say something. Okay. As far as the people who are concerned, it's already you. We did a poll, and you have won the people's vote on Twitter for face of the ringer. Thank you to my bots. Yeah. They were out there strong for you, okay?

Who do you think it is? Bill. Make your case right now for Bill Simmons's face. There is no ringer without Bill. Bill is the most visible member of the ringer. Bill appears on or hosts several iconic podcasts, just broadly speaking. And I think his sensibility is still what informs what we do here. Can I make my argument as to why it's not Bill?

You may. Okay. He's in his LeBron face. I've spoken to him about this. Yeah. You could argue all the same stuff about LeBron. But the point of the face of the ringer argument, which we're here at higher learning going to crown, we're going to do it because we're the only ones who can do it. Sure.

Okay. The point of the argument is to actually hand the title off. All right. Bill is coming off of his bubble chip. Uh-huh. it's time to hand the title off to somebody else. See, I knew that there would be some spice to this. So you already have, in your mind, like the public has voted that it's me.

But now the Supreme Court's coming in and we're going to look at the hanging chads. Right. Yeah. So really, we're going to combine the public votes, which I've already counted every single vote. Okay. It's close. We're going to combine the public votes with my. mathematical equation. Okay. And then we're going to get to who the face of the ringer is.

And then will you, is there a trophy? Is there some sort of celebration? Oh, I got something in mind. Yeah. Okay. This is the way, because our audience has to know the, the thought warriors. Did you know that that's what we call? Yeah, of course. I listen to higher learning. I know it's called. The thought warriors, they have to know. They have to know more about ringer culture. I want more crossover. I want thought warriors. I'm not invisible, man. Like, first of all, thanks for having me on higher learning. I think this is my first time, right?

Yeah. I'm happy to appear as much as you would like me to come on, both with just you or if Rachel's around. Yeah. Happy to do that as well. And I want to start building bridges between podcasts. I agree. And podcast audiences. Podcast audiences.

We get them together. Now, I have to ask you, what are your thoughts about Juneteenth? Well, I thought that was why I was originally coming on the show. To talk about Juneteenth? Yeah. What are my thoughts? I mean, it's hard to contain into a podcast. Yeah, I get it.

Are you mad to be working today? No. No. It's not like a holiday for you. Like, it's not like a day of rest. Juneteenth is a holiday for me, but it, to me, it's important because we talked to Poneal Joseph about Robert F. Williams and all that. It's important for me to do a show on Juneteenth to give our black audience

some edutainment as they go through their day tomorrow. So me and Donnie made the sacrifice. Yeah. Thank you, Donnie. And CT. CT also. CT as well. CT made the sacrifice as well.

If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. You know what I mean? And so I think that it's great that you're pushing through on June team. Are you avoiding the Juneteenth question? I don't really know what to say. I mean, like, is it really up to me? What do you?

I think it's great. Okay. I have to work. No one dapped me up today. So do you want me weighing in on Juneteen? Well, I'm asking you, so as a white American, you're from Philadelphia. I am. What does a celebrate?

The city you love, right? I did love it. Yeah. Because it was funny the way, it was funny the way. Yeah, I told you, you, I have a 10 o'clock. Wow. I'm not trying to short shrift this, though. We're talking about Juneteenth.

We're talking about fucking Juneteenth here. And you checked your watch. We're talking about fucking Juneteen. So it came to Philly. We were all in Philly together. And I remember I was asking people what to do in Philly. And I told you this before. A friend of mine said, don't leave the hotel.

Stay low. Yeah. Said, don't leave the hotel. She pulled the Stephen A. Smith. Oh, right. About Memphis. About Memphis. She said, don't lead a hotel.

It says, niggas in Philly. This was the quote. And this is Nassi R who said this point. It said, niggas in Philly. are filled with testosterone and bloodlust. That was the legitimate... Do you think I would still be the face of the rigger if I had sent you that text?

That would be crazy. Okay. That was crazy. We did have a Gucci Man conversation with time. And so I'm out with you in Philly, and it's night, and I'm looking around for the testosterone and bloodlust, and it's deep and dark, and you're like,

yo, man, this is my old ball. You go over there, we go to the ball. It was cool. Yeah. But getting back to... Bad brother, if you ever... in Philadelphia. What was the name of the bargain? Bad brother. They brought us pizza.

Treat us like kings. Getting back to Juneteenth. Juneteenth is the celebration of the end of slavery in America. Yeah. You're from Philadelphia, which is one of the formational, foundational, foundational cities of America. Can you see why it's so important

for black Americans to have this holiday where we celebrate the end of slavery? Hell yeah. You're into it. Sure. So if you had to vote, you'd vote for it. For sure. Who at the ringer wouldn't vote for it? Who at the ringer you think would vote against Juneteen?

Probably Mahoney. You know? What do we know about him? You were asked him? I haven't. There you go. I haven't. By the way.

Why hasn't he tweeted about celebrating it yesterday? Hasn't at all. By the way, by the way, just to let you know, he was another one of the first out because there were so many people that got stocked and Rob Mahoney, for Rob Mahoney to become the face of the ringer. He is on a tear. If you actually saw Rob Mahoney, you'd be like that as the face of the ringer.

Yeah. Tall, dark, and handsome. You know what I mean? Tall, dark, handsome. Very economical with his words, which I'm not. Yeah. And then knows about everything that we do. But maybe not into Juneteen.

I mean, we can't rule it out, right? Can't rule it out. Yeah. Can't rule it out. Okay. We want to let you go. But before we do, annual face of the ringer higher learning podcast. Yeah.

Happening every year around this time. On Juneteenth. On Juneteenth, every single year. Until a black person is the face of the ring. Until a black person is the face of the ring. We're going to do this every year on Juneteenth. Rachel and I are going to crown the face of the ringer. Because to be honest with you, it could very well be Rachel.

I mean, yes, that's in play. I want to see Rachel. Is Rachel a I alone can do it person? Is she, would she vote for herself? Would she put herself forward like that? No. She would be modest about it. She's very humble.

I know. She's a very humble. It's a very humble. She's so humble. She doesn't know who I am. That hurt, didn't it? Got it did. It bothered.

What did it? Like, because I didn't expect that. You know what it is? Is like, I think a couple of times I've met her, I can see a vacancy in her face where she's like, I have no idea this guy is. And so she's like, I'm not trying to belittle him. But I'm also not trying to. to build them up that much because I don't know who this is. So it's just like, hey.

Right. Hi. And we'd be like if you saw your barista on the street and they were like, hey, man, and you were like, right. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I guess, I mean, by the way, the fact that you're handling this Juneteen situation is going very far for your case of the ringer situation.

You'll probably win CR. I mean, it sounds like the person I have to butter up is you. Well, this is another. the thing that we're going to do to make higher learning like a real foundational. Yeah. Because we're, since we're going to, we're going to be the ones that decide who the face of the ringer is, then that's going to mean that people are going to come. They're going to do their, like, yeah, it's going to be like going on, uh, I don't know,

going on like Potsie of America to get the Democratic nomination or whatever. So Calico over here, she used to work downtown with this store called Agassi. Uh-huh. And she was their creative director. Okay. And so when you would go there to Agassi, there would be nothing but like fruit baskets and food everywhere. Do you know why? The vendors that they would come delivering.

Yeah. So I would come, I would leave work. I would come down there. And if I'm looking around like, yo, y'all got sandwiches. Like, what the fuck is going on this Tuesday? But the vendors would bring. And so that's what we're going to get here at higher learning. That's what it should be the reward for Face of the Rings.

You get a fruit basket. That's a great edible arrangement or something like that. All right, we're going to go. But I'll say this. We're taking this seriously. I'm going to do all of these calculations. I'm leaving this here. Me and Rachel are going to do this live on the podcast.

Well, not live, but we're going to do it on the podcast Monday. Face of the Ringer. The finalists are CR, Mal, Sean and Bill for the inaugural face of the ringer. I got to be honest with you. Bill has a very low chance of winning. Based on the thought warriors, or you think just like the sentiment out there right now? I just think that he's not going to win.

Okay. Okay. I don't think he's going to win. You know. Yeah. He's been getting a lot of love on socials because he said that he walked through Memphis. And people were like,

yo, is Bill harder than Stephen A. Smith? I didn't say it. I did not say it, though. If you win, will you come back to accept your award? Yeah. I won't be here Monday. But yeah, I will come back.

I won't be here physically in Los Angeles on Monday, but I'm happy to come back anytime you want. I'll also come in via Sallite. Yeah, we can. Okay, so was this pre-plan that you wouldn't be here? No, I've always planned on working remotely next week. But you know, you kind of dropped this on me on Tuesday without telling me what it was about, then sent me the tweet.

Then I disassociated by looking at the Twitter thread for a second, stepped away from it, then thought he's not really going to do this. He's probably going to want to talk to me about. you know whatever current event he wants to talk to me about no I read a bunch got really well versed in the state of the world came in and we're talking about you really thought that you were gonna come on here and we were gonna have a conversation about like you're on Iran I'm ready there you go you guys that's Chris Ryan the watch Juneteenth expert yeah you're in on Juneteenth though I'm so in not but you know what I can't be that in because then it almost makes it sound like I'm too fired up about slavery right like I should be just like Yeah. So you're a Juneteenth. You know what? I want you,

I want you remember this. Alli speak with you. Not for you. Yeah. Okay. Did I just do that? No. Okay.

No, no, no, no, no. You did it the right way. You know, hey, June, Juneteenth. Chris Ryan says this to go. Actually, you should make shirts. Yeah. Well, you have that hat that has all the words on it right now, the very text heavy hat. Yeah.

I'm going to get a shirt that says Juneteenth. Thumbs up. All for it. All for it. A white guy's opinion on Juneteenth, the face of the ringer conversation, Chris Ryan, the watch probably will win. But, you know, we'll see what happens. But don't miss higher learning next week when we do the face of the ringer, which we'll do every year on Juneteenth going on. And then this will get, Rachel needs, we need Rachel on the rewatchables.

We need Rachel on the watch. Sure. We need Rachel on all of this stuff. More Rachel is what the ringer needs. You're into it. I'm fired up for it. There you go. Yeah.

All right, Chris Ryan, everybody. Well, thank you to C.R. Is C.R. Our first in-person white guest ever? Oh, wait, maybe. I think so. No disrespect if we have had a white person in guest in studio, but I don't think so. I think he... I think C.R. is our first in-person white guest that we've ever had on the podcast before.

What an honor for him. All right, rap bullshit happening. Push a T calls Travis Scott a whore. and this is them in the new clip song so be it the clips are about the drop I cannot wait for this to come out let God sort them out on Tuesday he released a single so be it which features

Travis Scott this this what he Donnie go ahead and wrap it you wrapped it before rap yeah I'm so ready go for cry in front of me you died in front of me Calabasas took your bitch and your pride in front of me her utopia had moved right up the street and the lip gloss was popping she need you to eat

so then push you did the little push completely. You fucking you like that type of shit. So then push goals on GQ. He's been going everywhere.

He's got an interview coming out with Ebro. They're doing a real push to a push to promote the album. And he talks about a 2023 encounter that he had with

Travis Scott in Paris. Apparently during a clip session Travis Scott interrupted the session to play music from Utopia. And he said that he played a song

called Meltdown. which has a Drake verse on it where Drake is dissing people but he did not play that version of the song he played the version without Drake's audio on there and he's smiling and laughing and doing all of this stuff

and now he fucking hates Travis Scott he's going to dish Travis Scott on the album and this is the big story in hip hop and rap right now about whether or not Travis Scott will respond. Bunby was on with Shannon Sharp

and Bunbee said that Travis Scott will respond. Travis Scott's from Houston and he will respond. Donnie, do you think Travis Scott should respond to this? Do you think he should respond? I think you should. This is what rap is about. We're waiting for it. People are anticipating it, meaning that people

will listen when it is released. So go ahead and give the people what they want. I don't think he should do it. Pursha T doesn't do this normally unless he knows something. This is the setup. Yeah, push a T walks people into this stuff. If you remember, who would have thought that we would have saw a picture of Drake and Blackface? I could not believe that.

Bro, that's one of the most underrated moments of pop culture in the last 15 years. So the record drops and it's on SoundCloud and I go to SoundCloud to listen to the record. And I'm going, oh, my God, they put Blackface on Drake. And then it was like, no, that shit is real. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? I'm like, what? I thought there was no bouncing back from that. Well, yeah.

Like, I'm like, how could this picture of Drake? And then you kind of get the, I guess the explanation from how it came out with some clothing line. They were making fun of it. They were doing whatever. But I'm still looking at it. I'm like, they got Drake in blackface on the cover of this. And the picture is real. and we never seen the picture before.

So by the time the shit comes off, Pushy the Tee did gives a bio on Drake's life and introduces us to new family members. It was disgusting. I was like, oh my God, I felt bad for Drake. The biggest rapper of his generation, I felt bad for him. If he's doing this to Travis Scott,

it's to elicit a response. So Travis Scott comes back, and then he tells us that, you know, Travis Scott is I don't know that he he's playing some type of that I don't know that he's getting pegged or so

I have no clue you know I mean the messy the messiness in me wants to know whatever push the T has on Travis the dossier so again I want Travis to respond let's see what's out there

How does the clips respond? I get it. Travis Scott responding on some auto-toon shit, he shouldn't respond, bro. Because at this point, at this point, what I'm starting to wonder is if besides the pretty great raps that we got from the Ray Vaughn, Joy Badass stuff, I'm wondering if rappers on this level, on the Travis Scott level, are starting to wonder whether or not rap beef is. worth it because now you got to get called a pedophile at the Super Bowl you got to have people come to your hometown and have politicians from your hometown going up it the stakes are so much higher in these rap beefs than they used to particularly for these guys it used to be you could take an L and you know you release something you come back and you got low for a little while now you take an L and you got McDonald's fucking making commercials about you and putting shit on the Instagram it rat beef has become comes so culturally mainstream that it might not be worth it anymore. It might not be worth it anymore for you to have a bad fucking six weeks on social media for somebody getting at your ass for something like this.

So I don't know if it's worth it for Travis Scott. It's definitely something to consider. I don't know if this is an apples to apples comparison because I think I feel like with the Drake and Kendrick beef, there was a lot of underlying, uh, a feeling by the community that was ready for a Drake downfall, that I don't know if that same feeling is there for Travis. I could be so wrong because I'm not as tuned in to current music affairs as I used to be. I'm older.

But, I mean, I feel like there might, there's a difference anticipation for what the results of the beef would be in this case than it would be for Drake versus Kendrick. Yeah. I mean, I can see what you're saying. Also, though, you have to think about something, the Astro World shit. the astro world shape is a whole another layer is such a black eye to Travis's career and it was such a tragedy that if he starts going in on stuff like that or any of this other stuff you just wonder if it's worth it for Travis Scott who's kind of a pop rapper to get involved with this the hip hopper hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip hip like I'm a hip hopper I'm not one of these niggas that rap saved their life by the way I'm a rap fan. So when I listen to guys go, hey man, I wouldn't have been anything without hip hop or hip hop saved me. I'm like, oh, for real.

But I understand the sentiment. A lot of people feel like that about a lot of different things. By the way, earlier I said Travis Scott getting pegged. By the way, if you're into that, that's cool. No kinkshaming here on Higher Learning Podcasts. And to each is on. To each is on. Shout out to the ladies from horrible decisions.

But Pusher can go so low with the shit. So low. It gets so fucked up. that if I was Travis, I would think about taking a high row out of there and just kind of letting this go. Because it's really not going to affect him, push a T, dissing him that much. I would think about not responding to this. I'm going to be honest with you. All right.

We'll see what he does, though. We'll see what he does. We'll see what type of, maybe he takes a step forward. We'll see what kind of shit he got. What kind of shit is on the table? He's on the clock. Yeah, we'll see. All right, guys, we got to go.

but and we appreciate all of our guests and we appreciate you guys staying with us without Rachel, the woman at a house who will be back next week. We appreciate all of that.

Can't wait. Can't wait for Rachel to get back. We love Rachel. But before we go, Christina Formella was a teacher at Downers Grove High School in Illinois. I say was

because she was recently charged with 55 criminal counts related to the statutory rape of a student, including criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal assault, grooming, and a decent solicitation of a child. Donnie show her picture. Now, you guys probably already knew what she looked like before that picture. You probably had an image in your head about what somebody, a teacher, that would have 55 counts of sexual misconduct against a student looked like.

White women need our help. And they need our help for them to stop abusing their students. Why don't we talk about this? I have no clue why we don't talk about this. If a black guy robs a convenience store in Tallahassee, there is automatically nationwide legislation to keep niggas off the twinkie eye it doesn't matter the crime if we are associated with it we wear it but white women are pulling r kelley's on students from sea to shine and see and we can't even get a documentary we don't even get any scholarship about it this is happening so often and no one is discussing it you're not I'm not imagining this, by the way, because I looked into this, Donnie. Stacey Kaiser is a psychotherapist here in California.

She wrote a piece for the Daily Mail, where she looked at this, particularly in the state of California. And what she said was that research shows that the predominant profile of a female sexual predator is a white woman in her 30s. I'll say this again. Stacey Kaiser, a California psychotherapist, wrote a piece in the Daily Mail. She did research and she showed that the predominant profile of a female sexual predator is a white woman in her 30s. Like it happens so often. The crime is so ghastly and there's no traction. They go on from Pumpkin Spice to Pumpin Spencer and nobody even gives a fuck about it.

Like heinous life-changing crimes and nobody cares. There's no outcry. there's nothing from the protect our children group that wants to outlaw everything in the name of decency, right? But nothing about a clear and present danger

that seemingly exists in classrooms all over America as I was doing research on this I started to get a couple of things in my head. One is I get that we don't feel the need to protect our sons as much as we actually should.

I get that. I get that. And that was actually reinforced when I saw this clip of Greg Gutfield on Fox News. It was about two years ago. Donnie played a clip. Another hot teacher banged student. Kat, this is happening now. Alarming. Why are you going to me first?

All right. Because, okay, this 38-year-old math teacher in California was once named teacher of the year, and I support that, was arrested and booked into jail. for allegedly having sex with a 16-year-old male student. She's posted bail. But this is what bothers me. The fact that she had sex with a student? No, that she went to jail for it.

I'm sorry. Come on. 16-year-old, I would have died for that. Again, I am vehemently against banging kids. That's okay. This is why, okay, can we live in the real world? I can't believe how many times I've had to say that just sitting in this chair. No, I get it.

Doos like this think that. people with incomplete brains, which is what a high school sophomore, a 15, 16 year old kid is, can litigate being groomed by an authority figure, that they can deal with being manipulated by an authority figure to do things with their body because it reinforces for guys like Gutfeld some juvenile sexual fantasy that they had when they were a kid. They think it doesn't matter in the formation of these guys' brains or their minds, or their safety or whatever. They think that it's not a thing.

Like he's still going through pages of penthouse forum in his mind and all of that. And he's chalking it up to that. But I assure you that that's not true. I assure you that irreparable damage is being done to young men and from the women in their community. I assure you that this is something that people should be paying attention to. But we don't. I don't know if Gutfeld is protecting the women in this community. that are the people that indulge into these crimes

or if we've all just decided that there's a certain group of people in America whether to be white women, white males or whatever, that we don't have to care about the shit that they do. We don't have to care about school shootings. We don't have to care about the safety of people in schools from bullets or in school from boobs. We just don't have to care about that

as long as the assailants are white. And it's just an interesting thing that when this popped up on my on my Instagram, I automatically knew what she was going to look like. I knew the face she was going to be making. I knew that she was going to talk about the fact that she wasn't getting it at a home or something like that. All the same things that you've seen over and over and over again. Look, nobody is trying to protect y'all sons from something that's existing inside of these schools.

And y'all better protect them. Y'all better educate y'all sons. Y'all better get them together because it's Barbara's, Jennings, Mandis, all over this place that just got their certification and nobody is checking up on them and how they are treating these kids inside of these schools. No one is even at all asking a question. Either they believe that our young men are not worth protecting

or they believe that these older women aren't worth accountability. But either way, this is an issue. And it seems to be, it seems to be growing and prevalent. This is an issue. And I just don't see that much discussion about it. And I hope to get some answers from someone pretty soon on it. I don't want to be, I didn't want to make too many jokes, but, I mean, their husbands are playing fantasy football and they're trying to see what's up with the little giants.

Don, you can go ahead and, you can laugh, Donnie. I mean, we, we, we, we, but it's, it's, I don't know, every time I see this, I go another one, another one, another one, another one, another one, it's weird. Okay. You guys, you won't have to deal with me anymore, Rachel will be back on Monday. Donnie, I feel like, I feel like we kind of, um, got the show together. By the way, I will say this. There was a mix-up of the times this past Monday with Callie Curry.

We love Callie Curry. We love Callie. I've been having some fun about the fact that she flaked. She didn't flake. There was a time mix-up, which is why we didn't have her on Monday. So we love Callie Curry. Rachel is back next week. Thank you to Donnie.

Thank you to C.T. for coming in on Juneteenth. C.T. Right here was going to go to a Juneteenth parade, but he couldn't because he had to come work here. and we want to give you guys as much show as we possibly can. We love y'all. Rachel, we miss you. We will see you on Monday. Take the in caps off.

Do you not stop learning. I'm Van Lake and Highland.