Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Kyren Lacy and the Mental Wellness of Black Men With Jason Wilson

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Van and Rachel react to the death of LSU football standout Kyren Lacy (15:07), before Bill Maher inspires the start of a new segment following his dinner with Donald Trump (24:00), and they discuss black businesses in light of Wallo’s recent comments (56:35) Then, Ringer social content producer and Midnight Boy Jomi Adeniran joins to give some insight on KTLA accidentally tweeting the N-word (1:07:57). Finally, Jason Wilson, author of ‘The Man the Moment Demands,’ joins for an emotional and heartfelt conversation (1:28:01). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Jason Wilson and Jomi Adeniran Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of Higher Learning is brought to you by MGM Plus. If you love high-stakes drama, Godfather of Harlem delivers. I can't wait to see it. I know it has Academy Award winner Forrest Whitaker. He returns as Bumpy Johnson, facing his deadliest battles yet for Harlem's future. When ruthless newcomer Frank Lucas arrives, everything changes. As power shifts and new threats emerge, will Bumpy forge an uneasible, Is he alliance with his enemies?

Or will he stand tall as the undisputed Godfather of Harlem? Well, you can find out in the new season of Godfather of Harlem, new episodes streaming Sundays on MGM Plus. Oh, you, don't thought warriors. What is up? And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Barely. And it's to be Rachel and Lindsay.

Barely. I'm actually surprised I have this much of a voice. But when I tell you, my eyes are barely. open. It's not because it's going hard at Coachella. It's the weather at Coachella. The dust. I mean, my eyes

are swollen. I'm congested. But I had a good time. That was my first Coachella. What did you do? What did it consist? What did it consist? I got down there Thursday. Went to a UTA party. Friday, woke up, took my time, worked, podcasted.

went out there You see any musical acts Oh yeah I guess that's part of it too See that's how you know Coachella's falling off No no no no because when I was trying to get there The traffic was so bad I really wanted to see 3-6 Mafia Friday Friday to me was the best day of the people I wanted to see

So missed them I saw Benson Boone Who literally has I like Bitson Boone but he's literally stolen Freddie Mercury's entire act. I mean, literally, at one point, he said to the crowd, eh, oh, and I'm like, that's Freddie. But he was good, he's entertaining, he's talented.

I saw Missy, who was phenomenal. I never seen Missy live before, so that was exciting. I went to see Glowrilla, and every time I see Glow, I'm just like, I'm so proud of her. Like I know her. I love Glowrilla. And then I went over to see Lady Gaga. So it was good.

Saturday. I saw Green Day. I saw Charlie X-CX. That was good. That was fun. Went to the party Saturday night. Something happened to my car. My car had to be towed back to L.A. from Palm Springs.

And yeah, Kayback Sunday. I could only do two days. Only do two days. I could not do three days. Also, I have responsibilities. I had to come back here. If I did three days, I wouldn't be here. Is this rage pre-birthday situation?

Yeah, you know, I turned 40 on the 21st. The theme is 40 and free. 40 and free? It is. And so it was a first time experience when my home girl, Shannon, shout to Shannon. She had never been before either. And we really had a good time. At 40, there's only a certain way I could do it.

I got to have artists passes. I got to have, like, I can't. I wish I had gone 20 years ago. and gone with a group of friends and laid on the grass and did all of that, you know. But I'm 40. Like, I got to be. We got to be a different situation for you. It's got to be a complete different situation for me.

Yeah. But it was a really, really good time. I had fun. I went to Revolve Fest, too. What's that? So Revolved does its own festival separate from Coachella on Saturday. I saw Jello. Nobody goes by.

The Leangelo Ball. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He performed his one song. Swirp hit the corner. Whoa. He's got some songs now. Said he's got music coming out.

I saw Uncle Waffles. DJ Uncle Waffles. It's like Afro beats. She's really good, really talented. Okay. Shout out to him. Her. Uncle Waffles is a lady.

Shout out to Uncle Waffles. Fucking with you. And then I saw Cardi B. Cardi B. So Cardi B was not at Coachella. She was at the Revolve Fest. Correct.

And so was Wayne. Lois. A lot of stuff, a lot of news coming out of Coachella this year. Various pictures of Chris Brown and... Oh, they were Revolved. Revolved. Right.

And Corruci. They were right there. Chris Brown and Carucci. They were hanging out, being very pleasant with one another. I wouldn't say hanging out. Well, they were hanging out. But they spoke to each other.

Yeah. And also Chris Brown and Tiana Taylor. She was there, too. Yeah, yeah. Also saying hello. People were like, oh, my God, maybe Chris has moved on with those two ladies that he had previously had some bad feelings.

I didn't see him. I saw Carucci. I saw Tiana. I didn't even know he was there. I think Carucci is sick of me. Why? Because every time I see Carucci, I try to hook her up with Court Jefferson.

She's sick of you then. She's sick of me. I saw her at Super Bowl. Super Bowl. party. Try to hook her up with Core Jefferson then. Then I saw her at the Sinners premiere and I tried to hook her up with Corey Jefferson then. Was he there? He wasn't. Okay. And Woody, shout out to Woody. Woody Woody kind of ruined it. He kind of ruined. He didn't do it. He was trying to talk to her.

No, no, Woody wasn't trying to talk to. But he, Woody ruined it. Shout out to Woody. Like, Woody ruined it on accident. It was an accident. Woody didn't mean to... Woody's one of the guys that I'm most proud of in this entire industry. Woody from power. Woody from power. Watching his...

You know, there are people in the industry that you think, damn, these niggas are super dope, super talented, and I'm so happy when people see that talent, Woody's one of them. But in that sense, he did kind of ruin what I was trying to do with Carucci and court, because Caruchian cord is... I'm trying to make that happen. Well, isn't she rumored to be dating Dionne Sanders?

Dionne Sanders? Did I make, Donnie look this up? Did I make this up? Dionne Sanders, for real? Because I'm definitely not trying to hate on Prime. Is she with Dion? Rumored. Rumored.

Yeah. Yeah, I can see Prime. I can see that being a prime situation. They've sparked dating rumors after being spotted together and reports of them holding hands outside a restaurant. They have not confirmed the relationship. It's suggesting. that they were introduced by Roxy Diaz

because Roxy and Deion had the show together. Yeah, it's a great show, by the way. I like the show. I like Deion as a personality. Look, if I'm inadvertently hating on prime by trying to put Carucci and Court Jefferson together, then I apologize to Prime. I wouldn't do Prime like that.

But we have a Pact show today. Look, we have an interview. I'm just going to let you guys know that I cried on the podcast in an interview. But you weren't alone. I cried. Jason got choked up. Jason got choked up.

You have Jason Wilson from the cave of a dullum here to talk about comprehensive manhood, his book, The Man the Moment Demands, which is the 10 characteristics of a comprehensive man. We're going to talk about healing. We're going to talk about his journey, our journey, how we could heal from things that are maybe holding us back. Rachel's divorce. My father, it's all there with Jason. Other than that, it's a packed show, lots of stuff going on, stuff we're not even going to be able to get to quick hitters. Trump put a pause on some of the tariffs, maybe. No one knows.

I mean, he did. He made a carve out. What does he say? He's putting them into a different bucket. They're exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but not the over wide tariffs. So, smartphones and other technology stuff coming from Canada. But then, so let Nick said that. Well, actually, Trump said that there was the pause.

And then Lutnik came out and on the Sunday shows said that he, there wasn't a pause, that those tariffs were going into a different tranche of tariffs and that Trump would be announcing those tariffs today. Now, we're recording here in the morning. We're assuming that we're going to get some type of information on whether or not there's going to be a different form of tariffs for smartphones and things like that. It's very important because remember they told us that part of. the goal of the terrorists would have iPhones that were actually manufactured in America. And it would seem as if, you know, you give an exemption, then you're running at cross purposes to that goal. Yeah.

I mean, the only thing, there's so much inconsistency. That's the only thing that seems consistent within this whatever's going on with tariffs. It seems like one person in the administration doesn't know what the other person's doing. Trump says something on true social. and then someone in his administration says something different. I'm confused. And then the pausing and then the not pausing and then this many days we're holding versus this many days and this percentage versus this percentage, it seems all over the places.

And if I'm a business person, I don't even know how to prepare and do my business because there's so much inconsistency within the tariffs. And if he does provide an exemption to smartphones and laptops and flat screens, it seems to be very much so I don't know if the word is political but definitely seems to be catering to you know

certain businesses. Certainly. Also, that's something that's very direct in terms of the way the American people would respond. What I mean is there will be a time when the iPhone will come out. It will come out.

And it will be a very direct sense of shock. It will be directly and like in your face shocking if you bought an iPhone last year and the iPhone cost you either $1,000 with no plan or $500 with plan. And then you look at the iPhone this year or people that are buying new iPhones or need new iPhones so they can I message and FaceTime with their friends. And they get to the iPhone and the iPhones for $5,000. Some people say $7,000. I saw something that said $15,000.

So that would be right away people would freak the fuck out. Yeah. Also, there's quick hitter. It looks to be video in the Carmelo Anthony Austin Metcalf case. Well, there's video. Looks like this video. What is the video, Sean? Haven't seen it yet, which is very interesting because there are indications that there

is video from this and the Frisco police seem to be. All of this stuff is unconfirmed, but a lot of people who are. reporting this. A lot of reputable outlets are reporting this. The Frisco police seem to be hesitant in releasing video from the incident. And I don't know what

that means. I don't know if that means that the video has it's more incriminating to Carmelo Anthony or if the video is in some way more incriminating or if it tells a story that makes Austin neck half look a little different. Or maybe it's just brutal.

It could be brutal. But brutal video has never stopped police departments or... I know, but they're minors. Or they're 17. I guess that's legal in Texas. Are they 17? Yeah, there's 17. So I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, not legal, an adult. I do know that as this case continues to evolve and unfold, that there's probably going to be a lot more political maneuvering surrounding the outcome of this one. So it's going to be very important to get as much information on this as possible while you are formulating your opinion. A lot of opinions on this particular case

are people that are injecting cultural trauma and pain into it, and I get it. I get it. Makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense to look at things a specific way when you put yourself in a position of either kid in this. But it can be very important

that we get as much information on this as possible. I learned a lot about the Texas system of laws through this case. The Texas system of laws. I didn't know in Texas, like Texas doesn't have capital murder. Texas has different forms of murder. Look, I want to get into the whole. What are you? You're a macro economist.

Now you are a criminal defense attorney license. Maybe we'll get into that on Thursday. but Texas has different forms of murder that are basically based upon one of them is 50 to life another is 20 to life but it's based around the conditions of the murder donnie make sure I'm I don't know if that's right about capital murder or maybe they don't I think they only have felony murder they don't have I'm not criminal I did civil but I don't know about that don't they have the death penalty they do have capital murder does Texas have capital murder does Texas have capital murder does Texas have capital murder? Yeah, they do. They have the death penalty. Okay, they have the death penalty, but what is the form? No, excuse it. It's not that they don't have, no, leave it, leave it, leave it. I'm getting my, it's not that they don't have capital murder. They don't have first degree murder. They don't have it first degree murder. They have it first, they don't have it first degree murder. They have capital murder, but not first degree murder. I mean, I thought you, you fully are

diverse in the Texas penal code. Yeah, no, no, that's not what I said. What I said was I'm learning so much about it. And still, he's still learning. I'm still learning. Way to save yourself. That's what I said. I said, I'm learning so much. You were right, though.

You know what's so funny, if you look up the Texas Piedel Code, right, and where it starts defining the degrees of murder, literally the first one is capital murder. Okay, so that's what I was trying to say, wait a second. What I meant to say is they don't have first degree murder. They have capital murder, is what I meant to say.

But capital murder is what in the YouTube video that I was watching. So they have capital murder, but not first degree murder. So it's a little different in the way that they structure it out. So people will say first degree, second degree, they don't have first degree murder in Texas. They have capital murder. Whatever.

We're going to start the show with a very sad topic. Yeah. Let me get right into it. You guys see this right here. LSU. My oldest memories are of being. an LSU fan. Some of my oldest memories, should I say. My oldest memories are, of course, my parents, Jesus Christ, Baton Rouge, all that's fun. But being an LSU fan is one of my oldest

memories, and we lost a member of the LSU family. An ex-LSUY receiver named Kairn Lacey died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot. Kiron started his career at, I believe, ULL, and he was a transfer to LSU. And it was a big deal when he became a transfer wide receiver to the Tigers because a lot of kids growing up in different places in Louisiana, they dream of playing in LSU. They dream of being able to wear purple and gold. And Connor Lacey is one of those kids that when it was his opportunity to play, he transferred, waited his turn, and he got a chance to shine last year.

He was going through something. And I don't want to make it seem like he was going through something. like he was a victim. He was under investigation or was about to go through a case where he was facing a charge of negligent homicide. December 17th, there was a car crash that killed a 78-year-old man named Herman Hall. Conradleasing charges related to that incident. Negligent homicide, felony hit and run and reckless operation. He did participate in LSU's Pro Day.

just recently. He ran, he called, he did different things. But it was assumed that that case would have an effect on how Kairn would be drafted to the NFL if he would be drafted. He certainly would have been drafted had that not happened, but where he would go and how things would happen. It looks like he was, I'll just read it.

Police were responding to a call Saturday and one of Lacey's family's members who said he shot a gun in the ground. He left before authorities arrived. When law enforcement tried to stop his car about 20 minutes later, he fled again. The pursuit lasted several minutes into his car crash. Please move to take him into custody and they discovered a gunshot one. He was pronounced dead at the scene. He shot himself before the car crashed, is what it looks like, 24 years old. There are a lot of people who are going to, you know, assume that he couldn't handle the load that was on him from the

from other things he was going through and that he was spiraling and that he took his own life. I don't know the family, don't know him, don't know much about the intricate details of it, but what I will say is this. There is a picture painted of athletes.

There's a picture painted of young black athletes sometimes. That picture is of people who do not care about the ramifications of what they do. that they'll hurt people, that they'll abuse people, that they'll take advantage of people. And because they're athletes, particularly in the South, that there'll always be somebody there to clean up their mess and to make sure that they have another place to play

and another pass to catch. And because of that, they don't care and that they're callous. And they'll live with the scar and the guilt of the mistakes that they made. I've long thought from knowing people that have been through things that that wasn't true. That a lot of times what you're dealing with are kids who have made tremendous and tragic mistakes and then have to figure out how to live the rest of their lives, the rest of their lives, having made those mistakes, how to atone, how to respond, how to respond, as men and as women to those mistakes.

Also while navigating public scrutiny. And for a lot of them, it's impossible. It's something that they can't do. It doesn't mean that the things that they did weren't terrible, weren't irresponsible, weren't reckless, or stupid, and weren't abhorred. But it does mean that they are human beings, too.

And so it makes you wonder, you know, how do you live the rest of your life? Do you want to live the rest of your life knowing that you've done something that can't be undone? You want to still do the thing that people love you for doing. For some of them,

the only reason why people love them is because they can run, it's because they can catch, it's because they can shoot. It's the only reason why people care about their lives. And then when people don't care about them anymore because of that, when there's something bigger that hangs over them,

you know, some of them can't respond to it. And it's across that's too heavy to bear. You know, we see it in Cairn's case, potentially, perhaps, with him taking his own life. But then you also see it with drug use. You see it with reckless activity of other sorts. You see it with downward spirals that lead into, you know, them hurting more people.

And so, you know, in a situation like this, I know he has a strong family. and I know he has his father spoken out a little bit. I know that the entire LSU community is hurting, but I always care, I always hope, should I say, that there's somebody who just cares about these young men as men and not necessarily as football players. So well said, I can't really even add to that.

It's true. I mean, it's very apparent that he was struggling for all the reasons that you just said. I mean, Emik Rosh said text message chain. I don't know if you saw. thought. Did you see it? I did not see it. Between he and Kairn a couple of weeks ago, if even that long ago, where he was encouraging him. You know, he was telling him, you know, he was telling him to trust the process

and to put it into God's hands. This is Amiq talking to him. And he was telling them that he knows this is a tough time to keep his faith high. And so from the context, and Kairn responded back, you know, that he was doing all those things. But it's very obvious that he was struggling. And I think what was also adding to it. addition to all the things that you just named, you know, the fall from grace, the public scrutiny, the wondering, kind of like what's next, what you do, the not knowing the future and what's to come. You know, he was two, three days away from facing, reporting to a grand jury on whether or not they were about to charge him for the charges you listed that he could be facing.

And so that coming up and not knowing, you know, whether or not, you know, he was released on on a bond, but whether or not, you know, he was going to have to go to jail what that meant for his future career with football or just anything related to the future, I'm sure, was weighing on him as well. You mentioned his dad coming out and talking about checking on people when the signs are there. And I think that that's a reminder to the signs are there. He said no matter how small they are to make sure that you're checking on people and paying attention to those signs because they can be a cry for help. It's just all of them. it is just, it's so sad and you're seeing it

impact so many people within the football community, the LSU community, friends, family, everything. 24 years old. And once again, this is not to minimize any of the suffering

that the family of 78-year-old Herman Hall has gone through when Karen was allegedly recklessly driving and you know, initiated a crash. ended up causing this man his life that had not been adjudicated yet. So, you know, the direct details of that, there's probably more information to come out. But there's nothing to minimize their tragedy and struggle.

I just know that the LSU family has been hurting and is hurting from somebody who really meant a lot to everyone. So had to take a pause and talk about that very, very difficult story to talk about. We're going to take a break on the other side of this. More stuff. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriotic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Trimphaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. The playoffs are here, and you can predict the action all the way to the final, Fandul predict. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus. Offered by Fandul prediction markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant, 18 plus.

Bonus is non-withdrawable and expires seven days after receipt. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at Fandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Donnie, get us into the new segment. Play the theme song. Glaze of the week, glaze of the week.

You're on somebody's meat. It's the glaze of the week. Glaze of the week, glaze of the week, glaze of the week, you're sucking dick. Okay, Donnie, I don't know why you contribute to this foolishness. What was even... I thought that was... What did you say?

I couldn't understand. You say glaze of the week, glaze of the week, and then what? What was the first part? Glaze of the week, glaze of the week, glades of the week, it's the glaze of the week. I heard the end.

You're sucking dick. It doesn't even rhyme. All your songs are starting to sound the same. Yeah, I don't say that to other niggas. You know how many people out there have songs that all the songs sound the same? It's a signature style. So to me,

that tells me how much people, like, by the way, just to let you know, if you ever saw what's love got to do with it, I don't know if you want to tell somebody that all their songs sound the same. What you about to do to me? Why do you got those gloves on? With the pinky ring over the gloves. This is so unnecessary.

I saw you put them on, but we started the podcast. Why you got the gloves on? I just like the way the gloves look. I just like the way the gloves look too. I do not like the pinky over the... I don't like that. It's too much. But I just want you, I want everyone to be to look at how critical.

This is the life that I lead. It's a life full of ladies in my life. Don't put Kalika in this. Hypercritical of everything that I do. So think about it. I come up with the glaze of the week. So have a question? How many theme songs have you come up with them?

It's not my thing. You got to know your strengths. So then here's the deal. And your weakness. So then here's the deal. So you haven't come up with one theme song for one thing. And then everything saw, you saw, all your songs sound and the sign the same. Say it sound the same, huh?

It's not the same. Okay, I'm sorry. Too much. I guess the gloves were triggering. Sorry. Can I ask you a question? When we think about the What's the Love Got to Do It in movie, Ike is a funny character. Okay.

So he's, it's not funny. It's not funny. But it is, though. Donnie, have you said What's Love got to do? do with it? Yeah. I think it's Lawrence Fish Burns' performance. He has a comedic performance. The stutter. Okay. It's not meant to be... Okay.

There are moments when you laugh. I'm sure... I think we could talk about it in a funny way. It's separate. Obviously, what happened... It's not funny at all. What happened was not. It was abusive. It was tragic. It was devastating. It was bad, right? It highlights... It just... It just highlights... A problematic, but yes, problematic relationship, but yes, there are moments.

It's not a comedy, Donnie. Talking about Lawrence Fishburn had a comedic performance. Donnie is not a comedy. Some of the line readings are funny. They are. Like, as a people, we know, like, the cake thing is funny. It's not funny. First of all, it's not funny.

I got you. I got you. I got you. It's not funny. But, you know, it is, the funny of the part he goes, I don't mess with that narcotic. The narcotic part is funny. Is that how Ike talk?

Was that his cadence? So I watched Ike in an interview with someone, and I was trying to not watch it through the lens of what's love got to do with it. Because the things that he said was saying was so terrible. You know what I mean? They were asking Ike if he ever hit Tina and he was like, I never hit her balled my fist up. I hit her with my hand.

And he was so out of it that he couldn't understand that that was, that hitting is wrong. And so I couldn't take him seriously, meaning I couldn't watch it without going, oh shit, it's Ike and the, so I didn't, you know,

I don't do the Ike Turner thing because he's a demon, but he's a demon. I love what people say. He's a demon, but like when I go back and I look at the movie is like, I, Some of the stuff was, it plays funny. Sure.

That's the way to phrase it. Okay, so what were you going to say? What? How do we get to Ike? We got to Ike because I was making a joke about you telling me all my songs sound the same. Okay. Yeah, and then so. Those started to sound the same too.

They did. They did. Okay, Glaze of the week. Please explain to me this new segment. Oh, who's on the meet? Who's... Bill Maher. So, we're in such a legendary era.

era of Dick Rodden. You know what I mean? We're in such a legendary era of Dick Rodden. I think this is probably Dick Rodden's best era. What are your thoughts on that? I don't even know how to comment on that. What do you mean? Dick Ridings.

No, do I see it? Yes. Best era? What am I comparing it to? Oh, this is by far the golden era of Dick Roder. In a political sense or just across the board? Well, that's why it's the goal. golden age. Okay. It's the golden age of Dick Rodden because we have Dick Rodden in every sector now that's off the charts.

Okay. We have political Dick Rodden. We have cultural Dick Rodden, right? We have Dick Rodden of specific tech bro dick rotten. We have, like- That's, I'll wrap that up in politics. Business Dick Rodden. Not necessarily, though. Because in the 90s, you might have fucked with Apple. in the late 90s, or you might have fucked with Microsoft, or you might have loved IBM products, but you weren't sucking off the CEO. That's new. Like, you might have loved Windows 95, but you had to be a real fucking nerd

to be like, I fuck with Windows 95 because of Steve Balmer and Bill Gates and all of that stuff. You fucked with Windows 95 because you liked it. You might have fucked with MySpace. You might have fucked with Facebook, but you, I mean, early on, but you weren't really fucking. talking with these things and wrapped up in the cult of the actual CEO.

That's new. Well, who's wrapped up in the cult of the CEO? Oh, all of these guys got there, like Elon got his people, Bezos got his people, Warren Buffett. The fact that we know all of these guys. No, not with the government, with normal people. Like Sam Altman has a whole fucking cult of people. All of these people have people who swear by not just their products,

but by their actual way of life and like how they look at stuff. You don't think so? I would say that about Elon. I wouldn't say that about Bill Gates. I wouldn't even say that about Balmer. So Balmer is different because he owns a sports team and that's a way to get anybody on your goddamn cock

is to own a sports team and do all you build the Intuit dome and all of that stuff. Like he's made himself into like a celebrity. A recognizable figure. Because antics on the side, absolutely. We know exactly who he is. That comes from the Mark Cuban version of it. Correct.

Sports owners kind of have kind of always done this. George Steinbrenner became a bigger-than-life sports owner. These people became bigger-than-life, whatever. I get it. But now there is a pechant for El Dikradin. I think with Elon, but sorry, I'm interrupting your statement. Keep going. But I just want, no, no, no.

It's not what I'm saying is it's not just Elon. It's the tech bro cults. Big time dick riding. Big time dick riding. You know, now we have like different figures. It's just everybody's trying to be famous and that inspires. That's true. Dick riding.

This is the golden age of dick riding. So we have to kind of talk about it a little bit. And the segment glaze of the week is going to get us down to what I feel like is the most potent dick riding of the week. We're going to do this every week. Now, we've done other segments and we've started and we've stopped with them. But I think Glazer... Rachel, come on, believe in Glazer than a week, Rachel.

I'm the one who's like, let's talk about it. Let's get back to it. I believe in it. But Rachel, you went to Coachella and you came back a skeptic. I just want your approval. I want you to like my songs. I support it. I want you to like my wacky ideas.

Let's start over. Love your wacky ideas. It's part of the charm of the podcast. Love your wacky ideas. I'm sorry. Glaze of the week. It was a new song. You were excited about it.

I poo-poot on it. Sorry. Sorry. I apologize. Hey, by the way, we're going to get into this later with Jason, like my need for validation.

And I get into how I can support. I need to support. We are so toxic. We tap into, we recognize ourselves. Do we not? We do. Okay, okay.

Glaze of the week. Glaze of the week, everybody. New tone. Gle's of a week. Let's go. Okay. The glazer of the week this week goes to Bill Maher. Jesus Christ.

This is one of the biggest glazing sessions I've ever seen. Like I said, last year was the year of glazing, the golden age of dick riding. Dick, one of this, that, 20204 was the biggest dick riding year on record. Okay. Because you had the election, which inspires crazy dick riding. On both sides. On both sides. On both sides.

Sure, sure. Then you had Kendrick versus Drake, which was just everyone chose a cock to ride, right? Everyone chose a cock to ride. And 2025 has started off with huge glazing because of Donald Trump. But it needed someone to go overboard to really... So you think this is the one. Oh, this is the one. This is the one.

This is the one. Donnie. A little bit of the one. back story before we get into the sound. There was a lot of talk about the invitation that Donald Trump gave Bill Maher to come to the White House and have dinner with him. I think the dinner was Bill

Mar, Dana White, Kid Rock, Donald Trump. Somebody else was there. Yeah, I couldn't see what that guy was. And they all had dinner. And a lot of people were wondering why Bill Maher, who's been an outspoken critic of Donald Trump would go have dinner with him, why he would want to go do that. A lot of people were wondering what this dinner meant.

all right bill mar had the dinner and then he went on real time with bill bar and stuck down on trump's penis uh donnie play the sound i told him i thought parts of his plan for gaza were wacky but that i had supported him and the idea

that gaza could be dubai instead of hell i told him he was wrong when he tweeted the night before that i was critical of all things trump not true check the tapes moving israel's embassy to jerusalem loved it the border did need to be controlled. I'm glad the cops are getting their morale back. DEI had gone too far. Biological men shouldn't be playing women's sports. Europe should pay for their defense. And of course,

it makes sense that Arab countries should take in Arab refugees, like the million Syrians who wound up in Germany when Saudi Arabia took none. He said to me, you're right, they took none. I said, well, you should remind your boyfriend in Saudi Arabia that the next time you see him. He laughed. I never felt I had to walk on eggshells around him. And honestly, I voted for Clinton and Obama, but I would never feel comfortable talking to them the way I was able to talk with Donald Trump.

That's just how it went down, make of it what you will. Me, I feel it's emblematic of why the Democrat are so unpopular these days. Okay. Now, I think a lot of people were wondering what was going to happen when Bill Maher went to talk to Donald Trump. And I want to make a... like a small observation.

This is not about having conversations with the other side. Okay. Gretchen Whitmer just went to the White House. A lot of people are talking about Gretchen Whitmer going to the White House and what it means Gretchen Whitmer going to the White House while Trump does these executive orders in front of her face and all that stuff like that. She put the thing up in front of her face.

Richard Whitmer is the governor of Michigan. Michigan as a state is connected to and needs a relationship with the federal government. Richard Whitman has got to go to the White House. Like, she's got to go. It's part of her job. It's part of her job. It's part of her job for her to go back and forth with the federal government.

Has to go. It's really, really silly to have smoke for the governor of a major American state, any American state, any type of politician for engaging in talks with the other side. I think everyone should be talking. I think talking to people on the right is good, particularly because I think through debate and conversation, ideas and foundations are crystallized in a way for people that you can't get by just talking at them. So I learned so much information by watching political debates because I watch how people respond to information when they're challenged. And then I go, hey, is that true? So if you were to challenge me on the constitutionality of something

Or you watching somebody else get, I go, hey, when they respond to that challenge, I go, hey, is that true? Okay. Do you watch a lot of political debates? Debates? Yeah. No. You don't give a fuck.

No, I mean, I watched like the presidential ones. But I'm, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I watch like. You watch like regional local ones? Oh, no, not even regional local. I watch political debates. Like I watched Joe Rogan. I watched Douglas Murray versus Dave Smith.

I just watched for X amount of times. I don't particularly watch a lot of Joe Rogan. I don't regularly, shat-saday. I don't regularly watch a lot of Joe Rogan. I don't. But in this particular debate, I wanted to see how Douglas Murray comported himself against Dave Smith, Murray being a mouthpiece for the Zionist movement and operation.

And Dave Smith being a very, problematic figure in a lot of ways in terms of some of his beliefs to me, but being a pretty staunch pro-Palestine advocate that has spent the better part of the last couple of years talking about that issue everywhere. Actually, wouldn't know Dave Smith was if it wasn't

for that. He is a comedian. He's had successes comedian. I'm not saying that, but I've watched him in various debates talking about that. Douglas Spirons seemed so sure about everything he says. Dave Smith seemed so sure about everything that he says, so I wanted to watch them, and that kind of came across my Twitter, so I went and watched it. That motherfucker was

three hours. Isn't it the show always three hours? I don't know. I haven't watched Rogan in a long time, but that motherfucker was three hours of them, of them, of Murray trying to kick Dave Smith in his balls and Dave Smith trying to move his nuts. Dave Smith was doing like this the whole time. Barry was trying to kick him in the balls and Dave Smith was moving. Anyway, so that's not what this is about.

Okay. It's not what this is about. This is about how you have a conversation with power. and how you relay that conversation with power to people. Power needs to be accountable. And power has to be accountable because power influences your life. And in that, Bill Maher failed. And I believe that he failed in his dinner with Trump.

I believe that he failed in relaying it to his audience. First of all, Bill Maher and Donald Trump got along. What a shocker. The thing that Bill Maher might not understand. understand, that I understand, is that Bill Maher has way more in common with Donald Trump than he does with me or a lot of other people. He used to watch a show for a long time. You mean to tell me, too rich, white, Ivy League educated atheists from New York had a great time together. Of course they had a great time. Sure.

Bill Maher is one step away from being Donald Trump at any point. I would argue that the last couple of years, some of the criticisms made of Mar have pushed him further to adopting and inculcating this sort of power because he's coming back to the core of who he is, right? But it goes further than that when you listen to the entire 12-minute fallacious session that he gave to Donald Trump. He was duped. He was conned. And it's sad in a way to me. Can I just question that?

Sure. if they have a lot in common, if he's being pushed towards that side or those beliefs or policies or what he? Was he duped or con? Yeah, he was. Because I didn't gather that. Let me tell you how.

You know what the saddest thing about being an unattractive man is? Tell me. That you don't know when someone's trying to fuck you. Okay. You don't know. You'll sit there, They'll be batting their eyes at you. They'll be throwing out all the signals.

But because you're not used to that, you don't know when someone's trying to do it. And so you will unwittingly get glamored. You'll think it's about something that is not actually about. And that's exactly what happened to Bill Maher. He fell for every bit of glamoring that Donald Trump threw his way. and when you talk to people that Trump has glamored before, it's very obvious.

I talked to Anthony Scaramucci as part of this deal that I did up at CNN, hope that the show comes out. And I asked them, you're such a staunch critic of Trump. How did Donald Trump get you in the first place? And Scaramucci demonstrated to me how Donald Trump does it. how Donald Trump puts you in a situation to where you think that's my guy.

And he's like, look, he figures out what you want. And he goes, I'm going to give it to you. Right. I think he says he figures out how you want to be talked to. And he goes, I'm going to give it to you. And that's what he did to Bill Maher. What he gave to Bill Maher was something that Bill Maher desperately wants. he gave him his whiteness back.

He did. I didn't know he lost it. I'll tell you how. I'll tell you what it is. I'll tell you what it is. So he went to Trump, did dinner with Trump, he dug it.

He dug it because he could say things and not be checked for them. Right? He enjoys a social order where no one checks his work. No one checks his work. Nobody. Even though he's making a living

injecting his opinion about people's lives, into the world, he wants that to be met with absolutely no pushback. He doesn't want to hear from the people whose lives are being affected. That is whiteness as a power construct. Whiteness is, hey, this is the way the world is supposed to work, guys. This is the way it's supposed to happen. This is the way it's supposed to work.

Now, you guys do this thing because we've set up society in this way, and this is the way it's supposed to work. This is the way it's going to work. And then when other people go, well, hey, all right, what about us? You go, shut the fuck up. We gave you June teeth off. So you don't talk to us. You don't talk to us about your rights,

about how much representation you think you should have, about how things are going for you. You don't talk about that shit to us because we've made a world that benefits you in the way that we see it and you should be okay with that. Marr, over the last couple of years, has been so direct in his criticism

of people who are advocating for themselves. And he's like, so you mean to tell me that, you know, you guys want this movement for women, want this movement for gay people, you want this movement for black people, but you don't want any, you don't feel the need to give us any charity. He actually says,

said that one time. You're going to do that in the least charitable way with the least amount of grace as possible. I believe in grace. I believe in charity, but I believe in truth as well. I can look at somebody and say, hey, this system benefits you and it's not your fault. You're born into it. The question then becomes, what are you going to do? But forget about the benefit to you. Forget about that. I can look at someone to be like, this system is, killing me and it's not your fault. But now that you know, what are you going to do? I think that's a fair thing to say and a fair observation to make.

But he doesn't care. He doesn't care because he's a dick rider in his heart. And Trump made him feel whole again by not telling him things that would hurt his feelings because he's built up this sense of self-importance where he just wants to feel that he can say whatever he wants to say and that nobody will push back on him. Bill, no, doesn't matter that Trump was nice to you when you're in the White House. No, it doesn't matter. Nothing could matter less. Nothing could matter less that Donald Trump, nothing could matter less. Don't care how polite Donald Trump is to you when you're in the White House. Let me tell you something that does matter, though,

to Bill and to the people like him who try to launder Donald Trump's reputation. Let me tell you something that does matter. Donald Trump just announced determination of an agreement that the Biden administration struck which aims to improve wastewater treatment of black Alabama people whose communities are harmed by raw sewage. I saw that. Right.

Trump calls this an illegal DEI and environmental justice policy. So why Bill Maher is telling us what a good hang the president is, the president is literally making black people eat shit, literally making black people eat shit.

So everyone whose job it is to launder the reputation of all of these incredibly dangerous, powerful individuals, save it. Save it. We don't care about how nice they are at tea time. Right. We don't care about how nice they are at dinner. We don't care how easy they are to talk to.

We care about dead children, black people eating shit, are brothers and sisters in the LGBT plus community running scared for their lives. Are women's maternal mortality? Our women's earning potential in the market, all representation, and safety in the country that we built.

And other than that, we don't give a fuck how much y'all like each other. We just don't care. So have your dinner. Go do your thing. Have fun with President Trump. Go be his friend. Go be his pal.

But leave us the fuck out of it. Don't come back and tell us what a nice guy is. we don't fucking care. We don't care. Well, because you say, like you, you suck his dick. I mean, I definitely agree. I definitely agree why he gets glazed of the week.

Definitely the person to kick off your due segment. I agree with everything you said, except I do not think he was duped. I think that he had a motive as well and going into the White House. When I listened to this 12-minute report, court he gave as he kept calling it when he came by from the White House. All I kept thinking as I was watching it was he had a goal in mine. He wanted to use this as content for his show to possibly

attract new viewers, possibly for ratings, to have to say he had access to a certain situation and got to sat down at dinner with the president and got a tour with the president and went on behalf of his friend Kid Rock and was able to talk about his time. with the president in a way that he couldn't do it before. I think he did the whole thing for content for his show. I don't think he was duped at all. I think he knew exactly what it was that he was doing. And listening to him come back,

and listen to his 12-minute monologue, I was like, okay, this is much ado about nothing. Like, it was a big nothing burger. For him to come in and say how cordial and polite that Trump was, to your point, we don't care. Of course, he was nice to you when you sat at dinner. coming on with a mutual friend. Of course, he joked around with you.

Of course, to your point, you've brought this up on the podcast before about how Trump is like, what is it that you want? What is it that you need? That's his play. So he draws you in. Of course, all those things happen. And I felt like even Bill Maher, when he came back, was bragging about certain things, in addition to the certain things he has in common with Trump, he also came on there

bragging about the jokes he made at Trump's expense and how Trump laughed at them. I think he thought. that he came in there as himself and Trump didn't stand up to him. I think, so to me, I agree with everything, every single thing that you said, but I don't think that he was duped.

I think he had a mission when he went in and he knew exactly how he was going to come back and relay it to his audience and how he was going to use it to benefit his own show and himself. Fair enough. The only reason why I feel like he was dup and I stand by it,

just like I stand by the song. The only reason why I don't, feel like he was duped is because if Donald Trump would have taken a different attitude towards him in there, he wouldn't have come back

and did what he did. If Donald Trump would have been cantankerous or confrontational with him the way that he actually acts with people, right? Or the way that he asks with people in public. If he had done that in private, Gilmar would have come back and gone. Donald Trump's an asshole.

Donald Trump told me this. Donald Trump told me that Donald Trump did this. Donald Trump is, but Trump didn't do that purposefully. He didn't do that purposefully because he realizes, it's very me as a savvy president, what it would be like to have Bill Maher

as an acolyte. And so then Bill Maher runs back so that he can seem like a truth teller or a soothsayer to his audience and goes, hey, Donald Trump's totally normalized. And when you say that, when you say Donald Trump is totally normal,

what that implies is that there is a methodology behind the things that he is doing that comes from a place that's not fucking insane. So then you start to say, hey, I went in there and I talked to the guy in the White House and he's not as dangerous as he seems. So he's not as dangerous as he seems. Okay. So the tariffs aren't as dangerous as he seems as it seems. Going to war with Iran is it as dangerous as it seems. the Gaza policy or turning Gaza into displacing to 1.7 million people and sending them

around the world, but they have nowhere to go. That's not as dangerous as it seems. If Trump at his core isn't as dangerous as he seems, then nothing he says or does is as dangerous as he seems. Did he say dangerous? Because even when I watched this clip, I thought, is he almost in a way not talking bad about Donald Trump, but almost pointing out his hypocrisy, is it because, yes, he said all those

things, and I obviously didn't like it. He said, I don't know that guy. He said, even after I left that dinner, that very night, he went up on a podium and said, this, this, and this, I don't know that guy. That's not the guy for dinner. And there was this from dinner, and it was the stark contrast of, and I am by no means giving Bill Maher props, but it was a stark contrast of behind closed doors, this is how he was. He didn't push back at me. He didn't say anything negative. He didn't contradict anything that I said,

almost as if he agreed with some of the things that I said. But in person, there's this facade. And I almost wondered, like, when I watched it, I was like, well, duh, you know, like Trump is one way with this way and one way this way. It's dangerous, to your point, in the way that he is with the media and he is with the public

and the things he is doing a part of his administration. Nothing in that dinner reflects the things he's doing in this country and the things that he says when he's standing at the podium and talking to the media. Is there a world where Bill Maher did that on purpose to show how much of a hypocrite Trump really is? I'm not giving him anything, but I'm just for context of arguing. If you look at it, Trump looked like a fool. So I can understand that. Here's the reason why I want encourage everyone to watch the entire. 12 minute video. For sure. Okay. And two, I don't think that that can happen because Bill Maher actually

said that he was partly encouraged by the fact that that guy exists in the White House, that in some way was reassuring to him that the guy that he met wasn't some sort of lunatic goofball, which might be legitimately reassuring to Bill Maher. It doesn't reassure me at all. Because the black people in Alabama still got to eat shit for no reason. Why on God's green earth would you get in the way of a wastewater settlement that seeks to clean the water for black folk in Alabama? There has to be either some sort of private interest that has a stake in the wastewater in Alabama or you want to. want black people to eat shit, that that makes you popular with a certain group.

I'm not going to belabor this. I'm just saying it's a very fundamental thing to want people to be able to drink clean water. So that's the only thing I say. Glaze of the week, Bill Maher, he's not the only one that's going to get it is every week. Every week that's going to be a glazer.

Some of you guys are going to be people that I know and you're not going to like it. But this dick ride is going to, crazy. It's enough. It's enough. Enough dick riding, I say, enough. Podcaster and motivational speaker, Walo, was speaking at a panel over the weekend, and he had this to say about black businesses. Oh, I'm black. Nobody gives a fuck about that. Kill that shit. Even you got a good business or you don't. All that shit, don't nobody want to hear that shit. That's a hustle. Support me because I got a black business.

Is your restaurant clean? Is the food good? Do you got consistent cooks? It's a material of your shit good. Stop doing that. Oh, you support the white people? No, I support consistency, baby. I'm fuck about what color you is.

I'm going to spend my money. That paper? I'm going to spend them there is where the fuck I want to spend it at. Reb is poor for Rory left. I'm going to do what the fuck I want to do why I'm here. But I'm going to tell you one thing,

I ain't going to be finessed off some black shit. But one thing about it, 70% of you motherfuckers is not going to make it. I'm not no motherfucking fake. motivational speaker that talk this dumb shit. I'm the number one nigga in the country.

You know why? Y'all seen me come out of the penitentiary. I meet millions. And I make million of his, baby. I'm hoping that there's, I disagree with everything he said. Let me just put that straight up. I'm hoping that there's more context to it because I'm trying to understand where this came from and why.

Like, I don't understand him screaming at an audience. And basically almost saying black businesses aren't shit. Okay, so he's a very passionate guy. So when Wallo speaks, he's a very passionate guy. I'm a passionate person too. It's probably why he was screaming.

I'm a passionate person too. You are. But it basically sounded like he was saying, this is my first time listened to it, that he was basically saying, black businesses ain't shit. It don't expect me to lift your shitty black business up.

I just, I understand if the cons, if he's speaking in terms of, you can't expect your business to be successful by only saying I'm a black-owned business and therefore because you are black, you need to support my black-owned business. If that's what he means, I understand that.

But the way that he's yelling in this context and basically saying, I'm not going to support you just because you're black, I feel like when people say support black-owned businesses, that's not what they're asking for. Okay, you want me to say something? Yeah, I mean, like, I mean, no, I just, this is all I have.

This is my first time. to it. I didn't listen to this. I didn't hear this before. I just, it sounds to me so, this clip sounds so anti-black and it so seems to me to miss the whole movement around support black businesses. It's, hey, sometimes we're, for me, for example, I sat on this podcast one time and I was like, I don't know the list of black businesses out there that, um, are at Target or at Walmart when we were talking about DEI and we were talking about Tabith the Brown and we were having that. And then, People flooded me with, hey, there's an encyclopedia or kind of a Bible of black businesses and how you can support them and find them.

They're not saying, I just, when I listen to this, it just sounds so anti-black. The whole movement is, hey, you might not be aware that you can get these same products from black businesses and you can support and uplift them because they might not have the marketing the same way. They might not have the money or the capital. they might not have the support in the same way. Some of these white-owned businesses that we're more familiar with do. So support these black-owned businesses not just because they're black,

but because they have legitimate and quality products. When I listen to Wallow, right, it sounds like he's anti that. Okay. So I'm going to choose to view this in the most charitable way possible, and that's because, which is the whole point.

It's just a problem to me. Well, it's not a problem. To me, it's not a problem. Like, to me, being charitable culturally is not a problem. It's like what you should do. It's essentially, like, what you're talking about. You're talking about chances, giving chances. And that's what doesn't have for black people.

Let's start with a different story. Right. Let's start with a sort of a white man. You heard of Jeff Bezos, Bezos? Bezos. You know who that is? He just sent Gail to space. And Gail did not look like she had a great time

up there. Well, she came back. She came back and Gail looked like that was a rough ride. He looked like a rough ride for Gail. Do you know how Amazon was started? Donnie looked this up. Did he get a loan? He went around and asked for a bunch of money.

And I think he was able to raise from friends and family around $300,000 to start Amazon. Now, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, their success has to do with an incredible business model and an incredible finger on the pulse of how people want to get goods and services. However, Jeff Bezos was able to start Amazon because Jeff Bezos is white. and being white meant that he had access to capital and access to resources that a lot of black people don't have.

We've talked about on this podcast, the wealth gap between black people and white people. For sure. Black people and a lot of other people, which means that if you want to start your business, if the bank doesn't give you the money for whatever wacky idea that you have or visionary idea that you have.

You'd have to raise it from people. And raising it from people is going to be a lot harder if the network of people that you are raising it from don't have the same access to capital that you do. So if you were around in 1992 or 19, and you wanted to start Amazon, would you be able to raise the $300,000?

I watch the show all the time, the food that made America. And something always happens in these amazing stories of people developing these incredible food brains and the men who made American, all of that stuff. Somebody has an idea, and then they have access to capital. The WK.K. Kellogg guy actually stole the idea from his brother who ran a sanitarium and Battle Creek mission.

But there's a part of the story that is always, to me, super important. He had that idea for great nuts or corn flakes or whatever, whatever it was, and then he went and was able to raise money, get a loan to start his company. And I think if I'm a black man in 1901, 1905 in Battle Creek, Michigan, and I see that they're doing great nuts or cornflakes or whatever, can I go to a bank at that time and then get a loan from the bank to start my business? Probably not. Right.

Fucking slave. Get back to Alabama where there's shit in the water. Right. So what we have to spend with each other is solidarity. That's our greatest wealth. Our greatest wealth as black people is solidarity. That's the number one form of riches that we have. It's the fact that we care about each other.

There is no form of payment that means more than that for us. because the wealth that we should have had in this country was systematically stolen from us, that we were burned out of it, we were swindled out of it, and we didn't have access to it in the first place because of our enslavement. So the riches that you give to other people

as black people is your love and support. That's the number one form of riches that we have. And sometimes you have to support people in the idea of what they want to be. You have to support where they want to go. And you can't just support what they are. Because if you just would have supported Jeff Bezos in 1992, you'd have been supporting somebody in their garage with a telephone

and a printed out Amazon sign in the back that say they want to sell books to the entire world. And it doesn't seem like you're going to make your money back in supporting that. I'm not saying that everybody's going to be Jeff Bezos, and I'm not saying that you don't need to have clean restaurants, I'm not saying that you don't need to do. What I am saying, though, is the fact that we don't have the same resources to support each other

by and large that other groups do, the number one way we can support each other is with support. I got this T-shirt from the blackest CEO, Brooklyn Tee, Black Tea Place in New York. the black farmer's box in Houston organically sourcing stuff from farm and then giving you farm to table different stuff all of these places are places that you can go support

go support them support the Nina Parker collection right Nina Parker's clothing line all of these things your support and doing a little bit I'm sorry you owe that you owe each other so you don't agree with what he said Of course not. Like you, you owe each other.

Now, once again, I don't care about it. I mean, he's a passionate guy, but I'm saying, he's wrong. People can be wrong. Like, you don't know. You owe each other. You are black. You owe each other.

I work for a white corporation. I work for a corporation that's white, and I get paid by them to do a service for them. The way that I show, that I care about what's happening in the black community is to prioritize smaller black businesses

that can use this platform to elevate themselves. Like our coasters. Our coasters are from black people? What is this? This is black coaster company? Make better coasters, niggas! What?

What kind of shit is this? I'm not buying this. You think I'm going to buy this coaster shit because it's coastering it up. What is this? No, no, that's great. They're great. That was basically his speech. They're great. I don't agree. You're going to have this perspective. I don't agree.

I'm going to come to your shit. If your shit's fucked up, we're going to talk about you. But if, but I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you to do better. I'm going to come to your shit. I'm going to support your shit. Ruby James Jucery. Go drink the juice. All right. Like, it's, it's, I'm going to support your shit. I'm so and I'm gonna support your shit because you're black. You can finesse me. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

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Ask your doctor about Trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about Trimfaya, including important safety information. KTLA, released an apology Friday morning after its official ex account tweeted one word niggers, blaming it on a technical error.

They quickly deleted it but not before plenty of screenshots were taken. In a statement, released not long after that post, they said KTLA experienced a technical error while adding language filters to our social media accounts. Resulting in an offensive word being

accidentally shared, we are appalled and apologized that this occurred. We've brought Jomi on to give the perspective of a social media expert. How likely is it that this was an actual technical error, Jemey? Extremely. Wait, what? Extremely.

Likely? Yeah, likely. It's very likely. There is a lot of carelessness involved. Let's be very clear. Right? You have to be better. You have to know what you're doing.

But ultimately, what I assumed what was happening was they were putting in like blocked words. Sure. on the thing. But for whatever reason, instead of being on the block word filter page, you were on the tweet, the tweeter page. And so you put the N-word and you press,

you know, send or whatever, you think, all right, this is a block word. Nope, it's a tweet. But show me, how, because I don't know it from Twitter, but, or X, but on Instagram, it is so, such a different looking page when you block words.

Yeah. When you block it, it's like, It's a whole other process to get to the blocking part. You block it. You save it, not send it. And then the word disappears. I mean, then the word, and it's no longer, you know,

people can't use that word when they're commenting. Is that how it is for X? No. It's kind of. Like, I imagine it's on the phone because, God forbid, anybody used Twitter on, on the computer. And it's literally just like, I don't know if you've ever done it on the phone. But it's like a page.

You have all your block words and you can add some. and it says mute for a week, mute for a couple weeks, mute for forever, right? And it's probably just a misclick. Unfortunately, I want to be conspiracy theorists. I want to be like, they got some racist over there.

But maybe I'm coping pleased for my social media people out there. But these things, I don't say they happen, but if you're not paying attention, you could mess around and tweet something. You're not supposed to tweet. Doesn't it sound like he's trying to cover his ass

just in case something happens like that? Oh, that would never happen to me. But why would it never happen to you? See, except that happens on, like, Ring averse or so he's covered it. I mean, people know. I keep the two phones on. I keep the personal and I got the word phone. That'll never have to.

I'll never catch me. That's one phone for Whitewood. Oh, three phones. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure. So this is what I would say, because I'm willing to take Jomi's explanation here. I think that makes a lot of sense. And Jomey is, for people don't know, Jomi is the social media guy

here in addition to be podcaster extraordinaire Jomey Explaner, he's a social media guy. You ever heard of the Midnight Boys? I mean, people might not have because every time I go on CNN and everybody's like, you know, Vans on CNN, Richards on CNN.

It's always, you know, higher learning, you know, co-host to hire and learning for Vann. I'm just saying, are you ashamed of us over there at Midnight Boys? I don't put mine on either, no. Well, the only thing I would say is I'm on CNN. Okay.

So, how I'm learning is the political podcast. Okay, I'm just saying you can show us some love. As you get older, you'll know how to be a little bit more deliberating. I'm just, if you, are we your second family? Are you hiding this? That's what I'm teaching. It's okay. Jason, Jason, that's what I'm here to teach.

Jason, Jason, Jason Wilson. Need it more than ever. But, okay, so this was it. So I guess I have two questions. Number one, I don't know the block words thing that you guys are talking about. So you can block words. So people should know that. You can block words and make sure.

that they don't. They don't show up on your timeline or notifications, anything. Why niggers with an S? So my, I would assume. Why? So if it's nigger,

yes. Right. I assume that was the word they ordered, they put in first. But then why did that show up? See, see what I'm saying?

So if you, if you go nigger, right, then nigger should also cover niggers. No, no, no. You got to do both. So you're saying that you could put,

so you could put nigger. but then niggers is a different Yes Interesting Yes you have to cover all your bases because So niggers Like niggers Nigurd

You would like if you wanted to get you would have to go all of them Niggatry Niggers with the Z Niggette the whole thing The entire thing So all the different variations of niggardom Yes Niggardom

Yes Nigglets Exactly So everybody just wants to say these words I'm just saying I like to I like to, there's a term that I like to use I like to say we're in nigger time.

They would have to do that one specifically too. They'd have to do nigger time. Yep. But when, okay, but I would imagine, I'm the skeptic here. I would imagine that when they went on to filter out words, they would have put,

they wouldn't have just said, we're just going to do niggers. They would have said nigger, niggers. So why didn't those pop up as well? You can do it all at once. You can do all at once. You don't do just one word, send.

You do it all at once. No, you do one word, one word send, one more ten. You have to come in and out of the portal, which is why I think it was literally just, again, brain turn off for a second. You send one. You come out of it. You go to, like, send tweet instead of block words. Niggers, send.

Okay, my day's good. Actually, it's not. I just put out niggers to KTLA, who's got millions of followers. my bad guys, that's on me. I think somebody's trying to be funny. So they said... I laugh hard. I think this is so funny.

This is a Rachel thing. So, like, Rachel accepts no apologies or explanations ever. So it had to be... Somebody said, N-I-G-G-E-R-S. So here's the thing. Usually that's what it is or not... It's not as explicit, but when people make social mistakes, they're usually way,

way worse. For example, when Florida State University put out that picture of Martin Luther King and he was out there doing the thing, and it was just like, what are we doing? You know, when the San Jose Sharks went out for June 10th. Did you ever see that before? That was, it's some of the most, it is

unsirious. I don't know if I saw this. Oh my, you have to look it up. Wait, what was it? Oh, my God. It's Florida State University with Martin Luther King. What was it? They put it. I think it was like a, either, like a batter or like a phone background from all of the King Day.

This is Martin's the King with Florida State gloves on. Like, man, you got the computer? No, it's not. This? Oh, my God. Oh, yes.

Like, that stuff is way worse. Oh, my God. Because that can't put Dr. King in your gear. Y'all leave the king out of his shit. And that went through like, people edited that and went through multiple channels. Phone docks episode. Oh my God.

Like it's one thing to accidentally tweet the ad word. Again, not ideal. It's not nigger navy out here. But stuff like that is way worse because people thought they were hitting on something. No, I need to stop being a skeptic because I had an incident where my person who did my social media did something for my account and thought she was doing it for me. I was just about to say. I thought she was doing it from hers. I was just about to say,

you in light of what happened, should understand me. Yeah, no, that actually happened. And I was like, and I was like, nobody would believe me. Nobody would believe me. By the way, when you, when you, this is, we're not going to,

so don't even worry about it. The story's not getting told. So don't even worry about it. We're not telling the story. This is Van Lathen, Rachel Lindsay, sex in the city crew, Friendship Circle shit.

He's put himself in it. Okay. You really? He's put his own. I mean, definitely. So the story's not getting told. That is fucking hysterical. I was mortified because of the way I was like, nobody would believe me that it wasn't.

It doesn't sound real. But I was like, it happened to me. And I was, and I stood here. I don't. I'm like, nope, no way that happened. Nope. Apologies zero. No.

Every time somebody's, something happens on online and somebody's like, I was hacked. Just like, you're alive. I wasn't hacked. Like, that. I wasn't hacked, but somebody has access to my social media account and thought they were doing it from theirs. And they messaged somebody from my, with my name on it. So this, my thing is, so this is what I would have believed you there. This is what this is, and this is going to sound so.

And I'm very fortunate that everything got clear. Yeah. This is going to sound so disgusting. Um, I accidentally sit porn to a very famous person one time. Your own? No, not my own. So it used to be back in the days of Twitter when we're talking about social media snafus

that you could like, you couldn't bookmark things. They didn't have bookmarks. So if you saw a clip and you wanted to save it, the only way for you to do it was to either like it, which was public. Which was public. I remember one time somebody at TMZ was like, Hey, Vancombe.

It's like, so you're a public person now, your likes are public. Everybody can see what you like. I'm like, you fucking kid. So you're lying right now. You lie. And so I went in there and just took them all off. But the only way for you to save a clip that you wanted to watch later was you have to send it to yourself. Okay.

Like I would send it to myself. I would send it to my own DMs. And I actually ended up sending it to somebody that is like a famous political person. We're not going to say to that. Not political. Yeah. Like a famous political person. And I remember the response was just question mark, my question mark.

And I was like, shit. My bag. And that's when I, but then they came in with the bookmarks later. So you didn't stop. You just started bookmarking things. I don't really. Too important to be honest with you now is it's so rampant that you don't really want to bookmark the stuff because then your whole page will be like filled up with it.

So now, like, you. You don't want to bookmark that stuff because the 4-U thing has changed so much that they'll send, you'll just have a whole fucking thing with all of this porn. Yeah, it doesn't really matter at this point because if you go to your, again,

you go to your 4-U page. It's just, you know, so I'm saying is like, mistakes like this can happen in social. Yeah, absolutely. They can happen. Jomey, we'll have you stick around for the last one.

All right, bet. Hary Learning with Jomi. So look, this is YK.O. Cyrus boxing. That's him in the corner right there. He's getting worked a little bit. All right. So look, I'm going to be boxing for a long time. This looks like MMA.

They go to the ground here. They're getting up. I see they got the shin pads on. So the first thing I'm going to do is not diss him for being in there. Because- Is this his first fight? It looks to be. If you are going to dis YK Osiris for jumping in here,

then you have to have engaged in some kind of combat before. But as I'm looking right now, I can see a lot of things that he's doing wrong. Jesus. What's the... Okay. So his lower base is just not set. Now, I'm just talking about the stand-up.

I can't tell you shit about kicking. I can't tell you shit about graphing. Like right now, he comes back. His hands are up now. He's not throwing punches with anything resembling lower base stability. He is in no... He's not moving his head at all.

He's gas and exhausted right now. So even now, if you are gas, if you're exhausted, lay on this. kid until you can catch your breath. He's just, now he's just covering up. The ref is watching this because he's looking to stop this fight if Y. K. Osiris can't mount any type of meaningful response. But I would say this. For the people that are dissing him, but the people that are dissing

him, it is extremely gassing to be in the ring in front of people. I don't think people know. To be in the ring in front of somebody, I don't care if it's the 10 guys in the gym. You get tired quicker because you're nervous and your tense. Y. K. Osiris needs to do two things that a lot of people that are beginning don't know how to do. Number one, maintain a very stable base. Phil Polina from philosophy boxing, Phil Polina's boxing gym, out in the valley where I've been going for a long time. The first thing that you're going to do is work on your legs. You are going to work footwork. with Phil for weeks before you really start throwing punches.

You need a wide base, right? And then Y. K Osir's got to relax. Just relax in there. You're going to get hit. You're going to get punched. It took me a long time to relax. I would get so mad when I would get punched.

And then you got to get that jab out there. This motherfucker was closing the distance too easy on YK Osiris. Just get that jab out there. Yeah. Get that jab work. I have a lot of questions. One, they're in an octagon, but they're with boxing gloves, and they're taking turns to the ground,

that doesn't seem standard. Yeah. This is probably some semi-pro MMA situation, right? Because you see them with the chin stuff on. Yeah, they're barefoot. They're barefoot. That guy had Ninja Turtle feet. Yeah, but they got the gloves on.

So this is probably some semi-pro, because I've gone to some of these semi-pro situations where they still have the shin guards and the boxing gloves. It's MMA of some sort. It makes it hard to grab with the gloves. Makes it harder to grab. Or it could have been just a Muay Thai type of thing. It's kickboxing.

It's kickboxing. Kid boxing. I saw this. Yeah. I've never seen somebody use two hands to punch. Is that standard in this? Well, typically not. You want to have a jab that goes straight out.

Just to be clear, I don't know if this was a new form. When the jab goes straight out, bang. Bang. Everybody do this. Everybody do this. Come on. It's easy. Okay.

Because you work. Jab. Bang. Bang. Bang. But look where the jab comes back to. Look at it. Move your head.

You off the line. Bang. Bang, bang. Bang. Bang. But look what a jab. Look at the jab's coming back to. Jab here, jab come back high.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. No, no. That's a love. I know. I'm not set. Okay. So, jab, bang.

Jab comes back high. Bang, bang. Jammy? Yeah. There you go. So give you one, give it three now. Bang, bang, bang. Jab comes back here.

Left hand up. Protect the face. Protect the face. Yeah, wait. But you're a softball. I have a south part. So you guys change up. Let's be Orthodox then.

What's the difference? Bows, was it? Which you're leading Because if you're gonna, I imagine maybe this is, you know, I'm not locked in. But like if you're right-handed, you want to go southball. So you lead, you have your left protecting your face. My father was left-handed. So when he taught me how to fight.

Oh, okay. He taught me how to fight like this. So my entire life from fight like this. But look, you're moving, you're moving, you're gauging distance. Why close to Cyrus? Watch this. You're moving, you're moving, you're gauging distance. You're getting your head off the line.

line. So sometimes when you get your head off the line this way, you want to throw your jab. Bang, bang. You don't want a jab from right here the whole time. Because if you're jabbing from right here the whole time, your head is a sitting duck. It's a sitting target. So Wachael Cyrus, move. Move. Move. Easy. It's like you're doing high school photography. So this segment really came about just so you could show people the progress you're making in the boxing. I've been boxing for a long time. I've kept my ass. This really wasn't about Yiquette. This really was about you. You can go watch me look terrible. You can go watch me look terrible on my Instagram.

If you scroll all the way down. Yeah, you can watch me look terrible. By the way, I'm not saying you look terrible. I just saying I feel like this was, this segment was really about you. Now, I want you to understand. Once again, what we talked about earlier with the, the unnecessary criticism and the rampant hurt feelings.

Speaking of unnecessary criticism. I literally go, it's not you looking terrible. It's a segment about you. I'm not criticizing your box. Rachel, I have a quick question. Did you comment on the gloves yet? A hundred percent. I don't understand.

It looks like you just got done from a murder. Jason also. I'm the cable of a duller. Someone who accepts me. A mentor of mine a very important man. We recorded, this is not Black Air Force. I'm just kidding. We recorded this interview

last week. Go straight to your car. But we want to... Don't let white people see you. Deliver this interview to you guys. And tell you something before you're about to watch it. Okay. This is one of the most vulnerable most emotionally tough interviews

I've ever been through. Not tough in the sense that Jason was tough or that I was but that when you're talking to Mr. Wilson when you're talking to Jason there's a sense of the truth and comfortability where you just sort of I can't explain it. I can as a

well you're right. It's the comfortable part. You have talked about Jason Wilson multiple times in the podcast. This was my first time actually meeting him and sitting down with him. He did, exceeded whatever expectations I had for him and not because he was trying to, just because he has this way of talking to you that disarms you in a way where, I don't know, I felt, okay, no, I can't explain it. I felt like, I don't know, I just, I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted him to, I wanted him to, I felt like I was melting. I felt like I was also on a cloud.

I don't know. There was just something that was so beautiful about the way he is able to talk to you and break things down, but understand you without even you saying it. There were times in this interview where I wasn't even talking, but he would look at me and he would speak to exactly what it was that I was thinking or that I was feeling. That is a gift. He's anointed.

And for our listeners who are non-religious, I want to let you guys know that Jason is centered by his belief in God. And that is something that comes up in the interview over and over again. However, having said that, still, if you are not a religious person, and we never want to cast everyone in the same light here in higher learning, we try to be as inclusive as possible. If you are not a religious person, there's still plenty in this interview

that just talks about how we relate to one another that I think that you guys will get a lot out of. This is a very long podcast, so if you need to take a break right now and come back, that is okay. But after this break, we are going to talk to Jason Wilson, the author of The Man the Moment Demands

and Cry Like a Man, And Battlecry, the owner and operator of the cave of Vodalum in Detroit, Michigan, and a mentor, personal friend of mine on the other side of this book. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming. You deserve a break that actually satisfies.

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about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Yo, yo! We're going to do a live walk-in from my brother. Man, how you doing?

So nice to meet you, I know. I hear so much about you. community leader, karate expert. I don't know karate. I don't know what you got that from. Wait, what's the martial arts that you did? Several.

Judo, Jiu Jitsu, and Samuitae. Never did karate. Karate is like Kleenex. Everyone says, give me some Kleenex, but there's many forms for brands of tissue. What's the most useful form of self-defense team? The gun first.

Okay. And I would say Jiu Jitsu. Jiu Jitsu. Yeah. Because the fights are going to the ground. Not necessarily. They say 90% of the fights end on the ground, but 100% start standing. So you still need to know how to strike.

But as you know, we tussle. And if a guy's good, he can grapple and close the distance. That means you have one or two punches to knock him out. And that typically doesn't happen in a street fight against someone who's experienced. So I say Jiu-Jitsu, definitely. self-defense Jiu-Jitsu would teach you some striking, deflecting, and then entering and taking down and controlling the threat.

I don't want you to think you can do this. I saw the way that you were looking at him, and I saw you pondering. Did Jitsu be good for him? Yeah, I'm like, I... It'd be good for him. It's funny. So, you know, obviously I box a lot, like, all the time, many days. But Jiu-Jitsu was one of the most challenging things I did when I did try it.

Yes. It's very, very challenging. There's no days off. No days off. The book is The Man the Moment Demands. Yes. It's by Jason Wilson, the best-selling author of Battle Cry. The book, Cry Like a Man, is one of the most important books of my life.

I know if I've ever told you this before. So during a pandemic, I was incapacitated to a level where I was just laying on the ground. I was just laid on the ground. Like I couldn't I wasn't sleeping And so because I Wasn't sleeping I didn't have any energy

I was having heart palpitations I just couldn't I was just laying on the ground And I was when I was laying on my back On the ground just trying to relax I read the book And so I read it And I'd already known you then We'd already known each other for for some years

And I read it from cover to cover Over a couple of days And it deepened my name knowledge of your story, but also of the type of man that I still strive to be. This book is, in my opinion, even more useful than that one. That one, I had a connection to you and to your story. But the man the moment demands is about something I think is very important, which is the idea of a comprehensive man, which I thought it was very important to talk about on the podcast today. Before we get into what makes a comprehensive man and the 10 characteristics of a

comprehensive man, for people that you haven't been on higher learning yet. We've been doing this five years. Been trying to get on. We're trying to get on. We're happy to have you. I'm glad to be here. Tell people a little bit about what it is that you do and how you came to do it. Man, that's a large question to answer because it's a long story behind it. I would say the trauma I've experienced growing up, well, not even myself, but through my family, the intergenerational trauma of my grandfather being lynched and then it affecting my mother's family, you know, her and her siblings being ostracized from their community for the fear of the police doing the same to one of their loved ones. And so they racially terrorized my mother's family because

my grandfather, whose name is Esther's Wright, senior, they didn't want another one ever to rise again. Another black man in Fort Pierce, Florida, to feel like he should be treated as a human being. That tragedy affected my mother and her siblings greatly. Watching my mother struggle with mental health and nervous breakdowns so young, not knowing what to do to answer it, when I became aware of what trauma does to the brain, I realized that we're not meant to hold it. We're meant to release it. And growing up, my brother, I share in cry like a man, was murdered in 1973. And just recently, going through therapy with Nicole, who was my wife, I realized why I have an avoidant attachment style, meaning I kind of reject, like, you know, affection or attention.

Because my mother, I didn't realize this van until maybe three weeks ago in therapy with my wife that I knew my mother was like just out of it. Depressed neighbors had the You know, losing a son the way she did in 1973 was a tragedy. But imagine a three or four-year-old walking around the house trying to get attention and affection from his mother, and she's just checked out emotionally. And that left a major hole in my heart. And I didn't know why I was so detached. I would share stories how I would hold Nicole hand in public.

I have to fight to hold her hand. I thought it was the way I was raised in Detroit, but you couldn't really walk with your girl like that in public or you risk getting beat down, especially. like at concerts, we would see it. But it came from my childhood. I share all of that because all of the trauma and the story, although it started that way, it didn't end that way. My desire turned from, I guess, my time in hip-hop,

glorifying and producing the music that promoted the violence and the trauma. I said, I wanted to do something to heal it. And so instead of complaining about my father wound and the things that I've been through, I wanted to become the solution. And that's where the union nonprofit was birthed. and then the Cave of Adelham, the Transformational Training Academy, where I teach boys how to navigate through their emotions without succumbing to them,

that came from that place of longing to be what I didn't see. And at the time I shared before that when I launched the Cave of Adelham, there were many boot camps and scare straight programs, but you'll be hard pressed to find one now, because you can't expect a child to resolve its trauma by retramatizing him. And so I often say our boys didn't need to be scared straight. They needed to be healed. They didn't need more discipline.

They needed more love. And so that's how my journey got started to where I am today. And actor Lawrence Fishburn and producer produced a documentary award-winning documentary on my work with boys in Detroit called the Cave of Adelam on ESPN Plus. And it just shows the need of a rite of passage for our boys where they can denounce or put away the childish things and become a man. in our community. So you were in the music business. When did you decide I'm going to leave that?

Or maybe you were doing it simultaneously. I'm sorry, I don't know, and decide that you were going to build this program, long-lasting program. That's a great question. I knew the entire time why I was making music and producing that God was calling me the most I was calling me when I was running. I hated church. Like I despised it.

I thought all pastors were pimps. I would, like, you know, how you have this big building, like all these millions in it, but the community around it is suffering. And so that had hardened my heart to even hearing anything from the most, like, I'm not going to answer this call. So in the midst that I'm creating music, the gift that he gave me, I used to push violence, push drug selling, push misogynistic behavior. And one day I produced a song for Red Man. And maybe about six months prior, I had given my life to the most high after almost dying in a car accident. First, that was the first warning. I'm sorry.

The second warning was when I was working at Coca-Cola. And I blasphemed him to my wife, Nicole. And I went to unload this truck, pallet truck like I would do every night. But this time, when I hit the pallet, I couldn't get on the truck. The driver then locked the brakes. So I backed up and I hit the plate harder, got on the edge of the truck, but the weight of the high low pushed the truck away from me and dropped me down onto the cement. That's when I surrendered my life.

Now let me fast forward to the Red Man situation. We're in the kitchen after recording a song and we start talking about religion and faith, and I'm trying to share my faith. His manager comes in and laughing, like, you can't listen to Magi. That's what they called me back then. how can he say he a Christian and he just made this song with us dog and women on it?

And so at that point, that's when I said, you know what, I can't serve two masters. And I said, I can't do this side anymore. I would not prostitute my gift anymore for a problem that I stand against. And that's what changed me. And that's when I still did music and I did it more for the most high.

But the problem was when the music stopped, our children were still dealing with the issues of inadequate supplies at school, food, living environments. Parents still, pretty much many of them had PTSD, stuck in fight or flight, unable to truly parent from their heart, but parenting from their past experiences as well. And that's when I fought to go after the nonprofit status. Thankfully, I laid towel, which is another thing I did. And I bartered with a lawyer.

He had a home in Florida. He says, look, you remodel my half bad. I do all of your paperwork for your non-proach. And I went down there by myself in the heat, gutting his bathroom out, laying the towel myself to make sure we can help the children in Detroit and abroad, and that's what happened. So if I ever told this story to the listeners right now,

I'm going to tell it again. I was, I don't remember how I saw the video. We'll go back to the video. I always talk about the video. I don't remember how I saw the video. But I saw a video of Jason and a young man. And this is a young man. It's got to be almost probably in college now or whatever.

He's actually, he's a senior. He's a senior. Yes. And this is prior to the, like any of the Kanye stuff that had happened at TMD or any of that stuff. And I saw a video and it was of you and it was of a young man and he was struggling in some way. He was frustrated. And he wanted to cry or he was going to. to cry and you allowed him to cry.

Even as I talk about it right now, it's going to fuck with me even still because I think about how I grew up and what I was cut off from and how I had to like what I had to do to prove that I was a man and my dad. My dad, rest in peace of my father,

I'm not trying to, but like it just I just had never seen that. I had never seen somebody give someone the opportunity to kind of like, I could be myself, but I had never seen, there were times when I wanted to cry, when I wanted to be afraid, when I wanted to be fearful, and I wanted somebody to say,

that's okay, but, like, continue and stop and move on. And, like, after that, after seeing that video, I spread it as much as I could, but I remember I was frustrated that I wasn't more famous. Man, you did it. I mean, you did a lot. I remember getting text message. Like, do you know Van Lath?

And I'm like, yeah. That was because the day after the Kanye thing happened. That's what happened. My first post. Oh, that's what it was. When I got famous enough, I even said your name. I still have the video. The day after the Kanye thing, when I got before, I was like, I was telling everybody,

I was like, you got to watch this. You got to watch this. But I was frustrated. I wasn't famous enough. People didn't listen. me enough. The day after the Kanye thing happened, the next video, after all of myself, I was like, I'm not a hero, don't listen to me, don't put your sock in me. This guy here is doing amazing things and then I tagged you. And since then, just watching, even since then,

the evolution of the cave and people's understanding of the cave and your trajectory as being a voice that really talks about what young men. men need in order to be comprehensive men, you never cease to inspire me. And knowing you, I know that you have your own things in your life that you also have to deal with. There's being a husband and there's being a father to two beautiful kids, big head legs. And your son who is now nine feet tall. Yeah, 17 year old now. He was a kid when I first met him.

I'm just wondering if there's any fatigue, brothers, your community, people like me, everybody is leaning on you. I get in trouble. I'm missing my dad. I call you. Everyone's calling you. Is there any fatigue? Are you tired in any way?

I think it's compassion fatigue is real in the work that I do. vicarious trauma. I'm taking on what people are dealing with, especially the boys who can't process what they're experiencing. Our children interpret what's happening. And that's where we as parents have to become mentally healthy because as they interpret, they start believing lies instead of knowing the truth.

And so, yes, I don't want to say it's a perpetual state of being tired. You learn to live with it. And as a warrior, what I do, I prioritize rest and recovery. Do I do it as much as I should? Not necessarily. Sometimes as in war, some planes have to fuel while they're in the air and to keep fighting.

And so I understand that my calling is not about me. I deny myself a lot of those pleasures, meaning I carry a cross. I don't wear one around my neck. I carry it. And so with that comes of fatigue. But then it, man, I don't lean on me.

I do understand what you're asking. Yeah, absolutely, man. It gets weary, but there's no weary when I'm doing good things. You know, the scriptures say don't be weary and well-doing, so I fight and I keep going. Because, you know, I don't, I mean, I don't love this place. I don't know about you. Like, earth and this country, this world is not, I don't live for this. I live for after this.

There is no, nothing here that brings. me joy, like except my children, my wife, and of course you being able to do these things, but the end goal for me is to be at home resting with my Abba in heaven. And so with that being said, I'm a good soldier. A good soldier doesn't get caught up in civilian affairs. He's focused on the task that the one sent him to do. And so I feel the fatigue. I rest when I can, but I get up. Like Nehemiah, the man who were building the wall, they had a lot. They had a weapon in one hand and a hammer in the other because I have to be on guard and it's the emotional side to it. That's the fatigue that gets me. It's just caring when you have kids beautiful young

boys who one of them would tie a noose around his neck because the kids didn't like him at school and not thankfully his parents are beautiful. They immediately brought him to the cave early and I was able to unpack all of the lies and everything, but how many kids don't have that? And so when I think of the fatigue, brother, I say, I got to endure to the end. I rest, I prioritize getting in bed at least by 10 o'clock, and then I rise early at five. But I believe it just comes with the work, you know. It comes with being a servant. And as long as I keep my eyes off of me and where they need to be, I'll make it until it's

It's over. The book, The Man, the Moment Demands. I see the title. If I was walking through the bookstore and I would see it and I would say, I don't know, as a woman, if I should read the book. And I'm sure the answer is, yes, I should. So I would love for you to tell me and I'm very excited to read it. Why, as a woman, should I read this book?

One woman told me it helped her, especially with raising her teenage daughter, to really have a blueprint of what the men they really should be seeking or making themselves available for. Meaning society teach women to look for what in the man? You tell me. I mean, a provider. Provider, stability is the number one thing women want. For men, we want what? Safe and then safety.

Peace. Peace. So women want stability. Relax. Relax. Not a peace. So now, this was different. I often say this.

When you become like my age and you're mature and you're grounded, you don't really aren't concerned about a piece of like some sex. You just want peace. We'd rather have some sleep than sex some nights. Okay? Now, so for men, it's peace for women. It's stability. So besides stability, what else like the culture teaches women to look for in men?

I mean, I would say a provider. I would say strength. I would say safety. You're being real political now. how he looks, how tall he is. So I'm at the point where that don't matter. I'm like, yes, when I was in my 20s for sure. Exactly.

Now I'm just like, everything I'm made, I'm coming off a divorce. Let me tell you what I need. Okay, I got you. Well, so you know, you're learned. Yes, the hard way. But for the majority of young women, girls, and mature women, you know, society teaches them to look at the exterior before looking inside of a man. Of course, us, you know, and I tell.

men all the time, especially men of the faith, they'll say they want the virtuous woman in Proverbs 31 verse 10 through 31 where it talks about this industrious woman. King Lemieux, who describes this woman, says she's hard to find. What brothers miss is that he never describes her physical attributes. Everything he brags about this woman talks about is how industrious she is, how he gets honor off of her, how she prays, how she works. So it's like, as brothers, we're looking for. the wrong things in a woman. We wonder why we're miserable. It's like you look at a Ferrari and say,

well, I want that car. But you wouldn't want to drive that car every day. It has a rough ride. You know, we're looking for the wrong things in our women. So back to your question, this book, The Man, the Moment Demands, give you a blueprint of the type of man you would want to marry. So someone that's comprehensive. Someone who, providing, that's just one thing. Perfecting, that's just two things. If a man can't get outside those two characteristics, you will not be fulfilled as a woman. Your children won't have a nurturer because all he is used to doing is providing and protecting. He won't be able to be a true leader because most men think that being a leader is rooted in intimidation, not cooperation. Then you have the gentleman attribute or the characteristic as

well. How many men still believe that the alpha male concept is real? There was never a battle between two wolves to see who would be the dominant alpha. It's been debunked for you. It's been debunked for and we still are gravitating to this concept, the alphas in a wolf pack were the male and female wolves, leading a family. So if you want to be an alpha in a human sense, get married and have a family. You want to change the community.

I have young men who desire to be activists and change the community. I look at their hands, where's your wedding ring? Why aren't you committed to a woman? Where's your family? Can't build a village without at least one hut. Then you're going to need two huts. then three, then four. Those are families. Those are units that come together to create the community.

So when you have a man that can go between the fighter, the fighter, the provider, the provider, the leader, the lover, the nurturer, the gentleman, the friend, the husband, the father, and the son, now he's comprehensive. He's no longer locked into the limited definition of just being masculine. Like, I'm very masculine, but I'm also a nurturer. Just because I'm a nurturer doesn't mean I'm feminine. So if you can't, and then more importantly for a woman, women need a man who not only can be there for them emotionally, but who also has evolved to the place in life where he can open up his heart to you. These, for a man to master all 10 characteristics, he has to allow himself to be open, meaning putting himself in positions where like in this early in this moment, you wanted to release the tears. Like so often when you were a child, we taught big boys don't cry. No pain, no gain. I know the love you have for your father. When you first came to Detroit, you stayed on the phone with him hours until the morning, actually when I picked you up for the airport.

That's still unresolved pain there. It's still there. There's other things that I want to even share publicly that that's why I called you when he passed. I know that I'm more than just like a mentor or a big brother to you. To some extent, I'm like a father. but I want to free you from misconstrued masculinity or misunderstanding of what that is so that you can finally be free as a human being. So the reason I say this is a great book for you, now you can move past the superficial things that society has taught women. And especially what you've been through, you've been through a divorce for what you just shared. You want to make sure this time that, you know, I don't know what caused it. But one of the main reasons for divorce is a lack of communication. And to the defense of men, when men open up for the first time, a lot of times it's a shock to women

because we've been conditioned to believe that we should stay stoic, strong, perpetually strong. So here it is. What you want is what stability, now that stability is shaken because you see the man who provides that, he's shaken. And so once he feels that he can't even open up to you, now he represses that. And now you wonder why we die by suicide three to four times. likely as women. While we commit, believe it's over 80% of homicides in the United States alone, why nine out of ten people who live to be over 100 are women, not men. We're repressing more than we can express. So you want a man who can not only be strong, provide, protect,

be dominant, but also compassionate, sensitive, a nurturer, someone who looks past a child's offense to him because he's the father and looks to dig deeper, like, Like, what caused my child to act this way? When I look at my wife Nicole, I look deeper into her. I try to find the little girl in her. Because typically what you see, how we respond as adults, comes from childhood. And so that's why that book is powerful. I juxtapose the masculine male versus the comprehensive man in the first chapter.

So you can see the contrast. You mentioned filling fear as a young man. I actually did a YouTube video. I don't know if you saw it where I used the story you told about when you riding the horse and your father came to like rescue or so I can't recall exactly. My dad, it hit me. Yeah, I was on the, I was on a horse by myself and my dad just for me, no, no, no, I was a kid. I had this horse called, a name of the Long Ranger, my dad put me on a horse.

And then I hit the horse and the horse took off. And I was on a horse by myself. and like I'm on the horse by myself. I'm holding on to the pommel for dear life, but then I see him. Like I see him. Like I see him. There he is.

Like here he comes. I see the look on his face. Everybody else is like, oh, ride that horse, boy, ride that horse. You know what I mean? All the men in the family. But I see him and it's okay. And like I see the fear in his face though.

he is scared. Like it's his son. And I remember just like locking in on that. And it was funny because like after it had died down, he was like, damn boy. Like he was proud that I had held on. But in the moment that I was on the horse by myself,

I had hit the horse and he had taken off, he was scared. He was a little pissed off. But also that moved me. Because, and I'm sharing this to tie into your question about the book, my father, one day I was swimming at a swimming pool, and my mother was on the deep end, she was a really good swimmer. My father couldn't swim.

So she told me specifically to stay in the shallow area. And, you know, boys, I start drifting off into the deeper end. Anyway, I lost my footing, and I started going under. My dad was seated just like I am. I'm struggling in the water maybe about on the other side of this tape. The fear you saw, I saw. In him, yeah. He couldn't get out the chair because he couldn't swim.

My mother had to swim the length of the pool to get me. I shared that because my father never shared with me that he was scared. That's something I had to figure out after you shared that story. Because I had no idea that that somewhere in my mind told me that he didn't. didn't love me, that I wasn't valuable enough for him to risk his life for me. And see, and there goes, that's this, the problem of having to be fearless. No man or woman can be fearless, because we all know if you have children especially, they're like our hearts walking outside our bodies. Everyone has something that they love that they're scared to lose. Without fear, there's no

room for courage. So what we teach our boys is to feel fear, but to move through it, don't succumb to In that moment, my father was very masculine, very strong. But in that moment, he was terrified. And because he never had an opportunity to feel fear. And like you were saying, a man to help him push through it, he was frozen. How many men are like that right now in life? The fear of commitment to a woman, the fear of even a high school, I got to go to college now.

And no one there is saying, it's okay to be overwhelmed right now. I had to tell one of my top students that I want you to know, hey, it's normal to be nervous. You're transitioning into another level of manhood. He says, thank you. I thought that was something wrong with me. So when you give me in that freedom, and that's why this book is powerful, because it's almost like a final chapter for me in manhood, because it took years for me to get to where I am, to be the man the moment demands, to be able to walk into situations that will. make me cry and still where I feel like a man. Be Simone podcast I just did recently.

Actually, in January, I could barely get up. I was sick prior. But the most I said, I need you to go down and tell her something. She had been praying. I didn't even know what it was. And I answered it. I was so weak that he could use me. And to the point where I'm comfortable in who I am as a man,

I was able to pray over and still cry because she needed to see his love through me in that moment. how many of us as men can't truly express the heart of what we feel because of this image that we have to like uphold as a man and that's that's the biggest struggle so for women this book will get you past the facade i tell men all the time there's no freedom in the facade the Superman cape is finally it's strangling us strangling the life out of us and we have to get to the place where we can no longer complain about feeling unappreciated always having to do something with someone when we constantly have this superhero costume on.

Take it off and understand that you're a human being. And that way, you know, we'll not only have, it'll be beneficial to our family, but also to us. And many of us, sadly, we forget that we too are a part of the family. For, I think a couple things. There's a pushpool going on in a society right now where I'm hearing more voices like you that are exploring, a deeper investigation of manhood and masculinity

that has to do with service and openness and healing. But there's also a tremendous movement and has been a tremendous movement to look at manhood and masculinity in a very singular view that orients the man as the center of the universe and everyone around him as sort of servants or plebs to him, whether it be hypermasculinity, toxic masculinity,

whether it be the alpha male syndrome, any of that stuff. And it's gaining traction. What do we do? Like, how do you convince a man that there's strength in vulnerability, that there's strength in slowing things down, there's strength and service, that it's not necessarily all about you? How do you make the version of manhood that's being perverted right now into something that benefits the society and the family?

What do you do? Well, I guess first, there is no strength in vulnerability. That's not accurate. And I had to have that word removed out of that book after I wrote it. Being vulnerable means you're. susceptible to an attack. You could be harmed or killed. Like, if a gunman was to come in here now and we're not armed, we're vulnerable.

No man ever wants to be vulnerable. I never want my family or children in a vulnerable position. However, it's wise for a man to be emotionally open and transparent with those that he love and those that he can trust. Unfortunately, there's not enough men mature enough to teach that message about manhood. But as far as the so-called, I guess, alpha males or men who are pushing that narrative, this I call it monofaceted manhood where you're just stuck in first gear, when I meet with these men, they're completely different.

I meet with men who are called alpha males who reach out to me. They're miserable. It's a defense mechanism. It's a shield against something that happened to them. that I would never be punked out again or tested again. A woman would never hurt my feelings again. Once you do that, make that type of pronouncement, the right woman who would never hurt you the way that you've been hurt,

you blocked her. A situation that you probably should have bowed out from a confrontation, you hit me head on. Now you get shot and killed or you're incarcerated because you murdered a man because you already programmed that I would never back down again. And so I guess the first thing that needs to be, you know, to be done, of course, is what I try to do, is to be a voice. Like, here, no, this is really the option.

Majority of men are miserable. Men who has got the suits, the cars, the majority of millionaires I know are miserable. I think I asked you to how many millionaires we know that aren't happy living. Yeah, like, come on, man. And so here it is you're painting this picture of what it is to be a man, but even in that, there's misery. Men are emotionally incarcerated, so we hide behind the suits, the cars, the cigars, the women on our arms. But there's no peace in it. So for me, it's just modeling it, being a light to men who really want a way out of that.

When I see those men, I see straight through them. And so it's not, I'm not even alarmed by it. I just, my prayer is that one day my platform would increase to the point where the younger men and the men who are trapped in. into this type of mindset that I could give them an option out. I don't think there's a single answer to it except model it. I mean, how many brothers you know esteemed marriage? I mean, you've got relationship coaches who aren't even married. Like, how is this?

How can you teach me about how to stay married? I've been married 26 years, been with the same woman 32 years now faithful. How can someone tell me how to do that? It's never been through it. You can't even stay dating someone. And so it's, and even that guy, I'm gracious to because there's a cause to that. And so when you get men to, again, I guess a good answer, bro, being solution-oriented, maybe I could do a tour one day where I do, like, in different cities where a closed room for all men to talk,

to unpack these things, like, why aren't we fully living, I guess purpose-filled lives. Where's the fears? Where is our trauma? Where is how are these emotional losses preventing us from truly being a man in the moment? And that's why I tell men, that's that I titled it that

because how many of us are the wrong man in the moment? And so I guess that's a solution, brother, is maybe do maybe a tour and get spaces where men feel safe. We'll need cameras and say, hey, let's talk. Let's just get to the problem and get to the root cause of what's going on. And I think it starts there. Right now, it's, you know, it's too much content. And people believe that that is the solution. And it's not, it's really when the lights are off.

You know, that's why, man, we struggled to find rest. That's why we grind ourselves away. But when I take the phones away and we go in a room like this and we start talking and I give them the floor, can you share with me what's hurting you right now? The tears flow freely. And these are real like what you would call, but they were labeled hypermasculine. These are real men. Men are tired of having to keep the facade up.

They want camaraderie. They want to open up to their wives, but they fear that they're being passively dismissed and to have that feeling again to feel like you, you know, you weak, pusillanimous. No man wants that. But yeah, let's do a tour. or something. I don't know.

You kind of, you touched on it a little bit there in the last part of what you were saying, but on this podcast, we joke, we talk about gender wars all the time. And there seems to be a lot of that that's just out there. And it's popular and people joke about it, but it's a real thing because, you know, to your point of what you were saying earlier about why, you know, people have to forces or they break up or separate, it's lack of communication. And listening to everything that you're saying, it makes me want to, under, and I'm talking black here.

And I don't know if everything, you're just talking about men or black men. But in my mind, you're just talking about black men. I'm talking about me. I used to think it was a black men's thing when I wrote cry like a man. But prior to that, no, no, actually before that, when the video went viral, I thought it was just, we struggled with that. When I got calls from all over the world because of that video, men crying from different nations to our women's staff saying I wish I would have had a man who gave me that opportunity. that's when I realize it's a man thing. So go to your point.

No, I mean, that's a good distinction. I mean, it's important that you highlighted that for, we have a very diverse audience. How is a woman, can I understand men better? I really keep wanting to say black. I mean black. It's okay. I want to say black man.

How, as a black woman, can I understand black men better or support black men in a better way? And whether it's friendship, whether it's partnership, how can I do that? Heal. Me, heal? Yes. Black women are hurting. I share it with my wife one time after doing a podcast with three of our friends. I can't recall the time I've seen a black woman openly cry.

Well. Yeah. Well, I mean, I see your eyes now. I try not to go there with you. No, you can go there with me. I welcome it. I welcome it. I welcome your tears because when you cry, you're actually releasing stress hormones.

And it's a signal that, again, what these cameras see, they need to see this. What the cameras see, it's not really what's going on. So the way you can support black men is for you to heal yourself. For so long, our women have been carrying the weight and you're feeling disregarded at times. And I speak for a lot of us, and when I talk to these, men, they want to love you. It's a system set up and it starts from here. But for you to become supportive, like, you got to take care of yourself, you got to heal. If you went through a divorce, I don't know how many years, many relate that to having a funeral. You're literally separating

what was once won. And so society tells us to keep going and keep moving. And now that, you know, women have far advanced from where society had tried to place them in this small box where it would say a woman's places in the kitchen and you fought and rebelled against it. Now you're able to stand on your own, but you're still lonely. You still want the covering of a man, which is nothing wrong with that. It's not. You just want the right man. But you have to heal. Same thing with me. I'm still going through that right now, healing the little boy inside of me so that I can become even.

even a better husband to Nicole. But I'm saying, instead of looking outward, look inward, I used to lay ceramic towel, as I shared before. When the towel cracks, we call them stress cracks. Someone who was inexperienced would just fix the towel, would break the towel up and replace the towel. Then a crack would come back. The problem is not at the surface.

It's underneath. It's in the substrate in the foundation. Your heart is broken, and it needs to heal. You can't support anything if it's cracked. If the foundation of who you are is cracked, there's nothing you can support. Everything you try to stack on it will fall. And that's why so many women are misled by their emotions. And I get asked a lot, could I do the cave for women just to give a basic understanding of how to control this?

Because you're more tapped in than we are to the emotions. You're more vulnerable, truly vulnerable to them at times. And so I would just ask you to just take time for yourself and heal. You know, it's, I love the fact that you desire to help us as men. But I tell men the same thing. You're going to ruin a woman trying to lead her and you're a mess. Let's work on you. Let's take some time on you.

That's why a lot of men are terrified of getting married because they can't fake it once you say I do. Now she sees everything about you. She sees, oh, he's scared sometimes. Oh, he does have emotional wounds. Oh, oh, okay. He gets nervous when the pressure is heavy. Yes, he's a human being. But until men find comfort in that shell,

that it's okay to be fallible, then you'll see, we're going to constantly see these conflicts. What's the saying hurt people, hurt people? I say they keep hurting people. And so women, I would suggest, focus on healing. The man, we got to do our own thing. We got to, like a friend of mine last night asked me at dinner. No, his wife asked me, how can I help him through what he was dealing with?

I said, you can't. He won't listen to you, unfortunately. But he will listen to me, which is why I was at the dinner table. Van, you could tell him the same thing I'm telling you. But if he hear it from me, because if his father won and other things, he'll receive it differently, you need women to support you. You guys need to block together because so many of you are hurting. And that's why I welcome your tears because just as men, we deserve the freedom to cry, look how strong our women had to be. Like when a woman loses empathy, compassion, the freedom to cry, to show that love that,

boys will run through a wall for their mother. When that goes, our community is done. They tried to take the black man out to home, systemically as we know through history. You take the woman away, it's over. And so as men, we need to, you know, we say got to protect her. We need to heal first so we can stop harming her.

And that's what we, and it's the same thing with you. If you're focusing on supporting us and you're not healed, you're bringing past relationships into this relationship, you're hurting him. And this is how it happens. This is how the enemy uses it to cause conflict. And you look at the community, everyone's separate.

So just this heal. And I thank you for sharing that side because, you know, again, you asked the band's first question, is, am I tired? Yeah, but I keep fighting. I let people know how I feel. I'm to the place now. I don't care if a person try to use it against me, I'm going to peep you anyway.

Then if that's the case, I'm done with you, but I would never go back into emotional incarceration. I know what that feels like. I know what depression feels like. I know what unresolved anger feels like. I know what fear of failure looks like and feels like. I know what the lack of confidence feels like. I'm not going back there anymore.

And so I suggest that for you, instead of always used to pouring out of your cup, you know, a great analogy of, this bottle here, you keep pouring yourself out and take the top off. All the water represents your love, compassion, sacrifice, nurturing into a man that can't contain it. Eventually it's going to spill over onto the floor and you're wasting it. You have to learn how to retain some of that for yourself. Pour enough in where he knows that you love him. But as men, you know, we fight over some of the most meaningless things.

But when it calls for us to fight introspectively and deal with what we're stopping us to become the man the moment the man, we run. And I get it. Because we've been programmed any emotion outside of feeling strong and brave and courageous, you're weak. There is no healing there. There is no reconciling there. There is no relationship.

We're both humans. We both are hurting until we both acknowledge that. there will not be any healing. Thank you. So I want to ask you something specifically to me now. So over the past, I would say six months, I've had real, I would put this, I've had real arguments put it like this with three different guys who are like notable guys over three different things. And these are men who I all respect.

All three of them I respect. All three of them I got love for them. One was over a misunderstanding about something that happened on social media. The other one was about an interview here. And something that had happened. And then the last one was about something that I said when I was on another show and somebody that was calling me to talk to me about it. And after every single interaction, I felt bad.

everyone. And the reason is because somebody's calling you and they're talking to you, but I'm getting to a point where I realize that me, the first guy that this happened with is somebody who have like a ridiculous, tremendous amount of respect for, right? But I realized at a certain point that him and I were checking

each other's temperature. And we both had to leave the phone call feeling like the other person didn't, that there was a line. that the other person didn't encroach upon the other person. The second one was just somebody that said something to me, and I was like, yo, call me right away. And just, you know, just be honest with you. Like, the first thing I said was, yo, I got a lot of respect for you,

but like, who the fuck do you think you're talking to? Like, you know, it's van. Like, why would you think you could say that to me? And then the last one, I once again, I tried to maintain my patience. and I tried and I tried to listen. But I felt somebody filibustering on the other side of the call. I felt somebody cut me off.

I felt somebody raising their voice. And it just gets to a certain point when that happens. And I go, listen, I've asked you to respect me. We can continue talking on this phone or we could talk the next time I see you. And I can't stop myself from doing it. It's like as much as I used to look at my daddy and be like, yo, why are you, like, why are you, I seen them on the job site, just, just like literally say, it was like, okay, well, we can do this, so I'll just, I'll come back here and I'll use the gun on you.

Like, you guys, I've seen him take out the gun, I've seen him shoot it, and I would just be like, yo, it's not that serious. Like, what are you doing? I would watch it over and over and over again. I watch him tell a man, like, he'd do this thing where he would, he would look to the side And when he looked to the side, I was like, God, please let us get out of here without something happened. Because the look to the side meant, I know you're not fucking with me right now. Because if I feel like you are, now we have a real problem.

And everyone knew what it meant. My mama used to freak out. I used to freak out. Everybody used to freak out. And I'm getting to this point to where I'm like, I'm on the phone. There's a disagreement. I want to negotiate this disagreement like you. I want to be, well, you got to.

You know what I want to, you know what I'm talking about talking about Michael Jackson. Like, no, no, but like I want to project that type of strength without emoting in the way that I can't do it. I get to the point to where I'm like, now I feel like he's playing with me. Like he's playing with me. I got to let him know what to happen. I feel like he's playing with me. He's playing with me. I feel like I got to let him know what happened.

If you play with me, I can't be the one to get played with. I can't be the one that gets messed over. And I'm in therapy. I'm trying Where did that come from? What you just said I can't be played I can't be messed over

I can't Where did that come from? You said it early Your father Yeah That's where it came from That hat It's an honor to him

It's the way you heal I saw it when you put it on You're still trying to navigate through that pain. Man, bro. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna lose it on the pocket. It's all good, man. It's all good.

But you ask the answer to your question. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why. Like, I couldn't imagine someone talking to me like that. Like, click, I don't have time to engage. Yeah. When you've been through a lot like I've had, I've been through, I don't, if I, you see me go to a night.

other gear, it's too late. You know, if I'm in that gear, you can ask Nicole, there is no more talking because that means reason is over. I was trained, like, let me try to resolve this peacefully. Because once it goes to another level, we're already there. And so why are you there? And it's not, you're on a phone. Yeah.

That comes from the little boy van. You're trying to heal. it's Van Lathen what now on your handle? Right. It wasn't that always. Right. Yeah. I see it. I just stay back into the moment is right to talk to you. So that's why these things are happening. That's why maybe something you said did offend the brothers.

I did something recently. Not necessarily me, something happened where a father was offended because his son didn't acknowledge him on a video. I deleted them boys. I don't care about no likes. and I share videos in the cave to encourage people. And parents, we got over 800 kids on a waiting list. Do you know I called this man? I said, man, I'm sorry, brother.

He was like, well, no, my son, I'm just surprised. He didn't say that he was just with me. I said, no, I want you to hear me. I'm sorry. It wasn't necessarily my fault. I'm so confident in who I am. It don't make me feel weak. He was like, man, I know that's horrible.

You know, it's not. I'm wrong. So first, you've got to acknowledge the offense. So a lot of these arguments happen because if a brother said, hey, man, it bothered me that you said that. First thing you need to say, forget the intent. You got to understand the impact. We always say it wasn't my intent. Who cares?

What was the impact? So I always say, hey, bro, I said what? I'm sorry, man. That wasn't my intent, but the impact wasn't right. I'm sorry. That's from the door, from man to man. After that, now let's talk. You know, let's work through this.

And so, but again, if you haven't healed, you, man, you got, you have a lot there. You got to work through that van, and it takes time. And so I would suggest with those three brothers, clearly, first when you say you respect, highly respect them. I mean, I respect all three of them. Okay, well, great. They all, if you offended them, because this wouldn't have happened if you wouldn't have said something, correct? Right. Right.

You need to apologize to those brothers. So you got to understand that they're men, too, just like you. If I said something to hurt you and you call me, irate, I'm quiet for one. I'm trying to, I'm going to let you air out, vent. Then I'm going to say, first things first, I'm sorry. That disengages everything. I used to do security. I never wanted to fight nobody.

It was all psychology to me. Drug deal I know. Like, that's the last guy I want to fight is the drug deal. They know where I'm at. I'm at the club. I don't know where they are. I said, hey, look, I don't want to look. I don't want to look bad and you don't want to look bad.

How can we resolve this? When they yell in irate, I give them the floor. I said, man, I feel everything you said, no way. He did disrespect you. Let's walk out here so we can talk about this. You never want to make a man feel like he's weak. And so if you hurt him, you know, again, we, the surface emotion, the exercise in there called the earthquake of emotions is anger.

If we're sad, we're angry. We depressed, we angry. We lust and after something we can't get. We become angry. That's easy. That's child play. The real emotions that we need to express is at the hypocenter. The epicenter is the surface.

The hypocenter is where the earthquake begins. That's where all the emotions sit that we repress as men. So instead of going straight to anger, I need to say I'm depressed. Instead of going straight to anger, I need to say I'm fearful. instead of going straight to anger, I need to say, I'm insecure. When you stop,

the earthquake, when you start to stop, stop the, at the hypolson, you express those emotions first. There is no earthquake. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to,

I don't know what to do. Expound, what do you mean, know what to do? I, um, I don't know what to do. Like, it,

and I, I'm running up against something in my life where I like I see on the podcast sometimes like overwhelming her or like taking up too much space or I don't know

there's I don't know how to explain it like I don't know what to do to be comfortable in who I am enough to be a little bit more trusting in the people around me. What are the lies you believe about yourself? What is everything negative?

If you, you are my sharing, what's everything negative you believe about yourself? Um, that I have to be more at all times. Uh, that at a certain point that if I do enough,

like, when my, when my, when my dad died, like, I lost the opportunity. that, like, really gain his respect. And I've been chasing it for, like, a long time for him to, like, you know,

kind of look at me like he looked at himself. When I was a kid, I was tall in him, he used to make me sit down on the ground when he would talk to me. It never seemed like he wanted me to be, like, as big as what I was everywhere else. So everywhere else, I was super big. And, like, whatever, when I was around him, I had to be a lot smaller. I just wanted to be like big in front of him. I just wanted to have my personality

and have all of that stuff. And now I was done. It's like nothing you could do. It just kind of is the way it is and you've got to figure out how you don't overwhelm everybody else in your life because you're still looking for one thing. It's like it's impossible.

So when, if I feel fucked over or if I feel somebody's like, I'm like, you're not going to make me sit down on the ground. It's like, I'm not going to sit down on the ground for you. Like, I would rather look like an idiot. You know what I'm saying? So it's like, I don't know, man. But I'm trying everything.

It's just I can't get to it. Like, I just, I can't get to it. It's just, it's hard. It's hard. Nothing is, nothing is making me feel connected to them. Name changed the hat. I just can't get to him. You're, the hat, the name change, seriously.

Yeah. It's not the path. Those are things you're doing, those are coping mechanisms. For some reason, I believe that you feel even responsible for even the way that you feel. And that's why I would tell you, and I'm going to tell you now, as a man, how old was your dad? When he passed away? Yeah. 65. All right. So I'm 10 years younger than him, and I be 55 this year. I'm proud of you. Like, you got to understand, majority of men of his era where he grew up at, they couldn't express that, man. He probably, more than likely, felt the same way by himself as you do now. Majority of people who are mean-spirited, putting people through not your dad's mean-spirited, but in general who make it hard.

for the next person, typically a very miserable, unhappy. If I had met your dad already, know I talked to too many men, his age as well. He didn't know how to express the love for you the same way my dad didn't. The pain I tried my best to be the apple of his eye, but always felt like the worm and the fruit, never good enough. It's not about the hat. It's not about the name change. It's about here.

what you are believing about yourself. You're phenomenal. The things that you're doing, like I told you on your first podcast, the red pill, and it was hard for you to receive the affirmation then. You have to believe someone, I'm not going to lie to you.

When I walked in here, I was so proud of you, really proud of you, what you've accomplished with all you're dealing with inside. Your father didn't have the capacity. passy to tell you that, but I tell you that. If you was my son, I'd be highly pleased.

How you carry yourself? Yeah, you're going to make mistakes. You're young, son. Don't be hard on yourself. Learn or you won't be able to grow. Manhood is not, there's not a place we reach in it. It's constant evolving. That's what causes distress. We think there's a point of arrival.

It's not. Look at the awards you've done. I see it all. When you have a man who's hurting and he's not used to expressing the love that he has, a lot of times it's fear-based parenting where they show you the negatives more than the positive just to make sure you don't fail.

But I'm proud of you. You just have to believe it. When my father died, I helped him heal. I wasn't healed. I said to him that, things that he needed to heal. In the process, I finally heard him say, I love you, son, for the first time in my life at 37 years of age. But when he left this earth, I was still wounded. I didn't have a cowboy hat because my dad wasn't around horses. He, you know what I mean? Seriously,

like, if I had that, I'm sure I would, I would have worn one. Right. But I'm glad I didn't because I needed to go back and heal. And there's things I retreats, I can refer to you that I think you to try. Yeah, and I need you to, you know, it's called psychodrama where you can actually go back to those moments where he sat you on the floor. See, you looked at it as him, you never being tall as him or big as him.

I was taller. No, no, I'm saying in that position, like he never wanted you on his level. That's what you saw, am I correct? I just want to make sure I'm correct. What if it was a position of him just teaching? See, remember children, we interpret. We can't process.

The brain doesn't mature until we're 25. All of these things, these lies. Like with my dad, I had to apologize recently on the YouTube video to him because he wasn't actively in my life. My dad had a job, man. He was a barber. He didn't own the shop. And in the late 70s, in the 80s, when I won him at my games,

on a Saturday morning, that's when all the clients come. And I had to apologize. But it took for me to let my son down because I had to open the floor for him. Where's daddy failing? He said that he wished I could have been at more games this season. I had to work. And in that, I was convicted like, wait a minute. My father didn't deserve to be cast in the light where he just neglected me.

That wasn't the case. And I had to apologize. Yeah, he could have been more active. Yeah, he could have been more comprehensive as a man. In that day and time, there was no conversations like this. A man couldn't share tears in front of his boys. They would drink, shoot pool, play cars, and go through it, push through. I had to, in freeing him, I freed myself.

Maybe you got it backwards. Maybe you need to free him. give him some grace and his failures and release him so that you can finally live. But I'm telling you, there's no greater lie than you to think that you're not gifted, beautiful, accomplished. You're not even my son and I walked in here

proud of you. The hat, your father's too big for that. His memory's too big for that. The junior, that's an honor, but he's too big for that. He means too much to you. And that's what I'm telling you, brother. it's, we're so focused on doing something

that we don't sit still enough to actually do us right. And that's to heal, as I was telling you, stillness is powerful. Sometimes the solution won't come that fast. But I'm telling you a lot of things as when young boys we misinterpreted. My father loved me. I had old customers of his,

nothing but the most high. Crossed my path at a vitamin store. Hey, I just want to let you know your dad really loved you, man. I'm like, what dad do you talk about? And he would just tell me stories because I couldn't see it because I was so young. I only saw the discipline. He just wanted to make sure

that I didn't end up like my brother Larry. Who knows what your dad had been through, Van? I'm sure there's a lie he never told you. Give him the freedom to be released. in that I believe you'll find your healing because right now you're identified with the negative things he did and you're missing probably

everything that he did that was great until I went to this retreat I never saw I missed everything that my dad tried to do he didn't know how to say I'm sorry his sorry was hey can I get you a game

that was I'm sorry to him I'm son I messed up. Dad heart is hurting. I shouldn't have spoke to you that way. He couldn't say those words. That era, remember, he's a generation or so maybe away from slavery, bro. That generation of men stayed in fight or flight because they didn't know what would happen to their families.

Truly fear-based parenting. He showed you he was scared when you almost, he thought you may fall off that horse. Yeah. That's love. that's the problem with trying to be fearless. The message it sends is that you really didn't love it, but you got to understand the lie in that.

When a man run through bullets for his family and his wife, it's really not courage, it's love. Love is the foundation for all of those actions. So your father loves you, dude. He did. You just got to let go of everything else. if somehow he could see this, see you suffering, you think he's at peace?

No. You're his beloved son. Accomplished. And you're willing to evolve? You're taking the lineage even further. You're doing things that he could only dream of. You just got to believe it and walk in it and let go of the things that are hindering you. things you cannot change, let them go and live in the moment.

This is my last question. I got to know. Is the cave for young men or grown men? Because I need to know if I need to be posted outside of this when they get released. Yeah. I need to tell the girls. So that question is asked often and I feel that the most high is leading me to create a cave for men. The fathers who were there now are on me.

Like, when they see me working with their sons, they're like, Jay, that's me. How can I get this? And so, yes, that's my plan. I have to, of course, wait for the right timing because I need someone to replace me for the boys. But, yeah, I mean, when men heal, it's really, it's a, it's, it's, game is over. Yeah. And I'm talking about, you know, I remember I told. one guy, white brother actually at a conference, MMA fighter.

And I could tell he was tough, you know. He says, man, my son, it's like we're disconnected, you know, and make a long story short, he was just trying to make him tough. I said, my man, you're missing it. He says, what? I said, look at you. So I had to go show him in the mirror. I said, you're the full embodiment of toughness.

He's going to be that. And I broke it down a little more plainer. I always wanted the Conorcoorsal, you know, the dog. And before little Jay was born, I was going to buy one and name him son. And so I talked to the breeder, I believe it was in Tennessee. And he says, will the dog be around children? I say, yes. He was like, great.

He said, well, I need you to bottle feed this dog for two to three weeks. He said, well, I got to do that with this dog. He already knows how to fight. I need him to become a nurture. to become softer. So I told the dad that he was like, started tearing off, he was like, I see my son longing for that side of me.

When the world gets to see the nurturing side of a man because it looks different than a woman, it's over. When world leaders get empathy and still don't feel like they're weak because another leader challenged him, he's bigger than that. Like, man, those are just words.

It's nothing to me. Because this decision I make could wipe you out and people who are innocent. So I'm going to process this with my team. I'm not going to make an emotional decision because of that. When that can happen, when you got these world leaders who got these childhood wounds of abuse and abandonment and their positions to literally make one decision that could compromise the lives of millions, came over. That's why when you asked me, was I tired early? Of course, because of what I do every day.

And he uses everything around me to get me distracted. But because I'm a warrior and I've been trained to fight, bring it on. My kids, you know, I give an analogy of the Avengers scene at the end when the alien, Iron Man led the alien to the Avengers and Bruce Banner rise up on a little motorcycle. And Captain America come over and say, hey, right now it might be a good time for you to become a angry. And he says, that's my secret, Captain. I'm always angry. That's my secret. I'm always angry at the injustice. The kids having to deal with everything mentally. The parents are overwhelmed. Someone I admire and love is still questioning how valuable he is as a man, as a sister, young daughter to me pretty much because of my age. You're having to hold back tears. It's unfair.

fair. It's that anger that makes tired looks like nothing. So I push through. He who endures to the end shall be saved. That's what Yahushua says, Jesus the Messiah. It never was supposed to be easy. That's what I'm saying. Once we know how to fight the right way, things are changed. And that's what we all have to do. The book is the man, the moment demands. Master the 10 Characterists of a Comprehensive Man is in stores now. I love you, man. I love you too. I love you too.

Just meeting you. My daughter speaks highly of you. She watched the game. She said, but thank you and thank you for being transparent. I hope it encourages more women to never surrender their humanity. Don't do what we did. Please don't do that. That's an...

All right. We're out. We're out. We're done. All right. Enough podcast. It's all over about the crime. And the crime is over to.

Tell you think caps off, but do not stop learning. I'm Van Lathan Jr. I'm Rachel Lin-Lindon. Who are you? Olua-O-Lu-Dun-Ju a dinner run. Olu-a-Lu-Wat. Olu-Mil-Ju at D'A-Mu-U.

That's actually about as bad. It's not bad. Oh. That's pretty good. of shabuzied him. Wow. You didn't get his name right. You do it.

Can you say it one more time? Olua Jomi Luju. Ola Jomi Jiu. Oh, that's tough. That's tough. That's tough. We are out. I don't know if your windows are bare, indoor temperatures can go up 20 degrees?

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