Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Magic City Night Canceled and Target Boycott Over? Plus, Ryan Michelle Bathé on ‘Paradise’ Season 2

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

Van and Rachel react to the cancellation of the Atlanta Hawks’ "Magic City Night" and Bam Adebayo’s 83 points before switching gears to discuss potential threats from Iran. Plus, Harvey Weinstein speaks from behind bars, Ari Lennox gives life to a meme, and the Target boycott appears to be over. Then, Ryan Michelle Bathé, host of the ‘Paradise’ companion podcast joins to talk season 2 of the hit Hulu show. (0:00) Intro (2:32) Magic City Night canceled (13:27) Bam’s 83 points (42:34) Harvey Weinstein’s interview (59:02) Ari Lennox and why nice guys finish last (1:16:10) Jamal Bryant ends the Target boycott (1:37:16) Real Housewives vs. the feds (1:45:33) Ryan Michelle Bathé joins the show Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Ryan Michelle Bathé Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Jade Whaley Social Producer: Bernard Moore This just in, the Comcast Business Price Lock Guarantee is back. For a limited time you can lock in the same great rate on gig speed internet and advanced security for 5 years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on. It is Ivan Lathin, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. We have Ryan, Michelle Bethay coming up on the podcast later. She hosts the actress podcaster. She hosts the Paradise Companion Podcast.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Love Paradise. Love it. She does a podcast, another podcast, with her husband, Sterling K. Brown. Yeah, we don't always agree. We don't always agree. And I can't wait.

She's a friend. She's a friend of yours. You like her. You guys go to Allo together? You want to go? Why don't you come on with me? I don't want to go. We do not go to Allo together, but we could.

We are both deltas. Delta Sigma Theta. We talk a little bit about that. We talk about black people in white fraternities and sororities with Chelsea is one of them. She's not alone. Yes, Chelsea, Starg Jones. Here at the Ringers, one of them. She's in a white.

sorority. She is. What was she again? What's it called? Sigma Kappa. Where is it? I don't know. I don't want to say the wrong thing. Sigma Delta. But you're fascinated by it. I think it's Sigma Kappa. Sigma Kappa. Sigma Kappa. Rush. Yep. It's rush. Sigma Kappa. Donnie. Donnie. You went to an HBCU and PWI just like myself. You did. You did both. You did double duty. What was your experience with the black kids and white fraternities at the PWIs? Did you have any? Yeah, I knew some of them. I mean, yeah, it was tough.

They definitely were more comfortable with their frat brothers than they were with my friends. But yeah, they were a little off, I would say. Something was off. Yeah, stuff. I never was around them, not the women or the men. I just had such a different experience because of the school I went to growing up my whole life. When I went to college, I was completely immersed in what little black experience is at a PWI that I could. So I never went.

I think I went to one fraternity party. My experience was more that the athletes would go to these parties than I would see black people a part of the fraternities. You know why. The playoffs are here. And you can predict the action all the way to the final. with Fandul Predict. Predict the spread, total points, and even the game winner. Sign up and get a $25 bonus.

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Imagine being a million miles away. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about trimfaya. Tap this ad to learn more about trimfaya, including important safety information. Let's get into the show. Donnie, quick hitters. All right. The NBA has forced the Atlanta Hawks to cancel.

their planned Magic City night, which was supposed to happen on the 16th against the Orlando Magic. We talked about this. This is after some backlash from Luke Cornette of the San Antonio Spurs. And I saw Al Horford popped in to lend his support

to Luke. But yeah, it's done. No Magic City. I feel like the way they treated Al Horford for jumping in on this was kind of unfair. Was it an FBI thing? It wasn't an FBI thing, although I'm glad that you brought that up because now they'll run with that. But it wasn't an FBA thing.

It was then bringing up when his sister did F. Mary, and I'm not even going to bring it up. I'm not going to bring it up. I'm not going to do. I'm not familiar with it, and I'm sure other people are too. Well, Al Horford's sister at one point did F. Mary kill with his teammates.

Okay. And they brought that up, which has nothing to do with the Magic City thing. They brought that up and they put it out there and it was like, hey, don't worry about Magic City. Control your sister. Look, this is over.

He, Luke Cornett, Al Horford, not just them. There were a lot of people from within the black church, a lot of people within black culture that have a problem with this, and now it looks like it's not going to happen. Was it really that big of a, was the outrage really that big of a deal? And I guess, you know what, not that I'm like trying to die on this hill or anything. I've actually never been to Magic City, which is shocking. but you have, right?

Yes. So even if I have never been and I still understand, I guess, the cultural significance, I will say, when it comes to music, even athletes, when it comes to food, when it comes to just like what this staple means to the city, I even recognize that. And I guess I just have an issue with the league acting holier than now when it comes to this. when you've allowed people to play in your league who have been accused of domestic violence, sexual abuse, criminal charges,

but this can't happen because there were not, it has been confirmed, because remember last time we were talking about it, it was like, well, I have a, I highly doubt they're bringing the strip club to the arena. This was going to be like merch, it was going to be food.

T.I. was performing. He still is performing. So I just don't understand. understand how it's bad for this, but we're going to ignore this part of it. Can't really act holier than now. Well, I think the answer to the question is obvious. It all comes back to our relationship with sex. Even as I hear this, you know, called out as both a cultural crime and a spiritual crime,

our relationship to sex is special. The shame that you get for inspiring lust is a different type of shame. It's a different type of shame than the shame you get for inspiring violence. It's a completely different type of thing. People talk about, you know, kids being in an NBA arena and them celebrating the strip club. I mean, they're drinking in that arena. There are all women, already women dancing for entertainment at the arena. This is not to say that if you are a part of a dance team at an arena,

you're, you know, the Miami heat dancers or the Laker girls or anything like that that you are an exotic dancer. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm saying those women are out there a lot of the time for their beauty, for their femininity, and because they add to the show in that way, right? So, like, there are people at these games that are, you know, the guys on the court of cursing, they're drunk people, there's all kinds that could be, whatever, whatever. What I'm saying is that creating a kid-friendly, atmosphere is a part of the calculus at an NBA game or a sporting event.

It's not the whole calculus, right? And when we talk about all of these things that we don't want, we have a special, special, special category for anything that inspires lust or sex. For whatever reason, and that is not spiritual to me, because what is spiritual to me is that sins are the same. Like, sins are the same. Supposed to be. They're supposed to be, right?

like, you know, when Spider-Man sees a criminal, he doesn't go up to the criminal and give him the book of Jesus and tell the criminal about why he shouldn't be doing what he's doing and turn the other sheik. He kicks him in his fucking face. And that's what the Avengers do. And that's what the rest of the people that your kids love do. Kids playing video games. The video games, kids shooting each other, like blowing people's head.

They're Fortnite running around shooting people, all of that stuff. Cool. Put a titty in Fortnite. And see how things change. I'm just saying that we have a special shame and a special relationship that is reserved for the one thing that our bodies, like, tell us we want to do all the time, which is sex. And it's difficult to talk about. It's difficult to litigate. It's just difficult to get anyone on the page of having a conversation about this because the shame that.

like exists with our relationship around sex, particularly in this culture, it's just it's penetrating. It's like suffocating. Yeah, I mean, it starts at a very young age. You're immediately told what you're like your relationship, usually your relationship to nudity, to sex, to what you can and can't watch, which you can and can't go to, what you can't like it's, it's so ingrained from you from a young age. It's hard to separate it whether you are religious or not.

But we also, especially as. church and state continue to mix, it's also a part of our politics as well. But I just, I guess I just, I wish it was almost a bigger conversation and not brushed off so much because when you really start digging into head coaches in the NBA that have pled guilty to domestic violence, players with illegal firearms that may have been suspended and allowed to come back and play, DUIs, sexual abuse, all these things. And that's, you're suspended and that's okay. but for a woman to choose a certain career, it is her choice,

and that is how she chooses to make money, that you are telling her that that is problematic that she does that. She's not forced into it. This is a choice. She's inspiring the one thing that society says that she cannot inspire. Like our cultural mythology

around how we regulate our body, and what is or is not decent is just different. There are people that will tell you that if a woman inspires lust, she's lost her ability to not consent to sex. Like there is a crime that lust is connected to. There's a crime that a sexual urge is connected to. It's the one thing you're supposed to suppress. And this wasn't even that.

But this was a celebration. Look, we can have good faith arguments about this, about what is supposed to exist inside of a culture, what is positive, what is negative. We can't. I'm not saying that we can't. I'm not saying that there's no argument here, right? I'm not. But what I'm saying is, if we are to have that argument, you can go to one of these games

and buy a 6,000 calorie hamburger, gluttony. like you we can we can have all like capitalism like most families can't even afford to take their kids to NBA games because it's too expensive greed if we're going to talk about the culture from a puritanical sense and what it makes sense to expose children to or what it makes sense to expose families to that is a really wide and far-reaching argument by keep trying to tell people. people. The fact that you want to fuck and you want to come, that is culturally outlawed. You're not supposed to want that. You're supposed to want it, but you're not supposed to tell anyone. You're supposed to tell people, but not too loudly. You're supposed to be able to discuss it. And everybody, like, everybody's getting uncomfortable now. What is it? It's like... No, I'm not getting uncomfortable now. I'm just saying that that what you're talking about isn't even, in my opinion, what Magic City Night would have been about. I think the

I love the comparison about the dancers that are on teams, right? They wear short shorts. They wear crop tops. They show skin. They bent over. They dance. They twerk. They do all that.

And it's meant to be sexy. That is meant... That is what Magic City Night is about that. No, I... It's not... Magic City Night wasn't going to be about that, but it was what the Knight represented. I don't even think... Okay.

I get you, but I just don't think that you have to even take it there. And I don't want to... I don't want to go to... far on this but I'm sure there's a military night right oh yeah I'm sure there's a military night right look I get I'm okay guys just please explain events compared like a gentleman's club to the military no what I'm saying is that when you celebrate the military night right you're celebrating people that go out in service you're celebrating all kinds of things right that don't just have to do

with the fact that the primary job of the military is to send people places to blow people up and burn their faces off. Like that's, and look, we live in a world where I guess sometimes you got to shoot people and burn people's faces off. We get that. But underneath the celebration of service and the celebration of honor and discipline and all of those things that the military has been structured around is that the fact that that machine kills people.

And so that is, okay, there's no problem with that, right? Because violence is completely normalized. in our culture. Now, if I was to say the Magic City Night is a celebration of a cultural staple of Atlanta, of a black owned business, of all of these things, but behind it, behind it, is a place where naked women dance, that is disqualifying. Those two things aren't congruent. I get you. So anyway, but, you know, shout out to everybody. We'll go anyway. All right, Donnie, what's next? Stan in the NBA, Bam out of bio earlier this week.

Pass Kobe Bryant's 81 points to score 83 himself against the Washington Wizards. I know Van is a Lakers fan. Rachel, you've probably been to some heat games. You lived in Miami. What were y'all's reaction to this historic night at the games? Help me understand why everybody is so upset. I see it on ESPN. I saw you guys talked about it on the ringer verse.

I saw Kev on stage put up how people are calling him a cornball for celebrating the fact that Bam dropped 83 points. Why is it that big of a deal? Why I get, obviously I understand what Kobe means and I understand. I saw the game. I get it. I understand that it was a totally different type of game than what Bam was playing in with this.

I get it. but why do we have to put BAM down to preserve or to in order to talk about what Kobe did? Why can't we just be like, oh, okay, that's great. Bam did it, but it still wasn't as great as Kobe even though it was two less points. Why is this happening?

Please help me understand why this is such an issue. Did you watch the game? No, I'm not going to watch this game. But I know I saw this statistically how he created it. I know it's not the same thing as the Kobe game. Well, let me just say this. Bam out of bio, 8 or 3 points, fantastic. Yeah.

Okay, it's fantastic. It's what you watch sports for to see these nights where these athletes catch the lightning in a bottle and just become unstoppable. Now, if you watch the entire game, which I went back and did, because I didn't watch the entire game at first, I started watching the game when everybody was like, hey, because I got league pass up,

everybody was like, hey, Bams got like six. 68 points or 65 points, whatever fuck it is. I'm like, oh shit. And then they're like, but it's the third quarter. I'm like, what? And he's still playing. They're going for it. Okay.

I get there, bams got 70 points. If you watch from 70 points on the game with some fucking bullshit, and that's just what it is, what it is. And you guys can say whatever you want. If you watch from 70 points on, it was some dumbass romper room bullshit. It was. So they were trying to help him to get to break the record.

This is the difference to me. The difference is when Kobe was doing his thing, Obviously, his teammates were getting him the ball because he was on a heater. In this one, they were gaming the NBA rules and the different situations to get banned more possessions to get it. After a certain amount of time, right? After he was on a roll. After he was on a roll, 30 in the first, all of this stuff has happened. And now it's like, miss a free throw to get him an extra possession.

Now it's like, file to get an ex possession. I'm sorry, that's bullshit league bullshit. And there's really nobody that really can. cares about the game inside of the game that's not going to say that. Now, does he still have to make the free throws and go out there and put the ball in his hands and go do the things that he needed to do to score 83 points? Yeah. But this is a problem that people have with the modern NBA.

A problem that people have with the modern NBA is that there is a respect for, I guess, the structure of the game, but not the spirit of the game. Okay. I understand that if this was happening all the time. It is. With trying to get your players to get 83 points. Like we've seen before where you know going into the game that this player is about to set a record for the most points score

or the most rebounds ever. He's about to beat somebody or move up the chart. And you see them throw them the ball to get those last two points. We've seen that before. I could get down with this argument if you constantly saw players trying to get other teammates trying to get their players to beat the record 81 points at the time what it was before this, I could also understand if they went into the game and they were like,

hey, Bam, we are going to make sure you get this many points. But he was already having a fantastic game. Would you, are you honestly telling me if you're this, if you're Bam's teammate and you see he's got 70 points, 65 points just on us. like on a heater, as you say, you're not going to be like, man, we should make more opportunities for BAM to get the ball.

What teammate wouldn't do that? So, listen, that's fine. I'm not saying that the teammate shouldn't do this. What I'm saying is, like, in the last couple of years, we've seen 83 by BAM, 73 by Luca, 71 by Dane, 71 by Donovan Mitchell, 70 by Joelle and B. This is happening a lot, right?

Part of the reason why it's happening is, because the speed of the game is different, the pace of the game is different. The game is more open. These guys can really score. The rules are different. The rules are different. The rules are different.

But this is what I'm saying now. What you're saying about this specific instance is one thing. But take the NBA culture right now, the end game culture as a whole. Okay. And talk about load management. Yeah, I get this part. Guys coming in and talking to talk about tanking.

Talk about all the things that don't lend themselves. to the spirit of good basketball, to what you want, which is guys going on the court, stepping on the court every night going, nobody is better than me, I'm unstoppable, I will impose my will on the other guy,

the essence of competition, which I'm going to be on the court as much as possible. This game was a game against a wizard's team that's tanking. So they are tanking, Sarr, one of their guys, only plays like 20 minutes. They still scored 130 points. I know, but like they lost by like 30.

So Bam and them is, so Bamman is scoring all of these points against a tanking NBA team, right? And it's not like Kobe scored 81 against the goddamn 87 pistons either. But he's scoring all of these points against a tanking NBA team that has a lot of their guys out. Then at the end of the game, they file baiting and playing with the, it's like this was a flashpoint moment for some people, take Kobe out of it for kind of, some of the Mickey Mouse shit that the league is all right now. So I understand the argument as a whole. If I'm talking particularly about this game, I don't think that this is something that points to.

I think you're right. There's a bigger issue. Wow, I don't even watch basketball in the same way that I used to. It's totally different, I feel like, from the way we grew up watching it. I don't think, though, that this game should be a part of that conversation. I understand why when you talk all about it, but I just feel like it's truly taking away from something that he did. It feels like in history, as we go on, there will always be kind of like a stain on this moment.

And this is actually a big deal. You are right about the culture of the NBA. It's why we continuously see them try to change things with the All-Star game, adding, doing the play-in, all of that. But this game should not be, in my opinion, a part of that conversation. I get how it lends to it. but I think what you're talking about is a little bit separate from this. So I don't, so two things.

Number one, you didn't watch the game. I did not. So I don't need to statistically understand what's happening. Can we both agree that he was doing well? No, I know. But what I'm saying is if you watch the game and you see somebody shooting a free throw and then they make the first free throw and then the second free throw, and then the second free throw, they miss on purpose.

At what point? So that he can get the ball back so that he can go score. to because he's close. At what point in the game were they doing that? What I'm saying, though, I understand, but what I'm saying is, like, let him go get the record. Like, do it ethically. I'm not taking anything away from what Bam was able to do because, once again, you still got to do it. But this is not in a vacuum when people have, like, criticisms about the NBA.

It's not in a vacuum. It's like, how far do you want this to go? And by the way, we've had this conversation before. Like Brett Farrv is dropping back at quarterback. Michael Strayhan is there. Michael Strayhan is on a rush. He's very close to breaking the single-season sacks record. Brett Farrb goes down so that he can break that single-season sacks record.

Michael Strayhan gets the sack. Brett Farrb gets up, shakes his hand, right? That's fine. People, no, no, I'm not saying it's fine, but I'm saying it's fine that they decided that they wanted to do that. this is not exactly the same situation because the wizards at this point, I guess had some shred of dignity and were trying to deny the ball and stop ban from getting the ball.

They were putting two or three people on them. Okay. So in this point, the opposition didn't help them. But still, like, what you want to see is pure competition with a spirit of competition and not shenanigans. Now, Jade has something to say, Jade, you keep, you're going back and forth over there. What are you trying to say? I just think that I'm kind of agreeing to Rachel.

I watch the game. And I understand that you're saying, you know, they're missing free throws on purpose and stuff. But it's not like this hasn't happened before in the NBA. And it's not like there haven't been other teams and people who have done that before. So I don't know what before? Like, miss free throws on purpose. Miss free throws on purpose to win a game. To win a yes, or for someone to get a certain opportunity to shoot or whatever.

That isn't something that is only special to this one game. You miss free throws on purpose so that you can get another possession so you can win the game. Not to manipulate statistics. But it's all about win it. If they were doing it the whole game, if they did it after, oh, he's got 70 points. I'm not mad at this. I can agree that it was the intent behind that last like four minutes of the game was to get banned those points. But it's like, why not?

He's right there. Let him go get. Okay. See, this, okay. I understand this. This is, I also feel like, I also feel like this is a generational difference of the people of the, we didn't know, 50, 40, 90 meant people. This is like a generational difference from sort of the more. like this is a this is a generational thing because once again once again I'm not like I get it I understand it

but there is something to me and we move on after this that like when you just look at the league itself when you look at when all of this started to it started to be the league started to be like not about hooping and going out there and actually competing it started to be about like gaming the rules and foul baiting and flopping and tanking and all of that stuff. And we're getting to like to me a tipping point, like a critical mass with this to where it's starting to become people are starting to get annoyed. Of course. Now Bam himself, he don't have to care about that. He goes down in the record books and that's good.

But people are starting to get annoyed by the fact just fucking play basketball. It's a legitimate thing. I agree with you. I just think that this should not be a part of that. But I understand why people are looped, because it's a bigger conversation that people, fans of the NBA, have been having. And when you see something like this,

you just loop it into the rest of your frustration. But I think we should separate it. Congratulations to Bam. Congratulations to Bam. Congratulations to everyone that's out there. Congratulations to the Wizards. I'll never in any way, shape, or form wish good on the Wizards ever again. the Wizards Mickey Mouse Club team.

And I was excited to see what they would look like. But the last thing I'll say is Kobe, Kobe, Kobe. Okay. Oh, oh, Donnie. Let's go to war in Iran. The FBI have warned police departments in California in recent days that Iran could retaliate for attacks by launching drones at the West Coast. I've seen also that multiple U.S. and California law enforcement officials told CBS news that

there is no known specific threat underpinning that memo, which was issued a week ago, and it was distributed to law enforcement. I believe before our attacks on Iran, there's conflicting reports back and forth about this, but what are you guys' reaction to this news of potential retaliation on the West Coast? I think it's bullshit. Okay. do you you think the report is bullshit

or do you think that I don't know why do you say it's bullshit like you saw this and you just like went about your day oh already do you think that it was when you say bullshit I guess I'm wondering do you think that it was intentionally leaked like do you think that it's just a bullshit report and there's no

merit behind it or maybe it was potentially leaked to scare people make I don't know California look a I guess I didn't see this and I wasn't like, oh, this is bullshit. I kind of was like, are they downplaying it on purpose? I don't know what to believe anymore. Is who downplaying it on purpose? The state of California.

They're like, oh, there's no imminent threat. We aren't really aware of this. This report doesn't really have any merit. And I'm kind of like, I don't know. The Trump administration would love for a drone to attack California. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm alluding to of, I guess, them downplaying it. Like it's nothing and actually it really is something because they would love for that to happen. No.

I just don't trust anybody. I guess that was my initial thought. When I saw the report, I was like I. You don't trust, wait. That there's not an imminent threat. You don't trust that there's not an imminent threat. Yeah. FBI is saying that there is an imminent threat.

California is saying there's not. Right. So I guess the question is who do you trust? The feds or the state government? I guess I'm saying I don't know. I didn't take this and think bullshit. I thought, my initial thought was, I don't know who to trust. Interesting.

And I thought that was scary. I thought when I saw this report, I wasn't flipping about it. I just was kind of like, should I be concerned? And I don't know if I should be concerned because I don't know if I believe the FBI. I don't know if I believe our government. I don't know if they're using this as a political thing to make California look bad. I don't know if they want something to happen. that was my thought.

I don't think like that normally. Huh. Well, so I did as much reading as I could on it. Yeah. Just so that we could be thorough when we talked about it here. And what it seems like to me is that this almost is a tantamount to like war propaganda. Like the war in Iran is incredibly unpopular. Sure.

And part of making the war popular is making Americans believe that Iran pose an imminent threat to the United States, which they are struggling to do. Now, if there was like some sort of hard evidence, I didn't, what I wasn't able to find much about the actually attack capabilities of Iranian drones. But if there was some sort of hard evidence or if there was a plot that had been foiled. or all of that stuff, that is one thing, right? But for this to come out now, the timing of this being in the middle of a really unpopular war that a lot of people are starting to ask, well, the prices are going up at the pump, American service members are dead. It seems as if this could drag on for a long time.

Iran has chosen a new Ayatollah. This Ayatollah is an Ayatollah that now has seen his entire family slaughtered. Right. So with all of that, the resilience of the IRGC and just the top of the Iranian government just writ large could be never ending. Yeah. They might seek to like have a prolonged war of attrition. that just lets the entire world know that they can't be bullied. To have all of that stuff,

it seems to me that this, some of this, is an attempt to take that war from the Middle East and move it on to American soil so that people feel the appropriate fear that necessitates the government doing what they're doing right now. Yeah, I mean, that's why I said, is it political, was one of my questions as to why, which I guess plays into you talking about the propaganda of it all.

I just don't know. and I think and I guess the thought that I had was five years ago if I had seen this I think I would have been scared and I would have believed it now I don't know what to believe and I think that that is even a bigger problem I don't see anybody really taking this seriously in California everybody's it's almost like an an earthquake alert or something oh no we're being we're possibly being threatened oh there's no imminent threat oh the FBI saying that there is it's like should we be like that Isn't that a bigger problem? I don't know. I just- What do you mean? So casual about the fact that this could be a thing. I know you're saying you don't think it is.

One person saying it's an imminent, one side saying it's an imminent threat, one side's saying it not. I guess that's, I'm just speaking to the emotion that I had and the reaction that I'm seeing from people who there could be, it's reported, that there is a possible threat, a retaliation of war in the state we live in. and people are like, okay. I just, I, what was, did y'all not have a, like, does it not bother you that we're all like, all right, maybe? Well, maybe not. Well, five, well, we'd be like that five years ago? I mean, I get it.

I guess I'm just pointing to the times have changed. Like, we just live in a society. I'm not going to call it desensitized. whether it's conspiracy theories desensitized a distrust of a government it's just odd that this is something and we're like the Oscars are this weekend I just I just don't

am I crazy I don't know I just I was watching I mean I was literally deep diving people's reactions on social media I'm watching the news coverage of it and everyone's like well like it's a tornado warning well actually a tornado warning would actually move more than this would. See what I say. Because, or tornado warning,

because I trust the meteorologist. Meteorologists. Meteorologists. I trust them more than I trust the DOJ. But this is, that's what I'm saying. It's just, and I get why there's this distress, right? I have it too. I'm just pointing out to how problematic it is. Okay. I guess I don't see it as problematic. I understand what you guys are saying. I do. I see it as problematic that we can.

I can't trust the DOJ, but I don't see it as problematic that every time the DOJ tells me about an imminent threat that I don't move. Remember, because everything with them is an existential threat. Remember, we were getting invaded from our southern border. And undocumented people coming from the Southern border, that was an existential threat to our way of life. That was going to change everything. They were trying to take over. They were killing everyone. All of the animals.

there was legitimately, legitimately a beef shortage. And they said it was because undocumented immigrants were bringing illegal cows over the border. That happened, okay? Almost everything that gets said is to affect some sort of geopolitical or domestic policy goal. None of it seems to be based in anything that's actionable. It's all at the whims of whatever it is that they were.

want to affect is the idea that there could be a drone attack in Los Angeles or San Francisco scary? Sure, definitely scary. I'm not saying that you guys shouldn't be scared or concerned. All of it's scary. But I'm telling you right now, this is the reality. This war breaking out right now in the Middle East, legitimately, legitimately, any moment, any moment could go back. And I have surrendered to that. Like, this could be your last summer. Fact. Oh, that's, I guess that would explain your reaction as well. Yeah, I mean, but I, it's still. But this to me, what I, and another thing that I kind of understand or I contend with

when I'm looking at stuff like this is I read this and then I go with every time it involves this administration, I go, let me see the evidence for this. Let me see if there's actually something to be afraid of. And I encourage. And I encourage. everyone to look at things that way. When someone tells you to be scared, especially right now, just go dig a little deeper and see if there's something to be afraid of. If

there had been something here that I felt like was imminent or whatever, then, you know, and the reality is, if this issue, there's nothing you can do about it anyway. There's not, there isn't. There's nothing you can do anyway. I mean, I've seen people say maybe avoid

certain things, maybe don't attend this, maybe there's extra security, at a heightened event where everyone's gonna be gathered, it's gonna be televised. Yeah, I mean. It's a drone attack. I know, but drones are target, they target certain things with drones.

Yeah, they target, it's not like it's gonna take the whole city. It's like they target certain places, usually popular places. So I've seen people talk about don't. Man, they might hit the federal building. They might hit, it's a drone attack. That makes sense. They might hit, it's all kinds of different stuff

that they might hit. They might. You get what I'm saying. I do, but not really. Because I think the more important thing. You think it's the end. This is the last summer. So of course that's your reaction.

No, my thing is, at this point, I just think it's, I understand what you guys are saying. I'm really not trying to be argumentative. But I think it's more, it's important to be intellectually vigilant here. Oh, I. And so, like, what I'm saying is this was meant to inspire fear. So then I go and I go, okay, is there something real to this? Is there, is there some substance to this that actually, where are they getting this? from. Like who, and then I go to people who, not that I trust implicitly or anything like that,

but like people who would be directly in charge of the safety of California and I try to get what they are saying. I just, I've read so much stuff from people that say, like, there's really no reason to have put this out other than manipulate people's fear. I did not read a headline and have the reaction. We're approaching it from two different ways. I get you. I totally looked into this. I'm approaching it from the reaction of people and just kind of where we are as a society. I understand what you're talking about, about the threat to our way of life that came from the administration, the Trump administration when it came to immigration. But that to me is totally different from, we're not always talking about a terrorist attack

from drones that a country we are actively striking at the moment. And I'm just coming from an approach of I was really paying attention to how the lack of reaction from people. That's the approach I'm making. I'm not discrediting what you're saying. I'm not saying I didn't look into it. It's just an observation that I have. By the way, I don't know if this is possible. And yeah.

I don't know if it's possible for the Iranians to fly an unmanned drone all the way. That's what I wanted to know. So when there's, last thing I said, when there was. When the Israelis used drones to decapitate the Iranian military intelligentsia last summer, there was a way that they went about this. They smuggled drone parts into the country. Those drone parts were then built there. They then were able to take out Sam Cites and establish. They had Mossad inside of Iran already giving them really valuable information on.

essential targets. There was a whole, they had been planning it and planning it and planning it and planning it, right? Russians, the Russian drone, some of the Russian drone attacks. Man, there was a Russian drone attack where they made like a fake Craigslist ad

to have people in Ukraine or Russia or whatever put together a drone, right? To bust, like, to say, hey, we need somebody to put this stuff together or to deliver this stuff to this specific place. And then these people went and guys, workers, whatever, went and grabbed this stuff

and then drove it to this specific place. They drove it to the place that shit got fucking airborne and they went and started attacking. Like if there was something there that showed the structure or method by which this was going to happen, then I'd have been like, oh my God, their sleeper sales all over like Los Angeles that are going to do this.

There's all types of, if there was something more to it, there would have been something more to it. But if you tell me that they're about to fly a fleet of drones, like, across the Pacific Ocean and then attack Los Angeles, I don't know how feasible that is. And so, like, particularly with this administration, knowing that they're trying to manipulate me, I just was like, all right, this seems like some bullshit to me. But I, you know, it's fucking scary times, you know. I guess I also thought of it as does it have to come directly from there, or could it be somebody? here. Well, I mean, yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Like, they were saying that, like, maybe this would come from an attack on the southern border. Maybe they would smuggle the drone parts in from the southern border and, like, build the drone parts and then fly the drone and do all of that stuff. I'm not, I don't want to say this and then have something terrible happen and make everybody go, I'm sure it could happen. I would just need a little bit more for me to actually be scared and, you know, keep that dang tuli, too. on me. You know what I'm saying? Go to war with that big stock because that's what I got. See, that's another thing.

Like, I'm adding to the arsenal. Bing, pow, boom, pow, ping. You know, so if shit get bad, because I'm preparing. I got a storage. You're a prepper. Oh, I got a storage closet. And every now and again, like a storage thing, every now again, I go put some water

in it. I go put some other thing. I'm serious. I'm going to come look at it. I got seeds. Great. I know where I'm coming. I got seeds. Do you know how to use them? Well, I got this little thing where you learn how to plant.

I can plant in the house. You should practice first. That's what I'm doing. I just said that. Oh, I didn't know you were actively doing it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got this little thing. I got a little thing that's in the corner.

You can plant in the like seeds, all of that. So I'm not saying I'll ever need to use it. But what I'm saying is there's something that preparation, you know, if a dirty bomb comes in, we all incinerated. I guess, you know, that's, what happens, a dirty bomb or some kind of suitcase size uranium situation with all the stuff that's coming out. There's certain stuff you just can't do anything about it.

Sure. You're scared? You're concerned. My antennas are up. There you go. I like that. That's how you're supposed to be, Rach. It's how you're supposed to be, man.

I love that you're a doomsday rapper. I got to come see the closet. Yeah. Just put some water. I know what I'm doing after the podcast. Just water. Just put some water in there. A lot of water are different things.

Add a little bit more to the arsenal. little blick blicked out. Who knows? By the way, this wasn't my idea. The prepping? Somebody else brought this up and then we started it. It wasn't my idea. I'm not mad at it.

Donnie, go to Harvey Weinstein. Rachel you staying out with him back in the date. Yeah, Harvey sat down for his first interview from behind bars with the Hollywood reporter. He was talking about his life at Rikers and how he hates it depressed. But, I mean, that's good, right? What, that he's depressed in Rikers?

I guess my question is... Yeah, that he's not having a good time. What was the... What was the point of this? Exactly. Exactly. That's why I roll my eyes as soon as it's like, what did you think he was going to say?

What did you think? How did you think he was going to be? I just saying that you got the interview with Harvey Weinstein, like, why are we getting... this man attention? Why are we giving him a platform? Why do we need to hear from him? Like all these questions. I don't understand this. I mean, like, I get it. You want a story. But to me, I'm not impressed the fact that you were able to go down to Rikers to interview this despicably horrible person. I'm not. I don't care what he's doing in jail. I don't care that he

doesn't get any daytime. I don't care that he's harassed by people within the prison. Good. You should be under the jail. I hope you were experiencing the worst possible things that could happen to you. And for him to give him a platform to then even not to just complain about what he's going through. And then to not be remorseful and to accuse certain women of exaggerating what happened to him to them at the hands of him shows how evil this person is. Like if I was doing this interview and I heard him say that, he said that to me, I'd be like, we're never going to hear this. This is traumatizing for people who are victims of Harvey Weinstein.

So you think that the Hollywood, I was actually saying that, you think that the Hollywood reporter is wrong. I absolutely think they're wrong for doing this. Interesting. Why do we need to hear from him? I'm dead. If I'm one of these women that he outright named, that is making me experience my trauma again.

His face makes me think of the things. that he did. He's in jail. He's been convicted. He's done. We don't need anything else from him. Not a thing. His name is triggering. His, like, it's, I just don't, I need somebody to tell me why this was necessary. Like, what did I gain from this interview? Hmm. Well.

Other than trauma. So when I was asking what the point of it was, I actually met from Harvey Weinstein's perspective, but I think the point that you raised is actually more interesting, which is often the case on this podcast. I think the point that you raise is more interesting about whether or not we need to hear from people like this. And I guess. Like, what are you curious about? Not you particularly.

An overall, you. I was intensely curious when I saw this. What did you, but for why? For why? Huh. Well, I suppose that I was curious, number one, to see if there was any contrition on this part. to see if someone who was so consequential and such a big part of cultural history

had anything to offer on it. That's fair. If there had been any sort of evolution on his part, the part that got me to read the article was an excerpt from the article where it was like, he talked about how things were on the yard at Rikers for him. And he goes, you know, when I'm all in the yard at Rikers,

people come up to me, they ask me for money, hey, Wyneton, you got any money, hey, Wynstein, kind of use your lawyer, all of that stuff. To see what it was like for Harvey Weinstein in jail, I was curious about that. I think it's an interesting tension that we're dealing with in society overall for the last, I guess, decade about whether or not people like this should have their say at all. this used to be just Parford course

There was always Hey we're going into the jail to interview Charles Manson Or we're talking to this person that did this terrible thing We're talking to this person that did this terrible thing We're going to some foreign country to talk to this leader That's internationally recognized as a terrorist Or this brutal dictator or whatever it is Whatever it was

We're lining up to talk to Casey Anthony Yeah sure serial killers, all of that. All of that stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this used to be something that we didn't really go back and forth on as much as we do now. But it's interesting. It's interesting is whether or not this serves anything.

I guess, and maybe for me it's a case-by-case thing because, and maybe I can see the argument of like maybe talking to somebody and maybe understanding the mindset, like when it gets down to like a serial killer or something like, like, if. FBI kind of does that so they can profile serial killers. Like I guess I can see something like that. But for maybe Harvey Weinstein is just so different for me. And he's never shown any remorse. So I didn't expect that he would change his mind once he's in jail. I think that he is who he is. He's obviously a narcissist.

So with that comes super entitlement. I mean, he's basically begging to be out of here so he can go to another prison because his life is so hard. Still not understanding the gravity. impact like nasty evil things that he did. Like I'm convinced that if this man got out, he would just go back to do it in the exact, try to try to at least go back to doing the same thing.

There just seems to be no understanding or even trying to of what he did. So I, maybe he's just different for me because I can make an argument like I just did for other people being interviewed. But with Harvey Weinstein. So. No.

I would say the same thing about Bill Cosby. Well, Bill, Bill, I would, you know, if Bill wanted to come on higher learning, I would put him on. Well, I would ask if we could put him on, and then I would be told no by Bernard. I understand why you would want to be curious to put him on. And Chelsea, Donnie. I guess.

He would probably say no. I'm sure there would be a no from Juliet. And Bill would probably be like, I don't know about that one. So I'll probably be. in a class by myself there. I guess I think about the widespread impact of what would an interview like that do.

And that's how I think about Harvey. Yeah. I mean, you know that I'm not on that. Oh, I know, I know, I know. I'm just telling you what my thought process was. I mean, we clearly thought of it in a different ways. Because I understand the curiosity of it. I do.

Yeah. But when it comes to him, if I'm weighing it out, it's just not worth it. So let me tell you why I thought this was fascinating to me. me and why I said, why I asked, like, what's the point? So at the beginning of this, uh, Hollywood reporter interview with Harvey Weinstein here, at the beginning of it, the, uh, mayor of Rauchin, I guess is the Rocheon, mayor of Rochon, is the, the, the, journalist who does his interview, Noah Harvey, Harvey, I was about to say Harvey 11th,

no Harvey Weinstein for a very long time. So, Harvey Weinstein talks to him about the fact that, you know, we meet again. He had interviewed him in 1999. It's a very different time in Harvey Weinstein's. And so they sit down. Harvey Weinstein has some trust with this guy. Okay. And he, Weinstein, desperately wants this to go out before he is set to be back in court on April 14th,

which told me that Weinstein felt like he was. was going to say something here that was going to help him. He felt like he was going to say something that was going to change public opinion about him because he had someone that knew him interviewing him or had known him in the past and, you know, it's a high leverage moment for him. You know, he's in Rikers and all of that stuff. And everything he did in the interview made it worse, right? Every single thing he did in the interview made it worse. What he did was paint a picture of a guy who is capable of the things that he's been accused of and convicted of. He painted a picture of a guy who just completely does not understand the moment in any way,

shape, or form. And you don't think that your opinion of Harvey Weinstein could get worse, but then it does. Another thing for me, as I read this, it almost would be something that I think, I think, would be almost kind of required reading for a certain men that are in powerful positions because when you look at Harvey Weinstein, the one thing that he does do in this piece is I can understand how this would be triggering for the victims

is paint a picture of just how his mindset led to him just destroying everything that he had worked for and everything just like how his mind. mindset of dehumanizing people, making them small, how he treated almost everything. He doesn't say this, but it's obvious when you read it that everything to Harvey Weinstein was food. Everything was. Everything was food.

Everything was to be consumed. Like people's emotions were to be consumed. Their humanity was to be consumed. Their dignity was to be consumed. And all of it was to feed him. You just see this. You see him attempt to make his just the grandiology. of his abuse about his personal failing in his marriage and you go this guy just doesn't get it and then when I'm reading this I go what am I not getting like what what do I do to stop myself in 10 15 20 years uh from sitting down for an interview like this like what what how to be this blissfully unaware of like the people that you've hurt and what you've done like how do I not do I not be this blissfully unaware of like the people that you've hurt and what you've done like how do I not

be this, right? But that's a personal thing. Right. You know, like, it's because you sitting down after you didn't made Shakespeare in love, after you didn't make Goodwill hunting and all of these different movies. He's talking about all of this stuff that he did. And it's like, who gives the fuck about that if you raping people? Yeah.

If that's the price that we got to pay for Shakespeare at love, nobody going to want to pay that price. And you trying to make people remember all of the great things that you did. It doesn't matter you shit on that. You piss that away. Like that's gone. That to me, it was fascinating and it was scary. That's so, I'm not going to say you change my mind,

but I will say that it made me think yourself. First off, I would hope that everyone who read or watched or however they consumed this would be that introspective about what the substance of that interview was. I would hope that that was the case. But as I was listening to you talk and the way that you were thinking about it, it made me think,

I don't want to mention his name and I want him to go away because I think it's triggering. But if his name and what he did completely disappears, could years down the road, a copycat or something like this happened again? So I think it is important to remind people to your point of,

the darkness of a Harvey Weinstein. And, you know, remember that something like that has existed and the trauma and the terrible things of what it was, but at the same time not give him a platform to further trigger people who have been victims of sexual assault or victims specifically from him. I don't know what the balance is, but you're right. You still need to remember a person like that.

Yeah, yeah. So I get it. But, you know, when you get, you get to the bottom of it, he's talking about the women. And yeah, now I understand. Like, it's, it's like he. I also didn't know that it was jail consultants. I wasn't.

I never knew that. I'm not. In what way? Consult how. He hired a jail consultant before he was going to jail. Oh, like how to navigate it? Yeah. Well, it's not working for him.

Well, maybe not, but he hired a jail consultant. Somebody took his money. That sounds like a scam. Well, he said that this is what he says about the jail consultant. It's the movie. It's the movie. Get hard. It's get hard.

He did. He did get hard. That's funny. Somebody scammed him. I didn't know it was jail consultants. He said that the jail consultant helped him immensely in this entire situation. Man, I just got to say this. To my homies back in Baton Rouge, y'all know who y'all are.

It's a lane that we. We miss it. I might set up a firm because I know enough of them. You can't help. We're not going to help him. Okay. We're not going to like or the like. But let's say that you, I mean, there's really no good.

Let's say that you like, I don't know, you did some white collar shit and you know, you fucked over a lot of, but not see, but even that though. That's bad. But that's not, I don't want to be in the firm, but for my guys out there, I would rather them become jail consultants than what they do when they get out. It's another husband. What they do when they get out? I was like, I was on the phone with somebody a couple of months ago.

And they was like, hey, man, the moves is calling me. I'm like, don't do it, dog. I'll send you something. He was like, if you don't send me nothing, because if you send me something, I'm just going to flip it. That's what you go. I was like, don't do it, bro. He was like, you know, hey, you ever knew somebody that's, like,

being in the game, like Jay Z. Yeah, it's like a fast money. It's not even the money. This guy that I know Is not about the money Because he ain't no kingpin This is a part of The person that I know

This is a part of his self-esteem His self-esteem Is being Being able to get over on people? Well, yeah Because like all of that ran off On the plug stuff That's not the way the guys that I knew

They were into that That's not the way they look at it They weren't trying to run off on the plug They were trying to be the ones that if you gave them something, they would give you back triple. That made them feel fulfilled, like that they could move shit like that,

that they could, there was a whole check cashing situation that played out in like the mid to late 2000s. And the people that I knew, I was never involved in any of this, they were so motivated. I mean, when I'm telling you, they were motivated,

they were so motivated. Every time the cops got one up on them and kind of figured out their moves, they were so happy to try to figure out a new way to figure out a new jug to get around it. And it wasn't just that they was trying to beat the cops to get the money. They liked the game.

They liked the game of it. And sometimes like, you know, you got to get them something else. I feel like maybe the prison consultant thing, you could sit down and think about that. Because, you know, I asked one of my homies. is like, are you one of the niggas that says I'm never going back to jail?

He's like, no, I'll go back. Wow. He was like, that shit from the movies, nigga. He's like, I'll go back. It's like, you know, shit. I feel like somebody who says that knows that it would just be an in and out thing. Like, when you say I'll go back, you're not talking about eight years.

Nah, you might have an in and out thing, all right. That's what I asked him. Okay. I was like, do you miss somebody in there? Did you know about one in three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriasis. arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you?

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In a recent interview with effective immediately, Ari Lennox sat down and talked about regrets she's had for the attention that she's given to different types of men. Let's hear from Ari. I think I have a thing for toxic energy. So I think there's still some more healing that I need to do because when I look back on all of these energies, it's a shame. I gave them so much time and there were sweet energies that I didn't. And so now I see those sweet energies getting married and starting families. I'm just like, dang, that probably could have been me

if I recognized the security in those individuals at the time. And like now, I'm like, yeah, I'm definitely feeling that now. I'm aware that there's something going on. There's something wrong. What do you think it is that attracts you to, like, toxic energy? I think they just seem really exciting at first. The chemistry is incredible. And they don't even always be fine.

It's not even that like they're sexy or something. I mean, well, they're sexy, but they don't be the finest things I've ever seen. It's just an energy. It's sometimes it's convenience, what we talk about. A lot of those, the sweeter energies that I felt like weren't for me. I felt I could see myself falling asleep a little bit on the phone. So I don't know if that's like, if boring is good or not,

like I'm trying to figure out what that means. Like, it's the thrill. Yeah. It's the thrill of it. Yeah. How does this make you feel? Do you feel like you were a nice guy or a toxic guy? I think I'm

Noxic Okay Have you always been like this Because I'm not really looking at you now I'm talking like Because she's talking about like back in the day So let's talk about your 20s Yeah

30s 20s We'll do 20s Were you toxic? Nah You were the nice guy Well I don't know I'm just van

Well you said noxic Noxic means that like I really aspire to be A decent person but I do toxic shit. And so like it... I aspire to be decent, but I do toxic shit.

I do toxic shit. I think a lot of this has to do with just like regular personhood. When you were... I guess I'm asking, when you were in your 20s and girls, do girls de girls deem you the nice guy? Or did they deem you like one of the toxic? I would have been... You're also funny and that's...

And that's tough. Because you could be nice and funny, and then that makes you more interesting. Well, I would have been deemed the nice guy. I would have been deemed the nice guy. But at the same time, if you thought that nice meant that I was safe and wasn't going to do anything to hurt you or harm you, then you were probably wrong. I think that's wrong to think, period. Yeah. I think that's wrong to go into any situation thinking, oh, I did that.

Okay. Myself, I did it. In college, the guy dated in college, I was like, he's the nice guy. thought if anything were ever to happen, it would be because of me. I would be the one doing something. I thought there was nothing he could do that would be because he was the good guy. I felt like he liked me more than I liked him. And that was not the case.

He was like, fuck that shit. Well, because I, and I'm glad I learned that lesson very quickly because just because somebody is quote unquote good or nice does not mean that they can't do something wrong or to hurt you. They're not perfect. They're not free of toxicity. And I think everybody, so I hear, I get the ifs and the what ifs and what could have been. But at the end of the day, you don't know that.

He could have been like, ooh, I got this girl and start feeling a certain way because that's exactly what happened to me. That's what happened to me. I think he started feeling himself. You know what I think we don't discuss with this? I want to talk about the beat it meme in a second too. Have y'all I've seen the beat at meme? Yes. So I want to talk about the beat it meme in a second.

But you know what I think we don't discuss. Gus and this. So I want you all to think about movies real quick. Y'all think about movies. Think about movies where I give me an example. Like The Terminator. You got to see The Terminator. You seen The Terminator and Terminator too?

Nica, how you never seen The Terminator before? I don't want to. You have to remember, I couldn't watch these movies when they came out. So by the time I'm 17, there's so many movies. I don't want to go back and watch. But did y'all have a working television? Because like sometimes- My parents had a code.

Oh, fuck. See, that's the fuck I'm talking. Do you know how embarrassing it was? We never knew this before. Do you know how embarrassing it was when friends would come over and they would be flipping through the channel and it would get to like MTV and there be a code? And I'd be like, yeah. A code on MTV, that's actually, you know what?

Like, so this is, this, I need you to understand. So I had a lot of catching up to do by the time I was 17. So I'm going to say this to you. and I appreciate your parents. I appreciate your parents for being that. I'll make a lot of jokes, but shout out to the judge. Shout out to pretty hair.

Like, I grew up in a different sort of household. This is not in any way. My household was like always, I was always being challenged the way my mom, my mom, like,

raised me emotionally to be an energetically, lively, good, and curious person. But if... Well, I was, two, but not with entertainment like that. I know, but what I'm saying is they weren't going to tell

me not to watch something. Yeah. They were just going to be like, okay, now when you watch it, come back if you got questions ask me about it. Because at some point, they had to know I was up watching Emmanuel in the desert. Not with it, not. She's the queen of the desert. Not with the cold. My challenge

was theater. Naked woman dancing in the desert. Books. That's what Emmanuel in the desert was. It was not, no. She was naked. Y'all don't have codes on TVs? Hell, no, I wasn't no code, nigga. The code for me was wait until they go asleep. You know what I'm saying?

Like, anyway, so in The Terminator, go back to making the point, in The Terminator, John Connor is a wayward youth. Now, I want you guys to think about this. He is. John Connor, the person who is going to lead America or the world against the machines is a wayward youth.

And what they show when John Connor is a kid is deviance. They show him hacking shit. They show him not listening to his parents. And oftentimes in movies like this in popular culture, when they show people that are going to grow up to be leaders, they show deviance. They show people not going along with the rules. With the rules. They show people not going along. They're challenging authority.

Ferris Bueller. All of these young people that we are supposed to look at and like be, they are cool. These are people who challenge authority. The reason why is because not just with women, but by society, we are enamored with people like that. We make this into a specifically ladies situation in order to further, like, synthetically manipulate what we think women should be into. But we don't even really think about what we're into. The type of people that we're into are the type of people like that we,

these type A personalities are people who don't follow the rules. The people who everybody's going right. And this person goes, I think the path is actually left. And women aren't immune to that. Women aren't immune to guys who go, I'll fuck all that. I'm going to do what the fuck I want to do. And when they say a lot of the,

times when I hear that like I'm like I was attracted not to the nice guy well you were attracted to the guy that everybody else felt like they had to be in school and this guy goes I don't want to do that everybody felt like they had to have a job and this guy was doing this the sort of deviance and the I do my own thing I have my own way of doing it not just women are attracted to that everyone is attracted to that yeah I think it was a society society programmed us to be like, that's desirable, that's cool. But on the flipping, how many times did men, I don't know if you used to say this,

but men in my 20s back in the day used to be like, you're the marrying kind. Is that not the equivalent of the same thing, the good guy? It's be like, I'm going to have, but like you're the type of girl I would marry. I want to go over here and do this, like the exciting, the thrilling, but you're like more of the settled.

down type girl. That's the same thing. All cultural. All cultural. All cultural. Those men have an idea of the woman that they're supposed to marry. Yeah. And so the woman that they don't think they can take home to their

mothers because of judgment, expectation, societal structure, and engineering, they are picking out of a different set of women because they have been told that the chick that because

I know and we all know in this situation when your boy falls in love with the girl that the entire crew tells him he should not be falling in love with. Bernard is laughing

everybody knows how that goes when he falls in love with the girl that everybody says hey bro just to let you know but he likes her. Why does he like her? He likes her because she's free. He likes her because she's interesting. He likes the fact that some guys like the fact that you're in the house and the girl might

come out of her tile open up. Like, they like that. Like they feel, but they can't like it because they're told they can't like it. I don't want to get into this whole thing, but there's a reason why you're starting to see a trend of men really gravitate towards a certain type of woman who herself bucks society, bucks, trends, and is looked at as a deviant.

There's something... I don't think that's... That's not new? I know it's not new. It's not new at all. It's never been new. What's new is the acceptance of it. Because, like, what you just said is, like, you know, like the marrying kind and all of that.

Well, our idea of marriage has changed so much that the idea of what makes a marriage is changing also. So I'll say to all of this stuff. Mm-hmm. everybody evolves. Those guys that were assholes then could be nice guys now. Yeah. And I'm letting y'all know one thing for sure.

Those guys that were nice guys then, they certainly can become assholes. Yeah. And really they have. So all I'm saying is in this situation for everyone, stop getting so mad over shit like this. Were people mad? Well, it's like, okay, let's talk about the beat it meme.

Put the meme up. Have you, you've seen this with the guy, okay, I get, I understand why some brothers. It's like, yo, I'm a nice guy. I can't find a lady. Like, you know, why is this? All the dudes and the thugs and making money, whatever, they ballplayers, they got tattoos and shit. Um, I want everybody to exist in a vibrational abundance. Meaning, please, please, please concern yourself with what wants you.

like I am begging people to be concerned with who does want you and not who doesn't because there are so many choices now it is not like it was in 1985 and 1995 where two people were going to go ah fuck it I just get married to you like there's so many choices now the apps have globalized amorous fucking escapades there's so much on there People are seeing so much, please, please, please concern yourself with who thinks you're fucking sexy. And don't worry about who doesn't. You're going to drive yourself crazy. That's for men and women.

You're going to drive yourself crazy. You're going to drive yourself crazy worrying about who doesn't want a nice guy. Who wants to let the women who want the nice guys because they're out there. She asks yourself if you want them as much as you think you do. You don't have that conversation either. Find them. I think this is also just like a silly conversation to have because what is nice? And to your point about, you know, concern yourself with the people who want you, it's also like people got to be realistic about who they are in their situation that goes for men and for women.

Like you got to be realistic in what you bring to the table and who you are. Just because your nice doesn't give you a ticket of you should have all these things. You could be nice and boring. You can be nice and funny. You can be nice and creative. And like the nice guy doesn't mean, I just, it's just such a silly argument to me. I even hearing Ari talk about this, this is her personal situation. And it's like, okay, like, I get it.

You go back and you think what if. But to your point, the nice guys could be bad. The bad guys could be nice. Nice can be boring. Nice can be fun. Nice doesn't mean like you always, I guess it's just like the nice guys, the whole, like the beat it. I mean, right? All the nice guys, we never.

when we get well maybe because you're boring or maybe because there's something else you don't have like it's it's not because you're nice that you're not getting chosen like we have to let that go well i will say this about that now that depends on what you think is you talked about this that's what i mean it's subjective that depends on so there are a lot of women and it depends on like how mature you are right there are a lot of women that see a guy that's like uh hold up before i say this a, this is an unpopular thing to say. If you want a mate, it is your responsibility

to be desirable. I don't think that that's an unpopular thing to say. Especially in the fucking era that we're all right. If you want a mate, it's your responsibility to do things that are attractive to a mate. Well, it will attract them. Yeah, so it's your responsibility to be desirable.

You don't have to be desirable to everyone. Right. But if you're to do it in the beat it mean right there. You know, I would hope that somebody looks at that guy and goes, hey, he might be a CEO in 10 years.

But if not, just, you know, take some consideration and care into who you are and, like, what you do. Invest into yourself a little bit. Like, go out there, show some initiative, you know, get a manicure, keep your hair cut, do all of those things. Like, go to be somebody that people

want to have sex with. it. And so like to me, looking at all of this stuff, you're looking at the beat at me? Show me to me. That's funny. Why do they always pick thugs? Why don't they always pick thugs? It's like, hey,

and then she comes back when she's pregnant. Like, beat it, chick. I guess who would have, I, I guess the thing that doesn't, that I love this meme, by the way, this meme is hilarious and it comes up every year. We get fed this meme every year. Who does the beat it mean guy go for now? Now, who does he

go for it. Who is the next choice? We know who he goes for. We know who he goes for. Oh, but we got to, we got to quit the nice guy. Just because you're nice. They're not women and men goes both ways. They're not not picking you because you're nice. There's something else to it, to your point about the big side. It's not like, oh, he's nice. I don't want him. There's something else. You got to be more, it's more than just nice. Now, last thing I'll say before I move on. this. Do you understand guys who

after they've gotten to the mountain top at 34 or 35 whatever see something like this what Ari is saying hold on to the hurt oh yeah. Yeah. That's a human thing to do. Yeah. I think it kind of fits with like an ugly

dougly syndrome in a different kind of way but yeah you that stays with you. Yeah. And it can create a monster. It can create not a monster, but just insecurity, mistrust. Absolutely. I think all things that we experience as you go through life, they weigh on you. They stay with you.

That's why therapy is really important. You got to do some work. You got to do work. You know what? Let's talk about something that I was really concerned about, or not concerned, confused. I was really confused with this next one. Like, are we going back to Target or not? Donnie?

I mean, according to Dr. Jamal Bryant is okay. to go back to Target. He says that the year-long boycott is officially over. Let's hear from the pastor. It's been a year and I'm grateful. They didn't think we could do it, but we did. History has just been made.

The most effective and powerful boycott by black people since the Montgomery bus boycott 70 years ago. We asked for four things and I'm grateful to God if we've got three of them. They have invested two billion

dollars back into the black community as they pledged after the death of George Flower. On top of the two billion, an additional $100 million to immediate organizations that are meeting the needs within our community. Number two, we ask them to partner with HBCUs. They have found, and we have found collectively, one that will do our pilot program with 12 other HBCUs to follow. Number three, a reimagining of DEI has been a rough year for our community. 300,000 black women have lost their jobs, and this is the highest unemployment for our people in years. The only thing that we didn't get accomplished, but we're still working towards, is an investment

into black banks. And I'm believing by grace, it's going to get done. This new CEO has come handling business, and I'm glad to walk with you. The immediate target with FAS has come to an end. We claim victory. We're grateful. Go in or stay out. But I'm grateful under God.

It's often. All right. First of all, we got to talk about why you don't like Jamal Bryant. I'm not, don't say I don't like him because I don't want to make it personal. But I think he is extremely problematic. All right. Let's talk about it.

Okay. We have to. Don't make it personal. We can't make it personal, but there's no way to. I'm not making it personal. He is problematic. I'm sorry, I'm still trying to get over with this video because that's not the video I watched.

I watched the press conference. I watched it too. My biggest problem with Jamal Bryant is that he centers himself in everything. As a pastor, as a leader, particularly as a pastor, where there is linked to something deeper, I just don't understand how people get this, don't see what I'm talking about with this man.

Now, I've already talked about, we talked about the whole dress thing and how he addressed the congregation. I did not have a problem with the dress. I had a problem that he centered himself and he took time from his pulpit to have a moment because I think that is more important to Jamal Bryant than most things.

And I'm sorry, y'all can come at me with it if you want to. I'm not saying he doesn't do good work, but it seems to be motivated by a personal platform, growing his platform and getting exposure. I thought Jamal Bryant started the target boycott. Did you? I thought he did it with Nina Turner and Tamika Mallory. That is how it has been, you know,

it was that the women came together. They brought him on to bring the church and, you know, to make it more widespread and national and to have a bigger movement. I knew it was a 40-day fast. I knew they extended it. I thought everybody was working together. Did you think that?

Well, I knew that there were multiple factions, but I don't think I knew to the degree that it was as fragmented. This is why I say Jamal Bryant centers himself. Jamal Bryant does his press conference. He doesn't alone. I saw Nina Turner there. He does this video where he claims the target has met their three out of the four demands and he claims declares it over how do you declare something over you you make yourself

the face of it you declare it over and you didn't start it this is the problem i have with chamois brian and the headlines are extremely confusing and the more you you have people asking the very question that you started this off with are we boycotting it are we not you have Nina turner and tamika mallory saying no they have not met the demands the two of the women who were a part of what Jamal Bryant was doing. They called themselves the mothership three or something like that, are saying that that's not true and they're still boycotting it, while Jamal Bryant standing in front of a target sign is telling you it's over. You didn't start it. It started in Minneapolis. It started there. So you might say, hey, maybe you should have said you're removing yourself from it

and it's over for you. But now that you've come out and you've held this press conference and now these headlines, it's causing harm to what the original people who started it a month before you got involved, a black woman and other people in Minneapolis, you're taking away from the work that they're doing and they're not saying it's over. And the further you research into it, they have not met the demands. Two of the things that he just named started before this boy, they removed their DEI efforts. They have not apologized publicly. This new CEO has not committed to bringing back the DEI initiatives and programs that existed before, they've merely renamed it with something else

and said they'll look into the research of it. They haven't done that. And all they've done is committed to paying out the money that they already promised they would do prior to this boycott even starting. So what is Jamal Bryant talking about other than trying to establish himself as the beginning and the end of this boycott? Boycott. I'm not saying that he did not do bring this to a bigger audience and gather and corral people to boycott Target.

I'm not saying that that wasn't good and that he was not beneficial to that. The problem is he's taking credit for something that he didn't start and he's ending it when Target has not answered the call from the boycott. Okay. So I talk to people about this and I don't want to try to like distill everything that I got because honestly I'm still pretty confused. Okay. And everybody had to listen to the whole Terminator rant. So you guys know that being concise is not a skill of mine. So this started, not by Jamal Bryant.

Right. But along the way, Jamal Bryant, from my understanding, started his own part of it. With the other two women. Well, the Target fast that was initially fast during Lent was started by Jamal Bryant, and that had a religious framework. It was a fast during Lent from Target. So that part of it that he decided to continue after Lent was Jamal Bryant starting that part of it. The 40 day fast.

The 40 day fast. Then it turns into something else, right? So the part of it that he started, it is within his, I guess, power to end. So this is where it gets confusing. The boycott existed before. I think the woman's name is Nakema. I apologize. That's not correct.

the term boycott specifically for Target based on the DEI started a month before. He comes in with Nina Turner and Tamika Mallory and does the 40-day fast. They extended the fast past 40 days. It became 400. But he's not saying I'm ending my fast. He's saying the boycott is over. Right. He's his target.

That's where it's confusing. His target fast, and I'm like, and you know, I'm just so you see, I'm talking to people. Okay. So. Yeah, shit. They're together. Yeah. So his fast is over.

What he was doing, particularly his call to action with the people that got into it because of Jamal Bryant or because of how he positioned it, that part of it is over. like is it confusing to have multiple I guess tentacles of a movement against a corporation like this exists at the same time yeah it is it is it is for me I'm not I'm not I agree it is for me it is for me for some person for one person to say hey I'm out of it because I thought that everybody was together for a common goal right so but apparently people joined together and perhaps they had different expectations about what the resolution would be. And that is what it is. It's like when people compare this to the Montgomery bus boycott, you have to remember the agreed upon policy outcome of the Montgomery bus boycott, there were other things, but it was to desegregate the bus system. So if that happened, we went, right?

if that happened, we went. In this situation, it is a little murkier. It's murkier because Target simply is not going to re-institute its DEI initiatives. They're not going to do that. They're not going to do it. If they were to do that, it would put them in direct conflict with the Trump administration. And they have already capitulated. They've already capitulated to the Trump administration.

So if anyone thought that they were going to not go to Target and Target was going to re-institute its DEI initiatives, that's not going to happen. So he lied. Well, I think, I don't know necessarily whether or not he lied. He just said that they did it. Well, so this is what I would say. This is an interesting part of this.

Because the critique that I could make of the entire movement was that even though there's a whole website, devoted to it, right? The critique I can make of the entire movement in that it wasn't plainly articulated to the people who were boycotting exactly what the win was. It wasn't plainly articulated to them.

You don't think people knew, I thought it was, if anything, right, there could be more than one thing, but I thought everybody understood it was based off of the removal of the DEI. Right. That's why we're boycotting. Right. But the question was, would there be anything short of that

that would get you to stop boycotting. Only one person's preceding that message. Not even Nina Turner or Tamika Mallory are saying. I know, but here's what I'm saying in this situation is I think this entire quagmire shows just what a position target is in because Jamal Bryan has come out and said, hey, the boycott is over. And what I am seeing, I cannot tell you what the average person

in Atlanta or that goes to his church or whatever. But what I'm seeing is, no, it's not over. Well, thank God. That's what I'm seeing. And so the problem that Target has is that Target, for whatever reason, this boycott has been sticky as in regards to them. And they are not going to be able to soft pedal in any way the response or the resolution to this.

people want decisive and clear action from Target based upon the allegiance that they had to target before and anything short of that, they're not going to change the way they feel about it. And if they think that sending Jamal Bryant out as an emissary to say, hey, everything's okay now. If they think that's going to work, it's obvious that it's not. Well, but you're right, but I want to focus on Jamal Bryant.

Because you have an issue. But it is, it is so. So the video that he just played, he said he complimented the CEO, a man who is not apologized, who to your point has capitulated to the organization that he is CEO of has to the Trump administration, which means he will continue to carry out things that are in favor of this administration. He has not apologized to the black community. He has not said that he is implementing the DEI initiatives. He is not deposited money into black banks. He is only continuing, which they're almost done, right? It's like 97%.

He is only honoring a pledge that was made six years ago, almost six years ago. So I need the reason I'm so big on Jamal Bryant is because you positioned yourself as the leader of this. There are other people, but he really was the face, which is how he would want it. You positioned yourself as this. There was a way for you to say. I'm done and the boy my fast is done he didn't say that he said that they have Target has done what it needed to do he said the CEO is a good man and he said the boycott is over that is if the cause if you understood what Nina Turner and Tamika Mallory and the people who started in

Minneapolis before were about then you would understand how you doing a press conference and you say putting out that video is in direct contrast to what it is that they're doing. Are you for us or are you against us? Is this about you and what you were doing? Or is it about what the people in the community are trying to do and push forward or force the hand of Target? Don't get here and be like, this is the Montgomery boycott. And then you pull out and aren't truthful about what it is that Target has or hasn't done for the community. Right.

He is a problem to this cause with what he did. And I'm sorry, that is the part that I'm going to focus on because it left all of us confused. I was so confused. And as I started researching it, I started learning so much more. And I realized it's not how I just how I personally feel what he did hurt, maybe temporarily. Hopefully it didn't. You know, people still realize that Target has not done what it said it was going to do. not sad, but Target has not changed this opinion

or what it's doing. But hopefully it did not take away. But if you just read the headline and you followed Jamal Bryant, you think the boycott is over. I think that the other actors in this entire movement were very quick to make sure people didn't think that. I think that was good on their part.

Just so let people know, talked to a lot of different people. The boycott is not over. but what I will say is that people that I have talked to inside of this thing say, hey, his part of it is. And they...

It is. I agree with you. And they don't care. So I'm just being... You guys... Do they care how people are perceiving it? Look, like, I've made calls and sent messages and stuff like that.

And I've even asked people, I've asked people involved in this, involved in this, not directly. I still have another conversation to have at the end of the day. I've asked people, do you guys care whether or not people boycott Target or not? And they were like, at this point, you can boycott if you want.

Right. So my thing is, like, my thing is... Can I ask you why they're saying that if their demands weren't met? Well, so... Because both Tamika and Nina have said to boycott. Well, okay. So Tamika and Nina have said to boycott,

Tamika and Nina are very, very clear about what's going on, very clear about what's going on. And I'll speak more to Senator Turner in the future, probably. They're very clear about what's happening. And they're probably going to continue to push the line. They are organizers, and organizers need very specific remedies to problems. Organizers don't organize just to have a problem sort of end up in the, the milieu of like we're okay. Organizers go, this is what you got to do.

All right. I think the critique here for me is number one, how this message got to people, right? People have to know. You're asking them to do something. You're also having an effect on black brands inside of Target. So the black brands that are inside of Target, they need to be able to know when this will be over

because there is a cost, right? Like there is a cost here. What we didn't do in this one that we seem to do in the bus boycott is we didn't do no carpooling. It didn't seem to be that much thought and maybe I'm wrong about this. I would love to have somebody catch me up on this. It didn't seem to be that much thought

about the black people that were going to have to walk to work because in the boycott there were black people that were going to have to walk to work and there were carpools and we did all kinds of stuff to sort of mitigate the damage that this action would have on the community. What would it have looked like for black businesses? I do not know.

But we can learn from that though. That's nobody's fault. Like we can learn from that. And this is way more complex because this is like a very direct capitalistic endeavor to hold a corporation accountable in this way. This is a lot different. It's not the same thing, right?

That's with no disrespect to our fabulous and brave and amazing ancestors. So I don't know that I have a problem with him stopping this boycott. I don't. I do have a problem with the fact that there doesn't seem to be more consistency at the top of this than what I would have liked there to be. And I don't know whose fault that is. I don't know who you blame for that.

But I know that when people come, when people are this investing into something and they come away with it with more questions than they do answers, what it actually does is erodes their belief in this type of action. They start to think that maybe those general strikes that people have in the back of their minds won't work. They start to think that I should have been going to target

this entire time. These motherfuckers don't know what they're doing. They can't get their shit together. And I would just plead and beg. And this is nobody's fault. I'm not calling out nobody, man, because this work is so fucking hard. And I am in no fucking position

in any type of way, any type of way, any type of way, to criticize the people that are doing this work because it is difficult to do. But if there's just one thing I could say or one little even note I could say, it's just like be on the same page because if you're not on the same page, the people going to burn the book.

Their lives are hard enough already. When you ask them to make even the smallest sacrifice, there has to be something on the other, end of it that they understand and this is confusing the people whether it whether it should be or whether it shouldn't be well it shouldn't be i think we can agree with that the messaging i thought was clear while it was going on and the one person who defected made people start saying well wait wait what nobody was saying wait what before nobody was and the conference and it's fine if the people you're talking to don't care that he left but i think they need to be

paying attention to the conversation of the shoppers, the consumers who are like, what are we doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what's important. And nobody was saying that prior to this press conference. It was very clear what we were and we're not doing.

Okay. I mean, yeah. Yeah, yeah, Rachie, Rache. We got to get Jamal Bryan on the podcast so you want to talk to him. I don't want to. Is this some, is this something that, is there something more to this? No, there's nothing more. No, they have a good relationship.

They do? Yeah, they do. They have a very cordial relationship. What's up with Giselle lately? I haven't been on Potomac. I haven't been tapping in. They just finished their season. Okay, what happened?

Oh, is the Grandin back? The Grandin, we don't know if she's going to come back for the next season, but she was at the reunion. She did do a sit-down special with Andy after she got out of jail. The cameras were there when she got out of jail. Now we have Wendy possibly going to jail. Her trials coming up April and May. She and her husband. Can I ask

Are the feds targeting The Real Housewives? Neither one of these are federal cases Well whoever are the law Okay fine Is law enforcement targeting the real housewives There's been a There's been a rash

In the last four or five years Of real housewives Getting caught up in shit I would have to I have a theory that the police, the police, the pope, that they are watching the real housewives, looking into some of these business dealings and getting investigating tips from watching this show

and then going out and targeting these women. I'm being for real. Think about it. It's not just the black ones. Having some of the white ladies got hemmed up and went to jail for different fraud type of shit, because when you're on here and you say you got this business and the ladies on the show are making fun of the business.

They're like, this business is a little bit shady, and they dissing you and calling you a fraud and all of that. I think somewhere that in these different jurisdictions and stuff like that, it's a real housewives task force because these... Task force. I'm serious. They treat them like the rappers. So Karen ran into a tree,

and it was her fourth time. having an alcohol-related incident with the vehicle. So, and there's footage of her, saying she was a concubine of one of the founding fathers in the video. There are, so that's, so that's that. Wendy. Wendy, Wendy, it's some corruption shit.

It's insurance fraud. See? And they were, there are receipts of them selling it, selling the stuff that they claim was stolen. There are, there's an allegation that they have multiple credit cards and different names like Pam Oliver and Eddie Hennessy. Pam Oliver, that's funny.

That's funny. But what I'm saying is, would they have been arrested for this stuff? If, would they have been arrested for this stuff had they never gone on the show? I think the DUI thing is a little different. But, uh... The DUI thing is definitely different. But I think I don't know.

I mean, Andy and, I mean, Andy, Wendy and her husband are fighting it. So I don't know. They are maintaining their innocence, whatever it may be. I think that, I think the allegation is 500,000 and stuff, like purses, jewelry. She's apparently something that she's reported is stolen.

She's wearing it on a red carpet. There's an email where Eddie sends to her. He's like, hey, we got to add some more stuff to this. Like what else do we need to do? We need to beef it up. It's not looking good. Insurance fraud, I know people do it. I think that maybe you could say that they could be making an example out of them.

maybe, but so far it's not looking good. Hey, Andy Cohen, set up a legal fund, dog. No. Nah, he need to do that. Set up a legal fund. Them getting back on the show is enough. These women are being picked on by the authorities. I'm serious, man.

Set up a legal fund. Set up a legal fund for them because the show is making storylines out of their business deal. I don't know, didn't somebody have like a, they ran massage, they had like a, wasn't one of them running like massage? Didn't one of them have like a chain of

of massage places? What was it? Well, she was a chiropractic, but there wasn't fraud with that. But something happened, right? Like, they had to downsize. The family just took over the business. Like, they weren't running it well.

His family. I remember, I remember, watching the scene where Mia was in an apartment and she had had to downsize. And it was like, it was the chiropractic thing that they were running. Well, Gordon, her husband had mental health issues. He wasn't running the

business correctly. It's like he's got diagnosed with bipolar one. Like, there's a whole thing. Okay. So what I'm saying is no crime. If I'm an enterprising young state prosecutor or something like that, I go, oh my God. I could get a big fucking fish

from the Potomac, I can harvest that fish right out of the river. So I send a team of young enterprising untouchables to go in there and make an example. This is what's happening. How come I'm the only one that cares about these women being put in jail, right? I got a list. Can I interest you in Teresa Judice? Yeah.

Look, all of this stuff. She went to the federal prison for a year. And we covered it on TMZ because she had like a. a special menu down there and all of that stuff that was going on. So what I'm saying is like, I really think this. This is the same thing they started doing the rappers. Rappers would get arrested sometimes, but then there was a special hip-hop police that would take rappers down.

That's happening to the real housewife. Give me somebody else. So they got, who is Jen Shah? Jen Shah. She just got out. Federal wire fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Running a nationwide telemarketing scheme targeting elderly victims. It was bad.

It was bad. She's in jail with Elizabeth Holmes, and they became buddies. And Delane. Galane. I always say her name wrong. Oh, they down there? The three of them? Well, they were, but now she sheds out.

Theranos is crazy. I like her. Yeah, I like her, too. We got to do some shit for the fucking fit. We got to go, but like, we got to get to Aramichelle Bethi, but like, look. Theranos is, you know why I like Theranos? Why? Theranos is impossible for a nigger.

You could never be Theronose, you can't do that. Like, every time I see everyone make fun of that dude that's a fake doctor, have you seen him? Have y'all saying the black guy that's a fake doctor? Every time I see them making fun, that's light work compared to Theranos. Theranos lady raised like $40 billion.

Awesome shit that she never had to prove. Never. Yeah, I saw the movie. I saw the movie. The series. The series is so good. So Theronose goes into a room with Bill Clinton and the rest of these people and goes, hey, look. Bill Clinton?

Bill Clinton was a part of it. There's probably a whole Baffirmet thing. She goes, look, hey, I got a machine. And you just give the machine your blood, tells you everything that's wrong with you. Five minutes. And somebody went, oh, my fucking God. What did you say? She went, nigger, I said I got a machine.

The machine take your blood. Five minutes later. the machine tell you everything that's wrong with you I need $500 million. But you have a great tone in your voice. He was very good at it. That's Bill Clinton.

I wish them boy, white people got it good, man. Theronose went around there and it took years. It took years. She was on the cover of magazines. It took years for them she had to prove that she was a fraud.

They tried to put the- scared. They had invested all the money. They needed it to be true. They needed it to work. They built the there. And the thermos, the engineers at there, you guys got to go watch the documentary. The engineers are like, hey, guys, this isn't possible? So, but this time,

Theranos is in fucking Walgreens. And the guys are going, hey, we can't do this. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping, then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips.

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I get a chance to talk about a lot of things right now, but also my favorite show on television. I get to talk about it right now as well. It's been destroying me. Fogelman's like a, I don't know what's wrong with you. Fogelman, I could argue that Fogelman is an emotional terrorist, okay? You could, and you could argue that. You have, you actually have legitimate points and start.

This particular season. This season, not the first one. No, no, no, no, no. The first one, too. We have just like, we have Ryan Michelle Bethel. I mean, that was, it was a little bit of this. But this season is like, it's like, you know that scene when in Last the Mohicans? And he literally takes the, no, are you kidding me?

That is one of my favorite movies. Is that, that movie's incredible, right? And, like, he takes the heart. Like, that's what it feels like. It feels like at every moment he is just taking. You know, but only it's slow. It's not like a fast kind of thing. It's like, oh, you're about to, you're really taking my heart out of my chest?

And a little unexpected. I knew this season was going to be sad, but I wasn't expecting some of the sadness. Right. Like, I'm legitimately bawling as I'm watching. Oh, yeah. Particularly the last episode. If you guys didn't hear, the last episode was nuts. Yeah, which was my episode four, right?

Yeah, five came out last night. Come on, guys. Like, the last episode, like, so four, not five, I haven't watched it. I'll watch it. I'll watch it. But for, come on, man. What are we doing? I know.

It's the show. With a little white baby on a horse. Now, now, now, now he's got to go. So now he's got the baby. I don't want to spoil anything for you guys. No, it's just spoiler. No, no, no. We can't do the spoiler because literally I want people if you start to watch,

and I'm not bullshit by the way. This is not, uh, I didn't know you guys were friends, by the way. I didn't know this was, I didn't. Ryan Michelle, Michelle, but they. That's my girl Actress Which we'll get into Delta

Host of the Paradise Comparian podcast Well I didn't know you guys were friends I'm watching the show You guys if you start on season You start on episode one of season two You have no idea where this story is going to be By episode 4

It's nuts Here's a deal I'll say this because we did We did crazy stupid love On the rewatchables Yeah I have a thought

thought, Ryan. Fogelman is one of the top five in the town. Fogelman is, and I asked my friend Simon Kempberg about this, who was talking about the fact that some of his unproduced stuff is some of the best stuff you'll ever read. I don't really feel like there's five guys spending story right now in the town better than Fogelman. No.

Just like when you take This Is Us, when you take Paradise, we take some of the stuff that he's done screenwriting, his ability to set a character up, make you emotionally invest into a character and then pay that off in story second to none the dude's like a genius

absolutely he's not like a genius he is a genius and to continue to do it over it's one thing to have this is us right and be like well I ain't got no more ideas

we'd be like you know what that's fair like go ahead on take your money go somewhere you know but then to have this is us

and then come with paradise like what kind of brain does that Like what kind of brain? And like you said, the movie, crazy stupid love. I talk about Bolt all the time. Bolt is an animated film about this cat. Oh!

That movie. Bolt, it's actually a dog. But isn't a cat and a dog? Bolt is the dog. But there's a little cat. But there's a little cat. It's like this little scrap. See, because I identify with the little scrappy cat.

I could cry right now just thinking about that movie because it's going to see it now. It's animated. It's not so. So the bolt came out. And so like, you know, Disney had their animation deal, and then there was also Pixar. Right. Bolt is not Pixar, but Bolt is a Disney computer animated deal. It's a great movie.

2008, 2009? Something like that. Because I don't think I watched it with one of my children, like, after it came out. Because I don't think I saw it because, you know, I wouldn't have seen it necessarily when it came out. And I was like, I mean, we did this, like, right, you see me right now. I don't know if I read it. I don't know if I can handle that right now. But again, and it has a happy, it's not, it's for children.

So it's not, yeah. But my point is, is that the range that this man has, the range of, of ideas and mind. And the, he's so humble. They're all so humble. All the writers. I mean, I had, on the podcast, I got to talk to four of the writers. And they honestly don't, I was like, do you guys think you're just like playing tidlywinks? Because they're like, no, we just, you know, we have.

have this idea. And really, when you're breaking story, I was like, you say that like everyone does this. Like, you say that like, I'm just, we're just having fun. I'm like, no, y'all are the tippity top. And what you're doing is so incredibly, it's like watching craftsmanship. You know what I mean? It's watching crafts people come to their work and be able to just create this incredible, like you said character and some people do story quite well they got that plot I don't know the character's name can't remember no you know and then some people do character very well and you're like I don't really know what the story was about but my goodness what you take the character with you like I have not stopped thinking about the last episode like even now like I'm kind of like sitting and waiting for

episode five because I'm still thinking not about what happened I'm thinking about the people like I feel like I knew that person. Out of four episodes, four episodes, I feel like I knew them. I know. You are on this next season. I am. Or this season. This season.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What can you? Well, first, let me ask you two. What can you tell us? Okay. And then two, do you know what's going to happen? I know you can't tell us, but do you know what's going to happen the whole time or just past your character? No, I know.

I saw the whole thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, my gosh. I see the whole thing. So tell us. Because you're a fan of it. Now you get to be a part of it. Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it was one of the, like, best moments of my career, to be honest with you. To be on a show that I would watch, to be on a show that I do watch, right? To be on a show that I'm a fan of. To be on a show where I'm like in awe of the writing and the writers and all. It doesn't happen a lot, you know? Like you just, a lot of, a lot of, it's just that, that synchronicity and that synergy doesn't happen all the time. So when it does, it's really, really, really, really special.

And, you know, you just, I think the only other time it happens is when I first graduated from NYU. And I did an episode of As the World Turns. And I have been watching it with my grandmother since I was like, too. I was like, Grandma, I'm on the show. They were like, you can't wave at the camera. I'm like, I can't. They're like, no.

I was like, I'm going to get fired, ain't it? Anyway, but I did not get fired. Thank the Lord. But the point is that it's like those moments when you feel that that, like, connection to the show, it's just really, really, really rare. And so it felt really special to me. And I, I'm lucky because I got to be in the past. And even when I read the script, when they initially were like, okay, we thought about

this, you did it. And I was, you know, over the moon. But I would skip the present day because I didn't want to know anything. Oh, I love that. So I was like, because in the past, it's one thing to read about the past, you know, and I had, because I was leaving. But I was so I would even, even I, as an. an actor would skip over because I didn't want it to be ruined.

I was like, I don't want to know what happens. Like, I haven't gotten there yet. So it was, yeah, it was, it was, and it's, what I can say is, A, I'm in the past. B, we find out a lot about Jane. Oh, I knew you're going to do that. I knew, no, everybody's like, is this where you, no, we don't take Jane out. You like Jane? Yeah.

You like the psychopath? Of course he does. Of course he does. Well, after season six, just wanted to play the we. And we find out, I will tell you this, we find out. why she likes to play the movie. Oh, okay, so I thought we were done with that part of the story.

It's crazy that came back. To me, the show doesn't work without characters like Jane. No, of course, but it's still frustrating as a viewer. I'm mad. You can dislike her, but at the same time, that's the little stuff that you throw in there that keeps everybody on their toes.

Like, we've seen before post-apocalyptic people come together and differing factions and all of that stuff like that. But little characters like that that are causing problems within this civilized world like that mental health thing, that deal, that vacancy still existing,

that's what kind of makes the world fresh. I'm shocked how good, if I can say this, how good season two is. Because because season one was so great, I just was like, there's no way that season two could follow up. And then I thought, we'll definitely get a season three.

And I just thought, oh, season two will kind of like just link the two together. It'll be a sleeper. And then we'll come back. in season three. I have said those exact, really? The exact words in that exact way.

I'm blown away. It's even, I was like, how in the world did they do this? I just, it just thought it was impossible. I was like, all right,

we just going to go watch him, try to, well, I don't want to give spoilers, but watch him do his thing. That's exact. And that was it. I mean, I'm literally on camera saying

those exact words because they were like, well, what was it like, you know? Because I did the companion podcast for the show. And I was like,

I was a little, disappointed because I was like, oh, I'm going to be podcasting the Rudy Pooot season. Because there's just no way. Like I said the same word. Like there's literally no way that you can, not even top, but be as good at. Yeah. And then they topped it. I was like, y'all, y'all out here.

Like, this is, this is miraculous. What do you think made the show breakthrough? Because there are a lot of good shows on all these streaming networks. You're right. Some of them don't get the recognition that Paradise has. But for some reason, this show, that's just. found his way into the zeitgeist in a way. That's a really good question. I like,

you know, there's so many elements that go into what makes something pop. I think that there's always that like X factor that we'll never know what it is. But I do think if we could break down some of those elements, you know, we can't deny the star power of it, and I'm not

just saying it because, you know, he live in my house, but we can't deny the star power of Sterling K. Brown. Now who's that? That guy. And I think the fact that Sterling and Dan are back together. So I think that helps things break through because it's like, from the creators of,

you know, people are always going to be like, wait, what, what? And then because it did have such a twist, I think it was, it hooked people. So we made people start talking about it on, you know, the threads and on all those places. And, and last but not least, I have to plug us as black women.

I think we, if something is breaking through, so much of it, if you kind of dig in through that breakthrough, is we're there somewhere. We're there on threads. We're there on Instagram. We're somewhere being like,

hey, y'all. I ain't going to hold you, but did you watch Paradise? Paradise, girl, what? Girl, you need to. Like, anytime you get a girl into a conversation, it's generally going to break through the Zykeyes. So I think those are the key. I mean, even heated rivalry.

I haven't watched it yet. You haven't watched yet? No. But it's like so much of, you know, so much of us is just, we, us is, we, we is. We is driving it. But, you know, a lot of that has to do with like the, I think when, when black women get behind something. Yeah. You know, I think we really can push things out of, you know, and make them pop.

Yeah. And always, by the way. He did robberies a lot. I get a rivalry with it. You girl, you know. They told me I have to watch it at night. So I'm just like trying to prepare. That's what I was told.

Who told you you had to watch it at night? You know one of my friends? He said you need to watch it at night. Oh, yeah. I probably know who this is. I wonder right. You don't know this person. I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I'm like, I'm just like, can't watch it. I'm supposed to watch it at night. They're going crazy to he did robbery. I think you need to just jump in. Like night or day. They're jumping in.

It's incredible. They're going deep all the way. She just took a picture with Connor. I did, child. Oh, I did. I did. Wait, can I, a follow up really quickly, do you think also, I am not a conspiracy theorist, even though I feel like as the day goes on, I'm turning into one a little bit.

Like I'm starting to question everything. Do you think some of it, too, is that, well, one, do you think there's an underground city somewhere and that also people believe that this is something that could be happening? I think that there's that interest in that. I'm going to answer the second question first. Absolutely people think that this could be happening. I think that there was a time maybe 10, 15 years ago when Paradise would have been like

automatically sci-fi. No one, you know, but now I think people are like, is this a documentary? They're trying to tell or something. And two, do I think there's an underground city? No, but do I think that there are very, very, very, very, Uber 1% wealthy people who have built something akin to it?

Absolutely freaking loop. You can't convince it. I mean, I'm like you. I used to be, I used to think that I was like a pretty like, oh, gosh. Same. You know, let's not get into conspiracy. Now I'm like, tell it all, child.

It's all. Most likely, it's most likely that's happening. I'm like, come on. Somebody got a dinosaur somewhere, I'm sure. Yes. Yeah. I think the thing that I connect with is that if they knew the Caldero was going to erupt in 10 years, I think I'm fully on board with the fact that they wouldn't tell us.

I would agree. So I think that part of it is like, we know that they're like these expansive bunkers around. I watch, I watch like YouTube documentaries on people to have, This is one guy who has a tank. I watch his YouTube documentary. This guy has a tank. He's got a real tank. He's got like a Bradley.

He's got like a tank. He's got all this kind of survival stuff. So I know that that exists. But I think that most people agree now that if there were some civilization changing cataclysm that were on the horizon that we wouldn't be told. And that what they would start to do was pick essential people from all different types of parts of the world and then figure out how. they were going to rebuild society. They just wouldn't tell us one day we just wake up and everything would be going.

Okay, look, I don't want this to get too depressing because the show does, the show does litigate a lot of things that you can only litigate in like a post-apocalyptic show, ingenuity, the power of human connection, like what you would do in a situation where you are going to find your wife, the thing that's going to give you purpose and meaning in this, and that's not a spoiler if you guys are watching the second season, Sterling's character is going to find his life.

But along the way, where does your humanity pull you? Yeah. Where does your connection to people? Is it possible to still make connection in a situation so desperate? Because that's basically like what we are. I think that's another reason why the show works is because the, there is this science fiction element to it. But essentially it's it's about people making emotional decisions about one another.

Yeah. No, you're absolutely. I mean, I can only say you're absolutely right because that is. where I think the true genius and the true magic of the show lies is what you just talked about, which is that it's about these human beings. Some of them are mostly good. Some of them may be mostly questionable. But in those situations, what are these mostly good people do?

What kind of decisions do they make? They still love their wives. They still love their children. They still have a holy charge, right? What is that holy? charge and what do they, what do they feel responsible for? Because you're still going to, you're still going to wake up every morning and you're still going to feel responsible to someone or something. You're still going to have needs that drive you. And are you going to go crazy thinking

that the person you love the most is out there struggling? You know, and that's just a real thing. And whether that's you're in a bunker or whether that's, I moved across the country and I don't know if this person is okay. I got to go. You know, all of those, to your point, like, we are still going to have to make those decisions. One of the reasons why I don't know that I want to be here. If that goes down, I was like, I don't, I don't know that I, I don't want to be, I mean, Mad Max beyond Thunderdoll, I don't want to be in the Thunderdome. I don't want to be in the Thunderdome.

I don't want to be scraping for, I just. Take me now. I want to walk right into the blazing sun of the nuclear blast. I don't, I don't know if I'm built for it. I think about this a lot. Like, I think about zombies, whatever it may be. Like I did the whole Walking Dead thing And I'm like, you know what?

I'm okay I'm okay. I'm okay. Not at all. Not at all. Because I just think that what people, I don't know, you know what made me, made my decision for me?

I saw this, it's a good movie. You'll never, you won't sleep for a week. It's called The Road by Cormack. It's based on the book. So I read the book. And I heard the book is way worse. And then I watched the movie. The Road.

The Road. The Road. By a guy named Cormack McCarthy. He's the same guy who did no country for old men. Yeah. Like the movie, which has Vigo Mortensen in it, is an approximation of the sheer terror panic, an existential dread that that book will give you.

Like, y'all, he wrote another book called Blood Meridian, which is whatever, but like the movie almost gets there. The book will just leave you completely emotionally buried. He's absolutely right. He's absolutely. And I didn't even read the book. I just heard the book is way worse than the movie. And I was like, if anything is worse than this,

that movie, again, the way in which they filmed it, and I know we're not here to talk about that. But I say all this to say that when I saw that, I was like, oh, this is really what it would be like at the end of the world. And the thing is so genius about the movie and the book, well, I don't know about the book, but in the movie, they never talk about what happened.

Because what happened is completely inconsequential to where you end up. Yeah. And how the darkness, that he explores in that book in terms of human nature. And I was like, what, I mean, not to get biblical, but I was like, what does it, you live another day, but you had to do all these horrible, awful things to live one day.

And y'all ain't got Wi-Fi? Oh, no. Yeah. No, no, no. I can't. I'm like you. Let me, I just, I don't think I want to be here. I constantly have dreams about the end of the world.

Like, if I'm going to have a dream, it is usually about me trying to survive at the end of the world. It's like a deep fear of mine. Like an apocalyptic type dream constantly. Or tornadoes, one of the two. I'm constantly dreaming something about that, so it's a no for me.

I want to talk about good people. Yes. Let's change people. We'll talk about good people. You're a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. I was a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Which just thrills Van, because one of our favorite topics here. I know.

I've heard of all. I love it. It's my favorite thing to watch you two go at it. So we talked about it. Oh, go ahead. No, no, go ahead. What are you saying? So we talked about it before because one of our producers here is a black girl in a white sorority.

Which happens? What happens? Okay. So I wanted to have a conversation with her, like about that. But you agree with me on something. I want to bring it up. Okay. To me, black ladies and white sororities, hey, fine.

It's cool. The worst people. on PWI campuses are black dudes and white fraternities. Those are the worst people on campus. I do agree with them. Those, these are the most, the worst guys on campus by far. I was around them.

Like, look, to me, like, hey, bro, like, we, you know what? It's funny, Drusky did a sketch about this. Yes, he did. And I don't know if, I don't know if Drewski, I can't explain. I don't know if Drusky is just like this, if Drusky's like psychic, or if he can just look at all these interactions

and he just knows how to make them like super real in these sketches. But he was talking about the fact that when they send the black guy out to say who can come into the party, the black guy is a buffer, he's the one that's in there doing this, all of that stuff. But I watch that at Louisiana Tech and someone on LSU's campus.

What's your thought on, on black guys and white sororities. Say something controversial. Fraternities. I was going to say, well, sorority, that'd be it. I was like, oh, these lovely ones. Say something that want to say something controversial. I'm going to say something that doesn't get me canceled.

Listen, there. Get canceled. We can bring you back. I child. Listen, I'm going to do the best that I can. And I'm going to blame it on the food poisoning. I had this weekend. So that's what I'm going to blame it on.

But I do think that there is a lot of obvious overcompensating that those young people do. and they think they're masking the overcompensation, but it's so incredibly obvious to everyone else, except the white people maybe that they're around or maybe the white people enjoy that overcompensating. But it's a high price that they pay to be in those spaces. I would argue that they don't care if we think that they're overcompensating,

particularly like the men, like the Druskeets get. I think they do. I don't think that they care that what we think they're so. into what they think, that they've been accepted. Like in the Drusky skit, that's why it's so funny, he's clearly taking pride that he's different than the people that he's trying to keep out of this. He's the chosen one.

So I would argue that they don't even care. It's all about the others. You think they care? I think deep down inside they have a sense of shame. I think they know it wrong. I do. I think, again, I think that's where the masking comes from. I do.

I really, because a lot of these guys, have some of them have black mamas and daddies. Yeah, most of them do. Most of them do. They know. They know they got a mama and a great. They've met, they've met an old black woman at least once in their lives. They got something in there that says, now baby, you know you ain't.

Yeah, they're supposed to be doing out. And they can see it in us. Like if you really watch them, they avoid eye contact. They don't really be looking us in the eye because they know the whole thing is going crumble. They'll just, they'll just break down in tears. Like, take me back. I'm too far ahead.

It's too deep. It's like, come on, baby. But yeah, no, I think. And again, I have always said those spaces, what you have to do to prove and show your loyalty, I'm like, well, that's not a price I'm willing to pay. No, no, no, no, no. I have no desire for it.

But I want to talk about the D-9 because my little niece crossed this weekend. Yay, congratulations. Fisk University. She's number 33. No, not Fis. Delta. Okay. Delta.

We'd be this excited. Yeah, that's what's happy for her. She's number 33. See what happened? Yeah, right. See what happened? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, I'm, you guys, I'm right.

Look at just what happened with this elegant, intelligent, beautiful woman who went, The first thing that I said, aha. I said Sigma Gamma Roe and she goes, will we be this happy? And then she goes, wait, I'm not supposed to say it.

We'll be happy. I know. I'm right. She meant that because she knows I'm a Delta so I would not be this happy. I try to save it if you want. That is exactly what she meant. That's exactly what I'm here.

You would need both a dog to come in and save it. She crossed and I was so proud and it's their centennial for their chapter. at Fisk. Yeah, and yeah, I wish I could have gone out there to see her. But as I watched her, not only was I proud, I was just like very, it was a nostalgic moment, just thinking I'm 21 years in April past my time that I came out.

But there's been this conversation, I've seen you talk about it on threads because we love the threads about people denouncing their sorority. And, I mean, to each their own fine, but this trying to gather this movement when we have such pride in the meaning behind being a Delta, how it's impacted our lives,

the friends that we've made is it's so much more than maybe what somebody on the outside who thinks they know. No. You know, you have no idea. I just cannot. I have no idea by what.

You get me right. Like, you just, there's no, you don't know. I don't know. Anyways, what, how do you feel like your thoughts on seeing some of these people come out? I guess if, I'm always like, if you're just going to denounce, just go away. What are your thoughts on it?

Well, that's how it used to be. If people were going to denounce or all that stuff, they just did it very quietly. They just walked away. No one's forcing you to wear letters. No one's forcing you to go to a meeting. They begging you to go to a meeting, maybe. But there's no, there's not, you know,

once you do whatever it is your process is, you can walk away. And it used to be people just did it quietly. So the first, first issue I have is the is people using social media to jump on a bandwagon because I'm like well that right there is problematic because why do you have to use this because now you know you might get followers you so now now it's a little bit self-serving sure right that we we have we have to just call it call a spade to spade now it looks very self-serving but it's also on a larger scale

the fact that these people, that a lot of these denouncers are wrapping up this like Christianity this demon, all that stuff. I'm like, y'all know that the people who founded

these organizations were like one generation removed from slavery. Like you really think that those are the people that was like, let's do something demonic. You know, if they had all that, they could have just, I don't know, sprouted wings and flown away from slavery.

Like I'm not trying to be funny about slavery, but I'm saying like if we really just look at the fact that there were, that these were people that said to, they all looked around and they said, we're the first people to go to places like Howard and Hampton. We're the first people to get and educate people. They wouldn't let them read during slavery. The onus that was upon that generation,

I can only imagine what those, you know, 19, 20 year old people. must have felt in the year in 1913 and in 1908 in 1906 that what they must have thought about how they were going to progress the race like that was real I mean it's I think it might be hard for us to really wrap our brains around because you know these are stories to us at a certain point and we read about you know Tuskegee we read about that we've read about this but like to really be on that front line and to know that your grandmother and father on both

could potentially have been enslaved what they must have felt in terms of like how we're going to like walk into this free like literally walk into freedom and I'm like and those are the people yeah that you think we're doing something demonic like I just I feel like

so much of who we are as black people are on is under attack right now yeah and I don't and I don't want to you know to each their own if you want to walk away walk away but when you start talking about our institutions and you start being a tool of people who are trying to take away things,

whether it's D9, the black church is under attack. Heck, you know, DEI and all, everything is gone. Yeah. I was like, and you don't think that any of that where it's coming from is demonic, but you want to talk about some people who were, you know, just like, we are now free and we're going to do some amazing things in the world

for our people. Nah, bra. Like, you gotta miss me with that. Like, you gotta miss me with that. Obviously, you both know that I'm with all of this. Is there a butt coming? You think it's dena? No, no, no, no.

I don't think that any of the stuff. I don't know enough about it to know whether or not it's demonic. You see what I'm saying? I was like, there you go. I don't know about whether or not as demonic. By the way, I also don't know. I also don't know, I don't think I know enough about the denouncing as far as, like, why they're doing it.

But I do think that constant examination and reexamination of black cultural institutions is necessary. Well, that's fine. I think it's stress testing. I think the church, you brought up the church, I think it's important to examine the church, examine how the church is serving us, what we're giving to the church,

what we're getting from the church. I think a lot of times when I've done that, I have realized things that we got from the church and are getting from the church that maybe I didn't realize we were getting. I think in the last, and I give a lot of credit to a lot of people who have reached out, I think in the last couple of months of my life personally,

I've looked into the church and like, what do we get from the church today? And I realize that maybe my distance from the church makes it hard for me to see some of the things that we might be getting. Now, at the basis of some of my critiques, some of those issues that I have still remain. However, I do think this stuff is probably a little less important to me,

just because I think that these organizations and the space that they hold in black history, which is this gigantic enormous space, I think they're more harmless than anything else. I think the cost-benefit analysis, you get way more for having these Greek-lettered organizations and the camaraderie and the stuff that they mean than any harm.

But I think that if there are people inside of these organizations that want to have conversations about them, I don't know that the fact that they are black and old should stop us from having those conversations. But that's not what she was saying necessarily. I know. That's what having the conversation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like, I think that if you have an issue or you want to reevaluated or you do that. But it's the clout chasing that it feels like or, I don't know, it feels disingenuous sometimes when I see these people get on and talk about it because you're right, right? Like, it's an institution. And you might, your process might have been totally different from the next person. It could have been the people that were involved. It could have been the chapter. You have no idea. But if you understand the foundation and the ideals and the principles,

then I just don't understand how, I guess, you can reevaluate it, maybe on your process, like I said, and I'm repeating myself. But the foundation of it is something that's different. And we can have those conversations, but it doesn't mean, I don't know, that you try to corral all these people and get them to hate on something because of your personal experience. Yeah. You want to, yeah, I'll just leave it there.

No, I mean, look, this is my, and obviously, this is something that there's a big umbrella here that a lot of things fall under. And I do think that there is a thought sometimes in our community or in our culture that you get to, I feel my opinion of this is the same as it is about the 10 or 15 time incumbent congressperson. I would agree

that we cannot talk about whether or not they should still be in Congress we cannot talk about whether or not they we're not we can't talk about that because that's one of our elders

they got to stay there they was there in 1985 like a lot of these things we have to examine them and it has to be okay to examine them without the very mention of them being hit

with such like elder cultural centric hierarchy like you shouldn't say that about this, you shouldn't say that about that or it being anti-black to say it. Like, you know what I mean? So that's it. I don't know why they're, I've seen the people denounce and you know, everything is for social media now.

Yeah, they're doing it with Jack and Jill. They're doing it with. But like a couple of years ago in Baton Rouge, maybe last year or the year before, there was a guy that got beat to death. And that needs to be, yeah. Again, critique, valid critique,

and that's even beyond a valid critique. That means, you know, I don't know how that happened, who, what, when, where, how why, but that needs to be internally, the organization, all of those people, we need to all see that as a wake up call. Yeah. Right. Because that's, that should never happen. No one should ever go to college and die behind some pledging, some hazing, some letters, some numbers, some colors. I don't care. That's, you know, and I think we can all agree on that.

And to then also critique. You're right. We need to critique our elders. I think that the elder, I don't believe in elder worship, and I don't believe there are any sacred cows in the black community. I really don't. And I think those things can be done in a way that moves us all forward as opposed to allowing people from the outside who just want to destroy all of our institutions. You know, I mean, that man who was talking about, he was a white guy,

and he's, I don't know whose pastor he is, but some, in the administration. I don't know if you guys saw this and he was like there's no black there are no black men who have the ability to run a church. They don't have the theology and they don't understand proper theology and you know truthfully we if for a church to be truly biblical they need a white man under to because that's the we're the only people who under. Just the man with the glasses. Yeah. Yeah. The man with the glasses and then they and they sit there and And I'm so glad you brought the fact that he has gotten because they make, he makes, they have sanitized themselves in this way. Like he's got the speak, right?

He's got the little, he's got the little, he's got the little thing in the facial hair. He's got the little, you know, and he's just sitting there. And he just sounds so normal. You know, it doesn't sound like he's, you know, the most horrible person. He's like, actually. But that guy's an avowed white nationalist Christian. Yes, but the scary part is how normal he sounds. They are sanitizing all of this so that they're just pushing it on through, just pushing it on.

who just pushed it on down the line so that the white normies are like, well, I mean, you know, the way in which he said that, I don't necessarily agree with all he said, but the way in which he said it, he sounded like he knew what he was talking about. So maybe I should think about that in a different way.

And that's how it happens. And that, to me, is I just see that connection between our institutions having to hold the line. You know what I mean? You know the scary part of that to me is that the scary part of what he's saying to me, is that if I do like a 10-cent analysis, tensent analysis of the history of Christianity,

it seems like Christianity agrees with him. That's not a fair point. If I do a tensent analysis of the history of Christianity, it seems like what he's saying seems grotesque, but it seems grotesque because he's, saying it so plainly. It seems it seems like the

invention of the black church is a response to what he actually said. And what he said was that a black man can't lead churches, but it goes deeper than that. What was actually said was white people and black people can't worship together. Yeah.

Like what was actually said was that there's two different Sundays, there's Sunday up the road, and then there's Sunday down the road. And the Sunday down the road is where you guys are going to worship. Go invent your own Christianity because you can't take place

in ours. And when all of those, when those conversations it's the most segregated place in the world these churches, right? But we do this stuff. We go where we feel safe and seen and where we can worship and do things

the way that we want to worship. But the craziest thing about him saying that is that I think that people agree with that. I think that people, I think that a lot of Christians would not go to a church where they saw a black man leading them and giving them their message.

I don't think that they think that God would deliver a message that could lead them to salvation through a nigger. And I'm just being for real. And so to me, I think those are the conversations that he, that guy is such an idiot. But to me, when I look at him, I go, huh, he's probably articulating something that he feels like he has an intellectual constituency

within his movement to say. He probably feels like that's real. Well, yeah, I think he uses scripture and I think he uses history to back up that point. Yeah. To what you're saying. Look at where this conversation is going. I know.

I do have lovely. He's not from Hulu, is he? Is he from Hulu? No, he's not. Because if he's from Hulu, then with, We're about to get told to stop talking about this stuff and get back. Okay. No, that's what we do.

That's what we do with higher learning. We spend a lot of time on talking about Paradise and season and your podcast. The podcast. Yes. You podcast with your husband. I do have a podcast. Wait, wait. And they won an N-A-C-P award.

We've been nominated four times again. But we appreciate that. We appreciate the nomination. No, no, no, no. That's in the past. You guys have won for the work that you did. We won an N-A-A-C-P award, yes. which I'm told is the new brand.

Yeah, it's hard for me to. It's hard for me. I do know that. I say double ACP, but anyway. I just remembered I was supposed to do something for my friend's Axo Award. I'm sorry, Laura. I forgot. Anyway, because you know, the NAAC puts on the Axo Award.

Anyway, I apologize to her. Yes, we won. It was very, very fun. I was very surprised that we won, to be honest with you, because, you know, you just never know how people are going to vote. It's vote the membership votes and you never know. And it's funny because when we did the podcast, we did it in the midst of the strike. So, you know, the shutdown was one slowdown of our business.

But that was like everybody was in the same sort of boat. And we got back to work pretty fast in our industry because people were like, oh, my God, content is king. And so they, you know, pull strings, blah, blah, blah, blah. next thing we know we're back at work right they put a lot of money into the masking and the this and the testing and they sent us back to work but the strike was a completely different feeling because the world was still going on but our industry was like literally literally shut down and nobody nobody was talking about anything we were just on the picket line and there was no end in sight there was no vaccine for that that's just are we going to get back to work and when we got back to work

it's been very there's just been a lot of contraction in our business so all of this was going on and I'm very much alike okay what can we do what can we do what can we do what can we do what can we do like in the midst of this what can we do and we were you know struggling to have a lot of conversations around our island in our kitchen a little kitchen island and we just you know there's we're very very different people and we see things it's funny because we're both from St. Louis. We both went to Stanford. We both went to NYU. We have so many points of

commonality and we see the world very differently in so many different ways. I was going to ask that, like, did you guys go back to, is this like a forever on Netflix thing? Like, because when I was looking at it, it's all the same, is that where you guys met? Was it a St. Louis or did you guys not know each other? We did know each other. Oh, hell, that's crazy. But we were born in the same hospital. See? Believe it or not. Do you all have mutual friends? Like, Was there any crossover from saying? So when I finally met my biological father, we found a lot of cross.

And his birthday is today. Happy birthday, Daddy. And we found, like, his uncles went to school with my dad. What else was? My sister went to school with his brother. They went to Ladoo. What else? There were a lot of points.

Like, once we start to, like, once I met him, there were points of, of, It's crazy. It's really crazy. With the podcast, like, was there any hesitation because most people see you guys play a character, you know? And now you're going to be letting people into who you are personally, your relationship, how you guys work together. Was it hard for people to see or to be vulnerable in that way and let people see that side of you? If I had had the good sense to realize that people were actually going to watch it, maybe. You didn't think anyone would watch. No. Why? I don't know. I guess because it felt like such a like, you know, okay, I'm gonna be real with y'all. In LA, there's a lot of stuff that people do that no one ever sees. Like these little passion projects. You know what I mean? I have written scripts. I've written pilots. I've started at least four novels. Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, somebody's always doing something. I've done one woman shows. Like, don't nobody care. And I don't, I don't say that in like a, I'm not denigrating myself. I'm not trying to be, but I'm saying like you do them because you're like,

I'm an artist and I have to keep moving. I cannot let this moss grow under my feet. Yeah, got to get it out there. And I'm not doing this because I think anybody's going to see it. I'm doing this because I just need to do this. Yeah. So because, again, I've done shows. And you know what I was saying?

Y'all, I'm doing the show. Y'all don't come to my show. You'll be my friend. And it's always just your friends. You know what I mean? And it's up to you with a microphone. And you're just like it. Yes, and it's your friends.

Go back! Yes, girl. That was amazing. No, it's just how many plays have you gone to see in some black box theater and you're like, oh, I got to stay awake because I'm real close to this stage. Oh, that's my friend. I love my friend. Oh, Lord, why am I here?

How many? Or I was, girl. Like, we've all, we've been on both sides. Yep. So I have to put that context out there because when you say, why didn't you think anybody, Because it was coming from that place of like, I just need to get this out here. I just need to be doing something.

I don't want this opportunity to pass me by that we're all stuck in the house again. You know, we can't do anything. And I don't want to be that person that was just like, I'm just waiting for this strike to end. I want to keep moving because we've all, we were taught when we went to NYU. They were, the thing that they drilled into us

was work begets work. Work. So just get out there. Just do something. just go. Just one of my first voice teachers when I graduated from NYU, he was like,

you keep acting like every audition is a moment. He was like, this is what you do for the rest of your life. He was like, so you need to get the backstage and you need to just go and audition for everything that's in the back. I don't care if it's for an 80-year-old white man.

Just go. He said because your audition needs to be like blowing your nose, like brushing your teeth. It just needs to be a muscle that you have and not this like, it's an audition. And so I guess all of that is why I just thought,

there's a million podcasts, you know what I mean? And we're not podcasters. And nobody wants to watch two actors, like talk to each other about their life. Who wants to see that? I want to see that. I thought it was just gonna be me and my friends, like normal, you know?

So, and it did bite me in the butt because I did talk about my mama, my mom was mad at me. She was real mad at me. It's happened to both of us. She was so mad at me. Because when you're on screen, You get to portray a character and being somebody else's interpretation of what a human being is doing and what their behaviors are.

But when you're here, you say stuff and people go, hey, that's you. And not only do they do that, the thing that I love is the audience is so perceptive. They notice when you're a little bit off, when your energy's off, especially if they can see you. So there's really no way to hide if you put enough hours on the screen. If you put enough hours on the screen, they know you. and they'll start to tell you, Van didn't like that person. Van was this, like Van's pissed off

and all of that stuff like that. So they know it's different. It's like it's a different way of being. Especially since you guys aren't, you guys are a couple that we all know, but you like to keep things a little personal and private. So like I wonder what was that like

having conversations with people and letting them see into your relationship a little bit like that. Well, I will say Sterling, never met a privacy door that he didn't want to open. Okay, so he's not, so I'm wrong. You're more private than he is.

He's an Aries. Oh. Oh, so he's this one. Really? Oh, see, there you come. Yeah, he's very, my husband is, and I think that's what makes him such an incredible actor is that there's no veil,

there's no filter, there's no wall. Like, he's a very open person, and I think it takes people off guard a little bit because, you know, he's a very strong, you know, put together black man. And I think that there, a lot of people have the expectation that he's also going to be guarded. He's the least guard. And I think, again, I think that's what makes him such an incredible actor because there's no

guard between him and his emotions, his feelings, how he, you know, so he can really show up in the moment for the character as with all of his emotional availability. And he's just like that. You know, he's like, we just put it out there. We just say whatever and let the chips fall as they may. What's the worst that can happen? You know, he's very much that guy. And I'm very much like, like when we first got married,

this was years ago. And we hadn't done anything of note, but I had our wedding, like, record sealed. And he was like, who do you think you are? Diana Ross? And I was like, look, you never know. people are crazy. He was like, what people? What people? Who cares?

And I was like, no, we're stealing it. It's nobody's business. He's like, don't nobody care about our business. And I was like, they will one day. They will one day. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. 20 years, you guys, right? How are you, this year? Yeah. How are you celebrating? And what do you want for the next 20 years for you guys? Oh, that was a wonderful question. Well, Michael might actually know. It's a surprise

I know it's a surprise He's surprising you He's surprising me Yeah He asked me a long time ago I threw him a surprise party For his 30th birthday And he was like

Girl He was like the jig was up The minute Like you decided to have the surprise He's like I just been trying to pretend Like I didn't know For the past three weeks He was like

What in the world Did you think? He was like you can't sneak He was like Somebody told me that I was as subtle As a rhinoceros So there you go I don't do surprises

for him. He's much better at surprising me and I actually like surprises. He too. And he doesn't like surprises so it works out. So I think there's a trip involved. There's some kind of trip. He's going to go somewhere. Yeah, he told me he's like I just want you know we are going somewhere you can't know where we're going. All of that

is a surprise. That's exciting. So that's what we're doing. And for the next 20 years? And for the next 20 years, you know, I think we're not empty nesters yet by any stretch of the imagination but that's like very close to on the horizon because when you have kids it goes like that right and so we have a 14 year old a freshman in high school who you actually cannot tell him that he's not grown like you can like the other day he was making something because he's just now learning to cook right okay and i couldn't help he's he was right i was hovering but i was like you're going to like blow us all up like what are you doing like bruh like you're you're doing like you're you're like you're you're you're like you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're he was like, I don't understand why you're just hovering over me. I was like, because you don't know how to come.

And you need somebody to go. I've got this. I've done it before. And I'm not right. So we're at that point, right? And I know the next couple years are going to fly by. So, and then we have a 10 year old. And he's also, you know, it's just, it goes.

So I think we're in this place where I think the next 20 years are going to be about reconnecting to us again. And what are we without? have the hands on day to day of raising children. And what does that going to look like? And what's the best version of that that we can, that we can, that we can be, you know? I want to ask, before we get out of here,

I want to ask you about, to me, what was the funniest moment of 2024. And it had to do with Sterling. Okay. Now, there was a junket or they were, him and Jennifer Lopez were Look at Michael moving over

I felt it I heard it I felt it Michael said We about to scrap money That's the most mild manner Publisten in us I'm not I'm not asking I'm not asking

in a way to bring up old stuff Okay I'm not I trust you I trust you What we I literally would if Jomey was here I would just put this on the plate

for some reason he started talking about French toast do you remember this French I don't remember the French toast one okay you know what no question just like go and watch I remember the one where he was like Arroscanboo Friholes

Bustimente he just for some reason I don't know what and he is If you guys, my friend, a great friend of mine, wrote and directed a movie that Sterling was in, and the movie is called American Fiction. You guys know the movie.

And when you watch that movie, Sterling is like hysterical in the film. Like he's hysterical in the movie. If you want a diagram a sentence. Yeah, like he is just like ridiculously, like funny in the movie. But whatever happened in that one thing, where he starts going, or rose compilio

and then he goes there's a bread pudding french toast hits hard and I watch it I watch it over and over and over again He left the room Oh yeah

They were there to talk about Atlas Sure was And somebody said something I want you guys to watch this clip Sterling gets into food And leaves the room She says I'm Puerto Rican I didn't know that

And then He goes You Puerto Rican Oh you Puerto Rican Get out of here And then from that moment He just goes into his own world.

And by the end of it, he's talking about like bread pudding, French toast and how hard it hits and stuff like that. I watched it over and over and over again because that's what I do. Something happens, and I just can't reorient myself to being in a situation

and I'll start singing a little song, whatever. And then I'll be like, oh, okay, I'm podcasting. Did you laugh? Hysterically. I was in tears, and I was like, bruh. The whole thing. And then he had the nerves to come home and be like, oh, he got to be bird. Oh, Bird.

You're making a big deal out of nothing. Nobody saw that. What are you talking about, Bird? I didn't do anything. Oh, Bird. And I was like, you are, you have no idea. I felt him in the moment. And the reason why I felt him in a moment, I felt him in a moment, because everybody made such a big deal about that.

But I could just tell it was just wacky Ares energy. It was, he just. I think people. need to let black boys have wacky just let us be whack can we be what y'all get to be wacky just can we be wacky y'all get to be wacky we get to be wacky yes he gets to be wacky and he

is he's very wacky and I one of the reasons why I was so glad about American fiction was because I was like people get to see that this is a huge part of who this man is he's very wacky and he will disassociate in a heartbeat if he is not in and you know it was probably because whatever was going on in the moment wasn't terribly engaging right then. And normally Sterling can pull it together. But he did it to Michael on the red carpet.

Remember Shallows? Oh, he had, I don't know what it was about that song. Remember the Star is born? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He literally, when he saw that movie, he thought he was Bradley Cooper in that movie for a good two months, a good two months. And we were on the red carpet.

And finally one day he just, we're on the carpet. But somebody's interviewing us and he was like, how they're lonely, girl. That is so. You see what I'm saying? I'm sitting there like. You didn't join in? I mean, because, no, you can't.

You just have to like, you know what I mean? I'm the Leo in the situation. I know at this point I just have to kind of like be the cat in the room. That's like, all right now, bro. Right. I'm here to catch you if you go too far. Like, Michael is like turning like all shades of red. It's like it's just starting to climb.

And he's like, what is he? and we just had to let him have his wacky moment. Last thing I'll say is, I always do this. Like, what's going to happen? He sings shallows on the red carpet. What's going to happen? Nothing's going to happen. We were concerned he was going to urinate

because that's what happens in the movie. There was a threat of like maybe I'll just go and pee everywhere. Score one for Ryan. That's a legitimate threat. Thank you for joining us on higher learning. Thank you guys for hiring me. A lot of fun. No, for sure.

Where can everyone find you? Anything you want to promote? All the things. Yeah, I'm on season six. I'm on episode six, season two of Paradise. I'm really proud. It's going to be out probably next week.

And I'm doing the companion podcast for Paradise. It's really good. Thank you. Thank you. And I'm actually really proud of it because we talk to some really incredible people. So if you need to process what's happening on, I'm telling you, come to the bosom of my podcast.

podcast because we will take care of you over there. Yeah, because I can't talk to you because I'm like, tell me what happens next. Tell me now. I'm telling you don't, you want to see this unfold in real time. I do. And I put real time. That's all I had to go. Oh, wow.

Hints and secrets and tips and tricks. Thank you for being here. Thank you for coming. Thank you so much. You guys. I really appreciate it. I love being here. I want to take time to do something real quick.

I don't really get involved in direct political races that. much, but I'm getting involved in one. It's a state tenant race in Louisiana. I wanted to tell you guys about a candidate named Ken Barnes, who was running down there. Ken Barnes is running for State Senate. Louisiana's third state Senate district. He is an awesome candidate. He's the type of candidate I think Louisiana needs right now, more progressive candidate.

We wanted to have Ken on this podcast to talk a little bit about what's going on with his campaign. but things just got jumbled up. There's so much news happening and all of that schedules couldn't mesh. The election is on Saturday. So if you can hear my voice and you're in Louisiana, it doesn't matter. Get out there and vote for Kim Barnes. Also, they still are raising funds to be able to stretch this out

because after he gets into this runoff, it's going to need more funds. So Ken Barnes for Senate, the site is just, type in Ken Barnes, K-E-N-N for Senate, and there will be a fundraising link there. You can give as much money as you possibly can if you feel so inclined to do that, okay? You don't get anything.

I'm not getting into any election laws or anything like that, but any type of candidate that is a worthwhile candidate in Louisiana, I will stand behind them. And as it says here, community advocate, get proven leadership for everything for the neighborhood. Kim Barnes down there in Louisiana. I wanted to give him a shout out.

So thank you guys. All right. That's it. No more podcast. We do want to say one thing. We are going to have Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro. There's an interview we're going to have with Josh Shapiro.

Doing it tomorrow. Thursday now is we recording this. This interview probably is going to come out separately. We haven't decided, but it will be out before the weekend. And one of the things we'll have to talk to. Josh Shapiro about, as he has been the target of an attack that many people believe was motivated by either political animus or anti-Semitism, is that there was a horrific attempted attack on Temple Israel Synagogue in West Bloomfield.

Shots were fired. Apparently a car crash is happening as we were recorded. A car crash into a synagogue, and then the gunmen got out of the car and opened fire. We try to have difficult conversations on this podcast all the time about geopolitics, about how we feel about all kinds of different things. I don't want there to be one shred, one shred of doubt that Rachel and I, that's okay, understand the threat of anti-Semitism, the rise in anti-Semitism and the vulnerability that a lot of Jewish people worldwide feel walking around right now. The conversations that we have about, you know, Israel, the genocide and Gaza, all of those things. Those are difficult conversations sometimes for people to have culturally. And I maintain complete political and what I believe to be moral consistency on that.

But that in no way, in no way downplays a real threat. on the safety of Jewish people. And that threat exists now, and it's been with us for a very, very long time. So there is, in no way from me going to be any type of downplaying of the existential threat that Jewish people in this country and worldwide

are facing at this time. We've seen these attacks in the past couple of years get a lot worse, but we saw them before, October 7th. We'll talk more about that to the governor, I think. I think he'll want to talk about that. I think so too. But we wanted to hold space for it before we got off of the podcast.

Okay. Take the deep caps off. I'm learning on Van Lincoln Jr. I'm Rachel and Lizzie. I'm Rachel and Lizzie.