Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - More Mass Shootings. Plus, Martin, Malcolm, and Coretta With Dr. Peniel Joseph

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay react to the latest mass shooting, this time at the Chiefs' Super Bowl parade in Kansas City (10:08), before taking a look at the body-cam footage of a police officer’s shootout with an acorn (19:35). Then, a look at family dynamics after Mo'Nique’s public spat with her eldest son (29:59), and the woman formerly known as Rachel Dolezal is fired for having an OnlyFans account (48:45). Plus, a quick update on the Fani Willis hearings (1:03:17), before Dr. Peniel Joseph returns to discuss NatGeo’s adaptation of his book ’The Sword and the Shield’ (1:11:38). Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Dr. Peniel Joseph Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What is up? How I learned is on is I, Van Lathen, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, what's going on with you? What's your deal? I got into wreck yesterday. Did you?

How are you feeling? I did not know this. How come you didn't alert me to the fact that you got into a wreck? You should have called. It's like, you know, I've never been a big fan of Valentine's Day. And this just solidified it for me. I was like, I found there, I found mold growing in the garage.

And so I possibly, I don't know where it's coming from. Interesting. And my fear is that it's in a crack. There's a crack somewhere in the foundation, like a hairline crack. It's in the crack. Jesus Christ, what the fuck? And then I'm headed to go. It's a good sight.

I'm headed to go to about a Galentine's dinner, my first ever with Molly. And somebody hits me. where they hit you at and in the back left side as I was coming through the intersection the driver's side and is it bad

I mean my will is tilted and thank God for the person who came over because they worked at a body shop but they were like no you can't drive that car your will is tilted in and I didn't even notice it

I would have just been like oh it only damaged the body I'm just going to drive to dinner and thank God he saw it because I couldn't tell and then when he pointed it out, I could. But it's just annoying.

She literally said, no, I can make a left turn on a red. I said, ma'am, I literally just took my driving test for California because if you're a first time license holder here, you have to take a written test. It was like, I just took it. I'm telling you, you cannot do that. So can you make a left, she was going on,

she was on a one-way street? No. She turned it on one-way. We were on, I was about to say, I don't want people to know where I live. We were on a busy intersection, and she was making, she did not yield to me. We were on the same street going opposite direction. She was making a left onto the other main street.

So she had to have a light or yield to the right of way of me coming straight. And as I crossed the intersection, she could not see the second lane. You know how like cars back up in the first lane and you try to edge out so you can make that left turn? She didn't see me. She clicked me. Yeah, it's tough when you're trying to edge. Here's the thing. I'm telling you right now, this reminds me, this is trauma.

It reminds me of the time I almost wrecked Gino's mother's car. Okay. Almost being the key word. Almost being the key word. First of all, before we get into that, are you okay? How's your neck? Your back, your neck and your back? My hip hurts, actually.

Your hip? Your hip is hurting. Like aggravated. Yeah. You got an agro hip. So what are you going to do? Are you trying to run up the insurance shit? Are you going to come in here with a fucking neck brace on?

It's such a, well, here I'm obviously, this is bad. I'm talking about it. This is not the best thing to be doing. But I just, it's such a hassle, you know? But yeah, no, my hip is certain. Me and Ashley have a new song that we like to sing. Ashley too? You're bringing her in on this?

Ashley. No, don't do it. Ashley pop in. I'm here. Berries and cream Berries and cream I'm a little Lalad who loves berries and cream

Do y'all remember that commercial when it came out? Because I did. Yeah, it's a starburst. It was Starburst. By the way, it was so funny. Everybody go follow this comedian. Did I say his name Charles Moore?

That's his name. That's the comedian that put it up. I had never, I didn't, it's not that I hadn't. I didn't remember the commercial at the time that he put it out. But then I watched it 10 million times after that. So, so we're at Gino's house. And this is all, this is probably circa like 97, 96.

So it's when we're all first starting to fuck around with driving. Everybody's like getting into driving and stuff like that. We're 15, 16. And I've been driving like in the country for a little while, but on the streets, I didn't have been driving for that long, right? So I'm driving. No license, right? And me and Ryan asked Gino, we're like,

yo, we're about to go to the store. We're about to go to the Circle K right there on Gardeer. I think that's the corner of Gardier and GSI where that Circle K is. So we're about to go to the Circle K. It's like, yo, Gino, can we borrow your mom's car? We're about to go. And Gino, who is a nigger that throws caution to the wind at all times, says yes. Yeah, go ahead and take it.

Take your mom's car. Boom. His mom had like a Cadillac of some sort, some kind of Lincoln or something. So get in the car, I drive there, whatever. We get to the circle. Okay, we get out, we go out, we come out, whatever. We know, we're chilling. We whip it.

Wept, whip it, whipping it. Then we get out there where at the corner of Gardier, GSI, and there's a red light. And I don't know the rules of driving yet. I don't have a license. I'm just learning how to drive. I'm driving. I can drive. Oh, wow.

But the light is red. And I go, can I make a left on a red light? And Ryan goes, yeah, because he's an asshole. Ryan at this point has been driving for a long time. Ryan's probably the best driver I'd know. He goes, yeah. And so I pull out. Ryan goes, no, no, no.

And so I throw the car into reverse, literally all. almost got hit. We pulled back into the thing, right? And so now we're in front of the thing at the red light again. The car is still in reverse. And I'm feeling anxious. So I smash on the gas. The car goes backwards. Almost hit somebody. And then we get back like we're freaking out. Ryan is laughing his head off. I'm like, wouldn't it have been funny, nigga? If I would have wrecked Gino's mother's car with no license. Everybody is fucked. I just think about little times like that.

Think about the time the police pulled us over after niggas had just committed the crime. I didn't know the crime that they had committed. They picked me up after. The police got us all out the cars and all of that stuff. And I'm not going to go into that whole situation. Maybe you should not. But I'm just thinking about so many things that could have gone bad.

So many things that could have gone wrong. But they didn't go wrong. And now. you had to have a car wreck in its place. And you got black mold. Tough. It's a tough. It's a tough for big rage.

Tough or big rage. What are you going to do about the mold? It's already been tested. I'm waiting for the results to come back. But then you learn so much being a homeowner about like all the issues that you have to do. So I have to, once they come back, they will then tell me how it needs to be or they'll give me certain companies that they recommend or work with that can figure out the issue.

Because it's either like, you know my house, it's either the fountain when you walk up is leaking. Because it's like, thank God it's in the garage so it's not even close to the house. But it's either the fountain is leaking something there or there's some type of crack because it has to have just happened and flared up when the rain was there. But it looks disgusting. Like what's the movie with the mushroom? and it's making people go crazy. Are you talking about it's not a movie? It's a television show.

Well, the show. Last of Us. Last of us. Yeah. That's what it made me think of. I got nervous. I said, oh my God. And corticeps.

This is it. So anyways, they're going to test it. The guy was like, oh my gosh, this is weird. Yeah. Like, that doesn't make me feel good. Yeah, it sucks. It's tough. Yeah.

So I'm dealing with over here. We got Pineal Joseph on the show today. You guys, the show, it's a docu-drama. It's called MLKX. It is an adaptation of one of my favorite books of all time, The Sword and the Shield by Ponell Joseph. Okay, MLKX is on Nat Geo right now. You get on Hulu, get on Disney Plus, whatever.

Any Disney properties, you go fucking watch it. It's great. We got Pineal Joseph who wrote the book. He's on the show today. We're going to talk about all kinds of stuff. He is the world's foremost scholar on the black power movement in the civil rights era. He teaches down there at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at Rachel's alma mater, the University of Texas, UT, the long horns, the horny longs, all of that different stuff. So we have him on the show today.

It's fantastic. And also, I'll tell you something else. We have a conversation about him about the show and about some of the leads of the show and all kinds. and stuff, we're going to eventually have somebody from the A-DOS movement on the podcast. I'm serious. It's either going to be tone talks or Yvette Cornell. So when I have the conversation, you know, we talk a little bit about the show and some of the stuff that some of the leads have said. It's like, why not?

Everybody's scared to talk to A-O's. Everyone's scared. It's all so bad. We'll probably have somebody on. We'll have the conversation with people who have a point of view here on higher learning. Oh my God, it's controversial. No! We'll have a month.

Let's do it. Okay, I got to get into the show. We're starting off. It happened again. Kansas City. Yeah. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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The Kansas City Chiefs won the Super Bowl and they had a parade that is customary. Normally the Wednesday after the Super Bowl, the team goes on a big parade, and that is normally the end of the Super Bowl media cycle. Unless there are firings and hiring from coaches and teams, normally the parade is kind of officially the end of this team on the Super Bowl because you get a lot of stuff up to then. then they have the trophy, they make the speeches and all of that stuff, and then it's pretty much over. Customarily, there's a lot of news that comes out, a lot of images that are funny. People drink a lot.

They throw the trophy around. They hug. They make funny statements. This is in all sports. This is in basketball. Not so much in baseball. But this is in basketball. This is in football.

The only images and stories that are coming out of the Kansas City Super Bowl of the tragedy that happened. There was a shooting near Union Station in Kansas City, Missouri. On Wednesday afternoon, one person dead, 21 people with gunshot wounds, including nine children. The victim was named by her family. Lisa Lopez Galvin, she's a popular figure in the city of Hispanic community and beyond. She was a radio host there. KKFI, 90.1, she was a show called A Taste of Tihano, which is a celebration of Tihano. or Tex-Mex music, which has origins in Texas and Mexico. You guys have heard of Tejano music before.

I mean, there was wide reports of this while it was happening. There being an active shooter. There's been videos that have been circulated with people trying to apprehend and take down the shooter. But you've seen reaction to this, Rachel? You've seen people talking about it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. What are your thoughts? I mean, I think you said it best with Here We Are Again.

And not only here we are again, I didn't even realize that this has been the 48th mass shooting this year. It's February 15, 48. And it's, you know, you painted the scene so well. And I don't know if you've ever been to a parade after your team wins there in New Orleans. I don't know if you've ever been after a Super Bowl or it's definitely not basketball, whatever it may be. I remember I went when the Mavericks won, 2011. And it's a really exciting time.

It's a family-oriented thing. You're right there. You're able to see your favorite athletes, their families, they're celebrating. It's just a joyous time as you're not just celebrating your team, but like people that you look up to and the city gathers together and they all come together. And everybody's guard is down.

You're having a blast. So the fact that everyone is here to celebrate the hometown team, do it again, all these families around, I mean, half the victims that were shot with children. It's just, I mean, again, we say this every single time we have to talk about it. Like, I don't want to get into what are we going to do or things need to be done because nothing's being done and nothing is going to get done because it's been such a politicized issue rather than focusing on human beings and the lives that are lost and forever impacted at the loss of lives. One person lost their life. Multiple people, including children whose lives will forever be changed, were shot and injured.

And now it's being reported that three people have been detained and two of them are juveniles. Two. No one's been charged yet, but two involved are juveniles. I mean, like, what is this? This is where we are. So this happened in Missouri, Kansas City, Missouri, which is the state that ranks number 38 in the country for gun law strength. Missouri experiences, this is according to every town research.org, which is a great site, where you can go and get stats on how safe your community is from gun violence and what's being done to protect your community from gun violence. and what's being done to protect your community from gun violence.

I encourage you guys all to go seek it out. Missouri experiences one of the highest rates of gun deaths, gun homicide rates, and household firearm ownership. A firearm ownership. Missouri not only has none of the foundational gun violence provision laws, which are obviously laws that make it both more difficult to obtain a gun and make legal gun ownership. a bigger responsibility.

But in 2007, the state repealed an 80-year-old law. It was a permit to purchase law that led directly to an increase in the state's gun homicide rate of up to 27%. Only a few of the top 50 policies, the top 50 or 50 policies that are the best policies in curbing gun violence are in place in Missouri. and legislators have shown no momentum for passing gun safety protections, despite the fact that St. Louis itself is among the top U.S. cities with the highest gun murder rates in the country.

If Missouri had the gun rate of our national leaders, if Missouri had the gun death rate of our national leaders, the eight states with the strongest gun safety laws could have saved 14,9,959 lives in the next decade. So the amount of people that died. So may I have to look at this. The foundational laws here. Background checks and or purchase permit.

No. Concealed permit. Carry permit required. No. Extreme risk law. No. No shoot first law. No.

Secure storage or child access prevention law. No. That stuff. Those are some of the foundational laws right there. Missouri. Gun industry and product safety. Assault weapons prohibited. No.

Consumer safety. No. Ghost guns regulated. No. High capacity magazines prohibited. No. Micro stamping for new handguns. No.

No special immunity for gun industry. No. I could go on and go on and go on and go on and go on and go on and going and go on and going and going and it is a gun friendly state. And in a gun friendly state anytime. Anytime. There is a mass gathering of people. You are not an attendee of a parade. You are not a moviegoer.

You're not a concert goer. You're not a game attendee. You are a target. I'll say again, in any place that has lax firearms loss, you are not a moviegoer. You are not a parade attendee. You're not an amusement party.

attendee. You are not a concert goer. You're not going to the big game. You're not at the playground. You are a target. Full stop. We don't have to spend too much time on that. That is the thing. Yeah. In any place like that, that's what you are. Now, people are talking to how we're going to square this. I want to make sure I'll talk about this because I just talked about the fact that I did not get rid of my guns. I did not. I did not get rid of my guns because I have a crippling anxiety disorder. And I don't trust the society that I live in.

I don't trust the people that I share my community with. I don't trust any of that. I don't know when things. I saw this video with this guy who said, oh, the moment that Donald Trump says, for us to kill everybody, we're just going to go out to start killing people, start shooting people up.

and if there's some kind of, I just don't, I don't feel protected, I don't feel safe. And I'm probably less safe with the, I just, I, that's just a thing. However, I will say it right now. Here in California, I abide by gun laws. I'm in favor of gun laws. I'm in favor of red flag laws. I think that procuring a gun should be as hard as it is, the responsibility is high for owning. the gun. It's a weapon of death.

So it should be hard to buy death. It should be. If you're protecting yourself, whatever, it should be hard to buy that, right? And anywhere else, you're buying death. It's regulated, two and ath degrees, whatever. It should be hard to buy death. It's all I'm saying. I don't know what we do, but I know what we're not doing. And that's anything about it. Okay. Oh, did you see the cop that let loose? into the guy's car because an acorn fell on this goddamn car.

Do you see that? I did. I mean, I did. Not only did he, but his partner did in reaction to his reaction. He let loose because he thought he heard gunshots

coming from a man he had already patted down, placed in handcuffs, and secured into the vehicle. Somehow he thought that he not only heard a gunfire, but that he also was hit. He thought he was hit. This person is insane.

Very much so. Yeah, Okalusa, Florida, cop fires. Look, it's from November 2023. I want you guys to hear the sheer fear in this police officer's voice, this guy's name Jesse Hernandez. he resigned a month after this incident. When supervisors determined that his use of force was not objectionably reasonable,

suspect inside the car was 22-year-old Marquis Jackson, a black man who wasn't armed. He was in the back of the car, and this is what happened. shots fired. Chats fired. You know. What? Do you in the car.

You guys. an acorn fell on his motherfucking car. An acorn fell on his car, guys. This motherfucker was in full metal jacket. That was saving Private Ryan that he was in. Do you guys hear an acorn fell on his car? Not only did he let off or some call of duty shit. By the way, didn't kill the brother.

Yeah. Like thankfully Marquise Jackson was. was, first off, he claims that he was, and he was detained without being told why. They went as far as taking him in. And he kept saying, I don't know why, why was I detained? They said, we don't know. And then he eventually hours later was like, oh, just like that.

Can you like trauma anything? So think about. In front of his mother, by the way. So think about the life of a Marquis Jackson in that situation. Think about it. So you're detained for no reason. right? You're let go later.

And while you're detained, the officer that has detained you for no reason shoots into the car eight times because an acorn fell on the top for squaw car. You guys, that is

a blissfully simple example of the entire gamut of the entire gamut of dysfunction involving policing. You're over policed, therefore, you are detained. For no reason. Let go later. While you were in the custody of police, you are so unsafe because of the heightened fear that police have of black people, which is then codified by the institutional racism that we

know exists inside of the police. It's actually part of training and all of that stuff. that the cop is so on edge that he attempts to execute you because of nature. This is, I mean, look, the dude literally, it's funny. So think about how that just would not happen. If you are in suburban America walking around and you just don't have to worry about any of that. You don't have to worry about the over-policing that's done by the police officers. you likely don't have to worry about being unfairly detained. And then when you are detained,

you certainly don't have to worry about the officer being so on edge and scared of black people that he shoots at someone he knows is unarmed because he patted them down and they're cuffed. It looked like he was playing a game. Like you said call of duty, it looked like he had never been. And I read something where I'm not sure what his background was, but it alluded to the fact that he didn't have like an extensive amount of training.

But he resigned, right? It's not because even though they found that he was, he acted unreasonably and the force that he used was unnecessary, they didn't fire him. He resigned. Probably not because of the fact that he endangered and almost killed, not just Marquise Jackson, but anybody who could have been in the vicinity.

We know the mother was right there. You can hear her screaming in the background. But he was not because of sheer embarrassment. When they questioned him and they told him it was an acorn, he was in discipline, an acorn? An acorn? They said, do you know what it sounds like when an acorn hits a car? He said, yes.

Yet this is the level that you went. I mean, as he's crawling, the reason his partner responded the way that she did is because of his reaction. He said he lost feeling in his legs. was crawling as if he had been hit. It was not even after there was no blood, he said, oh, I must have been hit in my chest. They had to take this officer to the hospital in an ambulance to be checked out for him to

determine that he had not been hit. This motherfucker is crazy. This is where we are supposed to be trusting with our safety and well-being. This is how they act. So I want to shout out Doree McKelson right now because Doree and his, uh, his, his organization campaign zero. They have this initiative to combat this technology called shot spotter. And what shot spotter is, it's this technology to where there are microphones placed

around the city. Those microphones are there to detect what they think are gunshots. The gunshots are detected. Then there's somebody on the phone. and they send the police out to wherever the gunshots are coming from. The problem with ShotSpotter, and I'll bring DeRay on to talk about it if he's willing to come on. He's a very busy man. He lifts a lot of weights now.

He's been learning to swim. My home boy, Doree, has gone full IG model on me. You guys, if you're listening to this, I want you to tag Derey. Tag Derey, he's gone full IG model. Derey then puffed up. What do you mean? So he's took off the day. The vest?

De Raiden puffed up maybe like 20, 25 pounds of pure muscle. And he's putting it on. He looked like he played fucking defensive back or some shit like that. It's crazy. But he talks. So he got me involved in this. We're trying to make some movement on Baton Rouge. Oh, wow.

See what I'm saying? He really did beep up. Yeah. Baton Rouge is a tricky place politically. Shout out to everybody in the amazing work that they do over at Campaign Zero. But the reason why this story reminds us. reminded me of this is because ShotSpotter detects all types of things that are not gunshots, a balloon popping, a manhole cover slamming down or whatever.

And then when they do that, when ShotSpotter does that, what do they do? They send the police to where you are. And so the police go to where you are and the police are looking for a goddamn shooter. They might detain you, put you in the shit, and then boom. all of a sudden an acorn falls on the goddamn thing maybe the acorn falling on a car shots by the might pick that up and then the police come out there before you know the police are letting off this fucking guy was crawling on the ground like he was in Fallujah you guys that's remarkable that's a remarkable I'm telling you everybody's got to watch this donnie play this in the middle

that's remarkable man the psychosis that's involved with this individual you're could not convince this nigger he hadn't been shot. So true. So true. Anyway. I don't think I can't. It's not funny. The only reason that we can somewhat laugh about it is because Marquise is okay.

Physically, not mentally. No, he's not okay. Yeah. He put a very up a long Facebook post about what this has done to him. And he's also dealt with trauma with this same police force because his brother had been, I think, unlawfully detained. and tased. And so it's a,

there's clearly an issue where they're not betting out the correct type of individual to be wearing a badge, holding a gun, have any type of authority in this town. But this guy, Jesse,

unmatched. Now here's the thing. With how things are, Jesse will just go get a, I saw, Chris Evans post this. if you guys go on Twitter Chris Evans is a great follow

I saw Chris Evans post this Chris Evans was like he'll probably just get another job and another police department somewhere else Sheriff's department whatever it was All right

Monique there's so much fallout from Monique people got mad at me because I said I wanted to interview Monique's son Who got mad at you? You mean in private conversations because you should say that on the podcast

I said it I said it on Twitter and people hit me up like you know I don't You shouldn't do that. It's interesting. You're better than that, is what people were saying.

I wasn't really a fan of it, but you know, you accused me and not want to talk to anybody, so I was like, sure. You never want to do interviews. And this is what I avoid, even though we have a great interview today. You know why,

and this is maybe where people come from, and I'm a little bit torn. Normally I would have a very strong opinion, and I would say, I don't want to interview because this feels like something we shouldn't be privy to. This feels like this is a family issue that should be handled in private. And we shouldn't be, you know, having opinions.

We should be interviewing other people. We shouldn't be platforming family issues, right? We grow up in a culture where it was like, that's family business. You don't talk about that kind of stuff. You don't let people in on it. However, where I sit today on February 5th, 18, 2024, I understand when somebody says something about you that is not true, that you feel compelled to want to speak on it. I understand that. It's hard to be to sit in silence or to let a narrative run out of

your control when you know what's the truth. So I understand why the initial reaction is to be reactive and say, hey, I got to speak on this because I have to protect my reputation because that's all that I have. Hey, people don't understand what's going on behind closed doors or private messages to understand exactly what the issues are. It's not as black and white. And it never is, especially with family. It never is. So, although I understand why Monique and her son have taken to social media to address the things that have been said about one another, I still, in my core, I'm of the belief that I'm like, but I feel like we shouldn't know this, but I understand it. Is it time to let the chopper fly?

Just let me know if it's time that the chop a sing. Cac, let me know. No. Let me know if it's time. Let me know. I said I understand. I understand where I might not have had this perspective before because it does feel very wrong,

which is why people were probably like, uh-uh. You don't want to platform this. more. Yeah. All right. So this started from the now infamous Monique Club Shay-Shay appearance. We also should probably have a conversation about how comedians are now

taking on Club Shaysay. Club Shaysay is like, though. Spank, shout out to Spank. We'll bring Spank. Yeah, we'll bring Spank on. Spank said, the comedy world against Club Shet-Shay. Spank will go on Club Shet-Shay tomorrow. Spank.

You know damn well, Spank. You will go on Club Shet-Shay tomorrow. With you? I would. Yeah, shout of Shannon. Monique was on club, Chey She was talking about her strange relationship with her eldest son, Shalom. And this is what she had to say. You said your first son.

Yes. That you're trying to get it. But it robbed you of a lot of things of a mother-son relationship. And so you made sure not to make the mistake this time around. what's your relationship like is he resentful of that we're still very much separated and and and it's a it's a it's a um it's one of those things where you have to pray to the universe and say let time do the healing and that's it right that's it let time do that healing it may heal it in time and it may not and that's something that we as parents have to say listen right I've done what I could do.

I've taken accountability for it. Now it's up to you. Right. So what we're not going to do is play all the back and forth here. Okay. That has gone on between Monique and her husband, Sidney, and Shalom. But we will play his first response and then we'll kind of talk out where things are now. So go ahead.

To address the Club Shishay interview that she did, where she states that she prays to the universe in regards to reconciling our relationship, as I stated, is odd. My mother and I both know that that is a very false narrative, and I would like to free her of having to continue telling that lie. Faith without work is dead, and neither one of us cares to put forth any effort to reconcile with the other. We are separate, as she put it, because she doesn't care to be my mother any more than I care to be her son. neither one of us has had the desire to reach out to the other in a very long time, and I don't think that either of us anticipates that feeling ever returning. Speaking with my mother directly in my experience will either lead to some odd, newfound moment of clarity in regards to how she was

as my mother, or she retreats back to daddy to move forward with a conversation, and I'm tired of hearing my mother's truths. Newsflash, I'm not sure if people know, but staying at it. standing in your truth doesn't make you noble. I'm not sure if people are aware of that. The reason why I wanted to have him on, and like this thing went on, they responded to him, Monique and Sidney Hicks,

her husband, they responded to him. And then after that, he responded back to them. And then Monique went to her Instagram and put some text messages up. And then he just recently, responded to those text messages.

Okay, there are a couple of things here and a couple of reasons why I was interested in the story and interested in him. Number one, the death of my father. I revere my father. I look at my father as a measure of manhood that is impossible for me to

achieve. I've told the story about the wasp before, haven't I? The wasp? Yeah. I ever told the Wops story. It's real quick. It's a stupid one.

So, you know, we're in the house and, you know, my dad, I'm an outdoorsy kid. And, um, uh, so I, you know, I'm not afraid of the outdoors. I ride horses. I hunt. I do all the thing. Clean, deer's guts. That's way more than my homies did. My homies were city kids.

It was, you know, knives, guns, things like that. they weren't as into that stuff as much as like what I were. They weren't from their fathers weren't in from the country like that. Anyway, so one time we're in the house, we're in the living room and the was in the house and it's buzzing around or whatever. And it's a big one of those fat ones that exist down there in Louisiana. And, you know, we're being teenagers. Like we're like hiding or it's coming on.

Get off me. Whatever, whatever. And during this time, my father comes home and my dad comes home. He sees us and the waltz flies by him and he just grabs it out of the sky and crushes it with his hand. And everybody was like, fuck. Like it just buzzed his bottom and he, and everybody's like, shit. And later on, we all sit down like, God damn. So later on, I'm, you know, talking to dad, maybe like an hour later.

or whatever everybody had gone. And I look at his hand and there's like a big welt on it. It's not that the wasp didn't sting him. It's just that he didn't care. Like you see a wasp, you feel like it's threatening you. Unfortunately, it's a poor innocent animal that should have been let out of the house. You just sometimes you've got to kill the wasp, right? You always kill the wasp.

Like sometimes you got to kill the wasp. So he just killed it with his hands, boom. It hurts a little bit. You get over or whatever. He just, and just things like that, as stupid as that is, they resonate with you when you're a kid and you're like, God damn, like, who the fuck is this guy?

Like, what is this guy? Like, the way I see him deal with other men and all of that stuff, I just like, who is this guy? And that was something that I never really measured up to, like, being a kid, but it was always good to have that sort of, that barometer there. It was always good to have that there. So our relationship was always good to have that there.

always troubled because at a certain point, I just like, you know, I was, I was taller than my father. And so, like, he would, he would, like, when he would talk to me, he would make me sit on the ground. So he would come over there and he would be like, like, you know, man, sit down, Indian style, like, sit on the ground. And, like, he would talk to me then. I remember I got to a point to where he told me to sit down. I was like, no. How'd that go? I mean, we had to tear the house up a little bit.

Like, you know what I mean? And so he told me to sit down and he told me no. I say all this to say, we get to a point to where we're both men and we finally get to an understanding that we have with one another. And we're first and we're just getting there and he dies. And so wherever we're going, it's frozen time. This is not me saying that anybody has to deal with bad. behavior from their parents. I had a very good conversation with someone who was like, yeah, but

you know, your parent dying isn't the reason why I'm not saying that. What I'm not, what I'm, what I'm saying is there are questions that you ask. It's not up to this young man to go and make it right with his mother. This isn't for him. This is more so it's all for her. It's all for her, right um i had to get my dad to a point to where i had to be able to ask him i'm like okay well things have changed now like do you want who do you want me to be like i can't be the guy who makes himself smaller for you anymore i can't i can't be that for anybody so either you're with it or you're not and we have to do what we do and it's tough it's hard it's especially hard when you have big personalities and you have to go back and it's and it's it's weird but

I wanted this movie this like happy ending to our story that just didn't happen it ended in a truce more than it ended in us on the fish bank somewhere sharing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on this look how far we've come thing

and there's like this fear that's attached to that this like paralyzing fear that somebody else will have to go through that like that someone else, like now he, in 2021, his forever began. And so did mine with our relationship. And then you're left putting it together by yourself and just say, hey, you did the best you could. And so when I see two people going through this, it's not to have a conversation with this son to make him realize how important it is to, to like go make amends with his mother because I think it's probably, I don't think it's probably, it's almost.

need to fix this. She, his mama. And she, it's on Monique to fix it. She's his mom. That's how I look at it. But I think the conversation to be had with children, with what I'd say

adults who are children of people that they don't relate to or are having problems relate to or wish that they could have had more from or been more and sympathetical with, it's a very deep and personal one to me. And I, it, that brother comports himself and articulates himself like he is the

professional communicator that his mother is. And you can see her in him. The fact that he is just that intelligent, that measured and everything, but there is some pain there. There is definitely some pain there. And so I think the conversation about that, and I see this a lot coming from kids, particularly who the children of boomers and the people who are boomer adjacent and how they felt like they had to raise us and all of the stuff that happened, whether or not we became successful or not. I think it's an interesting conversation about what you owe parents, what parents owe you the whole nine.

Well, it is interesting. And I saw a lot of dialogue about that of just the generational disconnect of how we are versus how they were raised and then they put it on us, but we're not necessarily accepting, like, accepting that. There's something that we want this more. And it's interesting to see this dynamic with Monique and her son because he's clearly saying to me, it's very obvious what he wants from her. He wants her. He wants her attention. He wants her time. And even though he knows he can't go back and get it, or he'll never have the relationship that she has with her three children by Hicks.

Sorry, I can't earn his first name. Sidney. Sidney. Why don't you just call him Daddy? Okay, that's her name for him. She'll never have that relationship that she has with those children that she has with him,

but it doesn't mean that they can't put their, what seems to be some ego and pride aside to nurture the relationship. That's what he wants from her as the nurturing. It doesn't want your mom. money. He doesn't want a text message because she posted text messages. He wants the comfort. He wants to feel like he has a mother. And yes, it's nice that she does all those things. And I'm not taking it away from her, but that's where I feel like there's a disconnect. I think with our parents' generation,

it's a big deal for them to even apologize. So Monique's probably looking at it like, hey, I acknowledged it, and I said I was sorry. But she's not listening and understanding what he actually needs from her. and until she can and then give that to him, there'll always be a problem in their relationship. You can't throw stuff at them. You've got to possess this emotional intelligence to be able to really hear and understand what that child,

even if he is an adult, because they kept throwing that out there. Yes, he's an adult, but he is still your child. And it's just not connecting for them. And sadly, it doesn't seem like it ever will. My mom, is a boomer, but my mother has no problem apologizing. I love my beautiful mom. She actually over-apologizes.

Like, mom, I just need to, mom just need to do her shit. Go out there and let it go. You know what I mean? Like, mom is just like, she is, she's all soul and all feeling and all beauty and all light. You know, that daddy wasn't much on the apologies. He would apologize in different ways. he was a he was a let's go get a hamburger you know it would be like you know you'd be like oh yell at you a little bit yell at you a little bit the whole thing wouldn't ever i apologize

son daddy now it would be like all right come on like what come on now get in the truck where we're going we're going to burger king let's go get some fish sandwiches i like to like my little fat ass that's just all you have to say you know what me it's like well okay cool we go there, we get the fish sandwich, and he was so charismatic on the way there and on the way back, you know, you come back, you give the fish sandwiches. Even like the act of my father handing out the food was so, like you're like, yeah, daddy, where's mine? Where's mine? There you go, boy. There you go, Ebony.

We sitting there, we eat in the fish sandwiches. We're watching bananas or whatever and everything's okay. I will say this, though, and then we can move off of this. If you ask me, if you ask me, what this young man wants from his mother is the relationship that she sees him have not with the children of Sidney Hicks. It's the relationship that she has with Sidney Hicks. The relationship that she has with Sydney Hicks is one to where she reveres him, to where she pours into him, to where, wherever she goes, she bigs him up, talks about how important he is to her, talks about how her life is meaningful so much because he is around. Imagine being a son and feeling like your mother

neglected you for whatever reason. Maybe it was early on. She wasn't ready. All kinds of reasons. and then to see her form that type of bond with somebody else voluntarily, somebody that you've known for a long time. Think about what that would do to someone. The other children, you can kind of get that and understand that. But in this situation, the overflowing of outlawed love that she shows Sidney Hicks, like he continues to say you call him your daddy and you do all of that stuff. You're calm. He has an issue with that. And the reason why he has an issue with that is because as a child, you're supposed to be, you feel like you're supposed to be your mother's, your father's most meaningful relationship and most important relationship. So it's tough. But I still want to talk to him. Go fuck what y'all say. We love to have a conversation with him. We love to talk to him. I don't give a fuck.

There's this crazy story about this teacher down in Tucson. Her name is Nakechi Dialo. She's been teaching at an elementary school in Arizona since August 2023. And unfortunately, she was fired this week after her only fan's account was brought to the district's attention. The district posted this. It said, contrary to our district's. use of social media policy for district employees and our staff ethics policy. So they said it was.

Julie Fairbank, no, excuse me, Far Baric, Far Barak, who is the district's director of alumni and community relations. This woman was fired. Her account was linked in her public Instagram profile. She wasn't trying to hide it or anything like that. Um, she, she's, she lost her job. She's done a lot for the black community, actually. She used to be, uh, a teacher of African studies at Eastern Washington University.

Um, she also is an alumni of Howard University. She's a prolific only fans, uh, user. She's made 600 posts, uh, in since 2021. and they shared hundreds of paywalled adult videos and photos. I think it's unfair what's happened to her. I think it's unfair what's, I think why should she have to lose her job because she's the only fan's creator?

We've talked about similar situations with this. Are you going to continue describing who she is? I mean, this is who she is. She is Nakechi Dialo. She's a white woman with a Nigerian name. She, wow. Oh? Why would you say something like that?

Because Nakechi isn't the only name that she's had. What's the other name? Rachel Dolza. What? Hold on. Let me look at a picture. Hold on. Let me look at a picture.

You might need to be doing side by sides because her appearance changes over time. that is her. Oh my God. Yeah, because it even makes a lot sense. She's a former chapter president of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People, Howard University.

Okay, if you look at all of this stuff, if you match it up, that's her part-time instructor, Eastern Washington. I covered all of this. That's her. That,

that, wow. That's crazy. I have a feeling that they didn't know that she was Rachel Dolazal and that and that contributed. I feel like once they found out that that's who she was, they were looking for a reason to let her go. So you feel like she wasn't fired because of the Pumpum posing? She was fired because she's actually Rachel Dolazal and they don't want her teaching. Listen, Rachel Dolazzo has gone on talk shows, Tameron Hall from what I remember, talking about she can't get work for what she's qualified to do. She's multiple degrees.

She's going on all these interviews. The moment she walks in, she talks about being Rachel Dolazale. They're like, uh-uh, we know who you are. We can't have that name affiliated with this program. So what does she do? She dives even deeper and chooses a Nigerian name. Like this woman is not giving up the blackness

that she so believes she's connected to. And changes her identity, moves to Arizona. And she's able to retain a job. I think they found out who she was, and I think they were probably trying to figure out ways to let her go. That being said, being an elementary teacher and posting link, you weren't, she wasn't trying to hide it. It is available. I looked at it to date. It still is.

It is linked in her link tree right under her art, right under some other websites, and then bam, there it is her only fans. being an elementary teacher and having these provocative photos and they could possibly get leaked to your children, I believe is a necessary distraction. And it's a look, why are you? It's an unnecessary distraction. The majority of people are going to agree with you in this situation. I just happen to not.

People think I'm very prude. They think I'm very prude. If she was in college, a college professor and she had an only fans, I don't think I could make the same argument. I just don't. But for elementary students and she's doing, I looked up some of the pictures.

Yeah, I mean, pick a, I understand that you went to Onlyfans before because you couldn't find employment. But once you did, let's go ahead and remove the website. If she had been fired for having a past on OnlyFans,

I'd have a problem with it. But you know, so you, so what is exactly the issue? I'm just asking with being an active only fans creator and an elementary school teacher at the same time. Well, you can choose the type of content that you want to put on your only fans.

I just feel like as an elementary school teacher, it's a bit of a distraction to have those provocative photos out there for the public for you to still be promoting it, offering people deals, because I think that's what she was doing, like $3, $3 this month to see me, you know, like, dip my toe in water, something like that, some kind of foot pit. And I just think it's a distraction for the children and should the children, like,

I just don't think they should be exposed to that necessarily from their teacher. Well, okay. You van, you van, for example. You talk about, you know, the first time you discovered breasts. You talked about that on the podcast. Imagine you being a student, you're the curious individual that you are in elementary school. And all of a sudden the kids are laughing in the back. And you're like, what?

What's going on? And they pull out their phone. And there's Mrs. Dialo in, with the top off, in lingerie, you know, with whipped cream on her feet. You're never going to be able to focus again. So there are a couple of things there. Number one, the elementary school kids shouldn't be on old infants. They shouldn't. Right.

So the question would be is this elementary school teacher referring her students to her Instagram page, telling them how to get on their Instagram page and saying, hey, come follow me on Instagram, which the OnlyFans has been linked to. Because the reality is this, if the kids are on OnlyFans in the first grade or the second grade or she's elementary school,

if it was a third or fourth grade, then the problem isn't whether or not they're going to see their teacher on only fans. The problem is the fact that they are on only fans. And the fact that their teacher is on only fans is only a problem for whether or not, like I said, the district is going to be embarrassed.

My thing is this, what are the limits? What if a teacher had a racy stand-up comedy routine? What if you're a stand-up comic and you're an elementary school teacher and you're on there and you're talking about sex or racism or any of that other stuff, all kinds of stuff that kids of that age shouldn't be seen.

What if you are an elementary school teacher and you like to shoot? They're guns all over your Instagram. They're like, what if, I mean, is it sex? I mean, like, what's the deal? You say that these kids shouldn't be on only. but kids are curious, they get on social media, whatever. If I had had Facebook and Instagram in elementary, I'm sure I would want to look up my teacher's page, right? Oh, is my teacher

on social media? I want to look it up. That's natural. There's nothing wrong with that. So to your point, when you go on, when you take a certain job, I know that when I was in college, Facebook came out. So when I was applying for jobs, I wanted to clean up my Facebook and make sure that there wasn't something that was just so obvious out there because I had a public page. When I got Instagram, I made my page private because I didn't want there to be, I didn't want to be displaying it or promoting it. Rachel, because I'm going to go back to calling her that, that's not what she did. Her Instagram page is public. Then link to it is her only fans account. So even if you can't log on to her only fans account from there, because you know, it's behind a paywall, you at least know

it's there at that point. So that alerts, she wasn't trying to protect any of that and hide that. But why would she? The kids shouldn't be on her only fans and they shouldn't be on her.

They shouldn't be on her IG. Why can't kids get on her Instagram? So what? That's nothing wrong with getting on social media. All I'm saying is this. If the kids, what's the line I'm asking? If.

When it's deemed a distraction. Okay. So who makes that decision? that would be the school board I guess because let me tell you something right now sexy pictures of her as a distraction because let me tell you how this goes this is different if Rachel dolazile puts on her on her her page her Instagram page like free like justice for George Floyd or if she puts on their Instagram page a Malcolm X speech or if she puts on their Instagram page or if she puts on their Instagram page page, the fact that she read George Johnson's All Boys Aren't Blue or something like that. And then they come back and they go, this type of political talk, this type of stuff is a distraction from what you should be teaching the kids. Why do my kids go on your Instagram and then they have to see political statements from you

and things like that? We think that's a distraction. The only reason why in this situation, this exists. is because we've all deemed that sex and sex workers are people who we can all uniformly say are the worst. Other things- I'm not shaming sex workers. Don't do that. Wait a minute.

I'm not saying that you're shaming sex workers. But what I'm saying is to fire somebody because they are a sex worker and are not ashamed of being sex workers is certainly. certainly a shaming and a punitive action taken against somebody who is a sex worker. I just,

I don't think that it's a problem that she, and this is maybe what school saying, do only fans or teach. I think, because there have been other, right, there been other,

this isn't the first, well, this isn't the first situation where a teacher has been let go because of her only fans account, right? So that's also public, public knowledge out there

that most schools are not going to tolerate the fact Only fans. At least try to hide it. At least Rachel don't make it so public to where it's easily accessible that you have this type of content out there. So this is my thing. There was another teacher that got fired. She had her OnlyFans advertisement on the back of her car. She would pull up to the school. That's much. So I would agree that that's much. That's a bit much. I mean, kids are going to see that. They're going to like, that's an advertisement for a

sex site on school grounds. You probably shouldn't do that if you want to be an elementary school teacher. I'm not dense. But I would say this, because remember we had the conversation before about the young lady. The substitute teacher. The substitute teacher who said that she wanted to get some heavy dick on the weekend or something like that. And then she wasn't a lot.

By the way, shout out to her. She's doing great. I just saw her. She was on. What is she doing? She's doing fantastic. Shout out to her, man. I just saw her doing great.

She just did. I think she did a horrible decisions podcast. Her platform is growing and growing and growing and growing for that young sister. And I'm happy that she was able to move on from the repressive elementary school school system and go and get heavy dick on the weekend like she deserves. Good for her. So what I'm saying is shout out to her. I was actually happy to see her on there, man. I think her name is Mix X Tina B.

I think that's her name. Like I follow her on the gram, and so I saw her. So shout out to her, man. Shout out to her. So all I'm saying is like, um, yeah,

I don't know, man. It's like, I think that there's, this is kind of a, she's, she's got her own personal Instagram. She's got it linked on the thing.

Okay. I guess it takes away from business. I guess it takes away from only fans business. This is what's supposed to. do. They need to adjust with the times, right? Just like the laws have to adjust and so on. You need to develop policies

and have a decision within your school boards. Are teachers allowed to do only fans or not? Are they allowed to post their hobbies if it include shooting or protesting on the weekend or whatever it may be? They need to figure that out.

Put it in writing. And then people can challenge it. And then people can challenge it. or not? People are going to challenge it. Was it in writing? I guess they say that it's a violation of some policy. I'm taking umbrage at the policy itself. Look.

We'll lead the movement. Oh, look. You fight on behalf of Rachel Dolazale. Hey, whatever, bro. I still think they found out who she was. And we're like, get out of here. Look, let me tell you something. The Fonnie Willis trial is happening right now.

Fondie Willis is a couple of minutes away from taking a stand. You guys, this is happening while we're recording. the podcast. Apparently Nathan Wade has admitted to using this credit card to pay for some excursions that he took with Fannie Willis. This whole thing is becoming a big deal. I'm getting a bunch of text messages from a bunch of people. Is it a hearing or is it a trial? I think it's a hearing.

People are saying trial. Hold on. Let me call. Yeah, it's a hearing. It's a hearing. It's a hearing. Hold on. Call Jason.

Yeah. Jason Jha Lee. You're live on higher learning right now. What's going on in the hearing surrounding Fannie Willis? What's happening? Can you catch us up in 30 seconds? I do the best I can. I haven't been watching the entire thing.

I've just kind of turned it on over the last maybe 30, 45 minutes. And the, I don't know why I'm blank. making out on old boy's name. Nathan Wade. I'm calling, Nick, yes. He just got off the trial, get off his fan,

and they just asked him a lot of, like, pointed questions, like direct questions about, like, their sexual relationship and who knew and kind of what they were doing

to kind of keep up. The implication was that they're trying to keep the relationship, like super secret. They didn't want anyone to know. I think he was trying to paint the picture

more that this is their private business. So it wasn't a matter of keeping it a secret. It's just that's their private business. They were dating and it just was what it was. But there was just a lot of talk about the sexual nature of their relationship and how long it had been going on and the type of places they would go and where they would meet up at and all that kind of thing.

And Farnie Willis is a couple of minutes from getting on a stand right now. She's actually sitting in the box right now to tell. testimony hasn't started yet, but the look on her face is clearly that she does not want to be here. And she does not want to be answering any of these questions. She does not want to be going through any of this right now. And however hard they made it on him, they're about to make it twice as hard on her. Wow. Thank you, Jason.

I'll hit you right after this, brother. I appreciate that update, man. Yeah, for sure. Bonnie Willis is in the box, the same place Nathan Wade was. All right, bye. Rachel, they're going to try to tear Fani Willis down, tear her apart. Yeah. I mean, they're examining these allegations to determine if it's enough to disqualify one or both of them from this case and potentially dismiss the case.

Tough. Before we get to Penil Joseph, I want to touch on something real quick. Usher, he was honored. by the city of Atlanta and Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens with the Phoenix Award at the Black Music Entertainment

and Walk of Fame. Usher, he did the cap of shimmy. He shimmied with the mayor. This is the dance that the Capas do. It looks like everybody's okay with it. You're in the Divine Nine. What do you think? So I looked everywhere to see if people were upset at all about Usher, because something,

I didn't even notice this when we were watching the Super Bowl. I didn't notice there were capas in the halftime show. Did you? After. People was after. Yeah, there was so much going on. It was hard to tell. But I didn't notice the capas were in it.

Usher is not a Kappa, but clearly has like a like for them and for what they do. And I guess the mayor here is a Kappa. And so Usher took it upon himself. He was filling the moment as he was getting that honor and decided to go ahead and shimmy. And it looked like the mayor kind of joined him a little. bit. Did he not? The mayor was down with it. He was down with him.

I mean, listen, us shouldn't be doing the shimmie. Now, I will say this. I will say this. Is the shimmy something that is a part of Kappa Alpha Psi as a national organization? Like, is it it's not like he's doing their secret handshake

or he's quoting things that they do or he's being invited to the inside workings of the organization and what it means to be a part of Kappa Alpha Side? No, this is something that is developed over time. Like hopping isn't necessarily something that is about the institution or the foundation, even though it has become a part of that, right? But he shouldn't be doing it.

And it is not fair. If people are going to be mad at, now I will say this too. I ran into a bra and we were talking about this when I was walking the dogs yesterday. And he even said the bros seem to be. if he had hot, the brus would be outrage. There just seems to be more of an outrage from Omega Sci-Fi when it comes to people doing anything that's affiliated with their fraternity,

opposed to others. And the captains seem okay with this. They seem proud. They are proud of the fact that Usher is doing their shimmy. He'll be honorary or something next year. It seems like a lot of people are going honorary. It seems like these city chapters are filling up. Yeah.

It does. To be honorary is a national thing. I know, but what I'm saying is when I was back home in Louisiana, it seemed like there were a lot of new 40-year-old people that had gotten into, you know what I'm saying? It's never too late. But I will say this, the cap has had a big problem when Boosie was wearing their letters. Remember when Boosie had it on at the game? I forgot. Boosey had that shit on.

Boosie had that shit on, baby. Y'all can say what the fuck y'all want. Boosey was sitting court side in the game. And remember, T'Core, Boosie's brother as a Capa. Boosie had that shit on, man. Please put the picture up. Put the picture up of Boosie, man.

Boose is my family member. My family member's cap. My brother. My brother is a shit on, man. You know? I'm a camera adjacent. And then he hit... Boosey hit the shimmy too.

Everybody was trying to act like they had a problem with it. But Boosey was doing this thing. You know, people was, you know, like, hey, man. B, let me ask you this. We all of this talk about gatekeeping. Why y'all gaykeeping in the D9? Because you didn't go through what people have for me.

Why y'all, why y'all get, right, exactly. So I don't want to hear nothing about nobody talking about no gate. We all gatekeep. You suppose a gatekeep. Yes. We all gatekeeping. We went through a process. Shimmy, shimmy, usher, shimmy.

Why don't you shimmy and see what happened, what people say? Ain't nobody going to do a motherfucker. You already do this in every podcast. No, I don't. Let me tell you something. Yes. Nobody's going to do a motherfucking thing. Dumb ass shit.

I wish a motherfucker would. I'm not, I would never, like, I would never, no, it's, it's dumb to do physical violence to somebody over some, some, some, some, yeah. So, but I will, I will say this. Like, I would never disrespect nobody by doing that shit. I would never disrespect nobody by doing some, by doing that shit. But if, but, but, but if me as a 43 year old man, if somebody came up. to me or some dump. That's ridiculous.

It is ridiculous. Like you shouldn't be taking to that seriously, but obviously, yes, there's gatekeeping and also there are people who get a pass, right? We talked about past this last podcast. Boosie doesn't get one. Usher does. Yeah. Shout out to Usher. Shout out to this. Hey, man. Like I said. Bar Rouge's finest right there.

Hey, shout out, man. Boosie had that shit on. man. Busy had that shit all he was doing that kind of shit. All right, Poneil Joseph is next. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission. Lunch window? Gone before you saw it coming.

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consultant is the official title and you know this van from the lawyers hash it all out so Poneil Joseph joins us today. You guys know that I've sung the praises of Dr. Pineal Joseph. He is a professor down there at the University of Texas. What is it the Linden B.J School of Public Policy? Is that what it's called? Yeah, Lyndon B. Johnson. Yeah, School of Public Affairs, yeah.

Yeah, School of Public Affairs. Football this past year, too. So right, right, Rachel? That's right. That's right. Valiantly lost to Washington, but. It's okay. Next year is our year.

Okay, man. We're in the final four of football this past year. Weren't we, Rachel? We're the hater in our myths. We have to stop teaching the kids that the only time you can celebrate is if you win. Number one. Exactly. It's been a long time since we made it this far.

So. Exactly. Yeah, it's been a while. So I'm excited for our future. A milestone for Professor Joseph, Dr. Joseph, is a book that I absolutely love that I think is so important. I think it should be a textbook. I think it should be taught to kids in the ninth grade. The Sword and the Shield has been adapted into a movie.

movie of a miniseries, should I say, a series. You watch it right up there when you're on your Disney Plus. It's right there. Boom, boom, boom. Genius MLKX is the series that is an adaptation of the Sword and the Shield, which is Penil's fantastic book about the intersecting lives of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And Malcolm X, their lives intersected, although they all. only met one time.

Met one time. And so the book was so enlightening to me about how the lives of these two men were more similar than they were dissimilar about some of the challenges that they face. Penil, there's a lot to talk to you about, but before we talk to you about the other things,

talk to us a little bit about the process of taking the sword and shield from a book to the airwaves. It's on Nat Geo, right? Nat Geo is all the producers. So Disney, Hulu, Nat Geo. Talk about how that happened and why it was important to you.

Yeah, you know, you know this, both of you, Van and Rachel. It's a lot of times it's what you wish or hope in the universe. It sort of comes to you, and it's not you seeking it out, right? By the time you're ready for it. So this just came during the pandemic. The book came out. The book did, you know, reasonably well. people were reading a lot.

And these folks reached out and said that they had read the book and that Disney and Genius were going to, we're interested in doing it. And it's Gina Prince Bythwood and Reggie Rock Bythwood, undisputed cinema and undisputed entertainment. And, you know, Gina has done the Woman King and is a brilliant black woman director. Reggie has done so much produced and showrunner on Swagger and so many different things. and they wanted to do MLK, Nat Geo, and Gina and Reggie wanted to do MLK and Malcolm X.

And so, you know, that's how it came about. And then they said somebody in their circle, producer, shout out to Francie Calfo, had read the book and, you know, gave them the book. And so it just all snowballed from there. So it really was, like you all know, when good stuff happens a lot of times, it's just, yeah,

intervention. You're not, you're not out there seeking. It just happened. So, and, you know, and then you let the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, um, about black wealth and all this stuff. Black people, we are so, um, down trodden. We give ourselves, our stuff away. You know what I mean? Like, like, I'm not an advocate for myself. Truthfully, if, if, if, if other people hadn't, um, stepped up to then say, hey, here's the that we're going to go to, you're just going to, you're just going to say, you're just going to, you're just going to say, hey, you can have it. That's true.

That's real. That's real. You know what I mean? That's like where we're from unless I know there's this black elite that's not like that, but that's not where I'm from. I'm first-gen, child of immigrants, the whole thing. And when people come up to you, you're just kind of like, here, take it. Take it.

Yeah. No, that's the story behind. Oh my gosh. I can't think of this. I guess this person, Everett with Ehratier. He just kind of gave. you just kind of gave it to, you know, core. It's like, yeah.

Mercury fiction. Yeah, like without even. Yeah. And look at what we are now. We don't need any more as a representation. I take your word for it. And now it's Oscar dominated, which is great. For you, you know, having this be such a passion project and to, it has be so influential,

you know, as for Van to say, it should be a textbook. And it's true because as kids growing up, you were kind of taught to pick a side and not even really to pick aside. It was like MLK Jr., and that's it. So to see this, and to have a new generation see this on a screen, what was it like for you to see it come to life? To see it for the first time, jump off the pages. Oh, it's been

great. We went to the National Museum of African American History in D.C. for the premiere. It was just, you know, met all the actors and Gina and Reggie and, you know, Francie and the president of Nat Geo, Carol Monroe. And just all just, there's just so much goes into it and to see that they did it well. And they really, you know, this shout out to this showrunners.

Damien Macedon and Raphael Jackson. They, they leaned into the smaller moments. They leaned into Betty and Coreta and Martin and Malcolm as you. human beings. You got Byrd, Rustin, Ella Baker, and they really moved away from the cliched moments. Because, you know, one thing, because I'm so big into cinema, I look at people like Malcolm, Martin, Angela Davis, or Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Ella Baker, these people are kind of like, when you think about Marvel superheroes, the reason why the Marvel cinema worked at its best was that you were,

it wasn't about them in costume, it was about them as people. So you were excited about Iron Man, but Tony Stark and his struggles. You were excited about Black Widow, Natasha. You're excited about Miss Marvel and, you know, the Black Miss Marvel photon. And in a lot of ways,

by the time they put on the suit, you care, but you really care about them as people. And that's what makes it work. And I think they do. did the same thing here. You really can't, I mean, you know, King and Coretta, you know, Kelvin and Wurusha are so good. Aaron Pierre and Jamie Lawson are so good.

The chemistry is so good. And you really see them, little moments with them, cooking food, you know, kissing and hugging. So there's a lot of black love in there. Just tiny little moments that we've never seen before, even with Spike Lee and even with other great films we've just never seen before. Nobody knows more about this era than you. What do you think about the resurgence that Coretta is having right now in popular consciousness? You know what I mean? Like it's a real Coreta moment right now.

Everybody's trying to be someone's Corretta. What are your thoughts about that, Penil? You know, I think that even in real time, so I'll go back in the crates. So by 1967, when King is leading a march of over 100. hundred thousand in New York City against the Vietnam War. Coretta is in San Francisco leading a march of over 40,000. Corretta, she's the keynoter, she's the person, right? So if you see it in real time, and she's in the news, too. So when you look at the papers and you're like doing your daily, your check, she's right there, right? So we have to one say in real time, she was,

there was an acknowledgement of her in ways that sometimes we forget, that she was. That she was an activist. She was a leader. She was somebody who had more activist experience than him when they met. She was a mentor to him. All these things. She had been doing anti-racist work before him, and she was two years older. And then after he passes, there's a great book from 1969 called My Life with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. by Corretta Scott King, right? And that's a beautiful book that sort of talks about their life together. That was a big, you know, big book. when it came out in 1969. And then certainly what we've seen through the work

of people like Jean Theo Harris and so many different other historians and writers, is this moment where we're getting deeper and deeper into her story. Jonathan Aig has the brilliant book on MLK called King of Biography. He really gives Kareta Herdu as a partner, as somebody who, you know, she's brilliant. She's really smart.

So what's great, and I think I know what you're alluded Some people can miss understanding and stuff. But what that means, what that means is that this is a woman who is with you and not behind you or standing silent. It's she's really right beside you. I remember I'm old enough to remember good times, good times to tell the movie show. And there's a great episode where when John Amos was still on it, it's a brilliant show. It's a show about a black family that's a working class.

black family, living in the projects of Chicago. And there's a point where there's a feminist episode. Florida joins a women's group, a black women's group. And this is brilliant. Like, they're talking about black dignity and black women and their humanity. And James gets so intimidated by it. Halfway through the episode, he leaves and he goes to a bar to be with these black men complaining and then figures out that these black men who are complaining, their wives have left them. because they're into some kind of toxic vision of what being a black man is supposed to be. But then when you come back to the apartment, Florida tells them, I don't want to be ahead of you and I don't want to be behind you, James.

She says, I want to walk with you in this thing, right? It's a really brilliant moment. This is like 1975, right? And it perfectly encapsulates what Coretta is. I mean, Corretta is your ride or die, but you're not walking ahead of her. And she's also not just behind you serving you sand, which she's. you know, after romantic Valentine's

she turns into a sandwich and a cold beer, right? It's much deeper than that and you get that in this film, in this series. Corretta and Wauruchet, who's a British actor, and so is Aaron Pierre.

She plays her so, so well and so strong. And there's another British actor, Lenny, who plays Daddy King, and he plays him so strong. And that's the thing that all the actors are very, very strong. They really inhabit and make you believe that they are these people.

So you didn't have an issue with Kareta being thrown out there, like, you know, almost like a stand-by-your-man, Tammy Wynette situation. Yeah, so she's not that. She's not that. But it seemed like that. No. Yeah, it seems like, yeah. When he was throwing it out there.

Yeah, that when they're throwing it out there, that's a. misunderstanding. Corretta is sort of your true blue, equal partner, you know, and she's the partner who, and I think Dr. Betty Shabazz is too. When you're weak, she's strong, which is why you need an equal partner, because all of us know relationships, there's going to be times where you're weak. There's going to be times where you need, you know, her strength or your partner's strength. And that's what Corretta is. Was that always going to be the vision? Because I do love that they are

central characters in this and show that they had countless contributions as well in supporting their husbands, but also for the movement too. Was it always the vision and putting this series together that you were going to have the women be central characters as well? Because you can't tell the story of their husbands without the women as well. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. That was always the vision because the vision was to open up the world. You were going to have initially thinking 10 hours, It ended up at eight hours, and you know how it is with budgets. Right? Because there's really 10 hours of story here.

They're really, because sometimes you have a thing where there's not enough story because we've all seen those series, but there's this story. You could have had this as multiple seasons. So we were always thinking of building out the world. And to build out the world, you needed to anchor and have the women as solid pillars. So it was always a four post story. It was Betty's story. it was Coretha's story.

It was Malcolm and Martin's story. So it was this four-pillar story that you were seeing overlap. Now, you mentioned something earlier that people have been talking about a little bit. And we keep going back to this issue every time there's a biopic about Black American luminaries. You mentioned that some of the actors in the show are British. Yes. And a couple of weeks ago, there was a clip going around. with one of the leads.

I think she plays Corretta Scott King or maybe Betty Shabazz. I think she plays Betty Chabazz. No, it's Corrata. It was Corretta. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so she was talking about the fact

that she learned a lot about Corretta Scott King by actually performing in this role. She didn't know too much about her before. She's a British lady. And a lot of black Americans

were pissed off about that. And the conversation came back to with all these people we love. We love. We're not trying to do it here. We're just talking about it because it's a relevant talking point.

Daniel Kululia as Fred Hampton or Cynthia Arevro as Harriet Tubman. The list goes on and on and on. And here you have, I mean, obviously Kelvin Harrison Jr., but here you have some British actors portraying black American cultural icons and some people don't like it.

The book comes from your brain, The show comes from your brainchild. What are your thoughts about that? You know, I understand the hurt at times or the criticism or the resentment. I don't agree with it. And I tell you why. And the hurt comes from just the anti-black racism that Betty and Malcolm and Martin and Coretta face in their lives, where in a lot of ways there's a kind of caste system

globally where, you know, black folks from the United States, we are hated and devalued the most in many different ways, where people who come from other places, and we saw this with, I May Destroy You, and this sister who does brilliant work there. Michael Cole. Yeah, Michaela Cole. And she said it, too, that she's gotten meetings where Hollywood producers are really, really excited about her and her British accent. You know what I mean?

and it becomes something that makes them more palatable than us who are sort of plain old regular black. So I understand the hurt. But I also think that when you think about this story, and this is where Malcolm comes in really important, you know, the visits to Africa, the pan-Africanism, the revolutionary human right story. Malcolm is also, his people are from Grenada as well. His mother is from Grenada from the Caribbean.

It really is a pan-African story. So all these British folks that we're seeing, they are from. are African diaspora, whether they're British Nigerian or British Caribbean or whatever. So they're black. And I think it also shows you that this story is our story, but it's their story too, right? It's unfortunate that she's saying, look, in the British education system, I didn't learn about Martin and Malcolm and Coretta and Betty, right? And we need to do something about that. But I think we have to think about this struggle diasporically. And my people are from Haiti.

I'm born or raised in New York City, but both of my parents were from Haiti, both Jacques Mel and Port of Prince, and I got people in Tommonde and Gonaiv and all these places in Haiti. And remember, Haitians fought in the American Revolution. Sometimes people will say, well, Haiti, there were Haitians at the Battle of Savannah in the American Revolution, in the American Revolution, right?

Frederick Douglass was inspired by Haiti, becomes ambassador to Haiti. But before when Frederick Douglass was just out of slavery, he talks about how the Haitian revolution is his North Star. You know, he wants us to do here what happened in Haiti. So we have to think of it in a really pan-African way. And then we, at that point, you really embrace somebody like Aaron Pierre and Waurusha for, you know, spreading that diaspora. message, right? So you don't, you don't feel offense because, again, it's still our story.

I want everybody to do something right now. I want everybody that's listening to the podcast to just take in what it's like when someone who's actually educated is on the podcast. You know, just it's like, just let it waft over you. As, you know, you come here for the hot takes and every once in a while it might seem like Rachel is, she's got a law degree, so it's fine. She can be in the same thing with Pineau. But every once in a while I talk, and you guys might think, oh, Van, just let it waft over you when someone actually has a historical reference for what it is that they're saying. Just deal with it. Like, you know, let's say that, look, listen to that answer. It's pretty unassailable. You know what I mean? I feel like it shuts down. We have had this

conversation multiple times about British actors playing these popular black American figures and the way you just described it. No, I mean, by the way, I still feel the same way. I don't feel like you to have a conversation again. I still feel the same way, but I think the important thing is, is when we discuss it, we talk about whether or not there's room for it. Let me tell you why I still feel the same way. It's not, it's a lot of it's died down a little bit and it always gets a little prickly

when there's a clip out like that with you guys as lead. But the reason why I still feel the same way is because, um, there's both more work to be done on educating black people in the diaspora about how we're more intertwined than we think that we are. Yeah. You know? But there's also, I think, at this particular point in our history as black Americans, a want for our unique experience to be prioritized. And that's not just prioritized by white America in terms of. of reparations in terms of things like that.

That's the fact that the special uniqueness of who we are and what we've always been means something. Like our culture means something. Because I'll go to a party right with my Jamaican brothers and sisters and they black when

but then they're Jamaican. And you know what I mean? And like I'll go a place. They black my homies but then they're Nigerian. And they got their host. And when something happens with Nigeria is, hey. And it seems like we only get the criticism. We never get to celebrate ourselves as

black Americans because when it's time to celebrate ourselves as black Americans, sometimes they let somebody else do to celebrate. So I think that there's a conversation to be had both about how we're more intertwined. Yeah. And that maybe will inform us about maybe the need not to build some of these cultural walls that we do sometimes. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, because I think what I fear is like when people have the African descendants of slavery, the Aidos. Aidos. Those are super hyper nationalist movements where it's like the folks who make an argument that the only people who can get reparations are people who can link one of their ancestors

here to racial slavery. So from that perspective, it's not Barack Obama. It's just Michelle Obama. And the problem from that perspective is that there's a bunch of black people from the Caribbean, from West Africa, especially West Africa, but some at times from other parts of Africa, who came to the United States after 1865 and who were discriminated against, who fought in World War I and two, and who were Buffalo soldiers. There's a bunch of those folks, right?

So the idea that we can only say you are part of this black American experience if you go back hundreds of years, it's another politics of division. I agree with you, Van, that you got to claim it. Like my people came in 1965. We're New Yorkers. We're black. I'm proud to have Haitian ancestry. And I claim the Haitian flag. But I'm a black American, which is why I do black power and Malcolm and all the stuff that I do.

You see what I'm saying? So you got to, once you claim it and you step in the story, you're part of us, right? So I agree with the people who don't want to claim it or you're only going to claim it on June 10th and then you're back to something else. Like you've got to claim it. And again, it's the hardest thing to claim because there's great beauty. But the people who are, and this is where you get back to Malcolm X, Malcolm says after his press conference when he comes back from the Hodge, the pilgrimage, where he becomes an Orthodox Muslim, he says, that I've come back and I've experienced white people treating me with great dignity, but until they treat 22 million black people with great dignity, it doesn't matter.

Right? So Malcolm all day, I'm working on a new book on Malcolm right now. One of the things he does with Muslim clerics and African leaders, he's writing them back and forth. And some people are telling them, dude, you're focused too much on this black stuff. You're focused too much on black America. And he says, no. He says the litmus test for all of you, including Islam, is how you're going to bring truth, justice, and equality for those black Americans who are despised.

So Malcolm claims he's beautiful. He says we're African, but he claims black America all day, every day, even when people are pushing back against. He's talking to Muslim, talking to Nasser, the Egyptian president, all these. And we've got the evidence. That's what's so beautiful. We've got it. He's saying, no, the only people are. The main people I'm loyal to, even with my religion, is black Americans because they're the most despised group of people on the planet.

And they're the people with the most dignity on the planet, he argues, right? I'm there all day every day, right? Yeah. We've talked about this a bit on the podcast. And I can't remember if we talked about this with you or not. This need for a leader in black community today, present day. With what you've studied and even with this series coming out, do you think it's possible in today's society to have a leader with the impact that MLK Jr. and Malcolm X had on Black America then to be able to have that now? It's more difficult. It's more difficult. And some of this is because certain groups, like you think about not just Black Lives Matter, but just different civil rights group, black radical groups, they've,

pushed away from that direction, right? They've pushed into a direction of saying, we need less sort of vertical leadership and we need more horizontal leadership. We need different groups of leaders. We've seen definitely some really brilliant black women leaders in this age of Black Lives Matter, including the founders of BLM, right? Then there's been some controversy around that, too, when we think about the money BLM raised and then the allegations and the accusations, right? So in certain ways, I think the way in which we've structured leadership has made it much harder for somebody like, you know, King and Malcolm, you know, Coretta and Dr. Betty Chabazz to take over leadership positions in our community.

One, you need to be much more well-funded to get visibility now, right? Like there's a funding thing where somebody has to be sort of really branding you as a leader. We've seen some of those folks. I mean, we've seen the poor people's campaign in North Carolina. We've seen people. We've seen certain things happen. And two, I think there's such a big risk, you know, Rachel, about if we identify with this person, what happens if we find out that there's corruption?

What happens if we find out that this person is not behaving? in a way that we think is morally centered or correct. I think we, we, you know, it's a much more difficult hurdle right now, right? And also I think somebody like Malcolm, for instance, he's a leader who never wants to meet the president. Now we have a bunch of leaders who are dying to meet the president and dying to meet, you know, and be in these halls of power, right?

So I think it's, it's very hard to think of leaders, who are unelected officials who could have this much power because we've reorganized ourselves in a different way. Some of that is our own choosing and some of that is just sort of the evolution of capitalism, the evolution of American democracy. Would Malcolm X or Dr. King have been accepted as leaders of today's black community by today's black community?

Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah, I mean, you know, you know, Malcolm, yes, because you can see there are parts of the community that love Lewis Farrakhan, that love, and all that is is a version, not even necessarily the most expansive version of Malcolm, but that's all that is when Malcolm was with the NOI. With King, you know, I think it's interesting with King. There's people who are pushing for nonviolence.

You can see Reverend William Barber and the Poor People's March. I think that there would be a. acceptance of him. I don't know if King would be able to elevate and win a Nobel Prize and be time man of the year, not because he's not doing great stuff. I just don't think there would be the institutional recognition of King in the same way that institutions were forced to recognize King, right? I don't think these institutions have to recognize you. You know, they don't have to give you your MacArthur Genius Prize or your Nobel Prize or your Nobel Prize or or anything. I think with King, he lived in a time where he created, one of the things I'm writing now, King,

in 1963 is the same year that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Time Magazine's man of the year is going to be King and not Kennedy. He's the first black person who's the man of the year for Time Magazine. And it just shows you the impact, the impact. They're forced. They're forced. You know, before BLM, you know, before Trayvon, After Emmett Till, though, they're forced to acknowledge King, even in a way that they weren't forced to acknowledge Medgar Evers. Medgar Evers gets acknowledged, you know, posthumously. There's the new book on Megger, and Meager and Merley Evers, you know, they're really American heroes and black American heroes. But King, he forces them to acknowledge. And that's why he becomes an embarrassment for them when he comes out against the Vietnam War. You know,

So that same person they acknowledge, the New York Times calls him a buffoon after he comes out against the new year. This is a black man with a Ph.D. And they call him a buffoon, an idiot. And, you know, so it's a very interesting thing. Now it would be much harder. But the only exception would be a groundswell. If the grassroots supported somebody, whether it was a black woman or man, to be that leader. And this is just coming from. from sometimes you see this where somebody writes a little book back in the day and they used to call this street lit and the New York Times didn't say it was a bestseller but we all knew it was a best seller like everyone we knew had it had it right yeah you know what I mean so so you that can still occur that can still occur and when that occurs though that person or persons might not be as neat or as polished as Malcolm and Martin too right because by the time when you And that's where Malcolm was so interesting.

When you touch the grassroots, a lot of times what you're saying, what touches them is that you're speaking in a way that no one else is speaking to them. Sorry, I'm listening to what you're saying. I forgot my question. The tactics that MLK Jr. or Malcolm X had differed. Did they influence each other, though? Because I still just find it's so fascinating that all of this is derived. from a photo that you saw and you were curious about it. So we know that their tactics differ.

Did they have influence on one another? And the other question is, I guess with that, is when it comes to Black America, did they want the same things? Yeah, you know, I think they did influence each other. I think that King's mass political mobilization, because remember, Malcolm is at the March on Washington. He's at the March on Washington.

He's not in a hotel room, like he later says. He's literally at the march. And the night before, he's at the hotel talking to Bayard Rustin, talking to these different folks. But he listens to Kings, I have a dream speech, right? So he wants to be in the thick of the fight. So by the time, you know, even before he leaves the nation of Islam, Malcolm is attending civil rights demonstrations. When reporters ask him what he's doing there and they say the nation's not supposed to be at these demonstrations, he says he's just there as an observer, right? So he's influenced to be right there with the people because of King.

By 64, he comes out and says he's supporting voting rights. And he's doing all these different rallies in Harlem in support of voting rights through his new organizations, the Muslim Mosque Incorporated and then organization of Afro-American unity. So there is sort of influence and overlap. And he's doing an interview with Robert Penn Warren in 64. And he says, me and King have the same goal. We want black freedom. We have the same goal.

But then what he says, and he says this in Ethiopia and Tanzania, he visits 14 different African nations in 1964. He tells the students that the difference between me and Dr. King is that he doesn't mind being beaten up, and I do. So he's saying the goals are the same, but the tactics are different. And again, King starts to become a much more amenable and open to black nationalism. And all black nationalism is, is, you know, pride in our culture, our identity, but a push for political self-determination in a way where we get to define our problems and our solutions. That's all it is, you know?

And, you know, King starts to be much more aware of that. And King starts to say black is beautiful. Because all Malcolm is doing, when you see Malcolm, Malcolm is the black power. movement before it's called the black power movement. So that's all it is. So when you when you see Malcolm, Malcolm is proof that the black power movement is existing before 1966 and Stokely Carlin. Because every single thing he's saying about black identity, he tells us that we've left

our minds in Africa. All the things he's telling us is just a black power, political self-determination move. But what he does, which is very unique, he uses. his Muslim faith as a global religious platform. And he connects that to a global Pan-African platform, right? And the final pillar, because before he's killed, he's trying to get to the United Nations and have African leaders support a condemnation of the U.S.

for human rights violations because of the mistreatment of black people. Yeah. And one last thing, Malcolm had an office at the United Nations right there in New York City. And the reason he had an office was because he was down with African dignitaries who gave him an office starting in the late 1950s. So Malcolm is constantly in the U.N. And that's why when you read the reports on Malcolm,

both State Department reports, FBI reports, newspaper reports, the white journalists are constantly saying, you know, he's not who I thought he was. He looks like a businessman. He carries a briefcase. he's really well spoken. They're saying that all the time. One thing, man, you'd love,

there's a great interview from 1962 where somebody's talking about Malcolm has hands just as big as Michael Jordan. Oh! They're saying his hands are so big, and they're saying that there's a white reporter, Rachel, they're saying his wrists are so large. They can't believe a wrist watch can fit over it.

Wow. See? He would have been hooping if it was. No. That big. Yeah. Last question for me. Are you worried about the 2027 FBI unsealing of their surveillance on Dr. King?

Is that a concern for you? Do you think there's going to be a lot of mess around that? There's a great, great documentary out called MLK FBI, where it goes, I keep telling people to watch it, okay? where it goes deep into, I know you've seen it, Poneel. You're right, yes. But does that concern you with that coming out in terms of how Dr. King's legacy will be affected or perception of him or what the FBI, how true some of this stuff is going to be? Does any of that stuff concern you?

Yeah, it concerns me greatly. I love the word to use perception. So that's what concerns me. I don't think in the one iota of my being that Dr. King was sitting in on somebody being sexually assaulted or part of that or anything. But I think that the FBI absolutely could leave a record suggesting or finding him guilty of that very thing. And so then it becomes up to us like, what do we do about it now that it comes out? So I think it's the perception because there's a great book on J. Edgar Hoover that just came. out that just won the Pulitzer Prize. It's like a 900-page book by Bev Gage. And when you see

the sickness of Hoover and the FBI, I mean, you wouldn't trust these folks with anything. You wouldn't, you know, like the FBI is one of the most, you know, rotten to the core institutions that has ever existed in American history, especially during the period that Malcolm and Martin lived, right? So we can make a case that, oh, post-75, there's been reforms after to the Frank Church Committee hearings in 75 and 76. But when Malcolm and Martin were alive, this was, instead of helping civil rights workers and stuff, they, they colluded with white supremacists, you know, they buried investigations. They knew civil rights workers were going to be attacked and did nothing about it.

This is all documented, right? And then somebody wrote this crazy movie called Mississippi Burning and turned these white racist FBI agents into heroes. Into heroes. That's how sick it is. So I wouldn't trust anything the FBI says about either of them in terms of this kind of sort of negative personal deal. So I'm worried about the perception because it's going to be a story.

It's absolutely going to be a story. And a lot of people are going to say, oh, I believe it because it's something negative about King. And the way he's been deified in our society is just like anything that. comes out. I'm very nervous about it too, but I'd ask you this before. My last question.

Being a University of Texas at Austin student, what's happening with SB 17 and DEI, which we talked about a little bit before it, we knew this was coming. Now it's here.

Now we're starting to see the effects of it. It's very personal to me because I went to a predominantly white school. When I came to the University of Texas, I wanted to completely immerse myself, in black culture because that's something that I couldn't do at first Baptist Academy in Dallas. So I was very involved with African American Culture Committee, the MIC, which has now been renamed to MEC.

I'm a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. I fully wanted that experience. I hung out in the Malcolm X lounge where so many black students hang out and gather in between and after classes. So to now see that they have completely shut down. the MEC, to know that they are no longer funded and that things like new black student weekend, which is something that I participated in,

to get to know other black folks on campus before we started class and to connect, no longer is funded. To know that these cultural graduation ceremonies are no longer there. To know that possibly Malcolm X lounge is not going to exist. It's just devastating for students who are currently there about to graduate

and who are possibly coming to the University of Texas. I don't even know if you can speak on this, but what is being done there? And are you worried about what you do and possibly this touching, you know, like what you teach and different things that you're a part of there at the University of Texas? Oh, yeah, no, thank you, Rachel. No, of course, I'll speak on it. You know, no, I am worried. I think it's already touched what I do because what the reason, first of all, when we think about SB 17,

this is like the new Jim Crow, right? So it's a new way to racially oppress black folks, to exclude them from the higher education experience, to defund black excellence and black genius in higher education all throughout the United States. So one, let's say that. Two, when you think about the MEC and the things that are going on here, one, this is a predominantly white institution that was segregationist from 1883 up until the 1950s. And even when the precursors, who were the first African-Americans who came to the school in the 50s and 60s came to campus, they couldn't live on campus and experience all kinds of humiliation and embarrassment from this institution, right? And so affinity organizations, because that's what these are, whether it's MEC or Malcolm X lounge or black women and black male organizations, all they are there for is to provide safe harbor and safe space for institutions. that were segregationist institutions to begin with, right? And so to turn that around and say somehow that's reverse discrimination is absurd, right? But no, this is already affecting those of us who teach me.

They've shuttered, you know, all the DEI stuff has been shuttered. That disproportionately impacts black people and people of color, right? but definitely particularly black people. What people are trying to do is a number of things, Rachel. They're raising money to still have like black graduation and have different things because some of this can still be done. I don't know if it's going to be on-site or off-site, but it can't be done with university funds, with public funds.

Because in many ways, not only have they shuttered things like the Multicultural Center, but they made sure that you can't get public funds for like aspects of the affinity groups, right? And yeah, I mean, it's going to impact teaching and people's research because the next step is for them to say, well, that's illegal too. There's going to be class section lawsuits, right? But they probably feel fine that the judicial branch is going to say, this is okay, right?

So the next step, and if you say you can't teach about race, that means you're going to have to say you're going to shut down, of black studies. You're going to shut down any of the historians who are doing it, but there's Mexican-American studies. There's, you know, women and queer studies and gender studies. So, no, this is the tip of the iceberg, man. They've come to attack schools, and this was always the case. This was why we were always protesting to get access, not just through K-12 schools, but to colleges and universities, because these universities have resources. The reason why these universities is because they have resources. You don't want to say they're the only ones who can go to your

University of Texas or UCLA, those big shiny buildings and stuff, right? And the only place that Texas wants to see black people is on the football field, right? The Texas ledge on the football field, on the basketball court, and the rest of us can go to hell. But we're fighting. We're fighting back. I mean, it's a big struggle. And it's really sad that this is happening. This is going to be the 60th anniversary, Rachel, July 2nd of the Civil Rights Act, you know, but it's also the 60th. of Freedom Summer and June 21st is the anniversary of the disappearance of James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner. And those are the three civil rights who are murdered in Mississippi.

And remember, when they looked for them that summer, their bodies are found August 4th, they found the heads and the torsos of eight missing black people. Jesus Christ. Because they dragged, they dragged rivers. in that area. They found bodies, parts of us. That's the country. And that's the history. They don't want us knowing or trying to, you know, trying to heal by, you know, through, through the truth, right? What Jimmy Baldwin saying, we've got to confront. He said, Jimmy Baldwin said, we can face anything as long as we confront it. But if we can't face it,

it's just going to continue to happen, continue to happen. So, yeah, I'm glad that you, you asked that, Rachel. And again, for those of us, especially the Black Longhorn, and people like you, we're fighting to protect and preserve that legacy. That's why I know you get asked this. How can you love a school? Has that racist history and stuff? Well, we're part of the history too. That's how we love it, right?

You know, we're part of the history too. And there are black people who bled to be a part of the University of Texas. So you're saying, I'm standing on those shoulders, not the race. That's the thing. Yeah, true. Right? Well, I don't love it in terms of the University of Texas. Penil, thank you for joining us.

friend, the show is genius MLKX. It is an adaptation of the sword and the shield. You guys have to watch it. Nat Geo, Hulu. So Disney Plus, anywhere Disney and Nat Geo stuff is around. You can go and get it. Shout out to Kelvin Harrison Jr. in the entire cast. Shout out to everybody. It's fantastic stuff. Penil, thank you for joining us on higher learning, my brother. Thank you. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every child. choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Trimphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active

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he got out. Read, read, read, read, read. It's so great. So good. Mailback. Mailback time. Time to read your letters. And then we'll reply to them.

Oh, it's mailback time. Write us with your queries. And we'll chime in. First question is from Bobo Piedick. You've been blessed with the voice of an angel. Who are you collaborating with on your first single? Jasmine Sullivan. Oh, that's a good one.

Nobody sings like Jasmine Sullivan. That, the power, the control, the range, and something that people don't say about her, the voice quality. She's kind of down with a group of pop problematic girls from Philly. but other than that, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, is, she is, she is like, like, amazing. I say that as a joke. So, nice group of people from Philly. It's a joke.

But, but, but, uh, because people would be like, who she went? No, so. I just want her into. See? Um, I'm obviously going with Taylor Swift. Is that true? Top of the charts. I bet you.

I'm selling out. I'm going with Taylor Swift, top of the charts. I'm an immediate hit. Are you? I get all the little swifties after me. Yeah, because she doesn't really collaborate really with singers. Think about it. Does she, like, who, I don't, I mean, I say this as if I know all her music,

but I feel like you don't hear about many collaborations. So the fact that Taylor's going to collaborate with me, I'm selling out, going to the top of the charts. I'm in it. Mm-mm-mm. I'm in the box. I'm in the box at the Super Bowl. Yeah.

You're doing it? I know, Rachel, we know. All right, next question. All right, next one is from Truth Ally. What is one food you miss from your hometown that you can't find or is made differently in L.A.? It's a good question for right now. You know what it is? People would expect me to say gumbo and all of that stuff.

You can find some decent facsimiles of gumbo, not gumbo. anywhere near. You can get like a half good gumbo here. And then I have friends out here, like the amazing Lolo, who is Cleo and Bernardo's mom, Simon's mom-in-law, who, you know, if I'm ever getting a hankering for stuff,

when Lolo is around, she makes some of the best food that's around down there, from down there in New Orleans. But it's, actually the king cake. So around this.

Yeah, it's around this nigga, why you make that face about the king cake? I like king cake, actually. But I just surprised. I mean, I guess you're feeling nostalgic because it's Marty, around Marty girl time. Yeah. So what I would say is like a lot of this other stuff is like,

you know, I'm kind of used to it. But when I want there's nothing worse than a bad kingcake. This fucking painted dry, hard as a rock piece of shit that you'll get from some of the places around here that claim to have a king cake. So when it's Mardi Gras time and you want a king cake, you want a cream cheese, king cake, you want something to the king cake.

You want to kick it up. The cake, kick, kick a load of yon. You want that cream cake, that cream cake. You want that creamy cake. You want that king cake. That cream cake. You want that king cake. When you want that, it's hard.

You can't get it from anywhere. And it's tough. So that's what I would say. What about you? I'm going to say barbecue. I, there's good barbecue here, but it doesn't hit like, it does in Texas. You know, the turkey leg ain't the same. The sauce isn't the same.

The brisket isn't smoked the same. It's good. I can find good barbecue, but it doesn't hit like Texas. Like a Smokey Johns. Smoky Johnson. A chop in Texas. Like a chopped beef, baked potato with the sauce.

And I'm not a sauce person. I don't really like all that. But good barbecue sauce, just like lathered up with that. Oh, I miss it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it happens. I mean, I'm not as much of a barbecue nigger. So the barbecue out here in L.A. I'm just fine with. Bloodsose. Shout out to blood sauce. Bloodsose is the,

and I think they have Texas roots. So they're the closest thing that I can get to. That's like Texas. That shit tastes good to me. That shit means something to me, son. That's because you don't know. That's like me telling you somebody, that's like me saying Popadoes has the best gumbo I've ever tasted.

And you're like, I mean, I don't know. You don't know. But here's the thing, though. Food, period. Don't know. It's not true. I'm not going to pay any attention to anything you say about food. No, because when I do speak about food, I know it because I'm picky.

I am that picky. That's not true. You can't know about food if you don't try enough food. I'm not comparing food across. I'm talking about a specific type of food that I'm well versed in. And that's barbecue. I love it. I'm not even going to argue with you about your taste.

I'm not saying I'm not going to take any food advice or criticism from you because you don't like food enough. You know what you do? You eat a big hunk of pork and call it a day. That's your food. Big hunks of pork. anytime that there's a conversation about gigantic hunks of fried pork. I will listen to you.

I don't do fried pork. Only my mom's. My mom makes the best fried pork chops. There's a place. I want, okay. You're around this weekend? The mom's house's place? Yeah, mom's house is the only, that's the first time I've had a fried pork chop in a long time.

I make good fried pork chops. Fried pork. My mom does. I just can't. I can tell you all, I can tell y'all what best pork chops are in town. Where? no I'm just saying across LA.

Where they at? Tell us some of them. Tell us some of the places. Grandville has a good pork chop. See, I knew you would say that. Yeah. Where else had? Saddle House has a good pork chop.

Saddle House. Saddle ranch. Saddle ranch. Wait, are we talking about, see, this is what I know. We're talking about Saddle Ranch and Granville. These are two of the fucking most generic Saddle ranch is a tourist trap.

Not everybody has a pork shop. Big hunk of pork. I'm forgetting something though. There's a very nice restaurant with a pork shop that I'm forgetting. Oh, I get it every single time I go. I don't want to lead you. No, I can see it in my mind. I bet you can.

Poor fucking pig. He didn't do shit to you. Donnie, what's the best pork chop in L.A.? I honestly hadn't had pork chops in L.A. at all. Nobody asked. I will say that Saddam Ranch Slander is not cool because Saddam Ranch actually did have like really, really good stakes. Cash your question.

On the stakes was good. That just shows you didn't have your money up when you were out here. Talking about the stakes at Saddle Ranch. That's like what are the best, what are the best steak place? What are the best places for steak here in LA? It just shows I've been there. I've been there. I've been there.

Juicy steaks, right? I've been there but like Boa is right down the street from Saddam Ranch and then Boa has a good steak cut mastros shit I like Ruth's Chris so I guess

I'm a I'm a basic ass nigga I think that Ruth's Chris still has the best steak I'm sorry it's all kinds of but there's a lot of stakes out here jar has a great state oh I know what's a pork shop thank you Jarr does have a good steak by the way

And they have pork chop. There's a new restaurant called Norma's on La Sienaiga. That pork chop is outstanding. I was like, I can see it in my mind. Where is it? I could think of it because it's new. It's on Las Siena. It's right across from catch take.

Yeah. Everybody go to Norma's on La Cienaica. Norma. Norma. Norma. Let's go. I got mold to take care of. Okay. Take a P.

I have been off. But did not stop flirting. I have Van Laitha Jr. I'm Rachel Lynn Lindsay. And shout out to Van and six feet over productions. And Boas we had on the podcast, went to the premiere at the Pan African Film Festival. Great turnout.

I don't know why you looked at me like that. Great turnout. Great Q&A after. People were very interested in the film, which is always a good sign. If you didn't go out to support and you're in the LA area, shame on you because you really missed a good time. So shout out to you guys for once again. Thank you very much.

Thank you. You're welcome.