Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Obama Talks to the Brothas, Plus Chris Spencer and Lynnette Grey Bull Join the Show

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Van and Rachel discuss Liam Payne’s death and graphic photos posted by TMZ (5:25), react to Barack Obama addressing Black male voters’ lack of support for Kamala Harris (25:58 ), then discuss Harris’s contentious interview on Fox News (46:52). Later, actor, writer, producer Chris Spencer joins to discuss the Vice TV series ‘Black Comedy in America’ (54:26). Plus, Lynette Grey Bull, founder of Not Our Native Daughters, joins to talk about her mixed emotions concerning Indigenous Peoples’ Day (1:26:04).   Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Chris Spencer and Lynnette Grey Bull 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? Howlurin is on and is I Van Lacing Jr. And it is me, Rachel and Lindsay. Oh, shit. This is my new G right here. This owl. OV.

OV. You OVO now? I don't think he's an OVO. I don't think he's an OVO, I'll, though. Why? I think my new man, this is, this is my homeboy. This is Hoot Nanny is his name. I don't think he appreciates the owl community getting all lumped into one thing.

Like his OVO, he was like, hold on for a second. He said that prior to Drake, owls had their own identity. Owls had their own lives, their own thoughts. There's been many different types of owls things that have gone on. He said, think about the owl with the, uh, How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tutsi Roe Pop? He's like, think about all of these different owls that have been doing work in the aisle community. And to be pigeonhole to one rapper, he doesn't, he's taking a sand.

So don't do that. Okay. I mean, it looks like EO, V O, O, Al. It's green. It's green. Some could say it's green with envy for all the things that have been happening, you know, in Kendrick's favor and not in his. He said, What is he saying?

He said, do you want him to tell you what you look like if we're doing that? Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. What do I look like? Ben, shut up. Y'all got to watch this.

Ben, shut up. I'm not going to say that. Hey, that's crazy, bro. Hey, hey, hey, hey. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that, hey, don't, on the cool, though, you're my dog, but don't, you know what I'm saying,

respect the woman at the house. That's maybe a little too far. I'm not going to say that to it. Stop projecting. I'm not going to say that to. Stop projecting. That niggas something else, though. Something's wrong with you.

That nigg or something else. That nigga, that's a G. You're a G, bro. You're going to stand right here. This is my guy. Rachel, where are you? I'm in New York City. Oh, my God.

In New York, I can see the skyline behind you. Can I guess the borough that you're in? Sure. Manhattan. I am in Manhattan. You know where in Manhattan? That looks like Hudson Yards? No.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, nope, nope, nope. Because that big building over your left shoulder, that's that big, you're near Central Park right now, aren't you? I'm not far. I'm on the east side. I'm right by United Nations. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Are you going there for something? Are you going there to talk to the people to put an end to it? No, no, no, no. I'm leaving today. I'm going to Atlanta. I saw that, um, the judge. Judge had a birthday. Judge's birthday was Wednesday.

Judge's birthday. Seth, oh, he gets mad when I said, talk about his age. His own life. His birthday was Wednesday. Right. He doesn't like identifying things like that. Like, he's probably mad that people know his birthday. Well, I tell you something, man.

You put that picture up with you and the judge. Boy, the judge, that's a black man right there. That's an older black. black man. You know? Like you look at him right there and you like, he commands, that's the kind of guy that looks down his glasses at you like that and you like...

A hundred percent. And you're like, my bad. You know? I wanted to, when I saw that picture of him, I wanted to send him a message and like confess to things that I've done. Like, my bad. That's a father.

Happy birthday to the judge. Thank you. Thank you. I will definitely tell him that you said happy the birthday. I wasn't with him on his birthday, but I got to be in Dallas. He was honored for being on the bench. I talked about it a little bit on the podcast, so I was able to spend, you know, a couple weeks with him before. He was honored for being on the bench. They honored him. Do you feel like they appropriately respect and appreciate him down there in Dallas? He's been

locking niggas up for a long time now. Okay. Wouldn't quite crazy like that. But yes, I mean, he's been on 26 years. His clerks all comply. from all across the country. It's really beautiful to see the impact that he has and the legacy he has being the first black person in that district and seeing how he's given an opportunity to so many other black people to clerk for him who go on to become partners and judges across the country,

giving them an opportunity that maybe his white counterpart judges didn't previously do. When you look at the spectrum of his clerks, none of the other clerks look like that. So it's really nice. A coaching tree. It is a coaching tree. You're a coach.

Everybody knows what it is. Coaches that were assistants under you, analysts under you, GA's under you. Then they go on to become, he's got a great law coaching tree. That's amazing for the judge. We appreciate stuff like that. We have to start the podcast with some sad news

that broke yesterday. Yeah. As we record Thursday, there are a lot of people around the world who are saddened by the death of Liam Payne, who was a member of One Direction. He fell from the third floor of a hotel in Argentina, and apparently the scene was pretty chaotic.

Obviously, One Direction was a phenomenon with Tony Tins, Harry Stiles, St. Malick, Bruce Tomlinson, and now Horan. formed on X Factor and it became a huge, huge thing. Now you look at a couple of the people that have come from one direction. Obviously, Harry Stiles is a big deal. Zay Malik is a big deal. But all of these guys were massive stars.

And this was an unfortunate death of a 31-year-old man. The story got a little bit more deeper and twisted as TMZ had initially posts a cropped image of a body lying on a wooden deck saying that it was the hotel and Buenos Aires where he had fallen to his death. TMZ said it had identified him from his distinctive tattoos.

This is from the site. It says, we're not showing the whole body, but you can clearly see his tattoos, a clock on his left forearm, and a scorpion on his abdomen. The text accompanying the photo said, and this was, in accordance of screenshots that were circulating.

They immediately came under scrutiny. Everyone was very upset and they decided to take these pictures down. There's been some talk about it. Kelly McBride from the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership said there are circumstances where publishing images of dead bodies

is journalistically defensible. But such cases are those. where the photos call attention to an important story that has a strong public interest element, such as heroin conditions for migrant children, so on and so forth. In those cases, news outlets should be able to explain the decision to take the extraordinary step of publishing sensitive images. When you don't have journalistic purpose

and you find yourself on the receiving end of criticism for your audience, you often are defensive and you have to walk your decisions back. That's just to give a little context of the audience of how this is looked at and how this is framed. This entire thing went down. People were very upset. This was a very beloved musician who died in a way that was very tragic.

And I think people didn't get a chance to make heads or tails of it in an existential sense before they were forced to look at pictures, not forced to look at pictures, before they were subjected to pictures of the dead bodies. Yeah, it's, I mean, you can speak. speak more to this, having, you know, works with Team Z, but I would think after all the attention that surrounded the way the information was released when Kobe Bryant passed away and ate other people in that helicopter crash and that information, not it wasn't photos, but it was just that the information was released before the family got an opportunity to

be notified of what happened. There was a lot of criticism and rightfully so surrounding that. And I think it started, maybe not started, but there was a lot of attention around this conversation of why is there this rush to be first when the information is so tragic. It had already been reported and confirmed that he had passed away. That should be enough. We don't need identifying pictures of the body. And when did we become so desensitized as media, as individuals, where this was green lit to not consider family,

friends, loved ones, fans, other people who may have lost someone in a similar way. We still don't even know all the details just so you could publish and say you had it first. We already had the information. It's just really sickening. And I'm not going to give TMZ a pat on the back

because they put it up there and okayed it. But at least they did take it down. And I hope that we don't see it. a pattern like this continue because it's just nasty work. I can't even imagine what those who knew him are going through. And then you're trying to reconcile what happened. Naturally, it's human nature. It's innately within us to say you're 31 years old, what happened? More information is starting to trickle down of his mental state of what the hotel room was like, of his financial state of legal issues. and there's a lot of questioning

and you don't need this on top of it. It's just really a shame this has to be discussed when someone lost their life in such a tragic way and who also seemed to be very troubled as well. It's just disrespectful. Which portion do you want me to address

the TMZ portion or the cultural portion first? What do you think? Do TMZ first. All right, so I'm not at TMZ right now. I haven't been at TMZ for four years. but if you look at what they published, I think there are some clues there as to why the pictures went up.

They published pictures that they said could identify him. Now, I don't know whether or not TNZ was first to report this or whether or not it was reported somewhere else in TMZ got it. So do you think that if they weren't the first, this more so

pushed their insight into it forward than the other album? So if they weren't the first, okay. If they were the first, them publishing pictures of his tattoos was, in my opinion, to cover their asses to make sure that people didn't question whether or not this was actually Liam Pay.

Right? So if they were the first and they like, they have photos, right? it's in a foreign country where you can't get the PIO on the phone, where you can't call down there and get the coroner's office. It's not happening in L.A. where there are a bunch of different people on the payroll where they can then call them and go,

did this person die? Because remember, in the case of Kobe and all of that stuff, that probably came from the sheriffs on whoever was first on the scene there that then gave that information up. In the case of Michael Jackson's death, there was a paramedic that made a call to let TMZ know, I know the specific person in my mind, that it was Michael Jackson. And then in the case of, I mean, I could go down the list of people who let TMZ know that this person was who they are and they in fact died and all of that stuff. You don't have that in a foreign country and it's probably more difficult.

maybe you have the pictures and if you have the pictures, you're making the determination that this person died and you want to prove it to the audience by saying, look at these different pictures. Now, if they didn't get it first, the pictures are just their way of enhancing the story

and taking the story over for themselves. If everybody gets the pictures at the same time or if the pictures are up on a wire or if something like that happens, I have no idea how these pictures would have been gotten by TMZ. But then you say, hey, we're taking a different look at this

and we're giving a different spin on this, we're going to make the audience, we're going to create some value with our audience that this is actually him by showing pictures of his tattoos. Okay. What I would say is there's probably an element of gun shyness over there right now. I can't say for sure.

I know there's been some internal turnover and some of the people that were there before aren't there anymore. And there's been a lot of turnover over there in the past seven to eight years. You know what I mean? In terms of the news gathering apparatus

that exists there. And so maybe the Beyonce thing is lurking deep in your mind. We don't know. We don't trust. So let me make sure that people know that we know that this is in fact this gentleman who has passed away.

So maybe there's a part of it that there's a more insecureness about hitting published there. Can't speak. to that, I'm just in my head right now. What I do know is when I was there, we would, there was a specific story

on the sports desk that we did to where we had some athletes in a particular locker room that gave us some information on background. This guy said this to us on background. Don't mention my name. On background.

He said this to us. We published what he said to us, right? And the very player that gave us the information went on Twitter and said this is all cap. We didn't even name the player. But that same guy

went on Twitter and said, this is all bullshit, or something along those lines. And so what we decided to do then was, particularly on the sports desk, is whenever we would do an interview where someone would give us information, they would have to give us the information on FaceTime.

So we would FaceTime people during these interviews and they would talk to us. That way, we are not, injuring our reputation, especially the sports desk was fledgling, and Evan had a real, real, real high bar for what we would put on the sports desk. You know, he's a real deal journalist. And so we didn't want to be in that position. So sometimes at TMZ, there was a reaction to how these stories would play out.

We never got close to publishing anything like that on the sports desk, but I'm just saying. So I would think, I would take all those things as to consideration as to why they did this. And also, just to be honest with you, I think that part of. what people, the issue that people have with TMZ and places like TMZ and something that they know is at the back of like the minds of a entity like TMZ, they know that you guys really don't care. And we should all be real about this.

Like, you really don't care. About what? About what happened with Liam? About what happened with Kobe. About what happened with that. You don't care. Like, people don't. TMZ legitimately months ago,

like a couple of months ago, just said that Beyonce was going to be at the DNC and they were straight up wrong. It straight up didn't happen. But the reality is this. What people care about more than anything is not the

humanity of the person being covered. It's not the integrity of the organization that's covering it it's not the sensitivity of the organization that's covering it it is the thing

you want to know you want to know this happened you want to know where it happened you want to know when it happened you want the tea you want to know and because they know that right because they know that you want to know

and they want to be first because you want to be first. You want to be the first person to know. You want to be the first person that's in it to your group text. You want to be the one that tells your mom. You want to be the one that tells your dad. You want to be the one to disseminate this information.

And so the faster you get it, the faster you can be the TMZ. You're shaking your head, but let me tell you something. The reality is if another thing happens next week, be it a death, be it some kind of other, story and TMZ breaks it, no one will remember what happened this week. And they, and they have, and they realize that people can't really be consistent in their judgment of them. If TMZ or any other organization like TMZ falls off, it won't be

because of something that they did that offended somebody's sensibility. It'll be because they're no longer good at bringing people the information that they need or want. Being first, the reason why being first is important in journalism is because of capitalism. Because if you can brand yourself as the organization that is first, it gives you a competitive edge over all of the other organizations that have this stuff right. So if you guys don't, if people, the only way to hold TMZ or any other place like TMZ responsible for the kind of content that they're putting out is to not go there.

It's to unfollow, is to mute, is to that. But you won't do that because you want your nosy, you want to know what's going on with these celebrities. You want it first. You want it bad. And you can't live without it.

I understand everything that you're saying, and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with it. But what I will only pushback I will give is obviously when news happens, we want it reported. And yes, we shit, when it's shocking, I guess I'm not a person who's like, I got to be the first to tell. But when I do see news,

I do forward it along to group chats, whatever it may be. I think that there's, what I'm saying is there's this respect, like the photos were too far when it came to. Absolutely. That's what it's like you could report it and not do that. that's, I guess, where the line is.

There's a level of it that goes too far. I do care about humanity in it, more than I care about sending it off first to a group chat. That's just me. And yeah, with any news, yeah, you don't think about it as much or you may forget about it in the next week when something else breaks. But I wouldn't go as far as saying, we don't care about the humanity of certain stories or the people that are involved.

Yes, I may not care to the level of somebody who, knew him personally, but it doesn't mean that I'm not affected by something that's tragic. Like, it's, it's still heartbreaking. I guess what I'm saying is this. And maybe I look at this into broad away. All of these things, these words that we use, love, care, these are actions, right? Love is an action. loving someone without any action behind the love is hollow and it's actually toxic and dangerous because you're telling somebody that you love them, you're telling somebody that you care,

but there's nothing behind you. Care, using the word care is a, that's very powerful. It's an action. If you care the way an entity or an outlet comports itself, then there would be consequence on the back end of that care, right? If you care about it, it wouldn't just be like, oh, I feel bad that they did that.

It would be that they did that. And so I don't fuck with them anymore. Or they've been to the well one too many times. We've seen this one too many times. We've had conversations about what the line is, what the limit is, and whether it's TMZ or some other place. and there's been one place that continuously pushes the line

about what we consider decent. And so we don't want that in our society anymore. So we're not going to fuck with them. I remember I would go to different places and, you know, I would hear like Rosenberg, before I knew Rosenberg, right? Or other people liked them or other places. I would hear criticisms of myself

because I worked at TMZ. from different places, right? I would hear criticisms and stuff like that. I'd hear, oh, he works at TMZ. How do we know he's cool? Or I would hear different things. People would say different stuff or whatever, whatever. And these people, I don't give a fuck whether or not they think I'm cool or not.

But it would be like, whatever, whatever. And then I would listen to their shows because I consume all of this stuff. And I would hear them reporting stories from TMZ. And if you report a story from TMZ, you are TMZ. that's it. The thing that they want more than anything is for stories to get pickup. It's for another outlet

to pick this story up and report it. It's for another outlet to make this story a part of what they're covering. You cannot criticize what they are doing and then be them at the same time. You would have to not engage with the content.

If a restaurant has a Nazi working in the in the uh the the fucking kitchen or managing the restaurant you can't go to the restaurant and feel bad about it you need to choose one so whenever i hear people say hey and this is not to excuse them i don't think that that was something i think that that's a a misstep that happens when i say a misstep i don't mean to minimize it what i mean is i don't think the people there, they've been there, the people at the top, very top of it,

they've been there for a very long time, and they're setting their ways, whereas the culture under them is changing. So what was acceptable to do on the website 10 or 15 years ago, these new kids don't want to, they don't want to see that shit. They have a different standard

as to how you should act and how things should go, right? And so they honestly aren't reading the room right. But what I'm saying is, there's a simple way to depower a cultural entity like them and that's not to engage with the stuff that they do. So if you care, don't be like, oh my God, this was reported here

or this was reported there. You'd have to turn the channel. And the question is, and the question is can you do that? Can you not be a part of the thing that you are criticizing? You could ask them to do better. Yeah, they'll say, oh, my bad, we got this wrong, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They'll do it again. Yeah, they will. So, and that's not to say all I'm not putting all the blame on the people. And I'm telling, but what I'm saying is that like, if you, you're going to go back to the well with this again. And the reality of it is you have to make a decision about what you support. And if you support it, support it. If you don't, don't. Fine.

That was on my ranch. Can you get, it was, it's, it's, it's, oh, that counts for this one. That counts as a rant. That's my first rant of October. Yeah. Maybe not. But that counts as a rant. It was a rant.

But it was, I mean, you have different insight than most people do when it comes to this. So fair rate. And there are people in the room that are definitely, definitely having conversations about what is appropriate for the website and what is not appropriate for the website. There are definitely people that are having, or at least they were when I was there, that are having those conversations. conversations. But at the end of the day, there's only a couple of decision makers in the room. So there you have. All right. We're going to take a break. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

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Manage your activity with our consumer protection tool. Restrictions apply. See terms at vandul.com slash predict slash bonus dash offer dash terms. Politics, Rachel. Politics. A lot of politics going on. All right. Where do you want to start, Rachel?

Do you want to start with Obama and black men, which everybody has talked about? You want to start with Fox News interview with a president of Madam Vice President Harris, where do you want to start? There's so much. Where do you want to start? Where do you want to start? Where do you want to start? I think we have to start with black men. What? And Obama.

Oh, me, me wanting to talk about black men. Whoa. What do you think I'm going to say? What do you think my response was? Do you think I had a problem with what former president Barack Obama had to say to a room full of black men. No, you liked it. You like kicking us in our nuts.

So look, Donnie, over the past week, there's been a lot of conversation about Obama's message to black men, men in general, then black men specifically, before we get into it, me and Rachel talk about it, Donnie, give us a little bit of the video

of what Obama had to say. We had not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout. in all quarters of our neighborhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. Now, I also want to say that that seems to be more pronounced

with the brothers. So if you don't mind, just for a second, I'm going to speak to Yolprin and say that when you have a choice that is this clean, when on the one hand you have somebody who grew up like you, knows you, went to college with you, understands the struggles and pain and joy that comes from those experiences. He said to work harder and do more and overcome and achieves the second highest office in the land.

Donnie said, fuck Obama. I can't listen to no more. And he just cut that. That's how you feel? I mean, I didn't have, that's not what it, Donnie just cut the shit off. But, I mean, that is essentially what Obama had to say that was to a room full of brothers in Pittsburgh. You know, he's talking about the fact that there seems to be some polling information that says maybe there are portions of the black male electorate that aren't on fire about Madam Vice President. You know, I think that.

large percentage of black men are voting for the vice president. Yes, yes, yes, they are. But this seems to be. But Rachel, there was much Ballyhoo about that. Yeah, a lot of people didn't like what President Obama, former President Obama had to say. And I think I may shock you in what I'm about to say right now. I'm lying.

Why are y'all triggered? Why are you triggered? I'm sorry. I saw the headlines. Then I went and, of course, I watched it. And I understand that you might not have liked a strategy. Yeah. That makes sense.

I understand the way in which it was said and presented might be problematic and might have. Not might have. It came off in a negative way. And I don't think it really furthered the point that he was trying to make or really benefited the Harris campaign because that's what he was there for to get people fired up and specifically speaking to that group of men

and black men in general. But what was wrong with the message? I'm sorry. I was having this conversation, of course, when black women. And I don't understand what was wrong with the message and what he was saying. Biden pulled better with black men.

then here's tip. What do you attribute that to? Biden Biden has not been perfect for the black community. I mean, no candidate or president has. There are things that Biden has done in his past that have

been detrimental to the black community. Why is Joe Biden hold better with black men and not just black men, Hispanic men? Men. Why? did he poll slightly better than Harris?

It really does seem to come down to what former President Obama was saying. The fact that you aren't feeling the idea, and this is a quote from him of having a woman as president. And you're trying to look and come up with alternative reasons as to why you don't think that she should be, you don't want to vote for her, you don't want to vote at all, or you're going to vote for somebody else. I'm sorry.

I think people are triggered because maybe he struck a nerve and there's some truth into some of the things that he's saying. I think people are reaching or either aren't educated on the past. Kamala hears of not saying she's perfect, but are reading headlines and not doing the work. You've seen D.L. Hugley take back words and things that he said on his own platform because he wasn't well researched. And I think that if you look to the root of it, some of the, that points to the things that President Obama, former President Obama was saying in when he was talking to this group of men.

I'm sorry. But at the end of the day, I also think this is really a red herring because we're really not focusing on the group that we should be focusing on. To your point, what you said at the top of this, majority of black men are voting for Kamala Harris. We really need to be talking about the white men.

But, you know, I just, I think a lot of this is a distraction. Go ahead. I mean, well, why will we talk about them? It's easier to kick us in our desk. No, no, but no, seriously, seriously. No, I agree with that to some point. I think this is a distraction. Right.

Okay, so first of all, I got to say a couple things. First thing is this. I'm vigorously supporting Madam Vice President, and I wasn't triggered by this at all because it really doesn't apply to me, right? So I didn't feel a specific way. However, let's say that I was triggered. Question is, what would I be triggered about?

Yes. I would be triggered about two things. Effectiveness and intent. Right? If you are around a lot of black men, if you have conversations with a lot of black men, when I say black men, I'm not talking about because I have black men

who are friends and everybody in the group has a Ph.D., except for me. I have friends, black men out here in L.A., all of whom are pretty well to do and wealthy. And then I have my homeboys out here that are not that, that I do work with in different parts of the city. I have my home boys back at home who are all making great lives for themselves, but these are black men.

These are all different types of black men. These are the college-educated black men that you talk about. These are not the college-educated black men. Some of them got one foot in the streets, to one foot in activism, a wide swath of black men. And if you know that many black men, you know that that is not the way to get through to them. That lecturing them and calling them out

in front of the entire nation is not the way to get through to them. So I wonder how in touch the president is, the former president. I wonder how many conversations, he's having with black men with brothers, if he thought that that was going to elicit any other response, then

who the fuck you're talking to, nigga? Like, if he, if, I wonder how many real conversations, I wonder how many group chats Obama is in if he thought that was the way to get through to them. All right. Secondly, we need to have a conversation about our expectations of black. men. And let me tell you what I mean. There is a fine line between asking to be seen and asking to be

centered. We all know that. A very fine line. Very fine line. I've seen brothers being called fragile. I've seen brothers being called sensitive. I've seen a lot of language being used about black men that we were told or have been being told for the last 10 years. that wouldn't be used about us as long as we really talked about our real feelings and fears. So you have brothers that are like, I don't feel seen in this election.

I don't feel like anyone's talking directly to me. Right? It's a fear, it's a concern that does take a little bit of, it's not the most masculine thing to be like, see me, feel me, hear me, right? And then when they do that, you say, you're fragile, chin up,

fall in line. So it seems like our toxic masculinity would be beneficial in this case if we were to just pretend like some of them, some black men, pretend like they don't have feelings, pretend like they don't need anyone to cater to them or to think about them specifically.

It feels like that's what people want. And for a lot of people that I know that I talk to, they go, well, she's, we've been told that when we're not feeling a certain way, don't bottle it up, don't hold it in. And we're doing that in the case of how we feel about the Democrats. And by the way, this has been in some ways exacerbated by the fact that we now have a black woman at the top of the ticket.

But this was a conversation even when Joe Biden was the nominee, we were talking about support eroding amongst black man. It's always going to be a conversation. Black men didn't just start asking, the black men that are asking for, didn't just start asking when she was put at the top of the ticket. And it kind of seems like it's almost like a no-win situation. Like we are such the villains that that that villainy will be extracted

whether or not we're talking about what we need, we need, or whether or not we're being quiet about what we need and putting it all down at the bottom and just letting it explode in some of the ways it's been exploding in our communities for a long time. I'm going super deep with this. What I'm essentially saying is you have black men that are communicating that they don't feel seen, that they don't feel prioritized in this,

and they're being told to shut up and fall in line. line. Okay. Shut up. Fall in line. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. No. No. I told you. Remember what I told you? Or what he told you. Here's the thing. And I guess this is pulling a page out of James Carville's book. But nobody is telling you I'm not, I'm not, I'm never going to sit here and call black man fragile. I would never do that. even though people think that I would. I don't think that there's anything wrong with talking about what you need. The problem is

you're talking about what you need and you're putting that in front of possibly taking it away from the person who can get you what you need. I don't think that Kamala Harris' record has shown that she is going to neglect the need of black men. I think that she will try her best.

She will hear what you need. need, which she's already in response to, you know, black men, you know, losing some of the vote when it comes to black men or the polling showing that. She's already put out policies that will help black men in the black community. Things that she has done in the past as a DA, as an AG, as a senator, as vice president, show that she does have care and concern for the black community as a whole. So I think people are reaching, and I stand by this, because they have some other deep rooted feelings about women or specifically a black woman holding an office that they've never seen hold an office of power like that before. I do think there's some men that have those

issues that they need to address. But she can't, going back to the James Carville book, or taking a page on his book, she can't address those things if she's not in office. What is Donald Trump doing to show you that he has a policy for black men in America? He doesn't. So to me, no one's telling you to shut up. What we're saying is don't let that be the reason that the person who actually will try to do something for you be in office. That's all it is. But I do disagree with, I do think people should stop saying black men are fragile. That ain't going to help them either.

They are human. Human beings are fragile. Human beings are fragile. Everyone is informed by their trauma, whether or not they believe it or not. if you carrying the pistol on you, you carry the pistol because the pistol makes you feel safe

because you know the guy around the block. The pistol is looked at as a sign of strength. The pistol is a sign of fragility. It's a sign that you don't feel safe. And it's a sign that like you need to have something on you.

And it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean that that's wrong. You need to have something on you in case someone tries to attack your body. I hear what you're saying. This is what I'm saying. Earlier, I was on CNN,

A couple of weeks back, months back now, weeks, months, I can't remember. And Tim Walls had done an ad where he was under the hood of a car and he was fixing the car. Kamala Harris was talking about if people come in her house, she'll shoot them. And the conversation on CNN was about whether or not these talking points in this rhetoric were reaching out directly to white men, right? Because she was floundering with white men, right? The reason why I say that is because any time

a political organization group or candidate is floundering with one group, they normally make inroads to bolster their position with that group. There are two things that are going on here. One, the support from black men from the Democratic to the Democratic Party

is expected. the Democrats expect that black men will support them. And so when black men don't support them or support them in lesser numbers, this is really black people. But when we're talking about black men, when black men don't support them, the Democrats go, what are you doing? Like you just said, we have your best interest at heart. Like, what are you doing?

Why aren't you giving us a support? And rather than interrogate reasons why that might not be happening, we assign blame to it. And we go, you are this, you are that, you have all of these types of problems, rather than investigating what's actually going on. And that to me is how you think of fire person. You're not doing what you're supposed to be doing.

So rather than have a conversation about why you don't look at it this way, which are conversations that black men should be having with each other, we say you're wrong, you're this, you're that or there's some type of negative reason and why you're not doing this. Another conversation is this. And we're not going to get to the bottom of the end of this episode of higher learning.

But the intra-community trust between black men and black women is just, whereas I don't want to overstate it, black women wouldn't trust that black men didn't like Kamala Harris for any other reason than the fact that she is a black woman. So when you say what you're saying right now, you're saying she's going to do this for you, she's going to do that for you.

What you're essentially saying is she's made this sterling case to black men as to why they should support her and they're not supporting her. So it must be because she's a black woman. And I'm not saying that that's not true. What I'm saying is, if I'm being all the way honest, is that comes less from an analysis of this particular situation and more from a fundamental belief that black men

for some reason have a disdain or a lack of support or belief in black women. And that is something that can't be solved by a political campaign and it can't be town-hauled away. We have to deal with that in a very holistic way on a day-to-day basis. And so to me, when I look at that, I go, oh, well,

because I know, to be honest with you, when Biden was getting out of the race, I know many black women, like many black women, large amounts of black women that were saying she can't win. While I was like, yes, they did.

That were saying she can't win. And while I was saying, oh, yeah, it's time for him to go. He's too. we should put her at the top of ticket. Remember, I got pissed off. I was like, I've never been more supportive of a candidate now because I'm hearing so much from literally a lot of black women

they're saying, but they're going to. Right. No, but they're saying that America will never vote for a black woman. It's a fear. It's not like a, like, we don't want her. It was a fear of will men rally behind her? Will black men, Hispanic men, Asian men, white men, will men in general rally behind a woman, period.

Now, a black woman on top of that. That's why you had black women saying that. Right. So what I'm saying is whatever the belief is, whatever the thing is, we have to interrogate it. And we have to really talk about it in like a real way. the belief in self and our belief in our sisters, because this has way more to do than just politics. This has to do with the fact that there seems to be a latent distrust

of how black men feel about black women. President Obama talking to brothers like that is just a cultural miscalculation. they're just not going to respond to that. Like, this is not the way it's going to be. Who is this nigga talking to? Like, you know, so, and so, I think it's been probably overblown. Like, when I saw it, I was like, damn, Barry, why you do that?

I wasn't mad. Because I'm not, I'm supporting her. I was, I was like, God, damn, Barry, I know the niggas that's not going to work with. Yep. You know, you know what I'm saying? You ain't, you ain't played that much basketball, you know? So, like, I know, I know the niggas that's not going to work.

work with. What did you think what did you think about the conversation between Harris and Brent Bear on Fox? I mean it was kind of what I expected it to be. What I will say just in general is I do like that

she's everything they're saying that she wasn't doing, everything they're saying she wouldn't do, she's doing. So I like and James Carville said she's going to have to be aggressive and she is being aggressive. She's going on not friendly platforms, which we're not seeing,

or unfriendly platforms which are not seeing Donald Trump do. I mean, he's resorted not even speaking, just listening to music. So I think it's great to see her in this position where she is standing up. And I mean, I guess that could be, that could work against her, but it is good to see her standing up

on an unfriendly network. Honestly, to a white man. I liked it. I like the energy. I think they hit the thing. that I thought that we knew they'd come strong with immigration. I think she held it.

I thought one of the interesting things that they brought up was not the gender surgery for prisoners. We've seen those ads everywhere. I've seen in New York. I saw him when I was in Texas. I thought it was interesting when they brought up the back and forth

of what she would do differently from Biden, President Biden, because she said that she wouldn't change anything that he did in his administration. But, you know, she runs on a campaign of she's going to do things different. and it's a new day. She's turning the page.

So I actually thought that was an interesting thing that they brought up. I thought she handled it well. She handled it well. Man, Brett. Brett earned his place. Where? I mean,

Brett is now minted. Brett went out there. He's minted now. Oh. Like, Brett got the, let me tell you what happened to Brett. Brett got the interview. And everybody was like, he got a bunch of calls

and it was like, how are you going to show up, Brett? Hmm? You're going to show up for them. You're going to show up for us. Got that woman, that lady, Negro, at Uppity Negro. She should get. Brett, you need to sit her down.

And when she sits down, you need to look her dead in her eyes. And you need to say, uppity nigger, get. Get. Get. What you're going to do, Brett? Brett might even want to have a regular interview, but he had all of these people in his ears. He probably had dreams.

I wonder sometimes what white people's ancestors think of them. Because my ancestors... Okay, so look, my ancestors are really happy with me. And I don't have to do very much, right? Like, I don't have to... It's like, you see like Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles, they win a bunch of gold medals, and people go,

oh my God, the ancestors are... making them proud. You heard people say that before, right? Yes, yes, of course. And that, it don't take that much to make the ancestors proud. You know, they're like, if you walk up and walk to the refrigerator by yourself, your ancestors are going, oh, my fucking God. You go to the bathroom by yourself. You do, they're like, fuck, look at what we have made.

They can do anything that they fucking want to do. Like, your boss asked you to come in and take an extra. shift, your boss is white or your manager or whatever, and you go, I don't want to do that. This motherfucker here's the illest nigger I've seen before in our life. White people's ancestors, though, they must be disappointed all the time. Every time like a white person says, like the N-word, every time you use the N-word and say, n-word, and say, nigger, white people's ancestors must be up there, cringing or down there probably cringing.

Like, God damn it. Look at Brett. What is the N-word? call a nigger a nigger. So I think that Brett probably got a lot of information from his ancestors and from people around him to be the whitest white man he could be in the moment. Like I'm talking about cut her off, bully her, talk over her, talk over the vice president of the United States as if you are on her level.

You're the Fox News guy. ask the questions, get the answers due to pushbacks, but that's not what Brett did. Brett did the work of his ancestors, which was to tell that uppity nigger to get. Get! Good job, Brett. Brett going to be invited to every meeting of the Grand Wizards

and every single Heritage Club, think tank meeting, Harlan Crow going to call, the Coke, brother that's still alive. Brett did his job. Good for you, Brett. You did what you were supposed to get.

What if she would have just sit down and Brett would have been like, get? I love it. I love Negro. I love Negro. He's asking her a question. Madam Vice President, 40% of the electorate,

according to the Rasmussen Po, thinks that you're an uppity nigger. What you got to say for yourself, Howard and AKA's kit? It was bullshit. But good for him. He did what he was supposed to do. He did what he was supposed to do. He lined her up.

He probably got a slow clap when he was walking back in that bitch. Showed her. I mean, that's all he wanted to do was argue. to be expected, but I got to give it to her for going on there. She did a thing. I mean, you know, Trump is unraveling,

playing the music and doing the whole thing and the whole nine. Trump is unraveling. He's actually canceling interviews. She's upping the amount of interviews that she's doing. She's going to go on Rogan, which I'll be honest with you. No matter what you think.

It seems like she will. There's being, there's musings that she will. The race is tight enough. Yes, I saw that. her going on Rogan right now, it won't be that type of interview. It doesn't seem like it would be.

I want to know from the audience. You think it's a good idea for her to go on Rogan? You think it's a good idea, Rachel? I think that she has shown that she can handle herself in any situation she's put in. So I think that if the request is being made, I'd only say no if she wasn't,

if she was ignoring black media, but Roland Martin did the breakfast club. The breakfast club was great. Yeah. She's done other stuff as well. So I say why not? I don't think, I think Kamala Harris can handle herself in any situation. And I'm not afraid. The worst thing people can say is she's too disciplined or she says, used the word discipline. She's too scripted. That's what came out on the breakfast club. And she said, no, I'm disciplined. And she's right. We've been looking at chaos for such a long time. We forgot what it looks like to have the disciplined candidate. And I think that's the worst thing that people will say about her is that she's scripted. But I say go. It is my go. The race is very tight. Swing for the fences, man. Swing for the fences.

It's a toss-up race right now. Swing for the fences. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business. And even this podcast, that's why I trust Spectrum Business. It keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

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problems may occur. Before treatment, get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu-like symptoms, or need of a disease. vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about Tramphia today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit Trimfair Radio.com. We have a very special guest joining us on Higher Learning today. One of the guys that has brought you so much of the content and the shows and the movies that you've consumed over the past, I'd say 60 or 70 years that he's been in the business. I could roll off the different things that he's done.

Don't be a menace, the six-man, black dynamite, help Nick Cannon create while and out. The Real Husbands of Hollywood, Growness, so much of your laughs. So many of your laughs, you owe to this man. He is now the host of a 10-part vice series called Black Comedy in America. it premiered Tuesday, October 16th. Chris Spencer is joining us today on Higher Learning. Chris, how are you doing, my brother?

Oh, I got people clapping. We'll add it in. We'll add it in. How are you guys? We're doing well, man. Tell us about the series, Black Comedy in America. Why is it important?

Why do you want to do it? What is it about? So the project actually started off with Michael Strand's company, and they brought it to Tiffany Haddish and her company, and my wife at the time was running Tiffany Haddish's company.

And as they were developing, she said, we need my husband, because he's fantastic. He's funny. And so being able to add my roller decks and my insight and my 30 plus years of comedy to this project, I think it's made it actually

very special. We have episodes ranging from the Chilin Circuit all the way to Kevin Hart. Right. And it just shows you that there is no America without black comedy in America. And so as we decided to dissect this, it just became more and more apparent that we were doing something special. We were doing the Lord's work, for lack of a better word. Wait till you see it. It's really, really something great.

Wow. So this is 10 episodes. Ten episodes. And how did you figure out what you wanted to include? You know, you've got the 70s and 80s you focus on. You've got Eddie in the 80s. You've got the best man in film. You've got so much.

Like, how did you narrow it down? So this is what needs to be included to represent it. We wanted to range. We also didn't want to make sure we did too much, and then there's nothing to do in season two, right? although, of course, there's so much black comedy. So we just started putting stuff together. Scheduling was important because, you know,

a lot of people that we put in the show are very busy. And so a lot of it had to do with scheduling. But I think, you know, like the first episode was the Kings of Comedy. Like no force in black comedy as a group has ever done. anything like what they did. Not even as a group. These dudes were doing stadiums. Like that's rock star

numbers. And so, you know, when you started hearing about Chris Rock and Chappelle and Kevin doing these numbers, it's because these guys kind of laid the foundation.

And when they shared their stories of brotherhood and camaraderie and the climate of comedy today, it's just like, wow, this was a great choice. You know what I mean? And then we didn't do

all of Eddie Murphy, right? We didn't do 40 years of Eddie Murphy. We smartly go, let's just do Eddie in the 80s. So next year, we can do Eddie in the 90s. And then maybe after that, we do it. And then we didn't do 70s and 80s sitcoms. We did 70s sitcoms.

So then we can do 80s sitcoms and 90s sitcoms. So everything was thought out and really manufactured to make sure this thing isn't just a one trick. Is there anything that you didn't know that you learned while you were doing this show? You were a consummate student and one of the Titans in comedy. But is there anything that you were like,

oh, man, like, there's something that I did, I really wasn't up on that I learned during the making up. Absolutely. You know, and we're talking to some of these people like my best friends, so they're telling me stories. For example, Kevin talks about, about in his interview about, you know, his climb and then, you know, you plateau at times. And like, you know, every now and then, you know, he's still doing, you know, huge arenas and

stadiums, but he'll get a call and go, wait, how many tickets we sold in Cincinnati? Am I in the news? There's something bad happened? And, like, to think that he's even thinking about numbers at the level he's at, I'm like, wow, you really care. Like, these people really care about the crime. of comedy and they take it seriously. You know what I mean?

And you forget that everybody started from somewhere. Like Dave Chappelle is telling stories about open mics and his first intro and foreway into comedy, like his first time on stage. And I've heard the story before but never from him. You know what I mean? So to be face to face with Will Smith telling me how the incarnation of the fresh principal or happened

is different than hearing it from an interview with, as a fact, let me fix that. We've heard Will say it. You've never heard Benny Medina talk about it. The story is based on. When he shares his insight, I'm like this. It's crazy. I was just glad to be a part of this.

Wow. You know, I loved watching it, because it's not just showing how essential black comedy is to America or in America. It just took me back. And it made me feel so good to watch some of this. And then I got a little angry,

like specifically in the best, not because of you, but in the best man episode, I'm thinking, why don't we really see these black rom-coms anymore like we did, like first on the scene? In the 90s, in early, Why do you think that is?

Yeah. Why do you think that is? I don't know. I know once people get a win realizing what you realized after watching it, I bet there's an influx of them. And, you know, let's not say they're all gone.

You know, of course, you know, there's the best man. Of course, they've done three, including the series. And then Tyler Perry, you know, he does love stories. You know what I mean? But there should be more. Where's our Jones 2? You know what I mean?

Like, boomerang 7. Like, we should be doing more of these. Yeah, y'all want to hear my, I'll tell you why. Give it to me. Why? You niggas won't go see him. I don't believe. I don't believe that. You know why? I don't know. That's true.

People are, people are watching Tyler Perry movies. People are making a number one every single time. But I'm telling you, I'm telling you something right now. there is a crop of black actors and directors and filmmakers out there right now that are making, the photograph came out, there have been movies that have come out

that explore this stuff and sometimes we drag our feet to go see depictions of black love and we should ask ourselves why that is. That could have been a good excuse before streaming. There's 20 damn channels and networks and fucking, you can watch that. You can watch a TikTok rom-com if you wanted to.

So I think this is sparking conversation. You know what I mean? Maybe, you know, just like how conscious rap went this way. You know what I mean? Maybe it was just a natural progression for it to go. But this shit is needed. You know what I mean? I agree.

It's very much needed. So I hope whoever's watching this show is going, especially the gatekeepers. You know what I mean? So I think with all these. Chris acting like he not wanted a gay kid. I am not. Chris, you know what I want to ask you about?

Can I ask a follow up to that really quickly? Sure, you may. Because it just makes me think of an interview I saw with Carrie Champion and Gina when they were talking about love and basketball. Do you think that part of this is because you can't make movies the same way that you did in the 90s, early 2000s, 22? Do you think you could make the best man the same way now that you may be? it, or not you made it, but that it was made.

A year and a half ago, they did a six-part series, and it was great. I just think we haven't. You know what I mean? Or maybe there's been a lack of green lighting some of these projects because of the powers that be. And so,

but we, we got to take advantage of our own shit. You know what I mean? Let me tell you something. There's this network called, Tooby, who don't get my fuck what you do. You know what I mean? So we should be like,

and listen, they started off on the backs of some fucking hood, you know, crib horror movies. But just like they always do with us, they start off with some, you know, inexpensive black shit, and then they build and build and build. I've heard Toobie's making my money

than Netflix now. And if you look at Tooby now, they slowly gotten away from all these shooting up, bang, bang, you know, you know, horror movies that are, it should be called horrible movies. But they're giving you the opportunity to create your own,

and create your own empire by you independently putting it on this platform and there's a rev share. So you can do a series like that. You know what I mean? You just have to be able to bet on yourself. Like there's no money up front, but just know that, hey, I'm taking a gamble on, you know,

best man seven I want to tell you guys something real quick my favorite to be movie you guys got to go check it out it's called the rapper that got shot in the foot you're a liar you're a liar

you're a liar there's no such thing in the world it's about it's about it's about Megastalian it's called the rap man no that's the name of the movie he's not a liar

he's not lying it's called the guy shot in the heel they got shot in the Hill. In the hill. I saw it on there. But not the foot. I saw it on there and I was like, I got to watch it.

And it was entertaining. That's what it is. Let me tell you something else I realized. It was entertaining. We don't really care about quality. You know what I mean? You can see a dude shooting a horror movie in the kitchen and his mom walk by and go, oh, baby, I'm sorry.

I know you was filming today. We don't care. We like seeing us. we love seeing us in any way, state or form, and that's why Tooby is fantastic because there's a lot of us

putting up. And then sometimes you want to go watch a shitty movie. Right. You got to see that movie with Claudia Jordan. When she shoots the man and then shoots the baby.

And there's a blood. What? Huh? Is this on Tooby? Yes, she shoots the husband. And the kids look, people are like four years old. She don't say this, but this is funny to me. Sorry, little baby.

BOW! And listen, the special effects are awful. It's almost like somebody had some red and alladers in their mouth and they spit it at the camera. There was no blood on the person. There was blood on the screen. Right. Oh.

Somebody watched it a lot of time. Because people were like, yo, you got to see Card and Short and Shrew this, baby. It goes viral. I want to ask you about a specific type of comedian. Like, there's a comedian that I love, right? Because I watch a lot of comedy. I don't go to very many comedy shows, but I watch a lot of comedy. Talk to me about the comedian that is a guy who can sell out all of the venues that he plays in,

a working comedian. I got three questions on comedians with you. A working comedian that sells out, but he never gets in front of you on your movies or your television shows or anything like this. I have a guy, obviously you know who this guy is. Tony Roberts, I think, is one of the funniest guys.

Like, every time I watch him, I laugh hysterically. Yes. But I can't remember the big Tony Roberts movie, the big Tony Roberts TV show. So when you look at that, like, what is it, what separates a guy who is extremely funny? I think he's, like, ridiculous and funny. And there's so many guys like that, right? What separates a guy like that that's extremely funny from the guy that becomes the comedy superstar

with the gigantic Netflix show and the television show and the movie career and all of that? Because sometimes I laugh more when I see some of the guys that don't get as much. of the fanfare, and I'm not trying to diss Tony. He is a gigantic comedian. He sells out wherever he goes. But I'm just saying, what's the difference? I don't understand that in comedy as much as I do in some of the other disciplines that I follow as far as entertainment. Okay, so let's answer that first question. Sometimes it's opportunity.

Okay. Right? Sometimes, and I'm not going to say in Tony's case, sometimes a lot of these people can't act. Right? Oh, I see. That happens. But then also, think about some of these churches around the country. There's people in there that can sing like Whitney Houston and sing like Yolanda Adam and sing like Fantasia.

And you never see them. Sometimes that's just not in the cards for them. You know what I mean? Some people are making millions and millions of dollars as road comedians. And they're fine. I remember I saw this one comedian. He had, he's killing on the road. He's making seven figures.

And his uncle's like, so he's still out there doing stand-up? He's like, yeah. He said, well, good luck. I know eventually you want to do TV No, I like where I am. A lot of people don't want to do TV and film because you know what? In stand-up, I'm the director-producer star

every, and writer every night. There's no telling me what to do. And these are my fans, and I can do no wrong. So why give up that to now go? Sometimes you have to take a pay cut to go to movies and film. Sometimes those movies and films will catapult you to a different category, so you should do them because now a wider audience is seeing you.

But sometimes the people are like, you know what? This is cool. Yeah. You know how big my house is in Decatur? You know what I mean? I got a house that's, I paid $250,000 for a $250,000 square foot house. My house. Why?

Why? Why go? now go under the scrutiny of these daykeepers telling me how to act and how to be and how to stand when I can go out here for one hour and come on with $7,500 to $75,000 a night. And then jump on a plane.

Like, some of these dudes are on private planes. And we're like, dear, I wonder how he's doing. He's never in any TV and film. He's like, fuck TV and film. Right. Again, again, I'll give you number two. Oh, go ahead. We give you number two.

You have to be able to audition. That is different than acting. Right? So a lot of times we hear about these comedians getting this moniker, oh, you know he can't read, right? It ain't like read a book. It ain't like you're going to see a stop sign and go, what do I do?

Bam, you know what I mean? Which is Chris Frost's joke. It's like the word read, comes from audition. And so if you, if the word gets out there, you know, he's a bad read. He's a bad read. All of a sudden now, and you know us, we like to magnify shit. You know the nigga can't read. It comes from he is a bad auditioner. Robert De Niro said, if he had the audition, he might not have been Robert De Niro. Auditioning, it's uncomfortable. I'm in this space as a camera. There's this cast director, three or four people just going like this action. If you're in this paper, it's not the same

environment is when you've got makeup and hair and costume and you're in a real setting and then you get to act and then you get second chances and third chances. It's a very uncomfortable situation. So a lot of it comes from auditioning. I don't think you can't auditioning. Right. That's interesting. Piggybacking on what y'all are talking about, this special or this series, it deals with history. Who is it that you're paying attention to now? Who is it that excite you now when it comes to black comedians. Maybe that we don't necessarily know as much about.

My co-host is a young guy named Ryan Davis. Oh, he's hilarious. He just has a charm and a wit about him and I don't give a fuck of a person that you think has been doing this for 50 years. Yeah. He's just so nonchalant

and he's so cocky with it. You know what I mean? Like, here's the greatest thing he's ever said. There were all these people when Dave Chappelle was saying, you know, that he was the goat, right? And, you know, a lot of people agreed. And a lot of people had, you know, controversy with it. Like, how dare he call himself the goat? And so I call Ryan, this motherfucker has on a necklace with a goat on it.

I'm like, are you a Capricorn? He's like, no. And I said, so what do you think about Dave Chappelle call himself the goat? He's like, actually, you know, I just find it odd that he said that because it's apparent that he hasn't seen me yet. Like, the student is like 36 years old. Right. Yeah. And so him, Desi Banks, let me tell you who's a fucking student of this thing called comedy is Andrew Batchner, King Batch.

I've never seen somebody. Like, he loves comedy, like how we love comedy. Like, a lot of these kids became rich from social media and are just taking advantage. And it's like, you know, the dude who peed in a fan and got a million followers. And now he brings the fan on the road. And he only does the 10 minutes from peeing in the fan. Then he has his other comedian friends, which I actually implore that these people who don't have material to do as they build up their stand-up to go, yo, you host this, have some motherfuckers that are better than you as you grow, right?

And then some of them are comfortable just doing that because they don't want to be pure comedians. Like, I want to be a pure comedian or Bernie wanted to be a pure comedian or Cedric or Joe Torreel. whatever, Kevin Hart, Mike Epps. Like, they, they like the money. They like the nightlife and the women and the drugs or whatever that is, right? They like that, right? Like, people like King Batch, Desi Banks, Ryan, of course, DC Youngfly.

Like, DC Youngfly used to come to clubs and just be like this. You want to go up? No, no, no, I'm just coming. like these people would like we have no more comic view right we have no more deaf jam

we have no more bad boys of comedy can we still say stuff like that yes and so yes there is no place

for these guys to strive to get to like I got to work all year and audition for for comic view because they cut me

last year like there is none of that these motherfuckers have just put on a funny video of putting their dick in a watermelon and all of a sudden

they got I'm sorry Rachel, I know you've never heard. It's okay. I do a podcast with Van. It doesn't cut. It's totally fine. You're trying to say I put my dick in a watermelon? I never put my dick in a watermelon. No, I'm trying to say you say.

Say whatever goes to buy. He's like a catalogue, but not a watermelon because everybody consists of a catalog. And so they're like, they're like, some comedians are there for the fame. And then there's some people who love the art and they're studying the art of comedy. And so that's great.

great to watch when I get to hang out with these guys and hear them want to pick my brain and really care about this craft. Again on comedians. Do comedians like each other? I know a lot of comedians, right? And most of the comedians I know. Actually, I don't know a comedian that people would consider it to be like not funny. Like when I talk to Donnell, I'm consistently laughing. When I talk to you, I'm consistently laughing.

Like, these guys are ridiculously funny to me. But sometimes, and not specifically Donnell, who's a friend of mine, but, like, you'll talk to other people and, like, it seems like it's almost like rap. Like, when you talk to rappers and you get a rapper talking about another rapper, they really have good shit to say. It's very competitive. And I think some of the stuff that's been happening on Club Shea for, like,

the last year and a half, two years or whatever, Is it, are comedians happy people? Like, it seems like they hate one another sometimes. So I don't want to put us all as like a monolith. Like all comedians are one thing. You know what I mean? Yeah, okay, cool. It's a very competitive world.

One. Two, we like elephants. We have memories. So we remember the motherfucker that did, you know, as I was coming up, did my joke. As I was coming up was supposed to bring me right up and did an hour and 40 minutes and then now the crowd is walking and now I got to go up there and do this.

There's dudes that, you know, was supposed to have my airline ticket for this round trip gig in Phoenix and only gave me a one-way leg and now I had to take a bus back. There's so much drama that happens in our world that nobody talks about.

So when you hear about these dudes not liking each other, it's not like, this motherfucker ain't funny because he ain't funny. It's like, this motherfucker ain't funny because he did some shit to me in the past and I get that. So that's one, right? Two, we're crabs in the barrel of times.

You know what I mean? Like, we want what the other person has. I can't believe he's on this show and that motherfucker used to open for me. I can't believe he's on that show and he's not as funny as me. You've got to give all that up and just figure out you're on your own path.

We all wanted to be Eddie Murphy, right? That's how we started. We all would, at least my generation. And then we realized, I'm not as good as Eddie Murphy. you know what? Maybe I'll start writing or producing or just know that I have the ability to sell out

five to seven shows in 40 to 50 markets every year and make a comfortable living and my kids have braces and my kids are in private school and I have a decent car and that's my life and if something special happens, so be it. Right? Some of us have to

okay, I'm talking about me. But some of us have to realize that there's this, you're like, Steve Harvey's career is fucking incredible. I'm sure Steve Harvey was like,

yo, one day I'm gonna be fucking doing 48 hours and shit, and then all of a sudden I was like, you ever thought about hosting a radio show?

No, no, I'm trying to be 48 hours. But we're gonna get you this. Oh, a radio show. You know, right?

And look at all the shit that has spawned from him. You know what I mean? All of us have this, you know, look at D.L. D.L. I told D.L.

You are like, Dick Gregory and Angela Davis had a baby. right? Was that your goal when you were hosting Comic View and Gardena getting paid in chicken wings? No. So things happen. You know what I mean? A lot of us, you know, in the back of my mind, we remember shit that people did to us and we go, you know, yeah. And, listen, here's the greatest line I ever heard. Ren Brown, who's a dear friend of mine, actor, he runs a Nate Holden Theater in L.A. on Washington. He said his grandmother told him, the road to success, is filled with motherfuckers on their way back. Oh, wow. And so you remember,

hey man, let me all that show what you fuck, you slept with my wife, whatever it is. You know what I mean? Right. We don't forget. Some of us, you know, forgive, but we don't forget. Can I ask you a personal question? Personal for me.

I am back on the dating scene. And one of the, one of the, Shut up, Van. One of the top three things people tell me. Wow. No, this is, this is, this comes up a lot. Okay. And I've yet to ask a comedian this.

Ask me. But I am constantly told to not date a comedian. Do you, is that, would you give me that same advice? And why do people tell me that? It depends on the comedian, right? Like if there's a younger version of me out there somewhere, I think you need to put a ring on his finger. Right?

but we are for the most part where a lot of us are in pain right and the way a lot of us are able to soothe that pain is to go on stage right but just know when that nigga gets off stage that pain didn't really go away

it was a bad day so it depends on a comedian like I don't want to just lump us up into this one group of all comedians ain't shit but just know he's coming a lot of times he's coming that comedy for him is helping him cope. You know what I mean?

So it's helpful. What kind of comedian would she be able to date before I get to my last question? When you say, y'all, not lump it all together, but what would be the best type of comedian for Rachel to date? Well, Rachel, since you're in entertainment, it's kind of tough already that you're going to date somebody

in entertainment, right? So you probably want somebody a little older, maybe a little bit more settled, right? Someone who can take care of you, get you cowboy's tickets. Actually, those are cheap now. Wow. Wow.

I'm a comedian. See why I can't be with comedies. You got to prepare for that. You got to get your feelings hurt and your heart broke, just from jokes. But it would have to be somebody who's already successful.

You don't want to go with a motherfucker right now because he's on the road, right? And things happen on the road, not necessarily, I'm not talking about, you know, misconduct, but, you know, he's in a bad mood because Thursday night there was eight people. Or the promoter forgot to give him his money. Or the mental act did his joke. And so he comes back with a lot of stress on his shoulders and, you know. How old are you, if you don't mind me asking?

Oh, okay, 39. 39. Yeah, you need to get somebody that's already doing it. Last question for you. Okay, so let's say God gets fed up with the earth. He's like, you know what? I need another flood, firing brimstone, the whole nine. I'm done.

I'm over. I gave you guys a chance. You fucked it up again, whatever. And then Moses comes to God and he goes, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't want to get rid of these people because they're funny. And God goes, you know what? Moses, you said that. I trust you.

All right. So this is what we'll do. I'll give one person from living a dead from human beings five minutes to make me laugh. And if this person can make me laugh, I will spare all of humanity. Right. You got one comedian in history who has five minutes to make God laugh or God will destroy the earth and fire and brimstone. You, Chris Spencer, have to pick that comedian. Who are you choosing?

And it's pure stand-up. It's pure stand-up. Go entertain God. You got five minutes, though. Is God black? God black? God is black. God is black.

I mean, God is black. So you don't have a whole special. You don't have 45 minutes. You got five minutes. You got a beginner set to make God laugh or God is going to destroy the earth. Who are you putting in front of God to save us all? I'm putting Richard Pryor.

Richard Pryor, as soon as he touched them, some people, it's almost cheating, right? It's almost like when you go to the gym and a dude's 6 to 8, you go, oh, I got him, right? Or you see a kid on the practice, on the driving range, and he's wiring, you go, oh, yeah, he's about to take all my money. Richard Pryor comes and touches the mic, and you're already laughing, right? Is it because of his smile?

is because of what he has on. He is, like, if you drew a comedian, it would look like Richard Pryor. So already he has that advantage. So God is already like... Yeah, he's ready to laugh. Listen, he said, I think it was Long Beach, I hope I'm funny.

I'm already laughing. You know what I'm funny. Like, you're Richard Pryor, why are you saying that? And, you know, he brings his insecurities, and he wears it on his sleeve. And we all love to laugh with other people's shortcomings, because it makes us feel better.

And we have a Richard Pryor episode in Black Comedy in America. Well, Black Comedy in America is the 10-part series. It's on Vice. Where can people get it? Bites TV. Vice TV.

If you have DirecTV or Hulu, you'll find it. That is Chris Spencer. Be on the lookout. There might be some collaborating going on. Yes. With some people. Yeah, there might be some things in the works. happening. You and I will find a TV show and then you and I will find a boyfriend.

There you go. I love it. There you go. I love it. Chris, man. Appreciate you always, brother. Thank you for joining us on higher learning today, brother. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy. about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud,

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Order now at order.com. All right, guys. It was Indigenous People's Day this past Monday. We were not on the air, but we did want to have a conversation that celebrates the day and talks about some of the issues and concerns. And talks to indigenous people. So we have a returning guest on higher learning. Lynette Gray Bull is joining us.

She's the founder of not our native daughters. She is an expert on indigenous issues, human trafficking of indigenous people policy reform. She's a lobbyist, a traditional knowledge share. There's just too much here. There's just too much here that you're doing for me to read it all. But we appreciate you for joining us today. Let me ask you a question.

Straight up, appreciate you joining us on higher learning. Indigenous People's Day, they have remembrance and celebration of indigenous people. Does it mean anything to you? How do you feel about it? Do you feel it to be something that's meaningful? Do you feel it to be something that really pushes forward some of the issues in the history of indigenous peoples of this land? How do you feel about it on that day?

What do you feel? So for Indigenous People's Day, yeah, I mean, I have mixed emotions about it, to be honest. For one, we see that, you know, some former presidents have made a proclamation to say this is Indigenous People's Day. But technically, in the federal sense, it has not been recognized as Indigenous People's Day. There are some states that have claimed it to be Indigenous People's Day. There's more states that haven't. So, you know, I have mixed emotions. talk about indigenous people's day,

there's still a colonial aspect of racism and discrimination, you know, a structure that we're still trying to assist them that we're still trying to fight against. I don't think we've been fully recognized as indigenous people in the lower 48.

What would that mean to be fully recognized? What would, I'm sorry, Rachel, like, just quick, go ahead, go ahead. What would that mean to you? What would you want to see true acknowledgement and participation? Well, for example, not to say that this was the best approach, but Canada has actually

approached it different. They have actually an apology day, and they actually have recognized that there has been colonialism that has brought atrocities to the First Nation people of Canada. They have recognized this in their government. They have recognized this as a day, and they have removed all. of any type of colonial sense of heroism like we see in Columbus, away from their national sense of what would happen with colonialism and with indigenous people. America, U.S. still has yet to do that.

They have not, you know, proclaim this. There's still war, U.S. war heroes, pictures that hang in the White House, that have murdered indigenous people that have raped and, even enforce them into slavery. So, I mean, there's so much more work that needs to be done in recognizing indigenous people here in the U.S. We talked to you three years ago, which I was looking at the episode, last episode we had, which is, it's wild.

What has changed or hasn't in the last three years since we spoke with you? I will say in the last three years, there are. as more people, non-Native people who are aware what MMIW is, but statistically it has not change for the violence in the missing murdered indigenous persons crisis. So as far as the violence and the crime goes, it's still a perpetuating crime that is existing in our communities, both in tribal and urban settings, but also more people are aware what MMIW is. Now the conversations have extended, but has the justice extended? No.

What do we need to, what are some of the fixes to the problem of missing indigenous women? What are some of the fixes to some of the issues that we see indigenous people face? Who's asked do we need to light a fire under to have these issues which are very much connected? in America to the historic treatment of black people, of other minorities. For you guys specifically, what needs to happen to change the trajectory of some of the problems that we see? So, and that's a loaded question.

And I get asked this question a lot. And people always say, well, what is the root cause? And how do we fix this? And, you know, let's just start by saying this. You know, the exploitation and the murders and of violence against indigenous women, particularly, is not, you know, a new thing that just arrived and people are aware what MMIW is. This has been going on since the colonial era. We know that Columbus was the first trafficker, human trafficker in this country. He traffics Haitian our Haitian relatives, Tano relatives, and then, of course, the indigenous people here in North America.

as well. So when we talk about how do we undo this, how do we talk solutions, we're talking about four or five hundred years of undoing colonialism and a perspective towards indigenous people. I mean, we are still breaking the myths of indigenous people that we're all poor, we're all alcoholics, we're all addicts, we're all, you know, we're still undoing a lot of those things. And I think the idea of what Ninnati is, of what NADC, we're all, you know, we're still undoing a lot of Americans look like. I mean, there's some, you know, citizens of this country that believe that we are extinct. They don't believe that we even still exist. I can't tell you a handful of times. I've been in other areas and other cities and other states on my travel and people was like, oh, I thought you

guys were wiped out or, you know, is there any more 100% Native American people? Are they all mixed in? And so I think there's a lot of work to be done as far as education goes. But I will say this. as far as how can we change this? You know what? I like to reference kind of like the civil rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement. Unfortunately, when people of color are facing discrimination and racism in this country,

we have to take it to the streets, unfortunately. We have to march and we have to, you know, boycott and we have to hang signs and we have to cry in the streets, so to speak. that's kind of the sense that I feel that my work and a lot of other people who do this work, we actually go to the streets. We have to lobby. We have to, you know, go against the policyholders and the people, the powers that be to advocate for why this is an issue. You need to do more.

We need more funding. It's U.S. treaty government right to fund our public safety, our law enforcement, and all of these other things, the U.S. government has agreed to do for tribal communities. And those treaty rights, those U.S. treaty rights from 1868, has yet to be honored. And this is a big factor on why we still have missing, murdered, and exploited indigenous persons, and it's swept, intentionally swept under the rug. I read something that said a recent study shows that Native Americans are less likely to be contacted by a candidate, a party, or a civic organization than any other community of color.

We're in an election year, less than 30 days until we have somebody new in office. What do you want to see from the next administration when it comes to pushing forward or addressing some of the needs that you talked about or maybe something else? when it comes to indigenous people. What do you want to see from the next administration? So that statistic is very true. I mean, you've got to understand there's 575 nations in this country. And we all have our own culture.

We all have our own language. We're spread across the U.S. But if you look back at four years ago in what happened in Arizona, if you look back what happened with the Navajo Nation people, their numbers of voting flipped that. state of Arizona from red to blue to help Biden win that, win that state. That is a true testament of the power of the native vote. And I feel like candidates who are running in whatever red or blue states, they are missing a huge voting factor and opportunity to gain those native votes

to help win elections, especially for most of us who are native. You know, we lean on the side of democracy and Democrats. And so it's a big opportunity for candidates to reach out to the native community. But we, again, just like any other issue, we are not contacted in these types of matters. You know, this probably should have been my first question, but I'm just going to make sure I get it in,

even though it's my last. You have dedicated your life's work to fighting for the rights of indigenous people. And I would imagine that that can be very frustrating and tolling on you as you see the needle move slowly or not even at all. So just a wellness check on how you're doing. And then what also like do you keep put in place to protect your peace? And maybe that could help someone else who also is fighting the good fight.

And then can you provide other resources for our listeners so they can continue to assist you in what, assist you and what you're doing? Yeah, I appreciate that, Rachel. Yes, absolutely. You know, I talk about self-care a lot. You know, a lot of my work is trauma-informed care. I work with, I sit with families who are missing their loved ones. I've sat with families in law enforcement offices, and I've heard law enforcement say, you know, hey, don't worry, this person will show up or, you know, they're known to party, you know, that don't worry about. I've heard, you know, just the lack of empathy and compassion. that law enforcement has had towards families. And I've worked with victims of human trafficking for many, many years. And I mentored a lot of young women throughout the years. And I will say that the work is heavy.

But I feel like anybody who fights against racism, discrimination, blatant racism, I call it because I feel like we have a lot of blatant racism that we come against. You know, this is not only mentally draining, and not only is it emotionally draining, but at the same time, I have recognized throughout the years that this is spiritual work. You know, we are battling both on all fronts,

not just on a civic and physical and, you know, fighting the colonial system, the systemic racism, you know, all these things that are compacted into this issue. But also I understand that because this is also a spiritual battle, that I'm so thankful for my cultural and ceremony a way of life through my ancestors, my uncles and people that I'm related to that hold me up through our sweat lodge ceremonies and our other ceremonies that we practice.

And when I'm in the sweat lodge and when I am practicing my ceremonies, I have a sense of grounding because I know that these ceremonies that we do have been practiced for thousands of thousands of years. We sing songs that have been passed down for thousands of thousands of years. and it makes me emotional to talk about it because I know that my ancestors, even far back as my parents and my grandparents, didn't have the opportunity to identify their trauma and to label it, but they also didn't have the opportunity to heal from it.

You know, one thing I always say is I never went to boarding school, but my father and my grandparents did. But my grandparents and my father has dirtied on. And so they never lived in this life. where people were talking about boarding school trauma, the trauma of being assimilated into Catholicism or whatever other church entity out there that forced these ways on my parents and our people.

So the sense of self-care for me is through our ceremonies. And I hope and I pray that I'm doing the work to honor the ancestors to the abilities and the opportunities that they never had. Manette, Great Bull, thank you for joining us on Higher Learning today. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Reach out whenever you want to jump on with us, man.

It's been too long since you've seen. Yes, yes. I'm honored to be with you guys. You guys do amazing work, so thank you for including me and indigenous voice as well. Okay, we've got to get out of here real quick. Before we do, let's leave with a message from America's favorite rapper,

which she definitely is right now, Snoop Dog. Now, we all hate, I apologize. Nah, I really don't apologize, man, because a lot of my fans get mad at me when I talk bad about him, but I don't, I think it's safe to say most people in our culture do not not with the country.

You need to know that a lot of your fans is racist. Ain't no fucking way around. Don't even try to put no cut. I don't even want to put anything around. I do. I don't give a fuck. I tell him straight up, motherfucker. If you like that, nigga, you motherfucker racist.

Fuck, you ain't fuck him. Now what? All right. Draw the line, nigga. He drew the lines. Exactly. He drew the motherfucking lines. Before him, there were no lines.

Everybody was everybody. We respect it everything. We didn't trip. But nigger, when you drew the line, nigger start pointing motherfuckers out and sing them. The nigga, fuck y'all in, nigga. Yeah, that's how I feel. You and them.

If you're just tuning in with talking about- Kanye too, nigga, don't forget about him too. Fuck you too. Lord, have mercy. Jesus. Now, look, say something real quick. This is obviously old. Is it old?

Well, when did this? Today. You know what I'm confused? You know I'm confused? Because remember we had a whole conversation. Yeah. About him being more. open-minded.

First, this was the energy he gained. Then you had a more open-minded response. And we talked about it on this podcast. So I thought this was the old clip. Welcome back. Welcome back. Well, hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

I don't know that this is, Donnie, you might have got, Donnie, might have got fucked over. But on. I'm looking at something right now that's saying that this is an old clip. Donnie, you got fucked over. Yeah, you're right. This is old. This is not from January.

Donnie makes mistakes, guys. Keep it in. Donnie makes mistakes. They don't think they don't think he makes mistakes. Keep it in. Keep it in. Keep it in. Donnie, this is old six years ago, Donnie.

Hold on for a second. I got to talk to my homeboy. Who nanny? You want to? Okay. Okay, good. So going forward, who nanny is the producer of the podcast? Like is three people on the podcast now.

Me, Rachel and my G-hoo nanny right here. Yeah, that's all. And Ashley. Ashley has left the podcast. I am right here. For a second, I believe. We got excited for a second. Just let everybody know since then.

Rachel didn't. Rachel fucking called it out. since then Trump pardoned Harrio and after Trump pardoned Harryo Snoop softened and did basically

a 180 on Donald Trump just say it's what it is is what it is thank you for Chris Spencer thank you for Lynette Gray Bull who joins us on this show today take in caps off and do not stop Leonard

I'm Van Lake & Jr. And I'm Rachel Lauren Lindsay Hi guys