Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Reacting to the NBA Players’ Strike and the Shooting at a Wisconsin Protest
Episode Date: August 27, 2020Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay discuss the whirlwind of NBA events, including the players boycotting games (0:54), and the shooting that took place at a protest in Kenosha, Wisconsin (30:31). Then they... debut a new segment from Van called Am I An Asshole? (51:00), and take a moment to address Hurricane Laura (1:02:08). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
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I am Rachel Lindsay.
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Right.
Rachel, we'll start where it's time to where we need to start, which is some of the most astounding news in the history of sports.
It's really, I'd say in the history of American society, which is the, not just the NBA,
but boycotts across the landscape of sports yesterday tied into the horrific and disgusting shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
It started off yesterday when the Milwaukee Bucks did not take the court for a playoff game five matchup against the Orlando Magic.
the NBA and the players union acted swiftly.
They took the decision, it seems, out of the hands of the players for the rest of the games that day and for today,
and decided that they would postpone those games.
It doesn't seem like those players on those teams were going to play anyway,
but now the NBA is postponed.
There are meetings happening as we speak right now with the players to decide what's going to,
happen going forward. We just got an update that says it's looking like some games might pick
back up tomorrow. But this just happened in the NBA yesterday. Naomi Osaka, a tennis player,
decided that she wasn't going to play a match. Some baseball players sat out. But it started in the
NBA. Change everything. What were your thoughts, Rachel? I loved what the Milwaukee Bucks did.
And it was a trickle-down effect
because then you saw other players and teams
decided to do the exact same thing.
When they said they weren't going to play
and when they said they wanted to protest
and when they made the statement that they did
in front of the media,
I thought that was it.
Now, if you go back and you roll the tape,
I thought NBA basketball should have never been played.
I thought the NBA should not start again.
for this reason. And there are several players that opted to not play for this very reason, for
what happened to a Jacob Blake, to what happened to George Floyd. They wanted to make a
statement and say, you know what, I'm not going to play. I'm not going to be your form of entertainment.
I'm not going to provide an escape. And I'm not going to be a distraction for what is happening
in our society. That you had like the Avery Bradley's do that. That was the whole point of giving
people the reason to opt out of this. So when the Milwaukee Bucks said, we're not playing.
playing and we're boycotting, I thought that that was going to continue. Now we're getting
updated news that they're going to resume games. I'm a little bit bothered by that. If I'm,
if I'm going to be honest, what does it do to sit out one game if you're only going to play
the game again tomorrow? It makes a statement in the moment. It's effective that day,
but then there's tomorrow and we move on. What statement are you really making by continuing to play?
how are you hurting, you know, people's pockets?
Like, because that was like part of the argument that was being made, right?
Like, they're making a statement.
They're not going to be a form of entertainment.
They're hurting.
Like, the owners are going to have to figure out what to do because they're refusing to play
basketball because what is happening to their black brothers, like black brothers
and sisters in all of this.
I just feel like all of this is ineffective because on Friday, you're going to resume
playing basketball.
Like what, everything that they were saying was.
What does it mean to have Black Lives Matter on your court?
What does it mean to have Black Lives Matter on the back of your jersey if you're not going to do something about it?
Well, what does it mean that you sit out one game?
It's not a boycott.
It's technically a postponement.
And you resume playing basketball.
You know, it falls short.
If we're really going to make a statement here, if we're really going to say we're fed up about what's happening in our country,
if we're really going to say we're not going to be your form of entertainment,
then you got to stop playing basketball,
period. That's that to me is a boycott. We need to be effective. Saying Black Lives Matter is not enough.
Wearing it on the back of your jersey isn't enough. Seeing it written on the basketball court is not enough.
What can be done? Otherwise, it becomes performative. We have to do something that is going to make a change and make a difference.
We know where people stand on this. We know how basketball players feel about what's happening in our country.
That's why you're seeing the NBA takes such a big stand in allowing the players to express how they feel.
But where do we go from here?
Sitting out a game isn't going to be enough when you resume play 48 hours later.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, I do.
I do know what you're saying.
It's interesting.
I agree.
And I was surprised at the news that games could come back.
And I don't know what I think if I'm being honest.
Because here's what I try to do.
I try to be, great big moments can be individualized, right?
They all come down to individual human decisions.
And people make human decisions for reasons that end up being very, very human.
Very human.
Okay.
And when we were thinking about political stances or religious,
religious stances or moral stances, we always think in the extraordinary because we compare them
to guys who made what seem like, you know, extraordinary circumstances, extraordinary sacrifices,
should I say?
Like when you talk about Dr. King, Dr. King's given a speech and he's saying, you know,
I might not get there with you.
He's saying I'm not going to live to see 40.
And then he's killed at 39.
Okay.
And looking back on that, you think, Jesus, more than a man, right?
How brave is that person?
How brave is the soldier that picks up their weapon and goes to fight for freedom for no other reason than duty to country?
Guys like Pat Tillman or whomever.
How brave is anyone that does anything greater or bigger than themselves, specifically because of duty or purpose?
And you want everybody to be in that mindset and you realize that collectively, that
mindset is the best conduit to social and political change.
But then there are other parts of it that you don't think about, you know?
You don't think about the fact that not everyone, every person in the bubble, every player is LeBron.
You know, some of these guys, it's going to take, it's a significant sacrifice.
You know, you and I are going to go on and a lot of people are going to go on talking about sacrifices
that other people make, just quite frankly.
Like, we're going to have a show where we go on and we talk about what they should be doing
or whatever or not, but we're going to keep doing a show and money's going to keep rolling in.
The lights are going to stay on and I'm going to be able to put gas and the trusty and dependable
2010 Honda Accord Cross Tour and all of that stuff, right?
So it's hard for me to say when somebody...
Always comes back to the Honda.
Trust the Independable.
Honda Honda-a-Cola cross tour,
150,000 miles on it,
zooming and humming.
So it's hard for me to say that.
What I do,
what I will say is that
I wished
that they had stuck with it.
I agree that I wished
that they did
stop because
what we need are big
sweeping changes. We need,
need someone to step up and take that proverbial bullet. But you can't tell someone to do that
if that's not what they want to do. You know what I mean? So I think, you know, my dad would be like,
he would say things. He'd be like, don't nibble. He came to see me in the football game, right?
And I hit a kid late. I got a flag. But I kind of just nudged him. And my dad said, no.
Yeah.
If you're going to hit somebody late, right, and you're going to get a penalty.
If it's going to cost you 15 yards, fucking nuke that boy.
Make it count.
Make it count.
If you feel like you didn't lost yourself that much and you're going to get the penalty anyway, make it count.
So, you know, what the NBA players did was incredibly brave and it at least showed America.
In the moment.
the moment, it at least showed America
that kind of what we were talking about before, that a lot of the
things that distract you can't go away. I just wonder
if they come back, what's the final verdict
on it? And it's a fair question to ask. It's unfair to them that they're in that
position. It's not fair to them that they're in that position. It's really not.
I don't know how I would necessarily feel. I can't criticize
them for thinking of different aspects
of their own lives or their own league or whatever. Whatever is going to happen.
We also don't know if they go back to work what the NBA has pledged to do,
if there's been anything that the league has said that they're going to do even more than what they're going to do right now or what's happening.
And there has been a little movement since this happened.
At least the shooter in the case of Jacob Blake has been named.
There have been a couple of more details about things that have come out.
So there has been at least some movement.
And maybe that's enough for them to justify going back to work.
I don't know.
Why was the bus boycott effective?
Because they stuck it out and they hurt the pockets over the course of a year of the Montgomery bus system.
Exactly.
And so I'm not, I'm not, because I know people are going to criticize this conversation.
I am not knocking what the NBA players did and the stance that they took.
but you can't you can't speak on that and then speak on you can't talk about the situation
and not talk about the fact that they're resuming every alert that's coming to the phone
right now is talking about how they're going to resume playoffs tomorrow you can't do both
it's almost as if what you did loses its effect because tomorrow you're going to be back
on the court playing as if as if it didn't happen do you people are canceling practices today
people are refusing to play.
It's not just the NBA.
It's happening in football.
Football practices are being canceled.
MLB games are being canceled.
It is having an effect for 24 hours.
But where do we go from here?
I know what you're saying is true.
And I know you believe it.
And I know you're affected by what is happening in our country.
But how much more effective could it be if you pulled a bus boycott?
If you said we're not going to be a distraction because that is what it is.
On Friday, people are going to watch you play and they're going to be distracted by it.
And they're not going to be focusing on the injustices that are happening in our country because it's the playoffs.
You know, like, is my team going to advance and keep going?
It's such a contradiction to what it is that you did yesterday to what you're going to be doing tomorrow.
Let's put the bus boycott in context as well.
Okay.
All right.
So let's look at what happened during the bus boycott.
The bus boycott is a very, very, very important event in the history of our country, right?
The bus boycott as organized, black people stop riding the bus in response to Rosa Parks and all of that.
They don't ride the bus, I think, for a year, a little over a year.
The buses in Montgomery, they cave, changed their policies.
Okay.
But look at something that happened.
The bus boycott was more.
than what people see it to be.
It wasn't just that people stopped riding the bus.
That's not enough.
Okay.
People still had to get to work.
Yeah.
So what they do.
They carpooled.
Yeah.
Some of them walked.
The community came together to support each other in boycott, right?
The action that was taken, there's a cost for it.
And somebody has to pay the cost of the action.
Every action, no matter what it is, there's always a cost.
Somebody has to pay the cost.
The community here decided to pay the cost to make sure that people still got to work,
that it wasn't costing anybody any money,
that people still had what they need to do,
and just a sense of community that is involved in maintaining the energy of something like that.
It takes sacrifice from a lot of people.
In this situation with the NBA,
it doesn't seem like that would be necessary
because everybody seemingly has millions of dollars
by assure you that that's not true.
Right.
It's guys who need that.
So my whole thing was,
what was the league,
or more specifically the players union,
or more specifically the players
or anybody else that was outside of it,
what were they going to do
to make sure the players in the league
that needed help?
Because if they're going to boycott, right,
it also wouldn't make sense to boycott
and then boycott this season
and then three or four months
come back and do another season
because they're talking about
doing the season in December, right?
So if you're going to boycott
and you're going to come back,
you need to set demands
and tell people when you're coming back
and until those benchmarks are met,
you don't come back and play basketball, right?
So during that time,
what was going to happen,
how were they going to decide to carpool,
what needed to happen?
And it's very possible
that this was a decision
that was made,
made where those things weren't taking into consideration.
So for me, when we think about things in the past that have worked,
I want people to also think about this.
There were geniuses leading the fight.
That's not me casting any aspersions, not aspersions, but any doubt on the brainpower of the guys in the NBA.
No, it was just organized movement is what you're saying.
Right.
It wasn't sporadic.
Yeah, when you talk, it was something super organized.
And these people in the civil rights era don't get enough credit for just how well studied they were, for just how absolutely, like, Dr. King wasn't just, he had studied what Gandhi had gone through.
He had studied movements from all over the world to figure out what was the most effective way of getting what he wanted.
The point that I'm making is that there is going to have to be an organizational aspect to movements like this.
And this is where the players in the NBA who have, you know, significant resources, reach out to the people if you want a more coordinated effort.
Reach out to people around the country who are expert organizers, who are experts in political and social theory and talk with them.
I saw Bree Newsom.
Brie Newsom tweeted something.
Bree Newsom said, in all of these NBA cities,
there are local organizers in every single city
that can help guide and be with these players
to help them understand specifically the problems
that exist not just in their communities,
but across the nation,
so that they'll be able to move
in a more direct and effective manner.
I think that's kind of what the thing is.
I appreciate more than anything
what the players did yesterday.
But it has to be the start of a conversation
so that the wind isn't pulled out of anybody's sales
if they then come back and decide to play again.
You know what I mean?
So it's just about us, them knowing what they want
and us being able to do this collectively.
Yeah, it's, I don't want what they're doing
to become watered down, where it becomes just background noise
and it's like, oh, there they go,
again just doing something. I wanted to have the effect that I personally think the players want it to
have. I get them being in a position where they're reacting to what's happening and they kind of don't know
what to do. But and so then it gets lost in the sense that, okay, you're like, I'm upset. I'm,
affected by what's happening. I don't want to play. I want to be in the streets. I want to be protesting.
I want to speak out against what's happening to my people. Understand that. But then you don't play and you make
these grand statements and then tomorrow you play and it and it becomes watered down and I don't
want their voices and their actions and their intention to be watered down. And that's why I agree
with everything that you're saying about how they need to get organized. That's why the bus boycott
was as effective as it was. It was a plan of action. It didn't just happen in the moment. It was
it was planned. And I think that they need to get orchestrated. Yes. I
I think that I hope that whoever the leaders are when it comes to what the NBA players are doing recognizes that and say, hey, we can't just react to what's happening when it happens.
We've got to become organized so we can use our platform and our voices to become effective and to really accomplish what it is that we want to see done and what we want to see changed in this country.
Yeah.
Listen, they still made a statement.
And they made it, they made a powerful statement for yesterday and even today, the entire world, or the entire country, at least, I'm not sure what they're doing in fucking Tokyo right now.
But the entire country stopped and they saw a vision of an America where black people didn't serve as entertainment, right?
Well, we didn't serve as a distraction from the problems.
And I get, Rachel, that you might feel a little bit disenchanted by the fact that things might pick back.
back up this weekend, but at the same time, I feel like it was a powerful move made and a powerful
statement from the players.
Now, there are going to be people that, they're going to be disappointed, right?
But remember now, as soon as this happened yesterday, I started to think, okay, well, what happens
now?
And if you know a lot of athletes like you do, then you know that the LeBron James, James,
Hardin, Steph Curry, sort of endorsement plus a huge NBA contract plus huge public profile athlete
is by and large a myth.
It's like any other profession.
You got a whole bunch of actors acting in commercials.
Then you got Michael B. Jordan.
You got a whole bunch of actors on TV.
Then you got Viola Davis.
The NBA is no different.
You have a lot of guys that are working.
Right.
And then you have superstars.
Now, these salaries are over the moon for most Americans,
but still, there are guys that can't stop working
and never work for the rest of their life in the NBA.
It doesn't seem like that's true, but it is true.
So I realized that something was going to have to happen
because the league is bleeding money.
Also, there are other things that go on.
If they don't play, well, then they destroy their CBA.
you know, they destroy their collective bargaining agreement.
And if they destroy their collective bargaining agreement,
which is, if you guys don't know what that is,
that is the agreement for how the league runs,
the revenue splits,
all of those things between the players and the owners.
And there are a lot of things that are in the collective bargaining agreement
when you're going to play drug testing.
It's essentially the contract between the league and the players, right,
that they collectively bargain.
If they destroy that,
then you have truth.
chaos. And so everything that they do has to be with an eye on something. And it might take a
little bit longer for them to figure out what it is that they actually want where they're
actually going and how they actually get there. I'm not mad at that. But I'm also not,
like Jay Electronica says, I ain't mad at them, but I ain't glad at them. But I am happy that I saw
some movement from the NBA players.
I am.
I'm happy that they did what they did.
Yes, we're happy they responded to it.
You know, like they didn't sit back.
They weren't silent.
Excuse me.
Ooh.
Keep that in the podcast.
Ooh.
That's okay.
Stop.
I just got COVID.
I just got COVID tested twice and I'm negative.
Keep that in the podcast right there.
Yikes.
A million.
Something was caught in my throat.
Excuse me.
Yeah.
Something was.
caught in your throat already. It's called
a virus. That's
what was called. I don't you put that on me.
Jesus, Jesus. Jesus. I rebuke
that. I rebuke that
for my sister, Rachel Lindsay. She does not have
COVID. She does not have a little
she does not have that. Jesus, my sister's
is not have COVID. But have you found yourself in public
and you do try to like swallow the cough that you
have because people are going to look at you crazy
if you cough at all?
One day,
I literally almost shot my brains out of my ears
trying to hold back a sneeze.
Trying to hold back a sneeze.
I'm like,
it was painful.
I had one of those big sneezes.
It was painful,
but I'm not about to sneeze
and then be put into a leper colony
with these people.
I'm not doing that.
But, but.
Okay, see, this is what I was afraid of.
I'm looking at my phone for alerts.
Like, every,
couple of seconds because it continues to go off.
I love that the players,
I just want to say this because I feel like it's going to get lost in everything that I've said.
I love that the players stood up for what they believed in,
but I want there to be an organized effort.
And the reason I want that is because I don't want them to lose the effectiveness
of what it is the message and the meaning that they are trying to convey.
I also don't want them to give a voice to people who are against what it is that they're preaching and give them something to talk about and to and kind of say, oh, okay, well, I thought you felt this, but you're playing basketball tomorrow.
And I say that because none other than Vice President Pence, Pence and Kushner, Jared Kushner, talk about the protest.
and they called it absurd and silly.
And I wholeheartedly do not agree with that,
but you give rise to people to say,
to criticize what you're doing when it disappears after 48 hours.
That's what I hate.
This is why we need to get organized
or have an orchestrated message, like you said,
so that we can be more effective
with what it is that we're fighting for.
and it doesn't just come and go in the next 48 hours.
That's my issue.
That's my problem.
Kushner said he's going to reach out to LeBron James and talk to him about it.
I saw that.
You saw it?
You saw it?
Well, I saw that yesterday.
I think that was out of year.
Or this morning.
Either yesterday or this morning I saw that.
I'm just hoping.
I feel like that's shade.
That's like it came up two minutes ago on my phone.
No, I'm not saying I'm not shading you at all, Rach.
I'm saying that I saw that.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
I saw that last night.
I'm hoping for just.
for Jared Kushner's sake that he speaks fluid Negro
if he's going to speak to a regular Negro
such as LeBron James.
He's not going to be...
I don't know.
He had LeBron's contact information.
He makes it seem like they talk before.
Jared, if you can hear me,
I hope that you are able to speak in a language
that LeBron James can understand
and you get down.
Maybe before you talk to him, Jared,
you should watch the entire first season of Martin
to show about a hilarious Negro
and all of the exploits that he has
with his friends up in detois.
He's a radio disc jockey up and detroit.
Jared. Jerry, they're talking no fucking LeBron James.
Get out of here.
By the way, fuck Jared Kushner.
I'm going to call my black friend on this one.
I'm going to call my, but fuck Jared Kushner.
Here's my thing.
Here's my thing.
Fuck Jared Kushner and fuck Mike Pence.
What were they supposed to say?
They weren't going to say anything.
Like, there was nothing that the NBA players could have done
to where they would have gotten a pat on the back from those two guys.
That's not what I'm saying.
But what I'm saying is that, like, expect.
Ann Coulter, Megan Kelly, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens.
Expect these people to snatch, snatch distastefulness out of the realm of freedom fighting.
Expect for them to, expect for them to do that.
There's nothing that you could have done.
The fucking boycott could have lasted for five years.
They could have killed the league.
And those people would have had something negative to say about it anyway.
That's not what I'm saying.
But you, like, I agree with you. Obviously, they're always going to be critical to what the NBA players are protesting. My point is that you're giving them something that goes towards their argument. Like, they're going to use this towards their argument. Like, oh, like, oh, 40 and 48 hours later, they're playing back on the court. I'm not, that's what I would, what I would love to see is that, okay, they're going to play basketball for whatever reason it is. What if they came out and also made.
made a statement that said, we're not stopping our efforts.
We're going to organize and figure out what we can do moving forward.
That is more than just wearing a saying on the back of our jersey.
That is more than just having it on the court.
What is more than just talking about it in a post-game press conference.
Like maybe they'll say, we're organizing together to figure out what it is we're going to do.
I just hate that it just what the announcement that they're going to be playing tomorrow,
it just feeds into the people that you just named.
That's all that I'm saying.
I didn't expect them to pat them on the back
or to agree with it.
I just hate that now they're going to use this
to their advantage.
And which is what the alert just said.
They're going to find an advantage anyway,
but I understand what you're saying.
I do really believe, though.
And by the way, I want to say this.
There are NBA players that listen
to this podcast.
We know this because
we just know that there are.
Put it that way.
There are NBA players
that listen to this podcast.
Brothers,
I'm here as a resource.
Rachel is here as a resource.
You have more power than you know.
We have power collectively.
The action begins now.
What you guys did was brave.
What you guys did was necessary.
Yes.
What you guys did was timely.
Now, let's figure out a way
and let's get all hands on deck.
everyone. I keep talking about my young radicals, Philip McHarris, all of these guys that have answers to these questions.
People from all Alicia Garza, people from all over every different walk of life who are dedicating themselves to solving problems like housing, to solving problems like health care, to solving problems like divesting from police forces and reinvesting into our neighborhoods.
They're answers to these questions. What these people need is a light of voice.
voice and they need ways so that they can keep fighting a good fight. Remember I talked about the
Montgomery Bush boycott people? Well, they had benefactors like Sammy Davis Jr. and all of these
different people, Harry Belafonte, that kept them afloating times what they need. And these other people
are out there scraping and scraping, trying to get things done, trying to live in a world where
they can fight full time for people's rights and for people to be free. So the NBA players can have, and
myself included can have a definite direct effect
in just being part of highlighting voices,
not slogans.
Slogons is great.
Messages on jerseys and all that stuff is great.
That's fantastic.
That's great for awareness.
But they're individual soldiers who need weapons.
Arm them.
Easy work.
Arm them.
And that goes far because you make somebody
for a lifetime who can fight this fight.
You know what I mean?
So, you know, all kinds of things.
A question, do you know who Rustin Shesky is?
Rustin.
Rustin Shesky, you know what that is?
I do not.
All of America should know who Rustin Shesky is.
Do you know what?
I just actually had to look it up just now before we started doing this,
and I realized I didn't know the name.
Of all the names we're talking about,
of all the people that were talking about,
we're not talking about Rustin Chesky.
This past Sunday,
Rustin Shesky, shot a black man,
seven times in his back in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
That is the name of the police officer
who shot Jacob Blake.
Now, as we were doing this,
I wanted to bring his name up,
and I had to look for it.
Rustin Schesky.
Rustin Schesky.
Shesky.
Rustin Shesky.
Rustin Shesky.
Here's a deal. I've said this before.
The shooters don't get to be anonymous.
Right.
You know what I mean?
The shooter does.
doesn't get to be anonymous, all right?
I don't know how we're getting this thing backwards.
The injured party, the assaulted party gets made famous, right?
And I understand that.
Remember their name.
But the person that committed the ill that pulled the trigger gets to live in anonymity.
And we talk around the actual consequence.
Russ Sanchezky is the name of the man.
they released that name, I think it was last night
or during the time last night or something like that.
So that was something to be honest with you
that a lot of people were demanding
that the officials up there in Wisconsin do
that they weren't doing.
I'm going to be honest with you.
I do believe that what the players did
and the overall attention on the issue
at least got that done.
Because that's something that they had paused on
for a long time.
How do you feel
about the fact that not
enough of us know
the name Rustensheski
or the names of any of these cops
that are guilty about any of these
guilty, excuse me, that have,
well, they are guilty. They're guilty of you.
You know why? I think
I'm glad you're talking about this
and I think it's important that we bring attention
to who they are and say
their names just as much as we say
everyone else's who's, unfortunately,
involved in these incidents. But I think with people, when you hear this happening, you're so upset.
It's almost like you don't even care what their name is. You're so upset by the injustice that's done.
And you don't want the people who died at the hands of these police or who have been injured in this
case, paralyzed in this case, you don't want their name to be lost in the middle of a bunch of
other names. And I think that's why it's almost like you don't, like we should be. You're
right. We should be saying their names just as much. We always say the names of the one who's
unfortunately killed or who's been injured. But I think, yeah, you just get lost in it. You get
lost in what's happened that you like, like, I'm like, I hear his name and I'm like, okay,
Rustin. But in my mind, I'm like, fuck him. Like, what are we going to do to, you know, at the end?
It's just, it's another cop. It's another cop to me. Yeah, yeah, but definitely didn't know his
name. Another cop.
isn't a part of this though
that so
don't we have to ruin these cops
don't we have to ruin the individual
the bad actor
and it's very difficult
their records like they look up the person who was shot
right it's very difficult to do that
if we do not know
who they are
we should hashtag those names
and make them go viral as well
as well as the name of another little junior terrorist,
a gentleman by the name of,
and this was truly disgusting, by the way.
17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse.
Now, if you're asking why black Americans are so scared
of the feelings and the mechanisms behind white supremacy,
a perfect example of that is 17-year-old Kyle,
a written house, who is a kid that arned himself with a rifle and went out and killed protesters.
Shot one protester in the face.
This is in Wisconsin.
And then while he was trying to, while he was being disarmed by another protester,
and while he was trying to be disarmed by an American hero name Anthony Huber,
he ended up taking Anthony's life as well.
So, you know, Kyle is now being used as,
or being sort of talked about as a hero
in some places on the right.
Tucker Carlson lauded him on his show.
Tucker Carlson?
Yeah, Tucker Carlson.
Tucker Carlson said on his show about this young maniac,
that, listen, if adults fail to keep these cities safe,
something to this degree, then the children will.
This is somebody who killed two people, okay?
And then after that, transported the gun across state lines,
went to Illinois.
A criminal, a criminal, did illegal shit.
A criminal, killed two people, okay?
A vigilante that took it upon himself to go out there
and pop people in their head, killed two American citizens.
and Colter said that she wants Kyle as her president.
So I want you guys to understand something.
The rules of decency that a lot of these people say that they're playing by are all bullshit.
Okay?
They're all bullshit.
Now, Jacob Blake shot in the back seven times.
This Kyle kid was given water by the cops, treated very fairly and equitably by the cops,
was not shot a million times by any police officer.
So I guess a 17-year-old carrying a fucking long rifle is not scary,
but a black man going to his car for what might magically be inside
is so terrifying that you've got to empty the whole clip on it.
So for me personally, when I look at all of these things,
like our society is diseased.
And it's diseased as much.
by who we criminalize as it is diseased
by who we make heroes out of.
All of these things are wrapped up in one.
They all are.
It's wrapped up in one while
the shooter is not as famous as the victim in these cases, right?
It's wrapped up in one while a kid with a gun
on one's...
By the way, black people don't do this.
I want to be honest with you.
You don't see black people on the left
like deify Christopher Dorner.
You don't see them deify people.
Like, we're not allowed to look at people
who take up arms against the American government, right?
Or against whatever.
And then say that they're good people.
Like, could you fucking imagine what would happen?
Tucker Carlson is on there saying that this Kyle kid, right,
is doing something that everybody else.
Can you imagine what would happen if after Christopher Dornner, Christopher Dornner wrote an entire manifesto
explaining how he was going to engage in asymmetrical warfare against the Los Angeles police force.
And he talked about the racism that he, that he, that he endured while he was in the military.
He talked about Trayvon Martin and the death of Trayvon Martin and how there were bugs and worms eating Trayvon Martin's flesh.
and he said that he had had enough
and he was going to take up arms
and go kill a bunch of people, right?
Obviously wrong.
My point is, in his mind,
he had a reason, okay?
Just like this little Kyle maniac,
in his maniacal mind,
he had a reason.
Can you imagine what would happen to Don Lemon?
If Don Lemon went on CNN
and talked to people
about the fact that he thought
Christopher Dorner was doing something that other people in America didn't have the nuts,
the fortitude, or the will to do?
Can you imagine what that would look like, which is essentially what Tucker Carlson did?
Tucker Carlson, to me, is not just enabling, but inviting somebody else to pick up a weapon,
go into a protest and pick off protesters.
Yeah.
Excuse me for a second.
What the fuck are we doing?
Yeah.
Like, and it's weird or shit.
It's racism is what it is.
It's not weird.
It's racism.
It's hate.
What's crazy about this whole thing is that this incident,
incident in particular is that, you know, I posted something on my social about, you know,
there being no rules when it comes to black people. And as if our, you know, our lives don't matter.
And my comment section is filled with hate about what Jacob Blake should have done,
how he was wrong because he resisted. Oh, he deserved that because he resisted police. These are
people in my DMs. These are people that I know who are who are writing me and question me,
not necessarily my comments, but privately in my DMs. Don't you think that if he would have done
this, they wouldn't have done this? Don't you think him doing this is why he got shot seven times
as if he deserved it, as if if he just didn't sit there and and do what he was told,
it would have never happened. And my point was, it happened because he was black, right? And then
what is it, 48 hours later, you see Kyle, Kyle Rittenhouse, arming himself around town,
walking with an AR-15 strapped to his body, and nobody does anything.
This is a person walking around with a deadly weapon armed, and nobody is saying anything to him.
Then he goes into a crowd, kills two people, injures other people, runs away,
and police cars drive past him.
They don't say anything to him.
Why?
Because he's white.
And this is the point that I was trying to make to friends.
And now I use that term loosely, friends or people strangers in my DMs or people writing
in my comments.
The point is it doesn't matter what Jacob Blake was doing.
It's because he was black versus how somebody is treated when they're white.
That's really what it comes down to.
And I don't understand how people can see it any other way than it's a black and it's a white
issue. And that, I think, was what it was so hard for me to swallow in addition to the Tucker Carlson's,
you know, like lauding this man as a hero who is gunning people down who were just protesting for their
right to matter, to live, and for justice. And you're calling him a hero that he's killing these people.
And then there's other people who don't understand that it's a black and white issue. And people
are being treated differently simply because of the fear associated or the stare,
or the preconceived notions associated with the color of their skin versus when you have
white skin and you don't have those same things. It's crazy. And then that coupled with what's
happening right now with the with the RNC and the thing and what's what's being spewed out on stage.
And people saying Mike Pence saying, I want the violence to go away. But then you're also
lauding these people as heroes. You're also putting fear in suburbia by saying,
black people are dangerous criminals and these protesters are going to come to your neighborhood
and they're going to attack you.
There's no unity.
There's nothing to bring this together.
They're on stage talking about how they, that it's going to be violent under Biden and
Harris.
But look at what our country is right now under a Trump administration.
Under you.
It's only getting worse under you guys.
But you want to tell people what this country is going to look like under Biden
Harris.
Look at what the fuck it is now.
I like, I just, it's so, I'm, it's so disheartening what's going on right now in this, in our country.
It's, it's insane, man.
It's insane.
Yeah.
Don't cry.
I, you see, I am about to cry.
Don't say that.
I really am about to cry.
Like, I'm upset.
I'm upset.
Yeah.
Rachel, don't do it.
When people say don't cry, you always do.
I'm upset.
Don't, Rachel, hold it together, Rach.
Come on, big Rach.
Hold it together.
Come on.
Now I got to get like my dad.
I got to get toxic.
Girl, don't you cry about that.
My dad used to cry.
I used to cry over stupid stuff.
I would cry when Batman went off.
You know what I mean?
Because, you know what I mean?
Like, I would be watching Batman, like the old Batman with Adam West.
And like, during the last commercial break, I would get so emotional because I knew that
Batman was about to go off.
My dad would look at me.
He'll be like, nigga, what's wrong with you?
I would be like, what?
It's like, you're about to cry because the show going off?
I wish I was crying because Batman went off.
I wish that's why I was crying.
I was about to say, I was going to say, I wish right now that we could cry because there was no more Batman.
But you know what he would say to me?
He'd say, get ready for the world.
It's so toxic.
This is what my dad was saying.
You know, he should have let me.
Son, Batman's going to be back on tomorrow.
But that's not what he did.
He's like, boy, what's wrong with you?
You better not quit on it.
That's what I'm saying to you right now.
Quit all that goddamn crying.
Suck it up.
We need Big Rachel.
right now.
It's only getting worse, I think, is just, it's like, and I, and it's funny thing
is I promised myself, I was like, don't you cry.
Don't you cry when you get on this podcast?
But I just like, the more I talk, the more I just get frustrated about, you know, which
is why, like, I understand what it is that the NBA players are fighting for.
I, like, that's why it's like, I don't want people to get lost in what I was saying.
It's just more of the frustration of, I get what you stood for today, but what are we
going to do tomorrow?
We can't play another game.
We have to, we can't be a distraction for these people.
We have to make these people hurt.
We have to make them be upset.
We have to make them feel, they should be crying too.
We should, they should be hurt and bothered and affected by what is happening to people in this country.
They need to fucking care.
And they don't.
And that's why I'm just like so frustrated.
They don't care.
You don't care about us or what's going on.
You care about making people scared of us rather than listening to us and what
we're scared of in this country.
I'm done.
I don't want to podcast anymore.
I'm so upset.
I know you are.
I know.
Rachel, listen.
Like,
everything that you just said is like,
here's the thing.
That was so, like,
people listen to the podcast,
I can guarantee you right now.
They are in thrall and enraptured.
And the fact that you care so deeply, right?
And this is so moving.
And this is,
you saw the guy from the Milwaukee Brewer,
right talking about this you see you saw robert ori like these are our lives that we are talking about
this is our existence this is our future safety i'm sure that you and you and brian one day when i have a
little beige baby to come into the world and all that stuff like that this is this is our very lives
our existence that we're talking about and there's a community here that is united by some of the
most amazing cultural achievements in american history but there's
There's also a community here that is united by a very specific and unrelenting pain.
And we're tired of that pain.
And I'm, it, it is, it's, it's not something to where we can just pick ourselves back up.
It dust ourselves back.
Oh, that's part of being black.
Now, no, we wanted to stop.
And so these tears, they're actually happy tears.
They're good tears.
Because I tell you they are.
They are.
It would be far more detrimental and destructive to our community if Rachel didn't care.
If Rachel could, Joe, it's just hard to be black and move on.
It would be far more detrimental to our community, our American community, if we weren't as engaged and involved and emotional about this as we have to be.
That's what's necessary for change.
That's what has to happen for change.
You know what I mean?
I just wish people, yeah, I just wish people would understand that at the end of the day, it all comes down to our blackness.
That's really what it is.
It's because we're black.
That's it.
I had somebody say to me that I know.
Literally, Rachel, I feel like if you had a child, they wouldn't be in the same situation that a Jacob Blake was in.
That's the fucking way you know that.
You don't know that.
But that's what I mean.
This is how these people think.
somebody said that to me.
Somebody I know a friend that I have known for years said that to me.
And I go, that's the, I go, my dad is a federal judge.
He drives, he's like you.
He's driving like a hot cross over.
My dad is like, like prides himself in the 200,000 miles that are on his Volvo.
When my dad is driving and he gets pulled over, his resume isn't written all over him.
All that you see is that he's a black man, not his accomplice.
not what he's done. And that's what I tried to explain to her. At the end of the day,
it's the blackness is what we see or what they see first, period. Nobody knows who I am or what I've done or what my child will do or even my father.
And I think I'm just so sick of the excuses people make when it comes to what's happening. And at the end of the day, it's just the fact that we're black, period.
That's what it comes down to with all of this. It's the color of your skin and what you have.
have put the meaning you have put on our color of skin.
So it comes down to.
Trayvon Martin wasn't doing anything walking through his own neighborhood, right?
Because he was black, that indicated criminal to a fucking maniac.
Maniac pulls him over, provokes him.
The kid is dead.
So I want to ask you a question.
Okay.
Am I going to cry?
You're not going to cry.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have great news that happened to me today,
and I can't even relish in it because I'm so upset about what's happening.
I'm so upset.
Yeah, it's like where you're now, I have a new nickname for you.
It's not just, it's not tasteful vixen, rach pock, big Rache,
but now you're also Rache Rodman.
Because Dennis Rodman cries in every interview,
Rach Rach Rodman.
Every time.
Dennis Robbins?
Fucking Dennis Rodman cries.
You must have never seen a Dennis Robman interview before.
Jackson, Jordan, am I wrong about that?
Like, Dennis Robman cries every interview.
He is so emotional.
Rach Rodman.
But it's good, though, because, you know, Dennis deeply cares.
I have a question.
Okay.
It's a new segment I want to do.
And it's completely about me, my favorite type of segment.
Okay.
It's called Am I an asshole?
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today. Okay. This actually happened to me. Yesterday, I'm over here. I'm playing
fight night world champion.
I've starred a legacy boxer.
His name is Van Lathen,
vicious Van Lathen,
on the Xbox, okay?
And he's 6'4-2-35.
He's an orthodox,
he's an unorthodox,
kind of will him and deal
him heavyweight boxing, you know?
I'm in the middle of a very, very important fight,
the last fight of my amateur
career, and I get a knock on my door.
And I have no idea.
Anytime somebody knocks on my door without having called first,
I literally rack my shotgun.
Like, seriously.
I don't know what's happening now.
So I go to the door and it is my neighbor.
And I don't know that she's my neighbor.
She identifies herself as my neighbor.
I don't know.
She has no mask on.
I don't know why she's knocking on my door with no mask on.
And she goes, I live next door to you.
This actually happened.
I live next door to you.
and I'm moving tomorrow
and they already turned off my cable.
I do not have any Wi-Fi.
Can I borrow or can I have your Wi-Fi password?
Wow.
Wow.
Can I have your Wi-Fi password is what she asked.
Can I have your Wi-Fi password?
Can I have your Wi-Fi password?
And I was like,
I don't have Wi-Fi.
I don't have it.
Why'd you lie about it?
And then she goes, she goes, because I didn't know what to say.
She goes, you don't have Wi-Fi in your apartment?
I was like, no, there's no Wi-Fi.
We don't have it. I'm sorry.
And she looked, and she stood there, like,
and she was a foreign lady.
She had a very thick accent.
And she says there, like, you don't have a Wi-Fi?
And I'm like, no.
And she looked at her phone as if to say,
nigga, I know this Wi-Fi is coming from your apartment right.
I'm your neighbor.
I want your Wi-Fi.
And I was like, sorry, bye.
And I just closed the door.
Am I an asshole?
No.
For not giving her my wife.
I've been feeling bad about this.
Is that my asshole for not giving her my Wi-Fi password?
Absolutely not.
I guess I'm an asshole then.
Because I wouldn't have even lied about it.
I would have been like, no.
I pay this much of my phone.
month for my for my, for my Wi-Fi, you can absolutely not use it. I wouldn't even trust that she
was really moving. I would just think that she wanted my Wi-Fi. Absolutely not. Are you kidding
me? Listen, I'm friendly. I'm really friendly, but I'm, I'm not nice. I would honestly say that I'm
probably not a nice person. I'm friendly. There is a difference. I would have told that lady no,
so quick. I would have opened the door up and super friendly. Hi, how are you? What's up? Can I use your
password? Absolutely not. Next. Next question.
And I wouldn't have
I wouldn't have even thought about it.
I never would have thought about it.
Here's the thing about the-
Upgraded my Wi-Fi after that.
Maybe.
Because here's the thing about the Wi-Fi.
Let's say that somebody asked to borrow some sugar
and give them the sugar, right?
Let's say somebody asked to borrow,
hey, do you have so-and-so-and-so?
You give it to them.
Once you give them the Wi-Fi password,
they have it forever.
So it's not like letting your neighbor
into use your bathroom.
It's like giving them a key to your apartment, right?
I agree.
Unless I go and change my Wi-Fi password,
which I'm not even sure I know how to do.
But at the same time, like, even if I did know how to do it,
that's like a lot of work for me personally.
After I already have one that I like,
it already auto-connects and all of that stuff like that.
More to the point, I'm worried about this neighbor now because...
Why? She moved.
She ain't even there today.
Maybe she is.
Maybe she's not.
Like you said, maybe that's a ruse, right?
How do I know?
So I'm worried about someone.
See, shit like that gets to me.
Shit like that gets to me.
It gets to me.
When I say it gets to me, I mean, I get worried about the mentality of someone who has the nuts to come ask you for your Wi-Fi password.
I think a lot of people would do that.
Really?
We wouldn't.
No, hell no.
We wouldn't, but I, that doesn't shock me.
I was going to ask you what the person looked like.
Like an older lady
I live in a Persian Jewish area
So she seemed like she was Persian or something like that
But she was older
See like that doesn't shock me
An older lady
A older person doesn't shock me
I think there's a lot
Yeah a lot of people would do that
But that's not neighborly to me
You've taken it too far
I'm not giving you the password to anything
Not my phone
Not my Wi-Fi
You know what I mean?
Like nothing
I'm not giving you that
That's a violation of privacy
But if somebody comes to your apartment
To like kick it
you can give them the Wi-Fi password, of course, right?
Like, if I came over to visit you and Brian,
or me and Brian going to do some push-ups, I'll come over there.
I'm like, yo, I give it to you.
You give me the Wi-Fi password.
Yeah, I know you, and you're leaving.
You're not going to use it after that.
You don't live next door to me.
I ever tell you about the girl that got caught up
on the Drake situation because of the Wi-Fi thing?
I'll tell you this story?
No.
Would you like to hear it real quick?
Is this a TMZ story?
That's not TMZ story.
It's a real story.
Yeah, I want to hear.
We want to know.
So this is a real story that happened or that I heard happened.
So Drake's old place was a place that people will go party, right?
This is what they say.
This is what I heard happened, right?
I don't know if this happened or not.
Drake's old place was a place where people would go party, right?
It was the yolo out there.
Everybody would go out there.
Drake, you know, have a young lady out there every once in a while, right?
So one time, I guess a couple years ago,
I had heard a story that from a friend of mine that was mad at his girl.
The reason why he was mad at his girl is because they were supposedly going out there to hang out and do something, whatever.
And he had asked her, yo, have you ever been out here before?
And her and her friends are like, her friend, her girl was like, yeah, I've been here before.
But she was like, no, I've never been out there.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I've never been out there at all, right?
I don't know what you're talking about.
You know, there's never been there.
And he's like, all right, cool.
Because, you know, he's a little uptight.
It's like, that's the highest level of, of like,
that's the scariest niggins, if you're being honest.
Like, Drake is the scariest guy.
Why?
Because it's like, you know, it's a difference between, like,
As far as your girl or a girl that you,
if you're that way, for me, you know,
it doesn't matter if you want to go, like,
it's not a big deal.
Like, for me, I don't, I'm not like,
all territorial and shit like that.
I don't get all jealous and shit.
But, like, you know, for other guys,
if you see a guy coming,
he's probably the worst guy to see coming right now
because he has this sort of spengali
fucking ethereal effect on women.
Like, just, it's like, I just,
a lot of ladies, though.
It's like a weird thing.
Like you're in Delilah.
You see people look over there like, oh, my God, is Drake?
For, you don't think that
chicks want to fuck Drake?
Like, that's a known thing.
I do, but because of who he's Drake,
not because he has this ethereal presence
or just like exudes this,
like, I don't know, this charm, this Drake charm.
It's this status, money, rapping.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's who he is.
I think it's all part of it, like,
the vulnerability and the emotions,
you know, all of that stuff like that.
I think, I think it's, there's a thing.
There's a thing.
There's a thing.
Okay.
Anyway, so this guy was all uptight about it.
And they, and by the way, Drake wasn't even there when this was happening.
I think something else was going on.
From what I understand, the story could all be bullshit, by the way.
But Drake wasn't even there when this was happening.
They're riding over there and her and her friend are laughing or whatever.
And obviously it's the guy who's telling me this story.
So her and her friend are laughing.
He asked her if she had been there.
She says, no, they go, they get there.
And he has her phone.
And when they get in range, her phone connects to the Wi-Fi.
Her phone connects to the Wi-Fi at the mansion.
And he goes, so this is after he goes, yo, yo, man, what should I do?
She obviously lied.
She obviously lied.
And I was like, I don't know, niggul, you rap.
So why don't you have her?
her use that Wi-Fi connection
to send this nigga a demo or something like that.
You think it's short money.
I mean, like, don't be...
That's an asshole comment.
Now you want to ask me a question again?
That's that that's an asshole.
Yo, yo.
This dude's seriously hurting at the fact that his girl
lied to him about Drake and being in his house.
Here's the thing.
If she lied about going to the house,
then it probably some fun times
happened at the house and go on her.
Ain't nobody married.
stop thinking short and thinking with your ego.
Think in the long term.
Think about the fact that now you have the opportunity to get your beats.
I would actually, if I was him, I would say, listen,
the next time you laid up with this nigga,
the next time you're just laying down with him,
just like play my music and be like,
yo, have you heard of this new rapper, blah, blah, blah, blah.
See, that's how I think.
I don't know how the rest of these guys think they think.
No, get the music.
He could have been signed the OVO.
So then what did he do?
What did he end up doing?
He let his toxic masculinity take over.
He flipped out.
Did she admit to her again?
Uh-huh.
She admitted it?
Uh, they laughed them off.
They don't care about that.
They're not going to choose you.
All right?
You live in my neighborhood.
They're not going to choose you.
You know what I'm saying?
Just have fun.
Whatever.
Now she got like two million files on the gram.
She's not even thinking about that,
you're not going to get chose.
So don't make a big deal about it.
Just use it for what you can get it for.
All right.
I would never come to you for advice.
I would never.
That's the best advice.
The best advice is fam.
What you want?
You want emotionality?
You want to be emotional about it?
Or do you want to live your dreams?
You know what I'm saying?
That wasn't realistic, Van, is the point.
Drake ain't going to put him an OVO.
He's not in the click.
He's not listening to his demo.
He's definitely not going to put it.
him in OVO now.
You don't know before.
He might have heard it.
He definitely not going to put him in there now.
I want to address something.
You're from Texas.
I'm from Louisiana.
There is something barreling towards our home states right now.
That is freaking me out.
I took Xanax this morning.
I took Xanax this morning when I woke up because the combination of
Jesus Christ, am I going to cry?
The combination of...
Come on, Van, let it out.
No, I'm not going to.
If you cry, I'll cry, I'll cry again.
I'm not going to cry.
I'm just very afraid.
And I, you know, I live through Hurricane Katrina.
And it was difficult.
You know, I think about...
People think about the people that died from flooding and stuff like that for Hurricane Katrina.
My friend, Gino, had his aunt staying with him.
And she was an older lady.
I think she was 72, 73, something like that, early to mid-70s.
But she was vibrant and very alive and very okay.
And like she had no health problems or anything like that.
And maybe, I'd say, six weeks after Katrina, she just died.
And there was something that happened down there that people can't talk about.
The stress and the trauma of how being displaced and how having your family members die,
it took a lot of people.
There were a lot of people in the margins who we didn't get a chance to discuss.
And there were a lot of lives that were never changed,
that there were changed forever.
And there were a lot of things that we never got a chance to get back.
And by the grace of God, that region has been spared that sort of event to a large degree.
I mean, there have been terrible weather events in Baton Rouge, just flooding and winds and all of that stuff.
Just ridiculous.
My father lost his house on the flood a couple of years ago after having had our last home destroyed Hurricane Katrina.
But I'm not articulating well right now.
now because I'm legitimately scared.
Yeah.
And there's not much that you can do about it.
Like a storm is coming.
It's going to make landfall.
Laura is the name of the storm, I think.
Yeah.
In southwest Texas.
Excuse me.
Southwest Louisiana, East Texas.
It's actually Texas has been spared than from what they originally thought.
It sadly is mainly focused on southeast Louisiana.
and I feel like I think they said Lake Charles is going to get the brunt of it,
and then it's going to move more east of Texas, east of Shreveport.
East of Shreveport.
So there's no good news there.
There's that's not directly in the line of Baton Rouge, but, you know, that doesn't mean anything.
Right.
I know what a storm.
This storm is.
It's category four.
It's category four.
That's a big boy.
And the havoc is, you just don't understand living through a hurricane and just what happens to civilization society overnight.
It's that, you know, Katrina wasn't my first hurricane.
Just what happens to you when you hold up in the house and the lights are out and you're around your loved ones and the wind is whipping.
It seems like there is a great big demon outside.
and you're just wondering if it's going to kick your windows in and come in there and get you.
Because you know that it gets somebody and you don't know that it's going to be you.
There's nothing you can do but be right there.
There's no place you can go.
There's, you know, you normally, you like you get together all your family and friends and all of that stuff like that,
but you just don't know what's going to happen.
And it wasn't until Katrina happened that we realized one of those storms can really wipe us out.
So my heart, my thoughts.
lots of my prayers that don't do anything go out to the people in Louisiana.
But I want to say more than anything, we have to be ready to help.
So as a community, we have to be ready to help in the event that things do get bad.
You know, we have to, we have to be willing to have some sort of synergy in terms of what we're going to do.
Because I got to be honest with you, the last time we just got fucking left out to dry.
Right.
There were a lot of people who came down and, and aided us and helped us out.
But for the most part, as far as the government was concerned,
that's why you can miss me with all of your fuzzy memories of George W. Bush.
Oh, do people have those?
I didn't realize that was a thing.
They do.
This guy makes George W.
Look a little bit better.
So I want to take a time and talk about, you know, what it is that we lost and what we hope that we're not going to lose again.
and that I love everybody down there.
And if you need me, I will be there.
Like, I reach out to my people,
ask them if they needed a flight out here.
They will always say yes.
Because, you know, my sister right now,
my sister, shout out to Ebony Lathen.
I hit my sister and I was like, yo, you need a flight?
She's like, no, not right now.
I think she's like, but I got PTSD.
Do you remember this time that we almost drowned as kids?
And I was like, no, I actually don't remember it.
Well, here, let me tell you.
you about it. Nah, nigger, I don't want to hear about that. Um, listen, guys, no mail bad today.
Okay. We're not going to do the mailbag because there were a lot of very heavy things for us
to cover on the podcast today. I want to say something about that. Okay. Let me tell you what
this podcast is in its essence. Okay. We have two people with strong voices, an incredibly accomplished
lady, a semi-accomplished man.
But more than anything,
this podcast, in my opinion,
is two black people trying to do their best.
Two black people trying to do their best.
Two humans trying to do their best.
Two Americans try to do their best.
That's okay, Rach. It's okay, Rach. It's okay, Rach.
It's two black people trying to do their best.
And the emotion that you've seen from the podcast today,
and I tried to bring a little levity
with stories of Drake
and my neighbor
and all of that stuff.
Appreciated.
All right.
The stories that you're,
but the emotion that you've seen
on the podcast today
is what we're going through.
And we're being honest
about everything else.
So I appreciate Rachel
being honest about that.
And I am right there with her
and we all are there together.
If you want to
make a difference, help us take this pain away.
If you do not help us take this pain away, if you are not dedicated to changing America
for the good, that's fine to me too.
Just get out of my way.
But I'm going to remember the people that aided me in building a better society.
That's it.
For me, Rach, I can't say anything.
because she just made me a crying.
I'm not kidding.
I'm not kidding.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
I mean, I know exactly what's wrong with me,
but I don't want to say anything after what you said
because it was so beautiful.
I just, it's so true.
It's so true.
We are hurting.
We are frustrated.
We are tired.
And, yeah, like, I don't want to say anything.
I'm a mess.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Put your thinking caps back on.
It's Van Lathen and Rachaelin.
We are out.
We're going to get racial cleaned up and we're going to see you guys next week.
Peace, thought warriors.
I promise you we okay.
We're okay, but we fighting.
We're in the fight, Thor warriors.
We fighting.
Sometimes we got our shares up jails.
We're going to see y'all next week, though.
Stand with us or get out of our way.
That's just not to know.
