Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - Respectability Politics and Damon Young on Being Funny and Black

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Van and Rachel are joined by Midnight Boy Charles Holmes to talk about the discourse around Ja Morant (14:39) before digging into Chris Rock’s Netflix special, ‘Selective Outrage’ (49:55). Then, writer and humorist Damon Young joins to discuss the NFL, comedy, and his podcast, ‘Stuck With Damon Young’ (1:08:19). Plus, Rachel clues us in on some Peak White Mess (1:32:29). Hosts: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guests: Charles Holmes and Damon Young Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yo, yo, thought warriors. What's up? How I learning is on. It is Ivan Lathen, Jr. And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. Rachel, what did you do this weekend? Oh, what did I do this weekend? Worked, worked, worked.

I had, I had, I went to all screen six on Friday. It's six, it's six? We're at six. We're at six now. So on Friday? All the original screamers dead They kill them? Courtney Cox

No Courtney Cox is in this movie So you mean it's I'm gonna be real with you The scream nigga The scream nigga What's his name? Screamface dude He sucks

Ghost face Ghost face Why they got to name him Ghostface man Shout out to the woo You know what I'm saying Shout out to Ghostface Brow

Shout out to the ghost face Why they name him Ghostface man That's not Ghostface is his name I didn't really realize that until this movie because it's such a big part. There's a history of scream in this movie.

So it's a little confused because I didn't see Scream 5, which apparently was really good. That, like, brought the franchise back. So there's a group of friends that are in that come from 5 to Scream 6. So I spent like half the movie trying to figure out the timeline and the storyline. But it wasn't bad at all.

So I had to see that. I sure it's not bad. But the kind of movies, I don't like, so everybody likes Halloween, right? The problem with Halloween for me is that the Jamie Lee Kerr's character keeps surviving. That's really not what I know. You know, normally you got to kill that character off.

Nancy lived. Freddie didn't get Nancy, right? Nancy stayed around. But everybody else, we're picking them off, baby. So they talk about that in the movie. They talk about, there's a, there's a, scene where she's talking about that this is happening to them again

and she's like you have to play out how scary movies go and they talk about people in franchises and eventually people have to die and it's like this whole thing so you might actually like that as like a movie buff. I don't know. Are you in a horror films? I'll never watch scream. Are you

in a horror films? I like them but you'll never watch scream six. So let me, I'll never watch scream six. Here's a problem with Screamt for me. is the horror movies that frighten me are only supernatural or demonic

like when you start mixing in demonic isn't supernatural see what I guess I think I guess I'm thinking see okay don't bring our conversations before this is how you play yourself you know what it is example of it

but no no no when I think supernatural I think aliens when I think when I say demonic you're wrong I said I'm telling you what I'm telling you what I think. I'm telling you what I think. Can I explain my thinking? Okay. Okay. My thinking. I'm not saying it's what's right or wrong. I'm just telling you, when I think here's supernatural, I only think aliens. That's just all. That's the first thing that comes to my mind. When I, when I was saying demonic, I was more so thinking like religion and crosses.

So here's the thing. Everybody always agrees with you and I'm sure they'll agree with you now. But aliens wouldn't be. be supernatural because if aliens exist, that is in fact natural, just like they're from another place. Right. But remember my take on aliens now. I like to be naive when it comes to all this. I don't believe in them. I don't want to.

That's a little too much for me. A demon, that would be supernatural, right? That would be a manifestation of something. I get you. I get you. Or yeah, yeah. I get you. comes to mind.

So the reason why I'm only scared of them is because I'll put that iron on ghost face. Oh, boom. Ghost face. Come by my. I'm ghost face. If you even come to my shit with a, with like a, if you come to my shit with like a, with like a ghost face mask, boom. You know what I'm saying?

Or like throw a knife at ghost face. Or like you can pick up a fucking crowbar, crowbar the shit out of ghost face. You're terrified from Freddie about Freddie. Freddie is a dream demon. So I don't know what the town. I don't know if you're aware, but they killed this motherfucker like five, six times.

And so, you know I've like seen half a nightmare on Elm Street. Oh, right. So I'm like they got up to like, they killed him a bunch of times. And it's not like a new guy acting like Freddie. Like you go to sleep and you can't help but sleep.

You go to sleep and he is there. So there's nothing you can do. like you nod off like you nod off and all of a sudden like you're in freddie's lair you're in a boiler room and you don't really know what to do that is terrifying so like Michael Myers doesn't scare you but see they changed him so it depends right like Michael Myers at first was just like a serial killer and then he kind of got a little supernatural no he didn't he's not supernatural i've been watch he's not supernatural. He just won't die. He is not, okay, so see, I'm not

really afraid of him. Not like talking about. Like Michael Myers can be, now Jigsaw is kind of scary from Saul. Terrify. Terrify. Yeah, because he'll have you in a situation where you're like, oh, my arms are behind my back. You got to cut my ear off. That's pretty scary. But but mostly,

but mostly, Rachel, what's going on with the eye, man? See, you're playing yourself again. Like, y'all got to watch. Rachel's eyelashes falling off. it's like it's happening she can't even she can't even what's going on with it what's happening something i don't know but all that movement fixed it something is the eyelashes is a ball yeah something's in my eye what are you what are you all done up for what is this what's happening my book

you got the book so you get press for the book what did you do new york uh i did sherry shepherd i did the root i did watch what happens live and And now I'm taking a break by podcasting. And then I go do my event with Matt James. Oh, Donnie. I'm a FaceTime you. I'm a FaceTime you. So you and Matt James are hanging out tonight.

We're doing an event. I like Matt James. When is he coming on a podcast? He should be able to come on at any time. We should have him on. We definitely should have him on. He's always welcome. What was his brother's name again?

Who got fire music. What was his name? Shit, I forgot we had his brother on. We had his brother on. His twin brother looked just like him. It's not his twin. Donnie, what was his name? They weren't twins.

No, they weren't twins. They looked exactly alike. Donnie, what was his name? It was so good. Donnie wasn't on the show when we had the brother on. Wait, was it like Scorpius? Oh, was it like Scorpius? It was like John Q or something like that.

Like something. He was like a skateboard. John Scorpio. I think it was like John Scorpio. John the Scorpio John the Scorpio We had John Scorpio John Scorpio music was fire to me

Oh we were I like that John of Scorpio shit John Scorpio I just looked it up Yeah John Scorpio Yeah so you know

Specific type of scary movie that I'm afraid of Is what we're saying Sorry I love scary movies You seen the witch No, is that about Okay,

watch the witch tonight. No. Like, I think A-24 puts out some of the best movies. I'm not watching it, whatever it is, so no. Donnie,

Ashley, have you seen The Witch? It was great. I loved it. I recommended it to my sisters and my mom, and they hated it. But,

but we know something about Donnie. We know that Donnie is a devil worshiper. We like, we do this. We know that Johnny is Donnie, who's right about the supernatural thing Me or Rachel? Oh, you were very right.

Thank you. I sat this around, but I didn't argue. Yeah, Rachel kind of conceded it. But yeah, ghosts and demons, that's supernatural and aliens. I feel like that's extraterrestrial. Extra terrestrial.

You know what I'm saying? Oh, yeah. See what I'm saying, Rachel? Okay, but that movie, isn't that movie called Supernatural? There's a show. Oh, I'm thinking Super 8. I played myself again.

I'll say it this time. I'm not even involved. You're like you're like you're I'm not even involved in this. To be honest with you, I went to dinner last night. And then I flew in from L.A. last night. I went to dinner.

My friend was like, let's go here. And I thought we got home at 11. We got home at like one. I still feel the effects of last night. I'm a little. tired. Do I come on this podcast and play myself from time to time? Even every episode? Absolutely. But today, I'm tired. So I have a new rule about dinner. The only person I break this rule is for Tommy Alter. Tommy Alter comes in. But my rule is you make these dinner reservation,

645, baby. 645. I'm four. 645. We get to dinner. 645. We eat at 645. We eating at 6. 715, 720, home 830, we out. Is over. Why you break it for Tommy? Why would you wait for Tommy? Because Tommy's dinners are always like these grand events. And so you have to break it. You break it for Tommy.

It's like, you say like, you be like Tommy. He's like, oh, man, we got dinner at 830 at this place. Tommy is too late. Yeah, but Miles Davis is going to be there. Yeah. And I'm like, oh, okay. I know Miles Davis is dead, guys. development on Saturday morning

Yes Saturday morning Talk about it Bros Bros with a capital B Me and Brian went and played basketball together at Equinox

Bros We have our own theme song now We're fucking He didn't tell me that What did he tell you? He was sore Very sore Oh no he told me he had a great

time, but he was like, man, I'm so out of shape. I say, yeah, you do weights. You don't do cardio. It's a whole different workout. He was hurting. He was laser in himself, ice in his shoulders. I was like, gee, we also. So we also didn't, I play it a lot longer, but we also didn't get a chance to, like,

warm up, right? It was like, we got up there, we thought we were two games down and we're getting ready and they're like, no, you guys are on now because at Equinox is a little sign-up sheet. We got on there and we did this thing. And then the game, we won. And so I'm like, all right, B, this is what we're going to do, blah, blah, blah. He's like, I'm out. Brian is like, I haven't played in a long time I'm out.

So the goal now is to get me back on the court. So we're going to play some half court. We're going to play some other stuff. But by the time this summer comes, nigger, it's going to be white man can't jump out this bitch. It's going to be, you know what I'm saying? That's Sidney Dean. He'll play COE? I mean, there are ladies that want to play out there at Equinox State on the court.

I'm just saying, like, could I play? Yeah, you can come out there and get dominated. It's not going to be no. Okay, wow. It's not going to be, you know what I'm saying? I think I could hold my own. You think so? Oh, I forget, you're a basketball player.

Of course you could. Yeah, you can hold your own. The original big rage. The original big rage. Please ladies come out there and be hooping. Hooping. Hooping. Giving niggas buckets. I love it.

I'm scrappy. You scrappy? You play, you play, you play a little dirty. Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't have a shot. Like, I don't have a shot. You look like you play good defense. Oh, I tell you who I know who's a scorer, though.

Your sister. Constance, she was. I saw the body. She got the basketball body, the long arms. You know what I mean? She was a shooter. She was a, she could score. She could score.

You'd be busting your ass, huh? I was, no. to be busting your motherfucking ass. I played a little dirty. A little dirty. Constance was better than you. No. We had different skills.

Who scored more points? Constance. I'll give her that. I like to go in and draw the foul. I lived at the free throw line. So she could score and you could draw files. Now, she was busting your ass. No, she was busing.

No, man. Speaking of basketball. I have a scholarship. Okay. You got a scholarship where? University of Texas, Tyler. Oh, that's impressive. No, hold on.

They came to scout somebody else. Don't play yourself? No, I'm laughing because I was going to say University of Texas, pause. No. I, they came to scout somebody else and she was impressed by me. I might have one like my best games ever, though, by the way. One of my best games. and yeah.

That's probably not the only game they recruit you on. They probably said, oh, we want to see more from it. They looked at Georgia stuff. Yeah, she said, yeah, yeah, I sent other stuff, but like I wasn't even trying to.

And then my dad really wanted me to play. And I was like, no. I'm not going over there. Fuck all that. That's actually impressive you at all. All right, big deal of the day is Jaman. But as we do this, we're going to bring in another voice.

And that other voice is Charles Holmes from the Midnight Boys. All right, p, p, p, p, Charles has some thoughts on Jammerant, so we're going to tap Charles in to join us on this, just to infuse a little youthful zuberts. Yeah, I like that.

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Okay, so big deal of the day. Jai Morant. Hashtag save Jai. Grizzlies, Jiamerant out for at least two games. No timeline for his return though. After brandishing the gun on social media. Now, you guys have been paying attention to this. You know, the Jai has been, you know, going

wayward in the minds of some people in the last a couple of weeks. There was an incident, maybe a couple of months. There was an incident where it was alleged that a red pointer was pointed at a member of the Indiana Pacer staff. Some people thought it was that red dot. You know what I'm saying? Coming through the third when niggins get shot, we got a smooth vine.

They ate in infrared dots. That's the hot boys. And then that was an incident where they said that Jop put the 13 piece piece spicy on a 17-year-old kid. Now, we didn't cover that. And the reason why we didn't cover it is because I don't know what. happened there. If they were playing basketball, Joss said the kid walked up on him and he had to

bing bing bing bough. So for me, that's not that big of a deal. So I didn't see anything wrong with it. We have Charles. Okay. I didn't see anything wrong with it. Okay, we'll talk about it. From what I read, supposedly

things got testy. They were checking the ball. He threw it, hit Jahn the face. He tried square up. That's at least what Jah said. And John, his friend, stomped him out. And then Jop showed him a gun because the dude was saying in his house,

y'all, I'm going to light this motherfucker up like fireworks. This is all latched. This is just what I'm reading. I got an issue with it because Joss said it was self-defense, but when you and your homies jump on, jump him, like, it'd be different if he threw a punch, threw the basketball back, they jumped him. No, this is wrong.

Okay, so I don't know what happened. Well, we know that in that situation, there were no charges. No charges. No charges, Rachel. He said, she said. That's why there are no charges. No charges. All right.

also there was a situation where apparently Jai ran down on the head of security at some mall and at the finish line at the finish line so look all of this stuff leads up to I wake up I think it was Saturday morning and the first thing I see is Jai with the Blickenstein in the in the strip club in Memphis he had the blickie on IG Live

the Blyckstini not a great look for Jee. People are like, what fuck's happening with this kid? He's getting in trouble. He's surrounding himself with the wrong people. And now the fallout has been that John Morant is stepping away from the Memphis Grizzlies for a second to, I guess, get his house back in order. We're going to talk about some of the reaction to this a little bit later. But before we do, I brought Charles on. We brought Charles on because Charles has a different perspective.

on what he sees the reaction to job being. I have implored Jock to be more corny to leave the streets behind or whatever. And I'm saying he's even in the streets, but don't even play around. Rachel, I'm assuming how do you feel about what Jod's going through right now? I mean, I definitely don't agree with Charles.

You don't agree. All right, fine. I'll tell everybody what my team is. Go ahead. Whenever I got the floor, man, let me know. No. Yeah. Go ahead. Now, go for it.

All right. So my opinion, no, I woke up today and my greatest fear happened. I already thought that sports media was wild in. But it's bad. Skip Bayliss and Shannon Sharp are on their show discussing whether Jaws really a Crip or not. We got Kendrick Perkins out here talking about Desmond Bain and Jaron Jackson Jr. Should also watch how they talk. all of these things. Very quickly to me, it's devolved into a classic case of respectability politics.

And while I don't condone or agree with how John Morant is going about everything, I think that there needs to be more responsibility about how we talk about this. Because I keep hearing on ESPN and FS1 and on social media and podcasts, all of these terms like giant about that. that life. Jai ain't really hood. Jai ain't this. He's not really hard. And I think as like black journalists, as cultural critics, we have to be very, very, very specific about our language. Because I'll ask you, what does Jha isn't about that life or Jha isn't hood mean? Like I'll as Rachel, Rachel Vann, what does that mean to y'all?

Well, to me, go ahead. He's not he's from the streets or he's not from the streets, I guess, of saying he's not about that life. Like he, he has an easy life. I sent something to the group where somebody had put, um, footage of Jha to the eight mile rap,

Clarence. He basically said, parents had a real good marriage. And he went to a private school. Just like, like he went to a private school. So they were basically saying like he's not familiar with the, the other side of things.

He grew up privileged. So this is what I would say. Um, And, you know, I don't give a fuck whether or not he's about that life or not. I've never said anything about whether or not Jai is about that life. But you will say that has been one of the biggest branches of this whole conversation. What I will say is that. Yes.

I think people have been pointing that out. And there's a reason why. Because if you're not really about that life, as people would say, that means have some proximity to criminality, have some proximity to being in a me or you situation, have some proximity to, two things that realities that sometimes exist in neighborhoods, then you're not aware of the stakes. Then you don't know what can happen to you. You don't understand it.

Yeah. Like you don't, if you are, because there are other players that when things like this happen to them, nobody really bats an eye, right? If this is Zach Randolph during his days or if this is just being for real. Like if there are other players who we are, we, if this is Stephen Jackson, right, then we're aware of kind of who those guys are. So like there really, there really isn't as, in a sense, wasn't,

and they're not as big as stars as giant. That's what I was going to say. I'm not saying that anyone would condone it. But what I'm saying is, I mean, even AI to an extent, remember AI before he got to the NBA, he had spent like a, he spent a year in jail. So a lot of the problems that Alan Iverson was having, people understood that there was going to be a curve

that he was going to have to go through to kind of understand what it meant to be a professional athlete. I think what people are saying, and I'm not one of those people that's saying it, is that for John Morant, there seems to be an excitement or there seems to be a draw to act in a certain sort of way

that's not really grounded in anything. Because if it were grounded in something, you could almost understand it, but what people don't like, and what they sometimes, sometimes take offense to is when you're just playing in the streets because now you know this different than like like Justin Bieber you know what that's where that's where we got to pause because okay my my by the way I'm not by the way I am not hold on I need to stand up so I can get my

stand go but I'm not I'm not I'm not in any way saying that I believe that but when when people say that about people or even about job that's what they're saying So I guess my issue would be is that I think that we have a tendency even amongst the black community to talk about black people like they're a monolith where it's just like it's this secret cabal of people where it's like

you're not really that black or you're not really that hood and if you ask people what those things actually mean what does it mean to be a real nigger what does it mean to be about that life everybody's going to have a thousand different ways of discussing it. So if we're talking about job we need to be specific

are we upset because we feel as if he's been giving this big opportunity and he's squandering it because he's trying to act like he is a he grew up in a more impoverished area than he did that's a specific conversation you're just saying like he's not really hood i know people in my own personal life that are really about that life when i hear that i'm like aren't we just in a cycle of talking about the same toxic masculinity that in the NBA we've been trying to be like we're above where i'm just like everybody who talked about John Morant slips into this discourse about, well,

I'm from the streets or I know real people from the streets and Joss not really like that. And I'm just like, all right, what evidence do you have? What empirical evidence are we all working with as black people to point to which black people can act quote unquote hood and which ones can? Like, that's the

problem. Even the word. I'm saying like, if this was just a conversation between us, we could use that word and have a nuanced conversation about that behind closed doors. When you go on ESPN, when you go on podcasts, when you go in magazines, and you start letting everybody talk about who isn't hood, especially white sports reporters.

That's when I'm like, no, no, no, this is starting to be respectability politics. I thought we had learned our lesson when this happened to AI. That's what I'm vouching for. Let's be specific about what we're pissed off about when we talk about John Miller. The only reason I had an issue with what you had, not what you just said, but when I saw what you put on on Twitter is because it doesn't seem, it seems as if

Jaws not taking, or you are writing off the level of responsibility or maybe the accountability, I should say, that John Morant should have when it comes to this. Like, I don't, I'm not, I'm not as upset as what people are having to say. It's like, especially, like, did you see what Jalen Rose had to say?

Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I thought what he said was great. And I also like the discourse of when people are saying we don't understand, acknowledging, we have no idea what he's going through. We have no idea what kind of pressure he's under. We have no idea what it's like. And that's why what Jalen said was so great to go in as one way into the draft and come out as a millionaire and then have this level of responsibility where you have to be this leader for your family and for your friend group and this provider. And that's a lot of pressure that you put on yourself. So I don't think the discourse has been all bad. I understand what you're saying. about some of it has. And I don't like when we jump to assumptions,

which you mentioned Skip Bayliss, and I know we'll get into that later. But when there's an assumption like that, I'm not for. But when I saw your tweet, it made it seem like we can write this off as something else and that it seems like everyone's against JAA rather than Jod taking some type of accountability.

That's what it felt like a little bit to me. So let's read the, because he's not innocent. Let's read the tweet real quick. This is the tweet. And the tweet wasn't bad. it was, it was not bad tweets. It's just like a really thought of a booking tweet.

So yeah, so don't, so stop coming at my man about his tweets. How about that? No, Rachel. He doesn't feel that way. I know, so it's what's that. So the tweet says, I don't know it's start. I don't know spelled I.O. N-N-O.

I don't know. It's starting to smell a little bit, a little too much like respectability politics in here. Young people do dumb shit at millions of dollars. and celebrity culture to the equation and they're prone to do even more dumb shit. At a certain point, the thirst to see some punitive justice gets weird.

Chuck, your response to what Rachel was just saying and I'm going to jump in for a little bit. So I think that I'm not trying to say that John Morant should not face responsibilities or shouldn't face repercussions for what he's done. What I'm advocating for is

is that I think we have this idea in our that by black people being a celebrity, they're automatically supposed to be a role model. They're automatically supposed to be a revolutionary. That's not true. I would argue with you. Most 23-year-olds are not in a position

to actually be a role model. Now, you look at how much money jive is making. You look at all of the endorsements, and you're like, but yeah, he's risking this all. And what I would ask y'all is this. How many dumb motherfuckers, young motherfuckers do we know in our life? Now, did them finally coming into a certain amount of money make them great at decision-making overnight? No.

Also, black people fail every day. Black people in my personal life, I know black people who are failing right now. If John Morant, let's take this to its logical conclusion if it doesn't change his actions. Let's say the worst happens, Jah goes to jail, Jah loses all of his money, he squanders this great opportunity that he was given. It will suck. I will feel bad. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to see that happen.

But it's not a national tragedy. Black people fail every day, and I don't see us crying. Like, at a certain point, he's either going to rise to the standard that people have for him, or he's not. And he's going to face the repercussions of that. Us having a national conversation as black people being like, oh my gosh, this John Morant thing,

he's damaging the cause. I'm like, if John Morant is going to stop black people from doing what we was doing, the cause wasn't as strong. I thought it was. That's all I'm saying. You know one reason why God put Charles in my life? Why I love Charles?

It's because Charles lets me see what a couple of years has done to me. Okay? I'm like through Charles. Charles is 29. Well, 30. Just turned 30. Just turned 30. Mazel Tov.

I am 42. And through my relationship with Charles and the Midnight Boys and some of the other younger brothers that I have in my life, I get to see what a little living does to you. And I'll tell you why. So it wouldn't matter if John Morant was the point guard for the Memphis Grizzlies, whether John Morant was an actor or whether John Morant was anything else. if John Morant was a kid at that age that I had any type of relationship with, and I thought that I could have an opinion on his life, which is a part of this, right? Jaumaran is a celebrity,

so that means that people are going to have an opinion on what he does. Opinions, who can make jokes, yeah. Yeah, if John Morant was my little brother, if he was my little cousin, if he was anybody, right? And it struck me, I would tell him, yo, pump your brakes and slow down.

And so he wouldn't have to be Jameran. rent. The reason why I would do that is because for me, it is such a tragedy. It's a gigantic tragedy. It's a profound tragedy because it's useless. It's for no reason. If you're telling me right now that you live in a place where you got to move this or that to make your life work, or you got to carry this or that to make your life work, I'm going to try to make you do. better. I'm going to try to make you be the rows that grew through the concrete, but I'm going to do that entire thing, understanding that your reality might dictate something that you can't escape. But if you do escape it, or if you were never ended in the first place, as an older black man

who's been to dozens of funerals, that's not an exaggeration. As an older black man that's got to call, yo, George is dead, Jason's dead, Teffers dead. You know what I'm saying? Delvin's dead. Like, as a black man that's got that, I can't let you do it. I got at least to say something

because I know that it's a bunch of kids that are the same age now as what they were, their fathers were when they died. And I see them and I see their fathers. And I really do. I'm not even bullshit. I see them and I see their fathers.

It's a whole bunch of kids now, 18, 19, 20 years old. That's the same age now as they were when I saw their father's murder. When I saw their fathers locked up. And so for me, it's not even about whether or not it has anything to do with the cause of blackness. I don't care how Jira Morant reflects on America's image of the young black male. Couldn't care less. America is going to think. what they think about young black males no matter what.

I care about the future of John Morant's life. And I care about it because that's the player that people are going to relate to. That's the guy with the big ass smile that didn't come from the huge school. They had to grind and scrap and literally jump over niggers that dunk on them to get what he had. That's the guy with the tats and the dreadlocks and all. of that that plays the way that the that the culture enjoys that's the kid like I love him I've never met John Moran before but I love seeing him out there I am sick of watching them wasted and for me I'm not going to go out there and say oh you're not about that life I don't know what life he's about

I don't know what happened before I don't know if he could have been the biggest gangster in the world he could have been to not it wouldn't matter if he was I know he doesn't have to be right now. I know that whatever was happening before, it doesn't have to be right now. And I'm not going to judge you. I'm not going to moralize with you because I certainly can't do that. But as an older man, an older black man who sees what happens, not just to you, but to your kids, to your wife or baby mothers, to your mother. I know black women that still wake up in the morning pacing black back and forth because they call names out and they don't and nobody answers. When I was on the road with hip hop homicides, I talked to eight mothers, eight mothers who never, ever, ever get to see their kids again over some bullshit. I sat on Soldier Slim's porch and talked to his mama.

His room's still upstairs. It's just not worth it. So to me, I couldn't give a fuck less whether or not he's about that life. I couldn't give a fuck less whether or not he playing in the streets. I just care about whether or not he's okay. And I want Jaman and all my young brothers, whether they can shoot or not, I just want them to be okay. So I really want to ask you this. I really want to ask you this, though, yeah.

Sure. I want that too. I think one of the most beautiful things that black people, have out of necessity is that when one of us makes it out, when we see our celebrities, it means more to us because we intrinsically know how hard it was to get out. Like, yeah. But what I'm not saying that it would not be a tragedy if everything goes left for John Moran. But I'll ask both Rachel Vann, do you guys know people personally in your own life where

as much as you talk to them, you're like, yo, at the end of the day, it's like, it's your choice. Like there's only so much you can say. Like, that's what I'm saying. I don't know Jaws at that point yet. But if Jod wants to change, that has to be him. And this, this, the media circus around us wanting him to change on our schedule is a little ridiculous. Because if you know anything, especially with young black men, everything that is ingrained in us as a society, how much we are beaten down, the toxic masculinity that it takes to get to the NBA.

is not something you unlearn just because you have $100 million in your bank account. It's just not any that it takes to get to the NBA, nigga, what is you talking about? Anyway, look. Wait, no, no, but I'll ask you. Can I ask you? The same thing that we were, the same thing that we were cheering John Morant for doing that was cute two years ago, his whole life, the stubborn, bullheadedness, the feeling that you are the greatest, the feeling that nobody can say anything to you.

triple that because you're a celebrity now, triple that because you have money. It's cute when you're going against the warriors and you're an underdog. It's not so cute now. So can he unlearn that in a year? Probably not. And like it's okay if we see him fail.

It just can't be a national tragedy when he does. I think it depends how he fails. Like when I, it depends. When you say he can fail or it's going to be a year or whatever you said, however long it takes, I think it depends what that looks like.

He can't. Do you understand what I mean? Oh, I mean, I don't want to see him in prison. I don't want to see anybody killed. I don't want to see anybody hurt. Like, yes, there are degrees to it. But I do think that we have this thing that happens in real life. And the perfect example is when you start going to therapy,

not only do you, but everybody else is just like, all right, when's the change going to happen? When's the change going to happen? You get impatient. Like, we think, we think, because John Morant is a millionaire, because this is how we think about a lot of rich black people. We think about a lot of rich black celebrities.

Like, they're smarter than they are. They're going to make better decisions than they are, just because they have money. And I'm like, just because you have money isn't a solve or a magic elixir meeting, you're not going to make dumb decisions. Like, he's 23. Yeah.

Like, because I'll ask you guys this. How many 23, 23-year-olds in your life right now do you think if they came into, even a million dollars would make the best decision. Man, Jomi would be so out of here, bro, if you got... Is Jomi 23? Jomi 24, 25? Yeah, no, you're saying that now,

with the first IG Honey and them DMs, you don't know. Jomey, if Jomey got a hundred million, Jomey would be so fucked up, man. Jomey would be the worst version of Jomey that type of money. Like, Jomey, Kai might be all right. See, well, color is the white. Why would I be all right?

Why would Kai be all right? Because he likes to be like to get him? Guy might be all right. Jomi would be fucked if he got that much money. Leave Jome. Leave Jome alone. Out of here. Charles, I think the thing is that when people get a lot of money,

I think the hope, too, is that with that comes resources. You know, so like, or you surround yourself with people who might know what you don't know. I think that's what you think will happen. Not that. Wait. All right, honestly, because you're a real celebrity. how many celebrities you know

want to be surrounded by motherfuckers who's going to give them good advice who's going to push back on them who's going to be like hey you're wrong how many celebrities no no no no no

not that part not the latter not pushing back and saying that you're wrong I'm saying like but that push you to like give you more knowledge

about things and make more money or in that regard yes but no most celebrities want to be surrounded by yes people I will agree to that yes

I understand that's that's what's happening with Jaws there's how many people in Jaws camp are like Hey man, put the blicky down. And, you know. That's why we got to do it.

So look, so this is my thing. I'm going to be real with you. I think that maybe there's a simplification to all of this thing. You see somebody, especially in the culture, just for me, you see somebody getting a little bit off their square little tug with love, with love. Less John Singleton. That's all I want from the old. No, no.

No, no, I'm saying. No, no, I'm saying. What I'm saying is with love. With love. The yay shit at TMZ. That's with love. Hey, brother, you a genius. Amen.

Like, you're great. I realize you're great. Can you not fuck over us with love? Now, there have been certain other times, even on this podcast, that maybe I could have been a little bit more loving. Okay. I'm just being for real. But with love.

And so, you know, I would be, just one time I was driving, I'm driving in the car with my dad. my dad's like, hey son, it's what you remember. Nobody knows their Bible as well as Satan. And I'm like, I'm going to my ninth birthday party. We had McDonald's. Like what, what is the, you know what I mean? Like what's the, what's the message?

Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, what's the like, what are you talking about? But he was just always, the older men in my life, they were just always trying to better me. You know, they were just always trying to better me. They were just always trying to better me. So for me, I think you're making a fantastic point. I think the point is if we're going to talk about John Morant or any young brother that we feel like is in crisis, there is a way to do it that is culturally responsible.

Yeah. And there is a way to do it that is centering ourselves. Okay. What I want, and I meant what I said in the video, I want everybody to understand that there is nothing wrong. with living a safe life. I'm not, I'm not, when I was 23, I was in the clubs, I was doing all of that. But there's nothing wrong with safely and legally protecting what it is that you have. I'm also not going to excoriate you if there are certain realities that you come from

that you don't just wake up one morning and can't, you know, shake them. Yeah, it takes time. I think for me, when I see what's happening with Jai, when I see what. what's happening with anybody, you just want to make sure that these brothers know that we love them and that what we're trying to do in the long run is maybe help them by giving them some game of knowledge that they might not be able to see.

Now, to Charles's point, somebody made a great point in Charles's point. Somebody reaffirmed Charles's whole message this morning Skeletor himself Skip Bayliss I talked about his looks I'm sorry I'm talking about his looks I'm sorry

I'm sick of this motherfucker I don't give a fuck what y'all say I'm sick of this motherfucker I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that I'm talking about I'm sick of him I'm sick of him run the video okay so I've called around the league to people I've known forever

talking about job because I was so shocked by the IG live how brazen it was and I had several people say to me well time out are you sure you guys on TV aren't giving him a pass here, like you're not that? They're asking me, are you sure he's not that? Like he, that's just who he is, that he is about that life. And remember, he's thrown up the Crips sign. I've seen him throw it up two or three times.

I probably missed some other times. What does that mean? Does that mean he wants to associate with the Crips or he got initiated by the Crips or he just, he has a dream of being a Crip? I don't know. I'm just throwing this out that are we missing the boat here that that's just who he's been from the start and we keep saying no, you're just associated with the wrong people when he's actually part of

the wrong people. Is that Skip, that, you know what, Skip, you and the people that you talk to might be 100% correct. But that makes it even more agreeous. It does. Because you got out. You got out. Charles?

See, this is what happened. Like, this is the slippery-ass slope where I'm just like, black people getting too comfortable and they let white people run away. I'm like, come on, man. There's a way we could talk about this without getting into, this starting to seem like the AI shit all over again, where what people a lot of times are really saying

is that I'm going to get very insinbiary for all the basketball heads out there. I think that because we invest so much money, so much time, so much heart and emotion into black players. We can play them in our video games. We can follow them on social media. We feel an ownership over them. Like they are a product. Like we can control them. We can in some ways when we're playing video games, control them.

And the minute that we can't, it's very, very fast. So we start slipping into respectability politics, it's racist rhetoric, into wondering on live television, whether he's a Crip or not. Like, what the fuck are we doing? Black people didn't do that. That was. Skip Bayless. No, but what I'm saying is. No, did you not hear what Shannon had to say?

Shannon agreed. And like, Shannon agreed. Exactly. I love Shannon Sharp. Like, he's a legend, don't get me wrong. But there has to be a point where we're like, hey, on live television, we are not going to debate whether one of the greatest basketball players on the earth is a crippler. Well, first of all, first of all, number one, I agree.

Shout out to all my loks out there. Shout out to all of my crips. I love y'all. Okay. Glasses. A.D. everybody out there. Shout out to all their loks. That fuck with me, I fuck with y'all.

All right. So I'm not about to say Crip like it's a bad word. Kids don't join gangs. And glasses and AD know that I feel that way. Don't join a gang. But whatever. Now, that wasn't somebody black. That was Skip Bayless and then it was Shannon Sharp. This is what I'll say.

What I'll say about that. What I'll say about that is that's preposterous. That is disrespectful. That's, dare I say, anti-black. Um, Skip Baylis doesn't have, Skip Baylis, before you go on a show with asking the question

whether or not John Moran is a Crip. You need to have much more substantive, uh, uh, knowledge or proof that he is in any way gang affiliate. Yeah. In any way gang affiliate. That's a,

a big, irresponsible accusation that is a type of accusation that puts a stigma on a young player that puts him in a specific place with his organization with brands that might want to deal with him

I'm not saying that Jai hasn't done a great job of that already himself but what I'm saying is that's the era that we're in when that passes off as a constructive conversation on television. The constructive conversation to me surrounding Jai John Morant is one that's had out of people who care, not just about Jamerant, but about any

young brother or sister that might be in that situation. And anybody who came through that has been adjacent to that. I don't think that is wrong to have the conversation about whether or not there's a better way to do things like that. I think it's necessary to have it. And I think we have to have it culturally. I do agree, Charles, that we have to have it in the right way. But at the same time, there's another type of respectability that I don't like.

The type of respectability that I don't like is us shying away from having needed and necessary cultural conversations because we are concerned about what white people might think about those conversations that we are having. They don't give a fuck about what we think when they're talking to each other. and we can't give a fuck about what they think when we're talking to each other. Now, if we're talking and acting as proxy for them, like you're embarrassing us in front of white people, that's a problem. But if I'm as a brother using whatever medium

or platform or forum that I have to in good faith having a conversation about what I think is good for black people, looking for what white people think about it. And I think to your point, anybody that was trying to say that they're better than Jai, that's wrong. But anybody that was trying to say

they walk better from Jai, there's just nothing wrong with that. But even Skip saying, like he said something to the effect of, maybe Jha was one of the bad ones all along because he might have been a crib. That even to me is a problematic statement. Because if you know,

just because you're a gang member, like, sorry, kids, doesn't mean you're a bad person. I know a lot of people. That's facts. Like, there are crips that, hey, went down a wrong path. They were a gang member.

Let me find out Charles a loke. Charles, man, Charles. Why are you from, Charles? Charles, bro. Where are you from? Charles? Tell me what Charles. What are you from, bro?

You from Atlanta? Charles. Where are you from, brother? You from 7th Street? I read the Midnight Boys, Reddit's and Facebook. Charles, where are you from, bro? Charles, what are you from?

What are you doing? What are we doing? Santana, Blank, what are you from? George, where you from, bro? Tharles, shit up. Let me. But like, why are we? Shannon, Shannon should know better.

Shannon, why are you on live television? Being like friends are like the worst people on the planet. Like, it's not Shannon's best moment. Shout out to. All right. Charles, it's not Shannon's best one. Charles, you know, I love you.

We got a pod on Wednesday. Check me and Charles out right now in the prestige TV podcast. Thank you so much for having me. And, Rache, I want to say you're a legend for dealing with my boy. Check out Charles and I Wednesday morning also Episode 2 of the Mandalorian

We are out here cooking All right last of us You guys What? I was at the premiere What And Charles Van gets so upset by this

Because he's like You are not the right person Who should be doing interviews on these carpets I talk to everybody I talk to Den Give me somebody else Oh

No No No I say I I talk to Carl Weathers. I talk to... Okay, who else is in it?

You did call him D. You did call him Dinn. That's a point. D. Dend. Okay. Who else? Bokie.

Bo? I talked to Bo. I talked to the Armourer. The armor. I was at the premiere to. Bring me on. Midnight boys plus one. Peace.

See y'all Wednesday. See each other. Everybody has been talking about this the whole weekend. Let's be honest. Okay. Let's be honest. Everyone's been discussing this. It's all everybody wanted to talk about.

Selective outrageous is the name. Whatever, Rachel, you know? There's been so many things people are talking about this weekend. Sorry. I was like, what's the talking? So are you saying that? So are you saying right now that... Literally, three things people have been talking about this weekend.

Give it to me. Give it to me. One, Cree, three, Jonathan Majors. Nah. Yep, he's everywhere. Everybody's talking about it. Two, this, what you're going to say, Chris Rocks, Netflix special. And three, Tom and Ariana from Van der Pumper Rules.

That's all everybody's been talking about this weekend. Three things. Circles are you hanging out in that people are talking about Tom and Ariana from Vanderpump Rules. We don't talk about it. Everywhere. I didn't see. Hey, man, you know what? I don't even watch the show.

I stand corrected. You're right. I don't know nothing about it. When the fuck do we talk about Vandipump Rules on this? podcast and we're even going to talk about it. It's everywhere. All right, cool. We'll talk about it. But I don't, I don't know who to fuck these people. I did watch Potomac last night though.

And I tell you, I did watch the Potomac. Colico watch the Potomac reunion. And, man, Chris bothered me, man. I'm a Jazeel stand. So that's a mic drop moment. I'm a Jazeel stand. I'm on Jazeel's off. Not this season. Not this season. Jazeel remind me of my people.

All right. So, okay. So you do have a point. By the way, shout out to Michael B. Jordan, Tessa Thompson, Jonathan Majors, Wood Harris, and the entire team from Creed 3

on a fantastic opening weekend. They were hoping for 50, 58 domestic, 100 million worldwide. See? Everybody's talking about it. Fucking Jordan is in the building.

As a star and as a director man. Yep. So happy and proud for those brothers. And by the way, it's a great movie. So go see it. It's a great movie. Go see it. Everybody's talking about it.

Thank you. Whatever. Okay, cool. Rachel, point taken. What some people are talking about is Chris Rock's Netflix special selective outrage. Okay? He addressed the Oscars Slap Selective Outrage. It was live streaming, which is.

something new. It was live. We don't typically see comedy specials that are live. Sometimes they take comedy specials and they run them back two or three times and the best one, you know, you might do two or three different tapings. The best one you do is the one that they release. Sometimes they use parts of one, another part of another one, you know, but you'll normally see them streamed live. And, you know, you have. everybody talking because this is the comedy special where he finally addressed the slap of the Oscars last year.

Rachel, did you watch Selective Outrage? I watched some of it, but here's the thing. I went, remember I went to the live show in L.A. with Chappelle and Chris Rock. So, I pretty much saw most of this already. I can't remember if we talked about it or not on the podcast, but I saw most of it.

He wore the same outfit. It was the same thing. I saw it. So what you asked me? Would I think about it? And I already seen it. So, I mean, It was, I'm not a big Chris Rock fan. Okay. But I was saying, I hesitated on saying that. Not a huge fan, but I actually enjoyed this special.

And I like the whole theme, selective outrage. I like the things that he talked about. I liked how he addressed selective outrage. I like how he implemented the Will Smith part of it. I thought that was good, too. I particularly enjoyed the Megan Markle of it all. Because I think she said, I think he said what a lot of people are too afraid to say when it comes to Megan Markle.

So I found it interesting and I found it funny and I found it to be true. I did not agree with him on MJ and R. Kelly. But I thought that it was a really, I thought it was a really smart special. And this is coming from someone who isn't like I like Chris Rock, but, you know, and some of the things that he's, done, but I'm not a huge fan of his stand-ups. I actually enjoyed this one. And I thought that the timing was perfect for it when it came out. He waited at the right time, and he brought good topics to address in my opinion.

Chris Rock is a B-plus. Chris Rock is a legendary comedian. This special wasn't funny, and that's okay. I actually thought it was funny. It wasn't funny at all, and that's okay. Number one, it was preachy, boring. Man. I'm just being for real.

Like, Chris Rock is a legendary talent as a comic. This special wasn't any good. And that's okay. It doesn't change anything about who Chris Rock is. In my opinion, Chris Rock is still the guy who changed comedy back in all of that, biting social criticism. it's not funny at all and that's okay. Really?

Yeah, man. You didn't find any parts funny. There were a couple of chuckles maybe, but for me, like, I thought there's a way to do, hey,

society's gone crazy and everybody's sensitive, right? It's fine. He comes off a little bit. I don't know if Chris Rock, to me when I watched it, it doesn't seem like,

Chris Rock knows who he is right now. I'll just be honest with you. I watch Chris Rock talk about paying for pussy for an entire section of the pocket. He's 58 years old. Yeah. He's 58 years old. I watch Chris Rock talk about the fact that he

loves his kids, but he doesn't like him. And then I'll watch him tell a whole story. And at the end of it, talk about how much he likes his kids. So to me, there was it was compelling the part that uh and it was it was brave for him to do it live juggling everything that's going on for him

and maybe the fact that there's so much on him right now is why his rhythm seemed a little bit off is why he flubbed a couple of jokes not just a joke during the Will Smith section and why it sometimes felt like he didn't quite know what he wanted to say right he both sides a bunch of issues in the whole thing

and it just didn't seem to be a clear he was selective in my opinion So I again I saw it live and I will say what I saw was better than I saw I got through like maybe more than halfway of the Netflix special

what I saw was better than what I saw on the special so I'm putting the two together but what would you say he was both signing What was the topic that he both? So he kind of both sides of abortion a little bit. Now, I found the abortion thing interesting. Yeah, you like it. Because no, it made me uncomfortable, to be honest with you.

And he definitely, I don't think he both sides it. I think he's actually pro-life. I don't give a fuck whether or not he's pro-life. The only thing that I care about is if you both-sided it. And if you make jokes that they are biting and funny and that they have some sort of power to them. And Chris Rock did not seem powerful on the stage during selective outrage. Once again, I'm not a fucking comedian. I am looking at this as a consumer.

You know what I mean? I'm looking at this as a consumer. I just wasn't that entertained. However, that does not mean that there weren't parts of it that were very compelling. because, of course, he was going to discuss the whole Will Smith, a slap at the Oscars. Okay, of course, he was going to discuss that. And I said that it was brave for him to go out there and do it live

because I'm certain that there are a lot of emotions after having something, honestly, guys, that traumatic happened to you in front of that many people televised like that, that he probably had to confront. And for an artist to go up there and do that, that is commendable. It's very brave. Absolutely.

But for me, if we're just talking about what we thought about the special, like, I heard a lot of ideas that I've been hearing from everybody. Everybody's sick of everybody's let white supremacy, like co-op the word wokeness. And now everybody is all bad. Everyone's going too far. They want their rights. And God, God forbid. And that's fine.

Like, I hear other comedians do that. and it's just better than what I heard Chris Rock do it. However, the Will stuff was kind of compelling. I'm going to play, we're going to play a little bit of it right now. It was only like the last 10, 15 minutes of the show. Donnie gave me a little bit. And his wife was fucking her son's friend, okay? Normally would not talk about this shit.

But for some reason, these niggas put that shit on the internet. I don't know why two talented people would do something that fucking lowdown. fuck. We all been cheated on, everybody in there have been cheated on, none of us have ever been interviewed by the person that cheated on us on television. It's like, hey, I was sucking somebody else's dick. How did that make you feel? Heard him way more than he hurt me, okay? Okay? Everybody in the world called him a bitch. I tried to call the motherfucker and give him my those hand pick up for me everybody called that man a bitch fucking shalerman called him a bitch and the breakfast club call him a bitch and the view and the talk and every rapper and and fucking

the drink champs called him a fucking bitch everybody called him a bitch they called his wife a predator everybody called him a bitch me went on to call Jada Pinkett a bitch Jayda Pinkett Smith, he called her a bitch in the stand-up. And he finished it with a joke

or a statement, a mic-drop statement. Donnie played that. I don't think I get it. You don't get... Wait, you don't get the last part, or you just now you're speaking in general about the whole selective outrage special. So look,

people are it's interesting there are some of the responses that I that I've seen and tell me because I haven't seen any of it are they are they like you are they like me well no I'm not talking about

whether or not people thought it was funny or not doesn't bother me that's like that's so subjective you know what I mean it's so subjective some people might have been it might have been side splittingly funny to them some people might not just that happens with everything right you know people love the movie

Babylon. People hate the movie Babylon. I don't care whether I people think it was funny. But the reaction to the content of it is interesting. People thinking that in some way it was wrong for Chris Rock to get on the stage and give it to Will Smith. Will Smith smacked the shit out of Chris Rock in front

of the entire world. Chris Rock, the least he can do is have his fucking say about it. Now, what I will say is this. And I looked for this. Jada Pinkett Smith didn't do anything to Chris Rock. Even when he talks about the fact that she wanted him to boycott the Oscars because of a will not getting nominated for a concussion, I mean, even that, it's like, sort of innocuous. It's like,

okay, you ask somebody to do something, they don't do it. It's fine. Like, if they had such a precarious relationship, then why would he even make a joke about her at the Oscars? Things must have been at least kind of all right. So to call her a bitch, is really odd to me when she didn't come back after this and say, yeah, he deserved it. Or not that I saw. Or maybe somebody else saw something like, yeah, he deserved to smack the shit out there. And then I told him. As a matter of fact, Will smacked Chris.

People blame Jada. And you can say whatever you want about how you feel about Jada and Will's relationship, right? It's obviously been odd. Will smacked Chris, people blame Jada. Yeah. And then Chris blamed Jada when it was Will that smacked him. You mean Chris blamed Jada in this? To me, it's like I'm not the person that you really wanted to hit.

You're mad at her so you hit me. I'm not the person that you're mad at. See, I agree with him calling her a bitch. to me, that was unnecessary. But the rest of it made sense to me because I felt like he was saying all of that to explain what made Will get up on that stage. What made Will have selective outrage

is basically what he was saying. So that all made sense to me, right? Your anger was misdirected. You weren't mad at me. You were mad at her and what she did. And so whether I agree with that or not, it made sense to me. Like, I get it.

I don't get the bitch of it all. And I don't think he was blaming her. I just think he was saying, y'all have your own shit. Everybody's talking about it. I haven't even touched that. But you want to get mad at me when everybody was out here

coming at you and calling you all kinds of names. I can see that. Yeah. Calling you all kinds of names for that. And I said nothing. I make this small joke. And you're coming at me. Your anger's misdirected.

So I understood the buildup to where he was getting to. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. I can see that. That definitely makes a lot of sense. Other than that, it's really not that much talk to talk about. Comedian does comedy special.

Yeah. Says things. I don't think there's a lot of, you know what I mean? I don't know if there's anything deeper. I don't, you know, for those of you, you know, calling Jada Pinka the bitch, I've seen other comedians do that. They want to roast Jada Pinkett says that. Yeah.

Jada Pinkett did not smack the shit out of Chris Rock. She didn't. She didn't. She didn't smack the shit out of Chris Rock. She didn't. She didn't smack them. She didn't smack them. as far as him not reacting on stage because he was raised right

I don't know how that nigga was raised but I must have been raised wrong I was I was raised right and I would have fought back you was raised not to smack somebody that directly threatens your safety oh I just thought we were saying that in general and no I was taught to fight back always not a tough guy but you go upside my head we gotta get busy I don't give a fuck And all of that, don't fight in front of white people.

That reason would have gone out the window. We could be at Jesus's birthday party. Like literally. Yeah. In heaven. You smack me in my shit. I got to at least try. Absolutely.

I would ask Jesus to hold a piece of cake. I'm not tough guy at all, but we got it. We got to get busy. You got to, we got to get semi busy. We got to get antsy. You know what I mean? We got to get like irritated. If not, if not busy,

at least irritated, you know. But at the same, at the same time, though, I don't think that there's anything bitch made about the way that he handled it. You know what I mean? Or I don't think, I'm not saying that he's soft. That shows a lot of strength, to be honest with you. Self-control. Not to retaliate in that instance.

But, you know, I don't think. That wouldn't be nice. The rest of us that were raised, you know, don't say that you was raised. We were all raised. Some of us were raised. to put that foot in the motherfucker ass that smacks your mouth. And that was, and that's right to me.

At least try. You know what I mean? Because you might still get your ass whooped, right? Because like, you know, Will might have put them on Chris, but you at least got to try. That's the sound of Chris

getting smacked up. Bing, ping bow! You know, like, Will just hit it with the left. For some reason, the sound wasn't coming through

when you were doing all of that. It was just you moving your mouth. We'll hit him with the left right. Bing bow. Okay. Moving on. This episode is brought to you by Sweet Green. The day doesn't ask for permission.

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Garlic aoli. Crumbled bacon. Corn salsa. Forty grams of protein. Made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweet green wraps hit different. Order now at order. dot sweetgreen.com. 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 to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 US-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum Business. So visit at spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. Before we get out of here, we're going to give you guys a little bit more podcasts. We have Damon Young from Very Smart Brothers.

That's the way I came to know, Damon Young. He is a humorist, a satirist, an author, a podcaster, an all-around brilliant guy. We interviewed him. It is going to run now. Tap in, listen to Damon Young. All right, this is a treat for me, for us here on higher learning. The gentleman that we're having on right now is one of the sharpest, funniest brothers in the entire world. Well, I've actually been a fan of for a very long time.

His name is Damon Young. He's a writer, editor, and a humorist. He's the co-founder of a staple website called Very Smart Brother. He has been brothers, should I say? I said it, the white way. my bad. Appreciate it. I'm sorry to the culture. He was a contributing editor,

a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and a columnist for GQ. This is credits on credits on credits. So weekly contributing columnist for the Washington Post in January 22. He's the creator and host of a podcast with Cricket Media. Shout out to the people over at Cricket

called Stuck with Damon Young and he is the author of what doesn't kill you makes you blacker. Hell of a title. A memoir in essence. which won the 2020 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

I wrote a book. It won nothing. Okay? Same. It won nothing. Join us today on our learning. Is the good brother, Damon Young, how are you doing?

I'm good. I'm happy to be here. You know what I mean? A funny part about like the book, the book thing is like, and I'm sure you probably experienced this too, is like a lot of the shit, the year your book released,

you found yourself getting up set about not being nominated awards. You didn't even hear about until you found out you weren't nominated for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I had to go, I went through that, and I feel like every first time author goes through that shit, and it's still fuck with me.

Yeah, it was weird, like, you'll be like, you'll see people as like five people, pictures of their books, they're looking all happy. They're like, these people are up for the Porky Pig award in literature. And I'll be like, you call your publisher, be like, yeah, man. we didn't get the fucking no no love from the porky pig no love from the porky pig and you know i'm gonna keep it above with y'all man i'm not doing well i um i rushed here i was at the gym and i stopped at mcdonald's because i knew there wasn't going to be any food at home and i got mcdonald's dinner for the first time i get macdonald's breakfast but i got mcdonald's dinner for the first time in at least like five or six years in this quarter pounder it it feels like i ate like the toxic cloud that is above ohio right now right

now. Like that shit is in my mouth. So I'm not doing well right now. So I'm so sorry for you. I'm so sorry. I used to have a what I called a power meal. And it was a double quarter pounder with cheese, supersized fries. And one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, 19, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 nuggets. Okay. That's a power meal. That was the power meal. My mom, like, I, the nuggets would be. for the ride home, right? And then I would eat the double quarter. And I'm just, even the sight of

a McDonald's now, which they're never going to fucking advertise with us now. But the site of a McDonald's now, my shit is all fucked up. Are you going to be able to do this interview, dog? I'll be good. I mean, what you mentioned, that's some Jonathan majors type shit. Like that I mean, I get all brolic. So, you know, yeah, I'm

good. I'm good. I'm good. Because, Damon, I've never eaten a McDonald's before in my life. We talked about this. So I don't even know what that feels like. I don't believe. No? It's impossible. I've had a, I've had fries only. I swear to you I've only have fries. My parents never like, let's go to McDonald's.

I don't believe that. It's there's no way. I was such a picky eater. I would just refuse to eat. I was like, I'm not eating there. We just meant you already laughed. Like, we just never said, but this ain't all through good start. I'm just odd.

Damon, let's let's, let's talk about. you. I have a broad question for you. Funny and black. A very talented lady named Amanda Seals has has a she has a game show that she does.

It's really brilliant. It's called Smart Funny and Black. And I would tell Seals in the past, I would say that name is just smart, funny, and black. It completely describes like who she is. Smart Funny and Black describes who you are. A lot of your humor though is in criticism of things that you see that don't work for black people.

Sometimes black people are what you are critiquing. How hard is it to walk the line between funny and meaningful for you? So I've been asked this question a few times, right? You know, throughout the years, based on my blog, based on my book, whatever. And I always struggle for an answer. But then I heard

Michaela Cole, you know, the creator of I May Destroy You, genius, brilliant show, whatever, she's a genius, right?

And, you know, if you've seen that show, it deals with this very serious subject matter, consent, assault,

you know, just a very, very sober, serious subject matter, but it's also really funny. And she was in there, I forgot who she was being interviewed by it might have invoked

or someone like that. And they asked her, why would you insert humor in such a, like, terrible, heavy circumstance. And she was like, I'm paraphrasing, I don't insert humor.

I just don't remove it. Right. And when she said that, I was like, you know, that's it. That's it right there. That's the answer because that's just the way I look at the world. You know, I mean? And that's always been my sensibility.

That's always been, you know, I've always been in the get ahead jokes in his head. I've always been an introvert. You know what I mean? So I always had like the stories and the jokes and all that in my head, right? And again, that's just always been a way that I process and assessed and synthesize all of the information that I consume.

You know what I mean? So for me to not be funny, even when I'm talking about white supremacy, even when I'm talking about getting doxed two years ago, you know what I mean? When I'm talking about, if I weren't, if I didn't find the humor in some of that shit, then it wouldn't be me. What humor do you find? Maybe it's not even humor. When it comes to critiquing things you love,

or we've talked about this on the podcast, you're a Steelers fan, the Cowboys fan. Are you, you consider yourself a Saints fan? Yeah, well, for a sense fan. We talk about on this podcast, quite a bit about the NFL, the love or the hate we have for it,

and whether or not we should continue to support it. You've touched on this a bit. Where do you stand with this? How do you reason watching, and maybe you stop, but watching the, no, I know you didn't because on your recent podcast, you talk about watching the Super Bowl. How do you deal with this? How do you reason it? I mean, I'm human, right?

Like, I mean, we just opened with me talking about I just left the gym and I stopped a motherfucking McDonald's. So I'm full of contradictions, paradoxes, paradoxical ass, nigga. That's, I mean, I feel like that's who we are. Yeah. And so, you know, I think that I'll admit that my interest in the NFL has waned, like, considerably. And I play football also, you know what I mean? And the thing that was the, I guess, the turn of point, the tipping point or whatever was when Ryan Chazir almost died, basically on the field.

You know, and I was watching that game, I think it was like a, it was either like a Monday night or a Thursday night, one in a game that they shouldn't even be playing. You know what I mean? And from that point on, I was like, you know what, I can't support this league as a whole, but I'm going to still support my stillers because, you know, Born and Bray-Pissburger, and, you know, that's just that they inject that shape of blood. And I've had to acknowledge that I'm complicit to, that all of my complaints, all of my, you know, rights about the NFL and the treatment of the players and CTE and unguaranteed contracts, even that bullshit they used to do with breast cancer awareness of all of that.

As long as I continue to watch, you know, I mean, then my complaints, my critiques are valueless. And so I think that, you know, just getting back to the point about my perspective and visibility and look at the world with humor, if I don't look at myself and critique myself, then none of my critiques have as much weight. You know, I mean, if I don't acknowledge that, yeah, I'm, you know, I'm on some fuck shit sometimes too. I'm complicit too.

you know, I mean, then the rest of the shit that I say just doesn't hold as much water. Specifically about Colin Kaepernick and his situation with the NFL, do you feel like people can be on either side of that? Do you feel like you can both support Colin Kaepernick

and still watch the NFL at the same time? I mean, I guess you've got I mean, it's your face racial shoes. I'm talking about cap. I mean, I mean, a lot of us do.

and I I feel like it's one of the things, though, that the beat, keep it a buck, no, no, you can't. Like, you could do it in theory because that's what we do. That's what we all do. But, you know, we all talk about boycotting

and then that boycott just ended. Like, there was no meeting, there was no agenda, there was no nothing that let us know collectively that the boycott is over. Niggins that started watching football again. And they didn't start watching again. Niggas just never stopped.

They never stop. They never stop watching. You know, and so, and so, yeah, so I don't think that you could be a true supporter and also still support, a true supporter of Kaepernet's cause and still support the league. Like, those two things, you know, we could talk about cognitive dissonance,

we could talk about all that, but those two things just really can exist at the same time. And I feel like that's just a reality that we have to accept if we are continuing to watch the games. But he wants to be back in the league. I don't think he does. Interesting. Interesting.

Why do you say that, Damon? Okay. I play basketball in college, division one college basketball player, but I wasn't like good. I dealt with injuries. I mean, I'm just keeping, I'm not going to be,

I'm not going to be the nigger that gets on in front of people and say, oh, it was politics. She's handed me. Hey, hey, Brough, hey, that's what they said.

No, that's not what I said. Wait, wait, wait, but we all do, we all have, it was either that.

The coach didn't like me. Like, whatever. Everybody got a story. Sure, my shin splints ended my track career. That's what you said.

Rachel said that she was going to the Olympics. Like, all that shit might still be true. And the coach never really saw an eye, but a lot of the issues that I had were on me. Like, I wasn't in great shape.

I would tear hamstrings. Anyway, my senior year, we were good. We won 20 games. We were a game away from the NCAA tournament. I was like the ninth man on the team, right? And, you know, you warm up for the games thinking, okay, I'm going to get some minutes this game. I'm going to get some burn in the first half.

All right? First half goes, you don't get no burn. Second half starts. Okay, maybe he might put me in for a spot. It's 11 minutes left, 10 minutes left. and you start to think to yourself, you know what, he better not put me in this fucking game. After I've been sitting here for two hours, cold,

I'm going to suck if I get out there. Like, I'm cold. I'm not loose. You know what I mean? They're going to put me in a bad circumstance. And I feel like for someone like Kat, who has been on the sideline for so long, it's almost better if he doesn't play at this point

because if he gets a shot and he's not good, that'll just justify. Like, you know what? Boom. This is why we haven't been playing him. This is why he wasn't in the league because he couldn't cut it. You know, whatever.

Now, if he'd asked me that question four years ago, probably a different answer. But right now, I mean, yeah, I think that he, I think that he retains worse status, you know, as long as he stays off that, as long as he stays off that, too. Well, we disagree, Damon.

I think that he wants to play. I think that he will play. And I'm hoping that it happens. But I want to ask you about something. Damon has a podcast. Stuck with Damon Young, Cricket Media. Great podcast. Had Beaumani on there.

Look, some of the guests you've had on there, Elaine, Welter Roth. Malcolm. Malcolm. Bomani. Any opportunity to listen to Boatalk, I'm there. It's the guy.

Love Bo. Take it, y'all. Trying to get y'all. I'm on. I'm going to try, you know, trying to get y'all on the show. I'm on it. I'm on. I'm with it.

And there's a segment that you do on there called Ask Damon, where people, you know, send in questions to make use of your prodigious wisdom. Okay. And you give them answers and really prescriptions for their life. And we thought that it would be good if we could replicate this on today's show, maybe do an Ask Damon segment with you. Are you open to this? Let's go.

I'm with it. So we have the question here. All right. Says, this is what it says. Hi, Damon. I was on a flight a few weeks ago, a long flight from Boston to Austin. And a woman seated behind me asked if I could switch seats with her so she could sit next to her boyfriend. I had a window seat and he was to my right.

This person says, I considered it for 0,000,000,000, 0.5 seconds before telling her, her, no thank you. Maybe I would have considered it if she was in a window seat, if she was in an aisle seat. Okay? I went back to checking my email and I could feel her staring daggers at me. He didn't really seem to care, but the woman was apparently very many. Whatever, she says. And then a few moments later, a flight attendant asked me the same question.

Apparently the woman got his attention and asked him, to ask me. She went over her head to the flight attendant. Same answer she gave. The question that this lady is asking you is actually, I'm not sure if this is a woman or man. I don't know why I assume that.

The question that this person is asking you is, was I in the wrong here? I mean, the easy answer is fuck no. Hell to fuck no. I want to add another word to it. Two more words. I mean, all right. flying. All right. This is just me. Right. So flying, I've been on hundreds of plans right now, but I've never gotten used to flying. It is an anxiety-inducing experience for me. I do not enjoy the process to be in the air. I'm like a halfway Christian and I still say five hellmeries before the flight goes up. I've always intoxicated, whether through pills. I mean, play counter pills. All right. We'll get you some help, be careful.

Hills, alcohol, sleep deprivation, like the night before. It's like, you know what? I'm not going to sleep so I can sleep on a flight. And I always, you know, I always make sure I either get a window seat. And if I'm able to get first class, I get first class because I need that space to sprawl. I need the space to stretch out of six, two, I got long legs. I need, I need space. And so for someone after I've gone through all of that,

to ask me to switch my my motherfucking seat. No. Like, I, like, I, I,

I just feel like if, if this was a thing, and I, I have empathy for people who might have got separated by their, by their, separated from her girlfriend,

their husband, their kids, their grandma, their meanwhile, concubine, whatever. It's not the border. It's not the border.

You're straight. You'll be straight. You'll be straight. You'll be straight. I mean. And so this was a conversation. You know, I feel like that went viral sometime last year. And I even wrote about it. And yeah, it's, no, I'm not giving up my seat. And you shouldn't have felt like a bad person if you refuse to get off your seat because you pay for this shit.

And maybe you had the same reasons, the same anxieties, the same neuroses, the same physical constraints. I got arthritis in my knee. No, I'm not sitting in a fucking out with my left. fucked up as knee that I had ACL surgery on in 1998. You know what I mean? No, that ain't happening. Rachel? I'm mean on a plane. We know this. Yeah.

It was on TikTok. Unless it's an equivalent seat, I'm not moving. Unless it's a child under the age of 10, I'm not moving. That's it. Is it a big child? Is it a big child? 10. 10 and under. I'm not moving.

A normal. size nine-year-old. Because if it's like a six-two nine-year-old, then he's just going to have to grow fast. This has happened to me multiple times, and I've looked them straight in the eye, and I've said, absolutely not. Your daughter.

And I put my AirPods back in, and I keep it moving. So here's the thing with me. This is my thing. I've asked people to switch seats with me. Why? So I could sit next to the window. Okay.

But let me tell you, let me tell you, Why I am a regular American that understands life. I don't just ask people to do something out of the kindness of their hearts. What I say to people is, hey, I couldn't get a window of seat at the end of the, at the end of the thing. I'm a big guy I would like to sit by the window, lay my shit so I can sleep. I'm just like you. I tell people, hey, $50 for the window seat right now.

I would still tell you now. I'll tell people, hey, $60 for the window seat. If you want to switch seats with somebody, how about maybe. it worth their while. How about, hey, we're in prison now. Yo, can I have your chips? You know what I'm saying? Like, buy me a ginger ale. Like if you, if, by the way, when I've offered hard cash money for someone to switch a seat with me, it is almost always effective. Yo, I got 50. I got 60. Obviously, you're not going to switch seats in first class. This was back in the other days.

It's not in first class, first class, everything is good. What I'm saying is if you're going to do that, just do it. Make it worth the person's while, right? Make it worth their while if you're going to ask somebody to be less comfortable so you can be more comfortable. There has to be a tradeoff. That's a little cash. If not, I feel like you're trying to play me.

I'm going to be honest with you. I feel like you're telling me that your experience is more important than my experience. I am. And I should move so that you can be more comfortable. So like if you ask me for something and there's nothing in it for me, that's not the way things work. You know what I'm saying?

Damien, what do you think about that? Yeah, no, no, no, I agree with you. I mean, I agree to a point because like my parents and I used to play a game because everybody got a price. And the game would be, you know, how much would it take for you to walk butt-negut to the corner store and to do her $50, note, $100, no, $2,000.

My dad would probably say yes at that point. Like $2,000 was usually like his limit where he would do anything. And so I'm saying right now that I would not move my seat if you offer me cash, but there's always a number. You know what I mean, there's always a number someone could reach. And so, yeah, if you want to do a thing like that and you want to change the seeds, if you're not offering an upgrade, then yeah, you need to offer some coal. And it needs to be cash.

It can't be like cashed. to feel the actual physical tactile, tactile money. It don't hit the same. In my hand. Like, I need the visceral experience of you pass me to cash, me holding it in my hand, and me putting in my wallet in order for me to make that decision. So bring cash with you. But the thing is, we're expecting niggins who didn't plan ahead enough to plan out their seats

to also bring cash in anticipation of having to switch the seats. So these are things who don't plan ahead already. You know what I mean? So I feel like it's almost like a moot point at this point. Can I ask both of y'all question? Both of you all said, you alluded to it, you said it, Damon, that you get anxiety on a plane and you want to sit by the window? I want to say, I actually, yeah, he did.

I actually get more anxiety sitting next to the window, knowing I'm that close to the outside. I like to be tucked into the middle in case something happened. I don't even want to talk about this. I was like, I was sorry, I thought, I just find that very interesting. I want to talk about if nothing happens, it don't happen. I don't want to, it's not. We don't have to talk about nothing happens.

I just want to understand the logic because I get concerned. I like to wash the wing. That gives me so much anxiety. That I am, go ahead, Damon. Sorry. I sleep. So I put the window, I put the shit, I put the shade down. And I use that as like, I put my coat or the pillow or whatever and I go to sleep.

And I also, you know, I slobber sometimes. You know, I sleep my mouth. open. And so you don't want me sleeping between people and just got a random niggas slobbered on you. So it's better for everyone if I'm sitting next to the window. I mean, I'm right of me.

On the window so that whatever comes out of my mouth will just drip on the window. Shout out the COVID. Shout out the church. Uh, flying. All right, you guys, that was Damon Young. The

book is called What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker A Memoir in Essays Award Winning book. The podcast is stuck with Damon Young that's on crooked media. He is legitimately one of the sharpest, bravest, most necessary cultural critics. Funniest guys out there,

please, please tap in with everything this brother is doing. We thank you so much for joining us on Higher Learning today, Thank you so much for having me. Big fans. I didn't say that before. I'm big fans of both of you all. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Did you know about one and three people with plaques psoriasis may also develop psoriatic arthritis, which causes joint pain, stiffness, and swelling? Does this sound like you? Listen to what it sounds like to be a million miles away. Trimfaya, Guselcomab taken by injection is a prescription medicine for adult. with moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, who may benefit from taking injections

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This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech 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,

you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on. doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. All right. Damon's amazing. It's actually one of my artistic go-toes.

I love them. I love all stuff that you guys. It's fantastic. So just let you guys know Thursday, we are going to be covering Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves who used $10,000 in federal funds, federal head start funds,

head start funds to print 7,500 copies of a children book children's book written by his wife. That's the big deal of the day on Thursday, bar than anything else. The Graft in Mississippi, we're going to bring somebody on to talk to it, talk about it with you guys.

But now we got Pete White Miss, and I'm interested to learn about this because I don't know that much about it. This is Vanderpup rules and a cheating scandal. Okay? So I don't know. Not the first time. It's not the first time. Rachel, what's going on? Okay. So this,

This peak white mess is a world that I'm all too familiar with. It's one of the things that I said everybody was talking about this weekend. We learned Friday that Ariana Maddox and Tom Sandoval, who have been together for nine years, were separating. What we also learned is the reason that they are separating is because he was having a seven-month affair with their other castmate, Raquel. Now, Raquel has been on this season for like five seasons, I think, at this point. is their fifth season, and she was dating and engaged to their other castmate and former co-worker James. They just broke up in the last year, and she's been having a seven-month affair

with her friend, friend's longtime partner. This took the world by storm. Now, if you know anything about the world, it really did was the world, the country, the country, I should say. So the country by storm, if you know anything about Vanderpump Rules, you know that this entire franchise was pretty much built on cheating, right? I can't even go the list of this person cheated with this person, this person cheated with this. I mean, Tom and Ariana, who had been together for nine years, got together and allegedly he was cheating on his girlfriend, Kristen, with Ariana, but Kristen was sleeping with Jacks, his best friend at the same time. It's, it is so messy. You actually might enjoy this show. You think no jumper is giving it to you. You think Potomac is giving it to you.

it's really Vanderpump rules so that's really it this person was friends with this person is now cheating with this person did you follow anything I said I don't think you did because you don't know the players in the game what what what is so what's the so

are these like what's the thing give me a give me a give me a like give me something to compare it to this would be like this would be as if who was fucking and who if this would be of like if who was fucking who from what show.

Give me an example. What shows do we book? Okay, we'll do Potomac. You're into Potomac. I'm into Potomac. So Juan and Ron and Robin have been together for nine years. And they break up because you find out

Giselle was sleeping with Juan for seven months. Oh, I'm in. I'm into Vanderpumpurals. See, that's the way you got to do it, Rich. That is the thing. So now it means something to you. Now it means something to me.

And then this was the longstanding couple, or even like Karen and Ray. Think of a couple that's been together for a long time. You find out they're separating. And the reason they're separating is because one of their castmates was having an affair with them. And the way they found out is even wild too. Ariana was watching Tom's cover band perform. His phone fell out. She picks up the phone.

And she sees Raquel allegedly. masturbating and the video she had sent up this video at Tom and so she saw it and she went through and started looking

at all his messages and found out damn while he was on the stage while he was on the stage and so Bravo said get the cameras rolling they're done filming season 10 they put the cameras back up

to film the whole thing so we're going to get to see what's crazy what's interesting about this is I watch Andy Cohen get at Robin because she chose to talk about one

Dixon's cheating on reasonably shady and not on a real house lines. Don't you think that it's kind of like weird that all of these people's stuff? Okay. Wait, that doesn't happen on camera? If it doesn't happen on camera, should you have to like drag it on the camera and all of that stuff and, you know? If it's relevant, yeah. Like Karen in Potomac, Karen literally brings up a woman.

And there was a woman out there. There's truth. So if it's that woman that looks like Karen. That looks like me. She's blonde like me. That's what she said. With Tom and Ariana, the reason the cameras need to be there is because the narrative this season is that Raquel made out with another Tom who was the husband of another

castmate. And now we're assuming that that was just a distraction because she was really having an affair with Tom and she was pretending like she was in this other relationship so no one would really get her with the other time. It is so messy. It is so good. Go start from season one.

Vanderpump rules. To be continued. To be continued. Morally corrupt is Rachel's show on the Ringer Podcast Network when they talk about all of this stuff. It's great show. Go check it out.

That's it, Rachel. We got to come back. Thursday, we're going to give you guys. a heavier podcast? Maybe heavier. This podcast was a lot of about a lot of pop culture stuff.

And I want to make sure that you know, we, we arm you guys. So we're going to talk about Mississippi. You want to talk about a couple of other things that are going on. Maybe the failure of CPAC and the Civil War within the Republican Party. Ooh, this is what we said.

Here, I would like to know something. What? Do the people want to hear from Tamika Hamilton. Who said that? I'm just saying, do the people want to hear from a conservative so we can have a conversation about the schism that is going on inside of the Republican Party? I think it's very interesting and very consequential to American political discussion.

If we're going to bring her on, we're going to have to do a pre-interview. We've never done that before. We've got to do a pre-interview. No, because I don't want to come, her to come on and give us what she gave last time. I want you to give us some substance. I want to actually hear you either call out your party or stand 10 toes down with them. We're going to do a pre-interview. She's not going to come on here and BS.

Okay. Well, if we do it, we'll have to bring in somebody from the right to come on here and discuss the whole situation. But we'll see what we think about. All right. Take thing. I'm talking about. I'm John Lerickin Jr. I'm Rachel and Lindsay.

Bye, guys.